Quotes about severity (1843 quotes, page 6)

“Until the modern era there was no single international system, but rather several international systems, with little or no contact with another.”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

p, 125
War and Change in World Politics (1981)

“And the music came back with the carnival, the music you've heard as far back as you can remember, ever since you were little, that's always playing somewhere, in some corner of the city, in little country towns, wherever poor people go and sit at the end of the week to figure out what's become of them, sometimes here, sometimes there, from season to season, it tinkles and grinds out the tunes that rich people danced to the year before. It's the mechanical music that floats down from the wooden horses, from the cars that aren't cars anymore, from the railways that aren't at all scenic, from the platform under the wrestler who hasn't any muscles and doesn't come from Marseille, from the beardless lady, the magician who's a butter-fingered jerk, the organ that's not made of gold, the shooting gallery with the empty eggs. It's the carnival made to delude the weekend crowd. We go in and drink the beer with no head on it. But under the cardboard trees the stink of the waiter's breath is real. And the change he gives you has several peculiar coins in it, so peculiar that you go on examining them for weeks and weeks and finally, with considerable difficulty, palm them off on some beggar. What do you expect at the carnival? Gotta have what fun you can between hunger and jail, and take things as they come. No sense complaining, we're sitting down aren't we? Which ain't to be sneezed at. I saw the same old Gallery of the Nations, the one Lola caught sight of years and years ago on that avenue in the park of Saint-Cloud. You always see things again at carnivals, they revive the joy of past carnivals. Over the years the crowds must have come back time and again to stroll on the main avenue of the park of Saint-Cloud…taking it easy. The war had been over long ago. And say I wonder if that shooting gallery still belonged to the same owner? Had he come back alive from the war? I take an interest in everything. Those are the same targets, but in addition, they're shooting at airplanes now. Novelty. Progress. Fashion. The wedding was still there, the soldier too, and the town hall with its flag. Plus a few more things to shoot at than before.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

27
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Hunger , War , People , Music

“A physician is worth more than several other men put together, for he can cut out arrows and spread healing herbs.”

Homér Iliad

XI. 514–515 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Men

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

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

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

Women , Men , Hate , Friendship

“It is exceptional that one should be able to acquire the understanding of a process without having previously acquired a deep familiarity with running it, with using it, before one has assimilated it in an instinctive and empirical way… Thus any discussion of the nature of intellectual effort in any field is difficult, unless it presupposes an easy, routine familiarity with that field. In mathematics this limitation becomes very severe.”

John Von Neumann (1903–1957) Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath

As quoted in "The Mathematician" in The World of Mathematics (1956), by James Roy Newman

Way , Mathematics , Understanding , Nature

“Jace hadn't seemed perturbed, but knowing him, Simon had no doubt he could kill several people in a single morning and go out for waffles afterward.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Simon, about Jace, pg. 50-51
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

People

“How easily we Indians see the several sides to every question! That is what makes us such good bureaucrats, and such poor totalitarians. They say the new international organizations set up by the wonderfully optimistic (if oxymoronic) United Nations are full of highly successful Indian officials with quick, subtle minds and mellifluous tongues, for ever able to understand every global crisis from the point of view of each and every one of the contending parties. That is why they do so well, Ganapathi, in any situation that calls for an instinctive awareness of the subjectivity of truth, the relativity of judgement and the impossibility of action.”

Shashi Tharoor book The Great Indian Novel

The Great Indian Novel (1989)

Truth , Understanding , Question , Success

“Wadewitz said to attract more women editors, attitudes within the Wikipedia community need to change. This became clear when she revealed her gender, after writing anonymously for several years.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Wholf, Tracy (May 18, 2014). "'Wikipedian' editor took on website’s gender gap" http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/wikipedian-editor-took-wikipedias-gender-gap/. PBS NewsHour (PBS). Retrieved May 19, 2014.
About

Women , Communication , Change

“Lucid gems are made of water; just as Crystal, which has been concreted from clear water, not always by a very great cold, as some used to judge, and by very hard frost, but sometimes by a less severe one, the nature of the soil fashioning it, the humour or juices being shut up in definite cavities, in the way in which spars are produced in mines.”

William Gilbert (astronomer) book De Magnete

English translation by Silvanus P. Thompson (1900).
De Magnete (1600)

Way , Fashion , Nature , Water

“Sunday – a pack of dogs killed several of our sheep last night. … I do not believe that Smokey participated in the killing but he was shot anyway. There was no indictment or trial – just an execution.”

Virgil John Tangborn (1920–1944)

February 9, 1941

Dogs , Night

“The stock of money, prices and output was decidedly more unstable after the establishment of the Reserve System than before. The most dramatic period of instability in output was, of course, the period between the two wars, which includes the severe (monetary) contractions of 1920-1, 1929-33, and 1937-8. No other 20 year period in American history contains as many as three such severe contractions.
This evidence persuades me that at least a third of the price rise during and just after World War I is attributable to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System… and that the severity of each of the major contractions — 1920-1, 1929-33 and 1937-8 is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities…
Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes — excusable or not — can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic — this is the key political argument against an independent central bank…
To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the central bankers.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

As quoted in The Money Masters (1995)

Men , Money , War , World

“I… subjoin references to those parts of the work for which I have not been indebted to my knowledge of what has been written before me: much of what is cited is probably not new, indeed it is dangerous for any one at the present day to claim anything as belonging to himself; several things which I once thought to have entered in this list have been since found (either by myself, or by a friend to whom I referred it) in preceding writers.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Preface, p. v
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

Knowledge , Parting

“It has before been observed that this author is very severe upon most of the popular sports; but in justice to him I may add, that similar complaints have been exhibited against the church-ales and wakes in times greatly anterior to his existence. And, indeed, if we look at the wakes and fairs as they are conducted in the present day, I trust we shall not hesitate to own that they are by no means proper schools for the improvement of the public morals.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 368
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Phillip Stubbes

School , Justice , Sport , Time

“I know I will be severely criticized by the interventionists in America when I say we should not enter a war unless we have a reasonable chance of winning…. We are no better prepared today than France was when the interventionists persuaded her to attack the Siegfried Line….
It is not only our right but it is our obligation as American citizens to look at this war objectively and to weigh our chances for success if we should enter it. I have attempted to do this, especially from the standpoint of aviation; and I have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win this war for England, regardless of how much assistance we extend.”

Burton K. Wheeler (1882–1975) American politician and lawyer

Speech, reported in Robert G. Torricelli, Andrew Carroll, In Our Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century (2000), p. 126.

War , Chance , Success

“Hayek truly did get Popper his position at the London School of Economics. “I am personally anxious to get Dr. Popper to this School,” Hayek wrote Gombrich as early as 1943. Given the later prominence that Popper achieved for the school, this was one of Hayek’s most significant contributions to its reputation, as well as the decisive career move in Popper’s life.
Hayek also genuinely influenced Popper’s political philosophy. While Popper always remained to Hayek’s left, he started out much further to Hayek’s left than he wound up, and this movement was in no small part the result of Hayek’s influence. Popper was a charter member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He suggested, however, that socialists be brought into it. Hayek wrote Popper several deeply personal letters in connection with his divorce. It is likely that their personal relationship was more important to and valued by Hayek than Popper, though Popper valued highly Hayek’s friendship.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Life , Friendship , School , Decision

“James Buchanan … produced several seminal contributions to the literature prior to the appearance of The Calculus, and a continual stream of books and articles afterward. I view Buchanan’s Nobel Prize as a reward for this great body of work, and not just limited to The Calculus. Pursuing this line of reasoning, Gordon Tullock’s prodigious research output following the publication of The Calculus also justifies a Nobel Prize. Indeed, Tullock’s (1967c) seminal analysis of rent seeking, and his subsequent work on this topic might be regarded as sufficient achievements for the awarding of a prize.”

