Quotes about second
page 11

“Your body will never be more connected to your mind than when something is at stake. That's how you measure the value of a movement: by its consequences. Climb a tree, throw a rock, balance on the edge of a cliff-- you lose focus for a fraction of a second, you're screwed. It takes a very affluent and indulged culture to convince itself that standing around in weird poses is exercise.”

Erwan Le Corre (1971)

Christopher McDougall (2015). Natural Born Heroes: How A Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance, Vintage.

Exercises, Tree

“I don't think that the figure 2000 is an important milestone, in the first place. And in the second place, I don't think that this can be determined by public opinion. The righteousness of the war was not demonstrated by public support for it in the beginning, nor its wisdom altered by the evident decline in public support for it. I don't pay attention to the opinion polls, or indeed to the casualty figures, because I know that this is an inevitable war, a war that was going to have to happen — and was, in my opinion, both just and necessary.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Scotland Live (2005-10-31): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2000s, 2005

Wisdom, War, Support, Thinking

“Maybe you want to give me kisses sweet,
But only for one night with no repeat.
Maybe you'd go away and never call,
And a taste of honey is worse than none at all (oh little girl)
Oh little girl, in that case I don't want no part. (I do believe that)
That would only break my heart.
Oh, but if you feel like loving me,
If you got the notion,
I second that emotion.”

Smokey Robinson (1940) American R&B singer-songwriter and record producer

I Second That Emotion, written by Smokey Robinson and Al Cleveland (1967)
Song lyrics, With The Miracles

Love, Feeling, Girl, Kiss

“A fundamental change is taking place in the nature and application of technology in business, a change with profound and far-reaching implications for companies of every size and shape. A multimillion dollar research program conducted by the DMR Group, Inc., studied more than 4,500 organizations in North America, Europe, and the Far East to investigate the nature and impact of changes in technology. The synthesis and analysis of this information indicate that information technology is going through its first paradigm shift. Driven by the demands of the competitive business environment and profound changes in the nature of computers, the information age is evolving into a second era. Computing platforms in most organizations today are not able to deliver the goods for corporate rebirth. It is only through open network computing that the open networked client/server enterprise can be achieved. In nontechnical language this book shows managers and professionals how to take immediate action for the short-term benefits of the new technology while positioning their organizations for long-term growth and transformation…”

Don Tapscott (1947) Canadian businessman

Don Tapscott and Art Caston (1993) Paradigm Shift: The New Promise of Information Technology. McGraw Hill, Inc. Abstract

Books, Age, Business, Nature

“The growing singles world gives us another vantage point from which to see how sexual desire and excitement are a matter of distance elements. A couple goes to bed, perhaps on the first or second date, with seemingly great sexual appetite and desire for each other. The sex was "great," but the man, who believed he really wanted "great sex," never comes back for more; or the woman, who seemed to have been so "turned on" and sexually responsive, is not interested in a repeat performance.There is an often expressed "singles lament": "The ones I'm really turned on to don't seem to want me; while the people who want me, I can't get excited over."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

Then, finally, the disturbing conclusion: "The good ones are all taken, only the undesirable or 'sick' ones are left."
Sexual excitement and distance: sex is not sex, is sex, is not sex, p. 110
The Inner Male (1987)

People, World, Sex

“I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible to get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Conversation with Lord Moran, August 14, 1944.
Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940-1965 (London: Constable & Company, 1966), p. 167.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Water, Training

“In lecturing on cookery, as on housebuilding, I divide the subject into, not four, but five grand elements: first, Bread; second, Butter; third, Meat; fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea — by which I mean, generically, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in teacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what not. I affirm that, if these five departments are all perfect, the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and well-being of life are concerned.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Source: Household Papers and Stories (1864), Ch. 10.

Life, Coffee, Drink, Tea

“Then we have computer science. It is true that software cannot exercise its powers of lightness except through the weight of hardware. But it is the software that gives the orders, acting on the outside world and on machines that exist only as functions of software and evolve so that they can work out ever more complex programs. The second industrial revolution, unlike the first, does not present us with such crushing images as rolling mills and molten steel, but with "bits" in a flow of information traveling along circuits in the form of electronic impulses. The iron machines still exist, but they obey the orders of weightless bits.”

Italo Calvino book Six Memos for the Next Millennium

Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988) , "Lightness"
English translation: Patrick Creagh (1996).

World, Travel, Exercises, Light

“On the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, I remain grateful to America for having participated in the war. At that time, the Republic of Korea was one of the most impoverished countries, with an annual per capita income of less than $40. In 2009, my country became a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee, the first aid recipient to become a donor and in only one generation. The Republic of Korea is engaged in peacekeeping missions in 14 countries to promote global peace. It will host the G-20 summit in November, and in 2012 the second nuclear security summit.”

Lee Myung-bak (1941) 10th President of South Korea

A Note of Thanks (2010)

War, Peace, Time, Country

“I shake my memory.
Maybe something in its branches
that has been asleep for years
will start up with a flutter.No.
Clearly I'm asking too much.
Nothing less than one whole second.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

"May 16, 1973"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The End and the Beginning (1993)

Memory

“They realized that the gains that you get by statistical methods are gains that you get without new machinery, without new people. Anybody can produce quality if he lowers his production rate. That is not what I am talking about. Statistical thinking and statistical methods are to Japanese production workers, foremen, and all the way through the company, a second language. In statistical control you have a reproducible product hour after hour, day after day. And see how comforting that is to management, they now know what they can produce, they know what their costs are going to be.”

W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) American professor, author, and consultant

If Japan Can...Why Can't We? (1980)

People, Way, Thinking

“Spinoza saw… that if a falling stone could reason, it would think, "I want to fall at the rate of thirty-two feet per second."”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

"The Android and the Human" (1972), reprinted in The Dark-Haired Girl (1988) and in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (1995), ed. Lawrence Sutin

Thinking

“The second proposition admits and encourages the very practice we censure so justly, for which the saint [ Augustine of Hippo ] was so famous, and by which he contributed so much to promote contentions in his own days, and to perpetuate them to ours. The practice of deducing doctrines from the scriptures that are not evidently contained in them… Who does not see that the direct tendency of this practice is exactly the same as the event has proved it to be? It composes and propagates a religion, seemingly under the authority of God, but really under that of man. The principles of revelation are lost in theology, or disfigured by it: and whilst some men are impudent enough to pretend, others are silly enough to believe, that they adhere to the gospel, and maintain the cause of God against infidels and heretics, when they do nothing better, nor more, than espouse the conceits of men, whom enthusiasm, or the ambition of forming sects, or of making a great figure in them, has inspired. If you ask now what the practice of the christian fathers, and of other divines, should have been, in order to preserve the purity of faith, and to promote peace and charity, the answer is obvious… They should have adhered to the word of God: they should have paid no regard to heathen philosophy, jewish cabala, the sallies of enthusiasm, or the refinements of human ingenuity: they should have embraced, and held fast the articles of faith and doctrine, that were delivered in plain terms, or in unequivocal figures: they should not have been dogmatical where the sense was doubtful, nor have presumed even to guess where the Holy Ghost left the veil of mystery undrawn.”

