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Post by Tamrin on Dec 12, 2013 8:48:21 GMT 10
My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind
Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion
Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril
The success of any great moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate – I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead
With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost
Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependent upon popular opinion?William Lloyd GarrisonUS abolitionist publisher ( The Liberator) (Born this day 1805) We may be personally defeated, but our principles never!
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 12, 2013 8:49:47 GMT 10
Exuberance is better than taste
One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three require- ments for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost
Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work
I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of every- thing, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity
Of all lies, art is the least untrueBro. Gustave FlaubertFrench novelist ( Madame Bovary) (Born this day 1821) I love good sense above all, perhaps because I have none
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 12, 2013 8:50:32 GMT 10
If you don't know the guy on the other side of the world, love him anyway because he's just like you. He has the same dreams, the same hopes and fears. It's one world, pal. We're all neighbors
If you possess something but you can't give it away, then you don't possess it ... it possesses you
I'm for decency — period. I'm for anything and everything that bodes love and consideration for my fellow man. But when lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday — cash me out
I'm not unmindful of a man's seeming need for faith; I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniel's. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle
There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions
Remember, they were men of God who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria, who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned the witches at Salem. Over 25,000 organized religions flourish on this planet, but the followers of each think all the others are miserably misguided and probably evil as well
Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I'm honest
Frank Sinatra American singer and film actor (Rat Pack) (Born this day 1915)
Sinatra in Australia
I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living his life, and who had good friends, a fine family. I don't think I could ask for anything more than that, actually
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 12, 2013 8:53:09 GMT 10
Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings, and that we're actually alive
Here we are, we're alone in the universe, there's no God, it just seems that it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves. Somehow, we've just got to make a go of it. We've only ourselves
The whole point of a sacrifice is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place. People are doing it around you all the time. They give up their careers, say — or their beliefs — or sex
Laughter's the nearest we ever get, or should get, to sainthood. It's the state of grace that saves most of us from contempt
Never believe in mirrors or newspapers
Asking a working writer what he feels about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs
I never deliberately set out to shock, but when people don't walk out of my plays I think there is something wrongJohn OsborneBritish dramatist ( Look Back in Anger) (Born this day 1929) It is easy to answer the ultimate questions — it saves you bothering with the immediate ones
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 13, 2013 6:37:03 GMT 10
Friday’s Quotes:This Life, which seems so fair, is like a bubble blown up in the air by sporting children's breath, who chase it everywhere
Of this fair volume which we World do name if we the sheets and leaves could turn with care, of him who it corrects, and did it frame, we clear might read the art and wisdom rare
God never had a church but there, men say, the Devil a chapel hath raised by some wyles
Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard before thy lips, lest the words of thine own mouth destroy thy peace ... on much speaking cometh repentance, but in silence is safety
Iron sharpens iron; scholar, the scholar.
Study what thou art whereof thou art a part What thou knowest of this art. This is really what thou art. All that is without thee also is within
I study myself more than any other subject; it is my metaphysic, and my physicWilliam Drummond of HawthorndenScottish poet (The Cypresse Grove) (Born this day 1585) He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 13, 2013 6:40:27 GMT 10
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel
The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice
Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise
He who praises everybody, praises nobodyBro. Samuel JohnsonEnglish author, poet and lexicographer (Died this day 1784) God bless you, my dear(last words — to Miss Morris)
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 13, 2013 6:41:27 GMT 10
He only profits from praise who values criticism
Experience is a good school. But the fees are high
Like a great poet, Nature knows how to produce the greatest effects with the most limited means
Whenever books are burned, men also in the end are burned
Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ
Atheism is the last word of theism
God will forgive me. It's his jobHeinrich HeineGerman journalist and essayist ( Germany: A Winter's Tale) (Born this day 1797) Ask me not what I have, but what I am
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 13, 2013 6:43:16 GMT 10
Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry ... To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery
