Quotes about providence (2523 quotes, page 19)

“For ourselves, we firmly believe that the finger of Providence is pointing the way to all races, and colors, and nations, along the path that is to lead the east and the west alike to the great goal of human wants. Demons infest that path, and numerous and unhappy are the wanderings of millions who stray from its course; sometimes in reluctance to proceed; sometimes in an indiscreet haste to move faster than their fellows, and always in a forgetfulness of the great rules of conduct that have been handed down from above. Nevertheless, the main course is onward; and the day, in the sense of time, is not distant, when the whole earth is to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, "as the waters cover the sea.
One of the great stumbling-blocks with a large class of well-meaning, but narrow-judging moralists, are the seeming wrongs that are permitted by Providence, in its control of human events. Such persons take a one-sided view of things, and reduce all principles to the level of their own understandings. If we could comprehend the relations which the Deity bears to us, as well as we can comprehend the relations we bear to him, there might be a little seeming reason in these doubts; but when one of the parties in this mighty scheme of action is a profound mystery to the other, it is worse than idle, it is profane, to attempt to explain those things which our minds are not yet sufficiently cleared from the dross of earth to understand.”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

Preface
Oak Openings or The bee-hunter (1848)

Color , Way , Understanding , Knowledge

“Far from being a sum of distinct and partial results, victory is the consequence of efforts, some of which are victorious while others appear to be fruitless, which nevertheless all aim at a common goal, all drive at a common result: namely, at a decision, a conclusion which alone can provide victory.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 209

Decision , Effort , Appearance , Victory

“In the root of the word "faith" itself… there is implicit the idea of confidence, of surrender to the will of another, to a person. Confidence is placed only in persons. We trust in Providence, which we perceive as something personal and conscious, not in Fate, which is something impersonal. And thus it is in the person who tells us the truth, in the person that gives us hope, that we believe, not directly or immediately in truth itself or in hope itself.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), IX : Faith, Hope, and Charity

Fate , Truth , Faith , Hope

“Paul… calls the process of shifting away from material matters and toward spiritual matters a “turning to the Lord” and “taking away of a veil.” In all the different tropes and terms for the theoria-meaning, Paul instructs us in a single form of teaching: it is not necessary always to remain in the letter, on the grounds that the immediately apparent meaning of the things said in many instances causes us harm in the pursuit of the life of virtue. But it is necessary to pass over to the incorporeal and spiritually intelligible reading with insight, with the result that the more corporeal meanings are converted to an intellectual sense and meaning, in the same way that the dust of the more fleshly significance of what is said is “shaken off.” This is why Paul says, “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life,” since oftentimes with biblical narrative, it will not provide us with examples of a good life if we stop short at the simple events.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

Commentary on the Song of Songs, As translated by Margaret M. Mitchell in Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (2010)

Life , Way , Intelligence , Sense

“From time to time a square has been opened here, a park there, a street cut through in one place or widened in another, but these improvements have been entirely local in their effect, and have failed to change the general appearance of the city. Even the greatest of all these changes, the laying out of Central Park, was unfortunate, to say the least, for it serves to aggravate one of the worst features of the original plan, viz., the failure to provide a central artery of communication worthy of the coming city.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

"The Plan of New York, and How to Improve It," Scribner's Magazine (August, 1904) 36

Communication , Failure , Appearance , Change

“I am glad to be able to fortify my position on this point by the great name and ability of Theophilus Parsons, of the Harvard Law School. In discussing the necessity of negro suffrage at a recent public meeting in Boston, he says: "Some of the Southern States have among their statutes a law prohibiting the education of a colored man under a heavy penalty. The whole world calls this most inhuman, most infamous. And shall we say to the whites of those States, 'We give you complete and exclusive power of legislating about the education of the blacks; but beware, for if you lift them by education from their present condition, you do it under the penalty of forfeiting and losing your supremacy?' Will not slavery, with nearly all its evils, and with none of its compensation, come back at once? Not under its own detested name; it will call itself apprenticeship; it will put on the disguise of laws to prevent pauperism, by providing that every colored man who does not work in some prescribed way shall be arrested, and placed at the disposal of the authorities; or it will do its work by means of laws regulating wages and labor. However it be done, one thing is certain: if we take from the slaves all the protection and defence they found in slavery, and withhold from them all power of self-protection and self-defence, the race must perish, and we shall be their destroyers."”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

World , Education , School , Law

“Ordinarily, the propagation of Hinduism occurs in approximately the following way. … Native deities are rebaptized with the names of Hindu gods and goddesses. … Some Brahman is requested to provide and take charge of ritual concerns and thereby also to convince himself and provide testimony to the fact that they—the rulers of the tribe—were of ancient, only temporarily forgotten, knightly (Kshatriya) blood.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: Religion of India (1916), pp. 9-10

God , Way

“Money as a medium of exchange becomes important when workers are paid in medium of exchange rather than in wage goods directly. Since wage goods constitute the majority of goods produced (particularly in the early stages of development), it is tempting (but misleading) to focus on exchanges and on money as a medium of exchange [like the neo-classicals]. Once capitalist production dominates the economy, money becomes universally important: money operates as a medium of exchange and money hoards provide a measure of security. However, production involves goods and services now in exchange for a promise to pay in the future. That is, money is involved in the production process because production is time-based and involves debt commitments. If one only focuses on the use of money in exchange or as a store of value, one ignores how money creation is inextricably related to time-based production in private property economies.”

L. Randall Wray (1953) American economist

Source: Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies, 1990, p. 10; Cited in Howard Stein. "Theories of institutions and economic reform in Africa." World Development 22.12 (1994): 1833-1849.

Money , Universe , Time , Future

“I have read your speech and I must frankly say, with much regret as there is little in it that I can agree with, and much from which I differ. You lay down broadly the Doctrine of Universal Suffrage which I can never accept. I intirely deny that every sane and not disqualified man has a moral right to a vote—I use that Expression instead of “the Pale of the Constitution”, because I hold that all who enjoy the Security and civil Rights which the Constitution provides are within its Pale—What every Man and Woman too have a Right to, is to be well governed and under just Laws, and they who propose a change ought to shew that the present organization does not accomplish those objects…[Your speech] was more like the Sort of Speech with which Bright would have introduced the Reform Bill which he would like to propose than the Sort of Speech which might have been expected from the Treasury bench in the present State of Things. Your Speech may win Lancashire for you, though that is doubtful but I fear it will tend to lose England for you. It is to be regretted that you should, as you stated, have taken the opportunity of your receiving a Deputation of working men, to exhort them to set on Foot an Agitation for Parliamentary Reform—The Function of a Government is to calm rather than to excite Agitation.”

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

Letter to William Ewart Gladstone (12 May 1864), quoted in Philip Guedalla (ed.), Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851-1865 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1928), pp. 281-282.
1860s

Men , Fear , Law , Universe

“The book is a private confessional form that provides a “point of view.””

