Quotes about second
page 12

“After the end of the year election and the set up of the second National Economic Development Advisory Conference, I shall start to improve the economy.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

November 1, 2005
Pet Phrases, 2005

“The authentic British poetry of the second world war was not a poetry of protest, still less was it inspired by patriotic enthusiasm”

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet

Introductory Essay 'Setting the Scene'
Not Without Glory, 1976

War, World

“The notion of the "axis of evil" has an interesting provenance. In early drafts of the President's speech the "axis of evil" was the "axis of hatred", "axis" having been settled on for its associations with the enemy in the second world war. The "axis of hatred" at this point consisted of only two countries, Iran and Iraq. whereas of course the original axis consisted of three (Germany, Italy, Japan). It was additionally noticed that Iran and Iraq, while not both Arab, were both Muslim. So they brought in North Korea.
We may notice, in this embarras of the inapposite, that the Axis was an alliance, whereas Iran and Iraq are blood-bespattered enemies, and the zombie nation of North Korea is, in truth, so mortally ashamed of itself that it can hardly bear to show its face.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"The Palace of the End" (2003)

War, Truth, World, Evil

“The next simplest feature that is common to all that comes before the mind, and consequently, the second category, is the element of Struggle.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

Lecture II : The Universal Categories, § 2 : Struggle, CP 5.45
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism (1903)

“You will have very large quantities of clothes to disinfect, ten or twenty times as much as the "Textiles Collection," which is only being carried out in order to camouflage the origin of the Jewish, Polish, Czech, and other items of clothing. Your second job is to convert the gas- chambers, which have up to now been operated with exhaust gases from an old Diesel engine, to a more poisonous and quicker means, cyanide. But the Führer and Himmler, who were here on August 15, that is, the day before yesterday, gave orders that I am to accompany all persons who visit the installations.”

Odilo Globocnik (1904–1945) SS officer

To Kurt Gerstein, 17 August 1942. Quoted in "Genocide, Critical Issues of the Holocaust" - Page 455 - by Alex Grobman, Daniel Landes, Sybil Milton - History - 1983.

Time, Personality, Clothes

“I called Anna Freud in London to tell her what was about to happen. It was a strange, honest conversation.
"Miss Freud, I am sure you have heard that Dr. Eissler is going to fire me from the Archives."
"Yes. And I disagree with him. I did not like that second article in the New York Times. And I think you are wrong in your views. But I do not see why you should be so severely punished for holding them. On one point, however, I feel that I was deceived by Dr. Eissler. He never told me that you were going to live in my house. My understanding was that you were to be in charge of the library and of the research, but not actually live in the house." I never did find out why Eissler never explained this to Anna Freud. Perhaps he was being discreet, not wanting to bring up the matter of her death, or perhaps he knew she would not like the idea of my living in the house. Of course, as things turned out, I never did live in the Freud house.
"Did the idea of my living in your house upset you?"
"Frankly, yes it did."
"Why?"
"Because my father would not have wanted it."
"You mean he would not have liked me?"
"I am not saying that. But he would not have wanted somebody like you living in the house. He would have wanted somebody quiet, modest, unobtrusive. You would have been everywhere, searching for everything, going through boxes, drawers, closets, bringing people in, opening things up. My father would not have wanted this." She was right.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Source: Final Analysis (1990), pp. 196-197

Death, People, Feeling, Search

“A second slash ended the monster’s misery. So, he thought, this is how my Earthling ancestors ran their affairs. This is how lands were won, empires expanded, insurrections resisted, prisoners taken, slaves kept, heretics converted, captives made loquacious. For the first time in his life, Minnix felt himself a part of history.
History, he decided, was a terrible idea.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 18 (p. 223)

Life, History, Idea, Time

“Physically, however, the body is quite able to completely regenerate itself as it approaches old age. Indeed, a quite legitimate second puberty is possible, in which the male’s seed is youthfully strong and vital, and the woman’s womb is pliable and able to bear... Now, to some extent there is a connection between this innate, rarely observed second puberty and the development of cancer, in which growth is specifically apparent in an exaggerated manner.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 770, Page 66
The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression (1979)

Age, Strong

“Rarely has the incapacity of governments to hold up the course of history been more conclusively demonstrated than in the generation after 1815. To prevent a second French Revolution, or the even worse catastrophe of a general European revolution on the French model, was the supreme object of all the powers which had just spent more than twenty years in defeating the first; even of the British, who were not in sympathy with the reactionary absolutism which re-established themselves all over Europe and knew quite well that reforms neither could nor ought to be avoided, but who feared a new Franco-Jacobin expansion more than any other international contingency. And yet, never in European history and rarely anywhere else has revolutionarism been so endemic, so general, so likely to spread by spontaneous contagion as well as by deliberate propaganda.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Source: The Age of Revolution (1962), Chapter 6, Revolutions

Fear, History

“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”

Italo Calvino book Invisible Cities

Final paragraph.
Invisible Cities (1972)

Way, Suffering, Learning, Parting

“There is no other species on the Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 333

Truth, Understanding, Nature, Science

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Not found in any of Thomas Jefferson's writings. This may be a conflation of Jefferson's "chains of the Constitution" comment with Ayn Rand's statement in her essay, Man's Rights: "There are two potential violators of man’s rights: the criminals and the government. The great achievement of the United States was to draw a distinction between these two — by forbidding to the second the legalized version of the activities of the first." http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/two-enemies-people-are-criminals-and-governmentquotation Misattributed

People

“Okay, so tiny…Build's… Waaait a second…”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

WTF Is…? series, No Time to Explain

“I believe in the premillenial, pre-tribulational coming of Christ for all of his church, and to summarize that, your first poll, do you believe Jesus coming the second time will be in the future, I would vote yes with the 59 percent and with Billy Graham and most evangelicals.
The second question, you asked, "Do you think he is coming in your lifetime?" I would vote neither yes nor no. I would vote I do not know, because Jesus said, "No man knows the day or the hour." So the bottom line is, I believe that we ought to be living every day as though this is the crowning day. But we should also be planning and working with the next generation in mind, because we do not know.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Paula Zahn Now (31 July 2006), as quoted in "CNN still fixated on Apocalypse predictors, still ignoring alleged invitation to White House, Capitol Hill" at Media Matters for America (1 August 2006) http://mediamatters.org/items/200608010007

Question, Thinking, Time, Future

“When Sultan Mahmud ascended the throne of sovereignty, his illustrious deeds became manifest unto all mankind within the pale of Islam when he converted so many thousands of idol temples into masjids. He led an army to Nahrwalah of Gujarat, and brought away Manat, the idol, from Somnath, and had it broken into four parts, one of which was cast before the entrance of the great Masjid at Ghaznin, the second before the gateway of the Sultan's palace, and the third and fourth were sent to Makkah and Madinah respectively.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Maulana Minhaj-us-Siraj: Tabqat-i-Nasiri, translated into English by Major H.G. Reverty, New Delhi Reprint, 1970, Vol. I, pp. 81-82.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

Parting

“Sometimes counting seconds is a great way to kill time through a woman's tantrums.”

Chetan Bhagat book One Night @ the Call Center

Source: One Night @ the Call Center (2005), P. 37

Way, Time

“The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages – at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

2000s, Speech at the Four Seasons, New York (25 September 2008)

Marriage, War, Peace, Problem

“We definitely didn't want it to be anything like our first or second records. We wanted to experiment more than we ever had and take any new idea and run with it as far as we could.”

