Quotes about standpoint (154 quotes, page 2)

“From a rational standpoint, it might be expected that man should be far more willing to express financial confidence in his skills rather than risking his earnings on the mindless meanderings of chance. Experience, however, has strongly indicated the reverse proposition to hold true.”

Richard Arnold Epstein (1927) American physicist

Source: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977, Chapter Ten, Games Of Pure Skill And Competitive Computers, p. 337

Confidence , Chance

“We assume that our own advances in objectivity are steps along a path that extends beyond them and beyond all our capacities. But even allowing unlimited time, or an unlimited number of generations, to take as many successive steps as we like, the process can never be completed. … What is wanted is some way of making the most objective standpoint the basis of action.”

Thomas Nagel (1937) American philosopher

Source: The View From Nowhere (1986), pp. 128-129.

Way , Time , Success

“From society's standpoint, modern science and technology appears Janus-faced : It has given us wealth in one sense, and poverty in another; it has harnessed nature to man's basic needs in ways and to extents undreamed - of only a few decades ago, but it has fostered a continuingly lowered "quality of life."”

Richard F. Ericson (1919–1993) American academic

Source: Organizational cybernetics and human values (1969), p. 7

Life , Way , Nature , Sense

“From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.”

Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) German physician, physiologist, philosopher and professor

Source: Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1904, p. 31

Life

“On my Fleischmann Hour from Rochester I went into a "rave" about the Victor record of ["It Must Be True"] as played by Gus Arnheim and his Cocoanut Grove Orchestra. From all reports that drift back to me, and from people that I know in California, Arnheim has the finest dance aggregation on the West Coast, and to my way of thinking, perhaps the finest in the entire world. It may sound like a rather broad statement, but I would be willing to back his organization against any other in any other part of the world. Although I have never seen them perform on the stage to what they have in the way of showmanship, from a pure musical standpoint I feel that they are unexcelled.
Perhaps my great admiration for them is increased by the presence of Bing Crosby, formerly the lead in Paul Whiteman's "Rhythm Boys", who, in my humble opinion, has the finest recording voice to which it has ever been my pleasure to listen. If he doesn't capture all the feminine hearts in America through his records, no one ever will. He has the most unique style of singing I have ever listened to since I used to enjoy the records of Charlie Kaley.”

Rudy Vallée (1901–1986) American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer

"Tuneful Topics", Radio Digest, June 1931. https://archive.org/stream/radiodigest2627unse#page/n869/mode/2up

People , Pleasure , World , Music

“Correctly understood, the phrase “tyranny of values” may supply the key to the understanding that all thinking about values only foments and intensifies the old and endless struggle between convictions and interests. Not much is gained by what the modern philosophy of values acknowledges as the “fundamental relationship,” according to which, occasionally the lower value may be preferred to the higher value, because that is the prerequisite of the higher value. All that points only to the confusion that affects the whole argumentation about values, which continually gives rise to new relations and points of view, thereby the position is always maintained from which the opponent is reproached that he does not heed the manifest values; or, in other words, he is disqualified as value-blind. The polemical utilization of the word “blind” is adequate to the logic of values as long as it is concerned with the systems of reference that it will build up out of viewpoints, standpoints, and vantage-points.”

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) German jurist, political theorist and professor of law

"The Tyranny of Values" (1959)

Understanding , Thinking

“I believe in living a vegetarian lifestyle from a health standpoint and I also have deep compassion for animals. I wanted to raise awareness and educate people on the abuse and inhumane treatment that goes on every day in slaughterhouses. … I want people to know that you can still be fit and have curves living a vegetarian lifestyle. … [I have been a vegetarian] since I was little girl. I grew up on a ranch and animals were my pets.”

Bonnie-Jill Laflin (1976) American actor, model

“NBA scout Bonnie-Jill Laflin poses for PETA ad,” interview with ESPN's Page 2 (April 2011) http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/index/_/id/6403093.

People , Health , Education , Girl

“Of course I thoroughly agree with you that Christianity was from the first essentially a mystical religion; to me, the doctrine of the New Testament is only intelligible from that standpoint.”

Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) British saint, poet, novelist

Letter to Horace Hutchinson, 7 January, 1919.
Letters

Religion , Intelligence

“Americans expect Seoul to play good cop to their bad cop. They assume the commonality of language, ethnicity and culture will help the South build trust with the North, so it can put the alliance’s demands over more persuasively. They also reckon the North Koreans will find it easier to yield to soft-spoken fellow Koreans than to the foreigners with whom they have been exchanging threats and insults for decades. But to play such a role the South must overcome an exceptionally high barrier of mistrust. It gets no brownie points for Koreanness alone. On the contrary; from the North’s standpoint it’s precisely that co-ethnicity which makes the puppet state’s long collusion with the Yankees so heinous.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Portrait of the Ally as an Intermediary (March 2018)

Help

“Any performance is discussible either from the standpoint of what it attains or what it misses. Comprehensiveness can be discussed as superficiality, intensiveness as stricture, tolerance as uncertainty—and the poor pedestrian abilities of a fish are clearly explainable in terms of his excellence as a swimmer. A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing—a focus upon object A involves a neglect of object B.”

Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) American philosopher

Source: Permanence and Change (1935), p. 70

Way , Fish

“If you, dear reader, are looking a this across some great gulf of time and increase of knowledge, spare me your condescension. You too were young once, and ignorant once, and from a future standpoint—perhaps your own—you are young and ignorant still.”

Ken MacLeod book Learning the World

Source: Learning the World (2005), Chapter 21 “But The Sky, My Lady! The Sky!” (p. 358)

Knowledge , Time , Future

“Plausible as the idea of the United States of Europe as a peace arrangement may seem to some at first glance, it has on closer examination not the least thing in common with the method of thought and the standpoint of social democracy... At the present stage of development of the world market and of world economy, the conception of Europe as an isolated economic unit is a sterile concoction of the brain. Europe no more forms a special unit within world economy than does Asia or America.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Peace Utopias (1911)

World , Peace , Democracy , Idea

“The pure normative standpoint that Kant’s ethics tries to occupy, a standpoint in which we consider only the normatively relevant features of a possible world, abstracting strictly from the real world and the empirical accidents of concrete situations, is an expression of what Dewey called “the quest for certainty.” In an insecure world, weak humans struggle convulsively to reach some kind of stability; the a priori is an overcompensation in thought for experienced human weakness. This is one of the origins of Kant’s notorious rigidity, his authoritarian devotion to “principles,” and his tendency to promote local habits of thought to constituents of the absolute framework in which alone (purportedly) any coherent experience was possible; thus, Euclidean geometry is declared the a priori condition of human experience, and sadistic remnants of Puritanism become demands of pure practical reason. Classical liberalism rejected Kant’s practical philosophy, but perhaps this is not enough. Perhaps one should also reject the very idea of a pure normative standpoint.”

Raymond Geuss (1946) British philosopher

“Liberalism and its Discontents,” pp. 20-21.
Outside Ethics (2005)

World , Idea

“Not til the late nineteenth century was the doctrine of the subordination of time and change seriously challenged. Bergson and William James, animated by different motives and proceeding by different methods, then installed change at the very heart of things. Bergson took his stand on the primacy of life and consciousness, which are notoriously in a state of flux. He assimilated that which is completely real in the natural world to them, conceiving the static as that which life leaves behind as a deposit as it moves on. From this point of view he criticized mechanistic and teleological theories on the ground that both are guilty of the same error, although from opposite points. Fixed laws which govern change and fixed ends toward which changes tend are both the products of a backward look, one that ignores the forward movement of life. They apply only to that which life has produced and has then left behind in its ongoing vital creative course, a course whose behavior and outcome are unpredictable both mechanistically and from the standpoint of ends.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Time and Individuality (1940)

Life , World , Law , Behavior

“Only if you admit the existence of god does everything become meaningful. When we bring God into our lives, distinctions lessen and we feel that all people are our own. On the physical plane there is a difference between myself and others, but on the spiritual plane we are the same Satchidananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss Absolute). From that standpoint no one can help another—one is only helping oneself. The key to our philanthropy is this: In doing good to others, we try to forget the apparent distinctions between ourselves and other people. The welfare of others is my welfare—that is our attitude. Who does not want his own good? If you believe in God and serve society, you can never feel any resentment…. People may get social merit through philanthropic activities, but if their egos are involved in those activities, they will not get any spiritual merit. Even the result of a good action turns into a bondage if it is done with ego. On the other hand, unselfish actions destroys the bondage of action and bring literation to humanity.”

