Quotes about use
page 88

“If free market prices don't give people what they morally deserve, should we try to regulate factor prices so that they do track producers' moral deserts? Hayek offered two compelling arguments against this proposal. First, if you fix prices on a backward-looking standard, they will no longer be able to perform their informational function. Producers will produce for what was demanded last quarter, even if it isn't demanded today. This creates enormous waste and generates huge opportunity costs. We'd be much poorer in an economy that worked like this. […] Hayek was right. It might sound like a compelling idea, to make sure that people receive the income they morally deserve. But orienting the economy around this goal, assuming it is achievable at all (and there are principled doubts about that), would doom us to poverty and serfdom. It would abolish capitalism, along with its chief virtues. It isn't worth the draconian costs.”

Elizabeth S. Anderson (1959) professor of philosophy and womens' studies

How Not to Complain About Taxes (III): "I deserve my pretax income" http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2005/01/how_not_to_comp_1.html (January 26, 2005)

People, Idea

“Senator Kerry now tells us he has a clear position on the [war on terror]. He voted no on Desert Storm in 1991 and yes on Desert Shield today. Then he voted no on [troop funding], just after he'd voted yes. He's campaigned against the [war] all year, but says he'd vote yes today. This nation can't afford [presidential leadership] that comes in 57 varieties.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Republican Convention Speech, 2004.
2003–2007 Governor of Massachusetts

War

“The series of events leading up to the formation of the biblical community and its religion apparently began unexpectedly. Moses killed an Egyptian overseer who was beating one of the slaves. It is difficult to imagine this being a fictional invention, especially since the biblical writers never chose to comment on this noteworthy aspect of the protagonist’s dark past. When Moses later tried to intervene between two quarreling slaves, one of them responded, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exodus 2:11-15). Is the monopoly of force — the ability to coerce other human beings — truly the ultimate basis of social authority? If it seems undesirable to ground social authority on something that essentially boils down to the superior ability to commit murder, then what is the alternative?”

George E. Mendenhall (1916–2016) American academic

Ancient Israel’s Faith and History: An Introduction the Bible in Context (2001)

Religion, Imagination, Communication, Past

“I would never have surrendered, because of my pledge as a German officer. But when Hitler died, that pledge ended. By killing himself, Hitler saved thousands of lives. They relieved us of our oaths as soldiers.”

Otto Skorzeny (1908–1975) Austrian SS-Standartenführer (colonel) in the German Waffen-SS

To Jack Bell of the Chicago Daily News, as quoted in Scoop : An Historical Adventure (2006) by James H. Walters, p. 34.

“Quantum theory may be formulated using Hilbert spaces over any of the three associative normed division algebras: the real numbers, the complex numbers and the quaternions. Indeed, these three choices appear naturally in a number of axiomatic approaches. However, there are internal problems with real or quaternionic quantum theory. Here we argue that these problems can be resolved if we treat real, complex and quaternionic quantum theory as part of a unified structure. Dyson called this structure the "three-fold way"…. This three-fold classification sheds light on the physics of time reversal symmetry, and it already plays an important role in particle physics.”

John C. Baez (1961) American mathematician and mathematical physicist

Way, Nature, Problem, Light

“What makes people enter into cults? I think that kind of certainty about something is not necessarily just religious. It was seen in secular organizations, secular ideologues, ideological organizations of one kind or another. I've experienced it among people I used to know in the 1960s and 1970s. It's a terrifying thing when you see it at work.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/faith/interviews/makiya.html, PBS Frontline (2002)

People, Thinking

“But if, through division in the ranks of those opposed to Mr. Lincoln, he should be elected, we have no excuse for dissolving the Union. The Union is worth more than Mr. Lincoln, and if the battle is to be fought for the Constitution, let us fight it in the Union and for the sake of the Union. With a majority of the people in favor of the Constitution, shall we desert the Government and leave it in the hands of the minority? A new obligation will be imposed upon us, to guard the Constitution and to see that no infraction of it is attempted or permitted. If Mr. Lincoln administers the Government in accordance with the Constitution, our rights must be respected. If he does not, the Constitution has provided a remedy.”

Sam Houston (1793–1863) nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier, namesake of Houston, Texas

1860s, Speech in Austin (1860)

People, Fight

“Crazy-busy’ is a great armor, it’s a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we’re feeling and what we really need can’t catch up with us.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Washington Post, October 2012 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/exhaustion-is-not-a-status-symbol/2012/10/02/19d27aa8-0cba-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story_2.html

Life, Truth, Way, Feeling

“In conceptual art the idea or the concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive; it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as a craftsman.”

Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) American artist

Source: Quotes of Sol Lewitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," 1967, p. 80. Cited in: Diane Waldman. Carl Andre https://archive.org/stream/carlandre00wald#page/7/mode/1up. Published 1970 by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. p. 7

Art, Idea, Decision, Dependency

“… habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 182

Life

“In response to Adarsh Housing Society incident - "There were flats reserved for the scheduled [lower] castes which we applied for and were allotted one of them. We paid the cost of the flat in full. But now it seems we have been cheated. They are neither giving [us] the flat nor any sign of returning our money."”

