Quotes about result
page 13

“I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy…censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”

Robert A. Heinlein book If This Goes On

If This Goes On— (p. 401)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Motivation, Sense, Reading

“I have worked like a galley slave throughout these eight years, morning till night, and I have given all I could to this work. I am happy with the results.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Quoted in The Truth About Putin and Medvedev http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21353, last annual press conference. 2006- 2010

Happiness, Night

“Engineers speak of a “control loop,” in which the “man in the loop” is the problematical element. This is the human component in a series of sequentially interacting pieces of equipment that control or adjust a function. But when the pilot is suddenly and unexpectedly brought into the control loop (in other words, participates in decision making) as a result of (inevitable) equipment failure, he is disoriented. Long periods of passive monitoring make one unprepared to act in emergencies. The sudden appearance of several alarms, all there for safety reasons, leads to disorientation.”

Charles Perrow book Normal Accidents

Source: 1980s and later, Normal Accidents, 1984, p. 132

Failure, Decision, Appearance

“Generally, the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day, regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Regarding the Mexican–American War (1883), as quoted in Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), p. 16.
1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)

War, Justice, Indifference

“There is a direct relationship between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results. Why? First, when you have a celebrity, the company turns into “the one genius with 1,000 helpers.” It creates a sense that the whole thing is really about the CEO. At a deeper level, we found that for leaders to make something great, their ambition has to be for the greatness of the work and the company, rather than for themselves.”

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

James C. Collins, in interview in: Fast Company online magazine, October 2001.

Sense

“Now - how can we possibly examine something we use all the time and presuppose in every statement? How can we criticize the terms in which we habitually express our observations? Let us see! The first step in our criticism of commonly-used concepts is to create a measure of criticism, something with which these concepts can be compared. Of course, we shall later want to know a little more about the measuring stick itself; for example, we shall want to know whether it is better than, or perhaps not as good as, the material examined. But in order for this examination to start there must be a measuring-stick in the first place. Therefore, the first step in our criticism of customary concepts and customary reactions is to step outside the circle and either to invent a new conceptual system, for example a new theory, that clashes with the most carefully established observational results and confounds with the most plausible theoretical principles, or to import such a system from outside science, from religion, from mythology, from the ideas of incompetents, or the ramblings of madmen. This step is, again, counter-inductive, Counter-induction is thus both a fact”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

science could not exist without it - and a legitimate and much needed move in the game of science.
Pg 68.
Against Method (1975)

Religion, Game, Idea, Science

“It's hard for me to talk about the events, which happened before my arrival, I didn't take part in them, but I know, the atmosphere in the club can be better. I think, each of us has to understand, that we as a team, as one unit need to reach results.", Tymoschuk about the conflicts which started in Zenit at the time he was absent,”

Anatoliy Tymoshchuk (1979) Ukrainian footballer

http://www.sports.ru/football/151506785.html. (2013)

Understanding, Thinking, Time, Parting

“A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge. Consider, sir; what is the purpose of courts of justice? It is, that every man may have his cause fairly tried, by men appointed to try causes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not to produce what he knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp the province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what shall be the effect of evidence — what shall be the result of legal argument.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

August 15, 1773
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

Men, Lie, Justice, Business

“All the paradigms of culturally evolved institutions, morals, exchange, and money refer to such practices whose benefits transcend the individuals who practice them in the particular instances. The result is that whole groups may be helped by them to expand into what I shall call extended orders, through the effects of practices of which the individuals are not aware. Such practices can lead to the formation of orderly structures far exceeding the perception of those whose actions produce them.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

"The Origins and Effects of Our Morals: A Problem for Science", in The Essence of Hayek (1984)
1980s and later

Money, Help

“Is it possible for us to make an analysis which will disclose this element that has wrought such a strangely different result here in our country? It must be an element that was present among the peoples of Europe while they were still in Europe. It could not have been brought here except by them. There has been nobody else to bring it. The original human materials were the same in both cases.”

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

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)

People, Country

“So the game plan is not merely to free the income of the wealthiest class to “offshore” itself into assets denominated in harder currencies abroad. It is to scrap the progressive tax system altogether. … How stable can a global situation be where the richest nation does not tax its population, but creates new public debt to hand out to its bankers? … The “solution” to the coming financial crisis in the United States may await the dollar’s plunge as an opportunity for a financial Tonkin Gulf resolution. Such a crisis would help catalyze the tax system’s radical change to a European-style “Steve Forbes” flat tax and VAT sales-excise tax…. More government giveaways will be made to the financial sector in a vain effort to keep bad debts afloat and banks “solvent.” As in Ireland and Latvia, public debt will replace private debt, leaving little remaining for Social Security or indeed for much social spending. … The bottom line is that after the prolonged tax giveaway exacerbates the federal budget deficit – along with the balance-of-payments deficit – we can expect the next Republican or Democratic administration to step in and “save” the country from economic emergency by scaling back Social Security while turning its funding over, Pinochet-style, to Wall Street money managers to loot as they did in Chile. And one can forget rebuilding America’s infrastructure. It is being sold off by debt-strapped cities and states to cover their budget shortfalls resulting from un-taxing real estate and from foreclosures. Welcome to debt peonage. This is worse than what was meant by a double-dip recession. It will be with us much longer.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

Obama's Bushism http://michael-hudson.com/2010/12/obamas-bushism/ (December 8, 2010) Michael-Hudson.com, 1998-

Money, Game, Effort, Change

“You remain the more than natural figure. You
Become the soft-footed phantom, the irrationalDistortion, however fragrant, however dear.
That’s it: the more than rational distortion,
The fiction that results from feeling. Yes, that.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Give Pleasure

Feeling, Nature

“In 1991, I crossed party lines and supported the use of force against Saddam Hussein, but he was allowed to survive his defeat as the result of a calculation we all had reason to deeply regret for the ensuing decade. And we still do. So this time, if we resort to force, we must absolutely get it right. It must be an action set up carefully and on the basis of the most realistic concepts. Failure cannot be an option, which means that we must be prepared to go the limit. And wishful thinking based on best-case scenarios or excessively literal transfers of recent experience to different conditions would be a recipe for disaster.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, Our Larger Tasks (2002)

Failure, Support, Thinking, Time

“Mao Zedong was a great leader of the Chinese Revolution and as a result enjoyed an enormous amount of prestige among he ordinary Chinese people. However, Mao, as a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist, had always worked with and relied upon other Party leaders as well had always worked with and relied upon either Party leaders as well as the grass-roots Part members and masses to accomplish political, economic and social goals. Mao never relied upon and never believed in a command hierarchy imposed form above. Within the Chinese Communist Party, Mao had never gained that kind of absolute control that Stalin had over the Soviet Communist Party (and even Stalin could not simply impose his will without the cooperation of much of the Party and state bureaucracy). ON the contrary, on many historical occasions, Mao often found himself in the minority (as Lenin did within the Part leadership. If Mai's intention had eventually become the will of the Party, that took place only after patient and sustained persuasion, difficult and sometimes intense intra-Party struggle, criticism and self-criticisms, and most importantly, after the Party leaders and members had learnt from practice themselves.”

