Quotes about situation
page 14

“Only the actual participants can correctly recognize, understand, and judge the concrete situation and settle the extreme case of conflict.”

Carl Schmitt book The Concept of the Political

The Concept of the Political (1927)

Understanding

“Contemporary art and the [Communist] Party are an impossible situation. It’s like oil and water—they can never mix.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Truth to Power, 2008

Art, Water

“How do you think the transition from the present situation to community of Property is to be effected?
The first, fundamental condition for the introduction of community of property is the political liberation of the proletariat through a democratic constitution.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/06/09.htm (1847)

Communication, Thinking

“August olst. Camp Tiverton. I wrote the foregoing, and intended to have sent it by the express that went off in the morning, but while I was writing, I was informed the express was gone; and the change of situation and round of events that have since taken place, have prevented my forwarding what I had wrote, as matters seemed to be coming to a crisis.”

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

Letter to George Washington (August 1778)

Change

“A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible of transformation.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2, page 253

People, Reality

“I always felt, in looking at [the Cuban] situation, that it was wrong. And I now know why. It came to me one night in Mexico. China is communist, the same as Cuba, and yet we have no problem trading with China. In fact, today we can't get over there quick enough. The difference is simple: China welcomes our corporations. Cuba threw them out. It's a basic decision of corporate America: We will punish Cuba because Castro stuck it to us by nationalizing everything after he came to power. What other reason could there be? China is far more powerful but we now welcome them into global trade with open arms—as we should—while we continue this bitter, hostile policy towards Cuba. It must be because there are still people alive in the corporate world who got hammered by Fidel's revolution.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

Source: Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008), Ch. 6 (p. 111)

Hostility, People, World, Problem

“For if this country… were to make its defense program a function of its domestic employment situation, it would become impossible to conduct a constructive and well-thought out foreign policy or to develop any lasting collaboration.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

compare Dwight Eisenhower's January, 1961 Farewell Speech
1930s- 1950s, The New Society (1950)

Country

““I — I don’t regret what I did. I think that you are a kind man, Mr. Poirot, and that possibly you might understand. You see, I’ve been so terribly afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes, it’s difficult for a gentleman to understand, I expect. But you see, I’m not a clever woman at all, and I’ve no training and I’m getting older — and I’m so terrified for the future. I’ve not been able to save anything — how could I with Emily to be cared for? — and as I get older and more incompetent there won’t be any one who wants me. They’ll want somebody young and brisk. I’ve — I’ve known so many people like I am — nobody wants you and you live in a one room and you can’t have a fire or any warmth and not very much to eat and at last you can’t even pay the rent on your room … There are Institutions, of course, but it’s not very easy to get into them unless you have influential friends, and I haven’t. There are a good many others situated like I am — poor companions — untrained useless women with nothing to look forward to but a deadly fear…””

Agatha Christie book The Labours of Hercules

The Labours of Hercules (1967)

Women, People, Fear, Understanding

“As you become more awake you actually find yourself with less and less choice about what you do in any given situation. And you have less choice because you see more clearly. This is a very important point. Clarity doesn’t create more options. It eliminates options because you see that they aren’t appropriate or they don’t work.”

Ken McLeod (1948) Canadian lama

Then and Now http://www.unfetteredmind.org/jewel-ornament-buddhahood#sect12. Unfettered Mind http://www.unfetteredmind.org. (2008-07-08) (Topic: Awareness)

“It is a win-win situation for us — no harm to janitors by way of daily exposure to chemicals, and cows will be valued more.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

On the use of gomutra as a floor cleaner, as quoted in "Holy cow! Government offices may soon be cleaned using liquid made from bovine urine" http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-01-09/news/57883715_1_cow-urine-product-floors, The Economic Times (9 January 2015) 2011-present

Way

“This "knowing what to do"… is a matter of having the right purpose, the purpose appropriate to the situation in hand… The one who "knows what to do" is the one on whom you can rely to make the best shot at success, whenever success is possible.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Knowledge and Feeling" (p. 35)
Culture Counts (2007)

Success

“In America, where many peoples are held together largely by their sense of opportunities and their hope of reward, the subject is of the gravest concern. The attitude and reactions of the native-born American who believes in Americanization, and the one who does not, with all shades of opinion and of feeling lying between the two extremes, are to be considered. There is the man who comes here to stay and the one who in- tends to return. There is the racial solidarist bent upon reestablishing his own race here with as few changes as possible. There is the race which hates another, and for its own independent reasons tries to block its progress in the new land. We have to reckon with a situation created by men who are representatives of powerful foreign corporations, who will spend their lives here, make their homes here, and who never intend to become part of America. There are leaders who manipulate their people in the interest of the country of their origin, as well as those genuinely interested in serving America. In addition, there are factions in each race having no desire to unite with one another; there are races opposed to healing their own differences of centuries ago; and there are groups passionately devoted to their own culture and ideals, to which in their opinion nothing can compare.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Men, Hate, People, Hope

“This commitment to end world hunger, and my music and story songs, are ways of dealing with the world as I see it. I'm playing 200 concerts per year-- half of them benefits-- all of them attempts at getting across the footlights to people I would enjoy spending time with in non-concert situations. And over the past 4 years of musical fun, millions of dollars have been raised for things I believe in. Telling stories of our time, building a lasting body of work, new songs, new records, new audiences, new challenges, and still that painfully exciting process of growth that can make one's life into a richly woven tapestry.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

All My Life's a Circle, Autobiographical statement on a concert program, circa 1980 http://harrychapin.com/articles/bio.shtml

Life, Hunger, People, World

“The further we move our main force to the westward, and still be within supporting distance of this garrison, the better, both for the preservation of the provision and forage of this State, as well as to les sen the general expense of transportation. And the greater stock of provision and forage we can leave in this State, and upon the communications, the less difficulty we shall find in giving support to this place, should the enemy approach it. I should re commend, therefore, to quarter the army as far wesir ward as Morristown or Baskingridge. The country is strong, secure from a surprise, happily situated to receive supplies of provisions and forage, and not very inconvenient for giving protection and cover to the inhabitants. It is true, it is considerably removed from this place. But were we to take a position at Suffern's or Pompton, the consumption of forage would be so great that it would destroy the possibility of keeping up a communication with the Western States, however pressing the necessity, before the grass sea son. Suppose the enemy should move up, early in the spring, and lay siege to West Point, and the supplies of this State prove unequal to our support, should we not be obliged to abandon it to its fate?”

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

Letter to George Washington (November 1779)

Fate, Spring, Communication, Support

“A lot of that just comes from my upbringing. I have a tremendous mother and father, I grew up in the church, I have a very religious family. I’m not all about myself just because I know if it wasn’t for God, I wouldn’t be able to go out there and compete anyway. So I never look at it as a selfish thing—I never want all the attention or want it to be about me, because I never want to get in to a situation where God has to humble me. I know for a fact that I am not doing it by myself; it is because of Him that I can compete over and over again. That’s basically how I grew up. I was blessed and fortunate to have a family like I have.”

Javon Ringer (1987) All-American college football player, professional football player, running back

Quoted here http://collegefootballinsiders.blogspot.com/2009/04/q-javon-ringer-rb-michigan-st.htm

God, Family, Selfishness

“My interest in working sites is linked to an investigation of what is behind the extravagant forms and perfect lines of Hadid’s Architecture; it is an interest in the relation between the elegance of her gesture and her radical way of making a building. Something very primordial and out of time is present in those situations. I think of this as a process of forming.”

