Quotes about similarity (1002 quotes, page 9)

“Writers after Coase have referred to the authority structure of the firm as a "visible hand" that works in combination with Smith's invisible hand. The everyday fact that employers exercise power over their employees — not news to most employees — had been a central theme in Marx's economics, but it was (and generally continues to be) overlooked by most neoclassical economists. Early in his studies Coase noted the similarity between the hierarchical organization of capitalist firms, with their reliance on command relations, and the then-existing system of centralized economic planning in the Communist countries, where production was carried out in accordance with orders from higher authorities and where market competition played little role.”

Samuel Bowles (1939) American economist

Source: Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change, 2005, p. 85

Exercises , Study , Country

“According to liberal liturgy, if not for largely exogenous circumstances—all human beings would be capable of similar accomplishments. Many a co-opted scientist will second the political dictum that there is no such thing as general intelligence. Speak, if you must, about the phenotype—even genotype—of all individual traits other than intelligence. As for the possibility of group genotypic intelligence: Don't go there!”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Trump’s Good for the English Language," http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/trumps-good-for-the-english-language/ WorldNetDaily.com, September 17, 2015.
2010s, 2015

Intelligence

“Large-eyed and well endowed, as her name Pritha connotes, she is strikingly lovely, and Kuntibhoja exhorts her not to neglect any service out of pride in her beauty. Kunti’s relationship with Durvasa does not appear to have been easy. In the account she gives much later to Vyasa, she tells him that despite Durvasa’s conduct having been such as to provide abundant cause for anger, she had not given way to it. She further states that she was constrained at the sage’s insistence to accept his boon, whereby any god would be compelled to answer her summons, and that she obeyed out of fear of his curse. The interaction that she describes after this between her and the sun god, Surya, is exactly similar – the same insistence and the same fear.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Five Holy Virgins, Five Sacred MythsOf Kunti and Satyawati Sexually Assertive Women of the Mahabharata

Love , God , Fear , Beauty

“The diagram on the opposite page, similar in plan and purpose to one devised by Mr. M. C. Rorty, represents, in a general way, the circuit flow of money. To find fault with this diagram from an engineering standpoint would not be difficult; neither would it be sensible. All we should ask of these reservoirs and pipes is that they serve the purpose at hand. In the main, subject to certain qualifica qualifications to be made presently, this diagram does serve our purpose. It pictures the flow of money when business is relatively stable.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Source: The circuit flow of money, 1922, p. 262

Money , Way , Business

“Turning away from the computer I saw through my own narrow window (at least it opened) the green, the blue, the flashes. I looked to the clock, the screen, the window. An hour passed, then two. I looked again at the clock and saw it had been only twenty minutes. I willed the second-hand, the minute-hand, the hour-hand to move faster, to deliver me to five o'clock when I would be released as from my prison term. Then suddenly I stopped, struck by the absurdity of wishing away the only thing I've got. Eight hours, eighty years, it was all too similar. Would I wish away the years until the day of my retirement, until my time was once again my own? At work I tried to keep busy to make the hours pass quickly. It was no different when watching television, socializing, moving frenetically--there are so many ways to kill time.”

Derrick Jensen book A Language Older Than Words

A Language Older Than Words (2000)

Way , Business , Time

“The Islamic claim to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is even more transparently fraudulent… Any secularist willing to uphold this claim as historical? Or otherwise ready to show the courage of his conviction and demand that the Muslims relinquish their claim to the Temple Mount so as to be morally in a poistion to demand a similar abandonment of "mythical" claims from the Hindus?… In the case of Christians and Muslims, no one demands that they prove the historicity of the stories underlying the sacred status of their places of pilgrimage. Demanding the same of Hindus is an insulting display of double standards.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

K. Elst : The Ayodhya Demolition: an Evaluation, in India., & Dasgupta, S. (1995). The Ayodhya reference: The Supreme Court judgement and commentaries.
1990s, The Ayodhya Demolition: an Evaluation (1995)

Courage

“Simonson, in rubber jacket and similar galoshes, bound with whip-cord over woolen socks (he was a vegetarian and did not use the skin of animals), was also awaiting the departure of the party. He stood near the entrance of the house, writing down in a note-book a thought that occurred to him. “If,” he wrote, “a bacterium were to observe and analyze the nail of a man, it would declare him an inorganic being. Similarly, from an observation of the earth’s surface, we declare it to be inorganic. That is wrong.””

Leo Tolstoy book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 83

Books , Departure , Animals , Housing

“Biogeographical and paleobotanical evidence suggests that the aphid subtribe Melaphidina has been associated with its sumac host plant since the early Eocene when these plants were continuously distributed across the Bering land bridge. Transfer experiments indicate that the American species, Melaphis rhois, shows an unusual complex life cycle, similar to that known in Chinese melaphidines, with some generations feeding on mosses as alternate host plants. As with the association with sumac, this complex life cycle may have been established in the melaphidine lineage before the southward retreat of sumac from Alaska 48 million years ago. This example suggests that the interactions and life histories shown by modern populations may be determined, in large part, by evolutionary commitments made in the distant past.”

Nancy A. Moran (1954) American biologist

[A 48-Million-Year-Old Aphid--Host Plant Association and Complex Life Cycle: Biogeographic Evidence, 10.1126/science.245.4914.173, Science, 245, 4914, 173–175, 14 July 1989, 17787877]

Life , History , Distant , Past

“It is customary to define psychiatry as a medical specialty concerned with the study, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses. This is a worthless and misleading definition. Mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists are not concerned with mental illnesses and their treatments. In actual practice they deal with personal, social and ethical problems in living.
I have argued that, today, the notion of a person "having a mental illness" is scientifically crippling. It provides professional assent to a popular rationalization — namely that problems in living experienced and expressed in terms of so-called psychiatric symptoms are basically similar to bodily diseases.
Moreover, the concept of mental illness also undermines the principle of personal responsibility, the ground on which all free political institutions rest.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Conclusions.
The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (1961)

Disease , Problem , Study , Personality

“Even during the fifteen years of Alptigin’s reign Subuktigin is represented by Firishta in an untranslated passage to have made frequent attacks upon India, and even to have penetrated as far as Sodra on the Chinab, where he demolished idols in celebration of Mahmud’s birth, which, as it occurred on the date of the prophet’s birth, Subuktigin was anxious that it should be illustrated by an event similar to the destruction of idols in the palace of the Persian king by an earthquake, on the day of the prophet’s birth.”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

Tarikh-i-Firishta: Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson's History of India as told by its own Historians p. 435-36.

Birth

“But he, with these burthens on him, planned, commenced, and completed, the History of India; and this in the course of about ten years, a shorter time than has been occupied (even by writers who had no other employment) in the production of almost any other historical work of equal bulk, and of anything approaching to the same amount of reading and research. And to this is to be added, that during the whole period, a considerable part of almost every day was employed in the instruction of his children: in the case of one of whom, myself, he exerted an amount of labour, care, and perseverance rarely, if ever, employed for a similar purpose, in endeavouring to give, according to his own conception, the highest order of intellectual education.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/4/mode/1up p. 4

Education , History , Reading , Perseverance

“Ignorance or disregard of our evolutionary heritage, and of the fundamental biological, emotional, cognitive, and social similarities on which much in everyday human life and thought depend, can lead to speculative philosophies and empirical programs that misconstrue the natural scope and limits of our species-specific abilities and competencies. The intellectual and moral consequences of this misconstrual have varying significance, both for ourselves and for others, for example, in the ways relativism informs currently popular notions of "separate but equal" cultural worlds whose peoples are in some sense incommensurably different from ourselves and from one another. Relativism aspires directly to mutual tolerance of irreducible differences. Naturalism-the evolutionary-based biological and cognitive understanding of our common nature and humanity-aims first to render cultural diversity comprehensible. If anything, evolution teaches us that from one or a few forms wondrously many kinds will arise.”

Scott Atran (1952) Anthropologist

Introduction: an evolutionary riddle, p. 17
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002)

Life , People , World , Way

“Legendary King Midas never knew the feel of silk or a human hand after everything he touched turned to gold. Humans are stuck in a similar Midas-like predicament: we can't directly experience the true texture of reality because everything we touch turns to matter.”

