Quotes about producer (2819 quotes, page 2)

“Beneficence is a duty. He who often practices this, and sees his beneficent purpose succeed, comes at last really to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," this does not mean, "Thou shalt first of all love, and by means of love (in the next place) do him good"; but: "Do good to thy neighbour, and this beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit of inclination to beneficence)."”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (1780). Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, translation available at Philosophy.eserver.org http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/metaphys-elements-of-ethics.txt. From section "Preliminary Notions of the Susceptibility of the Mind for Notions of Duty Generally", Part C ("Of love to men")

Love , Men

“The main dimensions of Marx’s discussion of alienation are as follows: …
1. The worker … has no power to determine the fate of what he produces. …
2. The work task does not offer intrinsic satisfactions. …
3. Human relations, in capitalism, tend to become reduced to operations of the market. … Money promotes the rationalization of social relationships, since it provides an abstract standard in terms of which the most heterogeneous qualities can be compared, and reduced, to one another. …
4. Some animals do produce, of course, but only in a mechanical, adaptive fashion. Alienated labor reduces human productive activity to the level of adaptation to, rather than active mastery of, nature.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 12-13.

Money , Fate , Fashion , Nature

“The sun by the action of heat makes wax moist and mud dry, hardening the one while it softens the other, by the same operation producing exactly opposite results; thus, from the long-suffering of God, some derive benefit, and others harm; some are softened, while others are hardened.”

Theodoret (393–458) Syrian bishop

As quoted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 263.

God , Suffering , Sun

“It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.”

Thomas Paine book The Age of Reason

1790s, The Age of Reason, Part I (1794)

Lying

“I think the music of the Fifties is really good. I suspect it’s much better musically than much of what’s available now. Not in terms of production, but in terms of content. One good believable song about some guy’s girlfriend and how they broke up — a sincere one — is better than twenty albums of English rock that’s ever been produced.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Oui interview (1979)

Music , Guy , Thinking , Sincerity

“[T]he plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income, as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced, should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918), Ch. IV: Work and Pay, discussing Universal Basic Income (UBI)

Communication

“Successful men of all the ages have learned to multiply themselves by gathering thought energy into a high potential and using it in the direction of the purpose intended. Every successful man or great genius has three particular qualities in common. The most conspicuous of these is that their minds grow more brilliant as they grow older, instead of less brilliant. Great men’s lives begin at forty, where the mediocre man’s life ends. The genius remains an ever-flowing fountain of creative achievement until the very last breath he draws. The geniuses have learned how to gather thought energy together to use for transforming their conceptions into material forms. The thinking of creative and successful men is never exerted in any direction other that that intended. That is why great men produce a prodigious amount of work, seemingly without effort and without fatigue. The amount of work such men leave to posterity is amazing. When one considers such men of our times as Edison, Henry Ford or Theodore Roosevelt, one will find the three characteristics I have mentioned common to every one of them.”

Walter Russell (1871–1963) American philosopher

The Man who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe

Life , Men , Age , Thinking

“You see, whether you can draw like this or not, being able to think up this kind of design, it depends on whether or not you can say to yourself, 'Oh, yeah, girls like this exist in real life.' If you don’t spend time watching real people, you can’t do this, because you’ve never seen it. Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans. And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!”

Hayao Miyazaki (1941) Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka

2014 interview http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/01/30/ghiblis-hayao-miyazaki-says-the-anime-industrys-problem-is-that-its-full-of-anime-fans/ with Japanese news website Golden Times, 27 January 2014. Translated by RocketNews24 on January 30, 2014.

Life , People , Girl , Thinking

“We cannot prevent equilibrium from producing its effects. We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

On ne saurait empêcher l'équilibre de produire ses effets. On peut braver les lois humaines, mais non résister aux lois naturelles.
Part II, ch. XV: Accident or Incident?
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

Law , Nature

“You should keep in mind no names, nor numbers, nor isolated incidents, not even results, but only methods.. The method produces numerous results; a few of these will remain in our memory, and as long as they remain few, they are useful to illustrate and to keep alive the rules which order a thousand results.”

Emanuel Lasker (1868–1941) German World Chess Champion and grandmaster, contract bridge player, mathematician, and philosopher

Source: Lasker's Manual of Chess (1925), p. 338

Memory

“What I have written will bring no change to our textbooks or to the education system which produces them. Few will read this book. Fewer will remember it after reading it. Our own little stubborn world will go on as it has been going on for 45 years.”

Khursheed Kamal Aziz (1927–2009) historian

Khursheed Kamal Aziz The Murder of History, critique of history textbooks used in Pakistan, 1993

Books , World , Education , Change

“The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. IV

“Although most of us conduct our lives as omnivores, in that we eat flesh as well as vegetables and fruits, human beings have characteristics of herbivores, not carnivores. The appendages of carnivores are claws; those of herbivores are hands or hooves. The teeth of carnivores are sharp; those of herbivores are mainly flat (for grinding). The intestinal tract of carnivores is short (3 times body length); that of herbivores, long (12 times body length). Body cooling of carnivores is done by panting; herbivores, by sweating. Carnivores drink fluids by lapping; herbivores, by sipping. Carnivores produce their own vitamin C, whereas herbivores obtain it from their diet. Thus, humans have characteristics of herbivores, not carnivores.”

William C. Roberts (1932) American physician

Twenty questions on atherosclerosis

Drink , Time

“All I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I have learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes and insects. In consequence when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at one hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage; and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive. I beg those who live as long as I to see if I do not keep my word. Written at the age of seventy five by me, once Hokusai, today Gwakyo Rojin, the old man mad about drawing.”

Hokusai (1760–1849) Japanese artist

On one of his pseudonom, Gyakyo Rojin. He may have said the above in his late life definitely, since he began to use the name Gwakyo Rojin in 1843.
Attributed

Age , Nature , Bird , Fish

“To suffer is to produce knowledge.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The New Gods (1969)

Knowledge , Suffering

“The division of labor, which has brought such perfection in mechanical industries, is altogether fatal when applied to productions of the mind. All work of the mind is superior in proportion as the mind that produces it is universal.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Universe , Perfection

“After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side…He had never read a military book in his life, knew nothing about tactics, could not even drill a company, but had a genius of strategy which was original, and to me incomprehensible.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

Regarding Forrest's millitary genius, William T. Sherman w:The Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, by John Allan Wyeth, p.635.

