Quotes about sort (2698 quotes, page 23)

“Ru-h-ru-h-ru-h-h-h-h. Pooh-ooh-ooh. Tick-tick-tick-tick. Pre. R-r-r-r-r-uh-h. Huh! Bang. Su-su-su-ur. Booh-a-ah. R-r-r-r. Pooh…multitude of sounds, all mixed together. Motorcars, buses, carts, carriages, people, lamp-posts, trees.. all mixed together; in front of cafés, shops, offices, posters, shop windows: multitude of things. Motion and standstills: different movement. Movement in space and movement in time. Multitude of images and all sorts of ideas. Images are veiled truths. All different truths form what is true. What is individual does not display all in a single image.... Ru-ru-ru-u-u. Pre. Images are boundaries. Multitude of images and all sorts of boundaries. Elimination of images and boundaries through all sorts of images. Boundary clouds what is true. Rebus: where is what is true? Boundaries are just as relative as images, as time and space.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Mondrian's poem has strong connections with 'dynamism' of Futurism
Quote from his article 'The Grand Boulevards', Piet Mondriaan, in Dutch magazine 'De Groene Amsterdammer', 27 March 1920 pp. 4-5
1920's

People , Truth , Idea , Tree

“It is nobody’s case that there was never any conflict among the sects and sub-sects of Sanãtana Dharma. Some instances of persecution were indeed there. Our plea is that they should be seen in a proper perspective, and not exaggerated in order to whitewash or counter-balance the record of Islamic intolerance. Firstly, the instances are few and far between when compared to those listed in Islamic annals. Secondly, those instances are spread over several millennia while the fourteen centuries of Islam stand crowded with religious crimes of all sorts. Thirdly, none of those instances were inspired by a theology, while in the case of Islam a theology of intolerance has continued to question the character of Muslim kings who happened to be tolerant. Fourthly, Jains were not always the victims of persecution; they were persecutors as well once in a while. Lastly, no king or commander or saint who showed intolerance has been a Hindu hero, while Islam has hailed as heroes only those characters who excelled in intolerance.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

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

Question

“She never came back. The family
Sort of drifted off. Nobody wears shiny boots like that now.
But I know she is beautiful forever, and lives
In a beautiful house, far away.
She called my name once. I didn't even know she knew it.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

"True Love"

Family , Beauty , Housing

“Dave always arrives at the right conclusions, but his mathematics is terrible. I take it home and find all sorts of errors and then have to spend the night trying to develop the correct proof. But in the end, the result is always exactly the same as the one Dave saw directly.”

David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist

Professor Basil Hiley http://www.bbk.ac.uk/tpru/BasilHiley.html, a colleague at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Error , Home , Mathematics , Night

“Remember that a picture, before being a battle horse, a female nude or some sort of anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order.”

Maurice Denis (1870–1943) French painter

1890 - 1920

Color , Horse

“If he has deserved no kindness, but just the opposite, because he has maddened you with his injuries and insults, even this is no reason why you should not surround him with your affection and show him all sorts of favors.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 38.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“I like B movies. I take a look at this and that, while thinking, “What the hell is this!? This makes no sense!” till the end. I like that sort of feeling. So an alchemy manga was born because I wanted to have that kind of feeling in my manga. Thanks to everyone who bought it. While getting into it and thinking, “What is alchemy supposed to be like this?” Please enjoy it.”

Hiromu Arakawa (1973) award winning Japanese manga artist

Interview with mobuta.com (2004)

Feeling , Hell , Thinking , Sense

“Johnson: What do you think about this Vietnam thing? I’d like to hear you talk a little bit.
Russell: Well, frankly, Mr. President, it’s the damn worse mess that I ever saw, and I don’t like to brag and I never have been right many times in my life, but I knew that we were going to get into this sort of mess when we went in there. And I don’t see how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them down there in those rice paddies and jungles. I just don’t see it. I just don’t know what to do.
Johnson: Well, that’s the way I have been feeling for six months.
Russell: Our position is deteriorating and it looks like the more we try to do for them, the less they are willing to do for themselves. It is a mess and it’s going to get worse, and I don’t know how or what to do. I don’t think the American people are quite ready for us to send our troops in there to do the fighting. If I was going to get out, I’d get the same crowd that got rid of old Diem [the Vietnamese prime minister who was overthrown and assassinated in 1963] to get rid of these people and to get some fellow in there that said we wish to hell we would get out. That would give us a good excuse for getting out.
Johnson: How important is it to us?
Russell: It isn’t important a damn bit for all this new missile stuff.
Johnson: I guess it is important.
Russell: From a psychological standpoint. Other than the question of our word and saving face, that’s the reason that I said that I don’t think that anybody would expect us to stay in there. It’s going to be a headache to anybody that tries to fool with it. You’ve got all the brains in the country, Mr. President—you better get ahold of them. I don’t know what to do about this. I saw it all coming on, but that don’t do any good now, that’s water over the dam and under the bridge. And we are there.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Telephone call with Senator Richard Russell (May 27, 1964)

Life , War , People , Fools

“"Old age is a tyrant," said La Rochefoucauld, "who forbids indulgence in the pleasures of youth under penalty of death." First of all, those of love are prohibited. Old men and old women have the utmost difficulty in inspiring love, though they be full of spirit and vigor. When affairs of this sort do exist, it must be determined how great a part is played by respect, admiration, and abnegation.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

Love , Death , Women , Men

“To see deep difficulty braved is at any time, for the really addicted artist, to feel almost even as a pang the beautiful incentive, and to feel it verily in such sort as to wish the danger intensified. The difficulty most worth tackling can only be for him, in these conditions, the greatest the case permits of.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

The Portrait of a Lady.
Prefaces (1907-1909)

Beauty , Feeling , Time

“For all the ‘4th Generation of War’ intellectuals running around today saying that the nature of war has fundamentally changed, the tactics are wholly new, etc., I must respectfully say, ‘Not really’: Alexander the Great would not be in the least bit perplexed by the enemy that we face right now in Iraq, and our leaders going into this fight do their troops a disservice by not studying — studying, vice just reading — the men who have gone before us. We have been fighting on this planet for 5,000 years and we should take advantage of their experience. ‘Winging it’ and filling body bags as we sort out what works reminds us of the moral dictates and the cost of incompetence in our profession.”

James Mattis (1950) 26th and current United States Secretary of Defense; United States Marine Corps general

Nov. 20, 2003, Addressing the detractors of untested Marine tactics in Iraq. http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/fiasco/

Men , War , Nature , Study

“In former days this maxim was displayed in Business Offices, "Call upon a Businessman, at business hours, on business only. Go about your business and thus enable him to finish his own business. This is purely a business matter." There are two reasons why some people don't mind their own business; one is that they haven't any mind and the other that they haven't any business. However, now the Businessman is plagued at all hours by a spate of visitors with no business in view, who just drop in for free information or hospitality and more often than not for contributions to all sorts of charities, often of doubtful flavour or unauthorised.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

Peter de Noronha, The Pageant of Life (1964), Pages 134-135,
The Pageant of Life (1964), Businessmen

People , Business

“Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best.”

