Quotes about view
page 33

“Misapprehensions about the crucial question of whether Management constitutes a scientific discipline stem, in my view, from the multiplicity of perspectives involved: theoretical; normative; technical/educational; and practical. This makes is far too easy for critics to deride practical advice developed in this field, something they assimilate far too readily (and erroneously) with ready-made solutions, ignoring the epistemological vision underlying all management studies.”

Éric Pichet (1960) economist

Source: The Epistemology of Social Science (2011), p. 141.

Education, Question, Study

“During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore—in part because it's fun to do. But there's a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their "low contracted prejudices." And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment—until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace the cosmic perspective.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

2000s

People, World, Knowledge, Universe

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 490 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F373&viewtype=image Close of the first edition (1859). Only use of the term "evolve" or "evolution" in the first edition. In the second http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F376&viewtype=image (1860) through sixth (1872) editions, Darwin added the phrase "by the Creator" to read:

Life, Law, Beauty

“The conquest of Riga is of the greatest importance not only from the military, but also form the political point of view… Our military situation was never more glorious than it is at present. Meanwhile, there is also the U-boat war, which is taking its course. The destruction of enemy tonnage that was expected of it on the basis of official predictions, has not only been achieved, but partly exceeded by more than half…Time is working for us. Britain to-day is fighting the war with a watch in her hand, and it is in this that I see the fundamentally decisive effect of the U-boat weapon for us and the approach of peace…If we are to achieve anything through compromise and understanding, then the Government must not be forced to make any statements renouncing something from the outset. For this reason the tactics by which it has been and is still being tried to make the Government declare its disinterestedness in Belgium, are wrong. Even those who share the attitude of Herr Scheidemann ought to fight for the last stone in Belgium, in order to exploit to the utmost that which possession has made into a dead pledge…However, the fact that we are going to have peace—and, we hope, soon—will in my conviction be due, apart from our military achievements, to the effects of unrestricted U-boat warfare, of which I have repeatedly said before the Main Committee that while I reject the formula that it will force Britain to her knees, I believe as firmly in the formula that it will force Britain to the conference table.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Speech in the Reichstag (October 1917), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), p. 121
1910s

War, Peace, Hope, Understanding

“In my view, and we've introduced legislation to deal with this, if a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2016 Presidential Campaign Rally in Madison, Wisconsin, (1 July 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OewBDIwy-O4 at 43:00 2010s, 2015

“What is love? From the spiritual and inner point of view, love is self-expansion. Human love binds and is bound. Divine Love expands, enlarges itself.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

My Rose Petals (1971)

Love

“Ministers look upon theaters as rival attractions, and most of their hatred is born of business views. They think people ought to be driven to church by having all other places closed. In my judgment the theater has done good, while the church has done harm. The drama never has insisted upon burning anybody.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.

People, Business, Thinking

“The trouble is that you won't get the scientists to agree on a course of action. It is almost instinctive in science to accept contrary views, because disagreeing gives you guidance to experimental tests of ideas — your own and those offered by others….”

Frederick Seitz (1911–2008) American physicist

Explaining his opinion on why "the most beneficial kinds of research won't get done because the most politically attractive research will get the funding instead", in an interview for the George C. Marshall Institute http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=21, (3 September 1997)

Idea, Science

“If you go to Cass Sunstein, what net neutrality means is now if you go to FoxNews. com, you will have Arianna Huffington, a little box pop up with her showing that "Bill O'Reilly is wrong on this" or "here's an opposing view of Bill O'Reilly."”

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

2010-12-2
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Network
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/48783/
2010s, 2010

Box

“Those who one-sidedly depict the early European history of Australia are endangering one of the gains of recent years: the willingness to examine the long years of traditional Aboriginal history with sympathy and understanding. Just as the history of European Australia can be denounced from a one-sided point of view, so too can the history of black Australia be depicted by the one-eyed as a story of savagery. To revert to such denunciations would be a loss to all Australians, black and white.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

"Black Future, Reverse Racism: The "Black Armband" View of History is Intent on Dividing the Nation Forever", The Bulletin, (April 8, 1997)

History, Understanding, Loss

“What's very important from my point of view is that there is one web … Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks very boring.”

Tim Berners-Lee (1955) British computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web

As quoted in "US backing for two-tier internet" in BBC News (7 September 2007) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6983375.stm

“Everything is in decline the moment you stop giving the artist freedom. That goes for everywhere, but it is happening in America right now. I think record companies are at great fault. In general, they don’t want to develop talent, but rather get the most out of them in the short term. They’re steering people to do things they perhaps wouldn’t do but have to do and not everyone has the integrity to say “No way.” People are hungry and they have to make money and take care of their families, so it’s a great pressure. Only when you can afford it from an artistic or financial point of view can you express what you want to express.”

Joe Zawinul (1932–2007) austrian composer and pianist

On how the record industry in America represses artist freedom and talents from upcoming artists
Prasad interview (1997)

Money, People, Family, Way

“Nothing would more contribute to make a Man wise, than to have always an Enemy in his view.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections

“I realize that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers.”

Georg Cantor (1845–1918) mathematician, inventor of set theory

Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre [Foundations of a General Theory of Aggregates] (1883)

Mathematics, Nature

“Politics in this country are dominated by debates about our relationship with Europe and the Eurocentralism that goes with that. I am firmly an internationalist, so I am not necessarily opposed to Europe. However, I am opposed to a fortress Europe that basically creates wealth for itself at the expense of the world, creates an undemocratic control of government for the whole of Europe, and, in truth, works only for the good of multinational corporations and banking systems. It will cause further imbalances in world poverty and world trade arrangements. I view the free market of 1992 not as an opportunity, but as a disaster for very many people throughout the world. I believe that Europe will contribute to the economic problems of the world. I do not agree with the sort of racist nonsense that has been published in the Sun and other newspapers during the past few weeks. It is a disgusting way to report matters. However, I believe that the drive towards a market economy in Europe will create poverty on the rims of Europe and an inner-colonialism in which western Europe will act as a sort of colonial master for eastern Europe and much of the rest of the world. It is about time that we began to take an international and global view rather than shut ourselves into a Europe that does not act in a socially just and reasonable manner. I hope that the debate will now begin to turn on those matters.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/nov/07/first-day in the House of Commons (7 November 1990). 1990s

