Quotes about subject (3377 quotes, page 25)

“Information retrieval is now an accepted part of the new discipline of information science and technology… I have concentrated on the field with which I am most familiar, the problems of bibliographic description and subject analysis.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

B.C. Vickery (1970) Techniques of information retrieval, London: Butterworth. p. v; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011) " Brian Vickery and the foundations of information science http://www.iskouk.org/conf2011/papers/robinson.pdf".

Problem , Science , Parting

“Bear in mind that the novel—no matter how intimate, psychological, or subjective—is always a historical projection of its own time.”

Samuel R. Delany book Nova

Source: Nova (1968), Chapter 4 (p. 116)

Time

“The part assigned to this country in the 'Good Fight of Man' is the total overthrow of the spirit of caste. Luther fought it in the form of ecclesiastical despotism; our fathers fought it as political tyranny; we have hitherto encountered it entrenched in a system of personal slavery. But in all these forms it is the same old spirit of the denial of equal rights. Martin Luther, the monk, had exactly the same right to his religious faith that Giovanni de' Medici, the pope, had to his. Galileo had the same right to hold and teach his scientific theories that the Church doctors had to teach theirs. Patrick Henry, a British subject, had the same right to refuse to be taxed without representation that Lord North, another British subject, had. Robert Small, one of the American people, had exactly the same right to vote upon the same qualifications with other citizens that the President has or the Chief Justice of the United States. The Inquisition in Italy, aristocratic privilege in England, chattel slavery or unfair political exclusion in the United States, are only fruits ripened upon the tree of caste. Our swords have cut off some of the fruit, but the tree and its roots remain, and now that our swords are turned into plough-shares and our Dahlgrens and Parrotts into axes and hoes, our business is to take care that the tree and all its roots are thoroughly cut down and dug up, and burned utterly away in the great blaze of equal rights.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

People , Faith , Justice , Business

“That which is known as "meditation" is the act of sustaining an object of meditation and specific subjective aspects by repeatedly focusing your mind upon a virtuous object of meditation. The purpose of this is as follows. From beginningless time you have been under the control of your mind; your mind has not been under your control. Furthermore, your mind tended to be obscured by the afflictions and so forth. Thus meditation aims to bring this mind, which gives rise to all faults and flaws, under control and then it aims to make it servicable. Servicability means that you can direct your mind as you wish toward a virtuous object of meditation.”

Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) Tibetan Lama

The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, as translated by Chenmo Translation Committee (2000) p. 99

Affliction , Time

“If we merely wait for the appropriate moment we will never live to see it, because this [appropriate moment] cannot arrive without the subjective conditions of the maturity of the revolutionary force being fulfilled - it can only arrive after a series of failed attempts.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

62
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Waiting

“Most matters previously subject to state jurisdiction have been pulled into the orbit of the judiciary. So much for Alexander Hamilton's promise, in Federalist No. 78 (May 28, 1788), that the Judiciary would be the weakest of the three branches of his proposed government.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Conned About Marriage, Constitution and States’ Rights” http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/conned-about-marriage-constitution-and-states-rights, WorldNetDaily.com, January 23, 2014.
2010s, 2014

“This method of Bare Attention, so helpful to mind-knowledge and, through it, to world-knowledge, tallies with the procedure and attitude of the true scientist and scholar: clear definition of subject-matter and terms; unprejudiced receptivity for the instruction that comes out of the things themselves; exclusion, or at least reduction, of the subjective factor in judgment; deferring of judgment until a careful examination of facts has been made.”

Nyanaponika Thera (1901–1994) German Buddhist monk

Source: The Heart of Buddhist Meditation (1965), p. 39

World , Knowledge , Help

“The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual, in his freedom to make the most of his capacities and opportunities according to his own lights, subject only to the proviso that he not interfere with the freedom of other individuals to do the same.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 12 The Alleviation of Poverty

Freedom , Light , Heart

“The work now before the reader is the most extensive which our language contains on the subject.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Preface, p. iii
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

“He who will please the crowd and for the sake of the most ephemeral renown will either proclaim those things which nature does not display or even will publish genuine miracles of nature without regard to deeper causes is a spiritually corrupt person… With the best of intentions I publicly speak to the crowd (which is eager for things new) on the subject of what is to come.”

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer

Translation by an unknown person, from De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus, ibid., from the foreword

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Johannes Kepler / Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596) / De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus (1601)

Nature , Personality

“This principle of cosmic subjection has by theists always been realised with reference to God: the natural world, they are always telling us, however full of laws to which other conscious beings are subject, is completely subject to the mind and will of God, and its laws are imposed upon it from his mind in virtue of his creating it. What we now learn, and need to note, is that this is just as true of any other being who can be reckoned free. If men are free, then, they must be taken as being logically prior to Nature; as being its source rather than its outcome; as determining its order instead of being determined by this.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.325

Men , God , World , Law

“This sketch of how consciousness fits into the wider universe supports a form of non-reductive, Reflexive Monism. Human minds, bodies and brains are embedded in a far greater universe. Individual conscious representations are perspectival. That is, the precise manner in which entities, events and processes are translated into experiences depends on the location in space and time of a given observer, and the exact mix of perceptual, cognitive, affective, social, cultural and historical influences which enter into the 'construction' of a given experience. In this sense, each conscious construction is private, subjective, and unique. Taken together, the contents of consciousness provide a view of the wider universe, giving it the appearance of a 3D phenomenal world. … However, such conscious representations are not the thing-itself. In this vision, there is one universe (the thing-itself), with relatively differentiated parts in the form of conscious beings like ourselves, each with a unique, conscious view of the larger universe of which it is a part. In so far as we are parts of the universe that, in turn, experience the larger universe, we participate in a reflexive process whereby the universe experiences itself.”

Max Velmans book Understanding Consciousness

Max Velmans (2009) Understanding Consciousness, Edition 2. Routledge/Psychology Press, p. 298

World , Support , Sense , Universe

“Science is a search for truth –whatever the truth may turn out to be, even if it’s evidently not what we wanted to believe it was. In science, it doesn’t matter what you believe; all that matters is why you believe it. This is why real science disallows faith, promising instead to remain objective, to follow wherever the evidence leads, and either correct or reject any and all errors along the way even if it challenges whatever we think we know now. But creationist organizations post written declarations of their unwavering obligation to uphold and defend their preconceived notions, declaring in advance their refusal to ever to let their minds be changed by any amount of evidence that is ever revealed. Anti-science evangelists display their statement of faith proudly on their own forums, as if admitting to a closed and dishonest mind wasn’t something to ashamed of or beg forgiveness for. They don’t want to do science. They want to un-do science! They try to segregate experimental science from historical science, ignoring the fact that both are based on empirical observations and both can be checked with testable hypotheses. Worse, they want to redefine science in general so that astrology, subjective convictions of faith, and excuses of magic can supplant the scientific method whenever necessary in defense of their beliefs. They’re only open to critical inquiry so long as that is not permitted to challenge the sacred scriptures nor vindicate any of the fields of study to which they’re already opposed. In short, everything science stands for, -or hopes to achieve- is threatened by the political agenda of these superstitious subversives.”

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

Truth , Faith , Hope , Way

“As to sociology and anthropology, it is manifest that the importance of information and communication as mechanisms of organization proceeds beyond the individual into the community. On the other hand, it is completely impossible to understand social communities such as those of ants without a thorough investigation of their means of communication, and we were fortunate enough to have the aid of Dr. Schneirla in this matter. For the similar problems of human organization, we sought help from the anthropologists Drs. Bateson and Margaret Mead; while Dr. Morgenstern of the Institute for Advanced Study was our adviser in the significant field of social organization belong to economic theory. His very important joint book on games with Dr. von Neumann, by the way, represents a most interesting study of social organization from the point of view of methods closely related to, although distinct from, the subject matter of cybernetics. Dr. Lewin and others represented the newer work on the theory of opinion sampling and the practice of opinion making, and Dr. F. C. S. Northrup was interested in assaying the philosophical significance of our work.”

