Quotes about second
page 9

Ilana Mercer photo
Thomas Hobbes photo
Jerome David Salinger photo
Walter Benjamin photo

“Philosophy establishes itself as a discourse by opposition to the authority of received opinion, especially the opinions sedimented as cult and as law. Philosophy puts into question the authority of what has been handed down. It is not just that there is a critique of philosophic authorities; rather, philosophy appears to be characterized by rejection of intellectual authority as such. How is philosophy to distinguish, then, a permissible authority from those many impermissible authorities which it must reject if it is to survive?
Perhaps it would be better to avoid the quandary altogether by dismissing authority in order to consider only the "content" of the claims under consideration, regardless of their pretensions. The dismissal fails for at least two reasons. The first is that there are no claims in philosophic texts that are wholly free at least from the implicit constructions of authority. If criticism takes only the content, then it ends up with something other than the texts that have constituted the discourse of philosophy. There is no Platonic "theory of Forms" dissociable from the Platonic pedagogy, that is, from the teaching authority of the Platonic Socrates. The second reason for not being able to dismiss authority altogether is that the very criticism that wants to look only at contents will impose itself as an authority in its choice of procedure. One will still have authority, but an authority that refuses to raise any question about authority.
Perhaps the question about legitimate authority could be avoided, again, by replying that the obvious criterion for claims in philosophy is the truth. The assumption here is that access to the truth is had entirely apart from the authority of philosophical traditions. Yet it is a biographical fact that one is brought into philosophy by education. First principles are learned most often not by simple observation or by the natural light of reason, but under the tutelage of some authoritative tradition.”

Authority and persuasion in philosophy (1985)

Anthony Burgess photo
William H. Starbuck photo
Susan Cooper photo
Adlai Stevenson photo

“Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

"Putting First Things First", Foreign Affairs (January 1960)

Theo Walcott photo

“He has the record on 40 metres. I think it's 4.72 seconds or something like that. Certainly Theo could have been a 100-metre runner.”

Theo Walcott (1989) English association football player

Arsène Wenger, Arsenal manager, 2009 ( Source http://www.insideworldsoccer.com/2009/12/theo-walcott-couldve-been-100-metre.html)
About

Adlai Stevenson photo
Tiffany Brar photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Andrew Sullivan photo
Kazimir Malevich photo

“Papuans bored, but
Cottage second-class
Ticket. Park. Arch.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

Quote of Kazimir Malevich, Jan. 1916, from his letter to Mikhail Matiushin; private archive, Frankfurt (transl. Todd Bludeau); as quoted by Vasilii Rakitin, in The great Utopia - The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932; Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1992, p. 26
Malevich' example of the new poetic structures (the 3 lines loosely match his painting 'Stantsiia bez ostanovki Kuntsevo' (Through Station: Kuntsevo), 1913)
1910 - 1920

James A. Garfield photo
Michael Swanwick photo
Lucille Ball photo
Kurt Lewin photo
Herbert Hoover photo
Immortal Technique photo
Mickey Spillane photo
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner photo

“Our society needs women to be more numerous in decision-making positions and in entrepreneurial areas. We always have to pass a twofold test: first to prove that, though women, we are no idiots, and second, the test anybody has to pass.”

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (1953) Argentine politician and ex President of Argentina

Nota en Clarin 20/10/2005 http://www.clarin.com/diario/2005/10/20/elpais/p-01201.htm
Unsourced, 2005