People, Truth, World, Hope

“No country of people's democracy has so many nationalities as this country has. Only in Czechoslovakia do there exist two kindred nationalities, while in some of the other countries there are only minorities. Consequently in these countries of people's democracy there has been no need to settle such serious problems as we have had to settle here. With them the road to socialism is less complicated than is the case here. With them the basic factor is the class issue, with us it is both the nationalities and the class issue. The reason why we were able to settle the nationalities question so thoroughly is to be found in the fact that it had begun to be settled in a revolutionary way in the course of the Liberation War, in which all the nationalities in the country participated, in which every national group made its contribution to the general effort of liberation from the occupier according to its capabilities. Neither the Macedonians nor any other national group which until then had been oppressed obtained their national liberation by decree. They fought for their national liberation with rifle in hand. The role of the Communist Party lay in the first place in the fact that it led that struggle, which was a guarantee that after the war the national question would be settled decisively in the way the communists had conceived long before the war and during the war. The role of the Communist Party in this respect today, in the phase of building socialism, lies in making the positive national factors a stimulus to, not a brake on, the development of socialism in our country. The role of the Communist Party today lies in the necessity for keeping a sharp lookout to see that national chauvinism does not appear and develop among any of the nationalities. The Communist Party must always endeavour, and does endeavour, to ensure that all the negative phenomena of nationalism disappear and that people are educated in the spirit of internationalism. What are the phenomena of nationalism? Here are some of them: 1) National egoism, from which many other negative traits of nationalism are derived, as for example — a desire for foreign conquest, a desire to oppress other nations, a desire to impose economic exploitation upon other nations, and so on; 2) national-chauvinism which is also a source of many other negative traits of nationalism, as for example national hatred, the disparagement of other nations, the disparagement of their history, culture, and scientific activities and scientific achievements, and so on, the glorification of developments in their own history that were negative and which from our Marxist point of view are considered negative. And what are these negative things? Wars of conquest are negative, the subjugation and oppression of other nations is negative, economic exploitation is negative, colonial enslavement is negative, and so on. All these things are accounted negative by Marxism and condemned. All these phenomena of the past can, it is true, be explained, but from our point of view they can never be justified. In a socialist society such phenomena must and will disappear. In the old Yugoslavia national oppression by the great-Serb capitalist clique meant strengthening the economic exploitation of the oppressed peoples. This is the inevitable fate of all who suffer from national oppression. In the new, socialist Yugoslavia the existing equality of rights for all nationalities has made it impossible for one national group to impose economic exploitation upon another. That is because hegemony of one national group over another no longer exists in this country. Any such hegemony must inevitably bring with it, to some degree or other, in one form or another, economic exploitation; and that would be contrary to the principles upon which socialism rests. Only economic, political, cultural, and universal equality of rights can make it possible for us to grow in strength in these tremendous endeavours of our community.”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Concerning the National Question and Social Patriotism http://www.marxists.org/archive/tito/1948/11/26.htm Speech held at the Slovene Academy of Arts and Sciences, November 26, 1948, Ljubljana Speeches

Fate, War, People, Education

“Death by hanging…well, in view of the whole situation, I never expected anything different. It's all right.”

Arthur Seyss-Inquart (1892–1946) austrian chancellor and politician, convicted of crimes against humanity in Nuremberg Trials and sentenced …

To G.M. Gilbert, about receiving the death sentence. Quoted in "Nuremberg Diary" by G. M. Gilbert - History - 1995

Death

“If we, the Filipino people, were to view the last 60 years, they may be termed as the decades of missed opportunities.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

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

People

“When my mother delivered me, she didn't have milk, and I was breastfed by an Arab woman. Maybe that had an effect on my leftist views.”

Amir Peretz (1952) Israeli politician

Attributed

“The empirical successes of [the three-factor model] suggest that it is an equilibrium pricing model, a three-factor version of Merton’s (1973) intertemporal CAPM (ICAPM) or Ross’s (1976) arbitrage pricing theory (APT). In this view, SMB and HML mimic combinations of two underlying risk factors or state variables of special hedging concern to investors.”

Eugene Fama (1939) American economist and Nobel laureate in Economics

Source: Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds, 1993, p. 57

Success

“The members of the Japanese enlightenment of the early 1870's, Fukuzawa among them, now reasoned as follows: Japan can keep its independence only if it becomes stronger. It can become stronger only with the help of science. It will use science effectively only if it does not just practice science but also believes in the underlying ideology. To many traditional Japanese this ideology-the scientific worldview- was barbaric. But, so the followers of Fukuzawa argued, it was necessary to adopt barbaric ways, to regard them as advanced, to introduce the whole of Western civilization in order to survive. Having been thus prepared, Japanese scientists soon branched out as their Western colleagues had done before and falsified the uniform ideology that had started the development. The lesson I draw from this sequence of events is that a uniform 'scientific view of the world' may be useful for people doing science… However, it is a disaster for outsiders(philosophers, fly-by-night mystics, prophets of a new age, the (educated public"), who, being undisturbed by the complexities of research, are liable to fall for the most simpleminded and most vapid tale.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

pg 160.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

People, Age, World, Education

“In the following work, I have endeavoured to exhibit the full extent of the Military and Naval Forces which the government of Great Britain can bring into the field, or launch upon the ocean. I have likewise described the connection of these forces with the government of the country, and also the discipline usually exercised in order to produce a hardihood in battle, invulnerable to fear and unassailable by cowardice. My observations on these subjects were derived from a residence of five years in England; during which time I was constantly employed in visiting and viewing every object and institution worthy of notice relative to the British Army and Navy.”

Charles Dupin (1784–1873) French mathematician

Source: A Tour Through the Naval and Military Establishments of Great Britain, 1822, p. iii; Introduction, lead paragraph

Fear, Exercises, Time, Country

“.. [both of us (Schelfhout ànd J. C. Schotel)] make each a painting that together will form one view, as it were [view of Scheveningen by Schotel / view of The Hague by Schelfhout].... [but] our paintings together will therefore not become one integrated thing, but only pendants... I have taken my drawing from the steps of the Pavilion [in Scheveningen], viewed over the dunes to [the city] The Hague. In the foreground, which is very bare and empty in reality, I have placed some trees.”

Andreas Schelfhout (1787–1870) Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch, citaat van Schelfhout, uit zijn brief:) ..[dat wij beiden, (Schelfhout èn J.C. Schotel )] elk een schilderij te maaken het welk bijde als het ware één gezigt zoude uitmaken [uitzicht van Scheveningen door Schotel, èn uitzicht op het centrum van Den Haag door Schelfhout].. ..[maar] onze schilderijen zullen dus te zamen geen geheel uitmaken, maar slechts pandanten zijn.. .Ik heb de teekening genomen van het bordes of trap van het pavilloen [in Scheveningen] over de duinen naar Den Haag gezien. Op de voorgrond, die in de natuur zeer kaal en ledig is heb ik eenige bomen geplaatst..
In a letter to J.C. Schotel, 18 Nov. 1828; in: collective Stadsarchief van ErfgoedCentrum DIEP, Dordtrecht, No. 48-d
Schelfhout was referring to the assignment from the Dutch King Willem I for two paintings: one view over the old center of The Hague & one view over the beach of Scheveningen.