Dennis Mueller (1940) American economist

James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and The Calculus (2012)

Books , Literature , Appearance

“In attempted justification of the statute, it is said that it deals not with publication per se, but with the "business" of publishing defamation. If, however, the publisher has a constitutional right to publish, without previous restraint, an edition of his newspaper charging official derelictions, it cannot be denied that he may publish subsequent editions for the same purpose. He does not lose his right by exercising it. If his right exists, it may be exercised in publishing nine editions, as in this case, as well as in one edition. If previous restraint is permissible, it may be imposed at once; indeed, the wrong may be as serious in one publication as in several. Characterizing the publication as a business, and the business as a nuisance, does not permit an invasion of the constitutional immunity against restraint. Similarly, it does not matter that the newspaper or periodical is found to be "largely" or "chiefly" devoted to the publication of such derelictions. If the publisher has a right, without previous restraint, to publish them, his right cannot be deemed to be dependent upon his publishing something else, more or less, with the matter to which objection is made. Nor can it be said that the constitutional freedom from previous restraint is lost because charges are made of derelictions which constitute crimes. With the multiplying provisions of penal codes, and of municipal charters and ordinances carrying penal sanctions, the conduct of public officers is very largely within the purview of criminal statutes. The freedom of the press from previous restraint has never been regarded as limited to such animadversions as lay outside the range of penal enactments. Historically, there is no such limitation; it is inconsistent with the reason which underlies the privilege, as the privilege so limited would be of slight value for the purposes for which it came to be established.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

Exercises , Business , Freedom , Dependency

“To say that basic science is exciting may sound like a contradiction… But I would remind you that there are two intellectual excitements that are not tame at all and that we remember all our lives. One is the thrill of following out a chain of reasoning for yourself; the other is the pleasure of watching several strongly individualistic personalities argue about their deepest convictions. That is to say, the thrill of a detective story and the pleasure of watching a play by George Bernard Shaw.”

John R. Platt (1918–1992) American physicist

John R. Platt (1960) " The sweep and excitement of science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1929478/" in: Public Health Rep. 1960 June; 75(6). p. 495

Pleasure , Science , Personality

“I suspect that in the beginning Maurice hoped that Rosy would calm down. Yet mere inspection suggested that she would not easily bend. By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that could save bright girls from marriages to dull men. But this was not the case. Her dedicated austere life could not be thus explained — she was the daughter of a solidly comfortable, erudite banking family.
Clearly Rosy had to go or be put in her place. The former was obviously preferable because, given her belligerent moods, it would be very difficult for Maurice to maintain a dominant position that would allow him to think unhindered about DNA. Not that at times he'd didn't see some reason for her complaints — King's had two combination rooms, one for men, the other for women, certainly a thing of the past. But he was not responsible, and it was no pleasure to bear the cross for the added barb that the women's combination room remained dingily pokey whereas money had been spent to make life agreeable for him and his friends when they had their morning coffee.
Unfortunately, Maurice could not see any decent way to give Rosy the boot. To start with, she had been given to think that she had a position for several years. Also there was no denying that she had a good brain. If she could keep her emotions under control, there was a good chance she could really help him. But merely wishing for relations to improve was taking something of a gamble, for Cal Tech's fabulous chemist Linus Pauling was not subject to the confines of British fair play. Sooner or later Linus, who had just turned fifty, was bound to try for the most important of all scientific prizes. There was no doubt he was interested. … The thought could not be avoided that the best home for a feminist was in another person's lab.”

James D. Watson book The Double Helix

Description of Rosalind Franklin, whose data and research were actually key factors in determining the structure of DNA, but who died in 1958 of ovarian cancer, before the importance of her work could be widely recognized and acknowledged. In response to these remarks her mother stated "I would rather she were forgotten than remembered in this way." As quoted in "Rosalind Franklin" at Strange Science : The Rocky Road to Modern Paleontology and Biology by Michon Scott http://www.strangescience.net/rfranklin.htm
The Double Helix (1968)

Life , Women , Men , Money

“.. Is it indisputable that several aesthetic declarations of our French comrades (the Cubists) display a sort of masked academicism. It is not, indeed, a return to the Academy to declare that the subject, in painting, has a perfectly insignificant value?... To paint from the posing model as an absurdity, and an act of mental cowardice, even if the model be translated upon the picture in linear, spherical and cubic forms..”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

Source: 1912, Les exposants au public', 1912, pp. 2, 3.

Painting

“System costs can be considered in many different ways. For example, the cost for making the system and the cost for operating it may be used as a basic for judging the total cost. The total cost may also be arrived at in another fashion, as, for example, the sum of the fixed cost, variable cost, past investment and other charges. Furthermore, in many cases where systems engineering is required several time phases are involved for which the cost factors may be significant, such as the study phase, the breadboard phase, the prototype phase, and the production phase.”

Harold Chestnut (1917–2001) American engineer

Source: Systems Engineering Tools, (1965), Systems Engineering Methods (1967), p. 13

Way , Fashion , Study , Time

“Since none of the creatures of the sea were taken on Noah's ark, there would be a strong possibility that some plesiosaurs and maybe even some ichtyosaurs survived the Flood. The violent and turbulent waters of the Flood would surely have killed and buried many of the sea creatures (over 90 percent of fossils found are of marine animals). However, if some had survived the Flood and lived on in the seas for years after, they could help account for many of the legends of sea monsters that have been gathered from all over the world. Remote as it may seem, there could even be the possibility that a few have survived till modern times. After all, it's much easier to believe that they could have survived for several thousand years rather than for nearly a hundred-million years.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved! (2000)

World , Strong , Water , Time

“Let as many Numbers, as you please, be proposed to be Combined: Suppose Five, which we will call a b c d e. Put, in so many Lines, Numbers, in duple proportion, beginning with 1. The Sum (31) is the Number of Sumptions, or Elections; wherein, one or more of them, may several ways be taken. Hence subduct (5) the Number of the Numbers proposed; because each of them may once be taken singly. And the Remainder (26) shews how many ways they may be taken in Combination; (namely, Two or more at once.) And, consequently, how many Products may be had by the Multiplication of any two or more of them so taken. But the same Sum (31) without such Subduction, shews how many Aliquot Parts there are in the greatest of those Products, (that is, in the Number made by the continual Multiplication of all the Numbers proposed,) a b c d e. For every one of those Sumptions, are Aliquot Parts of a b c d e, except the last, (which is the whole,) and instead thereof, 1 is also an Aliquot Part; which makes the number of Aliquot Parts, the same with the Number of Sumptions. Only here is to be understood, (which the Rule should have intimated;) that, all the Numbers proposed, are to be Prime Numbers, and each distinct from the other. For if any of them be Compound Numbers, or any Two of them be the same, the Rule for Aliquot Parts will not hold.”