Norbert Wiener book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine

Introduction. p. 18-19
Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948)

Books , Way , Game , Communication

“The European policy is invariably the maintenance of the status quo, and you will do nothing for the subject races unless we, by taking initiative, make you realize that helping us against the Turks is the lesser of the evils.”

Eleftherios Venizelos (1864–1936) Greek politician

[Bagger, E. S., Eminent Europeans; studies in continental reality, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922, http://www.archive.org/download/eminenteuropeans00bagg/eminenteuropeans00bagg.pdf], p. 67 and Gibbons, 1920, p. 27
Venizelos' answer to the question "Why don't you trust us implicitly?", made by British naval officer during the Cretan revolt in 1897. After the answer the Englishman replied "Damn it, the beggar is right!" and continued, "and I hope we shan't have to shoot him!"

Evil , Help

“The opinion is widely prevalent that even if the subjects are totally forgotten, a valuable mental discipline is acquired by the efforts made to master them. While the Conference admits that, considered in itself this discipline has a certain value, it feels that such a discipline is greatly inferior to that which may be gained by a different class of exercises, and bears the same relation to a really improving discipline that lifting exercises in an ill-ventilated room bear to games in the open air. The movements of a race horse afford a better model of improving exercise than those of the ox in a tread-mill.”

Henry Burchard Fine (1858–1928) American academic

Simon Newcomb, Henry Burchard Fine, Florian Cajori et al. Report of the Committee [of Ten http://books.google.com/books?id=58agAAAAMAAJ on Secondary School Studies Appointed at the Meeting of the National Educational Association July 9, 1892: With the Reports of the Conferences Arranged by this Committee and Held December 28-30, 1892]. p. 108: On math education

Feeling , Exercises , Game , Effort

“The assumption that effective cartographic technique and its evaluation is based in part on some subjective artistic or aesthetic sense on the part of the cartographer and map reader is somewhat disconcerting. For example, E. Raisz claims that the “effective use of lines or colors requires artistic judgment,” and J. K. Wright explains that the suitability of a symbol “depends on the map maker's taste and sense of harmony.” Throughout the literature there are numerous similar assertions regarding the assumed subjective aesthetic and artistic content of cartography.”

Arthur H. Robinson (1915–2004) American geographer

Source: The Look of Maps (1952), p. 16; as cited in: Kirk Patrick Goldsberry (2007) Real-time Traffic Maps. p. 23

Color , Literature , Sense , Parting

“Subject - (1) a person subject to political rule; (2) a free agent, instigator of its activity - subjects can realize themselves as free agents only by means of redoubling themselves as, only in so far as they project, transpose the pure form of their freedom into the very heart of the substance opposed to them; into the person of the subject-monarch as head of state.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

261
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Freedom , Heart , Personality

“For the first time a subject is present, not by virtue of its absence, but actually present, though its appearance is torn away, and only the structure bared. The Modern City! Precise, rectangular, squared, whether seen from above, below, or on the side; bright lights and sterilized life; Broadway, whites and blacks; and boogie-woogie; the underground music of the at once resigned and rebellious... Mondrian has left his white paradise, and entered the world.”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

1942, on the late painting 'Broadway Boogie Woogie' of Piet Mondrian
Quote of Rothko, in Painters Objects, Robert Motherwell, pp. 95, 96; as cited in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, pp. 128-129
1940's

Life , World , Music , Light

“Just as when a man commits suicide ne negates the body, this rational limit of subjectivity, so when he lapses into fantastic and trascendental practice he associates himself with embodied divine and ghostly appearances, namely, he negates in practise the difference between imagination and perception.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Part III, Section 29
Principles of Philosophy of the Future http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/future/index.htm (1843)

Imagination , Suicide , Appearance

“It is not uninteresting to observe in society the opinions of its different classes respecting honours conferred on science. Military and naval men, especially the most eminent, feel that genius is limited by no profession, and themselves sympathizing with it, would gladly hail as brothers in the same distinction, the philosopher and the poet. With lawyers the case is reversed; genius dwells not in their courts : industry and acuteness, monopolised by one absorbing professional subject, exclude larger views; and ribbons not being amongst the honoraria of their own profession, they reprobate their application to science. To this there are, however, some noble exceptions. Amongst the brightest ornaments, of their own profession, men are to be found of larger experience and more extended views than it often produces, who are themselves qualified to have become discoverers in other sciences. It is much to be regretted when such powers are applied to the mere administration, instead of to the reformation, of the laws of their country.”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

Source: The Exposition of 1851: Views Of The Industry, The Science, and the Government Of England, 1851, p. 224

Men , Law , Feeling , Science

“Contingency theories dominate scholarly studies of organization behavior, design, performance, planning and management strategy. While they vary widely in subject matter, they have the common proposition that an organizational outcome is the consequency of a "fit" or match between two or more factors. "Fit" is the key concept in this proposition, and the core problem common to contingency theories is not defining this term clearly. This paper examines three ways to define and test this concept of fit: Selection, Interaction, and Systems approaches. A critical discussion of these three approaches will clarify much of the current confusion in the literature on contingency theories, and suggest ways that future theorizing and research can become more systematic and constructive.”

Andrew H. Van de Ven (1945) American business theorist

Andrew H. Van de Ven and Robert Drazin (1984). The Concept of Fit in Contingency Theory http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA152603. No. SMRC-DP-19). Minneapolis: Minnesota University Minneapolis Strategic Management Research Center.

Way , Behavior , Literature , Problem

“The classification of subject matter may be carried out for all sort of special purposes - to arrange books on shelves, to group inventions in patents, to classify the raw materials, intermediates and products of importance to a particular manufacturer, and so on. All such arrangements have their particular uses and their particular problems.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Preface to the first edition.
Classification and indexing in science (1958)

Books , Problem

“Every difference in men's concepts should be regarded as reflecting an objective contradiction. Objective contradictions are reflected in subjective thinking, and this process constitutes the contradictory movement of concepts, pushes forward the development of thought, and ceaselessly solves problems in man's thinking.”

Mao Zedong book On Contradiction

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 人的概念的每一差异，都应把它看作是客观矛盾的反映。客观矛盾反映入主观的思想，组成了概念的矛盾运动，推动了思想的发展，不断地解决了人们的思想问题。

Men , Problem , Thinking

“The last thirty years [1925 to 1955] have seen an enormous improvement in the position of geometry as a branch of mathematics, or, rather, have seen the re-integration of geometry into the main fabric of mathematics. Indeed, one can go further and say that with the restoration of geometry to its rightful place in the mathematical scheme the process of fragmentation which had been doing so much harm to mathematics has been reversed, and we may look forward to the day in which there are no longer analysts, algebraists, geometers and so on, but simply mathematicians. Mathematical research has two aspects, motivation and technique, and when the latter gains control the result is apt to be excessive specialisation. The revolution of geometrical thought, and the reinstatement of geometry as one of the major mathematical disciplines, have helped to bring about a unification of mathematics which we may justly regard as one of the major contributions of the last quarter century to the subject.”

W. V. D. Hodge (1903–1975) British mathematician

W. V. D. Hodge, Changing Views of Geometry. Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association, 14th April, 1955, The Mathematical Gazette 39 (329) (1955), 177-183.