Hélène Binet (1959) Swiss photographer

In: Hélène Binet’s ‘Forming | Portrait – Architecture of Zaha Hadid’ @ Gabrielle Ammann // Gallery http://sandsof.com/2012/11/24/helene-binets-forming-portrait-architecture-of-zaha-hadid-gabrielle-ammann-gallery/, sandsof.com, 24 November 2012 Binet has photographed the finished building as well as the project during construction of Zaha Hadid's buildings since mid-1980s.

Way, Thinking, Time, Perfection

“That you are regularly facing challenges does not make you an unbeliever. Don’t measure your Christian life by your situation.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

On Christians facing challenges - "TB Joshua Tells Fans On Facebook How To Identify Pastors Who Are Intruders" https://www.360nobs.com/2014/06/t-b-joshua-tells-fans-on-facebook-how-to-identify-pastors-who-are-intruders/ 360 Nobs, Nigeria (June 2 2014)

Life

“He Robert Rauschenberg was a kind of enfant terrible at the time [around 1960] and I thought of him as an accomplished professional. He’d already had a number of shows, knew everybody, had been to Black Mountain College in South Carolina, working with all those avant-garde people.... Rauschenberg focused very much on working. I was prepared to do that, too. He was also involved with Merce Cunningham dance group and totally unconcerned with his success, in the cliché term. All of the activity had a lively quality, quite separate from any commercial situation.... [Rauschenberg moved into a loft in Jaser John's building and they very closely worked together for a couple of years]. You get a lot by doing. It's very important for a young artist to see how things are done. The kind of exchange we had was stronger than talking. If you do something then I do something then you do something, it means more than what you say.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Once Established, says Jasper Johns...,Grace Glueck, New York Times, 16 October 1977, sec. 2 pp. 1-31
1970s

People, Mountain, Time, Success

“It was a numbers game, not a guaranteed method of avoiding being killed, but Clavain had been a soldier long enough to know that this was, ultimately, what most combat situations boiled down to.”

Alastair Reynolds book Redemption Ark

Source: Redemption Ark (2002), Chapter 25 (p. 452)

Game

“The Chinese used the intervals between things as the primary means of getting 'in touch' with situations.”

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

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 77

“this is not to say, we repeat, that the conditions of labor and production are becoming the same throughout the world or throughout the different sectors ot the economy. The claim is rather is that many singular instances of labor processes, productive conditions, local situations, and lived experiences coexist with a "becoming common", at a different level of abstraction, of the forms of labor and the general relations of production and exchange - and that there is no contradiction between this singularity and commonality.”

Antonio Negri book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

114
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

World

“The House of Commons has lifted our affairs above the mechanical sphere into the human sphere. It thrives on criticism, it is perfectly impervious to newspaper abuse or taunts from any quarter, and it is capable of digesting almost anything or almost any body of gentlemen, whatever be the views with which they arrive. There is no situation to which it cannot address itself with vigour and ingenuity. It is the citadel of British liberty; it is the foundation of our laws; its traditions and its privileges are as lively today as when it broke the arbitrary power of the Crown and substituted that Constitutional Monarchy under which we have enjoyed so many blessings.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons, October 28, 1943 "House of Commons Rebuilding" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1943/oct/28/house-of-commons-rebuilding#column_405. The Second World War (1939–1945)

Law, Housing

“The extreme moment of shock in battle presents in heightened and distorted form some of the distinctive characteristics of a whole society involved in war. These characteristics in turn represent a heightening and distortion of many of the traits of a social world cracked open by transformative politics. The threats to survival are immediate and shifting; no mode of association or activity can be held fixed if it stands as an obstacle to success. The existence of stable boundaries between passionate and calculating relationships disappears in the terror of the struggle. All settled ties and preconceptions shake or collapse under the weight of fear, violence, and surprise. What the experience of combat sharply diminishes is the sense of variety in the opportunities of self-expression and attachment, the value given to the bonds of community and to life itself, the chance for reflective withdrawal and for love. In all these ways, it is a deformed expression of the circumstance of society shaken up and restored to indefinition. Yet the features of this circumstance that the battle situation does share often suffice to make the boldest associative experiments seem acceptable in battle even if they depart sharply from the tenor of life in the surrounding society. Vanguardist warfare is the extreme case. It is the response of unprejudiced intelligence and organized collaboration to violence and contingency.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Plasticity Into Power: Comparative-Historical Studies on the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success (1987), p. 160

Love, Life, War, World

“Social relations with one's work associates tend to deteriorate under the stress of conflict. In part, this reaction reflects the person's general dissatisfaction with the work situation. Attitudes toward those role senders who create the conflict become worse, just as do those toward the job and the organization in general.”

Robert L. Kahn (1918–2019) American psychologist

Source: Organizational stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity, 1964, p. 67

Parting, Personality

“But, When persons are present to one another they can function not merely as physical instruments but also as communicative ones. This possibility, no less than the physical one, is fateful for everyone concerned and in every society appears to come under strict normative regulation, giving rise to a kind of communication traffic order…
(Incidentally, it is in this aspect of public order that most symptoms of mental disorder seem to make themselves felt initially.) The rules pertaining to this area of conduct I shall call situational proprieties.”

Erving Goffman (1922–1982) Sociologist, writer, academic

Source: 1950s-1960s, Behavior in Public Places, 1963, p. 23; Cited in: Philip Manning, Erving Goffman and Modern Sociology (Stanford University Press, 1992), p. 88.

Fate, Communication, Appearance, Personality

“There is in fact no contradiction at all between the statement of an exact bookkeeping balance ex post and the obvious inference that in a situation when saving is increasing without a corresponding increase of investment, or perhaps with an adverse movement in investment, there must be a tendency ex ante to a disparity.”

Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987) Swedish economist

Source: Monetary Equilibrium (1939), p. 46

“Thinking consists in envisaging, realizing structural features and structural requirements; proceeding in accordance with, and determined by, these requirements; thereby changing the situation in the direction of structural improvements.”

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) Co-founder of Gestalt psychology

Source: Productive thinking, 1945, p. 190

Thinking, Change

“As Commissar for the Armed Forces and a member of the Politburo he [Trotsky] still appeared powerful, but by 1923 he was isolated and helpless. All his former tergiversations were turned against him. When he came to realize his situation he attacked the bureaucratization of the party and the stifling of intra-party democracy: like all overthrown Communist leaders he became a democrat as soon as he was ousted from power. However, it was easy for Stalin and Zinovyev to show not only that Trotsky’ s democratic sentiments and indignation at party bureaucracy were of recent date, but that he himself, when in power, had been a more extreme autocrat than anyone else: he had supported or initiated every move to protect party "unity", had wanted – contrary to Lenin’ s policy – to place the trade unions under state control and to subject the whole economy to the coercive power of the police, and so on. In later years Trotsky claimed that the policy, which he had supported, of prohibiting "fractions" was envisaged as an exceptional measure and not a permanent principle. But there is no proof that this was so, and nothing in the policy itself suggests that it was meant to be temporary. It may be noted that Zinovyev showed more zeal than Stalin in condemning Trotsky – at one stage he was in favour of arresting him – and thus supplied Stalin with useful ammunition when the two ousted leaders tried, belatedly and hopelessly, to join forces against their triumphant rival.”

