Limitless

We are not just guides; we are trailblazers.  Let this be a call to every Sherpa to see the dignity in our work, the power in our heritage, and the limitless possibilities in our future.

-- Nima Rinji Sherpa, 18, standing atop Tibet's Mount Shishapangma as the youngest person to have scaled all 14 mountains that the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) recognises as more than 8,000 metres above sea level, 9 October 2024.  The previous record holder is Mingma Gyabu 'David' Sherpa, who achieved it at the age of 30 in 2019

Forgive Me My Nonsense

Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.

-- Robert Frost (1874 - 1963), American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes, Letter to Louis Untermeyer (7 August 1915)

Underlying Purpose

The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.

-- Joseph Browning via Facebook (10 July 2024) cited by jeffowski on Mastodon & Twitter

Early Autumn

It was autumn, and he always liked autumn.  Something about early autumn, when the leaves began to flee before a northern breeze and the days shortened, gave an extra edge to existence.

-- Brian Aldiss (1925 - 2017), English writer of general fiction and science fiction, "Steppenpferd", Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine (February 2000)

Your Experience Of Me

I see you, and you see me.  I experience you, and you experience me.  I see your behaviour.  You see my behaviour.  But I do not and never have and never will see your experience of me.  Just as you cannot "see" my experience of you.

-- Ronald David (R.D.) Laing (7 October 1927 - 23 August 1989), Scottish psychiatrist who wrote on mental illness and the experience of psychosis, The Politics of Experience (1967) Chapter 1 : Experience as evidence

All The Colors Of Poetry

All the colours of poetry, however splendid, can never paint natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landscape.  The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.

-- David Hume (1711 - 1776), Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

The Answer To That Question

The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct.  Not so.  Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one.  Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted -- a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.  In Trump v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 2312 (2024), the Supreme Court held that presidents are immune from prosecution for certain official conduct -- including the defendant’s use of the Justice Department in furtherance of his scheme, as was alleged in the original indictment -- and remanded to this Court to determine whether the remaining allegations against the defendant are immunized.  The answer to that question is no.

-- Special Counsel Jack Smith, in the opening paragraph of his 165-page filing in United States of America v Donald J. Trump, 2 October 2024

And Only Then

[F]or many women, their pregnancy was unintended, unexpected, and often unknown until well after the embryonic heartbeat began.  Yet that's too late under the LIFE Act's strictures: these women are now forbidden from undoing that life-altering change of circumstances -- before they even knew the change had occurred.

For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability.  It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid's Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could -- or should -- force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.  Considering the compelling record evidence about the physical, mental, and emotional impact of unwanted pregnancies on the women who are forced by law to carry them to term (as well as on their other living children), the Court finds that, until the pregnancy is viable, a woman's right to make decisions about her body and her health remains private and protected, i.e., remains her business and her business alone.  When someone other than the pregnant woman is able to sustain the fetus, then -- and only then -- should those other voices have a say in the discussion about the decisions the pregnant woman makes concerning her body and what is growing within it.

-- Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney, deciding SisterSong Women Of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, et al v State of Georgia in favor of the plaintiff, ruling that Section 4 of the LIFE Act is unconstitutional and unenforceable

HBD, Jimmy Carter

I can't deny I'm a better ex-president than I was a president.

-- Former President Jimmy Carter (1 October 1924 -), who turned 100 years old today, Cited by The Independent "Presidents’ Day: What America’s leaders did next after leaving the White House" The Independent (London, 21 February 2022).  Interview with reporters, as quoted in "Carter condemns abortion culture" The Washington Times (3 November 2005)

Not Even Past

The past is never dead.  It's not even past.

-- William Faulkner (1897-1962), American novelist and short story writer, 1949 Nobel laureate in literature, Requiem for a Nun (1951) Act 1, scene 3

Holding Your Breath

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), Irish-American novelist and short story writer, Undated letter to his daughter "Scottie" (Frances Scott Fitzgerald) 

He Is A Talker

Time will explain it all.  He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.

-- Euripides (480 BC - 406 BC), Greek playwright, Æolus, Frag. 38

Perfect

Ah, another perfect day in my perfect life with my perfect job.

-- Homer Simpson, "And Maggie Makes Three" (Season 6, episode 13) 22 January 1995

Never Put Off

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it.  No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.

-- Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694 - 1773), British statesman and man of letters, Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774), entry for 26 December 1749

To Persuade Ourselves

Nous n'avouons de petits défauts que pour persuader que nous n'en avons pas de grands.

We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves we have no great ones.

-- François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac (15 September 1613 - 17 March 1680), French author of maxims and memoirs,  Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665-1678), Maxim 327

Great Skill

C'est une grande habileté que de savoir cacher son habileté.

