Quotes about reach (2926 quotes, page 12)

“The ongoing transformation of communication technology in the digital age extends the reach of communication media to all domains of social life in a network that is at the same time global and local, generic and customised in an ever-changing pattern.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society, 2007

Life , Age , Communication , Change

“As in Mathematics in general, the really great advances, embodying new ideas of far-reaching fruitfullness, have been due to an exceedingly small number of great men… there are periods when for a long series of centuries no advance was made; when the results obtained in a more enlightened age have been forgotten. We observe the times of revival, when the older learning has been rediscovered, and when the results of the progress made in distinct countries have been made available as the starting points of new efforts and a fresh period of activity.”

E. W. Hobson (1856–1933) British mathematician

Source: Squaring the Circle (1913), p. 10

Men , Age , Mathematics , Idea

“The steps in front must be arranged so that there shall always be an odd number of them; for thus the right foot, with which one mounts the first step, will also be the first to reach the level of the temple itself.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book III, Chapter IV, Sec. 4

“If by this superhuman concentration one succeeded in converting or resolving the two cosmoses with all their complexities into sheer ideas, he would then reach the causal world and stand on the borderline of fusion between mind and matter. There one perceives all created things — solids, liquids, gases, electricity, energy, all beings, gods, men, animals, plants, bacteria — as forms of consciousness, just as a man can close his eyes and realize that he exists, even though his body is invisible to his physical eyes and is present only as an idea.”

Paramahansa Yogananda book Autobiography of a Yogi

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 43 - "The Resurrection Of Sri Yukteswar"

Men , God , World , Idea

“For the majority, I take it, who live all their lives with such obtuse faculties of thinking, it is a difficult thing to perform this feat of mental analysis and of discriminating the material vehicle from the immanent beauty, … Owing to this men give up all search after the true Beauty. Some slide into mere sensuality. Others incline in their desires to dead metallic coin. Others limit their imagination of the beautiful to worldly honours, fame, and power. There is another class which is enthusiastic about art and science. The most debased make their gluttony the test of what is good. But he who turns from all grosser thoughts and all passionate longings after what is seeming, and explores the nature of the beauty which is simple, immaterial, formless, would never make a mistake like that when he has to choose between all the objects of desire; he would never be so misled by these attractions as not to see the transient character of their pleasures and not to win his way to an utter contempt for every one of them. This, then, is the path to lead us to the discovery of the Beautiful. All other objects that attract men's love, be they never so fashionable, be they prized never so much and embraced never so eagerly, must be left below us, as too low, too fleeting, to employ the powers of loving which we possess; not indeed that those powers are to be locked up within us unused and motionless; but only that they must first be cleansed from all lower longings; then we must lift them to that height to which sense can never reach.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Virginity, Chapter 11

Love , Men , Pleasure , Beauty

“My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration and ignoble deaths; that there is security in personal strength; that you can fight City Hall and win; that any action is better than no action, even if it's the wrong action; that you never reach glory or self-fulfillment unless you're willing to risk everything, dare anything, put yourself dead on the line every time; and that once one becomes strong or rich or potent or powerful it is the responsibility of the strong to help the weak become strong.”

Harlan Ellison book The Harlan Ellison Hornbook

The Harlan Ellison Hornbook, (9 August 1973)

Life , Death , Strong , Time

“Brickhill, Paul. Reach for the Sky: The Story of Douglas Bader DSO, DFC. London: Odhams Press Ltd., 1954..”

Douglas Bader (1910–1982) British World War II flying ace

References

“Surrealism will at least have served to give experimental proof that total sterility and attempts at automatizations have gone too far and have led to a totalitarian system... Today's laziness and the total lack of technique have reached their paroxysm in the psychological signification of the current use of the college”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

= collage
Quote from the catalog, 1943, of Dali's exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York; as quoted on Wikipedia: Salvador Dali
Dali attacked here some frequently-used Surrealist techniques
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1941 - 1950

“Certainly, for a newspaper director, to have within arm's reach a Travaglio, about whom every starring actor, supporting cast and extra of Italian political life he is ready upon cold request to provide an inquiry brief refined in the most minute details is a nice comfort. But also a bit unsettling. The day I asked him if in that archive, into which no one is allowed to stick their nose, there were a brief with my name on it, Marco changed the subject.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Preface to Il Pollaio delle Libertà by Marco Travaglio, Vallecchi, 1995.
1950s - 1990s

Life , Star , Support , Change

“Evil reports of a churlish wilderness, a pitiless climate, disease, misery, and death, had heralded the arrival of De Monts. The outlay had been great, the returns small; and when he reached Paris, he found his friends cold, his enemies active and keen.”

Francis Parkman (1823–1893) American historian

Pt. II, Ch. 4 Lescarbot and Champlain
Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

Death , Disease , Evil

“Generally speaking, when empowered as a community, or common mind, our common spirit, our common sense reaches conclusions that are beneficial for our community. Our common unity.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Communication , Sense

“Why were the little girls all frightened
To be just what they are
The boys were told to ask themselves
How high how far
The girls were told to reach the shelves
While the boys were reaching stars
That's why little girls were frightened
To be just what they are.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Why Do Little Girls?
Song lyrics, Living Room Suite (1978)

Girl , Star , Boy

“We are at that one of life's hours (it strikes for every man) when truth imposes itself, by itself, with irresistible obviousness, when each of us has only to stretch forth his arms to reach at a single bound the surface of shadows, even the sunlight of God. Then is human prudence but a snare and a delusion. Sanctity!' cried out the old priest in a deep voice; 'by saying this word in your presence and for you alone, I know the hurt I inflict upon you! You are not unaware of what sanctity is: a vocation, a calling. Up to the place where God awaits you you will have to climb—climb, or be lost. Expect no human help.”

Georges Bernanos book Under the Sun of Satan

Source: Sous le soleil de Satan (Under the Sun of Satan), 1926, pp.101-102, Fr. Menou-Segrais to the young Fr. Donissan

Life , God , Truth , Help

“Leo Byzantius said, "What would you do, if you saw my wife, who scarce reaches up to my knees?… Yet," went he on, "as little as we are, when we fall out with each other, the city of Byzantium is not big enough to hold us."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Political Precepts
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“You are from Britain. Would you accept to give Manchester to some other people? And if you are American, I ask the same way, do you accept to give California to some other people? Or would you accept the 'status quo' of occupying Manchester by some other people, by the Chinese for instance? And then reach agreement after expelling the people of Manchester from their homes, depriving them of their property, of everything? This is the question of Palestine.”

Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) second president of Egypt

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/plohistoryofrevolution/2009/07/200971285221482182.html 12:40 on

People , Way , Home , Question

“The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it reveals in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognise the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor blighter who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs to. Thus he recovers and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all errors and follies which are its own.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Die wohlfeilste Art des Stolzes hingegen ist der Nationalstolz. Denn er verrät in dem damit Behafteten den Mangel an individuellen Eigenschaften, auf die er stolz sein könnte, indem er sonst nicht zu dem greifen würde, was er mit so vielen Millionen teilt. Wer bedeutende persönliche Vorzüge besitzt, wird vielmehr die Fehler seiner eigenen Nation, da er sie beständig vor Augen hat, am deutlichsten erkennen. Aber jeder erbärmliche Tropf, der nichts in der Welt hat, darauf er stolz sein könnte, ergreift das letzte Mittel, auf die Nation, der er gerade angehört, stolz zu sein. Hieran erholt er sich und ist nun dankbarlich bereit, alle Fehler und Torheiten, die ihr eigen sind, mit Händen und Füßen zu verteidigen.
Kap. II
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

World , Error , Affliction , Personality

“When I finished with LSE, Laski, of his own, gave me a letter of introduction for Panditji. On reaching Delhi I sought an appointment with the PM. I suppose, because I was an Indian student returning home from London, I was given a time-slot. It was here in Parliament House that he met me. We talked for a few minutes about London and things like that and I could soon see that it was time for me to leave. So I said goodbye and as I left the room I handed over the letter from Laski, and stepped out into the great circular corridor outside. When I was half way round, I heard the sound of someone clapping from the direction I had just come. I turned to see Panditji (Nehru) beckoning me to come back. He had opened the letter as I left his room and read it. [Nehru asked:] "Why didn't you give this to me earlier?" [and I replied:] "Well, sir, I am sorry. I thought it would be enough if I just handed it over while leaving."”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

After a few more questions, he asked me to see him again and very soon I found myself entering the Indian Foreign Service.
Source: Gopal Gandhi Of a Certain Age: Twenty Life Sketches http://books.google.co.in/books?id=Inp4jPFUHUkC&pg=PA178, Penguin Books India, 2011, p. 178

Way , Home , Question , Time

“It is not by these means [modern humanism and humanitarianism, idealism, etc. ] that humanity can get that radical change of its ways of life which is yet becoming imperative, but only by reaching the bed-rock of Reality behind,… not through mere ideas and mental formations, but by a change of the consciousness, an inner and spiritual conversion. But that is a truth for which it would be difficult to get a hearing in the present noise of all kinds of many-voiced clamour and confusion and catastrophe…. Science has missed something essential; it has seen and scrutinised what has happened and in a way how it has happened, but it has shut its eyes to something that made this impossible possible, something it is there to express. There is no fundamental significance in things if you miss the Divine Reality; for you remain embedded in a huge surface crust of manageable and utilisable appearance. It is the magic of the Magician you are trying to analyse, but only when you enter into the consciousness of the Magician himself can you begin to experience the true origination, significance and circles of the Lila…. Another danger may then arise [once materialism begins to give way]… not of a final denial of the Truth, but the repetition in old or new forms of a past mistake, on one side some revival of blind fanatical obscurantist sectarian religionism, on the other a stumbling into the pits and quagmires of the vitalistic occult and the pseudo-spiritual'mistakes that made the whole real strength of the materialistic attack on the past and its credos. But these are phantasms that meet us always on the border line or in the intervening country between the material darkness and the perfect Splendour. In spite of all, the victory of the supreme Light even in the darkened earth-consciousness stands as the one ultimate certitude….”

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

Undated
India's Rebirth

Life , Truth , Religion , Way

“While upon the subject of plants I may here mention a few of the more striking vegetable productions of Borneo. The wonderful Pitcher-plants, forming the genus Nepenthes of botanists, here reach their greatest development. Every mountain-top abounds with them, running along the ground, or climbing over shrubs and stunted trees; their elegant pitchers hanging in every direction. Some of these are long and slender, resembling in form the beautiful Philippine lace-sponge (Euplectella), which has now become so common; others are broad and short. Their colours are green, variously tinted and mottled with red or purple. The finest yet known were obtained on the summit of Kini-balou, in North-west Borneo. One of the broad sort, Nepenthes rajah, will hold two quarts of water in its pitcher. Another, Nepenthes Edwardsiania, has a narrow pitcher twenty inches long; while the plant itself grows to a length of twenty feet.”

Alfred Russel Wallace book The Malay Archipelago

The Malay Archipelago (1869)

Beauty , Mountain , Tree , Water

“I determined there was a great future in the mail-order business, and I landed a job that brought me to the head of a large department. About this time our daughter Joan was born.
Having a good job and every prospect for advancement, I decided to go into business for myself, with harrowing results. I had no capital when I started and less when I got through. At this time the mail-order company offered me an excellent position if I wanted to come back If I had accepted it, I would probably have been fixed for life with a good living salary. Yet the chances are that I would never have written a story, which proves that occasionally it is better to do the wrong thing than the right.
When my independent business sank without a trace, I approached as near financial nadir as one may reach. My son, Hulbert, had just been born. I had no job, and no money. I had to pawn Mrs, Burroughs' jewelry and my watch in order to buy food. I loathed poverty, and I should have liked to have put my hands on the man who said that poverty is an honorable estate. It is an indication of inefficiency and nothing more. There is nothing honorable or fine about it. To be poor is quite bad enough. But to be poor without hope … well, the only way to understand it is to be it.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) American writer

How I Wrote the Tarzan Books (1929)

Life , Money , Food , Hope

“We cannot avoid conflict, conflict with society, other individuals and with oneself. Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

As quoted in Turning Conflict Into Profit : A Roadmap for Resolving Personal and Organizational Disputes (2005) by Larry Axelrod and Rowland Johnson

Life , Birth

“To shoot a grouse exacts something from the thinking man. It requires principle, which like good manners is not old-fashioned and never has been. It is something in your heart and in your head. The perceptive gunner is immersed in the style and charm of his dog’s work and in the shot, but with it all, he is one with what happens to the bird. His shooting is not vindictive, a getting-even because the grouse is so hard to hit. To regret a miss is normal animal response to temporary failure, not to be confused with sentient “the bastard got away.” Emotions are drawn to such thin threads they reach the breaking point, but when finely-honed tensions balance, shooting becomes a spiritual thing between you and the grouse.”