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

pg. 21
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume III: The Breakdown

Democracy, Support, Appearance

“There can be no benefit of an exorcism. It’s not like there could ever be an instance where an actual demon is involved, and a priest would be helpless even in that situation if there were any reality to that. Even if there were some placebo effect to the ritual, it still encourages belief in things that would still persist in the imagination and thus never be fully cured even in the mind of believers. And if the problem stems from any sort of actual mental disorder, then the ritual only postpones or replaces actual medical attention.”

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

Patheos, Satanic Panic and Exorcism in Schools? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/09/21/satanic-panic-and-exorcism-in-schools/ (September 21, 2016)

Imagination, Problem, Reality

“Let us summarize briefly our answer to the question, "What do people want from their jobs?" When our respondents reported feeling happy with their jobs, they most frequently described factors. related to their tasks, to events that indicated to them that they were successful in the performance of their work, and to the possibility of professional growth. Conversely, when feelings of unhappiness were reported, they were not associated with the job itself but with conditions that surround the doing of the job. These events suggest to the individual that the context in which he performs his work is unfair or disorganized and as such represents to him an unhealthy psychological work environment. Factors involved in these situations we call factors of hygiene, for they act in a manner analogous to the principles of medical hygiene.”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Source: The motivation to work, 1959, p. 113

People, Feeling, Question, Success

“It was G. K. Chesterton who trenchantly reminded us that, if one was going to preach, then it was more sensible to expend one's energies on addressing the converted rather than the unconverted. It was the former, after all, that were—and even more so are—in constant danger of missing the point and sliding away from the Faith into some vague sort of syncretistic, gnostic, gobbledegook. Chesterton, as ever, was right and should you think this is just another of his tiresome paradoxes may I urge you to re-read him: his prescience concerning our present situation and, worse, where we are heading is astounding.”

Simon Conway Morris (1951) British palaeontologist

The Boyle lecture (2005)

Faith, Thinking, Reading

“I would have felt better if she had followed the Florida law. I suspect most people faced with the same situation would have done what she did.”

Judith Krug (1940–2009) librarian and freedom of speech proponent

Referring to Kathleen Hensman, a Delray Beach, Florida public librarian informing police about 9/11 suspects having used computers in the library where she works "A Nation Challenged: Questions of Confidentiality; Competing Principles Leave Some Professionals Debating Responsibility to Government" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00E13F83E5E0C708EDDA80994D9404482 by David E. Rosenbaum, The New York Times (November 23, 2001)

People, Law

“It has been suggested that an individual's social identity divides up the world of people and places for him, and that his personal identity does this too, although differently. It is these frames of reference one must apply in studying the daily round of a particular stigmatized person, as he wends his way to and from his place of work, his place of residence, his place of shopping, and the places where he participates in recreation. A key concept here is the daily round, for it is the daily round that links the individual to his several social situations. And one studies the daily round with a special perspective in mind. To the extent that the individual is a discredited person, one looks for the routine cycle of restrictions he faces regarding social acceptance; to the extent that he is discreditable, for the contingencies he faces in managing information about himself.”

Erving Goffman book Stigma

Source: 1950s-1960s, Stigma, 1963, p. 112-3

People, World, Way, Study

“The situation also gave U. N. Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali a chance to start the U. N.'s disegagement from Bosnia, something he had long wanted to do. After a few meetings with him, I concluded that this elegant and subtle Egyptian, whose Coptic family could trace its origins back over centuries, had disdain for the fractious and firty peoples of the Balkans. Put bluntly, he never liked the place. In 1992, during his only visit to Sarajevo, he made the comment that shocked the journalists on the day I arrived in the beleaguered capital: "Bosnia is a rich man's war. I understand your frustration, but you have a situation here that is better than ten other places in the world. … I can give you a list." He complained many times that Bosnia was eating up his budget, diverting him from other priorities, and threatening the whole U. N. system. "Bosnia has created a distortion in the work of the U. N.", he said just before Srebrenica. Sensing that our diplomatic efforts offered an opportunity to disengage, he informed the Security Council on September 18 that he would be ready to end the U. N. role in the forme Yugoslavia, and allow all key aspects of implementation to be placed with others. Two days later, he told Madeleine Albright that the Contact Group should create its own mechanism for implementation - thus volunteering to reduce the U. N.'s role at a critical moment. Ironically, his weakness simplified our task considerably.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), pp. 174-175

War, People, World, Family

“The interlacedness of the two heterogeneous origins [Remark: This refers to the origins of governance: (1) necessity to work cooperatively, (2) the fight between man and man] prevails as the fundamental characteristic of governance. Therefore even any true community, being successful somewhere between boundaries for a common purpose, elsewhere becomes in theory a means for misleading, used to interpret and cover-up actually existing power. Again and again things are named by their contrary and are hidden. In that manner, under the pretense of communication - the open discussion - people are interrogated and commands are given, under the pretense of freedom and voluntariness behavior is enforced, in the coat of pure ethics the evil is carried out, under the pretense of truth lies and fraud are committed, and all values valid at any one time are, depending on the situation, either applied or ignored. [Remarks: "Herrschaft" = "governance" or "leadership", "Gewalt" = "power" or "violence"]”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

On Truth (1948), Pt 2, Ch. 3, II, B, 3, b)

People, Truth, Behavior, Communication

“I think Floyd needs to learn before he opens his mouth. You don't put a man like me in a situation like that. You know, you put me in a name that's got to do with prejudice when you know nothing about me. I am a multi-cultured individual. I take from all cultures. Look at me. I am a product of many cultures as a young, Irish man. I know he wasn't saying that I am that person, but it put me in that bracket and I did not appreciate that one bit. There's people buried in the desert for less than that so Floyd needs to understand before he speaks who he is speaking about and that is as simple as that.”

Conor McGregor (1988) Irish mixed martial artist and boxer

"UFC 197 press conference" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75xAdA3uVeY (January 2016), Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa, LLC 2010s, 2016

People, Understanding, Thinking, Learning

“When you get in situations where you cannot afford to make a mistake, it's very hard to do the right thing. So if you're trying to do the right thing, the right thing might be to eliminate the cost of making a mistake rather than try to guess what's right.”

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

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text

“[The situation was] as in the case of his majesty's having undergone a natural and perfect demise…There was then a person in the kingdom different from any other person that any existing precedents could refer to—an heir apparent of full age and capacity to exercise the royal power. It behoved them, therefore, to waste not a moment unnecessarily, but to proceed with all becoming speed and all becoming diligence to restore the sovereign power and the exercise of royal authority.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (10 December 1788) advocating the Prince of Wales being appointed Regent, reprinted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume III (1815), pp. 400-401.
1780s

Age, Exercises, Nature, Personality

“North Koreans can frequent black markets and still consider themselves good citizens, as was impossible in the communist East Bloc. So the situation now is more like Japan or Germany in 1944, say, than like East Germany in the 1980s. Widespread government corruption? Check. An entire population of economic criminals? Check. Constant griping about the state, the party, even some joking about the leader? Check. Even good Nazis had their Hitler jokes. A general readiness to fight for the state? Well, there’s certainly more readiness in the North than in the South.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)

Fight

“Whenever I go anywhere I find persons in humble situations who smile at me and wish me well. I smile back and wish them well. It is because at some time or other I have tipped them. To me the system has never been an annoyance but a delightful opportunity for the exercise of tact and judgment.”

Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816) American politician

Bohemian San Francisco, Its Restaurants and Their Most Famous Recipes—The Elegant Art of Dining http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9464/pg9464.html, 1914, by Clarence E. Edwords 1810s

Smile, Exercises, Time, Personality

“No one can deny the suffering, fear, or panic, the terror or fright that can seize certain animals and that we humans can witness. … No doubt either, then, of there being within us the possibility of giving vent to a surge of compassion, even if it is then misunderstood, repressed, or denied, held at bay. … The two centuries I have been referring to somewhat casually in order to situate the present in terms of this tradition have been those of an unequal struggle, a war (whose inequality could one day be reversed) being waged between, on the one hand, those who violate not only animal life but even and also this sentiment of compassion, and, on the other hand, those who appeal for an irrefutable testimony to this pity. War is waged over the matter of pity. This war is probably ageless but, and here is my hypothesis, it is passing through a critical phase. We are passing through that phase, and it passes through us. To think the war we find ourselves waging is not only a duty, a responsibility, an obligation, it is also a necessity, a constraint that, like it or not, directly or indirectly, no one can escape. Henceforth more than ever. And I say “to think” this war, because I believe it concerns what we call “thinking.””

Jacques Derrida book The Animal That Therefore I Am

The animal looks at us, and we are naked before it. Thinking perhaps begins there.
Specters of Marx (1993), The Animal That Therefore I Am, 1997

Life, War, Fear, Thinking

“Boccioni and I were swiftly persuaded that with this show in Paris we were staking our all; for a flop would have meant kissing our fine aspirations goodbye. This is why we decided to go to Paris, to see what the art situation there was like.”

Carlo Carrà (1881–1966) Italian painter

Quote in: Éclat de choses ordinaries Carrà, (1913), as quoted in Futurism, Didier Ottinger (ed.), 2008, p. 27
1910's

Art, Kiss

“Interaction may begin for quite different reasons. One or both persons may know something about the other and, on the basis of this information, may (anticipate that interaction would yield good outcomes. This would result in a deliberate decision to seek out the other person and interact with him. Under other circumstances the two persons may be thrown together by the operation of factors beyond their control. Their jobs may bring them together, common friends may introduce them, or residence in the same neighborhood may result in a chance meeting. In these instances interaction is begun in response to the immediate situation without any necessary anticipation of the possible consequences by either participant.”

John Thibaut (1917–1986) American social psychologist

Source: The social psychology of groups. 1959, p. 19-20

Decision, Chance, Personality

“In the languor of disease and the weariness of old age, the pleasures of the vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one, in this situation, they are no longer capable of recommending those toilsome pursuits in which they had formerly engaged him. In his heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of youth, pleasures which are fled for ever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real satisfaction. In this miserable aspect does greatness appear to every man when reduced either by spleen or disease to observe with attention his own situation, and to consider what it is that is really wanting to his happiness. Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous and operose machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and which, in spite of all our care, are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor. …
But though this splenetic philosophy, which in time of sickness or low spirits is familiar to every man, thus entirely depreciates those great objects of human desire, when in better health and in better humour, we never fail to regard them under a more agreeable aspect. Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be confined and cooped up within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity expands itself to every thing around us. We are then charmed with the beauty of that accommodation which reigns in the palaces and economy of the great; and admire how every thing is adapted to promote their ease, to prevent their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to amuse and entertain their most frivolous desires. If we consider the real satisfaction which all these things are capable of affording, by itself and separated from the beauty of that arrangement which is fitted to promote it, it will always appear in the highest degree contemptible and trifling. But we rarely view it in this abstract and philosophical light. We naturally confound it, in our imagination with the order, the regular and harmonious movement of the system, the machine or economy by means of which it is produced. The pleasures of wealth and greatness, when considered in this complex view, strike the imagination as something grand, and beautiful, and noble, of which the attainment is well worth all the toil and anxiety which we are so apt to bestow upon it.
And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Chap. I.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part IV

Pain, Health, Pleasure, Youth

“Say you've been to MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) Disney Studios in Orlando, you'll know that there's an animation studio where you actually walk out of the back door of the animation studio and you're in a theme park. Now you say, hey, that's pretty cool. Could any animation studio have a sort of situation like that that is any cooler? And you think not. Well, you're wrong, I'd say, because here at Big Idea when we walk out our back door, We have the Timework button, we push the button, we open the door[…] and, we're in a mall. Disney has nothing on this. You can be animating one moment, buying candy by the pound the next, or taking a ride on a little train, or going to the food court.”

Phil Vischer (1966) American puppeter

From Disc Two; Behind the Scenes: Big Idea Tour (00:08:57-00:09:36)
Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie DVD (2002)

Food, Idea, Thinking, Animals

“An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.”

Billy Wilder (1906–2002) American filmmaker

As quoted in The Bright Side of Billy Wilder, Primarily (1970) by Tom Wood, p. 20

“It's a picture perfect eveningAnd I'm staring down the sunFully loaded, deaf, and dumbAnd done waiting for sedation to disconnect my headOr any situation where I'm better off than dead”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

Sweet Adeline.
Lyrics, XO (1998)

Waiting, Perfection, Dead

“On the 7th azar I went to see and shoot on the tank of Pushkar, which is one of the established praying-places of the Hindus, with regard to the perfection of which they give (excellent) accounts that are incredible to any intelligence, and which is situated at a distance of three kos from Ajmir. For two or three days I shot waterfowl on that tank, and returned to Ajmir. Old and new temples which, in the language of the infidels, they call Deohara are to be seen around this tank. Among them Rana Shankar, who is the uncle of the rebel Amar, and in my kingdom is among the high nobles, had built a Deohara of great magnificence, on which 100,000 rupees had been spent. I went to see that temple. I found a form cut out of black stone, which from the neck above was in the shape of a pig's head, and the rest of the body was like that of a man. The worthless religion of the Hindus is this, that once on a time for some particular object the Supreme Ruler thought it necessary to show himself in this shape; on this account they hold it dear and worship it. I ordered them to break that hideous form and throw it into the tank. After looking at this building there appeared a white dome on the top of a hill, to which men were coming from all quarters. When I asked about this they said that a Jogi lived there, and when the simpletons come to see him he places in their hands a handful of flour, which they put into their mouths and imitate the cry of an animal which these fools have at some time injured, in order that by this act their sins may be blotted out. I ordered them to break down that place and turn the Jogi out of it, as well as to destroy the form of an idol there was in the dome”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Ajmer, Pushkar (Rajasthan) , Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, translated into English by Alexander Rogers, first published 1909-1914, New Delhi Reprint, 1978, Vol. I, pp. 254-55.

Men, Religion, Fools, Intelligence

“The truth of matter is, ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends, brothers and sisters, religion has it very much its own way in this country of ours. It's in the pledge of allegiance, thanks to a stupid intervention of President Eisenhower; it's on the money, it's in the opening of Congress every day, it's at the National Prayer Breakfast, it's when the delinquent president summons his advisors and his spiritual team in order to fend off what should have been inevitable, it's when Al Gore can't bring himself to criticize a decision of the Oklahoma school board, and it's high time that that situation was reversed and we developed a proper immunity to it, and made sure that religion can only be self-inflicted.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2000s, 2000, "Hostility Of America to Religion" (2000)

Money, Truth, Stupidity, School

“Those portions of the brain, seemingly unused, deal with these other dimensions, and physically, you begin to use these portions, though minutely, for the first time, under psychedelic situations.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 308, Page 217
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 7

Time

“The meaning of experience is typically one generation behind the experience. The content of new situations, both private and corporate, is typically the preceding situation.”