Swami Adbhutananda Disciple

In reply to western ladies who said that one should give higher place to philanthropy than to God.
Source: God Lived with Them, p.430

God , People , Feeling , Help

“Most people in the West, certainly everyone in Israel, would agree that the Palestinian suicide bombers, who kill women and children, are terrorists. Not many people remember when Palestine, as the land of Israel was once called, was in that obscure state, a British Protectorate. Were the Jewish members of the Stern Gang, those who hanged a British sergeant with piano wire or organized the bomb in the King David Hotel with murderous results (the organization in which Prime Minister Begin started his political career), ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘terrorists’? What, looking at the matter from an entirely neutral standpoint, would we call them now?
A terrorist, the dictionary tells us, is ‘one who favours or uses terror-inspiring methods of governing or of coercing government or community’. This would certainly cover Russian activities in Chechnya and Israeli invasions into Palestinian territory, killing innocent men, women and children and even employees of the United Nations, in a prolonged attempt to fight ruthless terrorism with ruthless terrorism. The word ‘terrorist’ could certainly have been applied to Nelson Mandela before his trial. If it means the calculated mass killing of civilians to obtain an end, it must be applied to the destruction of Hamburg and Düsseldorf and, of course, to the dropping of H-bombs. So all these activities can be defined as ‘terrorism’ if they are committed by an enemy or ‘freedom-fighting’ if by a friend. If so, the conception of a ‘war’ against it calls for the most careful thought.”

John Mortimer (1923–2009) English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author

Source: Where There's a Will: Thoughts on the Good Life (2003), Ch. 15 : Interesting Times

Women , Men , War , Children

“From a management standpoint, it is very important to know how to unleash people's inborn creativity. My concept is that anybody has creative ability, but very few people know how to use it.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 164.

People

“[The decisionmaking role of the firm has progressed from the neoclassical standpoint of profit maximization to sales maximization, utility maximization, and satisficing. From the Operation Research point of view] …the ideal picture is that someone, presumable the firm that hires the operations researcher, hands him, on a silver platter, an objective function. By talking to the engineers, or by looking into a few scientific laws, he determines the policy alternatives available and also the model”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

Source: 1970s-1980s, The Economics of Information (1984), p. 55 as cited in: Demetri Kantarelis (2008) " Book Review: Title: Theories Of The Firm 2nd Edition http://www.inderscience.com/books/TOF_american_econ_review.pdf". In: The American economist. Vol 52, Nr 1. p. 117

Law

“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

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

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

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

Money , Way , Business

“Piers Morgan: And I have to say that your views you espoused on this issue are bordering on bigotry, aren't they?
Rick Santorum: No. I think just because we disagree on public policy, which is what the debate has been about, which is marriage, doesn't mean that it's bigotry. Just because you follow a moral code that teaches something wrong doesn't mean that — are you suggesting that the Bible and that the Catholic Church is bigoted? Well, if that's what you believe, fine, I don't, I think that 2,000 — well, I shouldn't say, not fine, I don't think it's fine at all. I think that is — that's contrary to both what we've seen in 2,000 years of human history and Western civilization and trying to redefine something that has been — that is seen as wrong from the standpoint of the church and saying a church is bigoted because it holds that opinion that is biblically based I think is in itself an act of bigotry.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

2011-08-31
Piers Morgan Tonight
CNN
Television, quoted in * Santorum: I Stand By My 'Man on Dog' Comment
Crooks and Liars
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/santorum-i-stand-my-man-dog-comment
2011-09-01

Marriage , History , Thinking

“As far as the, you know, potential conflict of interests, though, I mean I know that from the standpoint, the law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can't have a conflict of interest. That's been reported very widely. Despite that, I don't want there to be a conflict of interest anyway. And the laws, the president can't. And I understand why the president can't have a conflict of interest now because everything a president does in some ways is like a conflict of interest.”

