Quotes about well
page 43

“These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis.
They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn't for any lack of mother-love.”

Sylvia Plath book Crossing the Water

"Stillborn" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/still.html Crossing the Water (1971)

Love, People, Sadness

“Each individual of whatever species, and each consciousness, whatever its degree, automatically seeks to enhance the quality of life itself - not only for itself but for all of reality as well.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 893, Page 194
Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment, Volume One (1986)

Life, Reality

“How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? We must not underestimate the size of the market for works of this kind, for philosophy-fiction. Just as compulsory primary education created a market catered for by cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

1960s, Review of Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man", 1961

People, Education

“Mark Twain said that faith is believing what you know ain't so. Well, political correctness is doing what you know ain't right. In every western country, Islamic extremists are allowed to exploit religious privilege for political ends by claiming to represent all Muslims, and the media always treat them as if they do. These groups give themselves official-sounding titles and talk a smooth line in community harmony, while doing all they can to prevent integration: to keep Muslims apart and ghettoised in a separate society, with a separate identity, separate rules and standards. In other words, they exist to cause division in society; to drive a wedge between communities that doesn't need to be there, any more than they need to exist as organisations.”

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

"The Enemy Within" (18 July 2010) http://youtube.com/watch?v=NUiysSau8Qk 2010

Faith, Communication, Country

“To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.”

Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French writer and philosopher

A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books
Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988)

Life

“Everyone in Boston of a certain age knows the story of Rosie Ruiz, the marathoner who crossed the Boston finish line in 1980 at 2:31.56, flabby thighs and all, having barely broken a sweat. Despite mounting skepticism, she basked in the glory of having run the third-fastest female marathon in history – for a few days, that is, until a couple of students remembered seeing her jump out of the crowd half a mile from the finish.
Something of the sort has been going on recently with the shade of Friedrich von Hayek. The Austrian economist, who died in 1992 just short of what would have been his ninety-third birthday, never made false claims for himself – far from it: he knew all too well the loneliness of the long distance runner. And scrupulous work as editor by the late W. W. Bartley, interpreter Bruce Caldwell, and biographer Alan Ebenstein, have made it possible to see the man clear.
But the claims conservatives are making about the role he played as an economist are beginning to smack of Ruizismus. That is, they have jumped a caricature out of the bushes late in the day and claim that their guy ran a great race.”

David Warsh (1944) American journalist

"Ruizismus among the Austrians," 4 December 2011

Age, Guy, History, Birthday

“There is a kind of second law of cultural dynamics which states simply that when anything has been done, it cannot be done again. In other words, we start off any system with a potential for novelty which is gradually exhausted. We see this in every field of human life, in the arts as well as the sciences. Once Beethoven has written the Ninth Symphony, nobody else can do it. Consequently, we find that in any evolutionary process, even in the arts, the search for novelty becomes corrupting. The "entropy trap" is perhaps the most subtle and the most fundamental of the obstacles toward realising the developed society…”

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

Kenneth Boulding (1970) "The Science Revelation". In: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (Sept 1970) Vol. 26, nr. 7. p. 16
1970s

Life, Law, Art, Search

“O the same God that abandon'd her,
Has in turn abandon'd me,
Deep in the Desert of Despair,
I wait at the Well of Misery.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, From Her to Eternity (1984), Well of Misery

God, Waiting, Despair

“Whatever an enemy might do to an enemy, or a foe to a foe, the ill-directed mind can do to you even worse.
Whatever a mother, father or other kinsman might do for you, the well-directed mind can do for you even better.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Pali Canon 42-43 Cittavagga The Mind http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.03.than.html. Unclassified

“Going into the House last night, the caution lately given me by a poor but honest Scotchman struck me. He said to me, "Mr. Bright, I'll give you a piece of advice. You are going into bad company; and now that you are in, remember that you stick to what you said when you were out." If one had dropped from the clouds upon the floor of the House and listened to the debate last night, I never should have dreamed that there was the least distress or discontent in the country. It was true that Lord John Russell made a very clever speech and some hard hits at the ministry… Then came Lord Palmerston, and he made a very clever speech, if there was no country; it would have been very well at a debating club; it had some hard cuts at the ministry, interspersed with references to Afghanistan and the Ameers of Scinde, and everything but the condition of England question.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech at an Anti-Corn Law League banquet (29 July 1843), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 116-117.
1840s

Dreams, Question, Housing, Night

“Disclosures about the magnitude of covert State surveillance and well-known examples of intimidation of human rights defenders shock the conscience and require public discussion and corrective action in each country and by the international community. In a democratic society, it is crucial for citizens to know whether their Governments are acting constitutionally or are engaged in policies that violate international law and human rights. It is their civic duty to protest against Government secrecy and cover-ups, the chilling effect of disproportionate surveillance, acts of intimidation and harassment, arbitrary arrests and defamation of human rights defenders, including whistleblowers, as unpatriotic or even traitors, when in fact they may be the most effective defenders of the rule of law. These acts of surveillance and intimidation are hallmarks of totalitarianism, not of democratic governance.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

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

Law, Communication, Country

“When the ghost comes round at midnight
Well you both can have some fun
He can drive you mad, he can make you sad
He can keep you from the sun
When they take him down, he'll be both safe and sound
And the hand does fit the glove
And no matter what they tell you,
There's good and evil in everyone.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Who Was That Masked Man
Song lyrics, Veedon Fleece (1974)

Sadness, Evil, Sun, Madness

“Mills: Even the people themselves who were perpetrating that violence, did they think that was wise? Was that a wise reasoned action?
Souljah: Yeah, it was wise. I mean, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?… White people, this government and that mayor were well aware of the fact that black people were dying every day in Los Angeles under gang violence. So if you're a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person? Do you think that somebody thinks that white people are better, are above and beyond dying, when they would kill their own kind?”