There is great skill in knowing how to conceal one's skill.

-- François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac (15 September 1613 - 17 March 1680), French author of maxims and memoirs,  Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665-1678), Maxim 245

For Others

Il est plus aisé d'être sage pour les autres que de l'être pour soi-même.

It is easier to be wise for others than for oneself.

-- François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac (15 September 1613 - 17 March 1680), French author of maxims and memoirs,  Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665-1678), Maxim 132

Indefinitely Perfectible

The methods of science aren't foolproof, but they are indefinitely perfectible.  Just as important: there is a tradition of criticism that enforces improvement whenever and wherever flaws are discovered.

-- Daniel Clement Dennett III (1942 - 2024), American atheist philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist, "Postmodernism and Truth", delivered at the 1998 World Congress of Philosophy (13 August 1998)

Not A Single One

Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.

-- Daniel Clement Dennett III (1942 - 2024), American atheist philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist, Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (2005), p. 2

Quietly Available

We used to think that secrecy was perhaps the greatest enemy of democracy, and as long as there was no suppression or censorship, people could be trusted to make the informed decisions that would preserve our free society, but we have learned in recent years that the techniques of misinformation and misdirection have become so refined that, even in an open society, a cleverly directed flood of misinformation can overwhelm the truth, even though the truth is out there, uncensored, quietly available to anyone who can find it.

-- Daniel Clement Dennett III (1942 - 2024), American atheist philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist, Breaking the Spell: Religion As A Natural Phenomenon (2006)

Nor The Problem

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

-- Sir Karl Raimund Popper (1902 - 1994), Austrian-British philosopher, academic, and social commentator, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1972)

Familiar Doctrine

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

-- Henry Louis (H. L.) Mencken (12 September 1880 - 29 January 1956), journalist, satirist, social critic, and freethinker, Prejudices, Third Series (1922) Ch. 3

Never Interrupt

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

-- Napoléon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821), French military general, First Consul of the French Republic, and then Emperor of the French and King of Italy under the name Napoleon I, as quoted in The Military Quotation Book (2002) by James Charlton, p. 93

The Great Enemy

The great enemy of communication is the illusion of it.

-- William H. Whyte Jr. (1917 - 1999), American urbanist, sociologist, organizational analyst, and people-watcher, "Is Anybody Listening?" Fortune Magazine (1950)

RIP James Earl Jones

I have never traveled to anyone else's drumbeat.  Some people have called me a rebel.  I qualify as one.  A lot of it is inadvertent, unintentional, not a gesture at all, just me, just the nature of myself, finding my own drumbeat.

-- James Earl Jones (17 January 1931 - 9 September 2024), American actor known for his roles in film and theater; one of the few performers to have achieved EGOT status (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards), Voices and Silences (1993; 2002) p. 357 (2002 edition)

So Confident

The problem is not that Christians are conservative or liberal, but that some are so confident that their position is God's position that they become dismissive and intolerant toward others and divisive forces in our national life.

-- John Danforth (1936 -), former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, former U.S. Senator (R-MO), and ordained Episcopal priest, Faith and Politics (2006) p. 10

The Day You Follow

The day you follow someone you cease to follow Truth.

-- Anthony de Mello (1931 - 1987), Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, and writer who became widely known for his books on spirituality, One Minute Wisdom (1989) Discipleship

A Collective Hunch

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.

-- Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin (1939 -), American actress, comedian, writer, and producer since the late 1960s, speaking as Trudy in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985), written by Tomlin's spouse Jane Wagner

I Am Grateful

I have managed to conceal my madness fairly effectively, and as far as I know it hasn't hurt anybody badly, for which I am grateful.

-- William Saroyan (1908 - 1981), Armenian American author, My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)

Dissatisfied Unless

You can't satisfy everybody; especially if there are those who will be dissatisfied unless not everybody is satisfied.

-- Robert Nozick (1938 - 2002), American libertarian philosopher, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; The Framework as Utopian Common Ground, p. 320

What Sides

If you wish to know someone, you need only observe that on which he bestows his care, and what sides of his own nature he cultivates.

-- John Kessel (1950 -), American author of science fiction and fantasy, Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance (2009) in Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan (eds.) The New Space Opera 2, p. 93

Risk

Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing. 

-- Warren Edward Buffett (30 August 1930 -), American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, currently chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, "The Three Essential Warren Buffett Quotes To Live By" forbes.com (20 April 2014)

Ignorance In Action

Nothing is more frightful than to see ignorance in action.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 - 22 March 1832), German novelist, dramatist, poet, and philosopher, Maxims and Reflections (1833) Maxim 542, translation by Elisabeth Stopp

Teaching By Examples

I have read somewhere or other -- in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think -- that history is philosophy teaching by examples.

-- Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678 - 1751), English statesman and philosopher, On the Study and Use of History, letter 2; in fact this relates to a third-century AD treatise on rhetoric, wrongly attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which says (xi. 2): "The contact with manners then is education; and this Thucydides appears to assert when he says history is philosophy learned from examples".  The line is not found in Thucydides

Restraint

Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most.

-- Frank Byron Jevons (1858 - 1936), English polymath, academic and administrator of Durham University, A History of Greek Literature: From the Earliest Period to the Death of Demosthenes (1886) pp. 340

A Little Bit Short

This was the last week in office for me because of a horrible, horrible election where I got many millions more votes than I did the first time, but didn’t quite make it, just a little bit short.  Just a little bit short.

-- Former president Donald Trump, speaking to reporters at the southern border about a chart showing weekly migrant encounters, and apparently acknowledging for the first time that he lost the 2020 election, despite his past insistence that the election was stolen (22 August 2024)

Demarcation

The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.

-- Sir William Francis Butler (1838 - 1910), Irish 19th-century British Army officer, writer, and adventurer, in Charles George Gordon (1889), p. 85

Affirmative Action

[Kamala Harris] understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward, we will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.  If we bankrupt the business or choke in a crisis, we do not get a second, third or fourth chance.  If things do not go our way, we do not have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead.  No.  We don't get to change the rules so we always win.  If we see a mountain in front of us, we don't expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top.  No.  We put our heads down.  We get to work.  In America, we do something.

-- Former First Lady Michelle Obama speaking at the Democratic National Convention, 20 August 2024

A Ghost In The Machine

Consciousness is unquantifiable, a ghost in the machine, barely considered real at all, though in a sense this flickering mosaic of awareness is the only true reality that we can ever know.

-- Alan Moore (1953 -), British writer, most famous for his influential work in comic-books and graphic novels, "What Is Reality?" London Weekend Television (27 July 1998) 

Recognition Of Illusion

If you can recognize illusion as illusion, it dissolves.  The recognition of illusion is also its ending.  Its survival depends on your mistaking it for reality. 

-- Eckhart Tolle (1948 -), German / Canadian spiritual teacher, motivational speaker, and writer, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, (2005)

Theory And Practice

If you find that you're spending almost all your time on theory, start turning some attention to practical things; it will improve your theories.  If you find that you're spending almost all your time on practice, start turning some attention to theoretical things; it will improve your practice.

-- Donald Knuth (1938 -), American computer scientist, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, and winner of the 1974 Turing Award, quoted in: Arturo Gonzalez-Gutierrez (2007) Minimum-length Corridors: Complexity and Approximations. p. 99

You Cannot Have One

If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.

-- John Galsworthy OM (1867 - 1933), English novelist and playwright, 1932 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Swan Song (1928) Pt. II, Ch. 6

Untidy

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.

-- John Galsworthy OM (1867 - 1933), English novelist and playwright, 1932 Nobel Laureate in Literature, One More River (1933) Chapter 1

Most Effective

The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.

-- Brian Kernighan (1 January 1942 -), computer scientist who worked at the Bell Labs and contributed to the design of the pioneering AWK and AMPL programming languages, most well-known for his co-authorship, with Dennis Ritchie, of the first book on the C programming language, "Unix for Beginners" (1979)

Universal Good

The ultimate notion of right is that which tends to the universal good; and when one's acting in a certain manner has this tendency, he has a right thus to act.

-- Francis Hutcheson (8 August 1694 - 8 August 1746), Irish philosopher, A System of Moral Philosophy (1755) Book II, Ch. III, § VII

Acutely Aware

I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers.  And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many ...  If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises.  I have not campaigned either for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency.  I have not subscribed to any partisan platform.  I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman -- my dear wife, Betty -- as I begin this very difficult job ...  

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over ...  Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.  Here the people rule.  But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.

-- President Gerald Ford, in a speech immediately after taking the presidential oath (9 August 1974)

Nixon Resignation

In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. ...

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first.

America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.

To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.

Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office. ...

To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.

-- President Richard Nixon, in a speech announcing his intention to resign the presidency the following day due to the Watergate scandal, 8 August 1974

Doing Nothing

To tell the truth, the only thing more exhausting than doing something is doing nothing at all.

-- Jack Laurence Chalker (1944 - 2005), American science fiction author, Midnight at the Well of Souls (1977) Chapter 2, "Another Part of the Field" (pp. 25-26)

A Task Becomes A Duty

A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility.

-- Dag Hammarskjöld (1905 - 1961), Swedish diplomat, second United Nations Secretary-General, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Markings (1964)

Monopoly

After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.  It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

-- Judge Amit P. Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in his ruling in United States of America v Google LLC (5 August 2024)