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1960s, Understanding Media (1964)

Books

“That is what you wake up to every morning. It is what my wife and I think of when we go visit hospitals on the weekend. And so providing our people with all the support they can, you can possibly give them. And that does not always come naturally to this place, which is thinking in budgets and thinking in the future. You always have to remember that they are in danger.”

Ash Carter (1954) United States Secretary of Defense

archive.defensenews.com interview http://archive.defensenews.com/article/20131119/DEFREG02/311190032/Interview-Ashton-Carter-US-Deputy-Defense-Secretary

People , Support , Nature , Thinking

“I believe that the Durbar, more than any event in modern history, showed to the Indian people the path which, under the guidance of Providence, they are treading, taught the Indian Empire its unity, and impressed the world with its moral as well as material force. It will not be forgotten. The sound of the trumpets has already died away; the captains and the kings have departed; but the effect produced by this overwhelmingly display of unity and patriotism is still alive and will not perish. Everywhere it is known that upon the throne of the East is seated a power that has made of the sentiments, the aspirations, and the interests of 300 millions of Asiatics a living thing, and the units in that great aggregation have learned that in their incorporation lies their strength. As a disinterested spectator of the Durbar remarked, Not until to-day did I realise that the destinies of the East still lie, as they always have done, in the hollow of India’s hand. I think, too, that the Durbar taught the lesson not only of power but of duty. There was not an officer of Government there present, there was not a Ruling Prince nor a thoughtful spectator, who must not at one moment or other have felt that participation in so great a conception carried with it responsibility as well as pride, and that he owed something in return for whatever of dignity or security or opportunity the Empire had given him.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Budget Speech (25 March 1903), quoted in Lord Curzon in India, Being A Selection from His Speeches as Viceroy & Governor-General of India 1898-1905 (London: Macmillan, 1906), pp. 308-309.

People , Lie , World , History

“It is true that the Rigveda does not provide us details of the inner layout of these forts, but surely the text was not meant to be a treatise on Vastusastra. May it be remembered that it is essentially a compilation of prayers to gods and should be looked at as such. All the evidence that it provides regarding the material culture of the then people is only incidental.”

B. B. Lal (1921) Indian archaeologist

Aryan invasion of India: perpetuation of a myth, In: Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History. — 1st ed. — London: Routledge, 2005. p.67.

God , People

“Socialism, when it attempts to predict or imagine the future (which Marx refused to do, since he conceived of a path, not a model), provides us merely with an improved form of labor”

Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991) French philosopher

salaries and material conditions on the job
Henri Lefebvre (1970/2003) The Urban Revolution p. 110.
Variant:
Marx... conceived of a path, not a model.
As cited in: "Anti-Capitalist Meet Up: Henri Lefebvre looks out into space" at dailykos.com, 2012.04.29
Other quotes

Imagination , Future

“But the old man had provided his kids with one priceless gift: He’d encouraged them to read, and he didn’t bother too much about the content, subscribing to the theory that good books ultimately speak for themselves.”

Jack McDevitt book Ancient Shores

Source: Ancient Shores (1996), Chapter 16 (p. 168)

Books , Reading

“There is a relation between persons and role. But the relationship answers to the interactive system—to the frame—in which the role is performed and the self of the performer is glimpsed. Self, then, is not an entity half-concealed behind events, but a changeable formula for managing oneself during them. Just as the current situation prescribes the official guise behind which we will conceal ourselves, so it provides where and how we will show through, the culture itself prescribing what sort of entity we must believe ourselves to be in order to have something to show through in this manner.”

Erving Goffman (1922–1982) Sociologist, writer, academic

Frame Analysis (1974) quoted by Edward O. Wilson in On Human Nature (1978) Ch. 4 "Emergence" p. 93
1970s-1980s

Personality

“It often happens that reforms merely have the effect of transferring the undesirable tendencies of individuals from one channel to another channel. An old outlet for some particular wickedness is closed; but a new outlet is opened. The wickedness is not abolished; it is merely provided with a different set of opportunities for self-expression.”

Aldous Huxley book Ends and Means

Ends and Means (1937)

“No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.

Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

" Provide, Provide http://plagiarist.com/poetry/732/" (1936), st. 6 - 7
General sources

Friendship , Star , Memory

“I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

Parting

““But then—you’re telling me they brought unrestricted communications with them?” he asked.
“Yup.” Rachel looked up from her console. “We’ve been trying for years to tell your leaders, in the nicest possible way: information wants to be free. But they wouldn’t listen. For forty years we tried. Then along comes the Festival, which treats censorship as a malfunction and routes communications around it. The Festival won’t take no for an answer because it doesn’t have an opinion on anything; it just is.”
“But information isn’t free. It can’t be. I mean, some things — if anyone could read anything they wanted, they might read things that would tend to deprave and corrupt them, wouldn’t they? People might give exactly the same consideration to blasphemous pornography that they pay to the Bible! They could plot against the state, or each other, without the police being able to listen in and stop them!”
Martin sighed. “You’re still hooked on the state thing, aren’t you?” he said. “Can you take it from me, there are other ways of organizing your civilization?”
“Well—” Vassily blinked at him in mild confusion. “Are you telling me you let information circulate freely where you come from?”
“It’s not a matter of permitting it,” Rachel pointed out. “We had to admit that we couldn’t prevent it. Trying to prevent it was worse than the disease itself.”
“But, but lunatics could brew up biological weapons in their kitchens, destroy cities! Anarchists would acquire the power to overthrow the state, and nobody would be able to tell who they were or where they belonged anymore. The most foul nonsense would be spread, and nobody could stop it—” Vassily paused. “You don’t believe me,” he said plaintively.
“Oh, we believe you alright,” Martin said grimly. “It’s just—look, change isn’t always bad. Sometimes freedom of speech provides a release valve for social tensions that would lead to revolution. And at other times, well—what you’re protesting about boils down to a dislike for anything that disturbs the status quo. You see your government as a security blanket, a warm fluffy cover that’ll protect everybody from anything bad all the time. There’s a lot of that kind of thinking in the New Republic; the idea that people who aren’t kept firmly in their place will automatically behave badly. But where I come from, most people have enough common sense to avoid things that’d harm them; and those that don’t, need to be taught. Censorship just drives problems underground.”
“But, terrorists!”
“Yes,” Rachel interrupted, “terrorists. There are always people who think they’re doing the right thing by inflicting misery on their enemies, kid. And you’re perfectly right about brewing up biological weapons and spreading rumors. But—” She shrugged. “We can live with a low background rate of that sort of thing more easily than we can live with total surveillance and total censorship of everyone, all the time.” She looked grim. “If you think a lunatic planting a nuclear weapon in a city is bad, you’ve never seen what happens when a planet pushed the idea of ubiquitous surveillance and censorship to the limit. There are places where—” She shuddered.”