Sister Souljah (1964) American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer

Regarding black-on-white violence in the Los Angeles riots, quoted in David Mills (16 June 1992) "In Her Own Disputed Words; Transcript of Interview That Spawned Souljah's Story" The Washington Post

People, Angels, Thinking, Personality

“Some of my friends good-humoredly – and some a little bit severely – have called me a 'mystic.' Well I'd like to say this about any w:mysticism I may suppose to have. If an arch-angel from heaven were to come, and were to start giving me, telling me, teaching me, and giving me instruction, I'd ask him for the text. I'd say, 'Where's it say that in the Bible? I want to know.' And I would insist that it was according to the scriptures, because I do not believe in any extra-scriptural teachings, nor any anti-scriptural teachings, or any sub-scriptural teachings. I think we ought to put the emphasis where God puts it, and continue to put it there, and to expound the scriptures, and stay by the scriptures. I wouldn't – no matter if I saw a light above the light of the sun, I'd keep my mouth shut about it 'til I'd checked with Daniel and Revelation and the rest of the scriptures to see if it had any basis in truth. And if it didn't, I'd think I'd just eaten something I shouldn't, and I wouldn't say anything about it. Because I don't believe in anything that is unscriptural or that is anti-scripture.”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

What Difference Does the Holy Spirit Make?

God, Truth, Angels, Thinking

“We needed to go over there, basically, and take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble.… What they [Muslims] needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad and basically saying "Which part of this sentence don't you understand? You don't think we care about our open society? You think this bubble fantasy, we're just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this!" That, Charlie, is what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia! It was part of that bubble. We could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.”

Thomas Friedman (1953) American journalist and author

Charlie Rose (30 May 2003).

War, World, Girl, Boy

“It is true that other Nations may, as they do, enforce contrary rules of conscience and conduct. It is true that policies may be pursued under flags other than our own, but those policies are beyond our jurisdiction. Yet in our inner individual lives we can never be indifferent, and we assert for ourselves complete freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the principles for which our flag has so long been the lofty symbol. As it was so well said by James Madison, over a century ago: "We hold it for a fundamental and inalienable truth that religion and the manner of discharging it can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence."”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Address at San Diego Exposition (1935)

Truth, Religion, Freedom, Indifference

“Faith is, indeed, most necessary in human affairs, as well as in religion Without faith, no contracts could be concluded, nor could any business be transacted. And without faith, where would be the basis for the divine reward of human merit? As it is, that faith which embraces the truths of religion deserves reward. Such faith is, according to the Apostle, "a substantiation of things to be hoped for, a testimonial to things that appear not."”

John of Salisbury English philosopher and theologian

Faith is intermediate between opinion and science. p. 223
The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury (1159)

Truth, Faith, Religion, Hope

“When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably) as a rhetorical device. Such cases do not function as speculations in the pejorative sense - as silly stories that provide insight into complex mechanisms - but rather as idealized illustrations to exemplify a difficult point of theory. (Other fields, like philosophy and the law, use such conjectural cases as a standard device.)”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"The Tallest Tale", p. 310
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Law, Sense

“.. I will endeavour to make clear to men of good will what the word 'material' means with regard to painting and that, without the material substance of paint, a painting is not a work of art but merely a decorative object, or rather, if it deals with an invented painting, the value of the image resides in its spiritual content.
In order to be a work of art, a painting must be very well painted and the good quality of the paint depends completely on the material substance of the paint with which it is executed. This matter, which constitutes the substance of painting, is composed of two elements which are equally important and absolutely inseparable: physical substance and metaphysical substance. These two elements complete each other reciprocally and when they are of a superior quality, create a masterpiece by way of their absolute harmony.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

Quote from De Cirico's text 'A DISCOURSE ON THE MATERIAL SUBSTANCE OF PAINT', 1942 http://www.fondazionedechirico.org/wp-content/uploads/541-547Metafisica5_6.pdf, p. 542 1920s and later

Men, Art, Way, Painting

“The potential evidenced by [director James] Cameron in The Terminator — the ability to sustain suspense, meld action with story, and provide compelling characters despite the limitations of the actors portraying them — would be fully realized in two future features, Aliens and Terminator 2. This movie, however, is in some ways more impressive than either of those because of what the filmmaker was capable of achieving with a limited budget and without significant studio backing. The themes and ideas presented in The Terminator hold up well today, even though we have moved into the post-Cold War era and only the most nihilistic individuals could see 2029 in such bleak terms. It's a rousing science fiction story that proves an on-screen adrenaline rush need not short-circuit the brain.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1618 of The Terminator (1984). Three-and-a-half star reviews

War, Way, Idea, Science

“Right trusty and well beloved, we greet you well, and where, by your letters of supplication to us delivered by your servant John Brackenbury, we understand that, by reason of your great charges that ye have had and sustained, as well in the defence of this realm against the Scots as otherwise, your worshipful city remaineth greatly in poverty, for the which ye desire us to be good mean unto the King’s Grace for an ease of such charges as ye yearly bear and pay unto His Highness, we let you wit that for such great matters and businesses as we now have to do for the weal and usefulness of the realm, we as yet ne can have convenient leisure to accomplish this your business, but be assured that for your kind and loving dispositions to us at all times showed, which we ne can forget, we in goodly haste shall so endeavour us for your ease in this behalf as that ye shall verily understand we be your especial good and loving lord, as your said servant shall show you, to whom it will like you herein to give further credence; and for the diligent service which he hath done to our singular pleasure unto us at this time, we pray you to give unto him laud and thanks, and God keep you.”

Richard III of England (1452–1485) English monarch

Letter to the city fathers of York in April or early May 1483 as Lord Protector for his nephew, Edward V, reprinted in Richard the Third (1956) http://books.google.com/books?id=dNm0JgAACAAJ&dq=Paul+Murray+Kendall+Richard+the+Third&ei=TZHDR8zXKZKIiQHf2NCpCA

Love, God, Pleasure, Understanding

“The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

The Wayfarer, No. 13
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)

Truth, Time

“Property has its duties as well as its rights.”

Thomas Drummond

Letter to the Landlords of Tipperary, May 22, 1838. See also Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, book ii. chapter xi.

