Monday, July 30, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 30, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 30, 2012



"I want to be remembered as someone who did her duty."

- Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese activist, at a pre-election press conference in 2012.

[https://bahaidao.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/aung-san-suu-kyi-va-m%E1%BB%99t-con-cho/]

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Jul. 19, 2012

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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 24, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 24, 2012



"The spirit is most often free when the body is satiated with pleasure: indeed, sometimes the stars shine more brightly seen from the gutter than from the hilltop."

- W. Somerset Maugham

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Jul. 19, 2012

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Monday, July 23, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 23, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 23, 2012



"I have myself spent many years pleading that our schools should become more acutely aware of the world in which their pupils and students are destined to pass their lives. Now I sometimes wonder whether that current has not become too strong and whether there would be sufficient opportunity for a full life if the world were emptied of some of the useless things that give it spiritual significance; in other words, whether our conception of what is useful may not have become too narrow to be adequate to the roaming and capricious possibilities of the human spirit.

...

"I am not for a moment suggesting that everything that goes on in laboratories will ultimately turn to some unexpected practical use or that an ultimate practical use is its actual justification. Much more am I pleading for the abolition of the word "use," and for the freeing of the human spirit. To be sure, we shall thus free some harmless cranks. To be sure, we shall thus waste some precious dollars. But what is infinitely more important is that we shall be striking the shackles off the human mind and setting it free..."

- Abraham Flexner, from The Usefulness Of Useless Knowledge (1939).

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Jul. 16, 2012

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Sunday, July 22, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 22, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 22, 2012



"Sex is the poor man's polo."

- Clifford Odets

Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk
Jul. 19, 2012

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Saturday, July 21, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 21, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 21, 2012



"He insisted on using punch cards, even when everybody had computer screens. He gave two reasons for this: when you sit in front of a screen your ability to think clearly declines because you're distracted by irrelevancies, and when you store your data on magnetic media you can't be sure they're there permanently, you actually don't know where they are at all."

- Simen Gaure, describing the work habits of mathematician Nils Barricelli.

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Jul. 16, 2012

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Friday, July 20, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 20, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 20, 2012



"I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television."

- Gore Vidal

Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk
Jul. 19, 2012

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Thursday, July 19, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 19, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 19, 2012



"For example, if you think of the items cat, dog, and zucchini, you don't actually have a full conceptual representation of any of these items in your short-term memory. Instead, you have three links. For example, the first item (cat) leads to the neurons that encode your long-term understanding of a small, carnivorous, and highly manipulative life form that's related to the lion, but has discovered a way to coax many more calories out of a single human."

- Matthew MacDonald, in Your Brain: The Missing Manual. (Chapter Five: Memory)

Submitted by: Thomas J. Newlin
Jul. 11, 2012

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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 18, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 18, 2012



"The danger of the government deciding what is true and not true, real and unreal, should be obvious. For example, some might say that a belief in God or in a particular religion, for example, or in the "Book of Revelations"8 is not supported by demonstrable facts. Books that repeat the predictions of Nostradamus and the daily newspaper horoscope could be banned under the City's reasoning.

"If there is to be progress for mankind, men and women must be allowed to dream, imagine, and be visionaries for the future even if there are then no "demonstrable facts" to support their fantasies. And they should be able to share their dreams, imaginations and visions with others free of government interference. While some of those who sometimes predict the future can be said to base their prognostications on education, training and experience-doctors and insurance companies estimating how long someone might live, auto mechanics opining as to how long your brakes will last, even lawyers predicting a jury's likely verdict-there should be no government prohibition of those with fewer facts, gazing into the future and voicing their beliefs as well. To apply the ordinance literally would outlaw every "amateur psychiatrist, parlor sage and barstool philosopher" in Alexandria who dares to suggest to another what the future may hold.

"My use of allegory and analogy is intended to demonstrate why we cannot afford to allow government to squelch free thought and speech without a compelling interest, and why even a fortune-teller's speech must be protected. For a government to believe that it knows all that is true and real, no matter how obvious it thinks it is, is arrogance, pure and simple. Our Constitution protects us from such government oppression."

- James D. Kirk, Magistrate Judge, Report and Recommendation in Rachel J. Adams v. City of Alexandria. [Quoted at http://www.popehat.com/2012/07/17/you-knew-i-was-going-to-write-about-this/]

Submitted by: Chris Doherty
Jul. 17, 2012

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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 17, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 17, 2012



"One cannot stumble on an idea unless one is running."

- Vladimir Zworykin, inventor.

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Jul. 16, 2012

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Monday, July 16, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 16, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 16, 2012



"The trouble with people is they don't understand people."

- David Goodis, from his novel Nightfall.

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Jul. 12, 2012

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Sunday, July 15, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 15, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 15, 2012



"I'm very interested in what they're doing. But I have the feeling that I don't get the really important things, the things that are really troubling them. That disturbs me. The kids have the same kind of shyness and hesitancy to bringing up anything emotional that I have."

- Roy Lichtenstein, artist, on his relationship with his sons. Quoted in Vanity Fair, August 1993.

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Jul. 12, 2012

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Saturday, July 14, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 14, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 14, 2012



Ingrid Bergman, Ingrid Bergman,
Let's go make a picture
On the island of Stromboli, Ingrid Bergman


Ingrid Bergman, you're so perty,
You'd make any mountain quiver
You'd make my fire fly from the crater
Ingrid Bergman

- Woody Guthrie, from his song Ingrid Bergman. 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Guthrie's birth on July 14, 1912.

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Jul. 13, 2012

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Friday, July 13, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 13, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 13, 2012



"It ws the perfect time to think silver. Silver was the future, it was spacy - the astronauts wore silver suits - Shepherd, Grissom and Glenn had already been up in them, and their equipment was silver too. And silver was also the past - the Silver Screen-Hollywood actresses photographed in silver sets.

"And maybe more than anything, silver was narcissism -- mirrors were backed with silver."

- Andy Warhol, from Popism.

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Jul. 12, 2012

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Thursday, July 12, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 12, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 12, 2012



"...it is difficult to believe that what the Republicans put together during their convention in Fort Worth was even written in the 21st century."

- John T. Harvey, Professor of Economics at Texas Christian University.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2012/07/01/texas-gop-platform/]

Submitted by: Duffy O'Craven
Jul. 11, 2012

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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 11, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 11, 2012



Four and fifty years
I've hung the sky with stars.
Now I leap through --
What shattering!

- Dogen (1200-1253), Buddhist poet, who was the founder of the Soto branch of Zen Buddhism in Japan.

Submitted by: Kathleen Magone
May 15, 2012

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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 10, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 10, 2012



Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.

- Philip Larkin, from his poem "Dockery and Son".

Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk
Jun. 13, 2012

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Sunday, July 8, 2012

Quotation of the day for July 8, 2012

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Quotation of the Day for July 8, 2012



"The profound metaphysical error...occurs when the believer supposes that whatever is not validated by scientific method does not exist. This is a dogma which has penetrated the very grammar of modern thought... [The] implications are not widely recognized; yet, eliminate choice at this a priori level, do so as a given principle of scientific method, generalize its structure of understanding to market demand and state policy formation, and you have the master assumption of the totalitarian value-set -- that no real choice exists..."

- John McMurtry, Value Wars: The Global Market versus the Life Economy

Submitted by: Bob Bruhin
Jun. 26, 2012

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