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

2010s, 2016, November, New York Times Interview (November 23, 2016)

Law , Way , Understanding

“Though it were proved that there was never an Aryan race in the past, yet we desire that in the future there may be one. This is the decisive standpoint for men of action.”

Houston Stewart Chamberlain book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century

The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts) (1899)

Men , Decision , Past , Future

“I build things that I think are exciting from a technology standpoint and will help make life easier, simpler and better for people.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

Investor's Business Daily March 2007, regarding technology and the future http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=21&issue=20070306.

Life , People , Thinking , Help

“To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, but merely a provocative epigram for those who must make their arrangements in the world as given.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 4

War , World , Sex , Madness

“What the Democrats are suggesting, basically, about a withdrawal — you can call it redeployment, whatever you want to call it. Basically, it in effect validates the terrorists' strategy. You've got to remember that the Osama bin Laden-types, the al Qaeda-types, the Zarqawi-types that have been active in Iraq are betting that ultimately they can break the United States' will. There's no way they can defeat us militarily. Their whole strategy, if you look at what bin Laden's been saying for 10 years, is they believe they can, in fact, force us to quit, that ultimately we'll get tired of the fight, that we don't have the stomach for a long, tough battle and that we'll pack it in and go home. If we were to do that it would be devastating from the standpoint of the global war on terror. It would affect what happens in Afghanistan. It would make it difficult for us to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations for nuclear weapons. It would threaten the stability of regimes like Musharraf in Pakistan and the Saudis in Saudi Arabia. It is absolutely the worst possible thing we could do at this point. It would be to validate and encourage the terrorists by doing exactly what they want us to do.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

2000s, 2006

War , Way , Home , Fight

“In some organizations where staff assistance is overemphasized, from the standpoint of both the influence and the number of staff officials, the chief executive is likely to be cut off from his department heads. An executive should never lose sight of the fact that his closest contacts must be with the heads of the operating departments, and that it is upon them more than any others that the success of the program depends. If he permits himself to become cloistered because of the more favored position of the staff officials, the morale and driving force of the program will be impaired.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: "The Meshing of Line and Staff", 1945, pp. 102-104, as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 306-7

Success , Dependency

“The pledges come from a believers’ standpoint. The country needs to earn the support of its citizenry. You can’t extort it. You can’t get people indoctrinated by always saying every morning before class where they’ll never question what you’ll do.”

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

Exclusive Interview with Aron Ra – Public Speaker, Atheist Vlogger, and Activist https://conatusnews.com/interview-aron-ra-past-president-atheist-alliance-america/, Conatus News (May 17, 2017)

People , Question , Support , Country

“Though his philosophy finds nothing to support it, at least from the standpoint of Terence the scientific student should be ready to acknowledge the value of a belief in a hereafter as an asset in human life. In the presence of so many mysteries which have been unveiled, in the presence of so many yet unsolved, he cannot be dogmatic and deny the possibility of a future state”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

Science and Immortality (1904)
Context: Though his philosophy finds nothing to support it, at least from the standpoint of Terence the scientific student should be ready to acknowledge the value of a belief in a hereafter as an asset in human life. In the presence of so many mysteries which have been unveiled, in the presence of so many yet unsolved, he cannot be dogmatic and deny the possibility of a future state; and however distressing such a negative attitude of mind to the Teresian, like Pyrrho, he will ask to be left, reserving his judgement, but still inquiring. He will recognize that amid the turbid ebb and flow of human misery, a belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come is the rock of safety to which many of the noblest of his fellows have clung; he will gratefully accept the incalculable comfort of such a belief to those sorrowing for precious friends hid in death's dateless night; he will acknowledge with gratitude and reverence the service to humanity of the great souls who have departed this life in a sure and certain hope but this is all. Whether across death's threshold we step from life to life, or whether we go whence we shall not return, even to the land of darkness, as darkness itself, he cannot tell.

Life , Support , Future

“I came to a conclusion that basically the only political standpoint that I could possibly adhere to would be an anarchist one.”

