Quotes about stable
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Friedrich Hayek photo
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan photo

“Before we can build a stable civilization worthy of humanity as a whole, it is necessary that each historical civilization should become conscious of its limitations and it's unworthiness to become the ideal civilization of the world.”

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

Kalki : or The Future of Civilization (1929)
Context: The East and the West are not so sharply divided as the alarmists would make us believe. The products of spirit and intelligence, the positive sciences, the engineering techniques, the governmental forms, the legal regulations, the administrative arrangements, and the economic institutions are binding together peoples of varied cultures and bringing them into closer reciprocal contact. The world today is tending to function as one organism.
The outer uniformity has not, however, resulted in an inner unity of mind and spirit. The new nearness into which we are drawn has not meant increasing happiness and diminishing friction, since we are not mentally and spiritually prepared for the meeting. Maxim Gorky relates how, after addressing a peasant audience on the subject of science and the marvels of technical inventions, he was criticized by a peasant spokesman in the following words : "Yes, we are taught to fly in the air like birds, and to swim in the water like the fishes, but how to live on the earth we do not know."
Among the races, religions, and nations which live side by side on the small globe, there is not that sense of fellowship necessary for good life. They rather feel themselves to be antagonistic forces. Though humanity has assumed a uniform outer body, it is still without a single animating spirit. The world is not of one mind. … The provincial cultures of the past and the present have not always been loyal to the true interests of the human race. They stood for racial, religious, and political monopolies, for the supremacy of men over women and of the rich over the poor. Before we can build a stable civilization worthy of humanity as a whole, it is necessary that each historical civilization should become conscious of its limitations and it's unworthiness to become the ideal civilization of the world.

George Soros photo

“The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States. This is a harsh — indeed, for me, painful — thing to say, but unfortunately I am convinced it is true.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Prologue, p. xvi
The Age of Fallibility (2006)
Context: The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States. This is a harsh — indeed, for me, painful — thing to say, but unfortunately I am convinced it is true. The United States continues to set the agenda for the world in spite of its loss of influence since 9/11, and the Bush administration is setting the wrong agenda. The Bush agenda is nationalistic: it emphasizes the use of force and ignores global problems whose solution requires international cooperation. The rest of the world dances to the tune the United States is playing, and if that continues too long we are in danger of destroying our civilization. Changing the attitude and policies of the United States remains my top priority.

Thomas Jefferson photo

“Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Isaac McPherson http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html (13 August 1813) ME 13:333.
The sentence He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. is sometimes paraphrased as "Knowledge is like a candle. Even as it lights a new candle, the strength of the original flame is not diminished."
1810s
Context: It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

Karl Barth photo

“Eternity is here (in the stable at Bethlehem and on the cross of Calvary) in time.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

The Knowledge of God and the Service of God (1939), p. 78

Jane Espenson photo

“Children are the world's most ardent traditionalists. They like things stable and categorized.”

Jane Espenson (1964) American television writer and producer

How to Succeed at Vampire Slaying and Keep Your Soul (2005)
Context: Children are the world's most ardent traditionalists. They like things stable and categorized. They want to know what girls can do and what girls can't do. Television, like it or not, teaches them a lot of these rules.

“Survival in a stable environment depends almost entirely on remembering the strategies for survival that have been developed in the past, and so the conservation and transmission of these becomes the primary mission of education. But, a paradoxical situation develops when change becomes the primary characteristic of the environment. Then the task turns inside out — survival in a rapidly changing environment depends almost entirely upon being able to identify which of the old concepts are relevant to the demands imposed by the new threats to survival, and which are not.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)
Context: The BASIC FUNCTION of all education, even in the most traditional sense, is to increase the survival prospects of the group. If this function is fulfilled, the group survives. If not, it doesn't. There have been times when this function was not fulfilled, and groups (some of them we even call "civilizations") disappeared. Generally, this resulted from changes in the kind of threats the group faced. The threats changed, but the education did not, and so the group, in a way, "disappeared itself" (to use a phrase from Catch-22). The tendency seems to be for most "educational" systems, from patterns of training in "primitive" tribal societies to school systems in technological societies, to fall imperceptibly into a role devoted exclusively to the conservation of old ideas, concepts, attitudes, skills, and perceptions. This happens largely because of the unconsciously held belief that these old ways of thinking and doing are necessary to the survival of the group. …Survival in a stable environment depends almost entirely on remembering the strategies for survival that have been developed in the past, and so the conservation and transmission of these becomes the primary mission of education. But, a paradoxical situation develops when change becomes the primary characteristic of the environment. Then the task turns inside out — survival in a rapidly changing environment depends almost entirely upon being able to identify which of the old concepts are relevant to the demands imposed by the new threats to survival, and which are not. Then a new educational task becomes critical: getting the group to unlearn (to "forget") the irrelevant concepts as a prior condition of learning. What we are saying is that the "selective forgetting" is necessary for survival.

