Quotes about set
page 19

Eugen Drewermann photo
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker photo
Umberto Eco photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“I can think of no moral objection to eating human road kills except for the ones that you mentioned like 'what would the relatives think about it?' and 'would the person themselves have wanted it to happen?', but I do worry a bit about slippery slopes; possibly a little bit more than you do.There are barriers that we have set up in our minds and certainly the barrier between Homo sapiens and any other species is an artificial barrier in the sense that its a kind of 'accident' that the evolutionary intermediates happen to be extinct. Never the less it exists and natural barriers that are there can be useful for preventing slippery slopes and therefore I think I can see an objection to breaching such a barrier because you are then in a weaker position to stop people going further.Another example might be suppose you take the argument in favour of abortion up until the baby was one year old, if a baby was one year old and turned out to have some horrible incurable disease that meant it was going to die in agony in later life, what about infanticide? Strictly morally I can see no objection to that at all, I would be in favour of infanticide but I think i would worry about/I think I would wish at least to give consideration to the person who says 'where does it end?'”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

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Peter Singer - The Genius of Darwin: The Uncut Interviews (2009)

Alfred Horsley Hinton photo
Samuel R. Delany photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Derek Jarman photo
Roger Scruton photo
Steve Reich photo

“What I don't want to do is to go and buy a bunch of exotic-looking drums and set up an Afrikanische Musik in New York City.”

Steve Reich (1936) American composer

Source: Steve Reich, ‎Paul Hillier (2002) Writings on Music, 1965-2000, p. 55

Ramsay MacDonald photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“If there is one mental vice, indeed, which sets off the American people from all other folks who walk the earth … it is that of assuming that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that ninety-nine percent of them are wrong.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"The American: His New Puritanism," http://books.google.com/books?id=tn9HAAAAYAAJ&q=%22If+there+is+one+mental+vice+indeed+which+sets+off+the+American+people+from+all+other+folks+who+walk+the+earth%22+%22it+is+that+of%22+%22that+every+human+act+must+be+either+right+or+wrong+and+that+ninety-nine+percent+of+them+are+wrong%22&pg=RA1-PA87#v=onepage The Smart Set (February 1914)
1910s

Carl Ludwig Siegel photo

“I am afraid that mathematics will perish by the end of this century if the present trend for senseless abstractin — as I call it: theory of the empty set — cannot be blocked up.”

Carl Ludwig Siegel (1896–1981) German mathematician

in a 1964 letter to L. J. Mordell as quoted by [C. S. Yogananda, The Life and Times of Bourbaki, June 2015, Resonance, 556–559, http://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/020/06/0556-0559] (quote from p. 558)

H.L. Mencken photo
Muhammad Ali Jinnah photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Francesco Guicciardini photo

“He who imitates what is evil always goes beyond the example that is set; on the contrary, he who imitates what is good always falls short.”

Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540) Italian writer, historian and politician

L'imitazione del male supera sempre l'esempio; comme per il contrario, l'imitazione del bene è sempre inferiore.
Storia d' Italia (1537-1540)

“A semantic definition of a particular set of command types, then, is a rule for constructing, for any command of one of these types, a verification condition on the antecedents and consequents.”

Robert Floyd (1936–2001) American computer scientist

Source: Assigning Meanings to Programs http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~weimer/2007-615/reading/FloydMeaning.pdf (1967), p. 21 [italics in original, math symbols omitted].

Tony Benn photo
Victor Davis Hanson photo
Robert Crumb photo
Asger Jorn photo
Muhammad Qutb photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“2018. He set my House afire, only to roast his Eggs.”

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

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1751) : Pray don't burn my House to roast your Eggs.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

“Lysenkoism is held up by bourgeois commentators as the supreme demonstration that conscious ideology cannot inform scientific practice and that "ideology has no place in science." On the other hand, some writers are even now maintaining a Lysenkoist position because they believe that the principles of dialectical materialism contradict the claims of genetics. Both of these claims stem from a vulgarisation of Marxist philosophy through deliberate hostility, in the first case, or ignorance, in the second. Nothing in Marx, Lenin or Mao contradicts the particular physical facts and processes of a particular set of natural phenomena in the objective world, because what they wrote about nature was at a high level of abstraction. The error of the Lysenkoist claim arises from attempting to apply a dialectical analysis of physical problems from the wrong end. Dialectical materialism is not, and has never been, a programmatic method for solving particular physical problems. Rather, dialectical analysis provides an overview and a set of warning signs against particular forms of dogmatism and narrowness of thought. It tells us, "Remember that history may leave an important trace. Remember that being and becoming are dual aspects of nature. Remember that conditions change and that the conditions necessary to the initiation of some process may be destroyed by the process itself. Remember to pay attention to real objects in space and time and not lose them utterly in idealized abstractions. Remember that qualitative effects of context and interaction may be lost when phenomena are isolated."”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

And above all else, "Remember that all the other caveats are only reminders and warning signs whose application to different circumstances of the real world is contingent."
"The Problem of Lysenkoism" by Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins, in Hilary and Steven Rose (eds.), The Radicalisation of Science, Macmillan, 1976, p. 58.