Charles Stross book Singularity Sky

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 14, “The Telephone Repairman” (pp. 296-297)

People , Disease , Way , Communication

“Cybernetics is likely to reveal a great number of interesting and suggestive parallelisms between machine and brain and society. And it can provide the common language by which discoveries in one branch can readily be made use of in the others… [There are] two peculiar scientific virtues of cybernetics that are worth explicit mention. One is that it offers a single vocabulary and a single set of concepts suitable for representing the most diverse types of system… The second peculiar virtue of cybernetics is that it offers a method for the scientific treatment of the system in which complexity is outstanding and too important to be ignored. Such systems are, as we well know, only too common in the biological world!”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Source: An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956), Part I: Mechanism, p. 4-5

World

“Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently denounced is undoubtedly imperialism—sometimes just Western, sometimes Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance, being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of imperialism is not—as for Western critics—the domination by one people over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism. Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith, based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

God , People , Faith , Religion

“While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq's proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq.”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

Is Iraq a True Threat to the US? http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0721-02.htm, Boston Globe, July 2002
2000

“The most promising lines of development of theory in the sociological and most immediately related fields, particularly the psychological and cultural, therefore, seem to be two-fold. One major direction is the theoretical elaboration and refinement of structural-functional analysis of social systems, including the relevant problems of motivation and their relation to cultural patterns. In this process, the structure of social action provides a basic frame of reference, and aspects of it become of direct substantive importance at many specific points. The main theoretical task, however, is more than a refinement of the conceptual scheme of the presently reprinted book — it involves transition and translation to a different level and focus of theoretical systematization.”

Talcott Parsons (1902–1979) American sociologist

Preface second edition, 1949
The structure of social action (1937)

Books , Motivation , Problem

“The doctrine of laissez-faire in the mid-nineteenth century essentially allowed three functions for the government: first, maintaining the external defense of the country; second, providing for the internal order and security of persons; and third, possibly, providing for minimal public amenities. … Criminalization and punishment became, undisputedly, the most legitimate and competent task of the government. There, for sure, government intervention was proper, necessary, legitimate, and competent. There, natural orderliness had to be replaced by governmental ordering.”

Bernard Harcourt (1963) American academic

Source: The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (2011), p. 37

Nature , Personality , Country

“That, although a century out of date, would certainly be a distinctive, different policy. But it would not be a Conservative policy and it would not provide a Conservative alternative. For better or worse the central Government is already responsible, in some way or another, for nearly half the activities of Britain. It is by far the biggest spender and the biggest employer.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech in Scotland (10 September 1968) criticising free market ideas, quoted in The Times (11 September 1968), p. 1.
Leader of the Opposition

Way

“Women I know are outraged that Democrats think that women are nothing more than helpless and hopeless creatures whose only goal in life is to have the government provide for them birth control medication. Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything that anyone else can do. Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women. That's not a war on them, that's a war for them. And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government then so be it!”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Republican National Committee winter meeting, , quoted in * 2014-01-23
Fox's Huckabee: Democrats Tell Women They Can't Control Their Libidos
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/23/foxs-huckabee-democrats-tell-women-they-cant-co/197717

Life , Women , War , Education

“Cat, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Cats , Nature

“This sketch of how consciousness fits into the wider universe supports a form of non-reductive, Reflexive Monism. Human minds, bodies and brains are embedded in a far greater universe. Individual conscious representations are perspectival. That is, the precise manner in which entities, events and processes are translated into experiences depends on the location in space and time of a given observer, and the exact mix of perceptual, cognitive, affective, social, cultural and historical influences which enter into the 'construction' of a given experience. In this sense, each conscious construction is private, subjective, and unique. Taken together, the contents of consciousness provide a view of the wider universe, giving it the appearance of a 3D phenomenal world. … However, such conscious representations are not the thing-itself. In this vision, there is one universe (the thing-itself), with relatively differentiated parts in the form of conscious beings like ourselves, each with a unique, conscious view of the larger universe of which it is a part. In so far as we are parts of the universe that, in turn, experience the larger universe, we participate in a reflexive process whereby the universe experiences itself.”

Max Velmans book Understanding Consciousness

Max Velmans (2009) Understanding Consciousness, Edition 2. Routledge/Psychology Press, p. 298

World , Support , Sense , Universe

“To two men living the same number of years, the world always provides the same sum of experiences. It is up to us to be conscious of them.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning

Men , World

“The Web provided me with a much needed realization that information cannot be fully separated from its presentation, and showed me something I knew without verbalizing explicitly, that the presentation form we choose communicates real information.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: S-exp vs XML, HTML, LaTeX (was: Why lisp is growing) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9a30c508201627ee (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Communication

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

World , Law , Problem , Sun

“And, further, shall we be sure of finding the left bank free from German troops? Germany is supposedly going to undertake to have neither troops nor fortresses on the left bank and within a zone extending 50 km. east of the Rhine. But the Treaty does not provide for any permanent supervision of troops and armaments, on the left bank any more than elsewhere in Germany. In the absence of this permanent supervision, the clause stipulating that the League of Nations may order enquiries to be undertaken is in danger of being purely illusory. We can thus have no guarantee that after the expiry of the fifteen years and the evacuation of the left bank, the Germans will not filter troops by degrees into this district. Even supposing they have not previously done so, how can we prevent them doing it at the moment when we intend to re-occupy on account of their default? It will be simple for them to leap to the Rhine in a night and to seize this natural military frontier well ahead of us. The option to renew the occupation should not therefore from any point of view be substituted for occupation. It will then be simple for them to leap to the Rhine in a night and to seize this natural military frontier well ahead of us.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Memorandum to Clemenceau (28 April 1919), quoted in David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties. Volume I (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), p. 430.

Nature , Night

“Today no one who wishes to clean even a minimal regard for reason or evidence can espouse racist ideology as it was in its heyday, a system as comprehensive as Marxism and to some clearly equally as satisfying. However, thanks to Jensen and Eysenck and Shockley, the racist can cling to the periphery of his ideology; for example, he can provide a reasoned defence of his position on certain issues such as immigration and foreign policy. I do not wish to minimize the ground he has lost: the retreat from world history to little more than immigration quotas is a great defeat for the racist and a great source of satisfaction for all of his opponents. I am quite convinced that the refutation of racism in the light of reason is almost complete (the effort to eradicate it as a social force is a different matter and may never be fully accomplished). However, the last stand of the racist is not without importance, something I will attempt to demonstrate by giving a racist ideologue his say.”