Bert McCracken (1982) American musician

On The Used's album "Lies For The Liars", reported in Market Wire (May 3, 2007) "Band to Unleash New Album -- "Lies For The Liars" -- on Reprise Records May 22nd and Join the Warped Tour for Select Dates This Summer", AP Alert - Financial, Associated Press.

Idea

“After settling the affairs of Ajmir, the conqueror marched "towards Dehli (may God preserve its prosperity and perpetuate its splendour!) which is among the chief (mother) cities of Hind. When he arrived at Dehli, he saw " a fortress which in height and strength had not its equal nor second throughout the length and breadth of the seven climes." The army encamped around the fort. " A torrent of blood flowed on the field of battle, and it became evident to the chiefs that if they did not seek for safety from the sword of the king of the earth, and if they should deliver into the hands of Satan the time of option and the reins of good counsel, the condition of Dehli would be like that of Ajmir; so from the dread of kingly punishment, the Rai and mukaddams of that country placed their heads upon the line of slavery, and their feet within the circle of obedience, and made firm the conditions of tribute [mdlguzdrt) and the usages of service.”

Hasan Nizami Persian language poet and historian

About the conquest of Delhi. Hasan Nizami. Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 216. Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

God, Time, Country

“All knowledge, not only that of the natural world, can be used for evil as well as good: and in all ages there continue to be people who think that its fruit should be forbidden. Does the future wlfare, therefore, of mankind depend of a refusal of science and a more intensive study of the Sermon on the Mount? There are others who hold the contray opinion, that more and more of science and its applications alone can bring prosperity and happiness to men. Both of these extremes views seem to me entirely wrong - though the second is the more perilous as more likely to be commonly accepted. The so-called conflict between science and religion is usually about words, too often the words of their unbalanced advocates: the reality lies somewhere in between. "Completeness and dignity", to use Tyndall's phrase, are brought to man by three main channels, first by the religiouos sentiment and its embodiment of ethical principles, secondly by the influence of what is beautiful in nature, human personality, or art, and thirdly, by the pursuit of scientific truth and its resolute use in improving human life. Some suppose that religion and beauty are incompatible: others, that the aesthetic has no relation to the scientific sense: both seem to me just as mistaken as those who hold that the scientific and the religious spirit are necessarily opposed. Co-operation is required, not conflict: for science can be used to express and apply the principles of ethics, and those principles themselves can guide the behaviour of scientific men: while the appreciation of what is good and beautiful can provide to both a vision of encouragement. Is there really then any special ethical dilemma which we scientific men, as distinct from other people, have to meet? I think not: unless it be to convince ourselves humbly that we are just like others in having moral issues to face. It is true that integrity of thought is the absolute condition of oour work, and that judgments of value must never be allowed to deflect our judgements of fact. But in this we are not unique. It is true that scientific research has opened up the possibility of unprecedented good, or unlimited harm, for manking: but the use is made of it depends in the end on the moral judgments of the whole community of men. It is totally impossible noew to reverse the process of discovery: it will certainly go on. To help to guide its use aright is not a scientific dilemma, but the honourable and compelling duty of a good citizen.”

Archibald Hill (1886–1977) English physiologist and biophysicist

The Ethical Dilemma Of Science, Hill, 1960. The Ethical Dilemma of Science and Other Writings https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=zaE1AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Rockefeller Univ. Press, pp. 88-89

Life, Men, Happiness, People

“He was a young driver,
just out on his second job.
And he was carrying the next day's pasty fruits
for everyone in that coal-scarred city
where children play without despair
in backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day
about thirty thousand pounds of bananas…”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

30,000 Pounds of Bananas
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

Children, Despair

“The icing on the cake is where I had to take second fiddle to Yaxeni Oriquen Garcia 2005 Ms Olympia that was a big stab in the back at the time we were instructed to reduce 20% in the muscularity round.. I normally compete at 160-162 that year being the embassador of the sport I must lead by example, which I did. I competed at 155lbs still same conditioning, shape etc…. Lord behold second fiddle to Yaxeni.. It looked as if Yaxeni had did the opposite of what the current ruling stated and she was being rewarded.. Come on we have two different body types! I have a small tapered waist line, fine detail flowing through out my body, nice harmony and she's displaying nothing but BIG. When someone refers to Yaxeni body they say she's a big girl.. She has great confidence about herself on stage, which is an EXCELLENT tool and having that can always gain you a few points, but to flat out win is RIDICULOUS and not possible… Anyhow, Yaxeni was more surprised then I when hearing her name announced victoriously. And believe it or not annoucing the winner that year was Lenda Murray, so she was probably soaking up every second of me losing as a mild way of payback. I was always told when going after the champ you have to completely knock the champ "OUT."”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

Anything close should not cause you a win.
2012-02-05
An Exclusive Interview With the Ms. Olympia Champion Iris Kyle
RX Muscle
Internet
http://www.rxmuscle.com/rx-girl-articles/female-bodybuilding/4986-an-exclusive-interview-with-the-ms-olympia-champion-iris-kyle.html
Sourced quotes, 2012

Way, Confidence, Girl, Sport

“One part of a picture ought to be like the first part of a tune, that you guess what follows, and that makes the second part of the tune, and so I'm done..”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath, Feb. 1768; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 383 (Appendix A - Letter V) 1755 - 1769

Parting

“Modern imperialism finds its ideological justification in the now fashionable linguistic philosophy which either regards all meanings as wholly arbitrary (e. g., Quine, White, Goodman, etc.), or reduces them to the facticity of everyday discourse (e. g., Wittgenstein, Austin, etc.). In this fashion, all meanings are either equally unfounded, or they can be founded only in the domain of the given. In either case, imperialism is implicitly justified, for, in the first case it is regarded as at least as rational a system as any other, thus neutralizing any possible rational arguments for its debunking, or else, in the second case, since all meanings reduce to the given and the given is, in fact, imperialist, imperialism itself becomes the criterion of all meaningfulness.”

Silvia Federici (1942) Italian American scholar, teacher, and feminist activist

"Viet Cong Philosophy: Tran Duc Thao" (1970)

Fashion

“You've got to give it up for our troops. The mission itself is hard enough, but then there's all sorts of backdoor drafts where they extend their tours, calling up the guard, the reserve; all these Enron accounting tricks so that Rumsfeld doesn't have to admit he got the troop levels wrong, and still they don't bug out. And I see this, and then I watch some reality show, and I see people who are peevish and selfish and greedy and narcissistic and lazy and stupid, and I think to myself, "Why is this first group of people defending this second group of people?"”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

I'm Swiss (2005)

People, Stupidity, Thinking, Reality

“The whole history of the world shows that the Indian intellect is second to none. This must be proved by the performance of a task beyond the power of others, the seizing of the first place in the intellectual advance of the world. Is there any inherent weakness that would make it impossible for us to do this? Are the countrymen of Bhaskaracharya and Shankaracharya inferior to the countrymen of Newton and Darwin? We trust not. It is for us, by the power of our thought, to break down the iron walls of opposition that confront us, and to seize and enjoy the intellectual sovereignty of the world.”