Nelson Mandela photo
Donald Barthelme photo
Benoît Mandelbrot photo

“A fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales…”

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

As quoted in a review of The Fractal Geometry of Nature by J. W. Cannon in The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 91, No. 9 (November 1984), p. 594

Theodore Roszak photo
Adam Smith photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Jack Buck photo

“The Dodger right-hander is set and here's his pitch to Jack Clark. Swing and a long one into left field! Adios, goodbye, and maybe that's a winner! A three-run homer by Clark and the Cardinals lead by the score of 7 to 5 and they may go to the World Series on THAT one, folks!”

Jack Buck (1924–2002) American sportscaster

Calling Jack Clark's 9th inning three-run home run off Niedenfuer in Game 6 of the 1985 National League Championship Series to give the Cardinals the lead and the National League Pennant.
1980s

William S. Burroughs photo

“The song of the wind singer will set you free.”

William Nicholson (1948) British screenwriter, playwright and novelist

Source: The "Wind on Fire" Trilogy (2000-2003), The Wind Singer (Book 1), p. 77

F. Lee Bailey photo

“I use the rules to frustrate the law. But I didn’t set up the ground rules.”

F. Lee Bailey (1933) American lawyer

New York Times, 20 September 1970.

Julian of Norwich photo

“He willeth that we set our hearts in the Overpassing : that is to say, from the pain that we feel into the bliss that we trust.”

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

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 81

Morris Raphael Cohen photo
Max Ernst photo
Khaled Hosseini photo
Erastus Otis Haven photo
John Angell James photo

“It is not possible to set out in the Christian profession with a more instructive or impressive idea than this — Life is the seed-time for eternity.”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 380.

Fred Thompson photo
Carmine Crocco photo

“Undoubtedly I have done harm to the society, but I have done it for defending my life, I would set fire to the whole world for it.”

Carmine Crocco (1830–1905) Italian revolutionary

Senza dubbio, ho fatto del male alla società, ma io facevo per difendere la mia vita; per essa avrei dato fuoco a tutto il mondo.
As quoted in Voci dall'ergastolo

William H. McNeill photo
Walter Rauschenbusch photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Samuel Rutherford photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Henry Gantt photo
Clay Shirky photo
Michel Foucault photo
Johann Kaspar Lavater photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“[In response to this question by Bill Moyers: What do you see happening to the idea of dignity to human species if this population growth continues at its present rate? ] "It's going to destroy it all. I use what I call my bathroom metaphor. If two people live in an apartment, and there are two bathrooms, then both have what I call freedom of the bathroom, go to the bathroom any time you want, and stay as long as you want to for whatever you need. And this to my way is ideal. And everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom. It should be right there in the Constitution. But if you have 20 people in the apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up, you have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door, aren't you through yet, and so on. And in the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Interview by Bill Moyers on Bill Moyers' World Of Ideas (17 October 1988); transcript http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/pdfs/woi%20asimov1.pdf (page 6) - audio (20:12) http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/media_players/asimovwoi_audio.html
General sources

Jane Roberts photo
Michael Swanwick photo
Tao Yuanming photo

“God can only set in motion:
He cannot control the things he has made.”

Tao Yuanming (365–427) Chinese poet

Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, "Spirit expounds"
Translated by Arthur Waley

Jim Henson photo

“[In science any model depends on a pre-chosen taxonomy] a set of classifications into which we divide the enormous complexity of the real world… Land, labor, and capital are extremely heterogeneous aggregates, not much better than earth, air, fire, and water.”

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

Kenneth Boulding (1986) "What Went Wrong with Economics?" in: The American Economist Vol 30 (Spring) pp. 7-8, as cited in: Deirdre McCloskey (2013) " What Boulding Said Went Wrong with Economics, A Quarter Century On http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/editorials/boulding.php"
1980s

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge photo

“Breathe slumbrous music round me, sweet and slow,
To honied phrases set!
Into the land of dreams I long to go.
Bid me forget!”