Reality, Tree, Drawing, Painting

“With environmental progress continuing, environmental consciousness high among the American people and the environmental movement increasingly viewed as an obstacle to further environmental progress, both Earth Day and the environmental movement may have run their course.”

David A. Ridenour

David A. Ridenour, "Earth Day May No Longer Be Needed," National Policy Analysis #191,March 1998.

People

“I view with utmost concern the imposition of martial law in Maguindanao province, especially after the reported discovery of arms caches and documents related to past elections. I hope that this is not the case of "Maguindanao today-the Philippines tomorrow."”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Statement: on the Declaration of Martial Law in Maguindanao

Law, Hope, Past

“The big classical compositions are finished; an ordinary view of daily life would be much more interesting.”

Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870) French painter

Quote by Jean Renoir, in: Renoir my father, p. 96; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 24

a remark of Bazille, in the winter of 1862 – 63 during a walk with Renoir

the two painters passed a crying baby while its nurse was flirting with a soldier
1861 - 1865

Life

“Indeed, our society, which has seemed so freedom-giving and passive in its attitudes toward the artist really makes extraordinary demands upon him: on the one side, to be free in some vague spiritual sense, free to act only as an artist, and yet on the other side to be rigorously tested as to whether the freedom he has achieved is great enough to be more solidly dependable than a government's financial structure... No wonder that modern painters, in view of these curious relations to society, have taken art matters into their own hands, decides for themselves what art is, what its subjects are to be, and how they are to be treated. Art like love is an active process of growth and development.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

Source: 1950s, The painter and the audience' (1954), p. 108

Love, Art, Sense, Freedom

“Gentlemen, I speak for myself as well as for you: I never read anything about what may come before me in a Court of Justice; I keep my mind free from everything of the kind. There is often a necessity for me to look into the law: but I never suffer my mind to be biassed by reports, or such papers or pamphlets as are written with a view to pervert justice.”

Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden (1714–1794) English lawyer, judge and Whig politician

Wilkes' Case (1763), 19 How. St. Tr. 1410.

Justice, Law, Suffering, Reading

“A conceptual level view of an object design describes the key abstractions. While someone might think of key abstractions as being nothing more or nothing less than high-level descriptions of "candidate classes", I prefer to consider a conceptual design from a slightly different angle--I'm thinking about design at a slightly different level.
An object-oriented application is a set of interacting objects. Each object is an implementation of one or more roles. A role supports a set of related (cohesive) responsibilities. A responsibility is an obligation to perform a task or know certain information. And objects don't work in isolation, they collaborate with others in a community to perform the overall responsibilities of the application. So a conceptual view, at least to start, is a distillation of the key object roles and their responsibilities (stated at a fairly high level). More than likely (unless you form classification hierarchies and use inheritance and composition techniques) many candidates you initially model will map directly to a single class in some inheritance hierarchy. But I like to open up possibilities by think first of roles and responsibilities, and then as a second step towards a specification-level view, mapping these candidates to classes and interfaces.”

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (1953) American software engineer

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (2003) in " An Interview with Rebecca Wirfs-Brock Author of Object Design http://www.objectsbydesign.com/books/RebeccaWirfs-Brock.html" 2003-2005 Objects by Design, Inc: Answer to the question Can you clarify what you consider to be the essential elements of a "conceptual view".

Communication, Support, Thinking

“The central assertion of this view, I repeat, is that each new stage of words literally created new perceptions and attentions, and such new perceptions and attentions resulted in important cultural changes which are reflected in the archaeological record.”

Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Book I, Chapter 6, p. 132 (Italics as per text...)
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

Change

“To help us to understand three-dimensional spaces, two-dimensional analogies may be very useful… A two-dimensional space of zero curvature is a plane, say a sheet of paper. The two-dimensional space of positive curvature is a convex surface, such as the shell of an egg. It is bent away from the plane towards the same side in all directions. The curvature of the egg, however, is not constant: it is strongest at the small end. The surface of constant positive curvature is the sphere… The two-dimensional space of negative curvature is a surface that is convex in some directions and concave in others, such as the surface of a saddle or the middle part of an hour glass. Of these two-dimensional surfaces we can form a mental picture because we can view them from outside… But… a being… unable to leave the surface… could only decide of which kind his surface was by studying the properties of geometrical figures drawn on it. …On the sheet of paper the sum of the three angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, on the egg, or the sphere, it is larger, on the saddle it is smaller. …The spaces of zero and negative curvature are infinite, that of positive curvature is finite. …the inhabitant of the two-dimensional surface could determine its curvature if he were able to study very large triangles or very long straight lines. If the curvature were so minute that the sum of the angles of the largest triangle that he could measure would… differ… by an amount too small to be appreciable… then he would be unable to determine the curvature, unless he had some means of communicating with somebody living in the third dimension…. our case with reference to three-dimensional space is exactly similar. …we must study very large triangles and rays of light coming from very great distances. Thus the decision must necessarily depend on astronomical observations.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932)

Communication, Understanding, Decision, Study

“Films and gramophone records, music, books and buildings show clearly how vigorously a man's life and work go on after his death, whether we feel it or not, whether we are aware of the individual names or not. There is no such thing as death according to our view!”

Martin Bormann (1900–1945) Nazi leader and private secretary to Adolf Hitler

Quoted in "The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations" - Page 446 - by Robert Andrews - Reference - 1993.