Uttam Khobragade (1951) bureaucrat

India’s Devyani Khobragade advocated for women’s rights, accused in nanny scandal http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indias-devyani-khobragade-advocated-for-womens-rights-but-underpaid-her-nanny/2013/12/20/13e23688-69a2-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html, The Washington Post, 20 December 2013

Money, Housing, Cheating

“Many times our media is confused. They say an US observatory has informed us about lunar and solar eclipse on a particular date. Don’t look at an observatory, ask any pandit next to you. They will open the 'Panchang' and tell you the dates of eclipses 100 year ago and 100 years hence.”

Rajnath Singh (1951) Indian politician

On Panchangs, as quoted in " Why US observatories, ask pandits to predict eclipse dates: Rajnath Singh http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ask-pundits-to-predict-eclipse-dates-no-need-for-us-observatories-rajnath/article1-1308532.aspx", Hindustan Times (20 January 2015)

Time

“Or, to go a step further, let us glance at what science has done to establish rational foundations for physical and moral health. Science tells us how we ought to live in order to preserve the health of our own bodies, how to maintain in good conditions of existence the crowded masses of our population. But does not all the vast amount of work done in these two directions remain a dead letter in our books? We know it does. And why? Because science today exists only for a handful of privileged persons, because social inequality which divides society into two classes — the wage-slaves and the grabbers of capital — renders all its teachings as to the conditions of a rational existence only the bitterest irony to nine-tenths of mankind.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

An Appeal to the Young (1880)

Health, Books, Science, Personality

“Almost all of our fellow-beings deceive us, but a few of us have known the joy of meeting a woman or a man whose sincerity and frankness were genuine, who in almost every situation has behaved according to our wishes, and who in our most difficult moments has not forsaken us. Those few are familiar with that marvelous feeling: confidence. With at least one person they are able for a little while each day to lift the heavy visor of their helmets, breathe freely, and show their faces and their hearts without fear.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

Fear, Feeling, Confidence, Heart

“Do we really have to look these chords up in Forte's catalog in order to find a name for them? Another theorist [Christopher Hasty] assures us that, 'Allen Forte's perceptive interpretation…accounts for an essential quality of this mysteriously pulsating music. The eighth-note chords of the flute and clarinets form alternately, with the sustaining oboes and horns, the six-tone sonorities labeled A and B. The sonorities A and B are both representatives of the same set class (6-Z19) and are thus made up of precisely the same intervals. As Forte points out, "There is a flucuation of pitch-class content while interval content remains constant."' 'A fluctuation of pitch-class content while interval content remains constant' is what the rest of us have always known as 'a transposition.'”

George Perle (1915–2009) American composer

Page 42
The Listening Composer

Music

“(a) There is a general tendency towards integration in the various sciences, natural and social. (b) Such integration seems to be centered in a general theory of systems. (c) Such theory may be an important means of aiming at exact theory in the nonphysical fields of science. (d) Developing unifying principles running "vertically" through the universe of the individual sciences, this theory brings us nearer to the goal of the unity of sciences. (e) This can lead to a much needed integration in scientific education.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Variant: Mayor aims of general theory: (1) There is a general tendency toward integration in the various sciences, natural and social. (2) Such integration seems to be centered in a general theory of systems. (3) Such theory may be an important means for aiming at exact theory in the nonphysical fields of science. (4) Developing unifying principles running "vertically" through the universe of the individual sciences, this theory brings us nearer the goal of the unity of science. (5) This can lead to a much-needed integration in scientific education. Source: 1950s, "General systems theory," 1956, p. 38, cited in: Alexander Laszlo and Stanley Krippner (1992) " Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development http://archive.syntonyquest.org/elcTree/resourcesPDFs/SystemsTheory.pdf" In: J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Ch. 3, pp. 47-74.

Education, Nature, Universe, Science

“Why do I need this protection? I am not a president or a king; I am a mere member of the Dutch Parliament, one of 150 elected parliamentarians in the Tweede Kamer, the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, a small country of 16.5 million in Western Europe. However, I have joined Westergaard in a rapidly growing group of individuals throughout the world who have been marked for death for criticizing Islam. For asserting our rights to say what we really think about this political ideology that disguises itself as a religion, we have been hounded by Muslims seeking to make an example of us. Offend us, they are saying to the world, and you will end up in hiding like Wilders, attacked like Westergaard, or dead like van Gogh.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Source: 2010s, Marked for Death (2012), Ch. 1, p. 5

Death, World, Religion, Thinking

“The Czech Republic stood with the U. S., Canada and a handful of other countries against the prevailing international current, but history has shown us time and again that what is right is not what is popular.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

During his stay in Prague, Netanyahu praised the Czech government for opposing the Palestinian move in the UN General Assembly to have a status upgrade, as quoted in "Merkel Meets Netanyahu amid Tense Relations" (6 December 2012) http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/12/merkel-meets-netanyahu-amid-tense-relations/ 2010s, 2012

History, Time, Country

“Voluntary birth control methods only work on the people who choose to use ’em. A population check that doesn’t work on everybody doesn’t work at all, because it simply breeds out the ones who use it. The only population check that really works is one that affects everybody, like a limit of space or food.”