“I am not sure that I do not begin to like the correction of a mistake, even when it involves my having shown much ignorance and stupidity, as well as I like hitting on a new idea.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Inaccuracy
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXII - Reconciliation

Stupidity, Idea

“Well, no question decisions have made things unstable. But the question is can we succeed. And I believe we can. Listen, I'd like to see stability and a unified Iraq. A young democracy will provide the stability we look for. I will tell you that if we just isolate ourselves from the Middle East and hope for the best, we will not address the conditions that had led young suiciders to get on airplanes to come and attack us in the first place.”

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

60 Minutes interview http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/14/60minutes/main2359119.shtml in response to the question “But wasn't it your administration that created the instability in Iraq?” (January 14, 2007) 2000s, 2007

Hope, Democracy, Question, Decision

“Handy, jun. Zounds, the room's in a blaze!
Sir Abel. Don't say so, Bob.
Handy, jun. What's to be done? Where's your famous preparation for extinguishing flames?
Sir Abel. It is not mixed.
Handy, jun. Where's your fire escape?
Sir Abel. It is not fixed.
Handy, jun. Where's your patent fire engine?
Sir Abel. 'Tis on the road.
Handy, jun. Well, you are never at a loss.
Sir Abel. Never.
Handy, jun. What's to be done?
Sir Abel. I don't know.”

Thomas Morton (playwright) Speed the Plough

Speed the Plough (1798), Act IV, scene iii.

Loss

“Oh promises, promises
I know you've heard them all before
Love is, love is, love is, love is, love is…

Oh well, it's just around the corner”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

"Back From The Dead"
Lyrics and poetry

Love

“The postulation of a principle of causality, “to every effect there is a cause,” has been a continuing central problem for philosophy (Popper, 1972). Its role as a source of contention in modern science (Jauch, 1973) is epitomized by Einstein’s remark that, “I can’t believe that God plays dice.” Many of the arguments about the application of the principle are very relevant to systems science and to problems of system identification and machine learning, on the one hand, and to epistemology and behavioural psychology, on the other. In current system science the theory of causal deterministic systems is most well developed and generally applied, while the theory of modeling with alternative structures, e. g., stochastic automata, indeterminate automata, products of asynchronous automata, etc., has not been developed to the same degree.”

Brian R. Gaines (1938) British computer scientist

Introduction.
On the Complexity of Causal Models (1977)

God, Problem, Learning, Science

“I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.”

Thomas Brown (1662–1704) English translator and writer of satire

Laconics, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). A slightly different version is found in Brown's Works collected and published after his death. Compare: "Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare; Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te" (translation: "I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I do not love thee"), Martial, Epigram i. 33; "Je ne vous aime pas, Hylas; Je n'en saurois dire la cause, Je sais seulement une chose; C'est que je ne vous aime pas", Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau, Comte de Rabutin (1618–1693).
Source: See,Talk discussion

Love

“Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.”

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

Dijkstra (1982) "A Letter to My Old Friend Jonathan" (EWD475) p. 101 in [Dijkstra, Edsger, Selected Writings on Computing, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1982, 9780387906522]
1980s

Problem

“Our little Spaceship Earth is only eight thousand miles in diameter, which is almost a negligible dimension in the great vastness of space.... Spaceship Earth was so extraordinarily well invented and designed that to our knowledge humans have been on board it for two million years not even knowing that they were on board a ship.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

1960s, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963)

Knowledge

“You have to look, and looking is so difficult. We are used to thinking. We reflect all the time, well or not, but people are not taught how to look. It takes a very long time.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French photographer

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, The Main Thing Is Looking: Interview with Alain Desvergnes (1979), p. 70

People, Thinking, Time

“Beauty, Inspiration, Magic, Spellbound, Enchantment, as well as the concepts of Serenity, Silence, Intimacy and Amazement. […] They have never ceased to be my guiding lights.”

Luis Barragán (1902–1988) Mexican architect

In his acceptance of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1980

Beauty, Light, Silence

“Makeup's just crazy, anyways. Native Americans used to wear it, and it did all right for them until, uh … well, until you killed them all, I suppose.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Circle (2000)

“You are a smart man, Ira, but sometimes I think you do not understand women very well.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Ruth Levinson, Chapter 20 Ira, p. 267
2009, The Longest Ride (2013)

Women, Understanding, Thinking

“[A]nd between this top-quality programming are the most miserable adverts in the world – former Mancunian top cop John Stalker trying to sell you sun awnings; trying to get you to blot out every ray of light from the world for those in the grip of manic depression – 'Hello, I'm John Stalker. Are you, like me, tired of the pitiless glare of an English summer; maddened by the relentless gaze of cruel Helios; sick of lurking in your house all summer long, like a mad bloke in a siege situation - such as I would have dealt with in my high-flying career? Well, suffer no longer. Install Gloom Master sun awnings - summer bang to rights!' Terrible! Then it all gets worse with those terrible loan adverts. These awful, tragic, hollow-eyed wraiths come on, telling you these awful stories - 'I'm up to my eyes in debt, and, curiously, no reputable company would give me another loan! Then I discovered Dodgy Bastards. They've given me a million pounds, and all they want in return are my kidneys.' No, don't do it! And then - worse than that - the accident insurance adverts - 'Where there's blame, there's a claim”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

when people who've had these accidents come on like medieval beggars, and wave their stumps at you for money with these outlandish stories - 'I slipped on a banana skin and successfully sued the Dominican Republic...' (Wrap up Warm tour, May 2004)
Stand-up

Money, People, World, Light

“That reminds me of how much I hate babies. Why does everyone want to save them? There are too many babies. I'm not saying we should kill them, but if you happen to be giving your baby a bath and the phone rings.. well, nobody will judge you. Besides, you might get free brownies out of it at the funeral, and brownies rule.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