George Bird Evans (1906–1998) American writer

An Affair with Grouse (1982)

Dogs , Fashion , Failure , Bird

“When I reached the [Yosemite] valley, all the rocks seemed talkative, and more lovable than ever. They are dear friends, and have warm blood gushing through their granite flesh; and I love them with a love intensified by long and close companionship. … I … bathed in the bright river, sauntered over the meadows, conversed with the domes, and played with the pines.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr (December 1872); published as " A Geologist's Winter Walk http://books.google.com/books?id=OAEbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA355", Overland Monthly, volume 10, number 4 (April 1873) pages 355-358 (at page 355); modified slightly and reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 2
1870s

Love

“Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellencies, which are out of the reach of the rules of art; a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

Discourse no. 6
Discourses on Art

Art

“(The Queen of Housewife Rock) means I’ve reached a lot of people in a simplistic manner who would never go to a lecture or read an article on Women’s Lib. My basic audience is women who have had their heads turned around by the knowledge that something’s going on out there—that they can stay married and have their own identities. I’m not for the swinging singles. I have a career and marriage happening all at the same time, and that’s the example I set.”

Helen Reddy (1941) Australian actress

On the title Alice Cooper gave to her, as quoted in "Helen Reddy Sings Out for Women's Lib—but Jeffrey Calls the Tune" by Robert Windeler, People Magazines, 3 February 1975 http://people.com/archive/helen-reddy-sings-out-for-womens-lib-but-jeffrey-calls-the-tune-vol-3-no-4/

Women , Marriage , People , Knowledge

“These Prophets of Righteousness … believed in the victory of absolute Righteousness, yet the fact that they turn their gaze time after time to "the end of days "proves that they knew—as by a whisper from the "spirit of holiness" within them—how great and how arduous was the work that mankind must do before that consummation could be reached. They knew, also, that such work as this could not be done by scattered individuals, approaching it sporadically, each man for himself, at different times and in different places; but that it needed a whole community, which should be continuously, throughout all generations, the standard-bearer of the force of Righteousness against all the other forces that rule the world: which should assume of its own freewill the yoke of eternal obedience to the absolute dominion of a single Idea, and for the sake of that Idea should wage incessant war against the way of the world.”

Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and thinker

Source: Selected Essays (1904), "Priest and Prophet" (1893), pp. 134-135

War , World , Way , Communication

“We forced our way onward slowly, and, as we reached the edge of the city, the sidewalks were lined on both sides of the streets with black and white alike all looking with curious, eager faces at the man who held their destiny in his hand; but there was no anger in anyone's face; the whole was like a gala day, and it looked as if the President was some expected guest who had come to receive great honors. Indeed, no man was ever accorded a greater ovation than was extended to him, be it from warm hearts or from simple ceremony.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 296

Way , Heart , Anger

“What do you do when you are falling? Do you reach out and try to grab for support? If you aren’t careful, you will pull others down with you. Unless you are very careful.”

Pat Murphy book The Falling Woman

Source: The Falling Woman (1986), Chapter 23 (p. 268)

Support

“For, for aught we know, or for aught that the new science can say to the contrary, the gods which play the part of fate to the atoms of our brains may be our own minds. Through these atoms our minds may perchance affect the motions of our bodies and so the state of the world around us. To-day science can no longer shut the door on this possibility; she has no longer any unanswerable arguments to bring against our innate conviction of free-will. On the other hand, she gives no hint as to what absence of determinism or causation may mean. If we, and nature in general, do not respond in a unique way to external stimuli, what determines the course of events? If anything at all, we are thrown back on determinism and causation; if nothing at all, how can anything ever occur? As I see it, we are unlikely to reach any definite conclusions on these questions until we have a better understanding of the true nature of time.”

James Jeans book The Mysterious Universe

Source: The Mysterious Universe (1930), p. 29-30 of 1930 ed.

God , Fate , World , Way

“I could hear the forces massing. I was very keen to make sure that I got our big reforms done before those forces could reach a critical point.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

The Killing Season, Episode three: The Long Shadow (2010–13)

“Later, in your time, all of you will look down into the physical system like giants peering through small windows at the others now in your position and smile. But you will not want to stay, nor crawl through the same enclosures... We protect such systems. Our basic and ancient knowledge automatically reaches out to nourish all system that grow”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Seth Material (1970), p. 256

Smile , Knowledge , Time

“The nude gains its enduring value from the fact that it reconciles several contrary states. It takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire; it takes the most purely rational concept of which mankind is capable, mathematical order, and makes it a delight to the senses; and it takes the vague fears of the unknown and sweetens them by showing that the gods are like men and may be worshiped for their life-giving beauty rather than their death-dealing powers.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. I: The Naked and the Nude

Life , Death , Men , God

“Although he had reached a high stage of self-discipline and bore his last wound well, he now felt as if these ordinary people were his brothers. Their vanities, desires, and trivialities no longer seemed absurd to him; they had become understandable, lovable, and even worthy of respect.”

Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer

Source: Siddhartha (1922), p. 90

People , Understanding

“Jack: No, I just want to reach 40.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

“on first priority
in design consideration
is the full realization
of individual potential
in order to reach the second derivative — full realization for all individuals”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

No More Secondhand God (1963)
1960s

“Legislations are just a way to reach a certain social goal, the problem is that people focus on the words and forget the spirit of the text”

Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist

People , Way , Problem , Forgetting

“Our modern religious horizon and our conception of the character of a religious leader and teacher are so different that it is not easy to understand men who saw the province of religion chiefly in the broad reaches of civic affairs and international relations.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.1 The Historical Roots of Christianity the Hebrew Prophets, p. 10

Men , Religion , Understanding , Teachers

“As darkness falls
The walls grow luminous and warm, the walls
Tremble and glow with the lives within them moving,
Moving like music, secret and rich and warm.
How shall we live tonight? Where shall we turn?
To what new light or darkness yearn?
A thousand winding stairs lead down before us;
And one by one in myriads we descend
By lamplit flowered walls, long balustrades,
Through half-lit halls which reach no end.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Secret , Music , Flowers , Light

“I was in a cab in New York. The cab had a sign, "Please do not smoke, Christ is our unseen guest." This guy was reaching. I figure, if he could overcome being nailed to a cross, I don't think a Marlboro Light's gonna faze him that much.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Dark Poet (1991)

Guy , Thinking , Light , Christ

“All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority. The universal in the novel—and isn't that what we're all clamoring for these days?—is reached only through the depiction of the specific man in a specific circumstance.”

Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer

"The Art of Fiction: An Interview" (The Paris Review, Spring 1955), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 212.

Universe

“Reach for it, you know. Go push yourself as far as you can.”