Li Minqi (1969) Chinese economist

Source: The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy (2008), Chapter Two, "Accumulation, Basic Needs, and Class Struggle: the Rise of Modern China"

People, Grass, Parting

“Our meeting with Admiral Leighton Smith, on the other hand, did not go well. He had been in charge of the NATO air strikes in August and September [1995], and this gave him enormous credibility, especially with the Bosnian Serbs. Smith was also the beneficiary of a skillful public relations effort that cast him as the savior of Bosnia. In a long profile, Newsweek had called him "a complex warrior and civilizer, a latter-day George C. Marshall." This was quite a journalistic stretch, given the fact that Smith considered the civilian aspects of the task beneath him and not his job - quite the opposite of what General Marshall stood for.
After a distinguished thirty-three-year Navy career, including almost three hundred combat missions in Vietnam, Smith was well qualified for his original post as commander of NATO's southern forces and Commander in Chief of all U. S. naval forces in Europe. But he was the wrong man for his additional assignment as IFOR commander, which was the result of two bureaucratic compromises, one with the French, the other with the American military. General Joulwan rightly wanted the sixty thousand IFOR soldiers to have as their commanding officer an Army general trained in the use of ground forces. But Paris insisted that if Joulwan named a separate Bosnia commander, it would have to be a Frenchman. This was politically impossible for the United States; thus, the Franh objections left only one way to preserve an American chain of command - to give the job to Admiral Smith, who joked that he was now known as "General" Smith. (…)
On the military goals of Dayton, he was fine; his plans for separating the forces along the line we had drawn in Dayton and protecting his forces were first-rate. But he was hostile to any suggestions that IFOR help implement any nonmilitary portion of the agreement. This, he said repeatedly, was not his job.
Based on Shalikashvili's statement at White House meetings, Christopher and I had assumed that the IFOR commander would use his authority to do substancially more than he was obligated to do. The meeting with Smith shattered that hope. Smith and his British deputy, General Michael Walker, made clear that they intended to take a minimalist approach to all aspects of implementation other than force protection. Smith signaled this in his first extensive public statement to the Bosnian people, during a live call-in program on Pale Television - an odd choice for his first local media appearance. During the program, he answered a question in a manner that dangerously narrowed his own authority. He later told Newsweek about it with a curious pride: "One of the questions I was asked was, "Admiral, is it true that IFOR is going to arrest Serbs in the Serb suburbs of Sarajevo?" I said, "Absolutely not, I don't have the authority to arrest anybody"."”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

This was an inaccurate way to describe IFOR's mandate. It was true IFOR was not supposed to make routine arrests of ordinary citizens. But IFOR had the authority to arrest indicted war criminals, and could also detain anyone who posed a threat to its forces. Knowing what the question meant, Smith had sent an unfortunate signal of reassurance to Karadzic - over his own network.
Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p.327-329

Hostility, War, People, Hope

“I cannot refrain… from expressing my surprise that, according to the report in The Times there should be so much complaint about the difficulty of understanding the new theory. It is evident that Einstein's little book "About the Special and the General Theory of Relativity in Plain Terms," did not find its way into England during wartime. Any one reading it will, in my opinion, come to the conclusion that the basic ideas of the theory are really clear and simple; it is only to be regretted that it was impossible to avoid clothing them in pretty involved mathematical terms, but we must not worry about that. …
The Newtonian theory remains in its full value as the first great step, without which one cannot imagine the development of astronomy and without which the second step, that has now been made, would hardly have been possible. It remains, moreover, as the first, and in most cases, sufficient, approximation. It is true that, according to Einstein's theory, because it leaves us entirely free as to the way in which we wish to represent the phenomena, we can imagine an idea of the solar system in which the planets follow paths of peculiar form and the rays of light shine along sharply bent lines—think of a twisted and distorted planetarium—but in every case where we apply it to concrete questions we shall so arrange it that the planets describe almost exact ellipses and the rays of light almost straight lines.
It is not necessary to give up entirely even the ether. …according to the Einstein theory, gravitation itself does not spread instantaneously, but with a velocity that at the first estimate may be compared with that of light. …In my opinion it is not impossible that in the future this road, indeed abandoned at present, will once more be followed with good results, if only because it can lead to the thinking out of new experimental tests. Einstein's theory need not keep us from so doing; only the ideas about the ether must accord with it.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Theory of Relativity: A Concise Statement (1920)

Books, Way, Imagination, Mathematics

“This leads me of course to at least mention here the cruel methods used in the slaughtering of animals and fowls for human consumption. The creatures are treated as if they possessed no feeling or consciousness of their own - and such attitudes show a most unfortunate misreading of natural events. As a direct result, at least as many diseases develop through such procedures as would exist in a highly primitive society with unsanitary conditions.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Way Toward Health (1997), p. 197

Disease, Feeling, Nature, Animals

“The manner in which the subordinates do their work has incontestably a great effect upon the ultimate result, but the operation of management has much greater effect.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Source: The administrative theory in the state, 1923, p. 102 cited in: Göran Svensson, Greg Wood, (2006) "Sustainable components of leadership effectiveness in organizational performance", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 25 Iss: 6, pp.522 - 534

“If a minority, losing an election, can break up the government rather than accept the results of the election, free government is impossible. If the only alternatives to rule by a Constitutional majority, I say, Constitutional majority, a majority formed under the rules of the Constitution with minority rights secured. There were no examples of the Republicans doing anything to prevent the opposition from having freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of association. There was a great deal of interference with those rights in the Southern states. But they lost the election according to their own rights. And Lincoln said that if people can break up the government rather than accept the results of a fairly conducted election, then the only alternatives are anarchy or tyranny. What is to prevent, he said, anyone of the states seceding from any future union?”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution

People, Freedom, Future

“The 'new theory of money and the cycle' which is spoken of in the opening paragraph is of course Hayek's. It was from Hayek that I began - where I got to will be seen. Even at the end, I was minimising my differences from Hayek. I could do so because, as I have elsewhere explained (Economic Perspectives, p. 141n), I still thought, like Pigou and Robertson, and Hayek, but by that time unlike Keynes, that 'we were talking about fluctuations, which, since they did not result in complete collapse or complete explosion, could not have engendered an expectation of going on forever. Booms could then be considered as times of high prices, slumps as times of low prices - with regard to some norm, which throughout the which throughout the fluctuations would not be changed, or not much changed'.”

John Hicks (1904–1989) British economist

Source: Money, Interest and Wages, (1982), p. 28; on his "Equilibrium and the Cycle" (1933), an influential work on the topics of intertemporal equilibrium, monetary theory, and trade cycle phenomena.

Money, Change, Time

“The standard of judgment is no longer results but the flickering image of seriousness, skillfully crafted to squeeze into 30 seconds on the nightly news. In this world, emotion has become suspect - the accepted style is smooth, antiseptic and passionless.”

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

On the national debate, Speech http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/10/us/biden-joins-campaign-for-the-presidency.html announcing entry into 1988 presidential race, Wilmington, Delaware (June 10, 1987) 1980s

World

“The world was rightly horrified by America’s recent blunder in bombing the Médecins sans Frontières’ hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. But how many Syrian Kunduzes will result from Russian airstrikes if the Kremlin continues to favor bombs over guided missiles?”

Bernard-Henri Lévy (1948) French film director and philosopher

West should not appease Russia http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/bernard-henry-levy-west-should-not-appease-russia-400065.html

World

“In June of 1964 the research group and academic program moved to Penn bringing with it most of the faculty, students, and research projects. Our activities flourished in the very supportive environment that Penn and Wharton provided. The wide variety of faculty members that we were able to involve in our activities significantly enhanced our capabilities. By the mid-1960s I had become uncomfortable with the direction, or rather, the lack of direction, of professional Operations Research. I had four major complaints.
First, it had become addicted to its mathematical tools and had lost sight of the problems of management. As a result it was looking for problems to which to apply its tools rather than looking for tools that were suitable for solving the changing problems of management. Second, it failed to take into account the fact that problems are abstractions extracted from reality by analysis. Reality consists of systems of problems, problems that are strongly interactive, messes. I believed that we had to develop ways of dealing with these systems of problems as wholes. Third, Operations Research had become a discipline and had lost its commitment to interdisciplinarity. Most of it was being carried out by professionals who had been trained in the subject, its mathematical techniques. There was little interaction with the other sciences professions and humanities. Finally, Operations Research was ignoring the developments in systems thinking — the methodology, concepts, and theories being developed by systems thinkers.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Preface, cited in Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture http://booksite.elsevier.com/samplechapters/9780123859150/Front_Matter.pdf. Elsevier, 2011. p. xiii Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985

Way, Mathematics, Support, Problem

“And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Speech in Springfield, Ohio, September 27, 2004 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040927-4.html 2000s, 2004

“The crown and glory of life is Character. It is the noblest possession of a man, constituting a rank in itself, and an estate in the general goodwill; dignifying every station, and exalting every position in society. It exercises a greater power than wealth, and secures all the honour without the jealousies of fame. It carries with it an influence which always tells; for it is the result of proved honour, rectitude, and consistency — qualities which, perhaps more than any other, command the general confidence and respect of mankind.”

Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) Scottish author

Source: Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859), Ch. XIII : Character — The True Gentleman

Life, Jealousy, Exercises, Confidence

“The growth and maintenance of new synaptic terminals makes memory persist. …The ability to grow new synaptic connections as a result of experience appears to have been conserved throughout evolution. As an example… the cortical maps of the body surface are subject to constant modification in response to changing input from sensory pathways.”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

In Search of Memory (2006)

Appearance, Memory, Change

“For, whenever the world is somewhat oriented toward the truth, God would not delegate sovereignty to a tyrant. If such a delegation occurs as a result of his foreordaining it, it is not by an irrevocable decree. For, such a situation has been foreordained, but sometimes such tyrants do not exist. Consider how the Jews were destroyed at the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Even though the temple was destroyed, God aided it, as a way of awakening the Jews, just as it is recorded in the words of Jeremiah. This was also for a solid reason and for the good. Seventy years after the destruction, by the help of Cyrus the Persian (Kaykhusraw, the descendant of the aforementioned Kayqubad), the temple was rebuilt. In the course of several reigns, it was completed. Naturally, every [divine] action has some benefit, and every occurrence is for some improvement. These souls were sitting, secluded, in a corner. Whatever God desired, took place. He knows the tyranny of the tyrant and sees human beings. It is not that he does not know—even though some might deny God and others affirm his existence.”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

Treatise on Kingship

God, Truth, World, Way

“Depersonalization is a concept difficult to delineate. It can be regarded as a symptom or as a loosely associated group of symptoms that occurs in psychiatric patients. It can be induced experimentally and also occurs spontaneously in normal subjects. A major obstacle to clearer definition of this concept lies in the fact that it refers to exceedingly private events in the individual's experience. These prove very difficult to describe by a language geared to the description of public (consensually validated) events or private events, such as pain, that occur usually in clearly defined social settings. When it comes to describing and conveying something as ineffable as depersonalization or derealization, the subject resorts to metaphors, "as if" expressions, and figures of speech. The result is semantic confusion. Different authors mean different things when they use the term depersonalization.
The concept of depersonalization merges by imperceptible degrees with the concept derealization, the concept of altered body image and self, deja vu, jamais vu, altered time and space perception and so on - the whole gamut of phenomenological description of the experiences of mental patients. Therefore, it is rather difficult to evaluate and to review objectively the psychiatric literature on the phenomena of depersonalization.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Source: Depersonalization, (1970), p. 171

Pain, Literature, Time

“Thank you, Donald, for that well-meant but rather pedestrian introduction. Regarding yourself, I quote from the third part of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Act Two, Scene One. Richard speaks, "Were thy heart as hard as steel/ As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds/ I come to pierce it, or to give thee mine." To translate into your own idiom, Donald; you're a yo-yo. Now I direct my remarks to Dean Martin, who is being honored here tonight… for reasons that completely elude me. No, I'm not being fair to Dean because - this is true - in his way Dean, and I know him very well, has the soul of a poet. I'm told that in his most famous song Dean authored a lyric which is so romantic, so touching that it will be enjoyed by generations of lovers until the end of time. Let's share it together. [Opens a songsheet for Dean's "That's Amore" and reads in a monotone] "When the moon hits your eye/ Like a big pizza-pie/ That's amore" Now, that's what I call 'touching', Dean. It has all the romanticism of a Ty-D-Bol commercial. "When the world seems to shine/ Like you've had too much wine/ That's amore" What a profound thought. It could be inscribed forever on a cocktail napkin. Hey, there's more. "Tippy-tippy-tay/ Like a gay tarantella" Like a gay tarantella? Apparently, Dean has a 'side Dean' we know nothing about. "When the stars make you drool/ Just like a pasta fazool…. Scuzza me, but you see/ Back in old Napoli/ That's amore" No, Dean; that's infermo, Italian for "sickened". Now, lyrics like that - lyrics like that ought to be issued with a warning: a song like that is hazardous to your health. Ladies and gentlemen… [motions to Dean] you are looking at the end result!”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Speech given at a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. Viewable here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlKR0i-51S4.

Health, World, Way, Quotes

“Experienced military and intelligence professionals know that torture, in addition to being illegal and immoral, is an unreliable means of extracting information from prisoners. Much is being made of former CIA official John Kiriakou's statement that waterboarding "broke" a high-value terrorist involved in the 9/11 plot. There are always those who, whether out of fear or inexperience, rush to push the panic button instead of relying on what we know works best and most reliably in these situations. I would caution those who would rely on this example. It is far from clear that the information obtained from this prisoner through illegal means could not have been obtained through lawful methods. The FBI was getting good intelligence from this prisoner before the CIA took over. And there are numerous examples of cases where relying on information obtained through torture has disastrous consequences. The reality is that use of torture produces inconsistent results that are an unreliable basis for action and policy. The overwhelming consensus of intelligence professionals is that torture produces unreliable information. And the overwhelming consensus of senior military leaders is that resort to torture is dishonorable. Use of such primitive methods actually puts our own troops and our nation at risk.”

Harry E. Soyster (1935) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

"Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency: Torture Produces Unreliable Information" http://web.archive.org/web/20070629145037/http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/blog/torture/2007/12/former-director-of-defense-intelligence.html, Human Rights First (2007-12-11)

Fear, Law, Intelligence, Reality

“The next day, I called one of them and asked if I could come to his office to discuss the briefing. Fine with him, so off I went. I sat down and asked him a question: “Norm, how did you decide so exactly where the bomb would explode?” He looked at me as if I were a country bumpkin and explained how SAC calculated its bombing accuracy and he had gotten the accuracy of this particular drop straight from the horse’s mouth. Now I don’t want to bore you with how SAC arrived at planning estimates for the delivery accuracy of its nuclear bombers, except to say that it was a statistical process based on thousands of practice sorties, whose results would be mathematically analyzed to allow estimates to be made of the results of a large bombing campaign; not one bomber flying over one city and one bombardier, with the lives of perhaps millions of Muscovites at his fingertips, dropping one bomb. This I pointed out to Norm, implying that he had gone to all that fuss and bother for naught. His response was that in doing his calculations as a mathematician, he was going by the accepted ground rules. The bombing accuracy he had assumed had been provided to him by others. His was not to reason why.”

Samuel T. Cohen (1921–2010) American physicist

F*** You! Mr. President: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2006)

Mathematics, Question, Horse, Flying

“Unfortunately not only were the rulers, who were considered supernatural beings, benefited by having the peoples in subjection, but as a result of the belief in, and during the rule of, these pseudodivine beings, ever larger and larger circles of people grouped and established themselves around them, and under an appearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when the old deception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled away these men were only concerned to devise a new one which like its predecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage to a limited number of rulers.”

Leo Tolstoy A Letter to a Hindu

Source: A Letter to a Hindu (1908), III

Men, God, People, Appearance

“When my mother left us, he [Stalin] was left completely alone. And I think what came next, in the late 30s and after the war in the 40s - I think that was a result of his complete loneliness on top of the world. Nobody would argue with him anymore.”

Svetlana Alliluyeva (1926–2011) daughter of Joseph Stalin

Stalin's daughter Lana Peters dies in US of cancer http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15931683, BBC News, (29 November, 2011).

War, World, Thinking, Loneliness

“We are inescapably the result of a long heritage of learning, adaptation, mutation and evolution, the product of a history which predates our birth as a biological species and stretches back over many thousand millennia… Going further back, we share a common ancestry with our fellow primates; and going still further back, we share a common ancestry with all other living creatures and plants down to the simplest microbe. The further back we go, the greater the difference from external appearances and behavior patterns which we observe today.”

Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) British astronomer

Lifecloud: The Origin of Life in the Universe (1978), p. 15

Behavior, History, Birth, Learning

“The 'inquests' which resulted in the compilation of the Domesday Book made a vivid and unfavorable impression on the country. A similar effect was produced by the inquests of 1166 and 1170, before alluded to. Even to this day, the word 'inquisitorial' bears the burden of historical unpopularity.”

Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar

Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter IV, Improved Legal Procedure, p. 47

Books, Country

“Optimization is generally detrimental to future success, but it is the only way to accomplish present success in competition with others who are equally interested in short-term results.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: O'reilly subjugated to the Lisp juggenaut http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/a10d0e7d8e7354b2 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Way, Optimism, Success, Future

“Who can still believe in the opacity of bodies since our sharpened and modified sensitivity has already penetrated the obscure manifestations of the medium? Why should we forget in our creations the double power of our sight, capable of giving results analogous to those of X-rays?”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 154.
1910, Manifesto of Futurist Painters,' April 1910

Forgetting

“There is a correlation between crude yuppies buying Porsches in the City and the number of people sleeping on the street. The tax rip-offs that are used to buy second homes, swimming pools and extended holidays mean an increase in the number of people sleeping on the street because there is insufficient public expenditure to provide housing for them. The Tories have always supported the creed which blames poverty on the poor. We believe that the poor are the victims of the society created by the Conservatives and the Government whom they so avidly support…There would indeed be no need for anyone to be homeless if a large number of previously privately rented houses were not deliberately kept empty by property speculators as a result of Government policies. It is sheer hypocrisy for Tory Members to blame the poor unfortunate people who have to sleep in cardboard boxes when they themselves put those people on the street, splash them every night as they drive past in their Porsches and kick dirt in the faces of the poor. They are the people to blame for the situation faced by so many people in London, and it is a matter of grave concern.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1988/jun/24/policing-london in the House of Commons (24 June 1988). 1980s

People, Home, Support, Sleep

“Our Lord's new doctrines were the new wine, while the Jewish sects were the old wine-skins. Suppose that our Lord had joined one of those sects and had begun a reform in it: what would have been the result? There can be no doubt that the new truths, if received, would have broken up that sect completely. The power of its organization, built largely upon sectarian pride, and cemented by errors, superstitions and human traditions, would forthwith have been destroyed, and the new doctrines would have been left stranded - hampered, too, by all the old errors and traditions of that sect, and held responsible for its past record by the world in general.”

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

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 160.

Truth, World, Error, Wine

“Libertarianism is not libertinism or hedonism. It is not a claim that "people can do anything they want to, and nobody else can say anything." Rather, libertarianism proposes a society of liberty under law, in which individuals are free to pursue their own lives so long as they respect the equal rights of others. The rule of law means that individuals are governed by generally applicable and spontaneously developed legal rules, not by arbitrary commands; and that those rules should protect the freedom of individuals to pursue happiness in their own ways, not aim at any particular result or outcome.”

David Boaz (1953) libertarian, author and editor

"Key Concepts of Libertarianism" (1 January 1999)

Happiness, People, Law, Way

“The search for the most effective conflict resolution procedure requires identification of the primary objective in resolving different kinds of disputes. This article focuses on the kind of disputes considered in the legal system and draws on the results of the authors' empirical studies to develop a general theory of procedure for attaining the objectives of "truth" and "justice" in situations of cognitive conflict, conflict of interest, and in "mixed" disputes.”

John Thibaut (1917–1986) American social psychologist

Source: "A theory of procedure." 1978, p. 541, Abstract

Truth, Justice, Search, Study

“Everybody's daily life consists of problems arising from what you decided yesterday. Managers understand that. Mathematicians want to solve a theorem, publish the results and walk away clean. Managers never walk away clean. The real world is a very dirty place.
Clarity is supposed to be the objective of science. I disagree. I think the objective of science is confusion, because confusions carries you into problems.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

C. West Churchman cited in: Peter R. Horner (1993). "TIMS Turns 40," in: OR/MS Today, Vol. 20, No. 2, p. 40-43
1980s and later

Life, World, Understanding, Problem

“The invention process is a great exercise for kids. It compels them to define an actual problem, formulate an original solution, develop a product, and share the results or products with their friends and peers.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, Nurturing the inventor in your child, Southwest Times Record, Fort Smith, Arkansas, August 25, 2000, Pam Cloud Smith]

Exercises, Problem

“Herz, Thalberg, Heller, Felicien David and others were great virtuosos of their time, more famous than Chopin himself. They had their own personal styles, but the essence of their music was time-bound, nothing that could occupy generations after them. Chopin, in contrast, was someone special, someone who was completely different from all other artists, composers, and pianists. So too with his style. As a result, the aesthetic in approaching Chopin is distinctive: interpreting his music is the most difficult of all. For me personally, it’s the crowning of playing piano. Bach, Mozart, Chopin: these are the three who definitely created musical art in an all-embracing and overwhelming way.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings about Chopin and Schumann

Art, Music, Way, Time

“Accommodationists further accuse scientists of having “faith in reason.” Yet reason is not an a priori assumption, but a tool that’s been shown to work. We don’t have faith in reason; we use reason, and we use it because it produces results and progressive understanding…
Reason is simply the way we justify our beliefs, and if you’re not using it, whether you’re justifying religious or scientific beliefs, you deserve no one’s attention.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), pp. 210-211

Faith, Way, Understanding

“We have tried occasionally to buy toads at bargain prices with results that have been chronicled in past reports. Clearly our kisses fell flat. We have done well with a couple of princes — but they were princes when purchased. At least our kisses didn’t turn them into toads. And, finally, we have occasionally been quite successful in purchasing fractional interests in easily-identifiable princes at toad-like prices.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1981 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1981.html Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Kiss, Success, Past

“It is seen as the application of a systematic “scientific method” involving wearing a white coat and being dull. I feel that too many young people come into science with this view, and that too many fields degenerate into the kind of work which results: automatic crank-turning and data-collecting of the sort which Kuhn calls “normal science” and Rutherford “stamp-collecting”. In fact, the creation of new science is a creative act, literally, and people who are not creative are not very good at it.”

Philip Warren Anderson (1923) American physicist

in Some ideas on the Aesthetics of Science, address presented by Philip W. Anderson as the Nishina Memorial Lecture at the 50th Anniversary Seminar of the Faculty of Science&Technology, at Keio University (Tokyo), on May 18, 1989.

People, Feeling, Science

“Engineers, scientists, and statisticians have, until recently, been the groups chiefly interested in activity called quality control. These technologists have been primarily concerned with the technical methods which have become associated with the subject. They have applied these methods to a number of industrial quality problems.
Excellent results in improving quality and in reducing costs are now being reported from these applications. These reports have generated growing interest by industrial managers in the potentialities of quality control as a business method.
What, management is asking, is meant by the term "quality control"? Is there anything really new about it? What are the quality-control activities? What is the proper organization for quality control? How much does the program cost, and what benefits can result from it? Is quality control good only for mass production? May it be useful in a job shop as well? How do statistical methods fit into the quality-control pattern? What does quality control mean to the foreman, to the design engineer, to the salesman? How is quality control introduced to a company?”

Armand V. Feigenbaum (1922–2014) American businessman

Source: Quality Control: Principles, Practice, and Administration. 1951, p. vii; Preface: lead paragraph

Business, Problem

“It may also strike you, my readers, as quite shocking when I tell you that there is no such thing, basically, as disease. There are instead only processes. What you think of disease is instead the result of an exaggeration or overextension of perfectly normal body processes. You are not attacked by viruses, for instance, for all kinds of viruses exist normally in the body. There are no KILLER viruses, then but viruses that go beyond their usual bounds.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Way Toward Health (1997), p. 71

Disease, Thinking

“Being advised by his medical friends to try the effects of travelling, with light intellectual exercise, he left London in the latter end of last summer, and spent several months in wandering through the factory districts of Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, &c., with the happiest results to his health; having everywhere experienced the utmost kindness and liberality from the mill-proprietors.”

Andrew Ure (1778–1857) Scottish doctor and chemist

Source: The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835, p. ix

Health, Travel, Exercises, Light

“Western psychologists accuse religion of repressing the vital energy of man and rendering his life quite miserable as a result of the sense of guilt which especially obsesses the religious people and makes them imagine that all their actions are sinful and can only be expiated through abstention from enjoying the pleasures of life. Those psychologists add that Europe lived in the darkness of ignorance as long as it adhered to its religion but once it freed itself from the fetters of religion, its emotions were liberated and accordingly it achieved wonders in the field of production.”

