Quotes about similarity (1002 quotes, page 4)

“Zend-Avesta, a truly life giving word creating new life in knowledge as in faith! …As Fechner in his Nanna sought to show that plants have souls, so the point of departure of his contemplations in the Zend-Avesta is the doctrine that the stars have souls. The method he employs is not that of the abstraction of general laws by induction and the application and testing of these in the explanation of nature, it is analogy. He compares the earth with our own organism, which we know to be endowed with a soul. He searches out not merely in a one-sided way the similarities, but does equal justice to the dissimilarities, too, and so arrives at the conclusion that all the former show the earth to be a being with a soul, and that all the latter indicate that it is a being with a soul far higher than our own.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Life , Faith , Justice , Law

“To comprehend evolutionary Theory, one must first understand that it’s only ever a matter of changing proportions –altering or enhancing existing features to build on what is already there. Developmental biology, genetics, and comparative morphology combine to confirm many of these taxonomic stages such that organs do not seem to have appeared abruptly or fully-formed as if out of nowhere, because there is an implied evolutionary origin evident in every case. Even the transition of fish-to-tetrapods, dinosaurs-to-birds, or apes-to-men are each are just a matter of incremental, superficial changes being slowly compiled atop successive tiers of fundamental similarities. These represent monophyletic clades which will forever encompass all the descendants of that clade. This is why birds are still dinosaurs, and humans are still apes, and both are still stegocephalian chordates.”

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

"11th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm277H3ot6Y, Youtube (June 26, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men , Understanding , Bird , Fish

“Hippocrates himself is an example of the concurrent study of the two departments. On the one hand, he was the first of the Greeks who is known to have compiled a book of Elements. This book, we may be sure, contained in particular the most important propositions about the circle included in Euclid, Book III. But a much more important proposition is attributed to Hippocrates; he is said to have been the first to prove that circles are to one another as the squares on their diameters (= Eucl. XII., 2) with the deduction that similar segments of circles are to one another as the squares on their bases. These propositions were used by him in his tract on the squaring of lunes, which was intended to lead up to the squaring of the circle. The latter problem is one which must have exercised practical geometers from time immemorial. Anaxagoras for instance is said to have worked at the problem while in prison.”

Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) British civil servant and academic

p, 125
Achimedes (1920)

Books , Exercises , Problem , Study

“At 8 o’clock, the [body] of the hall was nearly filled with an intelligent and respectable looking audience – The exercises commenced with a patriotic song by the Hutchinsons, which was received with great applause. The Rev. H. H. Garnett opened the meeting stating that the black man, a fugitive from Virginia, who was announced to speak would not appear, as a communication had been received yesterday from the South intimating that, for prudential reasons, it would not be proper for that person to appear, as his presence might affect the interests and safety of others in the South, both white persons and colored. He also stated that another fugitive slave, who was at the battle of Bull Run, proposed when the meeting was announced to be present, but for a similar reason he was absent; he had unwillingly fought on the side of Rebellion, but now he was, fortunately where he could raise his voice on the side of Union and universal liberty. The question which now seemed to be prominent in the nation was simply whether the services of black men shall be received in this war, and a speedy victory be accomplished. If the day should ever come when the flag of our country shall be the symbol of universal liberty, the black man should be able to look up to that glorious flag, and say that it was his flag, and his country’s flag; and if the services of the black men were wanted it would be found that they would rush into the ranks, and in a very short time sweep all the rebel party from the face of the country”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Douglass Monthly https://web.archive.org/web/20160309192511/http://deadconfederates.com/tag/black-confederates/#_edn2 (March 1862), p. 623
1860s

Men , War , Color , Exercises

“Just as a biplane and a jet share common features of wings, body, tires, engine, controls, etc.,… does not require that one must have evolved from the other naturally, without a maker. They argue it’s more reasonable to conclude that similar design indicates a common, intelligent designer. An architect typically uses similar building materials for numerous buildings, and a car manufacturer commonly uses the same parts in various models. So if creation had a common designer, we could expect to find a similar “blueprint” used in many different creatures.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (2009)

Cars , Intelligence , Nature , Parting

“People can inhabit anything. And they can be miserable in anything and ecstatic in anything. More and more I think that architecture has nothing to do with it. Of course, that's both liberating and alarming. But the generic city, the general urban condition, is happening everywhere, and just the fact that it occurs in such enormous quantities must mean that it's habitable. Architecture can't do anything that the culture doesn't. We all complain that we are confronted by urban environments that are completely similar. We say we want to create beauty, identity, quality, singularity. And yet, maybe in truth these cities that we have are desired. Maybe their very characterlessness provides the best context for living.”

Rem Koolhaas (1944) Dutch architect (b.1944)

From Bauhaus to Koolhaas Interview in Wired magazine http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.07/koolhaas.html (4 July 1996)

People , Truth , Beauty , Thinking

“The migration of peoples destroys Europe, but it also ruins the Third World. The shovelling of money that has lasted for half a century into a bottomless well called Africa has led to nothing but increasing misery. Half a century of cultural enrichment in Europe has led to nothing but ghettos and the unprecedented popularity of extreme right-wing parties — perhaps surprisingly, exactly where the culture has been most enriched. I believe that removing this misery is really not the objective, which would for example force the Africans to survive on their own and to strike back at their dictators, who live on “development cooperation”. The Western intellectual zeitgeist is dependent on the misery in Africa. An intellectual needs someone to pamper, because that’s what makes the intellectual necessary. The thought of an independent but truly different African is, to him, intolerable, because only a miserable, helpless and dependent (but of course, similar enough to be understandable and lovable) African offers him a chance to be “good.””

Jussi Halla-aho (1971) Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician

He can be “good” only if there is a rising mass of “evil” that is tired of the apathy and begging of the Third World.
Jussi Halla-aho (2012), published in the blog Gates of Vienna Then the Darkness Will Begin http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.fr/2012/08/then-darkness-will-begin.html, August 16, 2012. (Note: J.H-A has never published anything in the G.o.V. Translations, publications and quotations have been made by other people)
2010 -

Money , People , World , Understanding

“In the hydraulic and optical part, may be enumerated an over flowing lamp; a simplification of the rules for finding the velocity of running water; remarks on the application of force to hydraulic machines; a mode of letting out air from water pipes; an analysis of the human voice; and some arrangements for solar microscopes, and for other optical instruments of a similar nature.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

Nature , Water , Parting

“Mattei pushed hard for a line of detachment, of critical participation in NATO and even of getting out of NATO and into a neutralist position. Mattei therefore not only annoyed the United States with his oil deals in the Middle East, which broke up the balance of the international oil cartel, and broke up the price equilibrium, but it was Mattei who pushed even harder for Italy's entire policy to take its distance from the United States and to open up toward the Third World countries, which were traveling in a certain way along a road similar to the painful and laborious road which Italy had had to travel. Mattei was very sensitive to these problems, because he had been a witness to this difficult road of Italy's and had had great difficulties at the beginning of his career. So he knew what it meant for a country to free itself from the colonial yoke and find its own way, its own balance, and a way of arranging its own economy which would not be an economy of pure exploitation by the great powers”

Nico Perrone (1935) Italian historian and writer

Source: The Strategic Stakes in Mattei's Flight, p. 23

Pain , World , Way , Travel

“Maurice Joly: In “Caesar” I bluntly accused our emperor of evil offenses…in ‘’’this’’’ book I expose the nature of the man’s mind, how he thinks, y’see!
Alphonse: But, Maurice, this Napoleon has seduced the public with social gifts…libraries and wars to give them national patriotic pride.
Maurice Joly: BAH! That is the kind of pallitative all dictators give their masses! But at what price? I ask you!
Alphonse: So…you show his plan by the dialogue of Machiavelli who is known as a cunning manipulator of political power, eh?
Maurice Joly: Yes, this is the clearest way to show the similarity of Napoleon’s mind to Machiavelli’s!
Alphonse: Hmmm! A clever device I must admit!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.13

War , Books , Way , Nature

“What if HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) technology (or something similar) is developed to the point where holograms can be projected into the sky and even made to speak? How many would be deceived and “fall away” if a fake Jesus (or Buddha, or Allah, or Muhammad, or Virgin Mary…) spoke to them from the sky like the Wizard of OZ speaking in the smoke complete with background thunder and smoke and lights flashing? Ya think Satan would stoop that low? Ahhhh…Yep!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 128

Thinking , Light

“Aesthetic:
Art is Harmony.
Harmony is the analogy of opposites, the analogy of similarities of tone, of tint, of line taking account of a dominant and under the influence of the lighting, in combinations that are gay calm or sad.”

