Quotes about testing
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“You know, when you're young, God sweeps you up. He holds you there. The real snag is to stay there and to know how to fall. All those days when you can't hold on any longer. When you tumble. The test is being able to climb up again.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book One: All Respects to Heaven, I Like it Here

God

“He told me once that there is no better faith than a wounded faith and sometimes I wonder if that is what he was doing all along - trying to wound his faith in order to test it - and I was just another stone in the way of his God.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book Three: Centavos

God, Faith, Way

“The acid test of monetary policy is its record in reducing inflation. Those who wish to join the debate about the intricacies of different measures of money and the implications they may have for the future are welcome to do so. But at the end of the day the position is clear and unambiguous. The inflation rate is judge and jury.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Mansion House Speech (17 October 1985), quoted in The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical (London: Bantam, 1992), pp. 480-481.

Money, Future

“I cannot refrain… from expressing my surprise that, according to the report in The Times there should be so much complaint about the difficulty of understanding the new theory. It is evident that Einstein's little book "About the Special and the General Theory of Relativity in Plain Terms," did not find its way into England during wartime. Any one reading it will, in my opinion, come to the conclusion that the basic ideas of the theory are really clear and simple; it is only to be regretted that it was impossible to avoid clothing them in pretty involved mathematical terms, but we must not worry about that. …
The Newtonian theory remains in its full value as the first great step, without which one cannot imagine the development of astronomy and without which the second step, that has now been made, would hardly have been possible. It remains, moreover, as the first, and in most cases, sufficient, approximation. It is true that, according to Einstein's theory, because it leaves us entirely free as to the way in which we wish to represent the phenomena, we can imagine an idea of the solar system in which the planets follow paths of peculiar form and the rays of light shine along sharply bent lines—think of a twisted and distorted planetarium—but in every case where we apply it to concrete questions we shall so arrange it that the planets describe almost exact ellipses and the rays of light almost straight lines.
It is not necessary to give up entirely even the ether. …according to the Einstein theory, gravitation itself does not spread instantaneously, but with a velocity that at the first estimate may be compared with that of light. …In my opinion it is not impossible that in the future this road, indeed abandoned at present, will once more be followed with good results, if only because it can lead to the thinking out of new experimental tests. Einstein's theory need not keep us from so doing; only the ideas about the ether must accord with it.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Theory of Relativity: A Concise Statement (1920)

Books, Way, Imagination, Mathematics

“Ever since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, America has distinguished itself as a haven for people fleeing religious persecution. Under Donald Trump, America would distinguish itself as the only country in the world to impose a religious test at the border.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)

People, World, Country

“How scientists go about their job: and it's a process, it's a question of asking questions, respecting observation, respecting experiment, having tentative explanations and then testing them…. There is a problem sometimes with how we teach science at schools. Because we sometimes teach it as if it has been chiseled in stone.”

Paul Nurse (1949) Nobel prize winning British biochemist

in Charlie Rose Science Series: The Imperative of Science http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9027 with Paul Nurse, President of Rockefeller University, Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Bruce Alberts, Editor-In-Chief of Science and Lisa Randall of Harvard University.

School, Question, Problem, Science

“The key is to test the areas that you are most worried about going wrong. That way you get the most benefit for your testing effort. It is better to write and run incomplete tests than not to run complete tests”

Kent Beck (1961) software engineer

Source: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, 1999, p. 98.

Way, Effort

“The word "essay" means to try out, test, probe. In the essay style, successive clauses and sentences are not produced by an overarching logic, but by association; the impression that prose gives is that it can go anywhere in a manner wholly unpredictable.”

Stanley Fish (1938) American academic

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 6, The Additive Style, p. 62

Success

“…The ultimate test of this agreement will be a test of blood… If it becomes clear that they [the Palestinians] cannot overcome terror, this will be temporary accord and… we will have no choice but to abrogate it… And if there is no choice, the IDF will return to the places it is about to leave in the upcoming months.”

Yossi Beilin (1948) Israeli politician

Maariv, November 26, 1993.

“The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged and productive citizen of the world, and it will take place in schools and bars and hospitals and dorm-rooms and in places of worship. You will be tested on first dates, in job interviews, while watching football and while scrolling through your Twitter feed. The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages, whether you'll be easily persuaded by empty political rhetoric and whether you'll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context. The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of the millions of decisions that, when taken together, make your life yours. And everything - everything - will be on it.”

John Green (1977) American author and vlogger

Introduction to Crash Course World History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I&list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9 YouTube

Life, Marriage, World, School

“The Social Security Act 1986 was one of the most aggressive pieces of legislation in the past seven years. It has helped to destroy the foundations of the welfare state, which was envisaged to provide decency and security through birth, life and death for all people, irrespective of their ability to pay. Now we see means testing writ large throughout the welfare state.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1987/feb/05/social-fund-maternity-and-funeral in the House of Commons (5 February 1987). 1980s

Life, Death, People, Birth

“It has been a long road from that first snowy day in New Hampshire to this crowded convention city. Now begins another long journey, taking me into your cities and homes all over America. Give me your help, your hand, your voice, your vote. Recall with me the words of Isaiah: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary." As we face the coming challenge, we too, shall wait upon the Lord, and ask that he renew our strength. Then shall we be equal to the test. Then we shall not be weary. And then we shall prevail.”

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

1960, The New Frontier

Home, Waiting, Help

“This intelligence-testing business reminds me of the way they used to weigh hogs in Texas. They would get a long plank, put it over a cross-bar, and somehow tie the hog on one end of the plank. They'd search all around till they found a stone that would balance the weight of the hog and they'd put that on the other end of the plank. Then they'd guess the weight of the stone.”