Muhammad Qutb (1919–2014) Egyptian Islamist writer and scholar

Source: Islam: the Misunderstood Religion, Chapter 11, Islam and Sexual Repression, p. 207.

Life, People, Pleasure, Religion

“Joel groaned softly. “I-ah-I don’t think I was altogether myself,” he excused.
“Are you ever?” Bertrand countered.
“What?”
“I am always my self, even when my objurgatory circuits are cut in by some frustration-inducing outside event. But you’re invariably either drunk or suffering indigestion or still half-asleep or so excited as to be manic or so downcast as to be suicidal or—”
Loftily Joel broke in: “That’s part of the marvel and wonder of the subjective human experience, not susceptible machine analysis.” He gulped the last of his brandy and set the glass aside. “And we are a fantastic species really, aren’t we? For all our shortcomings! I mean, well—here I am talking to a machine, for pity’s sake, a machine, a manufactured article! So cleverly designed, it’s impossible to tell that its responses are programmed in, not the result of intelligence.””

John Brunner (1934–1995) British author

“I resent that,” Bertrand said, but Joel ignored the comment.
Section 6 (pp. 135-136)
You’ll Take the High Road (1973)

Intelligence, Thinking, Suicide, Suffering

“Most scientists today are devoid of ideas, full of fear, intent on producing some paltry result so that they can add to the flood of inane papers that now constitutes "scientific progress" in many areas.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

How To Defend Society Against Science (1975)

Fear, Idea

“They are hated because they satisfy their greed according to Talmudic principles. In the Jewish lawbook "Talmud" the Jews are told that the possessions of gentiles were "ownerless property", which the Jew was allowed to obtain through deceit and cheating. Whatever the "profession" may be called where the Jew earns his money, everywhere he remains a Jew. Such criminal behavior must inevitably provoke the hatred of Jews (anti-Semitism) and fighting repulsion. The fight that the Nazarene led 2000 years ago against the Jewish usurers resulted in a gruesome way of suffering and his slaughter at Calvary. The judgement passed by Jesus on the Jews marks the Jewish people for all time:
"Ye are of your father the devil! He was a murderer from the beginning."”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

John 8:44-45
Sie werden gehasst, weil sie ihre Gier nach Geld nach talmudischen Grundsätzen befriedigen. Im jüdischen Gesetzbuch "Talmud" wird den Juden gesagt, dass der Besitz der Nichtjuden "herrenloses Gut" sei, den der Jude durch Wucher, durch Betrug und Übervorteilung an sich bringen dürfe. Und wie der "Beruf" auch heißen mag, in dem der Jude sein Geld verdient, überall ist und bleibt er Jude. Solch verbrecherisches Verhalten muss zwangsläufig den Hass gegen die Juden (Antisemitismus) erzeugen und Abwehrkämpfe heraufbeschwören. Der Kampf, den der Nazarener vor 2000 Jahren gegen die jüdischen Zinseintreiber führte, endete mit einem grauenvollen Leidensweg und seiner Hinschlachtung auf Golgatha. Das Urteil, das Jesus Christus über die Juden fällte, kennzeichnet das Volk der Juden für alle Zeiten:
"Ich habt zum Vater nicht Gott, sondern den Teufel. Er war ein Verbrecher und Menschenmörder von Anfang an". (Joh. VIII | 44,45.)
Foreword to the book "Juden stellen sich vor", Stürmer publishing house, 1934

Money, Hate, People, Way

“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

A Philosophy of Life (Lecture 35) 1930s, "New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis" https://books.google.com/books/about/New_Introductory_Lectures_on_Psycho_anal.html?id=hIqaep1qKRYC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false (1933)

World, Religion

“Howdy! That's a great question, actually. The reason we fart is due to needing to periodically release gases that build up during digestion. During the digestion process of the foods you eat, naturally occurring beneficial bacteria in your body metabolize (i. e. convert the food in your body to useable energy) and produce waste as a result, some of which is the gas that makes up farts. This is typically where the methane (CH4) in farts comes from, the rest of the fart volume being from air swallowed during the course of the day. For animals like spiders and insects, there are similar processes! Some animals like termites, for example, better match us as they, too, have methane-producing bacteria in their guts which helps them break down wood! For other animals, other digestive processes make waste products and sometimes gas, so yes, spiders (and insects) do fart, in a sense! Since their exoskeletons are generally rigid, though, they may not produce the sound we associate with farting, thus, you might say that most spider and insect farts are "silent but deadly!"”

Ben Eisenkop (1986) American biologist and redditor

Posted https://www.reddit.com/r/UnidanFans/comments/1mubgx/q_for_unidan_from_my_8yo_daughter_do_spiders_fart/cccqton in response to "Do spiders fart?" (2013)

Food, Question, Nature, Sense

“Amerika faces no meaningful threat to its security except from those who live within its own territorial borders.
The domestic upheavals of the 1960’s and 70’s taught empire some valuable lessons on just how dangerous an informed and discontent population can be. As a result, and through a steady application of misinformation, carrots, and sticks, empire has worked steadily to drain the focus, resolve, and militancy of the informed and discontented. From that point to this, empire has manufactured a discontinuity in popular struggle, while maintaining continuity in its own growth and consolidation. One of the empire’s principal tools and weapons has been its prisons.”

Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)

“Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be an aspect of the “conquest of transcendence” achieved by the one-dimensional society. Just as this society tends to reduce, and even absorb opposition (the qualitative difference!) in the realm of politics and higher culture, so it does in the instinctual sphere. The result is the atrophy of the mental organs for grasping the contradictions and the alternatives and, in the one remaining dimension of technological rationality, the Happy Consciousness comes to prevail.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 79

Happiness, Appearance

“Theories usually result from the precipitate reasoning of an impatient mind which would like to be rid of phenomena and replaces them with images, concepts, indeed often with mere words.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Maxim 428, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“The end result of our current path is the extinction of Homo sapiens. It is imperative that we cherish and protect wild places and the creatures they harbour. To harm them is to harm ourselves. All of us are sailing through space together on the same fragile, leaky ark. We are dependent on our shipmates for far more than their meat and hides, their horns and scales. Both our continued existence, and the wellbeing of our souls, hinge on the complex matrix of life around us.
We must affirm that the wilderness is not for sale. Its creatures are not commodities, and must never be viewed as mere ‘natural resources’. Even a single pangolin scale should be treasured. Each one is, in fact, priceless.”

Justin D. Fox (1967) South African author, photojournalist, lecturer and editor

The Impossible Five (2015)

Life, Soul, Nature, Dependency

“In my opinion the Government can do more to remedy the economic ills of the people by a system of rigid economy in public expenditure than can be accomplished through any other action. The costs of our national and local governments combined now stand at a sum close to $100 for each inhabitant of the land. A little less than one-third of this is represented by national expenditure, and a little more than two-thirds by local expenditure. It is an ominous fact that only the National Government is reducing its debt. Others are increasing theirs at about $1,000,000,000 each year. The depression that overtook business, the disaster experienced in agriculture, the lack of employment and the terrific shrinkage in all values which our country experienced in a most acute form in 1920, resulted in no small measure from the prohibitive taxes which were then levied on all productive effort. The establishment of a system of drastic economy in public expenditure, which has enabled us to pay off about one-fifth of the national debt since 1919, and almost cut in two the national tax burden since 1921, has been one of the main causes in reestablishing a prosperity which has come to include within its benefits almost every one of our inhabitants. Economy reaches everywhere. It carries a blessing to everybody.”

