Maintain Our Vigil

We are called to honor our own words of reverent prayer with resolution in the deeds we must perform to preserve peace and the hope of freedom.  We keep a vigil of peace around the world.  Until the world knows no aggressors, until the arms of tyranny have been laid down, until freedom has risen up in every land, we shall maintain our vigil to make sure our sons who died on foreign fields shall not have died in vain.

-- Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973), Memorial Day speech, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 30 May 1963

Proverb

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.

-- Miguel de Cervantes (1547 - 1616), Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright, author of Don Quixote

Inseparable

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. ...  Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

-- Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992), Austrian, later British, Nobel prize-winning economist and philosopher, The Constitution of Liberty (1960)

Every Day

Do one thing every day that scares you.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962), American First Lady, diplomat, activist

We Teach Nothing

My view is this: We teach nothing.  We do not teach physics nor do we teach students.  (I take physics merely as an example.) What is the same thing: No one is taught anything! Here lies the folly of this business.  We try to teach somebody nothing.  This is a sorry endeavour for no one can be taught a thing.  What we do, if we are successful, is to stir interest in the matter at hand, awaken enthusiasm for it, arouse a curiosity, kindle a feeling, fire up the imagination.  To my own teachers who handled me in this way, I owe a great and lasting debt.

-- Julius Sumner Miller (1909-1987), American science popularizer, What Science Teaching Needs, Junior College Journal, volume 38 (1967), American Association of Junior Colleges, Stanford University

Labels

Labels are for the things men make, not for men.  The most primitive man is too complex to be labeled.

-- Rex Stout (1886-1975), American author, creator of the fictional detective Nero Wolfe, The Father Hunt (1968)

Shocking

I perfectly understand that a believer can be shocked by a satirical cartoon about Muhammad, Jesus, Moses or even the pope.  But growing up to be a citizen is to learn that some ideas, some words, some images can be shocking.  Being shocked is a part of democratic debate.  Being shot is not.

-- Charlie Hebdo editor Girard Biard accepting a Freedom of Expression Courage Award at the PEN American Center in New York City, 5 May 2015

Magnitude Of Falsity

The magnitude of falsity, conservatively measured, is enormous.

-- Judge Denise L. Cote, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruling that two banks misled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in selling them mortgage bonds, New York Times, 13 May 2015

Oversteer Vs Understeer

Oversteer is the back of the car hitting the wall.  Understeer is the front of the car hitting the wall.  Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall. Torque is how much of the wall you take with you.

-- Unknown stockcar driver

In Re Pension Reform Litigation

Our economy is and has always been subject to fluctuations, sometimes very extreme fluctuations.  The law was clear that the promised benefits would therefore have to be paid and that the responsibility for providing the state's share of the necessary funding fell squarely on the legislature's shoulders.

The General Assembly may find itself in crisis, but it is a crisis which other public pension systems managed to avoid and ... it is a crisis for which the General Assembly itself is largely responsible.

It is our obligation, however, just as it is theirs, to ensure that the law is followed.  That is true at all times.  It is especially important in times of crisis when, as this case demonstrates, even clear principles and long-standing precedent are threatened.  Crisis is not an excuse to abandon the rule of law.  It is a summons to defend it.

-- Republican Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier, in the unanimous opinion In Re Pension Reform Litigation, 8 May 2015

Complexity

Contrary to what the politicians and religious leaders would like us to believe, the world won't be made safer by creating barriers between people. Cries of "They're evil, let's get 'em" or "The infidels must die" sound frightening, but they're desperately empty of argument and understanding. They're the rallying cries of prejudice, the call to arms of those who find it easier to hate than admit they might be not be [sic] right about everything.  Armageddon is not around the corner.  This is only what the people of violence want us to believe.  The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

-- Michael Palin (5 May 1943-), English comedian and actor, of Monty Python fame, "Letter from London" (18 September 2003)

Simplicity

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

-- Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and natural philosopher, cited in Rules for methodizing the Apocalypse, Rule 9, from a manuscript published in The Religion of Isaac Newton (1974) by Frank E. Manuel, p. 120

Bday 2015

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I don't expect this to make much sense to very many people. If you do recognize this relic, then welcome, brother or sister.

Reward For Conformity

I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.

-- Rita Mae Brown (1944-), American writer

History

This isn't the way you want to make history.

-- Chris Davis, the Baltimore Orioles' first baseman, on playing the White Sox in Camden Yards without fans, due to fear of riots, 30 April 2015

Driven

Ferraris are art, but they love being driven.

-- Chris Evans, British presenter and DJ, Live magazine, the Mail on Sunday (UK) newspaper, 29 November 2009

Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.  Murphy's First Corollary: If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.

-- George E. Woodberry (1855-1930), American poet, critic, and teacher

Struggle

Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world.