James Robert Flynn (1934–2020) New Zealand scholar

not referring to any of the above mentioned persons
Source: Race, IQ, and Jensen (1980), p. 8

World , History , Effort , Light

“I would say that the surest measure of a man's or a woman's maturity is the harmony, style, joy, and dignity he creates in his marriage, and the pleasure and inspiration he provides for his spouse.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Quoted in Older & Wiser Edited by G. B. Dianda and B. J. Hofmayer (1995)

Marriage , Pleasure , Joy

“The structural tools developed by the profession – hierarchical classifications, facets, thesaural relations, topic maps, the predicates used in ontology – will still be of use, provided that they can in each case pass a test of utility.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Meeting the challenge (2009), p. xxvii.

“About 1790 the Cherokee decided to adopt the ways of their White conquerors and… established churches, mills, schools, and well cultivated farms… they adopted a written constitution providing for an executive, a bicameral legislature, a supreme court, and a code of laws.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

School , Law , Way

“Speaking crudely, a living system—an organism—consists of a symbiotic relationship between a metabolism and a replicator. …the replicator contains the blueprint of the organism, with the information needed to grow, make repairs, and reproduce. …the metabolism provides the energy and raw materials needed to build and run the replicator.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995)

“The amount of our danger, therefore, it would be impolitic to conceal from the people. It was the first duty of ministers to make it known, and after doing so, it should have been their study to provide against it, and to point out the means to the country by which it might be averted.”

William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) British politician

"The War Speeches of William Pitt", Oxford University Press, 1915, p. 314
Speech in the House of Commons, 18 July 1803, opposing a vote of censure on his successor Henry Addington.

People , Study , Country

“Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software packages have become popular means for both large and medium-sized organizations to overcome the limitations of fragmented and incompatible legacy systems. ERP systems are designed as integrated sets of software modules linked to a common database, handling basic corporate functions such as finance, human resources, materials management, sales, and distribution. Most ERP packages also provide multiple language and currency capabilities, enabling integration of global operations. The popularity of ERP is documented in a study that showed that nearly 19 percent of organizations across all industry sectors have installed ERP software, with the manufacturing sector leading the trend. The study also showed that ERP's popularity continues to rise, with 34 percent of the surveyed organizations investigating, piloting, or implementing ERP packages. Davenport characterized ERP as "the most important development in the corporate use of information technology in the 1990s"”

Jeanne W. Ross (1958) American computer scientist

Source: Learning to implement enterprise systems (2002), p. 18

Study

“In the construction of world views one can distinguish seven important tasks that correspond with the various components of a world view and that must provide an answer to a number of fundamental questions. First we must design a model of the world. What is the world like in which we live? How is the world structured and how does it function? What are the most suitable metaphors for speaking of the whole? Are mechanistic or organic models to be given preference? An explanation of reality must then follow. Why are the world and mankind as they are? Is a completely different world possible? What general explanatory principles apply?”

Diederik Aerts (1953) Belgian theoretical physicist

Source: Perspectives on the World: an interdisciplinary reflection. (1995), p. v : About "The seven tasks of World-view construction"

World , Question , Reality

“There is widespread belief throughout the free world that, but for American nuclear superiority, Europe would already have been reduced to satellite status and the Iron Curtain would have reached the Atlantic and the Channel. Unless a trustworthy and universal agreement upon disarmament, conventional and nuclear alike, can be reached and an effective system of inspection is established and is actually working, there is only one sane policy for the free world in the next few years. That is what we call defence through deterrents. This we have already adopted and proclaimed. These deterrents may at any time become the parents of disarmament, provided that they deter. To make our contribution to the deterrent we must ourselves possess the most up-to-date nuclear weapons, and the means of delivering them.”

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

Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1955-03-01/debates/ae81a20b-68e7-42d0-8cbb-d9589f53fc0d/Defence#1896 in the House of Commons (1 March 1955)
Post-war years (1945–1955)

World , Parent , Universe , Time

“In Christianity, God Himself provided a “parachute” for us, and His word says regarding the Savior, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Just as a parachute solved your dilemma with the law of gravity and its consequences, so the Savior perfectly solves your dilemma with the Law of God and its consequences! It is the missing puzzle-piece that you need. How did God solve our dilemma? He satisfied His wrath by becoming a human being and taking our punishment upon Himself. The Scriptures tell us that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. Christianity provides the only parachute to save us from the consequences of the Law we have transgressed.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (2009)

God , World , Law , Christ

“Without unleashing the power of life-destroying missiles or forcing obedience to a particular law, rainbows dissolve preoccupation with the predictably ordinary and encourage belief in the extra-ordinary. Such belief, such inspiration, provides much more than passive hopefulness.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(p. 47, Tao of the Rainbow).
Book Sources, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry (2014)

Life , Law , Hope

“What did the Ottoman Empire bring to the peoples under its yoke other than massacres, oppression, and tyranny? Does anyone miss Ottomanism, providing a reason to deliver a “New Ottomanism”? And what does the “zero problems with the neighbors” policy mean? Does it mean that all neighbors should obediently do what Turkey wants them to do and satisfy Turkey’s preconditions? There are probably neighbors for whom it is quite beneficial, but we are certainly not among them.”

Serzh Sargsyan (1954) Armenian politician, 3rd President of Armenia

Speech of S. Sargsyan in the House of Representatives of Cyprus http://www.aysor.am/en/news/2011/01/17/serzh-sargsyan-cyprus-address/ (January 17, 2011)

People , Problem

“The most noteworthy development of the open fireplace took place in 1796, when Englishman Count Rumford published his comprehensive essay, "Chimney Fireplaces."… the inclined fireback… increased fireplace efficiency by providing an area of greater radiation. For the purpose of breaking up the current of smoke in the event of chimney down draft, the back smoke shelf of Rumford's improved fireplace ended abruptly—a practice strictly adhered to by fireplace masons to this day.”

Ken Kern American writer

The Owner Built Home: A How-to-do-it Book (1972)

“To renew the energy expended in physical labour, the worker must be provided with the requirements of his existence as a functioning organism—food, clothing, and shelter for himself and his family. The labour time socially necessary to produce the necessities of life of the worker is the value of the worker’s labour power. The latter’s value is, therefore, reducible to a specifiable quantity of commodities: those which the worker requires to be able to subsist and reproduce.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

(describing Marx’s view), p. 49.
Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971)

Life , Family , Food , Time

“While the saving message spread day by day, some providence brought from Ethiopia an officer of the queen, for that nation is still traditionally ruled by a woman.”