Larry Niven photo

“10) Anarchy is the least stable of social structures.”

Larry Niven (1938) American writer

Niven's Laws

Eric Hoffer photo

“It has been often stated that a social order is likely to be stable so long as it gives scope to talent. Actually, it is the ability to give scope to the untalented that is most vital in maintaining social stability.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 13: "Scribe, Writer, and Rebel"
Context: It has been often stated that a social order is likely to be stable so long as it gives scope to talent. Actually, it is the ability to give scope to the untalented that is most vital in maintaining social stability. For not only are the untalented more numerous but, since they cannot transmute their grievances into a creative effort, their disaffection will be more pronounced and explosive. Thus the most troublesome problem which confronts social engineering is how to provide for the untalented and, what is equally important, how to provide against them. For there is a tendency in the untalented to divert their energies from their own development into the management, manipulation, and probably frustration of others. They want to police, instruct, guide, and meddle. In an adequate social order, the untalented should be able to acquire a sense of usefulness and of growth without interfering with the development of talent around them. This requires, first, an abundance of opportunities for purposeful action and self advancement. Secondly, a wide diffusion of technical and social skills so that people will be able to work and manage their affairs with a minimum of tutelage. The scribe mentality is best neutralized by canalizing energies into purposeful and useful pursuits, and by raising the cultural level of the whole population so as to blur the dividing line between the educated and the uneducated. If such an arrangement lacks provisions for the encouragement of the talented it yet has the merit of not interfering with them.

John F. Kennedy photo

“I ask you to stop and think for a moment what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world. There would be no rest for anyone then, no stability, no real security, and no chance of effective disarmament. There would only be the increased chance of accidental war, and an increased necessity for the great powers to involve themselves in what otherwise would be local conflicts.”

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

1963, Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty speech
Context: During the next several years, in addition to the four current nuclear powers, a small but significant number of nations will have the intellectual, physical, and financial resources to produce both nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them. In time, it is estimated, many other nations will have either this capacity or other ways of obtaining nuclear warheads, even as missiles can be commercially purchased today. I ask you to stop and think for a moment what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world. There would be no rest for anyone then, no stability, no real security, and no chance of effective disarmament. There would only be the increased chance of accidental war, and an increased necessity for the great powers to involve themselves in what otherwise would be local conflicts. If only one thermonuclear bomb were to be dropped on any American, Russian, or any other city, whether it was launched by accident or design, by a madman or by an enemy, by a large nation or by a small, from any corner of the world, that one bomb could release more destructive power on the inhabitants of that one helpless city than all the bombs dropped in the Second World War.

Rab Butler photo
John Adams photo
Mary McCarthy photo
Immanuel Kant photo
Michael Moorcock photo

“Chaos has her moods and whims, that’s all. As I told you, she cannot remain stable. It is in her nature to be forever changing.”

“While it is in the nature of Law,” Alisaard explained, “to be forever fixed. The Balance is there to ensure that neither Law nor Chaos ever gain complete ascendancy, for the one offers sterility while the other offers only sensation.”
Book 3, Chapter 1 (p. 626)
Erekosë, The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

“He felt like Hercules at the Augean stables commissioned to clean out the accumulated filth of centuries.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: The Children of Eve' series of novels (historical fiction), The City of Palaces (2014), p.86

Marcus Aurelius photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Zakir Hussain (politician) photo
Miley Cyrus photo

“Her voice is surprisingly rich for a girl in her early teens, and she has more personality than many pop starlets her age, especially those in the Disney stable.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

Heather Phares of allmusic http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kzdgyl5nxp9b

Neal Stephenson photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Johan Rockström photo

“ALL D is always collectively stable.”

Chap. 3 : The Chronology of Cooperation
Proposition 5.
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

“For a nice strategy to be collectively stable, it must be provoked by the very first defection of the other player.”