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

quoted in "The Prospects of Recording" by Glenn Gould, The Glenn Gould reader, 1984, p. 345
1980s

“The happiest screen collaboration of Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton — they're both wonderful — is in this adaptation of a Somerset Maugham story, "The Vessel of Wrath." It's set on an island in the Pacific, which Maugham calls Baru, and it's concerned with the efforts of the prim missionary (Lanchester) to reform the carnal, ribald beachcomber (Laughton). The situation is the reverse of that in Maugham's Sadie Thompson story, but with a light, comic tone. The Hepburn-Bogart "African Queen" probably took a few notions from it.”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

"The Beachcomber," p. 56.
5001 Nights at the Movies (1982)

Effort, Light

“Laughter is a mental mechanism which enables us to face reality without falling into despondency or delusion. As people who have sunk in apathy seldom bother us by rushing into print, delusion (leaving aside deceit) constitutes the chief obstacle to the progress of our understanding of society, and in this context is usually assumes the form of doctrinairism couched in a mystifying jargon. A sense of humour is the most reliable external indicator of the likelihood of immunity from this folly, and of the ability to appraise social situations realistically.”

Stanislav Andreski (1919–2007) Polish-British sociologist

Social Sciences as Sorcery (1972)

People, Understanding, Reality, Sense

“The greatest reason for Japan's participation in the Triple Alliance lies in the fact that the three signatory powers, at this time of great change in the world situation, have the same position, the same interest, and entertain the same political views. China is not Japan's real enemy in the present incident. In reality Japan is fighting Britain and America. The first thing we are now required to do is to carry out our southward advance.”

Toshio Shiratori (1887–1949) Japanese politician

Quoted in "World order in historical perspective" - Page 308 - by Hans Kohn - 1942.

World, Reality, Change, Time

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.

The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, 'race'. The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are 'prejudiced', 'racialist'... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as 'spouting the fantasies of racial purity' to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of 'racialist' and 'unChristian' and applying them to lifelong political colleagues...

In the universities, we are told that education and the discipline ought to be determined by the students, and that the representatives of the students ought effectively to manage the institutions. This is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense which it is already obligatory for academics and journalists, politicians and parties, to accept and mouth upon pain of verbal denunciation and physical duress.

We are told that the economic achievement of the Western countries has been at the expense of the rest of the world and has impoverished them, so that what are called the 'developed' countries owe a duty to hand over tax-produced 'aid' to the governments of the undeveloped countries. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense with which the people of the Western countries, clergy and laity, but clergy especially—have been so deluged and saturated that in the end they feel ashamed of what the brains and energy of Western mankind have done, and sink on their knees to apologise for being civilised and ask to be insulted and humiliated.

Then there is the 'civil rights' nonsense. In Ulster we are told that the deliberate destruction by fire and riot of areas of ordinary property is due to the dissatisfaction over allocation of council houses and opportunities for employment. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that has not prevented the Parliament and government of the United Kingdom from undermining the morale of civil government in Northern Ireland by imputing to it the blame for anarchy and violence.

Most cynically of all, we are told, and told by bishops forsooth, that communist countries are the upholders of human rights and guardians of individual liberty, but that large numbers of people in this country would be outraged by the spectacle of cricket matches being played here against South Africans. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that did not prevent a British Prime Minister and a British Home Secretary from adopting it as acknowledged fact.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The "enemy within" speech during the 1970 general election campaign; speech to the Turves Green Girls School, Northfield, Birmingham (13 June 1970), from Still to Decide (Eliot Right Way Books, 1972), pp. 36-37.
1970s

Pain, People, World, Education

“To me, to be political means you associate your work with a larger number of people’s living conditions, and that includes both mental and physical conditions. And you try to use your work to affect the situation.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Escape from Propaganda, 2009

People

“Mindfulness in fact has, if we may personify it, a rather unassuming character. Compared with it, mental factors such as devotion, energy, imagination and intelligence are certainly more colourful personalities, making an immediate and strong impact on people and situations. Their conquests are sometimes rapid and vast, though often insecure. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is of an unobtrusive nature. Its virtues shine inwardly, and in ordinary life most of its merits are passed on to other mental faculties which generally receive all the credit.”

Nyanaponika Thera (1901–1994) German Buddhist monk

Source: The Vision of Dhamma (1994), p. 71

Life, People, Imagination, Intelligence

“I see the situation of man in the world of planetary technicity not as an inexitricable and inescapable destiny, but I see the task of thought precisely in this, that within its own limits it helps man as such achieve a satisfactory relationship to the essence of technicity. National Socialism did indeed go in this direction. Those people, however, were far too poorly equipped for thought to arrive at a really explicit relationship to what is happening today and has been underway for the past 300 years.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Interview (23 September 1966), published posthumously in Der Spiegel (31 May 1976), as translated by William Richardson in Risk and Meaning, Nicolas Bouleau (translated by Dené Oglesby and Martin Crossley), ed. Springer, 2011 ISBN 978-3-642-17646-3, page 102.

People, World, Past, Help

“Do not judge your fellow man until you have come into his situation.”

Hillel the Younger

2:4
Pirkei Avot

“With more mainstream filmmaking, the problem is who’s making the decisions. They’re not artists. The key creative decisions are being made by lawyers and accountants—that’s a very precarious situation. It’s precarious because it really does matter. Icons are being made and manufactured. People say it’s just a movie—but it’s not.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Detours Interview (1995) http://www.jennifer-beals.com/media/press/detours1.html/

People, Problem, Decision

“The usual and basic Keynesian answer to recessions is a monetary expansion. But Keynes worried that even this might sometimes not be enough, particularly if a recession had been allowed to get out of hand and become a true depression. Once the economy is deeply depressed, households and especially firms may be unwilling to increase spending no matter how much cash they have, they may simply add any monetary expansion to their board. Such a situation, in which monetary policy has become ineffective, has come to be known as a "liquidity trap"; Keynes believed that the British and American economies had entered such a trap by the mid-1930s, and some economists believed that the United States was on the edge of such a tap in 1992.
The Keynesian answer to a liquidity trap is for the government to do what the private sector will not: spend. When monetary expansion is ineffective, fiscal expansion—such as public works programs financed by borrowing—must take its place. Such a fiscal expansion can break the vicious circle of low spending and low incomes, "priming the pump: and getting the economy moving again. But remember that this is not by any means an all-purpose policy recommendation; it is essentially a strategy of desperation, a dangerous drug to be prescribed only when the usual over-the-counter remedy of monetary policy has failed.”

Paul Krugman book Peddling Prosperity

Source: Peddling Prosperity (1994), Ch. 1 : The Attack on Keynes

“Whenever I face a hard decision or a risky situation in life (personally or professionally), all my thinking, all my analysis, all my planning can be boiled down to four simple questions:
1. What is the best thing that can happen if I do this?
2. What is the worst thing that can happen if I do this?
3. What is the best thing that can happen if I don't do it?
4. What is the worst thing that can happen if I don't do it?”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 21

Life, Question, Thinking, Decision

“How far away from the earth are those remotest of stars: they are beyond the reach of eye, or man's devices, or man's thought. What an absurdity is this motion (of spheres). He also argues for the extreme variability of the distance to the various heavenly bodies and states that situated "in thinnest aether, or in the most subtle fifth essence, or in vacuity - how shall the stars keep their places in the mighty swirl of these enormous spheres composed of a substance of which no one knows aught?”