John Wallis (1616–1703) English mathematician

Source: A Discourse of Combinations, Alterations, and Aliquot Parts (1685), Ch.I Of the variety of Elections, or Choice, in taking or leaving One or more, out of a certain Number of things proposed.

Way , Parting

“From the multitude of books published on the subject of cultivating the earth, one would have imagined the art to have been more studied, than it really has been; since upon the whole it continued in. a sort of declining condition from the days of Virgil and Columella, till the time of Constantine IV. and then lay in a kind of dormant state till about the middle of Henry VIIIth's reign, when it was rather revived,, than improved.
Indeed, about that time, Judge Fitzherbert, in England (better known among us, as author of another/ excellent work, called Natura Brevium) Tatti, Stefano, Agostino Gallo, Sansovino, Lauro, Tarello, &c. in Italy, published several considerable books in Agriculture; but our countryman was the first, if we except Crescenzio dell' Agricoltura, (whose fine performance was printed at Florence in 1478) and Pier Marino the translator of Palladius de Re Rustica, who made his work public in the year 1528.”

Walter Harte (1709–1774) poet and historian

Source: Essays on Husbandry (1764), p. 41-42.

Books , Art , Imagination , Study

“As far as “plot” goes, as I get older I more and more suspect that “plot” is really being used, in the many incarnations of this argument, as a placeholder for a whole cloud of qualities found (or not found) in certain narratives, some of which actually constitute “plot” and many of which do not. What first led me to suspect this is the fact that many of the sternest exponents of “I want novels to have plots, dammit” are also demonstrably fans of, for instance, quite a few Robert A. Heinlein novels whose plots can barely be detected even by advanced scientific equipment. (Not just later Heinlein, either; go back and look at Beyond This Horizon). As it happens, I like some of those books, too, and what I learn from them, and from thousands of other books, is that what matters isn’t the presence of a carefully-engineered, structurally sound “plot.” What matters is whether a book entrances us into reading it or forces us to decode it — and “plot” is just one of several methods of getting us into the reading trance. It’s a good method. It’s not the only one.”

Patrick Nielsen Hayden (1959) American science fiction editor, fanzine publisher, essayist, reviewer, anthologist, and teacher

"Oh No Lev Grossman No", in Making Light (30 August 2009)

Books , Learning , Reading

“Some of my friends good-humoredly – and some a little bit severely – have called me a 'mystic.' Well I'd like to say this about any w:mysticism I may suppose to have. If an arch-angel from heaven were to come, and were to start giving me, telling me, teaching me, and giving me instruction, I'd ask him for the text. I'd say, 'Where's it say that in the Bible? I want to know.' And I would insist that it was according to the scriptures, because I do not believe in any extra-scriptural teachings, nor any anti-scriptural teachings, or any sub-scriptural teachings. I think we ought to put the emphasis where God puts it, and continue to put it there, and to expound the scriptures, and stay by the scriptures. I wouldn't – no matter if I saw a light above the light of the sun, I'd keep my mouth shut about it 'til I'd checked with Daniel and Revelation and the rest of the scriptures to see if it had any basis in truth. And if it didn't, I'd think I'd just eaten something I shouldn't, and I wouldn't say anything about it. Because I don't believe in anything that is unscriptural or that is anti-scripture.”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

What Difference Does the Holy Spirit Make?

God , Truth , Angels , Thinking

“The only way we can determine the true age of the earth is for God to tell us what it is. And since he has told us, very plainly, in the Holy Scriptures that it is several thousand years of age, and no more, that ought to settle all basic questions of terrestrial chronology.”

Henry M. Morris (1918–2006) American young earth creationist and Christian apologist

The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth (Bethany House Pub), 1972, p. 94

God , Age , Way , Question

“Now shall we say that only the first men were well alive, and the existing generation is invalided and degenerate? … A more subtle and severe criticism might suggest that some dislocation has befallen the race; that men are off their centre; that multitudes of men do not live with Nature, but behold it as exiles. People go out to look at sunrises and sunsets who do not recognize their own quietly and happily, but know that it is foreign to them. As they do by books, so they quote the sunset and the star, and do not make them theirs. Worse yet, they live as foreigners in the world of truth, and quote thoughts, and thus disown them. Quotation confesses inferiority.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Quotation and Originality

Men , People , Truth , Books

“It’s six months since I did the interview with Jeremy Paxman that inspired this book, and British media today is awash with halfhearted condemnations of my observation that voting is pointless and my admission that I have never voted. My assertion that other people oughtn’t vote either was born of the same instinctive rejection of the mantle of appointed social prefect that prevents me from telling teenagers to “Just Say No” to drugs. I cannot confine my patronage to the circuitry of their minuscule wisdom. “People died so you’d have the right to vote.” No, they did not; they died for freedom. In the case where freedom was explicitly attached to the symbol of democratic rights, like female suffrage, I don’t imagine they’d’ve been so willing if they’d known how tokenistic voting was to become. Note too these martyrs did not achieve their ends by participating in a hollow, predefined ritual, the infertile dry hump of gestural democracy; they did it by direct action. Emily Davison, the hero of women’s suffrage, hurled herself in front of the king’s horses; she defied the tyranny that oppressed her and broke the boundaries that contained her. I imagine too that this woman would have had the rebellious perspicacity to understand that the system she was opposing would adjust to incorporate the female vote and deftly render it irrelevant. This woman, who left her job as a teacher to dedicate her life to activism, was imprisoned nine times. She used methods as severe and diverse as arson and hunger-striking to protest and at the time of her death would have been regarded as a terrorist.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Life , Death , Wisdom , Women

“What will happen we don’t know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next couple of weeks. Very casually, with no comment, no particular thought about it, that’s just kind of normal, here, and in a good part of Europe.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2001, The New War Against Terror, 2001

Death , People , Parting

“20 years. Well … that's fair enough. They couldn't have given me a lighter sentence, considering the facts, and I can't complain. I said the sentences must be severe, and I admitted my share of the guilt, so it would be ridiculous if I complained about the punishment.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

To Dr. G. M. Gilbert, after receiving his sentence. Quoted in "Nuremberg Diary" by G. M. Gilbert - History - (1995)

“Graduation was nice. General Clark liked it. The Board of Visitors liked it. Moms and Dads liked it. And the Cadets hated it, for without a doubt it ranked as the most boring event of the year. Thus it was in 1964 that the Clarey twins pulled the graduation classic. When Colonel Hoy called the name of the first twin, instead of walking directly to General Clark to receive his diploma, he headed for the line of visiting dignitaries, generals, and members of the Board of Visitors who sat in a solemn semi-circle around the stage. He shook hands with the first startled general, then proceeded to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with every one on the stage. He did this so quickly that it took several moments for the whole act to catch on. When it finally did, the Corps went wild. General Clark, looking like he had just learned the Allies had surrendered to Germany, stood dumbfounded with Clarey number one's diploma hanging loosely from his hand; then Clarey number two started down the line, repeating the virtuoso performance of Clarey number one, as the Corps whooped and shouted their approval. The first Clarey grabbed his diploma from Clark and pumped his hand vigorously up and down. Meanwhile, his brother was breezing through the hand-shaking exercise. As both of them left the stage, they raised their diplomas above their heads and shook them like war tomahawks at the wildly applauding audience. No graduation is remembered so well.”