Georges Seurat (1859–1891) French painter

Quotes, 1881 - 1890, Letter to Maurice Beaubourg', August 1890

Sadness , Art , Light

“.. my own paintings of that period (1916 – 1919) remain pure still-life compositions and never suggest any metaphysical, surrealist, psychological, or literary considerations at all [reacting on similarities with the art of Carrà, and de Chirico, suggested by the interviewer]. My milliners' dummies, for instance, are objects like others and have not been selected to suggest symbolic representations of human beings of legendary or mythological characters. The only titles that I chose for these paintings were conventional, like 'Still Life, Flowers or Landscape', without any implications of strangeness of an unreal world”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

as in Surrealism or in 'Pittura Metafisica' of De Chirico
Source: 1945 - 1964, Interview, 1960, pp. 106-107

Life , World , Art , Flowers

“I hate extremes of any kind. Communism and the National Front both seek the domination of the state over the individual. They both, I believe crush the right of the individual. To me, therefore, they are parties of a similar kind. All my life I have stood against banning Communism or other extremist organisations because, if you do that, they go underground and it gives them an excitement that they don't get if they are allowed to pursue their policies openly. We'll beat them into the ground on argument… The National Front is a Socialist Front.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Interview for Hornsey Journal (21 April 1978) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=103662
Leader of the Opposition

Life , Hate , Communication

“The classical Greek philosophers, Aristotle and Plato, established some important systems ideas. Aristotle reasoned that the parts of the body only make sense in terms of the way they function to support the whole organism and used this biological analogy to consider how individuals need to be related to the State. Plato was interested in how the notion of control, or the art of steersmanship (kybernetes), could be applied both to vessels and the State. Ships had to be steered safely toward harbour by a helmsman. A similar role needed to be followed in societies if they were to prosper.”

Mike Jackson (1951) systems scientist

Source: Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers (2003), p. 4

Art , Way , Idea , Support

“Glenn Beck: But I was standing on the stage with Freedom Works on Friday in a show that we’re going to air tonight at 8:00 on TheBlaze and I was giving a speech and it struck me about halfway through, the similarities of what is being done right now to the beginning of our country— we are repeating, and we're at the very beginning of it, but we're repeating all of the steps that it took for use to be free in— around the time of the Declaration of Independence, don't you think?
David Barton: I agree. And I look—
Glenn Beck: It's starting to happen.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2012-11-05
Will Christians show up this time? Glenn interviews David Barton
http://www.glennbeck.com/2012/11/05/will-christians-show-up-this-time-glenn-interviews-david-barton/
The Glenn Beck Program
Radio, quoted in * 2012-11-05
Beck & Barton Say Romney Will Win Because 'We are Repeating all of the Steps' the Founders Took to Create This Nation
Kyle
Mantyla
RightWingWatch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/beck-barton-say-romney-will-win-because-we-are-repeating-all-steps-founders-took-create-nati
2012-11-07
2010s, 2012

Thinking , Freedom , Time , Country

“Game theory concepts were first explicitly applied in evolutionary biology by Lewontin (1961). His approach, however, was to picture a species as playing a game against nature, and to seek strategies which minimised the probability of extinction. A similar line has been taken by Slobodkin & Rapoport (1974). In contrast, here we picture members of a population as playing games against each other, and consider the population dynamics and equilibria which can arise.”

John Maynard Smith book Evolution and the Theory of Games

Source: Evolution and the Theory of Games (1973), p. 2.

Game , Nature

“I began studying philosophy and economics about the same time. The similarity of the two disciplines struck me at once. I found no difficulty in grasping the differences between the great philosophical systems as they were presented by our textbooks and our teachers. Economic theory was easier still. Indeed, I thought the successive systems of economics were rather crude affairs compared with the subtleties of the metaphysicians. Having run the gamut from Plato to T. H. Green (as undergraduates do) I felt the gamut from Quesnay to Marshall was a minor theme. The technical part of the theory was easy. Give me premises and I could spin speculations by the yard. Also I knew that my 'deductions' were futile…
Meanwhile I was finding something really interesting in philosophy and in economics. John Dewey was giving courses under all sorts of titles and every one of them dealt with the same problem — how we think… And, if one wanted to try his own hand at constructive theorizing, Dewey's notion pointed the way. It is a misconception to suppose that consumers guide their course by ratiocination—they don't think except under stress. There is no way of deducing from certain principles what they will do, just because their behavior is not itself rational. One has to find out what they do. That is a matter of observation, which the economic theorists had taken all too lightly. Economic theory became a fascinating subject—the orthodox types particularly — when one began to take the mental operations of the theorists as the problem…
Of course Veblen fitted perfectly into this set of notions. What drew me to him was his artistic side… There was a man who really could play with ideas! If one wanted to indulge in the game of spinning theories who could match his skill and humor? But if anything were needed to convince me that the standard procedure of orthodox economics could meet no scientific tests, it was that Veblen got nothing more certain by his dazzling performances with another set of premises…
William Hill set me a course paper on 'Wool Growing and the Tariff.”

Wesley Clair Mitchell (1874–1948) American statistician

I read a lot of the tariff speeches and got a new sidelight on the uses to which economic theory is adapted, and the ease with which it is brushed aside on occasion. Also I wanted to find out what really had happened to wool growers as a result of protection. The obvious thing to do was to collect and analyze the statistical data... That was my first 'investigation'.
Wesley Clair Mitchell in letter to John Maurice Clark, August 9, 1928. Originally printed in Methods in Social Science, ed. Stuart Rice; Cited in: Arthur F. Burns (1965, 65-66)

Way , Behavior , Game , Idea

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

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

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

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

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

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

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Money , Family , Way , Feeling

“Virginia was in fact a landowning aristocracy, without nobility or merchant class, or any considerable small peasant farming class; and the other Southern colonies, except North Carolina, were on the whole similar to Virginia in these respects.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The United States: An Experiment in Democracy (1920)

“The differential rate system of piece-work consists briefly in offering two different rates for the same job: a high price per piece, in case the work is finished in the shortest time possible and in perfect condition, and a low price, if it takes a longer time to do the job, or if there are any imperfections in the work. (The high rate should be such that the workman can earn more per day than is usually paid in similar establishments.) This is directly the opposite of the ordinary plan of piece-work, in which the wages of the workmen are reduced when they increase their productivity.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: "A Piece-rate System," 1896, p. 90; Cited in: Morgen Witzel, Fifty key figures in management. Routledge, 2004. p. 250.