Damon Knight book A for Anything

Source: A for Anything (1959), Chapter 10 (p. 122)

People, Food, Birth

“I used to be able to summon up scenes at will, but now aging memory is so busy weeding its own garden that, promiscuously, it pulls up roses as well as crabgrass.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1990s, Palimpsest : A Memoir (1995), Ch. 12: The Guest of the Blue Nuns, p. 162

Age, Business, Memory

“Finally, let me explain why this De la Rosa World Summit is the last Neo-Tech summit -- and why that may be the best news. But, first, I want to hail whom I believe to be the most genuinely-happy spirit in today’s anticivilization -- a beautiful person who brings to us her happiness made from the love of life as we travel toward the Civilization of the Universe. Let us emblazon our own spirits by remembering this lovely beam of light -- this enduring beacon of joy, this amazingly-wonderful person -- our free-spirit Summit impresario, Rosa María Wallace. …What a woman!”

Frank R. Wallace (1932–2006) Philosopher, author, entrepreneur

Keynote Address for The Neo-Tech 2003 World Summit. Pax Neo-Tech. http://www.neo-tech.com/neotech/pax-b1/a3.php

Love, Life, Happiness, World

“Territory we do not want; having, it is probable, already more than we well know how to manage. Instead therefore of countenancing that vagrant and unsettled way of life which has become habitual to so many of our people; and that very general passion they have to be for ever running back in quest of fresh lands; a practice not more unpropitious to all agricultural improvements, than likely to keep us involved in Indian wars; let us enlarge our empire by the civilization of the Indians; who already have a better title to any of our un-located lands, than we can possibly give any new comers”

Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804) English minister

[He goes on to cite the example of Sir William Johnson's work with the Mohawks as Indian Superintendent, and to explain further what he means by "civilization"- in particular, encouraging the use of agriculture instead of hunting].
"A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution" (London, Robinson, 1797)

Life, War, People, Way

“Roger: It seems that way – it’s kind of weird how things are with music these days. You’re not really touring for the record anymore ‘cause no one buys the record. Everything’s downloaded and all that kind of stuff. We have the new songs but we’re still just touring because we’d be on tour anyway, ya know what I mean. So yeah we’re still touring in support of the new record but the new record is kind of supporting us sort of”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Music, Way, Support

“Tax revenues are up 59 percent since 1980. Because of our economic growth? No. During Carter's four years, we had growth of 37.2 percent; Reagan's five years have given us 30.7 percent. The new revenues are due to four giant Republican tax increases since 1981. All republicans rightly chastised Carter for his $38 billion deficit. But they ignore or even defend deficits of $220 billion, as government spending has grown 10.4 percent per year since Reagan took office, while the federal payroll has zoomed by a quarter of a million bureaucrats… big government has been legitimized in a way the Democrats never could have accomplished. It was tragic to listen to Ronald Reagan on the 1986 campaign trail bragging about his high spending on farm subsidies, welfare, warfare, etc… the IRS has grown bigger, richer, more powerful, and more arrogant. In the words of the founders of our country, our government has "sent hither swarms" of tax gatherers "to harass our people and eat out their substance." His officers jailed the innocent George Hansen, with the President refusing to pardon a great American whose only crime was to defend the Constitution. Reagan's new tax "reform" gives even more power to the IRS. Far from making taxes fairer or simpler, it deceitfully raises more revenue for the government to waste… I want to totally disassociate myself from the policies that have given us unprecedented deficits, massive monetary inflation, indiscriminate military spending, an irrational and unconstitutional foreign policy, zooming foreign aid, the exaltation of international banking, and the attack on our personal liberties and privacy.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Letter to chairman of the RNC http://www.textfiles.com/politics/ron_paul.txt Frank Fahrenkopf (March 1987). 1980s

People, Way, Personality, Country

“The appearance in nineteenth-century psychiatry, jurisprudence, and literature of a whole series of discourses on the species and subspecies of homosexuality, inversion, pederasty, and "psychic hermaphroditism" made possible a strong advance of social controls into this area of "perversity"; but it also made possible the formation of a "reverse" discourse: homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf, to demand that its legitimacy or "naturality" be acknowledged, often in the same vocabulary, using the same categories by which it was medically disqualified.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Vol. I, p. 101
History of Sexuality (1976–1984)

Literature, Nature, Strong, Appearance

“The formal administrative design can never adequately or fully reflect the concrete organization to which it refers, for the obvious reason that no abstract plan or pattern can—or may, if it is to be useful—exhaustively describe an empirical totality. At the same time, that which is not included in the abstract design (as reflected, for example, in a a staff and-line organization chart) is vitally relevant to the maintenance and development of the formal system itself.”

Philip Selznick (1919–2010) American sociologist

Source: "Foundations of the Theory of Organization," 1948, p. 25

Time

“God honoured us and so we harvested their heads and tore up their bodies in many places: the United Nations in Baghdad; the coalition forces in Karbala; the Italians in Nasiriya; the US forces on Khalidiya Bridge; the US intelligence in Al-Shahin Hotel and the Republican Palace in Baghdad; the CIA in the Rashid Hotel; and the Polish forces in Al-Hilla.”

