Common Quotes - Page 20

• The point they (Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Tatlin, Gabo, the neo-Plasticists, and so on) all had in common was to be inside and outside at the same time. For me, to be inside and outside is to be in an unheated studio with broken windows in the winter, or taking a nap on somebody's porch in the summer.

  Willem de Kooning

  Summer, Winter, Naps

  "Abstract Expressionist Painting in America". Book by William C. Seitz, p. 134, 1983.

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• Intriguingly, in poll after poll, when Americans are asked what public institutions they most respect, three bodies are always at the top of their list: the Supreme Court, the armed forces, and the Federal Reserve System. All three have one thing in common: they are insulated from the public pressures and operate undemocratically. It would seem that Americans admire these institutions, precisely because they lead rather than follow.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Three, Body, Pressure

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• To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be.

  Henry George

  Simple, Government, Organization

  Henry George (2006). “Social Problems”, p.171, Cosimo, Inc.

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• In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of "the common good" and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed. In this world irrationality clings to man like his shadow so that the right things get done for the wrong reasons - afterwards, we dredge up the right reasons for justification. It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral; a world where "reconciliation" means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it.

  Saul Alinsky

  Mean, Angel, Men

  "Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals". Book by Saul Alinsky, p. 13, archive.org. 1971.

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• Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.

  David Hume

  Mediocrity, Literature, Occupation

  David Hume (1782). “The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688”, p.197

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• But the most common species of love is that which first arises from beauty, and afterwards diffuses itself into kindness and into the bodily appetite. Kindness or esteem, and the appetite to generation, are too remote to unite easily together. The one is, perhaps, the most refined passion of the soul; the other the most gross and vulgar. The love of beauty is placed in a just medium betwixt them, and partakes of both their natures: From whence it proceeds, that it is so singularly fitted to produce both.

  David Hume

  Love, Kindness, Passion

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.296, 谷月社

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• There is an inconvenience which attends all abstruse reasoning. that it may silence, without convincing an antagonist, and requires the same intense study to make us sensible of its force, that was at first requisite for its invention. When we leave our closet, and engage in the common affairs of life, its conclusions seem to vanish, like the phantoms of the night on the appearance of the morning; and 'tis difficult for us to retain even that conviction, which we had attain'd with difficulty.

  David Hume

  Morning, Night, Silence

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.339, 谷月社

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• THERE is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequence. Such topics, therefore, ought entirely to be forborne; as serving nothing to the discovery of truth, but only to make the person of an antagonist odious.

  David Hume

  Philosophical, Discovery, Topics

  David Hume (1875). “Essays Moral, Political, and Literary”, p.79

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• The Common lawes of the Realme should by no means be delayed for the law is the surest sanctuary, that a man should take, and the strongest fortresse to protect the weakest of all, lex et tutissima cassis.

  Edward Coke

  Mean, Men, Law

  "The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England". Book by Edward Coke, 1642.

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• In science men have learned consciously to subordinate themselves to a common purpose without losing the individuality of their achievements. Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues, and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors. In science men collaborate not because they are forced to by superior authority or because they blindly follow some chosen leader, but because they realize that only in this willing collaboration can each man find his goal.

  John Desmond Bernal

  Men, Common Purpose, Goal

  "The Social Function of Science". Book by John Desmond Bernal, 1939.

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• The work of the painter, the poet or the musician, like the myths and symbols of the savage, ought to be seen by us, if not as a superior form of knowledge, at least as the most fundamental and the only one really common to us all; scientific thought is merely the sharp point more penetrating because it has been whetted on the stone of fact, but at the cost of some loss of substance and its effectiveness is to be explained by its power to pierce sufficiently deeply for the main body of the tool to follow the head.

  Claude Levi-Strauss

  Loss, Effectiveness, Musician

  Claude Levi-Strauss (2012). “Tristes Tropiques”, p.121, Penguin

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• One of the key insights of the systems approach has been the realization that the network is a pattern that is common to all life. Wherever we see life, we see networks.

