Century Quotes - Page 14

• Good theories of the mind must span at least three different scales of time: slow, for the billions of years in which our brains have survivied; fast, for the fleeting weeks and months of childhood; and in between, the centuries of growth of our ideas through history.

  Marvin Minsky

  Years, Ideas, Childhood

  "The Society of Mind". Book by Marvin Minsky, 1986.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Machiavelli, however, took his bearings from people as they are. He defined the political project as making the best of this flawed material. He knew (in words Kant would write almost three centuries later) that nothing straight would be made from the crooked timber of humanity.

  George Will

  Writing, People, Political

  "Religion and the American Republic". www.nationalaffairs.com. Summer 2013.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• A young man who had been troubling society with impalpable doctrines of a new civilization which he called "the Kingdom of Heaven" had been put out of the way; and I can imagine that believer in material power murmuring as he went homeward, "it will all blow over now." Yes. The wind from the Kingdom of Heaven has blown over the world, and shall blow for centuries yet.

  George William Russell

  Blow, Men, Wind

  George William Russell (1920). “The Economics of Ireland and the Policy of the British Government”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even the word depression itself was the terminological product of an effort to soften the connotation of deep trouble. In the last century, the term crisis was normally employed. With time, however, this acquired the connotation of the misfortune it described.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Effort, Lasts, Trouble

  John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.38, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The liberals of the eighteenth century, guided by the ideas of natural law and of the Enlightenment, demanded for everyone equality of political and civil rights... Nothing, however, is as ill-founded as the assertion of the alleged equality of all members of the human race.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Rights, Race, Law

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Liberalism: The Classical Tradition: The Economist”, p.14, VM eBooks

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was precisely this notion of infinite series which in the sixth century BC led the Greek philosopher Zeno to conclude that since an arrow shot towards a target first had to cover half the distance, and then half the remainder, and then half the remainder after that, and so on ad infinitum, the result was, as I will now demonstrate, that though an arrow is always approaching its target, it never quite gets there, and Saint Sebastian died of fright.

  Tom Stoppard

  Distance, Arrows, Greek

  Tom Stoppard (2013). “Jumpers”, p.16, Faber & Faber

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Book burning is a charming old custom, hallowed by antiquity. It has been practiced for centuries by fascists, communists, atheists, school children, rival authors, and tired librarians. Like everything of importance since the invention of the cloak and the shroud, its origins are cloaked in mystery and shrouded in secrecy. Some scholars believe that the first instance of book burning occurred in the Middle Ages, when a monk was trying to illuminate a manuscript. All agree that book burning was almost non-existent during the period when books were made of stone.

  Richard Armour

  Atheist, Children, Believe

  6 Copy quote

• It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's slave--subject--inferior--dependent, under all forms of government and religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the progress of civilization, have reached complete equality.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Kings, Women, Government

  8 Copy quote

• Whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower, on slave ships, whether they came to Ellis Island or LAX in Los Angeles, whether they came yesterday or walked this land a thousand years ago our great challenge for the 21st century is to find a way to be One America. We can meet all the other challenges if we can go forward as One America.

  William J. Clinton

  Islands, Years, Slave Ships

  Clinton, William J. (2000). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1999”, p.70, Best Books on

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Reformation in the sixteenth century narrowed Reform. As soon as men began to call themselves names, all hope of further amendment was lost.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Men, Names, Reform

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Greenough Thayer Shedd (1854). “The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions”, p.294

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It may happen in the next hundred years that the English novelists of the present day will come to be valued as we now value the artists and craftsmen of the late eighteenth century.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Artist, Years, May

  Evelyn Waugh (1958). “The world of Evelyn Waugh”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Invention, Nineteenth Century, Method

  Science and the ModernWorld ch. 6 (1925)

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The same technology transforming our lives can solve the greatest problem of the 20th century. A security shield can one day render nuclear weapons obsolete and free mankind from the prison of nuclear terror. America met one historic challenge and went to the Moon. Now America must meet another: to make our strategic defense real for all the citizens of planet Earth.