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

Quoted by Dorothy Canfield Fisher in Vermont Tradition http://books.google.com/books?id=K7wMAAAAYAAJ&q=%22This+intelligence-testing+business+reminds+me+of+the+way+they+used+to+weigh+hogs+in+Texas+They+would+get+a+long+plank+put+it+over+a+cross-bar+and+somehow+tie+the+hog+on+one+end+of+the+plank+They'd+search+all+around+till+they+found+a+stone+that+would+balance+the+weight+of+the+hog+and+they'd+put+that+on+the+other+end+of+the+plank+Then+they'd+guess+the+weight+of+the+stone%22&pg=PA380#v=onepage (1953) Misc. Quotes

Way, Search, Intelligence, Business

“Is it not plain that the law of good will has a universal application? There is no event, no act, no word, no supreme crisis of life in which man may let the good will go, and turn on the forces of ill will, egotism, and selfishness. Letting the good will go out of him, he lapses straightway into the child or the savage. Keeping the flow of the serene good will in his soul, he walks the earth, fearless, erect, with God’s sunshine on his face. To live thus is the essence of civilization; the individual and the social welfare are thus secured and harmonized. To live thus is practical religion; the more thoroughly we try, test, and experience it, the more completely it will be found to grow out of, and to illustrate, a Theology, that is, a divine plan of the universe. This Theology matches the needs of civilized men in a civilized world.”

Charles Fletcher Dole (1845–1927) Unitarian minister, speaker, and writer

The Theology of Civilization (May 1899)

Life, Men, God, World

“One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underprivileged.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. (1955), Chapter VI, part II, p. 245

People, Mood, Suffering, Time

“A visit to a studio never fails to test my resources. It constantly reminds me of the condition in which most people first confront contemporary art. This is a state of "not knowing", of "not understanding", of being disorientated or challenged by the unfamiliar. One of my responsibilities as a curator is therefore to remember that a visitor encountering an unfamiliar work of art in the museum is likely to be as unprepared as I was in the studio. But I've come to realise that it's precisely when I am most challenged in my own reactions that the deepest insights emerge.”

Nicholas Serota (1946) British curator

The Dimbleby Lecture 2000

People, Art, Understanding

“The Buddha Dhamma is not based on the fear of the unknown, but is founded on the bedrock of facts which can be tested by ourselves and verified by experience. Buddhism is, therefore rational and intensely practical.Such a rational and practical system cannot contain mysteries or esoteric doctrines. Blind faith, therefore, is foreign to Buddhism. Where there is no blind faith there cannot be any coercion or persecution or fanaticism. To the unique credit of Buddhism it must be said that throughout its peaceful march of 2500 years no drop of blood was shed in the name of the Buddha, no mighty monarch wielded his powerful sword to propagate the Dhamma, and no conversion was made either by force or by repulsive methods. Yet, the Buddha was the first and the greatest missionary that lived on earth.”

Narada Maha Thera (1898–1983) Sri Lankan monk and missionary

Buddhism in a Nutshell

Fear, Peace, Faith

“As a physician I am embarrassed by the lack of initiative and obstructionist policies of my own medical profession toward healthier lifestyles. This is not surprising. Physicians lack training and knowledge of nutrition and are self-serving when they proclaim “patients won't follow plant-based nutrition.” Having counseled patients with severe coronary artery heart disease for over twenty years, I find the opposite to be true. Patients sent home to die by expert cardiologists after failing bypass or stents rejoice as they lose weight, eliminate angina chest pains, lessen their medication, lower their blood sugars, decrease or come off their insulin, revert their positive stress test back to normal, selectively diminish the plaque plugging their arteries, and resume a fully active life empowered by the knowledge that they, not their physicians, have become the locus of control for the disease that was destroying them.”

Caldwell Esselstyn (1933) American physician, author and rower

Foreword https://books.google.it/books?id=6Aosc1wlAXcC&pg=PA1 to No More Bull! by Howard Lyman (New York: Scribner, 2005).

Life, Pain, Disease, Home

“In some traditionalist universities not long ago, you could not research on authors who were still alive. This was a great incentive to slip a knife between their ribs one foggy evening, or a remarkable test of patience if your chosen novelist was in rude health and only 34.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

2000s, After Theory (2003)

Health, Universe, Patience

“If a woman isn't being hazed, she's not being tested; therefore, she is not being trusted.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 295.

“The fact must be expressed as data, but there is a problem in that the correct data is difficult to catch. So that I always say "When you see the data, doubt it!" "When you see the measurement instrument, doubt it!… For example, if the methods such as sampling, measurement, testing and chemical analysis methods were incorrect, data… to measure true characteristics and in an unavoidable case, using statistical sensory test and express them as data.”

Kaoru Ishikawa (1915–1989) Japanese business theorist

Kaoru Ishikawa in: Annual Quality Congress Transactions, (1981), p. 130

Problem

“In every kind of testing to see where I'm at, strength, speed, conditioning, I'm either right at or well ahead of the best marks I've ever had at this stage of training. A few weeks ago, we were concerned I was peaking too fast. I'd kick the [expletive] out of myself at the same stage of training for any of my previous fights. … The biggest thing is better recuperation from training. I don't have the days where I came in flat. It's made for the best training camp of my career.”

Jon Fitch

About his switch to a vegetarian diet. "Vegetarianism all the rage in MMA" https://www.yahoo.com/news/vegetarianism-rage-mma-145900165--mma.html, interview with Yahoo! Sports (18 February 2011).

Fight, Speed, Training

“The surest test of one's understanding of a text in another language is translating it into one's own.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, From Babel to Dragomans (2004)

Understanding

“[Receiving an anonymous email about animals getting skinned alive for fur] made me furious, and angry and depressed. I was an animal lover my whole life, but I never realized that humans beings were capable of such cruelty. … It was a huge wake-up call for me, and I knew I had to get involved, so I dedicated my life basically to being a voice for animals because they're voiceless and defenseless. … If you're an animal lover, just try to educate your friends and be a voice. Always try to find products that are not tested on animals and stay away from fur. … It's amazing how powerful social media can be – animals can be saved just because people share info and care. It's all about being active and just trying to make the world a better place.”