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

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

People, Business, Effort, Country

“Acapulco, Mexico: "…queer, dirty little dago town…. The people are too revolting for words, super dagoes & some of them are quite black as a result of Spaniards inter-breeding with the Indians; & of course they only speak Spanish"”

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (1894–1972) king of the United Kingdom and its dominions in 1936

9 September 1920
Around the World with the Prince of Wales

People

“If we except the great name of Newton (and the exception is one that the great Gauss himself would have been delighted to make) it is probable that no mathematician of any age or country has ever surpassed Gauss in the combination of an abundant fertility of invention with an absolute vigorousness in demonstration, which the ancient Greeks themselves might have envied. It may be admitted, without any disparagement to the eminence of such great mathematicians as Euler and Cauchy that they were so overwhelmed with the exuberant wealth of their own creations, and so fascinated by the interest attaching to the results at which they arrived, that they did not greatly care to expend their time in arranging their ideas in a strictly logical order, or even in establishing by irrefragable proof propositions which they instinctively felt, and could almost see to be true. With Gauss the case was otherwise. It may seem paradoxical, but it is probably nevertheless true that it is precisely the effort after a logical perfection of form which has rendered the writings of Gauss open to the charge of obscurity and unnecessary difficulty. The fact is that there is neither obscurity nor difficulty in his writings, as long as we read them in the submissive spirit in which an intelligent schoolboy is made to read his Euclid. Every assertion that is made is fully proved, and the assertions succeed one another in a perfectly just analogical order… But when we have finished the perusal, we soon begin to feel that our work is but begun, that we are still standing on the threshold of the temple, and that there is a secret which lies behind the veil and is as yet concealed from us. No vestige appears of the process by which the result itself was obtained, perhaps not even a trace of the considerations which suggested the successive steps of the demonstration. Gauss says more than once that for brevity, he gives only the synthesis, and suppresses the analysis of his propositions. Pauca sed matura—few but well matured… If, on the other hand, we turn to a memoir of Euler's, there is a sort of free and luxuriant gracefulness about the whole performance, which tells of the quiet pleasure which Euler must have taken in each step of his work; but we are conscious nevertheless that we are at an immense distance from the severe grandeur of design which is characteristic of all Gauss's greater efforts.”

Henry John Stephen Smith (1826–1883) mathematician

As quoted by Alexander Macfarlane, Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century (1916) p. 95, https://books.google.com/books?id=43SBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA95 "Henry John Stephen Smith (1826-1883) A Lecture delivered March 15, 1902"

Pleasure, Secret, Age, Feeling

“The premise of this statement is what one might call the principle of non-indirection. I call “indirection” an indirect operation that makes it possible to arrive at a certain result through two successive actions, the first of which serves only to make the second possible. … This principle is not limited to rational actions. … The principle of non-indirection thus expresses a broader idea of coherence that includes the emotional as well as the rational.”

Jon Elster (1940) Norwegian academic

Reason and Rationality (2009)

Idea, Success

“As we all know, the singularity in the art of Bach is the fusion of both levels and lines, the horizontal and vertical line. It’s a real wonder to see that the creation and forming of the horizontal line, the polyphonic structure, also results in this perfect, beautiful vertical line, the harmonic line. As we also know, Bach already used the full harmonic range and radius as no composer before him. My artistic aim of course is to point out the horizontal line in soloistic manner in a dynamically elastic way, but in the same breath to form the harmonic line in a bright field of color (I would call it “harmonic articulation”), to achieve a particular atmosphere of emotions and moods, drama, velocity, vividness, and so on. As we can imagine, these are high demands …”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Beauty, Art, Color, Way

“The initial step in stating a theory of procedure is to recognize the fundamental dichotomy between the potential dispute resolution objectives of "truth" and "justice." This dichotomy, we suggest, is the necessary result of differences in the type of conflict involved in the dispute.”

John Thibaut (1917–1986) American social psychologist

Source: "A theory of procedure." 1978, p. 541

Truth, Justice

“The idea that a game is anything more than a game… You know, there are people who are basically unbalanced who are going to misuse a game and have bad results. If a golfer who insists on playing during a lightning storm gets hit by a stroke of lightning and is killed nobody says, 'There's golfers dying by the droves being hit by lightning!' You can overdo what you really like, and if you're unbalanced you go overboard.”

Gary Gygax (1938–2008) American writer and game designer

GameSpy interview, Pt. 1 (15 August 2004)

People, Game, Idea

“The Goldberg Variations are, as explained in my booklet-text, in short, music that observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor real resolution, music that, like Baudelaire’s lovers, “rests lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind.” Gould is referring here to the circular design of the work, a circularity whose development is polarized, inspired, and fed by more and more new energy fields. The result is a universe that in its significance resembles the alpha and omega of music in general, music that evolves out of nothing and disappears back into nothing as if in a state in which time stands still.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Music, Lovers, Universe, Time

“[The national economy is] a set of powers and ways used by a nation to keep and improve physical existence of its members… Moral good of a nation is a consequence of its education, and its physical good is a result of national economy.”

Fryderyk Skarbek (1792–1866) Polish noble

Source: Dictionary of political economy, 1818, p. 159, as cited in: Zabieglik (2002).

Education, Way

“There's a human race, and different skin colors, and different racial, what we call racial characteristics. There's several theories about where those come in. Probably the best theory is that the Tower of Babel, which would have been a few hundred years after the flood, is where the races began. When god confused the languages, they went off into their small groups, all speakin' the same language. And if you get a small in-breeding group, you know, 2000 years after the creation, you're gonna get genetic disorders, and racial traits could be a result of this Tower of Babel incident. But I think that there's no question from scripture and from science that all humans are the same race, and have the same genetic code, and certainly can interbreed. So there's no reason scripturally to be a racist. You know, we all came from Adam and Eve, and then later from Noah and his family.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Coast-to-Coast AM interview (August 2-3, 2000)

God, Family, Color, Question

“Some years ago I found myself in discussion with a friend who entertained the notion that the general tendency of things in this world is towards equilibrium, the result of which would be peace and blessedness to the human race. My notion, was that equilibrium meant… death. No motive power is to be got from heat, save during its fall from a higher to a lower temperature, as no power is to be got from water save during its descent from a higher to a lower level. Thus also life consists, not in equilibrium, but in the passage towards equilibrium. In man it is the leap from the potential through the actual to repose.”

John Tyndall (1820–1893) British scientist

p, 125
New Fragments (1892)

Life, Death, World, Peace

“Peace has an economic foundation to which too little attention has been given. No student can doubt that it was to a large extent the economic condition of Europe that drove those overburdened countries headlong into the World War. They were engaged in maintaining competitive armaments. If one country laid the keel of one warship, some other country considered it necessary to lay the keel of two warships. If one country enrolled a regiment, some other country enrolled three regiments. Whole peoples were armed and drilled and trained to the detriment of their industrial life, and charged and taxed and assessed until the burden could no longer be borne. Nations cracked under the load and sought relief from the intolerable pressure by pillaging each other. It was to avoid a repetition of such a catastrophe that our Government proposed and brought to a successful conclusion the Washing- ton Conference for the Limitation of Naval Armaments. We have been altogether desirous of an extension of this principle and for that purpose have sent our delegates to a preliminary conference of nations now sitting at Geneva. Out of that conference we expect some practical results. We believe that other nations ought to join with us in laying aside their suspicions and hatreds sufficiently to agree among themselves upon methods of mutual relief from the necessity of the maintenance of great land and sea forces. This can not be done if we constantly have in mind the resort to war for the redress of wrongs and the enforcement of rights. Europe has the League of Nations. That ought to be able to provide those countries with certain political guaranties which our country does not require. Besides this there is the World Court, which can certainly be used for the determination of all justifiable disputes. We should not underestimate the difficulties of European nations, nor fail to extend to them the highest degree of patience and the most sympathetic consideration. But we can not fail to assert our conviction that they are in great need of further limitation of armaments and our determination to lend them every assistance in the solution of their problems. We have entered the conference with the utmost good faith on our part and in the sincere belief that it represents the utmost good faith on their part. We want to see the problems that are there presented stripped of all technicalities and met and solved in a way that will secure practical results. We stand ready to give our support to every effort that is made in that direction.”

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

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

Life, War, People, World

“To our western eyes, the painted images are the most prominent component of a corpus of artistic expression. This Western bias, a particularly Eurocentric bias, has been pervasive and deep. …it has resulted in a lack of attention to, and concern about, prehistoric art of equal and sometimes greater antiquity in eastern and southern Africa.”

Richard Leakey (1944) Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician

Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human (1992)

Art, Painting

“Humiliation and indifference, these are conditions every one of us finds unbearable–this is why the Coyote when falling is more concerned with the audience's opinion of him than he is with the inevitable result of too much gravity.”