Walter Bagehot book The English Constitution

No. V, The House of Commons, p. 159
Cf the Gettysburg Address.
The English Constitution (1867)

People , Thinking

“The British monarchy inculcates unthinking credulity and servility. It forms a heavy layer on the general encrustation of our unreformed political institutions. It is the gilded peg from which our unlovely system of social distinction and hierarchy depends. It is an obstacle to the objective public discussion of our own history. It tribalises politics. It entrenches the absurdity of the hereditary principle. It contributes to what sometimes looks like an enfeeblement of the national intelligence, drawing from our press and even from some of our poets the sort of degrading and abnegating propaganda that would arouse contempt if displayed in Zaire or Romania. It is, in short, neither dignified nor efficient.”

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

1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

History , Intelligence , Drawing , Dependency

“That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation. Now the Tories are pouring out money in propaganda of all sorts and are hoping by this organised sustained mass suggestion to eradicate from our minds all memory of what we went through. But, I warn you young men and women, do not listen to what they are saying now. Do not listen to the seductions of Lord Woolton. He is a very good salesman. If you are selling shoddy stuff you have to be a good salesman. But I warn you they have not changed, or if they have they are slightly worse than they were.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

Speech on 3 July 1948 at the Bellevue Hotel, on eve of the entry into force of the National Health Service.
1940s

Women , Men , Money , People

“The odd thing is not that we are in the business of overthrowing other people's governments, but that we can still be surprised when somebody reminds us of it. In Asia, in Latin America, Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East we have been propping up and knocking down governments more or less openly for the past twenty-five years.
It is an established policy. Everybody knows it. It is supposed to be done covertly, which is only sensible if you hope to succeed since publicity in matters of this sort can only make the natives restless and defeat the project. Imagine the chauvinistic rallying around President Nixon that would have occurred if Canada, say, had announced that her agents were going to destabilize United States society so that discontented Americans could heave the Nixon Administration out of office.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Our Uncle Is Now Dorian Sam" (p.93)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

People , Hope , Imagination , Business

“At present, I am a poet trying to be a soldier. To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful … The only sort of book I care to write about the war is the sort people will read after the war is over — a century after it is over.”

Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) American poet, editor, literary critic, soldier

A letter home, included in Joyce Kilmer, Poems, Essays and Letters (1918) edited by Robert Holliday

War , People , Truth , Books

“It's sort of cathartic -- the naked exposure -- don't you think? You couldn't do it voluntarily -- could you? It's under duress -- so somehow legitimate. Circumstances beyond our control. I think I enjoyed that.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Philip
8 1/2 Women

Thinking

“Hearing has its own memory. It registers the dog whose sudden barking startled me as a child. The folk songs my nanny used to sing. The dadaism of a cabaret song from Berlin: ‘I tear out one of my eyelashes and stab you dead with it,’ innocently sung by my mother. Hitler conjuring up the Almighty. The crowing voice of little Goebbels. Alarm sirens, the roar of aircraft, the blast of bombs. Ljuba Welitsch being Salome. The sonorities of Edwin Fischer’s piano playing. María Casares as Lady Macbeth in Avignon. Ralph Kirkpatrick’s two Scarlatti recitals. Gré Brouwenstijn as Leonore in Fidelio. The epiphany of Ligeti’s Aventures et Nouvelles Aventures. The magic application of noise in Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. All sorts of laughter.”

Alfred Brendel (1931) Austrian pianist, poet, and author

quoted in Alan Rusbridger, "Music, Sense and Nonsense by Alfred Brendel review – a great pianist’s thoughts on his art", The Guardian, 24 September 2015

Dogs , Dreams , Tear , Laughter

“The ideologies of the super-tribes exercised absolute power over all individual minds under their sway.
In civilized regions the super-tribes and the overgrown natural tribes created an astounding mental tyranny. In relation to his natural tribe, at least if it was small and genuinely civilized, the individual might still behave with intelligence and imagination. Along with his actual tribal kinsmen he might support a degree of true community unknown on Earth. He might in fact be a critical, self-respecting and other-respecting person. But in all matters connected with the super-tribes, whether national or economic, he behaved in a very different manner. All ideas coming to him with the sanction of nation or class would be accepted uncritically and with fervor by himself and all his fellows. As soon as he encountered one of the symbols or slogans of his super-tribe he ceased to be a human personality and became a sort of de-cerebrate animal, capable only of stereotyped reactions. In extreme cases his mind was absolutely closed to influences opposed to the suggestion of the super-tribe. Criticism was either met with blind rage or actually not heard at all. Persons who in the intimate community of their small native tribe were capable of great mutual insight and sympathy might suddenly, in response to tribal symbols, be transformed into vessels of crazy intolerance and hate directed against national or class enemies. In this mood they would go to any extreme of self-sacrifice for the supposed glory of the super-tribe. Also they would show great ingenuity in contriving means to exercise their lustful vindictiveness upon enemies who in favorable circumstances could be quite as kindly and intelligent as themselves.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter V: Worlds Innumerable; 2. Strange Mankinds (p. 62)

Hate , Exercises , Imagination , Intelligence

“Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

"The Contagion of Ideas", p. 44. A speech delivered to a group of teachers (Summer 1952); not previously published
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

Behavior

“In the most advanced areas of this civilization, the social controls have been introjected to the point where even individual protest is affected at its roots. The intellectual and emotional refusal “to go along” appears neurotic and impotent. This is the socio-psychological aspect of the political event that marks the contemporary period: the passing of the historical forces which, at the preceding stage of industrial society, seemed to represent the possibility of new forms of existence. But the term “introjection” perhaps no longer describes the way in which the individual by himself reproduces and perpetuates the external controls exercised by his society. Introjection suggests a variety of relatively spontaneous processes by which a Self (Ego) transposes the “outer” into the “inner.” Thus introjection implies the existence of an inner dimension distinguished from and even antagonistic to the external exigencies—an individual consciousness and an individual unconscious apart from public opinion and behavior. The idea of “inner freedom” here has its reality: it designates the private space in which man may become and remain “himself.” Today this private space has been invaded and whittled down by technological reality. Mass production and mass distribution claim the entire individual, and industrial psychology has long since ceased to be confined to the factory. The manifold processes of introjection seem to be ossified in almost mechanical reactions. The result is, not adjustment but mimesis: an immediate identification of the individual with his society and, through it, with the society as a whole. This immediate, automatic identification (which may have been characteristic of primitive forms of association) reappears in high industrial civilization; its new “immediacy,” however, is the product of a sophisticated, scientific management and organization. In this process, the “inner” dimension of the mind in which opposition to the status quo can take root is whittled down. The loss of this dimension, in which the power of negative thinking—the critical power of Reason—is at home, is the ideological counterpart to the very material process in which advanced industrial society silences and reconciles the opposition. The impact of progress turns Reason into submission to the facts of life, and to the dynamic capability of producing more and bigger facts of the same sort of life. The efficiency of the system blunts the individuals' recognition that it contains no facts which do not communicate the repressive power of the whole. If the individuals find themselves in the things which shape their life, they do so, not by giving, but by accepting the law of things—not the law of physics but the law of their society.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 9-11