Christa McAuliffe (1948–1986) American educator and astronaut

Tanscript - CNN Presents: CHRISTA MCAULIFFE REACH FOR THE STARS (22 January 2006 http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0601/22/cp.01.html

“Nothing is more characteristic of the Hegelian system of knowledge than the fact that upon its highest pinnacle, where it becomes knowledge of knowledge, i. e. knowledge knowing of itself, it is impossible for it to have any other content but simply the history of philosophy, the account of its continuing self-exposition, in which all individual developments, coming full circle, can only be stages along the road to the absolute philosophy reached in Hegel himself. But that which knowledge is explicitly upon this topmost pinnacle as the history of philosophy, the philosophy completed in Hegel, it is implicitly all along the line: the knowledge of history and the history of knowledge, the history of truth, the history of God, as Hegel was able to say: the philosophy of History. History here has entered so thoroughly into reason, philosophy has so basically become the philosophy of history, that reason, the object of philosophy itself, has become history utterly and completely, that reason cannot understand itself other than a sits own history, and that, from the opposite point of view, it is in a position to recognize itself at once in all history in some stage of its life-process, and also in its entirety, so far as the study permits us to divine the whole. It is a matter of the production of self-movement of the thought-content in the consciousness of the thinking subject. It is not a matter of reproduction! The Hegelian way of looking is the looking of a spectator only in so far as it is in fact in principle and exclusively theory, thinking consciousness. Granting this premise, and setting aside Kierkegaard’s objection that with it the spectator might by chance have forgotten himself, that is the practical reality of his existence, then for Hegel it is also in order (only too much in order!) that the human subject, whilst looking in this manner, stands by no means apart as if it were not concerned. It is in this looking that the something seen is produced. And the thing seen actually has its reality in the fact that it is produced as the thing seen in the looking of the human subject. Man cannot participate more energetically (within the frame-work of theoretical possibility), he cannot be more forcefully transferred from the floor of the theatre on to the stage than in his theory.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

Karl Barth Protestant Thought From Rousseau to Ritschl, 1952, 1959 p. 284-285
Protestant Thought From Rousseau to Ritschl 1952, 1956

Life , God , Truth , Way

“When a man gits tew talking about himself, he seldum fails tew be eloquent, and often reaches the sublime.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Affurisms. From Josh Billings: His Sayings (1865)

“The world is nearly all parcelled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far.”

Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) British businessman, mining magnate and politician in South Africa

Quoted in The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes (1902) by William T. Stead (a compilation of Rhodes' legal will and other biographical material)

World , Sadness , Star , Thinking

“Independence is all very well, but we animals never allow our friends to make fools of themselves beyond a certain limit; and that limit you've reached.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 6

Fools , Animals

“I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder. How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease of normalcy that, even as they declare for the peace, their hands reach out with an instinctive spasm… in the direction of their comforts, their home, their security, their income, their future, their plans—that five-year plan of studies, that ten-year plan of professional status, that twenty-year plan of family growth and unity, that fifty-year plan of decent life and honorable natural demise. “Of course, let us have the peace,” we cry, “but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.” And because we must encompass this and protect that, and because at all costs—at all costs—our hopes must march on schedule, and because it is unheard of that in the name of peace a sword should fall, disjoining that fine and cunning web that our lives have woven, because it is unheard of that good men should suffer injustice or families be sundered or good repute be lost—because of this we cry peace and cry peace, and there is no peace. There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war—at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.”

Daniel Berrigan (1921–2016) American Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet

No Bars to Manhood (1971), p. 49.

Love , Life , Death , Men

“It was a great day for me when my Commanding Officer called me and said ‘Boy, you are to go to New Zealand’ I was dumbfounded, and did not know what to reply. All I did was to click my heels snappily and, give as smart salute as I possibly could, and beat a hasty retreat. Once out of sight of the officer, I ran like a hare to reach my barracks and communicated the good news to my fellow soldiers. And what a reception they gave me! I lost no time in getting prepared for the trip. I was not a rich man, my earnings as a sepoy being only a few rupees a month. My parents were not rich either…. I clothed myself as inexpensively as possible, and my personal outfit was my military kit… As soldiers belonging to the Other Ranks (read lower ranks), it was a great experience for us. Prior to this tour we could never conceive of being feted and entertained at private houses and public functions in such a glorious and enjoyable manner. We were made heroes, and on my part, if I may put it quite modestly, I proved myself a great success and left behind a great impression.”

Dhyan Chand (1905–1979) Indian field hockey player

On his trip to New Zealand in 1926 where they had 18 victories out of 21 matches and had scored a total of 192 goals and Chand had scored bulk of the goals in page=35-36
Quote, India and the Olympics

Boy , Communication , Parent , Time

“In Etruria.. the nation stagnated and decayed in political helplessness and indolent opulence, a theological monopoly in the hands of the nobility, stupid fatalism, wild and meaningless mysticism, the arts of soothsaying and mendicant priestcraft gradually developed themselves, till they reached the height at which we afterwards find them.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 1, Book II, Chapter 8. "Law. Religion. Military System. Economic Condition. Nationality"
The History of Rome - Volume 1

Stupidity , Art

“An autonomous electorate, free because it is free from indoctrination and manipulation, would indeed be on a “level of articulate opinion and ideology” which is not likely to be found. Therefore, the concept has to be rejected as “unrealistic”—has to be if one accepts the factually prevailing level of opinion and ideology as prescribing the valid criteria for sociological analysis. And—if indoctrination and manipulation have reached the stage where the prevailing level of opinion has become a level of falsehood, where the actual state of affairs is no longer recognized as that which it is, then an analysis which is methodologically committed to reject transitive concepts commits itself to a false consciousness. Its very empiricism is ideological.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 117

Falseness

“Truth can never be confined to time and culture; in history it is known, but it also reaches beyond history.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Encyclical Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998
Source: www.vatican.va http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

Truth , History , Time

“The fact is we are all, no matter where we live, surrounded constantly by stories, whether they are literal, oral or visual…the benign story I'm really growing tired of is the "humorous" story of the blonde woman who is either injured or humiliated all in order to sell beer. Not funny. I am tired of these stories. I am angered by these stories. There are other stories far more wondrous — stories of women claiming and reclaiming power, stories of rage and resistance and indefatigable courage, and stories of women and some men — reaching across great divides and into the most treacherous places on Earth where turmoil reigns and violence against women is unchecked, taking the hands of those women, helping to lift them up and leading them toward safety and sanctuary and self-determination.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Speech at private fundraiser for V-Day (March 2008) http://www.jennifer-beals.com/media/speeches/vday.html.

Women , Men , Courage , Beer

“And he looks down where the soil has been dug and there's a sparkle, and there's a glint in the morning light, and he reaches down and he picks it up with his stubby dirty fingers, and the last thing in the world he might have expected, and here is this, this speck of the future, this tiny little shock that's going to reverberate right to today -- literally till now! He picks it up, and he says, you know, he says, 'My God!”