Time , Perfection

“The majority of people I coach are unhappy or dissatisfied with their working lives. They describe their work in so many depressing ways – as ‘boring’, ‘tedious’, ‘mind-numbing’, ‘stressful’, ‘painful’ or even ‘scary’. I hear similar opinions as I travel the world from all types of people no matter what their background, education or choice of career.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Pain , People , World , Education

“The voice recognizes movements and pause, similarity and difference, recognizes and understands it in a mental and physical process.”

Robert Pinsky (1940) American poet, editor, literary critic, academic.

Singing School

Understanding

“n a word, this new office of Imperator was nothing else than the primitive regal office re-established; for it was those very restrictions--as respected the temporal and local limitation of power, the collegiate arrangement, and the cooperation of the senate or the community that was necessary for certain cases-- which distinguished the consul from the king.(17) There is hardly a trait of the new monarchy which was not found in the old: the union of the supreme military, judicial, and administrative authority in the hands of the prince; a religious presidency over the commonwealth; the right of issuing ordinances with binding power; the reduction of the senate to a council of state; the revival of the patriciate and of the praefecture of the city. But still more striking than these analogies is the internal similarity of the monarchy of Servius Tullius and the monarchy of Caesar; if those old kings of Rome with all their plenitude of power had yet been rulers of a free community and themselves the protectors of the commons against the nobility, Caesar too had not come to destroy liberty but to fulfil it, and primarily to break the intolerable yoke of the aristocracy. Nor need it surprise us that Caesar, anything but a political antiquary, went back five hundred years to find the model for his new state; for, seeing that the highest office of the Roman commonwealth had remained at all times a kingship restricted by a number of special laws, the idea of the regal office itself had by no means become obsolete. At very various periods and from very different sides-- in the decemviral power, in the Sullan regency, and in Caesar's own dictatorship--there had been during the republic a practical recurrence to it; indeed by a certain logical necessity, whenever an exceptional power seemed requisite there emerged, in contradistinction to the usual limited -imperium-, the unlimited -imperium- which was simply nothing else than the regal power.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

On the Re-Establishment of the Monarchy
Vol. 4. pt. 2, Translated by W. P. Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

Law , Communication , Idea , Time

John Jay Federalist Papers

1780s, The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 2 (1787)

Men , War , People , Peace

“More than the Grave is closed to me —
The Grave and that Eternity
To which the Grave adheres —
I cling to nowhere till I fall —
The Crash of nothing, yet of all —
How similar appears”

Emily Dickinson More than the Grave is closed to me —

1503: More than the Grave is closed to me —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Appearance

“Art is about collecting experiences and expressing them. For me music and photography are similar art forms. I collect experiences, stir them in myself and express it in my own language. Just like my photography, music is my language.”

TY Bello Nigerian singer

Bio! TY Bello http://www.pulse.ng/entertainment/music/bio-ty-bello-id2789473.html

Art , Music

“Independent derivation meshed beautifully with the triumph, from the 1930's on, of a strict version of Darwinism based on the near ubiquity of adaptive design built by natural selection… Arthropods and vertebrates do share several features of functional design. But those similarities only reflect the power of natural selection to craft optimal structures independently in a world of limited biomechanical solutions to common functional problems - an evolutionary phenomenon called convergence.”

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

"Brotherhood by Inversion", p. 328
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

World , Optimism , Nature , Problem

“Sales personnel in all six organizations indicated a primary concern with customer problems, competitive activities, and other events in the marketplace. Manufacturing personnel were all primarily interested in problems of cost reduction, process efficiency, and similar matters.”

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

Source: Organization and environment: Managing differentiation and integration, 1967, p. 37

Problem

“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general Liberty and Independence.”

John Jay Federalist Papers

1780s, The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 2 (1787)

War , People , Pleasure , Religion

“India has its own full-fledged brand of negationism: a movement to deny the large-scale and long-term crimes against humanity committed by Islam. This movement is led by Islamic apologists and Marxist academics, and followed by all the politicians, journalists and intellectuals who call themselves secularists. In contrast to the European negationism regarding the Nazi acts of genocide, but similar to the Turkish negationism regarding the Armenian genocide, the Indian negationism regarding the terrible record of Islam is fully supported by the establishment. It has nearly full control of the media and dictates all state and government parlance concerning the communal problem”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

more properly to be called the Islam problem
1990s, Negationism in India, (1992)

Communication , Support , Problem

“If you will give your representative similar instructions, there is no reason why we should not be able to complete these arrangements and announce them to the world within a couple of days. The effect of such a settlement on easing world tensions would enable us to work toward a more general arrangement regarding "other armaments," as proposed in your second letter which you made public. I would like to say again that the United States is very much interested in reducing tensions and halting the arms race; and if your letter signifies that you are prepared to discuss a detente affecting NATO and the Warsaw Pact, we are quite prepared to consider with our allies any useful proposals.”

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

1962, Second Letter to Nikita Khrushchev

World

“Rules of simultaneous ensemble constraint can't be assumed a priori to be the kinds of rules or rest on the same foundations as rules for constraint on succession. They may well be similar, but they may well not be similar also. It seems to me that ensemble constraints must first be understood in their own terms, within musical cultures individually and comparitively, looking to what appear to be basic principles in each in light of the others, I would call such a study "comparative counterpoint.”

Harold Powers (1928–2007) American academic

Harold Powers, "Language Models and Musical Analysis", p.39.

Music , Study , Light , Appearance

“Suppose a person entering a house were to feel heat on the porch, and going further, were to feel the heat increasing, the more they penetrated within. Doubtless, such a person would believe there was a fire in the house, even though they did not see the fire that must be causing all this heat. A similar thing will happen to anyone who considers this world in detail: one will observe that all things are arranged according to their degrees of beauty and excellence, and that the nearer they are to God, the more beautiful and better they are.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Sermon on the Apostles' Creed, 13-14

God , World , Beauty , Feeling

“The party system that is developing here in Canada is a party system that replicates the antebellum period, the pre-Civil War period of the United States… [T]he dynamics, the political and partisan dynamics of this, are remarkably similar.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

1990s, Speech to the Council for National Policy (1997)

War

“At the time this hazardous prophecy was made, the huge overgrown Roman Empire was tottering to its fall. Does a similar fate await the British Empire?”

Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer (1841–1917) British diplomat

Political and Literary Essays, 1908-1913

Fate , Time

“The link between Communism and traditional Christianity is so close that when Communists lose their faith, they usually and naturally flop over into Roman Catholicism. Whittaker Chambers was only the best known of the Marxists who, when disillusioned, reverted to an earlier form of his ruling superstition. Would-be atheists who do not become converted to the Marxist cult often retain in their minds the Christian residue that makes them susceptible to drivel about "all mankind," "One World," and the "humanitarian" sentimentality of do-gooders and similar pests--all of which find no confirmation in the facts of nature and the real world. There are even self-styled atheists who evidently think that the god in whom they do not believe stopped the biological evolution of anthropoids a hundred thousand years ago to make all talking species equal in some mysterious way that transcends the obvious and great difference between extant races in intelligence, character, and instincts, perhaps because the non-existing god equipped the several species with exactly equal souls.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"The Bear in the Bush", Liberty Bell (September 1990)
1990s

God , World , Faith , Way

“I remember one clear example of the problem of communicating what is to be learned. You may have heard of or gone through a similar experience with a student or your child. Years ago, the child of a friend whom I was visiting arrived home from his day at school, all excited about something he had learned. He was in the first grade and his teacher had started the class on reading lessons. The child, Gary, announced that he had learned a new word. "That's great, Gary," his mother said. "What is it?" He thought for a moment, then said, "I'll write it down for you." On a little chalkboard the child carefully printed, HOUSE. "That's fine, Gary," his mother said. "What does it say?" He looked at the word, then at his mother and said matter-of-factly, "I don't know."The child apparently had learned what the word looked like — he had learned the visual shape of the word perfectly. The teacher, however, was teaching another aspect of reading — what words mean, what words stand for or symbolize. As often happens, what the teacher had taught and what Gary had learned were strangely incongruent.As it turned out, my friend's son always learned visual material best and fastest, a mode of learning consistently preferred by a number of students. Unfortunately, the school world is mainly a verbal, symbolic world, and learners like Gary must adjust, that is, put aside their best way of learning and learn the way the school decrees. My friend's child, fortunately, was able to make this change, but how many other students are lost along the way?”

