Quotes about thought
page 58

“Nothing can be more vulgar or more untrue than the ignorant assertion that the world owes its progress of knowledge of any particular race. The whole world is interdependent and a constant stream of thought has throughout ages enriched the common heritage of mankind. It is the realization of this mutual interdependence that has kept the mighty fabric bound together and ensured the continuity of permanence of civilization.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

In pages=106-97
Science and National Consciousness in Bengal: 1870-1930

Age, World, Knowledge

“Our thinking is becoming much more morose than precise. … Capacity of thought does not keep pace with what is problematic. Hence the self-abdication of critique. … Because everything has become problematic, everything is also somehow a matter of indifference.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. xxxii

Thinking, Indifference

“If the solution is possible, then, it will only be so by the fact that, on the one hand, perfect intelligence or reason is the essence of God, — who therefore determines all things, not by compulsion, but only in his eternal thought, which views all real possibilities whatever; and that, on the other hand, the spirit other than God also has its freedom in self-active intelligence. This granted, the range of its possibilities is precisely the range of reason again, and so is to God perfectly knowable and known, since it harmonises in its whole with the Eternal Thought that grasps all possibilities, though it is not at all predestined 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.327

God, Intelligence, Freedom, Perfection

“Most of the original group [of elephants] succumbed to the climate, and he [Hannibal] was always begging Carthage for more, but the people at home were stingy. They would ask if he thought they were made of elephants and what he had done with the elephants they sent before. Sometimes, when he hadn't an elephant to his name, he would manage to wangle a few from somewhere, a feat which strikes me as his greatest claim to our attention.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

People, Home

“If you ever feel any pride or vanity on account of your sway and rule over your subjects then think of the supreme sway and rule of the Lord over the Universe, the extent of His creations, the supremacy of His Might and Glory, His Power to do things which you cannot even dream of doing and His control over you which is more dominating than that which you can ever achieve over anything around you. Such thoughts will cure your mental weakness, will keep you away from vanity and rebellion (against Allah), will reduce your arrogance and haughtiness and will take you back to the sanity which you had foolishly deserted… Try carefully to realize that a ruler can create goodwill in the minds of his subjects and can make them faithful and sincere to him only when he is kind and considerate to them, when he reduces their troubles, when he does not oppress them and when he never asks for things which are beyond their power. These are the principles which you should keep in mind and act upon.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha, Letter 53: An order to Malik Al-Ashtar

Faith, Dreams, Feeling, Thinking

“I have become post facto a representative of the country. So if you ask, "Is Mermaids a Canadian film?" — it has become one. It has become a means whereby people characterize Canadian film. I think in the creation of Mermaids, I did see it in political terms. I thought of the underdog. Canada is not a superpower by any means. It's very quietly, comfortably democratic, but it's plagued by a sense of inferiority.”

Patricia Rozema (1958) Canadian film director

As quoted in "Patricia Rozema : I've Heard the Mermaids Singing" (1997) in Film Fatales : Independent Women Directors by Victoria A. Brownworth, and Judith M. Redding, p. 208

People, Thinking, Sense, Country

“Adding a column of figures is a repetitive thought process, and it was long ago properly relegated to the machine. True, the machine is sometimes controlled by the keyboard, and thought of a sort enters in reading the figures and poking the corresponding keys, but even this is avoidable.”

Vannevar Bush book As We May Think

As We May Think (1945)

Reading

“I was passing the doorman of the Biltmore, and I hated him at once, with his yellow braids and six feet of height and all that dignity, and now a black automobile drove to the curb, and a man got out. He looked rich; and then a woman got out, and she was beautiful, her fur was silver fox, and she was a song across the sidewalk and inside the swinging doors, and I thought oh boy for a little of that, just a day and a night of that, and she was a dream as I walked along, her perfume still in the set morning air.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Hate, Beauty, Dreams, Boy

“It is rather a pity, considered from the standpoint of the professional politician or opinion-taker, that nobody knows exactly what "credibility" is, or how one acquires it. "Credibility" doesn't stand for anything morally straightforward, like meaning what you say or saying what you mean. Nor does it signify anything remotely quantifiable — any correlation between evidence presented and case made. Suggestively, perhaps, it entered the language as a consensus euphemism during the Vietnam War, when "concerned" members of the Eastern Establishment spoke of a "credibility gap" rather than give awful utterance to the thought that the Johnson administration was systematically lying. To restore its "credibility," that administration was urged — not to stop lying, but to improve its public presentation. At some stage in the lesson learned from that injunction, the era of postmodern politics began. It doesn't seem ridiculous now to have "approval ratings" that fluctuate from week to week, because these are based upon the all-important "perception" factor, which has in turn quite lost its own relationship to the word "perceptive."”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"Credibility Politics: Sado-Monetarist Economics" (1989).
1990s, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)

War, Lying, Learning

“And our responsibility is to exercise dominion which means to declare where sovereignty resides and to declare God's sovereign world; the word of dominion, to every area of life and thought. And we are promised that when we go forth in terms of that word the commission tells us, the commission to Joshua, which our Lord summarizes then later, that if we go in the power of this word and faithfulness to it wherever the soul of your feet shall tread that shall be your ground. Let's plant our feet on the face of all the earth and claim it for Jesus Christ.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Dominion (n. d.)

Life, God, World, Faith

“When you sit at home comfortably folded up in a chair beside a fire, have you ever thought what goes on outside there? Probably not. You pick up a book and read about things and stuff, getting a vicarious kick from people and events that never happened. You're doing it now, getting ready to fill in a normal life with the details of someone else's experiences. Fun, isn't it? You read about life on the outside thinking about how maybe you'd like it to happen to you, or at least how you'd like to watch it. Even the old Romans did it, spiced their life with action when they sat in the Coliseum and watched wild animals rip a bunch of humans apart, reveling in the sight of blood and terror. They screamed for joy and slapped each other on the back when murderous claws tore into the live flesh of slaves and cheered when the kill was made. Oh, it's great to watch, all right. Life through a keyhole. But day after day goes by and nothing like that ever happens to you so you think that it's all in books and not in reality at all and that's that. Still good reading, though. Tomorrow night you'll find another book, forgetting what was in the last and live some more in your imagination. But remember this: there are things happening out there. They go on every day and night making Roman holidays look like school picnics. They go on right under your very nose and you never know about them. Oh yes, you can find them all right. All you have to do is look for them. But I wouldn't if I were you because you won't like what you'll find. Then again, I'm not you and looking for those things is my job. They aren't nice things to see because they show people up for what they are. There isn't a coliseum any more, but the city is a bigger bowl, and it seats more people. The razor-sharp claws aren't those of wild animals but man's can be just as sharp and twice as vicious. You have to be quick, and you have to be able, or you become one of the devoured, and if you can kill first, no matter how and no matter who, you can live and return to the comfortable chair and the comfortable fire. But you have to be quick. And able. Or you'll be dead.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

My Gun is Quick (1950)

Life, People, Books, School

“Bud (McDougald) was a true Darwinist, so in his view, when he died--to the winner should go the spoils. It was a free-for-all. A lot of people, Nelson Davis for one, used to ask me what Bud would have thought of the somewhat unseemly scramble that went on after he died. I suspect it would have flattered him. Had he wanted an orderly succession, he would have organized one. He certainly told Monte and me that he wanted us to take over--but he told a few other people the same thing. Bud was very skillful at presenting the carrot and making sure it wasn't within anyone's grasp.”