J. S. Holliday (1924–2006) American historian

And he yells out, he said, 'My God, I think I've found gold!'
About James W. Marshall discovering gold in 1848
The West (1996)

God , World , Thinking , Light

“The migrant and refugee crisis is deepening and reaching a critical level. It used to take refugees and migrants six to eight months to reach their destination countries. Now they can do it in just a few days. Today united Europe has more walls than divided Europe had during the Cold War. Greece is facing a possible humanitarian crisis, and there are armies in a state of alert deployed on the borders of Balkan countries”

Gjorge Ivanov (1960) President of Macedonia

War , Country

““Are you sharpness personified?”
Khouri poured herself a few final sips of coffee and then left the rest of it on the stove for when she got back. Coffee was her only vice, one acquired in her soldiering days on the Edge. The trick was to reach a knife-edge of alertness, but not be so buzzing that she could not point the weapon without shaking.
“I think I’ve reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level, if that’s what you mean.””

Alastair Reynolds book Revelation Space

Source: Revelation Space (2000), Chapter 2 (p. 27).

Coffee , Thinking

“Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Faith , Hope , Freedom , Strong

“The subject reports itself, it is never looked for. Afterwards a small drawing will follow for the color-planes which are determined immediately. These colors will be printed by large logs and updated and enlivened with the hand-roller. For pressing I use an old hand-press with lever (from c. 1800)... Sometimes it is necessary to press heavily, other times only very light. Sometimes one half of the block is rolled in [with ink] bold, the other half only skimpy. By first printing sometimes the first layer of paint on a piece of paper, a gentle tint appears which is then printed on the original. Another time I print the first print of the paper back on the original... As soon as the color-planes have been applied, the first state is reached, so to say..
.. Of course all kinds of side-steps can be made, while working. In case of enlivening the picture - both in terms of color or decoration - the main goal I always keep in mind.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Het onderwerp meldt zichzelf en wordt nooit gezocht, daarna volgt een kleine tekening voor de kleurvlakken die meteen vaststaan. Deze kleuren worden met groote houtblokken gedrukt en met de handrol bijgewerkt en verlevendigt. Als pers gebruik ik een oude handpers met hefboom (c. 1800).. .Soms is het noodig zwaar te drukken, soms heel licht; soms wordt de ene helft van het blok vet ingerold [met inkt], de andere helft schraal, ook wordt door eerst op een stuk papier de eerste laag verf af te drukken een lichte tint gekregen die dan op het origineel afgedrukt wordt, een andere keer druk ik de eerste druk van het papier weer op het origineel af.. Zijn de kleurvlakken aangebracht, dan is als het ware de eerste staat bereikt..
.Het spreekt vanzelf dat onder het werk verschillende zijsprongetjes gemaakt kunnen worden. Ter verlevendiging, zowel wat kleur als wat versiering aangaat: het hoofddoel staat steeds voor oogen.
Quote from Werkman's letter (6.) to August Henkels, 24 Jan. 1941; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 134
1940's

Color , Light , Appearance , Time

“This election was lost four and five and six years ago not this year. They dident start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickled down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the dryest little spot. But he dident know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands. They saved the big banks but the little ones went up the flue.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Nationally syndicated column number 518, And Here’s How It All Happened (1932), as published in the Tulsa Daily World, 5 December 1932.<ref>
Weekly columns

Money , People , Hope , Thinking

“I'm very pleased with each advancing year. It stems back to when I was forty. I was a bit upset about reaching that milestone, but an older friend consoled me. "Don't complain about growing old — many, many people do not have that privilege."”

Earl Warren (1891–1974) United States federal judge

Statement on celebrating his 83rd birthday (March 1974), as quoted in The Reader's Digest (1980) Vol. 116, p. 43
1970s

People

“I adore the sovereign lord of the royal land -
May his dominion extend over the reaches of the cosmos!”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Spoils of Annwn

“Although we will not deviate from our stated position that Gibraltar will never be Spanish, we reach out our hand in friendship and reiterate equally forcefully our desire to have a strong and positive relationship of cooperation with our Spanish neighbours.”

Fabian Picardo (1972) Gibraltarian politician and barrister

[12 June 2018, Chief Minister's Address To United Nations Committee Of 24, http://vox.gi/cms/local/11516-chief-minister-s-address-to-un-committee-of-24.html, VOX Gibraltar News, 21 June 2018]
2018

Friendship , Strong

“It's often claimed that many people in the West are converting to Islam, and it's true that some are, but it's also true that many Muslims in the West are leaving Islam, but you don't hear so much about them for obvious reasons. Some of them have been brave enough to make themselves known, and reach out to help other Muslims who want to escape the tyranny of their religion, and, like them, it's the religion I have a problem with, not the people. So no, I don't hate Muslims — thanks for asking — I wish them well. Even the fanatics who stand at the roadside with their dopey little banners and bulging eyeballs, calling for death to the West — I even wish those boneheads well, in that I wish them good mental health, if that isn't too wildly optimistic. And of course I know that there are lots of moderate, peaceful Muslims. Indeed, many of them are so moderate and peaceful, they're invisible and silent, and that is part of the problem. And just because there are lots of peaceful Muslims, it doesn't mean the religion itself is not an aggressive, fascist ideology that threatens all our freedoms, nor does it mean that western governments aren't falling over themselves to make excuses for it, pretending that Islam has nothing to do with the violence inspired and sanctioned by its scripture, and repeatedly carried out in its name.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

The Enemy Within http://youtube.com/watch?v=NUiysSau8Qk (18 July 2010)]
2010

Death , Hate , People , Health

“In economic theory the conclusions are sometimes less interesting than the route by which they are reached.”

Piero Sraffa (1898–1983) Italian economist

October 1975 in letter to C.P. Blitch, as cited in: Riccardo Bellofiore, ‎Scott Carter (2014), Towards a New Understanding of Sraffa. p. 199

“Now, when individuals read the entire transcript of the [March] 21st [1973] meeting, or hear the entire tape, where we discussed all these options, they may reach different interpretations, but I know what I meant, and I know also what I did.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

News Conference (6 March 1974) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=4377
1970s

Reading

“But with royalty you never know. They think differently than real people. The real world never quite seems to reach them.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 126, “Taglios: Royal Return” (p. 720)

People , World , Thinking

“"Hair loss and retrieval" (Translation of "Pérdida y recuperación del pelo")

To combat pragmatism and the horrible tendency to achieve useful purposes, my elder cousin proposes the procedure of pulling out a nice hair from the head, knotting it in the middle and droping it gently down the hole in the sink. If the hair gets caught in the grid that usually fills in these holes, it will just take to open the tap a little to lose sight of it.

