Standards Quotes - Page 33

• The betrayal of a belief is not the same thing as ceasing to believe. If this were not so there would be no moral standards in the world at all.

  James A. Baldwin

  Betrayal, Believe, Would Be

  "Stranger in the Village". Harper's Magazine; republished in "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), October 1953.

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• Since the invention of the flush toilet and the vacuum carpet cleaner, the modern man seems to judge a man's moral standards by his cleanliness, and thinks a dog the more highly civilized for having a weekly bath and a winter wrapper round his belly.

  Lin Yutang

  Dog, Winter, Men

  Yutang Lin (1939). “My country and my people”

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• It is not dirt but the fear of dirt which is the sign of man's degeneration, and it is dangerous to judge a man's physical and moral sanity by outside standards.

  Lin Yutang

  Men, Judging, Dirt

  Yutang Lin (1939). “My country and my people”

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• Needless to say, under either system [socialism or fascism], the inequalities of income and standard of living are greater than anything possible under a free economy -- and a man's position is determined, not by his productive ability and achievement, but by political pull and force. Under both systems, sacrifice is invoked as a magic, omnipotent solution in any crisis -- and "the public good" is the altar on which victims are immolated.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Men, Political

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.175, Penguin

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• We all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements, and that it may not legitimately use a previous and less vigorous test. The advanced test must indeed include that which has already been attained; but if it includes no more, we shall fail to go forward, thinking complacently that we have "arrived" when in reality we have not yet started.

  Jane Addams

  Reality, Thinking, Judging

  Jane Addams, Charlene Haddock Seigfried (2002). “Democracy and Social Ethics”, p.5, University of Illinois Press

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• We are learning that a standard of social ethics is not attained by travelling a sequestered byway, but by mixing on the thronged and common road where all must turn out for one another, and at least see the size of one another's burdens.

  Jane Addams

  Mixing, Size, Ethics

  Jane Addams, Charlene Haddock Seigfried (2002). “Democracy and Social Ethics”, p.7, University of Illinois Press

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• What kind of people do we wish to become, and how do we know an American when we see one? Is it possible to pursue a common purpose without a common history or a standard text?

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Common Purpose, People, Wish

  Lewis H. Lapham (1997). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, p.31, Verso

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• In my life as an architect, I found that the single thing which inhibits young professionals, new students most severely, is their acceptance of standards that are too low.

  Christopher Alexander

  Acceptance, Students, Architect

  "Patterns of Software: Tales from the Software Community". Book by Christopher Alexander (Foreword), 1996.

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• I'm actually a huge fan of digital as well. I appreciate how that technology opens the doors for filmmakers who never had access to that level of quality before. However, I do think film itself sets the standard for quality. You can talk about range, light, sensitive, resolution -- there's something about film that is undeniably beautiful, undeniably organic and natural and real.

  J. J. Abrams

  Beautiful, Real, Technology

  "‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ Director J.J. Abrams Extols Shooting on Film vs. Digital" by Ben Fritz, blogs.wsj.com. Jul 29, 2014.

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• You can't publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism.

  Julian Assange

  Data, Paper, Journalism

  "‘A real free press for the first time in history’: WikiLeaks editor speaks out in London" by Joel Gunter, blogs.journalism.co.uk. July 12, 2010.

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• The error in positivism is that it takes as its standard of truth the contingently given division of labor, that between the science and social praxis as well as that within science itself, and allows no theory that could reveal the division of labor to be itself derivative and mediated and thus strip it of its false authority.

  Theodor Adorno

  Division Of Labor, Errors, Derivatives

  Theodor W. Adorno (2012). “Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords”, p.10, Columbia University Press

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• "Natural" is a very dangerous word to use about sexuality ... Our society's notions of normality are completely fake and meta-trendy, since they rely on the changing standards of superstition, religion, Christianity and gender bias to define themselves. Americans, in particular, exhibit very childish reactions to sexual practices that are new to them, much like little kids who are offered a vegetable they haven't seen before: "That's disgusting!" "But darling, you haven't even tried it!" "I don't care, I hate it, I hate it!

  Susie Bright

  Hate, Kids, Gender Bias

  "Nothing But the Girl" by Susie Bright, (Introduction), 1996.

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• Man is naturally self-centered and he is inclined to regard expediency as the supreme standard for what is right and wrong. However, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man's perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency; that man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.

  Abraham Joshua Heschel

  Motivation, Fall, Men

  "Who Is Man?". Book by Abraham Joshua Heschel, 1965.

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• To be a standard shape is not all in life. To know is also important.

  Brian Aldiss

  Important, Shapes, Knows

  "Hothouse". Book by Brian Aldiss, 1962.