Hate, Baby

“Who is, in the classical conception, the subject that comprehends the ontological condition of truth and untruth? It is the master of pure contemplation (theoria), and the master of a practice guided by theoria, i. e., the philosopher-statesman. To be sure, the truth which he knows and expounds is potentially accessible to everyone. Led by the philosopher, the slave in Plato’s Meno is capable of grasping the truth of a geometrical axiom, i. e., a truth beyond change and corruption. But since truth is a state of Being as well as of thought, and since the latter is the expression and manifestation of the former, access to truth remains mere potentiality as long as it is not living in and with the truth. And this mode of existence is closed to the slave — and to anyone who has to spend his life procuring the necessities of life. Consequently, if men no longer had to spend their lives in the realm of necessity, truth and a true human existence would be in a strict and real sense universal. Philosophy envisages the equality of man but, at the same time, it submits to the factual denial of equality. For in the given reality, procurement of the necessities is the life-long job of the majority, and the necessities have to be procured and served so that truth (which is freedom from material necessities) can be. Here, the historical barrier arrests and distorts the quest for truth; the societal division of labor obtains the dignity of an ontological condition. If truth presupposes freedom from toil, and if this freedom is, in the social reality, the prerogative of a minority, then the reality allows such a truth only in approximation and for a privileged group. This state of affairs contradicts the universal character of truth, which defines and “prescribes” not only a theoretical goal, but the best life of man qua man, with respect to the essence of man. For philosophy, the contradiction is insoluble, or else it does not appear as a contradiction because it is the structure of the slave or serf society which this philosophy does not transcend. Thus it leaves history behind, unmastered, and elevates truth safely above the historical reality. There, truth is reserved intact, not as an achievement of heaven or in heaven, but as an achievement of thought — intact because its very notion expresses the insight that those who devote their lives to earning a living are incapable of living a human existence.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 128-130

Life, Men, Truth, History

“Now shall we say that only the first men were well alive, and the existing generation is invalided and degenerate? … A more subtle and severe criticism might suggest that some dislocation has befallen the race; that men are off their centre; that multitudes of men do not live with Nature, but behold it as exiles. People go out to look at sunrises and sunsets who do not recognize their own quietly and happily, but know that it is foreign to them. As they do by books, so they quote the sunset and the star, and do not make them theirs. Worse yet, they live as foreigners in the world of truth, and quote thoughts, and thus disown them. Quotation confesses inferiority.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Quotation and Originality

Men, People, Truth, Books

“There is a well known and most profound saying of people wishing to induce sympathy in each other. 'Put yourself in his place,' they say. But it is easy only to put yourself in the place of your equals. At a certain point of inferiority, real or imaginary, this substitution is no longer possible…. Young Vittorio Mussolini has published a book on his Ethiopian campaign, of which I quote this extract: It was thrilling. A huge zariba, surrounded by tall trees, was very difficult to hit. I had to aim very carefully, and I only succeeded the third time. The poor devils inside jumped out when they saw their roof was on fire, and fled madly…surrounded by a ring of flames, four to five thousand Abyssinians died of suffocation. It was like hell itself. Smoke rising up to unbelievable heights, and flames turning the black sky red. Obviously Signor Vittorio Mussolini never dreamt of putting himself in the place of the Ethiopians!”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.222-223

People, Books, Quotes, Hell

“Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

As quoted in Faith in Freedom : Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices (2004) by Thomas Stephen Szasz, p. 10. Selected Writings of Lord Acton, ed. J. Rufus Fears, 3 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985-88), 3:490

Education, Knowledge

“The Jews might well, were they of such a mind (as I am, lament the disappearance of all those who painted the wooden synagogues in the small towns and villages - oh why haven't I gone to my grave with them!), and the carvers of the wooden 'school mallets' – 'quiet boy!' (and if you should see them in Ansky’s collection, you’ll get a shock!). But is there really any difference between my ancestor from Mohiliev, who painted the synagogue there, and myself, who painted the Jewish theatre in Moscow (and a good theater it is at that)?… I am convinced that, were I to stop shaving, you would see in me a deceptive likeness.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

after 1930
Source: 'Shtrom' No. 1, 1922, Marc Chagall; as quoted in 'Chagall and the Jewish art programme', by Grigory Kasovsky
Chagall's quote is explaining his relation to the Jewish society and Jewish art history 'Bletlach' (Leaflet - essay in Yiddish)

School, Boy, Painting

“Then empty rumour to well-grounded fear gave strength.”
Vana quoque ad veros accessit fama timores.

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia

Book I, line 469 (tr. E. Ridley).
Pharsalia

Fear

“I realized that the only possible response was to go to my wonderful local café, Maison Bertaux, check everyone was well, eat a little cake and then make art. To me, making art, and in particular public art, is always an assertion of our humanity and our strength.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

In response to the London bombings of 7 July 2005, quoted in the International Herald Tribune (19 September 2005).

Art

“Phony psychics like Uri Geller have had particular success in bamboozling scientists with ordinary stage magic, because only scientists are arrogant enough to think that they always observe with rigorous and objective scrutiny, and therefore could never be so fooled—while ordinary mortals know perfectly well that good performers can always find a way to trick people.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Source: The Mismeasure of Man (1996), p. 36

People, Fools, Way, Thinking

“This too is a truth well known to everyone who has taken even a slight hold of culture, that freedom is an honorable thing, and slavery a disgraceful thing, and that honorable things are associated with good men and disgraceful things with bad men. Hence, it clearly follows that no person of true worth is a slave, though threatened by a host of claimants who produce contracts to prove their ownership.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

136.
Every Good Man is Free

Men, Truth, Freedom, Personality

“Weissenbruch to Anton Mauve: He [ Vincent van Gogh ] is drawing damn well, I could paint after his studies.”

Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch (1824–1903) Dutch painter of the Hague School (1824-1903)

version in original Dutch, Weissenbruch tegen Anton Mauve: Hij teekent verdomd goed, ik zou naar zijn studies kunnen werken.
a remark to Anton Mauve, who asked Weissenbruch to visit Vincent van Gogh and see his work
Source: J. H. Weissenbruch', (n.d.), p. 44, note 1

Study, Drawing, Painting

“As we read this, we stand in the plane of the present; we are the sum of all our ancestors, and the origin of all our descendents. In terms of our model, we are at an ever-changing origin, located on the boundary of past and future. As well, we are spinning with the earth, spiralling with the galaxy, and expanding or contracting with the universe. As origins, we are on the move in time and space, and all these movements have a characteristic pulse rate.”