Betty Edwards (1926) American artist

Source: The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (1979), p.237

World , School , Way , Home

“And I'm not saying that television is vulgar and dumb because the people who compose Audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
Essays

People , Way

“I am not the official Church Jesus who is accepted by policemen, bankers, judges, executioners, officers, church bosses, politicians and similar representatives of power. I am not your Superstar who keeps playing his part for you on the cross, and whom you hit in the face when he steps out of his role, and who therefore cannot call out to you, "I am fed up with all your pomp and all your rituals! Your incense is disgusting. It stinks of burnt human flesh. I can't bear your holy celebrations and holidays any longer. You can pray as much as you like, I'm not listening. Keep all your idiotic honours and laudations. I won't have anything to do with them. I do not want them. I am no pillar of peace and security. Security that you achieve with tear gas and with billy clubs. I am no guarantee for obedience and order either. Order and obedience at reform schools, prisons, penal institutions, insane asylums. I am the disobedient one, the restless one who does not live in any house. Nor am I a guarantee for success, savings accounts and possessions. I am the homeless one without a permanent home who stirs up trouble wherever he goes. I am the agitator, the invoker, I am the scream. I am the hippie, bum, Black Power, Jesus people. I want to free the prisoners. I want to make the blind see. I want to redeem the tortured. I want to cast love into your hearts, the love that reaches out beyond everything that exists. I want to turn you into living human beings, immortals.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Jesus Christus Erlöser (1971)

Love , People , School , Peace

“Jesus was face to face with a concrete situation similar in principle to that of Belgium in 1914…. The issues at stake… were similar in principle, namely freedom versus bondage…. Why not follow the warlike example of Joshua and David and Judas Maccabeus? Does not the end justify the means? These are questions that Jesus faced.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.3 p. 58-59

Question , Freedom

“The 'inquests' which resulted in the compilation of the Domesday Book made a vivid and unfavorable impression on the country. A similar effect was produced by the inquests of 1166 and 1170, before alluded to. Even to this day, the word 'inquisitorial' bears the burden of historical unpopularity.”

Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar

Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter IV, Improved Legal Procedure, p. 47

Books , Country

“I have a great respect for religion, and the subject has always fascinated me […]. Much of this fascination lies in the stunning historical paradox that organized religion has fostered, throughout Western history, both the most unspeakable horrors and the most heartrending examples of human goodness in the face of personal danger. (The evil, I believe, lies in an occasional confluence of religion with secular power. The Catholic Church has sponsored its share of horrors, from Inquisitions to liquidations—but only because this institution held great secular power during much of Western history. When my folks held such sway, more briefly and in Old Testament times, we committed similar atrocities with the same rationales.)”

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

"Non-Overlapping Magisteria", p. 281
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Religion , History , Evil , Time

“It is very strange and saddening to see that when such acts are perpetrated against the minorities, all political leaders rush to issue statements of condemnation. But when persons belonging to the majority are subjected to similar perpetration of heinous crimes, not a single political leader has so far issued a statement condemning this barbaric crime. Such acts of senseless violence should be condemned no matter who is responsible for them and no matter who the victims are. It is not as though a crime is a crime only if it is committed against the minorities and not so if it is committed against the majority community. This should be viewed as a crime committed against humanity…remind all the political leaders in India that it is not only the minorities who enjoy rights under the Constitution. The majority have rights too.”

Jayalalithaa (1948–2016) Indian politician and actress

Source: On Godhra train burning, It's a crime against humanity: Jayalalithaa http://hindu.com/2002/03/01/stories/2002030103151300.htm, 01 March 2002.

Communication , Personality

“The pleasures of friendship, of unreserved conversation, of similarity of taste and opinions will make good amends for orange wine.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to Cassandra (1808-06-20) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Friendship , Pleasure , Wine

“The experience or the vision is the artist’s counterpart to the scientific discovery of a principle or law. What the scientist does when he discovers a new law is to give a new ordering to observed facts. The artist is engaged in a similar task. He gives new meaning to our experience and organizes it in a different way due to his perception of subtler qualities in reality.”

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Law , Way , Reality

“I'm not really a collage artist like Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson. I'm not like those other guys, Spike Jonze, too, guys who watch things and take notes. I'm trapped in my own stubborn world over-and-over, looking for a similar insight, a similar aesthetic, a similar point of view.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Film Freak Central Interview

World , Guy

“. I don't love less the gray waters of my Holland, their serious and somewhat sad color, which corresponds so well with the similar gray skies and vapors that are hanging there. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Gerard Bilders (1838–1865) painter from the Netherlands

(version in original Dutch / citaat van Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands:) ..niet minder bemin ik toch de graauwe wateren van mijn Holland, hunne ernstige, eenigsinds droeve kleur, die zoo goed overeenkomt met de even grijze luchten en dampen, dier er overeen hangen.
as cited in The land of Mauve: utopia or a reality? / Het land van Mauve: utopie of werkelijkheid? https://www.rug.nl/research/kenniscentrumlandschap/mscripties/christina_vlasma-het_land_van_mauve-masterscriptie.pdf; master-scriptie by Christina van Staats-Vlasma; Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, La Broquerie, Manitoba Canada, Nov. 2010, p. 97
undated quotes

Love , Sadness , Color , Water

“Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither. At every point in nature there is something to see. My work contains similar possibilities for the changing focus of the eye.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Sixteen Americans, (1959) Dorothy C. Miller, Moma, New York, p. 22
1950s

Nature , Change , Time , Painting

“He wandered for a long time along the canals and over the bridges... Steam rose from one boat where men were heating their tea water. He shouted to them and asked them to give him some tea. They asked who he was and he said that he was from Iceland, where Hell is. They invited him out to the boat and gave him something to drink and questioned him about Mount Hekla. He said that he was born and raised at the foot of the mountain and for that reason was called van Hekkenfeld. They asked whether a man could see down into Hell from the summit of Hekla, through the swarm of noxious birds that hovers eternally, shrieking and quarreling, over the crater. He said no, but added that he'd once caught one of these birds with a hooked pole that he'd brought with him up onto the mountain; they were similar to ravens, he said, except for their claws and beaks, which were iron. They asked whether such birds could be eaten and he laughed at their foolishness, but said on the other hand that one could use the claws for hooks and the beak for a pick.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part I: Iceland's Bell

Men , Mountain , Hell , Drink

“Howdy! That's a great question, actually. The reason we fart is due to needing to periodically release gases that build up during digestion. During the digestion process of the foods you eat, naturally occurring beneficial bacteria in your body metabolize (i. e. convert the food in your body to useable energy) and produce waste as a result, some of which is the gas that makes up farts. This is typically where the methane (CH4) in farts comes from, the rest of the fart volume being from air swallowed during the course of the day. For animals like spiders and insects, there are similar processes! Some animals like termites, for example, better match us as they, too, have methane-producing bacteria in their guts which helps them break down wood! For other animals, other digestive processes make waste products and sometimes gas, so yes, spiders (and insects) do fart, in a sense! Since their exoskeletons are generally rigid, though, they may not produce the sound we associate with farting, thus, you might say that most spider and insect farts are "silent but deadly!"”

