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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:36:39 GMT 10
He was part of my dream, of course — but then I was part of his dream too
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' said Alice. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat. 'We're all mad here”
When you are describing a shape, or sound, or tint; Don't state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint; And learn to look at all things with a sort of mental squint
I can't go back to yesterday — because I was a different person then
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less'
While the laughter of joy is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amuse- ment should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit
Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go roundCharles L. Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll)English author, mathematician, logician (Born this day 1832) Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:39:03 GMT 10
As I grew up I was fervently desirous of becoming acquainted with Nature
Because my father was often absent on naval duty, my mother suffered me to do much as I pleased
Almost every day, instead of going to school, I made for the fields, where I spent my day
I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits, or delineating them in the best way I could
I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds
A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children
In my deepest troubles, I frequently would wrench myself from the persons around me and retire to some secluded part of our noble forestsJohn James AudubonAmerican conservationist (Audubon Society) (Died this day 1851) I cannot help but think a curious event is this life of mine
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:39:54 GMT 10
It is said that a wise man who stands firm is a statesman, and a foolish man who stands firm is a catastrophe
Sit down before fact with an open mind. Be prepared to give up every precon- ceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads or you learn nothing. Don’t push out figures when facts are going in the opposite direction
A system under which it takes three men to check what one is doing is not control; it is systematic strangulation
Responsibility is a unique concept. .. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you ... If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else
I believe it is the duty of each of us to act as if the fate of the world depended on him. Admittedly, one man by himself cannot do the job. However, one man can make a difference
Free discussion requires an atmosphere unembarrassed by any suggestion of authority or even respect. If a subordinate always agrees with his superior he is a useless part of the organization
Above all, we should bear in mind that our liberty is not an end in itself; it is a means to win respect for human dignity for all classes of our societyHyman G. Rickover, “Father of the Nuclear Navy”U.S. Admiral (Born this day 1900) I do not have regrets. I believe I helped preserve the peace for this country. Why should I regret that? What I accomplished was approved by Congress — which represents our people. All of you live in safety from domestic enemies because of security from the police. Likewise, you live in safety from foreign enemies because our military keeps them from attacking us. Nuclear technology was already under development in other countries. My assigned responsibility was to develop our nuclear navy. I managed to accomplish this
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:41:14 GMT 10
A better understanding of the brain is certain to lead man to a richer comprehension both of himself, of his fellow man, and of society, and in fact of the whole world with its problems
I can state with complete assurance that for each of us our brains form the material basis of our experiences and memories, our imaginations, our dreams
Now before discussing brain function in detail I will at the beginning give an account of my philosophical position on the so-called brain-mind problem so that you will be able to relate the experimental evidence to this philosophical position. I have written at length on this philosophy in my book 'Facing Reality'… You will be able to see that I fully accept the recent philosophical achievements of Sir Karl Popper with his concept of three worlds. I was a dualist, now I am a trialist! Cart- esian dualism has become unfashionable with many people. They embrace monism in order to escape the enigma of brain-mind interaction with its perplexing problems. But Sir Karl Popper and I are interactionists, and what is more, trialist interactionists!
World 1 is the world of physical objects and states. It comprises the whole cosmos of matter and energy, all of biology including human brains, and all artifacts that man has made for coding information, as for example, the paper and ink of books or the material base of works of art. World 1 is the total world of the materialists. They recognize nothing else. All else is fantasy
World 2 is the world of states of consciousness and subjective knowledge of all kinds. The totality of our perceptions comes in this world. But there are several levels. In agreement with Polten, I tend to recognize three kinds of levels of World 2…, but it may be more correct to think of it as a spectrum. The first level (outer sense) would be the ordinary perceptions provided by all our sense organs, hearing and touch and sight and smell and pain… In addition there is a level of inner sense, which is the world of more subtle perceptions. It is the world of your emotions, of your feelings of joy and sadness and fear and anger and so on. It includes all your memory, and all your imaginings and planning into the future… Finally, at the core of World 2 there is the self or pure ego, which is the basis of our unity as an experiencing being throughout our whole lifetime
And what is World 3?... it is the whole world of culture. It is the world that was created by man and that reciprocally made man. This is my message in which I follow Popper unreservedly. The whole of language is here. All our means of communication, all our intellectual efforts coded in books, coded in the artistic and technological treasures in the museums, coded in every artifact left by man from primitive times — this is World 3 right up to the present time. It is the world of civilization and culture. Education is the means whereby each human being is brought into relation with World 3. In this manner he becomes immersed in it throughout life, participating in the heritage of mankind and so becoming fully human. World 3 is the world that uniquely relates to man. It is the world which is completely unknown to animals. They are blind to all of World 3
The last thing that man will understand in nature is the performance of his brainSir John C. Eccles, FRSAustralian neurophysiologist and Nobel laureate (Born this day 1903) I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reduct- ionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition ... Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists … who often confuse their religion with their science
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:42:02 GMT 10
I imagine, therefore I belong and am free
Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened
Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection
No one can go on being a rebel too long without turning into an autocrat
History is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living
