Quotes about source
page 7

Samuel P. Huntington photo

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

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

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

William Winwood Reade photo
Richard Stallman photo

“The GNU GPL was not designed to be ""open source"". I wrote it for the free software movement, and its purpose is to ensure every user of every version of the program gets the essential freedoms.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

""Re: GPL version 4"" on NetBSD mailing list (17 July 2008) http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2008/07/17/msg001546.html
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for more explanation of the difference between free software and open source.
2000s

Donald J. Trump photo

“An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/232572505238433794, quoted in * 2017-02-24 Meghan Keneally Even though he bashes anonymous sources, Trump uses them himself ABC News https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bashes-anonymous-sources-trump/story?id=45715113
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Donald Trump / Quotes / Donald Trump on social media / Twitter
2010s, 2012

James Buchanan photo

“All agree that under the Constitution slavery in the States is beyond the reach of any human power except that of the respective States themselves wherein it exists. May we not, then, hope that the long agitation on this subject is approaching its end, and that the geographical parties to which it has given birth, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, will speedily become extinct? Most happy will it be for the country when the public mind shall be diverted from this question to others of more pressing and practical importance. Throughout the whole progress of this agitation, which has scarcely known any intermission for more than twenty years, whilst it has been productive of no positive good to any human being it has been the prolific source of great evils to the master, to the slave, and to the whole country. It has alienated and estranged the people of the sister States from each other, and has even seriously endangered the very existence of the Union. Nor has the danger yet entirely ceased. Under our system there is a remedy for all mere political evils in the sound sense and sober judgment of the people. Time is a great corrective. Political subjects which but a few years ago excited and exasperated the public mind have passed away and are now nearly forgotten. But this question of domestic slavery is of far graver importance than any mere political question, because should the agitation continue it may eventually endanger the personal safety of a large portion of our countrymen where the institution exists. In that event no form of government, however admirable in itself and however productive of material benefits, can compensate for the loss of peace and domestic security around the family altar. Let every Union-loving man, therefore, exert his best influence to suppress this agitation, which since the recent legislation of Congress is without any legitimate object.”

James Buchanan (1791–1868) American politician, 15th President of the United States (in office from 1857 to 1861)

Inaugural address (4 March 1857).

Mahatma Gandhi photo
Noam Chomsky photo

“Cuba has probably been the target of more international terrorism than the rest of the world combined and, therefore, in the American ideological system it is regarded as the source of international terrorism, exactly as Orwell would have predicted.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk titled "American Foreign Policy" at Harvard University, March 19, 1985; Republished at chomsky.info/talks http://www.chomsky.info/talks/19850319.htm, accessed May 23, 2014.
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s

Linus Torvalds photo
Alexander Berkman photo
Margaret Cho photo
John Dewey photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo

“One day I had the idea of radiation implosion. As in all ideas that have ever popped up in my head, there is no way I can trace the source.”

John Clive Ward (1924–2000) British-Australian nuclear physicist

J. C. Ward, Memoirs of a Theoretical Physicist (Optics Journal, Rochester, 2004).

Herbert Read photo
George Meredith photo
Frances Kellor photo
David Ricardo photo

“The opinions that the price of commodities depends solely on the proportion of supply and demand, or demand to supply, has become almost an axiom in political economy, and has been the source of much error in that science.”

David Ricardo (1772–1823) British political economist, broker and politician

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XXX, Influence of Demand and Supply, p. 260

Octave Mirbeau photo
Francisco Varela photo
Boris Sidis photo

“The main source of psychopathic diseases is the fundamental instinct of fear with its manifestations, the feeling of anxiety, anguish, and worry.”

Boris Sidis (1867–1923) American psychiatrist

Source: The Causation and Treatment of Psychopathic Diseases (1916), p. 33

Richard Leakey photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“The Constitution is the sole source and guaranty of national freedom.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Address accepting nomination as Republican candidate for president, Washington, D.C. (4 August 1924); published as Address of Acceptance (1924), p. 15.
1920s

Simone Weil photo
Sigmund Freud photo

“Moreover, the act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety.”