Eusebius of Caesarea book Church History

2.1.
Ecclesiastical History

“• Special Provisions on unfilled positions, which provide that the unexpended amount for unfilled positions will revert to the unappropriated surplus for those agencies with fiscal autonomy, were deleted.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

“Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. It wears us out by multiplying distractions and beats us down by destroying our solitude, where otherwise we might drink and renew our strength before going out to face the world again. … The thoughtful soul to solitude retires," said the poet of other and quieter times; but where is the solitude to which we can retire today? Science, which has provided men with certain material comforts, has robbed them of their souls by surrounding them with a world hostile to their existence.”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

Of God and Men, p. 125

Life , Men , Hostility , World

“Successful entrepreneurship is ultimately a matter of flair. But there is also a fund of practical knowledge to be acquired and, of course, the right legal and financial framework has to be provided for productive enterprise to develop.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 65

Knowledge , Success

“In Germany, Hitler produced a local "lab experiment"; he provided me with an ideology in the same way that Marx provided one for Lenin. My task is to turn this ideology into a world movement.”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

Interview with Alex Haley

World , Way

“But all legislative powers appertain to sovereignty. The original power of giving the law on any subject whatever is a sovereign power […] All admit that the Government may legitimately punish any violation of its laws, and yet this is not among the enumerated powers of Congress. The right to enforce the observance of law by punishing its infraction might be denied with the more plausibility because it is expressly given in some cases. Congress is empowered "to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States," and "to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations." The several powers of Congress may exist in a very imperfect State, to be sure, but they may exist and be carried into execution, although no punishment should be inflicted, in cases where the right to punish is not expressly given. Take, for example, the power "to establish post-offices and post-roads." This power is executed by the single act of making the establishment. But from this has been inferred the power and duty of carrying the mail along the post road from one post office to another. And from this implied power has again been inferred the right to punish those who steal letters from the post office, or rob the mail. It may be said with some plausibility that the right to carry the mail, and to punish those who rob it, is not indispensably necessary to the establishment of a post office and post road. This right is indeed essential to the beneficial exercise of the power, but not indispensably necessary to its existence. So, of the punishment of the crimes of stealing or falsifying a record or process of a Court of the United States, or of perjury in such Court. To punish these offences is certainly conducive to the due administration of justice. But Courts may exist, and may decide the causes brought before them, though such crimes escape punishment. The baneful influence of this narrow construction on all the operations of the Government, and the absolute impracticability of maintaining it without rendering the Government incompetent to its great objects, might be illustrated by numerous examples drawn from the Constitution and from our laws. The good sense of the public has pronounced without hesitation that the power of punishment appertains to sovereignty, and may be exercised, whenever the sovereign has a right to act, as incidental to his Constitutional powers. It is a means for carrying into execution all sovereign powers, and may be used although not indispensably necessary. It is a right incidental to the power, and conducive to its beneficial exercise.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

17 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 409 and 416-418. Regarding the Necessary and Proper Clause in context of the powers of Congress.
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

Justice , Law , Exercises , Sense

“The so-called bourgeoisie doesn't provide any substance for my art. The character [of the models] there is too faint and without any spirit. It doesn't represent a race in an artistic sense. So there is no other choice for me [than folk women].”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner, in het Nederlands:) De zogenaamde burgerij levert geen stof voor mijn kunst. Het karakter [van de modellen] dáár is te flauw en geesteloos. Het vertegenwoordigt in artistieken zin geen ras. Mij rest dus geen andere keuze [dan volksvrouwen].
Quote of Breitner; as cited by B. van Garrel, in his article 'Het getekende bestaan van G.H. Breitner', Dutch newspaper Haagse Post, 23 June 1973, jrg. 60, nr. 25
The young saleswoman of hats, nl:Geesje Kwak was Breitner's model for several years
undated quotes

Women , Art , Sense

“The intention of the US found its feature through a clear formulation in the Agreement for the IBRD. The “purposes of the Bank” were defined as follows: “To promote private foreign investment by means of guarantees or participations in loans and other investments made by private investors; and when private capital is not available on reasonable terms, to supplement private investments by providing, on suitable conditions, finance for productive purposes out of its own capital, funds raised by it and its other resources””

Nico Perrone (1935) Italian historian and writer

Source: The international economy from a political to an authoritative drive, p. 130

“When I was nominated for the position of Vice President I was very unenthusiastic about it. But I took the post because it provided a powerful platform to talk on matters that are important for the country.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Closing address to the National Youth Peace camp at Debua, 9 December 2005.

Country

“You could grind a dog's head and a shoe together into a paste and spoon-feed it to me, and I'd probably think it was chicken liver pate, provided I kept my eyes closed, and provided you plucked all the dog hair out beforehand, and provided you'd managed to find a pestle and mortar big enough to mash it all up in, and provided - look, it wouldn't be worth it. I'm just saying I can't taste anything. There's no need to get carried away. What's the matter with you? You're an idiot.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

On his lack of tastebuds due to a bad cold.
[Screen Burn, http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/story/0,,2193905,00.html, The Guardian, 20 October 2007, 2008-07-30]
Guardian columns, Screen Burn

Dogs , Shoe , Thinking , Past

“I receive letters from people who’ve been cured with the ‘urine-therapy’…. Several years ago, a man called Lawrence Armstrong was suffering from TB. One day, he was reading the psalms from the Bible, he found the passage, ‘Drink from your own cistern when you’re in trouble.’ He wondered what it meant. It struck him that it was his own urine. And, he saw in the veterinary hospitals some animals given their own urine by his doctor friend. Nature has provided its own cures. What happens to the birds and animals in the forest? For 45 days, he consumed all the urine he passed and at the end of it, he was a young man. Then he wrote a book, "Waters of Life."”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

Morarji Desai speaks about life and celibacy

Life , People , Books , Drink

“My friends tell me that I have a tendency to point out problems without offering solutions, but they never tell me what I should do about it. In one chapter after another, I've described the ways in which imagination fails to provide us with accurate previews of our emotional futures. I’ve claimed that when we imagine our futures we tend to fill in, leave out, and take little account of how differently we will think about the future once we actually get there. I’ve claimed that neither personal experience nor cultural wisdom compensates for imagination’s shortcomings. I’ve so thoroughly marinated you in the foibles, biases, errors, and mistakes of the human mind that you may wonder how anyone ever manages to make toast without buttering their kneecaps. If so, you will be heartened to learn that there is a simple method by which anyone can make strikingly accurate predictions about how they will feel in the future. But you may be disheartened to learn that, by and large, no one wants to use it.”

