Quotes about vitality (845 quotes, page 4)

“A widely heralded view holds that nuclear power is experiencing a dramatic worldwide revival and vibrant growth, because it’s competitive, necessary, reliable, secure, and vital for fuel security and climate protection. That’s all false. In fact, nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the global marketplace because it’s grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsolete—so hopelessly uneconomic that one needn’t debate whether it’s clean and safe; it weakens electric reliability and national security; and it worsens climate change compared with devoting the same money and time to more effective options.”

Amory B. Lovins (1947) American physicist

The Nuclear Illusion http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E08-01_AmbioNuclIlusion.pdf p. 1. (May 2008)

Money , Change , Time , Falseness

“There is no. man, there is no people, without a God. That God may be a visible idol, carved of wood or stone, to which sacrifice is offered in the forest, in the temple, or in the market-place; or it may be an invisible idol, fashioned in a man's own image and worshipped ardently at his own personal shrine. Somewhere in the universe there is that in which each individual has firm faith, and on which he places steady reliance. The fool who says in his heart "There is no God" really means there is no God but himself. His supreme egotism, his colossal vanity, have placed him at the center of the universe which is thereafter to be measured and dealt with in terms of his personal satisfactions. So it has come to pass that after nearly two thousand years much of the world resembles the Athens of St. Paul's time, in that it is wholly given to idolatry; but in the modern case there are as many idols as idol worshippers, and every such idol worshipper finds his idol in the looking-glass. The time has come once again to repeat and to expound in thunderous tones the noble sermon of St. Paul on Mars Hill, and to declare to these modern idolaters "Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you."
There can be no cure for the world's ills and no abatement of the world's discontents until faith and the rule of everlasting principle are again restored and made supreme in the life of men and of nations. These millions of man-made gods, these myriads of personal idols, must be broken up and destroyed, and the heart and mind of man brought back to a comprehension of the real meaning of faith and its place in life. This cannot be done by exhortation or by preaching alone. It must be done also by teaching; careful, systematic, rational teaching, that will show in a simple language which the uninstructed can understand what are the essentials of a permanent and lofty morality, of a stable and just social order, and of a secure and sublime religious faith.
Here we come upon the whole great problem of national education, its successes and its disappointments, its achievements and its problems yet unsolved. Education is not merely instruction far from it. It is the leading of the youth out into a comprehension of his environment, that, comprehending, he may so act and so conduct himself as to leave the world better and happier for his having lived in it. This environment is not by any means a material thing alone. It is material of course, but, in addition, it is intellectual, it is spiritual. The youth who is led to an understanding of nature and of economics and left blind and deaf to the appeals of literature, of art, of morals and of religion, has been shown but a part of that great environment which is his inheritance as a human being. The school and the college do much, but the school and the college cannot do all. Since Protestantism broke up the solidarity of the ecclesiastical organization in the western world, and since democracy made intermingling of state and church impossible, it has been necessary, if religion is to be saved for men, that the family and the church do their vital cooperative part in a national organization of educational effort. The school, the family and the church are three cooperating educational agencies, each of which has its weight of responsibility to bear. If the family be weakened in respect of its moral and spiritual basis, or if the church be neglectful of its obligation to offer systematic, continuous and convincing religious instruction to the young who are within its sphere of influence, there can be no hope for a Christian education or for the powerful perpetuation of the Christian faith in the minds and lives of the next generation and those immediately to follow. We are trustees of a great inheritance. If we abuse or neglect that trust we are responsible before Almighty God for the infinite damage that will be done in the life of individuals and of nations…. Clear thinking will distinguish between men's different associations, and it will be able to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to render unto God the things which are God's.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Making liberal men and women : public criticism of present-day education, the new paganism, the university, politics and religion https://archive.org/stream/makingliberalmen00butluoft/makingliberalmen00butluoft_djvu.txt (1921)

Life , Men , God , People

“1. The human mind is so constructed that it must see every perception in a time-relation—in an order—and every perception of an object in a space-relation—as outside or beside our perceiving selves.
2. These necessary time-relations are reducible to Number, and they are studied in the theory of number, arithmetic and algebra.
3. These necessary space-relations are reducible to Position and Form, and they are studied in geometry.
Mathematics, therefore, studies an aspect of all knowing, and reveals to us the universe as it presents itself, in one form, to mind. To apprehend this and to be conversant with the higher developments of mathematical reasoning, are to have at hand the means of vitalizing all teaching of elementary mathematics.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Editor's Introduction, The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=NKoAAAAAMAAJ (1906) by David Eugene Smith

Mathematics , Study , Universe , Time

“Human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity. As Truman said, “We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might”. That’s why this country has historically been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be maintained if America remains true to its principles, including in the struggle against terrorism. When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused.
— And States need to play by the rules towards each other, as well as towards their own citizens. That can sometimes be inconvenient, but ultimately what matters is not inconvenience. It is doing the right thing. No State can make its own actions legitimate in the eyes of others. When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose — for broadly shared aims –- in accordance with broadly accepted norms.
— No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little — and the international community is among them. This we must change.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Truman Library address (2006)

World , Law , Communication , Nature

“[Happiness is] The exercise of vital powers, along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope.”

Edith Hamilton (1867–1963) American teacher and writer

The Greek Way (1930)

Life , Exercises , Happiness

“In social terms the identification of poet with teacher is now complete. The first question one poet now asks another upon being introduced is "Where do you teach?" The problem is not that poets teach. The campus is not a bad place for a poet to work. It's just a bad place for all poets to work. Society suffers by losing the imagination and vitality that poets brought to public culture. Poetry suffers when literary standards are forced to conform with institutional ones.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991)

Imagination , Question , Problem , Suffering

“My early feeling that scientific truths are to the Christian religion much what brooks and rivers are to the ocean, has become my most vital conviction. Tempted as I was to drift with the tempest of passion, I had made shipwreck in these latter years, had not in my heaviest hours the Mercy of God, through your instrumentality, kept me always on the right path.”