William Gilbert (astronomer) book De Magnete

Translation by P. Fleury Mottelay (1958) p. 319-20.
De Magnete (1600), Book 6, Chapter III: Of the Daily Magnetic Rotation of the Globes

Star

“Software people seem to have a love-hate relationship with metrics. On one hand, they despise and distrust anything that sounds or looks like a measurement. They are quick to point out the "flaws" in the arguments of anyone who talks about measuring software products, software processes, and (especially) software people. On the other hand, these same people seem to have no problems identifying which programming language is the best, the stupid things that managers do to "ruin" projects, and who's methodology works in what situations.”

Edward V. Berard

Edward V. Berard (1998) " Metrics for object-oriented software engineering http://www.ipipan.gda.pl/~marek/objects/TOA/moose.html." The Object Agency, Inc.

Love, Hate, People, Stupidity

“Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vulgarity latent in every decision. However grave the matter at hand might be, if one neglected it for long enough, the act of neglect itself would begin to affect the situation, and someone else would emerge as an ally. Such was Count Ayakura's version of political theory.”

Yukio Mishima book Spring Snow

Spring Snow (1968), as translated by Michael Gallagher (1972).

Decision, Time

“Now at the end, we come back to the beginning: to the situation of the world here and now, from which all understanding must start and to which it must return. In all existential thinking it is we ourselves, the questioners, who are ultimately in question.”

William Barrett (philosopher) book Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

Source: Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958), Chapter Eleven, The Place Of The Furies, p. 237

World, Understanding, Question, Thinking

“In practice, quantum mechanics merely gives predictions with probabilities attached. This should be considered as a normal and quite acceptable feature of predictions made by science: different possible outcomes with different probabilities. In the world that is familiar to us, we always have such a situation when we make predictions. Thus the question remains: What is the reality described by quantum theories? I claim that we can attribute the fact that our predictions come with probability distributions to the fact that not all relevant data for the predictions are known to us, in particular important features of the initial state.”

Gerardus 't Hooft (1946) Dutch theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Q&A: Gerard 't Hooft on the future of quantum mechanics http://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20170711a/full/, Physics Today, 11 July 2017

World, Question, Reality, Science

“We are on the eve of great changes…We have set an example to the world in all ages; we have given them the representative system. The very rules and regulations of this House have been taken as the model for every representative assembly throughout the whole civilised world; and having besides given them the example of a free press and civil and religious freedom, and every institution that belongs to freedom and civilisation, we are now about giving a still greater example; we are going to set the example of making industry free—to set the example of giving the whole world every advantage of clime, and latitude, and situation, relying ourselves on the freedom of our industry. Yes, we are going to teach the world that other lesson. Don't think there is anything selfish in this, or anything at all discordant with Christian principles. I can prove that we advocate nothing but what is agreeable to the highest behests of Christianity. To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest. What is the meaning of the maxim? It means that you take the article which you have in the greatest abundance, and with it obtain from others that of which they have the most to spare; so giving to mankind the means of enjoying the fullest abundance of earth's goods, and in doing so, carrying out to the fullest extent the Christian doctrine of 'Doing to all men as ye would they should do unto you.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (27 February 1846), quoted in John Bright and J. E. Thorold Rogers (eds.), Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P. Volume I (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908), p. 198.
1840s

Men, Age, World, Thinking

“Even in the most horrendous situations there is always something to smile about.”

Stella Vine (1969) English artist

Mansfield, Karl. "The 5-Minute Interview: Stella Vine: 'There have been a few times" http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_/ai_n15873617, The Independent, (2005-11-28) On her philosophy for life.

Smile

“We underestimate the distance between ourselves and others. Not just inferential distance, but distances of temperament and ability, distances of situation and resource, distances of unspoken knowledge and unnoticed skills and luck, distances of interior landscape.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

Beware of Other-Optimizing (April 2009) http://lesswrong.com/lw/9v/beware_of_otheroptimizing/

Knowledge

“Ideas do not make a movement; they are themselves merely the product of concrete situations, the intellectual precipitate of particular conditions of life. Movements arise only from the immediate and practical necessities of social life and are never the result of purely abstract ideas. But they acquire their irresistible force and their inner certainty of victory only when they are vitalised by a great idea, which gives them life and intellectual content.”

Rudolf Rocker book Anarcho-Syndicalism

Source: Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938), Ch. 2 "The Proletariat and the Beginning of the Modern Labour Movement"

Life, Idea, Victory

“The intention of not only the screenwriter, but also the entire production staff, was to focus on how people would react if a creature such as Godzilla really did appear. What would the politicians do? How about the scientists? How would the military handle the situation? Given this, it was inevitable that the film would seem at least somewhat like a documentary.”

Ishirō Honda (1911–1993) Japanese film director

As quoted by David Milner, "Ishiro Honda Interview" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/honda.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1992)

People, Appearance

“Looking backward on a period which is finished, we are looking at actually realized returns, costs, etc., as those items are registered in the bookkeeping of business. In such an ex post calculation there is, as we will show later, an exact balance between the invested waiting and the value of gross investment [Phil: he appears to mean savings and investment]. Looking forward there is no such balance except under certain conditions which remain to be ascertained. In the ex ante calculus it is a question not of realized results but of anticipations, calculations, and plans driving the dynamic process forward. Had this distinction been kept in mind, much confusion about “saving and investment” would have been avoided. There is in fact no contradiction at all between the statement of an exact bookkeeping balance ex post and the obvious inference that in a situation in which saving is increasing without a corresponding increase in investment, or perhaps with an adverse movement in investment, there must be a tendency ex ante to disparity.”

Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987) Swedish economist

Source: Monetary Equilibrium (1939), p. 34

Question, Business, Appearance, Waiting

“He found himself now in the agreeable situation of being able to do what was best for others and at the same time what was convenient to himself.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Razor's Edge

p, 125
The Razor's Edge (1943)

Time

“As we survey the various stages of evolution, from the simplest one-cell creatures up to man. we see a steady improvement in the methods of learning and adaptation to a hostile world. Each step in learning ability gives better adaptation and greater chance of survival. We are carried a long way up the scale by innate reflexes and rudimentary muscular learning faculties. Habits indeed, not rational thought, assist us to surmount most of life's obstacles. Most, but by no means all; for learning in the high mammals exhibits the unexplained phenomenon of "insight," which shows itself by sudden changes in behavior in learning situations -- in sudden departures from one method of organizing a task, or solving a problem, to another. Insight, expectancy, set, are the essentially "mind-like" attributes of communication, and it is these, together with the representation of concepts, which require physiological explanation. At the higher end of the scale of evolution, this quality we call "mind" appears more and more prominently, but it is at our own level that learning of a radically new type has developed -- through our powers of organizing thoughts, comparing and setting them into relationship, especially with the use of language. We have a remarkable faculty of forming generalizations, of recognizing universals, of associating and developing them. It is our multitude of general concepts, and our powers of organizing them with the aid of language in varied ways, which forms the backbone of human communication, and which distinguises us from the animals.”