Conrad Black (1944) Canadian-born newspaper publisher

on the ill-planned succession at Argus Corporation in 1978
The Establishment Man by Peter Newman

People, Success

“God is sitting here, looking into my very soul to see if I think right thoughts. Yet I am not afraid, for I try to be right and good; and He knows every one of my struggles.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=EsovAQAAMAAJ&q=%22God+is+sitting+here+looking+into+my+very+soul+to+see+if+I+think+right+thoughts+Yet+I+am+not+afraid+for+I+try+to+be+right+and%22&pg=PA39#v=onepage to Abiah Root http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/abiah_root (29 January 1850)

God, Soul, Thinking

“I was asking the school shrink, 'Has anyone ever told you the top of your head looks like a penis?' I thought that was a really funny thing to tell a bald shrink.”

Art Spiegelman (1948) cartoonist from the United States

As quoted in "Breakfast with the FT: Art Spiegelman 'Drawn from Memory'" in Financial Times (29 November 2008).

School

“And I think, dear friends, if we carried with us more distinctly than we do that one simple thought that in all human joys, in all the apparently self-forgetting tenderness, of that Lord, who had a heart for every sorrow, and an ear for every complaint, and a hand open as day and full of melting charity for every need — that in every moment of that life in the boyhood, in the dawning manhood, in the maturity of His growing power — there was always present one black shadow, toward which He ever went straight with the consent of His will and the clearest eye, we should understand something more of how the life as well as the death was a sacrifice for us sinful men.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 68.

Life, Death, Men, Understanding

“It actually went like this: we were at school and Ben said he didn’t like Nirvana so much. Then one of our friends said: You should listen to Sliver. So he wanted to request Sliver for himself on the radio. And I wanted to request a song of an Australian group(You Am I), Berlin Chair. We told Chris to write Sliver Chair, but he wrote it as Silver Chair. Then we thought: That’s a good name. That’s how it went.”

Daniel Johns (1979) Australian musician

On the name 'Silverchair', Press interview, April 1996
Interviews

School

“And now, at half-past ten o'clock, I hear the cockerels crow in Hubbard's barns, and morning is already anticipated. It is the feathered, wakeful thought in us that anticipates the following day.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

July 11, 1851
Journals (1838-1859)

Past

“Take Mitchel here -- no -- on second thoughts -- don't -- because he's a crude little bugger.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Albert
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

“Thought is something limitless and independent, and has been mixed with no thing but is alone by itself. … What was mingled with it would have prevented it from having power over anything in the way in which it does. … For it is the finest of all things and the purest.”

Anaxagoras (-500–-428 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

Frag. B12, in Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (1984), p. 190.

Way

“People say, Well, he wore that body out. Well, maybe I did. But it was to a good purpose. They should be thankful that I wore it out to the purpose I wore it out and that was writing and recording and touring and doing concerts. Everywhere I could possibly do them that I thought I might enjoy them. I thought people might enjoy me.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

CNN interview (2002)

People

“If until now colour and form were used as inner agents, it was mainly done subconsciously. The subordination of composition to geometrical form is no new idea (cf. the art of the Persians). Construction on a purely spiritual basis is a slow business, and at first seemingly blind and unmethodical. The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul, so that it can weigh colours in its own scale and thus become a determinant in artistic creation. If we begin at once to break the bonds that bind us to nature and to devote ourselves purely to combination of pure colour and independent form, we shall produce works that are mere geometric decoration, resembling something like a necktie or a carpet. Beauty of form and colour is no sufficient aim by itself, despite the assertions of pure aesthetes or even of naturalists obsessed with the idea of "beauty". It is because our painting is still at an elementary stage that we are so little able to be moved by wholly autonomous colour and form composition. The nerve vibrations are there (as we feel when confronted by applied art), but they get no farther than the nerves because the corresponding vibrations of the spirit which they call forth are weak. When we remember however, that spiritual experience is quickening, that positive science, the firmest basis of human thought is tottering, that dissolution of matter is imminent, we have reason to hope that the hour of pure composition is not far away. The first stage has arrived.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote from Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Wassily Kandinsky, Munich, 1912; as cited in Kandinsky, Frank Whitford, Paul Hamlyn Ltd, London 1967, p. 15
1910 - 1915

Beauty, Hope, Art, Feeling

“This test thought out and proposed by Professor Ebbinghaus of Berlin, varies in significance according to its mode of use. It consists essentially in this: a word of a text is omitted and the subject is asked to replace it. The nature of the intellectual work by which the gap is filled, varies according to the case. This may be a test of memory, a test of style, or a test of judgment. In the sentence: ‘Louis IX was born in ——‘ the gap is filled by memory. ‘The crow —– his feathers with his beak’; in this the idea of the suppressed word is not at all obscure, and the task consists in finding the proper word. We may say in passing, that according to the opinion of several teachers before whom we have tried it, this kind of exercise furnishes excellent scholastic training. Lastly, in sentences of the nature of those we have chosen, the filling of the gaps requires an attentive examination and an appreciation of the facts set forth by the sentence. It is therefore an exercise of judgment.”

Alfred Binet (1857–1911) French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test

Source: The development of intelligence in children, 1916, p. 64

Exercises, Idea, Nature, Teachers

“So I had to face the fact that I was blessed with abilities that were considered symptoms of emotional abnormality or mental derangement by psychology, often thought of as demonic by religion, and whose very existence was denied altogether by science. So in my darker moments I used to think that my psychic initiation and subsequent experiences were a mixed bag, to say the least. But the fact is that I was very sensitive to criticism for the very good reason that often I shared many of the beliefs that stimulated it.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 48

Religion, Thinking, Science

“I have made the complete return [from imagination] to nature, and nature is, as we all know, primarily an intellectual idea. I am satisfied that painting also is like nature, an intellectual idea, and that the laws of nature as presented to the mind through the eye and the eye is the painter's first and last vehicle are the means of transport to the real mode of thought: the only legitimate source of aesthetic experience for the intelligent painter.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

n.p.
1921 - 1930, Art and the Personal Life', Marsden Hartley, 1928

Law, Imagination, Intelligence, Idea

“He did understand. Finally, fatally, he did. He had thought he was the master of history, that his fractal world-tree had grown according to his will. He had allowed himself to be deceived.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

(XI.6) Del Rey, p. 404
Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

World, History, Understanding, Tree

“Human beings are emotional amoral egoists, driven above all by emotional self-interest. All of our thoughts, beliefs and motivations are neurochemically mediated, some predetermined for survival, others alterable.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Source: Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man (2009), p.27

Motivation

“If we like them, they’re freedom fighters, she thought. If we don’t like them, they’re terrorists. In the unlikely case we can’t make up our minds, they’re temporarily only guerrillas.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 3 (p. 55)

Freedom

“… whenever I have met with our elected officials they are invariably thoughtful, well-meaning people. And yet collectively 90% of their effort seems to be focused on how to stick it to the other party.”

Sergey Brin (1973) President of Alphabet Inc.

Hall, Kevin (November 6, 2012). " Google's Sergey Brin calls on U.S. politicians to ditch their parties http://dvice.com/archives/2012/11/googles-sergey.php". Dvice.com (Syfy). Retrieved 2012-11-12.

