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Post by Tamrin on Mar 3, 2014 7:56:50 GMT 10
A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with — a man is what he makes of himself
Wherever you may find the inventor, you may give him wealth or you may take from him all that he has; and he will go on inventing. He can no more help inventing that he can help thinking or breathing
Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus
Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself
The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider — and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation
Don't keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone, and following one after the other like a flock of sheep. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. 'Every time you do so you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Of course it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore all around it; one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought
Before anything else, preparation is the key to success Alexander Graham BellScottish-American inventor ( telephone) (Born this day 1847) What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 3, 2014 7:57:49 GMT 10
It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly contemptible
For, contrary to the common opinion, it is the wealthy who are greedy of wealth; while the populace are to be gained by talking to them about liberty, their un- known god. And so much are they enchanted by the words liberty, freedom, and such like, that the wise can go to the poor, rob them of what little they have, dis- miss them with a hearty kick, and win their hearts and their votes for ever, if only they will assure them that the treatment which they have received is called liberty
There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these 'chases in Arras, dreams in a career,' beyond them all as beyond a veil
You may think this all strange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan
But in the meantime, as a temporary measure, I hold what I call the doctrine of the jig- saw puzzle. That is: this remarkable occurrence, and that, and the other may be, and usually are, of no significance. Coincidence and chance and unsearchable causes will now and again make clouds that are undeniable fiery dragons, and potatoes that resemble eminent statesmen exactly and minutely in every feature, and rocks that are like eagles and lions. All this is nothing; it is when you get your set of odd shapes and find that they fit into one another, and at last that they are but parts of a large design; it is then that research grows interesting and indeed amazing, it is then that one queer form confirms the other, that the whole plan displayed justifies, corroborates, explains each separate piece
We have just begun to navigate a strange region; we must expect to encounter strange adventures, strange perils
I dream in fire but work in clayArthur MachenWelsh writer of supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction (Born this day 1863) Every branch of human knowledge if traced up to its source and final principles vanishes into mystery
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 3, 2014 7:58:32 GMT 10
Every boat is copied from another boat... Let’s reason as follows in the manner of Darwin. It is clear that a very badly made boat will end up at the bottom after one or two voyages, and thus never be copied ... One could then say, with complete rigor, that it is the sea herself who fashions the boats, choosing those which function and destroying the others
As opposed to the incoherent spectacle of the world, the real is what is expected, what is obtained and what is discovered by our own movement. It is what is sensed as being within our own power and always responsive to our action
When we speak, in gestures or signs, we fashion a real object in the world; the gesture is seen, the words and the song are heard. The arts are simply a kind of writing, which, in one way or another, fixes words or gestures, and gives body to the invisible
It is the human condition to question one god after another, one appearance after another, or better, one apparition after another, always pursuing the truth of the imagination, which is not the same as the truth of appearance
Man himself is an enigma in motion; his questions never stay asked; whereas the mold, the footprint, and by natural extension, the statue itself, like the vaults, the arches, the temples with which man records his own passing, remain im- mobile and fix a moment of man’s life, upon which one might endlessly meditate
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when it's the only one we have
Every idea I get I have to deny, that's my way of testing itÉmile Chartier (commonly called Alain)French essayist and philosopher (Born this day 1868) We prove anything we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 3, 2014 8:01:12 GMT 10
It always feels tragic to see people labouring to saw off the branch they are sitting on
We are not disillusioned because we have no illusions; we have never had any. What we have, and what constitutes our strength, is our joy in life, in all of its moral and amoral manifestations
To make the material speak to man in the name of man, this is the aim and reality of art
Beautiful, ugly, impressive, disgusting, meaningless, grim, contradictory etc. … It makes no difference, as long as it is life, vigorously pouring forth
This is what aesthetics, development and progress depend upon: that we go out on thin ice
Everything is in constant flux, from state to state, from good to bad and back again … only in transmutation, perpetual motion, lies truth
I act with full responsibility and after extensive reflectionAsger JornDanish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist and author (Born this day 1914) We are sparks that must glow as brightly as possible
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 3, 2014 8:01:51 GMT 10
But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation and every bit of us is lost in it
What had the man done? Oh, made history. Her business (he had implied) was giving birth, Tending the house, mending the socks
I had gone so long without loving I hardly knew what I was thinking. Where I hid my face, your touch, quick, merciful blindfolded me. A god breathed from my lips. If that was illusion, I wanted it to last long
Beneath my incredulity all at once is flowing joy, the flash of the unbaited hook — Yes, yes, it fits, it's right, it had to be! Intuition weightless and ongoing like stanzas in a book or golden scales in the melodic brook
He thought of certain human hearts, their climb through violence into exquisite disciplines of which, as it now appeared, they all expired
And, as I have said, it's made me think twice about the imagination. If the spirits aren't external, how astonishing the mediums become!
Always the same old story — Father Time and Mother Earth, a marriage on the rocksJames Ingram MerrillPulitzer Prize winning American poet (Born this day 1926) I'd like to think the scientists need us — but do they? Did Newton need Blake?