Grant Morrison photo
John Dankworth photo
John Napier photo

“Here then (belove reader) thou hast this work devided into two treatises, the first is the said introduction and reasoning, for investigation of the true sense of every cheife Theological tearme and date contained in the Revelation, whereby, not onely is it opened, explained and interpreted, but also that same explanation and interpretation is proved, confirmed and demonstrated, by evidente proofe and coherence of scriptures, agreeable with the event of histories. The seconde is, the principall treatise, in which the whole Apocalyps, Chapter by chapter, Verse by verse, and Sentence by sentence, is both Paraphrastically expounded and Historically applyed. …And because this whole work of Revelation concerneth most the discoverie of the Antichristian and Papisticall kingdome, I have therefore (for removing of all suspition) in al histories and prophane matters, taken my authorities and cited my places either out of Ethnick auctors, or then papistical writers, whose testimonies by no reason can be refuted against themselves. But in matters of divinitie, doctrine & interpretation of mysteries (leaving all opinions of men) I take me onely to the interpretation and discoverie thereof, by coherence of scripture, and godly reasons following thereupon; which also not only no Papist, but even no Christian may justly refuse. And forasmuch as our scripturs herein are of two fortes, the one our ordinary text, the other extraordinary citations; In our ordinary text, I follow not altogether the vulgar English translation, but the best learned in the Greek tong, so that (for satisfying the Papists) I differ nothing from their vulgar text of S. Jerome, as they cal it, except is such places, where I prove by good reasons, that hee differeth from the Original Greek. In the extraordinary texts of other scriptures cited by me, I followe ever Jeromes latine translation, where any controverse stands betwixt us and the Papists, and that moveth me in divers places to insert his very latine text, for their cause, with the just English thereof, for supply of the unlearned.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593)

Isaac Asimov photo

“A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.”

"Runaround" in Astounding Science Fiction (March 1942); later published in I, Robot (1950)
The Three Laws of Robotics (1942)

Julius Streicher photo
Daniel Dennett photo
Robert Wilson Lynd photo
Huston Smith photo
James A. Michener photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Maimónides photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
Isaac Leib Peretz photo

“In the second and third exiles we have served as a living protest against greed and hate, against physical force, against "might makes right!"”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

Preface to Idishé Bibliotek, i. 1890.

Courtney B. Vance photo
John Oliver photo
Dana Gioia photo
Cass Elliot photo
Quirinus Kuhlmann photo
China Miéville photo
Marc Chagall photo
Arthur Scargill photo
Tim McGraw photo
George William Curtis photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Vikram Sarabhai photo

“We are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man's society.”

Vikram Sarabhai (1919–1971) (1919-1971), Indian physicist

On the development of Indian Space Researach progarmme which he headed and the notable success achieved in the field.
Variant: But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society.

Henry Suso photo
Sharron Angle photo
George Friedman photo
Fisher Ames photo

“I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second thought of the people shall be law.”

Fisher Ames (1758–1808) American politician

Speech on Biennial Elections before the Convention of Massachusetts (January 1788), reported in Seth Ames, John Thornton Kirkland, Works of Fisher Ames with a Selection from His Speeches and Correspondence (1854) p. 7.

K. R. Narayanan photo
Benoît Mandelbrot photo
David Dixon Porter photo

“There was a time not long ago when Vicksburg could have been easily captured, but it is now a second Gibraltar, and the navy alone could do nothing toward capturing it.”

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

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 122

Albrecht Thaer photo

“In the second year of my residence in Gottingen, I entered my name for a course of lectures on practical physics, against the advice of all my friends, but I have never regretted so doing, as there never has been, and probably never will be, a greater man at the university than Doctor Schroder, physician to the king, who gave, at that period, his celebrated lectures on practical physics. Schroder himself was astonished at the step I had taken; but when he perceived that I fully understood him, I became one of his favourite pupils; nor had I the advantage alone of receiving private lessons gratis, but he took me with him in most of his professional visits, where I had all the advantages of his great practice. Thus I caught a putrid fever which was then very prevalent; Schroeder attended me day and night, and giving up all hopes of my recovery, he observed to one of his friends, not thinking that I understood what he said, "The expansion of the sinews increases." "Then," answered I, in a quiet manner, "I shall die in four days, according to such and such a rule of Hippocrates: pray, prepare my father to receive the news of my death." However, immediately after, a sudden turn in the disorder taking place, I soon recovered; not so my memory, which I lost for a time, so that I had forgotten the names of my best friends; my nerves were so completely shaken, that I had no wish to recover. After my recovery, Professor Schroeder being himself attacked with the same fever, requested of his wife that no other physician than myself should attend him; but when he became light-headed, she called in all the physicians of Gottingen, and these gentlemen not agreeing in opinion respecting the treatment of the patient, this great and learned man fell a victim to ignorance and jealousy, April 21, 1772. I cannot think of this celebrated and good man without shedding tears of regret and gratitude.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Johann Hari photo
Laisenia Qarase photo

