Quotes about profession
page 6

“[Voluntary social work] has indeed become a new profession and quite a large number of people now make their livelihood by such work. At the same time the State has expanded its social services beyond all recognition within the space of a single generation and a large part of the produce of taxation is now devoted to every form of social amelioration… I should like to see us less concerned with palliation and more concerned with providing the means whereby our people by self-help, that demoded Victorian virtue, should be able to work out their own salvation, even if in fear and trembling.”

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), In London, p. 292-3

People, Fear, Time, Help

“Oh, had I received the education I desired, had I been bred to the profession of the law, I might have been a useful member of society, and instead of myself and my property being taken care of, I might have been a protector of the helpless, a pleader for the poor and unfortunate.”

Sarah Grimké (1792–1873) American abolitionist

As quoted in The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina, by Gerda Lerner, ch.5 (1969).

Education, Law

“Incomprehensible jargon is the hallmark of a profession.”

Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919–1988) American diplomat

Address to the British Institute of Management (13 December 1977)

“Some people, many who profess to be yogis, argue that vegetarianism is not a healthful diet for everyone. We agree that vegetarianism is not for everybody; it is only for those who desire happiness and peace. It is definitely a must for those who are interested in enlightenment.”

Sharon Gannon (1951) American yoga teacher

Jivamukti Yoga: Practices for Liberating Body and Soul, coauthored with David Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002), p. 65 https://books.google.it/books?id=D_9oFtc1ZLMC&pg=PA65.

Happiness, People, Health, Peace

“Maulana Muhammad Ali wrote:… Some Mussulman friends have been constantly flinging at me the charge of being a… Gandhi-worshipper… Since I hold Islam to be the highest gift of God, therefore, I was impelled by the love I bear towards Mahatmaji to pray to God that he might illumine his soul with the true light of Islam… As a follower of Islam I am bound to regard the creed of Islam as superior to that professed by the followers of any non-Islamic religion. And in this sense, the creed of even a fallen and degraded Mussulman is entitled to a higher place than that of any other non-Muslim irrespective of his high character, even though the person in question be Mahatma Gandhi himself”

Muhammad Ali (writer) (1874–1951) Pakistani scholar and leading figure of the Ahmadiyya Movement

Gandhi’s reaction was: “In my humble opinion the Maulana has proved the purity of his heart and his faith in his own religion by expressing his view. He merely compared two sets of religious principles and gave his opinion as to which was better” (Navajivan, 13.4.1924).
(Young India, 10.4.1924). Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 8

Love, God, Religion, Soul

“The action of the officials tends to have an increasingly internal relevance, which may result in the deflection of the organization from its original path, which, however, usually remains as the formally professed aim of the organization.”

Philip Selznick (1919–2010) American sociologist

Source: "An Approach to a Theory of Bureaucracy," 1943, p. 51

“We may be damned at last, by God or our consciences; and though I've met a good many people who profess to credit no God, I've never met one who believed he had no conscience—this though he could no more produce it for my inspection than I could point out the God he demanded to see.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Introduction for R. A. Lafferty, Episodes of the Argo (1990), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

God, People

“In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensable luxury, but a simple necessity.”

Niklaus Wirth (1934) Swiss computer scientist

Niklaus Wirth (1997) " A Few Words with Niklaus Wirth http://www.eptacom.net/pubblicazioni/pub_eng/wirth.html". Dr Carlo Pescio eds. June 1997.

Perfection

“Confess: it’s my profession
that alarms you.
This is why few people ask me to dinner,
though Lord knows I don’t go out of my way to be scary.”

Margaret Atwood book Morning in the Burned House

Morning in the Burned House (1995), The Loneliness of the Military Historian

People, Way

“Literature soon becomes a power, not what it once was, a passion; but literary success, like all others, is only to be obtained, and retained, by labour — and labour and inclination do not always go together. Take all our most eminent writers, and the quantity of work, hard work, they have got through, will be found enormous and perpetual. Literature, as a profession, allows little leisure, and less indulgence.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Literature, Passion, Success

“Historians whose profession is to study the past, are as wary as scientists of the idea that events unfold in a manner that can be predicted. In fact, in a study of history the illusion of inevitability has serious consequences that it is one of the few things that both conservative and socialist historians can agree on.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 10, The Drunkard's Walk, p. 201

History, Idea, Study, Past

“Teaching and research are not to be confused with training for a profession. Their greatness and their misfortune is that they are a refuge or a mission.”

Claude Lévi-Strauss book Tristes Tropiques

Source: Tristes Tropiques (1955), Chapter 6 : The Making of an Anthropologist, p. 55

Training

“Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession.”

Anthony Trollope book Doctor Thorne

First lines
Doctor Thorne (1858)

Country

“Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team”

Clayton M. Christensen (1952–2020) Mormon academic

Christensen (2011) in: Harvard Business Review (2011) HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself. p. 4
2010s

Way, Learning, Success, Help

“This option the consumerit could. The present admirable constitution of the courts of justice in England was, perhaps, originally in a great measure, formed by this emulation, which anciently took place between their respective judges; each judge endeavouring to give, in his own court, the speediest and most effectual remedy, which the law would admit, for every sort of injustice. (The Wealth of Nations [New York: Modern Library, 1937]; originally 1776), p. 679--> retains of being able to buy security wherever he pleases brings about a constant emulation among all the producers, each producer striving to maintain or augment his clientele with the attraction of cheapness or of faster, more complete and better justice.If, on the contrary, the consumer is not free to buy security wherever he pleases, you forthwith see open up a large profession dedicated to arbitrariness and bad management. Justice becomes slow and costly, the police vexatious, individual liberty is no longer respected, the price of security is abusively inflated and inequitably apportioned, according to the power and influence of this or that class of consumers. The protectors engage in bitter struggles to wrest customers from one another. In a word, all the abuses inherent in monopoly or in communism crop up.”

Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912) Belgian political economist and classical liberal theorist

Source: The Production of Security (1849), p. 57-59

Justice, Law, Communication, Wealth

“Every day, almost as many men are killed at work as were killed during the average day in Vietnam. For men, there are, in essence, three male-only drafts: the draft of men to all the wars; the draft of Everyman to unpaid bodyguard; the draft of men to all the hazardous jobs—or ‘death professions.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 105.