Life , War , Books , Thinking

“I do not think it can be questioned that sympathy is a genuine motive, and that some people at some times are made somewhat uncomfortable by the sufferings of some other people. It is sympathy that has produced the many humanitarian advances of the last hundred years. We are shocked when we hear stories of the ill-treatment of lunatics, and there are now quite a number of asylums in which they are not ill-treated. Prisoners in Western countries are not supposed to be tortured, and when they are, there is an outcry if the facts are discovered. We do not approve of treating orphans as they are treated in Oliver Twist.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

People , Motivation , Question , Thinking

“What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Section 1, paragraph 53, lines 11-13.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

Victory

“According to the pronouncements of our state rulers and their intellectual bodyguards (of whom there are more than ever before), we are better protected and more secure than ever. We are supposedly protected from global warming and cooling, from the extinction of animals and plants, from the abuses of husbands and wives, parents and employers, from poverty, disease, disaster, ignorance, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, and countless other public enemies and dangers. In fact, however, matters are strikingly different. In order to provide us with all this protection, the state managers expropriate more than 40 percent of the incomes of private producers year in and year out. Government debt and liabilities have increased without interruption, thus increasing the need for future expropriations. Owing to the substitution of government paper money for gold, financial insecurity has increased sharply, and we are continually robbed through currency depreciation. Every detail of private life, property, trade, and contract is regulated by ever higher mountains of laws legislation), thereby creating permanent legal uncertainty and moral hazard. In particular, we have been gradually stripped of the right to exclusion implied in the very concept of private property. … In short, the more the state has increased its expenditures on social security and public safety, the more our private property rights have been eroded, the more our property has been expropriated, confiscated, destroyed, or depreciated, and the more we have been deprived of the very foundation of all protection: economic independence, financial strength, and personal wealth.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949) Austrian school economist and libertarian anarcho-capitalist philosopher

"The Private Production of Defense" http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf (15 June 1999)

Life , Money , Disease , Law

“A gifted humanity can only produce skeptics, never saints.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The Temptation to Exist (1956)

“Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain — at least in a poor country like Russia — and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

The Russian Revolution (1930)

Country

“Since many of today’s best-known manufacturers no longer produce products and advertise them, but rather buy products and “brand” them, these companies are forever on the prowl for creative new ways to build and strengthen their brand images.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 1999

Way

“Each pursues his private interest and only his private interest; and thereby serves the private interests of all, the general interest, without willing it or knowing it. The real point is not that each individual's pursuit of his private interest promotes the totality of private interests, the general interest. One could just as well deduce from this abstract phrase that each individual reciprocally blocks the assertion of the others' interests, so that, instead of a general affirmation, this war of all against all produces a general negation.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook I, The Chapter on Money, p. 76.

War

“There are two ways of coping with fear: one is to diminish the external danger, and the other is to cultivate Stoic endurance. The latter can be reinforced, except where immediate action is necessary, by turning our thoughts away from the cause of fear. The conquest of fear is of very great importance. Fear is in itself degrading; it easily becomes an obsession; it produces hate of that which is feared, and it leads headlong to excesses of cruelty. Nothing has so beneficent an effect on human beings as security. If an international system could be established which would remove the fear of war, the improvement in everyday mentality of everyday people would be enormous and very rapid. Fear, at present, overshadows the world. The atom bomb and the bacterial bomb, wielded by the wicked communist or the wicked capitalist as the case may be, make Washington and the Kremlin tremble, and drive men further along the road toward the abyss. If matters are to improve, the first and essential step is to find a way of diminishing fear.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

Men , Hate , War , People

“I believe I am not interested to know whether Vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't. To know that the results are profitable to the race would not remove my hostility to it. The pains which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity towards it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further. It is so distinctly a matter of feeling with me, and is so strong and so deeply-rooted in my make and constitution, that I am sure I could not even see a vivisector vivisected with anything more than a sort of qualified satisfaction.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Letter https://books.google.it/books?id=-rgnCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT370 to Sidney G. Trist, Editor of the Animals' Friend Magazine, in his capacity as Secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society (26 May 1899), in Mark Twain's Notebooks, ed. Carlo De Vito (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2015)

Pain , Hostility , Feeling , Strong

“The kids are starting to burn this place and to trash it. They're dragging a grand piano down the stairs. It's the destruction of high culture, about which they're nothing but cynical, because they don't believe that hard work and sacrifice can produce something of any value. They want to bring it down and destroy it. You can see it in the story of Cain and Abel. Abel is hard working and everyone likes him, and he makes the proper sacrifices, so his life goes really well. And that's part of the reason that Cain hates him. He's jealous and resentful, but worse than that – if you're not doing very well and you're around someone who is doing very well it's painful, because the mere fact of their Being judges you. And so it's very easy to want to destroy that ideal so that you don't have to live with the terrible consequences of seeing it embodied in front of you. And so part of the reason that people want to tear things down is so that they don't have anything to contrast themselves against and to feel bad. And that's exactly what's happening here. Kids are destroying all of this culture, because the fact that it exists judges them.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

2017 Maps of Meaning 4: Marionettes and Individuals (Part 3) [54:55-56:15]
Maps of Meaning

Life , Pain , Hate , People

“Therefore, the central point which we see in the centre of the hieroglyphic Monad produces the Earth, round which the Sun, the Moon, and the other planets follow their respective paths. The Sun has the supreme dignity, and we represent him by a circle having a visible centre.”

John Dee (1527–1608) English mathematican, astrologer and antiquary

Theorem III
Monas Hieroglyphica (1564)

Sun

“If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 5: Mathematics and the Metaphysicians

“A final aspect of all open access orders is Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction, one of the most powerful descriptions of a competitive, open access economy. When Schumpeter wrote Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy in the early 1940s, the economic theory of perfect competition among atomistic firms (i. e., firms too small to have market power) had come under sustained attack as unrealistic. Large and powerful economic organizations dominated the new economy, and their behavior did not match the textbooks. Despite this dominance, the economy produced historically unprecedented, sustained economic development. Schumpeter asked, How could large businesses that were supposed to choke off competition and growth nonetheless generate such spectacular productivity increases in a world that seemed ever more competitive?”

Douglass C. North (1920–2015) American Economist

Source: Violence and Social Orders (2009), Ch. 4 : Open Access Orders

World , Behavior , Democracy , Business

“A civil war occurring in a country, where foreigners reside and carry on trade under treaty stipulations is necessarily fruitful of complaints of the violation of neutral rights. All such collisions tend to excite misapprehensions, and possibly to produce mutual reclamations between nations which have a common interest in preserving peace and friendship.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Second State of the Union address (1862)

Friendship , War , Peace , Country

“I do think democracy has produced chaos, especially visual. A lot of people don't like it and yearn for nineteenth-century images, forgetting that the politics of those images were different than the democracy we love.”

Frank Gehry (1929) Canadian-American (b.1929)

Barbara Isenberg (2012) Conversations with Frank Gehry. p. 268.