Abu Musab Zarqawi (1966–2006) Jordanian jihadist

From a taped message on an Islamist website. Zarqawi in his own words http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5058474.stm BBC News (April 2004)

God, Intelligence

“For a long period after the reformation, English women were not permitted to read the Bible, a statute of the Eighth Henry prohibiting ‘women and others of low degree’ from its use.”

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898) American abolitionist, writer

Source: Woman, Church and State (1893), p. 355

Women, Reading

“America is a maritime nation: its security, resilience, and economic prosperity are fundamentally linked to the world’s oceans. Our naval forces serve to deter and defeat adversaries, strengthen alliances, deny enemies sanctuary, and project global influence. The amphibious and expeditionary components of our naval force allow us to operate with assurance in the world’s littoral areas. The Marine Corps and the Navy are prepared to arrive swiftly from the sea and project influence and power when needed. Operating from the sea, we impose significantly less political burden on our partners and allies, while providing options to our nation’s leaders. We remain committed to the mission of assuring access for our nation’s forces and its partners. Forward deployed naval forces enable our nation to rapidly respond to crises throughout the world. The ability to engage with partnered nations, through highly trained and self-sustaining forces, maximizes America’s effectiveness as a military power.”

James F. Amos (1946) 35th Commandant of the Marine Corps

The Posture of the United States Marine Corps http://www.hqmc.marines.mil/portals/142/docs/FY_2015_CMC_POSTURE_STATEMENT.pdf (2014)

World, Training, Sea

“A reconsideration of the discussion in which I took an active part more than 40 years ago has left me with a rather depressing view of the somewhat shameful state of what has become an established part of economic science, the subject of ‘economic systems’. It appears to me that in this subject political attractiveness has been preserved by the flimsiest of arguments. The kindest thing one can say is that some well-meaning people have allowed themselves to be deceived by the vague and thoughtless language commonly used by specialists in the theory of these issues.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1980s and later, "Two Pages of Fiction" (1982)

People, Appearance, Science, Parting

“My countrymen, the surpassing war of all times has involved us, and found us utterly unprepared in either a mental or military sense. The Republic must awaken. The people must understand. Our safety lies in full realization the fate of the nation and the safety of the world will be decided on the western battlefront of Europe.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

1910s, The Republic Must Awaken (1917)

Fate, War, People, World

“During the late 1970s and early 1980s there was vigorous debate about the nature of visual mental imagery. One position (championed primarily by Pylyshyn, 1973, 1981) held that representations that underlie the experience of mental imagery are the same type as those used in language; the other position (which my colleagues and I supported, e. g., Kosslyn, 1980, 1994) held that these representations serve to depict, not describe, objects. The debate evolved over time… but always centred on the nature of the internal representations that underlie the experience of visualisation.”

Stephen Kosslyn (1948) American psychologist

Stephen M. Kosslyn, "Mental images and the brain." Cognitive Neuropsychology 22.3-4 (2005): p. 333

Support, Nature, Time

“World peace is continually threatened by the paranoia of power, as internal and international conflicts plague humanity. Confronted by the danger of weapons of mass destruction, humanity must take effective measures towards disarmament. Albert Einstein warned us: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.””

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf. 2013

War, World, Peace

“Then, above all, the English people have a curious sense of humour, rather than wit. Humour comes from the heart; wit comes from the brain. We can laugh at ourselves. Do you remember what Ruskin said? "The English laugh is the purest and truest in the metals that can be minted," and indeed, only Heaven can know what the country owes to it. Well, laughter is one of the best things that God has given us, and with hearty laughter neither malice nor indecency can exist. And of all men who have shown us what that laughter can mean, none was like Dickens, every one of whose characters is English to the marrow; and if I might mention a living writer, I think the truest Englishmen are found in Mr. Priestley's novels.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast from London (25 September 1933), quoted in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 13.
1933

Men, God, People, Thinking

“We should pause to appreciate that the American democratic experiment in ethnic and racial diversity is nearly unique. Indeed, the very idea of racial diversity and nationhood does not have much of a record of success in history. Few countries have been able to transcend their ethnic origins and sustain a racially pluralistic society. Rome was an exception and pulled it off for nearly 500 years, as the Roman Empire grew to encompass non-Italian peoples from the Euphrates to Scotland before unwinding into tribal chaos. The Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires worked for long periods, though they relied on the use of autocratic force and imperial coercion to suppress minorities, in ways antithetical to modern notions of governance.”

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

2010s, America: One Nation, Indivisible (2015)

People, Way, History, Idea

“Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Lutetia; or, Paris. From the Augsberg Gazette, 12, VII (1842)

Time, Animals

“Prentice: It's a fascinating theory, sir, and cleverly put together. Does it tie in with known facts?
Rance: That need not cause us undue anxiety. Civilizations have been founded and maintained on theories which refused to obey facts.”

Joe Orton (1933–1967) English playwright and author

What the Butler Saw (1969), Act I

“The war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act by weak and miserable men, including all of us who have allowed it to go on and on with endless fury and destruction - all of us who would have remained silent, had stability and order been secured.”

Noam Chomsky book American Power and the New Mandarins

Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1960s, American Power and the New Mandarins, 1969

Men, War

“Equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture… have simply made us all members of one class.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/lkbak10.txt (1888), Ch. 14.

