User:ExplicitImplicity/morequotes

When people ask me, as they sometimes do, 'Are you an atheist?' I can only respond that I can't answer because I don't know what it is they're asking me. When people say, 'Do you believe in God?' what do they mean by it? Do I believe in some spiritual force in the world? In a way, yes. People have thoughts, emotions. If you want to call that a spiritual force, okay. But unless there's some clarification of what we're supposed to believe in or disbelieve in, I can't answer. Does one believe in a single god? Not if you believe in the Old Testament. A lot of it's polytheistic; it becomes monotheistic later on. Take the First Commandment, which presupposes that there are in fact other gods. It says, 'You shall have no other gods before me: Well if there aren't any other gods you can't say that. And, yes, it's coming from a polytheistic period, a period when the god of the Jews was the war god and they were supposed to worship him above all other gods. And he was genocidal, as you'd expect a war god to be.
 * --Noam Chomsky

As a nation we have grown oh-to-accustomed to abuses of power from the oval office. Watergate, Monicagate, Bush...eh..entireadministrationgate.
 * --Jon Stewart

Wow!! If I had only followed CNBCs advice, I'd have a million dollars today. Provided I had started with a hundred million dollars!
 * --Jon Stewart

Some think that so much of todays art mirrors and thus criticises decadence. Not so. It's just decadent. Full stop. It has no critical function, it is part of the problem.
 * --Robert Hughes

If art can't tell us about the world we live in, then i don't believe there is much point in having it.
 * --Robert Hughes

If you've never programmed a computer, you should. There's nothing like it in the whole world. When you program a computer, it does exactly what you tell it to do. It's like designing a machine any machine, like a car, like a faucet, like a gashinge for a door using math and instructions. It's awesome in the truest sense: it can fill you with awe.
 * --Cory Doctorow

It's embarrassing to see all these writers and musicians and artists bemoaning the fact that art just got this wicked new feature: the ability to be shared without losing access to it in the first place. It's like watching restaurant owners crying down their shirts about the new free lunch machine that's feeding the world's starving people because it'll force them to reconsider their businessmodels. Yes, that's gonna be tricky, but let's not lose sight of the main attraction: free lunches!
 * --Cory Doctorow

Who do you think you are? You are an ape. A mammal, a reptile, a fish, a worm, a ball of cells. And finally, a single cell floating in the saline womb of the primordial seas.
 * --Ernst Haeckel

Dass man Experte ist, um sein das anerkannte Wissen im Kopf nicht belegen oder begründen zu müssen, sondern einfach verkünden zu dürfen, ist eine ziemlich naive und seit 222 Jahren überholte Wissenskonzeption.

If you are brand new to philosophy, then stay away from Hegel!

Ich befand mich eines Tages im Hause eines in Venedig sehr angesehenen Arztes, wohin öfters Leute kamen, teils aus Neugier, um eine Leichensektion von der Hand eines ebenso wahrhaft gelehrten, wie sorgfältigen und geschickten Anatomen ausführen zu sehen. Diesen Tag nun geschah es, dass man den Ausgangspunkt der Nerven aufsuchte, welches eine berühmte Streitfrage zwischen den Ärzten aus der Schule des Galen und den Peripatetikern ist. Als nun der Anatom zeigte, wie der Hauptstamm der Nerven, vom Gehirn ausgehend, den Nacken entlang zieht, sich durch das Rückgrad erstreckt und durch den ganzen Körper verzweigt, und wie nur ein ganz feiner Faden von Zwirnsdicke zum Herzen gelangt, wendete er sich an einen Edelmann, der Ihm als Peripatetiker bekannt war und um dessentwillen er mit außerordentlicher Sorgfalt alles bloßgelegt und hatte, mit der Frage, ob er nun zufrieden sei und sich überzeugt habe, dass die Nerven im Gehirn ihren Ursprung nehmen und nicht im Herzen. Worauf unser Philosoph, nachdem er ein Weilchen in Gedanken dagestanden, erwiderte: Ihr habt mir das alles so klar, so augenfällig gezeigt - stünde nicht der Text des Aristoteles entgegen, der deutlich besagt, der Nervenursprung liege im Herzen, man sähe sich zu dem Zugeständnis gezwungen, dass Ihr Recht habt.
 * --Galileo