Robert Mayer (1814–1878) German physicist

December 31 1851, as translated by Kneller, Karl Alois. 1911. pp. 18. Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science https://archive.org/stream/christianitylead00kneluoft#page/18/mode/2up. London.

God , Truth , Religion , Feeling

“The last time I visited the Capitol, I came to take an oath. On the steps of this building, I pledged to honor our Constitution and laws, and I asked you to join me in setting a tone of civility and respect in Washington. I hope America is noticing the difference. We are making progress. Together, we are changing the tone in the Nation’s capital. And this spirit of respect and cooperation is vital, because in the end we will be judged not only by what we say or how we say it, we will be judged by what we are able to accomplish. America today is a Nation with great challenges, but greater resources.”

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

2000s, 2001, Address to Joint Session of Congress on Administration Goals (February 2001)

Law , Hope , Change , Time

“Western psychologists accuse religion of repressing the vital energy of man and rendering his life quite miserable as a result of the sense of guilt which especially obsesses the religious people and makes them imagine that all their actions are sinful and can only be expiated through abstention from enjoying the pleasures of life. Those psychologists add that Europe lived in the darkness of ignorance as long as it adhered to its religion but once it freed itself from the fetters of religion, its emotions were liberated and accordingly it achieved wonders in the field of production.”

Muhammad Qutb (1919–2014) Egyptian Islamist writer and scholar

Source: Islam: the Misunderstood Religion, Chapter 11, Islam and Sexual Repression, p. 207.

Life , People , Pleasure , Religion

“By and large, the answer to the question "How do large institutions survive?" is "They don't!" The vast majority of large modern-day institutions — some of them extremely vital to the functioning of our complex civilization — simply fail to exist in the first place.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

Helpless Individuals (March 2009) http://lesswrong.com/lw/64/helpless_individuals/

Question

“We have to look at the Iran issue beyond the issue of energy trade. In the first place, we have to think about the security and stability in the Gulf region. India has vital stakes in the Gulf region. Six million Indians live and work in the Gulf region and beyond. It is one of the critical destinations of our external trade -- over $100 billion in exports, and over 60% of oil imports, and a major source of remittances.”

S. M. Krishna (1932) Indian politician

Declining Hillary Clinton's request that India should stop trading with Iran, and describing the need of Iran for India, 9 May, 2012. http://www.iranwatch.org/government/US/DOS/us-dos-remarkssecretaryclinton-and-indianexternalaffairsminister-050812.htm

Thinking

“I traveled to Baghdad to personally show our nation's commitment to a free Iraq, because it is vital for the Iraqi people to know with certainty that America will not abandon them after we have come this far. The challenges that remain in Iraq are serious. We face determined enemies who remain intent on killing the innocent, and defeating these enemies will require more sacrifice and the continued patience of our country. But our efforts in Iraq are well worth it, the mission is necessary for the security of our country, and we will succeed.”

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

Radio Address http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060617.html, June 17, 2006
2000s, 2006

People , Travel , Effort , Personality

“But I would like to think for a moment about a man who in the morning teaches his students that a false attribution of a Watteau drawing or an inaccurate transcription of a fourteenth-century epigraph is a sin against the spirit and in the afternoon or evening transmits to the agents of Soviet intelligence classified, perhaps vital information given to him in sworn trust by his countrymen and intimate colleagues. What are the sources of such scission? How does the spirit mask itself?”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

"The Cleric of Treason," The New Yorker (1980-12-08).
George Steiner: A Reader (1984)

Intelligence , Thinking , Drawing , Falseness

“In this sense, physical fitness is the basis of all the activities of our society. And if our bodies grow soft and inactive, if we fail to encourage physical development and prowess, we will undermine our capacity for thought, for work and for the use of those skills vital to an expanding and complex America. Thus the physical fitness of our citizens is a vital prerequisite to America's realization of its full potential as a nation, and to the opportunity of each individual citizen to make full and fruitful use of his capacities.”

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

1960, Sport at the New Frontier: The Soft American

Sense

“Traditions that were once vital, sincere and splendid and which are now merely empty formulae, [nor to imitate fifth rate western art slavishly] break away from both and produce something vital, connected with the soil, something essentially Indian.”

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) Hungarian Indian artist

Amrita to her contemporary painters.
Sikh Heritage,Amrita Shergil

Art , Sincerity

“Yet in an important sense the Nazis might indeed be said to have "depoliticized" science (and many other areas of culture). The Nazis depoliticized science by destroying the possibility of political debate and controversy. Authoritarian science based on the "Fuhrer principle" replaced what had been, in the Weimar period, a vigorous spirit of politicized debate in and around the sciences. The Nazis "depoliticized" problems of vital human interest by reducing these to scientific or medical problems, conceived in the narrow, reductionist sense of these terms. The Nazis depoliticized questions of crime, poverty, and sexual or political deviance by casting them in surgical or otherwise medical (and seemingly apolitical) terms … politics pursued in the name of science or health provided a powerful weapon in the Nazi ideological arsenal.”