“We are trying to establish a process beginning with problems arising from 2000. In the second part of the Bill we propose to establish a permanent national council for promotion of reconciliation, unity and tolerance and that to me is most important part of this Bill.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Additional remarks about the proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission, Response to continuing opposition to the Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Unity Bill, 30 July 2005

Charles Sanders Peirce photo
L. K. Advani photo

“Dr Koenraad Elst, in his two-volume book titled The Saffron Swastika, marshals an incontrovertible array of facts to debunk slanderous attacks on the BJP by a section of the media. About the Rath Yatra, he writes: ‘But what about Advani’s bloody Rath Yatra (car procession) from Somnath to Ayodhya in October 1990? Very simple: it is not at all that the Rath Yatra was a bloody affair. While in the same period, there was a lot of rioting in several parts of the country (particularly Hyderabad, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh), killing about 600 people in total, there were no riots at all along the Rath Yatra trail. Well, there was one: upper-caste students pelted stones at Advani because he had disappointed them by not supporting their agitation against the caste-based reservations which V. P. Singh was promoting. Even then, no one was killed or seriously wounded. It is a measure of the quality of the Indian English-language media that they have managed to turn an entirely peaceful procession, an island of orderliness in a riot-torn country, into a proverbial bloody event (“Advani’s blood yatra”). And it was quite a sight how the pressmen in their editorials blamed Advani for communal riots of which the actual, non-Advanirelated causes were given on a different page of the same paper. Whether Advani with his Rath Yatra was at 500 miles distance from a riot (as with the riot in Gonda in UP), or under arrest, or back home after the high tide of the Ayodhya agitation, every riot in India in the second half of 1990 was blamed on him’.”

L.K. Advani, My Country My Life (2008). ISBN 978-81-291-1363-4, quoting Koenraad Elst, The Saffron Swastika (2001)

Linus Torvalds photo

“Whoever came up with "hold the shift key for eight seconds to turn on 'your keyboard is buggered' mode" should be shot.”

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

Linus Torvalds - Google+, Torvalds, Linus, 2013-06-23, 2013-10-12 https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/e4vnEUdB5kn,
2010s, 2013

Tobe Hooper photo
Damian Pettigrew photo
Femi Taylor photo
Thomas Bailey Aldrich photo
Condoleezza Rice photo
Jean Piaget photo

“If a baby really has no awareness of himself and is totally thing-directed and at the same time all his states of mind are projected onto things, our second paradox makes sense: on the one hand, thought in babies can be viewed as pure accommodation or exploratory movements, but on the other this very same thought is only one, long, completely autistic waking dream.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

The First Year of Life of the Child (1927), "The Egocentrism of the Child and the Solipsism of the Baby", as translated by Howard E. Gruber and J. Jacques Vonèche

Norman Lamont photo

“Twenty-one years between first and second films is longer than any director should have to wait. The case of Polonsky is one of the most dismal hangovers from the McCarthy period.”

Abraham Polonsky (1910–1999) American politician

David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, page 689, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2003, ISBN 0-375-41128-3
About

Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti photo
Henry Hazlitt photo

“I do not mean to suggest that all those who call themselves monetarists make this unconscious assumption that an inflation involves this uniform rise of prices. But we may distinguish two schools of monetarism. The first would prescribe a monthly or annual increase in the stock of money just sufficient, in their judgment, to keep prices stable. The second school (which the first might dismiss as mere inflationists) wants a continuous increase in the stock of money sufficient to raise prices steadily by a "small" amount—2 or 3 per cent a year. These are the advocates of a "creeping" inflation. … I made a distinction earlier between the monetarists strictly so called and the "creeping inflationists." This distinction applies to the intent of their recommended policies rather than to the result. The intent of the monetarists is not to keep raising the price "level" but simply to keep it from falling, i. e., simply to keep it "stable." But it is impossible to know in advance precisely what uniform rate of money-supply increase would in fact do this. The monetarists are right in assuming that in a prospering economy, if the stock of money were not increased, there would probably be a mild long-run tendency for prices to decline. But they are wrong in assuming that this would necessarily threaten employment or production. For in a free and flexible economy prices would be falling because productivity was increasing, that is, because costs of production were falling. There would be no necessary reduction in real profit margins. The American economy has often been prosperous in the past over periods when prices were declining. Though money wage-rates may not increase in such periods, their purchasing power does increase. So there is no need to keep increasing the stock of money to prevent prices from declining. A fixed arbitrary annual increase in the money stock "to keep prices stable" could easily lead to a "creeping inflation" of prices.”