Sister Nivedita (1867–1911) Scots-Irish social worker, author, teacher and a disciple of Swami Vivekananda

[The Spiritual Daughter Of Swami Vivekananda, http://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/books/0945/2/11, 21 June 2012]

World, History

““In the end Humankind destroyed the heaven and the earth,” Soapstone began…
“And Humankind said, ‘Let there be security,’ and there was security. And Humankind tested the security, that it would detonate. And Humankind divided the U-235 from the U-238. And the evening and the morning were the first strike.” Soapstone looked up from the book. “Some commentators feel that the author should have inserted, ‘And Humankind saw the security, that it was evil.’ Others point out that such a view was not universally shared.”…
Casting his eyes heavenward, Soapstone continued. “And Humankind said, ‘Let there be a holocaust in the midst of the dry land.’ And Humankind poisoned the aquifers that were below the dry land and scorched the ozone that was above the dry land. And the evening and the morning were the second strike.”…
“And Humankind said, ‘Let the ultraviolet light destroy the food chains that bring forth the moving creature!’ And the evening and the morning—”…
“And Humankind said, ‘Let there be rays in the firmament to fall upon the survivors!’ And Humankind made two great rays, the greater gamma radiation to give penetrating whole-body doses, and the lesser beta radiation to burn the plants and the bowels of animals! And Humankind sterilized each living creature, saying, ‘Be fruitless, and barren, and cease to—’””

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: This Is the Way the World Ends (1986), Chapter 9, “In Which by Taking a Step Backward the City of New York Brings Our Hero a Step Forward” (pp. 115-116; ellipses not in the original)

Books, Food, Feeling, Light

“It is hard to suggest a remedy for this situation, which is one no military man enjoys. One alternative would be to refuse to permit military officers to appear before Congress and leave the defense of military matters to the civilian secretaries. This is the solution followed in Great Britain and many European countries. I doubt that it will ever be accepted in the United States, where the COngress wants to hear the facts from military men who presumably are without political motivation. A second alternative would be to take the position that the advice of the Chiefs of Staff to their civilian superiors is privileged and not to be revealed under Congressional interrogation. Thus far the Executive authority has not seen fit to raise the storm such a stand would create.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: The Uncertain Trumpet (1960), p. 113

Men, Motivation, Appearance, Country

“In evaluating the adequacy of the sampled and anticipated outcomes of a relationship, the members of a dyad will have need for some kind of standard or criterion of the acceptability of outcomes. At least two important kinds of standard for such an evaluation can be identified. To try to make the distinction between these two standards as intuitively clear as possible, we may begin by saying that the first of these, called the comparison level (or CL), is the standard against which a member evaluates the 'attractiveness' of the relationship or how satisfactory it is. The second, called the comparison level for alternatives (or CLalt), is the standard the member uses in deciding whether to remain in or to leave the relationship.”

John Thibaut (1917–1986) American social psychologist

Source: The social psychology of groups. 1959, p. 21

“So then God created the world, and on the first day he created light and air and fish and jam and soup and potatoes and haircuts and arguments and small things and rabbits and people with noses and jam – more jam, perhaps – and soot and flies and tobogganing and showers and toasters and grandmothers and, uh … Belgium. And the second day he created fire and water and eggnog and radiators and lights and Burma and things that go "urh" and … and Colonel Gaddafi and Arthur Negus. On the third day he probably got lists and said, "I can't remember what I've invented now. I've just been ad-libbing so far."”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Glorious (1997)

God, People, World, Fish

“Do not think for one second that what you do is not important. Do not believe one second that individual can't change the course of human events, because individual can and does and will change the course of human events.”

Pamela Geller (1958) blogger, author, political activist, and commentator

"Pamela Geller speaks to the Sugar Land Tea Party in Sugar Land, Texas" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLzlQ7WrvfQ&t=0h28m21s, Sugar Land, Texas

Thinking, Change

“the human mind… perhaps the most powerful weapon. second only to the "GUN"”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/813966376327086080] Tweets by year, 2016

“The method for practicing this ardent love is short and easy. Its subject is constant and loving aspiration. But to be perfect, aspiration must be practice so eagerly and continually that it becomes as easy as breathing. It has a number of degrees, all of which can be reduced to four. The first consists in offering oneself and all created things to God. As far as possible, this should be done in an abstract manner. The second degree consists in making requests of the divine Spouse, asking him for his gifts in him and for his own sake. The third degree consists in being resigned and completely conformed to him. This conformity is very lofty and perfect, and is characterized by a great love. Moreover, the soul also desires it for creatures who are capable of such exalted love. The fourth degree is that of unitive love which unites the soul to God. Here the souls yearns for him and pursues him with acts of love until he opens his loving and super essential bosom to it. Here it feast upon his immense beauty in great abundance and intoxication, eating and drinking at the table of the Blessed. But since this does not last very long, the soul soon returns to itself to feed upon its former spiritual fare. From this it derives renewed strength, until God again receives it into his bosom with the same effect.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From Prayer, Aspiration, and Contemplation

Love, God, Beauty, Soul

“It has been said that every great emerging scientific truth goes to three phases: First people say: "It can't be true". Second they say: "It conflicts with the bible." Third they say: "It's true all along."”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Climate Change Deniers from ALL IN with Chris Hayes, MSNBC and also in Bill Maher Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJhbQIlu4mk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klgp_qDiRhQ 2010s Variant: It has been said that every great emerging scientific truth goes to three phases: First people say: «It can't be true». Second they say: «It conflicts with the bible.» Third they say: «It's true all along.»

People, Truth

“At one time, tips were given only for things you logically would want to have done efficiently and promptly, and they served to supplement a lower payscale for certain classes of employment. This was understood, accepted. It was tourism, back in the century of my birth, cluing in the underdeveloped countries to the fact that all tourists are marks, that set the precedent, which then spread to all countries, even back to the tourists’ own, of the benefits which might be gained by those who wear uniforms and render the undesired and the unrequested with a smile. This is the army that conquered the world. After their quiet revolution in the twentieth century, we all became tourists the minute we set foot outside our front doors, second-class citizens, to be ruthlessly exploited by the smiling legions who had taken over, slyly, completely.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 2 (p. 45)

World, Smile, Birth, Time

“I was sitting on the seashore, half listening to a friend arguing violently about something which merely bored me. Unconsciously to myself, I looked at a film, of sand I had picked up on my hand, when I suddenly saw the exquisite beauty of every little grain of it; instead of being dull, I saw that each particle was made up on a perfect geometrical pattern, with sharp angles, from each of which a brilliant shaft of light was reflected, while each tiny crystal shone like a rainbow.... The rays crossed and recrossed, making exquisite patterns of such beauty that they left me breathless. … Then, suddenly, my consciousness was lighted up from within and I saw in a vivid way how the whole universe was made up of particles of material which, no matter how dull and lifeless they might seem, were nevertheless filled with this intense and vital beauty. For a second or two the whole world appeared as a blaze of glory. When it died down, it left me with something I have never forgotten and which constantly reminds me of the beauty locked up in every minute speck of material around us.”

Aldous Huxley book Heaven and Hell

Source: Heaven and Hell (essay) (1954), p. 77-78

World, Beauty, Way, Light

“I am willing to believe that my unobtainable sixty seconds within a sponge or a flatworm might not reveal any mental acuity that I would care to call consciousness. But I am also confident […] that vultures and sloths, as close evolutionary relatives with the same basic set of organs, lie on our side of any meaningful (and necessarily fuzzy) border—and that we are therefore not mistaken when we look them in the eye and see a glimmer of emotional and conceptual affinity.”