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

Alan Moore on Anarchism (2009)
Context: I suppose I first got involved in radical politics as a matter of course, during the late 1960s when it was a part of the culture. The counterculture, as we called it then, was very eclectic and all-embracing. It included fashions of dress, styles of music, philosophical positions, and, inevitably, political positions. And although there would be various political leanings coming to the fore from time to time, I suppose that the overall consensus political standpoint was probably an anarchist one. Although probably back in those days, when I was a very young teenager, I didn’t necessarily put it into those terms. I was probably not familiar enough with the concepts of anarchy to actually label myself as such. It was later, as I went into my twenties and started to think about things more seriously that I came to a conclusion that basically the only political standpoint that I could possibly adhere to would be an anarchist one.
It furthermore occurred to me that, basically, anarchy is in fact the only political position that is actually possible. I believe that all other political states are in fact variations or outgrowths of a basic state of anarchy; after all, when you mention the idea of anarchy to most people they will tell you what a bad idea it is because the biggest gang would just take over. Which is pretty much how I see contemporary society. We live in a badly developed anarchist situation in which the biggest gang has taken over and have declared that it is not an anarchist situation – that it is a capitalist or a communist situation. But I tend to think that anarchy is the most natural form of politics for a human being to actually practice. All it means, the word, is no leaders. An-archon. No leaders.
And I think that if we actually look at nature without prejudice, we find that this is the state of affairs that usually pertains.

“Now it is symptomatic of our rusty-beer-can type of sanity that our culture produces very few magical objects. Jewelry is slick and uninteresting. Architecture is almost totally bereft of exuberance, obsessed with erecting glass boxes. Children's books are written by serious ladies with three names and no imagination, and as for comics, have you ever looked at the furniture in Dagwood's home? The potentially magical ceremonies of the Catholic Church are either gabbled away at top speed, or rationalized with the aid of a commentator. Drama or ritual in everyday behavior is considered affectation and bad form, and manners have become indistinguishable from manerisms—where they exist at all. We produce nothing comparable to the great Oriental carpets, Persian glass, tiles, and illuminated books, Arabian leatherwork, Spanish marquetry, Hindu textiles, Chinese porcelain and embroidery, Japanese lacquer and brocade, French tapestries, or Inca jewelry. (Though, incidentally, there are certain rather small electronic devices that come unwittingly close to fine jewels.)
The reason is not just that we are too much in a hurry and have no sense of the present; not just that we cannot afford the type of labor that such things would now involve, nor just that we prefer money to materials. The reason is that we have scrubbed the world clean of magic. We have lost even the vision of paradise, so that our artists and craftsmen can no longer discern its forms. This is the price that must be paid for attempting to control the world from the standpoint of an "I" for whom everything that can be experienced is a foreign object and a nothing-but.”

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

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 84-85

Money , Children , Books , World

“The strife was stilled, order and unity were restored, as soon as Avogadro's great idea was seen in its true light, and the concept of the molecule was introduced into chemistry. A formula which had required pages of reasoning from a purely chemical standpoint to establish, and that insecurely, was fixed by a single numerical result.”

J. R. Partington (1886–1965) British chemist

Introduction
Higher Mathematics for Chemical Students (1911)
Context: As an instance of the remarkably far-reaching effect which a single mathematico-physical concept has had upon the development of chemical theory, one has but to recall the state of chemistry just before the revival of Avogadro's law by Cannizzaro, to be impressed by its confusion. Relying solely upon their "chemical instinct," the leaders of the various schools of chemical thought had developed each his own theoretical system.... a host of... conceptions strove for supremacy. The strife was stilled, order and unity were restored, as soon as Avogadro's great idea was seen in its true light, and the concept of the molecule was introduced into chemistry. A formula which had required pages of reasoning from a purely chemical standpoint to establish, and that insecurely, was fixed by a single numerical result.

Idea , Light

“To hope to find in the world of causes anything logical from our standpoint is just as useless as to think that the world of things can exist in accordance with the laws of a world of shadows or stereometry according to the laws of planimetry.”

