Gabor, Dennis
- The great Italian ARISTOCRATIC FAMILIES have shown a remarkable power of survival. There are still Orsinis, Colonnas, Barberinis, della Roveres, Sforzas, Viscontis; and many of them are still living in their ancient palaces. All these princely dynasties were founded by outstandingly energetic men. Almost every family history is worthy of a novel, but seldom an edifying one.
It is a curious fact that in seven centuries of brilliant Italian achievements in the ARTS and SCIENCES we find hardly one ARISTOCRATIC name among the great men. But as soon as the aristocracy was officially abolished by the republic (which incidentally resulted in a doubling of the number of titled persons), two first-class talents emerged: the Princes Giuseppe di Lampedusa and Luchino Visconti.
- INTELLIGENCE is not everything, and though the demand for it still increasing vigorously, it is by no means certain that it will continue for more than perhaps one generation, except in the top brackets. During the TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION, intelligence became indispensable for production.. My feeling is that it may be of equal importance in the future, but for a quite different reason: in order to understand our civilization, and to be at peace with it.
- In this book I have tried to sketch out a MATURE SOCIETY; a peaceful WORLD on a high level of material civilization, which has given up growth in numbers and in material consumption but not growth in the quality of life, and one which is compatible with the nature of homo sapiens. This last condition is a very hard one. The conquest of nature by rational man, who has created SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY, has brought us face to face with the basic IRRATIONALITY of man. This consider as an objective danger, as objective as floods, epidemics bad harvests were yesterday. (And still are in half of the world) IRRATIONAL MAN craves security, he will fight for it, but he despises it as soon as it is won. In the front line the soldier just wants to live; a little behind it he gets hungry, further behind he feels the stirrings of sex, and so on, until in full security he gets bored with it all and wants to fight something.
- Till now MAN has been up against NATURE; from now on he will be up against his own nature.
- MAN can be wonderful in adversity; he is liable to become a poor, aimless creature in security and affluence. Without his indomitable fighting spirit civilization would never have developed, nor would history be such a sad tale of violence and inhumanity. Whatever feeiings one may have for the heroic struggles of the past, at the present stage of TECHNOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION the urge towards power over other men has become an unmitigated danger. Let the power which bio-engineering will give to the rulers fall into the wrong hands, and we shall have ORWELLIAN HELL.
- SCIENCE in combination with NATIONALISM has created a situation in which total war could wipe out all civilization. Science in combination with love for progeny has created overpopulation, the explosive multiplication of mankind. Science in combination with the economic virtues has created techniques which can virtually eliminate WORK, the most harmless occupation of man, and have brought face to face with an age of leisure for which we are psychologically unprepared.
- No man is entirely a SCIENTIST. The most that an intensive occupation with science can do is to divert mental energy from the animal appetites, and also from the ' philosophical' urge for asking unanswerable questions. We have now probably reached the maximum of divorsement of scientists from instinctive life, and perhaps also of artists, and other creative men from science. C. P. Snow' s '"Two Cultures must soon merge. At the moment this does not yet appear of vital importance. Uncivilized scientists like C.P.Snow's brutish Luke, in the "Masters" and "The New Man" do not do much harm so long as there are more worldly-wise people who keep an eye on them, and writers entirely ignorant of science do little harm if they dish out their works to an equally ignorant public. But a fusion of science and the Great Tradition will become vital in the future when science will start to interfere with the fate of man as never before.
- . . . Venice and Florence can hardly take twice the present number of tourists, let alone ten times. The aristocratic beauties of the past cannot be democratically shared by all. This is a problem technology cannot solve. It can give the masses food, clothing, shelter, travel and entertainment, but in the end it cannot by itself avoid giving them some frustration also.
- Still let us not belittle science and TECHNOLOGY because they cannot give us everything. Would we exchange the embarrassment of riches for the poverty of the past when life was poor, nasty, brutish and short? Certainly only those of us who imagine that they would have been aristocrats! The democratic utopia which technology can give us may not be very attractive, but the alternatives are much worse.
- A united mankind may well find a common MYTH and SYMBOL, but for UNIFICATION of the WORLD I would rather rely on sanity, Intelligence and a little love.