Mathematics , Motivation , Help

“If perfect health is the best preventive and security against disease, and if a well-selected and properly administered vegetable diet is best calculated to promote and preserve that perfect health, then this part of the subject — what I have ventured to call the medical argument — is at once disposed of. The superiority of the diet I recommend is established beyond the possibility of debate. Now, that this is the case — namely, that this diet is best calculated to promote perfect health — I have no doubt.”

William Alcott (1798–1859) American physician and author

Source: Vegetable Diet (1838), p. 240

Health , Disease , Parting , Perfection

“At this time our nation is in a bad state in regards education and wealth, but God has given us the light of religion and the Quran is present for our guidance, which has ordained them and us to be friends. Now God has made them rulers over us. Therefore we should cultivate friendship with them, and should adopt that method by which their rule may remain permanent and firm in India, and may not pass into the hands of the Bengalis… If we join the political movement of the Bengalis our nation will reap a loss, for we do not want to become subjects of the Hindus instead of the subjects of the "people of the Book…”

Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician

KUMAR, S (2000). Educational Philosophy in Modern India. Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd. p. 60.

God , Friendship , People , Books

“Not to cover the subject, but to uncover and isolate a part of it … is the aim of the aphorist”

Clifton Fadiman (1904–1999) American editor

Introduction to Unkempt Thoughts

Parting

“He was often, and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in cases where success could not have been expected; but in the main his method was right, and it succeeded. I do not believe that any scientific teaching ever was more thorough, or better fitted for training the faculties, than the mode in which logic and political economy were taught to me by my father. Striving, even in an exaggerated degree, to call forth the activity of my faculties, by making me find out everything for myself, he gave his explanations not before, but after, I had felt the full force of the difficulties; and not only gave me an accurate knowledge of these two great subjects, as far as they were then understood, but made me a thinker on both.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/28/mode/1up pp. 28–29

Training , Failure , Success , Knowledge

“Most of our beliefs about complex organizations follow from one or the other of two distinct strategies. The closed-system strategy seeks certainty by incorporating only those variables positively associated with goal achievement and subjecting them to a monolithic control network. The open-system strategy shifts attention from goal achievement to survival and incorporates uncertainty by recognizing organizational interdependence with environment. A newer tradition enables us to conceive of the organization as an open system, indeterminate and faced with uncertainty, but subject to criteria of rationality and hence needing certainty.”

James D. Thompson (1920–1973) American sociologist

Source: Organizations in Action, 1967, p. 13 (in 2011 edition)

“The scientistic sociologist wishes people to feel that he is just as empirical and thoroughgoing as the natural scientist, and that his conclusions are based just as relentlessly on observed data. The desire to present this kind of façade accounts, one may suspect, for the many examples and the extensive use of statistical tables found in the works of some of them. It has been said of certain novelists that they create settings having such a wealth of realistic detail that the reader assumes that the plot which is to follow will be equally realistic, when this may be far from the case. What happens is that the novelist disarms the reader with the realism of his setting in order that he may “get away with murder” in his plot. The persuasiveness of the scene is thus counted on to spill over into the action of the story. In like manner, when a treatise on social science is filled with this kind of data, the realism of the latter can influence our acceptance of the thesis, which may, on scrutiny, rest on very dubious constructs, such as definitions of units. Along with this there is sometimes a great display of scientific preciseness in formulations. But my reading suggests that some of these writers are often very precise about matters which are not very important and rather imprecise about matters which are. Most likely this is an offsetting process. If there are subjects one cannot afford to be precise about because they are too little understood or because one’s views of them are too contrary to traditional beliefs about society, one may be able to maintain an appearance of scientific correctness by taking great pains in the expressing of matters of little consequence. These will afford scope for a display of scholarly meticulousness and of one’s command of the scientific terminology.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“Concealed Rhetoric in Scientistic Sociology,” pp. 148-149.
Language is Sermonic (1970)

Pain , People , Feeling , Nature

“In all my works.... I have always had recourse to one never-varying method. It consists in making the delineation of the objects represented heavily dependent on a system of necessities which itself looks strange. These necessities are sometimes due to the inappropriate and awkward character of the material used, sometimes to some strange obsessive notion [frequently changed for another]. In a word, it is always a matter of giving the person who is looking at the picture a startling impression that a weird logic has directed the painting of it, a logic to which the delineation of every object is subjected, is even sacrificed, in such a peremptory way that, curiously enough, it forces the most unexpected solutions, and, in spite of the obstacles it creates, brings out the desired figuration.”

Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) sculptor from France

Quote of Dubuffet, in Peter Selz and Jean Dubuffet: The work of Jean Dubuffet, The Museum of Modern art, New York, 1962
1960-70's

Way , Change , Painting , Dependency

“The monarch is a responsible person. The fact that a monarch is responsible "to God alone," rather than to an assembly or a popular majority, is rather shocking to an agnostic mind; but while God cannot be fooled, the masses can. While it is perhaps true that "one cannot fool all the people all the time," it seems one can fool millions for centuries. History abounds with such examples, especially the history of religions. In spite of the republican-democratic emphasis on "responsible government," subject to the sanction of not getting re-elected (and if being impeached only in the grossest cases of corruption), the demo-republican government nonetheless derives its authority from anonymous, secretly voting masses on a purely numerical basis. It is even impossible to trace the empowering individual; and thus we get what French authors call the "cult of irresponsibility." The electees, rejecting all responsibility, can easily blame the electors for their "mandates." Thus we get today the immoral idea of making whole nations responsible for the misdeeds of their rulers, regardless of whether these had majority support or not. This collective judgment of moral acts is one of the great maladies of the democratic age.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Source: Liberty or Equality (40th anniversary edition) (1993), p. 158

God , People , Age , Religion

“Acting in conformity with reason, in the singular, and acting for good reasons, in the plural, are two different things insofar as reason is objective, whereas reasons are subjective. From an external point of view, we can evaluate a policy as being in conformity with reason or not. From an internal point of view, one can evaluate an action as being rational or not. From this difference it follows that only rationality can be used for explanatory ends. It is only insofar as the agent has made the demands of reason his own that the latter may give rise to, and possibly explain, specific behaviors. The assessment of the actor and that of the observer need not coincide.”

Jon Elster (1940) Norwegian academic

Reason and Rationality (2009)

Behavior

“The Sultan then asked, "How are Hindus designated in the law, as payers of tributes or givers of tribute? The Kazi replied, "They are called payers of tribute, and when the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should tender gold. If the officer throws dirt into their mouths, they must without reluctance open their mouths to receive it. The due subordination of the zimmi is exhibited in this humble payment and by this throwing of dirt in their mouths. The glorification of Islam is a duty. God holds them in contempt, for he says, "keep them under in subjection". To keep the Hindus in abasement is especially a religious duty, because they are the most inveterate enemies of the Prophet, and because the Prophet has commanded us to slay them, plunder them, enslave them and spoil their wealth and property. No doctor but the great doctor (Hanafi), to whose school we belong, has assented to the imposition of the jizya (poll tax) on Hindus. Doctors of other schools allow no other alternative but Death or Islam.”

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Tárikh-i Firoz Sháhi, of Ziauddin Barani in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 184, chapter 15. Tárikh-i Firoz Sháhi, of Ziauddin Barani https://archive.org/stream/cu31924073036737#page/n199/mode/2up
Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi

Death , God , School , Law

“Canada may be fast-forwarding, jump starting, into a new pattern, a model of communication linkages, a civilization that is more than a grab for power and dominance, a place that could channel the fires of the global wirings, where political alliances are subject to electrical ebb and flow, and the alchemical cultivations of imagination and perception, of the self, could precail of the ideology of capital.”