Ben Eisenkop (1986) American biologist and redditor

Posted https://www.reddit.com/r/UnidanFans/comments/1mubgx/q_for_unidan_from_my_8yo_daughter_do_spiders_fart/cccqton in response to "Do spiders fart?" (2013)

Food , Question , Nature , Sense

“Confronted, when the weather is fine and I am in propitious emotional circumstances, with certain landscapes, certain works of art, certain human beings, I know, for the time being, that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world. On other occasions, skies and destiny being inclement, I am no less immediately certain of the malignant impersonality of an uncaring universe. Every human being has had similar experiences. This being so, the sensible thing to do would be to accept the facts and frame a metaphysic to fit them. But with that talent for doing the wrong thing, that genius for perversity, so characteristically human, men have preferred, especially in recent times, to take another course. They have either denied the existence of these psychological facts; or if they have admitted them, have done so only to condemn as evil all such experiences as cannot be reconciled in a logical system with whatever particular class of experiences they have chosen, arbitrarily, to regard as "true" and morally valuable. Every man tries to pretend that he is consistently one kind of person and does his best consistently to worship one kind of God. And this despite the fact that he experiences diversity and actually feels himself in contact with a variety of divinities.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

“One and Many,” pp. 3–4
Do What You Will (1928)

Men , God , World , Art

“Remember we had a big debate about partial birth abortion? Well, here is a guy, who, in the Senate of Illinois, voted against a bill that was aimed at making sure that hospitals could no longer take babies who were born alive after a botched abortion — these are living babies, wholly separate from the mother, and are there in a nurse's arms, and in a case that I know of, the nurse is begging the doctors to please help, to do something for this child. And she is told to put the child aside, and let it die. That's not abortion. That is infanticide. That is the taking of a child's life. That is simply murder, by neglect. And there was a bill to stop it. And the United States Senate, in a similar bill, passed ninety-eight to zero. Even Teddy Kennedy and Barbara Mikulski could not find it in their abortion-seared consciences to vote for this practice. But Barack Obama voted to let it continue.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

National Federation of Republican Assemblies, NYC, August 31, 2004. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_08_31nfra.htm.
2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race

Life , Guy , Birth , Help

“As regards my paintings of similar compositions I cannot give you any indication [about possible 'variants' in his works] because I'm afraid I've never made a note of where my paintings have ended up... I am always at work and work is my sole passion. And unfortunately I've become aware that I must always start from the beginning, and ought to burn what I've done in the past.”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

Quote in his letter of 2 Aug. 1954; as cited in Morandi 1894 – 1964, ed: M. C. Bandera & R. Miracco, Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2008; p. 42
1945 - 1964

Passion , Past , Painting

“I was really intimidated, but then the acting kicks in. We have a similar fire, so he doesn't intimidate me in that way; I can get really angry, I can get in your face too.”

Rene Russo (1954) actress, model

On acting with Al Pacino; Interview on RopeofSilicon with Laremy Legel, Friday, October 7th 2005 http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/features/twoforthemoney/russo.php

Way

“In all these products, whether iron bridges, locomotives, automobiles, telescopes, cottages, airport-hangars, funicular railways, skyscrapers, or children's toys, the will towards a new style expresses itself. The similarity of these examples to the new creations in art consists in the same striving for clear, pure form which expresses truth in the objects.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote from 'The will to Style', in Dutch art-magazine De Stijl February-March 1922; as quoted in 'Theo van Doesburg', Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 123
1920 – 1926

Children , Truth , Art

“All civilizations go though similar processes of emergence, rise, and decline. The West differs from other civilizations not in the way it has developed but in the distinctive character of its values and institutions. These include most notably its Christianity, pluralism, individualism, and rule of law, which made it possible for the West to invent modernity, expand throughout the world, and become the envy of other societies. In their ensemble these characteristics are peculiar to the West. Europe, as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., has said, is “the source — the unique source” of the “ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and cultural freedom. . . . These are European ideas, not Asian, nor African, nor Middle Eastern ideas, except by adoption.” They make Western civilization unique, and Western civilization is valuable not because it is universal but because it is unique. The principal responsibility of Western leaders, consequently, is not to attempt to reshape other civilizations in the image of the West, which is beyond their declining power, but to preserve, protect, and renew the unique qualities of Western civilization. Because it is the most powerful Western country, that responsibility falls overwhelmingly on the United States of America.
To preserve Western civilization in the face of declining Western power, it is in the interest of the United States and European countries … to recognize that Western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source of instability and potential global conflict in a multicivilizational world.”

Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) American political scientist

Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), Ch. 12 : The West, Civilizations, and Civilization, § 2 : The West In The World, p. 311

World , Law , Way , Democracy

“No, there is now no circumstance known in which it can be affirmed that microscopic beings came into the world without germs, without parents similar to themselves. Those who affirm it have been duped by illusions, by ill-conducted experiments, spoilt by errors that they either did not perceive or did not know how to avoid.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

Translation from The Life of Pasteur p. 142 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924012227595#page/n155/mode/2up
Soirées scientifiques de la Sorbonne (1864)

World , Error , Parent

“When it comes to the traits we consider most important in a long-term mate, human beings are largely monomorphic. This is one of the most significant findings of these studies; however, it is easily overlooked when the discussion becomes fixated on traits that people consider less important but where sex differences are found. By shining a spotlight on these traits, we may create an inaccurate picture of our species, even though the differences are real. Our picture of human nature may be built on a foundation of exceptions to the rule. The rule — the fact that males and females in our species are surprisingly similar in many ways — may be relegated to the background. By taking genuine differences and then exaggerating their importance, our picture of our evolved nature may become a caricature: It may contain a recognizable grain of truth but distort its object.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: The Ape that Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2013), p. 267

People , Truth , Sex , Way

“We have a word game in English called "Twenty questions." To play Twenty Questions, one player imagines some object, and the other players must guess what it is by asking questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." I imagine every language has a similar game, and, for those of us who speak the language of science, the game is called The Scientific Method.”

K. Barry Sharpless (1941) American chemist

Nobel Banquet speech, 2001

Imagination , Game , Question , Science

“I do not wish to be labeled, at the most I can assure you that I am Aquarian in the sense that I live in the Age of Aquarius, that I am a person similar to the Aquarian type which is seen more and more in the Age of the Water Bearer.”

Serge Raynaud de la Ferriere (1916–1962) French astrologer

De la Ferrière, Serge Raynaud, translation from the book « Yug Yoga Yoghismo », Editorial Diana, Mexico, 1973 ; pages 686-687

Age , Sense , Water , Personality

“A madman is running towards the east, the man who chases after him also running towards the east. They are similar in running towards the east, but different in why they run towards the east.”

Hui Shi

As quoted in Chinese Culture (Chinese Cultural Research Institute, 1996), p. 35

“It's all about discipline - and having an inner calm. That's one of the main driving forces for me when I step into the ring - you can’t have a fight and lose your temper. You need to remain calm and focused when everything around you is in chaos. It's a similar thing for the buddhists - they remain calm and disciplined in the hurly burly of everyday life.”

Johnny Nelson (1967) British boxer

Johnny 'Two worlds collide - the boxer meets the Buddhists'http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/09_september/09/boxer_yorkslincsinsideout.shtml

Life , Fight

“An engineering science aims to organize the design principles used in engineering practice into a discipline and thus to exhibit the similarities between different areas of engineering practice and to emphasize the power of fundamental concepts. In short, an engineering science is predominated by theoretical analysis and very often uses the tool of advanced mathematics.”