Death, Men, War

“I'm a bit of a wandering gypsy on the pitch. A midfielder constantly on the lookout for an unspoilt corner where I can move freely just for a moment…A space where I can continue to profess my creed: take the ball, give it to a team-mate, team-mate scores. It's called an assist, and it's my way of spreading happiness.”

Andrea Pirlo (1979) Italian footballer

Ibid [p. 111].

Happiness, Way

“And any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that cripple the souls—the economic conditions that stagnate the soul and the city governments that may damn the soul—is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of new blood.”

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

1960s, Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool (1967)

Men, Religion, Soul, Dead

“Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Nationally syndicated column number 114, Monuments Are All Right But Even Heroes Must Eat (1925).
Weekly columns

“It is generally believed that scientific talent reveals itself in early youth. […] This was certainly not my case. I somehow slid into my scientific profession. My mother wished for me to become a physician, just like my father. […] I myself wanted to be a lawyer, defender of the unjustly accused. But my career is the result of political circumstances, academic possibilities, and lucky accidents.”

Fred Jelinek (1932–2010) Czech linguist

Talking about his life in a 2001 speech Source: Jelinek, Frederick. " How I Got Here http://www.clsp.jhu.edu/people/jelinek/promoce.html" Charles University, Prague, Czechoslovakia (November 22, 2001). Retrieved on December 17, 2010. Honoris causa degree acceptance speech.

Youth

“The rank of men, as established by the concurrent judgement of ages stands thus: heroes, legislators, orators, and poets. The most useful and, in my opinion, the most honourable is the legislator, which so far from being incompatible with the profession of law, is congenial to it. Generally, mankind admire most the hero; of all, the most useless, except when the safety of the nation demands his saving arm.”

Henry Lee III (1756–1818) American politician, governor and representative

Letter to his son, Charles Carter Lee, as quoted in R.E.Lee: A Biography (1934) by Douglas Southall Freeman, Vol. I, p.32.

Men, Age, Law

“From the invention of the cotton-gin slavery became a progressive system — not passively tolerated as in process of extinction, but actively striving for development and extension. It became a conscious political power. It made no offensive professions. It still deprecated itself as an evil, so difficult to deal with, and, with an adroit allusion to Ham and Onesimus, it smoothed the ecclesiastical conscience of the country and only asked to be let alone. And it was let alone. The War of 1812, and the consequent commercial confusion and renewed devotion to trade, held the country torpid upon the subject. If anybody looked at slavery inquisitively, it folded its hands demurely upon its breast and said, 'I am such a dreadful thing! How unfortunate that I should exist! What can be done with me? Just please to let me alone, that is all I want. A leper, you see; a miserable leper!”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

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

War, Evil, Country

“In general, the man who is readily disposed to sacrifice himself is one who does not know how else to give meaning to his life.
The profession of enthusiasm is the most sickening of all insincerities.”

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

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Life

“The health of a church depends not merely on the creed which it professes, not even on the wisdom and holiness of a few great ecclesiastics, but on the faith and virtue of its individual members.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 147.

Wisdom, Health, Faith, Dependency

“The younger you are, the easier it will be for you to adapt to a new lifestyle or to a new profession. The older you are, the more difficult it is. The thing to watch out for is, being eaten by the system. So if you look at our politicians now, you will see that the older ones have a harder time letting go. And when that happens, they lose their usefulness. The younger ones can handle change, and they can accept losing a position.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

"Who's afraid of People Power", Philippine Graphic, 31 January 2005, p. 33, ISSN 119-206X.
2005

Change, Time

“So there is little cause for the fear that our journalism, merely because it is prosperous, is likely to betray us. But it calls for additional effort to avoid even the appearance of the evil of selfishness. In every worthy profession, of course, there will always be a minority who will appeal to the baser instinct. There always have been, and probably always will be some who will feel that their own temporary interest may be furthered by betraying the interest of others. But these are becoming constantly a less numerous and less potential element in the community. Their influence, whatever it may seem at a particular moment, is always ephemeral. They will not long interfere with the progress of the race which is determined to go its own forward and upward way. They may at times somewhat retard and delay its progress, but in the end their opposition will be overcome. They have no permanent effect. They accomplish no permanent result. The race is not traveling in that direction. The power of the spirit always prevails over the power of the flesh. These furnish us no justification for interfering with the freedom of the press, because all freedom, though it may sometime tend toward excesses, bears within it those remedies which will finally effect a cure for its own disorders.”

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

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

Fear, Way, Travel, Feeling

“The state of international relations in the sixteenth century is hardly conceivable at this day. The Puritans of England and the Huguenots of France regarded Spain as their natural enemy, and on the high seas and in the British Channel they joined hands with godless freebooters to rifle her ships, kill her sailors, or throw them alive into the sea. Spain on her side seized English Protestant sailors who ventured into her ports, and burned them as heretics, or consigned them to a living death in the dungeons of the Inquisition. Yet in the latter half of the century these mutual outrages went on for years while the nations professed to be at peace. There was complaint, protest, and occasional menace, but no redress, and no declaration of war.”

Francis Parkman (1823–1893) American historian

Pt. I, Ch. 9 Charles IX and Philip II
Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

Death, War, Peace, Nature

“Time has not grown so very old since the most prominent members of our profession, though admired by the public eye, and lauded by its tongue, were socially, viewed askance, and regarded as "merely players."”

Edwin Booth (1833–1893) 19th century American actor

dedication of the Actors' Monument in Evergreen Cemetery, Long Island, 6 June 1887, quoted in Life and art of Edwin Booth, p. 282 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015053687821;view=1up;seq=336

Time

“The Male Teacher Corps not only exposes children to men from a variety of professions, but exposes children to men with more risk-taking, entrepreneurial male energy and values, creating a balance between exposure to the male and female value systems.”

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

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 116.

Men, Children, Teachers

Lysander Spooner (1808–1887) Anarchist, Entrepreneur, Abolitionist

Sections I–II, p. 11–12
Natural Law; or The Science of Justice (1882), Chapter II. The Science of Justice (Continued)

Men, Pleasure, World, Justice

“[ Diogenes] was surprised by the fact that had he claimed to be a physician for the teeth, everybody would flock to him who needed to have a tooth pulled; yes, and by heavens, had he professed to treat the eyes, all who were suffering from sore eyes would present themselves, and similarly, if he had claimed to know of a medicine for diseases of the spleen or for gout or for running of the nose; but when he declared that all who should follow his treatment would be relieved of folly, wickedness, and intemperance, not a man would listen to him or seek to be cured by him, … as though it were worse for a man to suffer from an enlarged spleen or a decayed tooth than from a soul that is foolish, ignorant, cowardly, rash, pleasure-loving, illiberal, irascible, unkind, and wicked, in fact utterly corrupt.”