Robert N. Proctor (1954) American historian

Source: Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, 1988, p. 293

Health , Question , Problem , Sense

“It is outrageous to live in a society whose laws tolerate sending young people to life in prison because they grew, or distributed, a dozen ounces of marijuana. I would hope that the good offices of your vital profession would mobilize at least to protest such excesses of wartime zeal, the legal equivalent of a My Lai massacre. And perhaps proceed to recommend the legalization of the sale of most drugs, except to minors.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

The War On Drugs Is Lost (1995)

Life , People , Law , Hope

“A single data point—even a single clutch of measurements—could not usually prove or disprove anything, but it might later turn out to play a vital role in a chain of argument, even if it was only in the biasing of some statistical distribution closer to one hypothesis than another. Science, as Naqi had long since realised, was as much a swarming, social process as it was something driven by ecstatic moments of personal discovery.
It was something she was proud to be part of.”

Alastair Reynolds book Diamond Dogs

Turquoise Days, Chapter 1 (p. 188)
Short fiction, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003)

Science , Parting , Personality

“It is true that Donatello, who afterwards did the ornamentation of the other organ opposite this one, displayed much more judgment and skill than Luca, as will be said in the proper place, because he did almost the whole of the work in the rough as it were, not delicately finishing it, so that it should appear much better at a distance than Luca's; as it does, for with all his care and skill the eye cannot appreciate it well because of the very polish and finish, which are lost in the distance, as it can the almost purely rough hewn work of Donato. To this matter artists should devote much attention, because experience shows that all things seen at a distance, whether they be paintings or sculptures or any other like thing, are bolder and more vigorous in appearance if skilfully hewn in the rough than if they are carefully finished. Besides the effect obtained by distance, it often happens that these rough sketches, which are born in an instant in the heat of inspiration, express the idea of their author in a few strokes, while on the other hand too much effort and diligence sometimes sap the vitality and powers of those who never know when to leave off.”

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) Italian painter, architect, writer and historian

Volume 2. p. 28
The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 1900

Idea , Effort , Appearance , Painting

“The use of the divine gift of common sense would teach the opponents of the philosophy that what was shown to be fraud was not spiritualism and that a doctrine that thrives in the midst of the bitterest oppression and grows in the fire of persecution has some measure of truth in its keeping to give it vitality”

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

Defence at his Heresy Trial

Truth , Fraud , Sense

“As for more than twenty years my principal work has been devoted to the ancient literature of India, I cannot but feel a deep and real sympathy for all that concerns the higher interests of the people of that country. Though I have never been in India, I have many friends there, both among the civilians and among the natives, and I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that the publication in England of the ancient sacred writings of the Brahmans, which had never been published in India, and other contributions from different European scholars towards a better knowledge of the ancient literature and religion of India, have not been without some effect on the intellectual and religious movement that is going on among the more thoughtful members of Indian society. I have sometimes regretted that I am not an Englishman, and able to help more actively in the great work of educating and improving the natives. But I do rejoice that this great task of governing and benefiting India should have fallen to one who knows the greatness of that task and all its opportunities and responsibilities, who thinks not only of its political and financial bearings, but has a heart to feel for the moral welfare of those millions of human beings that are, more or less directly, committed to his charge. India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by education. Much has been done for education of late, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, that would hardly be enough. The results of the educational work carried on during the last twenty years are palpable everywhere. They are good and bad, as was to be expected. It is easy to find fault with what is called Young Bengal, the product of English ideas grafted on the native mind. But Young Bengal, with all its faults, is full of promise. Its bad features are apparent everywhere, its good qualities are naturally hidden from the eyes of careless observers.... India can never be anglicized, but it can be reinvigorated. By encouraging a study of their own ancient literature, as part of their education, a national feeling of pride and self-respect will be reawakened among those who influence the large masses of the people. A new national literature may spring up, impregnated with Western ideas, yet retaining its native spirit and character. The two things hang together. In order to raise the character of the vernaculars, a study of the ancient classical language is absolutely necessary: for from it these modern dialects have branched off, and from it alone can they draw their vital strength and beauty. A new national literature will bring with it a new national life and new moral vigour. As to religion, that will take care of itself. The missionaries have done far more than they themselves seem to be aware of, nay, much of the work which is theirs they would probably disclaim. The Christianity of our nineteenth century will hardly be the Christianity of India. But the ancient religion of India is doomed — and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Letter to the Duke of Argyll, published in The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich Max Müller (1902) edited by Georgina Müller

Life , People , Education , Religion

“Out of the shadow of the abstract man, who thinks for the pleasure of thinking, emerges the organic man, who thinks because of a vital imbalance, and who is beyond science and art.”

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

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Pleasure , Art , Thinking , Science

“Older children always sit down to paint or write after they have seen a picture or read a story that appeals to them, and attempt to create. So life ought to be a struggle of desire towards adventures whose nobility will fertilise the soul and lead to the conception of new, glorious things. To avoid the ordeal of emotion that leads to the conception is the impulse of death. Sterility is the deadly sin. Today so many of our activities are sterile. Our upper classes are impotent by reason of their soft living. Our lower classes have had their vitality sweated out of them by their filthy labours: they can only bear dead things.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

"The Gospel According to Granville-Parker", in The Freewoman (7 March 1912); re-published in The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17 (1982), p. 21

Life , Death , Children , Soul

“Such is our ideal – not another museum, another bleak exhibition gallery, another classical building in which insulated and classified specimens of a culture are displayed for instruction, but an adult play-centre, a workshop where work is a joy, a source of vitality and daring experiment. We may be mocked for our naive idealism, but at least it will not be possible to say that an expiring civilisation perished without a creative protest.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

On the occasion of the opening of Forty Years of Modern Art (February 1948)
Literary Quotes

Joy

“The only way to give finality to the world is to give it consciousness. For where there is no consciousness there is no finality, finality presupposing a purpose. And… faith in God is based simply upon the vital need of giving finality to existence, of making it answer to a purpose. We need God, not in order to understand the why, but in order to feel and sustain the ultimate wherefore, to give a meaning to the Universe.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity

God , World , Faith , Way

“In the Church which was founded at Corinth, St. Paul had special difficulties of the kind I have mentioned. In that flourishing commercial city, which through its shipping and situation, maintained a vital connexion between East and West, numerous crowds of people flocked together from all quarters, different in speech and in culture. As they mingled with the inhabitants, they produced, by contacts and contrasts, new and ever new differences. Even in the Church this differentiation endeavoured to make itself felt in sects and parties; and a kind of pagan wisdom made a special attempt to force itself forward as a teacher of truth. In his first letter to this church, from which the text I read is taken, St. Paul strongly combats this tendency.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Sermon Preached at Trinitatis Kirke, 1844, P. 162

Wisdom , People , Truth , Teachers

“Diogenes of Sinope … was also the first to recognize the danger embodied in Plato, that the school will subjugate life, that the artificial psychosis of "absolute knowledge" wants to destroy the vital connection between perception, movement, and understanding.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 535

Life , School , Understanding , Knowledge

“Like other systems in decay, the Roman Empire continued to function for several generations after its vitality was sapped. For nearly a hundred years our Island was one of the scenes of conflict between a dying civilisation and lusty, famishing barbarism.”

Winston S. Churchill book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)

“I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened.”

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

Source: My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), Chapter 5 (The Fourth Hussars).

“It was the desire for living, vital expression.... which built Gothic cathedrals, which created Mozart sonatas. I believe it is going to stay that way for long time to come.”

August Macke (1887–1914) German painter of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter

In 'The New Program' (1914) - first appeared in Das neue Program, Kunst und Künstler 12. (March 1914)

Way , Time

“To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit, which distinguished it from all that had gone before. It is a vital distinction.”

Edith Hamilton (1867–1963) American teacher and writer

Source: The Greek Way (1930), Ch. 1

Life , World , Beauty

“This private multidimensional self, or the soul, has… an eternal validity. It is upheld, supported, maintained by the energy, the inconceivable vitality, of All That Is.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 234
Seth Speaks (1972)

Soul , Support

“It's important to know what you don't want, but it's vital to know what you DO want.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 152

“It's vitally important that as manager you make decisions.”

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

20-Jan-2006, DCFC website
Brown, management guru.

Decision

“An ounce of perception, a pound of obscure
Process information at half speed
Pause, rewind, replay
Warm memory chip
Random sample, hold the one you need
-- Vital Signs (1981)”

Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author

Rush Lyrics

Memory , Speed

“Mostly, brothers and sisters, we become the victims of our own wrong desires. Moreover, we live in an age when many simply refuse to feel responsible for themselves. Thus, a crystal-clear understanding of the doctrines pertaining to desire is so vital because of the spreading effluent oozing out of so many unjustified excuses by so many. This is like a sludge which is sweeping society along toward "the gulf of misery and endless wo". Feeding that same flow is the selfish philosophy of "no fault," which is replacing the meek and apologetic "my fault." We listen with eager ear to hear genuine pleas for forgiveness instead of the ritualistic "Sorry. I hope I can forgive myself."”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts, Ensign, Nov. 1996, p. 21 Ensign http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=57acdbdcc370c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

Age , Hope , Feeling , Forgiveness

“Unpredictable events, or the coincidence of vital events happening side by side, play their part in history. In the emerging of the United States of America, the South American nations, South Africa, Canada and Australia the unforeseen mixture of events was especially powerful in the final decades of the 18th century. Many of those events pirouetted around the fortunes of France, whose influence was as decisive when it was losing as when it was winning wars.”

Geoffrey Blainey book A Short History of the World

A Short History of the World (2000)

War , History , Decision , Parting

“The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

[2008-11-19, Let Detroit Go Bankrupt, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html]
2008

Fate , Cars

“When I look down the vista of the years, with all the "improvements," "inventions" and "progress" that they hold, I am infinitely thankful that I am no younger. I could wish to be older, much older. Every man wants to live out his life's span. But I hardly think life in this age is worth the effort of living. I'd like to round out my youth; and perhaps the natural vitality and animal exuberance of youth will carry me to middle age. But good God, to think of living the full three score years and ten!”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (March 6, 1933)
Letters

Life , God , Youth , Age

“1. The human mind is so constructed that it must see every perception in a time-relation—in an order—and every perception of an object in a space-relation—as outside or beside our perceiving selves.
2. These necessary time-relations are reducible to Number, and they are studied in the theory of number, arithmetic and algebra.
3. These necessary space-relations are reducible to Position and Form, and they are studied in geometry.
Mathematics, therefore, studies an aspect of all knowing, and reveals to us the universe as it presents itself, in one form, to mind. To apprehend this and to be conversant with the higher developments of mathematical reasoning, are to have at hand the means of vitalizing all teaching of elementary mathematics.”

David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) American mathematician

David Eugene Smith, "Editor's Introduction," in: The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=NKoAAAAAMAAJ (1906)

Mathematics , Study , Universe , Time

“In this world, the question has already been asked. The world has already started to face the problems, the problems which are vital for the human race. There is no need to discuss the problems, but I would like to present my opinion. In the midst of all this, I still sincerely think that this Knowledge, the Knowledge of God, the Knowledge of our Creator, is our solution. Many people might not think so, and carry a completely different opinion, but my opinion is that since man came on this planet earth, he has always been taking from it. Remember, this planet Earth is not infinite, it is finite, and though it has a lot to give, it is limited. Maybe now we can somehow manage to stagger along, cutting our standards of living, cutting gas, reducing the speed limit more, but the next very terrifying question is What about the future? I think this Knowledge which I have to offer this world, free of charge, is the answer. For if everybody can understand that everybody is a brother and sister, and this world is a gift, not a human-owned planet, and have the true understanding of such, we'll definitely bring peace, tranquillity, love and Grace, which we need so badly. I urge this world to try. I do not claim to be God, but do claim I can establish peace on this Earth by our Lord's Grace, and everyone's joint effort.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Proclamation for 1975, signed Sant Ji Maharaj the name by which Prem Rawat was known at that time. Divine Times (Vol.4 Issue.1, February 1, 1975)
1970s