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) English politician and Viscount

Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophical Works http://books.google.com/books?id=E6ATAAAAQAAJ (1754) Vol.III, Essay IV, Sect XVI

Men, God, Peace, Faith

“I have told the story of a progressive, educated, Hindu family of this country in Lajja. The family falls victim to communal violence, where a rationalist and atheist young man gradually transforms into a staunch Hindu, becomes a fundamentalist and gets destroyed in the process. The state destroys him, the government destroys him and gradually mushrooming religious fanaticism destroys him. He is defeated. Many young men in this country are transforming from human beings to Hindus. They are being repeatedly victimized by the state, in educational institutions, workplaces, business and trade, all because of religious discrimination. They are being labelled second-class citizens. Why should I not speak the truth? The truth will always be valued. The ones who make a truth controversial, the fault lies with them and not with the truth. And the ones who blame the truth support the actions of the miscreants. The Hindus getting into trouble here is a bad excuse. Those who like to stay silent for the sake of convenience are responsible for eroding human strength and courage. They are cowards and exploiters. They are the biggest threats to all minority communities. They believe if you point out a wrong it will lead to trouble. The same argument works for the Muslims there.”

Taslima Nasrin (1962) Poet, columnist, novelist

Nāsarina, T., & Chakraborty, M. (2018). Split: A life.

Men, Truth, Education, Family

“I am only too aware that I am open to Rees's Second Law of Quotation: "However sure you are that you have attributed a quotation correctly, an earlier source will be pointed out to you."”

Nigel Rees (1944) British writer and broadcaster

Brewer's Quotations (London: Cassell, 1994), p. x.

Law

“Mays always told me how hard it was to get a hit off me and every time I looked up, he was on second base. Yet, even with Mays, I had an idea what to do. When I pitched to Clemente and Aaron, I had no idea. They seemed to hit everything.”

Sandy Koufax (1935) American baseball player

As quoted in "Koufax Still a Champion" by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (May 8, 1967)

Idea, Time

“Oh, they [the Media] definitely don't want to know the real Barrett story… there are no facts involved in the Barrett story so they can make up any story they like, and they do. There's a vague basis in fact: Syd was in the band and he did write the material on the first album, 80% of it, but that's all. It is only that one album, and that's what people don't realise. That first album, and one track on the second. That's all; nothing else.”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

quoted in Lost In The Woods by Julian Palacios, 1997
Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett

People

“The second level of legitimation contains theoretical propositions in a rudimentary form. Here may be found various explanatory schemes relating sets of objective meanings. These schemes are highly pragmatic, directly related to concrete actions. Proverbs, moral maxims and wise sayings are common on this level. Here, too, belong legends and folk tales, frequently transmitted in poetic forms.”

Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

1991; 112
The Social Construction of Reality, 1966

“It is part of our identity as Hindus and the Festival of Lights is today a celebration of the beauty of our culture, our Hindu values which, let me assure you, are second to none in the world.”

Mahendra Chaudhry (1942) Fijian politician

"Diwali is an integral part of Hindu culture" http://www.flp.org.fj/n021102.htm - speech at Diwali celebrations in Ba, 2 November 2002

World, Beauty, Light, Parting

“One of my conjectures was solved in six months, a second in five years, a third in ten. But the basic conjecture, despite heroic efforts rewarded by two Fields Medals, remains a conjecture, now called MLC: the Mandelbrot Set is locally connected. The notion that these conjectures might have been reached by pure thought — with no picture — is simply inconceivable.”

Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician

A Theory of Roughness (2004)

Effort

“The people of the United States came out of the Korean War sadder and wiser than when they went in. Authorities have stated that two things happened in the Korean War which may yet brand it as the greatest blunder the Communist strategists ever made. First, it awakened the United States to the necessity of vigorously rearming and staying armed so long as the Communist threat exists. Second, it demonstrated to the people of the United States the inherent weaknesses of the United Nations.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

War, People

“The field of Architecture has given rise to a second major principle relating to the Life Cycle of Systems. This principle has emerged from the observation that temporary buildings erected to house Navy personnel in World War I continued to see yeoman service in World War II as well as in subsequent ventures, and are now a permanent, if fading, feature of Constitution Avenue in Washington… We conclude: A temporary patch will very likely be permanent.”

John Gall (1925–2014) American physician

Source: Systemantics: the underground text of systems lore, 1986, p. 36

Life, War, World, Housing

“(First Bad Girl) The Southern Baptist convention decided that women should submit graciously to their husbands. (Second Bad Girl) Graciously? Seems like submitting would be enough. (First Bad Girl) Who wants submission with attitude? (Second Bad Girl) Even the IRS doesn't ask for "gracious."”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 68

Women, Girl

“SPACESHIP EARTH: Earth is an automated Spaceship speeding rotatively at 66,000 miles per hour around the sun, which in turn, is on its own course at 6.0 kilometers per second within the Galactic Nebula. The awareness of Earth’s mobile patterning within the cosmos gives the perspective needed to deal with the overall evolutionary event-patterning aboard our spherical space-vehicle Earth, rather than the minute details. The automated events transpiring aboard Earth lend powerful advantages to those who comprehend the automation and attempt to work with it in the most long-term, humanly advantageous ways rather than ignorantly attempting to control or oppose it. Both Earth’s and humanity’s automation are biological.”