B. W. Powe (1955) Canadian writer

First Meditation, p. 65-66
Towards a Canada of Light (2006)

Imagination , Communication

“I rely on two precedents: first, to similar cases our Sages applied the verse, "It is time to do something in honour of the Lord: for they have made void thy law"… Secondly, they have said, "Let all thy acts be guided by pure intentions."… Lastly, when I have a difficult subject before me—when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools—I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Introduction

Truth , Peace , Law , Fools

“Osgood's semantic space as determined by subjects' ratings of words on the semantic differential test.”

James Grier Miller (1916–2002) biologist

Living Systems: Basic Concepts (1969)

“Last year a Dutch animal breeding centre sent me two chimpanzees as a gift. I killed one and cut its heart out. The other wept bitterly and was inconsolable. The sad chimp has long since happily mated again and lives with lots of other animals on a pleasant game farm near Villiersdorp. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures, but the memory of that weeping chimp has remained with me. It was taken for granted, of course, that he was weeping for his mate but I've since had some thoughts on the subject which made me wonder whether perhaps he was weeping for the human race. The idea is not as silly as it sounds. In our doings there is much to weep over and even a chimpanzee would never behave in some of the contradictory ways we think of as normal.”

Christiaan Barnard (1922–2001) South-African physician

The Best Medicine (Cape Town: Tafelberg Publishers, 1979), p. 38.

Sadness , Way , Game , Idea

“Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature… no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

First Frame of Government (25 April 1682).
Frame of Government (1682)

Men , Law , Nature , Freedom

“We may have learned to fly like birds and swim like fish, but we have forgotten how to live like human beings. It seems we have to relearn that skill. How can we do this? It is only possible if we learn about ourselves. We have to subject ourselves to self-analysis. Why? Because it is not outer space, not the wind, not the ocean, not the seasons, nature or animals that are the cause of this world’s problems, but we human beings—our minds.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

Practice Spiritual Values & Save the World (2013)

World , Nature , Problem , Bird

“But all legislative powers appertain to sovereignty. The original power of giving the law on any subject whatever is a sovereign power […] All admit that the Government may legitimately punish any violation of its laws, and yet this is not among the enumerated powers of Congress. The right to enforce the observance of law by punishing its infraction might be denied with the more plausibility because it is expressly given in some cases. Congress is empowered "to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States," and "to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations." The several powers of Congress may exist in a very imperfect State, to be sure, but they may exist and be carried into execution, although no punishment should be inflicted, in cases where the right to punish is not expressly given. Take, for example, the power "to establish post-offices and post-roads." This power is executed by the single act of making the establishment. But from this has been inferred the power and duty of carrying the mail along the post road from one post office to another. And from this implied power has again been inferred the right to punish those who steal letters from the post office, or rob the mail. It may be said with some plausibility that the right to carry the mail, and to punish those who rob it, is not indispensably necessary to the establishment of a post office and post road. This right is indeed essential to the beneficial exercise of the power, but not indispensably necessary to its existence. So, of the punishment of the crimes of stealing or falsifying a record or process of a Court of the United States, or of perjury in such Court. To punish these offences is certainly conducive to the due administration of justice. But Courts may exist, and may decide the causes brought before them, though such crimes escape punishment. The baneful influence of this narrow construction on all the operations of the Government, and the absolute impracticability of maintaining it without rendering the Government incompetent to its great objects, might be illustrated by numerous examples drawn from the Constitution and from our laws. The good sense of the public has pronounced without hesitation that the power of punishment appertains to sovereignty, and may be exercised, whenever the sovereign has a right to act, as incidental to his Constitutional powers. It is a means for carrying into execution all sovereign powers, and may be used although not indispensably necessary. It is a right incidental to the power, and conducive to its beneficial exercise.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

17 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 409 and 416-418. Regarding the Necessary and Proper Clause in context of the powers of Congress.
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

Justice , Law , Exercises , Sense

“Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.”

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

2008, Papal Welcome (17 July 2008)

Truth , Beauty , Fools

“Few features of humanity are as obvious as the wide array of inherited diversity visible in our outward features. It's also evident that people whose ancestry traces to a particular geographic region typically appear similar to one another and different from other geographic regions. Moreover, we as humans have an almost innate propensity to compartmentalize nearly everything into discrete categories, even when lines that distinguish those categories are complex, blurred, or nonexistent. As an inevitable consequence, people have been subjected to categorization into what we call human races throughout much of the past several centuries.”

Daniel J. Fairbanks (1956) American artist

Source: Everyone is African: How Science Explodes the Myth of Race (2015), p. 14.

People , Appearance , Past

“Jesus Christ was born in a stable; He was obliged to fly into Egypt; thirty years of His life were spent in a workshop; He suffered hunger, thirst, and weariness; He was poor, despised, and miserable; He taught the doctrines of heaven, and no one would listen. The great and the wise persecuted and took Him, subjected Him to frightful torments, treated Him as a slave, and put Him to death between two malefactors, having preferred to give liberty to a robber, rather than to suffer Him to escape. Such was the life which our Lord chose; while we are horrified at any kind of humiliation, and cannot bear the slightest appearance of contempt.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 60.

Life , Death , Hunger , Suffering

“The subject matter of creation is chaos. The present feeling seems to be that the artist is concerned with form, color, and spatial arrangement. This objective approach to art reduces it to a kind of ornament. The whole attitude of abstract painting, for example, has been such that it has reduced painting to an ornamental art whereby the picture surface is broken up in geometrical fashion into a new kind of design-image. It is a decorative art built on a slogan of purism where the attempt is made for an unworldly statement…”

Barnett Newman (1905–1970) American artist

Source: 1940 - 1950, The Plasmic Image 1. 1943-1945, p. 139

Art , Color , Feeling , Fashion

“I am a conservative. I intend to give the American people a clear choice. I welcome a fight between our philosophy and the liberal left-wing dogma which now threatens to engulf every man, woman, and child in the United States. I am in this race because I believe the American people have been pushed around long enough and that they, like you and I, are fed up with the continuing trend toward a socialist state which now subjects the individual to the dictates of an all-powerful central government.”

George Wallace (1919–1998) 45th Governor of Alabama

Speech http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/speech-by-george-c-wallace-the-civil-rights-movement-fraud-sham-and-hoax-1964-.php (4 July 1964)
1960s

People , Fight

“A spurious democracy has influenced both our research methods (I am sometimes tempted to define “validity” as part of the context of an experiment demanding so little in the way of esoteric gift that any number can play at it, provided they have taken a certain number of courses) and our research subjects”

David Riesman (1909–2002) American Sociologist

it would be deemed snobbish to investigate only the best people
“Clinical and Cultural Aspects of the Aging Process,” p. 485
Individualism Reconsidered (1954)

People , Way , Democracy , Parting

“As I crossed a few hours ago from Scotland I said to myself,—"The majority there are Radicals. They are going to vote next week for the Home Rule Bill. What would they say to a proposal which was to subject them to the same kind of Government or the same kind of men to which, for the sake of party interests, they are willing to sacrifice you?" They would never accept it. I know Scotland well, and I believe that, rather than submit to such a fate, the Scottish people would face a second Bannockburn or a second Flodden.”

Bonar Law (1858–1923) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

'Mr. Bonar Law In Ulster.', The Times (9 April, 1912), p. 7.

Men , Fate , People , Home

“Neither quarks nor leptons exhibit any structure on a scale of about 10-16 cm, the currently attained resolution. We thus have no experimental reason but tradition to suspect that they are not the ultimate elementary particles. Accordingly, we idealize the quarks and leptons as pointlike particles, remembering that elementarity is subject to experimental test.”