Love , God , People , World

“During life, a spirit is held to the body by his semi-material envelope, or perispirit. Death is the destruction of the body only, but not of this second envelope, which separates itself from the body when the play of organic life ceases in the latter. Observation shows us that the separation of the perispirit from the body is not suddenly completed at the moment of death, but is only effected gradually, and more or less slowly in different individuals. In some cases it is effected so quickly that the perispirit is entirely separated from the body within a few hours of the death of the latter but in other cases, and especially in the case of those whose life has been grossly material and sensual, this deliverance is much less rapid, and sometimes takes days, weeks, and even months, for its accomplishment. This delay does not imply the slightest persistence of vitality in the body, nor any possibility of its return to life, but is simply the result of a certain affinity between the body and the spirit which affinity is always more or less tenacious in proportion to the preponderance of materiality in the affections of the spirit during his earthly life.”

Allan Kardec (1804–1869) systematizer of Spiritism

Source: The Spirits' Book, p. 116.

Life , Death

“The true foundation of all culture is the knowledge and understanding of water. Water is the ur-substance or ur-cause of all creation and for this reason is the ur-original accumulator, which readily absorbs both earthly and cosmic substances and conveys them to the body in a purely objective form. This must be done in such a way that the ur-attributes will in no way be modified and that change as such can only first come about in the effect, which the organically correctly structured body mediates and imparts. For this reason a good spirit dwells in a healthy body. Conversely a body full of vitality can be created, maintained and further developed by healing the inhering spirit.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Viktor Schauberger in 1936 - from Spec. Ed. Mensch und Technik, Vol. 2, 1993, section 4.1. (Callum Coats: Energy Evolution (2000))
Mensch und Technik

Way , Understanding , Knowledge , Water

“This, I feel, is missing a vital point: that the sceptic is often a totally honest person who, for perfectly good, sound reasons, simply cannot see a case for belief. In fact many -- like Courty Bryan -- admit that they would like to be convinced, but find it impossible.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Alien Dawn (1998), p. 77

Feeling , Personality

“Overhead, capricious spring clouds began to scud across the sky in mackerel shapes, promising more rain. Garraty turned up his collar and listened to the sound of his feet pounding the pavement. There was a trick to that, a subtle mental adjustment, like having better night vision the longer you were in the dark. This morning the sound of his feet had been lost to him. They had been lost in the tramp of ninety-nine other pairs, not to mention the rumble of the halftrack. But now he heard them easily. His own particular stride, and the way his left foot scraped the pavement every now and then. It seemed to him that the sound of his footfalls had become as loud to his ears as the sound of his own heartbeat. Vital, life and death sound.”

Stephen King book The Long Walk

The Long Walk (1979)

Life , Death , Way , Spring

“Clearly our first task is to use the material wealth of space to solve the urgent problems we now face on Earth: to bring the poverty-stricken segments of the world up to a decent living standard, without recourse to war or punitive action against those already in material comfort; to provide for a maturing civilization the basic energy vital to its survival.”

Gerard O'Neill (1927–1992) Physicist, author, and inventor

The High Frontier (1976)

War , World , Problem , Wealth

“Defending the Constitution is always important. That duty is even more vital today, when the president and top administration officials argue that the executive branch may break the law whenever the president deems it to be necessary in a time which he declares to be wartime.”

Bob Barr (1948) Republican and Libertarian politician

Press release, (8 July 2008) Barack Obama Should Defend Constitution, Lead Fight Against FISA, Says Bob Barr http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-08-2008/0004845380&EDATE=, PR Newswire (press release), 8 July 2008.
2000s, 2008

Law , Time

“The development of economics as a science which is always based on human beings, the creative actors and protagonists in all social processes and events (the subjectivist conception), is undoubtedly the most significant and characteristic contribution made by the Austrian School of economics, founded by Carl Menger. In fact Menger felt it vital to abandon the sterile objectivism of the classical (Anglo-Saxon) school whose members were obsessed with the supposed existence of external objective entities (social classes, aggregates, material factors of production, etc.). Menger held that economists should instead always adopt the subjectivist view of human beings who act, and that this perspective should invariably exert a decisive influence on the way all economic theories are formulated, in terms of their scientific content and their practical conclusions and results.”

Jesús Huerta de Soto (1956) professor of political economy and author

Jesús Huerta de Soto (2006), Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, p. 267, Note 3,

School , Way , Decision , Science

“Japan cannot remain indifferent to anyone's taking action, under any pretext, which is prejudicial to the maintenance of law and order in st Asia for which she, if only in view of her geographic position, has the most vital concern.”

Kōki Hirota (1878–1948) Japanese politician executed

Quoted in "Modern Japan: A Brief History" - Page 135 - by Arthur E. Tiedemann - 1962.

Law , Indifference

“No honest historian can take part with — or against — the forces he has to study. To him even the extinction of the human race should be merely a fact to be grouped with other vital statistics.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Study , Parting

“One of the bellwether marks of the growth and vitality of the Church is the construction of temples.... We will keep on working to bring the temples to the people, making it more convenient for Latter day Saints everywhere to receive the blessings which can only be had in these holy houses.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Work Goes On, Ensign, May 2001, 1.