I am content. I found one day, at home in his house, at Venice, a famous Phisician, to whom some flockt for their studies, and others out of curiosity, sometimes came thither to see certain Anatomies dissected by the hand of a no lesse learned, than careful and experienced Anatomist. It chanced upon that day, when I was there, that he was in search of the original and rise of the Nerves, about which there is a famous controversie between the Galenists and Peripateticks; and the Anatomist shewing, how that the great number of Nerves departing from the Brain, as their root, and passing by the nape of the Neck, distend themselves afterwards along by the Back-bone, and branch themselves thorow all the Body; and that a very small filament, as fine as a thred went to the Heart; he turned to a Gentleman whom he knew to be a Pe­ripatetick Philosopher, and for whose sake he had with extraor­dinary exactnesse, discovered and proved every thing, and demand­ed of him, if he was at length satisfied and perswaded that the origi­nal of the Nerves proceeded from the Brain, and not from the Heart? To which the Philosopher, after he had stood musing a while, answered; you have made me to see this businesse so plainly and sensibly, that did not the Text of Aristotle assert the contrary, which positively affirmeth the Nerves to proceed from the Heart, I should be constrained to confesse your opinion to be true.
 * -Galilei

If a man cannot describe a concept simply, no matter how complex the subject, then he does not really understand it.
 * --Jorgenson

Larry Sanger founded/co-founded/got coffee for the founder of Wikipedia (depending who you ask), so he should know/co-know/spill hot liquids on a man who knows what he's talking about.
 * --some guy

Fool: The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason.

King Lear: Because they are not eight?

Fool: Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.
 * --Shakespeare

"Professor Baird of Amhurst College, in his Shakespeare course used to insist that the class meet on the first floor of the building. He had a reason for this. Here the freshman would be assembled, and they had all heard all sort of things about Professor Baird - next thing you know, Baird would come in through the window. He'd go over and choose some freshman at random in the front row and he'd point to where he had just come from and he'd say: "Young man, Boy, well, what is that?" And the boy would look over: "It's a window, Professor Baird." And Baird: "No, it's not a window. Didn't you just see me come in through that? It's a door!"
 * --Daniel N. Robinson

It is not unfair, I believe, to conclude from Skinner's discussion of response strength, the basic datum in functional analysis, that his extrapolation of the notion of probability can best be interpreted as, in effect, nothing more than a decision to use the word probability, with its favorable connotations of objectivity, as a cover term to paraphrase such low-status words as interest, intention, belief, and the like.
 * --Noam Chomsky saying "BULLSHIT!"

Würde des Menschen - Nichts mehr davon, ich bitt euch. Zu essen gebt ihm, zu wohnen,Habt ihr die Blöße bedeckt, gibt sich die Würde von selbst.
 * --Friedrich Schiller

it's like vegas. you're up, you're down. but in the end, the house always wins. doesn't mean you didn't had fun.
 * --the Devil, in Woody Allens Deconstructing Harry (my linking)

You can consciously banish any train of thought from your mind, any time, any song. You can recall words, speeches, whole books verbatim at will. You are not a victim of chance thoughts. You are in powerful and wise conscious control of all your thinking. You are a master without limits. Your brain has no limits, consciously, unconsciously or psychically. You can perform any mental trick or stunt consciously of which you have ever heard. You are in perfect poise, balance and control of your brain.
 * --L. Ron Hubbard phantasising

Why is it always, when you search something, that you find it in the last spot you are looking ? Because you stop searching, after you found out.
 * - Anonymous

why is the sky so big I can't count it?
 * - a child

The time is now - The time is not later - The time is not yesterday - We must act.
 * - Dean Allen

We cling superstitiously to the belief that genuine art must be alienating or difficult. But to say that one kind of art is more valuable than another is in the end the same as saying that one kind of person is more valuabe than another. And that is the path to inhumanity.
 * - John Carey

Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good..
 * - Thomas Paine The Rights of Man