Chris Quigg (1944) American physicist

[Gauge theories of the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions, Princeton University Press, 2013, 2, https://books.google.com/books?id=Lt6thfc1gAgC&pg=PA2]

“I do not believe that our friends at the South have any just idea of the state of feeling, hurrying at this moment to a pitch of intense exasperation, between those who respect their political obligations, and those who apparently have no impelling power but that which a fanatical position on the subject of domestic Slavery imparts. Without discussing the question of right — of abstract power to secede — I have never believed that actual disruption of the Union can occur without blood; and if, through the madness of Northern Abolitionists, that dire calamity must come, the fighting will not be along Mason's and Dixon's line merely. It [will] be within our own borders, in our own streets, between the two classes of citizens to whom I have referred.”

Franklin Pierce (1804–1869) American politician, 14th President of the United States (in office from 1853 to 1857)

Letter to Jefferson Davis (6 January 1860).

Feeling , Idea , Question , Fight

“The possible truths, hazily perceived in the world of abstraction, like those inferred from observation and experiment in the world of matter, are forced upon the profane multitudes, too busy to think for themselves, under the form of Divine revelation and scientific authority. But the same question stands open from the days of Socrates and Pilate down to our own age of wholesale negation: is there such a thing as absolute truth in the hands of any one party or man? Reason answers, "there cannot be." There is no room for absolute truth upon any subject whatsoever, in a world as finite and conditioned as man is himself. But there are relative truths, and we have to make the best we can of them.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) occult writer

Lucifer http://www.katinkahesselink.net/squote/l37.html (February 1888)

Truth , Age , World , Question

“Fears to look bad in front of other people, to say something wrong, to be laughed at - all those fears deprive us of half of our abilities. This is one of the main school problems. That teacher understands it, who can teach students to study without fear of the teacher, without fear of classmates, and, the most important, without fear of a subject.”

Simon Soloveychik (1930–1996) Russia writer and philosopher

Source: The Last Book (1999), Ch.20 (In Russian, Последняя книга,1999, ISBN 5-8246-0030-9

People , Fear , School , Understanding

“Unless you can subject your decision‐making to a ruthless and continuous JUDGMENT BY RESULTS, all your zigs and zags will only be random lunges in the dark, sooner or later bound to land you on the rocks.”

James A. Champy (1942) American businessman

Source: Reengineering management, 1995, p. 120

Decision

“Postmodernists place an overriding emphasis on the limited, partial, subjective character of people's individual experiences--rejecting the strategy of collective struggle against institutions of oppression and exploitation to instead focus on individual and " in any particular situation.”

Sharon Smith (writer) (1956) American historian

A Marxist Case For Intersectionality (2017)

People

“Dada is able to mobilize the optical and dimensional static viewpoint which keeps us imprisoned in our [three-dimensional] illusions. Thus it became possible t0 perceive the entire prism of the world instead of just one facet at a time. In this connection Dada is one of the strongest manifestations of the fourth dimension, transposed onto the subject.... Dada is 'yes-no', a bird on four legs, a ladder without steps, a square without angels. Dada possesses as many positives as negatives. To think that Dada simply means destruction is to misunderstand life, of which Dada is the expression.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote from Van Doesburg's article 'What is Dada?????????????????', in Dutch art-magazine De Stijl, The Hague, 1923; as quoted in "Theo van Doesburg", Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 134
1920 – 1926

Life , World , Angels , Bird

“The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation's moral standards—and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent. Words have no meaning if the views of less than 50 percent of death penalty States can constitute a national consensus. Our previous cases have required overwhelming opposition to a challenged practice, generally over a long period of time.”

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

On executing minors: Roper v. Simmons (2005) (dissenting).
2000s

Death , Penalty , Time

“The theory of perspective was taught in painting schools from the sixteenth century onward according to principles laid down by the masters… However, their treatises on perspective had on the whole been precept, rule, and ad hoc procedure; they lacked a solid mathematical basis. In the period from 1500 to 1600 artists and subsequently mathematicians put the subject on a satisfactory deductive basis, and it passed from quasi-empirical art to a true science. Definitive works on perspective were written much later by eighteenth-century mathematicians Brook Taylor and J. H. Lambert.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972), p. 183

School , Art , Mathematics , Science

“The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected.”

Thomas Nagel (1937) American philosopher

"Subjective and Objective," in Mortal Questions, Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 196.

World , Way , Problem , Reality

“Gender is the remaining caste system that still cuts deep enough, and spreads wide enough, to be confused with the laws of nature. To uncover the difference between what is and what could be, we may need the “Aha!” that comes from exchanging subject for object, the flash of recognition that starts with a smile, the moment of changed viewpoint that turns the world upside down.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Moving Beyond Words (1994)

World , Law , Smile , Nature

“Placebo effects (plural) are mostly reporting bias, regression to the mean, investment justification, researcher bias, and other sources of self-deception. They are transient, and significant only for subjective symptoms where reporting bias can play a major role. Studies have shown, in fact, that there is no significant "healing" that occurs due to placebo effects — no objective biological improvement.”

Steven Novella (1964) American neurologist, skepticist

NeuroLogica Blog, Can Thinking Change Reality Part II http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/can-thinking-change-reality-part-ii/ (March 11, 2014)

Study

“Already, we may truly say, we have an enormous body of exact and usable knowledge in the domain of administration. It would be easy to list thousands of volumes and articles on the subject, from the hands of high competence. I have seen this body of literature grow from a few items in 1898 to an enormous mass in 1939. During this period I have seen the number of research workers increase from a mere handful to hundreds. This is a fact also, at least for informed and competent persons. During this period the opportunities for life work in administration have multiplied many times. I dare say, though I shall not try to prove it, that the body of exact literature in administration is many times larger than the body of exact literature in natural science when Bacon, Galileo, and Newton, began the revolution in natural science three hundred years ago. During this same period I have seen the number of societies and organizations among administrators, local and general, increase from nothing to fifty or sixty.”

Charles A. Beard (1874–1948) American historian

Source: Philosophy, Science and Art of Public Administration (1939), p. 662

Life , Literature , Nature , Knowledge

“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain — whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, — comprising composition and performance, history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. We may also infer, from the law of the deviation of averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on 'Hereditary Genius,' that if men are capable of decided eminence over women in many subjects, the average standard of mental power in man must be above that of woman. … Thus man has ultimately become superior to woman.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume II, chapter XIX: "Secondary Sexual Characters of Man", pages 327-328 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=344&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image
The Descent of Man (1871)

Women , Men , Law , Music

“Religion is too important a matter to its devotees to be a subject of ridicule. If they indulge in absurdities, they are to be pitied rather than ridiculed.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

A lecture at Königsberg (1775), as quoted in A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources (1946) by H. L. Mencken, p. 1017

Religion

“During the reign of my father, the ministers of religion and students of law and literature, to the number of two and three thousand, in the principal cities of the empire, were already allowed pensions from the state; and to these, in conformity with the regulations established by my father, I directed Miran Sadr Jahan (spelling normalised) one of the noblest among the Seyeds of Herat, to allot a subsistence corresponding with their situation; and this is not only to the subjects of my own realms, but to foreigners - to natives of Persia, Roum, Bokhara, and Azerbaijan, with strict charge that this class of men should not be permitted either want or inconvenience of any type.”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Tarikh-i-Salim Shahi, p. 16. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5

Men , Religion , Law , Literature

“The French symbolists had a special term to express their love for things that had lost their objective significance, namely, ‘spleen.’ The conscious, challenging arbitrariness in the choice of objects, its ‘absurdity’ and ‘perverseness,’ as if by a silent gesture discloses the irrationality of utilitarian logic, which it then slaps in the face in order to demonstrate its inadequacy with regard to human experience. And while making it conscious, by this shock, of the fact that it forgets the subject, the gesture simultaneously expresses the subject’s sorrow over his inability to achieve an objective order. Twentieth-century society is not troubled by such inconsistencies. For it, meaning can be achieved in only one way—service for a purpose.”

