Quotes about today (4980 quotes, page 40)

“Whenever like mates with like (genetically), the statistical distribution curve, which describes the frequency of the purely fortuitous combinations of genes, is flattened out, its mode is depressed, and its extremes are increased. The reduces the number of the mediocre produced and increases the numbers both of the sub-normal and the talented groups. It is possible that, without this increase in the number of extreme variants, no nation, race or group could produce enough superior individuals to maintain a complex culture. Certainly not enough to operate or advance a civilization. …Any number of social customs have stood, and still stand, in the way of an optimum amount of selective matings. In a feudal society, opportunities are denied to many able men who, consequently, never develop to the high level of their biological potential and thus they remain among the undistinguished. Such able men (and women) might also be diffused throughout an "ideal" classless society and, lacking the means to separate themselves from the generality, or to develop their peculiar talents, would be effectively swamped. In such a society they could hardly segregate in groups. In fact, only a few of the able males might ever meet an able female who appealed to them erotically. Obviously an open society—one in which the able may rise and the dim-wits sick, and where like intelligences have a greater chance of meeting and mating—has advantages that other societies do not have. Our own society today—incidentally and without design—is providing more and more opportunities for intelligent matrimonial discrimination. It is possible that our co-educational colleges, where highly-selected males and females meet when young, are as important in their function of bringing together the parents of our future superior individuals as they are in educating the present crop.”

Conway Zirkle (1895–1972)

"Some Biological Aspects of Individualism," Essays on Individuality (Philadelphia: 1958), pp. 59-61

Women , Men , Education , Way

“This revolution of music is paralleled by the increasing proliferation of machinery sharing in human labor. In the pounding atmosphere of great cities as well as in the formerly silent countryside, machines create today such a large number of varied noises that pure sound, with its littleness and its monotony, now fails to arouse any emotion.”

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

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 5

Music

“Taxes are a barbaric remnant of ancient times in which early farmers, tied to the land, no longer able to roam freely, unable to fight back with awkward agricultural tools the way they once could with hunting implements, became victims, first, of itinerant plunderers, then of bandits settling down beside them to become the governments we know today.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"The Unnecessary Depression".

Way , Time , Fight

“Well, that's it. Two days ago I was a law student. Today I'm an untitled nobody. Thanks, Jim, for the intercession on my behalf. Don't let up. And brother, I'm really praying for you too as you're making preparation to leave. I only wish I were going with you.”

Ed McCully (1927–1956) American Christian missionary

Letter to Jim Elliot during his time as a law student and working as a hotel night clerk (22 September 1950) http://toeverytribeblog.com/2010/09/whats-with-the-name-of-this-blog.

Law

“[Black Jade], I never dared to speak the secrets of my heart to you. I'll be bold today and I care not if I die as a consequence. I am also sick because I am constantly thinking of you. I dare not tell anyone. I won't be well until you are well again. I cannot forget you even in my dreams.”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), p. 161

Secret , Dreams , Thinking , Heart

“Minimal art went nowhere. Conceptual art became the liberating idea that gave the art of the next 40 years its real impetus. All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art. This includes the art of installation, political, feminist and socially directed art. The other great development has been in photography, but that too was influenced by Conceptual art.”

Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) American artist

Quotes of Sol Lewitt, "Sol LeWitt by Saul Ostrow," 2003

Art , Idea

“In the first stages of the industrial revolution, animals were used as machines. As also were children. Later, in the so-called post-industrial societies, they are treated as raw material. Animals required for food are processed like manufactured commodities. … This reduction of the animal … is part of the same process as that by which men have been reduced to isolated productive and consuming units. Indeed, during this period an approach to animals often prefigured an approach to man. The mechanical view of the animal’s work capacity was later applied to that of workers. F. W. Taylor who developed the “Taylorism” of timemotion studies and “scientific” management of industry proposed that work must be “so stupid” and so phlegmatic that he (the worker) “more nearly resembles in his mental makeup the ox than any other type.” Nearly all modern techniques of social conditioning were first established with animal experiments. As were also the methods of so-called intelligence testing. Today behaviourists like Skinner imprison the very concept of man within the limits of what they conclude from their artificial tests with animals.”

John Berger (1926–2017) British painter, writer and art critic

Source: About Looking (1980), Chapter "Why Look at Animals?"

Men , Children , Stupidity , Food

“The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice. Moral truisms have been so much disputed that they have begun to sparkle like so many brilliant paradoxes.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Defendant

"A Defence of Humilities"
The Defendant (1901)

“Back in the day Japanese games were used to winning and were used to success. We celebrated all sorts of victories. However at some point these winners became losers. Not accepting that fact has led to the tragic state of Japanese games today.”

Keiji Inafune (1965) Japanese video game designer

Source: "Mega Man creator laments" https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-08-mega-man-creator-laments-tragic-state-of-japanese-games-industry. Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 2018-07-15.

Game , Success , Victory

“Experience also shows that to be effective, we must adopt a model of partnership, not paternalism. This approach is based on our conviction that people in the developing world have the capacity to improve their own lives, and will rise to meet high expectations if we set them. America has sought to apply this model in our Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Every nation that receives American support through this initiative develops its own plan for fighting HIV/AIDS and measures the results. And so far, these results are inspiring. Five years ago, 50,000 people in sub-Sahara Africa were receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS. Today, that number is nearly 1.7 million. We're taking a similar approach to fighting malaria, and so far, we've supported local efforts to protect more than 25 million Africans.”

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

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

People , World , Support , Effort

“In homage to Guillaume Apollinaire [famous French poet, art-critic, writer and defender of Cubism], who had just died and who, on several occasions, seemed to us to have followed a discipline of this kind, without however having sacrificed to it any mediocre literary means, Soupault and I baptized the new mode of pure expression which we had at our disposal and which we wished to pass on to our friends, by the name of SURREALISM. I believe that there is no point today in dwelling any further on this word and that the meaning we gave it initially has generally prevailed over its Apollinarian sense.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Breton's quote refers to the start of the term Surrealism, together with Philippe Soupault
Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

Art , Sense

“Sculpture communicates an immediate sense of life - you can feel the pulse of it. It is perceived, above all, by the sense of touch which is our earliest sensation; and touch gives us a sense of living contact and security. […] That has nothing to do with the question of perfection, or harmony, or purity, or escapism. It lies far deeper; it is the primitive instinct which allows man to live fully with all his perceptions active and alert, and in the calm acceptance of the balance of life and death. In its insistence on elementary values, sculpture is perhaps more important today than before because life's continuity is threatened and this has given us a sense of unbalance.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Quote from a conversation with J.P. Hodin, 28 August 1959; extract from J.P. Hodin, Barbara Hepworth, London, 1961, Two Conversations with Barbara Hepworth: 'Art and Life' and 'The Ethos of Sculpture', pp. 23–24
1947 - 1960