Daniel T. Gilbert book Stumbling on Happiness

Source: Stumbling on Happiness, 2006, p. 223

Wisdom , Way , Error , Feeling

“A spurious democracy has influenced both our research methods (I am sometimes tempted to define “validity” as part of the context of an experiment demanding so little in the way of esoteric gift that any number can play at it, provided they have taken a certain number of courses) and our research subjects”

David Riesman (1909–2002) American Sociologist

it would be deemed snobbish to investigate only the best people
“Clinical and Cultural Aspects of the Aging Process,” p. 485
Individualism Reconsidered (1954)

People , Way , Democracy , Parting

“It is the police who are our main protection against terrorism and it is to the police that we must give our sustenance and support. It cannot be without reluctance that we contemplate powers of the kind proposed in the Bill, involving as they must some encroachment—limited but real—on the liberties of individual citizens. Few things would provide a more gratifying victory to the terrorists than for this country to undermine its traditional freedoms in the very process of countering the enemies of those freedoms. This we must keep in mind not only today but in the future as we persevere in what may not be a short struggle to eradicate terrorism from this country…the Bill proposes strengthened powers in four broad areas. First, it proscribes the IRA and makes display of support for it illegal. Second, the Bill makes it possible to make exclusion orders against persons who are involved in terrorism. Third, the Bill gives the police wide powers to arrest and detain, within limits, suspected terrorists. Fourth, it gives the police powers to carry out a security check on all travellers entering and leaving Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1974/nov/28/prevention-of-terrorism-temporary in the House of Commons introducing the Prevention of Terrorism Act (28 November 1974)
1970s

Travel , Support , Freedom , Future

“My answer is that I am a Hindu and I love Hindu dharma. How can anyone destroy it? It provides happiness both in this world as well as in the other world. There is no other religion like it. Only a deranged person or a fool would leave it to become vile. Hindu dharma would remain in the world for ever. It is not going to be destroyed by your efforts.”

Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621–1675) The ninth Guru of Sikhism

Tegh Bahadur’s Hindi reply to Aurangzeb when he was asked to become a Muslim. Kshitish Vedalankar: Storm in Punjab, p.178.

Love , World , Religion , Fools

“When the regime wanted additional industrial capacity or resources for the military economy which the private sector could not provide, it was created (or conquered) by the state… during the Third Reich state ownership expanded into the productive sectors, based on the strategic industries, aviation, aluminum, synthetic oil and rubber, chemicals, iron and steel, and army equipment. Government finances for state-owned enterprises rose from RM 4,000m in 1933 to RM 16,000m 10 years later; the capital assets of state-owned industry doubled during the same period; the number of state-owned firms topped 500.”

Richard Overy (1947) British historian

Source: War and Economy in the Third Reich (1994), p. 16

“Considering enterprises as "open socio-technical systems" helps to provide a more realistic picture of how they are both influenced by and able to act back on their environment. It points in particular to the various ways in which enterprises are enabled by their structural and functional characteristics (“system constants”) to cope with the “lacks” and “gluts” in their available environment.”

Eric Trist (1909–1993) British scientist

Source: Organizational choice, (1963), p. 6

Way , Help

“There is no providence or wisdom of man, nor of any council of men that can foresee and provide for all events and variety of cases, that will or may arise upon the making of a new law.”

Robert Atkyns (judge) (1621–1710) Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House of Lords

11 How. St. Tr. 1208.
Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686)

Wisdom , Men , Law

“The fact is simple. The Spitfire looked good. It was every bit as dashing as the young men who flew it, and in flight it was as graceful as any bird. Its progress through the sky seemed effortless, as though it was simply riding the breeze and its Merlin engine was only there to provide a suitable soundtrack. You had Mr. Churchill on the radio explaining that we'd never surrender, and above you had the Spitfire, and you couldn't help thinking: Yes, we can win this thing. Possibly, just possibly, the Spitfire is the greatest machine ever made.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

Spitfire, p. 276
I Know You Got Soul (2004)

Men , Bird , Thinking , Help

“A theoretical investigation which Einstein published in 1917 provides a third conspicuous landmark. It connected up he two great landmarks already mentioned by showing that the disintegration of radioactive substances is governed by the same laws as the jumps of the kangaroo electrons in the theory of Bohr. In fact radioactive atoms were now seen merely to contain a special breed of kangaroos, much more energetic and ferocious than any that had hitherto been encountered.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

Law

“Transparency strengthens democracy only when it gives citizens information they can use. It is not just about politicians telling us what they want us to know. For it to mean anything, it must empower citizens and provide answers to the questions they ask, not merely spoon feed them meagre information rations.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Attributed, In the Media

Democracy , Question

“Whoever claims that economic competition represents "survival of the fittest" in the sense of the law of the jungle, provides the clearest possible evidence of his lack of knowledge of economics.”

George Reisman (1937) American economist

Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (1996)

Law , Knowledge , Sense

“The function of government is to provide you with service; the function of the media is to supply the Vaseline.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Some New Tactical Reflections" http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1998/le35-19980115-08.html 15 January 1998.

“I who am blind can give one hint to those who see - one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf to-morrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Three Days to See (1933)

Pleasure , World , Beauty , Music

“I beg to propose to you that toast which is the first to which honour is done in every society of Englishmen, I mean "the Health of Her Majesty the Queen" — a toast which embodies the expression of that which is the deepest and warmest feeling of every Englishman… It could not be expected that man would pursue with diligence and success the pursuits of industry if he were not assured that he would reap in security the fruits which that industry might produce, and I am happy to say that our Army, our Navy, our Militia, and our Volunteers do afford to the people of these realms that security which human arrangements can provide for them. We are happily now at peace with all foreign Powers; but the continuance of that peace is not likely to be less certain when it is known to all foreign nations that the Army, the Navy, the Militia, and the Volunteers of England are in a state of perfect efficiency, and ready if called upon to defend the interests and to maintain the honour and dignity of their country against all who might think fit to assail them.”

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

Speech to the Agricultural Association at Romsey, quoted in "Lord Palmerston At Romsey," The Times (16 December 1864), p. 12.
1860s

People , Health , Peace , Feeling

“The first lesson, for all Canadians, is that the closed door, top down approaches to constitution making do not provide the public input or debate necessary to achieve a constitutional consensus that will be supported by the people.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Thirteen, The Eventful Summer of 1990, p. 240

People , Support

“The representation of an object, in itself (the objectivity as the aim of the representation), is something that has nothing to do with art, although the use of representation in a work of art does not rule out the possibility of its being of a high artistic order. For the Suprematist, therefore, the proper means is the one that provides the fullest expression of pure feeling and ignores the habitually accepted object. The object in itself is meaningless to him; and the ideas of the conscious mind are worthless. Feeling is the decisive factor.... and thus art arrives at non-objective representation – at Suprematism.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

Quote of Malevich, 1927 in Artists on Art; from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, pp. 452
1921 - 1930

Art , Feeling , Idea , Decision

“That is adultery where woman submits herself sexually to man, without desire on her part, for the sake of "keeping him virtuous," "keeping him at home," the women say. (Well, if a man did not love me and respect himself enough to be "virtuous" without prostituting me, — he might go, and welcome. He has no virtue to keep.) And that is rape, where a man forces himself sexually upon a woman whether he is licensed by the marriage law to do it or not. And that is the vilest of all tyranny where a man compels the woman he says he loves, to endure the agony of bearing children that she does not want, and for whom, as is the rule rather than the exception, they cannot properly provide. It is worse than any other human oppression; it is fairly God-like! To the sexual tyrant there is no parallel upon earth; one must go to the skies to find a fiend who thrusts life upon his children only to starve and curse and outcast and damn them!”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

Sex Slavery (1890)

Love , Life , Women , God

“Dialectics in many different forms has a surprisingly good press. Most people believe that struggle is very important and that it is important to be on the right side in a conflict…. Part of the difficulty is that the human race has an enormous and by no means unreasonable passion for the dramatic, and conflict is much more dramatic than production…. The awful truth about the universe - that it is not only rather a muddle, but also pretty dull - is wholly unacceptable to the human imagination. Nevertheless, it is the dull, nondialectical processes that hold the world together, that move it forward, and that provide the setting within which the dialectical processes take place. Evolution is the theatre, dialectics the play. It is a tragic error to mistake the play for the theatre, however, because that all too easily ends in the theatre burning down… Unless there is a reasonably widespread appreciation of the proper role of dialectical processes, these tend to get out of hand and become extremely destructive…. doing more harm than good.”