It is not love that is blind, but jealousy
Truth disappears with the telling of itLawrence DurrellExpatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist and travel writer (Born this day 1912) I'm trying to die correctly, but it's very difficult, you know
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:42:41 GMT 10
If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future, we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence, here and now, in the present
We have really got to create a culture in our world today where we recognize that every human life is sacred and precious and we have no right to take another human life
I believe that hope for the future depends on each of us taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and life-giving for all. Some people will argue that this is too ideal- istic. I believe it is very realistic. I am convinced that humanity is fast evolving to this higher consciousness. For those who say it cannot be done, let us remem- ber that humanity learned to abolish slavery. Our task now is no less than the abolition of violence and war… We can rejoice and celebrate today because we are living in a miraculous time. Everything is changing and everything is possible
To enable consensus politics to develop we need to empower people where they live. This means devolving financial resources and political power down to the community level. One of the greatest blocks to movement is fear. This fear can only be removed when people feel their voices are being heard by government and when they have a say in their own lives and communities
We reject the way the world is at the moment and we don't accept nuclear weapons, we don't accept the fact that we train men and women to kill each other — we think this is immoral — and we want to disarm human hearts and human beings, one by one, country by country and that's a big task. It's going to take all of my lifetime and several more generations of young people. It's going to take your generation too, to build a world — a nonviolent world — where people refuse to kill each other and human life is the ultimate value in our society and that's a vision. I do believe that it is something that is in the hearts of men and women and we've just got to get it out there into our politics in the world and change it that way
I believe, with Gandhi, that we need to take an imaginative leap forward toward fresh and generous idealism for the sake of all humanity — that we need to renew this ancient wisdom of nonviolence, to strive for a disarmed world, and to create a culture of nonviolence
We need now to build a culture of genuine nonviolence and real democracyMairead Corrigan-MaguireIrish peace activist (Born this day 1945) Everyday there are people in our world that do absolutely amazing things. People of all ages are very capable of doing tremendous, courageous things in spite of their fear
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:43:27 GMT 10
The format of the nightly newscasts is still very much 1981 — "Tremble, onlookers! I am the anchorman and now here is a miracle: a report by satellite from many thousands of miles away. I will return to introduce another one in due course"
I'm not trying to win a popularity contest. If you're in a public media setting and you're not expressing something of yourself, turn it over to someone who will. Just get out. Just go away and put somebody on who has a point of view, because the most dangerous thing about TV is its equalizing factor, its lowest common denominator factor. And that's what I fight against all the time
I just think if you're 44 years old and you're not smarter than you were when you were 35 years old or 25 years old, just stay in your room
Without humor, a sports fan is a religious fanatic. Without humor, a newscast is a terrible, depressing, unpalatable thing
The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you're not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don't take it personally when they say 'no' — they may not be smart enough to say "yes"
I do know without fear of contradiction what the definition of life is and it is 12 words long. 'Life is defined by how much you improve the lives of others'
It's such a simple thing, really. It's an awareness that the other people in the world are other people, and that you are one of them. That every time you have a chance to help somebody out, to do what's right instead of what you think you're supposed to do, you should do it
An uprising of the reasonable is our only chanceKeith OlbermannAmerican sports journalist (MSNBC) (Born this day 1959) This is the exact definition of my ego. When Fox had my head 40 feet high at Shea Stadium they said to me, "We're going to give out 100,000 temporary tattoos of your face at the Super Bowl." And I just swallowed and said, "No. God. Don't. You're not going to, you can't possibly — what do you mean, temporary?"
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 27, 2014 8:44:12 GMT 10
We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable
From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few
Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art
The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all
Truth should not be forced; it should simply manifest itself, like a woman who has in her privacy reflected and coolly decided to bestow herself upon a certain man
The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives for ever
Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shadingJohn UpdikeAmerican novelist, poet, critic and short-story writer (Died this day 2009) It's no disgrace to, in the end, restore order. And punish ,the wicked and, in some way, reward the righteous
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 28, 2014 9:12:53 GMT 10
Tuesday’s Quotes:The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be defined is not the unchanging name
The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds
The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand
The Tao is like a well: used but never used up. It is like the eternal void: filled with infinite poss- ibilities. It is hidden but always present. I don't know who gave birth to it. It is older than God
A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. Fail to honor people, They fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will all say, "We did this ourselves"
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power
He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know
Lao-tzu Chinese Taoist philosopher (Tao Te Ching) (4th, 5th or 6th Century BCE, anniversary dates unknown)
Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, take it and practice it earnestly. Scholars of the middle class, when they hear of it, take it half earnestly. Scholars of the lowest class, when they hear of it, laugh at it. Without the laughter, there would be no Tao
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 28, 2014 9:15:16 GMT 10
1 of 2:[/b] A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational
Man has free choice, or otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain
Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality
Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church
If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever
The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false
The things that we love tell us what we areSt. Thomas AquinasItalian philosopher & theologian (Father of the Church & Confessor) (Died this day 1274) Beware of the man of one book
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