Qian Xuesen (1911–2009) Chinese rocket scientist

Source: Engineering cybernetics, (1954), p. vii

Mathematics , Science

“My interest had been in a broad class of situations, broader than the advanced industrial market economies, including situations in third world countries, and in countries attempting to have some kind of socialist approach to their problems. I have been interested in how one can construct efficient mechanisms that have the decentralization features similar to a market but that do not necessarily resemble a market. For this purpose, I formulated the notion of an informationally-decentralized economy in which perfect competition was just a very special case…”

Leonid Hurwicz (1917–2008) Russian-American economist and mathematician

Source: David Warsh, " The Road to a System that Works (Without Shooting People) http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2007.10.21/69.html" at economicprincipals.com, October 21, 2007.

World , Problem , Perfection , Country

“Muhammad bin Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving women and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide. Ibn Battuta who visited India during his reign and stayed at the Court for a long time writes:
“At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Vazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me… My companion took three girls, and - I do not know what happened to the rest.” On the large scale distribution of girl slaves on the occasion of Muslim festivals like Id, he writes: “First of all, daughters of Kafir (Hindu) Rajas captured during the course of the year, come and sing and dance. Thereafter they are bestowed upon Amirs and important foreigners. After this daughters of other Kafirs dance and sing… The Sultan gives them to his brothers, relatives, sons of Maliks etc. On the second day the durbar is held in a similar fashion after Asr. Female singers are brought out… the Sultan distributes them among the Mameluke Amirs…” Thousands of non-Muslim women were distributed in the above manner in later years.”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Ibn Battuta, 123. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 12

Women , Girl , Fashion , Singing

“The following general definition of an animal: a system of different organic molecules that have combined with one another, under the impulsion of a sensation similar to an obtuse and muffled sense of touch given to them by the creator of matter as a whole, until each one of them has found the most suitable position for it shape and comfort.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

No. 51
On the Interpretation of Nature (1753)

Sense , Animals

“Humankind is a lonely creature looking for connections and associations from childhood to the end of his life. This intention to join with the others can also be found in human societies. Stories, legends and most of human efforts tend to a joint and union, the same direction towards which the humankind is heading. The definition of a human being in this theory is not considered to be a good or a devil self. Man is defined as a social creature craving for establishing relationships and connections, without which he will be unable to survive. Linking up with another thing, establishing connections with God, relating to different points of view, associating with dreams and in its most general form sharing life with a spouse are all examples of this instinct in human beings. In a similar pattern, civilizations of the world are following, and will be following, the same path. This is the era of Collaboration of Civilizations, Union of Cultures, and Joining of Religions.”

Elia M. Ramollah (1973) founder and leader of the El Yasin Community

360 Doctrines and Comprehensive Theories, Union of Civilizations

Life , God , World , Religion

Maithripala Sirisena (1951) Sri Lankan politician, 7th President of Sri Lanka

Referring to Mahanayake of Kotte Kalyani Damma Maha Sanga Sabha Dr. Iththepane Dammalankara Thero, [during his time] Secretary for Ordination and the Deputy Secretary of the Sanga Sabha where he is the current Chief Secretary. He is the Director of the Pali and Buddhist Postgraduate Institute of the University of Kelaniya and the Professor of Pali at the Peradeniya University. He also is the Chief Incumbent of the Thalpitiya Bodhirajarama Vihara, and received a PhD at the University of Peradeniya, quoted on Eurasia Review (January 31, 2016), "Sri Lanka: Sirisena Participates In Ceremony To Offer Sannas Pathraya To New Anu Nayaka Thero" http://www.eurasiareview.com/31012016-sri-lanka-sirisena-participates-in-ceremony-to-offer-sannas-pathraya-to-new-anu-nayaka-thero/

Way , Future , Country

“It is characteristic of the technocracy to render itself invisible. Its assumptions about reality and its values become as unobtrusively pervasive as the air we breathe…. the technocracy increases and consolidates its power… following the dictates of industrial efficiency, rationality, and necessity…. the technocracy assumes a position similar to that of the purely neutral umpire in an athletic contest…. we tend to ignore the man… Yet… he alone sets the limits and goals of the competition and judges the contenders.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

Reality

“Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes and dispositions between two or more domestic races, or between nearly-allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that all are descended from a common progenitor who was thus endowed; and consequently that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man.

As it is improbable that the numerous and unimportant points of resemblance between the several races of man in bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer to similar customs) should all have been independently acquired, they must have been inherited from progenitors who were thus characterised.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter VII: "On the Races of Man", page 233 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=246&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image
The Descent of Man (1871)

Nature

“In a certain sense, I never left Actionism as I understood it to this very day. Today, I work in “sittings” that are very similar to the course of the actions. Only the stage has changed on which the presentation takes place.”

Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist

Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 264 (2003)

Sense , Change

“I have read with very great interest Mr. Metcalfe's paper, as we at the Midvale Steel Co. have had the experience, during the past ten years, of organizing a system very similar to that of Mr. Metcalfe. The chief idea in our system, as in his, is, that the authority for doing all kinds of work should proceed from one central office to the various departments, and that there proper records should be kept of the work and reports made daily to the central office, so that the superintending department should be kept thoroughly informed as to what is taking place throughout the works, and at the same time no work could be done in the works without proper authority. The details of the system have been very largely modified as time went on, and a consecutive plan, such as Mr. Metcalfe proposed, would have been of great assistance to us in carrying out our system. There are certain points, however, in Mr. Metcalfe's plan, which I think our experience shows to be somewhat objectionable. He issues to each of the men a book, something like a check-book, containing sheets which they tear out, and return to the office after stating on them the work which they have done. We have found that any record which passes through the average workman's hands, and which he holds for any length of time, is apt either to be soiled or torn. We have, therefore, adopted the system of having our orders sent from the central office to the small offices in the various departments of the works, in each of which there is a clerk who takes charge of all orders received from, and records returned to, the central office, as well as of all records kept in the department.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

F.W. Taylor (1886), " Comment to "The Shop-Order System of Accounts https://archive.org/stream/transactionsof07amer#page/475/mode/1up," by Henry Metcalfe in: Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Vol 7 (1885-1886), p. 475; Partly cited in: Charles D. Wrege, ‎Ronald G. Greenwood (1991), Frederick W. Taylor, the father of scientific management. p. 204.

Men , Books , Idea , Thinking

“I don't think I am ghoulish in saying that I would like them, and every morally responsible citizen of the world, particularly my fellow Australians of the World War II period, to refresh their memories by referring regularly to the photographic record of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki happening — the rags of human flesh, the suppurating sores, the despair of families blown apart, the disturbed minds, the bleak black gritty plains where the homes of human beings like you and I once stood. Most of all, I would like every Australian couple born since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were blasted out of existence to consult these photographic records and for ever after do all in their power to prevent the children they are creating from suffering a fate similar to that thrust upon the children of those two Japanese cities. Let us rouse ourselves and realise this is what we shall have to face.”

Patrick White (1912–1990) English-born Australian writer

Australians in a Nuclear War (1983)

Fate , War , Children , World

“We have very similar brains. But they come out in different personalities.”