The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), in a footnote Freud added to the Second Edition in 1909 (see Psychoanalytic Pioneers, p. 46 http://books.google.com/books?id=Fro5MZry5FcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false.)
1900s

Alfred Korzybski photo

“Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.”

Alfred Whitney Griswold (1906–1963) American historian

Quoted by John F. Kennedy in a speech at Yale University (11 June 1962).

Will Eisner photo

“”Jewish Peril” exposed.
Historic “Fake.”
Details of the forgery.
More parallels.
We published yesterday an article from our Constantinople Correspondent, which showed that the notorious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” – one of the mysteries of politics since 1905 – were a clumsy forgery, the text being based on a book published in French in 1865. The book, without title page, was obtained by our correspondent from a Russian source, and we were able to identify it with a complete copy in the British Museum.
The disclosure, which naturally aroused the greatest interest among those familiar with Jewish questions, finally disposes of the “Protocols” as credible evidence of a Jewish plot against civilization.
We publish below a second article, which gives further close parallels between the language of the Protocols and that attributed to Machiavelli and Montesquieu in the volume dated from Geneva.
Plagiarism at Work.
(From our Constantinople Correspondent.)
While the Geneva Dialogue open with an exchange of compliments between Monsequieu and Machiavelli, which covers seven pages, the author of the Protocols plunges at once in medias res.
One can imagine him hastily turning over those first seven pages of the book which he has been ordered to paraphrase against time, and angrily ejaculating, “Nothing here.” But on page 8 of the Dialogues he finds what he wants.
Publisher: Good work Graves…we finally paid your émigré £ 300 for it…now if we can find Golovinski and get his confession…
Graves: He joined the Bolsheviks.
Golovinski became a party ‘’’activist’’’ and rose to be an adviser to Trotsky. But he ‘’’died’’’ last year!
Publisher: Well, that’s that!
Publisher: Oh but Graves, “The Times” is influential… after our expose we’ll probably hear no more of this fraud!
Graves: I’m not sure!
Anti-Bolsheviks, White Russians, published thousands of copies! Here’s a page from Nilus’ “The Great in the Small.”
Publisher: Astonishing…mystical symbols…eh?
The “Protocols” quickly began to circulate around the world.
A French edition this year…and in America Henry Ford, the auto magnate, has been serializing it in his paper, the “Dearborn independent”!
Publisher: When did it first appear in Europe?
Graves: The German edition…dated 1919, was the first!
This is an evil book…a fake designed to malign a whole group of people.
Publisher: I know, I know! …Ugly stuff, Graves.
Graves: Well, what are we to do about it?
Publisher: Your report exposed it as a foul fraud!
Publisher: Y’forget the power of the press, graves! “The Times” has tremendous worldwide influence.
This fraud will soon be well known everywhere…so, my boy, ‘’’what harm can the “protocols” possibly do now?”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 91-94

Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“Venerable Svasti and the young buffalo boys were rivers that flowed from that source. Wherever the rivers flowed, the Buddha would be there.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Old Path White Clouds : Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha (1991) Parallax Press ISBN 81-216-0675-6

Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Youssef Bey Karam photo
Sam Harris photo

“Mistaking no answers in practice for no answers in principle is a great source of moral confusion.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, The Moral Landscape (2010), p. 3

Paul Graham photo

“There are few sources of energy so powerful as a procrastinating grad student.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"How to Start a Startup" http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html, March 2005

William Cobbett photo

“A full belly to the labourer was, in my opinion, the foundation of public morals and the only source of real public peace.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Source: The Autobiography of William Cobbett (1933), Ch. 12, pp. 185-186.