Nick Herbert (1936) American physicist

Source: Quantum Reality - Beyond The New Physics, Chapter 10, Quantum Realities: Four More, p. 194

Feeling , Reality

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

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

Women , Men , Sex

“Mr. Jacob A. Riis, a few years ago, used some figures which showed that about one-third of the people of New York City were dependent upon charity at some time during the eight years previous to 1890. The report of the United Hebrew Charities for 1901 shows very similar conditions existing among the Jewish population of New York. But even more astonishing than all other facts we have are those furnished by the State Board of Charities... The poverty of New York State is enormous. In actual figures as reduced, the persons in distress in 1897 number… about 19 per cent of the people of New York and in 1899 they number… about 18 per cent. …If the figures are correct as published the persons in New York State in distress in 1897 and in Boston in 1903 would equal proportionately the number of those in poverty in London.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Poverty (1912), p. 22

People , Time , Dependency , Personality

“All the major teachers have told us that we should love our neighbors as ourselves and that we should love God with all of our heart. They have also told us that this world is not our original home. It is no accident that such diverse yet harmonious teachers have made this consistent, universal presentation. Consider how similar their messages have been: not one major prophet, not one bona fide teacher has said that this world is our home. Instead, these teachers have constantly emphasized that the kingdom of God is the real home that we seek. They are not just trying to get us to be escapists and run away from life. Instead, they are trying to bring us back to reality and to help us escape from this material prison. Although they come from diverse traditions, their message is the same.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 3: Angels and Demigods, p. 55

Love , Life , God , World

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Cars , Reading , Parting

“Massachusetts was not the only, colony that treated witchcraft as a crime. Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia possessed similar enactments. Witchcraft was considered and treated as a capital offense by the laws of both Pennsylvania and New York, trials taking place in both colonies not long before the Salem tragedy……… Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York, eight of the thirteen colonies recognized witchcraft as a capital crime.”

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898) American abolitionist, writer

Source: Woman, Church and State (1893), pp. 289-90

Law

“The reason of a commandment, whether positive or negative, is clear, and its usefulness evident, if it directly tends to remove injustice, or to teach good conduct that furthers the well-being of society, or to impart a truth which ought to be believed either on its own merit or as being indispensable for facilitating the removal of injustice or the teaching of good morals. There is no occasion to ask for the object of such commandments; for no one can, e. g., be in doubt as to the reason why we have been commanded to believe that God is one; why we are forbidden to murder, steal, and to take vengeance, or to retaliate, or why we are commanded to love one another. But there are precepts concerning which people are in doubt, and of divided opinions, some believing they are mere commands, and serve no purpose whatever, whilst others believe that they serve a certain purpose, which, however is unknown to man. Such are those precepts which in their literal meaning do not seem to further any of the three above-named results: to impart some truth, to teach some moral, or to remove injustice. They do not seem to have any influence upon the well-being of the soul by imparting any truth, or upon the well-being of the body by suggesting such ways and rules as are useful in the government of a state, or in the management of a household. …I will show that all these and similar laws must have some bearing upon one of the following three things, viz., the regulation of our opinions, or the improvement of our social relations, which implies two things, the removal of injustice, and the teaching of good morals.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.28

Love , God , People , Truth

“If books were sold as software and online recordings are, they would have this legalese up front:
The content of this book is distributed on an 'as is' basis, without warranty as to accuracy of content, quality of writing, punctuation, usefulness of the ideas presented, merchantability, correctness or readability of formulae, charts, and figures, or correspondence of (a) the table of contents with the actual contents, (2) page references in the index (if any) with the actual page numbering (if present), and (iii) any illustration with its adjacent caption. Illustrations may have been printed reversed or inverted, the publisher accepts no responsibility for orientation or chirality. Any resemblance of the author or his or her likeness or name to any person, living or dead, or their heirs or assigns, is coincidental; all references to people, places, or events have been or should have been fictionalized and may or may not have any factual basis, even if reported as factual. Similarities to existing works of art, literature, song, or television or movie scripts is pure happenstance. References have been chosen at random from our own catalog. Neither the author(s) nor the publisher shall have any liability whatever to any person, corporation, animal whether feral or domesticated, or other corporeal or incorporeal entity with respect to any loss, damage, misunderstanding, or death from choking with laughter or apoplexy at or due to, respectively, the contents; that is caused or is alleged to be caused by any party, whether directly or indirectly due to the information or lack of information that may or may not be found in this alleged work. No representation is made as to the correctness of the ISBN or date of publication as our typist isn't good with numbers and errors of spelling and usage are attributable solely to bugs in the spelling and grammar checker in Microsoft Word. If sold without a cover, this book will be thinner than those sold with a cover. You do not own this book, but have acquired only a revocable non-exclusive license to read the material contained herein. You may not read it aloud to any third party. This disclaimer is a copyrighted work of Jef Raskin, first published in 2004, and is distributed 'as is', without warranty as to quality of humor, incisiveness of commentary, sharpness of taunt, or aptness of jibe.”

Jef Raskin (1943–2005) American computer scientist

"If Books Were Sold as Software" http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&dateissued=20040818#11200, NewsScan.com (18 August 2004)
If Books Were Sold as Software (2004)

Death , People , Books , Art

“Freud spoke of oceanic consciousness as that in which we feel our individual existence lost in mystic union with the universe. Nothing could be more appropriate to contemporary experience, when for the first time man has left the boundaries of this globe. The oceanic effect of synaesthetic cinema is similar to the mystical allure of the natural elements: we stare in mindless wonder at the ocean or a lake or river. We are drawn almost hypnotically to fire, gazing as though spellbound. We see cathedrals in clouds, not thinking anything in particular but feeling somehow secure and content. It is similar to the concept of no-mindedness in Zen, which also is the state of mantra and mandala consciousness, the widest range of consciousness.”

Gene Youngblood book Expanded Cinema

Source: Expanded Cinema, 1970, p. 92, as cited in: " Expanded Cinema, Gene Youngblood, Studio Vista, 1970 http://www.hohlwelt.com/en/books/gyngbld.html" at hohlwelt.com, January 21, 2012

Feeling , Nature , Thinking , Universe

“The year 1844 saw the beginning of Marx’ s friendship and collaboration with Friedrich Engels, whom he had already met briefly in Cologne. Engels had been through a similar spiritual evolution to Marx, though their early education was different. Born on 28 November 1820, Engels was the son of a manufacturer at Barmen (Wuppertal, near Dü sseldorf). He grew up in a stifling atmosphere of narrow-minded pietism, but soon escaped from its influence, leaving school before his final year to work in his father’ s factory; in 1838 he was sent to Bremen to gain business experience. As a result of practical contact with trade and industry he soon became interested in social questions.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

pg. 144
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume I, The Founders

Friendship , Education , School , Question

“There is one god, greatest among gods and men, similar to mortals neither in shape nor in thought.”

Xenophanes (-570–-475 BC) Presocratic philosopher

Fragment 23, as quoted in Notes on Greek Philosophy by Anthony Preus (Global Academic Publishing, 1996), p. 10

Men , God

“Since UFO stands for "unidentified flying object", the word ufology means approximately "knowledge about unknown flying objects", and is therefore a "science" whose content is void by definition. Similar considerations hold for parapsychology.”

Lucio Russo (1944) Italian historian and scientist

1.3, "Science", p. 15n
The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn (2004)

Knowledge , Science , Flying

“Power looks startlingly similar wherever you go. Power does not want you to forget that you are small and alone.”

Sarah Zettel (1966) American writer

Source: Bitter Angels (2009), Chapter 11 (p. 144)

Forgetting

“Since I have talked with many self-styled * atheists, I have come to believe that the true species does not exist, and that atheism, so-called, is either an emotional deviation in the same category as neurotic illness and with a similar causation, or else the denial of the existence of a mythical figure who certainly does not exist.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Preface, p. 15, sentence 4.
The Christian Agnostic (1965)

“The truth is hidden from us. Even if a mere piece of luck brings us straight to it, we shall have no grounded conviction of our success; there are so many similar objects, all claiming to be the real thing.”

Lucian (120) ancient Greek writer

"Hermotimus, or the Rival Philosophies", sect. 49; vol. 2, p. 69.