Without wasting an instant, must start the hair recovery task. The first operation is reduced to dismantling the siphon from the sink to see if the hair has become hooked in any of the rugosities of the drain. If it is not found, it is necessary to expose the section of pipe that goes from the siphon to the main drainage pipe. It is certain that in this part will appear many hairs and we will have to count on the help of the rest of the family to examine them one by one in search of the knot. If it does not appear, the interesting problem of breaking the pipe down to the ground floor will arise, but this means a greater effort, because for eight or ten years we will have to work in a ministry or trading house to collect enough money to buy the four departments located under the one of my elder cousin, all that with the extraordinary disadvantage of what while working during those eight or ten years, the distressing feeling that the hair is no longer in the pipes anymore can not be avoided and that only by a remote chance remains hooked on some rusty spout of the drain.

The day will come when we can break the pipes of all the departments, and for months to come we will live surrounded by basins and other containers full of wet hairs, as well as of assistants and beggars whom we will generously pay to search, assort, and bring us the possible hairs in order to achieve the desired certainty. If the hair does not appear, we will enter in a much more vague and complicated stage, because the next section takes us to the city's main sewers. After buying a special outfit, we will learn to slip through the sewers at late night hours, armed with a powerful flashlight and an oxygen mask, and explore the smaller and larger galleries, assisted if possible by individuals of the underworld, with whom we will have established a relationship and to whom we will have to give much of the money that we earn in a ministry or a trading house.

Very often we will have the impression of having reached the end of the task, because we will find (or they will bring us) similar hairs of the one we seek; but since it is not known of any case where a hair has a knot in the middle without human hand intervention, we will almost always end up with the knot in question being a mere thickening of the caliber of the hair (although we do not know of any similar case) or a deposit of some silicate or any oxide produced by a long stay against a wet surface. It is probable that we will advance in this way through various sections of major and minor pipes, until we reach that place where no one will decide to penetrate: the main drain heading in the direction of the river, the torrential meeting of detritus in which no money, no boat, no bribe will allow us to continue the search.

But before that, and perhaps much earlier, for example a few centimeters from the mouth of the sink, at the height of the apartment on the second floor, or in the first underground pipe, we may happen to find the hair. It is enough to think of the joy that this would cause us, in the astonished calculation of the efforts saved by pure good luck, to choose, to demand practically a similar task, that every conscious teacher should advise to its students from the earliest childhood, instead of drying their souls with the rule of cross-multiplication or the sorrows of Cancha Rayada.”

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Money , Family , Way , Feeling

“There’s no single right way to accomplish your goals. Each of us has a number of avenues to reach our potential. The world constantly changes. Life often unfolds as a series of phases. Our potential is likely to evolve as the world evolves and as we continue to learn, grow, and develop our capabilities.
Reaching your potential is not simply about dreaming or being idealistic, It is a process that involve specific actions, exercises, discipline and hard work. It is challenging, rewarding and unending.”

Robert S. Kaplan (1940) American accounting academic

Source: What You're Really Meant To Do, 2013, p. 11

Life , World , Dreams , Way

“In his great vision Isaiah perceives the voice of the seraphim even before he hears the voice of the Lord. What is it that the seraphim reveal? "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory."
Holy, holy, holy — indicate the transcendence and distance of God. The whole earth is full of His glory — the immanence or presence of God. The outwardness of the world communicates something of the indwelling greatness of God.
The glory is neither an aesthetic nor physical quality. It is sensed in grandeur, but it is more than grandeur. It is a presence or the effulgence of a presence.
The whole earth is full of His glory, but we do not perceive it; it is within our reach but beyond our grasp. And still it is not entirely unknown to us.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5

God , World , Communication , Sense

“By openly recognizing the inescapable rhythm of harmony and tension which is the form of all human processes unitary man achieves a far-reaching emancipation. Much that was concealed can now stand in the open. The neutrality and objectivity of the quantity symbolism seemed to dissociated man a guarantee of the liberation of the mind from anthropomorphic and subjective illusions. But at deeper level it expressed merely the desire to escape inner conflict in a harmony of static form. This escape was wholly illusory; the superficial neutrality of science left it open to abuse, and the spirit of man has been punished by its attempt to escape struggle in an intellectual harmony. Unitary man renounces such separation and partakes in the development of the whole. Man finds himself in the universal process, by finding the universal process within himself. Tension continues, but henceforward his struggle is with, not against, the process of nature.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Source: The Next Development in Man (1948), p. 276

Nature , Universe , Science

“My words never reached him; I could almost hear them drop, one by one, like so many pebbles against a closed window.”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part X, ch. 51 (Sylvia Barrett)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

“Reform is a word you always ought to watch out for. Like, when Mao started the Cultural Revolution it wasn't called a reform. Reform is a change that you're supposed to like. So as soon as you hear the word reform you can reach for your wallet and see who's lifting it. […] Subsidy is another interesting word, kind of like reform. It's a subsidy if public funds are used for public purposes. That's called a subsidy. It's not called a subsidy when it goes to private wealth. That's reform or something.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk titled "Free Market Fantasies" at Harvard University, April 13, 1996 https://chomsky.info/19960413/.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999

Change , Wealth

“What we have seen is that while the average person is working longer hours for lower wages, we have seen a huge increase in income and wealth inequality, which is now reaching obscene levels. This is a rigged economy, which works for the rich and the powerful, and is not working for ordinary Americans … You know, this country just does not belong to a handful of billionaires.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

[Staff, Bernie Sanders confirms presidential run and damns America's inequities, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/30/bernie-sanders-confirms-presidential-run-and-damns-americas-inequities, 29 April 2015, the Guardian, 2 May 2015]
2010s, 2015

Personality , Country , Wealth

“This blue is the light that got lost. Light at the blue end of the spectrum does not travel the whole distance from the sun to us. It disperses among the molecules of the air, it scatters in water. Water is colorless, shallow water appears to be the color of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scattered light, the purer the water the deeper the blue. The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance. This light that does not touch us, does not travel the whole distance, the light that gets lost, gives us the beauty of the world, so much of which is in the color blue.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

A Field Guide to Getting Lost (2005)

World , Beauty , Color , Travel

“Just as the chief executive is aided by staff officials in the carrying out of his program, so also do subordinate line executives establish normal and continuous relationships with staff officials in the development of their work. If the line official cannot satisfy the staff assistant as to the necessity of his proposal, then the door of the executive's office must be open to him and he should be free to state his recommendation, explain any points of difference he has with the staff assistant, and leave the decision to his superior. As a general proposition also, if the decision is close, the chief executive should decide in favor of the line official, since presumably he knows his own needs better than any staff assistant because he is closer to them and is responsible for results. If the chief executive fails to back him up then he is bound to feel that his judgment is in question. This injures his initiative and self-confidence-as well as his confidence in his superior-and is to be avoided if possible. Ordinarily, however, if both line and staff men are competent, they will be able to reach an agreement and make a unified recommendation. Close decisions are rare when all the facts are known.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: "The Meshing of Line and Staff", 1945, pp. 102-104, as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 306-7