Michael Swanwick photo
George H. W. Bush photo

“Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the identity of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

Speech at CIA headquarters to Agency employees (26 April 1999) https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/1999/bush_speech_042699.html

Charlotte Brontë photo
John Maxson Stillman photo
Malala Yousafzai photo

“There is no greater weapon than knowledge and no greater source of knowledge than the written word.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

Inauguration of Library of Birmingham, Jan 2013

William John Macquorn Rankine photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Henri Poincaré photo
Khushwant Singh photo
Ralph Steadman photo

“Americans live with the certain knowledge that the source of their greatness has not yet been released.”

The Last Trip To Woody Creek, p. 376
The Joke's Over (2006)

Ryan C. Gordon photo
Gancho Tsenov photo
Nicholas of Cusa photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, Science and Religion (1941)

Max Scheler photo
Muammar Gaddafi photo

“Reagan is mad. If he were here, I would tell him the truth about us. He hears about us only through hostile sources.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Remarks quoted in The Pittsburgh Press (3 August 1986) "Gadhafi, the man the world loves to hate" by Marie Colvin (UPI)

Bill Mollison photo
Sarah Palin photo

“Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.Couric: What, specifically?Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.Couric: Can you name a few?Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D. C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?"”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
Interview with Katie Couric, CBS Evening News,
2008-09-30
Sarah Palin Answers What Newspapers, Magazines Inform Her Worldview: "Most Of 'Em...All Of 'Em...Any Of 'Em," "Alaska Is Like A Microcosm Of America"
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/30/sarah-palin-answers-what_n_130706.html
2008-09-30
Palin: ‘I’m the New Energy’
Lisa
Tozzi
The Caucus
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/palin-im-the-new-energy/
2008, 2008 interviews with Katie Couric

Ernest Barnes photo
Alan Greenspan photo

“Intensive research in recent years into the sources of economic growth among both developing and developed nations generally point to a number of important factors: the state of knowledge and skill of a population; the degree of control over indigenous natural resources; the quality of a country's legal system, particularly a strong commitment to a rule of law and protection of property rights; and yes, the extent of a country's openness to trade with the rest of the world. For the United States, arguably the most important factor is the type of rule of law under which economic activity takes place. When asked abroad why the United States has become the most prosperous large economy in the world, I respond, with only mild exaggeration, that our forefathers wrote a constitution and set in motion a system of laws that protects individual rights, especially the right to own property. Nonetheless, the degree of state protection is sometimes in dispute. But by and large, secure property rights are almost universally accepted by Americans as a critical pillar of our economy. While the right of property in the abstract is generally uncontested in all societies embracing democratic market capitalism, different degrees of property protection do apparently foster different economic incentives and outcomes.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Alan Greenspan (2004) The critical role of education in the nation's economy.
2000s

A. James Gregor photo
Erik Naggum photo
Linus Torvalds photo

“I am a lazy person, which is why I like open source, for other people to do work for me.”

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

Torvalds, Linus, 2015-01-15, <nowiki>Linus Torvalds on why he isn’t nice: &quot;I don’t care about you&quot;</nowiki>, 2015-01-20 http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/linus-torvalds-on-why-he-isnt-nice-i-dont-care-about-you/,
2010s, 2015

Pope Benedict XVI photo
Ken Thompson photo
Aldous Huxley photo
Rick Santorum photo

“We know the candidate Barack Obama, what he was like – the anti-war government nig– uh, the – America was a source for division around the world, that what we were doing was wrong.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

2012-03-30
Rick Santorum: another slip of the tongue but was it the 'N-word'?
Paul
Harris
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/30/rick-santorum-slip-n-word
2012-04-03

Neil deGrasse Tyson photo
Ben Croshaw photo
Báb photo
Angelique Rockas photo
James Clerk Maxwell photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Alfred North Whitehead photo
Aron Ra photo
Pierre Schaeffer photo
Rumi photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo
Francis Escudero photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
Jane Roberts photo
Jane Roberts photo
Orson Welles photo