Guy Berryman (1978) bassist

Chris Martin, on Berryman's reticence
Scaggs, Austin; Corbijn, Anton (2005-08-25), "COLDPLAY'S QUIET STORM". Rolling Stone. (981):40-46
About

Personality

“I became aware of Louise Bourgeois in my first or second year at Brighton Art College. One of my teachers, Stuart Morgan, curated a small retrospective of her work at the Serpentine, and both he and another teacher, Edward Allington, saw something in her, and me, and thought I should be aware of her. I thought the work was wonderful. It was her very early pieces, The Blind Leading the Blind, the wooden pieces and some of the later bronze works. Biographically, I don't really think she has influenced me, but I think there are similarities in our work. We have both used the home as a kind of kick-off point, as the space that starts the thoughts of a body of work. I eventually got to meet Louise in New York, soon after I made House. She asked to see me because she had seen a picture of House in the New York Times while she was ironing it one morning, so she said. She was wonderful and slightly kind of nutty; very interested and eccentric. She drew the whole time; it was very much a salon with me there as her audience, watching her. I remember her remarking that I was shorter than she was. I don't know if this was true but she was commenting on the physicality of making such big work and us being relatively small women. When you meet her you don't know what's true, because she makes things up. She has spun her web and drawn people in, and eaten a few people along the way.”

Rachel Whiteread (1963) British sculptor

Rachel Whiteread, " Kisses for Spiderwoman http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/oct/14/art2," The Guardian, 14 Oct. 2007: on Louise Bourgeois

Women , People , Art , Way

“The soul of the newly born baby is marked for life by the pattern of the stars at the moment it comes into the world, unconsciously remembers it, and remains sensitive to the return of configurations of a similar kind.”

Johannes Kepler book Harmonices Mundi

Harmonices Mundi (1618)

Life , World , Soul , Star

Rajiv Malhotra book The Battle for Sanskrit

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

People , Education , Study , Freedom

“As he lat in the relative comfort of a hard-sleeeper cot - relative to a hard-seater, that is - the puffy, balding, beady-eyed, twisted mouth, middle-aged writer Mo Yan wasn't sleepy at all. The overhead lights went out as the train carried him into the night leaving only the dim yellow glare of the floor lights to see by. I know there are many similarities between me and this Mo Yan, but many contradictions as well. I'm a hermit crab, and Mo Yan is the shell I'm occupying. Mo Yan is the rain gear that protects me from storms, a dog hide to ward off the chilled winds, a mask I wear to seduce girls from good families. There are times when I feel that this Mo Yan is a heavy burden, but I can't seem to cast it off, just as a hermit crab cannot rid itself of its shell.”

Mo Yan book The Republic of Wine

Source: The Republic of Wine (1992), Chapter 10, Section 2

Age , Family , Dogs , Feeling

“…it depends indeed on whether the immigrants are different, and different in important respects from the existing population. Clearly, if they are identical, then no change for the good or bad can be brought about by the immigration. But if they are different, and to the extent that they are different, then numbers clearly are of the essence and this is not wholly – or mainly, necessarily – a matter of colour. For example, if the immigrants were Germans or Russians, their colour would be approximately the same as ours, but the problems which would be created and the change which could be brought about by a large introduction of a bloc of Germans or Russians into five areas in this country would be as serious – and in some respects more serious – than could follow from an introduction of a similar number of West Indians or Pakistanis.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Any Questions?, BBC Radio (29 November 1968), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), p. 395
1960s

Problem , Change , Dependency , Country

“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

Reality , Sense , Tree , Appearance

“What does an instinctively popular poet do in contemporary America, where serious poetry is no longer a popular art? The public whose values and sensibility he celebrates is unaware of his existence. Indeed, even if they were aware of his poetry, they would feel no need to approach it. Cut off from his proper audience, this poet feels little sympathy with the specialized minority readership that now sustains poetry either as a highly sophisticated verbal game or secular religion. His sensibility shows little similarity to theirs except for the common interest in poetry. And so the popular poet usually leads a marginal existence in literary life. His fellow poets look on him as an anomaly or an anachronism. Reviewers find him eminently unnewsworthy. Publishers see little prestige attached to printing his work. Critics, who have been trained to celebrate complexity, consider him an amiable simpleton.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"The Anonymity of the Regional Poet: Ted Kooser" http://www.danagioia.net/essays/ekooser.htm, from Can Poetry Matter? Essays on Poetry and American Culture (1992)
Essays

Life , Religion , Art , Feeling

“It is hard to say whether increasing complexity is the cause or the effect of man's effort to cope with his expanding environment. In either case a central feature of the trend has been the development of large and very complex systems which tie together modern society. These systems include abstract or non-physical systems, such as government and the economic system. They also include large physical systems like pipe line and power distribution systems, transportation and electrical communication systems. The growth of these systems has increased the need not only for over-all planning, but also for long-range development of the systems. This need has induced increased interest in the methods by which efficient planning and design can be accomplished in complex situations where no one scientific discipline can account for all the factors. Two similar disciplines which emerged about the time of World War II to cope with these problems are called systems engineering and operations research.”

Arthur D. Hall (1925–2006) American electrical engineer

Source: A methodology for systems engineering, 1962, p. 5: About the evolution of systems engineering; Partly cited in: Allen B. Rosenstein (1965) " Systems engineering and Modern Engineering Design http://books.google.com/books?id=HDp9ReqM314C&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false"

War , World , Communication , Problem

“General systems theory (in the narrow sense of the term) is a discipline concerned with the general properties and laws of “systems”. A system is defined as a complex of components in interaction, or by some similar proposition. Systems theory tries to develop those principles that apply to systems in general, irrespective of the nature of the system, of their components, and of the relations or “forces” between them. The system components need not even be material, as, for example, in the system analysis of a commercial enterprise where components such as buildings, machines, personnel, money and “good will” of customers enter.”

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

Source: 1960s, Robots, Men and Minds (1967), p. 69

Money , Law , Nature , Sense

“You have in yourself some thing similar to God, and therefore use yourself as the temple of God, on account of that which in you resembles God.”

Quintus Sextius Roman philosopher

Sentences of Sextus

God

“By contrast, Galileo, the other legendary scientific figure of the era, not only published the most compelling critique of Aristotelian scholasticism in his Dialogues on the Two Chief World Systems, but in the process turned the issue of the epistemic authority of theology versus the epistemic authority of empirical science into a hallmark of modern times. Although Newton clearly sympathized with Galileo, he wrote virtually nothing critical of the Aristotelian tradition in philosophy, and the immense effort he devoted to theology was aimed not at challenging its epistemic authority, but largely at putting it on a firmer footing. Newton made no direct contributions to philosophy of a similar magnitude. Indeed, from his extant writings alone Newton has more claim to being a major theologian than a major philosopher.”

I. Bernard Cohen (1914–2003) American historian of science

Source: The Cambridge Companion to Newton, 2002, p. 1

World , Effort , Science , Time

“I could trace own EST brainwave to a flight back from a trip to Japan. But, of course, great ideas are often simultaneously conceived by several people who have responded in a similar way to the climate of thinking, and it can be hard to pin down when and precisely how a flash of inspiration is born. Kaplan had taught me that good ideas are a dime of dozen for a smart person, and the only thing that distinguishes good from great is in how an idea is executed—how it becomes reality. Scientific history is littered with stories of one person having an idea but not following through on it only to see another have a similar inspiration and then prove it to be valid.”