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

"Can We Truly Know Sloth and Rapacity?" pp. 389–390
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Lie, Confidence

“Second, by this and other means we are driven to perceive, what is quite evident in itself, that instantaneous feelings flow together in a continuum of feeling, which has in a modified degree the peculiar vivacity of feeling and has gained generality. And in reference to such general ideas, or continua of feeling, the difficulties about resemblance and suggestion and reference to the external, cease to have any force.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The Law of Mind (1892)

Feeling, Idea

“To make psychology into experimental epistemology is to attempt to understand the embodiment of mind. Here we are confronted by what seem to be three questions, although they may ultimately be only one. The three exist as categorically disperate desiderata.
The first is at the logical level: We lack an adequate, appropriate calculus for triadic relations.
The second is the psychological level: We do not know how we generate hypotheses that are natural and simple.
The third is that the physiological level: we have no circuit theory for the reticular formation that marshals our abductions.
Logically, the problem is far from simple. To be exact, no proposed theory of relations yields a calculus to handle our problem. When I was growing up, only the Aristotelian logic of classes was ever taught, and that badly. The Organon itself contains only a clumsy description of the apagoge - perhaps from the notes of some students who have not understand his master…”

Warren S. McCulloch (1898–1969) American neuroscientist

Source: Embodiments of Mind, (1965), p. 389, Chapter " What's in the brain that ink may character http://vordenker.de/ggphilosophy/mcculloch_whats-in-the-brain.pdf"

Understanding, Question, Nature, Problem

“Theory in the social sciences should have three major functions. First, it should aid in the codification of our existing concrete knowledge. It can do so by providing generalized hypotheses for the systematic reformulation of existing facts and insights, by extending the range of implication of particular hypotheses, and by unifying discrete observations under general concepts. Through codification, general theory in the social sciences will help to promote the process of cumulative growth of our knowledge. In making us more aware of the interconnections among items of existing knowledge which are now available in a scattered, fragmentary form, it will help us fix our attention on the points where further work must be done.
Second, general theory in the social sciences should be a guide to research. By codification it enables us to locate and define more precisely the boundaries of our knowledge and of our ignorance. Codification facilitates the selection of problems, although it is not, of course, the only useful technique for the selection of problems for fruitful research. Further than this, general theory should provide hypotheses to be applied and tested by the investigation of these problems…
Third, general theory as a point of departure for specialized work in the social sciences will facilitate the control of the biases of observation and interpretation which are at present fostered by the departmentalization of education and research in the social sciences.”

Talcott Parsons (1902–1979) American sociologist

Source: Toward a general theory of action (1951), p. 3

Education, Departure, Knowledge, Problem

“Dubya has nominated another caveman for a federal appeals court. Refreshingly, the Democratic Party is organizing opposition.
The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally — but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

nasal sex with dead plants Stallman archives (28 June 2003) https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html 2000s

People, Health, Sex, Quotes

“The Islanders have had two penalty shots in Stanley Cup playoff history, here is number 3. Bates against Joseph…… Bates in on goal…. he shoots, He scores! Consider that for a franchise loaded with memorable postseason moments, you have just witnessed one of the most memorable. A penalty shot goal by Shawn Bates to give the Islanders a 4–3 lead with 2 minutes and 30 seconds left in regulation time.”

Howie Rose (1954) American sports announcer

Calling Shawn Bates penalty shot in Game 4 of the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs)
2002

Penalty, History, Time

“Received your letter and, almost at the same time, the long text at which I was overjoyed. You no doubt know that you are the only person in the world to have put together the gestation of the glass [ The Large Glass, circa 1923] in all its detail, including even the numerous intentions which were never executed [by Duchamp]. Your patient work has enabled me to relive a period of long years during which the notes were written for the 'Green Box' [the second of the three Boxes Duchamp created and this one was full of written notes] at the same time as the Glass [= The Large Glass] was taking shape. And I confess to you that, not having read these notes for a very long time, I had completely lost all recollection of numerous points not illustrated on the glass and which are a delight to me now”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

c. 25 years later
Quote from Duchamp's letter to fr:Jean Suquet (art historian), New York 25 December 1949; as cited in The Duchamp Book, ed. Gavin Parkinson, Tate Publishing, London 2008 p. 163
1921 - 1950

World, Time, Reading, Personality

“I would be prepared to submit to the Congress of the United States, and with every expectation of approval, any such plan that would, first, encourage world-wide investigation into the most effective peacetime uses of fissionable material, and with the certainty that the investigators had all the material needed for the conducting of all experiments that were appropriate; second, begin to diminish the potential destructive power of the world's atomic stockpiles; third, allow all peoples of all nations to see that, in this enlightened age, the great Powers of the earth, both of the East and of the West, are interested in human aspirations first rather than in building up the armaments of war; fourth, open up a new channel for peaceful discussion and initiative at least a new approach to the many difficult problems that must be solved in both private and public conversations if the world is to shake off the inertia imposed by fear and is to make positive progress towards peace.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, Atoms for Peace (1953)

War, People, Age, World

“The second model is the functionalist model of mind. The organism through acquired S-R responses or through operations on the environmental manages to stay alive and adjust itself to the environment. The Thorndykian and Skinnerian approaches to learning and the adaptive model of the psychoanalytical theory come under this heading.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Source: Models of Mental Illness (1984), p. 102

Learning

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

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

No More Secondhand God (1963)
1960s

“[in response to a question about what was meant by his "cosmic religion"] It is not a religion that teaches that man is made in the image of God—that is anthropomorphic. Man has infinite dimensions and finds God in his conscience. This religion has no dogma other than teaching man that the universe is rational and that his highest destiny is to ponder it and co-create with its laws. There are only two limiting factors: first, that what seems impenetrable to us is as important as what is cut and dried; and, second, that our faculties are dull and can only comprehend wisdom and serene beauty in crude forms, but the heart of man through intuition leads us to greater understanding of ourselves and the universe. My religion is based on Moses: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And for me God is the First Cause. David and the prophets knew that there could be no love without justice or justice without love. I don't need any other religious trappings.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 108

Love, Wisdom, God, Religion

“The finds were of extreme interest to the Second Men, but not in the manner which the Siberian party had intended, not as a store of scientific and philosophic truth, but as a vivid historical document. The view of the universe which the tablets recorded was both too naïve and too artificial; but the insight which they afforded into the mind of the earlier species was invaluable.”

Olaf Stapledon book Last and First Men

Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter VII: The Rise of the Second Men; Section 3, “The Zenith of the Second Men” (pp. 112-113)

Men, Truth, Universe

“This is on the basis of the Aryan invasion theory according to which 'Aryans' invaded India in the early second millennium BC, and conquered it from the 'natives'. This theory is based purely on an eighteenth century linguistic proposition, and has no basis either in archaeology, or in literature, or in the racial-ethnic composition of India. What concerns us more, so far as this present volume is concerned, is the attempt to brand Hindu religious texts, on the basis of this theory, as 'invader' texts: a UNESCO publication characterises the Rigveda as 'the epic of the destruction of one of the great cultures of the ancient world.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

Shrikant Talageri, The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis, 2000.

World, Literature

“I had felt sick before and had been saved by Sekt. Now I was beginning to feel sick of the Sekt. I would, I knew, shortly have to vomit…. I started gently to move towards one of the open windows. The aims of the artistic policy enunciated by the National Chamber of Film might, said Goebbels, be expressed under seven headings. Oh Christ. First, the articulation of the sense of racial pride, which might, without reprehensible arrogance, be construed as a just sense of racial superiority. Just, I thought, moving towards the breath of the autumn dark, like the Jews, just like the. This signified, Goebbels went on, not narrow German chauvinism but a pride in being of the great original Aryan race, once master of the heartland and to be so again. The Aryan destiny was enshrined in the immemorial Aryan myths, preserved without doubt in their purest form in the ancient tongue of the heartland. Second. But at this point I had made the open window. With relief the Sekt that seethed within me bore itself mouthward on waves of reverse peristalsis. Below me a great flag with a swastika on flapped gently in the night breeze of autumn. It did not now lift my heart; it was not my heart that was lifting. I gave it, with gargoyling mouth, a litre or so of undigested Sekt. And then some strings of spittle. It was not, perhaps, as good as pissing on the flag, but, in retrospect, it takes on a mild quality of emblematic defiance…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Earthly Powers (1980)

Feeling, Autumn, Sense, Heart

“Cause now that I can see you,
I don't think you're worth a second glance.
So much for all the promises you made, they served you well
and now you're gone and they're wasted on me.
So much for your endearing sense of charm, it served you well
and now it's gone and you're wasted on me.”