Life, Death, Books, Music

“To share responsibility with the people of the province should be, in my view, the proudest bequest of a chief to his people.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Views on the chiefly system

People

“The writer, who as an engineer has spent most of his life in factories, is inclined to look at the basis for investment from a technological point of view… Consider … the class of industrial investments only… The situation is one of entrepreneurs and boards of directors considering, from time to time, various ’possibilities of investment’, such as extra lathes or looms, an extension to a factory, a venture in some completely new product, and so on. It is helpful to think of these ’opportunities for investment’ as existing, in a given situation, in great number and variety, whether they are at that moment under active consideration or not. When any such possibility is considered it is assessed in respect of ’expected profitability’. One may conveniently think of all possibilities of investment as ’quanta’ that can be placed in a schedule of small ranges of expected profitability according to these assessments. The placement of a given ’opportunity for investment’ on this schedule has some ’margin of uncertainty”

Arnold Tustin (1899–1994) British engineer

a curious analogy with the case of the quanta of physics
Source: The Mechanism of Economic Systems (1953), p. 103; As cited in: Prices Revalued as Information: Circuit Elements, online document 2013

Life, Thinking, Time, Help

“Margaret Sanger: Well I suppose a subject like that is really so personal that it is entirely up to the parents to decide, but from my view, I believe there should be no more babies in starving countries for the next ten years.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BG11OHrCDk http://www.britishpathe.com/video/one-minute-news-8/query/margaret+slee Ban on Babies is All Wet, Cry Angry Britons, Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1947, p. 9. https://www.google.com/search?q=MS+to+Robert+C.+Nowe%2C+Aug.+22%2C+1947&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=%22Ban+on+Babies+is+All+Wet%22 Granny Sanger' Drops a Bomb - A Ten Year Moratorium on Births, Margaret Sanger Papers, Newsletter #65 (Fall 2013) http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/articles/grannysanger.php One Minute News (1947), interview with British Pathé's John Parsons

Parent, Baby, Personality, Country

“If one is able to convey to the dying person that his mind is bound to this decaying body only for the present life span, it is calming. If one adds that mind is beyond death and birth, like space, emerging appearances of confusion and aging become more acceptable. This view confers the often missing dignity on the last part of life. It helps the dying to increasingly relax, and oneself to face one’s own death more fearlessly.”

Lama Ole Nydahl (1941) Danish lama

Fearless Death: Buddhist Wisdom on the Art of Dying (2012)

Life, Death, Age, Birth

“The entire Bible, viewed as a "divine comedy," is contained within a U-shaped story of this sort, one in which man, as explained, loses the tree and water of life at the beginning of Genesis and gets them back at the end of Revelation.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (1982), Chapter Seven, p. 169

Life, Tree, Water

“The edifice of my educational thought is almost entirely beholden to the views of Kerschensteiner. At later stages, however, Gandhiji’s influence and his elaboration of some of the finest points on the subject provided the much needed depth and expansion. Words turned into projects and a mere conceptual and transient framework became an insuperable part of my life.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Source: Quest for Truth (1999), p. 145.

Life, Education, Parting

“Interviewer: How about pets, Wayne? Would you envision a future with no pets in the world?
Wayne Pacelle: I wouldn’t say that I envision that, no. If I had my personal view perhaps that might take hold. In fact, I don’t want to see another cat or dog born. It’s not something I strive for, though. If people were very responsible, and didn’t do manipulative breeding, and cared for animals in all senses, and accounted for their nutritional needs as well as their social and psychological needs, then I think it could be an appropriate thing. I’m not sure. I think it’s one of those things that we’ll decide later in society. I think we’re still far from it.”

Wayne Pacelle (1965) American activist

Interview in "Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt," 1994

People, World, Dogs, Cats

“I don't know any more than you what the future will hold. But my point of view is different. You see despair and I see cause for hope. I read the future in a way that is more agreeable than you do.”

Alain-René Lesage (1668–1747) French writer

La Tontine (1709)

Hope, Way, Reading, Future

“I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion. But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, Bill Nye defends evolution in Kentucky debate, The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, South Carolina, February 4, 2014]

People, World, Religion, Communication

“As to the issues on which we part ways with the Committee, I have already stated that our reviews indicate that the detention and interrogation program produced useful intelligence that helped the United States thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. But let me be clear. We have not concluded that it was the use of EITs (Enhanced interrogation techniques) within that program that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees subjected to them. The cause and effect relationship between the use of EITs and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is, in my view, unknowable.”

John O. Brennan (1955) 7th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery CIA Director John O. Brennan Response to SSCI Study on the Former Detention and Interrogation Program https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2014-speeches-testimony/remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery-cia-director-john-o-brennan-response-to-ssci-study-on-the-former-detention-and-interrogation-program.html

Way, Intelligence, Help, Parting

“With orient pearl, with ruby red,
With marble white, with sapphire blue,
Her body every way is fed,
Yet soft in touch, and sweet in view:”

Thomas Lodge (1558–1625) English dramatist and writer

Poem, Rosalynde

Way

“When we are young we are often puzzled by the fact that each person we admire seems to have a different version of what life ought to be, what a good man is, how to live, and so on. If we are especially sensitive it seems more than puzzling, it is disheartening. What most people usually do is to follow one person s ideas and then another's, depending on who looms largest on one's horizon at the time. The one with the deepest voice, the strongest appearance, the most authority and success, is usually the one who gets our momentary allegiance; and we try to pattern our ideals after him. But as life goes on we get a perspective on this, and all these different versions of truth become a little pathetic. Each person thinks that he has the formula for triumphing over life's limitations and knows with authority what it means to be a man, and he usually tries to win a following for his particular patent. Today we know that people try so hard to win converts for their point of view because it is more than merely an outlook on life: it is an immortality formula.”

Ernest Becker book The Denial of Death

"Psychology and Religion: What Is the Heroic Individual?", p. 255
The Denial of Death (1973)

Life, People, Truth, Idea

“Every launch into the skies is another step forward toward a future where our differences seem small against the vast expanse of our common humanity. Sometimes you have to view things from a distance in order to see the real truth. It is America's destiny to be at the forefront of humanity's eternal quest for knowledge and to be the leader amongst nations on our adventure into the great unknown.”

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

2010s, 2017, June

Truth, Knowledge, Future

“It is the character of the British people, or at least of the higher and middle classes who pass muster for the British people, that to induce them to approve of any change, it is necessary that they should look upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther, upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself. So it proved in the present instance; my proposal was condemned, but any scheme of Irish Land reform, short of mine, came to be thought moderate by comparison.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/294/mode/1up pp. 294-295

People, Thinking, Change

“Let me repeat, gentlemen, that a right-minded and true-hearted statesman who has had as much sovereign power placed in his hands as you have placed in mine should regard himself as the servant of the Senate; and often of the people as a whole; and sometimes of private citizens, too. I do not regret this view, because I have always found you to be generous, just, and indulgent masters.”
Dixi et nunc et saepe alias, p[atres]. c[onscripti]., bonum et salutarem principem, quem vos tanta et tam libera potestate instruxistis, senatui servire debere et universis civibus saepe et plerumque etiam singulis; neque id dixisse me paenitet, et bono et aequos et faventes vos habui dominos et adhuc habeo.