Joanna Krupa (1979) Polish-American model and actress

“Joanna Krupa: Why She’s Happy ‘Real Housewives’ Is In The Past And Her Life As A Devoted Animal Activist,” interview with HNGN (4 November 2015) http://www.hngn.com/articles/146928/20151104/joanna-krupa-ultimatum-helped-career-why-s-happy-real-housewives.htm.

Life, People, World, Education

“In contrast to Smith’s incomplete modeling, his follower, David Ricardo, provides a coherent setting— basically, the first macroeconomic model—that can be tested, modified, and applied. Although Ricardo is surely narrower and less imaginative and insightful than Smith, he is also a lot better organized. That is why Ricardo’s analysis of macroeconomics—for example, of the implications of public debt—is more coherent and useful than Smith’s.”

Robert Barro (1944) American classical macroeconomist

Source: Nothing Is Sacred (2002), p. 10

Imagination

“In a time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders. If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores. There is no peace in retreat. And there is no honor in retreat.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2006, State of the Union (January 2006)

Peace, Time

“In truth, elite education has become a cattle brand. It signifies lots of things other than knowledge: for some, politically correct certification; for others, good test scores and grades that got them in; for a few, later entry into the alumni ranks of high business, law, academia, government, and the media.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, The Deflation of the Academic Brand (2018)

Truth, Education, Law, Business

“Today we preach that science is not science unless it is quantitative. We substitute correlations for causal studies, and physical equations for organic reasoning. Measurements and equations are supposed to sharpen thinking, but, in my observation, they more often tend to make the thinking noncausal and fuzzy. They tend to become the object of scientific manipulation instead of auxiliary tests of crucial inferences.
Many - perhaps most - of the great issues of science are qualitative, not quantitative, even in physics and chemistry. Equations and measurements are useful when and only when they are related to proof; but proof or disproof comes first and is in fact strongest when it is absolutely convincing without any quantitative measurement.
Or to say it another way, you can catch phenomena in a logical box or in a mathematical box. The logical box is coarse but strong. The mathematical box is fine-grained but flimsy. The mathematical box is a beautiful way of wrapping up a problem, but it will not hold the phenomena unless they have been caught in a logical box to begin with.”

John R. Platt (1918–1992) American physicist

John R. Platt (1964) " Science, Strong Inference -- Proper Scientific Method (The New Baconians) http://256.com/gray/docs/strong_inference.html. In: Science Magazine 16 October 1964, Volume 146, Number 3642. Cited in: Gerald Weinberg (1975) Introduction to General Systems Thinking. p. 1, and in multiple other sources.

Beauty, Way, Mathematics, Problem

“No one can be certain what the future will bring. No one can say whether the time has come for an easing of the struggle. But history and our own conscience will judge us harsher if we do not now make every effort to test our hopes by action. And this is the place to begin.”

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

1963, Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty speech

Hope, History, Effort, Time

“The validity of g is most conspicuous in scholastic performance, not because g-loaded tests measure specifically what is taught in school, but because g is intrinsic to learning novel material, grasping concepts, distinctions, and meanings… The most critical tool for scholastic learning beyond the primary grades— reading comprehension—is probably the most highly g-loaded attainment in the course of elementary education.”

Arthur Jensen (1923–2012) professor of educational psychology

Source: The g factor: The science of mental ability (1998), p. 270; As cited in: Melissa A. Bray, Thomas J. Kehle (2011) The Oxford Handbook of School Psychology. p. 65

Education, School, Learning, Reading

“Earlier contentions that the right hemisphere is not even conscious largely gave way by the mid seventies to an intermediate position conceding that the mute hemisphere may be conscious at some lower elemental levels, but claiming that it lacks the higher, reflective, self-conscious kind of inner awareness that is special to the human mind and is needed, so it is said, to qualify the right conscious system as a "self' or "person". Self awareness in particular is reported, on the basis of mirror tests mainly, to be a predominantly human attribute and is rated by developmental as well as by evolutionary standards to be a highly advanced phase of conscious awareness.”

Roger Wolcott Sperry (1913–1994) American neuroscientist

Nobel lecture (1981)

Way, Personality

“Amongst the half-human progenitors of man, and amongst savages, there have been struggles between the males during many generations for the possession of the females. But mere bodily strength and size would do little for victory, unless associated with courage, perseverance, and determined energy. With social animals, the young males have to pass through many a contest before they win a female, and the older males have to retain their females by renewed battles. They have, also, in the case of mankind, to defend their females, as well as their young, from enemies of all kinds, and to hunt for their joint subsistence. But to avoid enemies or to attack them with success, to capture wild animals, and to fashion weapons, requires the aid of the higher mental faculties, namely, observation, reason, invention, or imagination. These various faculties will thus have been continually put to the test and selected during manhood; they will, moreover, have been strengthened by use during this same period of life. Consequently, in accordance with the principle often alluded to, we might expect that they would at least tend to be transmitted chiefly to the male offspring at the corresponding period of manhood.”