A great discovery solves a great problem, but there is a grain of discovery in the solution of any problem. Your problem may be modest, but if it challenges your curiosity and brings into play your inventive faculties, and if you solve it by your own means, you may experience the tension and enjoy the triumph of discovery
We need heuristic reasoning when we construct a strict proof as we need scaffolding when we erect a building
Analogy pervades all our thinking, our everyday speech and our trivial conclus- ions as well as artistic ways of expression and the highest scientific achievements
If there is a problem you can’t solve, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it
Euclid's manner of exposition, progressing relentlessly from the data to the unknown and from the hypothesis to the conclusion, is perfect for checking the argument in detail but far from being perfect for making understandable the main line of the argument
There was a seminar for advanced students in Zürich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be difficult. Von Neumann didn't say anything but after five minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to the blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After that I was afraid of von NeumannGeorge PólyaHungarian-American mathematician (“Pólya enumeration”) (Born this day 1887) The best of ideas is hurt by uncritical acceptance and thrives on critical examination
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 13, 2013 6:46:22 GMT 10
Life begins as a quest of the child for the man and ends as a journey by the man to rediscover the child
It is not difficult to like people provided they have something in their lives that they themselves like. Liking begets liking. The difficult people are the great critics, the ones who cannot find anything in life to like
‘Why’ in any case is a severely limited question, as the child discovers from the moment it begins to talk. It produces limited answers, limited as a rule to the mech- anics and laws of the world, universe and life of man. But the human heart and mind come dishearteningly quickly to their frontiers and need something greater to carry on beyond the last `why'. This beyond is the all-encompassing universe of what the Chinese called Tao and a Zen Buddhist friend, in despair over the rationalist prem- ises native to Western man, tried to make me understand as a newly-graduated man by calling `the great togetherness' and adding, `in the great togetherness there are no "whys", only "thuses" and you just have to accept as the only authentic raw mat- erial of your spirit, your own "thus" which is always so.' In and out of these great togethernesses it came to appear to me that the story brings us a sense of this unique ‘so’ that is to be the seed of becoming in ourselves during the time which is our lot
I have always had a profound respect for aboriginal superstition, not as formulations of literal truth, but as a way of keeping the human spirit obedient to aspects of reality that are beyond rational articulation
There's nothing wrong in searching for happiness. But we're using happiness there in a term as if it were the ultimate of human striving. And actually what we found in prison, and I find in life, which gives far more comfort to the soul, is something which is greater than happiness or unhappiness and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all. And once what you are living and you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you are happy or unhappy. You're content. You're not alone in your spirit. You belong
I find it so tragic and ironical that the age in which we live should regard the word "myth" and "illusion" as synonymous, in view of the fact that the myth is the real history, is the real event of the spirit. It is this immense world of meaning with which the image links us. The myth is the tremendous activity that goes on in humanity all the time, without which no society has hope or direction, and no personal life has a meaning. We all live a myth whether we know it or not. We live it by fair means or we live it by foul. Or we live it by a process or a combination of both. We have a myth that we live badly. The Christian myth is a myth in the real sense of the word
Organized religion is making Christianity political rather than making politics ChristianLaurens van der Post, CBEAfrikaner soldier, explorer and conservationist (Born this day 1906) Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 13, 2013 6:47:10 GMT 10
Theory not only formulates what we know but also tells us what we want to know, that is, the questions to which an answer is needed
A scientifically unimportant discovery is one which, however true and however interesting for other reasons, has no consequences for a system of theory with which scientists in that field are concerned
But the scientific importance of a change in knowledge of fact consists precisely in its having consequences for a system of theory
If observed facts of undoubted accuracy will not fit any of the alter- natives it leaves open, the system itself is in need of reconstruction
Now obviously the propositions of the system have reference to matters of empirical fact; if they did not, they could have no claim to be called scientific
The implications of these considerations justify the statement that all empiric- ally verifiable knowledge even the commonsense knowledge of everyday life — involves implicitly, if not explicitly, systematic theory in this sense
But the fact a person denies that he is theorising is no reason for taking him at his word and failing to investigate what implicit theory is involved in his statementsTalcott ParsonsAmerican sociologist ( Action Theory " AGIL paradigm") (Born this day 1902) Sociology should ... be thought of as a science of action — of the ultimate common value element in its relations to the other elements of action
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