Dio Chrysostom (40–120) Greek philosopher

Source: On Virtue, p. 381

Love, Pleasure, Disease, Soul

“The absolute morality that the religious person might profess would include what, stoning people for adultery, death for apostasy, punishment for breaking the Sabbath; these are all things which are religiously based absolute moralities. I don’t think I want an absolute morality. I think I want a morality that is thought-out, reasoned, argued, discussed—based upon, almost say—intelligent design. Can we not design our society which has the sort of morality, the sort of society we want to live in?”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Dawkins on Q&A (), replying to a Muslim man who asked about 'absolute morality'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu7AQTs_y5A

Death, People, Intelligence, Thinking

“Optimistic lies have such immense therapeutic value that a doctor who cannot tell them convincingly has mistaken his profession.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface
1910s, Misalliance (1910)

“It goes without saying that the most valuable asset of any profession is its collective reputation.”

Daniel Fatiaki (1954) Fijian judge

Address to the Fiji Law Society, Coral Coast, Fiji, 2 July 2005 (excerpts)

“That it is a perfect absurdity to suppose that any body of men would ever take a man's money without his consent, for any such object as they profess to take it for, viz., that of protecting him; for why should they wish to protect him, if he does not wish them to do so? To suppose that they would do so, is just as absurd as it would be to suppose that they would take his money without his consent, for the purpose of buying food or clothing for him, when he did not want it.”

Lysander Spooner book No Treason

No Treason (1867–1870), No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority

Men, Money, Food, Perfection

“If you look at practically anyone - I mean, I find this more and more - the more you look at people the more you find that they've actually manufactured themselves. People whose names that you know. I meet lots of people in my ordinary life, away from writing, who seem to be authentic, who seem to know where they've come from and who they are, but anyone that I deal with in, if you like, my profession, we all seem to have made ourselves. I think artists are all self-made.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

Oblique dreamer (2000)

Life, People, Thinking

“There are many fair professors that are foul sinners, and that have much of God, and Christ, and heaven, and holiness in their lips, when they have nothing but sin and hell in their hearts and lives. These men’s conversations shame their profession, and therefore they cry against sanctification as a sure and blessed evidence of a man’s justification.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

A Cabinet of Jewels

Men, God, Hell, Heart

“We define a fruitful partnership between our twin professions of librarian and information systems scientist in support of this adventure in creativity, and the pursuit of wisdom? If it is the nature of the creative mind that it sets out to grapple with the tensions and contradictions in the "paradigm", as Kuhn calls it, it follows that first of all one must know what the paradigm is.”

Douglas John Foskett (1918–2004)

Librarians and Information Systems (1995)

Wisdom, Support, Nature, Partnership

“[El Instituto Técnico de la Construcción y del Cemento] had shown that it is possible in Spain to create organizations in which there exists a perfect harmony between different professions, between those above and those below; organizations in which everyone is able to live a life of high human rank, as gentlemen, a life of mutual respect and help and of maximum personal dignity.”

Eduardo Torroja (1899–1961) Spanish architect

Francisco Arredondo Verdú, La obra de Eduardo Torroja (1977) pp. 50-51, as quoted by Lino Camprubí, Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime (2014) p. 181.

Life, Help, Personality, Perfection

“His appearance gives no clue to what his profession might be, and yet he doesn't look like a man without a profession either. Consider what he's like: He always knows what to do. He knows how to gaze into a woman's eyes. He can put his mind to any question at any time. He can box. He is gifted, strong-willed, open-minded, fearless, tenacious, dashing, circumspect — why quibble, suppose we grant him all those qualities — yet he has none of them! They have made him what he is, they have set his course for him, and yet they don't belong to him. When he is angry, something in him laughs. When he is sad, he is up to something. When something moves him, he turns against it. He'll always see a good side to every bad action. What he thinks of anything will always depend on some possible context — nothing is, to him, what it is: everything is subject to change, in flux, part of a whole, of an infinite number of wholes presumably adding up to a super-whole that, however, he knows nothing about. So every answer he gives is only a partial answer, every feeling an opinion, and he never cares what something is, only 'how' it is — some extraneous seasoning that somehow goes along with it, that's what interests him.”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

The Man Without Qualities (1930–1942)

Sadness, Feeling, Question, Thinking

“I think lobbying is really an honest profession. Lobbying means trying to persuade Congress to accept your point of view. Sometimes you can give them a lot of facts they didn't have before.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

Interview in Harvard Political Review (2002)

Thinking

“Other job markets may lay claim to the title, but astronomy is actually the world's oldest profession.”

Philip Plait (1964) astronomer, skeptic

Source: Death from the Skies! (2008), p. 2

World

“Despite the fact that our profession constantly urges others to “consult the literature”, I do not think we are distinguished nowadays by knowledge of our heritage.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Vickery (1998) "The Royal Society scientific information conference of 1948." Journal of Documentation, 54(3), p. 283; As cited in: Vanda Broughton (2011) " Brian Vickery and the Classification Research Group: the legacy of faceted classification http://www.iskouk.org/conf2011/papers/broughton.pdf".

Literature, Knowledge, Thinking

“I had to decide [he said later] whether I would be a lawyer by profession and a revolutionary at intervals, or a revolutionary by profession and a lawyer at intervals.”

Eleftherios Venizelos (1864–1936) Greek politician

[Bagger, E. S., Eminent Europeans; studies in continental reality, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922, http://www.archive.org/download/eminenteuropeans00bagg/eminenteuropeans00bagg.pdf], p. 61

“Let's be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there's a good reason for this. Movies don't portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently?”

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

"Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities: Science Views Media" http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote01.html - Speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anaheim, California (25 January 1999)

“As for lawyers, they seemed to grow up spontaneously; many of the first name and note in that profession were men without any education, and totally illiterate. Such a state of society was peculiar, and could not but have peculiar effects; for no other body of men, nor all the other bodies of men put together, had half so much influence as the lawyers….”

Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804) English minister

"Reminiscences of an American Loyalist" (first published serially in "Notes and Queries", 1874-)

Men, Education

“We’re making tin gods out of those poor buffoons in Hollywood; I dote on movies and appreciate the scanty art therein but I consider the profession about the most debased and debasing I know.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (week of February 20, 1928)
Letters

God, Art

“I don't really feel sexy when I do love scenes because when I kiss a girl or a guy I want to be the one to decide to do that. And if someone says "OK, kiss him!" and you are getting paid for it, what is your profession? I don't want to be a prostitute being told stuff like "Show us your boob!", you know. So for me it really is a very uncomfortable day whenever you shoot that stuff. And so what you really is someone that you trust and feel comfortable with and someone who you really think has your back as a friend.”

James Marsters (1962) American actor

James Marsters talks kissing Sarah and John at Phoenix Comic Con (May 29 '10) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAEH8t4-t7U&t=0s&list=PLC81dErieu1XuNMZ7LzXSB1LZmxGIpZif

Love, Guy, Feeling, Girl

“I think so badly of philosophy that I don't like to talk about it. … I do not want to say anything bad about my dear colleagues, but the profession of teacher of philosophy is a ridiculous one. We don't need a thousand of trained, and badly trained, philosophers — it is very silly. Actually most of them have nothing to say.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23 (Jul-Sep 1992)

Thinking, Teachers, Training

“The profession of book-writing makes horse-racing seem like a solid, stable business.”

John Steinbeck book The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), but a statement he is first quoted as having made in Newsweek (24 December 1962)

Books, Business, Horse

“I do think that climate change is occurring, that it is man-caused. One of the proposals that I think is a very libertarian proposal, and I'm just open to this, is taxing carbon emission that may have the result of being self-regulating. … The market will take care of it. I mean, when you look at it from the standpoint of better results, and actually less money to achieve those results, that's what is being professed by a carbon tax. … Coal is a great free market example right now. You and I do not want carbon emission. We don't want it. right now. Natural gas costs less than coal. So there are no new coal plants that are going to be built, given the price of natural gas. And that's something that you and I desire. So it's happening. I'm afraid that coal, from a free market standpoint, has been done in.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

2016, Interview with CNBC's John Harwood (August 22, 2016)

Money, Nature, Thinking, Change

“The purpose of this book is to legitimate the administrative state in terms of constitutional principle… Because public administrators at virtually all levels of government take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, this neglect deprives the profession of the opportunity to consider an important normative foundation for its activities.”

John Rohr (1934–2011) American political scientist

Source: To run a constitution, 1986, p. ix

Books

“Here, in India, the problem is peculiar. Our trade tends steadily to expand and it is possible to demonstrate by means of statistics the increasing prosperity of the country generally. On the other hand, we in India know that the ancient handicrafts are decaying, that the fabrics for which India was renowned in the past are supplanted by the products of Western looms, and that our industries are not displaying that renewed vitality which will enable them to compete successfully in the home or the foreign market. The cutivator on the margin of subsistence remains a starveling cultivator, the educated man seeks Government employment or the readily available profession of a lawyer, while the belated artisan works on the lines marked out for him by his forefathers for a return that barely keeps body and soul together. It is said that India is dependent on agriculture and must always remain so. That may be so; but there can, I venture to think, be little doubt that the solution of the ever recurring famine problem is to be found not merely in the improvement of agriculture, the cheapening of loans, or the more equitable distribution of taxation, but still more in the removal from the land to industrial pursuits of a great portion of those, who, at the best, gain but a miserable subsistence, and on the slightest failure of the season are thrown on public charity. It is time for us in India to be up and doing; new markets must be found, new methods adopted and new handicrafts developed, whilst the educated unemployed, no less than the skilled and unskilled labourers, all those, in fact, whose precarious means of livelihood is a standing menace to the well-being of the State must find employment in reorganised and progressive industries It seems to me that what we want is more outside light and assistance from those interested in industries. Our schools should not be left entirely to officials who are either fully occupied with their other duties or whose ideas are prone, in the nature of things, to run in official grooves. I should like to see all those who "think" and “know" giving us their active assistance and not merely their criticism of our results. It is not Governments or forms of Government that have made the great industrial nations, but the spirit of the people and the energy of one and all working to a common end.”

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) King of Mysore

On the occasion of the opening of Industrial and Arts Exhibition on 26 December 1903 in Madras (now known as Chennai) Modern_Mysore, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, 26 November 2013, archive.org, 203 http://archive.org/stream/modernmysore035292mbp/modernmysore035292mbp_djvu.txt, As ruler of the state

People, Education, School, Home

“There are people who just don't believe in the existence of a god. I don't know why because clearly, there is strong evidence that there's a god. But I believe that you serve all the people, not just those who profess to have faith but those with little or no faith. That's how you convert them.”

Donna Brazile (1959) American author, educator, and political activist and strategist

The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, CNN, October 30, 2008 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0810/30/sitroom.02.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4zRnr2FOCc

God, People, Faith, Strong

“Recently, a whole series of cases has been reported to me in which judges, lawyers, and officials of the Judiciary who are disabled war veterans and whose record in office is flawless, have been forcibly sent on leave, and are later to be dismissed for the sole reason that they are of Jewish descent.
It is quite intolerable for me personally…that Jewish officials who were disabled in the war should suffer such treatment, [especially] as, with the express approval of the government, I addressed a Proclamation to the German people on the day of the national uprising, March 21st, in which I bowed in reverence before the dead of the war and remembered in gratitude the bereaved families of the war dead, the disabled, and my old comrades at the front.
I am certain, Mr. Chancellor, that you share this human feeling, and request you, most cordially and urgently, to look into this matter yourself, and to see to it that there is some uniform arrangement for all branches of the public service in Germany.
As far as my own feelings are concerned, officials, judges, teachers and lawyers who are war invalids, fought at the front, are sons of war dead, or themselves lost sons in the war should remain in their positions unless an individual case gives reason for different treatment. If they were worthy of fighting for Germany and bleeding for Germany, then they must also be considered worthy of continuing to serve the Fatherland in their professions.”