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

second edition (1874), chapter XIX: "Secondary Sexual Characters of Man", page 564 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=587&itemID=F944&viewtype=image The Descent of Man (1871)

Life, Imagination, Fashion, Courage

“Another test came slightly later in Jammu and Kashmir which a Hindu prince had managed to save from the Islamic monster in spite of machinations by Mountbatten and British die-hards, and in the face of undisguised hostility from a Soviet stooge masquerading as the Prime Minister of India. But a large part of that precious patrimony was soon surrendered to Islamic imperialism in order to demonstrate India’s ‘democratic’ credentials before an international opinion which wondered for quite some time why India was smitten with such a grave sense of guilt. The rest of the region, which had been saved by a brave soldiery at the cost of so much blood and toil, was handed over to a haughty sheikh who had never hidden his intention of setting up a separate sultanate. The Valley was very soon barred even to the sons of the soil who had to flee from their homes in the Pakistan-occupied parts of Jammu and Kashmir.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

Hostility, Home, Sense, Time

“Some people feel concerned about the commercialism of the press. They note that great newspapers are great business enterprises earning large profits and controlled by men of wealth. So they fear that in such control the press may tend to support the private interests of those who own the papers, rather than the general interest of the whole people. It seems to me, however, that the real test is not whether the newspapers are controlled by men of wealth, but whether they are sincerely trying to serve the public interests. There will be little occasion for worry about who owns a newspaper, so long as its attitudes on public questions are such as to promote the general welfare. A press which is actuated by the purpose of genuine usefulness to the public interest can never be too strong financially, so long as its strength is used for the support of popular government.”

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

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

Men, People, Fear, Feeling

“Twas the saying of [Georgias Leontinus apud Arist. Rhetor. lib. 3. cap. 18… which the Translator renders, Seria Risu, Risum Seriis discutere] an ancient sage that humour was the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject which would not bear raillery was suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination was certainly false wit.”

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl

Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour (1709), Part 1, Sec. 5

Falseness

“I am ready to concede that the rule of adherence to precedent, though it ought not to be abandoned, ought to be in some degree relaxed. I think that when a rule, after it has been duly tested by experience, has been found to be inconsistent with the sense of justice or with the social welfare, there should be less hesitation in frank avowal and full abandonment. … That court best serves the law which recognizes that the rules of law which grew up in a remote generation may, in the fullness of experience, be found to serve another generation badly, and which discards the old rule when it finds that another rule of law represents what should be according to the established and settled judgment of society.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Pages 150-51
Other writings, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)

Justice, Law, Thinking, Sense

“In 1980, Reagan had to do just one thing: pass the threshold test for acceptability. He won that election because he did, especially in the debate with Jimmy Carter in which Reagan showed himself to be genial, self-assured and, above all, nonthreatening. You may not like all his policies, but you could safely entrust the nation to him. Trump badly needs to pass that threshold. If character is destiny, he won’t.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2010s, 2016, Donald Trump and the fitness threshold (2016)

“They're still building and testing / But what can we do / Condemning the seas and the land and the trees to a tomb”

Kim Wilde (1960) English pop singer

Stone
Close (1988)

Tree, Sea

“It is not necessary to think of gambling places; the statistician who applies statistical tests is engaged in a dignified sort of gambling, and in his case the distribution of the random variables changes from occasion to occasion.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter X, Law Of large Numbers, p. 253.

Thinking, Change

“So how are you going to recognise God if He comes on earth? Are you going to ask to see His identity card or passport? See if it says, 'Name … God; Occupation … Generator, Operator, Destroyer'? That's foolish! Or are you going to recognise Him only if He fits your mental picture of Him -- what you have picked up from scriptures and other impressions, what you imagine Jesus or Krishna looked like? But even two Christians will have different impressions of what Jesus will look like. So what will be recognised by one will not be recognised by the other. But the test of the Perfect Master is that which is undeniable to everybody and that is the experience of Himself, which He can give, and that is the True Knowledge.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

from "The Sayings of Guru Maharaj Ji" - Published by Shri Hans Publications, 148-150 Lordship Lane, London SE22, Copyright Divine Light Mission 1974.
1970s

God, Imagination, Knowledge, Perfection

“No, no, lot of things are going on folks, lot of things. I think she's actually getting pumped up, if you want to know the truth, she's getting pumped up, you understand? In fact we're going to be talking about that in a few minutes. She's getting pumped up for Wednesday night. Let's see. You know, I don't know, maybe, we're like athletes, right? Hey, look, I beat seventeen senators, governors, I beat all these people, we're like athletes. Hillary beat Bernie, although it looks like Bernie got a little bit of a bad deal based on Wikileaks, right? If you look at Wikileaks. But we're like athletes, right? So athletes, they're making them more and more, but athletes, they make them take a drug test, right? I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate, I do. I think we should, why don't we do that? We should take a drug test, prior, because I don't know what's going on with her. But at the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning, and at the end it was like, "Uh, take me down."”

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

She could barely reach her car. So I think we should take a drug test, I'm, er, anyway I'm willing to do it. At a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about his rival Hillary Clinton's performance during the presidential debates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mE7YkeasOA (15 October 2016) 2010s, 2016, October

People, Truth, Cars, Understanding

“Thanks to technology, what almost anybody can do has been multiplied a thousandfold, and our moral understanding about what we ought to do hasn't kept pace. … You can have a test-tube baby or take a morning-after pill to keep from having a baby; you can satisfy your sexual urges in the privacy of your room by downloading Internet pornography, and you can keep your favorite music for free instead of buying it; you can keep your money in secret offshore bank accounts and purchase stock in cigarette companies that are exploiting impoverished Third World countries; and you can lay minefields, smuggle nuclear weapons in suitcases, make nerve gas, and drop "smart bombs" with pinpoint accuracy. Also, you can arrange to have a hundred dollars a month automatically sent from your bank account to provide education for ten girls in an Islamic country who otherwise would not learn to read and write, or to benefit a hundred malnourished people, or provide medical care for AIDS sufferers in Africa. You can use the Internet to organize citizen monitoring of environmental hazards, or to check the honesty and performance of government officials — or to spy on your neighbors. Now, what ought we to do?”

