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Post by Tamrin on Jan 26, 2014 9:26:31 GMT 10
The problem of neurology is to understand man himself
The brain is the organ of destiny. It holds within its humming mechanism secrets that will determine the future of the human race
I realized that there was a thrilling undiscovered country to be explored in the mechanisms of the mammalian nervous system. Through it, one might approach the mystery of the mind
It is fair to say that science provides no method of controlling the mind. Scientific work on the brain does not explain the mind-not yet
Among the millions of nerve cells that clothe parts of the brain there runs a thread. It is the thread of time, the thread that has run through each succeeding wakeful hour of the individual
Rest, with nothing else, results in rust. It corrodes the mech- anisms of the brain. The rhubarb that no one picks goes to seed
Mind, brain, and body make the man, and the man is capable of so much!Wilder Penfield, OM, CC, CMG, FRSCanadian neurosurgeon (Born this day 1891) My plea to educators and parents is that they should give some thought to the nature of the brain of a child, for the brain is a living mechanism, not a machine. In case of breakdown, it can substitute one of its parts for the function of another. But it has its limitations. It is subject to inexorable change with the passage of time
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 26, 2014 9:27:28 GMT 10
I do believe that man is a rope between animal and superman. But the superman I'm thinking of isn't Nietzsche's. The real superhuman, man or woman, is the person who's rid himself of all prejudices, neuroses, and psychoses, who realizes his full potential as a human being, who acts naturally on the basis of gentleness, compassion, and love, who thinks for himself and refuses to follow the herd. That's the genuine dyed-in-the-wool superman
One thing is sure, O comrades, that the love that fights to keep us rooted in the earth, but also urges us to dare the stars, this irresistible, this ancient power wedged in the soul, unshakable, is the light that burns our roots and leaves us free for Space
The only gold is love, a coin that we have minted from the light of others who have cared for us on Earth and who have deposited in us the power that nerves our nerves to seize the burning stars
We hope to breed a race of men whose power dwells in hearts as open as all Space itself, who ask for nothing but the light that rinses the heart of hate so that the stars above will be below when man has Love
Now we have lit a candle to the power of atoms; now we know we're heirs of light itself
And there is another feeling, one which he shares with most of humankind. He knows he's screwed up his life, or something has twisted it. Every thinking man and woman knows this. Even the smug and dimwitted realize this unconsciously. But a baby, that beautiful being, that unsmirched blank tablet, unformed [[angel], represents a new hope. Perhaps it won't screw up. Perhaps it'll grow up to be a healthy confident reasonable good-humored unselfish loving man or woman. 'It won't be like me or my next-door neighbor,' the proud, but apprehensive, parent swears
As science pushes forward, ignorance and superstition gallop around the flanks and bite science in the rear with big dark teeth
Philip José Farmer American science fiction & fantasy author (Riverworld series) (Born this day 1918)
These people who expect to be saints in heaven, though they were not on Earth, have ignored the wisdom of the founders of the great religions. This wisdom is that the kingdom of heaven is within you and that you do not go to heaven unless you are already in it. The magic must be wrought by you and you alone. God has no fairy wand to tap the pig and turn it into a swan
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 26, 2014 9:28:14 GMT 10
When you see the right thing to do, you'd better do it
I don't think there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me
I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out
I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant
I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried — tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being
The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films
A man with no enemies is a man with no character
Paul Newman American actor and film director (Born this day 1925)
There are two Newman's laws. The first one is "It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down." The second is "Just when things look darkest, they go black"
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 26, 2014 9:30:10 GMT 10
We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society
Radical simply means "grasping things at the root”
To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women
The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what's that? The freedom to starve?
Yet human beings cannot be willed and molded into nonexistence
But at the same time you can't assume that making a difference 20 years ago is going to allow you to sort of live on the laurels of those victories for the rest of your life
When Obama was elected president, a prisoner said “one black man in the White House doesn’t make up for one million black men in the Big House”Angela DavisAmerican political activist, scholar and author (Born this day 1944) If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you in the night
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 26, 2014 9:31:04 GMT 10
A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind
Where both aims, the aesthetic and the technical, were pursued together, it had the happy result of producing an harmonious relation between the subjective and the objective life, between spontaneity and necessity, between fantasy and fact
The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from them- selves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion
Life is the only art that we are required to practice without preparation, and without being allowed the preliminary trials, the failures and botches, that are essential for training
Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century
The earth is the Lord's fullness thereof: this is no longer a hollow dictum of religion, but a directive for economic action toward human brotherhoodLewis MumfordAmerican historian, philosopher of technology and science (Died this day 1990) One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:24:58 GMT 10
Monday’s Quotes:None but a Craftsman can judge of a craft
None can be free who is a slave to, and ruled by, his passions
As soon as laws are necessary for men, they are no longer fit for freedom
Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and daemons
There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres
Reason not with him that will deny the principal truths!
The most momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or to evilPythagoras of SamosIonian Greek philosopher (born c.582 BCE / died c. 496 BCE, anniversary dates unknown) Abstain from beans
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:28:44 GMT 10
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:31:39 GMT 10
Man's wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy
Our present time is indeed a criticizing and critical time, hovering between the wish, and the inability to believe. Our complaints are like arrows shot up into the air at no target: and with no purpose they only fall back upon our own heads and destroy ourselves
Authority is by nothing so much strengthened and confirmed as by custom; for no man easily distrusts the things which he and all men have been always bred up to
Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they passed
The best rules to form a young man, are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value others that deserve it
The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit
The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he were poorSir William Temple, 1st Baronet English statesman and essayist (Died this day 1699) I have always looked upon alchemy in natural philosophy to be like enthus- iasm in divinity, and to have troubled the world much to the same purpose
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:32:34 GMT 10
To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius
When I am ... traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that ideas flow best and most abundantly
Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, I hear them all at once. What a delight this is! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing, lively dream
My subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and define, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statute, at a glance
I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings
I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happinessBro. Wolfgang Amadeus MozartAustrian musical prodigy & composer (Magic Flute) (Born this day 1756) Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak — and speak in such a way that people will remember it
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:33:26 GMT 10
God is not the mere dead conception to which we have thus given utterance, but he is in himself pure Life
What sort of philosophy one chooses depends on what sort of person one is
By philosophy the mind of man comes to itself, and from henceforth rests on itself without foreign aid, and is completely master of itself, as the dancer of his feet, or the boxer of his hands
But when they themselves now demand that everything to which they cannot lift them- selves be brought down to their level, when they demand, for example, that all printed matter should be like cookbooks, arithmetic books, or service regulations, and when they decry everything that cannot be used in this way, then they themselves are in error in a major way
By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here — the Infinite
Humanity may endure the loss of everything; all its possessions may be turned away without infringing its true dignity — all but the possibility of improvement
He who is firm in will molds the world to himselfBro. Johann Gottlieb FichteGerman philosopher (German Idealism) (Died this day 1814) A man can do what he ought to do; and when he says he cannot, it is because he will not
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