Quotes about validate
page 5

Charles Evans Hughes photo
Scott Ritter photo

“One of the big problems is — and here goes the grenade — Israel. The second you mention the word "Israel," the nation Israel, the concept Israel, many in the American press become very defensive. We’re not allowed to be highly critical of the state of Israel. And the other thing we’re not allowed to do is discuss the notion that Israel and the notion of Israeli interests may in fact be dictating what America is doing, that what we’re doing in the Middle East may not be to the benefit of America’s national security, but to Israel’s national security. But, see, we don’t want to talk about that, because one of the great success stories out there is the pro-Israeli lobby that has successfully enabled themselves to blend the two together, so that when we speak of Israeli interests, they say, "No, we’re speaking of American interests."It’s interesting that AIPAC and other elements of the Israeli Lobby don’t have to register as agents of a foreign government. It would be nice if they did, because then we’d know when they’re advocating on behalf of Israel or they’re advocating on behalf of the United States of America.I would challenge The New York Times to sit down and do a critical story on Israel, on the role of Israel’s influence, the role that Israel plays in influencing American foreign policy. There’s nothing wrong with Israel trying to influence American foreign policy. Let me make that clear. The British seek to influence our foreign policy. The French seek to influence our foreign policy. The Saudis seek to influence our foreign policy. The difference is, when they do this and they bring American citizens into play, these Americans, once they take the money of a foreign government and they advocate on behalf of that foreign government, they register themselves as an agent of that government, so we know where they’re coming from. That’s all I ask the Israelis to do. Let us know where you’re coming from, because stop confusing the American public that Israel’s interests are necessarily America’s interests.I have to tell you right now, Israel has a viable, valid concern about Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. If I were an Israeli, I would be extremely concerned about Hezbollah, and I would want to do everything possible to nullify that organization. As an American, I will tell you, Hezbollah does not threaten the national security of the United States of America one iota. So we should not be talking about using American military forces to deal with the Hezbollah issue. That is an Israeli problem. And yet, you’ll see The New York Times, The Washington Post and other media outlets confusing the issue. They want us to believe that Hezbollah is an American problem. It isn’t, ladies and gentleman. Hezbollah was created three years after Israel invaded Lebanon, not three years after the United States invaded Lebanon. And Hezbollah’s sole purpose was to liberate southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation. I’m not here to condone or sing high praises in virtue for Hezbollah. But I’m here to tell you right now, Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization that threatens the security of the United States of America.”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

October 16, 2006
2006

Francis Escudero photo
Frank Stella photo
Clifford D. Simak photo
Karl Popper photo

“… The answer to this problem is: as implied by Hume, we certainly are not justified in reasoning from an instance to the truth of the corresponding law. But to this negative result a second result, equally negative, may be added: we are justified in reasoning from a counterinstance to the falsity of the corresponding universal law (that is, of any law of which it is a counterinstance). Or in other words, from a purely logical point of view, the acceptance of one counterinstance to 'All swans are white' implies the falsity of the law 'All swans are white' - that law, that is, whose counterinstance we accepted. Induction is logically invalid; but refutation or falsification is a logically valid way of arguing from a single counterinstance to - or, rather, against - the corresponding law. This shows that I continue to agree with Hume's negative logical result; but I extend it. This logical situation is completely independent of any question of whether we would, in practice, accept a single counterinstance - for example, a solitary black swan - in refutation of a so far highly successful law. I do not suggest that we would necessarily be so easily satisfied; we might well suspect that the black specimen before us was not a swan.”

Source: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), Ch. 1 "A Survey of Some Fundamental Problems", Section I: The Problem of Induction http://dieoff.org/page126.htm p. 27

Paul Watson photo

“V Stands for Verity, Virtue, Valor, Validity and Veganism. … Veganism is real conservation in action. It goes beyond talking about climate change and diminishment of biodiversity and actually does something to address the problems.”