People, Effort

“How many gay people have not had children as a result of coming out of the closet and being gay? Millions, isn't that correct? Some of our most talented, wonderful, intelligent people, because of the openness of modern American society going back for now 40 years, have opted out of being hidden or closeted. In the old days, if a person was gay, or felt an attraction to the same sex, they probably would have gotten married to hide it. And they probably would've had a family, producing children. But because of this 'let it all hang out,' 'if you feel gay, act gay,' 'if it feels good, do it,' they've opted not to have children. And as a result, number one, society has lost millions of remarkable children. That's one point that is almost irrefutable. And for years I have thought about this. Why is society devolving so rapidly? One of the reasons is some of our most talented intelligent people have not had children. That's one point. And then there's another point I wanna make, and this is more important… I kept asking myself, why are gay people liberal? Why are most of them so liberal? Why is society unraveling on so many other levels, putting aside the issue of sexuality. And one of the reasons is because some of our most intelligent…passionate people happen to be gay. And while in the past they would've taken on other causes that are so critical for the betterment of society, they've been single-focused only on gay issues. And as a result society has again devolved, because the gay movement has sucked so many people into a single issue. They've ignored all the other important issues of our society, which is why we're collapsing. Why would a gay person want open borders? Why would a gay person want unlimited welfare? Why would a gay person want to be tolerant for Islamists coming into America? Because they're not focused on any of it. Their community has focused them only on one issue. And as a result the entire society has lost out. … And therefore I would say to you that a traditional society has offered us protections, both obvious and not so obvious, that we may not be aware of, and that openness is not necessarily for the betterment of the people or for society.”

Michael Savage book The Savage Nation

The Savage Nation The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2015-04-29 Radio (Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFNm7C_uJpI&feature=youtu.be&t=40m27s) 2015

Children, People, Family, Sex

“These Africans being primitive, uncomplex, uncultured, can express their thought by a direct appeal tot he instinct. Their carvings are informed with emotions. So Nature gives me the material with which to construct a world of my own, governed, not by literal limitations, but by instinct and sentiment.”

André Derain (1880–1954) French painter and engraver

Source: The Wild Men of Paris', 1910, p. 407

World, Nature

“If physics is too difficult for the physicists, the nonphysicist may wonder whether he should try at all to grasp its complexities and ambiguities. It is undeniably an effort, but probably one worth making, for the basic questions are important and the new experimental results are often fascinating. And if the layman runs into serious perplexities, he can be consoled with the thought that the points which baffle him are more than likely the ones for which the professionals have not found satisfactory answers.”

Edward Condon (1902–1974) physicist

Physics, in What is Science?: Twelve Eminent Scientists and Philosophers Explain Their Various Fields to the Layman, by James Roy Newman, published by Simon and Schuster (1955), p. 102

Question, Effort

“A novelist's lack of awareness of and critical distance to his own body of work is due to a phenomenon that I have noticed in myself and many others: as soon as it is written, every new book erases the last one, leaving me with the impression that I have forgotten it. I thought I was writing books one after the other in a disjointed way, in successive bouts of oblivion, but often the same faces, the same names, the same places, the same phrases keep coming back in book after book, like patterns on a tapestry woven while half asleep. While half asleep or while daydreaming. A novelist is often a sleepwalker, so steeped is he in what he must write, and it is natural to worry when he crosses the road in case he is run over. Do not forget, though, the extreme precision of sleepwalkers who walk over roofs without ever falling off.”

Patrick Modiano (1945) French writer

From Nobel Lecture (2014)

Books, Way, Nature, Success

“What is a well-chosen collection of pictures, but walls hung round with thoughts?”

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

Quoted in The Examiner (1825) p. 633.
Other

“I will be even briefer than Fabian, I thought I would creep in the back and I don’t have to say anything but what I would like to say and I came in when Eddy was 10 speaking and that was because we had a very constructive meeting with the High Commissioner yesterday and we made some decisions which is always good. Where I disagree sometimes with the Greek Cypriots is that I wanted to vote for Turkey never to be in the European Union! I have no interest in Turkey being in the EU until all, a whole host of problems are resolved and it is of course the Cyprus problem for me first on the agenda, but it is the Kurdish problem, its the military backing barracks, and all the rest of that, you know there are no human rights and many human rights violations in Turkey. So whether it takes 20 years or longer that makes me think that Turkey is using Cyprus as a lever to get as much out of it as is possible and of course the longer it takes for them not to be a member the longer that lever takes and the longer we will have 200,000 or 300,000 Turks settled in Cyprus and that becomes a very much bigger problem than it is now already and I think that I have said that at three or four meetings before rather than us talking about the problem of Cyprus which makes that it becomes a problem for the Republic as it is worldwide known we ought to talk about the problem of Turkey, it is really a 100% Turkish problem that they're not acting in the way in which they should be acting and if that’s the case well shove it to them! And I saw about 50 Turkish … [(A Turkish Cypriot member of the audience accused him saying "You are racist!" and returns his comments…. Many interruptions and heckling from the audience, some Greek Cypriots shouted for the Turkish Cypriot to get out if he didn’t like what he was hearing and three or four police officers arrived in the room.)] Well, it has certainly allocated my speech time and I would only say to the gentleman that we have nothing against honest straightforward Turkish Cypriots but Turkey is using the occupied territory to settle Turkish people they don’t necessarily want in Turkey, many are unemployed, that is not racism, that is a set of true facts and I don’t know whether you are a Turkish Cypriot or a Turkish person I have no disrespect for anybody in the world, but I have deep disrespect for the Turkish Government and the Turkish military and that is my last word on that!”

Rudi Vis (1941–2010) British politician

[At the Friends of Cyprus meeting in the Jubilee Room at the House of Commons, 3rd July 2007] (see External links for transcript)