Life , Law , Way , Behavior

“The spider-men came first, and presented her Majesty with a table full of mathematical points, lines and figures of all sorts of squares, circles, triangles, and the like; which the Empress, notwithstanding that she had a very ready wit, and quick apprehension, could not understand; but the more she endeavoured to learn, the more was she confounded”

Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673) English aristocrat, a prolific writer, and a scientist

Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World (1666)

Men , Mathematics , Understanding , Learning

“So many young men of color become part of that officer’s life experience because so many minority families and communities are struggling, so many boys and young men grow up in environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment—they lack all sorts of opportunities that most of us take for granted. A tragedy of American life—one that most citizens are able to drive around because it doesn’t touch them—is that young people in “those neighborhoods” too often inherit a legacy of crime and prison. And with that inheritance, they become part of a police officer’s life, and shape the way that officer—whether white or black—sees the world. Changing that legacy is a challenge so enormous and so complicated that it is, unfortunately, easier to talk only about the cops. And that’s not fair.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Life , Men , People , World

“Getting hurt changed me, he said. Changed my perspective. I've moved on, in a way. Some things have fallen into place that were not there before. I thought they were, but they werent. The best way I can put it is that I've sort of caught up with myself. That's not a bad thing. It was overdue.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2005)

Way , Change , Hurt

“[B]ending the system to the idea that the government in Washington should see the country as a bunch of competing racial and ethnic groups with no particular or meaningful attachment to place and community, whose only relationship to government is unmediated through state and local government, is precisely the sort of thinking that Arthur Schlesinger lamented… If it makes you sad that California doesn’t have more clout in the Senate, fine. But playing statistical games based on race and ethnicity is a pernicious way of approaching that problem.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, Say No to a Parliament of Tribes (2018)

Sadness , Way , Game , Communication

“It's a purging of sorts. Like, when you're all done doing your laundry and it's fresh and bright, but washing the clothes, you wouldn't want to get in while it's spinning around.”

Maynard James Keenan (1964) musician

On why his band Tool is like a washing machine — reported in Jim Sullivan (July 4, 1997) "Lollapalooza Still Packs A Wallop", Boston Globe, p. D1.

Clothes

“Our patron has always sort of danced upon the notion that austerity and piety go hand in hand; down here, we show our appreciation for things by appreciating, if you get me.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Interlude “Locke Stays for Dinner” section 2 (p. 132)
The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006)

Dance

“There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come, by reading the holy books, and using several sorts of purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the prophets; and it is but seldom that they miss in their predictions.”

Josephus on the Essenes

Jewish War

Books , Reading

“The privacy thing has gotten totally out of control. I think most people are not aware of who is tracking them, how much they're being tracked and sort of the large amounts of detailed data that are out there about them.”

Tim Cook (1960) American business executive

CNN Tech: "Tim Cook reveals his tech habits: I use my phone too much" http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/04/technology/apple-tim-cook-screen-time/index.html (4 June 2018)

People , Thinking

“Since September 11, 2001, I have often thought that perhaps it was fortunate for the world that the attackers targeted the World Trade Center instead of the Statue of Liberty, for if they had destroyed our sacred symbol of democracy I fear we as Americans would have been unable to keep ourselves from indulging in paroxysms of revenge of a sort the world has never seen before. If that had happened, it would have befouled the meaning of the Statue of Liberty beyond any hope of subsequent redemption — if there were any people left to care. I have learned from my students that this upsetting thought of mine is subject to several unfortunate misconstruals, so let me expand on it to ward them off. The killing of thousands of innocents in the World Trade Center was a heinous crime, much more evil than the destruction of the Statue of Liberty would have been. And, yes, the World Trade Center was a much more appropriate symbol of al Qaeda's wrath than the Statue of Liberty would have been, but for that very reason it didn't mean as much, as a symbol, to us. It was Mammon and Plutocrats and Globalization, not Lady Liberty. I do suspect that the fury with which Americans would have responded to the unspeakable defilement of our cherished national symbol, the purest image of our aspirations as a democracy, would have made a sane and measured response extraordinarily difficult. This is the great danger of symbols — they can become too "sacred."”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

An important task for religious people of all faiths in the twenty-first century will be spreading the conviction that there are no acts more dishonorable than harming "infidels" of one stripe or another for "disrespecting" a flag, a cross, a holy text.
Breaking the Spell (2006)

People , World , Fear , Faith

“Muslim spokesmen, no matter what political platform they use, have levelled the same sort of accusations… It is the Pirpur Report of the Muslim League, all over again.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

“Dan Smith: I've tried (in vi) 'g/[ a-z] \n[ a-z]/s//_/'…but that doesn't cut it. Any ideas? (I take it that it may be a two-pass sort of solution).
Larry Wall: In the first pass, install perl.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Idea

“It's your knowledge of the past that we're concerned with. Manuscripts and all kinds of important information has been withheld from the public for so many generations that we're held back ourselves. We have to know what was tried in order to see where the race failed. We're in a very peculiar position. At one time the Rebellers had a positive plan of action. We still know what we're rebelling against, but we have no idea of what sort of civilization we want to put in place of what we have now.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Rebellers (1963), p. 48

Idea , Knowledge , Time , Past

“I appeared frequently in the courts – state and federal – for hearings and trials. Initially, I received routine compliments from judges – and grudgingly from defense attorneys – on my legal comprehension and ability. This all changed when I persisted in efforts to have the courts comply with the laws. I refused to accept the unwritten rule that certain issues are not to be challenged or exposed. My efforts were calculated to bring the courts to bear on DOC officials at the highest levels, to force them to change the conditions under which we lived, and conform them to basic requirements of the written laws. The courts had other plans. The state courts were not willing to grant these sorts of relief, although the letter of the law required it. They attempted instead, numerous times, to grant my release from prison.”

Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)

Law , Effort , Appearance , Change

“The world knows that last Monday a meeting assembled to discuss the question: "How Shall Slavery Be Abolished?" The world also knows that that meeting was invaded, insulted, captured by a mob of gentlemen, and thereafter broken up and dispersed by the order of the mayor, who refused to protect it, though called upon to do so. If this had been a mere outbreak of passion and prejudice among the baser sort, maddened by rum and hounded on by some wily politician to serve some immediate purpose, - a mere exceptional affair, - it might be allowed to rest with what has already been said. But the leaders of the mob were gentlemen. They were men who pride themselves upon their respect for law and order. These gentlemen brought their respect for the law with them and proclaimed it loudly while in the very act of breaking the law. Theirs was the law of slavery. The law of free speech and the law for the protection of public meetings they trampled under foot, while they greatly magnified the law of slavery. The scene was an instructive one. Men seldom see such a blending of the gentleman with the rowdy, as was shown on that occasion. It proved that human nature is very much the same, whether in tarpaulin or broadcloth. Nevertheless, when gentlemen approach us in the character of lawless and abandoned loafers, - assuming for the moment their manners and tempers, - they have themselves to blame if they are estimated below their quality.”