Paul Watson (1950) Canadian environmental activist

"Commentary by Captain Paul Watson", from his website SeaShepherd.org (6 May 2014) http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-commentary/commentary/v.html

Dick Cheney photo
Ilya Prigogine photo
Warren Farrell photo

“Prediction can never be absolutely valid and therefore science can never prove some generalization or even test a single descriptive statement and in that way arrive at final truth.”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Source: Mind and Nature, a necessary unity, 1988, p. 29

Víctor Jara photo
Robert P. George photo
William Paley photo

“Some excuse seems necessary for the pain and loss which we occasion to brutes, by restraining them of their liberty, mutilating their bodies, and, at last, putting an end to their lives (which we suppose to be the whole of their existence), for our pleasure or conveniency.
The reasons alleged in vindication of this practice, are the following: that the several species of brutes being created to prey upon one another, affords a kind of analogy to prove that the human species were intended to feed upon them; that, if let alone, they would overrun the earth, and exclude mankind from the occupation of it; that they are requited for what they suffer at our hands, by our care and protection.
Upon which reasons I would observe, that the analogy contended for is extremely lame; since brutes have no power to support life by any other means, and since we have; for the whole human species might subsist entirely upon fruit, pulse, herbs, and roots, as many tribes of Hindoos actually do. The two other reasons may be valid reasons, as far as they go; for, no doubt, if man had been supported entirely by vegetable food, a great part of those animals which die to furnish his table, would never have lived: but they by no means justify our right over the lives of brutes to the extent in which we exercise it. What danger is there, for instance, of fish interfering with us, in the occupation of their element? or what do we contribute to their support or preservation?”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Vol. I, Book II, Ch. XI.
The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785)

John Brown (abolitionist) photo

“Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment. This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!”

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859) American abolitionist

Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858), Speech to the Court (1859)

Frank Buchman photo
Jefferson Davis photo

“All ideas are valid in the context they were created.”

Carlos Gershenson (1978) Mexican researcher

Source: Artificial Societies of Intelligent Agents (2001), p. 86

Antonin Artaud photo
Robert H. Jackson photo

“My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative. And also, I want to be free again.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Sendak here quotes from King Lear by William Shakespeare : Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither: Ripeness is all.
NOW interview (2004)
Context: My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative. And also, I want to be free again. I want to be free like when I was a kid … Where we just had fun. What I mean by this is I've had my career. I've had my success. God willing, it should have happened to Herman Melville who deserved it a great deal more, you know? Imagine him being on Bill Moyers' show. Nothing good happened to Herman Melville. I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. "Ripeness is all." Now, interpreting what ripeness is our own individual problem. … So, what is the point of it all? Not leaving legacies. But being ripe. Being ripe.

“There can be no valid worship except that in which man is involuntarily bent by the presence of the Most Real, beyond his will.”

William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher

Source: The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Ch. XII : The Will as a Maker of Truth, p. 140.
Context: For maturity is marked by the preference to be defeated rather than have a subjective success. We as mature persons can worship only that which we are compelled to worship. If we are offered a man-made God and a self-answering prayer, we will rather have no God and no prayer. There can be no valid worship except that in which man is involuntarily bent by the presence of the Most Real, beyond his will.

Aleister Crowley photo

“The skeptic will applaud our labours, for that the very catholicity of the symbols denies them any objective validity, since, in so many contradictions, something must be false; while the mystic will rejoice equally that the self-same catholicity all-embracing proves that very validity, since after all something must be true.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

777 (1909)
Context: The following is an attempt to systematize alike the data of mysticism and the results of comparative religion.
The skeptic will applaud our labours, for that the very catholicity of the symbols denies them any objective validity, since, in so many contradictions, something must be false; while the mystic will rejoice equally that the self-same catholicity all-embracing proves that very validity, since after all something must be true.
Fortunately we have learnt to combine these ideas, not in the mutual toleration of sub-contraries, but in the affirmation of contraries, that transcending of the laws of intellect which is madness in the ordinary man, genius in the Overman who hath arrived to strike off more fetters from our understanding.

Ward Churchill photo

“I retract nothing. What I said has been validated beyond my wildest expectations, to tell you the truth, so let's just say that I rest my case.”

Ward Churchill (1947) Political activist

Huffington Post (10 November 2011) "Professor Rights Group Condemns CU-Boulder Firings Of Ward Churchill, Phil Mitchell In New Report" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/09/ward-churchill-phil-mitch_n_1084465.html by Matt Ferner
Context: I retract nothing. What I said has been validated beyond my wildest expectations, to tell you the truth, so let's just say that I rest my case. A lot of people were outraged by my remark, of course, but … the people upset were the fucking Eichmanns. Look in the mirror and own it, guys. You identified yourselves by frothing at the mouth for being called by your right name.

Michael Crichton photo

“Science is nothing more than a method of inquiry. The method says an assertion is valid — and merits universal acceptance — only if it can be independently verified.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

Testimony before the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (28 September 2005)
Context: Science is nothing more than a method of inquiry. The method says an assertion is valid — and merits universal acceptance — only if it can be independently verified. The impersonal rigor of the method means it is utterly apolitical. A truth in science is verifiable whether you are black or white, male or female, old or young. It's verifiable whether you like the results of a study, or you don't.