Tiberius (-42–37 BC) 2nd Emperor of Ancient Rome, member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty

Variant translation: Conscript Fathers, I have often said it both now and at other times, that a good and useful prince, whom you have invested with so great and absolute power, ought to be a slave to the senate, to the whole body of the people, and often to individuals likewise: nor am I sorry that I have said it. I have always found you good, kind, and indulgent masters, and still find you so.
To the Senate, from Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, ch.29

People, Heart

“Raymond Aron ascribes to Weber the view that ‘each man’s conscience is irrefutable.’ … while [Weber] holds that an agent may be more or less rational in acting consistently with his values, the choice of any one particular evaluative stance or commitment can be no more rational than any other. All faiths and all evaluations are equally non-rational…”

Alasdair MacIntyre book After Virtue

Source: After Virtue (1981), p. 26.

Faith

“The fact that a reasonable hypothesis has not been rigorously proved does not mean that it should be summarily dismissed. It only means that we need more appropriate research for putting it to the test. I believe such definitive research is entirely possible but has not yet been done. So all we are left with are various lines of evidence, no one of which is definitive alone, but which, viewed all together, make it a not unreasonable hypothesis that genetic factors are strongly implicated in the average Negro-white intelligence difference. The preponderance of the evidence is, in my opinion, less consistent with a strictly environmental hypothesis than with a genetic hypothesis, which, of course, does not exclude the influence of environment or its interaction with genetic factors.”

Arthur Jensen (1923–2012) professor of educational psychology

p. 82 of How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? (1969) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Much_Can_We_Boost_IQ_and_Scholastic_Achievement%3F, the invited paper that created much hostility towards Jensen.

Intelligence

“Anyway, I would not be happy to see a beautiful, well-proportioned woman, no matter from which point of view, however extravagant, not only lose her beauty in order to, I would say, increase in size according to the law of vision, but no longer appear beautiful, and, in fact, become monstrous.”

El Greco (1541–1614) Greek painter, sculptor and architect

Quote from the marginalia, which El Greco inscribed in his copy of Daniele Barbaro's translation of Vitruvius' De architectura; as quoted by Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis, The Emergence of Modern Architecture: A Documentary History from 1000 to 1810 https://books.google.com/books?id=4xB9k7-Neb8C&pg=PT184; Routledge, New York, 2004) p. 165

Happiness, Law, Beauty, Appearance

“My concern with democracy is highly specific. It begins in observing the remarkable fact that, while democracy means a government accountable to the electorate, our rulers now make us accountable to them. Most Western governments hate me smoking, or eating the wrong kind of food, or hunting foxes, or drinking too much, and these are merely the surface disapprovals, the ones that provoke legislation or public campaigns. We also borrow too much money for our personal pleasures, and many of us are very bad parents. Ministers of state have been known to instruct us in elementary matters, such as the importance of reading stories to our children. Again, many of us have unsound views about people of other races, cultures, or religions, and the distribution of our friends does not always correspond, as governments think that it ought, to the cultural diversity of our society. We must face up to the grim fact that the rulers we elect are losing patience with us.”

Kenneth Minogue (1930–2013) Australian political theorist

Introduction, p. 2 ; quoted in: " Professor Kenneth Minogue http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10155678/Professor-Kenneth-Minogue.html" in telegraph.co.uk, 2 July 2013. The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life

Money, Hate, Children, People

“Our view of life must account for how we know life; biological theories must allow for their own discovery and employment. Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence. Beginning with our own embodiment our theory of knowledge must endorse the ways we manifestly transcend our embodiment by acts of indwelling and extension into more subtle and intangible realms of being, where we meet our ultimate ends.”

Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) Hungarian-British polymath

Transcendence And Self-Transcendence (1970)

Life, Way, Knowledge

“[On the Tea Party:] I like it because their view of government is essentially the same as mine, and I like it because they're regular people who, but for the shock of Obama's radicalism, probably would not have gotten active in politics.”

John R. Bolton (1948) American lawyer and diplomat

"The Man with the Mustache"

People, Tea

“If you were capable of thinking of an object from more than one point of view, you could imagine it doing all sorts of things. For Mother, consciousness was becoming more than just a tool for lying.”

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 11 “Mother’s People” section I (p. 337)

Imagination, Lying, Thinking

“According to Aristotle then excellence of character and intelligence cannot be separated. Here Aristotle expresses a view characteristically at odds with that dominant in the modern world. The modern view is expressed at one level in such banalities as ‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever’ and at another in such profundities as Kant’s distinction between the good will, the possession of which alone is both necessary and sufficient for moral worth, and what he took to be a quite distinct natural gift, that of knowing how to apply general rules to particular cases, a gift the lack of which is called stupidity. So for Kant one can be both good and stupid; but for Aristotle stupidity of a certain kind precludes goodness.”

Alasdair MacIntyre book After Virtue

Source: After Virtue (1981), p. 154.

Stupidity, World, Intelligence, Nature

“Religion is for Machiavelli utterly necessary to found, preserve, and reform good political orders. He stated this view in the most unequivocal manner. At the same time he knew very well that the only available religion was the Christian. Had he believed and argued that Christian religion was in its essence and hopelessly inimical to good political orders and above all to republican liberty he would have been compelled to also believe and argue that good political orders and republican liberty were impossible for the moderns in general and for the Italians in particular, a conclusion that he never entertained. Instead, he believed in, and suggested, the possibility of a civic interpretation of Christianity similar to the one that he knew existed in his Florence.”

Maurizio Viroli (1952) Italian essayist and philosopher

Preface
Machiavelli’s God (2011)

Religion, Time

“There is reason, however, to think that the author would have rendered it much more interesting, and have carried it to si higher degree of perfection, had he lived in an age more enlightened and better informed in regard to the mathematics and natural philosophy. Since the death of that mathematician, indeed, the arts and sciences have been so much improved, that what in his time might have been entitled to the character of mediocrity, would not at present be supportable. How many new discoveries in every part of philosophy? How many new phenomena observed, some of which have even given birth to the most fertile branches of the sciences? We shall mention only electricity, an inexhaustible source of profound reflection, and of experiments highly amusing. Chemistry also is a science, the most common and slightest principles of which were quite unknown to Ozanam. In short, we need not hesitate to pronounce that Ozanam's work contains a multitude of subjects treated of with an air of credulity, and so much prolixity, that it appears as if the author, or rather his continuators, had no other object in view than that of multiplying the volumes.
To render this work, then, more worthy of the enlightened agt in which we live, it was necessary to make numerous corrections and considerable additions. A task which we have endeavoured to discharge with all diligence”

Jean-Étienne Montucla (1725–1799) French mathematician

Source: Preface to Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. (1803), p. vi; As cited in: Tobias George Smollett. The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature http://books.google.com/books?id=T8APAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA412, Volume 38, (1803), p. 412

Death, Age, Art, Mathematics

“Within the scientific skeleton of truth, religious meaning attempts to flourish, often by denying the scientific framework itself — rather like sawing off the branch where you cheerily perch. The disgust is mutual because modern science gleefully denies virtually all the basic tenets of religion in general. According to the typical view of modern science, religion is not much more than a holdover from the childhood of humanity, with about as much reality as, say, Santa Claus. Whether the religious claims are more literal (Moses parting the Red Sea) or more mystical (religion invovlves direct spiritual experience) modern science denies them all, simply because there is no credible empirical evidence for any of them.”