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and president of Germany

Letter to Chancellor Adolf Hitler http://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/hindenburg-and-hitler-on-jewish-war-veterans/, (April 4th 1933) President

War, People, Family, Feeling

“To the Congress of the United States. The present state of the Union, upon which it is customary for the President to report to the Congress under the provisions of the Constitution, is such that it may be regarded with encouragement and satisfaction by every American. Our country is almost unique in its ability to discharge fully and promptly all its obligations at home and abroad, and provide for all its inhabitants an increase in material resources, in intellectual vigor and in moral power. The Nation holds a position unsurpassed in all former human experience. This does not mean that we do not have any problems. It is elementary that the increasing breadth of our experience necessarily increases the problems of our national life. But it does mean that if all will but apply ourselves industriously and honestly, we have ample powers with which to meet our problems and provide for I heir speedy solution. I do not profess that we can secure an era of perfection in human existence, but we can provide an era of peace and prosperity, attended with freedom and justice and made more and more satisfying by the ministrations of the charities and humanities of life.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Life, Peace, Justice, Home

“Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty (1859), Ch. III: Of Individuality, As One of the Elements of Well-Being

Men, God

“This [Journalism] is not a profession of my choice. Nor is it family traditional occupation. God must have created this profession as a fit theater for all my struggles…Whatever I have written so far is about politics or philosophy, literature, music, poetry or even speeches I made either in the floor of assembly or from public-platforms-all these in a way touch one aspect of journalism or the other”

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

In page=18
D.V. Gundappa,Sahitya Akademi

God, Family, Music, Way

“I love my profession. I would never stop. Relax? I relax when I work. It's my life.”

Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States

Nina J. Easton, Los Angeles Times (January 4, 1989) "Bette Davis smoking over `Stepmother' role", Houston Chronicle, p. 10.

Love, Life

“They could have gotten help for this infertility but they believed that interfering with the reproductive process, even if it was faulty, was anti-God. It was against His plan. It never occurred to them that God may have provided the world with a vast array of very brainy medical types for the very reason of solving problems such as theirs. However, there is one thing that the medical profession cannot do and that is save people from being idiots.”

Craig Ferguson book Between the Bridge and the River

Between the Bridge and the River (2006)

God, People, World, Problem

“Marxists profess to reject religion in favor of science, but they cherish a belief that the external universe is evolving with reliable, if not divine, necessity in exactly the direction in which they want to go.”

Max Eastman (1883–1969) American activist

Marxism: Is It Science? (1940)

Religion, Universe, Science

“The systems advocated by professed upholders of laissez-faire are in reality permeated with coercive restrictions of individual freedom…. What is the government doing when it “protects a property right”? Passively, it is abstaining from interference with the owner when he deals with the thing owned; actively, it is forcing the non-owner to desist from handling it, unless the owner consents. Yet Mr. Carver would have it that the government is merely preventing the non-owner from using force against the owner. This explanation is obviously at variance with the facts—for the non-owner is forbidden to handle the owner's property even where his handling of it involves no violence or force whatever…. In protecting property the government is doing something quite apart from merely keeping the peace. It is exerting coercion wherever that is necessary to protect each owner, not merely from violence, but also from peaceful infringement of his sole right to enjoy the thing owned.”

Robert Lee Hale (1884–1969) American lawyer and economist

“Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Sep., 1923), pp. 470-494

Peace, Reality, Freedom

“A man that does not aim at raising to himself a great name, will never perform any great actions. And such as go carelessly on in the road of their professions suffer all the fatigues, without acquiring either the honour or recompense that naturally attend it.”

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert (1647–1733) writer from France

Source: A Mother's Advice to Her Son, 1726, p. 137

Nature, Suffering

“I read once that the true mark of a pro — at anything — is that he understands, loves, and is good at even the drudgery of his profession.”

Paul R. Halmos (1916–2006) American mathematician

I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography (1985)

Love, Understanding, Reading

“Believe that many precepts are better than much wealth; for wealth quickly fails us, but precepts abide through all time; for wisdom alone of all possessions is imperishable. Do not hesitate to travel a long road to those who profess to offer some useful instruction; for it were a shame, when merchants cross vast seas in order to increase their store of wealth, that the young should not endure even journeys by land to improve their understanding.”

Isocrates (-436–-338 BC) ancient greek rhetorician

Verse 19; variant translation: Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is immortal.
As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations (Classical) (1906), edited by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 495.
To Demonicus

Wisdom, Travel, Understanding, Time

“If you should have visits here from those professing to be Christians, and they intimate a desire to preach to you, by all means invite them to do so. Accord to every reputable person who may visit you, and who may wish to occupy the stands of your meeting houses to preach to you, the privilege of doing so, no matter whether he be a Catholic, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist, Free-will Baptist, Methodist, or whatever he may be; and if he wishes to speak to your children let him do so. Of course you have the power to correct whatever false teachings or impressions, if any, your children may hear or receive.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 14:195 (June 3, 1871)
1870s

Children, Housing, Personality, Falseness

“There are tons of capable people in this country, and while I have been in this exploratory phase, yes, I have been considering who would I put in various roles, who do I consider to be some of the true patriots of this country that could help a Herman Cain cabinet if I were to run and to become president. And so yes, so far I have not come across or I don't have acquaintances with people who have professed the Muslim religion who are on a list of people I would consider. We are—we have become a nation of crises, Neil. And being politically correct is not something I'm going to spend a whole lot of time worrying about when we've got all of these other problems that we are facing right here in this country.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

Your World w/ Cavuto
Television
Fox News
2011-03-28, quoted in [Herman Cain Can't Find Any Qualified, Patriotic Muslims, 2011-03-28, Political Correction, Media Matters for America, http://politicalcorrection.org/video/201103280016, 2011-10-07]

People, Religion, Problem, Time

“I had very happy high school years; I was not a very diligent student, but I had good achievements – I was a winner of biology and chemistry national competition, which gave me a lot of points when I decided to take the entrance examination for medicine, not being completely convinced of the medical profession, since there was never a doctor in my family.”

Marek Sanak (1958) Polish scientist

Kobos, Andrzej (2012). Po drogach uczonych. 5. Polska Akademia Umiejętności. pp. 317–335. ISBN 978-83-7676-127-5.

Happiness, School, Family

“Economics as currently learned and taught in graduate school and practiced afterward is more theory-intensive and less observation-intensive than perhaps any other science. I think the statement that "no mere fact ever was a match in economics for a consistent theory" accurately describes the prevailing attitude in the profession”

Vernon L. Smith (1927) American economist

Milgrom and Roberts, 1987, p. 185
Source: "Theory, experiment and economics," 1989, p. 151.