Max Horkheimer book Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 38.

Love , Way , Forgetting

“It (my book) is a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. (Maycock, A L, Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding. SPCK, London, 1938)”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Letter to Nicholas Ferrar (1632-33)

God , Books , Soul , Freedom

“I wanted to photograph this subject because the signs’ shrieking blatancy literally cried out for a visual record. To my mind the faded, yellowing paper and the red paint were not particularly paint, able. In black and white the signs shouted, clamored for attention, in visual anarchy. At the same time, the shrewd business sense which plastered them solid over the entire window area produced, as it were by chance, an esthetic by-product: the whole has homogeneity and variety of texture, simultaneously, which give the picture interest.”

Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) American photographer

New Guide to Better Photography, 1953.

Business , Sense , Chance , Time

“The enthronement of Christ over the minds of men is steadily going forward. His kingdom embraces the princes in the realm of mind. It embraces the nations of highest civilization. They are all beneath the cross. It is maintained by simple authority. Other mental monarchs rule by logic; Christ's word is law — it is satisfying to His subjects. His truth in the handsof His disciples, like the bread He broke upon the mountains, is an ample supply for the millions that gather at His table.”

Edward Thomson (1810–1870) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 79.

Men , Truth , Law , Mountain

“The bizarre but all too common transformation of the woman artist from a producer in her own right into a subject for representation forms a leitmotif in the history of art. Confounding subject and object, it undermines the speaking position of the individual woman artist by generalizing her. Denied her individuality, she is displaced from being a producer and becomes instead a sign for male creativity.”

Whitney Chadwick (1943)

Women, Art, and Society: Fourth Edition (2007) ISBN 0-500-20393-8

Art , History

“In the city of Agra there was a large temple, in which there were numerous idols, adorned and embellished with precious jewels and valuable pearls. It was the custom of the infidels to resort to this temple from far and near several times in each year to worship the idols, and a certain fee to the Government was fixed upon each man, for which he obtained admittance. As there was a large congress of pilgrims, a very considerable amount was realized from them, and paid into the royal treasury. This practice had been observed to the end of the reign of the Emperor Shah Jahan, and in the commencement of Aurangzeb's government; but when the latter was informed of it, he was exceedingly angry and abolished the custom. The greatest nobles of his court represented to him that a large sum was realized and paid into the public treasury, and that if it was abolished, a great reduction in the income of the state would take place. The Emperor observed, 'What you say is right, but I have considered well on the subject, and have reflected on it deeply; but if you wish to augment the revenue, there is a better plan for attaining the object by exacting the jizya. By this means idolatry will be suppressed, the Muhammadan religion and the true faith will be honoured, our proper duty will be performed, the finances of the state will be increased, and the infidels will be disgraced.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

'This was highly approved by all the nobles; and the Emperor ordered all the gold en and silver idols to be broken, and the temple destroyed.
Kanzul-Mahfuz (Kanzu-l Mahfuz), in: Elliot and Dowson, Vol. VIII, pp. 38 -39.
Quotes from late medieval histories

Faith , Religion , Time

“It is dangerous to society to have students leave school believing that science is a perfect means to absolute, objective truths, discovered by people of superhuman intelligence. Apart form the danger that scientific “findings” could be used to justify wrong social polices, an impersonal, inhuman view of science alienates many students from the subject. If we are to encourage students of all kinds to take in interest in science, and use it for their own purposes, we need to show it as it really is.”

Jay Lemke (1946) American academic

Source: Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. 1990, p. 175

People , Truth , School , Intelligence

“With the hubris common to physicists, I have always felt that I have known what good science is — it is theory cast in terms of mechanisms that describe how parts of the universe behave. With sometimes immense historical delay, these mechanisms always move towards being grounded in the larger mechanistic view of the universe. Theories always propose a view of how the universe is. They can never be effectively argued to be true, but only be brought before the bar of empirical evidence. All the modern concern for contextualism, hermeneutics and the social determination of meaning has its point, but is a mere footnote to the massive evidence for this view of science. The overwhelming success within this framework of modern biology over the last half century has provided another major confirmation, if one is needed. Someday we will get another striking confirmation from cognitive science. Though it can be argued that we are well on our way, we still have an immense distance to go. Arguments are no match for the evidence that cognitive science does not control its subject the way physics, chemistry and now biology do.”

Allen Newell (1927–1992) American cognitive scientist

Draft of an introduction to the Mind Matters Symposium http://diva.library.cmu.edu/Newell/mindmatters.html, 26 May 1992, Carnegie Mellon University Archives http://diva.library.cmu.edu/Newell/biography.html

Way , Universe , Science , Success

“Let Daniel speak, let the Revelation speak, and tell what is truth. But whatever phase of the subject is presented, uplift Jesus as the center of all hope.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Vol. 6, p. 62
Testimonies for the Church (1855 - 1868)

Truth , Hope

“My fifth principle is…to acknowledge the equal rights of all nations. You may sympathize with one nation more than another. Nay, you must sympathize in certain circumstances with one nation more than another. You sympathize most with those nations, as a rule, with which you have the closest connection in language, in blood, and in religion, or whose circumstances at the time seem to give the strongest claim to sympathy. But in point of right all are equal, and you have no right to set up a system under which one of them is to be placed under moral suspicion or espionage, or to be made the constant subject of invective. If you do that, but especially if you claim for yourself a superiority, a pharisaical superiority over the whole of them, then I say you may talk about your patriotism if you please, but you are a misjudging friend of your country, and in undermining the basis of the esteem and respect of other people for your country you are in reality inflicting the severest injury upon it.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in West Calder, Scotland (27 November 1879), quoted in W. E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches 1879 (Leicester University Press, 1971), pp. 116-117.
1870s

People , Religion , Reality , Time

“One man I know, and one only, who can be praised for his achievements in this science. Of discourses and battles of words he takes no heed: he follows the works of wisdom, and in these finds rest. What others strive to see dimly and blindly, like bats in twilight, he gazes at in the full light of day, because he is a master of experiment. Through experiment he gains knowledge of natural things, medical, chemical, indeed of everything in the heavens or earth. He is ashamed that things should be known to laymen, old women, soldiers, ploughmen, of which he is ignorant. Therefore he has looked closely into the doings of those who work in metals and minerals of all kinds; he knows everything relating to the art of war, the making of weapons, and the chase; he has looked closely into agriculture, mensuration, and farming work; he has even taken note of the remedies, lot casting, and charms used by old women and by wizards and magicians, and of the deceptions and devices of conjurors, so that nothing which deserves inquiry should escape him, and that he may be able to expose the falsehoods of magicians. If philosophy is to be carried to its perfection and is to be handled with utility and certainty, his aid is indispensable. As for reward, he neither receives nor seeks it. If he frequented kings and princes, he would easily find those who would bestow on him honours and wealth. Or, if in Paris he would display the results of his researches, the whole world would follow him. But since either of these courses would hinder him from pursuing the great experiments in which he delights, he puts honour and wealth aside, knowing well that his wisdom would secure him wealth whenever he chose. For the last three years he has been working at the production of a mirror that shall produce combustion at a fixed distance; a problem which the Latins have neither solved nor attempted, though books have been written upon the subject.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Tertium

Bridges assumes that Bacon refers here to Peter Peregrinus of Maricourt.
Source: Opus Tertium, c. 1267, Ch. 13 as quoted in J. H. Bridges, The 'Opus Majus' of Roger Bacon (1900) Vol.1 http://books.google.com/books?id=6F0XAQAAMAAJ Preface p.xxv

Wisdom , Women , War , Books

“The subject being unusual, I fear that I shall not make myself intelligible, but I will do my endeavour, that the reasons of our judgment may be apprehended.”