Henry Hazlitt (1894–1993) American journalist

Where the Monetarists Go Wrong (1976)

Amir Taheri photo
Peter Jackson photo

“Fantasy is an 'F' word that hopefully the five second delay won't do anything with”

Peter Jackson (1961) New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter

After receiving the Best Picture Oscar for "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" at the 76th Academy Awards

Saul D. Alinsky photo
Robert Kuttner photo
Clinton Edgar Woods photo

“The actual manufacture of material into a specific product is a sort of digestive process which must have a functioning organization purposed to meet the required ends, just as the human body has, and it is governed by similar conditions. It must also be directed by a specific intelligence and must have internal and external avenues of correspondence to keep it alive; and, like a living organism, must adhere to the eternal economy of things and show a profit by its activities or it cannot progress.
To exemplify this in a simple way, the writer has laid out Figure I, showing the prime elements composing the anatomy of an industrial body. One does not have to draw on the imagination very far to make a comparison of this anatomy with that of man. It has its mind, will power, and brain to direct it, as indicated by the stockholders, directors and executive officers, a heart which keeps in flow the circulating medium internally; and avenues of correspondence with the outside world which furnish to it the very elements of existence.
This chart shows first, that the stockholders are simply elements belonging to the general public who have made an investment for some specific purpose; second, that immediately after this, the election of directors sets into action the first internal factor in the body, which is then divided into different functioning powers by the election of executive officers.”

Clinton Edgar Woods (1863) American engineer

Source: Organizing a factory (1905), p. 24

Ilana Mercer photo

“Adding an overarching tier of tyrants—the EU—to European governments has benefited Europeans as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Adieu to the Evil EU" http://www.antiwar.com/mercer/?articleid=6272/ Antiwar.com, June 10, 2005.
2000s, 2005
Variant: Europeans have come to realize that adding an overarching tier of tyrants—the EU—to their own government has benefited them as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.

George Howard Earle, Jr. photo
Mario Cuomo photo
Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben photo
Errol Morris photo
Georg Cantor photo
Enoch Powell photo

“The immediate occasion for alarm is the government's announcement that British contractors for supplying armaments to our armed forces must in future share the work with what are called ‘European firms’, meaning factories situated on the mainland of the European continent. I ask one question, to which I believe there is no doubt about the answer. What would have been the fate of Britain in 1940 if production of the Hurricane and the Spitfire had been dependent upon the output of factories in France? That a question so glaringly obvious does not get asked in public or in government illuminates the danger created for this nation by the rolling stream of time which bears away the generation of 1940, the generation, that is to say, of those who experienced as adults Britain's great peril and Britain’s great deliverance. Talk at Bruges or Luxembourg about not surrendering our national sovereignty is all very well. It means less than nothing when the keys to our national defence are being handed over: an island nation which no longer commands the essential means of defending itself by air and sea is no longer sovereign…The safety of this island nation reposes upon two pillars. The first is the impregnability of its homeland to invasion by air or sea. The second is its ability and its will to create over time the military forces by which the last conclusive battle will be decided. Without our own industrial base of military armament production neither of those pillars will stand. No doubt, with the oceans kept open, we can look to buy or borrow from the other continents; but to depend on the continent of Europe for our arms is suicide.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the Birmingham branch of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers Association (18 February 1989), from Enoch Powell on 1992 (Anaya, 1989), pp. 49-50
1980s

Warren Buffett photo
Billy Joel photo

“Don't forget your second wind;
Sooner or later you'll get your second wind.
It's not always easy to be living in this world of pain.
You're gonna be crashing into stone walls again and again.
It's alright, it's alright.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

You're Only Human (Second Wind).
Song lyrics, Greatest Hits - Volume I & Volume II (1985)