People, World, Way, Problem

“But now in this Valley of Humiliation poor Christian was hard put to it, for he had gone but a little way before he espied a foul Fiend coming over the field to meet him; his name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back, or to stand his ground. But he considered again, that he had no Armor for his back, and therefore thought that to turn the back to him might give him greater advantage with ease to pierce him with his Darts; therefore he resolved to venture, and stand his ground. For thought he, had I no more in mine eye than the saving of my life, 'twould be the best way to stand.
So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now the Monster was hideous to behold, he was cloathed with scales like a Fish (and they are his pride) he had Wings like a Dragon, feet like a Bear, and out of his belly came Fire and Smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a Lion. When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to question with him.
Apollyon: Whence come you, and whither are you bound?
Christian: I am come from the City of Destruction, which is the place of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion.
Apollyon: By this I perceive thou art one of my Subjects, for all that Country is mine; and I am the Prince and God of it. How is it then that thou hast run away from thy King? Were it not that I hope thou mayest do me more service, I would strike thee now at one blow to the ground.
Christian: I was born indeed in your Dominions, but your service was hard, and your wages such as a man could not live on, for the wages of Sin is death; therefore when I was come to years, I did as other considerate persons do, look out if perhaps I might mend my self.
Apollyon: There is no Prince that will thus lightly lose his Subjects, neither will I as yet lose thee. But since thou complainest of thy service and wages be content to go back; what our Country will afford, I do here promise to give thee.
Christian: But I have let myself to another, even to the King of Princes, and how can I with fairness go back with thee?
Apollyon: Thou hast done in this, according to the Proverb, Changed a bad for a worse: but it is ordinary for those that have professed themselves his Servants, after a while to give him the slip, and return again to me: do thou so to, and all shall be well.
Christian: I have given him my faith, and sworn my Allegiance to him; how then can I go back from this, and not be hanged as a Traitor?
Apollyon: Thou didst the same to me, and yet I am willing to pass by all, if now thou wilt yet turn again, and go back.
Christian: What I promised thee was in my nonage; and besides, I count that the Prince under whose Banner now I stand, is able to absolve me; yea, and to pardon also what I did as to my compliance with thee: and besides, (O thou destroying Apollyon) to speak truth, I like his Service, his Wages, his Servants, his Government, his Company, and Country better than thine: and, therefore, leave off to perswade me further, I am his Servant, and I will follow him.
Apollyon: Consider again when thou art in cool blood, what thou art like to meet with in the way that thou goest. Thou knowest that for the most part, his Servants come to an ill end, because they are transgressors against me, and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful deaths! and besides, thou countest his service better than mine, whereas he never came yet from the place where he is, to deliver any that served him out of our hands; but as for me, how many times, as all the World very well knows, have I delivered, either by power or fraud, those that have faithfully served me, from him and his, though taken by them, and so I will deliver thee.
Christian: His forbearing at present to deliver them, is on purpose to try their love, whether they will cleave to him to the end: and as for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most glorious in their account. For for present deliverance, they do not much expect it; for they stay for their Glory, and then they shall have it, when their Prince comes in his, and the Glory of the Angels.
Apollyon: Thou hast already been unfaithful in thy service to him, and how doest thou think to receive wages of him?
Christian: Wherein, O Apollyon, have I been unfaithful to him?
Apollyon: Thou didst faint at first setting out, when thou wast almost choked in the Gulf of Dispond; thou didst attempt wrong ways to be rid of thy burden, whereas thou shouldest have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off: thou didst sinfully sleep and lose thy choice thing: thou wast also almost perswaded to go back, at the sight of the Lions; and when thou talkest of thy Journey, and of what thou hast heard, and seen, thou art inwardly desirous of vain-glory in all that thou sayest or doest.
Christian:All this is true, and much more, which thou hast left out; but the Prince whom I serve and honour, is merciful, and ready to forgive: but besides, these infirmities possessed me in thy Country, for there I suckt them in, and I have groaned under them, been sorry for them, and have obtained pardon of my Prince.
Apollyon: Then Apollyon broke out into a grievous rage, saying, I am an enemy to this Prince: I hate his Person, his Laws, and People: I am come out on purpose to withstand thee.
Christian: Apollyon beware what you do, for I am in the King's Highway, the way of Holiness, therefore take heed to your self.
Apollyon: Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter, prepare thy self to die, for I swear by my Infernal Den, that thou shalt go no further, here will I spill thy soul; and with that, he threw a flaming Dart at his breast, but Christian had a Shield in his hand, with which he caught it, and so prevented the danger of that. Then did Christian draw, for he saw 'twas time to bestir him; and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing Darts as thick as Hail; by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand and foot; this made Christian give a little back: Apollyon therefore followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent. For you must know that Christian by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker.
Then Apollyon espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and with that, Christian's Sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now, and with that, he had almost prest him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life. But as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good Man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his Sword, and caught it, saying, Rejoice not against me, O mine Enemy! when I fall, I shall arise; and with that, gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound: Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, Nay, in all these things we are more than Conquerors, through him that loved us. And with that, Apollyon spread forth his Dragon's wings, and sped him away, that Christian saw him no more….”

John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress

Source: The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Part I, Ch. IX : Apollyon

Love, Life, Death, God

“As we look up into these glorious culminations, how grand life becomes! To be forever with the Lord, and forever changing into His likeness, and, still more, forever deepening in the companionship of His thought and bliss, "from glory to glory,"”

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop

could we desire more?
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 308.

Life, Change

“I never entertained the dreadful thought that my face was anything other than good and fair until, in an act of revelation, I picked up a mirror.”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Ni thybiais, ddewwrdrais ddirdra,
Na bai deg f'wyneb a da,
Oni theimlais, waith amlwg,
Y drych.
"Y Drych" (The Mirror), line 1; translation from Carl Lofmark Bards and Heroes (Felinfach: Llanerch, 1989) p. 96.

“Neoconservatives believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support. …"[W]ar" is the wrong metaphor for the broader struggle, since wars are fought at full intensity and have clear beginnings and endings. Meeting the jihadist challenge is more of a "long, twilight struggle" whose core is not a military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world.”

Francis Fukuyama (1952) American political scientist, political economist, and author

From the essay "After Neoconservatism" http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/magazine/neo.html in the New York Times Magazine, February 19, 2006. 2000s

War, World, History, Support

“One of my grandfathers was a blacksmith, and all the plumbers and carpenters and electricians, people who did things with their hands, thought of themselves as artists because they were good at doing things. They were proud of their making things.”

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) American artist

Kenneth Noland, p. 9
Conversation with Karen Wilkin' (1986-1988)

People

“[A]ll our symbols have the same purpose; words are merely the symbols we use most commonly. The function of words in human thought is to stand for things which are not present to the senses, and allow the mind to manipulate them—things, concepts, ideas, everything that does not have a physical reality in front of us now.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Imaginative Mind in Art" (1978)

Idea, Reality, Sense

“[From Minna after stabbing Pauline von Lindorf to death]: Yes, I have killed her at last. They thought I did not know her, but I did. She took away my father's heart from me, and would have taken away my husband’s; but I have killed her at last.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Death, Heart

“I find that I have great faith in human nature. I believe that people are good. I believe they are to be trusted. So far as I know, no one has ever betrayed my faith, in any way. If they ever have, I've been spared the knowledge of it.
If I couldn't have faith in human nature, I wouldn't want to live. It is the one thing that could destroy for me the joy of living.
I've come to believe that life, under almost any conditions, is worth while.
I found that out when I had my accident some years ago, and was in the hospital.
I thought, for a couple of weeks, that I would be blind for life. I thought I would surely be so disabled that I would never be able to work again. I didn't suppose that I would have one five-hundredth of what I have now. Still I thought, 'Life is worth while. Just to be alive. I still think so.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

"Discoveries About Myself". Motion Picture, October 1930, pg. 90. (Brewster Publications). https://archive.org/stream/motionpicture1923040chic#page/n595/mode/2up

Life, People, Faith, Way

“No kid really wants a cool parent. "Cool" parents, when I was a kid, meant parents who let you smoke weed in the house – or allowed boyfriends to sleep over with their daughters. That would make Sarah Palin “cool.” But, as I remember, we thought those parents were kind of creepy. They were useful, sure, but what was wrong with them that they found us so entertaining? Didn’t they have their own friends?”

Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018) Chef and food writer

Medium Raw (2010)

Parent, Sleep, Housing, Daughters

“In the morning we saw that the sea was rough, and people said there would be trouble.... Fifty men volunteered to go at once, and followed the old sailor without a word. We descended the cliffs to the beach, and there we saw a terrible sight : several vessels rushing, one after the other, at fearful speed, upon our rocks. Our men put three boats out to sea, but before they had rowed ten strokes one boat sank, another was upset by a huge breaker, while a third was thrown upon the beach.... The sea threw up hundreds of corpses, as well as quantities of cargo... Then came a fourth, fifth and sixth vessel, all of which were lost with their crew and cargo alike, upon the rocks. The tempest was furious... The next morning.... As I was passing by a hollow in the cliff, I saw a large sail spread, as I thought, over a bale of merchandise. I lifted the sail and saw a heap of corpses. I was so frightened that I ran home, and found my mother and grandmother on their knees, praying for the shipwrecked sailors.”

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) French painter

Quote c. 1870; cited by Julia Cartwright in Jean Francois Millet, his Life and Letters, Swan Sonnenschein en Co, Lim. London / The Macmillian Company, New York; second edition, September 1902, p. 22
taken from Millet's youth-memories, about the years he lived as an boy close to the wild coast of Normandy, written down on request of his friend and later biographer Alfred Sensier
1870 - 1875

Men, People, Fear, Home

“A seed is small in size. But it carries in its womb leaves, flowers, fruits, nay even the whole tree. The human brain is very much like a seed. It may not have a great shape and size. But it traps within itself endless possibilities. It is a fountainhead of thoughts and promises that can be fulfilled.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Source: Soul Curry for You and Me: An Empowering Philosophy that Can Enrich Your Life, P. 113.