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England

B. v. Knight and Burton (1699), 1 Raym. 527.

Fear , Intelligence

“There are seven causes of inconsistencies and contradictions to be met with in a literary work. The first cause arises from the fact that the author collects the opinions of various men, each differing from the other, but neglects to mention the name of the author of any particular opinion. In such a work contradictions or inconsistencies must occur, since any two statements may belong to two different authors. Second cause: The author holds at first one opinion which he subsequently rejects: in his work, however, both his original and altered views are retained. Third cause: The passages in question are not all to be taken literally: some only are to be understood in their literal sense, while in others figurative language is employed, which includes another meaning besides the literal one: or, in the apparently inconsistent passages, figurative language is employed which, if taken literally, would seem to be contradictories or contraries. Fourth cause: The premises are not identical in both statements, but for certain reasons they are not fully stated in these passages: or two propositions with different subjects which are expressed by the same term without having the difference in meaning pointed out, occur in two passages. The contradiction is therefore only apparent, but there is no contradiction in reality. The fifth cause is traceable to the use of a certain method adopted in teaching and expounding profound problems. Namely, a difficult and obscure theorem must sometimes be mentioned and assumed as known, for the illustration of some elementary and intelligible subject which must be taught beforehand the commencement being always made with the easier thing. The teacher must therefore facilitate, in any manner which he can devise, the explanation of those theorems, which have to be assumed as known, and he must content himself with giving a general though somewhat inaccurate notion on the subject. It is, for the present, explained according to the capacity of the students, that they may comprehend it as far as they are required to understand the subject. Later on, the same subject is thoroughly treated and fully developed in its right place. Sixth cause: The contradiction is not apparent, and only becomes evident through a series of premises. The larger the number of premises necessary to prove the contradiction between the two conclusions, the greater is the chance that it will escape detection, and that the author will not perceive his own inconsistency. Only when from each conclusion, by means of suitable premises, an inference is made, and from the enunciation thus inferred, by means of proper arguments, other conclusions are formed, and after that process has been repeated many times, then it becomes clear that the original conclusions are contradictories or contraries. Even able writers are liable to overlook such inconsistencies. If, however, the contradiction between the original statements can at once be discovered, and the author, while writing the second, does not think of the first, he evinces a greater deficiency, and his words deserve no notice whatever. Seventh cause: It is sometimes necessary to introduce such metaphysical matter as may partly be disclosed, but must partly be concealed: while, therefore, on one occasion the object which the author has in view may demand that the metaphysical problem be treated as solved in one way, it may be convenient on another occasion to treat it as solved in the opposite way. The author must endeavour, by concealing the fact as much as possible, to prevent the uneducated reader from perceiving the contradiction.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Introduction

Men , Way , Intelligence , Understanding

“Wire, rods, sheet metal have strength, even in very attenuated forms, and respond quickly to whatever sort of work one may subject them to. Contrasts in mass or weight are feasible, too, according to the gauge, or to the kind of metal used, so that physical laws, as well as aesthetic concepts, can be held to. There is of course a close alliance between physics and aesthetics.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

Quote of Calder (1943) in his essay A Propos of Measuring a Mobile, Calder Foundation; as quoted in Calder and Mondrian: An Unlikely Kinship, senior-thesis by Eva Yonas http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.517.581&rep=rep1&type=pdf, Ohio State University August 2006, Department of Art History, p. 19
1930s - 1950s

Law , Gauge

“Time is composed of time-atoms, i. e., of many parts, which on account of their short duration, cannot be divided. The Mutakallemim undoubtedly saw how Aristotle proved that time, space, and locomotion are of the same nature. …They, therefore, knew that if time were continuous and divisible ad infinitum, their assumed atom of space would of necessity likewise be divisible. Similarly, if it were supposed that space were continuous… the time-element… could also be divided. This has been shown by Aristotle in… Acroasis [Aristotelis stagyritae acroases physicae]. …An hour is, e. g., divided into sixty minutes, the second into sixty parts and so on; at last after ten or more successive divisions by sixty, time-elements are obtained which are not subjected to division, and in fact are indivisible.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part I

Nature , Time , Success , Parting

“Fortunately, a sculptor's style and aim are, to a great extent, dictated to him by his materials. To make a sculpture seem at all moving or inspiring, an artist must, of course, be gifted with a certain personality that speaks movingly through the subject and materials of his work. But he must select appropriate materials, and use them appropriately, too... My materials often dictate my change of aims, and I choose to work in a different material much as a man may suddenly feel an appetite for a change in diet.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

c. 1960
Source: 1960 - 1968, Dialogues – conversations with.., quotes, c. 1960, pp. 154-155

Feeling , Change , Personality

“[A] paradox arises at the level of the subject's relationship to the community to which he belongs: the situation of the forced choice consists in the fact that the subject must freely choose the community to which he already belongs, independent of his choice - he must choose what is already given to him… The subject who thinks he can avoid this paradox and really have a free choice is a psychotic subject, one who retains a kind of distance from the symbolic order - who is not really caught in the signifying network. The totalitarian subject is closer to this psychotic position: the proof would be the status of the enemy in totalitarian distance (the Jew in Fascism, the traitor in Stalinism) - precisely the subject supposed to have made a free choice and to have freely chosen the wrong side. This is also the basic paradox of love: not only of one's country, but also of a woman or a man. If I am directly ordered to love a woman, it is clear that this does not work: in a way, love must be free. But on the other hand, if I proceed as if I really have a free choice, if I start to look around and say to myself 'Let's choose which of these women I will fall in love with,' it is clear that this also does not work, that it is not real love. The paradox of love is that it is a free choice, but a choice which never arrives in the present - it is always already made …I can only state retroactively that I've already chosen … [Stated by Kant], 'Wickedness does not simply depend upon circumstances but is an integral part of his eternal nature.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

In other words, wickedness appears to be something which is irreducibly given: the person in question can never change it, outgrow it via his ultimate moral development.
186-187
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Love , Women , Way , Communication

“The PATRIOT Act allows Federal agents to look at public and university library patron circulation records, books checked out, magazines consulted, all subject to government scrutiny.There used to be a time in this country when we were worried whether our young people knew how to read. Now some in our government are more worried that government agents be able to find out what people are reading.”

Dennis Kucinich (1946) Ohio politician

Speech from the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressional Record (15 June 2005) http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=H4540&dbname=2005_record.