Men , Feeling , Confidence , Question

“It is said that a good brotherly feeling with a sense of equality is the supreme goal to be reached collectively by all members of the community.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Sri Ramana Gita

Feeling , Communication , Sense

“In the field of non-Euclidean geometry, Riemann… began by calling attention to a distinction that seems obvious once it is pointed out: the distinction between an unbounded straight line and an infinite line. The distinction between unboundedness and infiniteness is readily illustrated. A circle is an unbounded figure in that it never comes to an end, and yet it is of finite length. On the other hand, the usual Euclidean concept of a straight line is also unbounded in that it never reaches an end but is of infinite length.
…he proposed to replace the infiniteness of the Euclidean straight line by the condition that it is merely unbounded. He also proposed to adopt a new parallel axiom… In brief, there are no parallel lines. This … had been tried… in conjunction with the infiniteness of the straight line and had led to contradictions. However… Riemann found that he could construct another consistent non-Euclidean geometry.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972), p. 454

“We are programmed to find sex pleasurable for one simple reason—because animals who mate have offspring. Those who do not mate have none. Traits that result in successful reproduction get reinforced and passed on. Evolution is that simple.
It is therefore useless to bemoan as evil the fact that men tend toward aggression. Among our ancestors, aggression often helped males have more offspring than their competitors. “Good” and “evil” had little to do with it.
That is, until we reached consciousness, at which point, good and evil became pertinent indeed! Behaviors which might be excusable in dumb beasts can seem perverted, criminal, when performed by thinking beings. Just because a trait is “natural” does not oblige us to keep it.”

David Brin book Glory Season

Introduction to Chapter 7 (pp. 105-106)
Glory Season (1993)

Men , Pleasure , Sex , Behavior

“I've learned never to say never. You just don't know. But I've reached an age when you start taking it easier. But I enjoy singing. I still sing – at home.”

Anni-Frid Lyngstad (1945) Swedish female singer

When Fredrik Skavlan asks Lyngstad about her comeback to her musical career
Interview on Skavlan (2014)

Age , Home , Learning , Singing

“At the center of market fundamentalism lies the general acceptance of the Walrasian general equilibrium model, or the neo-classical paradigm. Although many economists came to doubt the universal validity of such models in view of economies of scope, bounded rationality, asymmetric information, and other types of market imperfections and ventured into institutional analysis, the orthodoxy still remains the one which postulate some type of rationality of atomized individuals and the market which mediate among these atomized individuals and firms to reach some stable equilibrium.”

Eisuke Sakakibara (1941) Japanese economist and critic

The End of Market Fundamentalism (1999)

Universe

“Without this form of social technology, the industrialized countries of the West could not have reached the heights of extravagance, wealth and pollution that they currently enjoy.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Complex organizations, 1972, p. 5; Talking about bureaucracy

Country , Wealth

“Models of bounded rationality describe how a judgement or decision is reached (that is, the heuristic processes or proximal mechanisms) rather than merely the outcome of the decision, and they describe the class of environments in which these heuristics will succeed or fail.”

Gerd Gigerenzer (1947) German psychologist

Gerd Gigerenzer and Reinhard Selten eds. Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. (2001), p. 4.

Decision

“I call those men worldly, earthly, or coarse, whose hearts and minds are wholly fixed on this earth, that small part of the universe they are placed in; who value and love nothing beyond it; whose minds are as cramped as that narrow spot of ground they call their estate, of which the extent is measured, the acres are numbered, and the limits well known. I am not astonished that men who lean, as it were, on an atom, should stumble at the smallest efforts they make for discovering the truth; that, being so short-sighted, they do not reach beyond the heavens and the stars, to contemplate God Himself; that, not being able to perceive the excellency of what is spiritual, or the dignity of the soul, they should be still less sensible of the difficulty of satisfying it; how very inferior the entire world is in comparison to it; how necessary is to it an all-perfect Being, which is God; and how absolutely it needs a religion to find out that God, and to be assured of His reality. I can easily understand that incredulity or indifference are but natural to such men, that they make use of God and religion only as a piece of policy, as far as they may be conducive to the order and decorum of this world, the only thing in their opinion worth thinking of.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of Freethinkers (3)
Les Caractères (1688)

Love , Men , God , Truth

“In the following pages, I shall demonstrate that there exists a psychological technique by which dreams may be interpreted and that upon the application of this method every dream will show itself to be a senseful psychological structure which may be introduced into an assignable place in the psychic activity of the waking state. I shall furthermore endeavor to explain the processes which give rise to the strangeness and obscurity of the dream, and to discover through them the psychic forces, which operate whether in combination or opposition, to produce the dream. This accomplished by investigation will terminate as it will reach the point where the problem of the dream meets broader problems, the solution of which must be attempted through other material.”

Sigmund Freud book The Interpretation of Dreams

"The Interpretation of Dreams" introduction, 1899; reprinted in "The Interpretation of Dreams the Illustrated Edition", Sterling Press, 2010, page 9
1890s

Dreams , Problem , Sense

“For me, to represent people who represent the future of Canada and the great challenges we will face over the coming decades — this is where I wanted to start. … I'm a teacher; I'm a convenor; I'm a gatherer; I'm someone who reaches out to people and is deeply interested in what they have to say. And people see that I'm not faking it. I'm actually genuinely committed to this dialogue that we're opening up, and this understanding that needs to happen in order to be an effective MP.”

Justin Trudeau (1971) 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; eldest son of Pierre Trudeau

On winning his riding nomination in Quebec, as quoted in "Trudeau wins Montreal riding nomination" in CBC News (30 April 2007) http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2007/04/29/trudeau.html
before leading Liberals

People , Understanding , Teachers , Future

“Love is an emotion common to all living beings. It is the path women can take to reach men, men to women, both to Nature, and Nature to the universe. And the love that overflows all boundaries is vishwa matrutvam—universal motherhood.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

The Infinite Potential of Women (2008)

Love , Women , Men , Nature

“There are few, however, who devote thought and study to perfection of Divine service—to love, fear, communion and all of the other aspects of saintliness. It is not that they consider this knowledge unessential; if questioned each one will maintain that it is of paramount importance and that one who is not clearly versed in it cannot be deemed truly wise. Their failure to devote more attention to it stems rather from its being so manifest and so obvious to them that they see no need for spending much time upon it. Consequently, this study and the reading of works of this kind have been left to those of a not too sensitive, almost dull intelligence. These you will see immersed in the study of saintliness, not stirring from it. It has reached the stage that when one sees another engaging in saintly conduct, he cannot help but suspect him of dullwittedness.”