Flowers, Tree

“The synthetic mode of thought, when applied to systems problems, is called the systems approach. In this approach a problem is not solved by taking it apart but by viewing it as a part of a larger problem.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Source: 1970s, Redesigning the future, 1974, p. 14.

Problem, Parting

“.. in an review of the exhibition in Arti, [in Amsterdam] you say that most of my submissions are not meant as a study. I don't know what you mean by study. I understand a study as a work I am painting directly after nature, with the aim hold on the casual tone, color and line. All of mine that is presented there, is immediately felt in nature and not one of the sketches is done by heart after received impressions for any paintings. I thought I had to tell you this, because then you might get a different view of it - whether you think they are more worthy or not because of this, I don't want to judge.... yours GH Breitner”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

Mejufvrouw In een stukje over de Tent. in Arti zegt u dat het meerendeel van mijn inzending niet als studie bedoeld zijn. Ik weet niet wat u onder studie verstaat. Ik versta daar onder wat men direct naar de natuur schilderd om de toevallige toon kleur en lijn vast te houden. Na alles wat er van mij is. is dadelijk naar de natuur ervaren en zijn geen van allen [1:2] schetsen uit het hoofd gedaan na ontvangen indrukken voor eventuelen schilderijen. Ik meende u dat te moeten zeggen omdat u er dan misschien een anderen kijk op krijgt of u vind dat ze daarom verdienstelijker zijn of niet wil ik niet beoordeelen.. ..Hoogachtend uw GH Breitner quote of Breitner in a letter to art-critic Grada Hermina Marius, 22 Feb. 1908; original text in RKD-Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/951 1900 - 1923

Color, Understanding, Nature, Thinking

“As soon as a real artist finds out what art is, the more is he likely to feel the need of keeping silent about it, and about himself in connection with it. There is almost, these days, a kind of petit scandale in the thought of allying oneself with anything of a professional nature. And it is at this point that I shrink a little from asserting myself with regard to professional aspects of art. And here the quality of confession must break through.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

n.p.
1921 - 1930, Art and the Personal Life', Marsden Hartley, 1928

Art, Feeling, Nature

“Yes, this is Diane calling from the hospital. I just called to tell you that your ex-girlfriend Mia was killed today. She was helping retards and one of them exploded.” And i thought that was so hysterical. and then he calls me up later and is like, “do you think this is true?” “yes, craig. exploding retards is a huge epidemic in our country.”

Kyle Cease (1977) American actor

citation needed

Thinking, Help, Country

“For too long, African societies have been identified as superstitious, consisting of people who cannot question, reason or think critically. Dogma and blind faith in superstition, divinity and tradition are said to be the mainstay of popular thought and culture. African science is often equated with witchcraft and the occult; African philosophy with magical thinking, myth-making and mysticism, African religion with stone-age spiritual abracadabra, African medicine with folk therapies often involving pseudoscientific concoctions inspired by magical thinking. Science, critical thinking and technological intelligence are portrayed as Western — as opposed to universal — values, and as alien to Africa and to the African mindset. An African who thinks critically or seeks evidence and demands proofs for extraordinary claims is accused of taking a “white” or Western approach. An African questioning local superstitions and traditions is portrayed as having abandoned or betrayed the essence of African identity. Skepticism and rationalism are regarded as Western, un-African, philosophies. Although there is a risk of overgeneralizing, there are clear indicators that the continent is still socially, politically and culturally trapped by undue credulity. Many irrational beliefs exist and hold sway across the region. These are beliefs informed by fear and ignorance, misrepresentations of nature and how nature works. These misconceptions are often instrumental in causing many absurd incidents, harmful traditional practices and atrocious acts.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

A Manifesto for a Skeptical Africa (2012)

People, Age, Fear, Faith

“Mr. Pritchard was a businessman, president of a medium-sized corporation. He was never alone. His business was conducted by groups of men like himself who joined together in clubs so that no foreign element or idea could enter. His religious life was again his lodge and his church, both of which were screened and protected. One night a week he played poker with men so exactly like himself that the game was fairly even, and from this fact his group was convinced that they were very fine poker players. Wherever he went he was not one man but a unit in a corporation, a unit in a club, in a lodge, in a church, in a political party. His thoughts and ideas were never subjected to criticism since he willingly associated only with people like himself. He read a newspaper written by and for his group. The books that came into his house were chosen by a committee which deleted material that might irritate him. He hated foreign countries and foreigners because it was difficult to find his counterpart in them. He did not want to stand out from his group. He would like to have risen to the top of it and be admired by it; but it would not occur to him to leave it. At occasional stags where naked girls danced on the tables and sat in great glasses of wine, Mr. Pritchard howled with laughter and drank the wine, but five hundred Mr. Pritchards were there with him.”

John Steinbeck book The Wayward Bus

Source: The Wayward Bus (1947), Ch. 3

Life, Men, Hate, People

“To write for others,’ she thought, ‘it seems one must be a spy—or a teller of tales.”

Samuel R. Delany book Neveryóna

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 11, “Of Family Gatherings, Grammatology, More Models, and More Mysteries” (p. 313)

“"Racism" is to the current era what "unAmericanism" was to the Fifties: a curse word that provides a handy substitute for logical thought.”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

Banned by Free Republic? https://archive.is/20120529012553/vdare.com/sailer/Free_Republic.htm

“My first thought was that a man who had come through a collision and rubbed shoulders with death merited more attention than I received.”

Jack London book The Sea-Wolf

Source: The Sea-Wolf (1904), Chapter Two

Death

“I thought Congress had taken their ground firmly for continuing their embargo till June, and then war. But a sudden and unaccountable revolution of opinion took place the last week, chiefly among the New England and New York members, and in a kind of panic they voted the 4th of March for removing the embargo, and by such a majority as gave all reason to believe they would not agree either to war or non-intercourse. This, too, was after we had become satisfied that the Essex Junto had found their expectation desperate, of inducing the people there either to separation or forcible opposition. The majority of Congress, however, has now rallied to the removing the embargo on the 4th March, non-intercourse with France and Great Britain, trade everywhere else, and continuing war preparations. The further details are not yet settled, but I believe it is perfectly certain that the embargo will be taken off the 4th of March.”

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

Letter to his son-in-law Thomas Mann Randolph (7 February 1809) on the termination of the American embargo.
1800s, Second Presidential Administration (1805-1809)

War, People

“For a long time I thought I knew for sure who I was. I grew up in New Orleans and became a comedian. And there was everything that came along with that. The nightclubs. The smoking. The drinking. Then I turned 13.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

"What Ellen DeGeneres Knows for Sure (She Thinks)" http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/What-Ellen-DeGeneres-Knows-for-Sure-Ellens-O-Magazine-Cover, The December 2009 issue of O magazine

Drink, Time

“The work itself, whether thought of as image of idea, as revelation, or as a manifest of meaning, could not have existed without a profound concern to achieve a purpose beyond vanity, ambition or remembrance, for a man’s term of life. Yet, while one looks at his works, a warning should be given, lest one forget, among the multitude of issues, the relation I bear to those with 'eyes'. Although the reference is in a different context and for another purpose, a metaphor is pertinent as William Blake set it down: THE Vision of Christ that thou dost see – Is my Vision’s Greatest Enemy: - Thine is the friend of All Mankind, - Mine speaks in parables to the Blind: 'Therefore, let no man under-value the implications of this work or its power for life; - or for death, if it is misused'.”

