Daily Quotes

[Tamrin]

We pacifists have not ceased to point to the grave
danger of armaments and to insist on their curtailment


The present level of armaments could be taken as the starting point. It could
be stipulated in an international treaty that these armaments should be
simultaneously and uniformly reduced by a certain proportion in all countries


Limitation of armaments in itself is economically and financially important quite apart from security


It will be sufficient to point to the enormous burdens which armaments place on the
economic, social, and intellectual resources of a nation, as well as on its budget and taxes


The security of which we speak is to be attained by the development of international
law through an international organization based on the principles of law and justice


Great progress was made when arbitration treaties were concluded in which the
contracting powers pledge in advance to submit all conflicts to an arbitration court,
treaties which not only specify the composition of the court, but also its procedure


I am convinced that when the history of international law comes to be written centuries
hence, it will be divided into two periods: the first being from the earliest times to the
end of the nineteenth century, and the second beginning with the Hague Conference


Ludwig Quidde
German historian and politician (Nobel Prize 1927)
(Born this day 1858)



In life, particularly in public life, psychology is more powerful than logic

[Tamrin]

The application of psychoanalysis to sociology must definitely guard against the
mistake of wanting to give psychoanalytic answers where economic, technical, or
political facts provide the real and sufficient explanation of sociological questions


On the other hand, the psychoanalyst must emphasize that the subject of sociology, society,
in reality consists of individuals, and that it is these human beings, rather than abstract
society as such, whose actions, thoughts, and feelings are the object of sociological research


Man is born as a freak of nature, being within nature and yet transcending it.
He has to find principles of action and decision-making which replace the principles of
instincts. He has to have a frame of orientation which permits him to organize a consistent
picture of the world as a condition for consistent actions. He has to fight not only against
the dangers of dying, starving, and being hurt, but also against another danger which is
specifically human: that of becoming insane. In other words, he has to protect himself
not only against the danger of losing his life but also against the danger of losing his mind


The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty
is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers


Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and
knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness.
Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere
= to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his individuality and unique-
ness. To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibility
would be blind if they were not guided by the knowledge of the person's individuality


Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.
The most important product of his effort is his own personality


Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s
country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship


Erich Seligmann Fromm
German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst and humanistic philosopher
(Born this day 1900)



Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves.
If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what
we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world

[Tamrin]

It was a bland, tranquilized, life-adjusted, group-integrated sort of face — the face turned
out in thousands of copies every year by the educational production lines on Terra


English is the product of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid,
and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation


Take a drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a drink,
and then two good drinks get together and that calls for drinks all around


How many more happinesses do you think we've smashed here today?
And we don't even have Dunnan's excuse of madness


He actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going right
ahead and doing it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table dis-
cussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him


I like it where it gets dark at night, and if you want noise, you have to make it yourself


Sanity, it would seem, was a dangerously contagious disease


Henry Beam Piper
American science fiction author (Paratime)
(Born this day 1904)



I had a lot of other ideas, now and then, but every time
I took a second look at one, it got sick and died

[Tamrin]

God waits for us to create him


But nobody is visually naive any longer. We are cluttered with images,
and only abstract art can bring us to the threshold of the divine


The artist leans on the past but creates in reaction to the past


When they appear, great artists are not easily recognizable.
They use a new language that we have to learn


In a world filled with mistrust, armed to the teeth and ready to explode,
a realistic attitude might be to consider love as an imperative need


We live in dramatic times. Violent confrontations are erupting in all parts of the world.
Instinctively we feel that it does not have to be so. That confrontation could give way to cooperation


A science that hesitates to forget its founders is lost


Dominique de Menil
French-American arts patron, human rights advocate
(Born this day 1908)



What should move us to action is human dignity: the inalienable dignity of the oppressed,
but also the dignity of each of us. We lose dignity if we tolerate the intolerable

[Tamrin]

I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution


There is just one thing I can promise you about the
outer-space program — your tax-dollar will go further


All of man's scientific and engineering efforts will be in vain unless they are
performed and utilized within a framework of ethical standards commensurate
with the magnitude of the scope of the technological revolution.