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

1880s, Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1880)

Men , World , Law , Question

“My four years of high school were spent locked up inside “el campo.” I became a voracious reader and television-watcher, keeping to myself at such alarming extremes that I became invisible. My invisibility provided the perfect protection against harm of any sort. I walked to and from school past the gangsters as silently as a breeze, so disassociated from their tattoos and lingo that even they couldn't find a place for me in their lines of vision.”

Rigoberto González (1970) American writer

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006)

School , Past , Tattoo , Perfection

“I had never dreamed of being a soldier; I had never fired a gun. I was not, nor ever had been, a fighter of any sort, but even so, I loved my country, and I spent much of that year trying to imagine a future distorted by war.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Ira Levinson, Chapter 5 Ira, p. 74
2009, The Longest Ride (2013)

Love , War , Dreams , Imagination

“Inland, all except criminals lived in a tightly pulled net of regulations, duties, social standing, tax collection, expectations of how to act and speak and think—“sort of like late twentieth-century USA” Everard grumbled to himself.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Death and the Knight (p. 752)
Time Patrol

Thinking

“Although quantum theory involves the use of nonlocal states, such as wave packets and entangled states, there is nothing in the theory, or in the real world so far as it is accurately described by quantum theory, that corresponds to the sorts of instantaneous nonlocal influences which have often been thought to arise in the situation envisaged in the EPR paradox, or implied by the fact that quantum theory violates Bell inequalities.”

Robert Griffiths (physicist)

"Quantum Locality", Found Phys (2011) 41: 705–733

World

“A neurosurgeon once told me about operating on the brain of a young man with epilepsy. As is customary in this kind of operation, the patient was wide awake, under only local anesthesia, while the surgeon delicately explored his exposed cortex, making sure that the parts tentatively to be removed were not absolutely vital by stimulating them electrically and asking the patient what he experienced. Some stimulations provoked visual flashes or hand-raisings, others a sort of buzzing sensation, but one spot produced a delighted response from the patient: "It's 'Outta Get Me' by Guns N'Roses, my favorite heavy metal [sic] band!"I asked the neurosurgeon if he had asked the patient to sing or hum along with the music, since it would be fascinating to learn how "high fidelity" the provoked memory was. Would it be in exactly the same key and tempo as the record? Such a song (unlike "Silent Night") has one canonical version, so we could simply have superimposed a recording of the patient's humming with the standard record and compare the results. Unfortunately, even though a tape recorder had been running during the operation, the surgeon hadn't asked the patient to sing along. "Why not?" I asked, and he replied: "I hate rock music!"Later in the conversation the neurosurgeon happened to remark that he was going to have to operate again on the same young man, and I expressed the hope that he would just check to see if he could restimulate the rock music, and this time ask the fellow to sing along. "I can't do that," replied the neurosurgeon, "since I cut out that part." "It was part of the epileptic focus?"”

Daniel Dennett book Consciousness Explained

I asked, and he replied, "No, I already told you — I hate rock music."</p>
Source: Consciousness Explained (1991), p. 58-59

Hate , Hope , Music , Learning

“San Francisco, I believe, has the most disagreeable climate and locality of any city on the globe. If the winter be not unusually wet, there is some delightful weather to be enjoyed. If it be, you are flooded, and the rainy season closes to give place to what is miscalled summer — a season so cold that you require more clothing than you did in January; so damp with fogs and mists that you are penetrated to the very marrow; so windy that if you are abroad in the afternoon it is a continual struggle. Your eyes are blinded, your teeth set on edge, and your whole person made so uncomfortable by the sand that has insinuated itself through your clothing, that you could not conceive it possible to feel a sensation of comfort short of a warm bath and shower.... What sort of end the unfortunates, who spend their lives there, can expect under such circumstances, one does not easily foresee.”

Eliza Farnham (1815–1864) American novelist, feminist, abolitionist, and activist for prison reform

California, In-doors and Out (1856)

Feeling , Winter , Summer , Personality

“Care in such sort that thou be sure of this:
Care keep thee not from heaven and heavenly bliss.”

William Byrd (1543–1623) British composer

Poem: Care for Thy Soul as Thing of Greatest Price http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/care-for-thy-soul-as-thing-of-greatest-price/

“In the last decade's intensive study of all sorts of social and economic time series, it has become clear, it seems to me, that the usual time series technique is not quite adequate for the purpose which the social investigator is pursuing… We want to find out on more or less empirical grounds what is actually present in the series at hand, that is to say, what sort of components the series contains.”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Ragnar Frisch, " A method of decomposing an empirical series into its cyclical and progressive components http://www.sv.uio.no/econ/om/tall-og-fakta/nobelprisvinnere/ragnar-frisch/published-scientific-work/rf-published-scientific-works/rf1931e.pdf." Journal of the American Statistical Association 26.173A (1931): 73-78.
1930s

Study , Time

“.. the sort of white crepe dough with which the person is thickly buttered [in the 'Haute Pâtes' series, Dubuffet made in 1946] was, by its proximity to the tar, dyed the color of burnt bread like a used Meerschaum pipe.”

Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) sculptor from France

Quote of Jean Dubuffet, in Indications descriptives, in Michel Tapie, Mirobolus, Macadam & Cie. (Paris, 1946). Dubuffet, 'More Modest, (1946) trans. Joachim Neugroschel in Tracks: A Journal of Artist's Writings 1:2 (Spring 1975), p 26-29
1940's