Ken Wilber (1949) American writer and public speaker

The Marriage of Sense and Soul (1998)

Truth, Religion, Reality, Science

“The second superstring revolution (1994-??) has brought non-perturbative string physics within reach. The key discoveries were the recognition of amazing and surprising "dualities." They have taught us that what we viewed previously as five theories is in fact five different perturbative expansions of a single underlying theory about five different points! It is now clear that there is a unique theory, though it may allow many different vacua…. Three different kinds of dualities, called S, T, and U have been identified."”

John Henry Schwarz (1941) American theoretical physicist

pp. 4–5

“We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the heights and down to the water's edge.”

Sarah Orne Jewett book The Country of the Pointed Firs

Source: The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), Ch. 7

Tree, Water, Waiting

“Let me say something before we get off the gay thing. I don't want my views misunderstood. I am the most tolerant person on that of anybody in this shop. They have a problem. They're born that way. You know that. That's all. I think they are. Anyway, my point is, though, when I say they're born that way, the tendency is there.”

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

1970s, They're Born That Way (1971)

Way, Problem, Thinking, Personality

“I happen to think that the world kind of looks down on Republicans for their social conservative views which include religion in government. I think that that should not play a role in any of this.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
2011

World, Religion, Thinking

“At present and especially in academia, there is widespread doubt and agnosticism with respect to the very existence of God. But if we don't know that there is such a person as God, we don't know the first thing (the most important thing) about ourselves, each other and our world. This is because (from the point of view of the model) the most important truths about us and them, is that we have been created by the Lord, and utterly depend upon him for our continued existence. We don't know what our happiness consists in, and we don't know how to achieve it. We don't know that we have been created in the image of God, and we don't grasp the significance of such characteristically human phenomena as love, humor, adventure, science, art, music, philosophy, history, and so on.”

Alvin Plantinga book Warranted Christian Belief

[2000, Warranted Christian Belief, 9780195131925, 217, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/plantinga/warrant3.vi.ii.iv.ii.html]

Love, God, Happiness, Truth

“Today we are coming to realise that an epoch in history is over…For more than forty years that Iron Curtain remained in place. Few of us expected to see it lifted in our life-time. Yet with great suddenness the impossible has happened. Communism is broken, utterly broken…We do not see this new Soviet Union as an enemy, but as a country groping its way towards freedom. We no longer have to view the world through a prism of East-West relations. The Cold War is over.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to the Aspen Institute ("Shaping a New Global Community") (5 August 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108174 Third term as Prime Minister

Life, War, World, Way

“Even human relations become a matter of cost benefit calculation. Clearly this is the way the conquistadors viewed the worlds that they set out to conquer.

It is the peculiar feature of modern capitalism to create social arrangements that essentially force us to think this way.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Eleven, "Age of the Great Capitalist Empires", pp. 319–320

World, Way, Thinking

“You probably know that this week Britain has been terrorized by an underclass of welfare-dependent, drug-addled criminal scum who have been allowed to run riot in the streets because the police haven't been allowed to do their job and protect the public. The media is full of speculation about why it happened and what is the root cause. Well, that's easy. The root cause is stupidity. A complete lack of imagination. A stunted, feral view of the world that amounts to self-inflicted moral and mental disablement. And it's the direct product of an entitlement culture that rewards idleness, encourages victimhood, and compensates criminals.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Britain is a riot" (11 August 2011) http://youtube.com/watch?v=9pAC0YSmK0g 2011

Stupidity, World, Imagination, Dependency

“If from the wilderness the righteous and honest John were actually to come who, clothed in skins and living on locusts and untouched by all the terrible mischief, were meanwhile to apply himself with a pure heart and in all seriousness to the investigation of truth and to offer the fruits thereof, what kind of reception would he have to expect from those businessmen of the chair, who are hired for State purposes and with wife and family have to live on philosophy, and whose watchword is, therefore, Primum vivere, deinde philosophari [first live and then philosophize]? These men have accordingly taken possession of the market and have already seen to it that here nothing is of value except what they allow; consequently merit exists only in so far as they and their mediocrity are pleased to acknowledge it. They thus have on a leading rein the attention of that small public, such as it is, that is concerned with philosophy. For on matters that do not promise, like the productions of poetry, amusement and entertainment but only instruction, and financially unprofitable instruction at that, that public will certainly not waste its time, effort, and energy, without first being thoroughly assured that such efforts will be richly rewarded. Now by virtue of its inherited belief that whoever lives by a business knows all about it, this public expects an assurance from the professional men who from professor’s chairs and in compendiums, journals, and literary periodicals, confidently behave as if they were the real masters of the subject. Accordingly, the public allows them to sample and select whatever is worth noting and what can be ignored. My poor John from the wilderness, how will you fare if, as is to be expected, what you bring is not drafted in accordance with the tacit convention of the gentlemen of the lucrative philosophy? They will regard you as one who has not entered in the spirit of the game and thus threatens to spoil the fun for all of them; consequently, they will regard you as their common enemy and antagonist. Now even if what you bring were the greatest masterpiece of the human mind, it could never find favor in their eyes. For it would not be drawn up ad normam conventionis [according to the current pattern]; and so it would not be such as to enable them to make it the subject of their lectures from the chair in order to make a living from it. It never occurs to a professor of philosophy to examine a new system that appears to see whether it is true; but he at once tests it merely to see whether it can be brought into harmony with the doctrines of the established religion, with government plans, and with the prevailing views of the times.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, pp. 160-161, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 148-149
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

Men, Truth, Family, Religion

“When the “environmental revolution” arrived in the 1960s, economists were ready and waiting. The economic literature contained an apparently coherent view of the nature of the pollution problem together with a compelling set of implications for public policy. In short, economists saw the problem of environmental degradation as one in which economic agents imposed external costs upon society at large in the form of pollution. With no “prices” to provide the proper incentives for reduction of polluting activities, the inevitable result was excessive demands on the assimilative capacity of the environment. The obvious solution to the problem was to place an appropriate “price,” in this case a tax, on polluting activities so as to internalize the social costs. Marshall and Pigou had suggested such measures many decades earlier. Moreover, pollution and its control through so-called Pigouvian taxes had become a standard textbook case of the application of the principles of microeconomic theory. Economists were thus ready to provide counsel to policy makers on the design of environmental policy.”