Wealth

“So let us listen to the light—what music do we hear? For one thing, we can elicit from each chemical element its own, unique chord. You may sometimes have noticed that a bright yellow flash is produced if ordinary table salt is sprinkled on a flame…a first bare hint of the subject of flame spectra… The fact that different elements emit light with different color characteristics is exploited by the makers of fireworks.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)

Music, Color, Light

“Today, citizens from all across the country came to Washington to honor the precious gift of life, The March for Life movement has for nearly four decades given a voice to those who have no voice. It is a privilege to stand together with thousands of Americans in solidarity and faithful commitment to our solemn duty to protect and defend the lives of the most innocent among us. The Republican majority in Congress has pledged to protect the sanctity of life by ensuring no tax dollars are used for abortion, a policy supported by the vast majority of America. Appreciation goes to those whose tireless efforts continue to shine a light on the need to protect the sanctity and value of human life. May we never forget that our cause is just and timeless because there is nothing more fundamental to our humanity than to defend life.”

Tom Price (U.S. politician) (1954) former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services; former Congressman of Georgia

Price Statement on March for Life https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/trumps-new-hhs-secretary-there-is-nothing-more-fundamental-to-our-humanity (January 24, 2011)

Life, Faith, Support, Effort

“We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Il ne faut pas s’offenser que les autres nous cachent la vérité puisque nous nous la cachons si souvent à nous-mêmes.
Maxim 11 from the Manuscrit de Liancourt.
Later Additions to the Maxims

Truth

“Our whole life we’ve lived in a world of softened edges and easy decisions. All except once. One time, when someone had to look at the world through adult eyes and even the grown-ups who survived the crash with us failed the test. Someone had to look at the world as it was, and make the hard decisions that were necessary—not to romanticize, not to retreat into illusions. You did it then. I’m asking you to do it again. See what’s really going on here. See what’s real.”

Karl Schroeder (1962) Author. Technology consultant

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 24 (p. 265).

Life, World, Decision, Time

“Goebbels […] was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me.”

Edward Bernays (1891–1995) American public relations consultant, marketing pioneer

Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel (1965)

Books

“I myself have experienced the volcanic existential depths of the Greek language. It was during a performance of Medea by Tzeni Karezi at the Herod Atticus theatre in Athens, when she was pleading to the callous Jason to take pity on her and she used the word ' splachniasou'. 'Pity' is too weak a word to describe the emotional and psychological depths ' splachniasou' expresses. 'Splachna 'is the part of the body where a woman carries her unborn children, the very root of ontological existence. How deep can you get!”

Angelique Rockas South African actress and founder of Internationalist Theatre, London

On the Greek language
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

Children, Parting

“I'm a writer who plays the piano. As I write, I find new things I like. I make them into what I call principles, and they become part of my playing vocabulary. That's the secret of what you get from composing. You get to discover things that you wouldn't ordinarily do. Much like a speech pattern, your improvisation patterns can get stale if you don't keep building your vocabulary. Each time you re voice something, you change the sound. When you do this enough, you get used to those sounds, and they start to come out as you play. You end up using voicings that aren't common, which gives you an auditory identity.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

As quoted in "Voicing With a Heart"

Secret, Change, Time, Parting

“The power of art is that it can connect us to one another, and to larger truths about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human.”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

Truth, Art

“The World is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide just because we can't agree on whose fairy tales to believe. In the end, Religion will kill us all.”

Ed Krebs (1951) American photographer and musician

Had Enough Religious Bullshit http://www.edkrebs.com/herb/, Ed Krebs' site.

World, Religion

“Diophantus shows great Adroitness in selecting the unkown, especially with a view to avoiding an adfected quadratic…. The most common and characteristic of Diophantus' methods is his use of tentative assumptions which is applied in nearly every problem of the later books. It consists in assigning to the unknown a preliminary value which satisfies one or two only of the necessary conditions, in order that, from its failure to satisfy the remaining conditions, the operator may perceive what exactly is required for that purpose…. a third characteristic of Diophantus [is]… the use of the symbol for the unknown in different senses…. The use of tentative assumptions leads again to another device which may be called… the method of limits. This may best be illustrated by a particular example. If Diophantus wishes to find a square lying between 10 and 11, he multiplies these numbers by successive squares till a square lies between the products. Thus between 40 and 44, 90 and 99 no square lies, but between 160 and 176 there lies the square 169. Hence x^2 = \tfrac{169}{16} will lie between the proposed limits.”

James Gow (scholar) (1854–1923) scholar

p, 125
A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884)

Lie, Books, Lying, Failure

“If we would We must self forgo if God we would attain, his grace must in us grow and ease us from all pain God discern,
The world we must despise,
His love and hate must learn,
See all things with His eyes.
And we must self forgo
If God we would attain,
His grace must in us grow
And ease us from all pain.
So shall we sing His praise
And be at one with Him,
In peace our voices raise
In the celestial hymn,
That with quadruple harmony
And all mellifluous melody,
In Heaven resounds eternally.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Source: The Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love, p. 124-5

Love, God, Pain, Hate

“Each of us inevitable;
Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Salut au Monde, 11
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down,
Fix in us thy humble dwelling,
All thy faithful mercies crown;
Jesu, thou art all compassion,
Pure unbounded love thou art,
Visit us with thy salvation,
Enter every trembling heart.”