Pat Conroy book The Boo

Source: The Boo (1970), p. 33

Hate , War , Exercises , Moms

“Ethologists and comparative psychologists have discovered a host of refined adaptations in animal behavior during the past few decades. Food-finding, avoidance of predators, and behavioral adaptations to environmental stresses, including constructing shelters, nests, and burrows, all involve impressively versatile tactics on the animal's part, rather than rigid, stereotyped reflexes. Social behavior, especially courtship and care of developing young, call forth an efficiently tuned and controlled matrix of interactions among many different and potentially conflicting behavior patterns. Animal orientation and navigation have provided several striking examples of previously unsuspected modes of perception. Finally, the versatility of animal communication used to coordinate group activities has implications that can only be described as revolutionary. The flexibility and appropriateness of animal behavior suggest both that complex processes occur within their brains, and that these events may have much in common with our own conscious mental experiences.”

Donald Griffin (1915–2003) American zoologist

The Question of Animal Awareness: Evolutionary Continuity of Mental Experience https://books.google.it/books?id=2iTTlLpYaNsC&pg=PA0 (Revised and Enlarged Edition, New York: The Rockefeller University Press, 1981), chapter 1.

Food , Behavior , Communication , Past

“A "Presidential" system of government, somewhat akin to that practiced in the United States, would correspond more closely to the requirements of an Islamic polity than a "Parliamentary" government in which the executive powers are shared by a cabinet jointly and severally responsible to the legislature.”

Muhammad Asad book The Principles of State and Government in Islam

Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 4: Relationship Between Executive and Legislature, p 61

“But the line of thought that I'd been chasing for several days was implicit in the ruins of the old Roman Empire, which gradually destroyed itself by substituting the faith in a legion of miraculous words for the strength of armies and the weight of walls.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Abracadabra, p. 186
Waiting For The Barbarians (1997)

Faith

“The knights in [Britain] that were famous for feats of chivalry, wore their clothes and arms all of the same colour and fashion: and the women also no less celebrated for their wit, wore all the same kind of apparel; and esteemed none worthy of their love, but such as had given a proof of their valour in three several battles. Thus was the valour of the men an encouragement for the women's chastity, and the love of the women a spur to the soldier's bravery.”
Quicumque vero famosus probitate miles in eadem erat unius coloris vestibus atque armis utebatur facete etiam mulieres consimilia indumenta habentes. Nullius amorem habere dignabantur nisi tercio in milicia probates esset. Efficiebantur ergo caste et meliores et milites pro amore illarum probiores.

Geoffrey of Monmouth The History of the Kings of Britain

Bk. 9, ch. 13; pp. 244-5.
Sometimes said to be the earliest reference to love as an ennobling influence.
Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain)

Love , Women , Men , Fashion

“All the men who are now called discoverers, in every matter ruled by thought, have been men versed in the minds of their predecessors, and learned in what had been before them. There is not one exception. I do not say that every man has made direct acquantance with the whole of his mental ancestry… But… it is remarkable how many of the greatest names in all departments of knowledge have been real antiquaries in their several subjects.
I may cite among those… in science, Aristotle, Plato, Ptolemy, Euclid, Archimedes, Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Ramus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Napier, Descartes, Leibnitz, Newton, Locke.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

A Budget of Paradoxes (1872)

Men , Knowledge , Learning , Science

“The idea that reason requires an impartial treatment of individuals corresponds to well-known principles. To resolve the questions of distributive justice, Leibniz proposes the following maxim: “Put your self in the place of everyone.” In recent theories, this amounts to saying that the choice of a just organization of society must take place behind a “veil of ignorance,” an idea that can be interpreted in several ways. For utilitarianism, each individual must count as one, and none as more than one. For John Rawls, we have to choose the form of society that favors the least advantaged, whoever they might be. Another impartial idea is that of universal rights, embodied in the two declarations of 1776 and 1789.”

Jon Elster (1940) Norwegian academic

Reason and Rationality (2009)

Justice , Way , Idea , Question

“Communist morals follow a simple formula. Anything which Promotes the communist cause is good; anything which hinders it is bad. Upon examination, that philosophy turns out to be a code of opportunism and expediency, or a code of no morals at all. Anyone who does not conform to the dictates of the Party as to what is good for Communism and what is not, is subjected to the most severe penalties under Articles 131 and 133 of the Soviet Constitution. Thus, the perfect example of "class" morality, which the Marxists attribute to the Judaic-Christian code, is to be found right in the Communist plan of action itself.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Penalty , Communication , Perfection

“Being in Germany in the 1940s brought back recollections of my first visit long before as a Boy Scout, when I had had my first encounter with German appreciation of dueling. As as child I had been cut severely on the left cheek when thrown through the windshield of my father's car in a head-on collision, and a prominent scar remained. Traveling in Germany as a youth, I was perplexed when college students would tip their beanie hats as they passed until at last I discerned that they mistook the scar on my cheek for a dueling scar.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

A Soldier Reports (1976)

Youth , Cars , Travel , Boy

“At the present time administration is more an art than a science; in fact there are those who assert dogmatically that it can never be anything else. They draw no hope from the fact that metallurgy, for example, was completely an art several centuries before it became primarily a science and commenced its great forward strides after generations of intermittent advance and decline.”

Luther H. Gulick (1892–1993) American academic

Source: "Science, values and public administration," 1937, p. 189; cited in: W. Bartley Hildreth et al. (eds.), Handbook of Public Administration, Second Edition,1997, p. 754

Hope , Art , Science , Time

“She [Mabel Manderson] uttered a little laugh of impatience. 'So you think he has been talking me round. No, that is not so. I am merely sure he did not do it. Ah! I see you think that absurd. But see how unreasonable you are, Mr Trent! Just now you were explaining to me quite sincerely that it was foolishness in you to have a certain suspicion of me after seeing me and being in my atmosphere, as you said.' Trent started in his chair. She glanced at him and went on: 'Now, I and my atmosphere are much obliged to you, but we must stand up for the rights of other atmospheres. I know a great deal more about Mr Marlowe's atmosphere than you know about mine even now. I saw him constantly for several years. I don't pretend to know all about him; but I do know that he is incapable of a crime of bloodshed. The idea of his planning a murder is as unthinkable to me as the idea of your picking a poor woman's pocket, Mr Trent.”

Edmund Clerihew Bentley book Trent's Last Case

Source: Trent's Last Case (1912), Chapter XIII: "Eruption"

Idea , Thinking , Sincerity

“In this position a warm cannonade commenced, and lasted for several hours, with continual skirmishes in front of both lines. About two o'clock the enemy began to advance in force upon our right, as if they intended to dislodge us from the advanced redoubt. I had the command of the right wing. After advancing four regiments, and finding the enemy still gaining ground, I advanced with two more regiments of regular troops, and a brigade of militia, and at the same time General Sullivan ordered Colonel Livings ton, with the light troops under his command, to advance.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (August 1778)

Light , Time

“Let it be said at once: Trump’s victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive governments to deal with this.”