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

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Money, People, Secret, World

“There are moments in life where the question of knowing whether one might think otherwise than one thinks and perceive otherwise than one sees is indispensable if one is to continue to observe or reflect… What is philosophy today… if it does not consist in, instead of legitimizing what we already know, undertaking to know how and how far it might be possible to think otherwise?… The ‘essay’ —which must be understood as a transforming test of oneself in the play of truth and not as a simplifying appropriation of someone else for the purpose of communication—is the living body of philosophy, if, at least, philosophy is today still what it was once, that is to say, an askesis, an exercise of the self, in thought.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Il y a des moments dans la vie où la question de savoir si on peut penser autrement qu’on ne pense et percevoir autrement qu’on ne voit est indispensable pour continuer à regarder ou à réfléchir… Qu’est-ce donc que la philosophie aujourd’hui… si elle ne consiste pas, au lieu de légitimer ce qu’on sait déjà, à entreprendre de savoir comment et jusqu’où il serait possible de penser autrement ?… L’ « essai »—qu’il faut entendre comme épreuve modificatrice de soi-même dans le jeu de la vérité et non comme appropriation simplificatrice d’autrui à des fins de communication—est le corps vivant de la philosophie, si du moins celle-ci est encore maintenant ce qu’elle était autrefois, c’est-à-dire une « ascèse », un exercice de soi, dans la pensée.
Vol. II : L’usage des plaisirs p. 15-16.
History of Sexuality (1976–1984)

Life, Truth, Exercises, Communication

“The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.”

Karl Popper book The Logic of Scientific Discovery

Source: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), Ch. 2 "On the Problem of a Theory of Scientific Method", Section XI: Methodological Rules as Conventions

Game, Science

“I was attracted to studies of cancer families because epidemiological studies show that virtually all cancers manifest a tendency to aggregate in families. Close relatives of a cancer patient are at increased risk of that neoplasm, and perhaps other forms of cancer. The excess site-specific cancer risk is exceptionally high for carriers of certain cancer genes, in whom the attack rate can approach 100 percent. In candidate cancer families, the possibility that clustering is on the basis of chance must be excluded through epidemiological studies that establish the presence of an excess cancer risk. Predisposed families are candidates for laboratory studies to identify the inherited susceptibility factors. These investigations have led to the identification and isolation of human cancer genes, the tumor suppressor genes. These cancer genes are among more than 200 single-gene traits associated with the development of cancer. Approximately a dozen inherited susceptibility genes have been definitively identified, and many more are being sought. From studies of retinoblastoma and other rare cancers, important new information was generated about the fundamental biology of cancers that arise in many patients. Isolation of an inherited cancer susceptibility gene provides opportunities for presymptomatic testing of at-risk relatives. However, testing of healthy individuals also raise important issues regarding informed consent, confidentiality and potential for adverse psychological, social and economic effects.”

Frederick Pei Li (1940–2015) American physician

Frederick Li - Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/frederick-li/.

Family, Study, Chance

“[The goal of the LOT (lattice of theories) is to create a framework] which can support an open-ended number of theories (potentially infinite) organized in a lattice together with systematic metalevel techniques for moving from one to another, for testing their adequacy for any given problem, and for mixing, matching, combining, and transforming them to whatever form is appropriate for whatever problem anyone is trying to solve.”

John F. Sowa (1940) artificial intelligence researcher

Cited in: Roberto Poli, Michael Healy, Achilles Kameas (2010) Theory and Applications of Ontology: Computer Applications . p. 533
Knowledge representation, 2000

Support, Problem

“Yet scientists are required to back up their claims not with private feelings but with publicly checkable evidence. Their experiments must have rigorous controls to eliminate spurious effects. And statistical analysis eliminates the suspicion (or at least measures the likelihood) that the apparent effect might have happened by chance alone.Paranormal phenomena have a habit of going away whenever they are tested under rigorous conditions. This is why the £740,000 reward of James Randi, offered to anyone who can demonstrate a paranormal effect under proper scientific controls, is safe. Why don't the television editors insist on some equivalently rigorous test? Could it be that they believe the alleged paranormal powers would evaporate and bang go the ratings?Consider this. If a paranormalist could really give an unequivocal demonstration of telepathy (precognition, psychokinesis, reincarnation, whatever it is), he would be the discoverer of a totally new principle unknown to physical science. The discoverer of the new energy field that links mind to mind in telepathy, or of the new fundamental force that moves objects around a table top, deserves a Nobel prize and would probably get one. If you are in possession of this revolutionary secret of science, why not prove it and be hailed as the new Newton? Of course, we know the answer. You can't do it. You are a fake.Yet the final indictment against the television decision-makers is more profound and more serious. Their recent splurge of paranormalism debauches true science and undermines the efforts of their own excellent science departments. The universe is a strange and wondrous place. The truth is quite odd enough to need no help from pseudo-scientific charlatans. The public appetite for wonder can be fed, through the powerful medium of television, without compromising the principles of honesty and reason.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

[Human gullibility beyond belief,— the “paranormal” in the media, The Sunday Times, 1996-08-25]

Truth, Secret, Feeling, Decision

“More drama than a junior prom, a shotgun wedding, and a paternity test all rolled into one!”

Rachel Maddow (1973) American journalist

The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (June 8, 2009)

Wedding

“Today some evidence arises that UML will more and more be used not as a specification language but as a high level programming language. This has some advantages, as if the concepts of UML are executable, they can immediately be animated and tested, or the generated code even be used as implementation. Thus UML probably will have an implementation-oriented semantics describing this animation.”

Bernhard Rumpe (1967) German computer scientist

Bernhard Rumpe (1998) " A Note on Semantics (with an Emphasis on UML) http://sse-tubs.de/~rumpe/publications/papers/RUM98a/RUM98a.pdf." Proceedings of Second ECOOP Workshop on Precise Behavioral Semantics. 1998.

