Importance Quotes - Page 32

• All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance - unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion, have the full protection of the guarantees [of the First Amendment].

  William J. Brennan

  Ideas, Justice, Religion

  Roth v. United States (1957)

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• It is of infinite importance to the public that the acts of magistrates should not only be substantially good, but also that they should be decorous.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Infinite, Should, Magistrates

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• It is of great importance that the laws by which the contracts of so numerous and so useful a body of men as the sailors are supposed to be guided, should not be overturned.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Men, Law, Body

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• I am certain that a solution of the general problem of peace must rest on broad and basic understanding on the part of its peoples. Great single endeavors like a League of Nations, a United Nations, and undertakings of that character, are of great importance and in fact absolutely necessary, but they must be treated as steps toward the desired end.

  George C. Marshall

  Character, League, Understanding

  George C. Marshall's Nobel Lecture in Oslo, Norway, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1953.

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• As regards the efficacy of the art and the theories of it, I promise and expect that in these volumes I shall undoubtedly show myself of very considerable importance not only to builders but also to all scholars.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Art, Promise, Volume

  "De architectura". Book by Vitruvius. Book I, Chapter I, Section 17,

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• Nothing in this world is so good as usefulness. It binds your fellow-creatures to you, and you to them; it tends to the improvement of your own character; and it gives you a real importance in society, much beyond what any artificial station can bestow.

  Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet

  Real, Character, Giving

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• When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Ignorance, Order, Ignorant

  "The Value of Science". Richard P. Feynman's public address at the National Academy of Sciences, Autumn 1955.

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• You are a person of the greatest importance when you are a mother of the family.

  Ethel Waters

  Mother, Persons

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• The greater the importance to safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion.

  Charles Evans Hughes

  Opportunity, Order, Rights

  "De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 365". Judicial opinion, 1937.

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• I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

  Thomas Huxley

  Clever, Exercise, People

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1900). “Collected Essays”

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• The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom and openmindedness. Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.

  Ronald Reagan

  Real, Names, Tolerance

  Remarks at a Dallas Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast, delivered 23 August 1984 at Reunion Arena, Dallas, TX

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• At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty - and thus a good unto itself - but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions.

  William Rehnquist

  Heart, Expression, Ideas

  "Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46". The U.S. Supreme Court case, www.law.cornell.edu. February 24, 1988.

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• We know life is futile. A man who considers that his life is of very wonderful importance is awfully close to a padded cell.

  Clarence Darrow

  Life, Wisdom, Knowledge

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• As we turn to our Heavenly Father and seek His wisdom regarding the things that matter most, we learn over and over again the importance of four key relationships: with our God, with our families, with our fellowman, and with ourselves.

  Dieter F. Uchtdorf

  Father, Keys, Four

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• In view of the importance of philanthropy in our society, it is surprising that so little attention has been given to it by economic or social theorists. In economic theory, especially, the subject is almost completely ignored. This is not, I think, because economists regard mankind as basically selfish or even because economic man is supposed to act only in his self-interest; it is rather because economics has essentially grown up around the phenomenon of exchange and its theoretical structure rests heavily on this process.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Selfish, Men, Thinking

  "Notes on a Theory of Philanthropy". "Philanthropy and Public Policy", edited by Frank G. Dickinson, 1962.

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• It is clear that the building of models is not a purely mechanical process but requires skill of a high order - not merely mathematical skill but a sensitivity to the relative importance of different factors and a critical, almost an artistic, faculty in the selection of behaviour equations which are reasonable, tentative hypotheses in explaining the behaviour of actual economies.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Order, Skills, Different

  "The Skills of the Economist". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, pp. 16-17, 1958.

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• For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life: for it is the passional secret places of life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and flow, cleansing and freshening.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Sympathy, Lying, Ebb And Flow

  D. H. Lawrence, Michael Squires (2002). “Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'”, p.101, Cambridge University Press

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• Any novel of importance has a purpose. If only the "purpose" be large enough, and not at outs with the passional inspiration.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Inspiration, Passion, Purpose

  D. H. Lawrence, Bruce Steele (1985). “Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays”, p.179, Cambridge University Press

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• Our pride and self-importance are European, while our development and actions are Asiatic.

  Anton Chekhov

  Pride, Self, Development

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• A young financial writer once brought ridicule upon himself by stating that a certain company had nothing to commend it except excellent earnings. Well, there are companies whose earnings are excellent but whose stocks I would never recommend. In selecting investments, I attach prime importance to the men behind them. I'd rather buy brains and character than earnings. Earnings can be good one year and poor the next. But if you put your money into securities run by men combining conspicuous brains and unimpeachable character, the likelihood is that the financial results will prove satisfactory.

  B. C. Forbes

  Running, Character, Men

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• All that causes one man to differ from another is a very slight thing. What is it that is the origin of beauty or ugliness, health or weakness, ability or stupidity? A slight difference in the organs, a little more or a little less bile. Yet this more or less is of infinite importance to men; and when they think otherwise they are mistaken.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Men, Thinking, Differences

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• Knowing the importance of luck, you should be particularly suspicious when highly consistent patterns emerge from the comparison of successful and less successful firms. In the presence of randomness, regular patterns can only be mirages.

  Daniel Kahneman

  Successful, Knowing, Luck

  Daniel Kahneman (2011). “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, p.236, Macmillan

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• Every existence above a certain rank has its singular points; the higher the rank the more of them. At these points, influences whose physical magnitude is too small to be taken account of by a finite being may produce results of the greatest importance.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Taken, May, Influence

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• I am convinced that the unwritten knowledge scattered among men of different callings surpasses in quantity and in importance anything we find in books, and that the greater part of our wealth has yet to be recorded.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Book, Men, Different

  "Discours touchant la méthode de la certitude et l’art d’inventer". Book by Gottfried Leibniz, 1690.

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• [Question: What do you think was the most important physics idea to emerge this year?]
  We won't know for a few years.

  Stephen Hawking

  Knowledge, Thinking, Years

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