Chris Carrabba (1975) American musician

Rapid Hope Loss

Thinking, Sense

“If someone humiliates and hurts us, it is difficult to give them a second chance and turn the other cheek. They might just take another swing at us, we are not ready for that kind of abuse. Who needs it?”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

All shall be well (2014)

Chance, Hurt

“The university immediately published my pamphlet, and it was sent to ﬁfty People’s Commissariats. It was distributed only in the Soviet Union, since in the days just before the start of the World War it came out in an edition of one thousand copies in all.
Soviet Union, since in the days just before the start of the World War it came out in an edition of one thousand copies in all. The number of responses was not very large. There was quite an interesting reference from the People’s Commissariat of Transportation in which some optimization problems directed at decreasing the mileage of wagons was considered, and a good review of the pamphlet appeared in the journal "The Timber Industry."
At the beginning of 1940 I published a purely mathematical version of this work in Doklady Akad. Nauk [76], expressed in terms of functional analysis and algebra. However, I did not even put in it a reference to my published pamphlet—taking into account the circumstances I did not want my practical work to be used outside the country
In the spring of 1939 I gave some more reports—at the Polytechnic Institute and the House of Scientists, but several times met with the objection that the work used mathematical methods, and in the West the mathematical school in economics was an anti-Marxist school and mathematics in economics was a means for apologists of capitalism. This forced me when writing a pamphlet to avoid the term "economic" as much as possible and talk about the organization and planning of production; the role and meaning of the Lagrange multipliers had to be given somewhere in the outskirts of the second appendix and in the semi Aesopian language.”

Leonid Kantorovich (1912–1986) Russian mathematician

L.V. Kantorovich (1996) Descriptive Theory of Sets and Functions. p. 41; As cited in: K. Aardal, ‎George L. Nemhauser, ‎R. Weismantel (2005) Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science, p. 19-20

War, People, World, School

“The literature on product development continues to grow. This research is varied and vibrant, yet large and fragmented. In this article we first organize the burgeoning product-development literature into three streams of research: product development as rational plan, communication web, and disciplined problem solving. Second, we synthesize research findings into a model of factors affecting the success of product development. This model highlights the distinction between process performance and product effectiveness and the importance of agents, including team members, project leaders, senior management, customers, and suppliers, whose behavior affects these outcomes. Third, we indicate potential paths for future research based on the concepts and links that are missing or not well defined in the model.”

Shona Brown (1960) businessperson

Source: "Product development" , 1995, p. 343; Abstract

Behavior, Communication, Literature, Problem

“I’m a big fan of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I love them all, and the Wolf Man would be my second favorite. I really love them all but there’s something so unique about the Creature and I just love him. You know, I think they made a mistake in the third part of the trilogy when they converted him into a land beast because it really limited him. You’ll notice that was the end of the story of the Creature, ironically enough. I keep hearing they are looking to remake the film, but I hope they are planning on keeping him as he was- keep him in the lagoon!”

Rich Koz (1952) American actor and comedian

A Chicago legend: My interview with Rich Koz- Svengoolie! https://mangledmatters.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/a-chicago-legend-my-interview-with-rich-koz-svengoolie/ (October 19, 2015)

Love, Hope, Thinking, Wolf

“I'm actually recording my second album now…. so I've just been recording and co-writing. The single should be coming out soon, but I feel it's pretty much 80 percent done. And, yeah, I'm excited about it. It's a lot more rock and edgier..”

Ashley Tisdale (1985) American actress, singer

'High School Musical' Star Ashley Tisdale Aiming For Music-Biz Success http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1597788/20081023/story.jhtml. MTV. October 24 2008. Retrieved February 26 2009. Tisdale on her untitled new album.(2008)

Feeling

“Journalists told me that a talk show wouldn't work. Some told me I was going to get canceled before my first season was up. Before I did one show, they were, like 'Why do you want to do this? Do you know that 90 percent of talk shows don't get a second season? You're a model. People just see you as a model.”

Tyra Banks (1973) American model, author and television personality

"Tyra Banks: Success as Fashion Model and Businesswoman Make Her a Role Model as Well". (October 2006) Jet. p. 63.

People, Season

“I've seen occasional articles about how to manage programmers. Really there should be two articles: one about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one about what to do if you're not. And the second could probably be condensed into two words: give up.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Great Hackers" http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html, July 2004

“Have you ever fall'n into one of those Cometary Dazes, with the way the Object grows brighter and brighter each night? These Apparitions in the Sky, we never observe them but in Motion, — gone in seconds, and if they return, we do not see them. Once safely a part of the Night Sky, they may hang there at their Pleasure, performing whatever their Work corresponds to shifting jibs and stay-sails, keeping perfectly upon Station, mimicking any faint, unnam'd Star you please. Do they watch us? Are they visits from the past, from an Age of Faith, when Miracles still literally happen'd?”

Thomas Pynchon Mason & Dixon

Source: Mason & Dixon (1997), Chapter 74

Pleasure, Age, Faith, Way

“I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb. Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous. Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed. …It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately. We have the means -- several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.”

Jacques Chirac (1932–2019) 22nd President of France

Source: http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Briefs/10549.htmOn Iran's nuclear program during an newspaper interview

Country

“In much of precolonial Nigeria, and indeed Africa, ethnic nations organized people within communities into peer groups and trained them, from babyhood to old age, to serve their communities. When successful, this system provided all members of a community not only with a sense of belonging but also with a vehicle for helping to shape the community's direction and pace of change. In this system, people knew they were entitled to help resolve any issue that affected the community.
This sense of entitlement grows out of a series of rituals that begin the day a child is born. When a baby is born, after the first few seconds, it lets out a yelp, which announces its arrival, and which is met by expressions of joy. Among the Yoruba, the arrival is acknowledged with a naming ceremony where parents give names that express rich meaning and hopes for the baby. When I arrived, my parents named me Hafsat Olaronke, which means the treasured one and honor is being cared for. For my parents, they saw in me one who would be cherished and who would bring honor to her community. Many in other parts of the world are impressed when they discover my name's meanings, but the truth is that most African names have beautiful meanings.”