We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming


Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft,
and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor


You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe,
or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering


Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing


Werner von Braun
German-American rocket scientist
(Born this day 1912)



I aim at the stars

[Tamrin]

Any man who stands for progress has to criticize, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old
faith. Item by item he has to reason out every nook and corner of the prevailing faith. If after
considerable reasoning one is led to believe in any theory or philosophy, his faith is welcomed


His reasoning can be mistaken, wrong, misled and sometimes fallacious. But he
is liable to correction because reason is the guiding star of his life. But mere
faith and blind faith is dangerous: it dulls the brain, and makes a man reactionary


The spirit of Revolution should always permeate the soul of humanity, so that
the reactionary forces may not accumulate to check its eternal onward march


By "Revolution", we mean the ultimate establishment of an order of society
which may not be threatened by such breakdown, and in which the sover-
eignty of the proletariat should be recognized and a world federation should
redeem humanity from the bondage of capitalism and misery of imperial wars


Non-violence is backed by the theory of soul-force in which suffering is courted
in the hope of ultimately winning over the opponent. But what happens when such
an attempt fail to achieve the object? It is here that soul-force has to be combined
with physical force so as not to remain at the mercy of tyrannical and ruthless enemy


If the deaf are to hear, the sound has to be very loud. When we dropped
the bomb, it was not our intention to kill anybody. We have bombed
the British Government. The British must quit India and make her free


Every tiny molecule of Ash is in motion with my heat. I am such a Lunatic that I am free even in Jail


Bhagat Singh
Indian freedom fighter (Indian independence movement)
(Died this day 1931)



I emphasize that I am full of ambition and hope and of full charm of life.
But I can renounce all at the time of need, and that is the real sacrifice

[Tamrin]

For a small nation, Guyana has produced a discouragingly large number
of lackeys and stooges who hide in the shadow of the “Comrade Leader”


Years now people don’t address me as Dr. Rodney and Professor Rodney; it is only
since I’ve come back to these parts. I’m accustomed to relating to students and the
common title is Comrade; that’s all. It doesn’t matter whether one is student or staff


I trust that my use of the words such as ‘capitalism’, ‘imperialism’, and ‘neocolonialism’ will not be
deemed as a cover for sinister intent. My indulgence in those terms is aimed at opposing a system
which is barbarous and dehumanising — the one which snatched me from Africa in chains and
deposited me in far off lands to be a slave beast, then a sub-human colonial subject, and finally an
outlaw in those lands. Under these circumstances, one asks nothing more but to be allowed to learn
from, participate in and be guided by the African Revolution in this part of the continent; for this
Revolution here is aimed at destroying that monstrous system and replacing it with a just socialist society


Guyanese constantly complain of “square pegs in round holes”. The square pegs are the
misfits and soup drinkers who flourish because each one is prepared to be his master’s
voice. There is a double tragedy in this situation. First there is the tragedy (with some
mixture of comedy) of the incompetent, the mediocre and the corrupt making a mess of
things. Secondly, there is tragedy in which men and women of ability and integrity have
been dismissed or they have run away or they have been reduced to silence. This part of
the tragedy involves honest police officers who must condone corruption, doctors who
must heal without drugs, managers who are not allowed to manage and workers who
are not permitted to produce and then are forced to consume a diet of lies and deceit


Development was universal because the conditions leading to economic expansion were
universal. Everywhere man was faced with the task of survival by meeting fundamental needs;
and better tools were a consequence of the interplay between human beings and nature as
part of the struggle for survival. Of course human history is not a record of advances and nothing
else. There were periods in every part of the world when there were temporary setbacks and
actual reduction of the capacity to produce basic necessities and other services for the population.
But the overall tendency was towards increased production, and at given points in time the
increase in the quantity of goods was associated with a change in the quality or character of society


The system doesn’t stop at racial discrimination. Because it is a system of class oppression, it
only camouflages its class nature under a racial cover. And in the end, it will move against anyone
irrespective of colour. In the end, they will move even against their own. Because, don’t believe
if you are a member of that party today, that you will be protected tomorrow from the injustices.
Because when a monster grows, it grows out of control. It eats up even those who created the monster


Cuban achievement is to be measured, not only relative to where Cuba was, but also to the
lack of success in dealing with the stagnation which characterizes the Caribbean region today


Dr. Walter Rodney
Guyanese historian and political activist
(Born this day 1942)



I was brought up not very far from here, in a typical range yard in Bent Street. And there,
amidst the poverty, looking back now, I can see in my mind’s eye ordinary black people
who were worth everything, who were human beings who had strength, who had character.
Never mind he may have been a cartman, never mind the woman may have been taking in
washing. When you stop to think about it, they had character. Some of them were miracle
workers, because it’s a miracle how they used to bring up families on what they earned

[Tamrin]

Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic


If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples


The most dramatic instances of directed behavior change and "mind control"
are not the consequence of exotic forms of influence, such as hypnosis, psycho-
tropic drugs, or "brainwashing," but rather the systematic manipulation of
the most mundane aspects of human nature over time in confining settings


Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse


The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone
can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces


Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of
noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can


Boys are 30 percent more likely than girls to drop out of school.
In Canada, five boys drop out for every three girls. Girls outperform
boys now at every level, from elementary school to graduate school


Philip Zimbardo
American professor of psychology (Stanford Prison Study)
(Born this day 1933)



Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can kill you

[Tamrin]

Logic was to cognition as geometry was to landscape


We all have seven secret lives. The life of excretion; the world of inappropriate
sexual fantasies; our real hopes; our terror of death; our experience of shame;
the world of pain; and our dreams. No one ever knows these lives. Consciousness
is solitary. Each person lives in that bubble universe that rests under the skull, alone


It makes us a thread in a tapestry that has unrolled for centuries before us, and will
unroll for centuries after us. We're midway through the loom, that's the present,
and what we do casts the thread in a particular direction, and the picture of the tap-
estry changes accordingly. When we begin to try to make a picture pleasing to us
and to those who come after, then perhaps you can say that we have seized history


They were so ignorant! Young men and women, educated very carefully to be apolitical, to be
technicians who thought they disliked politics, making them putty in the hands of their rulers, just
like always. It was appalling how stupid they were, really, and he could not help lashing into them


Even if you want no state, or a minimal state, then you have to argue point by point.
Especially since the minimalists want to keep the economic and police system that keeps them
privileged. That's libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
No! If you want to make the minimum-state case, you have to argue it from the ground up


If the amount of money going into the war economy were invested in landscape restor-
ation, we would be in a far more positive position. It may get a little dire before we pull
together, but I think when the prosperous nations, and in particular the US, realise they're
wrecking their own kids' lives, there will be a mass change in value. It will be a difficult cent-
ury, and ugly, but I don't think that in the end people are so stupid as to kill themselves off


And because we are alive, the universe must be said to be alive. We are its conscious-
ness as well as our own. We rise out of the cosmos and we see its mesh of patterns,
and it strikes us as beautiful. And that feeling is the most important thing in all the
universe — its culmination, like the color of the flower at first bloom on a wet morning


Kim Stanley Robinson
US science fiction author (Mars trilogy)
(Born this day 1952)



Reincarnation is a story we tell; then in the end it's the story itself that is the reincarnation

[Tamrin]

The more you read, the better you get, the more better you get,
the more you like it; and the more you like it, the more you do it


There's an education adage that goes, "What we teach children to love and desire will always out-
weigh what we make them learn." The fact is that some children learn to read sooner than others,
while some learn better than others. There is a difference. For the parent who thinks that sooner
is better, who has an eighteen-month-old child barking at flash cards, my response is: sooner is not
better. Are the dinner guests who arrive an hour early better guests than those who arrive on time?


Common sense should tell us that reading is the ultimate weapon —
destroying ignorance, poverty and despair before they can destroy us


A nation that doesn't read much doesn't know much. And a nation that doesn't know much is
more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box and the voting booth


Skill sheets, workbooks, basal reader, flash cards are not enough. To convey meaning
you need someone sharing the meaning and flavor of real stories with the student


You become a reader because you saw and heard someone you admired enjoying the exper-
ience, someone led you to the world of books even before you could read, let you taste the
magic of stories, took you to the library, and allowed you to stay up later at night to read in bed


So I ask you: whose job is it in this country to wake up comatose parents? Someone better do
it soon because knowing television's potential for harm and keeping that knowledge to our-
selves instead of sharing it with parents amounts to covering up a land mine on a busy street


Jim Trelease
American educator and author (The Read-Aloud Handbook)
(Born this day 1941)



Not that parents are alone in their extreme behavior. That have more than enough company
among school boards and high-ranking politicians who think if you "fix the schools, they'll fix
the kids." So, in Gadsden, Alabama, school officials eliminated kindergarten nap time in 2003
so the children would have more test-prep time. Two hours away in Atlanta, school officials
figured that if you eliminated recess, the kids will study more. And just in case those shifty
teachers try to sneak it in, Atlanta started building schools without playgrounds. "We are intent
on improving academic performance," said the superintendent. "You don't do that by having
kids hanging on the monkey bars." Meanwhile, Georgia's governor wanted the state to give
Mozart CDs to newborns because research showed Mozart improved babies' IQs (which later
proved to be mythical research). Right behind him is Lincoln, Rhode Island, where they can-
celled the district spelling bee because only one child would win, leaving all others behind, thus
violating the intent of No Child Left Behind — or, as they might say in Lincoln, no child gets ahead