Life , Death , Feeling , Communication

“When I read the gospels, I don’t see a wise and benevolent sage imparting truth. I see a religious extremist and faith-healer, who is just as much of a scam artist as any of the exorcists still practicing today. Remember that Jesus taught his disciples how to do faith healing too, just like tele-evangelists still do. Jesus didn’t believe in washing your hands because he didn’t know about pathogens. He believed in demons instead. And he cursed a fig tree because he didn’t know they were out-of-season. Likewise he didn’t know that the farmers of his day already knew about other seeds that were smaller than mustard seeds. My best evidence was Jesus’ complaint that the people who knew him since childhood wouldn’t buy any of his bullshit. So the only indications I had to believe in a historic Jesus were the very points that implied that he could not be a god nor have any real connection to God. So there are only two possibilities: Jesus was either an ignorant 1st century charlatan and cult leader heavily exaggerated like Robin Hood, or he’s a completely imaginary legendary figure like Hercules. Remember how Jesus said that he came not to bring peace but a sword; that he would divide husbands from their wives and children from their parents all on behalf of beliefs based on faith? Remember also that faith, (an unreasonable assertion of complete conviction which is not based on reason and is defended against all reason) —is the most dishonest position it is possible to have. Any belief which requires faith should be rejected for that reason.”

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

"Jesus never existed" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/03/jesus-never-existed/, Patheos (November 3, 2015)
Patheos

God , Children , People , Truth

“Frank, you are, without doubt, a scarcity. Anyone who looks at the historical record of the juncture of art and technology finds you nearly unaccompanied when it comes to documenting this historical record between the years of the late-1960's up to the early 1990s. Basically there is you, Jack Burnham's book Beyond Modern Sculpture (1968), and Gene Youngblood's reference work Expanded Cinema (1970). Specifically, your books Origins and Development of Kinetic Art (1968), Art, Action and Participation (1975) and Art of the Electronic Age (1993) are indispensable research tools in helping us figure out how art got to where it is today - in your terms virtualized.”

Joseph Nechvatal (1951) American artist

Joseph Nechvatal. in: " Origins of Virtualism: An Interview with Frank Popper http://www.mediaarthistory.org/refresh/Programmatic%20key%20texts/pdfs/Popper.pdf," in: Media Art History, 2004.

Books , Age , Art , Help

“Old folks called the winter a harbinger of worse to come. But old folks always see today’s weather as more harsh than that of yore. Or milder. Never, never the same.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 8, “The Barrowland” (p. 482)

Winter , Weather

“This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the end times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God's end times history.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

2010s

God , History , Understanding , Tree

“Players today can only shoot with their laces. I could shoot with the inside, laces, and outside of both feet. In other words, I was six times better than today’s players.”

Johan Cruyff (1947–2016) Dutch association football player

Time

“Today I saw an exhibition of old Japanese paintings and sculpture [in Paris]. I was seized by the great strangeness of these things. It makes our own art seem all the more conventional to me. Our art is very meager in expressing the emotions we have inside. Old Japanese art seems to have a better solution for that... We must put more weight on the fundamentals!! When I took my eyes from these pictures and began looking at the people around me, I suddenly saw that human being are more remarkable, much more striking and surprising than they have been painted. A sudden realization like that comes only at moments.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

excerpt of her Journal, Paris, 1898; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 197
1898

People , Art , Painting

“It could even be said, perhaps, that this very opposition, this threat from the world of total work, is what characterizes the situation of philosophy today more than its own particular content. Philosophy increasingly adopts — necessarily, it seems — the character of the alien, of mere intellectual luxury, of that which seems ever more intolerable and unjustifiable, the more exclusively the demands of the daily world of work take over the world of man.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, pp. 65–66

World

“Today we’re celebrating the kind of music that makes you move no matter who you are or where you come from; music that taps into feelings and experiences that we all share — love and heartbreak, pride and doubt, tragedy and triumph. It is called soul music.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

Statements at "I'm every woman: The History of Women in Soul" event (06 March 2014) http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/03/michelle-obama-hangs-out-with-soul-sisters-melissa-etheridge-and-pattie-labelle/
2010s

Love , Music , Feeling , Soul

“We must remain focused on the job of building our party. Jack showed us how we can do politics differently, how we can listen and respect other opinions and at the end of the day, remain united. And that's what we need to do today. We'll take difficult decisions but at the end of the day, we need to walk out of here and be united.”

Nycole Turmel (1942) Canadian politician

NDP will choose new leader in March http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/09/09/pol-ndp-federal-council-rules.html, September 9, 2011.

Decision

“We must recognise that we have a great treasure to guard; that the inheritance in our possession represents the prolonged achievement of the centuries; that there is not one of our simple uncounted rights today for which better men than we are have not died on the scaffold or the battlefield. We have not only a great treasure; we have a great cause. Are we taking every measure within our power to defend that cause?”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris, 24 September 1936, "Thank God For the French Army"
Quoted in Never Give In!: Winston Churchill's Speeches https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bcKOAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA111&ots=Xh9ffWodWa&dq=churchill%20better%20men%20than%20we%20have%20not%20died%20on%20the%20scaffold%20or%20the%20battlefield&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q&f=false (2013), p. 111. ISBN 9781472520852
The 1930s

Men

“If I had complained about the prize before I got mine, they may have thought I was anticipating sour grapes. But I complained on the grounds that too many important scientists get missed out for Nobels. Science today is a highly collaborative exercise and to convert it into a contest, as the Nobel does, is a bad way to look at science. On the other hand, I am grateful to the committee for my award. It put the study of ribosome – the cellular machine that turns the blueprint of life into life itself – on front pages round the world.”

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

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan interview: 'It takes courage to tackle very hard problems in science

Life , World , Way , Exercises

“Jon Stewart: And I made a special effort to come on the show today, because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows, mentioned this show as being bad.
Paul Begala: We have noticed.
Stewart: And I wanted to — I felt that that wasn't fair and I should come here and tell you that I don't — it's not so much that it's bad, as it's hurting America.
Tucker Carlson: But in its defense —
Stewart: But I wanted to come here today and say — Here's just what I wanted to tell you guys:
Carlson: Yes.
Stewart: Stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Guy , Effort , Hurt

“If I chose to speak, it is not to defend myself of the acts of which I'm accused, as only society, which by its organisation puts men into continual struggle each against the other, is responsible. Indeed, today do we not see in all classes and walks of life, people who desire, I will not say death as this sounds bad to the ear, but misfortune for their fellows if that can bring them advantages.”