Chuck Jones (1912–2002) American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films

Chuck Jones, Stroke of Genius, A Collection of Paintings and Musings on Life, Love and Art (Linda Jones Enterprises, 2007), 78.

Indifference

“Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, revisionists and opportunists reflect the pressure of nonproletarian, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois strata, the pressure that results from the force of habit, from the views and vestiges of the past, particularly those that are nationalistic.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Cited in Socialist Internationalism: Theory and Practice of International Relations of A New Type http://leninist.biz/en/1982/SI507/4.2-Nationalism.in.the.Socialist.Countries

Past

“The assertion that a problem unstated is a problem unsolved seem to have escaped many builders… All too often, design and implementation begins before the real needs and system functions are fully known. The results are skyrocketing costs, missed scheduled, waste and duplication, disgruntled users and endless series of patches and repairs euphemistically called "systems maintenance"”

Douglas T. Ross (1929–2007) American computer scientist

D.T. Ross and K.E. Schoman (1977) "Structured analysis for requirements definition" IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. Vol 3. (1) p. 6-15; as cited in: G. Agyekum-Mensah et al. (2012) "Adaption of structured analysis design techniques methodology for construction project planning".

Problem

“Now this structure of hope (among other things) is also what distinguishes philosophy from the special sciences. There is a relationship with the object that is different in principle in the two cases. The question of the special sciences is in principle ultimately answerable, or, at least, it is not un-answerable. It can be said, in a final way (or some day, one will be able to say in a final way) what is the cause, say, of this particular infectious disease. It is in principle possible that one day someone will say, "It is now scientifically proven that such and such is the case, and no otherwise." But […] a philosophical question can never be finally, conclusively answered. […] The object of philosophy is given to the philosopher on the basis of a hope. This is where Dilthey's words make sense: "The demands on the philosophizing person cannot be satisfied. A physicist is an agreeable entity, useful for himself and others; a philosopher, like the saint, only exists as an ideal." It is in the nature of the special sciences to emerge from a state of wonder to the extent that they reach "results." But the philosopher does not emerge from wonder.
Here is at once the limit and the measure of science, as well as the great value, and great doubtfulness, of philosophy. Certainly, in itself it is a "greater" thing to dwell "under the stars."”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

But man is not made to live "out there" permanently! Certainly, it is a more valuable question, as such, to ask about the whole world and the ultimate nature of things. But the answer is not as easily forthcoming as for the special sciences!
The Dilthey quote is from Briefwechsel zwischen Wilhelm Dilthey und dem Grafen Paul Yorck v. Wartenberg, 1877–1897 (Hall/Salle, 1923), p. 39.
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, pp. 109–111

World, Disease, Hope, Way

“"You can say the Jesus Prayer from now till doomsday, but if you don't realize that the only thing that counts in the religious life is detachment, I don't see how you'll ever even move an inch. Detachment, buddy, and only detachment. Desirelessness. 'Cessation from all hankerings.' It's this business of desiring, if you want to know the goddam truth, that makes an actor in the first place. Why're you making me tell you things you already know? Somewhere along the line — in one damn incarnation or another, if you like — you not only had a hankering to be an actor or an actress but to be a good one. You're stuck with it now. You can't just walk out on the results of your own hankerings. Cause and effect, buddy, cause and effect. The only thing you can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. Act for God, if you want to — be God's actress, if you want to. What could be prettier? You can at least try to, if you want to — there's nothing wrong in trying." There was a slight pause. "You'd better get busy, though, buddy. The goddam sands run out on you every time you turn around. I know what I'm talking about. You're lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddam phenomenal world."”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)

Life, God, Truth, World

“Administration is both social engineering and applied psychology. It is apparatus and mechanics, incentives and human nature. Let no one think it is merely the former. Nowhere is the need for psychology greater than in the organization, direction, and inspiration of men working in large groups. Outstanding administrative results are produced by spirit, morale, atmosphere; these, in turn, are the product of psychological mainsprings and invigorating incentives. As Benjamin Lippincott has recognized, both governmental and business administration resolve fundamentally into the role played by effective incentives.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: "The Study of Administration." 1937, p. 30

Men, Business, Nature, Thinking

“The world moves into the future as a result of decisions, not as a result of plans. Plans are significant only insofar as they affect decisions.”

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

Source: 1970s, Toward a General Social Science, 1974, p. 8

World, Decision, Future

“I am a thing not new, I am as old
As human nature. I am that which lurks,
Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed;
The ancient trait which fights incessantly
Against restraint, balks at the upward climb;
The weight forever seeking to obey
The law of downward pull;—and I am more:
The bitter fruit am I of planted seed;
The resultant, the inevitable end
Of evil forces and the powers of wrong.”

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist

Brothers, st. 3.
Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)

Law, Spring, Nature, Evil

“The difference between "organic" and "mechanical" in social matters is a moral one: the "organic" is the result of innumerable humble acts; the "mechanical" is the result of one decisive act of arrogance.”

Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994) Colombian writer and philosopher

Sucesivos Escolios a un Texto Implícito (1992)

Decision

“We suffer as a result of our own actions; it is unfair to blame anybody for it.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Saradeshananda, The Holy Mother's Reminiscences, Vedanta Kesari, 1976-1981]

Suffering

“I’m against these aggressive tax avoidance schemes but I’m not just against them, this Government has taken a huge amount of steps to legislate and toughen the laws and go after aggressive tax avoidance schemes for the very simple reason that if people go after these schemes and aggressively avoid tax they’re making it the case that everyone else has to pay higher taxes as a result so I think we should be very clear, tax evasion is illegal and for that you can be prosecuted, you can go to prison for tax evasion. Tax avoidance is in these cases, very aggressive tax avoidance schemes, they are wrong and we should really persuade not to do them and that’s why we have these court cases where the court looks at whether a scheme is really about avoiding tax rather than anything else and the court was very clear in this case.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On Good Morning Britain speaking about his view of tax avoidance schemes and if Gary Barlow should give back his OBE following claims that the singer took part in one - Prime Minister David Cameron speaks to Good Morning Britain, ITV (12 May 2014) http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/prime-minister-david-cameron-speaks-good-morning-britain 2010s, 2014

People, Law, Thinking

“Unfortunately, all life on earth - the only life we know - represents, for all its current variety, the results of a single experiment, for every earthly species evolved from the common ancestry of a single origin. We desperately need a repetition of the experiment (several would be better, but let's not be greedy!) in order to make a judgement. Mars represents our first real hope for a second experiment - the sine qua non”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

for any proper answer for the question of questions.
"War of the Worldviews", p. 353
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Life, Hope, Question

“My life has been the result of accidents, not of goals and principles. My intellectual work forms only an insignificant part of it. Love and personal understanding are much more important. Leading intellectuals with their zeal for objectivity kill these personal elements. They are criminals, not the leaders of mankind.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

Who's Who in America (1991)

Love, Life, Understanding, Parting

“Inflation is the unhappy result of our monetary mismanagement and the ultimate cause of the coming economic collapse.”

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

Quotes from Crash Proof (2006)

“One of its [the First World War’s] most certain results will be the partial destruction of the aristocratic classes everywhere in northern Europe … This will tend to realize the standardization of type so dear to democratic ideals. If equality cannot be obtained by lengthening and uplifting the stunted of body and of mind, it can be at least realized by the destruction of the exalted of stature and of soul.”