- The seeker after truth must always be on the look-out for causes of ERROR; experiments are never fool-proof.
- Some men think that the human intellect is supreme and that the natural world is governed by LAWS which may be revealed to prophets and philosophers in moments of revelation. The intellectual achievements of the mathematicians have encouraged the belief that they may some time conquer the whole of knowledge, so that it will no longer be necessary to carry out experiments to find out what actually happens. We are, however, still far from having reached this state of affairs, and the general laws which have been revealed to medical men have been a poor guide to the discovery of new remedies for the cure of disease.
- It must be confessed that the discovery of new medicines still depends more on good fortune than on SCIENTIFIC LOGIC. There is some reason to hope that the intellect will play an increasing role in the pharmacology of the future, but OVER-CONFIDENCE would be foolish.
- The really successful INVESTIGATOR is almost always a man who chooses an important PROBLEM and then decides on the best way to solve it.
- For RESEARCH) ENTHUSIASM is not enough.
- It is usually a waste of time to aquire a new RESEARCH TOOL then look round for PROBLEMS to which it might be applied.
- An ORGANIZED PROJECT is like quick transportation; it provides a quick way of reaching a foreseen objective but it does not provide a good method of exploring the country. A botanist who studied the flora of a railroad embankment from a train would no doubt get his work done quickly, but he would not be likely to discover any new species of plant.
- It.is true that many discoveries (in pharmacology) have been ACCIDENTS, but these accidents would not have occurred to anyone who was not engaged in a SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH for new knowledge, and without all the techniques and apparatus of modern science they would usually have passed unheeded by the world at large.
- It will probably always be more important to try a thing out to argue about it.
- The most interesting DISCOVERIES (in pharmacology) are the unexpected ones, and in spite of the fact that RESEARCH is much more organized today than it was once, unexpected discoveries are still made.
- ALCOHOL leads to accidents and may cause madness, but it has done much to alleviate the SUFFERING of MANKIND and few of us would welcome the effective prohibition of it.
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Consumer-wants can have bizarre, frivolous, or even immoral origins, and an admirable case can still be made for a society that seeks to satisfy them. But the case cannot stand if it is the process of satisfying WANTS that CREATE the WANT.
- WEALTH has never been a sufficient source of honour in itself. It must be advertised, and the normal medium is obtrusively EXPENSIVE goods.
- EPPUR si MUOVE. And yet she woves
- He who understands to deal with questions of NATURAL SCIENCES without the help of GEOMETRY is attempting the unfeasible.
- PHILOSOPHY is written in that grand book which ever lies before our eyes - I mean the UNIVERSE- but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written. This book is written in MATHEMATICAL Language, and the letters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word.
- In questions of SCIENCE the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble REASONING of a single individual.
- What is generally meant by GENIUS is the automatic activity of the mind, as distinguished from the effort of the WILL. In a man of genius, the ideas come as by INSPIRATION; he is driven rather than himself.
- The INSTINCTS and FACULTIES of different men and races differ in a variety of ways almost as profoundly as those of animals in different cages of the Zoological Gardens; and however DIVERSE ANTAGONISTIC they are, each may be good of its kind.
- For years man dreamed of freeing the ENERGY stored in ATOM. Hardly has he realized his dream then he begins to groan at its danger: were we then so naive to think we were going to play with HARMLESS toys right to the end?.
- CLASSLESS SOCIETY is the ideal not merely to be aimed at but to be WORKED for.
- All CRIME is a kind of disease and should be TREATED as such.
- Man and his DEED are two distinct things. Whereas a GOOD deed should call forth APPROBATION and a wicked deed DISAPPROBATION, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicket, always deserves RESPECT and PITY as the case may be. 'HATE the SIN but NOT THE SINNER' is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practised, and this is why the POISON of HATRED spreads in the world.
- As MAN has not been given power to CREATE, he has not the slightest right to DESTROY the smallest creature that lives.
- Asked what he understood by God, he replied: "GOD is TRUTH". But, two years later (1929), he said: I now see TRUTH is GOD. For even the ATHEISTS do not doubt the necessity for the POWER of TRUTH. In their passion for discovering the truth, the atheists have not hesitated to deny the existence of GOD, and, from this point of view, they are right.