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907) British writer

Mandragora, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Neal Stephenson photo
Jahangir photo

“On the 24th of the same month I went to see the fort of Kangra, and gave an order that the Qazi, the Chief Justice (Mir'Adl), and other learned men of Islam should accompany me and carry out in the fort whatever was customary, according to the religion of Muhammad. Briefly, having traversed about one koss, I went up to the top of the fort, and by the grace of God, the call to prayer and the reading of the Khutba and the slaughter of a bullock which had not taken place from the commencement of the building of the fort till now, were carried out in my presence. I prostrated myself in thanksgiving for this great gift, which no king had hoped to receive, and ordered a lofty mosque to be built inside the fort' ….'After going round the fort I went to see the temple of Durga, which is known as Bhawan. A world has here wandered in the desert of error. Setting aside the infidels whose custom is the worship of idols, crowds of the people of Islam, traversing long distances, bring their offerings and pray to the black stone (image)' Some maintain that this stone, which is now a place of worship for the vile infidels, is not the stone which was there originally, but that a body of the people of Islam came and carried off the original stone, and threw it into the bottom of the river, with the intent that no one could get at it. For a long time the tumult of the infidels and idol-worshippers had died away in the world, till a lying brahman hid a stone for his own ends, and going to the Raja of the time said: 'I saw Durga in a dream, and she said to me: They have thrown me into a certain place: quickly go and take me up.”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

The Raja, in the simplicity of his heart, and greedy for the offerings of gold that would come to him, accepted the tale of the brahman and sent a number of people with him, and brought that stone, and kept it in this place with honour, and started again the shop of error and misleading
Kangra (Himachal Pradesh) , Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, translated into English by Alexander Rogers, first published 1909-1914, New Delhi Reprint, 1978, Vol. II, pp. 223-25.

John Ruysbroeck photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“If the variables are continuous, this definition [Ashby’s fundamental concept of machine] corresponds to the description of a dynamic system by a set of ordinary differential equations with time as the independent variable. However, such representation by differential equations is too restricted for a theory to include biological systems and calculating machines where discontinuities are ubiquitous.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Source: General System Theory (1968), 4. Advances in General Systems Theory, p. 96, as cited in: Vincent Vesterby (2013) From Bertalanffy to Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity http://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings56th/article/viewFile/1886/672

Abu Bakr photo
Jack Vance photo
Joseph Strutt photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Dan Patrick photo

“That's why they don't play games on paper. They play them inside television sets. Let's go to the highlights.”

Dan Patrick (1956) American sportscaster

Catch Phrases
Source: http://www.baylorfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56404&page=1

Nathanael Greene photo
Octavio Paz photo

“the reality beyond language is not completely reality, a reality that does not speak or say is not reality;
and the moment I say that, the moment I write, letter by letter, that a reality stripped of names is not reality, the names evaporate, they are air, they are a sound encased in another sound and in another and another, a murmur, a faint cascade of meanings that fade away to nothingness:
the tree that I say is not the tree that I see, tree does not say tree, the tree is beyond its name, a leafy, woody reality: impenetrable, untouchable, a reality beyond signs, immersed in itself, firmly planted in its own reality: I can touch it but I cannot name it, I can set fire to it but if I name it I dissolve it:
the tree that is there among the trees is not the tree that I name but a reality that is beyond names, beyond the word reality, it is simply reality just as it is, the abolition of differences and also the abolition of similarities;
the tree that I name is not the tree, and the other one, the one that I do not name and that is there, on the other side of my window, its trunk now black and its foliage still inflamed by the setting sun, is not the tree either, but, rather, the inaccessible reality in which it is planted:
between the one and the other there appears the single tree of sensation which is the perception of the sensation of tree that is vanishing, but
who perceives, who senses, who vanishes as sensations and perceptions vanish?”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 9

Dave Matthews photo
Mohamed Nasheed photo
Tim McGraw photo

“Natural order was not invented by the human mind or set up by certain perceptive powers… The existence of order presupposes the existence of organizing intelligence. Such intelligence can be none other than God's.”

Pierre-Paul Grassé (1895–1985) French zoologist

Dieu existe? Oui http://books.google.com.mx/books/about/Dieu_existe_Oui.html?id=TBUCHQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y (1979). Paris. Stock. Christian Chabanis, p. 94.
Original: L’ordre naturel n’est pas une invention de l’esprit humain et une mise en place de certaines propriétés d’observation... Qui dit ordre dit intelligence organisatrice. Cette intelligence ne peut être que celle de Dieu.

Carter G. Woodson photo
Gancho Tsenov photo