“My father once told me that the art of receiving a compliment is, of all things, the sign of a civilized man. He died soon afterwards, leaving my education in this important matter sadly incomplete; I'm only glad that, on this, the occasion of the rarest compliment he ever could have dreamed of, that he isn't here to see his son so publicly at a loss. In receiving a compliment, or in trying to, the words are all worn out by now. They're polluted by ham and corn. And, when you try to scratch around for some new ones, it's just an exercise in empty cleverness. What I feel this evening, is not very clever. it's the very opposite of emptiness. The corny old phrase is the only one I know to say it: my heart is full; with a full heart, with all of it, I thank you. This is Samuel Johnson, on the subject of what he calls contrarieties: "there are goods, so opposed that we cannot seize both, and, in trying, fail to seize either. Flatter not yourself, he says, with contrarieties. Of the blessings set before you, make your choice. No man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source, and from the mouth of the nile." For this business of contrarieties has to do with us. With you, who are paying me this compliment, and for me, who has strayed so far from this hometown of ours. Not that I am alone in this, or unique, I am never that; but there are a few of us left in this conglomerated world of us who still trudge stubbornly along this lonely rocky road; and this is in fact our contrariety. We don't move nearly as fast as our cousins on the freeway; we don't even get as much accomplished just as the family sized farm can't possibly raise as many crops or get as much profit as the agricultural factory of today. What we do come up with has no special right to call itself better it's just.. different. No if there's any excuse for us it all, it's that we're simply following the old American tradition of the maverick, and we are a vanishing breed. This honor I can only accept in the name of all the mavericks. And also, as a tribute to the generosity of all the rest of you; to the givers, to the ones with fixed addresses. A maverick may go his own way but he doesn't think that it's the only way, or ever claim that it's the best one, except maybe for himself. And don't imagine that this raggle-taggle gypsy-o is claiming to be free. It's just that some of the necessities to which I am a slave are different from yours. As a director, for instance, I pay myself out of my acting jobs. I use my own work to subsidize my work (in other words I'm crazy). But not crazy enough to pretend to be free. But it's a fact that many of the films you've seen tonight could never have been made otherwise. Or, if otherwise, well, they might have been better, but certainly they wouldn't have been mine. The truth is I don't believe that this great evening would ever have brightened my life if it wasn't for this: my own, particular, contrariety. Let us raise our cups, then, standing as some of us do on opposite ends of the river, to what really matters to us all: to our crazy, beloved profession, to the movies — to good movies, to every possible kind.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Speech given upon his acceptance of the AFI Lifetime Achievement award. Viewable http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXJnxClGamA&list=HL1349840607&feature=mh_lolz

Warren Farrell photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Source: Without Authority by Soren Kierkegaard, Hong 1997 P. 145ff”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1850s, An Upbuilding Discourse December 20, 1850

Allen C. Guelzo photo
George Holmes Howison photo

“To the question, What is the right relation between reason and religion, you will now understand me to answer, It is that reason should be the source of which religion is the issue; that reason, when most itself, will unquestionably be religious, but that religion must for just that cause be entirely rational; that reason is the final authority from which religion must derive its warrant, and with which its contents must comply; that all religious doctrines and instrumentalities, all religious practices, all religious institutions, and all records of religion, whether in tradition or in scripture, must alike submit their claims at the bar of general human reason, and that only those approved in that tribunal can be regarded as of weight or of obligation; in short, that the only real basis of religion is our human reason, the only seat of its authority our genuine human nature, the only sufficient witness of God the human soul. Reason, I shall endeavour to show, is not confined to the mastery of the sense-world and the goods of this world only, but does cover all the range of being, and found and rule the world eternal; it is not merely natural, it is also spiritual; it is itself, when come to itself, the true divine revelation.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Right Relation of Reason to Religion, p.224-5

Otto Weininger photo
David C. McClelland photo
Godfrey Higgins photo
Larry Wall photo

“It won't be covered in the book. The source code has to be useful for something, after all…”

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

[10160@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Harriet Beecher Stowe photo
Robert Barron (bishop) photo
Richard Rumelt photo