The only VIRTUE I CLAIM is TRUTH and NONVIOLENCE. I lay no claim to superhuman power. I want none.
- MY LIFE is an INDIVISIBLE WHOLE and ALL MY ACTIVITIES RUN INTO ONE ANOTHER; they all have their rise in my insatiable LOVE of MANKIND . . . I do not know any religion apart from HUMAN ACTIVITY. It provides a MORAL BASIS to all other ACTIVITIES. . . . We needlessly divide LIFE into watertight compartments, religion and other; whereas if a man has TRUE RELIGION in him, it must show itself in the smallest details of LIFE. The slightest irregularity in sanitary, social and political life is a sign of spiritual poverty.
- Increase of MATERIAL COMFORTS, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to MORAL growth.
- There will never be real EQUALITY so long as one feels inferior or superior to the other.
- If he (NEHRU) has the dash and rashness of a warrior, he has also the prudence of a statesman. He is undoubtedly an extremist, thinking far ahead of his surroundings. But he is humble enough and practical enough not to force the pace to the breaking point. He is pure as crystal, he is truthful beyond suspicion. He is a knight SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE. The nation is safe in his hands.
- Riches are no test of goodness. Indeed POVERTY is the only test. A good man VOLUNTARILY embraces POVERTY.
- Who can deny that much that passes for SCIENCE and ART today destroys the soul instead of UPLIFTING it and instead of evoking the best in us panders to our basest passions.
Strange I was so poor and now I have a son studying at Harvard.
- A MATHEMATICIAN, like a POET, is a maker of PATTERNS.
- Are the beautiful, orderly PATTERNS of pure mathematics discovered or created by the human mind? The answer to the question depends on one's philosophy of mathematics. In either case patterns also play an important part in all fine arts, and nature displays a fantastic variety of patterns - atomic structures, snowflakes, spiral galaxies, and so on - that demonstrate a collusion between mathematical and natural laws. In all these domains, however, patterns can arise completely by chance, as a cloud can assume the shape of a camel. This month I shall take a not very serious look first at some accidental patterns involving the numbers pi and e and then at some whimsical instances of accidental poetry.
Garrett, Garet
Either the machine has a meaning to LIFE that we have not yet been able to interpret in a rational manner, or it is itself a manifestation of life and therefore MYSTERIOUS.Gauguin, Paul
My eyes close in order to see without understanding the DREAM, in the infinite space, that flies ahead of me, and I perceive the mournful procession of my HOPES.- All conscious acquisitions are assimilated and transmuted into FACULTIES. This is noticeable in the course of existence. . . . Psvchological progress can be the result only of this transmutation of knowledge into faculties. And this transmutation is subconscious. It does not take place among the unstable and ephemeral cerebral molecules; it necessitates a deep-seated and continuous elaboration in the essential and permanent past of the being; that is, in his subconscious DYNAMIC-PSYCHISM. Thus the perpetual disintegration of the conscious personality is of small importance. The permanent subconscious individuality retains the indelible remembrance of all the states of consciousness which have built up. From these states of consciousness which it has assimilated it constructs new CAPACITIES . . .
- Since then in the course of our existence we find the origin of a past only of the contents of subconsciousness, it is at least permissible to seek the remainder in anterior experiences . . . If in place of a single existence, we include a series of successive existences, the aequisition,0f consciousness by the primitive unconsciousness can readily be understood. . . . It is thus that the living being passes little by little from unconsciousness to consciousness. Against this inference of rebirth, no objections of a scientific kind can be raised. We may seek in vain for a single one in the whole stock of knowledge. FORGETFULNESS of previous existences has but slight importance for modern science. Remembrance plays but a secondary part in normal psychology; forgetfulness is habitual and is the rule.
- On the other hand, above this cerebral MEMORY, the subconscious memory - the infallible memory of the true and complete individuality, [which] is indestructible as the being itself. In this essential memory there are engraved permanently all the events of the present life, and all
the remembrances and conscious acquisitions of the vast series of antecedent lives.