Love , People , Democracy , Thinking

“Rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion for belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong … And so the rhetorician's business is not to instruct a law court or a public meeting in matters of right and wrong, but only to make them believe.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

Gorgias

Law , Business

“Experience shows us that the air must have darkness beyond it and yet it appears blue. If you produce a small quantity of smoke from dry wood and the rays of the sun fall on this smoke, and if you then place behind the smoke a piece of black velvet on which the sun does not shine, you will see that all the smoke which is between the eye and the black stuff will appear of a beautiful blue colour. And if instead of the velvet you place a white cloth smoke, that is too thick smoke, hinders, and too thin smoke does not produce, the perfection of this blue colour. Hence a moderate amount of smoke produces the finest blue.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), VII On the Proportions and on the Movements of the Human Figure

Beauty , Appearance , Sun , Perfection

“Every soil does not produce every material.”

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727–1781) French economist

§ 2
Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766)

“Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 164

Life , Courage

“.. the wish to produce beautiful things — when that wish is true and profound — falls together with [man's] striving for perfection.”

Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) Swiss artist

In Taeuber-Arp's article 'Remarks on the Instruction of Ornamental Design', in 'Bulletin de Tunion suisse des mattresses professionelles et menageres/ Korrespondenzblott' (Zurich), Jahrg. 14, no. 11 / 12 (Dec. 31 , 1922), p. 156

Beauty , Perfection

“What can I write about Vytautas Juozapaitis? Months ago, a singer with this same name gave one of the most Mozartean accounts of Don Giovanni I've ever experienced: a lean, yet warm sound, exciting and a little on the dangerous side - utterly (and wonderfully) self-absorbed. The man singing Giorgio Germont could not possibly have been this same artist. This was Verdi singing of the highest order - as if to the manor born. A molten, rich expressivity and attention to Verdian line that in its size, detail and musicality recalled the greats: Gorin, Merrill… you get the idea. The name may not trip off American tongues with ease… yet, but in an era often thought bereft of Verdian voices Juozapaitis is the real deal. Every moment of his Germont was filled passion and, like all of the cast members, every word of the Italian was naturally produced and understandable. Mama mia this man's got it!”

Vytautas Juozapaitis (1963) Lithuanian opera singer

Paolo Padillo, "A Traviata of Note: Teatro Lirico d'Europa". Opera - L (March, 2004) http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0403d&L=opera-l&F=&S=&P=15287

Music , Idea , Understanding , Nature

“We imagine that the Creator at the actual time of creation made only one single species for each natural order of plants, this species being different in habit and fructification from all the rest. That he made these mutually fertile, whence out of their progeny, fructification having been somewhat changed, Genera of natural classes have arisen as many in number as the different parents, and since this is not carried further, we regard this also as having been done by His Omnipotent hand directly in the beginning; thus all Genera were primeval and constituted a single Species. That as many Genera having arisen as there were individuals in the beginning, these plants in course of time became fertilised by others of different sort and thus arose Species until so many were produced as now exist… these Species were sometimes fertilised out of congeners, that is other Species of the same Genus, whence have arisen Varieties.”

Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist

Fundamenta fructificationis (1742). As quoted in John S. Wilkins (2009), "Species: A History of the Idea," University of California Press. p. 72

Imagination , Nature , Parent , Change

“I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the Revolution had upon the passions of the people as distinguished from their judgment. By this influence, the jealousy, envy, and avarice incident to our nature and so common to a state of peace, prosperity, and conscious strength, were for the time in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive, while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclusively against the British nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances, the basest principles of our nature, were either made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the noblest cause — that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty. But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the circumstances that produced it. I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family — a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related — a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done — the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more. They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)

Hate , People , Lie , World

“Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, rather thrown away, five shillings, besides.
“Remember, that credit is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives me interest, or so much as I can make of it during that time. This amounts to a considerable sum where a man has good and large credit, and makes good use of it.
“Remember, that money is of the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again it is seven and three pence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.”
“Remember this saying, The good paymaster is lord of another man’s purse. He that is known to pay punctually and exactly to the time he promises, may at any time, and on any occasion, raise all the money his friends can spare. This is sometimes of great use. After industry and frugality, nothing contributes more to the raising of a young man in the world than punctuality and justice in all his dealings; therefore never keep borrowed money an hour beyond the time you promised, lest a disappointment shut up your friend’s purse for ever.
“The most trifling actions that affect a man’s credit are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or eight at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but if he sees you at a billiard table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day; demands it, before he can receive it, in a lump. ‘It shows, besides, that you are mindful of what you owe; it makes you appear a careful as well as an honest man, and that still increases your credit.’
“Beware of thinking all your own that you possess, and of living accordingly. It is a mistake that many people who have credit fall into. To prevent this, keep an exact account for some time both of your expenses and your income. If you take the pains at first to mention particulars, it will have this good effect: you will discover how wonderfully small, trifling expenses mount up to large sums, and will discern what might have been, and may for the future be saved, without occasioning any great inconvenience.
“For six pounds a year you may have the use of one hundred pounds, provided you are a man of known prudence and honesty.
“He that spends a groat a day idly, spends idly above six pounds a year, which is the price for the use of one hundred pounds.
“He that wastes idly a groat’s worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one hundred pounds each day.
“He that idly loses five shillings’ worth of time, loses five shillings, and might as prudently throw five shillings into the sea.
“He that loses five shillings, not only loses that sum, but all the advantage that might be made by turning it in dealing, which by the time that a young man becomes old, will amount to a considerable sum of money.””

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Money , Pain , People , Lie

“It was the White Race who produced men like Columbus who crossed the unknown Atlantic; men like Magellan who first circumnavigated the globe; men like Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Bernini, Rubens, Raphael and thousands of other geniuses who created beautiful and exquisite productions in the fields of sculpture and painting; geniuses like Beethoven, Bach, Wagner and Verdi who created beautiful music; men like James Watt who invented the steam engine; men like Daimler who invented and built the reciprocating internal combustion engine; production geniuses like Henry Ford, inventors like Thomas Edison; such a prodigal genius as Nikola Tesla in the field of physics and electricity; literary geniuses like Shakespeare, Goethe and thousands of others, untold geniuses in the fields of mathematics, in the fields of chemistry and physics.”

Ben Klassen (1918–1993) American engineer, author and politician

Nature's Eternal Religion (1973), Ch. 2, Paragraph 4
Nature's Eternal Religion (1973)

Men , Beauty , Music , Mathematics

“Why, I say, that to tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection; it is plunder, and I entirely disclaim it; but I ask you to protect the rights and interests of labour generally in the first place, by allowing no free imports from countries which meet you with countervailing duties; and, in the second place, with respect to agricultural produce, to compensate the soil for the burdens from which other classes are free by an equivalent duty. This is my view of what is called "protection."”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1850/may/14/foreign-corn in the House of Commons (14 May 1850).
1850s

Communication , Country

“Where there is happiness, there is found pleasure in nonsense. The transformation of experience into its opposite, of the suitable into the unsuitable, the obligatory into the optional (but in such a manner that this process produces no injury and is only imagined in jest), is a pleasure; …”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

I.213
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Pleasure , Imagination , Happiness

“All bodies together, and each by itself, give off to the surrounding air an infinite number of images which are all-pervading and each complete, each conveying the nature, colour and form of the body which produces it.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective

Nature

“I have described at some length the application of Positive Rays to chemical analysis; one of the main reasons for writing this book was the hope that it might induce others, and especially chemists, to try this method of analysis. I feel sure that there are many problems in chemistry, which could be solved with far greater ease by this than any other method. The method is surprisingly sensitive — more so than even that of spectrum analysis, requires an infinitesimal amount of material, and does not require this to be specially purified; the technique is not difficult if appliances for producing high vacua are available.”