Craig Venter (1946) American biochemist

A Life Decoded by Craig Venter, p. 129 http://books.google.com/books/about/A_Life_Decoded.html?id=jx9JsHry1PgC&pg=PA129

People , Way , History , Idea

“The Arithmetica… is deficient, sometimes pardonably, sometimes without excuse, in generalization. The book of Porismata, to which Diophantus sometimes refers, seems on the other hand to have been entirely devoted to the discussion of general properties of numbers. It is three times expressly quoted in the Arithmetica… Of all these propositions he says… 'we find it in the Porisms'; but he cites also a great many similar propositions without expressly referring to the Porisms. These latter citations fall into two classes, the first of which contains mere identities, such as the algebraical equivalents of the theorems in Euclid II…. The other class contains general propositions concerning the resolution of numbers into the sum of two, three or four squares…. It will be seen that all these propositions are of the general form which ought to have been but is not adopted in the Arithmetica. We are therefore led to the conclusion that the Porismata, like the pamphlet on Polygonal Numbers, was a synthetic and not an analytic treatise. It is open, however, to anyone to maintain the contrary, since no proof of any porism is now extant.”

James Gow (scholar) (1854–1923) scholar

p, 125
A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884)

Books , Quotes , Time

“Parallelism: Propositions about the behavior of individuals and the performance of institutions that have been tested in laboratory microeconomies apply also to nonlaboratory environments where similar ceteris paribus conditions prevail.”

Vernon L. Smith (1927) American economist

Source: "Relevance of laboratory experiments to testing resource allocation theory," 1980, p. 349.

Behavior

“As I see it, all questions regarding the factual accuracy of Biblical statements—notably such ‘miraculous’ events as Virgin Birth, Resurrection, etc.—are wholly irrelevant to the true issues. Indeed, I should go so far as to say myself that the whole value of the Gospel story to mankind—and it is very great—lies not in its historical but in its legendary, mythical, or ‘typical’ character. It is not, I think, the Sermon on the Mount—or at least not this alone—that constitutes the peculiar contribution of Christianity to human thought, for very similar maxims are to be found elsewhere, and in any event could be deduced from first principles. It is to be found, rather, in the affirmation that all that is best and highest in man, as typified in the person of Jesus, is bound to arouse opposition, is often persecuted and apparently destroyed—yet is in fact indestructible and does perennially ‘rise again’, triumphant over seeming disaster.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Preface, p. 20, sentence 3. Quoted from Whately Carington,Telepathy, pp. 145-46 (Methuen 1945).
The Christian Agnostic (1965)

Birth , Question , Thinking , Personality

“Billy Graham, for example, has stated that it's likely there are other life forms out there. His take on it is that we should regard them as children of God, even as humanity is. The Vatican came out with a similar statement three or four years ago.”

Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist

Undated

Life , God , Children

“Throughout the past several centuries, people have used the term race to describe groups of people in much the same way it was used in past centuries to describe groups of animals. People with ancestry from a particular region of tend to share certain inherited similar features, resembling their parents. However, the children of parents with substantially different ancestral backgrounds often have an appearance that is intermediate between that of their two parents, and in subsequent generations, the offspring may vary. In part because of the obvious similarities between animals and humans for how traits are inherited, and in part because of cultural, political, and religious traditions, notinos of racial purity and superiority have surged and ebbed yet persisted, crossing the boundaries of culture, geography, politics, and time. They are still with us today, and some of the most insidious actions based on notions of racial supremacy happened not long ago.”

Daniel J. Fairbanks (1956) American artist

Source: Everyone is African: How Science Explodes the Myth of Race (2015), pp. 16–17.

Children , People , Way , Parent

“With all our differences, we're not that different. Our quests are similar. The need for peace is not created by a document. It is created by a fundamental desire innate to all human beings, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, successful or unsuccessful. It is that innate desire that has, throughout history, pushed us again and again to find peace. The want, the concept, the idea of peace did not start this year or last year or the year before.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Address at the Universal Forum of Cultures, Barcelona (2004)]
2000s

Peace , History , Idea , Success

“Routine tasks… are well-established techniques which are sure to work, and these are applied to essentially similar raw materials, That is, there is little uncertainty about methods and little variety or change in the tasks that must be performed.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 75

Change

“If you can’t show that it’s true, then you can’t call it truth. Knowledge is similar to truth in that it a justified belief. Knowledge is demonstrable and testable with measurable accuracy. If you can’t demonstrate your knowledge to any degree at all by any means whatsoever then you don’t actually know what you think you do, no matter how convinced of it you are. Without evidentiary support, then it is only an empty assertion unworthy of serious consideration.”

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

Patheos, The Cow http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/01/22/the-cow/ (January 22, 2016)

Truth , Support , Knowledge , Thinking

“From the attacks of 9/11 to Monday's school shooting, after every mass murder there is an overwhelming urge to "do something" to prevent a similar attack.
But since Adam ate the apple and let evil into the world, deranged individuals have existed.
Most of the time they can't be locked up until it's too late. It's not against the law to be crazy — in some jurisdictions it actually makes you more viable as a candidate for public office.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"Let's Make America a 'Sad-Free Zone'!" (18 April 2007) http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=20329.
2007

World , School , Law , Evil

“Macro-evolution would be defined as changing into a different kind of animal. There is no similarity between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Many evolutionists will use micro-evolution to try to prove that macro-evolution is true. We must guard ourselves not to fall for this false logic.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

Change , Animals , Falseness

“Vertically striped sheets of paper, the bands of which are 8.7 cms wide, alternate white and colored, are stuck over internal and external surfaces: walls, fences, display windows, etc.; and/or cloth/canvas support, vertical stripes, white and colored bands each 8.7 cms, the two ends covered with dull white paint.
I record that this is my work for the last four years, without any evolution or way out. This is the past: it does not imply either that it will be the same for another ten or fifteen years or that it will change tomorrow.
The perspective we are beginning to have, thanks to these past four years, allows a few considerations of the direct and indirect implications for the very conception of art. This apparent break (no research, or any formal evolution for four years) offers a platform that we shall situate at zero level, when the observations both internal (conceptual transformation as regards the action/praxis of a similar form) and external (work/production presented by others) are numerous and rendered all the easier as they are not invested in the various surrounding movements, but are rather derived from their absence.”

Daniel Buren (1938) sculptor from France

" Beware!" ("Mise en garde!") http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/buren1.pdf, in Konzeption/Conception, translated by Charles Harrison and Peter Townsend (Leverkusen: Stadtischer Museum, 1969.
1960s

Art , Color , Way , Support

“There are two suffixes in our language (and similar ones in other European languages) which suggest organized knowledge. One is the venerable, academic "ology," that reminds one of university curricula and scholarship. The other is the energetic and somewhat mysterious "ics," which has a connotative flavor of magic. Where "ology" suggests academic isolation (ichthyology, philology) "its" suggests a method of attack on life’s problems. It contains a faint throwback to the ancient dreams of the philosopher’s stone and of "keys" to the riddles of the universe. Ancient words ending in "ics" are mathematics and metaphysics. Of more recent origin are economics, statistics, semantics, and cybernetics.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

1950, p. 12 (1952, p. 123) lead paragraph
1950s, "What is Semantics?", 1950

Life , Dreams , Mathematics , Knowledge

“From the statements we have made, a stupendous perspective emerges, a vista towards a hitherto unsuspected unity of the conception of the world. Similar general principles have evolved everywhere, whether we are dealing with inanimate things, organisms, mental or social processes. What is the origin of these correspondences?
We answer this question by the claim for a new realm of science, which we call General System Theory. It is a logico-mathematical field, the subject matter of which is the formulation and derivation of those principles which hold for systems in general. A "system" can be defined as a complex of elements standing in interaction. There are general principles holding for systems, irrespective of the nature of the component elements and of the relations or forces between them.”

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

Source: 1950s, Problems of Life (1952, 1960), p. 199 as cited in: D.C. (1969) "Systems Theory — A Discredited Philosophy". in: Abacus V. p. 8

World , Mathematics , Question , Nature

Quotes about similarity page 4

Quotes about similarity
page 4