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• When grown-up persons indulge in practical jokes, the fact gauges them. They have lived narrow, obscure, and ignorant lives, and at full manhood they still retain and cherish a job lot of left-over standards and ideals that would have been discarded with their boyhood if they had then moved out into the world and a broader life.

  Mark Twain

  Jobs, Indulge In, Ignorant

  Mark Twain (2013). “Autobiography of Mark Twain”, p.4, Univ of California Press

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• Is it stupidity or is it moral cowardice which leads men to continue professing a creed that makes self-sacrifice a cardinal principle, while they urge the sacrificing of others, even to the death, when they trespass against us? Is it blindness, or is it an insance inconsistency, which makes them regard as most admirable the bearing of evil for the benefit of others, while they lavish admiration on those who, out of revenge, inflict great evils in return for small ones suffered? Surely our barbarian code of right needs revision, and our barbarian standard of honour should be somewhat changed.

  Herbert Spencer

  Revenge, Sacrifice, Men

  Herbert Spencer (1910). “Works: The study of sociology”

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• Sundry manifestations of nature in men and women, are greatly perverted by existing social conventions upheld by both. There are feelings which, under our predatory régime, with its adapted standard of propriety, it is not considered manly to show; but which, contrariwise, are considered admirable in women. Hence repressed manifestations in the one case, and exaggerated manifestations in the other; leading to mistaken estimates.

  Herbert Spencer

  Men, Feelings, Social

  HERBERT SPENCER (1874). “THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY”, p.421

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• We hold that no person or set of persons can properly establish a standard of expression for others.

  William Randolph Hearst

  Expression, Speech, Censorship

  Platform, Independent League; "New York Journal-American" Newspaper, February 1, 1924.

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• What an artist does, is fail. Any reading of the literature, (I mean the literature of artistic creation), however summary, will persuade you instantly that the paradigmatic artistic experience is that of failure. The actualization fails to meet, equal, the intuition. There is something "out there" which cannot be brought "here". This is standard. I don't mean bad artists, I mean good artists. There is no such thing as a "successful artist" (except, of course, in worldly terms).

  Donald Barthelme

  Art, Reading, Mean

  "The Sandman". "Sadness". Book by Donald Barthelme, 1972.

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• It is advertising that enthrones the customer as king. This infuriates the socialist...[it is] the crossing of the boundary between West Berlin and East Berlin. It is Checkpoint Charlie, or rather Checkpoint Douglas, the transition from the world of choice and freedom to the world of drab, standard uniformity.

  Enoch Powell

  Kings, East Berlin, Choices

  The Daily Telegraph, April 29, 1967.

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• The avant-garde theater is fun; it is free-wheeling, bold, iconoclastic, and often wildly, wildly funny. If you will approach it with childlike innocence -- putting your standard responses aside, for they do not apply -- if you will approach it on its own terms, I think you will be in for a liberating surprise. I think you may no longer be content with plays that you can't remember halfway down the block.

  Edward Albee

  Fun, Block, Thinking

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• The general election of 1983 has produced one important result that has passed virtually without comment in the media. It is that, for the first time since 1945, a political party with an openly socialist policy has received the support of over eight and a half million people. This is a remarkable development by any standards and it deserves some analysis ... the 1983 Labour manifesto commanded the loyalty of millions of voters and a democratic socialist bridge-head in public understanding and support can be made.

  Tony Benn

  Loyalty, Party, Eight

  "The Guardian" Newspaper, June 20, 1983.

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• If one takes pleasure in calling the gold standard a "barbarous relic," one cannot object to the application of the same term to every historically determined institution. Then the fact that the British speak English - and not Danish, German, or French - is a barbarous relic too, and every Briton who opposes the substitution of Esperanto for English is no less dogmatic and orthodox than those who do not wax rapturous about the plans for a managed currency.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Speak English, Gold, Facts

  "The Gold Standard". Excerpt from chapter 17 of "Human Action, The Scholar's Edition", book by Ludwig von Mises, mises.org. 1949.

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• Professor von Mises has a splendid analytical mind and an admirable passion for liberty; but as a student of human nature he is worse than null and as a debater he is of Hyde Park standard.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Passion, Mind, Liberty

  "Liberalism in Caricature". Review of "The Anti-Capitalist Mentality", The Economist Magazine, April 13, 1957.

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• Although a person acting under authority performs actions that seem to violate standards of conscience, it would not be true to say that he loses his moral sense. Instead, it acquires a radically different focus. He does not respond with a moral sentiment to the actions he performs. Rather, his moral concern now shifts to a consideration of how well he is living up to the expectations that the authority has of him.

  Stanley Milgram

  Expectations, Focus, Acting

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