J. J. Thomson (1856–1940) British physicist

Rays of Positive Electricity (1913).
Quotes eat me

Books , Hope , Feeling , Problem

“In every society, a few individuals acquire the status of an elite through talent. Due to superior achievements of wealth, wisdom, and bravery, these individuals come to possess natural authority, and their opinions and judgments enjoy wide-spread respect. Moreover, because of selective mating, marriage, and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority are likely to be passed on within a few noble families. It is to the heads of these families with long-established records of superior achievement, farsightedness, and exemplary personal conduct that men turn to with their conflicts and complaints against each other. These leaders of the natural elite act as judges and peacemakers, often free of charge out of a sense of duty expected of a person of authority or out of concern for civil justice as a privately produced "public good."”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949) Austrian school economist and libertarian anarcho-capitalist philosopher

Natural Elites, Intellectuals, and the State http://www.mises.org/etexts/intellectuals.asp (21 July 2006)

Wisdom , Men , Marriage , Family

“The very object of an art, the principle of its artifice, is precisely to impart the impression of an ideal state in which the man who reaches it will be capable of spontaneously producing, with no effort of hesitation, a magnificent and wonderfully ordered expression of his nature and our destinies.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Remarks on Poetry in The Art of Poetry (1958)

Art , Nature , Effort

“And so you have to be practical in asking yourself how can you achieve the goals of equality and inclusion, but also recognize that the market system produces a lot of wealth and goods and services. And it also gives individuals freedom because they have initiative. And so you don't have to be rigid in saying it’s either this or that, you can say -- depending on the problem you're trying to solve, depending on the social issues that you're trying to address what works. And I think that what you’ll find is that the most successful societies, the most successful economies are ones that are rooted in a market-based system, but also recognize that a market does not work by itself. It has to have a social and moral and ethical and community basis, and there has to be inclusion. Otherwise it’s not stable. And it’s up to you -- whether you're in business or in academia or the nonprofit sector, whatever you're doing -- to create new forms that are adapted to the new conditions that we live in today.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Town Hall (March 2016)

Communication , Business , Problem , Thinking

“When we did Cubist paintings [Picasso and Georges Braque, in their early Cubist period in Paris], our intention was not to produce Cubist paintings but to express what was within us. No one laid down a course of action for us, and our friends the poets [a. o. Appolinaire and Cendral] followed our endeavor attentively but they never dictated it to us.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Boisgeloup, winter 1934
Quote of Picasso in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008
Quotes, 1930's, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35

Winter , Painting

“No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricultural interest is excessive. Though I can recall periods of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its instances. … the agricultural interest is suffering from a succession of bad harvest, accompanied, for the first time, by extremely low prices. That is a remarkable circumstance that has never before occurred—a combination that has never before been encountered. In old days, when we had a bad harvest we had also the somewhat dismal compensation of higher prices; but now, when the harvests are bad the prices are lower rather than higher…nor is it open to doubt that foreign competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our industrial system, that was one of the consequences that would accrue. I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess is this, that the immense importations of foreign agricultural produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased demands of our population actually require, and that is why the low prices are maintained…That is to a great degree the cause of this depression.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech in the House of Lords on the state of agriculture (28 March 1879), reported in The Times (29 March 1879), p. 8.
1870s

Exercises , Thinking , Suffering , Time

“The theories that I (and others) helped develop explained why unfettered markets often not only do not lead to social justice, but do not even produce efficient outcomes. Interestingly, there has been no intellectual challenge to the refutation of Adam Smith’s invisible hand: individuals and firms, in the pursuit of their self-interest, are not necessarily, or in general, led as if by an invisible hand, to economic efficiency. The only question that has been raised concerns the ability of government to remedy the deficiencies of the market. Within academia, a significant fraction of economists are involved with developing and expanding on the ideas of imperfect information (and imperfect markets) that I explored. For instance, Edmund Phelps, this year’s Nobel Prize winner, belongs to this "school" of thought. But in political discourse, simplistic “market fundamentalism” continues to exert enormous influence.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz (1943) American economist and professor, born 1943.

Interview on Bebbe Grillo's Blog http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/2007/01/stiglitz.html, January 2007.

School , Justice , Idea , Question

“It turns out that the energy of a gravitational field—any gravitational field—is negative. During inflation, as the universe gets bigger and bigger and more and more matter is created, the total energy of matter goes upward by an enormous amount. Meanwhile, however, the energy of gravity becomes more and more negative. The negative gravitational energy cancels the energy in matter, so the total energy of the system remains whatever it was when inflation started—presumably something very small. …This capability for producing matter in the universe is one crucial difference between the inflationary model and the previous model.”

Alan Guth (1947) American theoretical physicist and cosmologist

"A Universe in Your Backyard," in Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1996) ed. John Brockman, p. 279.

Universe

“The way to Hell is paved with good intentions, and he might just as easily have intended to make money, without producing at all.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 7, pg. 213.
(Buch I) (1867)

Money , Way , Hell

“It has been well remarked of the poems of Hafiz, that their refreshing influence does not depend so much on the sense of the words as on the tone of mind produced in the reader.”

Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben (1806–1849) Austrian psychiatrist, poet and philosopher

The Dietetics of the Soul; Or, True Mental Discipline (1838)

Sense , Dependency

“Legitimation as a process is best described as a 'second-order' objectivation of meaning. Legitimation produces new meanings that serve to integrate the meanings already attached to disparate institutional processes. The function of legitimation is to make objectively available and subjectively plausible the 'first-order' objectivations that have been institutionalized.”

Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

Source: The Social Construction of Reality, 1966, p. 92 (1991; 110)

“Yet, here we are, long and difficult years into that conflict,” … “we still have not created the state we promised them. On the contrary, our costly and valiant efforts have produced an outcome our government did not predict or intend—a failed state spinning out of control into anarchy and civil war.”