  Fritjof Capra

  Keys, Realization, Patterns

  "The Hidden Connections". Book by Fritjof Capra, 2002.

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• I played with fire, did counsel spurn, Made life my common stake; But never thought that fire would burn, O that a soul could ache.

  Henry Vaughan

  Fire, Soul, Made

  1650 Silex Scintillans, 'The Garland'.

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• Outside his own ever-narrowing field of specialization, a scientist is a layman. What members of an academy of science have in common is a certain form of semiparasitic living.

  Erwin Chargaff

  Fields, Scientist, Form

  Erwin Chargaff (1977). “Voices in the labyrinth: nature, man, and science”, Harper San Francisco

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• Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Ideas, People, Intellectual

  "In Quest of Democracy". Essay by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

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• Far from being a sum of distinct and partial results, victory is the consequence of efforts, some of which are victorious while others appear to be fruitless, which nevertheless all aim at a common goal, all drive at a common result: namely, at a decision, a conclusion which alone can provide victory.

  Ferdinand Foch

  Goal, Effort, Decision

  Ferdinand Foch, Alphonse Grasset (1920). “Precepts and Judgments”

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• What joins the Americans one to another is not a common ancestry, language or race, but a shared work of the imagination that looks forward to the making of a future, not backward to the insignia of the past. Their enterprise is underwritten by a Constitution that allows for the widest horizons of sight and the broadest range of expression, supports the liberties of the people as opposed to the ambitions of the state, and stands as premise for a narrative rather than plan for an invasion or a monument. The narrative was always plural; not one story, many stories.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Ambition, Past, Race

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• The work of art still has something in common with enchantment: it posits its own, self-enclosed area, which is withdrawn from the context of profane existence, and in which special laws apply.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, Self, Law

  Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer (1997). “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, p.19, Verso

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• Common sense tells us that the world is flat, that the sun goes around the earth, that heavy bodies always fall faster than light bodies, that boats made of iron will sink.

  Stuart Chase

  Fall, Light, Iron Will

  Stuart Chase (1962). “The Proper Study of Mankind”, New York : Harper & Row

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• Famous people don't want to be told that you have a quality in common with them. It makes them think there's something crawling in their clothes.

  Don DeLillo

  Thinking, Clothes, People

  Don DeLillo (2015). “Underworld: Picador Classic”, p.105, Pan Macmillan

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• Now I wonder what our knowledge has in common with God's knowledge according to those who treat God's knowledge... Is there anything else common to both besides the mere name? ...there is an essential distinction between His knowledge and ours, like the distinction between the substance of the heavens and that of the earth.

  Maimonides

  Names, Heaven, Essentials

  Moses Maimonides, Aeterna Press (1948). “The Guide for the Perplexed”, p.471, Aeterna Press

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• No longer can we consider what the artist does to be a self-contained activity, mysteriously inspired from above, unrelated and unrelatable to other human activities. Instead, we recognize the exalted kind of seeing that leads to the creation of great art as an outgrowth of the humbler and more common activity of the eyes in everyday life. Just as the prosaic search for information is "artistic" because it involves giving and finding shape and meaning, so the artist's conceiving is an instrument of life, a refined way of understanding who and where we are.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Art, Eye, Self

  Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye”, p.5, Univ of California Press

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• Ernest Bevin had many of the strongest characteristics of the English race. His manliness, his common sense, his rough simplicity, sturdiness and kind heart, easy geniality and generosity, all are qualities which we who live in the southern part of this famous island regard with admiration.

  Ernest Bevin

  Heart, Islands, Race

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• Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?

  Anthony Trollope

  Men, Opposites, Giving

  Anthony Trollope (2016). “Miss Mackenzie: Trollope's Works”, p.184, 谷月社

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• Heroes in books should be so much better than heroes got up for the world's common wear and tear

  Anthony Trollope

  Book, Hero, Tears

  Anthony Trollope (1861). “Framley parsonage”, p.92

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