School, Thinking, Learning, Science

“30 Proposition. The marke of the Romane beast, is that invisible profession of servitude and obedience, that his subjects hath professed to his Empire, since the first beginning thereof, noted afterward by the Pope, with divers visible markes.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise

“Summers’s outlook on economic policy can be summarized by the remark that he gave me some years ago: “If I had your views on economics, I would find another profession.” He meant that if free markets usually worked well and the government ought usually to stay out, then he would find economics to be an uninteresting occupation. Fortunately for Summers, he has always believed in the potential benefits from governmental activism, although the strength of this belief may have diminished over time.”

Robert Barro (1944) American classical macroeconomist

Source: Nothing Is Sacred (2002), p. 33

Time, Summer

“Moved by a generous eagerness to turn men's attention to the power which dwelt in circumstances, Mr. Owen devised the instructive phrase, that "man's character was formed for him and not by him." He used the unforgettable inference that "man is the creature of circumstances." The school of material improvers believed they could put in permanent force right circumstances. The great dogma was their charter of encouragement. To those who hated without thought It seemed a restrictive doctrine to be asked to admit that there were extenuating circumstances in the career of every rascal. To the clergy with whom censure was a profession, and who held that all sin was wilful, man being represented as the "creature of circumstances," appeared a denial of moral responsibility. When they were asked to direct hatred against error, and pity the erring — who had inherited so base a fortune of incapacity and condition — they were wroth exceedingly, and said it would be making a compromise with sin. The idea of the philosopher of circumstances was that the very murderer in his last cell had been born with a staple in his soul, to which the villainous conditions of his life had attached an unseen chain, which had drawn him to the gallows, and that the rope which was to hang him was but the visible part. Legislators since that day have come to admit that punishment is justifiable only as far as it has preventive influence. To use the great words of Hobbes, "Punishment regardeth not the past, only the future."”

George Holyoake (1817–1906) British secularist, co-operator, and newspaper editor

George Jacob Holyoake in The History of Co-operation in England (1875; 1902).

Life, Men, Hate, School

“His early profession as a lawyer was abandoned to enter academic life. In this chosen field he attained the highest rank as an educator, and has left his impress upon the intellectual thought of the country. From the Presidency of Princeton University he was called by his fellow citizens to be the Chief Executive of the State of New Jersey. The duties of this high office he so conducted as to win the confidence of the people of the United States, who twice elected him to the Chief Magistracy of the Republic. As President of the United States he was moved by an earnest desire to promote the best interests of the country as he conceived them. His acts were prompted by high motives and his sincerity of purpose can not be questioned. He led the nation through the terrific struggle of the world war with a lofty idealism which never failed him. He gave utterance to the aspiration of humanity with an eloquence which held the attention of all the earth and made America a new and enlarged influence in the destiny of mankind.”

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

1920s, Proclamation Upon the Death of Woodrow Wilson (1924)

Life, War, People, World

“More than a bomb or gun/ The footwear is a potent weapon,/ For, what years of shouting couldn’t do/ A momentary missile has done/ And, in the bargain, blackened/ A Journalist’s profession;/ Even if justice has won/ Even Bush to Chidambaram/ It is becoming a bit too common;/ Thank God, it is as yet with danger fraught/ Thank God, my wife has yet used it not.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Quoted in "Do you want India to be a Hindu rashtra?"

God, Justice

“After midlife, one falls back on C G Jung and determines that the first years of life were in themselves symbolic.
To learn a profession (calling) doesn't mean that you are called. To obtain money doesn't mean that you are rich. To marry doesn't mean that you have learned to love. To build a house doesn't mean that you are at home.
All the things you did until you turned forty confront you again after midlife as a task, but this time inwardly.”

Eugen Drewermann (1940) German psychologist and theologian

Wort des Heils, Wort der Heilung. II p 148 (1989)

Love, Life, Money, Home

“We live in an entertainment culture soaked in graphic, often sadistic, violence. Older folks find themselves stunned by what a desensitized youth finds routine, often amusing. It’s not just movies. Young men sit for hours pulling video-game triggers, mowing down human beings en masse without pain or consequence. And we profess shock when a small cadre of unstable, deeply deranged, dangerously isolated young men go out and enact the overlearned narrative.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2010s, 2012, Roots of mass murder: Getting serious about stopping the psychotic (2012)

Men, Pain, Youth, Game

“How strong the expression, "She is become the habitation of demons, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." How true it is, that the most execrable of society seek and wear the garb of Christian profession and ceremonialism, in some of the various quarters (sects) of Babylon. Every impure principle and doctrine, somehow and somewhere, finds representation in her. And she is a "cage" which holds securely not only the Lord's meek and gentle doves, but also many unclean and hateful birds. Of all the defaulters, and deceivers of men and of women, how many are professedly members of Christ's Church! and how many even use their profession as a cloak under which to forward evil schemes! It is well known that a majority of even the most brutal criminals executed die in the Roman Catholic communion.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 162.

Women, Men, Hate, Bird

“It was said by a very learned Judge, Lord Macclesfield, towards the beginning of this century that the most effectual way of removing land marks would be by innovating on the rules of evidence; and so I say. I have been in this profession more than forty years, and have practised both in Courts of law and equity; and if it had fallen to my lot to form a system of jurisprudence, whether or not I should have thought it advisable to establish two different Courts with different jurisdictions, and governed by different rules, it is not necessary to say. But, influenced as I am by certain prejudices that have become inveterate with those who comply with the systems they found established, I find that in these Courts proceeding by different rules a certain combined system of jurisprudence has been framed most beneficial to the people of this country, and which I hope I may be indulged in supposing has never yet been equalled in any other country on earth. Our Courts of law only consider legal rights: our Courts of equity have other rules, by which they sometimes supersede those legal rules, and in so doing they act most beneficially for the subject. We all know that, if the Courts of law were to take into their consideration all the jurisdiction belonging to Courts of equity, many bad consequences would ensue. To mention only the single instance of legacies being left to women who may have married inadvertently: if a Court of law could entertain an action for a legacy, the husband would recover it, and the wife might be left destitute: but if it be necessary in such a case to go into equity, that Court will not suffer the husband alone to reap the fruits of the legacy given to the wife; for one of its rules is that he who asks equity must do equity, and in such a case they will compel the husband to make a provision for the wife before they will suffer him to get the money. I exemplify the propriety of keeping the jurisdictions and rules of the different Courts distinct by one out of a multitude of cases that might be adduced.... One of the rules of a Court of equity is that they cannot decree against the oath of the party himself on the evidence of one witness alone without other circumstances: but when the point is doubtful, they send it to be tried at law, directing that the answer of the party shall be read on the trial; so they may order that a party shall not set up a legal term on the trial, or that the plaintiff himself shall be examined; and when the issue comes from a Court of equity with any of these directions the Courts of law comply with the terms on which it is so directed to be tried. By these means the ends of justice are attained, without making any of the stubborn rules of law stoop to what is supposed to be the substantial justice of each particular case; and it is wiser so to act than to leave it to the Judges of the law to relax from those certain and established rules by which they are sworn to decide.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Bauerman v. Eadenius (1798), 7 T. R. 667.