Animals

“Science is a method for testing claims about the natural world, not an immutable compendium of absolute truths. The fundamentalists, by "knowing" the answers before they start, and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science—or of any honest intellectual inquiry.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"An Essay on a Pig Roast," p. 437
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

Truth, Lie, World, Nature

“In the end, religious investigations of “truth,” unlike those of science, are deeply dependent on confirmation bias. You start with what you were taught to believe, or what you want to believe, and then accept only those facts that support your prejudices. This is the basis for the theological practice of “apologetics,” designed to defend religion against counterarguments and disconfirming evidence…. In contrast, science has no apologetics, for we test our conclusions by trying to find counterevidence.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), pp. 66-67

Truth, Religion, Support, Science

“This paper reviews prior applications of ) between 1977 and 1994. After documenting and characterizing the number of applications over time, we discuss important methodological issues related to structural equation modeling and assess the quality of previous applications in terms of three aspects: issues related to the initial specification of theoretical models of interest; issues related to data screening prior to model estimation and testing; and issues related to the estimation and testing of theoretical models on empirical data. On the basis of our findings, we identify problem areas and suggest avenues for improvement.”

Christian Homburg (1962) German academic

Article abstract
"Applications of structural equation modeling in marketing and consumer research", 1996

Problem, Time

“Parallelism: Propositions about the behavior of individuals and the performance of institutions that have been tested in laboratory microeconomies apply also to nonlaboratory environments where similar ceteris paribus conditions prevail.”

Vernon L. Smith (1927) American economist

Source: "Relevance of laboratory experiments to testing resource allocation theory," 1980, p. 349.

Behavior

“We live far enough away from those times of test and trial to know that sincerity and honesty did not all lie on either side. We know the conflicts of loyalties, traditions, ancestry, and interest which drew men to one side and the other. I doubt if there ever was another so great and elemental a conflict from which men emerged with so much of mutual respect, with so little of bitterness and lingering hostility. The struggle brought the whole Nation at last to see that its only assurance was in unity. United, it could go its way in all security; divided, both sections becoming the prey of jealousy and intrigue, would have dissipated all the power they now have for good in the world.”

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

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

Men, Hostility, Lie, World

“The process of theory construction in organizational studies is portrayed as imagination disciplined by evolutionary processes analogous to artificial selection. The quality of theory produced is predicted to vary as a function of the accuracy and detail present in the problem statement that triggers theory building, the number of and independence among the conjectures that attempt to solve the problem, and the number and diversity of selection criteria used to test the conjectures.”

Karl E. Weick (1936) Organisational psychologist

Source: 1980s-1990s, "Theory construction as disciplined imagination," 1989, p. 516

Imagination, Problem, Study

“In the Platonic dialectic, … the terms “Being” “Non-being” “Movement,” “the One and the Many” “Identity” and “Contradiction” are methodically kept open, ambiguous, not fully defined. They have an open horizon, an entire universe of meaning which is gradually structured in the process of communication itself, but which is never closed. The propositions are submitted, developed, and tested in a dialogue, in which the partner is led to question the normally unquestioned universe of experience and speech, and to enter a new dimension of discourse — otherwise he is free and the discourse is addressed to his freedom. He is supposed to go beyond that which is given to him — as the speaker, in his proposition, goes beyond the initial setting of the terms. These terms have many meanings because the conditions to which they refer have many sides, implications, and effects which cannot be insulated and stabilized.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 131

Communication, Question, Freedom, Universe

“One of the great tests of a band, of course, was its manner of playing "God Save the King." … The English did it with effortless superiority, as though to say "We have frequently played this air in the presence of the King-Emperor and have reason to believe that he was perfectly satisfied." The American band gave an impression that every man was treacherously muttering the words of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" into his instrument; which was, of course, intolerable. I have probably misjudged this band, for like most children I was a patriotic bigot.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

I Remember Creatore (1948) Reminiscences on Giuseppe Creatore and his band http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=%40attr+1%3D1016+&query=Creatore

God, Children, Country

“The existence of a law is one thing, its merits or demerits is are another thing. Whether a law be, is one inquiry; whether it ought to be o whether it agree with a given or assumed test, is another and a distinct inquiry.”

John Austin (legal philosopher) (1790–1859) legal philosopher

Variant:
The existence of law is one thing; its merit or demerit is another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed standard, is a different enquiry. A law, which actually exists, is a law, though we happen to dislike it, or though it vary from the text, by which we regulate our approbation and disapprobation.
John Austin, Austin Lectures on Jurisprudence; or The Philosophy of Positive Law, 1873, Lecture V
Source: The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), p. 278

Law

“It is not the actual enjoyment of pleasure that we desire. What we want is to test the futility of that pleasure, so as to be no longer obsessed by it.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Pleasure

“My name was out there in the public arena for people to make assumptions on why I missed a drugs test. That stigma is something that may never go away. I go out there and play for the fans and for my family and for myself and to have that taken away from me in such a way was disheartening and something that really did shock me. I'm man enough to admit that I did cry.”

Rio Ferdinand (1978) English association football player

quoted in Rio Ferdinand player profile, Times Online, 2007-01-22 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,291-379094,00.html,

People, Family, Way, Cry

“Differences in reaction to toxic substances vary considerably between species so that the value of these tests remains doubtful. Although thalidomide was extensively tested on animals in several countries, its terrible properties were not discovered. Conversely, penicillin, the greatest medical discovery of the century, was not extensively tested on animals before its miraculous therapeutic qualities were demonstrated in human patients. If it had been fully tested on animals its high toxicity for guinea pigs would have almost certainly prevented its clinical use.”