P. D. Ouspensky book Tertium Organum

Source: Tertium Organum (1912; 1922), Ch. XXI
Context: The logical formula: A is both A and Not-A, corresponds to the mathematical formula: A magnitude can be greater or less than itself.
The absurdity of both these propositions shows that they cannot refer to our world. Of course absurdity, as such, is indeed not an index of the attributes of noumena, but the attributes of noumena will certainly be expressed in what are absurdities to us. To hope to find in the world of causes anything logical from our standpoint is just as useless as to think that the world of things can exist in accordance with the laws of a world of shadows or stereometry according to the laws of planimetry.
To master the fundamental principles of higher logic means to master the fundamentals of the understanding of a space of higher dimensions, or of the world of the wondrous.
In order to approach to a clear understanding of the relations of the multi-dimensional world, we must free ourselves from all the "idols" of our world, as Bacon calls them, i. e., from all obstacles to correct receptivity and reasoning. Then we shall have taken the most important step toward an inner affinity with the world of the wondrous.

World , Law , Hope , Thinking

“The results of a scrutiny of the materials of chemical science from a mathematical standpoint are pronounced in two directions. In the first we observe crude, qualitative notions”

J. R. Partington (1886–1965) British chemist

Introduction
Higher Mathematics for Chemical Students (1911)
Context: The results of a scrutiny of the materials of chemical science from a mathematical standpoint are pronounced in two directions. In the first we observe crude, qualitative notions, such as fire-stuff, or phlogiston, destroyed; and at the same time we perceive definite measurable quantities such as fixed air, or oxygen, taking their place. In the second direction we notice the establishment of generalizations, laws, or theories, in which a mass of quantitative data is reduced to order and made intelligible. Such are the law of conservation of matter, the laws of chemical combination, and the atomic theory.

Mathematics , Science

“Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint. Fortunately, in spite of all that has been said, the oceans are still difficult to cross; and we have the time to adjust and prepare…”

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

Journal entry (11 December 1941); later published in The Wartime Journals (1970)
Context: Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint. Fortunately, in spite of all that has been said, the oceans are still difficult to cross; and we have the time to adjust and prepare... We can, of course, be raided; but unless we let ourselves go completely to pieces internally, we cannot be invaded successfully.
But this is only one part of the picture. We are in a war which requires us to attack if we are to win it. We must attack in Asia and in Europe, in fact, all over the world. That means raising and equipping an army of many millions and building shipping, which we have not now got. And after that, if we are to carry through our present war aims, it probably means the bloodiest and most devastating war of all history.

War , World , Fear , Time

“From a purely human standpoint the wisdom traditions are the species' most prolonged and serious attempts to infer from the maze on this side of the tapestry the pattern which, on its right side, gives meaning to the whole.”

Huston Smith book The World's Religions

The World's Religions (1991)
Context: The religions begin by assuring us that if we could see the full picture we would find it more integrated than we would normally suppose. Life gives us no view of the whole. [... ] It is as if life were a great tapestry, which we face from its wrong side. This gives it the appearance of a maze of knots and threads, which for the most part appear chaotic.
From a purely human standpoint the wisdom traditions are the species' most prolonged and serious attempts to infer from the maze on this side of the tapestry the pattern which, on its right side, gives meaning to the whole. As the beauty and harmony of the design derive from the way its parts are related, the design confers on these parts a significance that we, seeing only scraps of the design, do not normally perceive.

Wisdom

“The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.”

Chester W. Nimitz (1885–1966) United States Navy fleet admiral

Public statement quoted in The New York Times (6 October 1945) and in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (1996) by Gar Alperovitz 
Context: The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into war.... The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.

Decision , Parting

“Monte Carlo roulette, if judged by returns which are published... is, if the laws of chance rule, from the standpoint of exact science the most prodigious miracle of the nineteenth century.”

Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician

"The Scientific Aspect of Monte Carlo Roulette" (1894)

Science , Chance , Law

“The fundamental truth of my life, the principle that governs it, is that nobody has a monopoly over the truth. Every person is a lens that focuses reality in a different way and everybody has the right to do so. This, in fact, is an anarchist principle, for I am indeed, an anarchist. From the moment I position myself at a certain standpoint, I immediately see things from that perspective and from its opposing perspective…”

Rosario Ferré (1938–2016) Puerto Rican writer

On how her writing allows readers to imagine themselves in “Sin pelos en la lengua : Rosario Ferré’s Last Interview” https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/377/37730307008.pdf in Centro Journal (2012)

Personality , Truth , Reality , Way

“Now let us regard the idea of God from the magic standpoint, according to the four elements,the so-called tetragrammaton, the unspeakable, the supreme: the fiery principle involves the almightiness and the omnipotence, the airy principle owns the wisdom, purity and clarity, from which aspect proceeds the universal lawfulness. Love and eternal life are attributed to the watery principle, and omnipresence, immortality and consequently eternity belong to the earth principle. These four aspects together represent the supreme Godhead. Let us tread upon this path to this supreme Godhead practically and step by step, beginning from the lowest sphere, to arrive at the true realization of God in ourselves. Let us praise the happy man who will reach this still in his earthly existence. Us banish fear of the pains, for all of us will reach this goal.”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 28

Life , God , Pain , Law

“Yesterday, the President of the United States announced, precisely on this same platform, new and alleged economic and financial sanctions against our country in the sanctuary of the law and international legality. Did the United Nations System know that the unilateral sanctions, using the dominion, the status of the currency and the financial persecution are considered illegal from the standpoint of international law?”

Nicolás Maduro (1962) 53rd President of Venezuela

President Maduro's speech at the United Nations General Assembly (excerpts), 26 September 2018

Law , Country

“The well being of others is on an average as important as our own, and should as a general thing be appraised at the same value. If a certain amount of happiness is scheduled to fall to the lot of the earth, it makes absolutely no difference whether it falls on me, or on you, or on somebody a thousand miles away. It would serve the ends of absolute ethics quite as well if it fell on an insect or a horse as if it fell on a man. The only important thing from the standpoint of universal good is that the pleasure be experienced. It is not important what particular individual or species is the beneficiary. It might even go to another world, and be just as satisfactory to a universal well-wisher, who looked at Cosmos from the serene altitudes of pure reason, without any prejudices whatever one way or another in the matter. This is the ideal. It is a long, long way from our natures. But only in so far as we approximate this ideal do we rise above those imperfections of our being which have been ground out by the methods that have operated in the development of life on earth.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Ethics and Education (1912), Contents of Ethics, pp. 54–55

Nature , Pleasure , Universe , Horse

“Every crime almost is a good thing, looked at from the exclusive standpoint of the criminal. If it were not so, it would never be committed. But from the standpoint of the one on whom the crime falls it is likely to be a very different thing—how different depends on the degree of diversity of the interests involved. The only rational method of judging conduct, and the only method that should ever be employed by beings pretending to be logical or civilised, is to balance the effects which the act on trial has on the different interests involved, and then render a verdict from the standpoint of this balance, which is the standpoint of the universe.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Human Attitude Toward Others, p. 53

Universe , Dependency

“The philosophies of this world have all been framed by, and from the standpoint of, a single species, and they are still managed and maintained in the interests of this species.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Thesis of the New Ethics, p. 16

World

“From the perspective of Buddhism, Sartre’s notion of Existence, according to which one must create oneself continually in order to maintain oneself within nothing, remains a standpoint of attachment to the self – indeed, the most profound form of this attachment – and as such is caught in the self-contradiction this implies.”

Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990) Japanese philosopher

Source: The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990), p. 187

Self-confidence

“The terms animal protection and species protection are constantly confused and mixed up with one another. Animal protection is the protection of individuals; it is about the individual, suffering creature. Species protection is the conservation of the species; it is about preventing species from becoming extinct or rare. From an ethical standpoint, animal protection is quite different from species protection.”

Werner Kunz (1922) German biologist

Species Conservation in Managed Habitats: The Myth of Pristine Nature (2016), p. 51

Animals , Suffering

“I shall put the case somewhat from the standpoint of the militant suffragettes themselves, trying to give some idea of the philosophy and ethical principles underlying the militant propaganda and, above all, with the hope of making clear to American readers some of the radical differences between English and American conditions.”