-- Mary Wollstonecraft (27 April 1759 - 10 September 1797), English social philosopher and pioneering advocate of women's rights, mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)

Rosie The Riveter

Today, 24 April 2015, Mary Doyle Keefe passed away at the age of 92.  She was just 19 years old when Norman Rockwell paid her $10 to pose for a 1943 cover of the Saturday Evening Post as "Rosie the Riveter".

Not Smart Enough

I personally think we are just not smart enough - and won't be for a very long time - to feel comfortable about the consequences of changing heredity, even in a single individual.

-- David Baltimore, a former president of the California Institute of Technology, on a call for a moratorium on using a gene editing technique to change human DNA, New York Times, 20 March 2015

Earth Laughs

Earth laughs in flowers.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American philosopher and poet, Hamatreya (1846)

Resign Themselves

In today's society a good many people seem to have the idea that if one is born without talent, there is nothing he can do about it; they simply resign themselves to what they consider their "fate".  Consequently they go through life without living it to the fullest or ever knowing life's true joy.  That is man's greatest tragedy.

-- Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998), violinist, inventor of the Suzuki method of music education, Nurtured by Love: The Classic Approach to Talent Education (1977, 1983)

Representation

Representation gets a bad rap.  Its inadequacy is inbuilt; it's doomed to fail us; the thing it strives to capture and communicate endlessly eludes it.  But it's what we have, so we use our crude visual and verbal tools to circumscribe, gibber, and gesture.  Drooling a bit, we imagine a method of communication that would translate its subject perfectly and entirely. Prior to the age of #nofilter, photography was believed to contain this possibility.  Sometimes the medium -- particularly the documentary genre -- still pretends.

-- Cassie Packard, London-based arts writer, "Martha Rosler Tackles the Problem of Representation," Hyperallergic, 16 October 2014

Passive Resistance

"Passive resistance," said Ferdinand Lassalle, with an obtuseness thoroughly German, "is the resistance which does not resist." Never was there a greater mistake.  It is the only resistance which in these days of military discipline resists with any result.  There is not a tyrant in the civilized world today who would not do anything in his power to precipitate a bloody revolution rather than see himself confronted by any large fraction of his subjects determined not to obey.  An insurrection is easily quelled; but no army is willing or able to train its guns on inoffensive people who do not even gather in the streets but stay at home and stand back on their rights.  Neither the ballot nor the bayonet is to play any great part in the coming struggle; passive resistance is the instrument by which the revolutionary force is destined to secure in the last great conflict the people's rights forever.

-- Benjamin Tucker (1854-1939), American editor, publisher, and proponent of anarchism, Passive Resistance

Our Friend's Or Our Foe's

Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone.  I enquire after no man's and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right.

-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States, Letter to Miles King (26 September 1814)

Random Billionaire

It just takes a random billionaire to change a race and maybe change the country.

-- Trevor Potter, a Republican campaign finance lawyer, talking in part about Robert Mercer, a major financial supporter of Ted Cruz's candidacy, 11 April 2015

A Society Of Privacy

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy.  The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe.  Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

-- Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982) Russian novelist, philosopher, playwright, screenwriter, The Fountainhead (1943)

True Secret To Genius

The true secret to genius is in creativity, not in technical mechanics.

-- Al Seckel (1958-), American authority on visual and other types of sensory illusions, and how they relate to perception

To Click Or Not

We are, to some degree, our own editors when we choose to click or not. Perhaps we'll soon be seeing videos of all such violent deaths that a ready cell phone happens to record.  To say that one hopes not is not to wish for censorship but for consistent, respectful restraint.

-- Philip Gourevitch on the Walter Scott video, The New Yorker, 9 April 2015

Different

To shred the bodies of young women and children with a homemade bomb, you've got to be different from other people.

-- Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb in closing arguments in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted 8 April 2015 in the Boston Marathon bombing

A Sad Soul

A sad soul can kill quicker, far quicker, than a germ.

-- John Steinbeck (1902-1968), American author, 1962 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Travels with Charley in Search of America (1962)

Everywhere

Look around you.  Everywhere.  They are there.  In every home -- lurking in dark corners ... small, bi-pedal entities with almost human brains play their games in which adults are the pawns.  They play and wait for the time when they will take over the world!

-- John Blair Moore, (1948-), 20th century American comic book writer/artist, Invaders from Home, Piranha Press (1990), Book 1 of 6

Nothing Matters More

Nothing matters more to a child than a place to call home.

-- Brenda Donald, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Human Resources, "Brenda Donald: Mission possible for Maryland: 1,000 new foster parents by 2010", Examiner.com, 5 February 2008

It Gives A Light

As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before.

-- Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768 - 1848), French writer, politician, and diplomat, as quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), by Tyron Edwards

Vibrations

We give too many people the power to lower our vibrations.  Stand true to your own frequency.