People , Housing

“That the German people were spared this final catastrophe was due to -- aside from the rapid advances of the Allied troops, which made the carrying out of such a gigantic demolition impossible -- the superhuman efforts of Speer and a number of Army officers who, in direct disobedience (finally!) of Hitler's orders, raced about the country to make sure that vital communications, plants and stores were not blown up by zealously obedient Army officers and party hacks.”

William L. Shirer book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Source: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), pp. 1103,1104

People , Communication , Effort , Country

“It was Stalin, Lenin’s unnatural heir, who ‘in the early 1930s…injected the adrenalin of Russian nationalism into the Soviet political bloodstream’ in an effort to restore some vitality to what gave every appearance of a failed revolution.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time, (1999), p. 176

Effort , Appearance

“In contrast to Breton we believe that — behind the false ethical and aesthetic, indeed metaphysical understandings which are out of contact with the vital interest of "man" — we find the real, the materialistic ethics and aesthetics. One includes our needs, the other is an expression of our sensual desires. It is exactly in order to liberate the true ethics and the true aesthetics that we make use of "automatism."”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

1949 - 1958, Speech to the Penguins' (1949)

Understanding , Falseness

“Loss of sincerity is loss of vital power.”

Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American writer

"Sincerity", p. 153.
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), Volume II

Loss , Sincerity

“Those involved in such disasters - the survivors - often use such larger-than-life circumstances in order to participate in affairs that seem to have greater import than those possessed by previous humdrum existences. They seek the excitement, whatever its consequences. They become a part of history to whatever extent. For once their private lives are identified with a greater source - and from it many derive new strength and vitality. Social barriers are dropped, economic positions forgotten. The range of private emotions is given greater, fuller, sweep.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 821, Page 99
The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, (1981)

Life , History , Parting

“This rich, proud Empire did not pay its children, who had maintained and built up its glory and upon whom they had to depend in future against every foe, enough to keep themselves, their wives, and their children above a state of semi-starvation. (Cries of "Shame.") The land of Britain, which ought to be rearing a virile, healthy, independent, prosperous people, was held under conditions which positively discouraged capital, enterprise, and brains, sapped independence and undermined vitality. The condition of things was one which demanded the immediate attention of every man who loved his native land and who had any heart to sympathize with humanity in despair.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the National Liberal Club (31 January 1913), quoted in The Times (1 February 1913), p. 8.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Love , Children , People , Future

“̆[T]he vision and anticipatory experience of transformed personal relations encourage the self-restraint vital to successful institutional reconstruction. When the government's active engagement in the defense of established institutional arrangements has been shaken by violent or peaceful means and when settled assumptions about collective identities, interests, and opportunities have come partly unstuck, institutional reinvention enjoys its favored moment. This opportunity can, nevertheless, be squandered if redistribution over material advantages takes priority over institutional reconstruction.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: False Necessityː Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy (1987), p. 400

Peace , Success , Personality

“In my view, wholesome pleasure, sport, and recreation are as vital to this nation as productive work and should have a large share in the national budget.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

Pleasure , Sport

“The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security — it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible safeguards.”

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

1963, American University speech

War , Effort

“As you know, I do not believe that the Mahatma's principle [of non-cooperation] can be the true foundation or his programme the true means of bringing out the genuine freedom and greatness of India, her Swarajya and Samrajya. On the other hand … I hold that school [of Tilakite nationalism] to be out of date. My own policy, if I were in the field, would be radically different in principle and programme from both, however it might coincide in certain points. But the country is not yet ready to understand its principle or to execute its programme…. Because I know this very well, I am content to work still on the spiritual and psychic plane, preparing there the ideas and forces, which may afterwards at the right moment and under the right conditions precipitate themselves into the vital and material field….”

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

December 1, 1922
India's Rebirth

School , Idea , Understanding , Freedom

“Every Jack sees in his own particular Jill charms and perfections to the enchantment of which we stolid onlookers are stone-cold. And which has the superior view of the absolute truth, he or we? Which has the more vital insight into the nature of Jill's existence, as a fact? Is he in excess, being in this matter a maniac? or are we in defect, being victims of a pathological anesthesia as regards Jill's magical importance? Surely the latter; surely to Jack are the profounder truths revealed; surely poor Jill's palpitating little life-throbs are among the wonders of creation, are worthy of this sympathetic interest; and it is to our shame that the rest of us cannot feel like Jack. For Jack realizes Jill concretely, and we do not. He struggles toward a union with her inner life, divining her feelings, anticipating her desires, understanding her limits as manfully as he can, and yet inadequately, too; for he also is afflicted with some blindness, even here. Whilst we, dead clods that we are, do not even seek after these things, but are contented that that portion of eternal fact named Jill should be for us as if it were not. Jill, who knows her inner life, knows that Jack's way of taking it - so importantly - is the true and serious way; and she responds to the truth in him by taking him truly and seriously, too. May the ancient blindness never wrap its clouds about either of them again! Where would any of us be, were there no one willing to know us as we really are or ready to repay us for our insight by making recognizant return? We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

"What Makes a Life Significant?"
1910s, Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (1911)

Life , Truth , Way , Feeling

“With a few exceptions, Fellini's films have failure and despair running through them: Life continues, but I can't imagine 'Felliniesque' as an exclusively uplifting adjective. Fellini's best films are the ones that distill this essence -- the paradoxical quality of melancholic ecstasy, a surreal, bittersweet vitality -- to perfection.”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

On the adjective ‘Felliniesque’, in The Los Angeles Times (April 2003)]

Life , Imagination , Failure , Perfection

“I will continue to work for the advancement of freedoms in Egypt and the Arab world until I drop dead. … Education itself — which can and should play an important role in the apprenticeship of tolerance and respect for other people — sometimes encourages identitarian closure, or even extremist behaviour … It is therefore vital to ensure that education does not encourage rejection of other people or identitarian closure, but that on the contrary it encourages knowledge and respect for other cultures, other religions and other ways of being and living.”