Colin Cherry (1914–1979) British scientist

Source: Hebb, D. O., The Organization of Behavior, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1949.
Source: On Human Communication (1957), On Cognition and Recognition, p. 304

Life, Hostility, World, Way

“I don't believe it's possible to be neutral. The world is already moving in certain directions, and to be neutral, to be passive in a situation like that, is to collaborate with whatever is going on. And I, as a teacher, do not want to be a collaborator with whatever is happening in the world. I want myself, as a teacher, and I want you, as students, to intercede with whatever is happening in the world.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Howard Zinn: You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004) documentary film

World, Teachers

“There are some who feel like that, uh, if they, attack us? That we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they're talking about, if that's the case. Let me finish. Uh, there are some who uh feels like that the conditions are such that they they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on. We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. Of course, we want other countries to help us. Great Britain is there, Poland is there.”

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

Press conference http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=uKdbZWNqF00#President_George_W._Bush_Says__Bring__em_on_, discussing the then-incipient insurgency in Iraq; press conference, July 2, 2003. 2000s, 2003

Feeling, Understanding, Help, Country

“We have studied the Jewish problem scientifically. Essentially it is an abnormal situation that the Jews should live among other races, whereby they violate the great natural law that every race shall live in its own country.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Jewish Problem

Law, Nature, Problem, Study

“I know lots of people like Albert. I might be like him myself. He was a hopeless romantic, he lived on anticipation. He was always yearning for the next thing. He was always envisioning some wonderful life with somebody else, while grimly enduring life with the woman he was with. If I think about it, I would say that that was kind of the key to his psychology, that he had the lure of the perfect situation, the perfect person. Of course if you're Einstein, you want everything that you want your way and then you want to be left alone. So you want love, and you want affection, you want a good meal, but then you don't want any interference outside of that, so you don't want any obligations interfering with your life, with your work. Which is a difficult stance to maintain in an adult relationship; it doesn't work. Everything has to be a give and take.
Einstein always felt Paradise was just around the corner, but as soon as he got there, it started looking a little shabby and something better appeared. I've known a lot of people like Albert in my time, I have felt lots of shocks of recognition. I feel like I got to know Albert as a person in the course of this, and I have more respect for him as a physicist than I did when I started, I have more a sense of what he accomplished and how hard it really was to be Einstein than I did before. It's a great relief to be able to think of him as a real person. If he was around I'd love to buy him a beer ….. but I don't know if I'd introduce him to my sister.”

Dennis Overbye (1944) American writer

On Albert Einstein, in Sex and Physics : A Talk with Dennis Overbye (2001) http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/overbye/overbye_print.html

Love, Life, People, Way

“[A register is constituted by] the linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features - with particular values of the field, mode and tenor.”

Michael Halliday (1925–2018) Australian linguist

Source: 1970s and later, Cohesion in English (English Language), 1976, p. 22 cited in: Helen Leckie-Tarry (1998) Language and Context. p. 6.

“I'm in a no-win situation. If I have my kids in the show, I'm exploiting them. If I don't, people will think I'm not a hands-on mom.”

Denise Richards (1971) American actress and model

On having her young daughters on her TV program
Red Book interview

People, Moms, Thinking

“Democracy is premised, in some measure, on majority rule, and democracy is difficult in a situation of concentrated inequalities in which a large, impoverished majority confronts a small, wealthy oligarchy.”

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

Source: The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (1991)

Democracy

“Large-scale riots in East Pakistan have compelled over two lakh Hindus and other minorities to come over to India. Indians naturally feel incensed by the happenings in East Bengal. To bring the situation under control and to prescribe the right remedy for the situation it is essential that the malady be properly diagnosed. And even in this state of mental agony, the basic values of our national life must never be forgotten. It is our firm conviction that guaranteeing the protection of the life and property of Hindus and other minorities in Pakistan is the responsibility of the Government of India. To take a nice legalistic view about the matter that Hindus in Pakistan are Pakistani nationals would be dangerous and can only result in killings and reprisals in the two countries, in greater or lesser measure. When the Government of India fails to fulfill this obligation towards the minorities in Pakistan, the people understandably become indignant. Our appeal to the people is that this indignation should be directed against the Government and should in no case be given vent to against the Indian Muslims. If the latter thing happens, it only provides the Government with a cloak to cover its own inertia and failure, and an opportunity to malign the people and repress them. So far as the Indian Muslims are concerned, it is our definite view that, like all other citizens, their life and property must be protected in all circumstances. No incident and no logic can justify any compromise with truth in this regard. A state, which cannot guarantee the right of living to its citizens, and citizens who cannot assure safety of their neighbours, would belong to the barbaric age. Freedom and security to every citizen irrespective of his faith has indeed been India’s sacred tradition. We would like to reassure every Indian Muslim in this regard and would wish this message to reach every Hindu home that it is their civic and national duty to ensure the fulfillment of this assurance.”

Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916–1968) RSS thinker and co-founder of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh

Joint statement for the Indo-Pak confederation that D Upadhyaya signed, on 12 April 1964, with Dr Lohia, quoted in L.K. Advani, My Country My Life (2008)

Life, People, Truth, Age

“What I did was restate the law. I was talking about a situation in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes smashing into a house, doesn't say who they are, and their guns are out, they're shooting, and they're in the wrong place. This has happened time and time again. The ATF has gone in and gotten the wrong guy in the wrong place. The law is that if somebody is shooting at you, using deadly force, the mere fact that they are a law enforcement officer, if they are in the wrong, does not mean you are obliged to allow yourself to be killed so your kinfolk can have a wrongful death action. You are legally entitled to defend yourself and I was speaking of exactly those kind of situations. If you're going to do that, you should know that they're wearing body armor so you should use a head shot. Now all I'm doing is stating the law, but all the nuances in there got left out when the story got repeated.”

G. Gordon Liddy (1930) American lawyer in Watergate scandal

On his 1994 comments on taking head shots at ATF agents, as quoted in a 2003 interview at Right Wing News http://www.rightwingnews.com/interviews/liddy.php

Death, Alcohol, Law, Guy

“So long as antimilitarists propose no substitute for war's disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

The Moral Equivalent of War http://www.constitution.org/wj/meow.htm 1910s, Memories and Studies (1911)

War

“Our current financial situation means that if we want to buy, we have to spend.”

Kevin Keegan (1951) English footballer

Collection of Kevin Keegan quotes http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Kevin-Keegan-quotes-and-football-wisdom-article42209.html

“Navigation brought man face to face with the uncertainty of destiny, where each is left to himself and every departure might always be the last. The madman on his crazy boat sets sail for the other world, and it is from the other world that he comes when he disembarks. This enforced navigation is both rigorous division and absolute Passage, serving to underline in real and imaginary terms the liminal situation of the mad in medieval society. It was a highly symbolic role, made clear by the mental geography involved, where the madman was confined at the gates of the cities. His exclusion was his confinement, and if he had no prison other than the threshold itself he was still detained at this place of passage. In a highly symbolic position he is placed on the inside of the outside, or vice versa. A posture that is still his today, if we admit that what was once the visible fortress of social order is now the castle of our own consciousness.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Part One: 1. Stultifera Navis
History of Madness (1961)

World, Departure, Madness

“The situation thus is as follows: the ones who have dominated and controlled and terrorised public discourse for half a century in India are now bereft of facts, of arguments. The evidence is available to anyone who has access to their internal ‘dialogues’ – they are talking to narrower and narrower circles; and in these ever-shrinking circles, they are just repeating the old cliches, there is not a new idea, there is not a new fact. And that is predictable, as we have seen: regurgitating those nostrums of the theory is not just necessary, it is sufficient.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud

Idea

““What about spatial relationships?” the investigator inquired, as I was looking at the books. It was difficult to answer. True, the perspective looked rather odd, and the walls of the room no longer seemed to meet in right angles. But these were not the really important facts. The really important facts were that spatial relationships had ceased to matter very much and that my mind was perceiving the world in terms of other than spatial categories. At ordinary times the eye concerns itself with such problems as Where?—How far?—How situated in relation to what? In the mescalin experience the implied questions to which the eye responds are of another order. Place and distance cease to be of much interest. The mind does its Perceiving in terms of intensity of existence, profundity of significance, relationships within a pattern. I saw the books, but was not at all concerned with their positions in space. What I noticed, what impressed itself upon my mind was the fact that all of them glowed with living light and that in some the glory was more manifest than in others. In this context position and the three dimensions were beside the point. Not, of course, that the category of space had been abolished. When I got up and walked about, I could do so quite normally, without misjudging the whereabouts of objects. Space was still there; but it had lost its predominance. The mind was primarily concerned, not with measures and locations, but with being and meaning.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

describing his experiment with mescaline, pp. 19-20
Source: The Doors of Perception (1954)

Books, World, Question, Problem

“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Chap. III.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part III

Life, Peace, Justice, Passion

“It must be said that today, at the end of its semantic evolution, the word 'terrorist' is an intrinsically propagandistic term. It has no neutral readability. It dispenses with all reasoned examination of political situations, of their causes and consequences.”

Alain Badiou (1937) French writer and philosopher

From Philosophy and the 'war against terrorism in Infinite Thought: truth and the return of philosophy. London: Continuum, 2003. ISBN 0826467245.

“It would be pleasant to believe that the age of pessimism is now coming to a close, and that its end is marked by the same author who marked its beginning: Aldous Huxley. After thirty years of trying to find salvation in mysticism, and assimilating the Wisdom of the East, Huxley published in 1962 a new constructive utopia, The Island. In this beautiful book he created a grand synthesis between the science of the West and the Wisdom of the East, with the same exceptional intellectual power which he displayed in his Brave New World. (His gaminerie is also unimpaired; his close union of eschatology and scatology will not be to everybody's tastes.) But though his Utopia is constructive, it is not optimistic; in the end his island Utopia is destroyed by the sort of adolescent gangster nationalism which he knows so well, and describes only too convincingly.
This, in a nutshell, is the history of thought about the future since Victorian days. To sum up the situation, the sceptics and the pessimists have taken man into account as a whole; the optimists only as a producer and consumer of goods. The means of destruction have developed pari passu with the technology of production, while creative imagination has not kept pace with either.
The creative imagination I am talking of works on two levels. The first is the level of social engineering, the second is the level of vision.”

Dennis Gabor (1900–1979) Nobel Prize-winning physicist and inventor of holography

In my view both have lagged behind technology, especially in the highly advanced Western countries, and both constitute dangers.
Source: Inventing the Future (1963), p. 18-19

Wisdom, Books, Age, World

“The "Great Society" has not worked and it's put us into the modern welfare state. If you look at China, they don't have food stamps. If you look at China, they're in a very different situation. They save for their own retirement security… They don't have the modern welfare state and China's growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with the Great Society and they'd be gone.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

CBS Republican Debate, 2011-11-12, quoted in * 2011-11-12
Bachmann: America Should Be Less Socialist… Like China
Benjy
Sarlin
Talking Points Memo
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/bachmann-america-should-be-more-like-china.php
2011-11-14
2010s, 2012 Presidential campaign

Food

“For a year we dealt with the ex-president with an ultimate nobility. we were honest in everything. we had delivered our estimates of the situation we has reached to the president. that isn't something new to us, we were seeing all this. we warned him, we said that we would reach a fighting under the name of religion. the fighting would turn from a political one into a religious one. No! Stop! Is the Islam, yours only?”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi during a military conference (28 April 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC93fn9s3-c. 2013

Religion, Fight

“Pornography and obscenity…work by specialism and fragmentation. They deal with a figure without a ground -- situations in which the human factor is suppressed in favor of sensations and kicks.”

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

Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514
1970s

“In its present state of development psychology must be thought of as a young science. There is only one field in which it is relatively well established and in which it has advanced steadily: this is the psychology of sensation and perception. The scientific character of this field is fully recognized. Its findings are based almost entirely on experimental evidence, and even when its theories are in conflict one feels that as far as method is concerned it stands on relatively firm ground. The situation is different with the psychology of will, of needs, and of personality despite the fact that these fields have always attracted popular interest. As recently as fifteen years ago it was assumed that they, by their very nature, were not amenable to scientific methods. The little experimental work that had been done seemed too artificial and abstract to give an insight into the real processes. It was generally accepted that experimental investigations of these elusive and highly complicated processes were intrinsically impossible, at least in so far as human beings are concerned. Thus in Europe these problems were treated in a half-literary, half-philosophical way, and in America the tendency was to study individual differences by means of tests.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1930s, Principles of topological psychology, 1936, p. 3.

Way, Feeling, Nature, Problem

“The scholars who understand it hesitate to speak out boldly for fear people will not understand. The people, who understand it quite easily, also fear to speak out while they wait for the scholars to speak out first. The difference between our present situation and that of the story is that it is not the emperor but the people who are periodically made to go naked and hungry and insecure and discontented - a ready prey to less timid organizers of discontent for the destruction of the civilization.”

Abba Lerner (1903–1982) American economist

(1951, pg.16) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=174849

People, Fear, Understanding, Waiting

“The Conservative Party must make its choice. Every leader is leader only with the support of his party. That is true of me too. That is why I am no longer prepared to tolerate the present situation. In short, it is time to put up or shut up.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Michael White, "Major's ultimate gamble", Guardian, 23 June 1995.
Statement in the garden of 10 Downing Street announcing his resignation as Conservative Party leader in order to seek re-election, 22 June 1995.
1990s, 1995

Support, Time

“The emphasis of the men’s group was on understanding, coping, changing the situation and then, if all else failed, getting out; the emphasis of battered women’s groups is on getting out first, and second, locking up the problem”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

the man
Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

Women, Men, Understanding, Problem

“Any cleric or monk who seduces young men or boys, or who is apprehended in kissing or in any shameful situation, shall be publicly flogged and shall lose his clerical tonsure. Thus shorn, he shall be disgraced by spitting in his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. Following this period, he shall spend a further six months living in a small segregated courtyard in custody of a spiritual elder, kept busy with manual labor and prayer, subjected to vigils and prayers, forced to walk at all times in the company of two spiritual brothers, never again allowed to associate with young men.”

Peter Damian (1007–1072) reformist monk

Letter 31:38. To Pope Leo IX, A.D. 1049. The Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, Peter Damian: Letters 31-60, Owen J. Blum, tr., Catholic University of America Press, ISBN 081320707X ISBN 9780813207070, vol. 2, p. 29. http://books.google.com/books?id=3PkYNcU0k94C&pg=PA29&dq=%22Any+cleric+or+monk+who+seduces%22&hl=en&ei=lrZHTP3EHcL78Aac2uDWBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Any%20cleric%20or%20monk%20who%20seduces%22&f=false

Men, Boy, Business, Kiss

Quotes about situation page 14

Quotes about situation
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