Color , Personality

“The earliest achievement of this (of equality and the restriction on the powers of the constitutionally mandated magistrates), the most ancient opposition in Rome, consisted in the abolition of the life-tenure of the presidency of the community; in other words, in the abolition of the monarchy… Not only in Rome (but all over the Italian peninsula) … we find the rulers for life of an earlier epoch superseded in after times by annual magistrates. In this light the reasons which led to the substitution of the consuls for kings in Rome need no explanation. The organism of the ancient Greek and Italian polity through its own action and by a sort of natural necessity produced the limitation of the life-presidency to a shortened, and for the most part an annual, term… Simple, however, as was the cause of the change, it might be brought about in various ways, resolution (of the community),.. or the rule might voluntarily abdicate; or the people might rise in rebellion against a tyrannical ruler, and expel him. It was in this latter way that the monarchy was terminated in Rome. For however much the history of the expulsion of the last Tarquinius, "the proud", may have been interwoven with anecdotes and spun out into a romance, it is not in its leading outlines to be called in question. Tradition credibly enough indicates as the causes of the revolt, that the king neglected to consult the senate and to complete its numbers; that he pronounced sentences of capital punishment and confiscation without advising with his counsellors(sic); that he accumulated immense stores of grain in his granaries, and exacted from the burgesses military labours and task-work beyond what was due… we are (in light of the ignorance of historical facts around the abolition of the monarchy) fortunately in possession of a clearer light as to the nature of the change which was made in the constitution (after the expulsion of the monarchy). The royal power was by no means abolished, as is shown by the fact that, when a vacancy occurred, a "temporary king" (Interrex) was nominated as before. The one life-king was simply replaced by two [one year] kings, who called themselves generals (praetores), or judges…, or merely colleagues (Consuls) [literally, "Those who leap or dance together"]. The collegiate principle, from which this last - and subsequently most current - name of the annual kings was derived, assumed in their case an altogether peculiar form. The supreme power was not entrusted to the two magistrates conjointly, but each consul possessed and exercised it for himself as fully and wholly as it had been possessed and exercised by the king; and, although a partition of functions doubtless took place from the first - the one consul for instance undertaking the command of the army, and the other the administration of justice - that partition was by no means binding, and each of the colleagues was legally at liberty to interfere at any time in the province of the other.”

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

Vol. 1, Book II , Chapter 1. "Change of the Constitution" Translated by W.P. Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 1

Life , People , Justice , Way

“It was, therefore, the sort of loveliness which is not perfect, but draws its charm from a measure of imbalance, which can accommodate flaws and make little of them, for a while at least.”

Tanith Lee book Drinking Sapphire Wine

Part 2, Chapter 1 (p. 60)
Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977)

Drawing , Perfection

“It spurs me on. I'm going to get over that, I'm a good songwriter, my kids are happy, the band is great and I've almost sorted out all my debts. At least I've never sold my story. I've had countless offers but I'd rather be in a bedsit council flat than splashed all over Hello! or the tabloids. I really would, I have a responsibility to my band and my children as well. I don't believe in it, I'm never ever tempted.”

Lisa Moorish (1972) British singer

Source: " A life on the edge http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/aug/20/popandrock8" at The Guardian, 20 August 2004 : On conquering her past.

Children , Happiness

“Benjamin describes the revolutionary moment when the past suddenly bursts into the present, as if rising from the grave to rectify the wrongs it suffered at the hands of a banally triumphant progress. Thus Benjamin’s historical materialism implies a capacity to link otherwise separate and distant moments in time through a profound empathy. The empathy takes on a revolutionary character by disrupting the regularity of quotidian temporality. Without this sort of tie to the past, no critical stance in the present is possible.”

Russell Berman (1950) American academic

Source: Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007), p. 18.

Suffering , Distant , Time , Past

“First of all I was like, ‘I’m the most hated celebrity?’ More than, like, Chris Brown? What did I do? All I can do is be my authentic self, but I think there are things about me that make people draw conclusions. For example, there is the perception that I grew up very wealthy and that I was given, you know, that I was sort of raised with a silver spoon in my mouth, which inspires a lot of resentment. He [my father] said, ‘You are completely on your own. So he never gave me anything. I never had any supplementation, he never helped me with my rent, I never had a trust fund. So the idea that I am spoiled or that I didn’t work for what I have, that’s just not accurate. But I can see how somebody might have that perception.”

Gwyneth Paltrow (1972) American actress, singer, and food writer

Hate , People , Idea , Thinking

“Perhaps this sort of claptrap was good for the Stone Age, when people actually believed that if they prayed for rain they would get it. But we're a grown-up world now, and it's time to put away childish things. But people don't, because most of them don't even know what atheism is. It's not a negation of anything. You don't have to negate what no one can prove exists. No, atheism is a very positive affirmation of man's ability to think for himself, to do for himself, to find answers to his own problems. I'm thrilled to feel that I can rely on myself totally and absolutely; that my children are being brought up so that when they meet a problem they can't cop out by foisting it off on God. Madalyn Murray's going to solve her own problems, and nobody's going to intervene. It's about time the world got up off its knees and looked at itself in the mirror and said: "Well, we are men. Let's start acting like it."”

Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1919–1995) Atheist activist

"Playboy Interview: Madalyn Murray", Playboy (October 1965)

Men , God , Children , People

“I'm sort of planting Post-It notes all over my psyche. Do not skateboard wasted. Do not buy $10,000 rugs. Be careful what you say to journalists. You don't have to stay up until 7 A. M.”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

tomorrow is a new day.
Blender (December 2003)

“To those privileged ones -- among whom we count ourselves -- the high-resounding "isms" to which their contemporaries ask them to give their allegiance are all equally futile: bound to be betrayed, defeated, and finally rejected by men at large, if containing anything really noble; bound to enjoy, for the time being, some sort of noisy success, if sufficiently vulgar, pretentious, and soul-killing to appeal to the growing number of mechanically conditioned slaves that crawl about our planet, posing as free men; all destined to prove, ultimately, of no avail.”

Savitri Devi book The Lightning and the Sun

The Lightning and the Sun (Calcutta: Temple Press, 1958, p. 3, http://www.vaidilute.com/books/savitri/savitri-01.html)

Men , Soul , Time , Success

“The Talisman could be operated only by certain beings with certain types of minds and something else besides (could it be, he wondered, with certain kinds of souls?). "Sensitives" was the word he had used in his mental translation of the term for these kinds of people, but once again, he could not be sure if the word came close to fitting. The Talisman was placed in the custody of the most capable, or the most efficient, or the most devoted (whichever it might be) of the galactic sensitives, who carried it from star to star in a sort of eternal progression. And on each planet the people came to make personal and individual contact with the spiritual force through the intervention and the agency of the Talisman and its custodian.
He found that he was shivering at the thought of it — the pure ecstasy of reaching out and touching the spirituality that flooded through the galaxy and, undoubtedly, through the universe. The assurance would be there, he thought, the assurance that life had a special place in the great scheme of existence, that one, no matter how small, how feeble, how insignificant, still did count for something in the vast sweep of space and time.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 12

Life , People , Soul , Star

“Because it doesn't happen like this, where we're having an interview and it sort of turns into a conversation--and a quite gratifying one, because it's all about me.”

Paul Bettany (1971) British actor

Interview http://www.paulbettany.net/articles/press.php?p=backstage

“"One sees, from this Essay, that the theory of probabilities is basically just common sense reduced to calculus; it makes one appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct, often without being able to account for it."”

Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827) French mathematician and astronomer

"On voit, par cet Essai, que la théorie des probabilités n'est, au fond, que le bon sens réduit au calcul; elle fait apprécier avec exactitude ce que les esprits justes sentent par une sorte d'instinct, sans qu'ils puissent souvent s'en rendre compte."
From the Introduction to Théorie Analytique des Probabilités http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-88764, second and later editions; also published separately as Essai philosophique sur les Probabilités (1814). Œuvres complètes de Laplace, tome VII, p. cliii, Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1878-1912.
Also reported as: "The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for which ofttimes they are unable to account."
Or as: "Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation."