People , Books , Universe , Time

“This is probably the fundamental dimension of 'ideology': ideology is not simply a 'false consciousness', an illusory representation of reality, it is rather this reality itself which is already to be conceived as 'ideological' - 'ideological' is a social reality whose very existence implies the non-knowledge of its participants as to its essence -that is, the social effectivity, the very reproduction of which implies that the individuals 'do not know what they are doing'. 'Ideological is not the false consciousness of a (social) being but this being itself in so far as it is supported by "false consciousness"'. Thus we have finally reached the dimension of the symptom, because one of its possible definitions would also be 'a formation whose very consistency implies a certain non-knowledge on the part of the subject': the subject can 'enjoy his symptom' only in so far as its logic escapes him - the measure of the success of its interpretation is precisely its dissolution.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Support , Knowledge , Reality , Success

“Whatever Hitler may ultimately prove to be, we know what Hitlerism has come to mean, It means naked, ruthless force reduced to an exact science and worked with scientific precision. In its effect it becomes almost irresistible.
Hitlerism will never be defeated by counter-Hitlerism. It can only breed superior Hitlerism raised to nth degree. What is going on before our eyes is the demonstration of the futility of violence as also of Hitlerism.
What will Hitler do with his victory? Can he digest so much power? Personally he will go as empty-handed as his not very remote predecessor Alexander. For the Germans he will have left not the pleasure of owning a mighty empire but the burden of sustaining its crushing weight. For they will not be able to hold all the conquered nations in perpetual subjection. And I doubt if the Germans of future generations will entertain unadulterated pride in the deeds for which Hitlerism will be deemed responsible. They will honour Herr Hitler as genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more. But I should hope that the Germans of the future will have learnt the art of discrimination even about their heroes. Anyway I think it will be allowed that all the blood that has been spilled by Hitler has added not a millionth part of an inch to the world’s moral stature.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Harijan (22 June 1940), after Nazi victories resulting in the occupation of France.
1940s

Pleasure , World , Hope , Art

“The Charter was regarded as important because it assigned definite and practical remedies to temporary evils. There was very little that was abstract in its terms, less even than later generations supposed…. A King had been brought to order, not by a posse of reactionary feudalists, but the community of the land under baronial leadership; a tyrant had been subjected to the laws which hitherto it had been his private privilege to administer and to modify at will. A process had begun which was to end in putting the power of the Crown into the hands of the community at large.”

George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876–1962) Historian

on the Magna Carta's legacy
A Shortened History of England (1959)

Law , Communication , Evil

“This shared concern with continuity accounts for a good part of the affinity I feel with Schoenberg, an affinity I have openly claimed in drawing from him both the title and the subtitle of the present volume. To me, as to Schoenberg, such continuity constitutes important evidence that the essentially aesthetic act of constructing a 'text,' whether on paper or in one's professional life, has been subjected to rational restraints, in all the Kantian senses of 'rationality.' From this viewpoint, continuity is valued as a sign that a text has been carefully constructed to meet rigorous standards not only of formal coherence but also of logical precision and, espeically crucial, of moral scrupulousness.”

Rose Rosengard Subotnik (1942) American musicologist

Subotnik, Rose Rosengard (1991). Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in Western Music, p.xx. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. .

Life , Feeling , Sense , Parting

“Words are not deeds. In published poems — we think first of Eliot's "Jew", words edge closer to deeds. In Céline's anti-Semitic textbooks, words get as close to deeds as words can well get. Blood libels scrawled on front doors are deed.
In a correspondence, words are hardly even words. They are soundless cries and whispers, "gouts of bile," as Larkin characterized his political opinions, ways of saying, "Gloomy old sod, aren't I?" Or more simply, "Grrr."
Correspondences are self-dramatizations. Above all, a word in a letter is never your last word on any subject. There was no public side to Larkin's prejudices, and nothing that could be construed as a racist — the word suggest a system of thought, rather than an absence of thought, which would be closer to the reality, closer to the jolts and twitches of self response.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin" (1997)

Way , Thinking , Reality

“If each member of society can be induced or impelled to do his allotted task by associating it with some motive that appears to him adequate, then he need never know how he is contributing to the real end, and need not even be aware of the end at all. It is this problem of organization that we shall call the Economic Problem. It is in fact the real subject matter of political economy.”

Ralph George Hawtrey (1879–1975) British economist

Source: The Economic Problem (1925), Chapter I, "The Problem Profounded", p. 3.

Motivation , Problem , Appearance

“In the office there are about fifteen people whose attention is directed toward a table covered with the costly fabric [raw cotton]; one man is bent over the table and another is sort of seating on it – the buyer and the broker are discussing a sample. A painting of a vernacular subject, if there is such a thing, and I think by a better hand than most others (a size 40 canvas, I think). I'm planning another less complicated and more surprising yet, better art, in which everyone is in summer dress, the walls white, and a sea of cotton on the tables. (translation based on M. Kay's, in M. Gérin [ed. ] and M. Kay, transl. 'Degas letters', Oxford, 1947, pp. 29-30, no. 2”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote in Gegas letter to his friend James Tissot, New Orleans, 18 February 1873; as quoted in 'Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition', Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, p. 99
Degas is referring to his painting 'Cotton Merchants in New Orleans' [Cotton Merchants in New Orleans https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/299832, (1873)
1855 - 1875

People , Art , Thinking , Summer

“I think I entirely agree with you on the subject of Portugal; all the probabilities were, and in my opinion still are, against eventual success there. I have no faith even in the promised victory…I could not deny that such a success would be worth the sacrifices we had made for it. But a doubtful or indecisive victory, and protracted operations, I should think little less ruinous (I am not sure they would not be more so) than an immediate defeat.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lord Grenville (9 November 1810), quoted in Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815 (Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 136-137.
1810s

Faith , Thinking , Success , Victory

“And I am very happy to have the boat motif because, when I grew up, in summer with my parents we were always in Massachusetts, and I was always by the sea. You know, sometimes little boys love cars, but I had a particular passion for boats, and now I live by the sea. For sure, it is a passage, but it's also very fascinating for lots of things. When you get interested in something you can find out a lot about things. You might meet people who are interested in one subject or another, like they collect palms. I've found people from all over the world who were fanatical about palms, which you wouldn't know unless you were interested in palms. And the sea: because, if you've noticed, the sea is white three quarters of the time, just white – early morning. Only in the fall does it get blue, because the haze is gone. The Mediterranean [where Twombly is living later in his life], at least – the Atlantic is brown – is just always white, white, white. And then, even when the sun comes up, it becomes a lighter white... Not because I paint it white; I'd have painted it white even if it wasn't, but I am always happy that I might have. It's something that has other consciousness behind it.”

Cy Twombly (1928–2011) American painter

Source: 2000 - 2011, Cy Twombly, 2000', by David Sylvester (June 2000), pp. 174-175

Love , Life , People , World

“According to Charles W. Morris, syntactics is the relation between a given sign-vehicle and other sign-vehicles. There is a critical distinction here (that many cartographers have missed) between Morris's "syntactics" and the linguistic subcategory of "syntax". While syntax puts emphasis on word order and parsing (i. e., on a linear sequence), syntactics is much broader in scope. Syntactics allows for any kind of among-sign relationships. Morris (1938, p. 16) makes this point explicitly in his statement that there are "syntactical problems in the fields of perceptual signs, aesthetic signs, the practical use of signs, and general linguistics."… At least three kinds of sign relationships seem to fall under Morris's umbrella of syntactics (Posner, 1985, in French; cited in Nöth, 1990, p. 51). These include: (1) ”the consideration of signs and sign combinations so far as they are subject of syntactical rules” (Morris, 1938, p. 14), (2) ”the way in which signs of various classes are combined to form compound signs” (Morris, 1946/1971, p. 367), and (3) ”the formal relations of signs to one another””

Alan MacEachren (1952) American geographer

Morris, 1938, p. 6
Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 235; as cited in: Yuri Engelhardt, "Syntactic structures in graphics." Computational Visualistics and Picture Morphology 5 (2007): 23-35.

Way , Problem

“As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

E 52
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

Books , Feeling

“Some may think that to affirm dialogue--the encounter of women and men in the world in order to transform the world--is naively and subjectively idealistic. There is nothing, however, more real or concrete than people in the world and with the world, than humans with other humans.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 4

Women , Men , People , World

“When it came to formal classes, I was a slacker. But I've always been a diligent autodidact and can teach myself virtually any subject — if I have a serious interest in it.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

[16 June 2006, http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/koontz/meet_qa/june_15_2006.html, "Q&A" column, Dean Koontz: The Official Website, RandomHouse.com http://www.randomhouse.com, 2006-09-12]