Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian
The Erasmus Reader (1990), p. 141.
Handbook of the Christian Soldier (1503)
Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian
The Erasmus Reader (1990), p. 141.
Handbook of the Christian Soldier (1503)
Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin
Kosmos (1847)
Context: If we would indicate an idea which, throughout the whole course of history, has ever more and more widely extended its empire, or which, more than any other, testifies to the much-contested and still more decidedly misunderstood perfectibility of the whole human race, it is that of establishing our common humanity — of striving to remove the barriers which prejudice and limited views of every kind have erected among men, and to treat all mankind, without reference to religion, nation, or color, as one fraternity, one great community, fitted for the attainment of one object, the unrestrained development of the physical powers. This is the ultimate and highest aim of society, identical with the direction implanted by nature in the mind of man toward the indefinite extension of his existence. He regards the earth in all its limits, and the heavens as far as his eye can scan their bright and starry depths, as inwardly his own, given to him as the objects of his contemplation, and as a field for the development of his energies. Even the child longs to pass the hills or the seas which inclose his narrow home; yet, when his eager steps have borne him beyond those limits, he pines, like the plant, for his native soil; and it is by this touching and beautiful attribute of man — this longing for that which is unknown, and this fond remembrance of that which is lost — that he is spared from an exclusive attachment to the present. Thus deeply rooted in the innermost nature of man, and even enjoined upon him by his highest tendencies, the recognition of the bond of humanity becomes one of the noblest leading principles in the history of mankind.
“You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to "saints."”
Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning
Postscript 1984 : The Case for a Tragic Optimism, based on a lecture at the Third World Congress of Logotherapy, Regensburg University (19 June 1983)
Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)
Context: You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to "saints." Wouldn't it suffice just to refer to decent people? It is true that they form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge to join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
So, let us be alert — alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist
Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927)
Context: I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.
Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist
Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927)
Context: I consider those developments in physics during the last decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as "objective" and "subjective" are, a great liberation of thought. The whole thing started with the theory of relativity. In the past, the statement that two events are simultaneous was considered an objective assertion, one that could be communicated quite simply and that was open to verification by any observer. Today we know that 'simultaneity' contains a subjective element, inasmuch as two events that appear simultaneous to an observer at rest are not necessarily simultaneous to an observer in motion. However, the relativistic description is also objective inasmuch as every observer can deduce by calculation what the other observer will perceive or has perceived. For all that, we have come a long way from the classical ideal of objective descriptions.
In quantum mechanics the departure from this ideal has been even more radical. We can still use the objectifying language of classical physics to make statements about observable facts. For instance, we can say that a photographic plate has been blackened, or that cloud droplets have formed. But we can say nothing about the atoms themselves. And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and here the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation. To that extent, every physical process may be said to have objective and subjective features. The objective world of nineteenth-century science was, as we know today, an ideal, limiting case, but not the whole reality. Admittedly, even in our future encounters with reality we shall have to distinguish between the objective and the subjective side, to make a division between the two. But the location of the separation may depend on the way things are looked at; to a certain extent it can be chosen at will. Hence I can quite understand why we cannot speak about the content of religion in an objectifying language. The fact that different religions try to express this content in quite distinct spiritual forms is no real objection. Perhaps we ought to look upon these different forms as complementary descriptions which, though they exclude one another, are needed to convey the rich possibilities flowing from man's relationship with the central order.
Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 293
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long
Ko Wen-je (1959) Taiwanese politician and physician
Ko Wen-je (2019) cited in " Tibetan group demands apology from Ko Wen-je http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2019/10/25/2003724598" on Taipei Times, 25 October 2019.
Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister
Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972
2002
Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now
It is psychological time: past and future. Certain things in the past didn't go the way you wanted them to go. You are still resisting what happened in the past, and now you are resisting what is. Hope is what keeps you going, but hope keeps you focused on the future, and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the Now and therefore your unhappiness. p. 43
The Power of Now (1997)
Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality
Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 67
Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality
Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 60
Éric Zemmour (1958) French essayist
Will Eric Zemmour become France's Trump? https://www.wyniasweek.nl/wordt-eric-zemmour-de-franse-trump/
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Source: Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
Chris Wooding (1977) British children's writer
Source: The Iron Jackal
“What kind of man refers to himself as safely dead?”
Megan Whalen Turner (1965) American children's writer
Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me.”
Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs
Source: The Silence of the Lambs
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Insofern sich die Sätze der Mathematik auf die Wirklichkeit beziehen, sind sie nicht sicher, und insofern sie sicher sind, beziehen sie sich nicht auf die Wirklichkeit. http://books.google.com/books?id=QF0ON71WuxEC&q=%22Insofern+sich+die+S%C3%A4tze+der+Mathematik+auf+die%22&pg=PA3#v=onepage<br><br>Geometrie and Erfahrung (1921) pp. 3-4 link.springer.com http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-49903-6_1#page-1 as cited by Karl Popper, The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014) Tr. Andreas Pickel, Ed. Troels Eggers Hansen.<br>Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Albert Einstein / Quotes / 1920s<br><br>http://books.google.com/books?id=QF0ON71WuxEC&q=%22beziehen+sind+sie+nicht+sicher+und+insofern+sie+sicher+sind+beziehen+sie+sich+nicht+auf+die+Wirklichkeit%22&pg=PA4#v=onepage <br class="br">1920s, Sidelights on Relativity (1922)
“He referred to you as his little snack."
"He's a sweetie.”
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Bites
“Aha," Andrea said. "I'm going to ignore that you just referred to yourself as 'sugar woogums'.”
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Slays
“With no fact as a referent, what is normative is purely a matter of preference.”
Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher
2000s
Source: [The Real Face of Atheism, 2004, 9780801065118, 3293056M, http://books.google.com/books?id=0SD0mYaYz3sC&pg=PA56&dq=%22with+no+fact%22, 56]
Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War
To his personal secretary John Colville the evening before Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. As quoted by Andrew Nagorski in The Greatest Battle (2007), Simon & Schuster, pp. 150–151 ISBN 0743281101
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Variant: If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now
Chelsea Handler (1975) American comedian, actress, author and talk show host
Source: My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands
“Well, for future reference, this is my serious face.”
Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer
Source: Dark Days
Bill Bryson book At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Source: At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see, —painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them, and are willing to let the words go; for, at any time, they can use words as good when occasion comes. If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.
Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner
Misattributed
David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger
Livewire interview (2002)
Context: Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods' presence in his life. He is the 21st century man. However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat
"Recession Economics," New York Review of Books, Volume 29, Number 1 (4 February 1982)
Context: Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy— what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.
“To refer to the Church as a building is to call people 2 x 4's.”
Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution
Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker
Source: Don't Worry, Make Money: Spiritual and Practical Ways to Create Abundance and More Fun in Your Life
Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Julia Serano (1967) transsexual American writer, spoken-word performer, trans-bi activist, and biologist
Leftist Critiques of Identity Politics (2018)
John DeFrancis (1911–2009) American linguist
Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems (1989, pp. 115-116) http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/visible/index.html <br class="br">Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems (1989)
Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions
In p. 3.
Sources, Seer of the Fifth Veda: Kr̥ṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa in the Mahābhārata
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)
Talcott Parsons (1902–1979) American sociologist
Talcott Parsons (1968) "Systems Analysis: Social Systems" in: David L. Sills ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. p. 472
Kathleen M. Eisenhardt American economist
Source: "Control: Organizational and economic approaches," 1985, p. 135
Gerald Cohen (1941–2009) Canadian philosopher
I. The Camping Trip
Why Not Socialism? (2009)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Paragraph 23
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913–1996) sixth President of India
On his differences with the Prime Minister Morarji Desai, in: p. 237
Commissions and Omissions by Indian Prime Ministers, Volume 1
Thomas Keneally book Schindler's Ark
The references are to Matthew 10:29 (or Luke 12:6) and Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8 (37a).
Source: Schindler's Ark (1982), Ch. 2.
Arthur Jensen (1923–2012) professor of educational psychology
Arthur Jensen, "The Debunking of Scientific Fossils and Straw Persons" http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/jensen-gould-fossils Contemporary Education Review 1:2, 1982
Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music
Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 2 : Fragments
Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer
Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 1: Dreams: A State of Reality, p. 20
Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast
"6th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3k0dDFxkhM, Youtube (February 2, 2008) <br class="br">Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism
William Herschel (1738–1822) German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer
Source: Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880), Ch.4 "Life and Works" from a memoir, published (1817).
Lucy Aharish (1981) Arab-Israeli journalist
Source: Lucy Aharish's campus speech http://www.onlife.co.il/%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%95%D7%93%D7%94/%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%99%D7%92%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%A8/85312/%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%90-%D7%97%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%A3-%D7%90%D7%97%D7%93 at "מנהיגות היום את המחר". Onlife. 9 November 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2015. Video available.
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Rebuttal
Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist
on creating art without using oil colors to avoid any reference with usual painting, in The Art of Jean Arp, Herbert Read, Abrams, New York 1968, p. p. 34, 38
1960s
Fali Sam Nariman (1929) Indian politician
On writing about his autobiography.
Fali Sam Nariman: An Interview
Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath
Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)
Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer
Source: Adventures In Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology (1975), pp.118-119
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Dissenting, Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49 (1972)
Judicial opinions
El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect
Quote, 1920; in 'Suprematism in World Reconstruction,', El Lissitzky; as cited by Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers in El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, transl. Helene Aldwinckle and Mary Whittall (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1968), p. 327
1915 - 1925
Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer
Source: Money Mischief (1992), Ch. 2 The Mystery of Money