Anthony Zinni (1943) American Marine Corps general

Pages 227-228 of The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose, ISBN 978-1403971746 (released in March 2006)
The Battle for Peace

War , Effort

“We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, yet less time; we have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; we have more gadgets but less satisfaction; more medicine, yet less wellness; we take more vitamins but see fewer results. We drink too much; smoke too much; spend too recklessly; laugh too little; drive too fast; get too angry; stay up too late; get up too tired; read too seldom; watch TV too much and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values; we fly in faster planes to arrive there quicker, to do less and return sooner; we sign more contracts only to realize fewer profits; we talk too much; love too seldom and lie too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less; we make faster planes, but longer lines; we learned to rush, but not to wait; we have more weapons, but less peace; higher incomes, but lower morals; more parties, but less fun; more food, but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort, but less success. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; drive smaller cars that have bigger problems; build larger factories that produce less. We've become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, but short character; steep in profits, but shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun; higher postage, but slower mail; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These are the days of two incomes, but more divorces; these quick trips, disposable diapers, cartridge living, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies and pills that do everything from cheer, to prevent, quiet or kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stock room.”

Bob Moorehead

"The Paradox of Our Age"; these statements were used in World Wide Web hoaxes which attributed them to various authors including George Carlin, a teen who had witnessed the Columbine High School massacre, the Dalai Lama and Anonymous; they are quoted in "The Paradox of Our Time" at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp
Words Aptly Spoken (1995)

Love , Life , Men , Lie

“The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

On the subject of torture, in a letter to Louis Alexandre Berthier (11 November 1798), published in Correspendance Napoleon edited by Henri Plon (1861), Vol. V, No. 3605, p. 128

Men , Secret , Way , Thinking

“To such a one my answer is that I have arrived at a nourishing kernel in that I have learnt that a man is not in any difficulty in making a reply according to his faith which he ought to make to those who try to defame our Holy Scripture. When they are able, from reliable evidence, to prove some fact of physical science, we shall show that it is not contrary to our Scripture. But when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture, and therefore contrary to the Catholic faith, either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt. And we will so cling to our Mediator, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” that we will not be led astray by the glib talk of false philosophy or frightened by the superstition of false religion. When we read the inspired books in the light of this wide variety of true doctrines which are drawn from a few words and founded on the firm basis of Catholic belief, let us choose that one which appears as certainly the meaning intended by the author. But if this is not clear, then at least we should choose an interpretation in keeping with the context of Scripture and in harmony with our faith. But if the meaning cannot be studied and judged by the context of Scripture, at least we should choose only that which our faith demands. For it is one thing to fail to recognize the primary meaning of the writer, and another to depart from the norms of religious belief. If both these difficulties are avoided, the reader gets full profit from his reading."”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

I, xxi, 41. Modern translation by J.H. Taylor
De Genesi ad Litteram

Wisdom , Books , Faith , Religion

“If ordinary means I have suddenly got to produce a household of kids and iron Peter's shirts, I'm sorry, I'm not interested.”

Helen Clark (1950) 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand

Quoted in David Barber, "PROFILE: Helen Clark, new chief of UN Development Programme," Asia-Pacific News (26 March 2006)

“Causality applies only to a system which is left undisturbed. If a system is small, we cannot observe it without producing a serious disturbance and hence we cannot expect to find any causal connexion between the results of our observations. Causality will still be assumed to apply to undisturbed systems and the equations which will be set up to describe an undisturbed system will be differential equations expressing a causal connexion between conditions at one time and conditions at a later time. These equations will be in close correspondence with the equations of classical mechanics, but they will be connected only indirectly with the results of observations.”

Paul Dirac book Principles of Quantum Mechanics

I. The Principle of Superposition - 1. The Need for a Quantum Theory
The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (4th ed. 1958)

Time

“It has been shown that, in contrast to everything which classical national economy has hitherto taught, not the producer but the consumer is the ruling factor in economic life.”

Hjalmar Schacht (1877–1970) German politician

As quoted Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (1946) by the United States Department of State, Vol. 2, p. 746.

Life

“He was of opinion that we should be able to convince the general English public, the working man particularly, that the reforms that I advanced would be far more beneficial to the English nation, particularly to the working man…If India is prosperous and rich, she would buy far more English produce and give work proportionately to the working man.”

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917) Indian politician

His noting in his dairy after his contesting election in 1886 page=10.
Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906

“To be sure, exchange-value exerts its power in a special way in the realm of cultural goods. For in the world of commodities this realm appears to be exempted from the power of exchange, to be in an immediate relationship with the goods, and it is this appearance in turn which alone gives cultural goods their exchange-value. But they nevertheless simultaneously fall completely into the world of commodities, are produced for the market, and are aimed at the market.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening (1938), p. 279

World , Way , Appearance

“My friend Peter Schmidt used to talk about ‘not doing the things that nobody had ever thought of not doing’, which is an inverse process – where you leave out an assumption that everybody has always made and see what happens (e. g. music has to be made of intentionally produced sounds was the assumption that Cage left out). In that version of this process, you discover a value in the absence of something – in fact you discover that the absence of something is the revelation of something else (Buñuel, the film-maker, said, "Every object conceals another"”

Brian Eno (1948) English musician, composer, record producer and visual artist

a message that I often relay in the studio when overdubbing starts).
December 15, 1995, p. 178
A Year With Swollen Appendices (1996)

Music

“What produces the general good is always terrible or seems bizarre when begun too soon … The Revolution must stop itself at the perfection of public happiness and liberty through the laws.”

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) military and political leader

Fragment 3 (1794). [Source: Saint-Just, Fragments sur les institutions républicaines]

Law , Perfection , Happiness

“Although no conclusive proof exists that GM cereals may be harmful to human beings, and in some regions their use has brought about economic growth which has helped to resolve problems, there remain a number of significant difficulties which should not be underestimated. In many places, following the introduction of these crops, productive land is concentrated in the hands of a few owners due to “the progressive disappearance of small producers, who, as a consequence of the loss of the exploited lands, are obliged to withdraw from direct production”. The most vulnerable of these become temporary labourers, and many rural workers end up moving to poverty-stricken urban areas. The expansion of these crops has the effect of destroying the complex network of ecosystems, diminishing the diversity of production and affecting regional economies, now and in the future. In various countries, we see an expansion of oligopolies for the production of cereals and other products needed for their cultivation. This dependency would be aggravated were the production of infertile seeds to be considered; the effect would be to force farmers to purchase them from larger producers.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

§ 134
2010s, 2015, Laudato si' : Care for Our Common Home

Problem , Loss , Future , Help

“A great democratic commonwealth should seek to produce and reward that individual distinction which results in the efficient performance of needed work, for such performance is of high value to the whole community. But hand in hand with this purpose must go the purpose which Abraham Lincoln designated as the “amelioration of mankind.” Only by an intelligent effort to realize this joint process of individual and social betterment can we keep our democracy sound.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Democracy , Intelligence , Communication , Effort

“The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings. And the sea is precisely their best vehicle, the only medium through which these giants (against which terrestrial animals, such as elephants or rhinoceroses, are as nothing) can be produced or developed”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

L'esprit humain se plaît à ces conceptions grandioses d'êtres surnaturels. Or la mer est précisément leur meilleur véhicule, le seul milieu où ces géants près desquels les animaux terrestres, éléphants ou rhinocéros, ne sont que des nains — puissent se produire et se développer.
Part I, ch. II: Pro and Con
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

Animals , Sea

“The only possible alternative is simply to keep to immediate experience that consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown; that there is only one thing and that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception (the Indian MAJA); the same illusion is produced in a gallery of mirrors, and in the same way Gaurisankar and Mt Everest turned out to be the same peak seen from different valleys.”