Feeling , Sense

“It's Wheird, there's an H in there. Gotta hit that H otherwise they think I'm some sort of a kook!”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

The 2,000 Year Old Man (and sequels)

Thinking

“.. Recently I was at the home of Thomas Hess and he had a painting hanging there and I said to my wife: 'Is that one of my paintings?'. And she said: 'Well, it looks like one of yours from around 1942'. But then we realized that it wasn't one of my but one of Baziote's paintings…. at that time, 1942, the differences in our paintings may have seemed very great, but now [1960] the difference is not so great apparently…. For example; in the early forties Rothko and I decided to paint a certain subject matter. Perhaps if we saw some of those paintings now…. they might not seem so different as they did at the time. However, at no point was there ever any sort of a doctrine or a programma or anything that would make a school. I think it was simply a situation in which all of the painters were at that time; they were trying to break away from certain things.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

In an interview (March 1960) with David Sylvester, edited for broadcasting by the BBC first published in 'Living Arts', June 1963; as quoted in Interviews with American Artists, by David Sylvester; Chatto & Windus, London 2001, pp. 27-28
1960s

School , Home , Thinking , Time

“We all know India has a huge competitive advantage -- we have the largest arable land, focused sunshine, sensible utilisation of water in 30% of land. The question is what should we do to make the US market -- the most difficult market in the world -- accept our produce. For that, we need traceability. It is a simple technology, which we are giving the farmers. It needs certification and verification processes -- to us it is like a process plant. You can then get the output, sort it and grade it.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on retail and SEZ plans

World , Question , Water

“There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. […] A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Lord Kitchener (1917), pp. 7–8 https://archive.org/stream/kitchener00chesuoft#page/7/mode/2up

World , Heart

“Nothing more clearly shows how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other worldly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Rien ne fait mieux comprendre le peu de chose que Dieu croit donner aux hommes, en leur abandonnant les richesses, l'argent, les grands établissements et les autres biens, que la dispensation qu'il en fait, et le genre d'hommes qui en sont le mieux pourvus.
Aphorism 24
Les Caractères (1688), Des biens de fortune

Men , Money , God , Way

“Before the [1990 Iraqi] attack [on Kuwait], bin Laden angered Saudi authorities by making a public "prophesy… [that] Saddam was going to invade Saudi Arabia." Sa'd al-Faqih claims bin Laden also sent "secret confidential letters to the King" about the Iraqi threat; according to al-Faqih, "he [bin Laden] was giving talks about it in the mosques. He was giving speeches in the mosques and talking about the dangers of the Ba'ath… having ambitions to invade Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. And then his prophesy was correct. And he was never respected or rewarded for that. Instead he was advised to stay in Jeddah; he was put in sort of house arrest.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

Through Our Enemies' Eyes (p. 113)
2000s

Secret , Housing , Anger

“It was authority that turned men suspicious and stern-faced. Authority and responsibility which made them not themselves, but a sort of corporate body that tried to think as a corporate body rather than as a person.”

Clifford D. Simak book Time is the Simplest Thing

Source: Time is the Simplest Thing (1961), Chapter 32 (pp. 245-246)

Men , Thinking , Personality

“It seems that Wikipedia. com, that splendid source for all kinds of information, is no longer dedicated to the truth, assuming it ever was.
Individuals who have tried to edit the pages about Barack Obama — to reflect the incontrovertible fact that he is not God, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, or Ronald Reagan — report that their contributions have vanished within minutes of posting them, and that they, themselves, have been suspended for three days following each 'infraction'.
When some sort of official at Wikipedia was contacted about this, she stonewalled, claiming that this censorship was the work of 'volunteers', implying they were somehow beyond control of Wikipedia itself.
Like the Red Guard and the Khmer Rouge were 'volunteers'.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Announcifications From Your Publicatorialist: Wikipedia, Missouri, and Ceres," http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle510-20090315-04.html
15 March 2009.

God , Truth

“We ourselves, the workers, will organize large-scale production on the basis of what capitalism has already created; we shall rely on our own experience as workers, we shall establish strict, iron discipline supported by the state power of the armed workers, we shall reduce the role of he state officials to that of simply carrying out our instructions as responsible, revocable, moderately paid "managers"( of course, with the aid of technicians of all sorts, types and degrees). This is our proletarian revolution”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

3.3, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
(1917)

Support

“A survival personality is many respects is psychologically much different from the individual that he was. The ego is now under the control of what may be loosely called the inner self. When communications take place between a survival personality and a personality who exists within the physical system, then this involves a reshuffling, again, on the part of the survival personality, where the ego is momentarily given greater reign. There is the same sort of disorientation that the ego experiences within physical reality when an individual dreams... The survival personality therefore momentarily inserts his ego in its old position.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 242, Page 22
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 6

Dreams , Communication , Reality , Parting

“If there would not have been a Waco, I would have put down roots somewhere and not been so unsettled with the fact that my government … was a threat to me. Everything that Waco implies was on the forefront of my thoughts. That sort of guided my path for the next couple of years.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Letters published in the Buffalo News (10 June 2001).
2000s

“I have been singularly hard with myself. I have had to be. You must realize that this is so, since you have, at times, reproached me for it, and were astonished because I had so little confidence in myself. I have been, or seemed, hard with everyone because I was carried away by a sort of brutality born of my distrust in myself and my ill-humor. I have felt so badly equipped, so soft, in spite of the fact that my attitude towards art seemed to me so just. I was disgusted with everyone, and especially myself. I ask your pardon, then, if, with this damned art as an excuse, I have wounded your noble and intelligent spirit; perhaps even your heart..”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

"The Sensitive Artist" (p. 43)
quote from Degas' letter to a friend; but unknown because Vollard did not want to reveal the name
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

Art , Confidence , Intelligence , Time

“What Phædrus thought and said is significant. But no one was listening at that time and they only thought him eccentric at first, then undesirable, then slightly mad, and then genuinely insane. There seems little doubt that he was insane, but much of his writing at the time indicates that what was driving him insane was this hostile opinion of him. Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self-stoking cycles until some sort of climax is reached. In Phædrus' case there was a court-ordered police arrest and permanent removal from society.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 6

Hostility , Behavior , Time , Madness

“And as for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for before sun-rising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising. After this every one of them are sent away by their curators, to exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour. After which they assemble themselves together again into one place; and when they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe their bodies in cold water. And after this purification is over, they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter; while they go, after a pure manner, into the dining-room, as into a certain holy temple, and quietly set themselves down; upon which the baker lays them loaves in order; the cook also brings a single plate of one sort of food, and sets it before every one of them; but a priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful for any one to taste of the food before grace be said. The same priest, when he hath dined, says grace again after meat; and when they begin, and when they end, they praise God, as he that bestows their food upon them; after which they lay aside their [white] garments, and betake themselves to their labors again till the evening; then they return home to supper, after the same manner; and if there be any strangers there, they sit down with them. Nor is there ever any clamor or disturbance to pollute their house, but they give every one leave to speak in their turn; which silence thus kept in their house appears to foreigners like some tremendous mystery; the cause of which is that perpetual sobriety they exercise, and the same settled measure of meat and drink that is allotted them, and that such as is abundantly sufficient for them.”