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

Source: 1960s, Presentation to U.S. Congressional Sub-Committee on World Game (1969), p. 102

Way, Sun, Speed

“The likeness of man above the throne is divided, the upper part being the colour of chashmal, the lower part like the appearance of fire. As regards the word chashmal, it has been explained to be the compound of two words chas and mal, including two different notions, viz., chash signifying "swiftness," and mal denoting "pause." The two different notions are here joined in one word in order to indicate figuratively the two different parts,—the upper part and the lower. We have already given a second explanation, namely, that chashmal includes the two notions of speach and silence; in accordance with the saying of our Sages, "At times they are silent, at times they speak."”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.7

Silence, Appearance, Time, Parting

“We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents, and sort them, to unify them. They will be found ampler than has been supposed, and in widely different sources. Thus far, impress'd by New England writers and schoolmasters, we tacitly abandon ourselves to the notion that our United States has been fashion'd from the British Islands only, and essentially form a second England only — which is a very great mistake.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

"The Spanish Element in Our Nationality," http://www.bartleby.com/229/5004.html letter to the Philadelphia Press (20 July 1883), later published in The Complete Prose Works of Walt Whitman (1892), part V: November Boughs

Learning

“In my constituency there were a large number of privately rented flats and rooms occupied mostly by low-paid single people or by low-paid or unemployed families. Now those people are being persuaded—I use the word advisedly—to leave those places so that they can be converted into up-market flats or second or city homes for the wealthy. Those tenants are literally forced on to the street and come under the care of the local authority, if the local authority can provide anything. There is a great increase in homelessness, but there is no increase in the number of homes available at cheap rents. Decontrol has forced those people on to the streets and caused homelessness. It is the enemy of good housing and working-class people. We need much more money spent on local authority and social ownership schemes to provide cheap rented houses for the people who need them, not for the yuppies that the Conservative party wants to bring into central London.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1987/mar/03/local-government-bill in the House of Commons (3 March 1987). 1980s

Money, People, Family, Home

“In order to win this war, we need to understand that the terrorists and extremists are opportunists. They will grab onto any cause to incite hatred and to justify the killing of innocent men, women and children. If we weren't in Iraq, they would be using our relationship and friendship with Israel as a reason to recruit, or the Crusades, or cartoons as a reason to commit murder. They recruit based upon lies and excuses. And they murder because of their raw desire for power. They hope to impose their dominion over the broader Middle East and establish a radical Islamic empire where millions are ruled according to their hateful ideology. We know this because al-Qaeda has told us. The terrorist Zawahiri, number two man in the al-Qaeda team, al-Qaeda network, he said, we'll proceed with several incremental goals. The first stage is to expel the Americans from Iraq; the second stage is to establish an Islamic authority, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of caliphate; the third stage, extend the jihad wave to secular countries neighboring Iraq; and the fourth stage, the clash with Israel. This is the words of the enemy. The President of the United States and the Congress must listen carefully to what the enemy says in order to be able to protect you. It makes sense for us to take their words seriously if our most important job is the security of the United States. Mister Zawahiri has laid out their plan. That's why they attacked us on September the 11th. That's why they fight us in Iraq today. And that is why they must be defeated.”

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

As quoted in "FLASHBACK 2006: Media Elites Slam Bush For Predicting Rise Of Islamic Caliphate In Iraq" http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/24/flashback-2006-media-elites-slam-bush-for-predicting-rise-of-islamic-caliphate-in-iraq/ (24 May 2016), The Daily Caller 2000s, 2006, Remarks at Bob Riley for Governor Luncheon (2006)

Women, Men, Hate, Friendship

“Michael Cole: [reading e-mail from RAW's anonymous GM] And I quote: "Mr. Punk, I understand your demands and I will certainly take them under consideration. However, right now, I'll ask you to leave the ring."
Punk: Okay… Cole, you know I love ya, I know you're just doing your job, but he's asking me to leave the ring? He/she is asking me to leave the ring? Okay, I'm not…
[The GM chime rings again] Cole: And I quote: "I suggest you leave the ring right now."
Punk: Until you announce me as the #1 contender for the WWE Championship, I suggest you watch me make snow angels.

July 17, 2011, will be the most historic day, not only in the career of CM Punk, it's gonna be a historic day for the WWE as a whole. Not only is July 17 the second annual Money in the Bank Ladder Match pay-per-view, it's the night I defeat John Cena for the WWE Championship. Now, here's that honesty I was talking about, that honesty that's probably gotten me in trouble more times than I'd like to admit, the brutal honesty I'm known for. July 17 is the day my contract with World Wrestling Entertainment comes to an end. That means when the clock strikes midnight, the 17th becomes the 18th, Sunday bleeds into Monday, I'm leaving. And trust me when I tell you I am leaving with the WWE Championship”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

June 20, 2011
WWE Raw

Love, Money, World, Angels

“The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on—only henceforth in my absence. (It's the second of those thoughts: the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is the more distressing.) Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Hitch 22: A Memoir (2010), "Something of Myself".
2010s, 2010

Idea, Despair

“Smith’s own theory, as given in the first five editions, is for the most part a theory of moral judgement —that is to say, it is an answer to the second question set out in the initial description of the subject of philosophical ethics. […] There is no thoroughgoing inquiry of what constitutes the character of virtue, as required by the first of the two questions, even though the historical survey at the end of the book deals with both questions in turn and, as it happens, gives more space to the first topic, the character of virtue, than to the second, the nature of moral judgement.
The fact is that Smith did not reach a distinctive view on the first topic. He has a distinctive view of the content of virtue, that is to say, a view of what are the cardinal virtues; but he does not give us an explanation of what is meant by the concept of moral virtue, how it arises, how it differentiates moral excellence from other forms of human excellence. […] I think that, when Smith came to revise the work for the sixth edition, he realized that he had not dealt at all adequately with the first of the two questions, and for that reason he added the new part VI, entitled ‘Of the Character of Virtue’, to remedy the omission. It is not, in my opinion, an adequate remedy, and it certainly does not match Smith’s elaborate answer to the second question. […]
Since the second of the two topics, the nature of moral judgement, is the main subject of both versions of Smith’s book, I shall give it priority in what follows. There is in fact a clear development in Smith’s view of this topic, especially in his conception of the impartial spectator, the most important element of Smith’s ethical theory.”