  Ronald Reagan

  Real, Moon, Technology

  Reagan, Ronald (1988). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1986”, p.129, Best Books on

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• To many of us now, computers, silicon chips, data processing, cybernetics, and all the other innovations of the dawning high technology age are as mystifying as the workings of the combustion engine must have been when that first Model T rattled down Main Street, U.S.A. But as surely as America's pioneer spirit made us the industrial giant of the 20th century, the same pioneer spirit today is opening up on another vast front of opportunity, the frontier of high technology.

  Ronald Reagan

  Technology, Opportunity, Data

  7 Copy quote

• Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft, so much so that it's said that when the most wily diplomat of the nineteenth-century passed away, other diplomats asked, on reports of his death, "What do you suppose the old fox meant by that?

  Ronald Reagan

  Crafts, Diplomats, Foxes

  Address to United Nations General Assembly, September 21, 1987.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• For me personally and for most other Americans, this commitment to peace and diplomacy does not imply a blind or total pacifism. There are times when war is justified, and for many centuries the moral criteria for violence have been carefully delineated.

  Jimmy Carter

  War, Commitment, Doe

  Jimmy Carter (2014). “The Jimmy Carter Library”, p.532, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To a degree which is difficult to determine, the esoteric impulse in twentieth-century music, literature and the arts reflects calculation. It looks to the flattery of academic and hermeneutic notice. Reciprocally, the academy turns towards that which appears to require its exegetic, cryptographic skills.

  George Steiner

  Art, Skills, Degrees

  George Steiner (2010). “Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?”, p.43, Faber & Faber

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• But I would like to think for a moment about a man who in the morning teaches his students that a false attribution of a Watteau drawing or an inaccurate transcription of a fourteenth-century epigraph is a sin against the spirit and in the afternoon or evening transmits to the agents of Soviet intelligence classified, perhaps vital information given to him in sworn trust by his countrymen and intimate colleagues. What are the sources of such scission? How does the spirit mask itself?

  George Steiner

  Morning, Men, Thinking

  George Steiner (1987). “George Steiner: A Reader”, p.191, Oxford University Press on Demand

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• The 19th century was the great period of engineering, thanks to the railways, thanks to lots of discoveries in metallurgy.

  Joe Harris

  Discovery, Engineering, Thanks

  "Eiffel Tower Celebrates 125th Birthday". Interview With Jeremy Hobson, wwno.org. April 4, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most common music that you hear anywhere in the world now basically has its roots in that union that happened in the last century, or in the century before that. That kind of music that's groove or beat oriented just didn't exist in lots of cultures before that.

  David Byrne

  Roots, Culture, World

  Interview with Chris Dahlen, pitchfork.com. July 17, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Here's the new art of the twenty-first century: the art of curating, the art of plucking all the good stuff from a superabundance of crap.

  Joseph Gordon-Levitt

  Art, Stuff, Firsts

  "The Third Way: Combining Summer's New Suits & Sportswear". Esquire Interview, www.esquire.com. May 19, 2009.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Most of us still believe in the intrinsic value of nature, but I think the first century of the environmental/conservation movement demonstrated pretty clearly that this value cannot compel a civilization-wide shift toward sustainable behavior and enterprise when stacked up against the urgent economic and social needs of 7 billion people, most of whom are struggling to get out of poverty.

  Edward Norton

  Struggle, Believe, Thinking

  "Dialogues on the Environment: Q&A With Edward Norton". Interview with Mark Tercek, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 6, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Look at the 18th century. There was a lot more freedom going on.

  Steve Coogan

  Looks, 18th Century

  "Q&A: Steve Coogan on Sex, Drugs & Bad Press". Interview with Eric Spitznagel, www.esquire.com. July 9, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fundamentalists are insistent that they know best. It's a dictatorial attitude towards personal morality, which is a modern creation that came about in the 19th century.

  Steve Coogan

  Attitude, Morality, Creation

  "Q&A: Steve Coogan on Sex, Drugs & Bad Press". Interview with Eric Spitznagel, www.esquire.com. July 9, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm interested in things when I don't know what they are. Like "Hey, Ray, what the hell is this?" Oh, that's lipstick from the 1700s, that's dog food from the turn of the century, that's a hat from World War II. I'm interested in the minutiae of things. Oddities.

  Tom Waits

  Dog, War, Oddities

  Interview with Amanda Petrusich, pitchfork.com. November 27, 2006.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source