Erwin Schrödinger book What Is Life?

What Is Life? (1944)

Way

“If then we would indeed be “filled with wisdom and spiritual understanding;” if we would “walk worthy of the Lord unto all well pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;” here let us fix our eyes! “Laying aside every weight, and the sin that does so easily beset us; let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Here best we may learn the infinite importance of Christianity. How little it can deserve to be treated in that slight and superficial way, in which it is in these days regarded by the bulk of nominal Christians, who are apt to think it may be enough, and almost equally pleasing to God, to be religious in any way, and upon any system. What exquisite folly it must be to risk the soul on such a venture, in direct contradiction to the dictates of reason, and the express declaration of the word of God! “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?”
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here we shall best learn the duty and reasonableness of an absolute and unconditional surrender of soul and body to the will and service of God.—“We are not our own; for we are bought with a price,” and must “therefore” make it our grand concern to “glorify God with our bodies and our spirits, which are God’s.” Should we be base enough, even if we could do it with safety, to make any reserves in our returns of service to that gracious Saviour, who “gave up himself for us?” If we have formerly talked of compounding by the performance of some commands for the breach of others; can we now bear the mention of a composition of duties, or of retaining to ourselves the right of practising little sins! The very suggestion of such an idea fills us with indignation and shame, if our hearts be not dead to every sense of gratitude.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here we find displayed, in the most lively colours, the guilt of sin, and how hateful it must be to the perfect holiness of that Being, “who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” When we see that, rather than sin should go unpunished, “God spared not his own Son,” but “was pleased[99], to bruise him and put him to grief” for our sakes; how vainly must impenitent sinners flatter themselves with the hope of escaping the vengeance of Heaven, and buoy themselves up with I know not what desperate dreams of the Divine benignity!
Here too we may anticipate the dreadful sufferings of that state, “where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth;” when rather than that we should undergo them, “the Son of God” himself, who “thought it no robbery to be equal with God,” consented to take upon him our degraded nature with all its weaknesses and infirmities; to be “a man of sorrows,” “to hide not his face from shame and spitting,” “to be wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities,” and at length to endure the sharpness of death, “even the death of the Cross,” that he might “deliver us from the wrath to come,” and open the kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here best we may learn to grow in the love of God! The certainty of his pity and love towards repenting sinners, thus irrefragably demonstrated, chases away the sense of tormenting fear, and best lays the ground in us of a reciprocal affection. And while we steadily contemplate this wonderful transaction, and consider in its several relations the amazing truth, that “God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;” if our minds be not utterly dead to every impulse of sensibility, the emotions of admiration, of preference, of hope, and trust, and joy, cannot but spring up within us, chastened with reverential fear, and softened and quickened by overflowing gratitude. Here we shall become animated by an abiding disposition to endeavour to please our great Benefactor; and by a humble persuasion, that the weakest endeavours of this nature will not be despised by a Being, who has already proved himself so kindly affected towards us. Here we cannot fail to imbibe an earnest desire of possessing his favour, and a conviction, founded on his own declarations thus unquestionably confirmed, that the desire shall not be disappointed. Whenever we are conscious that we have offended this gracious Being, a single thought of the great work of Redemption will be enough to fill us with compunction. We shall feel a deep concern, grief mingled with indignant shame, for having conducted ourselves so unworthily towards one who to us has been infinite in kindness: we shall not rest till we have reason to hope that he is reconciled to us; and we shall watch over our hearts and conduct in future with a renewed jealousy, [Pg 243] lest we should again offend him. To those who are ever so little acquainted with the nature of the human mind, it were superfluous to remark, that the affections and tempers which have been enumerated, are the infallible marks and the constituent properties of Love. Let him then who would abound and grow in this Christian principle, be much conversant with the great doctrines of the Gospel.
It is obvious, that the attentive and frequent consideration of these great doctrines, must have a still more direct tendency to produce and cherish in our minds the principle of the love of Christ.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 240-243.

Love , Death , Wisdom , God

“In organisms of all kinds the young are launched upon their careers endowed with a certain amount of biological capital derived from their parents. This varies enormously in amount in different species, but, in all, there has been, before the offspring is able to lead an independent existence, a certain expenditure of nutriment in addition, almost universally, to some expenditure of time or activity, which the parents are induced by their instincts to make for the advantage of their young. Let us consider the reproductive value of these offspring at the moment when this parental expenditure on their behalf has just ceased. If we consider the aggregate of an entire generation of such offspring it is clear that the total reproductive value of the males in this group is exactly equal to the total value of all the females, because each sex must supply half the ancestry of all future generations of the species. From this it follows that the sex ratio will so adjust itself, under the influence of Natural Selection, that the total parental expenditure incurred in respect of children of each sex, shall be equal; for if this were not so and the total expenditure incurred in producing males, for instance, were less than the total expenditure incurred in producing females, then since the total reproductive value of the males is equal to that of the females, it would follow that those parents, the innate tendencies of which caused them to produce males in excess, would, for the same expenditure, produce a greater amount of reproductive value; and in consequence would be the progenitors of a larger fraction of future generations than would parents having a congenital bias towards the production of females. Selection would thus raise the sex-ratio until the expenditure upon males became equal to that upon females.”

Ronald Fisher book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection

On natural selection acting on sex ratio: Fisher's principle, Ch. 6, p. 141.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)

Children , Sex , Nature , Parent

“For several years past the revenues of the government have been unequal to its expenditures, and consequently loan after loan, sometimes direct and sometimes indirect in form, has been resorted to. By this means a new national debt has been created, and is still growing on us with a rapidity fearful to contemplate — a rapidity only reasonably to be expected in a time of war. This state of things has been produced by a prevailing unwillingness either to increase the tariff or resort to direct taxation. But the one or the other must come. Coming expenditures must be met, and the present debt must be paid; and money cannot always be borrowed for these objects. The system of loans is but temporary in its nature, and must soon explode. It is a system not only ruinous while it lasts, but one that must soon fail and leave us destitute. As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and, next, no one left to borrow from, so must it be with a government. We repeat, then, that a tariff sufficient for revenue, or a direct tax, must soon be resorted to; and, indeed, we believe this alternative is now denied by no one.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Whig Circular (1843), reported in Richard Watson Gilder and Daniel Fish Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 1 (1905)
1840s

Money , War , Fear , Nature

“In this crazy mirror of terror and art a pseudo-quotation made up of obscure Shakespeareanisms (Chapter Three) somehow produces, despite its lack of literal meaning, the blurred diminutive image of the acrobatic performance that so gloriously supplies the bravura ending for the next chapter.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Bend Sinister

Source: Bend Sinister (1963), p. x.