D. D. Raphael (1916–2015) Philosopher

The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy (2007), Ch. 1: Two Versions

Books, Question, Nature, Thinking

“We know by actual observation only a comparatively small part of the whole universe. I will call this "our neighborhood." Even within the confines of this province our knowledge decreases very rapidly as we get away from our own particular position in space and time. It is only within the solar system that our empirical knowledge extends to the second order of small quantities (and that only for g44 and not for the other gαβ), the first order corresponding to about 10-8. How the gαβ outside our neighborhood are, we do not know, and how they are at infinity of space or time we shall never know. Infinity is not a physical but a mathematical concept, introduced to make our equations more symmetrical and elegant. From the physical point of view everything that is outside our neighborhood is pure extrapolation, and we are entirely free to make this extrapolation as we please to suit our philosophical or aesthetical predilections—or prejudices. It is true that some of these prejudices are so deeply rooted that we can hardly avoid believing them to be above any possible suspicion of doubt, but this belief is not founded on any physical basis. One of these convictions, on which extrapolation is naturally based, is that the particular part of the universe where we happen to be, is in no way exceptional or privileged; in other words, that the universe, when considered on a large enough scale, is isotropic and homogeneous.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

"The Astronomical Aspect of the Theory of Relativity" (1933)

Way, Mathematics, Nature, Knowledge

“In every third world age (Dvapara), Vishnu, in the person of Vyasa, in order to promote the good of mankind, divides the Veda, which is properly but one, into many portions. Observing the limited perseverance, energy, and application of mortals, he makes the Veda fourfold, to adapt it to their capacities; and the bodily form which he assumes, in order to effect that classification, is known by the name of Veda-vyasa. Of the different Vyasas in the present Manvantara and the branches which they have taught, you shall have an account. Twenty-eight times have the Vedas been arranged by the great Rishis in the Vaivasvata Manvantara… and consequently eight and twenty Vyasas have passed away; by whom, in the respective periods, the Veda has been divided into four. The first… distribution was made by Svayambhu (Brahma) himself; in the second, the arranger of the Veda (Vyasa) was Prajapati…”

Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

and so on up to twenty-eight Vishnu Purana (Book 3, Ch 3), in The Vishńu Puráńa: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition http://books.google.co.in/books?id=bkEpAAAAYAAJ, p. 219. Sources

Age, World, Time, Personality

“Industrial age companies created sharp distinctions between two groups of employees. The intellectual elite—managers and engineers—used their analytical skills to design products and processes, select and manage customers, and supervise day-to-day operations. The second group was composed of the people who actually produced the products and delivered the services. This direct labor work force was a principal factor of production for industrial age companies, but used only their physical capabilities, not their minds. They performed tasks and processes under direct supervision of white-collar engineers and managers. At the end of the twentieth century, automation and productivity have reduced the percentage of people in the organization who perform traditional work functions, while competitive demands have increased the number of people performing analytic functions: engineering, marketing, management, and administration. Even individuals still involved in direct production and service delivery are valued for their suggestions on how to improve quality, reduce costs, and decrease cycle times…
Now all employees must contribute value by what they know and by the information they can provide. Investing in, managing, and exploiting the knowledge of every employee have become critical to the success of information age companies”

David P. Norton (1941) American business theorist, business executive and management consultant

Source: The Balanced Scorecard, 1996, p. 5-6

People, Age, Knowledge, Time

“The representation of the self-sufficiency of the I can certainly co-exist with a representation of the self-sufficiency of the thing, though the self-sufficiency of the I itself cannot co-exist with that of the thing. Only one of these two can come first, only one can be the starting point; only one can be independent. The one that comes second, just because it comes second, necessarily becomes dependent upon the one that comes first, with which it is supposed to be connected. Which of these two should come first?”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: Introduction to Fichte's Science of Knowledge (1797/1798), p. 17-18.

Dependency

“The politician has a right to defend his dignity. I ignored the first wave of invectives, but the second one was too much, I couldn't have handled it and I had said in hard (but for the street - where I was - soft) words that he should go.”

Lech Kaczyński (1949–2010) Polish politician, president of Poland

President Kaczyński's comment on words above. (2002)

“I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Chapter 4, "The Sorcerer Pharesm"

“The second category of personal questions would be more relevant when I finally call it a day and find myself in a reminiscent or atavistic frame of mind. As it is, I am still on the move -- and intend to be so. It is not fair to ask me to anticipate the possible answers to such 'terminal' questions. I hope my reluctance to answer these questions will be understood in the right spirit.”

P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) Indian politician

While nobody was opening their mouths in other parties, mouths were wide open in the Congress

Hope, Question, Personality

“I have never felt like a second-class citizen. I consider myself a U. S. citizen. I appreciate and treasure my U. S. citizenship. I would never renounce or consider losing that citizenship. I want my children and their children to always have it.”

Sila María Calderón (1942) Puerto Rican mayor

Interview with Caribbean Business (December 3, 1998)

Children

“Science has made great progress in this world. Where we used to engage a thousand men to work, now a bulldozer does the work in seconds. But that makes a thousand people useless and unemployed. While unemployment is increasing in the world, people have lost their peace of mind. The reason for this is because man has ceased to work. Due to this inaction, all kind of pains and sicknesses are increasing in the world. I want you to take the energy of the machines into yourself and work like machines!”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

Karma yoga
Source: The Teachings of Babaji, 20 November 1983.

Men, Pain, People, World

“He has now a second far greater success to gain: to seek out his real superiors, whom not the Tailor but the Almighty God has made superior to him, and see a little what he will do with these! Rebel against these also? Pass by with minatory eagle-glance, with calm-sniffing mockery, or even without any mockery or sniff, when these present themselves? The lion-hearted will never dream of such a thing. Forever far be it from him! His minatory eagle-glance will veil itself in softness of the dove: his lion- heart will become a lamb's; all is just indignation changed into just reverence, dissolved in blessed floods of noble humble love, how much heavenlier than any pride, nay, if you will, how much prouder!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Love, God, Dreams, Change

“Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?" Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. "This long." He snapped his fingers. "A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man."
"Old?" asked Clevinger with surprise. "What are you talking about?"
"Old."
"I'm not old."
"You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow down?" Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.
"Well, maybe it is true," Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. "Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

"I do," Dunbar told him.
"Why?" Clevinger asked.
"What else is there?"
Catch-22 (1961)

Life, Death, Age, School

“American women, like so many others around the world, were trained largely to live as second-class citizens, and living as a second-class citizen meant living as a victim. It was only by empowering them with full social and economic equality that average mothers, wives, and daughters of the world stood a chance of providing for themselves and the offspring they bore.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(Women, p. 15).
Book Sources, The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003)

Women, World, Chance, Daughters

“The assumption that we would ever be called upon to perform this second task now appeared quite clearly to me as the most extravagant folly, based on a wild delusion conceived by a raving idiot.”

Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean

Part 3, Chapter 8 (p. 140)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

Appearance

“Kunti to Vidura when she found that her second Bhima had gone missing.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

The Mahabharata/Book 1: Adi Parva/Section CXXIX

“In the second place, a system would involve more variables than those which may be supposed to enter into demand relationships, and so the preliminary work of estimating the necessary time series would also be increased. In the third place, in the simultaneous method of estimation the estimates of the original parameters come to depend on most of the remaining estimates, and so it is quite likely that they will have large sampling variances.”

Richard Stone (1913–1991) British economist, Nobel Memorial Prize winner

Studies in the National Income and Expenditure of the United Kingdom, 1954

Time, Dependency

“It is no coincidence, I am sure, that those who have the most to say about the Project are the ones who have had no direct contact with it. Which is similar to the attitude physicists have regarding gravitation or electrons — as opposed to that of the "well-informed" who read popular science. The "well-informed" think they know something about matters that the experts are reluctant to even to speak of. Information at second hand always gives an impression of tidiness, in contrast with the data at the scientist's disposal, full of gaps and uncertainties.”

Stanisław Lem book His Master's Voice

Source: His Master's Voice (1968), Ch. 1

Thinking, Science, Reading

“Three Silences there are: the first of speech,
The second of desire, the third of thought;
This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught
With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Three Silences of Molinos http://www.readbookonline.net/read/3051/12504/ (1878).

Dreams, Silence

“I understood three manners of beholding of Motherhood in God: the first is grounded in our Nature’s making; the second is taking of our nature, — and there beginneth the Motherhood of Grace; the third is Motherhood of working, — and therein is a forthspreading by the same Grace, of length and breadth and height and of deepness without end. And all is one Love.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 59

Love, God, Nature

“I have a message to the neo-Nazis, to the white nationalists, and to the neo-Confederates: Your heroes are losers. You are supporting a lost cause. And believe me, I knew the original Nazis, because you see, I was born in Austria in 1947, shortly after the Second World War. And growing up, I was surrounded by broken men, men who came home from a war filled with shrapnel and guilt, men who were misled into a losing ideology. And I can tell you: that these ghosts you idolize spent the rest of their lives living in shame and right now, they’re resting in hell.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

A message for Donald Trump -, ATTN video https://twitter.com/attn/status/898328098529083394 (August 2017) 2010s

Men, War, World, Home

“James March, a Stanford-based social scientist… is much more a gurus’ guru than a guru to the general public. He finished second on the gurus’ gurus list and 48th on the original list.”

Thomas H. Davenport (1954) American academic

Laurence Prusak, Thomas H. Davenport, "Who Are the Gurus' Gurus," Harvard Business Review Survey, December 2003, p.14–16

“And as far as [it's] presumptuous to say that God used twenty-four hour days, God, God coulda done it in six seconds. I think he did it in six days just to select, just to create a week for us. There's certainly no scientific reason, there's no lunar reason or solar reason why we have a seven day week. But just about every culture in the world operates on a seven day week. It's just like it's kind of built-in. And I think that's remnants, people remembering from the original creation when God established this seven day week.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

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

God, People, World, Thinking

“I sat there as if I were paralyzed; for a second totally immobilized, a suddenly frozen mind and body that had solidified into one great silent scream at the mention of a name I had long ago consigned to a grave somewhere. Then the terrible cold was drenched with an even more terrible wash of heat and I sat there with my hands bunched into fists to keep them from shaking.”

Mickey Spillane book The Girl Hunters

The Girl Hunters (1962)

“In this world second thoughts, it seems, are best.”

Euripidés Hippolytus

Variant translations: Among mortals second thoughts are the wisest.
Second thoughts are ever wiser.
Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.
Source: Hippolytus (428 BC), l. 435, as translated by David Grene

World

“We wish to continue in following up the legacy of the Second Vatican Council whose wise regulations have still to be led to their fulfilment, being careful that a push, generous perhaps, but unduly timed, does not detract from the content and meaning of the council, and on the other hand being careful and reined and timid efforts do not slow up the magnificent drive of renewal and of life.”

Pope John Paul I (1912–1978) 263rd Pope of the Catholic Church

Address to the crowd in St Peter's Square (27 August 1978), as quoted in "Pope John Paul will continue policy of reform" by Peter Nichols, in The Times (28 August 1978), p. 1

Life, Effort, Time

“There is a kind of second law of cultural dynamics which states simply that when anything has been done, it cannot be done again. In other words, we start off any system with a potential for novelty which is gradually exhausted. We see this in every field of human life, in the arts as well as the sciences. Once Beethoven has written the Ninth Symphony, nobody else can do it. Consequently, we find that in any evolutionary process, even in the arts, the search for novelty becomes corrupting. The "entropy trap" is perhaps the most subtle and the most fundamental of the obstacles toward realising the developed society…”

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

Kenneth Boulding (1970) "The Science Revelation". In: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (Sept 1970) Vol. 26, nr. 7. p. 16
1970s

Life, Law, Art, Search

“I did a bond tour during the Second World War… We were raising money, and we played Boston and Philadelphia and most of the big cities. And we got to Minneapolis. There wasn't any big theater to play there, so we did our show in a railroad station. Then I told the audience that I knew a girl in Minneapolis. She was also known in St. Paul, she used to come over to visit me. She was known as "The Tail Of Two Cities."”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

I didn't sell any more bonds, but eh... they didn't allow me to appear anymore.
Recounting a War Bonds tour in his Carnegie Hall appearance (6 May 1972)

Money, War, World, Girl

“In this essay on econometrics in its conception and its use in economic planning for the betterment of man’s fate, I will try to cover a very broad field.
When talking about the methodology in the particular fields mentioned - about which I am supposed to have a little more than second hand knowledge - I have always found it utterly inadequate to focus attention only on these special fields without seeing them in a much broader perspective.
Therefore it was inevitable that I should have to include in the field of vision of this paper also some branches of science where I can only speak as a layman, hopefully as a somewhat informed layman. For whatever blunders I may have made in these fields I must ask for the reader’s forgiveness”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Source: 1970s and later, From Utopian Theory to Practical Applications, 1970, p. 9 : Lead paragraph

Fate, Forgiveness, Knowledge, Science

“The first duty of wine is to be red. The second is to be a Burgundy.”

Alec Waugh (1898–1981) British novelist

In Praise of Wine (1959).