Bill Mollison (1928–2016) Australian permaculturist

Source: Permaculture: A Designers' Manual (1988), chapter 4.19

Universe, Change, Time, Reading

“It's been on my mind – what would something be like if it were unbalanced? It's been a vexing question for a long time. But it took the experience of working with radical kinds of symmetry, not just a rectangle, but a diamond shape, as well as extreme extensions of shapes, before I finally came to the idea of everything being unbalanced, nothing vertical, nothing horizontal, nothing parallel. I came to the fact that unbalancing has its own order. In a peculiar way, it can still end up feeling symmetrical. I don't know but what the very nature of our response to art is experienced symmetrically.”

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) American artist

Source: Color, Format and Abstract Art' (1977), pp. 99 – 105

Art, Way, Feeling, Idea

“What I fear most is that you will know where the laughs are going to come, or that you will know a character so well that you know when they're going to sing a song. In some shows, you just know that the audience is sitting there going "Oh no, she's going to sing."”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

"Tracking Tracey" http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/ullman.htm (Interview, January 1989)

Fear, Singing

“Lemony Snicket: (narrating) When you are invited to dine, particularly with people you do not know very well, it always helps to have a conversational opener, a phrase which here means "an interesting sentence to say out loud in order to get people talking." Although lately it has become more and more difficult to attend dinner parties without the evening ending in gunfire or tapioca, I keep a list of good and bad conversational openers in my commonplace book in order to avoid awkward pauses at the dinner table. "Who would like to see an assortment of photographs taken while I was on vacation?" for instance, is a very poor conversational opener, because it is likely to make your fellow diners shudder instead of talk, whereas good conversational openers are sentences such as "What would drive a man to commit arson?," "Why do so many stories of true love end in tragedy and despair?," and "Madame diLustro, I believe I've discovered your true identity!," all of which are likely to provoke discussions, arguments, and accusations, thus making the dinner party much more entertaining.”

Daniel Handler book The Grim Grotto

The Grim Grotto (2004)

Love, People, Books, Help

“Objects enter into each other... Chardin [French classical still-life painter] was the first to have glimpsed that and rendered the atmosphere of objects... Notice how a light transversal plane straddling the bridge of your nose makes the values more evident to the eye... Well, he noticed that before we did... He neglected nothing. He also perceived that whole encounter in the atmosphere of the tiniest particles, the fine dust of emotion that surrounds objects..”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), p. 220 in: 'What he told me – III. The Studio'

Life, Light

“No more important development has taken place in the last year than the beginning of a restoration of agriculture to a prosperous condition. We must permit no division of classes in this country, with one occupation striving to secure advantage over another. Each must proceed under open opportunities and with a fair prospect of economic equality. The Government can not successfully insure prosperity or fix prices by legislative fiat. Every business has its risk and its times of depression. It is well known that in the long run there will be a more even prosperity and a more satisfactory range of prices under the natural working out of economic laws than when the Government undertakes the artificial support of markets and industries. Still we can so order our affairs, so protect our own people from foreign competition, so arrange our national finances, so administer our monetary system, so provide for the extension of credits, so improve methods of distribution, as to provide a better working machinery for the transaction of the business of the Nation with the least possible friction and loss. The Government has been constantly increasing its efforts in these directions for the relief and permanent establishment of agriculture on a sound and equal basis with other business.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

People, Law, Business, Support

“Globalization is not in itself a folly: It has enriched the world scientifically and culturally and benefited many people economically as well.”

Amartya Sen (1933) Indian economist

Amartya Sen, "Ten theses on globalization." New Perspectives Quarterly 18.4 (2001): 9-9.
2000s

People, World

“We are not the people we are in films. I am not an alcoholic. But I portray that. I can't bash up 20 guys at a time in real life. It's just that I do it well on-screen.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Life, People, Alcohol, Guy

“We have long supported a carbon tax as the best policy of those being considered. Replacing the hodge-podge of current, largely ineffective regulations with a revenue-neutral carbon tax would ensure a uniform and predictable cost of carbon across the economy. It would allow market forces to drive solutions. It would maximize transparency, reduce administrative complexity, promote global participation and easily adjust to future developments in our understanding of climate science as well as the policy consequences of these actions.”

Rex Tillerson (1952) 69th United States Secretary of State

"The Path Forward in Today’s Energy Environment," http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/company/news-and-updates/speeches/the-path-forward-in-todays-energy-environment a speech made as Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, at the 37th Annual Oil and Money Conference in London on (19 October 2016).

Understanding, Support, Science, Future

“…to-morrow the proclamation of her sovereignty will command the loyalty of her native land and of all other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire. I, whose youth was passed in the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian Era, may well feel a thrill in invoking, once more, the prayer and the Anthem, GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.”

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

Broadcast (7 February 1952) upon the accession of Elizabeth II, quoted in Winston Churchill, Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (London: Cassell & Co, 1953), p. 240
Post-war years (1945–1955)

God, Youth, Feeling, Parting

“As for broken hearts, no self-respecting young woman shows such an ornament at any well regulated breakfast-table; they are kept in dark drawers and closets like other broken furniture.”

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

Source: Esther: A Novel (1884), Ch. IX

Heart

“Who is there that can recognize real intellect, and do reverence to it; and discriminate it well from sham intellect, which is so much more abundant, and deserves the reverse of reverence? He that himself has it!—One really human Intellect, invested with command, and charged to reform Downing Street for us, would continually attract real intellect to those regions, and with a divine magnetism search it out from the modest corners where it lies hid. And every new accession of intellect to Downing Street would bring to it benefit only, and would increase such divine attraction in it, the parent of all benefit there and elsewhere!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Downing Street (April 1, 1850)

Search, Parent

“Well, throughout his career and this campaign, Donald Trump has shown us exactly who he is. We should believe him. When Trump was getting his start in business, he was sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent apartments to black and Latino tenants. Three years later, the Justice Department took Trump back to court because he hadn’t changed. The pattern continued through the decades.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)

Justice, Business, Change

“The great joy of being a prosecutor is that you don’t take whatever case walks in the door. You evaluate the case, you make your best judgement, you only go forward if you believe that the defendant is guilty. You may well be wrong, but you have done your best to ensure that as far as the evidence that you are able to attain, the person is guilty. It is the kind of even-handed balancing that a judge should undertake although of course a judge has the advantage of having somebody speak for the other side.”