Richard D. Ryder (1940) British psychologist

Experiments on Animals (1971)

Animals, Country

“Gentile’s rationale was neo-Hegelian in origin, the same source out of which Marxism and Marxism-Leninism were to emerge. In fact, Gentile understood Marxism so well that his essay on the thought of the young Marx has not only withstood the test of time, but was, on the occasion of its publication, recommended as particularly insightful by V. I. Lenin.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time, (1999), p. 93

Time

“I could go on, but the point is clear: religions make explicit claims about reality—about what exists and happens in the universe. These claims involve the existence of gods, the number of such gods (polytheism or monotheism), their character and behavior (usually loving and beneficent, but, in the case of Hindu and ancient Greek gods, sometimes mischievous or malevolent), how they interact with the world, whether or not there are souls or life after death, and, above all, how the deities wish us to behave—their moral code.
These are empirical claims, and although some may be hard to test, they must, like all claims about reality, be defended with a combination of evidence and reason. If we find no credible evidence, no good reasons to believe, then those claims should be disregarded, just as most of us ignore claims about ESP, astrology, and alien abduction. After all, beliefs important enough to affect you for eternity surely deserve the closest scrutiny.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 23

Love, Life, Death, God

“Henceforth, there is to be no testing oneself against the best, with the possibility, even the likelihood, of failure: instead, one is perpetually to immerse oneself in the tepid bath of self-esteem, mutual congratulation, and benevolence toward all.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

The Rage of Virginia Woolf http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_3_oh_to_be.html (Summer 2002). City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Failure

“President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob! There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren't taught by some liberal college professor and trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college: he wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

speech at Americans for Prosperity Tea Party event at Troy, Michigan,
referring to President Obama saying, in his first address to Congress in , "Tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be a community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma."
2012-02-25
Rick Santorum: Obama Is ‘A Snob’ For Wanting Everyone To Go To College
James
Crugnale
Mediaite
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rick-santorum-obama-is-a-snob-for-wanting-everyone-to-go-to-college/

Women, Men, Children, People

“In effect, Japan in the Nineties offered a fresh opportunity to test the views of Friedman and Keynes regarding the effectiveness of monetary policy in depression conditions. And the results clearly supported Keynes’s pessimism rather than Friedman’s optimism.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Who Was Milton Friedman?", The New York Review of Books (February 15, 2007)
The New York Review of Books articles

Optimism, Support

“One of the best maxims in determining our course in life is, to select, at the outset, that in which virtue and principle will be least likely to be put to a test, and in which, from the nature of the calling, a man may bring around him such associations and influences as will be an auxiliary in keeping him in the path of virtue.”

Albert Barnes (1798–1870) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 437.

Life, Nature

“I'm sorry, Jeff, I'm a little taken back right now. I mean, this is… this… this is what it comes to? People actually cheering because you haven't failed a drug test in a year? This is not an accomplishment! Maybe it's an accomplishment to you, Jeff, so congratulations. You haven't failed a drug test in three hundred and sixty-five days. You can start writing your Hall of Fame speech right now.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Beginning a lecture criticizing Jeff Hardy on being proud of the fact that he hasn't failed a drug test in over a year, despite the fact that he'd already failed two beforehand and would've been fired if he'd failed a third one. July 17, 2009.
Friday Night SmackDown

People

“Whether we know it or not, we always approach the past with some preconceived ideas, with a rudimentary theory we wish to test. In this as in many other respects the cultural historian does not differ all that much from his predecessor, the traveller to foreign lands. Not the professional traveller who is only interested in one particular errand, be it the exploration of a country’s kinship system or its hydroelectric schemes, but the broad-minded traveller who wants to understand the culture of the country in which he finds himself.”

Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001) art historian

In Search of Cultural History (1969)

Travel, Idea, Understanding, Past

“But we lay people are not less called to the Christian life, in which the critical question is: "Where does the compass-needle of your mind and will point?" This is tested above all by our reactions when it costs or threatens to cost something to be a Christian. One should be glad if it does, rather than complain! If we will not let it cost anything; if we succumb to the threat of "losing our life", then our religion is indistinguishable from pure worldliness.”

G. E. M. Anscombe (1919–2001) British analytic philosopher

Contraception and Chastity (1975)

Life, People, Religion, Question

“Truth does not need argument, agreement, theories or beliefs. There is only one test for it and that is to ask yourself 'Is the statement true or false in my experience?”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

Truth, Falseness

“This implicit denigration of objectivity, and of the way science is done, irritates me immensely. It privileges anecdotes over data, “lived experience” over objective tests, and confirmation bias over uncomfortable truths. But that is the way that many humanities scholars, corrupted by postmodernism, have operated. Denying or denigrating an objective search for truth, they’re free to say whatever they want, or “discover” whatever they find ideologically convenient.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" Feminist geography at Dartmouth https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/04/02/feminist-geography-at-dartmouth/" April 2, 2018

Truth, Way, Search, Science

“Conventional dogmas, even if endowed with the authority of an Aristotle - ancient or modern - must be tested vigorously. If they are found wanting, we need not bother with them. But if they are found to be substantially correct, we may not overlook them.”

Norman Lamm (1927) American rabbi

Seventy faces: articles of faith (2002)

“I’ve always suspected that Judas was the most faithful of the apostles, and that his betrayal of Jesus was not a betrayal at all, simply a test to prove that Christ could not be betrayed. The way I see it, Judas hoped and expected that Christ would have worked some kind of miracle and turned away those soldiers when they came for him. Or perhaps he would not die on the cross. Or perhaps—well, never mind. In any case, Jesus didn’t do any of these things, probably because he was not capable of it. You see, I’ve also always believed that Christ was not the son of God, but just a very very good man, and that he had no supernatural powers at all, just the abilities of any normal human being. When he died, that’s when Judas realized that he had not been testing God at all—he’d been betraying a human being, perhaps the best human being. Judas’s mistake was in wanting too much to believe in the powers of Christ. He wanted Christ to demonstrate to everyone that he was the son of God, and he believed his Christ could do it—only his Christ wasn’t the son of God and couldn’t do it, and he died. You see, it was Christ who betrayed Judas—by promising what he couldn’t deliver. And Judas realized what he had done and hung himself. That’s my interpretation of it, Auberson—not the traditional, I’ll agree, but it has more meaning to me. Judas’s mistake was in believing too hard and not questioning first what he thought were facts. I don’t intend to repeat that mistake.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 37 (p. 216)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

God, Faith, Hope, Way

“Resolution of conflict, easing of stress must come from the penetration into many groups of wide and common interests which, by a process of dilution, will weaken other groups often artificially maintained.
It is of considerable importance, then, to look for large groups of individuals bound together not by temporal ties of tradition or political artificiality, but by tested ties of common interest so world-wide, indeed so universal, as to be recognized by any individual.”