Alan Watts photo
Claude Lévi-Strauss photo

“The truths which we seek so far afield only become valid when we have separated them from this dross.”

Source: Tristes Tropiques (1955), Ch. 1 : Setting Out, p. 17
Context: I hate travelling and explorers. Yet here I am proposing to tell the story of my expeditions. But how long it has taken me to make up my mind to do so! It is now fifteen years since I left Brazil for the last time and all during this period I have often planned to undertake the present work but on each occasion a sort of shame and repugnance prevented me from making a start. Why, I asked myself, should I give a detailed account of so many trivial circumstances and insignificant happenings? Adventure has no place in the anthropologists profession; it is merely one of those unavoidable drawbacks, which detract from his effective work through the incidental loss of weeks or months; there are hours of inaction when the informant is not available; periods of hunger, exhaustion, sickness perhaps; and always the thousand and one dreary tasks which eat away the days to no purpose and reduce dangerous living in the heart of the virgin forest to an imitation of military service … The fact that so much effort and expenditure has to be wasted on reaching the object of our studies bestows no value on that aspect of our profession, and should be seen rather as its negative side. The truths which we seek so far afield only become valid when we have separated them from this dross.

Karl Mannheim photo

“The norms arising out of such actual life situations do not exist in a social vacuum, but are effective as real sanctions for conduct. Relationism signifies merely that all of the elements of meaning in a given situation have reference to one another and derive their significance from this reciprocal interrelationship in a given frame of thought. Such a system of meanings is possible and valid only in a given type of historical existence, to which, for a time, it furnishes appropriate expression.”

Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) Hungarian sociologist

Ideology and Utopia (1929)
Context: This first non-evaluative insight into history does not inevitably lead to relativism, but rather to relationism. Knowledge, as seen in the light of the total conception of ideology, is by no means an illusory experience, for ideology in its relational concept is not at all identical with illusion. Knowledge arising out of our experience in actual life situations, though not absolute, is knowledge none the less. The norms arising out of such actual life situations do not exist in a social vacuum, but are effective as real sanctions for conduct. Relationism signifies merely that all of the elements of meaning in a given situation have reference to one another and derive their significance from this reciprocal interrelationship in a given frame of thought. Such a system of meanings is possible and valid only in a given type of historical existence, to which, for a time, it furnishes appropriate expression. When the social situation changes, the system of norms to which it had previously given birth ceases to be in harmony with it. The same estrangement goes on with reference to knowledge and to the historical perspective. All knowledge is oriented toward some object and is influenced in its approach by the nature of the object with which it is pre-occupied. But the mode of approach to the object to be known is dependent upon the nature of the knower.

Terry Goodkind photo

“Fantasy allows you to shine a different kind of light on human beings. I believe the only valid use of fantasy is to illustrate important human themes.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

Interview by John C. Snider (2003) at SciFiDimensions.com http://www.scifidimensions.com/Aug03/terrygoodkind.htm
Context: Fantasy allows you to shine a different kind of light on human beings. I believe the only valid use of fantasy is to illustrate important human themes. Magic in my novels is used in three ways: the simplest is as a metaphor for technology. A good example is a magic carpet. There's no magic carpet in my novels, but if someone needs to travel a great distance, they could use a magic carpet, while in a contemporary novel they'd use a car. The second way, and I think the most important, is as a metaphor for individuality and individual ability. The mediocre world doesn't want individuals to rise above what everyone else is doing. The third way I use magic is as a metaphor for coming out of an age of mysticism into a Renaissance. So, in a way it's the struggle between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance. … I never allow my characters to use magic to solve their problems. Some of their peripheral problems are solved through their magical abilities, but it's couched in terms of overcoming those problems in a thinking way. The major conflicts in the books are always solved through human intellect, through thinking out the problem and coming up with a solution. It's never "I'll just wave my magic wand over the bad guys and have them all fall down dead!"

Robert Fulghum photo

“My convictions have validity for me because I have experimented with the compounds of ideas of others in the laboratory of my mind. And I've tested the results in the living out of my life.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Words I Wish I Wrote (1997)
Context: My convictions have validity for me because I have experimented with the compounds of ideas of others in the laboratory of my mind. And I've tested the results in the living out of my life. At twenty-one, I had drawn an abstract map based on the evidence of others. At sixty, I have accumulated a practical guide grounded in my own experience. At twenty-one, I could discuss transportation theory with authority. At sixty, I know which bus to catch to go where, what the fare is, and how to get back home again. It is not my bus, but I know how to use it.