Truth , Success

“Thousands of years ago, tribes of human beings suffered great privations in the struggle to survive. In this struggle it was important not only to be able to handle a club, but also to possess the ability to think reasonably, to take care of the knowledge and experience garnered by the tribe, and to develop the links that would provide cooperation with other tribes. Today the entire human race is faced with a similar test. In infinite space many civilizations are bound to exist, among them civilizations that are also wiser and more "successful" than ours. I support the cosmological hypothesis which states that the development of the universe is repeated in its basic features an infinite number of times. In accordance with this, other civilizations, including more "successful" ones, should exist an infinite number of times on the "preceding" and the "following" pages of the Book of the Universe. Yet this should not minimize our sacred endeavors in this world of ours, where, like faint glimmers of light in the dark, we have emerged for a moment from the nothingness of dark unconsciousness of material existence. We must make good the demands of reason and create a life worthy of ourselves and of the goals we only dimly perceive.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Nobel Lecture

Life , Books , World , Support

“I not a bit of use for the "propaganda of the deed."These are the tactics of anarchist individualists and not of socialist collectivists. They were developed by and belong exclusively to our anarchist friends and accord perfectly with their philosophy. These and similar measures are reactionary, not revolutionary, and they invariably have a demoralizaing effect upon the following of those who practice them. If I believed in the doctrine of violence and destruction as part policy; if I regarded te class struggle as guerilla warfare, I would join the anarchists and practice as well as preach such tactics.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

Sound Socialist Tactics (1912)

Parting

“It is not the similarity or dissimilarity of individuals that constitutes a group, but interdependence of fate.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Kurt Lewin (1939) "When facing danger". In Lewin, G. W. (Ed.), Resolving Social Conﬂict. London: Harper & Row.
1930s

Fate

“Totalitarian art must be a form of classicism: the state which is founded on order and subordination demands an art with a similar basis. Romantic painting, however popular, expresses the revolt of the individual. The State also requires an art of reason by which appropriate works may be produced as required. Inspiration is outside state control. The classic attitude toward subject matter — that it should be clear and unequivocal — supports the attitude of unquestioning belief. Add the fact that totalitarian art must be real enough to please the ignorant, ideal enough to commemorate a national hero, and well enough designed to present a memorable image, and one sees how perfectly The Death of Marat fills the bill. That it happens also to be a great work of art makes it dangerously misleading.”

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

Source: The Romantic Rebellion (1973), Ch. 1: David

Death , Art , Support , Painting

“One of our most important tasks will be to save future generations from a similar political fate and to maintain for ever watchful in them a knowledge of the menace of Jewry. For this reason alone it is vital that the Passion play be continued at Oberammergau; for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the times of the Romans. There one sees in Pontius Pilate a Roman racially and intellectually so superior, that he stands like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

on the Passion Play at Oberammergau, 5 July 1942.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

Fate , Knowledge , Passion , Time

“If two objects or human beings show similar behaviour in all their relevant aspects open to observation, the assumption of some unobservable hidden difference between them must be regarded as a completely gratuitous hypothesis and one contrary to sound scientific method.”

John Harsanyi (1920–2000) hungarian economist

Harsanyi, J. C. (1955). "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility". J. Polit. Economy 63 (4): p. 317

“To help us to understand three-dimensional spaces, two-dimensional analogies may be very useful… A two-dimensional space of zero curvature is a plane, say a sheet of paper. The two-dimensional space of positive curvature is a convex surface, such as the shell of an egg. It is bent away from the plane towards the same side in all directions. The curvature of the egg, however, is not constant: it is strongest at the small end. The surface of constant positive curvature is the sphere… The two-dimensional space of negative curvature is a surface that is convex in some directions and concave in others, such as the surface of a saddle or the middle part of an hour glass. Of these two-dimensional surfaces we can form a mental picture because we can view them from outside… But… a being… unable to leave the surface… could only decide of which kind his surface was by studying the properties of geometrical figures drawn on it. …On the sheet of paper the sum of the three angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, on the egg, or the sphere, it is larger, on the saddle it is smaller. …The spaces of zero and negative curvature are infinite, that of positive curvature is finite. …the inhabitant of the two-dimensional surface could determine its curvature if he were able to study very large triangles or very long straight lines. If the curvature were so minute that the sum of the angles of the largest triangle that he could measure would… differ… by an amount too small to be appreciable… then he would be unable to determine the curvature, unless he had some means of communicating with somebody living in the third dimension…. our case with reference to three-dimensional space is exactly similar. …we must study very large triangles and rays of light coming from very great distances. Thus the decision must necessarily depend on astronomical observations.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932)

Communication , Understanding , Decision , Study

“The life cycle of family size, at least in the U. S., has a very humped shape rather similar to that of income, though with a somewhat earlier peak. As a result, one might expect, and generally finds a fairly constant rate of saving in the central age group, but lower saving or even dissaving in the very young or old.”

Franco Modigliani (1918–2003) Italian-American economist

Franco Modigliani, " Life Cycle, Individual Thrift and the Wealth of Nations http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/fichiers/enseig/ecoineg/EcoIneg_fichiers/ModiglianiNobelLecture1985(AER1986).pdf" Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 9, 1985, in: Nobel Lectures, Economics 1981-1990, Editor Karl-Göran Mäler, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1992.

Life , Age , Family

“That Fingal is not from beginning to end a translation from the Gallick, but that some passages have been supplied by the editor to connect the whole, I have heard admitted by very warm advocates for its authenticity. If this be the case, why are not these distinctly ascertained? Antiquaries, and admirers of the work, may complain, that they are in a situation similar to that of the unhappy gentleman whose wife informed him, on her death-bed, that one of their reputed children was not his; and, when he eagerly begged her to declare which of them it was, she answered, That you shall never know', and expired, leaving him in irremediable doubt as to them all.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785), p. 490.
Criticism

Death , Children

“Every one knows that the fine phrase "God geometrizes" is attributed to Plato, but few know where this famous passage is found, or the exact words in which it was first expressed. Those who, like the author, have spent hours and even days in the search of the exact statements, or the exact references, of similar famous passages, will not question the timeliness and usefulness of a book whose distinct purpose it is to bring together into a single volume exact quotations, with their exact references, bearing on one of the most time-honored, and even today the most active and most fruitful of all the sciences, the queen-mother of all the sciences, that is, mathematics.”

Robert Edouard Moritz (1868–1940) German mathematician

Robert Edouard Moritz. On Mathematics and Mathematicians https://archive.org/details/onmathematicsmat00mori, 1914, 1942, 1958; p. v; Preface, lead sentence

God , Books , Search , Mathematics

“System' is the concept that refers both to a complex of interdependencies between parts, components, and processes, that involves discernible regularities of relationships, and to a similar type of interdependency between such a complex and its surrounding environment.”

Talcott Parsons (1902–1979) American sociologist

Talcott Parsons (1968) "Systems Analysis: Social Systems" in: David L. Sills ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. p. 458; Cited in: Ida R. Hoos (1972) Systems Analysis in Public Policy: A Critique.

Parting

“[S]egments of the Right, who denounced phrases like “economic patriotism” when it passed Barack Obama’s lips but nod and cheer when similar phrases come out of the mouths of “nationalists.” They see the state as the key to fostering a new social solidarity because it alone speaks for their new idol — or “strong god” — of the Nation. Passionate nationalists, like passionate socialists, ultimately believe that the State can love you, and if the right people take it over, the divisions that are inevitable in a free society will be knitted together by some government initiative. But that is not love, it is lust. It is a lust for power and victory for your vision over all others.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, The Government Can’t Love You (2018)

Love , God , People , Strong

“A man who crosses the street must be careful not to be hit by a car, even if the car is an automatic vehicle without a driver, because the car is stronger than a man. We should be afraid of devices that function in a dangerous way for us. The robot will become such a device if we manage to equip it not so much in intelligence as in mechanisms imitating the effects of a certain human functionality. I mean equipping robots with mechanisms that function in a similar way to consciousness of existence and the instinct of self-preservation of a human being. I do not mean to say that the device will be conscious, but that its behavior will be similar to the behavior of a rational unit, such as a man aware of his existence. The machine will not receive consciousness, but it will behave as if it did.”

Zygmunt Vetulani (1950) Polish mathematician

Tumiłowicz, Bronisław (February 2018): Zrób sobie mózg https://www.tygodnikprzeglad.pl/zrob-sobie-mozg/. Przegląd (6/2018): pp. 58–59.

Cars , Way , Behavior , Intelligence

“The story we’re told about sexuality is very similar to the story we’re told about citizenship: Once upon a time, things were very bad and nobody had any fun. Then there were a series of revolutions, and various oppressed groups threw off their chains, and now we are free, the end. If you’re not living happily ever after, it’s your own damn fault. When, and if, anyone ever does get caught flagrantly abusing their power, we write them off as monsters, lone wolves, bad apples, or any other fairytale monster that allows us to continue the bedtime story in which white supremacist capitalist patriarchy is working well for everyone.”

Laurie Penny (1986) English journalist

The Consent of the (Un)governed

Fairytale , Time

“Religion is for Machiavelli utterly necessary to found, preserve, and reform good political orders. He stated this view in the most unequivocal manner. At the same time he knew very well that the only available religion was the Christian. Had he believed and argued that Christian religion was in its essence and hopelessly inimical to good political orders and above all to republican liberty he would have been compelled to also believe and argue that good political orders and republican liberty were impossible for the moderns in general and for the Italians in particular, a conclusion that he never entertained. Instead, he believed in, and suggested, the possibility of a civic interpretation of Christianity similar to the one that he knew existed in his Florence.”

Maurizio Viroli (1952) Italian essayist and philosopher

Preface
Machiavelli’s God (2011)

Religion , Time

“I wonder how Feynman would feel if he had to be talking to not just a few nuts of this kind but e. g. to 2,500 similar nuts who would be moreover described by the media as good scientists, if not the best ones in the world.;-) Good for him that he managed to die in time.”