Merrick Garland (1952) American judge

[Merrick Garland, Confirmation hearing on nomination of Merrick Garland to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, United States Senate, December 1, 1995]; quote excerpted in:
[March 18, 2016, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2016/03/16/judge-merrick-garland-in-his-own-words/, Judge Merrick Garland, In His Own Words, Joe Palazzolo, March 16, 2016, The Wall Street Journal]
Confirmation hearing on nomination to United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1995)

Joy, Personality

“Our task is not so much discovery as re-discovery. What one needs is not so much thinking as remembering. Sometimes it suffices to sit quietly and listen well, when venerable men have thought before us. Constant forgettings of truths once perceived are the very charm of the human mind; the history of human thought is nothing more than the story of these forgettings and rememberings and forgettings again.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

On the Wisdom of America (1950), p. xiv

Men, Truth, History, Thinking

“Well look he's from Texas -- to the best of my knowledge, there's a lot of oil in Texas, right? So, he gets a lot of money from the oil companies, and he's against ethanol and everything you're else talking about. And I'm not I'm totally in favor. And you know it's a big industry here, it's a big industry. You know if that industry is upset Iowa's got problems.”

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

2010s, 2015

Money, Knowledge, Problem

“AI and its offshoot, machine learning, will be a foundational tool for creating social good as well as business success.”

Mark Hurd (1957–2019) American businessman, philanthropist and CEO of Oracle

LinkedIn article https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/prof-hawking-all-due-respect-ai-benefit-us-mark-v-hurd (27 December 2017)

Business, Learning, Success

“The Methods of Industrial Management. — A committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers made an extensive canvass in the fall of 1912 to determine what were the new elements in modern management as well as what the committee designated as the regulative principles of industrial management. The committee confirmed Adam Smith's statement made in 1776 in his Wealth of Nations, in which he held that the application of the principle of division of labor was the basis of manufacture. The committee also agreed with Charles Babbage, who in his work entitled Economy of Machinery and Manufacture written in 1832, added another principle, namely the transference of skill.”

Hugo Diemer (1870–1937) American mechanical engineer

(1921, p. 10)
Factory organization and administration, 1910

Wealth

“Farewell, woman! I intend
Henceforth every night to sit
With my lewd, well-natured friend,
Drinking to engender wit.”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) English poet, and peer of the realm

Love a woman! Y’are an ass, ll. 9–12.
Other

Drink, Nature, Night

“Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke.”

John Donne book Holy Sonnets

No. 10, line 9
Holy Sonnets (1633)

Men, Fate, War, Sleep

“There are cynics who deny the existence of human gratitude. But it seems that I am no cynic. So convinced am I of the existence of gratitude that I see in it one of our strongest oppositions. There are millions of persons who receive favors that they forget: but gratitude does exist, and they've got to express it somewhere. They take it out by being grateful to science for all that science has done for them, a gratitude, which, according to their dull perceptions won't cost them anything. So there is economic indignation against anybody who is disagreeable to science. He is trying to rob the people of a cheap gratitude.
I like a bargain as well as does anybody else, but I can't save expenses by being grateful to Science, if for every scientist who has perhaps been of benefit to me, there have been many other scientists who have tried to strangle that possible benefit.”

Charles Fort book Lo!

Pt 1, Ch. 4
Lo! (1931)

People, Science, Personality, Forgetting

“Now the Constitution doesn’t say how this right is to be enforced, but it says it shall be done. And from 1793 to 1850 it depended upon the states honoring the Act. Well, that was not working, and so this federal law was substituted which provided enforcement procedures under the auspices of the federal government.”

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

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Law, Dependency

“The drug trade does not function well with a strong state, or a healthy state. It tries to corrupt the police force, it tries to corrupt the judiciary, and the executive. And drug trafficking thrives in a weak state.”

René Préval (1943–2017) President of Haiti

President Bush Welcomes President Preval of Haiti to the White House http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070508-5.html#

Strong

“Stewart: Well, that's great because we're all trying to do the same thing. Live well.”

Martha Stewart (1941) American businesswoman, writer, television personality, and former fashion model

On Charlie Rose, 15 September 1995

“And what this could mean, as illustrated by what happened in 1854, the first real test of the Fugitive Slave Act? There was a slave named Anthony Burns in Virginia who stowed away on board a coastal vessel that then sailed to Boston. And Anthony Burns, who was apparently quite literate but not very smart, wrote a letter to his brother back in Virginia telling him where he was. Well, before Anthony Burns was returned to the State of Virginia, the President, Franklin Pierce, had sent an artillery regiment of marines to Boston. He had federalized the National Guard of Boston. He had 3,000 soldiers surrounding them, making sure that nobody could break the jail and let Anthony Burns out. This was an example of the way in which the federal police power would be used to make sure that slaves were returned to their masters or that slaves couldn’t escape from their masters. So this is the real issue.”