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

Source: 1970s, Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution, 1978, p. 266 as cited in: " Ecodynamics and societal evolution http://kairos.laetusinpraesens.org/83deval8_8_h_13" at Kairos @ Laetus-in-Praesens.org. Accessed Feb 25, 2012

People , Truth , World , Error

“But the spirit which they so nobly represented two generations ago has not departed from the land. It was resurgent in the days of 1898 and in 1917, and finds a lineal succession in the three branches which make up the land and sea forces of the present day and in the public opinion of the people. Our country has never had a better-equipped army or a more efficient navy in time of peace than it has at the present time. The Air Service is being perfected, better quarters are being provided, and our whole Military Establishment is being made worthy of the power and dignity of this great Nation. We realize that national security and national defense can not be safely neglected. To do so is to put in peril our domestic tranquility and jeopardize our respect and standing among the other nations.”

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

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

People , Peace , Time , Success

“The first sentence of the actual Life of Alexander lives up to Plutarch's warning words. 'Alexander's descent, as a Heraclid on his father's side from Caranus, and as an Aeacid on his mother's side from Neoptolemus, is one of the matters which have been completely trusted.' While the Heraclid and Aeacid descent went unquestioned by ancient writers, the citation of Caranus as the founding father in Macedonia and so analogous to Neoptolemus in Molossia was not only controversial but must have been known to be controversial by Plutarch. For he was conversant with the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides. which had looked to Perdiccas as the founding father in Macedonia. Caranus was inserted as a forerunner of Perdiccas in Macedonia only at the turn of the fifth century: he appeared as such in the works of fourth-century writers, such as Marsyas the Macedonian historian (FGrH 135/6 i- 14) who on my analysis was used by Pompeius Trogus (Prologue 7 'origines Macedonicae regesque a conditorc gentis Carano'). Thus the dogmatic statement of Plutarch, that Caranus was the forerunner, should have been qualified, if he had been writing scientific history. But because the statement conveyed a belief which Alexander certainly held in his lifetime it was justified in the eyes of a biographer and in the eyes of those who were more concerned with biographical background than with historical facts. If Plutarch had been challenged, he would no doubt have claimed that his belief was based on his own wide reading of authors who had studied the origins of Macedonia and provided 'completely trusted' data.”

N. G. L. Hammond (1907–2001) British classical scholar

"Sources for Alexander the Great: An Analysis of Plutarch's 'Life' and Arrian's 'Anabasis Alexandrou'", p.5, Cambridge Classical Studies

Life , History , Study , Appearance

“Nature provides-I must use the word- signifies, and these signifies organize human relation in a creative way, providing them with structures and shaping them.”

Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist

The Freudian Unconscious and Ours
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho Analysis (1978)

Way , Nature

“It has been accepted now that the joy of art is the heritage of all and aesthetic activity and appreciation are indispensable aids in the enrichment and refinement of the human soul in general. Art refines our inner as well as our physical life and provides that satisfaction and joy which acquisitions and activities on a merely material plane can never give. As Nachiketa said, na vittena tarpaniyo manushyo. In other words, man does not live by bread alone. Music and dance, among the arts, have always had a high place in Indian aesthetics. They are conceived as having their origin in the Divine, which is itself described the Upanishads as the quintessence of aesthetic pleasure raso vai sah.”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

Our arts embody the deepest experience and wisdom of mankind, and they have a spiritual import and purpose.
During another lecture in Madras (now Chennai) based on his experience in Music having composed a number of kirtans on “Devi” . Quoted in "Jayachamaraja Wodeyar – A Princely scholar".

Life , Wisdom , Pleasure , Art

“India provides a particularly soft target. The Christian missions are welcome to open their purse strings in the Islamic and Communist countries of Asia. But the missions there are barred from winning new converts. Hindu India, drowned in poverty and suffering from cultural self-forgetfulness, is the only country in Asia which provides the quid pro quo.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Society under Siege (1981, revised 1992)

Suffering , Country , Forgetting

“It’s imperative we have a system that’s accessible for every single American, that’s affordable for every single American, that incentivizes and provides the highest quality health care that the world knows, and provides choices to patients so they are the ones selecting who is treating them, when, where, and the like.”

Tom Price (U.S. politician) (1954) former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services; former Congressman of Georgia

Tom Price on Healthcare: ‘Imperative We Have a System that Provides Choices’ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/24/tom-price-on-healthcare-imperative-we-have-a-system-that-provides-choices/ (January 24, 2017)

Health , World

“Logic cannot support the premise that health care is a right. Health care is a service that is administered by another human being with the requisite skills and knowledge. To claim that healthcare as a "right" is to claim a right to the services of the health-care provider. In effect, this means you are claiming a "right" to a portion of that person's life – both a portion of the time already spent developing his skills, and a portion of the time spent practicing those skills on you..”

Neal Boortz (1945) American author, journalist, and radio host

Source: "Socialized medicine in U.S. is inevitable!", WorldNetDaily, 2007-09-20 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34741,

Life , Health , Support , Knowledge

“With the hubris common to physicists, I have always felt that I have known what good science is — it is theory cast in terms of mechanisms that describe how parts of the universe behave. With sometimes immense historical delay, these mechanisms always move towards being grounded in the larger mechanistic view of the universe. Theories always propose a view of how the universe is. They can never be effectively argued to be true, but only be brought before the bar of empirical evidence. All the modern concern for contextualism, hermeneutics and the social determination of meaning has its point, but is a mere footnote to the massive evidence for this view of science. The overwhelming success within this framework of modern biology over the last half century has provided another major confirmation, if one is needed. Someday we will get another striking confirmation from cognitive science. Though it can be argued that we are well on our way, we still have an immense distance to go. Arguments are no match for the evidence that cognitive science does not control its subject the way physics, chemistry and now biology do.”