Thomas Piketty (1971) French economist

We must rethink globalization, or Trumpism will prevail (16 November 2016)

Success , Victory

“The Porte, acting under the same obligation, and wishing to secure the safety of its army and its citizens, took energetic measures to check these uprisings. The deportation of the Armenians was one of these preventive measures. I admit also that the deportation was not carried out lawfully everywhere. In some places unlawful acts were committed. The already existing hatred among the Armenians and Mohammedans, intensified by the barbarous activities of the former, had created many tragic consequences. Some of the officials abused their authority, and in many places people took preventive measures into their own hands and innocent people were molested. I confess it. I confess, also, that the duty of the Government was to prevent these abuses and atrocities, or at least to hunt down and punish their perpetrators severely. In many places, where the property and goods of the deported people were looted, and the Armenians molested, we did arrest those who were responsible and punished them according to the law. I confess, however, that we ought to have acted more sternly, opened up a general investigation for the purpose of finding out all the promoters and looters and punished them severely.”

Mehmed Talat (1874–1921) Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire and Minister of the Interior

Quoted in "In God's Name: Genocide and Religion in the Twentieth Century" - Page 53 - by Omer Bartov, Phyllis Mack - Religion – 2001

People , Law

“Pesotsky had an immense house with columns and lions, off which the stucco was peeling, and with a footman in swallow-tails at the entrance. The old park, laid out in the English style, gloomy and severe, stretched for almost three-quarters of a mile to the river, and there ended in a steep, precipitous clay bank, where pines grew with bare roots that looked like shaggy paws; the water shone below with an unfriendly gleam, and the peewits flew up with a plaintive cry, and there one always felt that one must sit down and write a ballad.”

Anton Chekhov book The Black Monk

The Black Monk (1894)

Water , Housing , Cry

“England's improvement by sea and land. To outdo the Dutch without fighting. To pay debts without moneys. To set at work all the poor of England with the growth of our own lands. To prevent unnecessary suits of law; with the benefit of a voluntary register. Directions where vast quantities of timber are to be had for the building of ships, with the advantage of making the great rivers of England navigable. Rules to prevent fires in London, and other great cities; with directions how the several companies of handicraftsmen in London may always have cheap bread and drink. By Andrew Yarranton, Gent. London, printed for the author, &c., 1677.”

Andrew Yarranton (1619–1684) English civil engineer

Full title cited in Patrick Edward Dove (1854, p. 403)
Quotes from England's Improvement, (1677)

Money , Law , Drink , Fight

“We now have several hundred metropolises and they all suffer in many ways from many problems because they have not been foreseen and properly conceived.”

Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect

Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 12, Metropolis, p. 171

Way , Problem , Suffering

“Several years ago, the Foundation for Biomedical Research ran an ad campaign in support of medical experimentation on nonhuman animals. The ad featured a photograph of a group of animal rights protestors under the caption: ‘Thanks to animal research, they’ll be able to protest 20.8 years longer.’ But imagine a parallel universe in which medical research is conducted on black people, and in which an equivalent foundation employs an equivalent argument: ‘Thanks to research on black people, these white protesters will be able to protest against experimentation on black people 20.8 years longer’! Would this justify experimentation on black people? Obviously not! We would immediately reject the argument as founded on a deeply racist assumption, namely, that the costs inflicted on ‘mere’ black people are justified by the benefits produced for whites. But the original argument is founded on an equivalently speciesist assumption: that the costs inflicted on ‘mere’ animals are justified by the benefits produced for us.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 278

People , Imagination , Support , Universe

“Scientific "facts" are taught at a very early age and in the very same manner in which religious "facts" were taught only a century ago. There is no attempt to waken the critical abilities of the pupil so that he may be able to see things in perspective. At the universities the situation is even worse, for indoctrination is here carried out in a much more systematic manner. Criticism is not entirely absent. Society, for example, and its institutions, are criticised most severely and often most unfairly… But science is excepted from the criticism. In society at large the judgment of the scientist is received with the same reverence as the judgement of bishops and cardinals was accepted not too long ago. The move towards "demythologization," for example, is largely motivated by the wish to avoid any clash between Christianity and scientific ideas. If such a clash occurs, then science is certainly right and Christianity wrong. Pursue this investigation further and you will see that science has now become as oppressive as the ideologies it had once to fight. Do not be misled by the fact that today hardly anyone gets killed for joining a scientific heresy. This has nothing to do with science. It has something to do with the general quality of our civilization. Heretics in science are still made to suffer from the most severe sanctions this relatively tolerant civilization has to offer.”

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

How To Defend Society Against Science (1975)

Age , Motivation , Idea , Suffering

“The day after your departure I started a new painting at Le Cours-la-Reine, in the afternoon in a glow of sun, and another in the morning by the water below St. Paul's Church. These two canvases are fairly well advanced, but I still need one session in fine weather without too much mist to give them a little firmness. Until now I have not been able to find the effect I want, I have even been forced to change the effect a bit, which is always dangerous. I have also an effect of fog... Until now I have not been able to find the effect I want, I have even been forced to change the effect a bit, which is always dangerous. I have also an effect of fog, another, same effect, from my window, the same motif in the rain, several sketches in oils, done on the quays near the boats; the next day it was impossible to go on, everything was confused, the motifs no longer existed; one has to realize them in a single session.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote in a letter from Rouen 11 October 1883, to his son Lucien; from Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 42
1880's

Departure , Water , Change , Sun

“…it is a revolution without any mandate from the people. (Cheers.) Now, gentlemen, it is in the first place a revolution in fiscal methods…this Budget is introduced as a Liberal measure. If so, all I can say is that it is a new Liberalism and not the one that I have known and practised under more illustrious auspices than these. (Cheers.) Who was the greatest, not merely the greatest Liberal, but the greatest financier that this country has ever known? (A voice, "Gladstone.") I mean Mr. Gladstone. (Cheers.) With Sir Robert Peel—he, I think, occupied a position even higher than Sir Robert Peel—for boldness of imagination and scope of financing Mr. Gladstone ranks as the great financial authority of our time. (Cheers.) Now, we have in the Cabinet at this moment several colleagues, several ex-colleagues of mine, who served in the Cabinet with Mr. Gladstone…and I ask them, without a moment's fear or hesitation as to the answer that would follow if they gave it from their conscience, with what feelings would they approach Mr. Gladstone, were he Prime Minister and still living, with such a Budget as this? Mr. Gladstone would be 100 in December if he were alive; but, centenarian as he would be, I venture to say that he would make short work of the deputation of the Cabinet that waited on him with the measure, and they would soon find themselves on the stairs and not in the room. (Laughter and cheers.) In his eyes, and in my eyes, too, as a humble disciple, Liberalism and Liberty were cognate terms. They were twin-sisters. How does the Budget stand the test of Liberalism so understood and of Liberty as we have always comprehended it? This Budget seems to establish an inquisition, unknown previously in Great Britain, and a tyranny, I venture to say, unknown to mankind…I think my friends are moving on the path that leads to Socialism. How far they are advanced on that path I will not say, but on that path I, at any rate, cannot follow them an inch. (Loud cheers.) Any form of protection is an evil, but Socialism is the end of all, the negation of faith, of family, of prosperity, of the monarchy, of Empire.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Loud cheers.
Speech in Glasgow attacking the "People's Budget" (10 September 1909), reported in The Times (11 September 1909), pp. 7-8.