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

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution

Way

“Well, if Evolution is true […] you’re just a bit of protoplasm that washed up on the beach. Matter of fact, you’re part of the problem because you’re one of the polluters of the environment and the more of you we can get rid of, the better. And by the way folks, if Evolution is true, that is normal thinking. Get rid of humanity because we’re the problem. But if Creation is true, we’re the purpose of this creation. God did it for us.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Age of the Earth

God, Way, Problem, Thinking

“A Society of Citizens, as well as every Thing else, requires a certain fixed Order: There ought to be some to govern, and others to obey. And this is the Origin of every Kind of Subjection; which feels itself more or less alleviated, in Proportion to the Situation of the Subjects. And, consequently, as the Law of Nature commands Us to take as much Care, as lies in Our Power, of the Prosperity of all the People; we are obliged to alleviate the Situation of the Subjects, as much as sound Reason will permit. And therefore, to shun all Occasions of reducing People to a State of Slavery, except the utmost Necessity should inevitably oblige us to do it; in that Case, it ought not to be done for our own Benefit; but for the Interest of the State: Yet even that Case is extremely uncommon. Of whatever Kind Subjection may be, the civil Laws ought to guard, on the one Hand, against the Abuse of Slavery, and, on the other, against the Dangers which may arise from it.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

People, Law, Feeling, Nature

“20 years. Well … that's fair enough. They couldn't have given me a lighter sentence, considering the facts, and I can't complain. I said the sentences must be severe, and I admitted my share of the guilt, so it would be ridiculous if I complained about the punishment.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

To Dr. G. M. Gilbert, after receiving his sentence. Quoted in "Nuremberg Diary" by G. M. Gilbert - History - (1995)

“The condition of life to which people of the well-to-do classes are accustomed is that of an abundant production of various articles necessary for their comfort and pleasure, and these things are obtained only thanks to the existence of factories and works organized as at present. And, therefore, discussing the improvement of the workers' position, the men of science belonging to the well- to-do classes always have in view only such improvements as will not do away with the system of factory-production and those conveniences of which they avail themselves.”

Leo Tolstoy book The Slavery of Our Times

Source: The Slavery of Our Times (1890), Chapter V: Why Learned Economists Assert What Is False

Life, Men, People, Pleasure

“Morally, it is wrong to suppose the source of evil is outside oneself, that one is a vessel of holiness running over with virtue. Such a disposition is the best soil for a hateful and cruel fanaticism. It is as wrong to impute every wickedness to Jews, Freemasons, "intellectuals," as it is to blame all crimes on the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and the powers that were. No; the root of evil is in me as well, and I must take my share of the responsibility and the blame. That was true before the revolution and it is true still.”

Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) Russian philosopher

Source: The End of Our Time (1919), p. 128

Hate, Evil

“As well as being a vulgar producer of her own spectacle, and an embarrassment to her family, Cindy Sheehan is at best a shifty fantasist.”

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

2005-08-19
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2005/08/what_cindy_sheehan_really_wants.html
What Cindy Sheehan Really Wants
Slate
1091-2339
2000s, 2005

Family

“If you are well-to-do and can maintain your household, love your wife in your home according to good custom…Make her happy while you are alive, for she is land profitable to her lord.”

Ptahhotep Ancient Egyptian vizier

Maxim no. 21.
The Maxims of Ptahhotep (c. 2350 BC)

Love, Happiness, Home

“Graduation was nice. General Clark liked it. The Board of Visitors liked it. Moms and Dads liked it. And the Cadets hated it, for without a doubt it ranked as the most boring event of the year. Thus it was in 1964 that the Clarey twins pulled the graduation classic. When Colonel Hoy called the name of the first twin, instead of walking directly to General Clark to receive his diploma, he headed for the line of visiting dignitaries, generals, and members of the Board of Visitors who sat in a solemn semi-circle around the stage. He shook hands with the first startled general, then proceeded to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with every one on the stage. He did this so quickly that it took several moments for the whole act to catch on. When it finally did, the Corps went wild. General Clark, looking like he had just learned the Allies had surrendered to Germany, stood dumbfounded with Clarey number one's diploma hanging loosely from his hand; then Clarey number two started down the line, repeating the virtuoso performance of Clarey number one, as the Corps whooped and shouted their approval. The first Clarey grabbed his diploma from Clark and pumped his hand vigorously up and down. Meanwhile, his brother was breezing through the hand-shaking exercise. As both of them left the stage, they raised their diplomas above their heads and shook them like war tomahawks at the wildly applauding audience. No graduation is remembered so well.”

Pat Conroy book The Boo

Source: The Boo (1970), p. 33

Hate, War, Exercises, Moms

“Talk about the Van Allen Belt or whatever is that, that forms no part of current Scientology, none whatsoever. Well, you know, quite frankly, this tape here, he's talking about the origins of the universe, and I think you're going to find that in any, any, any religion, and I think you can make the same mockery of it. I think it's offensive that you're doing it here, because I don't think you'd do it somewhere else.”

David Miscavige (1960) leader of the Church of Scientology

After being played a portion of an audiotape where L. Ron Hubbard describes the Xenu story — Scientology Leader Gave ABC First-Ever Interview: David Miscavige, Scientology Leader and Best Man at Tom Cruise's Wedding, Spoke to ABC News' 'Nightline' in 1992, ABC News, November 18, 2006, 2010-07-03 http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2664713,.

Religion, Thinking, Universe, Parting

“Well, first of all, let me say that I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years. It was one of those phobias that really didn’t pay off.”

Warren Zevon (1947–2003) American singer-songwriter

The Late Show with David Letterman (30 October 2002)

Error

“Well, it was a radical concept to me. Like any other American, I wasn’t sophisticated enough to study all its facets. All I knew about it was it was foreign to democracy. And here I was, I had been fighting for democracy and always aware of two political parties and brought up in that kind of atmosphere. Anything radical was dangerous to me, as it was to the average American. Nobody knew where a thing like that would lead and we were always afraid of chaos. So communism became the doorway to chaos, and the doorway to chaos was the doorway to evil. Your family might be hurt. Your friends might be hurt. You didn’t want to see a thing like that.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

TCJ Archive, Jack Kirby Interview http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/5/, The Comics Journal