Luboš Motl (1973) Czech physicist and translator

http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/09/schellnhuber-west-has-exceeded-quotas.html
The Reference Frame http://motls.blogspot.com/

World , Feeling , Time

“Hui Shih was a man of many devices and his writings would fill five carriages. But his doctrines were jumbled and perverse and his words wide of the mark. His way of dealing with things may be seen from these sayings:
"The largest thing has nothing beyond it; it is called the One of largeness. The smallest thing has nothing within it; it is called the One of smallness."
"That which has no thickness cannot be piled up; yet it is a thousand li in dimension."
"Heaven is as low as earth; mountains and marshes are on the same level."
"The sun at noon is the sun setting. The thing born is the thing dying."
"Great similarities are different from little similarities; these are called the little similarities and differences. The ten thousand things are all similar and are all different; these are called the great similarities and differences."
"The southern region has no limit and yet has a limit."
"I set off for Yueh today and came there yesterday."
"Linked rings can be separated."
"I know the center of the world: it is north of Yen and south of Yueh."”

Hui Shi

"Let love embrace the ten thousand things; Heaven and earth are a single body."
'With sayings such as these, Hui Shih tried to introduce a more magnanimous view of the world and to enlighten the rhetoricians.'
Zhuangzi, Ch. 33, as translated by Burton Watson (1968), p. 374; this contains the core of what has survived of Hui Shi's philosophy, most of the records of it having been eradicated in the vast "burning of books and burying of scholars" during the Legalism of the Qin dynasty.

Love , World , Way , Mountain

“I have not as yet noticed by far the most remarkable feature in the natural history of this archipelago; it is, that the different islands to a considerable extent are inhabited by a different set of beings. My attention was first called to this fact by the Vice-Governor, Mr. Lawson, declaring that the tortoises differed from the different islands, and that he could with certainty tell from which island any one was brought. I did not for some time pay sufficient attention to this statement, and I had already partially mingled together the collections from two of the islands. I never dreamed that islands, about fifty or sixty miles apart, and most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted; but we shall soon see that this is the case. It is the fate of most voyagers, no sooner to discover what is most interesting in any locality, than they are hurried from it; but I ought, perhaps, to be thankful that I obtained sufficient materials to establish this most remarkable fact in the distribution of organic beings.”

Charles Darwin book The Voyage of the Beagle

Source: The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), chapter XVII: "Galapagos Archipelago" (second edition, 1845), pages 393-394 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=406&itemID=F14&viewtype=image

Fate , Dreams , History , Nature

“Tsai's Multi-kinetics were dynamically integrated multiple constructions, employing thirty-two kinetic units, each of which contains a configuration of multi-colored gyroscopic forms. With these elements he created an active environmental field that could, apparently, be infinitely extended. Each motorized unit was a self-sufficient entity, and when it was combined with other similar units produced a large-scale kinetic work that joined visual intensity with mechanical power. By controlling the time sequence of each unit in skillful compositions, Tsai used engineering principles to achieve aesthetic ends.”

Sam Hunter (1923–2014) American art historian

Source: The Cybernetic Sculpture of Tsai Wen-Ying, 1989, p. 66-67

Color , Time

“During the course of many years of investigation into the plant life of the world, creating new forms, modifying old ones, adapting others to new conditions, and blending still others, I have constantly been impressed with the similarity between the organization and development of plant and human life.”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

p, 125
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)

Life , World

“How ironic. In order to avoid the "nutty" theory of inversion, Gaskell invented the even odder notion of stomachs turning into brains with new guts forming below. No wonder then, that later biologists cast a plague on both speculative houses and opted instead for the obvious alternative: arthropods and vertebrates do not share the same anatomical plan at all, but rather represent two separate evolutionary developments of similar complexity from a much simpler common ancestor that grew neither a discrete gut nor a central nerve cord.”

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

"Brotherhood by Inversion", p. 327
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Housing

“Gregor Strasser, Hitler's dangerous rival in the party, was out to gain control of the whole of the party formations, the organs of public administration, and those of social and economic life, particularly the trade unions, which he proposed to form into a great and comprehensive force of Workers' Guards of the revolution. This brought him into conflict with Roehm's similar ambitions for the S. A.”

Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982) German politician

Source: Men in Chaos (1942), p. 17

Life

“Gandhi, that great apostle of non-violence, and Aung San, the founder of a national army, were very different personalities, but as there is an inevitable sameness about the challenges of authoritarian rule anywhere at any time, so there is a similarity in the intrinsic qualities of those who rise up to meet the challenge.”

Aung San Suu Kyi book Freedom from Fear

Freedom from Fear (1991)

Time , Personality

“Australians, like other peoples, tend to think they are highly distinctive, but the characteristics they value may be an extension or an exaggeration of what they brought from the mother country. In some respects they may be more like the peoples of other new lands settled by the British than they are willing to acknowledge. Australian soldiers and Australian nurses of World War I felt themselves to be very different from their English counterparts but the English were inclined to see all the colonials - New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians - as similar and different from themselves.”

John Hirst (1942–2016) Australian historian

The Australians: Insiders and Outsiders on the National Character since 1770 (2007)

War , People , World , Thinking

“What appears spectral today will be natural tomorrow. Where are such signs and works? How do we recognize the genuine ones? Like everything genuine, its inner life guarantees its truth. All works of art created by truthful minds without regard for the work's conventional exterior remain genuine for all times... The present isolation of the rare, genuine artist is absolutely unavoidable for the moment... This fact leads us to the idea that we are standing today at the turning point of two long epochs, similar to the state of the world fifteen hundred years ago, when there was also a transitional period without art and religion - a period in which great and traditional ideas died and new and unexpected ones took their place.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

1911 - 1914, The 'Savages' of Germany' (1912)

Life , Truth , World , Religion

“Let us summarize these three points more concisely:
(a) The rejection of art as a mere emotional, individualistic, and romantic affair.
(b) 'Objective' work, undertaken with the silent hope that the end product will nevertheless eventually be regarded as a work of art.
(c) Consciously goal-directed work in architecture, which will have a concise artistic effect on the basis of well-preparated objective-scientific criteria.
Such an architecture will actively raise the general standard of living. This represents the dialectic of our development process, which purports to arrive at the affirmative by negation — a process similar to melting down old iron and forging it into new steel.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

Quotes from: 'Ideological Superstructure'
1926 - 1941, Rußland: Die Rekonstruktion der Architektur in der Sowjetunion' (1929)

Hope , Art

“An intrinsic problem, similar to the one we discussed in connexion with tradition in general, presents itself with the process of transmission of the symbolic universe from one generation to another. Socialization is never completely successful. Some individuals 'inhabit' the transmitted universe more definitely than others.”

Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

1991; 124
The Social Construction of Reality, 1966

Problem , Universe , Success

“His little face was tense in study, for he had partially grasped, in a hazy, nebulous way, the rudiments of a thought which was destined to prove the key and the solution to the puzzling problem of the strange little bugs.
In his hands was a primer opened at a picture of a little ape similar to himself, but covered, except for hands and face, with strange, colored fur, for such he thought the jacket and trousers to be. Beneath the picture were three little bugs — BOY.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 7 : The Light of Knowledge

Color , Way , Boy , Problem

“PLAYBOY: A Columbia coed was recently quoted in Newsweek as equating you and LSD. “LSD doesn’t mean anything until you consume it,” she said. “Likewise McLuhan.” Do you see any similarities?
McLUHAN: I’m flattered to hear my work described as hallucinogenic, but I suspect that some of my academic critics find me a bad trip.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1960s, Playboy Interview (1969)

Quotes

“What is chiefly needed is skill rather than machinery. The flight of the buzzard and similar sailors is a convincing demonstration of the value of skill and the partial needlessness of motors.
It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill. This I conceive to be fortunate, for man, by reason of his greater intellect, can more reasonably hope to equal birds in knowledge than to equal nature in the perfection of her machinery…”

Wilbur Wright (1867–1912) American aviation pioneer

Letter to Octave Chanute (13 May 1900)

Hope , Nature , Knowledge , Bird

“Man derives two capital advantages from the superiority of his intellectual powers. The first is, that, as an individual, he possesses a certain comprehension of mind, whereby he contemplates and enjoys the past and the future, as well as the present. This comprehension is enlarged with the experience of every day; and by this means the happiness of man, as he advances in intellect, is continually less dependent on temporary circumstances and sensations.The next advantage resulting from the same principle, and which is, in many respects, both the cause and effect of the former, is, that the human species itself is capable of a similar and unbounded improvement; whereby mankind in a later age are greatly superior to mankind in a former age, the individuals being taken at the same time of life.”

