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Post by Tamrin on Dec 24, 2013 12:13:01 GMT 10
What is superstition, but misguided, unobjective science?
Of course, if you assume a big enough conspiracy, you can explain anything, including the cosmos itself
They’ve heard about space but they still don’t believe in it. They haven’t been out here to see for themselves that there isn’t any giant elephant under the earth, holding it up, and a giant tortoise holding up the elephant. If I say “planet” and “spaceship” to them, they still think “horoscope” and “flying saucer”
Thoughts are dangerous, he told himself, and thoughts against all science, all sanity, all civilized intelligence, are the most dangerous of all
A scientist ought to have a healthy disregard for coincidences
In the wake of a Big Change, cultures and individuals are transposed, it’s true, yet in the main they continue much as they were, except for the usual scattering of unfortunate but statistically meaningless accidents
What was life worth, anyway, if you had to sit around remembering not to mention this, that, and the other thing because someone else might be upset?Fritz LeiberGerman-American science fiction writer (Born this day 1910) Now is a bearable burden. What buckles the back is the added weight of the past’s mistakes and the future’s fears
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 24, 2013 12:16:44 GMT 10
The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts
Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit — the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge
A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself
Surely all God's people, however serious and savage, great or small, like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes, — all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in them
There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe
Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into anotherJohn MuirScottish-American environmentalist, writer and scientist (Died this day 1914) On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death ... Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 24, 2013 12:22:45 GMT 10
The marketplace does only one thing — it puts a price on everything. The role of culture, however, must go beyond economics. It is not focused on the price of things, but on their value. And, above all, culture should tell us what is beyond price, including what does not belong in the marketplace. A culture should also provide some cogent view of the good life beyond mass accumulation. In this respect, our culture is failing us
What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility
Like the intricately rational web of theology woven around the irrational mysteries of faith, the sober explanations of institutions for hoarding literary relics seem like elegant post-factum justifications for what is essentially a sense of sacred awe. An institution of learning seeks significant manuscripts because they possess qualities that scholarship cannot entirely reproduce — an authentic, holistic connection with the great writers of the past. It is not the intellectual content of the manuscript that is important but its material presence — ink spots, tobacco stains, pinworm holes, and foxing included
Tradition is not, as post-modernists maintain, a library or museum the artist plunders. It is the endless conversation between the living and the dead. Young artists enter into this conversation passionately — not merely intellectually, though study and analysis play a part. They live and breathe it. Tradition is not a public building. It is a love affair
To speak from a particular place and time is not provincialism but part of a writer’s identity
Intelligence is an irreplaceable element of poetry, but it needs to be vividly embodied in the physicality of language. We must — as artists, critics, and teachers — reclaim the essential sensuality of poetry. The art does not belong to apes or angels, but to us. We deserve art that speaks to us as complete human beings. Why settle for anything less?
I can’t think of better ways to learn than through pleasure and curiosity. I guess the reason these two qualities play so small a role in formal education is that they are so subjective and individual. Curiosity and delight can’t be institutionalized. Childhood and adolescence form our sensibilities. By the time I arrived in college, I had already developed a deep suspicion of all theories of art that did not originate in pleasureDana GioiaAmerican poet and critic (National Endowment for the Arts) (Born this day 1950) The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 24, 2013 12:25:03 GMT 10
The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later
Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash
O reason, reason, abstract phantom of the waking state, I had already expelled you from my dreams, now I have reached a point where those dreams are about to become fused with apparent realities: now there is only room here for myself
Of all possible sexual perversions, religion is the only one to have ever been scientifically systematized
Fear of error which everything recalls to me at every moment of the flight of my ideas, this mania for control, makes men prefer reason's imagination to the imag- ination of the senses. And yet it is always the imagination alone which is at work
There exists a black kingdom which the eyes of man avoid because its landscape fails signally to flatter them. This darkness, which he imagines he can dispense with in describing the light, is error with its unknown characteristics. Error is certainty's constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater
Your imagination, my dear fellow, is worth more than you imagineLouis AragonFrench poet, novelist and editor (Died this day 1982) There are strange flowers of reason to match each error of the senses
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 24, 2013 12:25:54 GMT 10
We tend to get what we expect
Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy
One of the greatest moments in anybody's developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is
Getting people to like you is merely the other side of liking them
Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are
Watch your manner of speech if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind. Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful
Be interesting, be enthusiastic ... and don't talk too muchBro. Norman Vincent PealeUS minister and author ( The Power of Positive Thinking) (Died this day 1993) Change your thoughts and you change your world
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 24, 2013 12:26:36 GMT 10
They spend their time looking forward to the past
Here we are, we're alone in the universe, there's no God, it just seems that it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves. Somehow, we've just got to make a go of it. We've only ourselves
The whole point of a sacrifice is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place. People are doing it around you all the time. They give up their careers, say — or their beliefs — or sex
Heroes, whatever high ideas we may have of them, are mortal and not divine. We are all as God made us and many of us much worse
Heaven be thanked, we live in such an age when no man dies for love except upon the stage
It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly
I never deliberately set out to shock, but when people don't walk out of my plays I think there is something wrongJohn James OsborneEnglish playwright, screenwriter and actor (Died this day 1994) Don't clap too hard — it's a very old building
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 25, 2013 6:47:31 GMT 10
Wednesday’s Quotes:Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
You shall love your neighbor as yourself
Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you
And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you
Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to meJesus the Nazorean (Yeshua bar Yosef)Jewish religious teacher and philosopher (Assigned birthday today, c.4 BCE) For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 25, 2013 6:48:19 GMT 10
God created everything by number, weight and measure
Plato is my friend — Aristotle is my friend — but my greatest friend is truth
To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, and leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing
Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances
I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from pheno- mena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before meSir Isaac Newton, FRS & PRSEnglish alchemist, mathematician, scientist and philosopher (Born this day 1642) (Isaac Newton by William Blake) If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 25, 2013 6:49:30 GMT 10
Failure is a word unknown to me
Expect the best, prepare for the worst
Think 100 times before you take a decision, but once that decision is taken, stand by it as one man
There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women
We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live
I have always maintained that no nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men
No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with menMuhammed Ali JinnahFounder of Pakistan (1947) - Governor (1947-58) (Born this day 1876) I have lived as plain Mr. Jinnah and I hope to die as plain Mr. Jinnah. I am very much averse to any title or honours and I will be more than happy if there was no prefix to my name
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 25, 2013 6:50:39 GMT 10
The trouble with children is that they're not returnable
There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse
Never keep up with the Joneses; drag them down to your level. It's cheaper
The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?
Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors
Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you areQuentin CrispEnglish author ( The Naked Civil Servant) (Born this day 1908) I didn't practice. I was already perfect(When asked if he was a practicing homosexual)
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