Hafsat Abiola (1974) Nigerian human rights, civil rights and democracy activist

Architects of Peace (2000)

People, Truth, Age, World

“The Americans didn't even think about the outcome of the bombing, because the Sudanese were so far below contempt as to be not worth thinking about. Suppose I walk down the sidewalk in Cambridge and, without a second thought, step on an ant. That would mean that I regard the ant as beneath contempt, and that's morally worse than if I purposely killed that ant.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Michael Powell in the Washington Post, May 5, 2002 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/05/05/an-eminence-with-no-shades-of-gray/7fbaf1b5-ce87-45e3-a84f-604c61bb378e/?utm_term=.e1d833548377 Quotes 2000s, 2002

Thinking

“From these two immediate perceptions, we gain a mediate, or inferential perception of the relation of all four instants. This mediate perception is objectively, or as to the object being represented, spread over the four instants; but subjectively, or as itself the subject of duration, it is completely embraced in the second moment. (The reader will observe that I use the word instant to mean a point in time, and moment to mean an infinitesimal duration.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The Law of Mind (1892)

Time

“1006. Boldness in Business is the first, second, and third thing.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Business

“It is true that I described antisocial, parsimonious, sanctimonious, and wasteful behavior by the owners over the years, but baseball's problem is structural, not individual. Put any individual into a position of power with an opportunity to make tens of millions of dollars in an industry that is on a cultural pedestal and protected from all forms of competition, and the odds are against the second coming of Lee Iacocca or Ralph Nader.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Preface to The Updated Edition, p. xiii-xiv
Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992)

Behavior, Problem

“It's a bird … it's a plane … no, it's KernelMan, faster than a speeding bullet, to your rescue. Doing new kernel versions in under 5 seconds flat …”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Announcement for Linux 1.3.27, 1995-11-14, Torvalds, Linus, 2017-04-25 http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/alpha/9509.1/0006.html, 1990s, 1995-99

Bird, Speed

“[W]hat al Qaeda is fighting for is a traditional understanding of the family. This is not a minor part of their program: it is at its heart. The traditional family is built around some clearly defined principles. First, the home is the domain of the woman and life outside the house is the purview of the man. Second, sexuality is something confined to the family and the home, and extramarital, extrafamilial sexuality is unacceptable. Women who move outside the home invite extramarital sexuality just by being there. Third, women have as their primary tasks reproduction and nurturing of the next generation. Therefore, intense controls on women are necessary to maintain the integrity of the family and of society. In an interesting way it is all about women, and bin Laden's letter [to the U. S. ] drives this home. What he hates about America is that it promotes a completely different view of women and the family.”

George Friedman (1949) American businessman and political scientist

Source: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century (2009), p. 50

Life, Women, Hate, Family

“Magnitude-notions are only possible where there is an antecedent general notion which admits of different specialisations. According as there exists among these specialisations a continuous path from one to another or not, they form a continuous or discrete manifoldness; the individual specialisations are called in the first case points, in the second case elements, of the manifoldness.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

On the Hypotheses which lie at the Bases of Geometry (1873)

“Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact—which creationists have mastered. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's position. They are good at that. I don't think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second day of the two-week trial we had our victory party!”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

After the McLean v. Arkansas creationism trial, as quoted in Review of the National Center for Science Education Vol. 24, No. 6 (November–December 2004) http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol24/620_then_a_miracle_occurs_12_30_1899.asp

Truth, Art, Question, Thinking

“I do believe that encyclopedias are dead as dodos in the old fashioned way. Let me just go back, because earlier around I was interviewed and I said: The book will always be with us. Books - we used to read in scrolls and then they got invented the codex which is basically the form of the book. It has not been improved on. It's like scissors, like a spoon, and like a hammer. It's technology that's perfect in itself and will remain very good. But: What about the content inside of it? Now, there are books that you read for information. And there what you want to do is how to get the information. And it is infinitely more efficient, of higher quality, to use digital sources rather than the published sources for references. So dictionaries and encyclopedias are not going to be done in this very ponderous way of having old books that by the time they come out the information in them is obsolete. Second, you have to search in all of these and open the pages and then you go to an index and come back whereas you can type to search in. […] But if you want to hold in your hand a slim volume, nicely bound, of the love sonnets of Shakespeare or historical romans, that's a different story. There is the book as artifact, there is the joy in holding the book. And there is an efficiency in the book that you can carry with you in different ways. But I think that the encyclopedias and the dictionaries really are providing a service. And that service can be provided so much more efficiently online that they are bound to change. And if they don't change themselves and go online themselves … I mean, the old providers, like Britannica, will go online, will provide it, and will try to, in fact, compete with the model that Wikipedia pioneered.”

Ismail Serageldin (1944) egyptian academic

Wikimania 2008 press conference 0'33 (August 2008).

Love, Books, Way, Search

“Communication becomes the defining characteristic of homo sapiens; we are the species that speaks. We utter the words that create our world, and have learned to take our words and translate them into the ethereal play of zeros and ones, lay them out, at the speed of light, first on a wire, then a radio wave, and lately, on a beam of light, so that the voice, once constrained by mouth and ear, now straddles the entire planet in thirty millionths of a second, messages pinging back and forth, not unlike the meeting points of a synaptic gap, using photons as neurotransmitters, and each network router the equivalent of a synapic junction, deciding whether to activate or extinguish each message that crosses the continents, connected now in a seamless, endless web of knowledge, more than two billion pages, more than any one of us could ever read or know, the collected and collective intelligence of a species that seems to have made information the central mystery of culture, the project of civilization, and the goal of being.”

Mark Pesce (1962) American writer

From the narration to Becoming Transhuman http://www.webearth.org/bt.pdf

World, Intelligence, Communication, Knowledge

“I had gone thoroughly through some of the all-fiction magazines and I made up my mind that if people were paid for writing such rot as I read I could write stories just as rotten. Although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.
I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, there are 31 books on my list. I had never met an editor, or an author or a publisher. l had no idea of how to submit a story or what I could expect in payment. Had I known anything about it at all I would never have thought of submitting half a novel; but that is what I did.
Thomas Newell Metcalf, who was then editor of The All-Story magazine, published by Munsey, wrote me that he liked the first half of a story I had sent him, and if the second half was as good he thought he might use it. Had he not given me this encouragement, I would never have finished the story, and my writing career would have been at an end, since l was not writing because of any urge to write, nor for any particular love of writing. l was writing because I had a wife and two babies, a combination which does not work well without money.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) American writer

How I Wrote the Tarzan Books (1929)

Love, Money, People, Books

“I don't see why people are so snooty about Channel 5. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap dancing, and other related and vital subjects.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

"What has the BBC come to? Toilets, that's what", Daily Telegraph, 14 March 2002, p. 29.
2000s, 2002

War, People, World, Dance

“It's like seeing someone for the first time, and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there's this kind of recognition like you both know something. Next moment the person's gone, and it's too late to do anything about it.”

Elmore Leonard book Out of Sight

Jack Foley
Out of Sight (1996)

Time, Personality

“Again she plunges! hark! a second shock
Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock;
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims shuddering cast their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke
With strong convulsion rends the solid oak:
Ah Heaven!—behold her crashing ribs divide!
She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide.”

William Falconer (1732–1769) British writer

Canto III, line 642.
The Shipwreck (1762)

Death, Fate, Strong, Parting

“If the defenders of privilege desire to exclude from this country the opponents of privilege, they should see to it that Congress omits the taking of the eleventh census. For the eleventh census, if taken, will undoubtedly emphasize these two lessons of the tenth: first, that foreign immigration does not increase dishonesty and violence among us, but does increase the love of liberty; second, that the population of the world is gradually dividing into two classes, Anarchists and criminals.”

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1854–1939) American journalist and anarchist

Individual Liberty (1926), Anarchism and Crime

Love, World, Country

“When one is aligned with the purpose of service, acts that seem exceptionally courageous to others are a matter of course.
When one experiences the world as abundant, then acts of generosity are natural, since there is no doubt about continued supply.
When one sees other people as reflections of oneself, forgiveness becomes second nature, as one realizes “But for the grace of God, so go I.”
When one appreciates the order, beauty, mystery, and connectedness of the universe, a deep joy and cheerfulness arises that nothing can shake.
When one sees time as abundant and life as infinite, one develops superhuman patience.
When one lets go of the limitations of reductionism, objectivity, and determinism, technologies become possible that the science of separation cannot countenance.
When one lets go of the story of the discrete and separate self, amazing intuitive and perceptual capabilities emerge from lifelong latency.”