Madison Grant book The Passing of the Great Race

Page 173.
The Passing of the Great Race (1916)

War, World, Soul

“In the first place I identify this ["the equilibrium of poverty"] with primitive agriculture, and two factors have been at work there. One is, of course, population growth. If you were a poor farmer in India, Pakistan, or in much of Africa, you would want as many sons as possible as your social security. They would keep you out of the hot sun and give you some form of subsistence in your old age. So, you have pressure for population growth that is, itself, the result of the extreme economic insecurity. This is something which hasn't been sufficiently emphasized.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Interview with John Newark (1990) from Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith (2004) http://aurora.icaap.org/talks/galbraith.htm, ed. James Ronald Stanfield and Jacqueline Bloom Stanfield

Age, Sun

“As for more than twenty years my principal work has been devoted to the ancient literature of India, I cannot but feel a deep and real sympathy for all that concerns the higher interests of the people of that country. Though I have never been in India, I have many friends there, both among the civilians and among the natives, and I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that the publication in England of the ancient sacred writings of the Brahmans, which had never been published in India, and other contributions from different European scholars towards a better knowledge of the ancient literature and religion of India, have not been without some effect on the intellectual and religious movement that is going on among the more thoughtful members of Indian society. I have sometimes regretted that I am not an Englishman, and able to help more actively in the great work of educating and improving the natives. But I do rejoice that this great task of governing and benefiting India should have fallen to one who knows the greatness of that task and all its opportunities and responsibilities, who thinks not only of its political and financial bearings, but has a heart to feel for the moral welfare of those millions of human beings that are, more or less directly, committed to his charge. India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by education. Much has been done for education of late, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, that would hardly be enough. The results of the educational work carried on during the last twenty years are palpable everywhere. They are good and bad, as was to be expected. It is easy to find fault with what is called Young Bengal, the product of English ideas grafted on the native mind. But Young Bengal, with all its faults, is full of promise. Its bad features are apparent everywhere, its good qualities are naturally hidden from the eyes of careless observers.... India can never be anglicized, but it can be reinvigorated. By encouraging a study of their own ancient literature, as part of their education, a national feeling of pride and self-respect will be reawakened among those who influence the large masses of the people. A new national literature may spring up, impregnated with Western ideas, yet retaining its native spirit and character. The two things hang together. In order to raise the character of the vernaculars, a study of the ancient classical language is absolutely necessary: for from it these modern dialects have branched off, and from it alone can they draw their vital strength and beauty. A new national literature will bring with it a new national life and new moral vigour. As to religion, that will take care of itself. The missionaries have done far more than they themselves seem to be aware of, nay, much of the work which is theirs they would probably disclaim. The Christianity of our nineteenth century will hardly be the Christianity of India. But the ancient religion of India is doomed — and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Letter to the Duke of Argyll, published in The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich Max Müller (1902) edited by Georgina Müller

Life, People, Education, Religion

“I'm always trying to understand myself, but it's like there's a point in the centre of the room, and there's a hundred windows to look at the same point from. All I can do is give you different angles on the same thing. God, you know, if I could find one conclusive thing in anything I would probably have something to put an anchor down on. But I can't, and I haven't met anyone that can. You can pick out anything you like in my lyrics, I don't seek to be cryptic. I love words for the sake of words, for me they're kind of free standing, and they don't really need to be explained. I think every word has its own character and colour and picture and the result you get with lyrics just depends how you put them together.”

KatieJane Garside (1968) English singer

On writing, Repeat https://web.archive.org/web/20031101121528/https://www.repeatfanzine.co.uk/interviews/queen%20adreena.htm fanzine (2003)

Love, God, Understanding, Thinking

“No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African-Americans. If Hillary Clinton's goal was to inflict pain on the African-American community, she could not have done a better job. It's a disgrace. Tonight, I'm asking for the vote of every single African-American citizen in this country who wants to see a better future. The inner cities of our country have been run by the Democratic party for more than fifty years. Their policies have reduced only poverty, joblessness, failing schools and broken homes. It's time to hold Democratic politicians accountable for what they have done to these communities. At what point do we say, "enough?" It's time to hold failed leaders accountable for their results not just their empty words over and over again. Look at what the Democratic party has done to the city as an example and there are many others of Detroit: forty percent of Detroit's residents live in poverty. Half of all Detroit residents do not work and cannot work and can't get a job. Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime. This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by Hillary Clinton: thirty-three thousand emails gone. The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership. Look how much African-American communities suffered under Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump. What do you have to lose? I say it again, what do you have to lose. Look, what do you have to lose? You're living your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed? What the hell do you have to lose? And at the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over ninety-five percent of the African-American vote. I promise you.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Speech to the African-American community in Dimondale, Michigan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5B5m1S5VTA (August 19, 2016) 2010s, 2016, August

Pain, Youth, School, Way

“A major social problem we face today is how to control the political process that is eroding the free enterprise market system. Although I am pessimistic that we will in fact ever resolve this problem completely, we will surely never solve it unless we develop a viable positive theory of the political process. Such a political theory will not be complete until we also have developed a theory that explains why we get the results we do out of the mass media.”

Michael Jensen (1939) American economist

Michael C. Jensen, 'Toward a Theory of the Press,' in Economics and Social Institutions, Karl Brunner, Editor (Martinus Nijhoff Publishing Company, 1979).

Problem

“He had gone to several universities... and had found only curves and credits. He had become drunk on the idea of God and found only theology. He had risen several times on the subtle and powerful wings of lust, expectant of magnificence, achieving only discharge. A few times he had extended friendship with palpitating hope, only to find that no one quite knew what he had in mind. His solitude now was the result of his metabolism, that constant breathing in of joy and exhalation of sadness.”

Edward Lewis Wallant book The Tenants of Moonbloom

The Tenants of Moonbloom (1962)

God, Friendship, Sadness, Hope

“There is little doubt that the observation that quality may depend on price (productivity on wages; default probability on interest rates) has provided a rich mine for economic theorists: A simple modification of the basic assumptions results in a profound alteration of many of the basic conclusions of the standard paradigm. The Law of Supply and Demand has been repealed. The Law of the Single Price has been repealed. The Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics has been shown not to be valid.
More than that, the theories that we describe here provide the basis of progress toward a unification of macroeconomics and microeconomics. They pro vide an explanation of unemployment and credit rationing, derived from basic microeconomic principles. It is a theory in which the extensive idleness that periodically confronts society's resources, human and capital, is seen as but the most obvious example of market failures that prevasively and persistently distort the allocation of resources.”

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

"The Causes and Consequences of The Dependence of Quality on Price", Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Mar., 1987)

Law, Failure, Dependency

“The process of planning is very valuable, for forcing you to think hard about what you are doing, but the actual plan that results from it is probably useless”

Marc Andreessen (1971) American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer

Source: "Book Review: TEMPO Timing, Tactics and Strategy in Narrative Driven Decision Making by Venkatesh Rao" http://www.lesc.net/blog/book-review-tempo-timing-tactics-and-strategy-narrative-driven-decision-making-venkatesh-rao

Thinking

“Manifest bases for conflict may be there in actual inequities in education, but the possibilities for conflict are further increased as the result of underlying factors transferred from other situations.”

Bertram Raven (1926) American psychologist

Source: "Conflict and power." 1970, p. 72

Education

“The objects of instruction in purely scientific mechanics and physics are, first, to produce in the student that improvement of the understanding which results from the cultivation of natural knowledge, and that elevation of mind which flows from the contemplation of the order of the universe”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)
Context: The objects of instruction in purely scientific mechanics and physics are, first, to produce in the student that improvement of the understanding which results from the cultivation of natural knowledge, and that elevation of mind which flows from the contemplation of the order of the universe; and secondly, if possible, to qualify him to become a scientific discoverer.<!--p. 176

Understanding, Nature, Knowledge, Universe

“Kandinsky was connected with Die Brücke and the Blue Rider: they had a concept and created a reality. But I prefer Jean Fautrier [French painter-artist; 1898 - 1965] with his suffering and self-absorption. And his purpose on bringing about changes was just as strong. As a result I see in Fautrier a stronger paradigm than in Kandinsky..”

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

(1986) n.p.
Structures are no longer valid', in "Ein Gespräch..."

Reality, Strong, Suffering, Change

“Social costs… are all direct and indirect losses sustained by third persons or the general public as a result of unrestrained economic activities.”

Karl William Kapp (1910–1976) American economist

Source: Social Costs of Business Enterprise, 1963, p. 12. Cited in: M. Rangone & S. Solari (2012) "Southern European capitalism and the social costs of business enterprise". in: Studi e Note di Economia, Anno XVII, n. 1-2012, pp. 3-28

Loss, Personality

Quotes about result page 13

Quotes about result
page 13