Josephus on the Essenes

Jewish War

God , Food , Art , Exercises

“Myth was the mystery plus the fantasy — gods, anthropomorphized animals and birds, chimera, phantasmagorical creatures — that posits out of the imagination some sort of explanation for the mystery. Humans and their fellow creatures were the materiality of the story, but as Nikos Kazantzakis once wrote, 'Art is the representation not of the body but of the forces which created the body.”

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South african Nobel-winning writer

Writing and Being (1991)

God , Art , Imagination , Bird

“Even the tyrant never rules by force alone; but mostly by fairy tales. And so it is with the modern tyrant, the great employer. The sight of a millionaire is seldom, in the ordinary sense, an enchanting sight: nevertheless, he is in his way an enchanter. As they say in the gushing articles about him in the magazines, he is a fascinating personality. So is a snake. At least he is fascinating to rabbits; and so is the millionaire to the rabbit-witted sort of people that ladies and gentlemen have allowed themselves to become.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Source: Utopia of Usurers (1917), p. 19

People , Way , Sense , Personality

“I was sort of a hellraiser with a bunch of friends, most of whom were squeaking by with C's and D's while I was getting an A-average and should have been doing better. I did a lot of things on my own. I liked to make things with my hands. There was a lot of woodworking, model building, and model railroading. I collected stamps, and did various things in chemistry. I used to make things that exploded, and all that sort of thing. So I evidently got quite a good background in science. I always had a knack for that sort of thing. The hospital had a subscription to Scientific American and Science.”

Douglas T. Ross (1929–2007) American computer scientist

So things came every week and I consumed them...
Response to the question: Did you outstrip the offerings of the school, say in the sciences and mathematics?
An Interview with Douglas T. Ross (1984)

Science

“We are a non-utopian political movement. We are not interested in going nowhere. We are not interested in going to some place we have never been, which we will get to after the revolution because people will be different.
The crucial operating premise of the Free Software Movement as a revolutionary politic is: Proof of Concept plus Running code. Here. We did it already. It's sort of working. If you take a copy and help us fix it, it could really be something. Here. You want it? Take it. We like it.
It's Free.”

Eben Moglen (1959) American law professor and free software advocate

Talk at Seattle University, March 13 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbcy_ZxXLl8

People , Help

“Creationists contend that they don’t believe in magic. But “speaking” anything into existence is an incantation, and the Bible is full of spells of one sort or another. Animating golems, or conjuring interdependent systems, and causing complex organisms to appear out of thin air -are each logically implausible and physically impossible according to everything we know about anything at all, yet this is exactly what religiously-motivated pseudoscientists actually promote! How do we test these ideas? How can we tell them apart from any of the thousands of fables men have concocted for the ghosts and gods of other religions? How can we tell whether any of this is even real, and not something someone just made up? Because despite anyone’s assertions of personal conviction, it is impossible to distinguish miracles from subjective impressions imagined out of nothing. In the realm of fantasy, it’s easy to demonstrate psionic talents, astral entities, and magical manifestations. Until they do that in reality too, then science has nothing but nature to work with.”

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

"12th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc Youtube (April 19, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men , God , Religion , Imagination

“His idea of wit is a barrage of filth and the sort of humour most men grow out of in their teens.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Ann Widdecombe — reported in Adam Sherwin (December 24, 2008) "Gordon is game for a laugh at Chequers lunch - People Adam Sherwin", The Times, p. 11.
About

Men , Idea

“Matter of fact, the first three or four chapters are all some of you might want to bother with. That gets you to page 123 or so, which is a nice length, a nice novella sort of length.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (2000)

“Consider how, even in the meanest sorts of Labour, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he sets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these like helldogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor dayworker, as of every man: but he bends himself with free valour against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow of Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made bright blessed flame!”

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

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Lie , Soul , Despair

“Biological classifications have two major objectives: to serve as a basis of biological generalizations in all sort of comparative studies and to serve as a key to an information storage system… Is the classification that is soundest as a basis of generalizations also most convenient for information retrieval? This, indeed, seems to have been true in most cases I have encountered.”

Ernst Mayr (1904–2005) German-American Evolutionary Biologist

Mayr (1981) as cited in: C. Gnoli (2011) "Ontological foundations in knowledge organization: the theory of integrative levels applied in citation order". Scire actas. 17-1

Study

“When I was doing a book tour in Japan for Why Men Are The Way They Are, I was told of an institution called the snack. The snack works like this: A man is coming home from work, and has had a bad day. He doesn’t feel that his wife wants to hear about it, so he pays between $50 and $80 for a snack —a sandwich and a drink and an attractive woman who will listen empathetically to him—sort of a beautiful psychologist with refreshments. No men need apply.”

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

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 198.

Men , Books , Beauty , Way

“In the discovery of hidden things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort.”

William Gilbert (astronomer) book De Magnete

Ostriker, J.P. and Mitton, Simon (2013) Heart of Darkness p.9.
De Magnete (1600), quote about science

“I think the idea of white privilege is absolutely reprehensible. And it's not because white people aren't privileged. You know, we have all sorts of privileges, and most people have privileges of all sorts, and you should be grateful for your privileges and work to deserve them, I would say. But, the idea that you can target an ethnic group with a collective crime, regardless of the specific innocence or guilt of the constituent elements of that group, there is absolutely nothing that's more racist than that. It's absolutely abhorrent.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Strengthen the Individual: Q & A Parts I & II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UL-SdOhwek&t=52m14s
Other

People , Idea , Thinking

“I can remember one of the last conversations I had with my very dear and much missed friend, the writer Kathy Acker. This was very soon after I had just become interested and involved with magic. I was saying to her how the way I was then seeing things was that basically magic was about the last and best bastion of revolution. The political revolution, the sexual revolution, these things had their part and had their limits, whereas the idea of a magical revolution would revolve around actually changing people’s consciousnesses, which is to say, actually changing the nature of perceived reality. Kathy agreed with that completely — it sort of followed on some of her own experiences — and I still think that that is true. In some ways, magic is the most political of all of the areas that I’m involved with.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Alan Moore on Anarchism (2009)

People , Way , Idea , Nature

“I hope that the general public will try to regard wolves like every other creature rather than giving them some sort of a very special position in the wild. The wolf is like a cougar or a bear or any other species. It was endangered, and it was regarded as the poster child for endangered species, but it is recovered now, and it should be managed like any other creature. If the public can accept that, that would be the biggest thing I could hope for.”

L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist

Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9pXeVx5HKA (April 7, 2010), Wildlife Society.