Clyfford Still (1904–1980) American artist

Letter to Gordon Smith, January 1, 1959, as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 196
1950s

Life, Death, Idea, Christ

“India had entertained throughout its history a world vision. Our sages and seers had thought in terms of the happiness of the whole of humanity. And Jawaharlal Nehru had designed a foreign policy for India with a world outlook. We have a role to play in the world and a message to give to the world. We can do that effectively only if we are united and strong and in peace and friendship with our neighbours.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Source: "Speech By Shri Kocheril Raman Narayanan On His Assumption Of Office As President Of India"

Friendship, Happiness, World, Peace

“I first saw Wittgenstein in the Michaelmas term of 1938, my first term at Cambridge. At a meeting of the Moral Science Club, after the paper for the evening was read and the discussion started, someone began to stammer a remark. He had extreme difficulty in expressing himself and his words were unintelligible to me. I whispered to my neighbour, ‘Who is that?’: he replied, ‘Wittgenstein.’ I was astonished, because, for one reason I had expected the famous author of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to be an elderly man, whereas this man looked young—perhaps about 35. (His actual age was 49.) His face was lean and brown, his profile was aquiline and strikingly beautiful, his head was covered with a curly mass of brown hair. I observed the respectful attention that everyone in the room paid to him. After his unsuccessful beginning he did not speak for a time but was obviously struggling with his thoughts. His look was concentrated, he made striking gestures with his hands as if he were discoursing. All the others maintained an intent and expectant silence. I witnessed this phenomenon count less times thereafter and came to regard it as entirely natural.”

Norman Malcolm (1911–1990) American philosopher

Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, 1958

Age, Beauty, Nature, Silence

“I've read The Satanic Verses and I thought it a nasty, sneering, free-thinking book… I can understand why the book is offensive and it didn't seem to me to be anything but offensive when I read it.”

Maurice Cowling (1926–2005) historian

Interviewed in Naim Attallah, Singular Encounters (Quartet Books, 1990), p. 142.

Books, Understanding, Thinking, Reading

“As long as I was in Washington I never met anybody that I thought was good enough, who knew enough, or who loved enough to make sexual decisions for anybody else.”

Joycelyn Elders (1933) American pediatrician, public health administrator, and former Surgeon General of the United States

Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, "Abstinence" http://www.sho.com/site/video/player.do?video=/134/2006/abstinence&seriesid=134 [4.10], 5 June 2006

Love, Decision

“And I came [to New York, 1945]... It was just after the war and I thought it was a little early to get over there [to Europe]. So I spent the winter under the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Brooklyn side, living with Barney Rosset, and I came here [to New York] to study with Hofmann... And I went to Hofmann's class and I couldn't understand a word he said so I left, terrified. But he and I became friends later on. Friends, but I never studied with him..”

Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) American painter

first side of the first tape
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

War, Understanding, Study, Winter

“It is a greatness not of mere body and gigantic bulk, but a rude greatness of soul. There is a sublime uncomplaining melancholy traceable in these old hearts. A great free glance into the very deeps of thought. They seem to have seen, these brave old Northmen, what Meditation has taught all men in all ages, That this world is after all but a show,—a phenomenon or appearance, no real thing. All deep souls see into that,—the Hindoo Mythologist, the German Philosopher,—the Shakspeare, the earnest Thinker, wherever he may be.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

Men, Age, World, Soul

“However, there are all sorts of behaviours in the Bible that might be called mad now, but aren't designated as insanity by the text itself. People see visions — of angels going up and down ladders, of fiery chariots — and, like Moses, who hears a bush talking, and Balaam the prophet who has a conversation with his donkey, they hear voices of those who cannot be said to be present in any usual sense of the word. They also speak in tongues, as the disciples do at Pentecost. Like madness, the visions, the voices and the speaking in tongues are due to external and usually divine agencies. In a world so permeated with supernatural powers, there are no accidents, and in one so riddled with prophets — who went into a frenzy while prophesying — many more kinds of behaviour were accepted as normal, at least for a prophet or an inspired person, than would be the case now. John the Baptist, dressed in animal skins and wandering around in the wilderness denouncing his social superiors, was not thought of as a de-institutionalized street person who's gone off his medications, but as a saint. And this was the pattern for mediaeval views of aberrant behaviour — if you were acting crazy it was a divine punishment, or else you were possessed, by powers either divine or demonic — perhaps aided, in the latter case, by witches.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Ophelia Has a Lot to Answer For (1997)

People, World, Angels, Sense

“It is in the nature of a leader’s work that he should be a realist and should recognize the need for action, even when the outcome cannot be foreseen, but also that he should be idealist and in the broadest sense pursue goals some of which can only be attained in a succeeding generation of leaders. Many leaders when they reach the apex of their powers have not long to go, and they press onward by paths the ends of which they will not themselves reach. In business, in education, in government, in religion, again and again, I see men who, I am sure, are dominated by this motive, though unexpressed, and by some queer twist of our present attitudes often disavowed. Yet, ‘Old men [and old women] plant trees’… to shape the present for the future by the surplus of thought and purpose which we now can muster seems the very expression of the idealism which underlies such social coherence as we presently achieve, and without this idealism we see no worthy meaning in our lives, our institutions, or our culture.”

Chester Barnard (1886–1961) American businessman

Source: Organization and Management: Selected Papers (1948), p. 109-110; As cited in: Joseph T. Mahoney, " Chester Barnard http://organizationsandmarkets.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/mahoney-j-chester-barnard.pdf." 2009/09

Women, Men, Education, Religion

“It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly contemptible.”

Arthur Machen book The Hill of Dreams

The Hill of Dreams (London: Martin Secker, [1907] 1923) p. 154

“We are faced with the curiously appalling trend of modern thought, in which the absolute which was once a means of entering into communion with the divine, has now become an instrument used by those who profit from it, to distort, pervert, and conceal the meaning of the present.”

Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) Hungarian sociologist

Ideology and Utopia (1929)

“Philosophy is neither a discipline among others nor the master discipline. It is the imagination at war, exploring what the established methods and discourses do not allow to be thought and said.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger book The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound

Source: The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound (2007), p. 233

War, Imagination

“But howsoever I might behold and desire, I could in no wise see this point in all the Shewing.
But how I understood and saw of the work of mercy, I shall tell somewhat, as God will give me grace. I understood this: Man is changeable in this life, and by frailty and overcoming falleth into sin: he is weak and unwise of himself, and also his will is overlaid. And in this time he is in tempest and in sorrow and woe; and the cause is blindness: for he seeth not God. For if he saw God continually, he should have no mischievous feeling, nor any manner of motion or yearning that serveth to sin.
Thus saw I, and felt in the same time; and methought that the sight and the feeling was high and plenteous and gracious in comparison with that which our common feeling is in this life; but yet I thought it was but small and low in comparison with the great desire that the soul hath to see God.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 47
Context: Two things belong to our soul as duty: the one is that we reverently marvel, the other that we meekly suffer, ever enjoying in God. For He would have us understand that we shall in short time see clearly in Himself all that we desire.
And notwithstanding all this, I beheld and marvelled greatly: What is the mercy and forgiveness of God? For by the teaching that I had afore, I understood that the mercy of God should be the forgiveness of His wrath after the time that we have sinned. For methought that to a soul whose meaning and desire is to love, the wrath of God was harder than any other pain, and therefore I took that the forgiveness of His wrath should be one of the principal points of His mercy. But howsoever I might behold and desire, I could in no wise see this point in all the Shewing.
But how I understood and saw of the work of mercy, I shall tell somewhat, as God will give me grace. I understood this: Man is changeable in this life, and by frailty and overcoming falleth into sin: he is weak and unwise of himself, and also his will is overlaid. And in this time he is in tempest and in sorrow and woe; and the cause is blindness: for he seeth not God. For if he saw God continually, he should have no mischievous feeling, nor any manner of motion or yearning that serveth to sin.
Thus saw I, and felt in the same time; and methought that the sight and the feeling was high and plenteous and gracious in comparison with that which our common feeling is in this life; but yet I thought it was but small and low in comparison with the great desire that the soul hath to see God.