Chap. 3 : The Chronology of Cooperation
Proposition 4.
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

“Any strategy which may be the first to cooperate can be collectively stable only when w is sufficiently large.”

Chap. 3 : The Chronology of Cooperation
Proposition 3.
The Evolution of Cooperation (1984; 2006)

Anton Mauve photo

“I've got a special liking for stables. I find them so very suitable for creating an artistique feeling, and then those stables from Oosterbeek!”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, in het Nederlands:) Ik heb er bijzondere voorliefde voor stallen gekregen. Ik vind ze zoo heel geschikt om een artistique gevoel te [te?] komen, en dan die Oosterbeeksche stallen.

In a letter to Willem Maris, 1863; as cited Anton Mauve, exhibition catalog of Teylers Museum, Haarlem / Laren, Singer, ed. De Bodt en Plomp, 2009, p. 43
1860's

Rab Butler photo
Stephen Vincent Benét photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Paul Offit photo
Chiang Kai-shek photo

“If when I die, I am still a dictator, I will certainly go down into the oblivion of all dictators. If, on the other hand, I succeed in establishing a truly stable foundation for a democratic government, I will live forever in every home in China.”

Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) Chinese politician and military leader

Taiwan's Modernization: Americanization and Modernizing Confucian Manifestations, Wei-Bin Zhang, 2003, World Scientific, 2003, 177, 9814486132, 23 May 2021 https://books.google.com/books?id=J3BpDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA177,

Jay Samit photo
Park So-dam photo

“There’s a side of me that seeks a stable life, but I tend to not fear change. And as time passes, rather than settle for one thing, I’m growing more inclined to challenge myself and try new things.”

Park So-dam (1991) South Korean actress

As quoted in "Parasite Star Park So-dam on Life Since the Oscars and New Korean Drama Record of Youth" in Time Magazine (16 September 2020) https://time.com/5889002/park-sodam-parasite-record-of-youth-interview/

Leopold II of Belgium photo

“Of all the outlets, the safest and most stable, both for products and for capital, is obviously that of a colony.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Quotes related to the Belgian Colonial Empire
Source: All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), Preface:A historiographical picture of Leopold II (1835-1909) http://www.ethesis.net/leopold_II/leopold_II.htm#2.%20 STENGERS, J. “The place of Leopold II in the history of colonization.” The New Clio, I-II (1949-1950), 517.

Wang Qishan photo

“If there is no peaceful, stable international environment, there will be no development to talk of.”

Wang Qishan (1948) Chinese politician

Source: "World cannot shut China out, vice president says, in jab at U.S." in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-diplomacy/world-cannot-shut-china-out-vice-president-says-in-jab-at-u-s-idUSKCN1U303U (7 July 2019)

Peter F. Drucker photo
Bob Inglis photo

“The pitchforks and torches can tear down and burn up but they can't build up the institutions and communities so necessary to a stable and prosperous country”

Bob Inglis (1959) Former U.S. congressman

Source: "Bob Inglis: How I changed my mind about climate change" https://www.npr.org/2021/12/03/1061214253/bob-inglis-how-i-changed-my-mind-about-climate-change, NPR (December 3, 2021)

Luigi Russolo photo

“Sound is defined as the result of a succession of regular and periodic vibrations. Noise is instead caused by motions that are irregular, as much in time as in intensity. 'A musical sensation,' says Helmholtz 'appears to the ear as a perfectly stable, uniform, and invariable sound.'”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

But the quality of continuity that sound has with respect to noise, which seems instead fragmentary and irregular, is not an element sufficient to make a sharp distinction between sound and noise. We know that the production of sound requires not only that a body vibrate regularly but also that these vibrations persist in the auditory nerve until the following vibration has arrived, so that the periodic vibrations blend to form a continuous musical sound. At least sixteen vibrations per second are needed for this. Now, if I succeed in producing a noise with this speed. I will get a sound made up of the totality of so many noises--or better, noise whose successive repetitions will be sufficiently rapid to give a sensation of continuity like that of sound.
Source: Russolo. English trans. Barclay Brown (1986: 37).

Dmitry Peskov photo
Witness Lee photo

“Being slow means not acting when there is time to act, whereas being stable means allowing time to do its work.”

Witness Lee (1905–1997) Chinese Christian preacher

Character, of Witness Lee - By Living Stream Ministry, ISBN 978-0-87083-322-9

Teal Swan photo
Teal Swan photo