Carl Sagan photo

“I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Essay as "Mr. X" (1969)
Context: I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature. I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist. If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I'm high I know about this disbelief. And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously. I say "Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!" I try to show that my mind is working clearly; I recall the name of a high school acquaintance I have not thought of in thirty years; I describe the color, typography, and format of a book in another room and these memories do pass critical scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs. Such a remark applies not only to self-awareness and to intellectual pursuits, but also to perceptions of real people, a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words which sometimes yields a rapport so close it's as if two people are reading each other's minds.

Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1880s, Agnosticism (1889)
Context: Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to agnosticism. That which agnostics deny and repudiate as immoral is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions. The justification of the agnostic principle lies in the success which follows upon its application, whether in the field of natural or in that of civil history; and in the fact that, so far as these topics are concerned, no sane man thinks of denying its validity.

Roger Wolcott Sperry photo

“I think time will show that the new approach, emphasizing emergent "macro" control, is equally valid in all the physical sciences, and that the behavioral and cognitive disciplines are leading the way to a more valid framework for all science.”

Roger Wolcott Sperry (1913–1994) American neuroscientist

New Mindset on Consciousness (1987)
Context: I think time will show that the new approach, emphasizing emergent "macro" control, is equally valid in all the physical sciences, and that the behavioral and cognitive disciplines are leading the way to a more valid framework for all science. Although the theoretic changes make little difference in physics, chemistry, molecular biology, and so on, they are crucial for the behavioral, social, and human sciences. They don't change the analytic, reductive methodology, just the interpretations and conclusions. There seems little to lose, and much to gain.

Aleister Crowley photo

“It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Book VI : Liber O (1909)
Context: In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.

Benoît Mandelbrot photo

“A complicated phenomenon need not be fractal, but finding that a phenomenon is "not even fractal" is bad news, because so far nobody has invested anywhere near my effort in identifying and creating new techniques valid beyond fractals.”

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

A Theory of Roughness (2004)
Context: Do I claim that everything that is not smooth is fractal? That fractals suffice to solve every problem of science? Not in the least. What I'm asserting very strongly is that, when some real thing is found to be un-smooth, the next mathematical model to try is fractal or multi-fractal. A complicated phenomenon need not be fractal, but finding that a phenomenon is "not even fractal" is bad news, because so far nobody has invested anywhere near my effort in identifying and creating new techniques valid beyond fractals. Since roughness is everywhere, fractals — although they do not apply to everything — are present everywhere. And very often the same techniques apply in areas that, by every other account except geometric structure, are separate.

Karen Armstrong photo

“The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)
Context: The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology. Compassion was the litmus test for the prophets of Israel, for the rabbis of the Talmud, for Jesus, for Paul, and for Muhammad, not to mention Confucius, Lao-tsu, the Buddha, or the sages of the Upanishads.

Carl Orff photo
Robert H. Jackson photo

“But the validity of a doctrine does not depend on whose ox it gores.”

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) American judge

Wells v. Simonds Abrasive Co., 345 U.S. 514, 525 (1953)
Judicial opinions

Jared Leto photo
Натаниэль Бузолич photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Alexander Vandegrift photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo

“Protectionism and militarism are united in an unholy but yet a valid marriage: and the one and the other are in my firm conviction alike the foes of freedom.”

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

Letter to the Marchese di Rudinì (30 April 1892), quoted in Vilfedo Pareto, Liberté économique et les événements d'Italie (1970), p. 49
1890s

Iain Banks photo

“They spend time. That’s just it. They spend time traveling. The time weighs heavily on them because they lack any context, any valid framework for their lives. They persist in hoping that something they think they’ll find in the place they’re heading for will somehow provide them with a fulfilment they feel certain they deserve and yet have never come close to experiencing.”