Joseph Priestley book Essay on the First Principles of Government

Section I, "Of the First Principles of Government, and the different kinds of Liberty"
Essay on the First Principles of Government, 2nd Edition (1771)

Life , Age , Time , Past

“Once more, the spectre of Cold War is everywhere. Defence budgets, a decimal part of which could free humanity from hunger, disease, illiteracy, and poverty, instead of decreasing, have grown. The gap between 'the haves' and 'the have-nots' is daily widening. Many nations seem to be politically independent but cannot use their independence to deal with their problems or to prosper because foreign influence and interference is still strong. Fratricide and similar savagery in the world sting the human conscience. Racial discrimination a mark of shame on twentieth-century man, although intolerable to most humans can still be seen in various parts of the world. And the power-seeking policies of the strong are hampering the execution of United Nations' ideals.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

The Shah's Message on the occasion of the 23rd Anniversary of the Foundation of the United Nations - October 24, 1968 http://members.cybertrails.com/~pahlavi/un-1.html
Speeches, 1968

Hunger , War , World , Disease

“Everything in our modern substitutes for religion—whether Baconian or Rousseauistic—will be found to converge upon the idea of service. The crucial question is whether one is safe in assuming that the immense machinery of power that has resulted from activity of the utilitarian type can be made, on anything like present lines, to serve disinterested ends; whether it will not rather minister to the egoistic aims either of national groups or of individuals.
One's answer to this question will depend on one's view of the Rousseauistic theory of brotherhood. … To assert that man in a state of nature, or some similar state thus projected, is good, is to discredit the traditional controls in the actual world. Humility, conversion, decorum—all go by the board in favor of free temperamental overflow. Does man thus emancipated exude spontaneously an affection for his fellows that will be an effective counterpoise to the sheer expansion of his egoistic impulses? …
Unfortunately, the facts have persistently refused to conform to humanitarian theory. There has been an ever-growing body of evidence from the eighteenth century to the Great War that in the natural man, as he exists in the real world and not in some romantic dreamland, the will to power is, on the whole, more than a match for the will to service. To be sure, many remain unconvinced by this evidence. Stubborn facts, it has been rightly remarked, are as nothing compared with a stubborn theory. Altruistic theory is likely to prove peculiarly stubborn, because, probably more than any other theory ever conceived, it is flattering: it holds out the hope of the highest spiritual benefits—for example, peace and fraternal union—without any corresponding spiritual effort.”

Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) American academic and literary criticism

Source: "What I Believe" (1930), pp. 7-8

War , World , Peace , Religion

“Playing the lottery is gambling, and I'm not a gambler. I assessed my life, knew I wanted to become a successful writer, and believed that I had a winner for a story. All I imagined was getting a huge publishing deal and attending the premier of my movie. In fact, every time my wife and I went to the movies, I'd tell her that, one day, we'll be in a theater in Hollywood watching MEG. Does that mean that I wasn't scared? Of course not. The process is similar to crawling out on a limb of a very high tree. You know you're out there and that it's a huge drop if you fall. Out along the weakest branches grows the fruit. If you really intend on making it all the way out to the fruit, you can't hold onto the trunk, you have to let go. At the same time, you have to be smart enough not to look down (negatives), which, of course, everyone you know is screaming at you to do. If you don't want to fall, then keep looking at the fruit. This all may sound hooky, but it works and it's how I've chosen to live my life, ever since I was 13 years old.”

Steve Alten (1959) American writer

Interview with Steve Alten http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/article/d14867f2 (March 11th, 2004)

Life , Way , Imagination , Tree

“The Dutch at close proximity looked much like Americans, apart from their peculiar uniforms, and so it was their uniforms I fired at, half convinced that I was killing, not human beings, but enemy costumes, which had borne their contents here from a distant land; and if some living man suffered for his enslavement to the uniform, or was penetrated by the bullets aimed at it—well, that was unavoidable, and the fault couldn’t be placed at my feet.
The private charade was not equivalent to Courage, but it enabled a Callousness that served a similar purpose.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

Source: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (2009), p. 109

Courage , Suffering , Distant

“The unacceptability of the Doomsday Machine raises awkward, unpleasant, and complicated questions that must be considered by both policy maker and technician. If it is not acceptable to risk the lives of the three billion inhabitants of the earth in order to protect ourselves from surprise attack, then how many people would we be willing to risk? I believe that both the United States and NATO would reluctantly be willing to envisage the possibility of one or two hundred million people (i. e., about five times more than World War II deaths) dying from the immediate effects, even if one does not include deferred long-term effects due to radiation, if an all-out thermonuclear war results from a failure of Type I Deterrence. With somewhat more controversy, similar numbers would apply to Type II Deterrence. (For example, some experts would concede the statement for an all-out Soviet nuclear attack on Europe, but not if the Soviets restricted themselves to the use of conventional weapons.) We are willing to live with the possibility partly because we think of it as a remote possibility. We do not expect either kind of deterrence to fail, and we do not expect the results to be that cataclysmic if deterrence does fail.”

Herman Kahn (1922–1983) American futurist

The Magnum Opus; On Thermonuclear War

Death , War , People , World

“Never before has the idea that peace is indivisible been so true as it is now.
Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Nobel Address (1991)
Context: Today, peace means the ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity among countries and nations.
Peace is movement towards globality and universality of civilization. Never before has the idea that peace is indivisible been so true as it is now.
Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.
And, ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.

Peace , Idea

“Who would imagine that the Deity conducts his providence similar to the detestable despots of this world? Oh horrible? most horrible impeachment of Divine Goodness!”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. III Section II - The Moral Government of God as Incompatible With Eternal Punishment
Context: Who would imagine that the Deity conducts his providence similar to the detestable despots of this world? Oh horrible? most horrible impeachment of Divine Goodness! Rather let us exaltedly suppose that God eternally had the ultimate best good of beings generally and individually in his view, with the reward of the virtuous and the punishment of the vicious, and that no other punishment will ever be inflicted, merely by the divine administration, but that will finally terminate in the best good of the punished, and thereby subserve the great and important ends of the divine government, and be productive of the restoration and felicity of all finite rational nature.

World , Imagination

“I have frequently found, under similar circumstances, that after I had been brought into such a state as to be willing to give up my own will, whereby I was fitted to bear the blessing, the Lord gave me the desire of my heart, according to the truth of that word: "Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart."”

George Müller (1805–1898) German-English clergyman

Psalm xxxvii. 4.
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller Written by Himself, Second Part.
Second Part of Narrative

Truth , Heart

“Often as you move comments around and have similar comments adjacent to each other, you find that half of the words can be cut out. Because a sentence says it all if the sentence is in just the right place.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text
Context: Often as you move comments around and have similar comments adjacent to each other, you find that half of the words can be cut out. Because a sentence says it all if the sentence is in just the right place. On Ward's wiki, the process has been called "refactoring," which is what we call the process in software. Ward's wiki is about software and it has software people on it, so they call it refactoring. Anyplace else it would probably be called editing. So on Ward's wiki, refactoring is an ongoing process. The assumption is that when something turns out to not be ideal, it will be refactored again. Everything is subject to refactoring.

“We are accustomed to speak of ideas as reproduced, as passed from mind to mind, as similar or dissimilar to one another, and, in short, as if they were substantial things; nor can any reasonable objection be raised to such expressions.”

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

The Law of Mind (1892)
Context: We are accustomed to speak of ideas as reproduced, as passed from mind to mind, as similar or dissimilar to one another, and, in short, as if they were substantial things; nor can any reasonable objection be raised to such expressions. But taking the word "idea" in the sense of an event in an individual consciousness, it is clear that an idea once past is gone forever, and any supposed recurrence of it is another idea. These two ideas are not present in the same state of consciousness, and therefore cannot possibly be compared.

Idea

“Turtles, he adds, and such large ammonites as are found in Portland, seem to have been the productions of the seas of hotter countries, and it is necessary to suppose that England once lay under the sea within the torrid zone! To explain this and similar phenomena, he indulges in a variety of speculations concerning changes in the position of the axis of the earth's rotation, a shifting of the earth's center of gravity, 'analogous to the revolutions of the magnetic pole,' &c. None of these conjectures, however, are proposed dogmatically, but rather in the hope of promoting fresh inquiries and experiments.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.3, p. 37
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1
Context: Respecting the extinction of species, Hooke was aware that the fossil ammonites, nautili, and many other shells and fossil skeletons found in England, were of different species from any then known; but he doubted whether the species had become extinct, observing that the knowledge of naturalists of all the marine species, especially those inhabiting the deep sea, was very deficient. In some parts of his writings, however, he leans to the opinion that species had been lost; and in speculating on this subject, he even suggests that there might be some connection between the disappearance of certain kinds of animals and plants, and the changes wrought by earthquakes in former ages. Some species, he observes with great sagacity, are peculiar to certain places, and not to be found elsewhere. If, then, such a place had been swallowed up, it is not improbable but that those animate beings may have been destroyed with it; and this may be true both of aerial and aquatic animals: for those animated bodies, whether vegetables or animals, which were naturally nourished or refreshed by the air, would be destroyed by the water, &c.; Turtles, he adds, and such large ammonites as are found in Portland, seem to have been the productions of the seas of hotter countries, and it is necessary to suppose that England once lay under the sea within the torrid zone! To explain this and similar phenomena, he indulges in a variety of speculations concerning changes in the position of the axis of the earth's rotation, a shifting of the earth's center of gravity, 'analogous to the revolutions of the magnetic pole,' &c.; None of these conjectures, however, are proposed dogmatically, but rather in the hope of promoting fresh inquiries and experiments.