Charles Eisenstein (1967) American writer

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. The Vision and Practice of Interbeing (2013)

Life, God, People, World

“My God! I have often regretted that I was born! I have often wished to fall back even into nothingness, rather than advance through so many falsehoods, so many sufferings, and so many successive losses, towards that loss of ourselves which we call death! Still, even in those moments of terrible faintheartedness, when despair overmasters reason, and when man forgets that life is a task imposed upon him to finish, I have always said to myself: "There are some things which I would regret not to have tasted — a mother's milk, a father's love, that relationship of heart and soul between brothers, household affections, joys, and even cares!" Our family is evidently our second self, more than self, existing before self, and surviving self with the better part of self. It is the image of the holy and loving unity of beings revealed by the small group of creatures who hold to one another, and made visible by feeling!”

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French writer, poet, and politician

Book I, Note II, p. 19
Les confidences (1849)

Love, Life, Death, God

“The way in which the universe expands is determined by the variation of this [radius of curvature] R with the time. There are three types, or families, of non-static universes… the oscillating universes, and the expanding universes of the first and of the second kind. …each of these is a representative of a family, comprising an infinite number of members differing in size and shape. …In the expanding family of the first kind the radius is continually increasing from… zero… In the expanding series of the second type the radius has at the initial time a certain minimum value, different for the different members of the family. [Both kinds of expanding families] become infinite after an infinite time.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932)

Family, Way, Universe, Time

“Between Paoli and Penn Hills, Pennsylvania is Alabama without the blacks. They didn't film The Deer Hunter there for nothing -- the state has the second-highest concentration of NRA members, behind Texas.”

James Carville (1944) political writer, consultant and United States Marine

1986, while working on a gubernatorial race http://www.politico.com/story/2008/04/extreme-makeover-pennsylvania-edition-009323

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

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

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

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

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

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

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Money, Family, Way, Feeling

“This compositional variety is mediated by a highly redundant set structure, a second-order all-combinatorial set; each set form is hexachordally equivalent to or totally disjunct from fifteen other set forms, so that one-third of all the available set forms belong to a collection of sets which are hexachordally aggregate forming, that is, hexachordally identical.”

Milton Babbitt (1916–2011) American composer

On Igor Stravinsky's Movements. Perspectives of new music, Spring-Summer 1964

“George Foulkes: Will the Prime Minister tell us what word he would legitimately use to describe those Cabinet Ministers who, while professing loyalty to him, are setting up telephone lines in campaign offices for the second round of the election?
John Major: I have no knowledge of that. I can say that the speed at which these matters can be done is a tribute to privatisation.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Prime Minister's Questions http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199495/cmhansrd/1995-06-29/Orals-2.html, 29 June, 1995. It was rumoured that Cabinet member Michael Portillo had installed telephone lines in the event of his standing in the Conservative leadership election. 1990s, 1995

Knowledge, Speed, Loyalty

“Most human lives are forgotten after four generations. We build our splendid houses on the edge of the abyss then distract and dazzle ourselves with entertainers and sex while we slowly at first, then more rapidly, spin around the ever-thirsty plughole in the middle. My treasured possessions -- all the silly little mementoes and toys and special books I’ve carried with me for decades -- will wind up on flea market tables or rot on garbage heaps. Someone else will inhabit the rooms that were mine. Everything that was important to me will mean nothing to the countless generations that follow our own. In the grand sprawl of it all, I have no significance at all. I don’t believe a giant gaseous pensioner will reward or censure me when my body stops working and I don’t believe individual consciousness survives for long after brain death so I lack the consolations of religion. I wanted Annihilator to peek into that implacable moment where everything we are comes to an end so I had to follow the Black Brick Road all the way down and seriously consider the abject pointlessness of all human endeavours. I found these contemplations thrilling and I was drawn to research pure nihilism, which led me to Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound and back to Ligotti. I have a fundamentally optimistic and positive view of human existence and the future and I think it’s important to face intelligent, well-argued challenges to that view on a regular basis. While I agree with Ligotti that the universe is, on the face of it, a blind emergent process, driven by chance over billions of years of trial and error to ultimately produce creatures capable of little more than flamboyant expressions of the agonizing awareness of their own imminent deaths, I don’t share his slightly huffy disappointment at this state of affairs. If the universe is intrinsically meaningless, if the mindless re-arrangement of atomic debris into temporarily arising then dissipating forms has no point, I can only ask, why do I see meaning everywhere, why can I find a point in everything? Why do other human beings like me seem to see meaning in everything too? If the sun is only an apocalyptic series of hydrogen fusion reactions, why does it look like an angel and inspire poetry? Why does the flesh and fur-covered bone and jelly of my cat’s face melt my heart? Is all that surging, roaring incandescent meaning inside me, or is it out there? “Meaning” to me is equivalent to “Magic.” The more significance we bring to things, even to the smallest and least important things, the more special, the more “magical” they seem to become. For all that materialistic science and existential philosophy tells us we live in a chaotic, meaningless universe, the evidence of my senses and the accounts of other human beings seem to indicate that, in fact, the whole universe and everything in it explodes second-to-second with beauty, horror, grandeur and significance when and wherever it comes into contact with consciousness. Therefore, it’s completely down to us to revel in our ability to make meaning, or not. Ligotti, like many extreme Buddhist philosophers, starts from the position that life is an agonizing, heartbreaking grave-bound veil of tears. This seems to be a somewhat hyperbolic view of human life; as far as I can see most of us round here muddle through ignoring death until it comes in close and life’s mostly all right with just enough significant episodes of sheer joy and connection and just enough sh-tty episodes of pain or fear. The notion that the whole span of our lives is no more than some dreadful rehearsal for hell may resonate with the deeply sensitive among us but by and large life is pretty okay generally for most of us. And for some, especially in the developed countries, “okay” equals luxurious. To focus on the moments of pain and fear we all experience and then to pretend they represent the totality of our conscious experience seems to me a little effete and indulgent. Most people don’t get to be born at all, ever. To see in that radiant impossibility only pointlessness, to see our experience as malignantly useless, as Ligotti does, seems to me a bit camp.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

2014
http://www.blastr.com/2014-9-12/grant-morrisons-big-talk-getting-deep-writer-annihilator-multiversity
On life

Life, Death, Pain, People

“I grasp at each second, trying to suck it dry: nothing happens which I do not seize, which I do not fix forever in myself, nothing, neither the fugitive tenderness of those lovely eyes, nor the noises of the street, nor the false dawn of early morning: and even so the minute passes and I do not hold it back, I like to see it pass.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Nausea (1938)

Love, Falseness

“The unphilosophical and philosophical attitudes can be very sharply distinguished (with scarcely any intermediate forms) by the fact that the first accepts everything that happens as regards its general form, and finds occasion for surprise only in that special content by which something that happens here today differs from what happened there yesterday; whereas for the second, it is precisely the common features of all experience, such as characterise everything we encounter, which are the primary and most profound occasion for astonishment.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Source: My View of the World (1951), p. 10

“On an ordinary day the corridor would have been filled with the early lunch crowd, but now the emptiness gave the place an eerie feeling, as though I were a trespasser and hidden eyes were watching me. Except that I was the only one there and the single sign of life was the light behind my office door.
I turned the knob, pushed it open and just stood there a second because something was wrong, sure as hell wrong, and the total silence was as loud as a wild scream. I had the.45 in my hand, crouched and edged to one side, listening, waiting, watching.”

