Quotation of the day for February 28, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 28, 2011 "For instance, we are told that the famous Athenian Themistocles was endowed with wisdom and genius on a scale quite surpassing belief, and it is said that a certain learned and highly accomplished person went to him and offered to impart to him the science of mnemonics, which was then being introduced for the first time ; and that when Themistocles asked what precise result that science was capable of achieving, the professor asserted that it would enable him to remember everything; and Themistocles replied that he would be doing him a greater kindness if he taught him to forget what he wanted than if he taught him to remember." - Cicero, de Oratore 2.74.299-300, translated by E. W. Sutton. Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 24, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 27, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 27, 2011 "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." - Vince Lombardi Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 23, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 26, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 26, 2011 "Arcade Fire are now one of the biggest live acts in the world. It's not all about record sales. It's about making great records and it's about building a loyal fan base. Ther band make great albums, they're not a radio driven singles band. On top of that, they own their own masters and copyrights and are in complete control of their own destiny. Things couldn't be better. "Excuse any typos as I'm on my blackberry" - Scott Rodger, manager of the band Arcade Fire, responding to whining about the band's win at the 2011 Grammy awards by music executive Steve Stoute. [http://themusic.com.au/newsletter/#arcade-fire-we-deserved-the-grammy] Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 24, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 25, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 25, 2011 "Intoxication is by its nature faceless and cosmopolitan. The high that hit him a few minutes later had nothing in common with the promise implied by the bottle's label with its cypresses, antique arches and brilliant stars in a dark-blue sky. There was nothing in it to indicate that the port wine actually came from the left bank of the Crimea, and the suspicion even flashed through his mind that if it had come from the right bank, or even from Moldavia, the world around him would still have changed in the same fashion." - Victor Pelevin, from his novel Buddha's Little Finger (translated by Andrew Bromfield). Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 16, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 24, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 24, 2011 "Hold fast, this is most necessary in America. Forget your past, your customs, and your ideals. Select a goal and pursue it with all your might. No matter what happens to you, hold on. You will experience a bad time, but sooner or later you will achieve your goal." - United States Immigrants Manual, 1891. Quoted in The American Past: A Survey of American History by Joseph R. Conlin. Submitted by: Robert Stump Feb. 22, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 23, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 23, 2011 "It's our perception that good ideas should stand out for themselves. It's not about the packaging; it's about the work." - Wendy Rozeluk, a communications manager for Google, on workplace dress codes. Quoted in the article "Dress code debate divides workplaces", February 17, 2011. [http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Dress+code+debate+divides+workplaces/4288775/story.html] Submitted by: Lynn Kisilenko Feb. 19, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 22, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 22, 2011 "After that trip, things changed. It seemed to me that all of us were leaving the high and easy time of life and heading into deeper waters. Not long after we got back, Djarf had a worm crawl up a hole in his foot and had to give up raiding. Gnut and Mary turned to homesteading full-time, and I saw less of him. Just catching up over a jar turned into a hassle you had to plan two weeks in advance. And when we did get together, he would laugh and jaw with me a little bit, but you could see he had his mind on other things. He'd gotten what he wanted, but he didn't seem too happy about it, just worried all the time. "It didn't make much sense to me then, what Gnut was going through, but after Pila and me had our little twins, and we put a family together, I got an understanding of how terrible love can be. You wish you hated those people, your wife and children, because you know the things the world will do to them, because you have done some of those things yourself. It's crazy-making, yet you cling to them with everything and close your eyes against the rest of it. But still you wake up late at night and lie there listening for the creak and splash of oars, the clank of steel, the sounds of men rowing toward your home." - Wells Tower, from his short story about Vikings, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. The story was published in 2009 in a collection of the same name. Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 15, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 21, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 21, 2011 "The most striking result from experience sampling is that almost all of the most pleasurable activities of the day take place outside of work--having sex, being with family, seeing friends, and so forth. The less pleasant aspects of the day involve activities associated with one's job, including commuting." - Derek Bok, in his 2010 book The politics of happiness. [We needed "experience sampling" to tell us this? -eds.] Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 17, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 20, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 20, 2011 "Watson has lots in common with a top-ranked human Jeopardy! player: It's very smart, very fast, speaks in an uneven monotone, and has never known the touch of a woman." - Ken Jennings on playing Jeopardy! against a supercomputer. [http://www.slate.com/id/2284721/] Submitted by: D. Joseph Creighton Feb. 17, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 19, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 19, 2011 "...the familiar trope of "balancing privacy and security" is a source of constant frustration to privacy advocates, because while there are clearly sometimes tradeoffs between the two, it often seems that the zero-sum rhetoric of "balancing" leads people to view them as always in conflict. This is, I suspect, the source of much of the psychological appeal of "security theater": If we implicitly think of privacy and security as balanced on a scale, a loss of privacy is ipso facto a gain in security. It sounds silly when stated explicitly, but the power of frames is precisely that they shape our thinking without being stated explicitly." - Julian Sanchez [http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/02/04/the-trouble-with-balance-metaphors/] Submitted by: Phil Wolff Feb. 12, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 18, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 18, 2011 "Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life's experiences? If you are worried about missing out on desirable experiences, we can suppose that business enterprises have researched thoroughly the lives of many others. You can pick and choose from their large library or smorgasbord of such experiences, selecting your life's experiences for, say, the next two years. After two years have passed, you will have ten minutes or ten hours out of the tank, to select the experiences of your next two years. Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think it's all actually happening. Others can also plug in to have the experiences they want, so there's no need to stay unplugged to serve them. (Ignore problems such as who will service the machines if everyone plugs in.) Would you plug in?" - Robert Nozick, in his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 17, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 17, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 17, 2011 "The world is my oyster, but I'm allergic to shellfish." - Mathias Korn, from his band Spring Breakup's album It's Not You, It's Me. Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk Feb. 14, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 16, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 16, 2011 "I think most men, if not all, is missin' an element, anyways." "What's that mean?" "Men got a kind of automatic shutoff valve in their head? Like, you're talkin' to one and just gettin' to the part where you're gonna say what you really been wantin' to say, and then you say it and you look at him and he ain't even heard it. Not like it's too complicated or something', just he ain't about to really listen. One might lie sometime and tell ya he knows just what you mean, but I ain't buyin'. 'Cause later you say somethin' else he woulda got if he'd understood you in the first place, only he don't, and you know you been talkin' for no good reason. It's frustratin'." - Barry Gifford, from his novel Wild at Heart: The story of Sailor and Lula. Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 10, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 15, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 15, 2011 "Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe." - Jonah Lehrer's disturbing concluding remarks on the problem of repeatability in scientific experiments, in his New Yorker article, The Truth Wears Off. [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all] Submitted by: Prem Pahlajrai Feb. 5, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 14, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 14, 2011 You pull my pin and you trip my wire You come in and set my heart on fire You knock me out, you rock me off my axis You and me are gasoline and matches - Buddy and Julie Miller, from their song Gasoline And Matches, recorded on the 2009 album Written In Chalk. [Happy Valentine's Day! -eds.] Submitted by: Terry Labach May 29, 2009

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Quotation of the day for February 13, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 13, 2011 Hey now, Geordie, sing us all a song Whoa there, Geordie, where's your mother tongue? It don't sound like Tyneside to me Geordie, are you from Jamaic ' ee? Here comes Geordie in his private plane Got to save the planet once again Good old Geordie, righteous as can be Cut down the forest just to save a tree - Richard Thompson, from his song Here Comes Geordie, which appears on his 2010 album Dream Attic. [http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=622] Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 8, 2011

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Quotation of the day for February 12, 2011

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Quotation of the Day for February 12, 2011 They're out there making history In the Lenin Shipyards today And here I am in the Hammersmith Hotel Wishing the days away - Billy Bragg, from his song Wishing The Days Away. [The submitter notes: I was listening to an interview with a protestor in Cairo this week and this song popped into my head. Bragg is referring to the Solidarity strike at the Lenin Shipyards 30 years ago.] Submitted by: Terry Labach Feb. 11, 2011

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