Hope , Change , Sea , Country

“I think love and sex are separate and only vaguely similar.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Introduction of "" (1977) in Shatterday (1990)
Context: I think love and sex are separate and only vaguely similar. Like the word bear and the word bare. You can get in trouble mistaking one for the other.

Love , Sex , Thinking

“It may seem paradoxical to say that there are similarities between a poetical and a commercial mind, but it is a fact that both a poet and a businessman are constantly dealing with problems that are directly related to people and for which sensitivity is of prime importance.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

1950's, On Being a Graphic Artist', 1953
Context: It may seem paradoxical to say that there are similarities between a poetical and a commercial mind, but it is a fact that both a poet and a businessman are constantly dealing with problems that are directly related to people and for which sensitivity is of prime importance. The business-like mind is sometimes described as being cold, sober, calculating, hard; but perhaps these are simply qualities that are necessary for dealing with people if one wants to achieve anything. One is always concerned with the mysterious, incalculable, dark, hidden aspects for which there is no easy formula, but which form essentially the same human element as that which inspires the poet.

People , Problem

“A great change is going on all over the civilized world similar to that infeudation which, in Europe, during the rise of the feudal system, converted free proprietors into vassals, and brought all society into subordination to a hierarchy of wealth and privilege.”

Henry George (1839–1897) American economist

Source: Social Problems (1883), Ch. 5 : The March of Concentration
Context: A great change is going on all over the civilized world similar to that infeudation which, in Europe, during the rise of the feudal system, converted free proprietors into vassals, and brought all society into subordination to a hierarchy of wealth and privilege. Whether the new aristocracy is hereditary or not makes little difference. Chance alone may determine who will get the few prizes of a lottery. But it is not the less certain that the vast majority of all who take part in it must draw blanks. The forces of the new era have not yet had time to make status hereditary, but we may clearly see that when the industrial organization compels a thousand workmen to take service under one master, the proportion of masters to men will be but as one to a thousand, though the one may come from the ranks of the thousand. "Master"! We don't like the word. It is not American! But what is the use of objecting to the word when we have the thing? The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will.

World , Change , Wealth

“Our country today is at a stage in our foreign policy similar to that crucial point in our nation's early history when our Constitution was produced in Philadelphia.
Let us hear the peal of a new international liberty bell that calls us all to the creation of a system of enforceable world law in which the universal desire for peace can place its hope and prayers.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

UN Address (1999)
Context: Our country today is at a stage in our foreign policy similar to that crucial point in our nation's early history when our Constitution was produced in Philadelphia.
Let us hear the peal of a new international liberty bell that calls us all to the creation of a system of enforceable world law in which the universal desire for peace can place its hope and prayers.
As Carl Van Doren has written, "History is now choosing the founders of the World Federation. Any person who can be among that number and fails to do so has lost the noblest opportunity of a lifetime."

World , Peace , Law , Hope

Steven Novella (1964) American neurologist, skepticist

SGU, Podcast #326, October 15th, 2011 http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/326
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, Podcast, 2010s
Context: In fact, there are many altered brain states where people may have a very vivid experience, or at least a vivid memory of their experience, precisely because they have impaired brain function. When you start dropping some of the higher brain functions out of the loop, like reality testing and things like that, … things can seem hyper-real. That could actually be a sign of brain dysfunction. It's similar to … somebody who is stoned thinking that they are really profound.

Thinking

“The startling truth is that our best efforts for civil rights, international peace, population control, conservation of natural resources, and assistance to the starving of the earth—urgent as they are—will destroy rather than help if made in the [current] spirit. For, as things stand, we have nothing to give. If our own riches and our own way of life are not enjoyed here, they will not be enjoyed anywhere else. Certainly they will supply the immediate jolt of energy and hope that methedrine, and similar drugs, give in extreme fatigue. But peace can be made only by those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love. No work of love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 83

Love , Life , Truth , Fear

“Concerning the generation of animals akin to them, as hornets and wasps, the facts in all cases are similar to a certain extent, but are devoid of the extraordinary features which characterize bees; this we should expect, for they have nothing divine about them as the bees have.”

Aristotle book Generation of Animals

Book III, 761a.2
Generation of Animals

Bee , Animals

“We must open up our hands, raise our palms up high to see, the mazes of our unique selves, end with similarity.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"What Has Become"
For Whom The Troubadour Sings (2010)
Context: If a fist can hold a sword, and a fist can clench a pen, but the points of both are missed, by dull, tarnished pride of men. We must open up our hands, raise our palms up high to see, the mazes of our unique selves, end with similarity.

“If we suppose that similar intervals exist between all the stars,”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Footnote: By Mr. Henderson Professor of Astronomy in the Edinburgh University and Lieutenant Meadows.
p. 3
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
Context: A sensible parallax of about one second has been ascertained in the case of the double star [ Alpha Centauri ] of the constellation of the Centaur, and one of the third of that amount for the double star, 61 Cygni; which gave reason to presume that the distance of the former might be about twenty thousand millions of miles, and the latter of much greater amount. If we suppose that similar intervals exist between all the stars, we shall readily see that the space occupied by even the comparatively small number visible to the naked eye, must be vast beyond all powers of conception.

Star

“Everyone knows there are billions and billions of stars, and national debts conjure up similar astronomical numbers. Yet we have found a way to hide the zeros: 109 doesn't look as bad as 1,000,000,000.”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

Source: The Book of Nothing (2009), chapter nought "Nothingology—Flying to Nowhere"

Way , Star

“The Science of Language has taught us that there is order and wisdom in all languages, and even the most degraded jargons contain the ruins of former greatness and beauty. The Science of Religion, I hope, will produce a similar change in our views of barbarous forms of faith and worship; and missionaries, instead of looking only for points of difference, will look out more anxiously for any common ground, any spark of the true light that may still be revived, any altar that may be dedicated afresh to the true God.”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Preface (Scribner edition, 1872) 
Chips from a German Workshop (1866)
Context: Missionaries are apt to look upon all other religions as something totally distinct from their own, as formerly they used to describe the languages of barbarous nations as something more like the twittering of birds than the articulate speech of men. The Science of Language has taught us that there is order and wisdom in all languages, and even the most degraded jargons contain the ruins of former greatness and beauty. The Science of Religion, I hope, will produce a similar change in our views of barbarous forms of faith and worship; and missionaries, instead of looking only for points of difference, will look out more anxiously for any common ground, any spark of the true light that may still be revived, any altar that may be dedicated afresh to the true God.
And even to us at home, a wider view of the religious life of the world may teach many a useful lesson.

Wisdom , God , Faith , Religion

“Viewed at its grandest, P.C. is an attempt to accelerate evolution. To speak truthfully, while that's still okay, everybody is a racist or has racial prejudices. This is because human beings tend to like the similar, the familiar, the familial.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin" (1997)
Context: Viewed at its grandest, P. C. is an attempt to accelerate evolution. To speak truthfully, while that's still okay, everybody is a racist or has racial prejudices. This is because human beings tend to like the similar, the familiar, the familial. Again, I say, I am a racist. I am not as racist as my parents. My children will not be as racist as I am. Freedom from racial prejudice is what we hope for down the line. Impatient with this hope, this process, P. C. seeks to get things done right now. In a generation or at the snap of a finger, you can simply announce yourself to be purged of these atavisms.

Family

“Few found the similarity suspicious”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 46
Context: We've tended in our cosmologies to make things familiar. Despite all our best efforts, we've not been very inventive. In the West, Heaven is placid and fluffy, and Hell is like the inside of a volcano. In many stories, both realms are governed by dominance hierarchies headed by gods or devils. Monotheists talked about the king of kings. In every culture we imagined something like our own political system running the Universe. Few found the similarity suspicious.