Ravachol (1859–1892) French anarchist

Si je prends la parole, ce n'est pas pour me défendre des actes dont on m'accuse, car seule la société, qui, par son organisation, met les hommes en lutte continuelle les uns contre les autres, est responsable. En effet, ne voit-on pas aujourd'hui dans toutes les classes et dans toutes les fonctions des personnes qui désirent, je ne dirai pas la mort, parce que cela sonne mal à l'oreille, mais le malheur de leurs semblables, si cela peut leur procurer des avantages.
Trial statement

Life , Death , Men , People

“Their efforts and their sacrifices for education are immeasurable. They started their schools for their own children. Over the years, increasing numbers of Fijian and other students were taken in. Today, in a majority of their schools Fijian children predominate. There is a large debt of gratitude owed here that I am pleased to acknowledge.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

(Paying tribute to Indian and Chinese schools in Fiji).
Opening address to the Education Summit, Suva, 31 August 2005

Children , Education , School , Effort

“A work will be treated as art within a certain circle – that is, within the circle of let's say ten thousand people. There are about ten thousand in the world today who are prepared to take it on face value if you present anything to them as art, they deal with it straight on as art and tell you whether it stimulates them, moves them, or not. Some of them might even buy it... Anyway, it seems to me that within that ring of ten thousand, fortunately, that sincerity issue [the issue: is something art or not] is over. The reason why that issue failed is that it became obvious no one would live a life of art, a life of poverty, just to pull somebody's legs. In other words, there were compensating sacrifices for what people did.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, p. 18

Life , People , World , Art

“It is against the law to teach religion in Texas’ public schools, and not just because of Edwards v Aguillard and Kitzmiller v Dover, but also because of the 1st amendment of the US Constitution. But then from the news I just heard today, it seems we can’t have that in Trumpistan either.”

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

Patheos, Orwellian Legislative Duplicity on HB 1485 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/05/05/orwellian-legislative-duplicity-hb-1485/ (May 5, 2017)

School , Religion , Law

“They were a lot of fun but at the time I had two children. I’m just a mother at heart, so I decided it was time to retire from the screen. I would hate to be around today. In my time you learned your craft with small roles. They always handed you a script and told you, ‘This is your role.’ Now, you have to read for a part, over and over. 2,000 people have to approve before you get anything. I liked my era, where you were groomed.”

Elyse Knox (1917–2012) American actress

Interview with Ekyse Knox http://www.westernclippings.com/interview/elyseknox_interview.shtml

Hate , Children , People , Learning

“Mike Flynn is a fine person, and I asked for his resignation. He respectfully gave it. He is a man who there was a certain amount of information given to Vice President Pence, who is with us today. And I was not happy with the way that information was given. He didn't have to do that, because what he did wasn't wrong. What he did in terms of the information he saw. What was wrong was the way that other people, including yourselves in this room, were given that information, because that was classified information that was given illegally. That's the real problem.”

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

2010s, 2017, February

People , Way , Problem , Personality

“For all the ‘4th Generation of War’ intellectuals running around today saying that the nature of war has fundamentally changed, the tactics are wholly new, etc., I must respectfully say, ‘Not really’: Alexander the Great would not be in the least bit perplexed by the enemy that we face right now in Iraq, and our leaders going into this fight do their troops a disservice by not studying — studying, vice just reading — the men who have gone before us. We have been fighting on this planet for 5,000 years and we should take advantage of their experience. ‘Winging it’ and filling body bags as we sort out what works reminds us of the moral dictates and the cost of incompetence in our profession.”

James Mattis (1950) 26th and current United States Secretary of Defense; United States Marine Corps general

Nov. 20, 2003, Addressing the detractors of untested Marine tactics in Iraq. http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/fiasco/

Men , War , Nature , Study

“Today Eratosthenes' method [of calculating the circumference of the earth] seems almost banal … yet it is inaccessible to prescientific civilizations, and in all of Antiquity not a single Latin author succeeded in stating it coherently.”

Lucio Russo (1944) Italian historian and scientist

3.2, "Geodesy and Mathematical Geography", p. 68
The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn (2004)

“Lastly, and doubtless always, but particularly at the end of the last century, certain scholars considered that since the appearances on our scale were finally the only important ones for us, there was no point in seeking what might exist in an inaccessible domain. I find it very difficult to understand this point of view since what is inaccessible today may become accessible tomorrow (as has happened by the invention of the microscope), and also because coherent assumptions on what is still invisible may increase our understanding of the visible.”

Jean Baptiste Perrin

Nobel Lecture (11 December 1926) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1926/perrin-lecture.html

Understanding , Appearance

“People are also more keenly and painfully aware that a large part of the Church is in one way or another linked to those who wield economic and political power in today's world…. Under these circumstances, can it honestly be said that the Church does not interfere in "the temporal sphere"? Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to a dictatorial and oppressive government?”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation (1971), p. 65

People , World , Way , Silence

“By the Cretaceous crocodilians of essentially modern form were the theropods [sic] main competitors. Yet crocodilians appear to be less abundant in most Mesozoic deposits than they are later in the mammal-dominated Cenozoic. Not only that, but they tended to be small-bodied: few specimens were as big as American alligators or Nile crocodiles. It is possible that theropods were eating the crocs. Even today, big cats once in a while kill a fairly large crocodilian. A tyrannosaur could have swallowed one whole, and gone into the water after them. Constant attacks could have suppressed croc populations, and favored the smaller, harder to catch species.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Gregory S. Paul (1988) Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, Simon and Schuster, p. 69
Predatory Dinosaurs of the World

Cats , Water , Appearance

“The current American diet is based on animal flesh and processed food: saturated fat, denatured animal protein, cholesterol, oils, refined sugars. This food is incredibly toxic to the blood vessels and the immune system, and it flows through our bloodstreams, and our children's, every four or five hours. The results are predictable. We're becoming grossly obese, arteries are clogging up. High blood pressure, diabetes, cancers. Autoimmune diseases have direct correlations with the meat and salt in animal products. The vast majority of diseases are created today by what people are eating in the West. Until that is recognized, we're just going to be treating symptoms. We're not getting to the root cause of disease, and that is the great transgression that the medical profession inadvertently perpetrates on the public.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

Interview in the book What the Health https://books.google.it/books?id=FIY8DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 by Eunice Wong (Xlibris, 2017), ch. 1.

Children , People , Disease , Food

“The peaceful and orderly inauguration of George W. Bush, as 43rd President of the United States, after the closest election in American history, is an event deserving thoughtful and thankful reflection. There were present on the inaugural platform former presidents of both parties, as well as the gracious loser in the contest just ended. They were testimony to the prizing above all political differences, of the rule of law under the Constitution. We are accustomed, now, to resolving our differences with ballots and not bullets. We are accustomed, now, when we lose an election to look to the next election to advance our political fortunes. But few of us today are aware of how recent in human experience, and how fragile, is this phenomenon.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Thoughts on Lincoln's Birthday (2001)

Peace , Law , History

“The bottom line is more tax money is going to be needed. Just how much will be the primary issue on the agenda when Congressional leaders meet with the President later today, Wednesday, May the 9th, 1990. And good morning, welcome to Today. It’s a Wednesday morning, a day when the budget picture, frankly, seems gloomier than ever. It now seems the time has come to pay the fiddler for our costly dance of the Reagan years.”