Women, Money, People, Justice

“It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits.”

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

§ 6
1780s, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785)

Religion, Confidence

“If we copy, the thing never looks right [and] the same occurs with regard to those buildings which do not profess to be copies; both they and the copies want spirit. They are dead bodies… We are at our wits.”

William Burges (1827–1881) English architect

William Burges "Art and Religion", in: The Church and the World: Essays on Questions of the Day, Orby Shipley ed., London, 1868, pp. 574-98; As cited in: John Pemble. Venice rediscovered. Clarendon Press, 16 mrt. 1995. p. 133

Dead

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating. There was a widespread myth of the 1970s, a myth along Tom Kuhn’s (1962) Structure of Scientific Revolutions lines. The Keynesianism, which worked so well in Camelot and brought forth a long epoch of price-level stability with good Q growth and nearly full employment, gave way to a new and quite different macro view after 1966. A new paradigm, monistic monetarism, so the tale narrates, gave a better fit. And therefore King Keynes lost self esteem and public esteem. The King is dead. Long live King Milton!
Contemplate the true facts. Examine 10 prominent best forecasting models 1950 to 1980: Wharton, Townsend–Greenspan, Michigan Model, St. Louis Reserve Bank, Citibank Economic Department under Walter Wriston’s choice of Lief Olson, et cetera. … M did matter as for almost everyone. But never did M alone matter systemically, as post-1950 Friedman monetarism professed.”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

New millennium, An Interview with Paul A. Samuelson, 2003

Way, Dead

“Much attention has been given in recent years to what might be called the "higher organization" of the state, both in the practical experimentation of modem nations and in the domain of theoretical analysis. In almost every country in the world there has been experimentation with and discussion of the emerging evolution of political-economic forms and forces, now everywhere challenging the peace and security of mankind technology, cartels, unions, business and agricultural associations, armies, professions, churches, schools. The problem of a socialistic or a mixed economy has led to vigorous debate not only upon economic principles but upon the whole political setting of economics.”

Charles Edward Merriam (1874–1953) American political scientist

177-8 ; as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 220-1
Systematic Politics, 1943

World, School, Peace, Business

“You think then, that I know my profession? Why, my poor fellow; if I had nothing more to find out and to learn I could not paint any longer.”

Jules Dupré (1811–1889) French painter

as quoted by Albert Wolff, 1880's, in Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1880's), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choiche of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 36
Dupré is responding in this quote to a purchaser who was teasing him to finish a picture only in a few hours. Dupré replied in the presence of Albert Wolff

Thinking, Learning, Painting

“For a period of roughly 35 years, Keynesian theory provided a central paradigm for macroeconomists, and considerable progress was made on several empirical fronts. It was widely recognized that some of the ingredients of Keynesian economics (e. g. money illusion and/or nominal wage rigidity) rested on slender to non-existent microtheoretic foundations; and there were always dissenters. But, thought of as a collection of empirical regularities that fit together into a coherent whole, the theory worked tolerably well. In the 1970s, however, the Keynesian paradigm was rejected by a great many academic economists, especially in the United States, in favour of what we now call new classical economics. By about 1980, it was hard to find an American academic macroeconomist under the age of 40 who professed to be a Keynesian. That was an astonishing intellectual turnabout in less than a decade, an intellectual revolution for sure.”

Alan Blinder (1945) economist

"The fall and rise of Keynesian economics", (1988)

Money, Age

“The village of Sattara near Aurangabad was my hunting ground. Here on the top of a hill, stood a temple with an image of Khande Rai. By God's grace I demolished it, and forbade the temple dancers (muralis) to ply their shameful profession.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Satara (Maharashtra) Kalimat-i-Tayyibat, quoted in Sarkar, Jadu Nath, History of Aurangzeb, Vol. II, p. 94 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.62677/page/n293 Quotes from late medieval histories

God

“Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington
Don’t put your daughter on the stage
The profession is overcrowded
And the struggle’s pretty tough
And admitting the fact she’s burning to act
That isn’t quite enough
She’s a big girl and though her teeth are fairly good
She’s not the type I ever would be eager to engage
I repeat, Mrs. Worthington, sweet Mrs. Worthington
Don’t put your daughter on the stage.”

Noel Coward (1899–1973) English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer

Mrs Worthington (1933).

Girl, Daughters

“As Adolf Berle, a fellow cold warrior, once remarked, 'Being vindicated by history is cold comfort.' For one thing, the political scars of those with whom one has polemicized seem more long-lasting and painful than their memories of the political issues that gave rise to them. And yet indifference to the political life of one's times I deem a flagrant expression of moral irresponsibility. Those who profess such indifference owe the intellectual and cultural freedoms in which they luxuriate to the commitment and sacrifices of others.”

Sidney Hook (1902–1989) American philosopher

Out of Step (1985)

Life, Pain, History, Freedom

“This book [Zen in the Art of Archery], by Herrigel, which I discovered a few years ago, seems to me fundamental to our profession as photographers. Matisse wrote similarly about drawing: set a discipline, make rigor a rule, forget oneself completely. And in photography the attitude must be the same: detach oneself, do not try to prove anything at all. My sense of freedom is the same: a frame that allows any variation. This is the basis of Zen Buddhism, the evidence: that you go in with great force and then you succeed in forgetting yourself.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French photographer

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, Only Geometricians May Enter: Interview with Yves Bourde (1974), p. 65

Books, Art, Sense, Freedom

“I was happy to do it when I saw the chance of helping out the local theater scene … I am delighted to be able to help the theaters where I grew up and learned my profession. I have never forgotten my past.”

Goran Višnjić (1972) Croatian actor

Happiness, Learning, Chance, Past

“Sandy Koufax. Sandy was a special problem for me because he possessed exceptional control, speed and a great curve ball. He was highly disciplined, extremely committed and a very private person. These qualities enabled him to concentrate on his profession without a lot of unnecessary distractions.”