Wine

“Fortunately, the first Islamic invasion of Europe was stopped at Poitiers in 732; the second in Vienna in 1683. [L]et us ensure that the third Islamic invasion, which is currently in full spate, will be stopped too in spite of its insidious nature and notwithstanding the fact that, in contrast to the 8th and 17th centuries, it has no need for an Islamic army because the scared "dhimmis" in the West, also those in Dutch politics, have left their doors wide open to Islam and Muslims.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Mr Wilders's contribution to the parliamentary debate on Islamic activism, 2007-09-06, Speech before the Dutch Parliament, Internet Archive http://web.archive.org/web/20080614074737/http://www.groepwilders.com/website/details.aspx?ID=44, 2000s

Nature

“Second to agriculture, humbug is the biggest industry of our age.”

Alfred Nobel (1833–1896) Swedish chemist, innovator, and armaments manufacturer

Age

“Sangamon’s Principle,” I said. “The simpler the molecule, the better the drug. So the best drug is oxygen. Only two atoms. The second-best, nitrous oxide—a mere three atoms. The third-best, ethanol—nine. Past that, you’re talking lots of atoms.”
“So?”
“Atoms are like people. Get lots of them together, never know what they’ll do.”

Neal Stephenson book Zodiac

Source: Zodiac (1988), Chapter 1

People, Past

“Their beloved priest must now wander for all eternity chained to this earthly purgatory—a warning to all that God forgives only that which is confessed to Him through true repentance and atonement. I walked down the church steps, keeping my secret stitched to my tongue. After the ceremony I would have no one to answer for my yearnings but myself, even if after my death I would have to lag behind that priest until the end of days, a pair of branded souls dragging the heavy burdens of their sins, like cows roaming the foggiest dawns, the first guiding the second with its dangling rosary of a tail.”

Rigoberto González (1970) American writer

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006)

Death, God, Secret, Soul

“Some of God's children, the "holy people", the writer among the number, though not associated with the "Miller movement", nor with the denomination subsequently organized, which calls itself the "Second Advent Church," have been looking at and "earnestly waiting" for Michael's Kingdom; and gladly we bear testimony to the "blessedness" of the wonderfully clear unfoldings of our Father's plan, at and since the fall of 1874 - the end of the 1335 days.
Words fail us to express this blessedness! Only those who have been refreshed in spirit with this new wine of the Kingdom could appreciate it, if we could describe it. It is therefore something to be felt, rather than told. It was at and since the ending of those 1335 prophetic, symbolic days that the previous views of the Lord's presence, and the fact that we are even now living in the time of the "harvest" of this Gospel age, and in the time of the setting up of our Michael's (Christ's) Kingdom, came to be known.”

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

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 88.

God, Children, People, Age

“There are basically two types of creationists; the professional or political creationists; these are the activists who lead the movement and who will regularly deliberately lie to promote their propaganda; and the second type which are the innocently-deceived followers commonly known as “sheep”. I know lots of intellectual Christians, but I can’t get any of them to actually watch the televangelists, because they either already know how phony they are, or they don’t want to find out. But that only allows a radical fringe to claim support from they masses they now also claim to represent. So there’s nothing to stop them. Professional creationists are making money hand over fist with faith-healing scams or bilking little old ladies out of prayer donations, or selling books and videos at their circus-like seminars where they have undeserved respect as powerful leaders. All of them feign knowledge they can’t really possess, and some of them claim degrees they’ve never actually earned… Were it not for this con, they’d have to go back to selling used cars, wonder drugs, and multi-level marketing schemes. They will never change their minds no matter what it costs anyone else.”

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

"1st Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJX68ELbAY, Youtube (November 11, 2007) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Money, Lie, Books, Faith

“Socrates compared living without thinking systematically to practicing an activity like pottery or shoemaking without following or even knowing of technical procedures. One would never imagine that a good pot or shoe would result from intuition alone; why then assume that the more complex task of directing one’s life could be undertaken without any sustained reflection on premises or goals? Perhaps because we don’t believe that directing our lives is in fact complicated. Certain difficult activities look very difficult from the outside, while other equally difficult activities look very easy. Arriving at sound views on how to live falls into the second category, making a pot or a shoe into the first.”

Alain de Botton book The Consolations of Philosophy

Source: The Consolations of Philosophy (2000), p. 21.

Life, Shoe, Imagination, Thinking

“Just as we pull up to this place… I notice two very large American flags… It's as if there was a need to emphasize the Americanness of this place. "We are American" says the first flag. "No we really are!" says the second. It struck me as enormously sad, somehow awkward and tragic.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, NATIONALISM

Sadness

“For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature. While the President’s plan envisages humans traveling away from Earth and perhaps toward Mars at some time in the future, the lack of developed rockets and spacecraft will assure that ability will not be available for many years.
Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity. America must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space. If it does, we should institute a program which will give us the very best chance of achieving that goal.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

Open letter on NASA cuts (2010)

Travel, Chance, Time, Future

“Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: the first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for mine enemies.”

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

No. 195 (13 October 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Quotes, Drink

“The most beautiful conception of immortality of which I know, and certainly one that by contrast shows the utter vulgarity of Christian ideas, is set forth in Pindar's second Olympian: after three or six lives in which a man has lived with strict justice and perfect integrity, he passes beyond the tower of Cronus to the fair realm that cannot be reached by land or sea, where gentle breezes from a placid ocean blow forever on the fields of asphodel. For a description, see Pindar. If the beauty of great poetry can commend a religion, here you have it.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"Afterthoughts on Afterlife", Instauration magazine (August 1980)
1970s, 1980s

Religion, Justice, Beauty, Idea

“The climax was reached when the same Marxist professors started explaining away Islamic iconoclasm in terms of what they described as Hindu destruction of Buddhist and Jain places of worship. They have never been able to cite more than half-a-dozen cases of doubtful veracity. A few passages in Sanskrit literature coupled with speculations about some archaeological sites have sufficed for floating the story, sold ad nauseam in the popular press, that Hindus destroyed Buddhist and Jain temples on a large scale. Half-a-dozen have become thousands and then hundreds of thousands in the frenzied imagination suffering from a deep-seated anti-Hindu animus…. And these “facts” have been presented with a large dose of suppressio veri suggestio falsi…. A very late Buddhist book from Sri Lanka accuses Pushyamitra Sunga, a second century B. C. king, of offering prizes to those who brought to him heads of Buddhist monks. This single reference has sufficed for presenting Pushyamitra as the harbinger of a “Brahmanical reaction” which “culminated in the age of the Guptas.” The fact that the famous Buddhist stupas and monasteries at Bharhut and Sanchi were built and thrived under the very nose of Pushyamitra is never mentioned. Nor is the fact that the Gupta kings and queens built and endowed many Buddhist monasteries at Bodh Gaya, Nalanda and Sarnath among many other places. (…) This placing of Hindu kings on par with Muslim invaders in the context of iconoclasm suffers from serious shortcomings. Firstly, it lacks all sense of proportion when it tries to explain away the destruction of hundreds of thousands of Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jain temples by Islamic invaders in terms of the doubtful destruction of a few Buddhist and Jain shrines by Hindu kings. Secondly, it has yet to produce evidence that Hindus ever had a theology of iconoclasm which made this practice a permanent part of Hinduism. Isolated acts by a few fanatics whom no Hindu historian or pandit has ever admired, cannot explain away a full-fledged theology which inspired Islamic iconoclasm….”