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 3, 2014 8:02:18 GMT 10
The progress of science is strewn, like an ancient desert trail, with the bleached skeleton of discarded theories which once seemed to possess eternal life
True creativity often starts where language ends
Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears
Indeed, the ideal for a well-functioning democratic state is like the ideal for a gentle- man's well-cut suit — it is not noticed. For the common people of Britain, Gestapo and concentration camps have approximately the same degree of reality as the monster of Loch Ness. Atrocity propaganda is helpless against this healthy lack of imagination
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards
The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know
The principle mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiersArthur KoestlerHungarian-British writer ( Darkness at Noon) Euthanasia advocate (Committed suicide this day 1983, with his wife Cynthia) The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 4, 2014 7:30:21 GMT 10
Tuesday’s Quotes:I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it
My lords, it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man’s mind by humiliation to the purposed ignominy of the scaffold; but worse to me than the purposed shame or the scaffold’s terrors would be the shame of such foul and un- founded imputations as have been laid against me in this court. You, my lord, are a judge; I am the supposed culprit. I am a man; you are a man also. By a revolution of power we might change places, though we could never change characters. If I stand at the bar of this court and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice? If I stand at this bar and dare not vindicate my character, how dare you calumniate it?
Does the sentence of death, which your unhallowed policy inflicts upon my body, also con- demn my tongue to silence and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence, but, while I exist, I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and motives from your aspersions; as a man to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honour and love, and for whom I am proud to perish
I am charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary of France! And for what end? It is alleged that I wish to sell the independence of my country; and for what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No; I am no emissary
Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonour; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country’s liberty and independence; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression and misery of my countrymen. The proclaimation of the Provisional Government speaks for my views; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad
I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant. In the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should only enter by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, who have subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and now to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her independence — am I to be loaded with calumny and not suffered to resent it? No, God forbid!
I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world; it is — THE CHARITY OF ITS SILENCE. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my name remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be writtenRobert EmmetIrish nationalist rebel leader (Born this day 1778) A man in my situation, my lords, has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune and the force of power over minds, which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the difficulties of established prejudice: the man dies, but his memory lives
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 4, 2014 7:33:37 GMT 10
When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself
Philosophy is based on speculation, on logic, on thought, on the synthesis of what we know and on the analysis of what we do not know. Philosophy must include within its confines the whole content of science, religion and art
Two things can get people to make efforts: if people want to get something, or if they want to get rid of something. Only, in ordinary conditions, without knowledge, people do not know what they can get rid of or what they can gain
The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious
I've found that the chief difficulty for most people was to realize that they had really heard new things: that is things that they had never heard before. They kept translating what they heard into their habitual language. They had ceased to hope and believe there might be anything new
In existing criminology there are concepts: a criminal man, a criminal profession, a criminal society, a criminal sect, and a criminal tribe, but there is no concept of a criminal state, or a criminal govern- ment, or criminal legislation. Consequently, the biggest crimes actually escape being called crimes
Philosophy is based on speculation, on logic, on thought, on the synthesis of whatwe know and on the analysis of what we do not know. Philosophy must include within its confines the whole content of science, religion and art. But where can such a philosophy be found? All that we know in our times by the name of philosophy is not philosophy, but merely 'critical literature' or the expression of personal opinions, mainly with the aim of overthrowing and destroying other personal opinions. Or, which is still worse, philosophy is nothing but self- satisfied dialectic surrounding itself with an impenetrable barrier of terminology unintell- igible to the uninitiated and solving for itself all the problems of the universe without any possibility of proving these explanations or making them intelligible to ordinary mortalsPeter D OuspenskyRussian philosopher (Gurdjieff scholar) (Born this day 1878) It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 4, 2014 7:34:23 GMT 10
The less routine the more life
A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay
The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple
Thought means life, since those who do not think, so do not live in any high or real sense. Thinking makes the man
To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant
To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age
We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successesAmos Bronson AlcottUS teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer (Died this day 1888) Our ideals are our better selves
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Post by Tamrin on Mar 4, 2014 7:36:51 GMT 10
I decided to get Ph.D. in experimental physics because experimental physicists have their own room in the Institute where they can hang their coat, whereas theoretical physicists have to hang their coat at the entrance
If and when all the laws governing physical phenomena are finally discovered, and all the empirical constants occurring in these laws are finally expressed through the four in- dependent basic constants, we will be able to say that physical science has reached its end, that no excitement is left in further explorations, and that all that remains to a physicist is either tedious work on minor details or the self-educational study and adoration of the magnificence of the completed system. At that stage physical science will enter from the epoch of Columbus and Magellan into the epoch of the National Geographic Magazine!
It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!
If the expansion of the space of the universe is uniform in all directions, an observer located in anyone of the galaxies will see all other galaxies running away from him at velocities proportional to their distances from the observer
Much later, when I discussed the problem with Einstein, he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the biggest blunder he ever made in his life. But this “blunder,” rejected by Einstein, is still sometimes used by cosmologists even today, and the cosmo- logical constant denoted by the Greek letter Λ rears its ugly head again and again and again
There was a young fellow from Trinity, Who took the square root of infinity. But the number of digits, Gave him the fidgets; He dropped Math and took up Divinity
Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star Biggest puzzle from afar How unlike the other ones Brighter than a billion suns Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star How I wonder what you areGeorge GamowUkrainian-born physicist and cosmologist (Big Bang theory) (Born this day 1904) Adam, the first man, didn't know anything about the nucleus but Dr. George Gamow, visiting professor from George Washington University, pretends he does. He says for example that the nucleus is 0.00000000000003 feet in diameter. Nobody believes it, but that doesn't make any difference to him. He also says that the nuclear energy contained in a pound of lithium is enough to run the United States Navy for a period of three years. But to get this energy you would have to heat a mixture of lithium and hydrogen up to 50,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. If one has a little stove of this temperature installed at Stanford, it would burn every- thing alive within a radius of 10,000 miles and broil all the fish in the Pacific Ocean. If you could go as fast as nuclear particles generally do, it wouldn't take you more than one ten-thousandth of a second to go to Miller's where you could meet Gamow and get more details'Gamow interviews Gamow' ( Stanford Daily, 25 Jun 1936)
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