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto book Mesillat Yesharim

Mesillat Yesharim (1738), Introduction

Love , Fear , Intelligence , Failure

“The economic problems of society are important. On the whole, we are meeting them fairly well. They are so personal and so pressing that they never fail to receive constant attention. But they are only a part. We need to put a proper emphasis on the other problems of society. We need to consider what attitude of the public mind it is necessary to cultivate in order that a mixed population like our own may dwell together more harmoniously and the family of nations reach a better state of understanding. You who have been in the service know how absolutely necessary it is in a military organization that the individual subordinate some part of his personality for the general good. That is the one great lesson which results from the training of a soldier. Whoever has been taught that lesson in camp and field is thereafter the better equipped to appreciate that it is equally applicable in other departments of life. It is necessary in the home, in industry and commerce, in scientific and intellectual development. At the foundation of every strong and mature character we find this trait which is best described as being subject to discipline. The essence of it is toleration. It is toleration in the broadest and most inclusive sense, a liberality of mind, which gives to the opinions and judgments of others the same generous consideration that it asks for its own, and which is moved by the spirit of the philosopher who declared that 'To know all is to forgive all.”

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

It may not be given to infinite beings to attain that ideal, but it is none the less one toward which we should strive.
1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Life , Family , Home , Forgiveness

“Who first shall reach the mill, he first shall grind.”

Giovanni Maria Cecchi (1518–1587) Italian poet, playwright, writer and notary

Chi prima giugne al mulin, prima macina.
Gli Sciamiti, Act II., Scene III.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 270.

“The merging of different motif areas in her drawings and the transformation of spacial relationships into flat correspondences gathers towards a distortion of depicted reality and the dissolution of its phenomenal form.' I didn't try to reach the sense of this. I understood the point of it was to transpose the locus of authority from the works to the discussion of the works. The writer had assumed the role of validating authority for the images he discussed. In order to do this he had been required to transform what he saw with his eyes into ideologies that he could 'see' with his intellect.”

Alex Miller book The Ancestor Game

Page 18.
The Ancestor Game (1992)

Reality , Sense , Drawing

“Opportunity marries with circumstance and is midwife to the resultant bartering of public office. The mutuality is advantage to the parties involved merely facilitates the spread of such practices. When it reaches the point of being commonplace and is pragmatically perceived as the most practical means of getting things done, it has become systemic and difficult to eradicate.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Opening remarks to Transparency International Pacific Regional Meeting, 13 April 2005.

“Professor S. A. A. Rizvi gives some graphic details of this dream described by Shah Waliullah himself in his Fuyûd al-Harmayn which he wrote soon after his return to Indian in 1732: “In the same vision he saw that the king of the kafirs had seized Muslim towns, plundered their wealth and enslaved their children. Earlier the king had introduced infidelity amongst the faithful and banished Islamic practices. Such a situation infuriated Allah and made Him angry with His creatures. The Shah then witnessed the expression of His fury in the mala’ala (a realm where objects and events are shaped before appearing on earth) which in turn gave rise to Shah’s own wrath. Then the Shah found himself amongst a gathering of racial groups such as Turks, Uzbeks and Arabs, some riding camels, others horses. They seemed to him very like pilgrims in the Arafat. The Shah’s temper exasperated the pilgrims who began to question him about the nature of the divine command. This was the point, he answered, from which all worldly organizations would begin to disintegrate and revert to anarchy. When asked how long such a situation would last, Shah Wali-Allah’s reply was until Allah’s anger had subsided… Shah Wali-Allah and the pilgrims then travelled from town to town slaughtering the infidels. Ultimately they reached Ajmer, slaughtered the nonbelievers there, liberated the town and imprisoned the infidel king. Then the Shah saw the infidel king with the Muslim army, led by its king, who then ordered that the infidel monarch be killed. The bloody slaughter prompted the Shah to say that divine mercy was on the side of the Muslims.””

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

S.A.A. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and His Times, Canberra. 1980, p.218. Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (1995). Muslim separatism: Causes and consequences. ISBN 9788185990262

Children , Faith , Dreams , Travel

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

Doron Zeilberger (1950) Israeli mathematician

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

Mathematics , Perfection

“Your desire or beliefs will literally be reaching back into time, teaching the nerves new tricks. Definite reorganizations in that past will occur in your present, allowing you to behave in entirely new fashions. Learned behavior therefore alters not only present and future but also past conduct.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Nature of Personal Reality (1974), p. 359 Session 654

Behavior , Fashion , Learning , Time

“If the cells and fibres in one human brain were all stretched out end to end, they would certainly reach to the moon and back. Yet the fact that they are not arranged end to end enabled man to go there himself. The astonishing tangle within our heads makes us what we are.”

Colin Blakemore (1944) British neuroscientist

Mechanics of the Mind (1977, Cambridge University Press).

“At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously — I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

John Keats Letter to George and Thomas Keats

Letter to George and Thomas Keats (December 22, 1817)
Letters (1817–1820)

Literature

“The infidels demolished a mosque that was under construction and wounded the artisans. When the news reached Shah Yasin, he came to Banaras from Mandyawa and collecting the Muslim weavers, demolished the big temple. A Sayyid who was an artisan by profession agreed with one Abdul Rasul to build a mosque at Banaras and accordingly the foundation was laid. Near the place there was a temple and many houses belonging to it were in the occupation of the Rajputs. The infidels decided that the construction of a mosque in the locality was not proper and that it should be razed to the ground. At night the walls of the mosque were found demolished. Next day the wall was rebuilt but it was again destroyed. This happened three or four times. At last the Sayyid hid himself in a corner. With the advent of night the infidels came to achieve their nefarious purpose. When Abdul Rasul gave the alarm, the infidels began to fight and the Sayyid was wounded by Rajputs. In the meantime, the Musalman resident of the neighbourhood arrived at the spot and the infidels took to their heels. The wounded Muslims were taken to Shah Yasin who determined to vindicate the cause of Islam. When he came to the mosque, people collected from the neighbourhood. The civil officers were outwardly inclined to side with the saint, but in reality they were afraid of the royal displeasure on account of the Raja, who was a courtier of the Emperor and had built the temple (near which the mosque was under construction). Shah Yasin, however, took up the sword and started for Jihad. The civil officers sent him a message that such a grave step should not be taken without the Emperor's permission. Shah Yasin, paying no heed, sallied forth till he reached Bazar Chau Khamba through a fusillade of stones' The, doors (of temples) were forced open and the idols thrown down. The weavers and other Musalmans demolished about 500 temples. They desired to destroy the temple of Beni Madho, but as lanes were barricaded, they desisted from going further.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) Ganj-i-Arshadi, cited in : Sharma, Sri Ram, Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors, Bombay, 1962. p. 144-45
Quotes from late medieval histories

People , Reality , Time , Fight