-- Unknown

Fundamental

I believe the preservation of our civil liberties to be the most fundamental and important of all our governmental problems, because it always has been with us and always will be with us and if we ever permit those liberties to be destroyed, there will be nothing left in our system worthy of preservation.

-- Earl Warren (1891-1974), Governor of California (1943-1953) and Chief Justice of the United States (1953-1969)

Which One?

Well, I guess the question is, which one?

-- White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, when asked why the president did not take Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his word about his support for a two-state solution, New York Times, 21 March 2015

Traffic

The problem with traffic is that the people of today are driving the cars of tomorrow on the roads of yesterday.

-- Bob Talbert (1936-1999), American journalist, Detroit Free Press, ca. 1987

Our Greatness

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves.

-- Professor Michael N. Nagler (1937-), American academic and peace activist, in his foreword to Gandhi the Man (1978) by Eknath Easwaran, p. 8

Two Things

Two things cause people to be destroyed: fear of poverty and seeking superiority through pride.

-- Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (~601-661), cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Majlisi, Bihrul Anwr, vol. 72, p. 39

Scion FR-S (New Toy)

I still have my 1999 Saturn SC-2 (366K miles and counting), but today I picked up an impractical but fun toy, a 2015 Scion FR-S.

http://www.scion.com/cars/FR-S2015/colors/

This is the first car I've bought new since about 1986, before I got married.  I got my car in a color they call Halo which is White.  Automatic transmissions have come a long way in the past couple of decades, but I opted for the 6-speed manual.  Fuel efficiency isn't great, but isn't terrible either; I'm hoping for about 30 mpg combined.  I'll know more after a couple of tanks of gas.

It's a small, 2-door coupe, with front engine, rear-wheel drive, and a low center of gravity.  There's not a ton of power, but the handling is first rate.  And it's a generation ahead of the Saturn both under the hood and in the electronics.

The Waiting Time

But the waiting time, my brothers,
    Is the hardest time of all.

-- Sarah Doudney (1841-1926), English novelist and poet, Psalms of Life, The Hardest Time of All.

218

We really don't have 218 votes to determine a bathroom break over here on our side, so how are we going to get 218 votes on transportation, or trade, or whatever the issue?

-- Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA) on divisions in his party as it faces budget bills, New York Times, 9 March 2015

Invent The Methods

The art of teaching consists in large part of interesting people in things that ought to interest them, but do not.  The task of educators is to discover what an education is and then to invent the methods of interesting their students in it.

-- Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977), American educational philosopher, Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Cracked Up

[A]dults are not all they're cracked up to be.  And most of them are wrong most of the time.  This can be quite revelatory for a kid - often launching them on a personal quest of exploration, rather than of Q&A sessions with their parents.

-- Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958-), American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator, when asked, "If you could impress one thing on young people today, what would it be?", 13 November 2011


http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/mateq/i_am_neil_degrasse_tyson_ama/

Born Scientists

Kids are never the problem.  They are born scientists.  The problem is *always* the adults.  They beat the curiosity out of kids.  They out-number kids.  They vote.  They wield resources.  That's why my public focus is primarily adults.

-- Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958-), American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator, comment by @neiltyson to the reddit discussion "I am Neil deGrasse Tyson -- AMA", 13 November 2011

One Simple Thing

There is one simple thing wrong with you -- you think you have plenty of time ...  If you don't think your life is going to last forever, what are you waiting for?  Why the hesitation to change?  You don't have time for this display, you fool.  This, whatever you're doing now, may be your last act on earth.  It may very well be your last battle.  There is no power which could guarantee that you are going to live one more minute.

-- Carlos Castaneda (? - 27 April 1998), American author and anthropologist, Journey to Ixtlan

Pizza Hut Pizza From Domino's

If I ask for pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch but clarify that I would be fine with a pizza from Domino's, and I then specify that I want ham and pepperoni on my pizza from Pizza Hut, my friend who returns from Domino's with a ham and pepperoni pizza has still complied with a literal construction of my lunch order.

-- Judge Andre Davis, in a concurring opinion of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals which upheld the King case, currently being argued in appeal before the Supreme Court, July 2014

Money Is Oxygen

Money is oxygen for terrorism.

-- Kent A. Yalowitz, a lawyer for families who won a $655 million judgment against the Palestinian Authority and the PLO for their role in terror attacks that killed and wounded Americans in Israel, New York Times, 24 February 2015

Willing To Give Up Being

You must want to be a butterfly so badly, you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.

-- Sekou Andrews, poet, at TEDx San Diego, December 2011


If you have 7 minutes to spare, the following video is pretty entertaining, though it doesn't include the above quote:

https://vimeo.com/35974939

A Garden

A life is like a garden.  Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.  LLAP

-- Leonard Nimoy (26 March 1931 - 27 February 2015), American actor, film director, and poet, final tweet of @TheRealNimoy on Twitter, 1:36 AM, 23 February 2015