John H. Manley (1907–1990) American physicist, group leader during the Manhattan Project

in Science in Crisis, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Mar 1959, Vol. 15, No. 3 (p. 114), ISSN 0096-3402, published by Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc.

World, Universe

“The true test of all the arts, is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

Discourse no. 13; vol. 2, p. 136.
Discourses on Art

Art, Nature

“I think there is a potential civic culture in Arab countries that can lead to democratic institutions and I think Iraq is probably the best place to put that proposition to the test”

Richard Perle (1941) American government official

Thinking, Country

“Most grown-up people get rid of the childish notion that whatever appears in print is true, but many cling to the equally absurd notion that the printing of a statement does give it some claim to dignity and credence. For the purposes of argumentation, let us here make this point emphatic: The mere fact that a statement appears in print lends not one atom to its value. Every assertion that is brought forward — though it may have been printed a thousand times and repeated a million times — must be challenged and tested before it can be regarded as trustworthy testimony of authority, — before it can be of any value as evidence.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 59; as cited in: Branham (2013, p. 77)

People, Appearance, Time

“Habituation to bargaining and to the competitive principles of business necessarily brings it about that pecuniary standards of efficiency invade (contaminate) the sense of workmanship; so that work, workmen, equipment and products come to be rated on a scale of money values, which has only a circuitous and often only a putative relation to their workmanlike efficiency or their serviceability. Those occupations and those aptitudes that yield good returns in terms of price are reputed valuable and commendable, — the accepted test of success, and even of serviceability, being the gains acquired. Workmanship comes to be confused with salesmanship, until tact, effrontery and prevarication have come to serve as a standard of efficiency, and unearned gain is accepted as the measure of productiveness.”

Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) American academic

Source: The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, 1914, p. 349

Money, Business, Sense, Success

“What, exactly, is the cost of this inaction? Estimates of the total national cost of medical malpractice range from $20 billion to $45 billion annually. But this number hardly tells the whole story. There also is the more hidden cost of defensive medicine, including unnecessary testing and second opinions that send patients scurrying through processes that would not otherwise be ordered and deepen the financial burden of America’s health care system by an estimated three percent of our country’s total health care expenditures. Who ultimately pays these costs? Reckless doctors? Faceless insurance companies? Seldom mentioned, the totality of these expenses ultimately falls exclusively on the consumer, since each malpractice award translates ultimately to increased malpractice insurance premiums, which, in turn, translates to either higher health care costs, fewer physicians (with less competitive pricing pressure), or both.”

Michael Johns (1964) American businessman

"Malpractice: Where Will It End?" Orthopedic Technology Review, September/October 2003, by Michael Johns: Advocating Statutory Constraints on Medical Malpractice

Health, Country

“The Great Books show … that even those thinkers of the past who are now often looked upon as the most reactionary, the medieval theologians, insisted, as Aristotle had before them, that the truth of any statement is its conformity to reality or fact, and that sense experience is required to discover the particular matters of fact that test the truth of general statements about the nature of things.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Truth, Books, Nature, Reality

“You’ve passed the first test of leadership. You’ve disagreed with me.”

Pat Murphy book There and Back Again

Source: There and Back Again (1999), Chapter 3 (p. 66)

“Legislative flexibility on the part of Congress will be the touchstone of federalism when the capacity to support combustion becomes the acid test of a fire extinguisher. Congressional flexibility is desirable, of course - but only within the bounds of federal power established by the Constitution. Beyond those bounds (the theory of our Constitution goes), it is a menace.”

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

College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd., 527 U.S. 666 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=98-149 (1999). 1990s

Support, Parting

“Let them sit in Australia and talk about their pitches. Tell them not to waste their time about Indian tracks. Come and play here. After a 103 Test matches, I deserve a voice and I will have that voice for the betterment of cricket. And there some terrific reactions. For example, Ravi Shastri just said the popular view 'Go back home and worry about your own pitches. Non-Indian commenting on the conditions in India and I reckon probably 80 percent said 'mind your business and go back to Australia and worry about your own country' which is fair enough. But 20 percent of the people that understand the game and have a great passion for the game, a comment like mine whether they like or not is from the base of loving this sport, from the base of loving conditions and also experiencing diverse conditions across the world.”

Matthew Hayden (1971) Australian cricketer

Quoted on Sports.ndtv.com (December 5, 2015), "Matthew Hayden Lashes Out at Ravi Shastri, Says He has Right to Speak on Game's Betterment" http://sports.ndtv.com/india-vs-south-africa-2015-16/news/252607-matthew-hayden-lashes-out-at-ravi-shastri-says-he-has-right-to-speak-on-game-s-betterment

Love, People, World, Home

“The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security — it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible safeguards.”

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

1963, American University speech

War, Effort

“Comrades and friends! for ours is strength
Has brooked the test of woes;
O worse-scarred hearts! these wounds at length
The Gods will heal, like those.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 12

God, Heart

“Scientific advances can wreak havoc with social values. What appears to be advanced thinking at times turns out to be retrograde attempts at dehumanization. Advances in technology can be used to commoditize human beings. Genetic fetal testing, for example, can be used to screen against the "unfit."”

Daniel Alan Vallero (1953) American scientist

Source: D.A. Vallero (2007) "Biomedical Ethics for Engineers: Ethics and Decision Making in Biomedical and Biosystem Engineering" ISBN: 978-0-7506-8227-5.

Thinking, Appearance, Time