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922–2016) 6th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Quoted in "Boutros Boutros-Ghali: The world is his oyster" by Gamal Nkrumah in Al-Ahram weekly No. 777 (10 - 18 January 2006)
2000s

People , World , Education , Religion

“Just as soon as any conviction of important truth becomes central and vital, there comes the desire to utter it—a desire which is immediate and irresistible. Sacrifice is gladness, service is joy, when such an idea becomes a commanding power.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 606.

Truth , Idea , Joy

“This behavior not only exacerbates tensions in its own right; it has the effect of stifling community confidence that’s absolutely vital for effective policing. And this, in turn, deepens the widespread distrust provoked by the department’s other unconstitutional exercises of police power – none of which is more harmful than its pattern of excessive force.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Behavior , Exercises , Confidence , Communication

“To search for unasked questions, plus questions to put to already acquired but unsought answers, it is vital to give full play to the imagination. That is the way to create truly original science.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Source: Letters to a Young Scientist (2013), chapter 16, "Searching for New Worlds on Earth", page 177.

Way , Imagination , Search , Question

“Now, I don't have all the answers, but I do know the old ways don't work. Trickledown economics has sure failed. And big bureaucracies, both private and public, they've failed too. That's why we need a new approach to government, a government that offers more empowerment and less entitlement. More choices for young people in the schools they attend- in the public schools they attend. And more choices for the elderly and for people with disabilities and the long-term care they receive. A government that is leaner, not meaner; a government that expands opportunity, not bureaucracy; a government that understands that jobs must come from growth in a vibrant and vital system of free enterprise.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

William J. Clinton: "Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in New York," July 16, 1992. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25958
1990s

People , School , Way , Understanding

“Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

1970s, How do we tell truths that might hurt? (1975)

Mathematics

“Never till this day
Did life disturb the dense eternity
Of joyless quiet; never skylark's song,
Or storm-bird's prescient scream, or eaglet's cry,
Made vital the gross fog. The very light
Is but an alien that can find no welcome”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

Prometheus
Poems (1851), Prometheus

Life , Bird , Light , Cry

“there is no word so perk and quick, which bursts from the heart with such spontaneity, which seethes and bubbles with such vitality, as the aptly spoken Russian word”

Nikolai Gogol book Dead Souls

Source: Dead Souls (1842), Chapter V

Heart

“Yes, we will know one another! Yes we will have a glorious reunion! The Scriptures are not unclear on this vital issue.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 13

“Statistics and information has become the lifeline in policy-making the world over. We must be at par with our neighboring countries, if not the world, to be equipped with vital and current information on world trade, events and trends.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2011/0819_escudero1.asp
2011

World , Country

“They tell me thou art rich, my country: gold
In glittering flood has poured into thy chest;
Thy flocks and herds increase, thy barns are pressed
With harvest, and thy stores can hardly hold
Their merchandise; unending trains are rolled
Along thy network rails of East and West;
Thy factories and forges never rest;
Thou art enriched in all things bought and sold!

But dost thou prosper? Better news I crave.
O dearest country, is it well with thee
Indeed, and is thy soul in health?
A nobler people, hearts more wisely brave,
And thoughts that lift men up and make them free,—
These are prosperity and vital wealth!”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

America's Prosperity (October 1, 1916).

Men , People , Health , Art

“One of the unfortunate consequences of the intellectualization of man's spiritual life was that the word "spirit" was lost and replaced by mind or intellect, and that the element of vitality which is present in “spirit” was separated and interpreted as an independent biological force. Man was divided into a bloodless intellect and a meaningless vitality. The middle ground between them, the spiritual soul, in which vitality and intentionality are united, was dropped.”

Paul Tillich book The Courage to Be

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 82

Life , Soul

“Consideration for other persons or for other living beings is very vital for goodness and want of consideration for other people makes human beings selfish, regardless for other people's good.”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967

People , Personality , Selfishness

“When the head of a goat is severed from its body, the trunk struggles for some time, still showing signs of life. Similarly, though ahamkara (egotism) is slain in the perfect man, yet enough of its vitality is left to make him carry on the functions of physical life; but it is not sufficient to bind him again into the world.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (1960), p. 949

Life , World , Time , Perfection

“These burdens and frustrations are accepted by most Americans with maturity and understanding. They may long for the days when war meant charging up San Juan Hill-or when our isolation was guarded by two oceans — or when the atomic bomb was ours alone — or when much of the industrialized world depended upon our resources and our aid. But they now know that those days are gone — and that gone with them are the old policies and the old complacency's. And they know, too, that we must make the best of our new problems and our new opportunities, whatever the risk and the cost.
But there are others who cannot bear the burden of a long twilight struggle. They lack confidence in our long-run capacity to survive and succeed. Hating communism, yet they see communism in the long run, perhaps, as the wave of the future. And they want some quick and easy and final and cheap solution — now.
There are two groups of these frustrated citizens, far apart in their views yet very much alike in their approach. On the one hand are those who urge upon us what I regard to be the pathway of surrender-appeasing our enemies, compromising our commitments, purchasing peace at any price, disavowing our arms, our friends, our obligations. If their view had prevailed, the world of free choice would be smaller today.
On the other hand are those who urge upon us what I regard to be the pathway of war: equating negotiations with appeasement and substituting rigidity for firmness. If their view had prevailed, we would be at war today, and in more than one place.
It is a curious fact that each of these extreme opposites resembles the other. Each believes that we have only two choices: appeasement or war, suicide or surrender, humiliation or holocaust, to be either Red or dead. Each side sees only "hard" and "soft" nations, hard and soft policies, hard and soft men. Each believes that any departure from its own course inevitably leads to the other: one group believes that any peaceful solution means appeasement; the other believes that any arms build-up means war. One group regards everyone else as warmongers, the other regards everyone else as appeasers. Neither side admits that its path will lead to disaster — but neither can tell us how or where to draw the line once we descend the slippery slopes of appeasement or constant intervention.
In short, while both extremes profess to be the true realists of our time, neither could be more unrealistic. While both claim to be doing the nation a service, they could do it no greater disservice. This kind of talk and easy solutions to difficult problems, if believed, could inspire a lack of confidence among our people when they must all — above all else — be united in recognizing the long and difficult days that lie ahead. It could inspire uncertainty among our allies when above all else they must be confident in us. And even more dangerously, it could, if believed, inspire doubt among our adversaries when they must above all be convinced that we will defend our vital interests.
The essential fact that both of these groups fail to grasp is that diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fail. A willingness to resist force, unaccompanied by a willingness to talk, could provoke belligerence — while a willingness to talk, unaccompanied by a willingness to resist force, could invite disaster.”