“I profoundly believe that there is on this horizon, as yet only dimly perceived, a new dawn of conscience. In that purer light, people will come to see themselves in each other, which is to say they will make themselves known to one another by their similarities rather than by their differences. Man's knowledge of things will begin to be matched by man's knowledge of self.”

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

Speech in Springfield Illinois (24 October 1952)
Context: I do not believe it is man's destiny to compress this once boundless earth into a small neighborhood, the better to destroy it. Nor do I believe it is in the nature of man to strike eternally at the image of himself, and therefore of God. I profoundly believe that there is on this horizon, as yet only dimly perceived, a new dawn of conscience. In that purer light, people will come to see themselves in each other, which is to say they will make themselves known to one another by their similarities rather than by their differences. Man's knowledge of things will begin to be matched by man's knowledge of self. The significance of a smaller world will be measured not in terms of military advantage, but in terms of advantage for the human community. It will be the triumph of the heartbeat over the drumbeat.
These are my beliefs and I hold them deeply, but they would be without any inner meaning for me unless I felt that they were also the deep beliefs of human beings everywhere. And the proof of this, to my mind, is the very existence of the United Nations.

People , Knowledge , Light

“I think politicians and movie actors and movie executives are similar in more ways than they’re different.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

Interview on National Public Radio (13 December 1974)
Context: I think politicians and movie actors and movie executives are similar in more ways than they’re different. There is an egocentric quality about both; there is a very sensitive awareness of the public attitude, because you live or die on public favor or disfavor. There is the desire for publicity and for acclaim, because, again, that’s part of your life... And in a strange and bizarre way, when movie actors come to Washington, they’re absolutely fascinated by the politicians. And when the politicians go to Hollywood, they’re absolutely fascinated by the movie stars. It’s a kind of reciprocity of affection by people who both recognize in a sense they’re in the same racket.

Way , Thinking

“All is more or less proper to serve as a common measure, in proportion as it is more or less in general use, of a more similar quality, and more easy to be divided into aliquot parts.”

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727–1781) French economist

§ 39
Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766)
Context: All is more or less proper to serve as a common measure, in proportion as it is more or less in general use, of a more similar quality, and more easy to be divided into aliquot parts. All is more or less applicable for the purpose of a general pledge of exchange, in proportion as it is less susceptible of decay or alteration in quantity or quality.

Parting

“Many precepts in our Law are the result of a similar course adopted by the same Supreme Being. It is”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.32
Context: The most evident of the wonders described in the book On the Use of the Limbs [by Galen]... is clearly perceived by all who examine them with a sharp eye. In a similar manner did God provide for each individual animal of the class of mammalia. When such an animal is born it is extremely tender, and cannot be fed with dry food. Therefore breasts were provided which yield milk, and the young can be fed with moist food which corresponds to the condition of the limbs of the animal, until the latter have gradually become dry and hard. Many precepts in our Law are the result of a similar course adopted by the same Supreme Being. It is, namely, impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other; it is therefore according to the nature of man impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything to which he has been accustomed.

Law

“Nor have I met any man in my life, arguing for what should be among men, but took for granted as he argued that the doctrine he consciously or unconsciously accepted was or should be a similar foundation for all mankind. Hence battle.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Source: The Cruise of the 'Nona (1925), pp. 48-9
Belloc writes that Cardinal Manning said this sentence to him "when I was but twenty years old" (p. 47), i.e. in 1890 or 1891.
Context: The profound thing which Cardinal Manning said to me was this: all human conflict is ultimately theological. […]This saying of his (which I carried away with me somewhat bewildered) that all human conflict was ultimately theological: that is, that all wars and revolutions, and all decisive struggles between parties of men arise from a difference in moral and transcendental doctrine, was utterly novel to me. To a young man the saying was without meaning: I would almost have said nonsensical, save that I could not attach the idea of folly to Manning. But as I grew older it became a searchlight: with the observation of the world, and with continuous reading of history, it came to possess for me a universal meaning so profound that it reached to the very roots of political action; so extended that it covered the whole.It is, indeed, a truth which explains and co-ordinates all one reads of human action in the past, and all one sees of it in the present. […] All tragedy is the conflict of a true right and a false right, or of a greater right and a lesser right, or, at the worst, of two false rights. Still more do men pretend in this time of ours, wherein the habitual use of the human intelligence has sunk to its lowest, that doctrine is but a private individual affair, creating a mere opinion. Upon the contrary, it is doctrine that drives the State; and every State is stronger in the degree in which the doctrine of its citizens is united. Nor have I met any man in my life, arguing for what should be among men, but took for granted as he argued that the doctrine he consciously or unconsciously accepted was or should be a similar foundation for all mankind. Hence battle.

Life , Men

“Half the wrong conclusions at which mankind arrive are reached by the abuse of metaphors, or by mistaking general resemblance or imaginary similarity for real identity.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to H. L. Bulwer (1 Sept. 1839), quoted in Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer's Life of Palmerston (Philadelphia: J. B. Lipppincott, 1871), vol. 2, pp. 261-62. (Palmerston was criticizing descriptions of the Ottoman Empire as "decaying," etc.)
1830s
Context: Half the wrong conclusions at which mankind arrive are reached by the abuse of metaphors, or by mistaking general resemblance or imaginary similarity for real identity. Thus, people compare an ancient monarchy with an old building, an old tree, or an old man, and because the building, tree, or man must, from the nature of things, crumble, or decay, or die, they imagine that the same thing holds good with a community, and that the same laws which govern inanimate matter, or vegetable or animal life, govern also nations and states.

“I think that the successful genres of a particular period are reflections of the needs and thoughts and social struggles of that time. When you see a bunch of similar projects meeting with success, you’ve found a place in the social landscape where a particular story (or moral or scenario) speaks to readers. You’ve found a place where the things that stories offer are most needed.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

On his blog, talking about genre http://www.danielabraham.com/?p=160
Context: I think that the successful genres of a particular period are reflections of the needs and thoughts and social struggles of that time. When you see a bunch of similar projects meeting with success, you’ve found a place in the social landscape where a particular story (or moral or scenario) speaks to readers. You’ve found a place where the things that stories offer are most needed.
And since the thing that stories most often offer is comfort, you’ve found someplace rich with anxiety and uncertainty. (That’s what I meant when I said to Melinda Snodgrass that genre is where fears pool.)

Thinking , Time , Success

“I think he was the first man I met who was not afraid of me in some way. We were very similar, like brother and sister. Our spirits are similar.”

Nico (1938–1988) German musician, model and actress, one of Warhol's superstars

On her "soul brother" Jim Morrison, as quoted in Life and Lies of an Icon (1995) by Richard Witts.
Context: I think he was the first man I met who was not afraid of me in some way. We were very similar, like brother and sister. Our spirits are similar. We were the same height and the same age, almost … He was well read and he introduced me to William Blake and also the English Romantic poets who came after him. Jim liked Shelley. I preferred Coleridge. In fact, he is my favoured poet of all time. Did you know they were all drug addicts? Coleridge was addicted to opium. It is better to be addicted to opium than to be addicted to money.

Way , Thinking , Sister

“Newton saw the truth of many propositions of geometry without reading the demonstrations, but not, we may be sure, without their flashing through his mind. A truth, or supposed truth, which is really the result of a very rapid inference, may seem to be apprehended intuitively. It has long been agreed by thinkers of the most opposite schools, that this mistake is actually made in so familiar an instance as that of the eyesight. There is nothing of which we appear to ourselves to be more directly conscious, than the distance of an object from us. Yet it has long been ascertained, that what is perceived by the eye, is at most nothing more than a variously coloured surface; that when we fancy we see distance, all we really see is certain variations of apparent size, and degrees of faintness of colour; and that our estimate of the object's distance from us is the result of a comparison (made with so much rapidity that we are unconscious of making it) between the size and colour of the object as they appear at the time, and the size and colour of the same or of similar objects as they appeared when close at hand, or when their degree of remoteness was known by other evidence.”

John Stuart Mill book A System of Logic

Source: A System of Logic (1843), p. 4
Context: [W]e may fancy that we see or feel what we in reality infer. Newton saw the truth of many propositions of geometry without reading the demonstrations, but not, we may be sure, without their flashing through his mind. A truth, or supposed truth, which is really the result of a very rapid inference, may seem to be apprehended intuitively. It has long been agreed by thinkers of the most opposite schools, that this mistake is actually made in so familiar an instance as that of the eyesight. There is nothing of which we appear to ourselves to be more directly conscious, than the distance of an object from us. Yet it has long been ascertained, that what is perceived by the eye, is at most nothing more than a variously coloured surface; that when we fancy we see distance, all we really see is certain variations of apparent size, and degrees of faintness of colour; and that our estimate of the object's distance from us is the result of a comparison (made with so much rapidity that we are unconscious of making it) between the size and colour of the object as they appear at the time, and the size and colour of the same or of similar objects as they appeared when close at hand, or when their degree of remoteness was known by other evidence. The perception of distance by the eye, which seems so like intuition, is thus, in reality, an inference grounded on experience; an inference, too, which we learn to make; and which we make with more and more correctness as our experience increases; though in familiar cases it takes place, so rapidly as to appear exactly on a par with those perceptions of sight which are really intuitive, our perceptions of colour.