Pushyamitra Shunga King of Sunga Dynasty

S.R. Goel, Some Historical Questions (Indian Express, April 16, 1989), quoted in Shourie, A., & Goel, S. R. (1990). Hindu temples: What happened to them.

Books, Age, Imagination, Literature

“This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd length to which vicious specialisation will carry scientists working in thought-tight compartments …. For a projectile entirely to escape the gravitation of the Earth, it needs a velocity of 7 miles a second. The thermal energy of a gramme at this speed is 15180 calories …. The energy of our most violent explosive - nitroglycerine - is less than 1500 calories per grammer. Consequently, even had the explosive nothing to carry, it has only one tenth of the energy to escape the Earth … hence the proposition appears to be basically unsound.”

A.W. Bickerton (1842–1929) British scientist

From Basics of space flight, Ludwik Marian Celnikier, 1993, ISBN 2863321323, quoting "Discouraging Words", Spaceflight, 34, 225 (1992).

Idea, Appearance, Speed

“What constitutes an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession. An American is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice… An American is one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. Americans have always known how to fight for their rights and their way of life. Americans are not afraid to fight. They fight joyously in a just cause.”

Harold L. Ickes (1874–1952) American politician

"What Is An American?" http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/ickes.htm (18 May 1941)

Love, Life, Family, Religion

“Stark said wearily, “I don’t think you understand.” Normally he was tolerant of tribal fancies, but he felt no great tenderness for the Outdwellers. “The stars are already defiled. They’re only suns, like that one over your head. They have worlds around them, like this one under your feet. People live on those worlds, people who never heard of Outdwellers or their footling goddess. And the starships fly between them. It’s all going on out there, this second as you stand here, and nothing you can do will stop it.””

Leigh Brackett (1915–1978) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Ginger Star (1974), Chapter 15 (pp. 126-127)

People, World, Star, Understanding

“There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 22; translated by W. K. Marriot

“For my part, I had rather be the first man among these fellows than the second man in Rome.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Caesar

Parting

“Aristocracy has three successive ages, — the age of superiorities, the age of privileges, and the age of vanities; having passed out of the first, it degenerates in the second, and dies away in the third.”

François-René de Chateaubriand book Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe

Variants: Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiorities, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.
Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.
Original version: L'aristocratie a trois âges successifs : l'âge des supériorités, l'âge des privilèges, l'âge des vanités ; sortie du premier, elle dégènère dans le second et s'éteint dans le dernier.
Book I, Ch. 1 : The Vallé-aux-loups
Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848 – 1850)

Age, Success

“Ask yourself this question: if you were one of America's Founders, and you'd just surprised the world (and yourself) by winning a war of secession against the most powerful and heavy-handed government on the planet, and the last thing in the world you wanted for yourself, for your children, or for your grandchildren was to fall beneath the heels of its jackboots again, what would you want the Bill of Rights to mean?
And if the first act, under martial law, of that powerful, heavy-handed government had been to try to take your guns away at Lexington and Concord, would you have written a Second Amendment to guarantee its 'right' to own and carry weapons? Would you have written a Second Amendment that was subject to whatever government claims is 'reasonable regulation?”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

Or would you have written the Second Amendment to forbid government from having anything to do with your guns? Anything whatever. "Police Reform," http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle501-20090111-02.html 11 January 2009.

War, Children, World, Law

“[I] launched a new offensive against the fortress of painting. First, white thinned out in linseed oil as a general base. Second, color the entire surface lightly by applying very large areas of different colors that swim into one other and that must remain free of any effect of chiaroscuro. Third, a drawing, independent of and substituting for the unformulated tonal values. Then, at the end, some bass notes to ward off flabbiness, not too dark, but colored bass notes. This is the style that connects drawing and the realm of color, a saving transfer of my fundamental graphic talent into the domain of painting”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1911), Diary # 875; as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev27.htmlparagraph 1911 - 1914

Color, Drawing, Painting

“I shall present a theory - which I call "the theory of the managerial revolution." During the past century, dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of "theories of history" have been elaborated. All of the theories, with the exception of those few which approximate to the theory of the managerial revolution, boil down to two and only two. The first of these predicts that capitalism will continue for an indefinite, but long, time, if not forever:' that is, that the major institutions of capitalist society, or at least most of them, will not be radically changed. The second predicts that capitalist society will be replaced by socialist society. The theory of the managerial revolution predicts that capitalist society will be replaced by "managerial society," that, in fact, the transition from capitalist society to managerial society is already well under way.”

James Burnham (1905–1987) American philosopher

Source: The Managerial Revolution, 1941, p. 7, as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 12-13

Way, History, Change, Time

“What I am arguing, in effect, is that the full democratic system of the second half of the fifth century B. C. would not have been introduced had there been no Athenian empire.”

Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 3, Democracy, Consensus and National Interest, p. 87

“She is a goddess,’ said Ambrose, drunkenly and stoutly. ‘…And she wants me. She’s the pursuer…She’s the epitome of woman, not,’ he said, ‘not a second-hand bundle of coy erogeneity draped,’ he said, ‘in an all-too-diaphanous robe,’ he said, ‘of pudeur.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Eve of St. Venus (1964)

“Terry Pratchett and I met in February 1985, in a Chinese restaurant. I was a young journalist. He was a former journalist and Electricity Board PR, and a writer who had just published his second Discworld novel. I was the first journalist who had ever interviewed him.
I remember we made each other laugh a lot. We laughed at the same things. We became friends. It was easy.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Good Omens: How Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett wrote a book (2014)

“The first Elm Street was such a fresh idea and it absolutely blew me away. But the second one didn’t have Wes involved and I think it suffered as a result of that. With the third one Wes and his writing partner Bruce Wagner already had a script before I came onboard. Then me and Frank Darabont did some re-writes. We thought ‘why can’t we make this film wilder and much more fun that the first one’. I realised that the heart of it was these adolescent kids. These 15/16 year old kids who are just at that age when you start to realise that bad things happen in the world. Of course, none of the adults believe the kids about Freddy so going to them always makes things worse in these films.”