William J. Baumol (1922–2017) American economist

Source: The theory of environmental policy, 1988, p. 1

Literature, Nature, Problem, Waiting

“Nehamas invokes Nietzsche’s talk of the “eternal basic text of homo natura” (BGE 230, quoted above) as evidence of aestheticism--the view, recall, that “texts can be interpreted equally well in vastly different and deeply incompatible ways” (p. 3). But the talk of “text” in this passage is actually incompatible with aestheticism. For in this passage, as we have seen, Nietzsche asserts that prior claims to “knowledge” have been superficial precisely because they have ignored the “eternal basic text”— ewigen Grundtext—of man conceived as a natural organism. That this text is eternal and basic implies not that it “can be interpreted equally well in vastly different and deeply incompatible ways” but just the opposite: readings which do not treat man naturalistically misread the text—they “falsify” it. It is these misreadings, of course, that Nietzsche, ever the “good philologist,” aims to correct.”

Brian Leiter (1963) American philosopher and legal scholar

"The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud"

Way, Quotes, Nature, Knowledge

“The problem solver needs to stand back and examine problem contexts in the light of different “Ws” (weltanschauungen). Perhaps he can then decide which “W” seems to capture the essence of the particular problem context he is faced with. This whole process needs formalizing if it is to be carried out successfully. The problem solver needs to be aware of different paradigms in the social sciences, and he must be prepared to view the problem context through each of these paradigms.”

Mike Jackson (1951) systems scientist

Source: Towards a System of Systems Methodologies (1984), p. 473

Problem, Light, Science

“We both call in experience to the support of our opinions; but, in your case, the experience is based on vague uncertainties, whilst I, more circumspect, strive never to lose sight of those scientific principles which ought to guide the observer in all his investigations. My aim is not to defend systems, or bolster up theories; I confine myself to the citation of facts, such as society presents to our view. If these facts be legitimately established, it follows that we must accept of and accommodate our reason to them.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Support

“A simple way to determine whether the right to dissent in a particular society is being upheld is to apply the town square test: Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm? If he can, then that person is living in a free society. If not, it's a fear society.”

Natan Sharansky book The Case for Democracy

Pages 40-1.
The Case for Democracy (2004, with Ron Dermer)

Fear, Way, Personality

“A fair body of scholarship has come to challenge the view that elected officials reign supreme.”

John W. Kingdon (1940) American political scientist

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 2, Participants on the Inside of Government, p. 43

“I'm putting it to you and to all of my critics, if you can find any Asian leader in any Asian country of whatever political persuasion who doesn't subscribe to the immigration views of New Zealand First, then name that person now. None of you can, all the way to Turkey.”

Winston Peters (1945) New Zealand politician

Interview with the 7:30 Report, ABC TV, Australia.

Way, Personality, Country

“Perhaps the clue lay in indispensibility. I was being taught some obscure metaphysical lesson about the place of man in existence, about the limitations of the egocentric view…”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

“I consider you the most honest and truthful of men, more honest and truthful than anyone; and if they say that your mind... that is, that you're sometimes afflicted in your mind, it's unjust. I made up my mind about that, and disputed with others, because, though you really are mentally afflicted (you won't be angry with that, of course; I'm speaking from a higher point of view), yet the mind that matters is better in you than in any of them. It's something, in fact, they have never dreamed of. For there are two sorts of mind: one that matters, and one that doesn't matter.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Idiot

The Idiot (1868–9)

Men, Truth, Dreams, Affliction

“.. I have painted a few studies of the figure… I send you [Theo] two sketches. The painting of the figure appeals to me very much, but it must ripen - I must learn to know the technique better - that which is sometimes called "la cuisine de l'art". In the beginning I shall have to do much scraping, and often to begin anew, but I feel that I learned from it and that gives me a new fresh view on the things.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in a letter of Vincent to Theo, from The Hague (Netherlands), August 1882; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 226), catalogus-page: Oil Paintings -Dutch Period: 'Scheveningen, Fisherwoman' 1880s, 1882

Feeling, Study, Learning, Painting

“This is a time in human affairs when, In the context of the foregoing analysis, the “radical” point of view is likely to prove to be the “conservative” one: we may well be in the early stages of a “cybernetic revolution” worthy of “1984” and “RUR.” Thus, to accept as potential reality what may seem an alarmist view, may turn out to be the only perspective which secures viable options by promoting mankind's welfare.”

Richard F. Ericson (1919–1993) American academic

Visions of Cybernetic Organizations (1972)

Reality, Time

“From the point of view of technique, I liked there to be internal lines in objects, I mean that instead of circumscribing forms, they animate the insides of things—the inside of formless and non-delimited areas. They function as internal textures and not primarily as contours.”

Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) sculptor from France

Quote of Dubuffet in Catalogue, p. 47; as cited by Hubert Damisch, in 'Dubuffet or the Reading of the World', in 'Art de France 2' (1962), p. 337–346 (translated by Kent Minturn and Priya Wadhera)
1960-70's

Animals

“Look, the New Democrat approach, from my point of view, didn't work. That governing approach didn't stop the progression that led us to a thoroughly Republican House and now Senate, and a national debate that doesn't even address the real issues. The economic crisis of today — the only parallel is the Great Depression. That's just a fact. The difference is, there's no light at the end of the tunnel now.”

Bill de Blasio (1961) American politician and mayor of New York City

quoted by Mark Binelli of Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/mayor-bill-de-blasios-crusade-20150506.

Light, Housing

“You may drive a dog off the King's armchair, and it will climb into the preacher's pulpit; he views the world unmoved, unembarrassed, unabashed.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Chassez un chien du fauteuil du Roi, il grimpe à la chaire du prédicateur; il regarde le monde indifféremment, sans embarras, sans pudeur; il n'a pas, non plus que le sot, de quoi rougir.
Aphorism 38
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel

World, Dogs

“We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book. "No one sees the barn," he said finally. A long silence followed. "Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn." He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others. We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies." There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides. "Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism."”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

Another silence ensued. "They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.”
White Noise (1984)

People, Books, Cars, Color

“As with respect to viewers, I must say that gallery-viewing is increasingly becoming more of a fashion than a love. Many of the openings have turned into exhibitions of pompousness. Also, there are groups of viewers that enter galleries with their already formed judgments. Amidst all these there are also groups that show absolutely no reaction towards the works, these are the worst. They are neither approving nor disapproving. A smaller percentage constitutes honest art-lovers who ask questions, and their views are worthwhile and they inspire real energy in an artist.”