Art

“It is said that within the council chamber the judges were naturally leaning toward acquittal. It becomes clear why, at that point, as justification for the verdict, it became vitally important to turn up some damning evidence, a secret document that, like God, could not be shown, but which explained everything, and was invisible, unknowable, and incontrovertible. I deny the existence of that document…. a document concerning national defense that could not be produced without sparking an immediate declaration of war tomorrow? No! No! It is a lie, all the more odious and cynical in that its perpetrators are getting off free without even admitting it. They stirred up all of France, they hid behind the understandable commotion they had set off, they sealed their lips while troubling our hearts and perverting our spirit. I know of no greater crime against the state.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

God , War , Lie , Secret

“Sometimes I say that writing a novel is the same as constructing a chair: a person must be able to sit in it, to be balanced on it. If I can produce a great chair, even better. But above all I have to make sure that it has four stable feet.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Interview with Katherine Vaz, José Saramago http://bombsite.com/issues/999/articles/3565, BOMB Magazine, June 2001.

Personality

“People get annoyed with you if you treat them like they're automatons that lack free will. It's something that people find very constraining. There's something slave-like about that even. The demand that you don't have actual autonomy and, even worse, that you're not responsible for your choices – it's an insult to someone to suggest to them that they're not responsible for their decisions. To do that to someone, from a legal perspective, you have to argue something like diminished capacity. You are mentally ill, or you don't have the intellectual capacity, or you were under some substance, or you had a brain injury, and that's why you're not responsible for your actions. Part of the respect that you give other human beings is that you acknowledge that they are responsible for their actions. Part of that, too, is that if you do something good, you're also responsible for that. It's got to be more annoying than anything else to strive virtuously, to produce something of extreme value, and then to be treated as if it is a mere deterministic outcome, and that your actual choices had nothing to do with that. It can be extraordinarily punishing.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

People , Decision , Parting

“The principal lever relied on by the insurgents for exciting foreign nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the embarrassment of commerce. Those nations, however, not improbably saw from the first that it was the Union which made as well our foreign as our domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to perceive that the effort for disunion produces the existing difficulty, and that one strong nation promises more durable peace and a more extensive, valuable, and reliable commerce than can the same nation broken into hostile fragments.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, First State of the Union address (1861)

Hostility , Peace , Effort , Strong

“The story of Adam and Eve represents the fruit as producing a psychological transformation. So the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is an abstraction across trees, and it's trying to say: 'Here's something that's common across trees, it's a fruit that's common across trees.' The fruit that's common across trees is something that you might call food, fair enough. But here's something that's even more cool: food that's stable across the entire domain of food, isn't food – it's information. We use the same bloody circuits in our brain to forage for information, that animals use to forage for information. Why is that? Because we figured out knowing where the food is, is more important than having the food… That's why we're information foragers.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s

Food , Knowledge , Tree , Evil

“The large corporations, commonly called trusts, though organized in one State, always do business in many States, often doing very little business in the State where they are incorporated. There is utter lack of uniformity in the State laws about them; and as no State has any exclusive interest in or power over their acts, it has in practice proved impossible to get adequate regulation through State action. Therefore, in the interest of the whole people, the Nation should, without interfering with the power of the States in the matter itself, also assume power of supervision and regulation over all corporations doing an interstate business. This is especially true where the corporation derives a portion of its wealth from the existence of some monopolistic element or tendency in its business. There would be no hardship in such supervision; banks are subject to it, and in their case it is now accepted as a simple matter of course. Indeed, it is probable that supervision of corporations by the National Government need not go so far as is now the case with the supervision exercised over them by so conservative a State as Massachusetts, in order to produce excellent results. When the Constitution was adopted, at the end of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom could foretell the sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions, which were to take place by the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time it was accepted as a matter of course that the several States were the proper authorities to regulate, so far as was then necessary, the comparatively insignificant and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are now wholly different and wholly different action is called for. I believe that a law can be framed which will enable the National Government to exercise control along the lines above indicated; profiting by the experience gained through the passage and administration of the Interstate-Commerce Act. If, however, the judgment of the Congress is that it lacks the constitutional power to pass such an act, then a constitutional amendment should be submitted to confer the power.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, First Annual Message to Congress (1901)

Wisdom , People , Law , Exercises

“Let us notice some more of the stale charges against Republicans. You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section — gets no votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. The fact that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have started — to a discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were possible that something may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge? No? Then you really believe that the principle which our fathers who framed the Government under which we live thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is, in fact, so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's consideration.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)

Question , Change

“As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

As quoted at Penn State University Libraries http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/wlolita.htm.
On a Book Entitled Lolita (1956)

Animals , Drawing

“I confess I am inclined to believe that an English gentleman—born to business, managing his own estate, administering the affairs of his county, mixing with all classes of his fellowmen, now in the hunting field, now in the railway direction, unaffected, un-ostentatious, proud of his ancestors, if they have contributed to the greatness of our common country—is, on the whole, more likely to form a senator agreeable to the English opinion and English taste than any substitute that has yet been produced.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech to the Conservatives of Manchester (3 April 1872), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860;1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 529.

Business , Country

“When I was young, Cebes, I had a prodigious desire to know the department of philosophy which is called Natural Science; this appeared to me to have lofty aims, as being the science which has to do with the causes of things, and which teaches why a thing is, and is created and destroyed; and I always agitated myself with the consideration of such questions as these… I went on to examine the decay of them, and then to the study of the heaven and earth, and at last I concluded that I was wholly incapable of these inquiries… There was a time when I thought that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well… that ten is more than eight, and that two cubits are more than one, because two is twice one. I should be far from imagining… that I knew the cause of any of them, indeed I should, for I cannot satisfy myself that when one is added to one, the one to which the addition is made becomes two… nor can I understand how the division of one is the way to make two; for then a different cause would produce the same effect.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Way , Imagination , Understanding , Question

“By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general. This is the Method of Analysis: and the Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discover'd, and establish'd as Principles, and by them explaining the Phænomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations.”