Allen Newell (1927–1992) American cognitive scientist

Draft of an introduction to the Mind Matters Symposium http://diva.library.cmu.edu/Newell/mindmatters.html, 26 May 1992, Carnegie Mellon University Archives http://diva.library.cmu.edu/Newell/biography.html

Way , Universe , Science , Success

“The great question for our time is, how to make sure that the continuing scientific revolution brings benefits to everybody rather than widening the gap between rich and poor. To lift up poor countries, and poor people in rich countries, from poverty, to give them a chance of a decent life, technology is not enough. Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Progress In Religion (2000)

Life , People , Question , Chance

“Google will make us more informed. The smartest person in the world could well be behind a plow in China or India. Providing universal access to information will allow such people to realize their full potential, providing benefits to the entire world.”

Hal Varian (1947) American economist

The structure of the Internet http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Future-of-the-Internet-IV/Part-4Architecture.aspx?r=1, a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2010.
"Part 1: A review of responses to a tension pair about whether Google will make people stupid."

People , World , Universe , Personality

“I would say that, whenever religion has rule over law, that madness will reign, with automatic violations of human rights, but maybe I'm being alarmist. What do they say? How can we know what sort of society they envision?.. We know that they are nearly all republicans, and that that party has been virtually assimilated by them, and we know they will speak more freely when they feel the safety of numbers. So let's look at the Republican Party platform of one of the red states, a very red state… Of course, they want to make pornography illegal (no surprises there), they also want to be able to filibuster the US senate again… Regarding the environment, they strongly support the immediate repeal and abolishment of the Endangered Species Act. Remember that these people don't believe in evolution, so they don't understand the importance of biodiversity and they don't care about the rights of animals either. They want to dominate and subdue the earth, just like their abominable doctrine demands, so they strongly oppose all efforts of environmental groups that stymie business interests, especially those of the oil and gas industry… Texas republicans not only want marriage to be restricted to one man and one woman (despite what the Bible says), but they insist it must be a natural man and a natural woman… So transgender people would be completely ostracized under the law should they get their way. There's no civil union options for gay couples either, because the platform also opposes the creation, recognition or benefits of partnerships outside marriage that are provided by some political subdivisions. As if that weren't enough, they also want to define the word "family" such that it excludes homosexual couples. They say they deplore sensitivity training (think about that for a moment), and they state very clearly that they want homosexuality condemned as unacceptable. They mean that very strongly too, so strongly in fact that they oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality as a reaction of religious faith. In fact, they go so far as to urge the immediate repeal of the hate crimes law specifically where that relates to sexual orientation… If you're uncertain whether that includes acts of violence, there at least two members of the current State Board of Education who implied that it should, and we know of a few Tea Partiers who insist that homosexuals should be executed, murdered by the state. I am alarmed at how popular this abominable sentiment is… Under the heading "supporting motherhood", they strongly support women who "choose" to devote their lives to their families and raising their children, but they implicitly object to women choosing other options such as college, careers, or not having children at all. A woman's ambition beyond the confines of the kitchen and obeisance to her husband is decried by conservatives as a deplorable assault on the family which, of course, they blame on liberals. Regarding the right to life, they say that all innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from fertilization to natural death. Notice a few subtle caveats here: the qualifier of protecting only innocent life is how Texas republicans justify having executed more prisoners than any other state in the union, nearly five times as many as the next deadliest state in fact. Says something about Christian forgiveness, doesn't it!”

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

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Life , Death , Women , Hate

“Probable that I am now better than most people and as good as I ever shall be at this game, and can therefore get to know anyone I wish, provided I am not physically repellent. And perhaps this is why personal relationships no longer seem to me a serious branch of study.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 45

People , Game , Study , Personality

“One spring day in my sixth grade … we read two articles. The first concerned the cruelty toward cattle in slaughterhouses and the second was about the detrimental effects of red meat on your body. By the time I got home later that day, I had resolved to give up red meat, to take a stand against animal cruelty and a stand for my health … At 13, I decided to give up all meat and fish. My parents were even more surprised and cautiously supportive – provided I learned how to get enough protein. … Although I now eat meat (after having not for 18 years), I have tremendous respect for people who make consistent ethical choices in their lives – people who not only don’t eat meat, but who also don’t wear fur or leather and don’t use products made from animal derivatives.”

Chelsea Clinton (1980) daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton

"On Assignment: Chelsea Clinton admires vegetarian stands taken by Stella, Linda McCartney" http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/19/19026302-on-assignment-chelsea-clinton-admires-vegetarian-stands-taken-by-stella-linda-mccartney?lite, Rock Center NBC News (20 June 2013).

People , Health , Home , Spring

“Silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 133.
The Tatler (1711–1714)

Silence

“Unfortunately, the word "system" has many colloquial meanings, some of which have no place in scientific discussion. In order to exclude such meanings, and at the same time provide a starting point for exposition we state the following definition:
A system is a set of objects together with relationships between the objects and between their attributes.
Our definition does imply of course that a system has properties, functions or purposes distinct from its constituent objects, relationships and attributes.”

Arthur D. Hall (1925–2006) American electrical engineer

Source: Definition of System, 1956, p. 18: Italics quote cited in: Thorbjoern Mann (1992) Building Economics for Architects. p. 140

Time

“My indulgent mum, a single mum of an only son, would let me skip games, pandering to my teary complaints as a former fat child herself. This, I suppose, is where a father figure would come in handy, a loving, authoritative strong male to affectionately shove you into adversity. As it was, notes were written and physical activity strenuously avoided, until I discovered that some exercise had an orgasm at the end of it. This syndrome of “fatherless” boys is a much-cited problem that military organizations effectively resolve: Personal identity put aside, a male ideal upon which to focus is provided and pursued.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Love , Exercises , Game , Boy

“The best of Intel computing is coming to smartphones. Our efforts with Lenovo and Motorola Mobility will help to establish Intel processors in smartphones and provide a solid foundation from which to build in 2012 and into the future.”

Paul Otellini (1950–2017) former president & CEO of Intel

Solution Providers: Intel Smartphones, 'Wintel' Here To Stay http://crn.com/news/components-peripherals/232400295/solution-providers-intel-smartphones-wintel-here-to-stay.htm in CRN (12 January 2012)

Effort , Future , Help

“Glasnost was a phenomenal, renaissance period in the history of Russia and taught me much about importance of freedom of information. The only real way to improve conditions of civilizations is to provide open access to information for education and culture, and to be honest about the past. Otherwise we spend our lives siloed from each other and we repeat the mistakes of our grandparents.”

Lila Tretikov (1978) Russian–American engineer, manager and former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation

Lila Tretikov (2014) as quoted by [Jemima Kiss and Samuel Gibbs, Wikipedia boss Lila Tretikov, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/06/wikipedia-lila-tretikov-glasnost-freedom-of-information, The Guardian, 2014-08-06] and repeated in the closing statement in [Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), http://www.worldcat.org/title/facebook-nation-total-information-awareness/oclc/885416529, Springer Science+Business Media, 2014-10-17, 361]

Education , Way , History , Freedom