Bryant Gumbel (1948) American sportscaster

Leading off Today, May 9, 1990 Real Video http://www.mediaresearch.org/rm/projects/99/Gumbel2/segment1.ram

Money , Time , Dance

“[about Fruit of the Loom] What does fruit got to do with underbritches? I guess it's to remind us when we take them down we go, "Oh, I should've eaten more fruit today. I guess."”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Morning Constitutions (2007)

“Sanskrit is constructed like geometry and follows a rigorous logic. It is theoretically possible to explain the meaning of the words according to the combined sense of the relative letters, syllables and roots. Sanskrit has no meanings by connotations and consequently does not age. Panini's language is in no way different from that of Hindu scholars conferring in Sanskrit today.”

Alain Daniélou (1907–1994) French historian, musicologist, Indologist and expert on Shaivite Hinduism

Alain Danielou in: Virtue, Success, Pleasure, and Liberation: The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India https://books.google.co.in/books?id=IMSngEmfdS0C&pg=PA17, Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, 1 August 1993 , p. 17.

Age , Way , Sense

“I can't believe that people really prefer to go to the concert hall under intellectually trying, socially trying, physically trying conditions, unable to repeat something they have missed, when they can sit at home under the most comfortable and stimulating circumstances and hear it as they want to hear it. I can't imagine what would happen to literature today if one were obliged to congregate in an unpleasant hall and read novels projected on a screen.”

Milton Babbitt (1916–2011) American composer

See: recording Quoted in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812.

People , Music , Quotes , Home

“A branch of physics that I was working in for many years has lately become much less active. Many problems have been solved and others are so difficult that nobody knows what to do about them. This means that I do much less physics today than 15 years ago. By contrast, fractal tools have plenty to do. There is a joke that your hammer will always find nails to hit. I find that perfectly acceptable. The hammer I crafted is the first effective tool for all kinds of roughness and nobody will deny that there is at last some roughness everywhere.”

Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician

A Theory of Roughness (2004)

Problem

“The American people must understand that the China of today is not the China of 20 years ago. There has been a natural awakening. China will never submit to the Japanese.”

Ma Zhanshan (1885–1950) Chinese politician

[JAPAN-CHINA: Heaven-Sent Army, TIME, 01 May 1933, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,847239-2,00.html]

People , Understanding , Nature

“If he descended from heaven today
the great warrior who beat the money-traders
you would once more shout your "crucifige!"
and nail him to the cross which he himself bore.

But he mildly smiles upon your hate:
"The truth will prevail, even if the bearer falls;
the faith will live, for I give my life …
and stands tall at the cross for all warriors of the world."”

Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974) German Nazi leader convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trial

Christ, The Flag of the Persecuted ( Die Fahne der Verfolgten http://www.archive.org/details/DieFahnederVerfolgten), page 51

Life , Money , Hate , Truth

“The failure to control Iraq's borders on day one after regime change was a strategic blunder of incalculable consequences. It all goes back to inadequate troop levels not to knock Saddam out, but to maintain the peace after his overthrow. The problem of the borders incidentally pertains not only to Qaeda but to Iranian intelligence and Revolutionary Guard member for whom access into Iraq is until today a very easy thing.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"Kanan Makiya speaks about Iraq 5 years later...", Washington Post (March 20, 2008)

Peace , Intelligence , Failure , Problem

“But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's destroyers. If today we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood, like France, if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black system of human bondage, if the American name is no longer a by-word and a hissing to a mocking earth, if the star-spangled banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army who rest in these honored graves all around us.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1870s, The Unknown Loyal Dead (1871)

Death , Justice , Star , Courage

“Well, today in New York, after months of build up and anticipation, Star Jones made history and became the first person ever to get married.”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04eupdate.phtml

History , Star , Personality

“If you peruse the table of contents of a textbook on organizational theory or search the web for courses in organizational sociology, you cannot help but notice how many of the key contributors to the field spent time at Stanford between 1970 and 2000, as faculty members, post-docs, or graduate students… Of the ﬁve most inﬂuential macro-organizational paradigms in play today — institutional theory, network theory, organizational culture, population ecology, and resource dependence theory (in alphabetical order) – Stanford served as an important pillar, if not the entire foundation, for all but network theory. By the 1990s, it became an important site for network theory as well.”

Frank Dobbin (1956) American sociologist

Frank Dobbin, Claudia Bird Schoonhoven (eds) Stanford's Organization Theory Renaissance, 1970-2000, 2010. p. xvii

Search , Time , Help , Dependency

“Saying that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. It’s a deeply anti social principle because rights are not just individual, they’re collective, and what may not have value to you today may have value to an entire population, an entire people, an entire way of life tomorrow. And if you don’t stand up for it, then who will?”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Jean-Michel Jarre, Edward Snowden - Exit, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNESMafb5ZI
2015

Life , People , Way , Freedom

“There are obvious problems with so many denominations in schools today, but I had collective worship at school and I do not think it is a bad thing.”

Sydney Carter (1915–2004) British musician and poet

The Times [London] (29 August 1996)

School , Problem , Thinking

“Europe is today only nominally Christian. It is really worshiping Mammon.”

Virchand Gandhi (1864–1901) Jain scholar who represented Jainism at the first World Parliament of Religions in 1893

[Gandhi, Virchand, Speeches and Writings of Virchand Gandhi, Jain Dnyan Prasarak Mandal, 1910, 242-44]

“The Spain of today looks at the Second Republic with great appreciation and above all with satisfaction and pride for what we have been able to do in this constitutional age.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

Congress of Deputies, 1st May 2006
As President, 2006

Age

“Jesus' message is about love and compassion, but there is nothing loving or compassionate at factory farms and slaughterhouses, where billions of animals endure miserable lives and die violent deaths. Jesus mandates kindness and mercy for all God's creatures. He'd be appalled by the suffering that we inflict on animals today to indulge our acquired taste for their flesh. Catholics, and all Christians, have a choice. When we sit down to eat, we can add to the violence, misery and death in the world, or we can respect God's creatures with a vegetarian diet. I believe we're obligated to make choices that are as merciful as possible, and we can all do that at the dinner table with a vegetarian diet. There won't be any factory farms and slaughterhouses in heaven.”