Charles Wesley (1707–1788) English Methodist and hymn writer

Osborn G (1868), "The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley. Vol 4.", London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office. Page 219, at archive.org. https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofj04wesl

Love, Faith, Art, Heart

“The primary use of knowledge is for such guidance of conduct under all circumstances as shall make living complete. All other uses of knowledge are secondary.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

Vol. 3, Ch. XV, The Americans
Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative (1891)

Knowledge

“The people with the strong, brave exteriors are just as weak and vulnerable as the rest of us. And of course they never admit to their childish practices, their moments of weakness or absurdity, and then the rest of us think that’s how it should be.”

Alexander McCall Smith (1948) British writer

Love Over Scotland, chapter 17.
The 44 Scotland Street series

People, Thinking, Strong

“I’ve known a long time. If I thought he was a racist, or alt-right, or any of the things that we can, you know, the terms we can use, I wouldn’t even think about hiring him. First of all, I’m the one that makes the decision, not Steve Bannon or anybody else.”

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

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

Thinking, Decision, Time

“With respect to the use of this sparkling coloured material [butterfly wings, around 1955] – the constituent parts of which remain indistinguishable – with the aim of producing a very vivid effect of scintillation, I realised that, for me, this responds to needs of the same order as those that formerly led me, in many drawings and paintings, to organize my lines and patches of colour so that the objects represented would meld into everything around them, so that the result would be a sort of continuous, universal soup with an intensive flavour of life.”

Jean Dubuffet book Prospectus et tous écrits suivants

Source: 1960-70's, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, 1967, p. 116

Life, Universe, Parting, Drawing

“But by God, there are exceptions. But Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on us.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

On Jews, to H. R. Haldeman, as quoted in "Nixon: I Am Not an Anti-Semite" by Timothy Noah, in Slate (7 October 1999) http://www.slate.com/id/1003783/ 1990s Variant: But, Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?

God

“In this willeth our Lord that we be occupied, joying in Him; for He enjoyeth in us. The more plenteously that we take of this, with reverence and meekness, the more thanks we earn of Him and the more speed to ourselves, thus — may we say — enjoying our part of our Lord. The other is hid and shut up from us: that is to say, all that is beside our salvation.”

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

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 30

Joy, Parting, Speed

“The top secret "M Device", an exploding shell containing a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine. The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it "the most effective chemical weapon ever devised". Trials at Porton suggested that it was indeed a terrible new weapon. Uncontrollable vomiting, coughing up blood and instant, crippling fatigue were the most common reactions. The overall head of chemical warfare production, Sir Keith Price, was convinced its use would lead to the rapid collapse of the Bolshevik regime. "If you got home only once with the gas you would find no more Bolshies this side of Vologda."The cabinet was hostile to the use of such weapons, much to Churchill's irritation. He also wanted to use M Devices against the rebellious tribes of northern India. "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes," he declared in one secret memorandum.”

Giles Milton (1966) British writer and historian

Winston Churchill's shocking use of chemical weapons https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/01/winston-churchill-shocking-use-chemical-weapons (1 September 2013), .

Hostility, Secret, Home

“Again I come back, why is USADA which is really a nefarious locals drugs agency in the United States so intent? Now I can tell you one thing. And I could prove it in SA but I, I went to, I met a chap who worked with Armstrong, err, on Saturday in Boulder Colorado. And he told me that he had a visit, two years ago, err to tell, and the question was, they were agents from a particular agency and, er, they said “will you tell us that Lance Armstrong took EPO? And we could assure that you will never want for money again“. That was his quote on Thursday and he told them in words I can’t put on radio what to do with that and they said “I think we’re talking to the wrong man” and they walked away.”

Phil Liggett (1943) sports journalist, commentator

Accusations that USADA fabricated evidence http://inrng.com/2012/08/can-liggett-save-armstrong/ (30 August 2012)

Money, Quotes, Question, Thinking

“These coups did not bolster indigenous rights as claimed by its perpetrators instead they left us a legacy of a shattered economy, lost opportunities, racial rivalries and tensions, political divisiveness, unprecedented levels of poverty and unemployment and so on - yes that is exactly what the three coups have reduced our nation to.”

Mahendra Chaudhry (1942) Fijian politician

Address to the conference of the Fiji Labour Party, Lautoka, 31 July 2005

“We cannot doubt that all things are regulated by a supreme Being, who, while he has imprinted on matter forces which show his power, has destined it to execute effects which mark his wisdom… Let us calculate the motion of bodies, but let us also consult the designs of the Intelligence which makes them move.”

Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters

Les Oeuvres De Mr. De Maupertuis (1752) vol. iv p. 22; as quoted by Philip Edward Bertrand Jourdain, The Principle of Least Action (1913) p. 6.