Life, God, Feeling, Soul

“The father of the arrow is the thought: how do I expand my reach? Over this river? This lake? That mountain?”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

IIII.37, The Arrow. p. 54
1921 - 1930, Pedagogical Sketch Book, (1925)

Mountain

“He who confuses political liberty with freedom and political equality with similarity has never thought for five minutes about either.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#23
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Freedom

“The characteristic activity of science is not construction, but induction. The more often something has occurred in the past, the more certain that it will in all the future. Knowledge relates solely to what is and to its recurrence. New forms of being, especially those arising from the historical activity of man, lie beyond empiricist theory. Thoughts which are not simply carried over from the prevailing pattern of consciousness, but arise from the aims and resolves of the individual, in short, all historical tendencies that reach beyond what is present and recurrent, do not belong to the domain of science.”

Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) German philosopher and sociologist

Source: "The Latest Attack on Metaphysics" (1937), p. 144.

Lie, Knowledge, Science, Past

“We may assume the existence of an aether; only we must give up ascribing a definite state of motion to it, i. e. we must by abstraction take from it the last mechanical characteristic which Lorentz had still left it. … But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable inedia, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.”

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

On the irrelevance of the luminiferous aether hypothesis to physical measurements, in an address at the University of Leiden (5 May 1920)
1920s

Idea, Time, Parting

“Placement of both Hayek and Mill in the liberal tradition is suspect to many historians of political thought for various reasons. First, Mill also expressed socialist sentiments, so to classify him as a liberal has seemed inaccurate to some more right-inclined liberals. Second, Hayek is sometimes considered more a conservative by left-inclined liberals, and not in the liberal tradition as it has evolved. Nonetheless, Mill and Hayek were the two greatest liberals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

“As time goes on, those who think that they live in democracies will live at best, in oligarchy or at worst under fascist regimes. In medieval times, people thought they were badly off when they paid tithes; a tenth of their income or produce to the feudal land lord. In this respect, they were better off than we are nowadays. Today more than one third of DM or dollar goes to service capital. Those who gain most are the super rich, multinationals, big insurance companies and banks.”

Margrit Kennedy (1939–2013) German architect

Source: Interest and Inflation Free Money (1995), Chapter Three, Who Would Profit From a New Monetary System?, p. 67

People, Democracy, Thinking, Time

“Every given reality implies the thought which apprehends it. Therefore being is the condition of knowing; knowing is not the condition of being.”

Étienne Gilson (1884–1978) French historian and philosopher

Methodical Realism

Reality

“I have often thought I would have been quite happy as a spider.
Even a spider has the right to a mate.”

Susan Kay Phantom

Erik (p. 92)
Phantom (1990)

Happiness

“I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of sudden a thought occurred to me: If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.”

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

Einstein in his Kyoto address (14 December 1922), talking about the events of "probably the 2nd or 3rd weeks" of October 1907, quoted in Why Did Einstein Put So Much Emphasis on the Equivalence Principle? by Dr. Robert J. Heaston http://www.worldnpa.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_23.pdf in Equivalence Principle – April 2008 (15th NPA Conference) who cites A. Einstein. “How I Constructed the Theory of Relativity,” Translated by Masahiro Morikawa from the text recorded in Japanese by Jun Ishiwara, Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) Bulletin, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 17-19 (April 2005) 1920s

Feeling, Personality

“Over scones round the kitchen table, it emerged that Aunt Mary thought Ayna, Gair and Ceri came from Malaysia. Brenda looked at their faces and breathed in half a scone.
While Gerald was pounding Brenda on the back, Ceri leaned back from the vibrating table and looked at Aunt Mary limpidly in the eye. "I'm afraid we don't remember Masaylia at all."
"Malaysia!"”

Diana Wynne Jones book Power of Three

hissed Ayna.
"Or that either," said Ceri.
Source: Power of Three (1976), p. 174.

“Still are the thoughts to memory dear.”

Walter Scott book Rokeby

Canto I, stanza 33.
Rokeby (1813)

Memory

“I was quite insistent. We have quite a few pranksters in the lab and I thought this was one of them. I even congratulated the man, ironically, on his Swedish accent.”

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952) Nobel prize winning American and British structural biologist

When he refused to believe the telephonic news about his Nobel Prize and accused his caller a poor hoaxer.
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan interview: 'It takes courage to tackle very hard problems in science

“Education is the strongest weapon available for restricting the questions people ask, controlling what they think, and ensuring that they get their thoughts ‘from above’.”

John Carroll (1944) Australian professor and author

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 34

People, Education, Question, Thinking

“As for me, I delight in the every day Way
Among mist-wrapped vines and rocky caves
Here in the wilderness I am completely free
With my friends, the white clouds, idling forever
There are roads, but they do not reach the world
Since I am mindless, who can rouse my thoughts
On a bed of stone I sit, alone in the night
While a round moon climbs up Cold Mountain”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T'ang Poet Han-shan

World, Way, Mountain, Night

“For me it was also very special. It was so beautiful with all the children singing. I thought I would be nervous, but I was surprisingly calm. Think it will be like when you know what you want in life, then it is quiet.”

Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland (1982) Swedish princess

royalcorrespondent.com interview http://royalcorrespondent.com/2013/07/15/we-really-are-a-team-says-princess-madeleine-in-a-new-interview/

Life, Children, Beauty, Thinking

“I have lived longer than you. I have thought more, and I have suffered more. And I tell you there is more truth to the fundamental nature of things in the most foolish fairy tales than there is in any of your complaints against life.”

J.B. Priestley I Have Been Here Before

I Have Been Here Before, Act III.

Life, Truth, Nature, Suffering

“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

"A Few Words to a Young Writer" http://www.ursulakleguin.com/WordsYoungWriter.html (2008)

Truth, Fear, Art, Way

“When women and men have approximately equal life expectancies, it seems to be because women die not only in childbirth (fewer than thought) but about equal from… diseases; poor sanitation and water; inadequate healthcare; and diseases of malnutrition. In industrialized societies, early deaths are caused more by diseases triggered by stress, which breaks down the immune system. It is since stress has become the key factor that men have died so much sooner than women.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 182.

Life, Death, Women, Men

“All my plans in private life; all my pursuits; all my designs, wishes, and thoughts, have this one great object in view: the overthrow of the ruffian Boroughmongers. If I write grammars; if I write on agriculture; if I sow, plant, or deal in seeds; whatever I do has first in view the destruction of those infamous tyrants.”

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

Political Register (14 August 1819), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 18.

Life

“I know well that many of my readers do not think as I do. This also is most natural and confirms the theorem. For although my opinion turn out erroneous, there will always remain the fact that many of those dissentient readers have never given five minutes' thought to this complex matter. How are they going to think as I do? But by believing that they have a right to an opinion on the matter without previous effort to work one out for themselves, they prove patently that they belong to that absurd type of human being which I have called the "rebel mass." It is precisely what I mean by having one's soul obliterated, hermetically closed. Here it would be the special case of intellectual hermetism.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Chap. VIII: The Masses Intervene In Everything, And Why Their Intervention Is Solely By Violence
The Revolt of the Masses (1929)

Soul, Nature, Thinking, Effort

“We will work within the legal ambit to ensure that the transition of power takes place through an election. I believe that the judges at the courts played an active role in the coup. I think [the judges] were under the assumption that our government was planning on dismissing all the judges and was working towards replacing them. In fact, some judges have even told me that they thought that this was our plan. The judges thought that we were trying to take over the judiciary.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

Quoted on Haveeru, "Nasheed warns of another 'possible coup'" http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/53603, February 9, 2014.