Ernie Banks (1931–2015) American baseball player and coach

Responding to the question, "Who was the toughest pitcher you faced during your career, and why was he a special problem for you?"; as quoted in "Hall of Famers Name Their Toughest Diamond Foes" by William Guilfoile, in The 1991 National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Yearbook; reprinted in Baseball Digest (August 1992), p. 28

Problem, Personality, Speed

“But in order for anyone to become successful, sometimes you have to be that driven and focused, and maybe there isn't a lot left over for personal relationships -- although I certainly have had them. It's not as if I cut myself off, but it makes them very difficult. This profession is very hard on relationships.”

Nathan Lane (1956) American actor

John Koch (July 11, 1999) "Nathan Lane", Boston Globe, p. 12.

Success, Personality

“He wanted me to understand two big things: First, that nobody, no group, is above others. Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they'll like what he has to say. And second, that politics was a matter of personal honor. A man's word is his bond. You give your word, you keep it. For as long as I can remember, I've had a sort of romantic notion of what politics should be- and can be. If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people's lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game. Nearly forty years after I first got involved, I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. In fact, I believe- as I know my grandpop did- that my chosen profession is a noble calling.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Pages xv-xvi
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

People, Way, Game, Understanding

“I deny and utterly scout the idea, that there is now, properly speaking, any such thing as a negro problem before the American people. It is not the negro, educated or illiterate, intelligent or ignorant, who is on trial, or whose qualities are giving trouble to the nation… The real question, the all-commanding question, is whether American justice, American liberty, American civilization, American law, and American Christianity can be made to include and protect, alike and forever, all American citizens… It is whether this great nation shall conquer its prejudices, rise to the dignity of its professions, and proceed in the sublime course of truth and liberty marked out for itself during the late war, or shall swing back to its ancient moorings of slavery and barbarism. The trouble is that the colored people have still to contend against ’a fierce and formidable foe,’ the ghost of a by-gone, dead and buried institution.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/

War, People, Truth, Education

“I see Professionalism as a spreading disease of the present-day world, a sort of poly-oligarchy by which various groups (subway conductors, social workers, bricklayers) can bring things to a halt if their particular demands are not met. (Meanwhile, the irrelevance of each profession increases, in proportion to its increasing rigidity.) Such lucky groups demand more in each go-round - but meantime, the number who are permanently unemployed grows and grows.”

Ted Nelson (1937) American information technologist, philosopher, and sociologist; coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia"

Computer Lib
Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974, rev. 1987)

World, Disease

“His profession [ diplomacy ] — offered him something like a long Jesuitical training in self-deception which enabled him to present an ever more highly polished surface to the world without deepening his human experience [-] for he lived surrounded by his ambitious and sycophantic fellows who taught him only how to excel in forms of address, and the elaborate kindnesses which, in pleasing, pave the way to advancement.”

Lawrence Durrell The Alexandria Quartet

Source: The Alexandria Quartet (1957–1960), Mountolive (1958), II

World, Way, Training

“The finest achievement of the new woman has been personal liberty. This is the foundation of civilization; and as long as any one class is watched suspiciously, even fondly guarded, and protected, so long will that class not only be weak, and treacherous, individually, but parasitic, and a collective danger to the community. Who has not heard wives commended for wheedling their husbands out of money, or joked [about] because they are hopelessly extravagant? As long as caprice and scheming are considered feminine virtues, as long as man is the only wage-earner, doling out sums of money, or scattering lavishly, so long will women be degraded, even if they are perfectly contented, and men are willing to labor to keep them in idleness!

Although individual women from pre-historic times have accomplished much, as a class they have been set aside to minister to men's comfort. But when once the higher has been tried, civilization repudiates the lower. Men have come to see that no advance can be made with one half-humanity set apart merely for the functions of sex; that children are quite liable to inherit from the mother, and should have opportunities to inherit the accumulated ability and culture and character that is produced only by intellectual and civil activity. The world has tried to move with men for dynamos, and "clinging" women impeding every step of progress, in arts, science, industry, professions, they have been a thousand years behind men because forced into seclusion. They have been over-sexed. They have naturally not been impressed with their duties to society, in its myriad needs, or with their own value as individuals.

The new woman, in the sense of the best woman, the flower of all the womanhood of past ages, has come to stay — if civilization is to endure. The sufferings of the past have but strengthened her, maternity has deepened her, education is broadening her — and she now knows that she must perfect herself if she would perfect the race, and leave her imprint upon immortality, through her offspring or her works.”

Winnifred Harper Cooley (1874–1967) American author and lecturer

The New Womanhood (New York, 1904) 31f.

Women, Men, Money, Children

“Anything short of radical change to the Republican party’s war on voters of color is merely feigned outrage. Even if the white supremacists are condemned, even if the entire Republican party rises up in self-professed outrage at white supremacists, if voter suppression and other such racist policies survive, the white supremacists are winning. And America is losing.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

Commenting in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in [Feingold, Russ, How the Republican party quietly does the bidding of white supremacists, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/19/republican-party-white-supremacists-charlottesville, 20 August 2018, The Guardian, August 19, 2017]
2017

War, Color, Change

“Next to the ministry I know of no more noble profession than the law. The object aimed at is justice, equal and exact, and if it does not reach that end at once it is because the stream is diverted by selfishness or checked by ignorance. Its principles ennoble and its practice elevates.”

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) United States Secretary of State

"The Law and the Gospel" (1896)

Justice, Law, Selfishness

“Prostitution is said to be the world’s oldest profession. It is, indeed, a model of all professional work: the worker relinquishes control over himself … in exchange for money. Because of the passivity it entails, this is a difficult and, for many, a distasteful role.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Second Sin (1973), p. 45.

Money, World

“Amanpour: Secretary of State Colin Powell has spoken to you, I understand. He has also spoken publicly. He called on you to rein in the violence. What do you make of that statement, and can you and will you rein in that violence?
Arafat: Are you asking me while I am under complete siege? You are a wonderful journalist. You have to respect your profession.… No, you have to be accurately when you are speaking with General Yasser Arafat. Be quiet! … You are covering, with such questions, the terrorist activities of the Israeli occupation and the Israeli crimes. Take care not to make these fatal mistakes. Thank you. Bye, bye!”

Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) former Palestinian President, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

Exchange http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0203/29/bn.26.html with CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour (29 March 2002) during Operation Defensive Shield New millennium

Understanding, Question

Quotes about profession page 6

Quotes about profession
page 6