Hope , Wolf

“We do not really know why the Woolly Mammoth became extinct. Early Man killed some of them, of course. But most of the time Early Man stayed right in his cave, holding hands with Early Woman. I wouldn't know what the Woolly Mammoth did about that sort of thing. Not nearly enough, I suspect.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Woolly Mammoth
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Time

“Mark: Hayley I know that during this last week there's been a little, um, sort of non-verbal tension between us and it's never really been about you as a person. It's definitely not because you as a person, there's so much to admire. There really is. Your heart and your will is just enormous and there are so many people who have had hits without having classically great recording voices and they've done it on the strength of their spirit and the strength of their heart and you've got all of that and heaps.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 9

People , Heart , Personality

“A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation — for investigating the source of the practical basic principles that lie a priori in our reason — but also because morals themselves remain subject to all sorts of corruption as long as we are without that clue and supreme norm by which to appraise them correctly…”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

Lie , Motivation

“Sheer bitchiness can be a sort of style.”

Erica Jong book Fear of Flying

Fear of Flying (1973)

“Politics in this country are dominated by debates about our relationship with Europe and the Eurocentralism that goes with that. I am firmly an internationalist, so I am not necessarily opposed to Europe. However, I am opposed to a fortress Europe that basically creates wealth for itself at the expense of the world, creates an undemocratic control of government for the whole of Europe, and, in truth, works only for the good of multinational corporations and banking systems. It will cause further imbalances in world poverty and world trade arrangements. I view the free market of 1992 not as an opportunity, but as a disaster for very many people throughout the world. I believe that Europe will contribute to the economic problems of the world. I do not agree with the sort of racist nonsense that has been published in the Sun and other newspapers during the past few weeks. It is a disgusting way to report matters. However, I believe that the drive towards a market economy in Europe will create poverty on the rims of Europe and an inner-colonialism in which western Europe will act as a sort of colonial master for eastern Europe and much of the rest of the world. It is about time that we began to take an international and global view rather than shut ourselves into a Europe that does not act in a socially just and reasonable manner. I hope that the debate will now begin to turn on those matters.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/nov/07/first-day in the House of Commons (7 November 1990).
1990s

People , Truth , World , Hope

“While technology can be instrumental in closing gaps and reducing social inequality, not everyone feels invited to the party. Religious extremists, fundamentalists and racists of all sorts, find an easy foothold for spreading hatred and anger among youngsters who feel they’re missing out on the spoils of technology.”

Yoel Esteron (1954) Israeli journalist

Can technology trump Trumpism? http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4882175,00.html, Ynetnews (21-11-16)

Feeling , Anger

“Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time—’

That’s the sort of thing she would have written before the rise of advertising. The correlation is perfectly clear. Advertising up, lyric poetry down.”

Frederik Pohl book The Space Merchants

Source: The Space Merchants (1953), Chapter 4 (p. 48)

Silence , Time

“Well, when music "moves" someone, it doesn't necessarily have to be in a positive direction. Some people certainly get moved by darker music, and there are all sorts of emotions which music can create that are interesting -- aggression, foreboding, anger, fear. Not everyone wants to feel happy all the time :)”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

People , Fear , Music , Feeling

“We have such difficulty understanding this renunciation today because the relationship to marriage and children has clearly shifted. To have to die without children was once synonymous with a useless life: The echoes of my own life die away, and I am completely dead. If I have children, then I continue to live in them; it's a sort of immortality through posterity. …”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

1990s

Life , Marriage , Children , Understanding

“Today the percentage of female judges, college professors and detectives seen on television is a pretty good reflection of the actual world. (In the case of judges, I wouldn't be shocked to find out the number on television exceeds the number in real life — what is it about those black robes that makes us think ovaries?)
But merely thrusting more women into more prestigious on-screen jobs doesn't necessarily make the working world a better place for women. If you were to show people images of two real-life professionals, one a man, one a woman, and ask them to rate their competence knowing nothing but job and gender — I bet people still give the guys the edge.
It's not television's fault, exactly. But television can help fix the problem. Not by writing women into better professions, but by more accurately showing them as complex people contending with the sort of snide, generous, ambitious, incompetent, sad and hilarious co-workers who populate real workplaces.”

Jane Espenson (1964) American television writer and producer

How to Succeed at Vampire Slaying and Keep Your Soul (2005)

Life , Women , People , World

“Judges who find Constitutional rights the Framers never intended take important issues out of the public space of democratic debate and suspend them in a sort of legal formaldehyde.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Speech at University of Vermont, 8 October 2004 http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=article.php&id=1389
2000s

“What kind of God can one infer from the sort of phenomena epitomized by the species on Darwin's Galapagos Islands? The evolutionary process is rife with happenstance, contingency, incredible waste, death, pain and horror.… The God of the Galapagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent, almost diabolical. He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be inclined to pray.”

David Hull (1935–2010) American philosopher

Reviewing Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial for Nature in 1992, as quoted in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith Vol. 45, p. 47 (1993) by American Scientific Affiliation

Death , God , Pain , Indifference

“The entire Bible, viewed as a "divine comedy," is contained within a U-shaped story of this sort, one in which man, as explained, loses the tree and water of life at the beginning of Genesis and gets them back at the end of Revelation.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (1982), Chapter Seven, p. 169

Life , Tree , Water

“I think I’m more committed now. Some things are just serendipitous. My mother had the disease and I got involved with the organization, and then I met this splinter group out of the University of Minnesota Hospital, Dr. Karen Ashe and the team at the Grossman Center (for Memory Research and Care). I became sort of their spokesperson and then I got published. I published a first essay and a second essay and I’m up to my sixth essay. I speak all over the country and sometimes all over the world. It’s grown and blossomed into something that feels right. I’ve had a really good life and a wonderful career. I’ve been comfortable and I’ve been healthy. And I adored my mother. So this is my way to give back.”

Kate Mulgrew (1955) American actress

Catching Up with Kate Mulgrew http://www.startrek.com/article/catching-up-with-kate-mulgrew-part-2 (January 19, 2011)

Life , World , Disease , Way

“I've been lucky since I've had this job, getting two amazingly dramatic moments like that. You sort of had a license to go to nine or ten on the Richter scale.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

2010s, 2014, Voice of the Americans (2014)

“I understand that people refer to me as an icon and that sort of thing because there are certain guys who play a certain role. And horror fans are very passionate people. They love their genre. And they love the Saw films. So the fact that I played a central role in those films, that puts you in a position where people… You know, the screen is sixty feet across, and people sometimes forget that you’re an actor and you play… Because you become established as a certain kind of character. But in fact, we continue to try and occupy the skins of different human beings. That’s what you get involved in being an actor for in the first place.”

Tobin Bell (1942) American actor

Interview: Tobin Bell Discusses His Career and His New Horror Film Dark House https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/interview-tobin-bell-discusses-his-career-and-his-new-horror-film-dark-house/ (March 14, 2014)

Love , People , Guy , Understanding

Quotes about sort page 23

Quotes about sort
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