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Politics5 quotes
We campaign in poetry. But when we're elected we're forced to govern in prose. — Mario Cuomo · 1985The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan · 1985Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. — Mao Zedong · 1938There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1841Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. — Lord Acton · 1877Nature4 quotes
In Wildness is the preservation of the World. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences. — Robert G. Ingersoll · 1881I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851Art3 quotes
Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid, and works its effect itself unseen. — Joshua Reynolds · 1774Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. — Vladimir NabokovWe must have religion for religion's sake, morality for morality's sake, as with art for art's sake... The beautiful cannot be the way to what is useful, or to what is good, or to what is holy; it leads only to itself. — Victor Cousin · 1818Knowledge3 quotes
I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be. — William Thomson, Lord Kelvin · 1883If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? — T.H. Huxley · 1877When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science. — William Thomson, Lord Kelvin · 1883Law3 quotes
The law must be stable, and yet it cannot stand still. — Roscoe Pound · 1921The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1880The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1880Learning3 quotes
For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows. — Epictetus · 108What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows. — Epictetus · 108The mind is but a barren soil; is a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter. — Joshua Reynolds · 1774Legal theory3 quotes
The law must be stable, and yet it cannot stand still. — Roscoe Pound · 1921The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1880The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1880Religion3 quotes
From religion comes a man's purpose; from science his power to achieve it. — William Henry Bragg · 1920The religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. Apart from it, human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1925The experience of the irrationality of the world has been the driving force of all religious revolution. — Max Weber · 1917Wilderness3 quotes
Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851In Wildness is the preservation of the World. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851Civilization2 quotes
We believe that civilization has been created under the pressure of the exigencies of life at the cost of satisfaction of the instincts. — Sigmund Freud · 1917I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851Conservatism2 quotes
The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan · 1985There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1841Constitutional theory2 quotes
We current Justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as Twentieth Century Americans. We look into the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But, the ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time. For the genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but it's in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs. — William J. Brennan, Jr. · 1985It is my belief that there are "absolutes" in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what words meant, and meant their prohibitions to be "absolutes." — Hugo Black · 1960Laws of physics2 quotes
The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. — Albert A. Michelson · 1899The opinion seems to have got abroad, that, in a few years, all the great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry on these measurements to another place of decimals. — James Clerk Maxwell · 1871Mathematics2 quotes
God made integers, all else is the work of man. — Leopold Kronecker · 1886When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science. — William Thomson, Lord Kelvin · 1883Physics2 quotes
I ask you to look both ways. For the road to a knowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars. — Arthur Eddington · 1926If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms-little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed and into one another. — Richard Feynman · 1961Political theory2 quotes
The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan · 1985Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. — Lord Acton · 1877Purpose of art2 quotes
Though the great artists of the past could not change the course of history, it is only through their work that we are able to break bread with the dead, and without communion with the dead a fully human life is impossible. — W.H. Auden · 1967We must have religion for religion's sake, morality for morality's sake, as with art for art's sake... The beautiful cannot be the way to what is useful, or to what is good, or to what is holy; it leads only to itself. — Victor Cousin · 1818Science2 quotes
From religion comes a man's purpose; from science his power to achieve it. — William Henry Bragg · 1920Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths. — Karl Popper · 1957Science and religion2 quotes
From religion comes a man's purpose; from science his power to achieve it. — William Henry Bragg · 1920Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths. — Karl Popper · 1957Taste2 quotes
Taste...Is the only morality...Tell me what you like, and I'll tell you what you are. — John Ruskin · 1864In some men only the feeble glimmerings of Taste appear; the beauties which they relish are of the coarsest kind; and of these they have but a weak and confused impression, while in others, Taste rises to an acute discernment, and a lively enjoyment of the most refined beauties. — Hugh Blair · 1787The human condition2 quotes
The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the threat of non-being, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself. — Paul Tillich · 1951These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1864War2 quotes
Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. — Mao Zedong · 1938War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention. — Henry Maine · 1887Absurdity of life1 quote
The experience of the irrationality of the world has been the driving force of all religious revolution. — Max Weber · 1917Accomplishment1 quote
The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1844Actions have consequences1 quote
There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences. — Robert G. Ingersoll · 1881America1 quote
It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical arsenal of old Europe. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1830America and Europe1 quote
It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical arsenal of old Europe. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1830American South1 quote
While the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. — Flannery O'Connor · 1960American politics1 quote
It is my belief that there are "absolutes" in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what words meant, and meant their prohibitions to be "absolutes." — Hugo Black · 1960Animal cruelty1 quote
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. — William Ralph Inge · 1920