Bruce Friedrich (1969) Member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

"Is Eating Meat A Catholic Sin?", interview by Hank Pellissier, in SFGate.com (2 February 2004) http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Is-Eating-Meat-A-Catholic-Sin-2802645.php

Love , Death , God , World

“Playboy: Then for now, aren't you asking home-computer buyers to invest $3000 in what is essentially an act of faith?
Jobs: In the future, it won't be an act of faith. The hard part of what we're up against now is that people ask you about specifics and you can't tell them. A hundred years ago, if somebody had asked Alexander Graham Bell, "What are you going to be able to do with a telephone?" he wouldn't have been able to tell him the ways the telephone would affect the world. He didn't know that people would use the telephone to call up and find out what movies were playing that night or to order some groceries or call a relative on the other side of the globe. But remember that first the public telegraph was inaugurated, in 1844. It was an amazing breakthrough in communications. You could actually send messages from New York to San Francisco in an afternoon. People talked about putting a telegraph on every desk in America to improve productivity. But it wouldn't have worked. It required that people learn this whole sequence of strange incantations, Morse code, dots and dashes, to use the telegraph. It took about 40 hours to learn. The majority of people would never learn how to use it. So, fortunately, in the 1870s, Bell filed the patents for the telephone. It performed basically the same function as the telegraph, but people already knew how to use it. Also, the neatest thing about it was that besides allowing you to communicate with just words, it allowed you to sing.
Playboy: Meaning what?
Jobs: It allowed you to intone your words with meaning beyond the simple linguistics. And we're in the same situation today. Some people are saying that we ought to put an IBM PC on every desk in America to improve productivity. It won't work. The special incantations you have to learn this time are "slash q-zs" and things like that. The manual for WordStar, the most popular word-processing program, is 400 pages thick. To write a novel, you have to read a novel—one that reads like a mystery to most people. They're not going to learn slash q-z any more than they're going to learn Morse code. That is what Macintosh is all about. It's the first "telephone" of our industry. And, besides that, the neatest thing about it, to me, is that the Macintosh lets you sing the way the telephone did. You don't simply communicate words, you have special print styles and the ability to draw and add pictures to express yourself.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Steve Jobs, Playboy, Feb 1985, as quoted in “Steve Jobs Imagines 'Nationwide' Internet in 1985 Interview” https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/steve-jobs-imagines-nationwide-internet-in-1985-intervi-1671246589, Matt Novak, 12/15/14 2:20pm Paleofuture, Gizmodo.
1980s

People , World , Faith , Way

“In the most advanced areas of this civilization, the social controls have been introjected to the point where even individual protest is affected at its roots. The intellectual and emotional refusal “to go along” appears neurotic and impotent. This is the socio-psychological aspect of the political event that marks the contemporary period: the passing of the historical forces which, at the preceding stage of industrial society, seemed to represent the possibility of new forms of existence. But the term “introjection” perhaps no longer describes the way in which the individual by himself reproduces and perpetuates the external controls exercised by his society. Introjection suggests a variety of relatively spontaneous processes by which a Self (Ego) transposes the “outer” into the “inner.” Thus introjection implies the existence of an inner dimension distinguished from and even antagonistic to the external exigencies—an individual consciousness and an individual unconscious apart from public opinion and behavior. The idea of “inner freedom” here has its reality: it designates the private space in which man may become and remain “himself.” Today this private space has been invaded and whittled down by technological reality. Mass production and mass distribution claim the entire individual, and industrial psychology has long since ceased to be confined to the factory. The manifold processes of introjection seem to be ossified in almost mechanical reactions. The result is, not adjustment but mimesis: an immediate identification of the individual with his society and, through it, with the society as a whole. This immediate, automatic identification (which may have been characteristic of primitive forms of association) reappears in high industrial civilization; its new “immediacy,” however, is the product of a sophisticated, scientific management and organization. In this process, the “inner” dimension of the mind in which opposition to the status quo can take root is whittled down. The loss of this dimension, in which the power of negative thinking—the critical power of Reason—is at home, is the ideological counterpart to the very material process in which advanced industrial society silences and reconciles the opposition. The impact of progress turns Reason into submission to the facts of life, and to the dynamic capability of producing more and bigger facts of the same sort of life. The efficiency of the system blunts the individuals' recognition that it contains no facts which do not communicate the repressive power of the whole. If the individuals find themselves in the things which shape their life, they do so, not by giving, but by accepting the law of things—not the law of physics but the law of their society.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 9-11

Life , Law , Way , Behavior

“For me today, Hull City beat Hull City.”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

1-Sep-2008, Guardian website
It was a bit of a one-sided game as Hull lose at home 0-5 to Wigan.

“This connection, at once semantic and conceptual, between unorthodoxy and sodomy, was firmly established during the late Middle Ages, and has never been severed. It is as strong today as it was six hundred years ago. To be stigmatized as a heretic or bugger in the fourteenth century was to cast out of society. Since the dominant ideology was theological, religious deviance was considered so grave an offense as to render the individual a nonperson. Whatever redeeming qualities he might have had counted for naught. The sin of heresy eclipsed all contradictory, personal characteristics, just as the teachings of God and the Church eclipsed all contradictory empirical observations. The disease called “mental illness”—and its subspecies “homosexuality”—plays the same role today.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1997), p. 166.

God , Age , Disease , Strong

“Well I'm living here in Allentown
And it's hard to keep a good man down
But I won't be getting up today.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Allentown.
Song lyrics, The Nylon Curtain (1982)

“In the stupendous rush of change which is coming on the human world as a result of the present tornado of upheaval, ancient India's culture, attacked by European modernism, overpowered in the material field, betrayed by the indifference of her children, may perish for ever along with the soul of the nation that holds it in its keeping…. Each nation is a Shakti or power of the evolving spirit in humanity and lives by the principle which it embodies. India is the Bharata Shakti, the living energy of a great spiritual conception, and fidelity to it is the very principle of her existence…. To follow a law or principle involuntarily or ignorantly or contrary to the truth of one's consciousness is a falsehood and a self-destruction. To allow oneself to be killed, like the lamb attacked by the wolf, brings no growth, farthers no development, assures no spiritual merit. Concert or unity may come in good time, but it must be an underlying unity with a free differentiation, not a swallowing up of one by another or an incongruous and inharmonious mixture. Nor can it come before the world is ready for these greater things. To lay down one's arms in a state of war is to invite destruction and it can serve no compensating spiritual purpose…. India is indeed awaking and defending herself, but not sufficiently and not with the whole-heartedness, the clear sight and the firm resolution which can alone save her from the peril. Today it is close; let her choose,… for the choice is imperatively before her, to live or to perish.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

December, 1918
India's Rebirth

War , Children , Truth , World

“.. the great Dutch school seemed to think of nothing but painting well [characterised by] the total absence of what today we call 'a subject.”

Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876) French painter

Quote from Les Maitres d'Autrefois / The Old Masters, Eugène Fromentin; 1948, p. 108; as cited in 'Dutch Painting of the Golden Age', http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/dutch-painting-the-golden-age/content-section-2 OpenLearn

School , Thinking , Painting

“Never talk ill of anybody, be he a devotee, a monk, or an ordinary householder, nor despise any for a wrong act. After all, everyone is a child of the Lord. Who knows today's sinning will not make him a saint tomorrow? Other acts do not count so much as a moment's of love for the Lord. Blessed is he who has loved Him even for a moment. Saint or sinner, the Lord loves all.”

Swami Adbhutananda Disciple

The Apostles of Sri Ramakrishna

Love

“It is hard to let old beliefs go. They are familiar. We are comfortable with them and have spent years building systems and developing habits that depend on them. Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses. Today, however, we need new lenses. And we need to throw the old ones away.”

Kenichi Ohmae (1943) Japanese academic

Source: The borderless world, 1990, p. 193

World , Way , Dependency , Forgetting

“Once I believed that sooner or later I would come across a really wise person; today I couldn’t even say what wisdom is.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

Wisdom , Personality

“Perhaps their magic is not to be relied upon; but can we not rely on the hearts and minds of the people? Today China is extremely weak. We have only the people's hearts and minds to depend upon. If we cast them aside and lose the people's hearts, what can we use to sustain the country?”

Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) Chinese empress

The origins of the Boxer Uprising, Joseph Esherick, 1988, University of California Press, 289, 0520064593, 2010-6-28 http://books.google.com/books?id=jVESdBSMasMC&pg=PA289&dq=Perhaps+their+magic+is+not+to+be+relied+upon:+but+can+we+not+rely+on+the+hearts+and+minds+of+the+people%3F+Today+China+is+extremely+weak.+We+have+only+the+people's+hearts+and+minds+to+depend+upon.+If+we+cast+them+aside+and+lose+the+people's+hearts,+what+can+we&hl=en&ei=sRa2TOuXDsG88gaL9azjCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Perhaps%20their%20magic%20is%20not%20to%20be%20relied%20upon%3A%20but%20can%20we%20not%20rely%20on%20the%20hearts%20and%20minds%20of%20the%20people%3F%20Today%20China%20is%20extremely%20weak.%20We%20have%20only%20the%20people's%20hearts%20and%20minds%20to%20depend%20upon.%20If%20we%20cast%20them%20aside%20and%20lose%20the%20people's%20hearts%2C%20what%20can%20we&f=false,
[The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China, Keith Laidler, 2003, John Wiley & Sons, 221, http://books.google.com/books?id=QLPZ7294oSIC&pg=PA221&dq=have+started+the+aggression,+and+the+extinction+of+our+nation+is+imminent++no+face+ancestors+death&hl=en&sa=X&ei=oGsLT5rpEqHu0gGY29nuBQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=rely%20on%20supernatural%20formulas%20heart%20people&f=false, 1-9-2011, 0470864265, Yehonala interrupted from her dominant position on the dais. 'If we cannot rely on the supternatural formulas, can we not rely upon the heart of the people? China is weak: the only thing we can depend upon is the heart of the people. If we lose that, how an we maintain our country?']
[Victor Purcell, The Boxer Uprising: A Background Study, https://books.google.com/books?id=2MeUoD9G9xAC&pg=PA250&dq=cannot+rely+charms+heart+people+lose&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH5tD7vvjLAhVFGx4KHR_SDiYQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=cannot%20rely%20charms%20heart%20people%20lose&f=false, 3 June 2010, Cambridge University Press, 978-0-521-14812-2, 250–]

People , Heart , Dependency , Country

“The Internet will not become a money machine until the banking industry figures out how to transfer money for free so you can charge USD 0.005 (half a cent) for some simple service like, say, reading a newspaper article you have searched for. With today's payment system, the cost of the transfer of the funds completely dwarf the cost of the service paid for. … This situation, however, is what acutely prevents the Internet from taking off as a network for paid services.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: is it ok if I quote? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/2e6eea14913a5c55
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Money , Search , Reading

“What fascinates me about Van Gogh is that his sun dries up everything. Maybe he was melodramatic but my point really is.... if you are a painter you have to face that self-consciousness. You get dirty and pathetic; very miserable. It makes me self-conscious to talk about it. There is something corrupt on art. Nothing do with any 'ism' but a thing in nature loses its innocence and becomes a grotesque thing.... maybe this difficulty is personal with me, and maybe it is something that other painters have in common. Perhaps it is also something of today.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

in conversation with W.C. Seitz
Quote from Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, p. 121.
1980's

Art , Nature , Sun , Personality

“What was the truth for the painters of yesterday is but a falsehood today. We declare, for instance, that a portrait must not like the sitter... To paint a human figure, you must not paint it; you must render its surrounding [aura-like] atmosphere. Space no longer exists... Who can still believe in the opacity of bodies, since our sharpened and multiplied sensibilities has already penetrated the obscure manifestations of mediums? Why should we forget in our creations the doubled power of our sight, capable of giving analogous to those of X-rays?”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

As quoted in: John F. Moffitt (2003) Alchemist of the Avant-Garde: The Case of Marcel Duchamp, p. 87.
1910, Manifesto of Futurist Painters,' April 1910

Truth , Painting , Forgetting

“It is customary to define psychiatry as a medical specialty concerned with the study, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses. This is a worthless and misleading definition. Mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists are not concerned with mental illnesses and their treatments. In actual practice they deal with personal, social and ethical problems in living.
I have argued that, today, the notion of a person "having a mental illness" is scientifically crippling. It provides professional assent to a popular rationalization — namely that problems in living experienced and expressed in terms of so-called psychiatric symptoms are basically similar to bodily diseases.
Moreover, the concept of mental illness also undermines the principle of personal responsibility, the ground on which all free political institutions rest.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Conclusions.
The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (1961)

Disease , Problem , Study , Personality

“I performed at a show at the MoMA. There was this big dinner there, and I was seated in this hall with the mayor of New York and all these extremely wealthy art-supporting and art-buying people. There was a piece of work hanging in the hall-it was a fan. This fan was supposed to swing by the momentum of its own propeller. So, while we were having dinner, the fan was stopped, and the guy next to me, a curator at P. S.1, said, "Look, this is what art symbolizes today." Like, that piece of art is supposed to be moving, but just to have dinner we've stopped the art. That's what New York is like today. You can't have real art happen in an institution because rich people can make the world stop. The stuff on the street is a lot more interesting.”

M.I.A. (1975) British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director

Interview http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/kehinde-wiley/#page2 with Kehinde Wiley on the "recycled object" for Interview magazine (2008)
Sourced quotes

People , World , Art , Guy

“The root of our psychological weakness was this: We socialists have never examined the problems of nations. The International was never concerned with it. The International is dead, paralyzed by events. Ten million proletarians are today on the battlefield.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution, J.L. Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 492. Original source: Mussolini, Opera Omnia VI, p. 427, 1914
1910s

Problem , Dead

“Over Babiy Yar
there are no memorials.
The steep hillside like a rough inscription.
I am frightened.
Today I am as old as the Jewish race.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1932–2017) Russian poet, film director, teacher

"Babiy Yar" (1961), line 1; Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi (trans.) Selected Poems (London: Penguin, 2008) p. 82.