Ziller frowned and tapped at his pipe bowl. “Some travel forever in hope and are serially disappointed. Others, slightly less self-deceiving, come to accept that the process of travelling itself offers, if not fulfilment, then relief from the feeling that they should be feeling fulfilled.”
Source: Culture series, Look to Windward (2000), Chapter 5 “A Very Attractive System” (p. 113)

Coraline Ada Ehmke photo
Chris Martin photo
Norman Thomas photo

“The ultimate values in the world are those of personality and no theory of the state, whether socialistic or capitalistic, is valid, which makes it master, not servant, of man.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

As quoted in Norman Thomas: Respectable Rebel, Murray B. Seidler, Syracuse University Press (1961) p. 27

Carl Sagan photo

“One thing poetry teaches us, if anything, is that everything is connected…There is so much history that we have not validated.”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

On her worldly view of poetry in “Poet Lucille Clifton: 'Everything Is Connected'” https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124113507 in NPR (2010 Feb 28)

Immanuel Kant photo
Alice A. Bailey photo

“The only excuse for this book is that it is an attempt to penetrate to that deeper meaning underlying the great events in the life of Christ, and to bring into renewed life and interest the weakening aspiration of the Christian. If it can be shown that the story revealed in the Gospels has not only an application to that divine Figure Which dwelt for a time among men, but that it has also a practical significance and meaning for the civilised man today, then there will be some objective gained and some service and help rendered…. A myth is capable of becoming a fact in the experience of an individual, for a myth is a fact which can be proven. Upon the myths we take our stand, but we must seek to re-interpret them in the light of the present. Through self-initiated experiment we can prove their validity; through experience we can establish them as governing forces in our lives; and through their expression we can demonstrate their truth to others. This is the theme of this book, dealing as it does with the facts of the Gospel story, that fivefold sequential myth which teaches us the revelation of divinity in the Person of Jesus Christ, and which remains eternally truth, in the cosmic sense, in the historical sense, and in its practical application to the individual. This myth divides itself into five great episodes: 1. The Birth at Bethlehem. 2. The Baptism in Jordan. 3. The Transfiguration on Mount Carmel. 4. The Crucifixion on Mount Golgotha. 5. The Resurrection and Ascension.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: From Bethlehem to Calvary (1937), Chapter One

Alice A. Bailey photo
Nanak photo
Herbert Spencer photo

“No human laws are of any validity if contrary to the law of nature; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority mediately or immediately from this original.”

Thus writes Blackstone, to whom let all honour be given for having so far outseen the ideas of his time; and, indeed, we may say of our time. A good antidote, this, for those political superstitions which so widely prevail. A good check upon that sentiment of power-worship which still misleads us by magnifying the prerogatives of constitutional governments as it once did those of monarchs. Let men learn that a legislature is not “our God upon earth,” though, by the authority they ascribe to it, and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is at the best borrowed.
Pt. III, Ch. 19 : The Right to Ignore the State, § 2
Social Statics (1851)

“None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don’t know we can’t do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we’re told not to judge.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: 2000s, The Wisdom of Tenderness: What happens when God's firece mercy transforms our lives (2002), p. 69

Karl Dönitz photo

“War had a way of making carpe diem seem valid no matter what you wanted to seize…”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Tejano Conflict (2014), Chapter 17

Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo

“The law commands that the other person shall treat me as a rational being. He does not do so; and the law now absolves mc from all obligation to treat him as a rational being. But by that very absolving it makes itself valid. For the law, in saying that it depends now altogether upon my free-will how I desire to treat the other, or that I have a compulsory right against him, says, virtually, that the other person can not prevent my compulsion; that is, can not prevent it through the mere principle of law, though he may prevent it through physical strength, or through an appeal to morality, (may induce me to forego my compelling him, or prevent me from compelling him by superior strength.)If an absolute community is to be established between persons, as such, each member thereof must assume the above law; for only by constantly treating each other as free beings can they remain free beings or persons. Moreover, since it is possible for each member to treat the other as not a free being, but as a mere thing, it is also conceivable that each member may form the resolve, never to treat the others as mere things, but always as free beings; and since for such a resolve no other ground is discoverable than that such a community of free beings ought to exist, it is also conceivable that each member should have formed that resolve from this ground and upon this presupposition.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 132

China Miéville photo
Alvin M. Weinberg photo

“The philosophy of science is concerned with how you decide if a scientific finding is correct or true. You have to establish criteria to determine if the finding or theory is valid. Validity is a fundamental problem in the philosophy of science, but the fundamental problem in the philosophy of scientific administration is the question of value.”

Alvin M. Weinberg (1915–2006) American nuclear physicist

Two scientific activities are equally valid if they achieve results that are true. Now, how do you decide which activity is more valuable? The question of value is the basic question that the scientific administrator asks so that decisions can be made about funding priorities.
Interview http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev28-1/text/wbgbar.htm by Bill Cabage and Carolyn Krause for the ORNL Review (April 1995).