Isaac Newton book Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light

Query 31
Opticks (1704)

Way

“So long as the product is sold, everything is taking its regular course from the standpoint of the capitalist producer.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. II, Ch. II, p. 78.
(Buch II) (1893)

“Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce. What it should produce is a belief that knowledge is attainable in a measure, though with difficulty; that much of what passes for knowledge at any given time is likely to be more or less mistaken, but that the mistakes can be rectified by care and industry. In acting upon our beliefs, we should be very cautious where a small error would mean disaster; nevertheless it is upon our beliefs that we must act. This state of mind is rather difficult: it requires a high degree of intellectual culture without emotional atrophy. But though difficult, it is not impossible; it is in fact the scientific temper. Knowledge, like other good things, is difficult, but not impossible; the dogmatist forgets the difficulty, the skeptic denies the possibility. Both are mistaken, and their errors, when widespread, produce social disaster.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

On Education, Especially in Early Childhood (1926), Ch. 2: The Aims of Education, p. 36.No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
1920s

Education , Error , Knowledge , Time

“Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere — buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.”

E.M. Forster book The Machine Stops

Source: The Machine Stops (1909), Ch. 1

World , Food , Music , Communication

“One day, as I was roaming the mountains, I sought shelter from an approaching storm. The sky became overhung with heavy clouds, but somehow the rain was delayed until, all of a sudden, there was a lightening flash and a few moments after, a deluge. This observation set me thinking. It was manifest that the two phenomena were closely related, as cause and effect, and a little reflection led me to the conclusion that the electrical energy involved in the precipitation of the water was inconsiderable, the function of the lightening being much like that of a sensitive trigger. Here was a stupendous possibility of achievement. If we could produce electric effects of the required quality, this whole planet and the conditions of existence on it could be transformed. The sun raises the water of the oceans and winds drive it to distant regions where it remains in a state of most delicate balance. If it were in our power to upset it when and wherever desired, this might life sustaining stream could be at will controlled. We could irrigate arid deserts, create lakes and rivers, and provide motive power in unlimited amounts. This would be the most efficient way of harnessing the sun to the uses of man. The consummation depended on our ability to develop electric forces of the order of those in nature.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Life , Way , Mountain , Motivation

“Persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and everything mine by any means they can think of, these men are aware of my views in astronomy and philosophy. They know that as to the arrangement of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way. In addition there are astronomical arguments derived from many things in my new celestial discoveries that plainly confute the Ptolemaic system while admirably agreeing with and confirming the contrary hypothesis.”

Galileo Galilei Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

Variant translation: I hold that the Sun is located at the centre of the revolutions of the heavenly orbs and does not change place, and that the Earth rotates on itself and moves around it. Moreover … I confirm this view not only by refuting Ptolemy's and Aristotle's arguments, but also by producing many for the other side, especially some pertaining to physical effects whose causes perhaps cannot be determined in any other way, and other astronomical discoveries; these discoveries clearly confute the Ptolemaic system, and they agree admirably with this other position and confirm it.
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615)

Men , Way , Support , Thinking

“No one has yet added up all the heavy, stress-filled workdays as well as the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives that are wasted to produce the world’s amusements. It is for this reason that “amusements” are not so amusing.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: Path of Life (1909), p. 81

World

“How does America find its way in this new, global economy? What will our place in history be? Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn’t much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government—divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it—Social Darwinism—every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford—tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job—life isn’t fair. It let’s us say to the child who was born into poverty—pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life’s lottery, that we’re the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: “You’re fired!” But there is a problem. It won’t work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it’s been government research and investment that made the railways possible and the internet possible. It’s been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity. That’s what’s produced our unrivaled political stability.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Knox College Commencement Address (4 June 2005)
2005

Life , Health , Education , School

“These same institutions produce quite different effects while they are still being fought for; then they really promote freedom in a powerful way. On closer inspection it is war that produces these effects, the war for liberal institutions, which, as a war, permits illiberal instincts to continue. And war educates for freedom. For what is freedom? That one has the will to self-responsibility. That one maintains the distance which separates us. That one becomes more indifferent to difficulties, hardships, privation, even to life itself. That one is prepared to sacrifice human beings for one's cause, not excluding oneself.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

Twilight of the Idols (1888)

Life , War , Education , Way

“This example illustrates the differences in the effects which may be produced by research in pure or applied science. A research on the lines of applied science would doubtless have led to improvement and development of the older methods—the research in pure science has given us an entirely new and much more powerful method. In fact, research in applied science leads to reforms, research in pure science leads to revolutions, and revolutions, whether political or industrial, are exceedingly profitable things if you are on the winning side.”

J. J. Thomson (1856–1940) British physicist

Cited from Lord Rayleigh, The Life of Sir J. J. Thomson (1943), p. 199.
Attributed

Science

“What, I believe, produces in me the deep feeling, in which I live, of incongruity with others, is that most think with sensitivity, while I feel with thought.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 93
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Aquilo que, creio, produz em mim o sentimento profundo, em que vivo, de inconguência com os outros, é que a maioria pensa com a sensibilidade, e eu sinto com o pensamento.

Feeling , Thinking

“As we began with a general outline of the effects produced by the human beast of prey upon world-History, it now may be of service to return to the attempts to counteract them and find again the "long-lost Paradise"; attempts we meet in seemingly progressive impotence as History goes on, till finally their operation passes almost wholly out of ken.
Among these last attempts we find in our own day the societies of so-called Vegetarians: nevertheless from out these very unions, which seem to have aimed directly at the centre of the question of mankind's Regeneration, we hear certain prominent members complaining that their comrades for the most part practise abstinence from meat on purely personal dietetic grounds, but in nowise link their practice with the great regenerative thought which alone could make the unions powerful. Next to them we find a union with an already more practical and somewhat more extended scope, that of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: here again its members try to win the public's sympathy by mere utilitarian pleas, though a truly beneficial end could only be awaited from their pursuing their pity for animals to the point of an intelligent adoption of the deeper trend of Vegetarianism; founded on such a mutual understanding, an amalgamation of these two societies might gain a power by no means to be despised.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Part III
Religion and Art (1880)

World , History , Intelligence , Understanding

“[My goal] is to produce Paul Lazarsfelds.”

Paul Lazarsfeld (1901–1976) American sociologist

Attributed to Lazarsfeld in: Everett Rogers, (1994). A History of Communication Study: A Biological Approach. NY: The Free Press. p. 3.

“Every socialistic type of government… produces bad art, produces social inertia, produces really unhappy people, and it's more repressive than any other kind of government.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Interview, "My Afternoon with Frank Zappa", Larry Rogak, (New York writer and attorney) Zappa.com (May 8, 1980) http://www.zappa.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11831

People , Art

“I am proud that for the first time in the history of Afghanistan, I am raising the flag of such a people, who are producing all material and immaterial equipment necessary for the life in this country and who make all efforts for prosperity and serendipity of the society. This glorious and magnificent red flag is the symbol of the greatness and pride of these people.”

Nur Muhammad Taraki (1917–1979) Prime Minister of Afghanistan

Speech during the presentation of the new national symbols, October 19, 1978 https://pad.ma/BSI/info.

Life , People , History , Effort

Quotes about producer page 2

Quotes about producer
page 2