Memory

“We urgently need the mechanisms to deal with differences as they emerge because we want to progress together. Today we must start to resolve to make a difference, individually, as families and communities and we cannot do this alone as we need others and more importantly the wisdom and divine intervention in our affairs.”

Josefa Iloilo (1920–2011) President of Fiji

Fiji Day address, 10 October 2005 (excerpts)

Wisdom , Family , Communication

“Today, it may seem as if there are demons attacking me from within. I should remember that demons are illusory, and that when I think that I'm being attacked by unseen forces, it probably just means that I am going insane.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

May 2
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Thinking

“But I'm different now than i was then. Just like I was different at the end of the trip than I'd been at the beginning. And I'll be different tomorrow than I am today. And what that means is that I can never replicate that trip. Even if I went to the same places and met the same people, it wouldn't be the same. My experience wouldn't be the same. To me, that's what traveling should be about. Meeting people, learning to not only appreciate a different culture, but really enjoy it like a local, following whatever impulse strikes you.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Travis Parker, Chapter 8, p. 102-103
2000s, The Choice (2007)

People , Travel , Learning

“The facts of the matter are (that) I did not do any of the things of which I was accused by paid witnesses. But having said that, I'm not sitting here today pleading for the world to believe me because I've come to God. He knows what's in my heart; he knows the truth of the matter. And the witnesses who lied do as well.”

Jani Allan (1952) South African columnist and broadcaster

Speaking in 1995 in an SABC interview about witnesses in her libel case against Channel 4. http://70.84.171.10/~etools/newsbrief/1995/news0103
Other

God , Truth , World , Heart

“You could say that GDP (National Income) and prosperity and wealth grows fastest when income tax rates are highest. And wealth slows, the economy slows, when taxes are cut. That's counter intuitive but if you look at any chart comparing tax rates and economic growth rates that's what you find. The 19th century knew it, the 18th century knew it but today you have a kind of counter revolution of junk economics that is basically anti-labor economics.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

"Higher Taxes on Top 1% Equals Higher Productivity", Video Interview (13:28), The Real News Network (TRNN) http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6000 (January 1, 2011)

Wealth

“The Slav is never able to build anything himself. In the long run, he's not capable of it. I'll come back to this later. With the exception of a few phenomena produced by Asia every couple of centuries, through that mixture of two heredities which may be fortunate for Asia but is unfortunate for us Europeans — with the exception, therefore, of an Attilla, a Ghenghis Khan, a Tamerlaine, a Lenin, a Stalin — the mixed race of the Slavs is based on a sub-race with a few drops of blood of our blood, blood of a leading race; the Slav is unable to control himself and create order. He is able to argue, able to debate, able to disintegrate, able to offer resistance against every authority and to revolt. But these human shoddy goods are just as incapable of maintaining order today as they were 700 or 800 years ago, when they called in the Varangians, when they called in the Ruriks.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

The Posen speech to SS officers (6 October 1943)
1940s

“The two greatest blinders of the intellectual who today might fight against the main drift are new and fascinating career chances, which often involve opportunities to practice his skill rather freely, and the ideology of liberalism, which tends to expropriate his chance to think straight. The two go together, for the liberal ideology, as now used by intellectuals, acts as a device whereby he can take advantage of the new career chances but retain the illusion that his soul remains his own.”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

The New Men of Power (1948), p. 281.
1940s

Soul , Thinking , Chance , Fight

“The frantic life of today has swept up women to the point where… they feel that there is no time for this vital natural function.(breastfeeding) I have many duties and obligations of state along with my husband, but my family comes first.”

Grace Kelly (1929–1982) American actress and Princess consort of Monaco

The Milwaukee Sentinel Princess Puts Motherhood First Jul 17, 1971

Life , Women , Family , Feeling

“Issues of quality, timeliness and change are the conditions that are forcing us to face up to the issues of enterprise architecture. The precedent of all the older disciplines known today establishes the concept of architecture as central to the ability to produce quality and timely results and to manage change in complex products. Architecture is the cornerstone for containing enterprise frustration and leveraging technology innovations to fulfill the expectations of a viable and dynamic Information Age enterprise.”

John Zachman (1934) American computer scientist

Source: Enterprise Architecture: The Issue of The Century, 1997, p. 1-2

Age , Change , Time

“I never thought of that, really, when I was younger, but when I started doing some of the autobiographical picture books, I realized that my family was a great treasure trove. We were pretty ordinary — we weren't really exceptional. I don't think my life growing up was really too much different from the average kid in Meriden, Connecticut at that time. But it's very different from young people today, so I like it that older people my age feel that it's helping them to remember their childhood. Little kids think it's like life on a different planet.”

Tomie dePaola (1934) American children's illustrator and writer

An Interview with Tomie dePaola http://katybeebe.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/car-2000-05-12-b-013.pdf (May 2000)

Life , People , Books , Age

“And then a feminist rose to complain about the marginalization of women in liturgy and leadership in the Catholic church today. The speaker collapsed in fear, and answered her by mouthing a litany of cliches about sexual equality and decrying past Church practices for being insufficiently open to the contributions of women to the faith. His cowering was embarrassing.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: Jimmy Carter Excommunicates Himself, archive.lewrockwell.com, 2016-05-22 http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig/tucker6.html,

Women , Fear , Faith , Past

“Today we're all alike, all of us bound together by our shared apathy toward work. That very apathy has become a passion. The one great collective passion of our time.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 82
Identity (1998)

Passion , Time

“I think God leaves me alone to let me find my own strength because no one else can give it to me. Sometimes it is very lonely. But I know the lonely times teach me the most. I must let go in order to let anything in. No one can love me, for me. Take a big walk protected in the trees. I miss the time before today.”

Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer

Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself (2000)

Love , God , Thinking , Tree

“Some say the Internet is for porn; but you know that in truth the Internet is for spam. As communication technologies got cheaper, the cost of grabbing a megaphone and jamming it up against the aching ear-drums of an advertising-jaded public collapsed: Meanwhile, the content-is-king mantra of the monetization mavens gridlocked the new media in an advertising-supported business model. The great and the good of the Academy have been fighting a losing battle against the Anglo-Saxon hucksterization model for the past thirty years: But the sad truth is that the battle’s lost. The tide of war was turned in Beijing and New Delhi, when the rapidly industrializing new superpowers climbed on the MAKE MONEY FAST band-wagon and gave free rein to the free market, red in tooth and claw—just as long as the sharp bits were directed outwards. And today the entire world is still drowning in a sea of attention-grabbing unregulated unethical untruthful spamvertising.”