Family, Democracy, Communication, Study

“God says in Jeremiah 16 — "Behold I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave unto their fathers" — that would be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - "Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them" — that will be the Jews — "from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks." If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust — you can't see that. So think about this — I will send fishers and I will send hunters. A fisher is someone who entices you with a bait. How many of you know who Theodore Herzl was? How many of you don't have a clue who he was? Woo, sweet God! Theodore Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew that at the turn of the 19th century said, "this land is our land, God wants us to live there". So he went to the Jews of Europe and said, "I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel". So few went, Herzl went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the Holocaust. Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says — Jeremiah righty? — "they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks", meaning: there's no place to hide. And that will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended: I didn't write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, "my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel". Today Israel is back in the land and they are at Ezekiel 37 and 8. They are physically alive but they're not spiritually alive. Now how is God going to cause the Jewish people to come spiritually alive and say, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is God"?”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

late 2005 sermon at Cornerstone Church, quoted in

God, People, Truth, Mountain

“[I]t turns out to be the case that torture's not very effective. And so if you're dealing with someone who has no moral qualms whatsoever, like Donald Rumsfeld, it might be worth pointing out that its not in his interests to continue a policy that's simply feeding us false information. I mean, somebody where you know that the moral - whatever part of the brain that deals with moral reactions, they're defunct at some point - but … it’s a good thing that we found that out. It’s a bit or argument that we can use to make abolishing torture more appealing to people. But supposing it did… I mean the whole point is… I mean you're talking about two very very different levels of objection, right? Supposing it were true that every time you tortured someone, they actually revealed what you couldn't get revealed in some other way. Would you then continue torturing? One of the problems with those arguments is that someone like Rumsfeld or whomever will be able to come up with a case - somebody who was tortured and did reveal information that intelligence wanted to know (there'll be 70 other cases where it didn't). But they'll be able to come up with one. And then what do you say? Well it's alright??”

Susan Neiman (1955) American academic

Beyond Belief conference (November 2006)

People, Way, Intelligence, Problem

“As early as in the time of Sultan Iltutmish (1210-1236), soon after the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206, some Ulama suggested to him to confront the Hindus with a choice between Islam and death. The Wazir Nizamul Mulk Junaidi replied: “But at the moment in India… the Muslims are so few that they are like salt (in a large dish). If such orders are to be enforced… the Hindus might combine… and the Muslims would be too few in number to suppress(them). However, after a few years when in the capital and in the regions and small towns, the Muslims are well established and the troops are larger, it will be possible to give Hindus, the choice of ‘death’ or ‘Islam’.”68”

Iltutmish (1210–1236) Sultan of Mamluk Sultanate

Ziyauddin Barani, Sana-i-Muhammadi in Medieval India Quarterly, Aligarh, I, Part III, pp. 100-105. quoted in K.S. Lal, Legacy of Muslim rule in India, 1992.

Death, Time

“For me the voice of God, of Conscience, of Truth or the Inner Voice or ‘the still small Voice’ mean one and the same thing. I saw no form. I have never tried, for I have always believed God to be without form. One who realizes God is freed from sin for ever…. But what I did hear was like a Voice from afar and yet quite near. It was as unmistakable as some human voice definitely speaking to me, and irresistible. I was not dreaming at the time I heard the Voice. The hearing of the Voice was preceded by a terrific struggle within me. Suddenly the Voice came upon me. I listened, made certain that it was the Voice, and the struggle ceased. I was calm. The determination was made accordingly, the date and the hour of the fast were fixed…. Could I give any further evidence that it was truly the Voice that I heard and that it was not an echo of my own heated imagination? I have no further evidence to convince the sceptic. He is free to say that it was all self-delusion or hallucination. It may well have been so. I can offer no proof to the contrary. But I can say this — that not the unanimous verdict of the whole world against me could shake me from the belief that what I heard was the true voice of God.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Harijan (1933, July 8); also in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Vol. 61), and in The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi (Prabhu and Rao, eds., 1967, pp. 33-34)
1930s

God, Truth, World, Dreams

“Fine Art then, records by idealised imitation the glorious works of good men, whilst it holds those of bad men up to our abhorrence — it gives to posterity their images, either on the tinted canvass or the sculptured marble — it imitates the beautiful effects of nature as seen in the glowing landscape or the rising storm, and perpetuates the appearance of those beauteous gems of the seasons — flowers and fruits, which, though fading whilst the painter catches their tints, yet live after decay by and through his genius.
Industrial Art, on the contrary, aims at the embellishment of the works of man, by and through that power which is given to the artist for the investigation of the beautiful in nature; and in transferring it to the loom, the printing machine, the potter's wheel, or the metal worker's mould, he reproduces nature in a new form, adapting it to his purpose by an intelligence arising out of his knowledge as an artist and as a workman. In short, the adaptation of the natural type to a new material compels him to reproduce, almost create, as well as imitate — invent as well as copy”

George Wallis

design as well as draw! George Wallis. " Art Education for the people. No IV. The principles of Fine Art as Applied to Industrial Purposes http://books.google.com/books?id=l55GAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA231." In: People's & Howitt's Journal: Of Literature, Art, and Popular Progress, Vol. 3. John Saunders ed. 1847, p. 231.

Men, Beauty, Art, Intelligence

“The State is competent to assign duties and draw the line between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well-being, it can only give indirect help to fight the battle of life by promoting the influences which prevail against temptation, — religion, education, and the distribution of wealth.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

p, 125
The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Life, Education, Religion, Evil

“A stochastic process is about the results of convolving probabilities-which is just what management is about, as well.”

Anthony Stafford Beer (1926–2002) British theorist, consultant, and professor

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 2, Chance, Risk and Malice, p. 58

“The Amendment nullifies sophisticated as well as simple-minded modes of discrimination.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

On the Fifteenth Amendment; writing for the court, Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.S. 268, 275 (1939).
Judicial opinions

“I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Salon interview (2001)

People, Imagination, Courage

“Unfortunately, the gains for imagination are not free. The protections for imagination are indiscriminate. They shield bad ideas as well as good ones—and there are many more of the former than the latter. Most fantasies lead us astray, and most of the consequences of imagination for individuals and individual organizations are disastrous. Most deviants end up on the scrap pile of failed mutations, not as heroes of organizational transformation… There is, as a result, much that can be viewed as unjust in a system that induces imagination among individuals and individual organizations in order to allow a larger system to choose among alternative experiments. By glorifying imagination, we entice the innocent into unwitting self-destruction”

James G. March (1928–2018) American sociologist

or if you prefer, altruism
March cited in: Robert I. Sutton (2002) Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation. p. 192

Imagination, Idea