Chuck Russell (1958) American film director

THN Exclusive: Chuck Russell talks I Am Wrath, The Mask and Freddy Krueger http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/2016/05/23/thn-exclusive-chuck-russell-talks/ (May 23, 2016)

Age, World, Idea, Thinking

“Never claim anything or anyone is the best. Always second best…leaving room to maneuver.”

Reese Palley (1922–2015)

“Sometimes one bad decision can mess up your life. We seal our fate with the choices we make. But don't give a second thought to the chances we take… Surely, you say, it's not as bad as you make it sound. If we make a mistake, you can always turn it back around. Get back on the straight and narrow -- When I'm through having all my fun... We seal our fate with the choices we make...”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Seal Our Fate
2007, 2008

Life, Fate, Decision, Chance

“An artist using statistics as a brush could paint two very different pictures of our country. One would have warning signs: increasing layoffs, rising energy prices, too many failing schools, persistent poverty, the stubborn vestiges of racism. Another picture would be full of blessings: a balanced budget, big surpluses, a military that is second to none, a country at peace with its neighbors, technology that is revolutionizing the world, and our greatest strength, concerned citizens who care for our country and care for each other.”

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

2000s, 2001, Address to Joint Session of Congress on Administration Goals (February 2001)

World, School, Peace, Painting

“I’ve protected it [the Nirvana catalogue] from everything from Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials to movies about board games. We’ve been offered $6 million for 18 seconds of one Nirvana song and I turned it down.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On managing the Nirvana catalogue, The Sydney Morning Herald (11 August 2014)
2014–2017

Game

“These stories offer us a model of how real refreshment of body and spirit is achieved. Three things are worth noting. First, rest comes as an invitation from Jesus. Recently, Pope Francis recommended to a group of priests that they should be open to the rest that comes from Jesus, rather than relying on other ways to relax, some of which can be very unhealthy, if not destructive. We can use entertainment, mind altering substances and other means that only serve as a temporary release of tension and fatigue. Superficial at best, these efforts end up provoking more restlessness and lethargy, especially if they bring upon guilt and depression. It is known, for instance, that alcohol can be a depressant and impact our overall mood. Jesus offers us the gift of rest, and so the first step is to surrender to the kind of rest he offers, and accept his invitation, rather than taking on this burden ourselves. Second, his invitation is to go to an “out of the way” place, a deserted place. This is not an invitation to take a vacation to an exotic location, but rather a summons to enter into those places in our lives that we ignore, yet which have an impact on us.”

Blase J. Cupich (1949) Catholic bishop

"The gift of rest", from the online edition of The Catholic New World, the Chicago archdiocesan newspaper, in the Archbishop's Column (July 26 - August 8, 2015)

Alcohol, Way, Mood, Effort

“We should take comfort in two conjoined features of nature: first, that our world is incredibly strange and therefore supremely fascinating … second, that however bizarre and arcane our world might be, nature remains potentially comprehensible to the human mind.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Dinosaur in a Haystack

"A Special Fondness for Beetles", pp. 386-387
Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995)

World, Nature

“This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace in our time.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Neville Chamberlain 1937-40 Conservative" http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page135.asp, 10 Downing Street, number10.gov.uk (accessed 2006-06-11) On returning to England from Munich in 1938; cf. Benjamin Disraeli's return from the Congress of Berlin in 1878 Prime Minister

Peace, History, Time

“Flour shipped from the Mississippi River to Havana can pass by the very entrance to the city on its way to a port in Spain, there pay a duty fixed upon articles to be reexported, transferred to a Spanish vessel and brought back almost to the point of starting, paying a second duty, and still leave a profit over what would be received by direct shipment. All that is produced in Cuba could be produced in Santo Domingo. Being a part of the United States, commerce between the island and mainland would be free. There would be no export duties on her shipments nor import duties on those coming here.”

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

1870s, Eighth State of the Union Address (1876)

Way, Parting

“What I have in common with the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) is that, undeniably, our generation came into Parliament because we were determined to prevent what happened in the 1930s from occurring again and to prevent a breakdown in the social structure and the political institutions that led to the rise of authoritarianism in Europe and finally to the Second World War. That was our determination, and for 25 years, from 1950 to 1975, the people we represented had a better standard of living, bigger and better homes, better education, a better Health Service, better roads and better transport and were able to enjoy holidays such as they had not envisaged before.”

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

Speech in the House of Commons (27 November 1980) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1980/nov/27/industry-and-the-economy Post-Prime Ministerial

War, People, Health, World

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Surprised by Joy

Surprised by Joy (1955)

God, Fear, Feeling, Night

“MIT is governed by a second, even higher rule: the inalienable right of academic freedom.”

Nicholas Negroponte (1943) American computer scientist

Being Nicholas, The Wired Interview by Thomas A. Bass http://archives.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/nn/bd1101bn.htm

Freedom

“If they come to us, we do all of the work and take all of the risk. They have no financial exposure. Making the client themselves is always risky. However you cannot look at it in terms of money only. When a game is ported to a second platform, it almost always exposes bugs and problems that would otherwise have been missed, as the developers have to re-work portions of the game. This will mean that creating a Linux version will increase the stability of the Windows version, and increase the quality of their core product, a fact that in itself may justify the cost of a Linux port.”

Michael Simms (software developer) (1973) Video game programmer

Quoted in Robin Heggelund Hansen, "Porting games to Linux" http://www.hardware.no/artikler/ryan_c_gordon_and_michael_simms/68450/4 hardware.no (2009-03-10)

Money, Game, Problem

“Football … is a ballet of wondrous beauty choreographed by highly skilled performers, dramatising the conflict between good and evil that takes place in every heart. And, at the same time it reflects the impatient immediacy of modern society in that success breeds immortality, while the procurement of second place begets anonymity.”

Damien Richardson (1947) Irish footballer and manager

City Edition, Vol. 22, Issue 12, p. 5.

Beauty, Evil, Time, Success