Nanak photo
Joyce Brothers photo
Robert Greene photo

“Creating this feeling of validation is the golden key that will unlock people’s defenses. And we cannot survive and thrive in this highly competitive world without possessing such a power.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 7 : Soften People’s Resistance by Confirming Their Self-opinion
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Teal Swan photo
Teal Swan photo
Teal Swan photo
Teal Swan photo
Maurice Allais photo

“A theory is only as good as its assumptions. If the premises are false, the theory has no real scientific value. The only scientific criterion for judging the validity of a scientific theory is a confrontation with the data of experience.”

Maurice Allais (1911–2010) French economist; 1988 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics

L'anisotropie de l'espace. La nécessaire révision de certains postulats des théories contemporaines. Les données de l'expérience (1997), p. 591

David Hilbert photo
John Allen Paulos photo
Jason Reynolds photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Frank Herbert photo
Abimael Guzmán photo
Donna Tartt photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“This Administration has been looking hard at exactly what civil defense can and cannot do. It cannot be obtained cheaply. It cannot give an assurance of blast protection that will be proof against surprise attack or guaranteed against obsolescence or destruction. And it cannot deter a nuclear attack. We will deter an enemy from making a nuclear attack only if our retaliatory power is so strong and so invulnerable that he knows he would be destroyed by our response. If we have that strength, civil defense is not needed to deter an attack. If we should ever lack it, civil defense would not be an adequate substitute. But this deterrent concept assumes rational calculations by rational men. And the history of this planet, and particularly the history of the 20th century, is sufficient to remind us of the possibilities of an irrational attack, a miscalculation, an accidental war, for a war of escalation in which the stakes by each side gradually increase to the point of maximum danger which cannot be either foreseen or deterred. It is on this basis that civil defense can be readily justifiable--as insurance for the civilian population in case of an enemy miscalculation. It is insurance we trust will never be needed--but insurance which we could never forgive ourselves for foregoing in the event of catastrophe. Once the validity of this concept is recognized, there is no point in delaying the initiation of a nation-wide long-range program of identifying present fallout shelter capacity and providing shelter in new and existing structures. Such a program would protect millions of people against the hazards of radioactive fallout in the event of large-scale nuclear attack. Effective performance of the entire program not only requires new legislative authority and more funds, but also sound organizational arrangements.”

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

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Natalie Wynn photo
Frithjof Schuon photo

“There is no valid virtue without piety, and there is no authentic piety without virtue.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2013, From the Divine to the Human, World Wisdom, 70, 978-1-936597-32-1]
Spiritual path, Virtue

Glacier Kwong photo

“We should not suppress our feelings of sadness during our activism. Being upfront with these emotions shows our humanity and gives validation to others feeling the same way.”

Glacier Kwong (1996) Hong Kong human rights activist

What Could Possibly Go Right?: Episode 38 Glacier Kwong https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-05-04/what-could-possibly-go-right-episode-38/ (4 May 2021)

Lana Condor photo

“What if the Internet breaks tomorrow? Then you'd realize that you're a human being, and you're not validated by what other people think of you - it's how you think of yourself.”

Lana Condor (1997) Vietnamese-American actress

As quoted in "Lana Condor of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before on Her Newfound Instagram Fame, and How She Unplugs" in W Magazine (1 September 2018) https://www.wmagazine.com/story/lana-condor-all-the-boys-ive-loved-before-instagram

Jack Vance photo

“Except for a few special cases, title to every parcel of real property derives from an act of violence, more or less remote, and ownership is only as valid as the strength and will required to maintain it. That is the lesson of history, whether you like it or not.”

“The mourning of defeated peoples, while pathetic and tragic, is usually futile,” said Kelse.
Source: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 16 (p. 159)

“By using the word "dialogue" I hope to be able to believe that the other has something worthwhile to say. Engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions but rather, renouncing the claim that they alone are valid or absolute.”

Paul Donoghue (1949) Roman Catholic bishop

Source: New Year, New Resolution https://www.cookislandsnews.com/opinion/editorials/new-year-new-resolution/ (7 January 2022)

Greg Walden photo

“I'm not going to put the validity of America's general election on the line by thinking every state is as good as Oregon, when it comes to elections.”

Greg Walden (1957) American politician

Source: Walden On COVID-19, Reopening Eastern Oregon And National Vote-By-Mail https://www.opb.org/news/article/reopen-eastern-oregon-covid-19-coronavirus-greg-walden/ (24 April 2020)

“It is not truth that is validated by a proof, but one’s understanding of it.”

Raheel Farooq Pakistani writer

Why I Am a Muslim: And a Christian and a Jew (2020)