Wisdom, Intelligence

“[After the 1990 bus accident] I could not feel my legs, and I knew that I was paralysed. For me, this was a premonition of my worst fate proved right. When I was a child, I always ran up the stairs two at a time, and when I reached the top I would say to myself, one day I won't be able to do this because like my father I will lose the use of my body. Now I knew it had happened. For months afterwards I was locked back in myself, just as I had been when I was a child. But also part of my premonition had always been, strangely, that I would lose my body but in the end it would be all right.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

cubanet.org (May 15, 2000}
2007, 2008

Fate, Feeling, Time, Parting

“They try to portray us as a pro-Israeli movement, in the sense that we have a higher regard for them than our nation. We are accepting them as a people, as part of the people of the world.”

Fethullah Gülen (1941) Turkish preacher, former imam, writer, and political figure

"Fethullah Gulen: Powerful but reclusive Turkish cleric", 2014

People, World, Sense, Parting

“If I used to ask myself, over a coffin, "what good did it do the occupant to be born?" I now put the same question about anyone alive.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Question

“I follow you — because I must. Do you think I am not afraid of death? I am afraid because I do not know what there is, and see only darkness without end; which makes me recoil. I do not know whether there be nothingness, or existence without space and time; perhaps some midplanetary wind carries the spiritual monad from star to star to implant it in an ever-renewing existence. I do not know whether there be immense restlessness, or a peace so perfect as only Omnipotence and Love can bestow on us. But since you have died through my "I do not know," how could I remain here — and live?
The more I fear, the more I do not know, — the more I cannot let you go alone; I cannot, Aniela mine, — and I follow. Together we shall sink into nothingness, or together begin a new life; and here below where we have suffered let us be buried in oblivion.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

Rome, 5 December
Without Dogma (1891)

Love, Life, Death, Fear

“Does the hon. Gentleman accept that some of us oppose the agreement for reasons other than those that he has given? We believe that the agreement strengthens rather than weakens the border between the six and the 26 counties, and those of us who wish to see a United Ireland oppose the agreement for that reason.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/nov/27/anglo-irish-agreement in the House of Commons (27 November 1985) on the Anglo-Irish Agreement. 1980s

“I can assure you that there is no career which you will adopt when you leave college that will bring you a more and greater sense of satisfaction and a greater feeling of participation in a great effort than will your work here or in your state or in your community…this generation of Americans — you here who will be in positions of responsibility for the rest of this century — will deal with the most difficult, sensitive, and dangerous problems that any society of people has ever dealt with at any age…The Greeks defined happiness as the full use of your powers along the lines of excellence, and I can imagine no place where you can use your powers more fully along lines more excellent in the 1960's than to be in the service of the United States.”

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

"Remarks to Student Participants in the White House Seminar in Government (334)" (27 August 1963) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx 1963

Happiness, People, Age, Feeling

“In calling society an ecological system we are not merely using an analogy; society is an example of the general concept of an "ecosystem" that is, an ecological system of which biological systems--forests, fields, swamps--are other examples.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, A Reconstruction of Economics, 1950, p. 6

“Fatigue makes cowards of all of us.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

War as I knew it (1947), as cited in Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations, By Hugh Rawson, Margaret Miner, p. 258 https://books.google.com/books?id=whg05Z4Nwo0C&pg=PA258(via books.google.com).

“He used to teach that God is incorporeal, as Plato also asserted, and that his providence extends over all the heavenly bodies.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Aristotle, 13.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics

God

“When it comes to the FCC, the Bush administration helped lay the foundation. But now, that foundation is being turned on. And I fear an event. I fear a Reichstag moment. God forbid, another 9/11. Something that will turn this machine on, and power will be seized and voices will be silenced. God help us all.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Glenn Beck Exclusive: Warns of 'Reichstag Event'
2009-09-29
Newsmax
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/beck-obama-reichstag-fox/2009/12/12/id/341897
'We Are Fighting People Who Want Power Over Us'
2009-09-29
Newsmax
1546-5497
http://w3.newsmax.com/a/oct09/beck/interview.cfm
2000s, 2009

God, Fear, Silence, Help

“As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace. Somehow, I early developed the notion that he had done this by falling from a tree. As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God's rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word "beautiful."”

Norman Maclean (1902–1990) American author and scholar

"A River Runs Through It", p. 2
A River Runs Through It (1976)

God, Beauty, Nature, Tree

“Everything is literally entangled, it can all be communicated with and affected 'at a distance' because there is no distance, only a simulation of apparent separation which our limited consciousness feeds us second by second at 11 bits. The 'telepathy' which brings people together is no more or less supernatural or unlikely than the 'telepathy' which brings two of your fingers together when you think about it. Patience, participation and constant close observation of what's going on, on the inside and on the outside will soon make you a fine sorcerer, if that's what you want to be.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20040807071522/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20048.html Popimage interview
On magic

People, Communication, Thinking, Patience

“A man with a mouth like a mastiff, a brow like a mountain and eyes like burning anthracite — that was Dan'l Webster in his prime. And the biggest case he argued never got written down in the books, for he argued it against the devil, nip and tuck and no holds barred. And this is the way I used to hear it told.”

Stephen Vincent Benét book The Devil and Daniel Webster

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1937)

Books, Way, Mountain

“Friends and colleagues all of a sudden looked at us, treated us, slightly differently than had months or years before when we were working together. I never quite understood that.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

60 Minutes interview (2005)

“He was surprised when I ignored him. He is wealthy and arrogant and used to being listened to even when what he says is nonsense—as it often is.”