Guity Novin (1944) artist

Tamasha (1973), No 114. Third year, Thursday June 14th, 1973.

Love, Art, Lovers, Fashion

“All scientific research is of utmost significance in the world-view of Islam, for it enables us to comprehend better and better the fact that all creation is based upon a definite divine plan, and is thus apt to strengthen and deepen our conviction of God's existence and omnipotence”

Muhammad Asad (1900–1992) Austro-Hungarian writer and academic

Source: This Law of Ours and Other Essays (1987), Chapter: Answers of Islam, Answer to Question # 3, p 141

God, World

“Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.”

Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784) American poet

"On Being Brought from Africa to America" lines 5-8, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

Angels, Training

“History teaches us that a given view has been abandoned in favor of another by all men, or by all competent men, or perhaps by only the most vocal men; it does not teach us whether the change was sound or whether the rejected view deserved to be rejected. Only an impartial analysis of the view in question, an analysis that is not dazzled by the victory or stunned by the defeat of the adherents of the view concerned—could teach us anything regarding the worth of the view and hence regarding the meaning of the historical change.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

Source: Natural Right and History (1953), p. 19

Men, History, Question, Change

“Most of the views that Spender attributes to me … are still my views. Some are not. For example, …. I am probably more of a feminist-anarchist than ever before; more mistrustful of the organisation of power into large bureaucratic states than I once was.”

Phyllis Chesler (1940) Psychotherapist, college professor, and author

as quoted in Spender, Dale, For the Record: The Making and Meaning of Feminist Knowledge (London: The Women's Press, 1985, ISBN 0-7043-2862-3, p. 214.

“The slightest formal mistake was punishable with tremendous penalties. A fine of millions of marks was imposed for a single bookkeeping error. Obviously, the [Nazi] examination of the books was simply a pretext for partial expropriation of the private capitalist with a view to complete expropriation and seizure of the desired property later.”

Günter Reimann (1904–2005) German economist

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 12

Books, Penalty, Error

“If we take seriously the word-flesh Christology of Chalcedon (i. e., the doctrine that Christ is fully human and fully divine) and view Christ as the telos toward which God is drawing the whole of creation, then any view of the sciences that leaves Christ out of the picture must be seen as fundamentally deficient.”

William A. Dembski (1960) American intelligent design advocate

Source: 1990s, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology (1999), p. 206

God, Science, Christ, Drawing

“Since some ecclesiastics deem it right to stand always by the literal meaning of the holy scripture and do not agree that anything in it was said through enigmas and allegories for our benefit, I consider it necessary first to speak in defense of these things to those who bring such accusation against us, because in our view there is nothing unreasonable in our seriously studying all possible means of tracking down the benefit to be had from the divinely inspired scripture.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

Commentary on the Song of Songs, As translated by Margaret M. Mitchell in Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (2010)

Study

“The day is not far distant on which Europeans – the few Europeans who will still remain – will suddenly become painfully aware of their lack of formal concepts. Then will these unhappy people bewail their wretched state and become seekers after form. They will not seek the new form in the past, in the outward world, or in the stylized appearances of nature, but they will build up their form from within themselves, in the light of their new knowledge that turned the old world fable into a world form, and the old world view into a world insight. [written at the front of World War 1.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

near Verdun, 1915]
Source: 1915 - 1916, 100 Aphorisms', Franz Marc (1915), pp. 445-446

War, People, World, Nature

“You know my philosophy is that the world is a big place so if you get the chance to live abroad lessons in life it gives you are like no other. I moved to Cascias when I was one and a half. I do feel very fortunate that I grew up in a Latin culture and learnt another language. When I approach a character or a script I can approach it from different points of view, with maybe a more international perspective.”

Annabelle Wallis (1984) British Actress

Glass talks to Annabelle Wallis about her career-defining appearance in Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders http://www.theglassmagazine.com/interview-with-annabelle-wallis/ (November 12, 2013)

Life, World, Feeling, Chance

“Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were, mingled them with so much that was crude and even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which his originality might have effected had he been a more sober and cautious thinker…”

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

Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 125

“As important as it is for the producers to pay more attention to the female roles, it's more important for us to take control over this situation and define who we are. Because if they just give us the parts, it's their point of view of who we are. What's important is that we define who we are and don't wait for the men to give us the roles.”

Salma Hayek (1966) Mexican-American actress and producer

O interview (2003)

Men, Waiting, Parting

“I got the idea for that story in May of 1979. I didn't know what it was going to be; I just thought it would be neat to write something about Jack the Ripper's dog, and ask Gahan Wilson to illustrate it, partly because of the fact that a dog is such an unusual person. No matter who owns a dog, if that person is nice to the animal, the dog is going to love him. I thought at the time, if you take a really despicable person, a serial killer or someone like that, and tell a story from his dog's point of view it would make him look pretty good.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

Explaining the origins http://www.roger-zelazny.com/repository/absmag.html of his last book, A Night in the Lonesome October in an interview (Absolute Magnitude Autumn/Winter 1994)

Love, Dogs, Idea, Time

“In the early 1970s,… economists began to embrace the Rational Expectations Hypothesis (REH), according to which market participants’ expectations are “essentially the same as the predictions of the relevant economic theory” (Muth 1961: 316). What has been largely overlooked is that, … REH theorists presume that the role of market participants’ expectations in driving outcomes is not autonomous from the other components of the model. … Because REH models, by design, rule out an autonomous role for expectations, they are best viewed as derailing, rather than developing, the microfoundations approach.”

Roman Frydman (1948) American economist

"Which Way Forward for Macroeconomics and Policy Analysis?" 2013

“Guru: Today I will discourse upon the violence in astronomy.
Disciple: Revered Sir! Will you be describing the violent phenomenon in the Universe?
Guru: Yes, and I will also dwell upon the controversies amongst the astronomers about what these events imply – controversies which are no less violent than the phenomena themselves

The one aspect of the star-studded night sky which impresses the casual observer most is its tranquility. The peace and quiet of the heavens with the marked contrast to the hurly burly of life on the earth have inspired poets, philosophers, and religious thinkers from time immemorial. Even the amateur astronomer viewing the night sky from his proverbial roof top telescope sees a picture which changes very slowly from night to night. The occasional visit of comet, the fall of a meteorite, or in these modern times the passing of a man made satellite are examples of events which introduce transitory variation on an apparently steady cosmic theme.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

Source: Jayant V. Narlikar Violent Phenomena in the Universe http://books.google.com/books?id=VFbCAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover, Courier Dover Publications, 16 October 2012, p. 1

Life, Peace, Star, Universe