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

1961, Address at the University of Washington

Men , Hate , War , People

“We all accept that renewable energy is vital to reducing climate change.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Lecture (December 19, 2007)

Change

“Cultural pluralism is as important as political and multi- party pluralism. Religious, linguistic and cultural pluralism are vitally important hallmarks of a true democracy. We are against cultural hegemony of any sort. Diversity is a mark of a healthy democracy.”

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922–2016) 6th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Quoted in "Boutros Boutros-Ghali: The world is his oyster" by Gamal Nkrumah in Al-Ahram weekly No. 777 (10 - 18 January 2006)
2000s

Democracy

“Our Real Self is a ceaseless, ever-changing, and vital expression of eternal energies, even though this timeless nature remains veiled from us because of our present level of consciousness.”

Guy Finley (1949) American self-help writer, philosopher, and spiritual teacher, and former professional songwriter and musician

Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom

Nature , Change

“In Aristotle the mind, regarded as the principle of life, divides into nutrition, sensation, and faculty of thought, corresponding to the inner most important stages in the succession of vital phenomena.”

Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) German physician, physiologist, philosopher and professor

Source: Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1904, p. 22

Life , Success

“Carving is interrelated masses conveying an emotion; a perfect relationship between the mind and the colour, light and weight which is the stone, made by the hand which feels. It must be so essentially sculpture that it can exist in no other way, something completely the right size but which has growth, something still and yet having movement, so very quiet and yet with a real vitality.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Extract from Hepworth's statement in Unit One, as cited in The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture, ed. Herbert Read, London, 1934, p. 19
1932 - 1946

Way , Feeling , Light , Perfection

“The cultivated man of today is gradually turning away from natural things, and his life is becoming more and more abstract. Natural (external) things become more and more automatic, and we observe that our vital attention fastens more and more on internal things.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

1910's, Natural Reality and Abstract Reality', 1919

Life , Nature

“Whatever in the gospel will not interfere with what we like to do, or feel we must do, we gladly believe; and to the rest we close our eyes. Most of us do this half-unconsciously, perhaps, but in our innermost selves we can hardly help knowing that we are not Christians, and that there is in the gospel something fundamental—a vital message, an essence—which we do not wish to understand.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 7

Feeling , Understanding , Help

“.. he brought a sanity of perception and appraisal to his criticism of our prose productions, our plays, our linguistics, and what ever in letters that touches vitally the life of his people. The country has lost a truly great man in the death of Epifanio de los Santos Cristobal. He wrought for himself a destiny of glory which is the glory of his native land.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

Zaide, Gregorio F. 1965. Epifanio de los Santos: Great among the great Filipino scholars. In Great Filipinos in history. 88 p. 581.
BALIW

Life , Death , People , Country

“Firstly what does conservation mean? It is not merely the saving from extinction of such species as the Notornis, the Leadbetters Possum or the Leathery Turtle; this is important work but it is only part of the problem. You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that you have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is not only vital for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself — a point that seems to escape many people.”

Gerald Durrell (1925–1995) naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter

Two in the Bush (1966)

Life , People , Problem , Future

“Wounds on the external landscape exist in the internal landscape first. We re-create those inner wounds on the outside, on the planet. So being a vegan, practicing yoga, and taking time to exercise and do things that nourish my heart and spirit are all vital parts of my “activism.” Activists have done a great job of caring for the world around us, but we haven’t done a great job of caring for ourselves and each other. … If we’re going to ask people to open up to the pain of the earth, we ought to have systems in place that enable us to relieve each other’s pain.”

Julia Butterfly Hill (1974) American activist

" The Butterfly Effect http://thesunmagazine.org/issues/436/the_butterfly_effect". Interview by Leslee Goodman for The Sun, April 2012, issue 436

Pain , People , World , Exercises

“As for a few others, the vital task was a wedding of abstraction and surrealism. Out of these opposites something new could emerge, and Gorky’s work is a part of the evidence that this is true. What he felt, I suppose, was a sense of polarity, not of dichotomy; that opposites could exist simultaneously within a body, within a painting or within an entire art... These are the opposites poles in his work. Logic and irrationality; violence and gentleness; happiness and sadness, surrealism and abstraction. Out of these elements I think Gorky evolved his style.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

Arshile Gorky Adolph Gottlieb in exhibition catalogue Kootz Gallery New York, 1950; as quoted in Abstract Painting in America, W.C, Seitz p. 104.
1950s

Sadness , Art , Thinking , Sense