Octavia E. Butler Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed (1980), Chapter 2 (p. 25)

“When all actions are used for feedback, the consequence of making mistakes will be a corrective and appropriate response, because everything everybody does matters. … The more selective you are in the feedback you accept, the more insane your reasoning will become as you will necessarily reject corrective feedback that would have led to better reasoning.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: Lisp's future http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/ba8f8f34c16d55f3 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“Living in age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

"The Disillusioned", in The Balconinny, and Other Essays ([1929] 1969) p. 30.

Life, Age, Change, Perfection

“It’s all right to need help. All of us have things we can’t do alone.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), p. 1; repeated twice more in the book

Help

“Augustine of Hippo used to say that, but for God's grace, he should have been capable of committing any crime; and it is when we feel this sincerely, that we are most likely to be really improving, and best able to give assistance to others without moral loss to ourselves.”

Henry Liddon (1829–1890) British theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 547.

God, Feeling, Loss, Sincerity

“When I woke up, it was daylight. That is when I remembered that I had a father. During the alert, I had followed the mob, not taking care of him. I knew he was running out of strength, close to death, and yet had abandoned him.
I went to look for him.
Yet at the same time a thought crept into my mind: If only I didn't find him! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care of myself…Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

Death, Time, Fight

“The eye of the trilobite tells us that the sun shone on the old beach where he lived; for there is nothing in nature without a purpose, and when so complicated an organ was made to receive light, there must have been light to enter it.”

Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) Swiss naturalist

Geological Sketches (1870), ch. 2, pp. 31–32 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044018968388;view=1up;seq=49

Nature, Light, Sun

“No one who was not by nature a lover of logic, and an extreme precisian in the use of words and phrases, could have written the two "Alice" books.”

Stuart Dodgson Collingwood (1870–1937) English clergyman, headmaster, author

The Lewis Carroll Picture Book (1899) p. 3.

Books, Lovers, Nature

“Marx, however imperfectly he worked out the details, set himself the task of discovering the law of motion of capitalism, and if there is any hope of progress in economics at all, it must be in using academic methods to solve the problems posed by Marx.”

Joan Robinson book An Essay on Marxian Economics

Source: An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966), Chapter XI, Dynamic Analysis, p. 95

Law, Hope, Problem

“We need to change because the world is changing, and we need to anticipate what is next and be there first, as the US military has always been. So, the changes in our future, I think is something that we are all completely committed to.”

Ash Carter (1954) United States Secretary of Defense

archive.defensenews.com interview http://archive.defensenews.com/article/20131119/DEFREG02/311190032/Interview-Ashton-Carter-US-Deputy-Defense-Secretary

World, Thinking, Change, Future

“If use becomes abuse, we should intervene at once, for if abuse becomes habit, then there is no remedy.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

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

“I would never say that God used Hitler to punish the Jews. If God treated any of us justly and punished us according to our sins, we would all be in Hell in an instant. I'm Jewish and I am as guilty as any Gentile of violating His law. However, you and I get to stay alive for a time because God is rich in mercy, is filled with what the Bible calls "lovingkindness," and He particularly lavished this loving-kindness upon the Jewish nation. If you study the Scriptures, you will see that He promised them that if they loved and obeyed Him He would give them long life, health, prosperity, and protection from their enemies. But He also warned that if they disobeyed Him, His hand of protection would be removed.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Defender's Guide for Life's Toughest Questions (2011)

Love, Life, God, Health

“I believe honestly and deeply that the treatment of whales is an example of the evil intelligence of humankind in relation to the rest of the natural world. We have seen greed of the most impossible kind descending on the Arctic and the Antarctic to destroy the most intelligent and beautiful creatures that the planet can produce…We are in the process of destroying much of the planet through destruction of the ozone layer, leading to the greenhouse effect, and the destruction of life. The whale is an example of how such destruction happens. As the ozone layer is destroyed the plankton in the Southern ocean will die and the whales will lose much of their food. Last year we opposed the Antarctic Minerals Bill because we feared that it would lead to pollution of the Southern ocean and damage the whales' food supply. The Government must oppose any extension of whaling of any type, scientific or otherwise, and I hope and trust that they will do so. But we must go further. Countries which engage in the barbarity of so-called scientific whaling, which in reality is crude commercialism of the nastiest kind, deserve retribution from us all and we must bring every possible sanction to bear against them. If we do not take care of our planet and our environment, and of animals such as the whale, mankind will suffer and our planet will die because we have not cared for the natural environment that we all share.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/mar/02/whaling in the House of Commons (2 March 1990). 1990s

Life, World, Fear, Food

“Perfect knowledge of the space an object should occupy in a picture, and of the space that separates one object from another, establishes a new astronomy of things attached to our planet by the magic law of gravity. Canons of the Metaphysical aesthetic lie in the minutely-accurate and precisely-estimated use of surfaces and volumes.... We are building in paint a new Metaphysical psychology of things.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 233
1908 - 1920, On Mystery and Creation, Paris 1913

Lie, Law, Knowledge, Painting