Thinking

“No one should forget: Eros alone can fulfill life; knowledge, never. Only Eros makes sense; knowledge is empty infinity; — for thoughts, there is always time; life has its time; there is no thought that comes too late; any desire can become a regret.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The Book of Delusions (1936)

Life, Knowledge, Sense, Time

“Every creature, every work of God, is admirably well made; but if any one appears imperfect in our eyes, it does not belong to us to criticise it. Perhaps that which we do not find right in its kind, turns to our advantage, without our being able to perceive it. Let us look at the state of the heavens, one while the sun shines, another time it does not appear; now the weather is fine; again it is unpleasant; one day is hot, another is cold; another time it is rainy, snowy or cloudy; every thing is variable and inconstant. Let us look at the surface of the earth: here the ground is flat; there it is hilly and mountainous; in other places it is sandy; in others it is barren; and elsewhere it is productive. Let us, in thought, go into an orchard or forest. What do we see? Trees high or low, large or small, upright or crooked, fruitful or unfruitful. Let us look at the birds of the air, and at the fishes of the sea, nothing resembles another thing. Let us look at the beasts. We see among the same kinds some of different forms, of different dimensions, domestic or wild, harmless or ferocious, useful or useless, pleasing or hideous. Some are bred for men's sakes; some for their own pleasures and amusements; some are of no use to us. There are faults in their organization as well as in that of men. Those who are acquainted with the veterinary art, know this well; but as for us who have not made a study of this science, we seem not to discover or remark these faults. Let us now come to ourselves. Our intellectual faculties as well as our corporeal organization have their imperfections. There are faculties both of the mind and heart, which education improve; there are others which it does not correct. I class in this number, idiotism, imbecility, dulness. But nothing can correct the infirmities of the bodily organization, such as deafness, blindness, lameness, palsy, crookedness, ugliness. The sight of a beautiful person does not make another so likewise, a blind person does not render another blind. Why then should a deaf person make others so also? Why are we Deaf and Dumb? Is it from the difference of our ears? But our ears are like yours; is it that there may be some infirmity? But they are as well organized as yours. Why then are we Deaf and Dumb? I do not know, as you do not know why there are infirmities in your bodies, nor why there are among the human kind, white, black, red and yellow men. The Deaf and Dumb are everywhere, in Asia, in Africa, as well as in Europe and America. They existed before you spoke of them and before you saw them.”

Laurent Clerc (1785–1869) French-American deaf educator

Statement of 1818, quoted in Through Deaf Eyes: A Photographic History of an American Community (2007) by Douglas C. Baynton, Jack R. Gannon, and Jean Lindquist Bergey

Men, God, Pleasure, Education

“Maynard Keynes was born into a certain civilisation at a particular moment of history, and was one of its foremost products. He inherited both its aspirations and its tensions. He grew up in the shadow of its great figures, notably Henry Sidgwick and Alfred Marshall, the teachers and colleagues of is father. His style of thought and way of life both bear Cambridge's unmistakable imprint.”

Robert Skidelsky (1939) Economist and author

John Maynard Keynes: 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman (2003), Ch. 2. Cambridge Civilisation: Sidgwick and Marshall

Life, Way, History, Teachers

“Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost fog-like, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy, yellow lights off in the distance.
Some place over there I had left my car and started walking, burying my head in the collar of my raincoat, with the night pulled in around me like a blanket. I walked and I smoked and I flipped the spent butts ahead of me and watched them arch to the pavement and fizzle out with one last wink. If there was life behind the windows of the buildings on either side of me, I didn't notice it. The street was mine, all mine. They gave it to me gladly and wondered why I wanted it so nice and all alone.
There were others like me, sharing the dark and the solitude, but they were huddled in the recessions of the doorways not wanting to share the wet and the cold. I could feel their eyes follow me briefly before they turned inward to their thoughts again.
So I followed the hard concrete footpaths of the city through the towering canyons of the buildings and never noticed when the sheer cliffs of brick and masonry diminished and disappeared altogether, and the footpath led into a ramp then on to the spidery steel skeleton that was the bridge linking two states.
I climbed to the hump in the middle and stood there leaning on the handrail with a butt in my fingers, watching the red and green lights of the boats in the river below. They winked at me and called in low, throaty notes before disappearing into the night.
Like eyes and faces. And voices.
I buried my face in my hands until everything straightened itself out again, wondering what the judge would say if he could see me now. Maybe he'd laugh because I was supposed to be so damn tough, and here I was with hands that wouldn't stand still and an empty feeling inside my chest.”

Mickey Spillane book One Lonely Night

One Lonely Night (1951)

Life, Cars, Feeling, Solitude

“There were women in the golden age of Greece, called hetaerae, who were celebrated by Socrates and philosophers of his time. Although they existed solely for their own pleasure and that of men, they were respected for their independence of mind and spirit and thought of highly by the Greeks. Single women in today's world can function like hetaerae, learning from many and giving back to whom they will, and for the woman who enjoys such a life, it can be a good one, and one both she and society can be the better for.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Life, Women, Men, Pleasure

“Purify yourself by a well-ordered and useful life. Watch over your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. This will clear your vision.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Purification
Source: "I am That." P.27.

Life, Feeling

“A difficulty in seeking Truth is the notion that certain men are ordained of heaven to seek Truth for all mankind and that we are to accept their acquisitions in the place of seeking for ourselves. We can never attain Truth by proxy. By divine ordination every man is an original investigator of Truth. He denies his own reason who hands over his religious views and opinions to any priest or religious teacher… We are to accept nothing on the opinions of others. What another man has thought and believed, what a Church Council or synod has formulated is nothing to me, only that it may be a reason for personal investigation ending in acceptance or rejection as I may find it in harmony with reason and well established truth.”

Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) Nineteenth-century Canadian educator/Methodist Minister/Spiritualist

Sermon (1899)

Men, Truth, Teachers, Personality

“I start with the measures which the Government announced last Thursday, and which are the immediate occasion of today's debate, and to which the right hon. Gentleman finally came round – a trifle nervously, I thought - after ploughing through that tedious and tendentious farrago of moth-eaten cuttings presented to him by the Conservative Research Department. I must say that part of his speech was rather like being savaged by a dead sheep.”

Geoffrey Howe (1926–2015) British Conservative politician

Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 951 col. 1027.
Denis Healey, Howe's opposite number as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government, speaking in the House of Commons on 14 June, 1978.
About

Parting, Dead

“Sketches indeed, from that most passionate page,
A woman's heart, of feelings, thoughts, that make
The atmosphere in which her spirit moves;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Feeling, Passion, Heart

“On Charley Patton's voice and music style: I heard this fella, and his voice sounded like my voice. I’d always thought, ‘Well, I could never be a singer with this horrible voice’. I hated it. Absolutely hated it. Still do. But he sounded like the same kind of thing. I didn’t know black American terms: a boll weevil or turnpike blues. But there was an emotion that clicked with me. I became fascinated with gospel blues. I still play more gospel than Chicago. I very rarely go anywhere near that speed, aggression, Clapton thing. Someone once reviewed me, saying the testosterone was missing from my blues solos, because I don’t do Chicago. It’s just alien to me.”

Chris Rea (1951) English singer-songwriter

2015

Hate, Music, Speed

Quotes about thought page 58

Quotes about thought
page 58