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Post by Tamrin on Feb 12, 2014 7:42:33 GMT 10
This is my long-run forecast in brief: The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today's Western living standards. I also speculate, how- ever, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse
Our whole evolution up to this point shows that human groups spontaneously evolve patterns of behavior, as well as patterns of training people for that behavior, which tend on balance to lead people to create rather than destroy. Humans are, on net balance, builders rather than destroyers
Based on first-hand evidence of your own senses — the improved health and later ages at which acquaintances die nowadays as compared with the past; the material goods that we now possess; the speed at which information, entertainment, and we ourselves move freely throughout the world - it seems to me that a person must be literally deaf and blind not to perceive that humanity is in a much better state than ever before
Progress toward a more abundant material life does not come like manna from heaven, how- ever. My message certainly is not one of complacency. The ultimate resource is people — especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty — who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit and inevitably benefit the rest of us as well
We now have in our hands — really, in our libraries — the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years
The most important benefit of population size and growth is the increase it brings to the stock of useful knowledge. Minds matter economically as much as, or more than, hands or mouths
All of us necessarily hold many casual opinions that are ludicrously wrong simply because life is far too short for us to think through even a small fraction of the topics that we come acrossJulian SimonAmerican economist and author (Born this day 1932) The increase in the world's population represents our victory against death
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 12, 2014 7:43:22 GMT 10
People are going to judge you all the time no matter what you do... Don't worry about other people. Worry about you
Thing about white people," Jeremiah's father tells him, "they know what everybody else is, but they don't know they're white" — "Maybe some know it" His father eyed him and smiled "When they walk into a party and everyone's black, they know it. Or when they get caught in Harlem after nightfall, they know it. But otherwise...”
And freedom? Oh, freedom. Well that's just some people talking. Your prison is walking through this world all alone
Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?
I think it's important that every day we think about the work we need to do to make this world a better place. I mean, we should wake up thinking about it and go to bed thinking about tomorrow's tasks. There's an awful lot of change needing to be made around here
You have those walls up all around you ... Come a day you gonna want to tear them down brick by brick and gonna find that the cement is all hard. What you gonna do then?
In all your getting, get understandingJacqueline WoodsonAfrican-American author (children’s and adolescents’ books) (Born this day 1963) People who don't know what it's like to be an African American don't under- stand that it's OK, ... I never want to be other than an African American
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 12, 2014 7:45:38 GMT 10
The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms
American poetry has been part of a culture in conflict ...We are a people tending toward democracy at the level of hope; at another level, the economy of the nation, the empire of business within the republic, both include in their basic premise the idea of perpetual warfare
In time of crisis, we summon up our strength. Then, if we are lucky, we are able to call every resource, every forgotten image that can leap to our quickening, every memory that can make us know our power
However confused the scene of our life appears, however torn we may be who now do face that scene, it can be faced, and we can go on to be whole
Moment to moment, we can grow, if we can bring ourselves to meet the moment with our lives
Belief has its structures, and its symbols change. Its tradition changes. All the relationships within these forms are inter-dependent
We sit here, very different each from the other, until the passion arrives to give us our equality, to make us part of the play, to make the play part of usMuriel RukeyserAmerican poet and political activist (Died this day 1980) What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 12, 2014 8:07:33 GMT 10
Lillie Langtry (born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton)English actress and producer (Died this day 1929) I do not regret one moment of my life This quote reminds me of a Comedy Company sketch featuring the character "Marika" (the long suffering wife of "Con the fruiterer" — both characters being played by Mark Mitchell).
Marika (whose catch phrase was "but I no complain") said, "I do not regret one day of my marriage to Con." She then went on to say something like, "The one day I do not regret was back in 1962 when Con went away with some mates and I was left on my own for the whole wonderful day"
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:21:23 GMT 10
Saturday’s Quotes:Beware the barrenness of a busy life
A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil
Be as you wish to seemSocratesGreek stonecutter & philosopher (Tried this day 399 BCE) (Jacques-Louis David, 1787, The Death of Socrates) Wisdom begins in wonder
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:22:07 GMT 10
Doubt is the father of invention
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them
Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so
By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him
It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is provedGalileo Galilei, Italian scientist (Born this day 1564) I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic ChurchÉ, si muove!(“Still, it moves”)
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:22:51 GMT 10
Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart
The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law
He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn
It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual
Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure ... they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it
No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion
Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feetJeremy Bentham, English Utilitarian philosopher (Born this day 1748) It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:23:57 GMT 10
Man — who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!
It is infinitely difficult to know when and where one should stop, and for all but one in thousands the goal of their thinking is the point at which they have become tired of thinking
The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth
It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud
If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand, and say: Father, I will take this one — the pure Truth is for You alone
It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important
Precisely the way on which the species reaches its perfection, every individual human being (one earlier, one later) must have traversed, tooBro. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (initiated 1771, Lodge Zu den drei Rosen, Hamburg) German enlightenment philosopher ( Conversations for Freemasons) (Died this day 1781) What is a hero without love for mankind?
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:24:43 GMT 10
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union
The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it
If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals
It would be ridiculous to talk of male and female atmospheres, male and female springs or rains, male and female sunshine ... how much more ridiculous is it in relation to mind, to soul, to thought, where there is as undeniably no such thing as sex, to talk of male and female education and of male and female schools
The rank and file are not philosophers, they are not educated to think for themselves, but simply to accept, unquestioned, whatever comes
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequencesSusan Brownell AnthonyUS women's suffragette (Born this day 1820) Men — their rights and nothing more; Women — their rights and nothing less
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:34:15 GMT 10
But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided
Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language
There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil
Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious
Fools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato
Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilizedAlfred North Whitehead(Born this day 1861) I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren't
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