People , Fear , Family , Faith

“They [laboratory groups] bypass such questions as how one comes to know that a problem exists, what it does to solution adequacy to be working on several different things concurrently with problem solving, what it's like to go about solving a felt, intuited problem rather than an explicitly stated consensually validated problem which was made visible to all members at a specific point in time.”

Karl E. Weick (1936) Organisational psychologist

Karl E. Weick (1971, p. 9), as cited in: Harry L. Davis. " Decision Making within the Household http://www.unternehmenssteuertag.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Redaktion/Seco@home/nachhaltiger_Energiekonsum/Literatur/entscheidungen_haushalte/Decision_Making_within_the_Household.pdf," The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 2, No. 4. (Mar., 1976), pp. 241-260.
1970s

Question , Problem , Time

“At first to prescription medication and then to pretty much everything. I’d had several years of being in control of my alcoholism. I was pretty reliable; I took care of business. And then when my personal life got out of hand, I just got loaded. So I went through a couple of years of depression again. I didn’t eat, I drank a lot, I started taking pills, and at some point you just get sick of it. I was pretty sure that nothing like that would ever happen to me. Then I ended up having as bad a problem as anyone’s going to have and still be alive. So I realized I’m not special. I’m just like everybody else.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

When asked what did alcohol lead him to ** Chris Cornell’s 2006 Interview on Audioslave, Addiction, and Reinventing Rock, Spin, 17 May 2017, 31 May 2017 http://www.spin.com/2017/05/chris-cornell-audioslave-interview/,
Audioslave Era

Life , Alcohol , Business , Problem

“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

“[to] think, in a certain way, of the power and severity of Romanesque paintings... Go to the beach and make graphic signs in the sand, draw by pissing on the dry ground, design in space by recording the songs of the birds, the sounds of water and wind.... and the chant of insects.”

Joan Miró (1893–1983) Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist

'Working notes of Miro, 1940 – 1941'; as quoted in: Calder Miró, ed. Elizabeth Hutton Turner / Oliver Wick; Philip Wilson Publishers, London 2004, p. 69
1940 - 1960

Way , Bird , Thinking , Water

“The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it. By playing at Chess then, we may learn: 1st, Foresight, which looks a little into futurity, and considers the consequences that may attend an action … 2nd, Circumspection, which surveys the whole Chess-board, or scene of action: — the relation of the several Pieces, and their situations; … 3rd, Caution, not to make our moves too hastily…”

Benjamin Franklin book The Morals of Chess

"The Morals of Chess" (article) (1750).
1750s

Life , Game , Learning , Future

“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

“What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship’s axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides of the boat.”

Pentti Linkola (1932) Finnish ecologist

The Doctrine Of Survival And Doctor Ethics (1992)

Love , Life , Hate , People

“[Christianity] is a denial of this world, a severance from reality, an abdication, a means of redemption from, not for, life.”

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

Vegn vos Firn op fun Yidishkeit, 1911. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 372.

Life , World , Reality

“From the last accounts from Great Britain, it appears absolutely necessary that there should be an augmentation of the American forces, in consequence of which I suppose there will be several promotions. As I have no desire of quitting the service, I hope the Congress will take no measure that will lay me under the disagreeable necessity of doing it. I have ever found myself exceeding happy under your Excellency's command. I wish my ability to deserve was equal to my inclination to merit.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (May 1776)

Hope , Appearance , Happiness

“Project management has long been discussed by corporate executives and academics as one of several workable possibilities for organizational forms of the future that could integrate complex efforts and reduce bureaucracy…. This approach does not really destroy the vertical, bureaucratic flow of work but simply requires that line organizations talk to the other horizontally so work will be accomplished more smoothly throughout the organization”

Harold Kerzner (1940) American engineer, management consultant

Source: Project management for executives (1982), p. 2

Effort , Future

“Man's carnivorous nature is not taken for granted, or praised in the fundamental teachings of Judaism. The rabbis of the 111:32). The implication is clear, that Judaism was engaged in weaning men from such practices. Judaism as a religion offers the option of eating animal flesh, and most Jews do, but in our own country there has been a movement towards vegetarianism among very pious Jews. A whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual teachers including several past and present Chief Rabbis of the Holy Land, have been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching. They have been proclaiming the autonomy of all living creatures as the value which our religious tradition must now teach to all of its believers.”

Arthur Hertzberg (1921–2006) American rabbi and historian

“The Jewish Declaration on Nature,” from “ The Assisi Declarations http://www.arcworld.org/downloads/THE%20ASSISI%20DECLARATIONS.pdf” in for WWF's 25th anniversary (29 September 1986).

Men , Religion , Nature , Teachers

“In grammar school—and as new to American history as to the American tongue—I nevertheless puzzled through several junior biographies of Franklin because young Ben’s ambition magnified my own. I kept lists in those years of the books I read. I recognized the yearning to escape the limits of family—“a strong inclination for the sea”—as well as some more vertical yearning: a boy becomes a man by gaining wisdom; each book a rung therefore; each rung a classical tag. I weighed the shame of the sordid candle shop where Franklin was forced to work for his father against the optimism of old New England.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Wisdom , Books , School , Family

“I hope I have just had simply an artist's freak, and then a lot of fever after very considerable loss of blood, as an artery was severed, but my appetite came back at once. My digestion is all right, and so from day to day serenity returns to my brain.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, Jan. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 569), p 24
Vincent wrote this letter about two weeks after his first attack, during which he had cut off his ear
1880s, 1889

Hope , Loss

“Clark Kent grew not only out of my private life, but also out of Joe Shuster's. As a high school student, I thought that someday I might become a reporter, and I had crushes on several attractive girls who either didn't know I existed or didn't care I existed.”

Jerry Siegel (1914–1996) American co-creator of Superman

In the beginning (1983)

Life , School , Girl

“Dear father, I have received several letters from Mary and yourself, but as I have to deal with nineteen-twentieths of those received, have neglected to answer them.”

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

Letter http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/us-grants-letter-to-his-1.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/ to Jesse Root Grant (15 June 1863), Vicksburg
1860s

“2.6.: still a stable kernel, but accept bigger changes leading up to it (timeframe: a month or two).2.. x: aim for big changes that may destabilize the kernel for several releases (timeframe: a year or two). x. x: Linus went crazy, broke absolutely everything, and rewrote the kernel to be a microkernel using a special message-passing version of Visual Basic. (timeframe: "we expect that he will be released from the mental institution in a decade or two").”

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

Message to Linux kernel mailing list, 2005-03-02, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-12-11 http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/3/2/247,
2000s, 2005

Change

“I’ve negotiated bank deals all over the globe. Everything is a compromise. … I never take anything off the table. They say good luck, put your government together. Fine — I’ve loved it. So we have jumped in with vigor. I have now had CEOs who have called me, several have come to visit me, and made it clear to me that I better get this workforce development fixed or they have to take other options available to them. Obviously, the biggest challenge is state government is so immense, so many different departments, so many people involved. It’s a challenge but not an overwhelming challenge — I actually enjoy it. I haven’t taken time off since the election. Many of my predecessors have said ‘You need to do that.’ It’s really not my personality.”