Mickey Spillane book The Killing Man

The Killing Man (1989)

Life, Feeling, Hell, Light

“When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of oratory, he answered, "Action;" and which was the second, he replied, "Action;" and which was the third, he still answered, "Action."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Lives of the Ten Orators
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Parting

“We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Civil Rights Address

World, Home, Freedom

“Hell no, it isn't a fact. Only a damned fool would do a thing like that. You know there was a lot of pretty rough ribbing going on on both benches during that Series. When I swung and missed that first one, those Cubs really gave me a blast. So I grinned at 'em and held out one finger and told 'em it'd only take one to hit it. Then there was that second strike and they let me have it again. So I held up that finger again and I said I still had that one left. Naw, keed, you know damned well I wasn't pointin' anywhere. If I'd have done that, Root would have stuck the ball right in my ear. And besides that, I never knew anybody who could tell you ahead of time where he was going to hit a baseball. When I get to be that kind of fool, they`ll put me in the booby hatch.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Responding to Chicago sportscaster Hal Totten in the spring of 1933, as to whether Ruth had actually 'called' his 5th-inning home run in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series, as quoted in "Oct. 1, 1932 The Yankees' Babe Ruth Gestures Toward Wrigley Field's Bleachers Then Homers Off The Cubs' Charlie Root, Apparently Calling His Shot In Game 3 Of The World Series" http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-11-01/sports/8703230677_1_babe-ruth-cub-bench-world-series-history/3 by Jerome Holtzman, in The Chicago Tribune (1987)

Fools, Hell, Time

“Sensual passions are your first enemy.
Your second is called Discontent.
Your third is Hunger & Thirst.
Your fourth is called Craving.
Fifth is Sloth & Drowsiness.
Sixth is called Terror.
Your seventh is Uncertainty.
Hypocrisy & Stubbornness, your eighth.
Gains, Offerings, Fame, & Status wrongly gained,
and whoever would praise self
& disparage others.
That, Namuci, is your enemy,
the Dark One's commando force.
A coward can't defeat it,
but one having defeated it
gains bliss.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Source: Pali Canon, Sutta Pitaka, Khuddaka Nikaya (Minor Collection), (Suttas falling down), Sutta 3.2. Padhana Sutta

Hunger, Passion

“(Sylvia FineLine greeting card) Before you showed us your financial statement, we felt poor…but after leaving your house, we felt so pumped we bought a second car!”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 114

Cars, Housing

“Two developments of the past four decades played crucial roles in establishing a research agenda for the study of map symbolization and design. The first was Arthur H. Robinson's dissertation (published as The Look of Maps in 1952), with its call for objective research, and the second was the adoption in the 1970s of a paradigm of cartography as communication science.”

Alan MacEachren (1952) American geographer

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 2

Communication, Study, Science, Past

“The total institutions of our society can be linked in five rough groupings. First, there are institutions established to care for persons felt to be both incapable and harmless; these are the homes for the blind, the aged, the orphaned, and the indigent. Second, there are places established to care for persons felt to be incapable of looking after themselves and a threat to the community, albeit an unintended one: TB sanitaria, mental hospitals, and leprosaria. A third type of total institution is organised to protect the community against what are felt to be intentional dangers to it, with the welfare of the persons thus sequestered not the immediate issue: jails, penitentiaries, P. O. W. camps, and concentration camps. Fourth, there are institutions purportedly established the better to pursue some work-like tasks and justifying themselves only on these instrumental grounds: army barracks, ships, boarding schools, work camps, colonial compounds, and large mansions from the point of view of those who live in the servants' quarters. Finally, there are those establishments designed as retreats from the world even while often serving also as training stations for the religious; examples are abbeys, monasteries, convents, and other cloisters.”

Erving Goffman book Asylums

Source: 1950s-1960s, Asylums, 1961, p. 4-5

Age, World, School, Home

“Riding somewhere was always a happy thing. First of all: as long as you're moving, you haven't arrived. As long as you haven't arrived, you don't have to work. Riding in truck gives you time to recover. Second: when you ride, you come to some place that couldn't care less about you. you can't be yelled at or beaten by a tree. Under a tree, yes but the tree can't help that.”

Herta Müller book The Hunger Angel

Source: The Hunger Angel (2012), p. 50

Happiness, Tree, Time, Help

“The difference between faith and superstition is that the first uses reason to go as far as it can, and then makes the jump; the second shuns reason entirely — which is why superstition is not the ally, but the enemy, of true religion.”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

"Purely Personal Prejudices"
Strictly Personal (1953)

Faith, Religion

“Sultãn Fîrûz Shãh composed a book also in which he compiled an account of his reign and which he named Futuhãt-i-Fîrûz Shãhî…“He writes in its second chapter… ‘Muslim and infidel women used to visit sepulchres and temples, which led to many evils. I stopped it. I got mosques built in place of temples’…”

Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1594) historian

Sultãn Fîrûz Shãh Tughlaq (AD 1351-1388)
Tabqãt-i-Akharî

Women, Books, Evil

“We have these inalienable rights, and in the exercise of these same inalienable rights, we agree with each other to form civil governments. And Madison has an essay on sovereignty, which is a sort of simplified repetition of John Locke’s argument in the second chapter of the Second Treatise.”

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

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A

Exercises

“Well, I didn't ever think about Australia much. To me Australia had never been very interesting, it was just something that happened in the background. It was Neighbours and Crocodile Dundee movies and things that never really registered with me and I didn't pay any attention to it at all. I went out there in 1992, as I was invited to the Melbourne Writers Festival, and I got there and realised almost immediately that this was a really really interesting country and I knew absolutely nothing about it. As I say in the book, the thing that really struck me was that they had this prime minister who disappeared in 1967, Harold Holt and I had never heard about this. I should perhaps tell you because a lot of other people haven't either. In 1967 Harold Holt was prime minister and he was walking along a beach in Victoria just before Christmas and decided impulsively to go for a swim and dove into the water and swam about 100 feet out and vanished underneath the waves, presumably pulled under by the ferocious undertow or rips as they are called, that are a feature of so much of the Australian coastline. In any case, his body was never found. Two things about that amazed me. The first is that a country could just lose a prime minister — that struck me as a really quite special thing to do — and the second was that I had never heard of this. I could not recall ever having heard of this. I was sixteen years old in 1967. I should have known about it and I just realised that there were all these things about Australia that I had never heard about that were actually very very interesting. The more I looked into it, the more I realised that it is a fascinating place. The thing that really endeared Australia to me about Harold Holt's disappearance was not his tragic drowning, but when I learned that about a year after he disappeared the City of Melbourne, his home town, decided to commemorate him in some appropriate way and named a municipal swimming pool after him. I just thought: this is a great country.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

The pool was under construction before he disappeared and is located in the electorate he represented.
Interview with Stanford's Newsletter (June 2001)

People, Books, Way, Home

“What we didn't do well during the second half was simply to keep the ball. We ran a lot after; we won a lot of balls and we couldn't calm the game down. There was a struggle that really went through the second half. We should've done better.”

Jürgen Klinsmann (1964) German footballer and manager

Press conference http://www.espnfc.com/team/united-states/660/blog/post/2657429/jurgen-klinsmann-under-scrutiny-after-bad-day-for-us (10 October 2015) 2010s, 2015

Game

Quotes about second page 12

Quotes about second
page 12