Mary Winsor (1869–1956) American suffragist

Source: The Militant suffrage movement (1914)

Idea , Making love , Hope

“A man who is a spiritual man--a religious teacher--regards the universe from the standpoint of the Spirit from which everything is seen as coming from the One. When he stands, as it were, in the centre, and he looks from the centre to the circumference, he stands at the point whence the force proceeds, and he judges of the force from that point of radiation and he sees it as one in its multitudinous workings, and knows the force is One; he sees it in its many divergencies, and he recognises it as one and the same thing throughout. Standing in the centre, in the Spirit, and looking outwards to the universe, he judges everything from the standpoint of the Divine Unity and sees every separate phenomenon, not as separate from the One but as the external expression of the one and the only Life. But science looks at the thing from the surface. It goes to the circumference of the universe and it sees a multiplicity of phenomena. It studies these separated things and studies them one by one. It takes up a manifestation and judges it; it judges it apart; it looks at the many, not at the One; it looks at the diversity, not at the Unity, and sees everything from outside and not from within: it sees the external difference and the superficial portion while it sees not the One from which every thing proceeds.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Essays and Addresses, Vol. III- Evolution and Occultism (1913)

Study , Teachers , Universe , Science

“[S]ince vegetal fat is identical chemically with animal fat, and vegetal protein with animal protein, since these substances are found abundantly in non-flesh products, and since the only other food substances used by man (starch and sugar) are not found except in plants and plant products, it may be asserted positively that from the standpoint of food-supply there is no reason why man should prey when he eats. The plant world contains all of the compounds necessary for human alimentation, it contains them abundantly, it contains them in forms of the highest delicacy and the greatest variety and economy, and it contains them in a much more prime condition than they are found in the diseased tissues of our mistreated servants.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), What Shall We Eat?, pp. 92–93

World , Animals , Disease , Food

“From the standpoint of economy alone, the diet of the fields and orchards ought to appeal successfully to every one possessed of undoubted sanity. One acre devoted to wheat will support ten times as many men as one devoted to grazing. If men would take the beautiful products of the soil fresh from Nature's hand, instead of sitting down and devouring, in the form of the accumulated residuum or ruminants^ an acre at a meal, the problems o human poverty and over-population would be immensely simplified.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), What Shall We Eat?, p. 92

Time , Support , Beauty , Nature

“The double mission of man: to know the Absolute from the standpoint of the contingent, and to manifest the Absolute within the contingent.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2014, In the Face of the Absolute, World Wisdom, xii, 978-1-936597-41-3]
Human being, Specificities

“From the creative standpoint it's process not product and if you can stay in that headspace then the business side of that product you will serve that to the best of your ability.”

Joy Tanner (1966) American actress

Source: Acting with Impact with Joy Tanner interviewed by Kimberly Jentzen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sAqXdm_9u4 (February 3, 2021)

Business

“The real significance of the Russell paradox, from the standpoint of the modal-logic picture, is this: it shows that no concrete structure can be a standard model for the naive conception of the totality of all sets; for any concrete structure has a possible extension that contains more 'sets.'”

Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) American philosopher

"Mathematics without foundations"
Source: Philosophical Papers Volume 1: Mathematics, Matter, and Method (1975, 1979)
Context: (If we identify sets with the points that represent them in the various possible concrete structures, we might say: it is not possible for all possible sets to exist in any one world!) Yet set theory does not become impossible. Rather, set theory becomes the study of what must hold in, e.g. any standard model for Zermelo set theory.

“Correct breathing also performs a constant massage of the internal organs by raising them up and down, thus curing constipation when it is caused by faulty insufficient breathing (as is often the case) which holds the muscles of the abdomen in a static position. Therefore the first thing to do is to make sure that you know how to breathe from the physical standpoint, and how to control the muscle of the diaphragm. This muscle forms the dividing line between the chest and the stomach just below the ribs. Place the fingers upon the diaphragm muscle just below the ribs and under the centre breast bone. In this arched hollow lies the muscle upon which correct breathing depends. Take a slow breath, drawing the muscle upwards and inwards, following its movement with the fingers, fill the lungs with air right up to the collarbones. Then breathe out slowly whilst tucking the diaphragm still further inwards and upwards!”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XV The Essential Science of Breathing

Drawing , Dependency

Quotes about standpoint page 2

Quotes about standpoint
page 2