Truth , School , Appearance , Time

“We see that scattered through space out to infinite distances, there exist similar systems of stars”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Free translation, as quoted by Edwin Powell Hubble, The Realm of the Nebulae (1936)
An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe (1750)
Context: I come now to another part of my system, and because it suggests a lofty idea of the plan of creation, it appears to me as the most seductive. The sequence of ideas that led us to it is very simple and natural. They are as follows: let us imagine a system of stars gathered together in a common plane, like those of the Milky Way, but situated so far away from us that even with the telescope we cannot distinguish the stars composing it; let us assume that its distance, compared to that separating us from the stars of the Milky Way, is the same proportion as the Milky Way is to the distance from the earth to the sun; such a stellar world will appear to the observer, who contemplates it at so enormous a distance, only as a little spot feebly illumined and subtending a very small angle; its shape will be circular, if its plane is perpendicular to the line of sight, elliptical, if it is seen obliquely. The faintness of its light, its form, and its appreciable diameter will obviously distinguish such a phenomenon from the isolated stars around it.
We do not need to seek far in the observations of astronomers to meet with such phenomena. They have been seen by various observers, who have wondered at their strange appearance, have speculated about them, and have suggested some times the most amazing explanations, sometimes theories which were more rational, but which had no more foundation than the former. We refer to the nebulæ, or, more precisely, to a particular kind of celestial body which M. de Maupertius describes as follows:
"These are small luminous patches, only slightly more brilliant than the dark background of the sky; they have this in common, that their shapes are more or less open elipses; and their light is far more feeble than that of any other objects to be perceived in the heavens."
... It is much more natural and reasonable to assume that a nebula is not a unique and solitary sun, but a system of numerous suns, which appear crowded, because of their distance, into a space so limited that their light, which would be imperceptible were each of them isolated, suffices, owing to their enormous numbers, to give a pale and uniform luster. Their analogy with our own system of stars; their form, which is precisely what it should be according to our theory; the faintness of their light, which denotes an infinite distance; all are in admirable accord and lead us to consider these elliptical spots as systems of the same order as our own—in a word, to be Milky Ways similar to the one whose constitution we have explained. And if these hypotheses, in which analogy and observation consistently lend mutual support, have the same merit as formal demonstrations, we must consider the existence of such systems as demonstrated...
We see that scattered through space out to infinite distances, there exist similar systems of stars [nebulous stars, nebulæ], and that creation, in the whole extent of its infinite grandeur, is everywhere organized into systems whose members are in relation with one another.... A vast field lies open to discoveries, and observations alone will give the key.

Star

“There will come a time when the proper education of children, by a glorified system of spontaneous education of choice, similar to the Montessori System, will be made possible.”

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

1920s–1950s, 4D Timelock (1928)
Context: There will come a time when the proper education of children, by a glorified system of spontaneous education of choice, similar to the Montessori System, will be made possible. Children, as well as grown-ups, in their individual, glorified, drudgery-proof homes of Labrador, the tropics, the Orient, or where you will, to which they can pass with pleasure and expedition by means of ever-improving transportation, will be able to tune in their television and radio to the moving picture lecture of, let us say, President Lowell of Harvard; the professor of Mathematics of Oxford; of the doctor of Indian antiquities of Delhi, etc. Education by choice, with its marvelous motivating psychology of desire for truth, will make life ever cleaner and happier, more rhythmical and artistic.

Children , Education , Time

“The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Prelude to Politics (1943), p. 199
Context: Maurras, with perfect logic, is an atheist. The Cardinal [Richelieu], in postulating something whose whole reality is confined to this world as an absolute value, committed the sin of idolatry. … The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State.

“The term eunuchs was used by Eldridge Cleaver to describe blacks. It occurred to me that women were in a somewhat similar position.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

On how she chose the title for The Female Eunuch, in an interview by Nat Lehrman in Playboy (January 1972)
Context: The term eunuchs was used by Eldridge Cleaver to describe blacks. It occurred to me that women were in a somewhat similar position. Blacks had been emancipated from slavery but never given any kind of meaningful freedom, while women were given the vote but denied sexual freedom. In the final analysis, women aren't really free until their libidos are recognized as separate entities. Some of the suffragettes understood this. They could see the connection among the vote, political power, independence and being able to express their sexuality according to their own experience, instead of in reference to a demand by somebody else. But they were regarded as crazy and were virtually crucified. Thinking about them, I suddenly realized, Christ, we've been castrated and that's what it's all about. You see, it's all very well to let a bullock out into the field when you've already cut his balls off, because you know he's not going to do anything. That's exactly what happened to women.

Women

“Dictators during the entire history of this planet have used similar techniques. By not letting the people of their country know what conditions existed outside their boundaries, they could get the people to fight to stay in those conditions.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Jewels of Aptor

Source: The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Chapter X (p. 133)
Context: Dictators during the entire history of this planet have used similar techniques. By not letting the people of their country know what conditions existed outside their boundaries, they could get the people to fight to stay in those conditions. It was the old adage: Convince a slave that he’s free, and he will fight to maintain his slavery.

People , History , Fight , Country

“The approach and strategies are very similar in that you gather all the information you can and then keep adding to that base of information as things develop.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

"Buffett on Bridge" at Buffetcup.com (2013) http://archive.is/o4keX
Context: The approach and strategies are very similar in that you gather all the information you can and then keep adding to that base of information as things develop. You do whatever the probabilities indicated based on the knowledge that you have at that time, but you are always willing to modify your behaviour or your approach as you get new information. In bridge, you behave in a way that gets the best from your partner. And in business, you behave in the way that gets the best from your managers and your employees.

“In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions.
In the absence of these safeguards the phrase 'equality before the law', in so far as it is intended to apply to us, is meaningless and misleading.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1960s, First court statement (1962)
Context: In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions.
In the absence of these safeguards the phrase 'equality before the law', in so far as it is intended to apply to us, is meaningless and misleading. All the rights and privileges to which I have referred are monopolized by whites, and we enjoy none of them. The white man makes all the laws, he drags us before his courts and accuses us, and he sits in judgement over us.

Justice , Law , Parting

“It carried the same name. It was similar in appearance. It also ended at a lava brink.”

Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist

Autobiography of Values (1978)
Context: I know myself as mortal, but this raises the question: "What is I?" Am I an individual, or am I an evolving life stream composed of countless selves? … As one identity, I was born in AD 1902. But as AD twentieth-century man, I am billions of years old. The life I consider as myself has existed though past eons with unbroken continuity. Individuals are custodians of the life stream — temporal manifestations of far greater being, forming from and returning to their essence like so many dreams. … I recall standing on the edge of a deep valley in the Hawaiian island of Maui, thinking that the life stream is like a mountain river — springing from hidden sources, born out of the earth, touched by stars, merging, blending, evolving in the shape momentarily seen. It is molecules probing through time, found smooth-flowing, adjusted to shaped and shaping banks, roiled by rocks and tree trunks — composed again. Now it ends, apparently, at a lava brink, a precipitous fall.
Near the fall's brink, I saw death as death cannot be seen. I stared at the very end of life, and at life that forms beyond, at the fact of immortality. Dark water bent, broke, disintegrated, transformed to apparition — a tall, stately ghost soul emerged from body, and the finite individuality of the whole becomes the infinite individuality of particles. Mist drifted, disappeared in air, a vanishing of spirit. Far below in the valley, I saw another river, reincarnated from the first, its particles reorganized to form a second body. It carried the same name. It was similar in appearance. It also ended at a lava brink. Flow followed fall, and fall followed flow as I descended the mountainside. The river was mortal and immortal as life, as becoming.

Appearance

“The successes obtained in the government of the arts, are similar to the successes obtained in the government of men.”

Charles Dupin (1784–1873) French mathematician

Source: The Commercial Power of Great Britain, 1925, p. xxxi ; Highlighted section cited in: Joel Mokyr. The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850. 2011. p. 237
Context: The successes obtained in the government of the arts, are similar to the successes obtained in the government of men. We may succeed for a time, by fraud, by surprise, by violence: we can succeed permanently only by means directly opposite. It is not alone the courage, the intelligence, the activity of the manufacturer and the merchant which maintain the superiority of the productions and the commerce of their country; it is far more their wisdom, their economy, above all their probity.

Men , Art , Success

Quotes about similarity page 9

Quotes about similarity
page 9