Charles Stross book Rule 34

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 13, “Kemal: Spamcop” (pp. 154-155)

Money , War , Truth , World

“Stunningly, as bad as things were under Saddam—and we have to keep in mind this perspective of Saddam in the wake of a brutal eight-year war with Iran and then the genocidal sanctions for 13 years, from 1991 up until the beginning of this invasion in March 2003—as bad as it was under Saddam, with the repression and the detentions and the torture and the killings, the overall feeling of Iraqis today, in and other places in Iraq where I went this trip, was that things are much worse now. There’s less—far less security. You don’t really know where you can go and what you can do and know that you’re going to have any kind of safety. “Any time that we send our kids out to school now,” is what I was told, “we don’t know for sure on any given day that they’re going to come back.” And so, the prevailing sentiment is that, yes, it was good initially to have Saddam removed, but people are still concerned with basic things like security, an economy stable enough to be able to have a job to work, to have food and provide something for your family. And these things just no longer exist today in Iraq. So the prevailing sentiment is that it’s far worse now even than it was under Saddam Hussein.”

Dahr Jamail (1968) American journalist

Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers https://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/20/ten_years_later_us_has_left (March 20, 2013), '.

War , People , School , Family

“Today, organizations are competing in complex environments so that an accurate understanding of their goals and the methods for attaining those goals is vital. The Balanced Scorecard translates an organization’s mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures that provides the framework for a strategic measurement and management system.”

Robert S. Kaplan (1940) American accounting academic

Source: The Balanced Scorecard, 1996, p. 2

Understanding

“Liberal education was aristocratic in the sense that it was the education of those who enjoyed leisure and political power. If it was the right education for those who had leisure and political power, then it is the right education for everybody today.”

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

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

Education , Sense

“Today, more than ever, women are occupying positions of influence. However, in the past they have been the exceptions to the rule and were usually obliged to hold on to their power by deforming themselves into honorary men or into magnified archetypes of the female who manipulated men. It still is not clear that women can successfully become part of the established structures without accepting these deformations.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Voltaire's Bastards (1992)

Women , Men , Past , Parting

“Today, we have been asked to present to you our "socio-economic-peace program" for the next six years.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Peace

“If there is a sectarian war in Iraq today, or perhaps several sectarian wars, we have to understand that this was latent in the country, and in the state, and in the society all along. It was not the only possible outcome, because it had to be willed and organized, but it was certainly high on the list of probabilities.”

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

"Appointment in Mesopotamia" http://www.slate.com/id/2159082/, Slate (2007-02-05): On Iraq
2000s, 2007

War , Understanding , Country

“Europe is not re-entering its troubled wartime past—on the contrary, it is leaving it. Germany today, like the rest of Europe, is more conscious of its twentieth-century history than at any time in the past fifty years. But this does not mean that it is being drawn back into it. For that history never went away.”

Tony Judt book Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

Introduction
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

History , Time , Past

“In 1960, the U. S. population was 89% white. By 1990, it was 76%. Today, it is under 70%. By 2050, white Americans, the most loyal voting bloc the Republican Party has, that provides 90% of all GOP votes, will be just another minority because of an immigration policy championed by Republicans. When John Stuart Mill called the Tories "the Stupid Party," he was not entirely wrong.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2010s, State of Emergency (2006)

Stupidity

“The universe has been expanding since the big bang, thus early on it was hot and dense. To trace the history of the universe we must understand the dynamics that operates when the universe was hot and particles were very energetic. Before the standard model we could not go back further than 200,000 years after the big bang. Today, especially since QCD simplifies at high energy, we can extrapolate to very eary times, where nucleons melt and quarks and gluons are liberated to form a quark-gluon plasma.”

David Gross (1941) American particle physicist and string theorist

"The Discovery of Asymptotic Freedom and the Emergence of QCD" http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2004/gross-lecture.html, Nobel Lecture, p. 79, nobelprize.org (2004)

History , Understanding , Universe , Time

“Magazines today are almost all stupid and moronic to start with. And it makes me furious that I can't find any articles to read anymore. I used to enjoy Forbes and Fortune, but now the pages are completely cluttered with ads.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Playboy interview (1996)

Stupidity , Reading

“All I'm trying to say to you is that our world hinges on moral foundations. God has made it so. God has made the universe to be based on a moral law. So long as man disobeys it he is revolting against God. That's what we need in the world today: people who will stand for right and goodness. It's not enough to know the intricacies of zoology and biology, but we must know the intricacies of law. It is not enough to know that two and two makes four, but we've got to know somehow that it's right to be honest and just with our brothers. It's not enough to know all about our philosophical and mathematical disciplines, but we've got to know the simple disciplines of being honest and loving and just with all humanity. If we don't learn it, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own powers.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)

Love , God , People , World

“When I first got to the majors in 2004, female fans held up signs asking me to marry them. Those girls today were what, 13, 14? I'm 23, but that's a little young even for me.”

David Wright (1982) American baseball player

[Sports Illustrated, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/preview/siexclusive/2006/pr/subs/siexclusive/05/22/wright0529/?url=http%253A%252F%252Fpremium.si.cnn.com%252Fpr%252Fsubs2%252Fsiexclusive%252F2006%252Fpr%252Fsubs%252Fsiexclusive%252F05%252F22%252Fwright0529%252F, Prince of the City, Lidz, Franz, 2006-05-22]

Girl

“The acquirement and enjoyment of physical well-being, mental calm and spiritual peace are priceless to their possessors if there be any such so fortunate living among us today. However, it is the ideal to strive for, and in our opinion, it is only through Contrology that this unique trinity of a balanced body, mind, and spirit can ever be attained.”

Joseph Pilates (1883–1967) German inventor of pilates

Return to Life Through Contrology

Peace

“It is easy to see what is heresy today, but who can tell what will be heresy tomorrow”

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

Defence at his Heresy Trial

“The distribution of wealth is one of today’s most widely discussed and controversial issues. But what do we really know about its evolution over the long term? Do the dynamics of private capital accumulation inevitably lead to the concentration of wealth in ever fewer hands, as Karl Marx believed in the nineteenth century? Or do the balancing forces of growth, competition, and technological progress lead in later stages of development to reduced inequality and greater harmony among the classes, as Simon Kuznets thought in the twentieth century? What do we really know about how wealth and income have evolved since the eighteenth century, and what lessons can we derive from that knowledge for the century now under way?”

Thomas Piketty book Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Source: Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), p. 1 Introduction: Lead paragraph; Quoted in From the Introduction to Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty http://www.hup.harvard.edu/features/capital-in-the-twenty-first-century-introduction.html, at hup.harvard.edu, 2014.

Way , Knowledge , Wealth

Quotes about today page 40

Quotes about today
page 40