Terry McAuliffe (1957) American businessman and politician

Quoted on Times Dispatch, "An interview with Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe" http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/state-regional/virginia-politics/an-interview-with-gov--elect-terry-mcauliffe/article_1165648d-8a21-57a1-baec-bfef6a7baa91.html, December 22, 2013

Love , People , Time , Personality

“The nude gains its enduring value from the fact that it reconciles several contrary states. It takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire; it takes the most purely rational concept of which mankind is capable, mathematical order, and makes it a delight to the senses; and it takes the vague fears of the unknown and sweetens them by showing that the gods are like men and may be worshiped for their life-giving beauty rather than their death-dealing powers.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. I: The Naked and the Nude

Life , Death , Men , God

“Our civilization … is not devaluing its awareness of the unknowable; nor is it deifying it. It is the first civilization that has severed it from religion and superstition. In order to question it.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Picasso's Mask (1976)

Religion , Question

“When I resided at Bath I had long been acquainted with the theory of optics and mechanics, and wanted only that experience so necessary in the practical part of these sciences. This I acquired by degrees at that place where in my leisure hours, by way of amusement, I made several two-foot, five-foot, seven-foot, ten-foot and twenty-foot Newtonian telescopes, beside others, of the Gregorian form, of eight, twelve, and eighteen inches, and two, three, five, and ten feet focal length. In this way I made not less than two hundred seven-foot, one hundred and fifty ten-foot, and about eighty twenty-foot mirrors, not to mention the Gregorian telescopes.”

William Herschel (1738–1822) German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer

Source: Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880), Ch.4 "Life and Works" Footnote: At least one of these telescopes had the principal mirror made of glass instead of metal. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1803).

Way , Science , Parting

“I no longer recommend dairy products after the age of two years. … Of course, there was a time when cow's milk was considered very desirable. But research, along with clinical experience, has forced doctors and nutritionists to rethink this recommendation. It is an area where there are still disagreements among scientists, but there are several points that most everyone agrees on. First of all, other calcium sources offer many advantages that dairy products do not have. Most green leafy vegetables and beans have a form of calcium that is absorbed as well as or even a bit better than that in milk. Along with this calcium come vitamins, iron, complex carbohydrates, and fiber. Calcium-enriched soy or rice drinks are just as tasty on cereal as cow's milk (once you get used to them), and they are free of animal proteins and cholesterol. These beverages, as well as calcium-enriched orange and other juices, provide as much calcium, ounce per ounce, as cow's milk. Vegetables and legumes can provide a healthy source of calcium, along with many other nutritional advantages.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Source: Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945), Seventh edition (1998), pp. 331-332

Age , Drink , Time , Animals

“I was concerned about a couple of steps that the Russian government took in the last several days. One was reducing the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

In remarks to the press in Phoenix, 14 July 2008; http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-mccains-remarks-to-the-press-in-phoenix/ http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16196.html
2000s, 2008

“Several years after Wilt stopped playing, he toyed with the idea of a comeback. On the day he visited the Knicks' offices in Madison Square Garden, he talked to Red Holzman, then strode out to the elevator. When it opened, two deliverymen were struggling with a dolly piled high with boxes of office supplies, mostly letterheads and envelopes. The load was so heavy, the elevator had stopped maybe four inches below the floor level and now the deliverymen were huffing and puffing, but they couldn't raise the dolly high enough to get it on the floor level. After maybe two minutes of the deliverymen's huffing and puffing, Wilt, his biceps bulging in a tank top, peered down at them and intoned, "Gentlemen, maybe I can help." They stepped back, he stepped into the elevator, grabbed each end of the rope slung under the dolly and without much exertion, quickly lifted the dolly onto the floor level. Looking up in awe, the deliverymen said, "Thank you." Wilt said, "You're welcome." Wilt stepped into the elevator and rode down to the street level as another witness followed the two deliverymen toward the Knick offices and asked, "How much does all this weigh?"”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

They quickly surveyed the stack of big boxes of office supplies. "Close to 600 pounds," one said.
The Good Natured Giant Wasn't Belligerent, Sports of the Times; Oct 13, 1999; Dave Anderson
Strength

Idea , Help , Box

“In recent weeks, we have taken bold steps to prevent a severe disruption of the American economy, which would have a devastating effect on other economies around the world. We've promoted stability in the markets by preventing the disorderly failure of major companies. The Federal Reserve has injected urgently needed liquidity into the system. And last week, I announced a decisive action by the federal government to address the root cause of much of the instability in our financial markets, by purchasing illiquid assets that are weighing down balance sheets and restricting the flow of credit. I can assure you that my administration and our Congress are working together to quickly pass legislation approving this strategy, and I'm confident we will act in the urgent time frame required.”

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

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

World , Confidence , Failure , Decision

“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

“A propaganda system will consistently portray people abused by enemy states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater severity by its own government or clients will be unworthy. The evidence of worth may be read from the extent and character of attention and indignation. […] the U. S. media’s practical definitions of worth are political in the extreme and fit well the expectations of a propaganda model. While this differential treatment occurs on a large scale, the media, intellectuals, and public are able to remain unconscious of this fact and maintain a high moral and self-righteous tone. This is evidence of an extremely effective propaganda system. […] The worth of a victim Popieluszko [Polish priest] is valued at somewhere between 137 and 179 times that of a victim in the U. S. client states, or, looking at the matter in reverse, a priest murdered in Latin America is worth less than a hundredth of a priest murdered in Poland.”

Edward S. Herman book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Source: Manufacturing Consent, with Noam Chomsky, 1988, pp. 37, 39.

People , Time , Reading

“Usually when someone says a thing is too simple they're saying that certain familiar things aren't there, and they're seeing a couple maybe that are left… But actually there may be… several new things to which they aren't paying attention. These may be quite complex… They may [also] be read all at once. This is important to most of the best work going on now. It has to have a wholeness to it that previous work didn't have, but still, within that, it's not all as simple as [people] say.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Donald Judd (1965) in Artforum interview, as quoted in: Richard Shiff (2012) Doubt,
1960s

People , Reading

“Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word Politic, which now for ages has signified cunning, intimating that the State is a trick?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Politics

Men , Age , Law

“The act of segmenting the organization into departments would influence the behavior of organizational members in several ways. The members of each unit would become specialists in dealing with the particular tasks. Both because of their prior education and experience and because of the nature of their task, they would develop specialized working styles and mental processes.”

Paul R. Lawrence (1922–2011) American business theorist

Source: Organization and environment: Managing differentiation and integration, 1967, p. 9

Education , Way , Behavior , Nature

“In reviewing the several levels of life which morality defines, we may observe two types of universal value. The lower values m relation to the higher are indispensable. There is no health without satisfaction, no achievement without health, no rational intercourse without achievement, and no true religion except as the perfecting and completing of a rational society. The higher values, on the other hand, are more universal than the lower in that they surpass these in validity, and are entitled to preference. Thus the lower values are ennobled by the higher, while the higher are given body and meaning by the lower. Satisfaction derives dignity from being controlled by the motive of good-will, while the moral kingdom at large derives its wealth, its pertinence to life, and its incentive, from the great manifold of particular interests which it conserves and fosters.”

Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) American philosopher

The Moral Economy https://books.google.com/books?id=TjdWAAAAMAAJ (1909)

Life , Health , Religion , Motivation

“On the tennis court, one needs a cool temperament, tremendous ball sense, reflexes, speed, hand-eye co-ordination, power, timing and peak physical fitness. Off the court, the player and support team need skills in planning, execution, travel, an ability to raise funds when needed, and several other talents.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

Source: Arun Sharma Sachin's my inspiration - he's also excellent at tennis: Sania Mirza http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/interviews/Sachins-my-inspiration-hes-also-excellent-at-tennis-Sania-Mirza/articleshow/26167479.cms, The Times of India, 22 November 2013

Travel , Support , Sense , Time

“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

“How many times, have I had to seat women whom I received at audiences next to me, rather than facing me, in order to avoid general embarrassment? Nothing should compel us to suffer such trials. It puts the nerves of men and the modesty of women to a severe test.”

Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000) Tunisian politician

Women , Men , Suffering , Time

“Let us honor all honest human power of contrivance in its degree. The beaver intellect, so long as it steadfastly refuses to be vulpine, and answers the tempter pointing out short routes to it with an honest "No, no," is truly respectable to me; and many a highflying speaker and singer whom I have known, has appeared to me much less of a developed man than certain of my mill-owning, agricultural, commercial, mechanical, or otherwise industrial friends, who have held their peace all their days and gone on in the silent state. If a man can keep his intellect silent, and make it even into honest beaverism, several very manful moralities, in danger of wreck on other courses, may comport well with that, and give it a genuine and partly human character; and I will tell him, in these days he may do far worse with himself and his intellect than change it into beaverism, and make honest money with it.”

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

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

Money , Peace , Appearance , Change

“The Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown.”

Nouriel Roubini (1958) American economist

"RGE Conference Call on the Economic and Financial Outlook... and why the Treasury TARP bailout is flawed," http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253762/rge_conference_call_on_the_economic_and_financial_outlookand_why_the_treasury_tarp_bailout_is_flawed RGE Monitor (2008-09-26).

Money

“Now, in the thermonuclear age, any misjudgment on either side about the intentions of the other could rain more devastation in several hours than has been wrought in all the wars of human history.”

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

1961, Berlin Crisis speech

War , Age , History

“There can be no question that the practice of vivisection hardens the sensibility of the operator and begets indifference to the infliction of pain, as well as great carelessness in judging of its severity.”

Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818–1890) American surgeon

Source: Surgical Anaesthesia (1894), p. 368

Pain , Question , Indifference

“[Hedge fund investment] is likely behind the very different behavior you are seeing in companies like HP and Apple this decade. A severe lack of new products or compelling offerings, but a lot of increases in dividends, stock buybacks, layoffs, plant closings, executive departures and divestitures. These firms aren't investing in the future they are constantly trying to assure their stock is propped up and the value increases.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Is the end of the U.S. tech market upon us? http://cio.com/article/3075957/it-industry/is-the-end-of-the-u-s-tech-market-upon-us.html in CIO (27 May 2016)

Behavior , Departure , Future

“Let there be in every material particle several material points charged with electricity, of which, however, only one be movable, and have the charge e and the mass μ.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

As quoted by Walter Kaufmann, "The Development of the Electron Idea" (Nov. 8, 1901) The Electrician Vol. 48 https://books.google.com/books?id=owxRAAAAYAAJ pp. 95-97. Lecture delivered before the 73rd Naturforscher Versammlung at Hamburg. From the Physikalische Zeitshrift, of October 1, 1901.

“A workman subject to orders from several superiors will be confused, inefficient, and irresponsible; a workman subject to orders from but one superior may be methodical, efficient, and responsible.”

Luther H. Gulick (1892–1993) American academic

Source: "Notes on the Theory of Organization," 1937, p. 43

“As the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived, it seems strictly consonant to the republican theory, to recur to the same original authority, not only whenever it may be necessary to enlarge, diminish, or new-model the powers of the government, but also whenever any one of the departments may commit encroachments on the chartered authorities of the others.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Federalist No. 49 (2 February 1788)
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

People

“Fortunately, President Obama and most world leaders understand that the idea that Iran's goal is not to develop nuclear weapons is ridiculous. Yet incredibly, some are prepared to accept an idea only slightly less preposterous: That we should accept a world in which the Ayatollahs have atomic bombs. Sure, they say, Iran is cruel, but it's not crazy. It's detestable but it's deterrable. Responsible leaders should not bet the security of their countries on the belief that the world's most dangerous regime won't use the world's most dangerous weapons. And I promise you that as Prime Minister, I will never gamble with the security of Israel. From the beginning, the Ayatollah regime has broken every international rule and flouted every norm. It has seized embassies, targeted diplomats and sent its own children through mine fields. It hangs gays and stones women. It supports Assad's brutal slaughter of the Syrian people. Iran is the world's foremost sponsor of terror. It sponsors Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and terrorists throughout the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Iran's proxies have dispatched hundreds of suicide bombers, planted thousands of roadside bombs, and fired over twenty thousand missiles at civilians. Through terror from the skies and terror on the ground, Iran is responsible for the murder of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans. In 1983, Iran's proxy Hezbollah blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing 240 American servicemen. In the last decade, its been responsible for murdering and maiming American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Just a few months ago, it tried to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in a restaurant just a few blocks from here. The assassins didn't care that several Senators and members of Congress would have been murdered in the process. Iran accuses the American government of orchestrating 9/11, and it denies the Holocaust. Iran brazenly calls for Israel's destruction, and they work for its destruction – each day, every day. This is how Iran behaves today, without nuclear weapons. Think of how they will behave tomorrow, with nuclear weapons. Iran will be even more reckless and far more dangerous.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

Speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference http://www.aipac.org/pc/videos/2012/monday-gala-plenary/prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu (March 2012).
2010s, 2012

Women , Children , People , World

“It has been the persuasion of an immense majority of human beings in all ages and nations that we continue to live after death,—that apparent termination of all the functions of sensitive and intellectual existence. Nor has mankind been contented with supposing that species of existence which some philosophers have asserted; namely, the resolution of the component parts of the mechanism of a living being into its elements, and the impossibility of the minutest particle of these sustaining the smallest diminution. They have clung to the idea that sensibility and thought, which they have distinguished from the objects of it, under the several names of spirit and matter, is, in its own nature, less susceptible of division and decay, and that, when the body is resolved into its elements, the principle which animated it will remain perpetual and unchanged.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

On a Future State (1815; publ. 1840)

Death , Age , Idea , Nature

“I would like to comment briefly on Professor Zadeh's presentation. His proposals could be severely, ferociously, even brutally criticized from a technical point of view. This would be out of place here. But a blunt question remains: Is professor Zadeh presenting important ideas or is he indulging in wishful thinking? No doubt Professor Zadeh's enthusiasm for fuzziness has been reinforced by the prevailing climate in the U. S.-one of unprecedented permissiveness. 'Fuzzification, is a kind of scientific permissiveness; it tends to result in socially appealing slogans unaccompanied by the discipline of hard scientific work and patient observation.”

Rudolf E. Kálmán (1930–2016) Hungarian-born American electrical engineer

Rudolf E. Kálmán (1972), cited in: Lotfi A. Zadeh " My life and work - a retrospective http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~zadeh/papers/Preface%20ACM-My%20Life%20and%20Work--A%20Retrospective%20View.pdf" in: Appl. Comput. Math., V.10, N.1, Special Issue, 2011, p. 4-9

Idea , Question , Thinking