In the light of the . . . propositions just stated, individual evolution can be understood and all naturalistic and philosophical problems relating to the individual can be resolved. No doubt from metaphysical point of view the concept gives a large range of hypotheses, but from the psychological standpoint, there is no enigma on which it does not shed light.
- The 'essential' in the universe is ETERNAL and INDESTRUCTIBLE; permanent through all the transitory appearances of things.
- The ESSENTIAL in the UNIVERSE passes, by EVOLUTION, from the unconscious to the conscious."
- INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS is an integral part of that which is essential in the universe, and itself INDESTRUCTIBLE and ETERNAL, it evolves from unconsciousness to consciousness.
- Stating without preconceived ideas, and proceeding to the study of SUBCONSCIOUS psychology without heed to the formulae and dogmas classical teaching, we experience a great surprise. The subconscious appears as the very essence of individual psychology. That which; most important in the individual psychism is subconscious. The foundation of the Self, its characteristic qualities, are subconscious. All the innate capacities are subconscious; likewise the higher faculties - INTUITION, TALENT, GENIUS, ARTISTIC or CREA'TIVE INSPIRATION . . . . The greater part of (these faculties) escape from the WILL . . . and show their existence only by bringing to light intermittent and apparently spontaneous results. This subconscious PSYCHIC activity, powerful in itself, is reinforced by a still more potent and infallible memory which leaves the feeble and limited conscious memory far behind . . . No remembrance, no vital or psychological experience is lost.
- Why should consciousness be exclusively bound to the temporary semblances which make up the universe? Why should not all that falls within its domain be registered, assimilated, and preserved by the eternal essence of being? What! The divine principle, the WILL or the UNCONSCIOUS, is to be allowed all potentialities except one, that the most important of all - the power to acquire and retain knowledge of itself? How much more logical it is to presume that this real and eternal WILL which is objectified in transitory and fictitious personalities, will keep integrally the remembrances acquired during these objectifications.
- No MIND, no FORM, I only exist; Now ceased all will and thought. The final end of NATURE's dance I am IT whom I have sought. A realm of bliss, bare, ultimate; Beyond both knower and known; A rest immense I enjoy at last; I face the ONE alone. I have crossed the secret ways of life, I have become God soul. The TRUTH immutable is revealed I am the way, the goal. My spirit aware of all the heights, I am mute in the core of the Sun. I barter nothing with TIME and DEEDS; My COSMIC PLAY is done."
- I feel in all my limbs HIS BOUNDLESS GRACE Within my heart the TRUTH of LIFE shines white. The secret heights of GOD my soul now climbs; No dole, no sombre song, no death in my sight. No mortal days and nights can shake my calm; A light above sustains my secret soul. All doubts with grief are banished from my deeps, My eyes of light perceive my cherished goal. Through in the world, I am above its woe I dwell in an ocean of supreme release My mind, a core of the one's unmeasured thoughts, The star-vast walkin hugs my Sprit' s peace. My eternal days are found in speeding time, I play upon his Flute of rhapsody. , IMPOSSIBLE DEEDS no more impossible seem, In BIRTH-CHAINS NOW SHINES IMMORTALITY.
Or, to quote Francis Warrain: "La Musique esr au Temps ce que la Géométrie est à l'Espace".
- The PERFECT EQUALITY of MEN is the point in which the extremes of democracy and despotism are confounded . . .. since the majesty of the prince or people would be offended if any heads were exalted above the level of their fellow-slaves or fellow-citizens.
- PHILOSOPHY alone can boast (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy) that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the latent and deadly principle of fanaticism.
- Titus Antonninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa. The same love of religion, justice and peace, was the distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the situation of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of those virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighbouring villages from plundering each other s harvests. Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for HISTORY; which is, indeed, LITTLE MORE THAN THE CRIMES FOLLIES AND MISFORTUNES OF MANKIND. In private life, he was an amiable as well as a good man. The native simplicity of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He enjoyed with moderation the conveniences of his fortune, and the innocent pleasures of society: He was fond of the theatre, and not insensible to the charms of the fair sex, and the benevolences of his soul displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.
- The enemies of Marcus charged him with hyprocisy, and with a want of that simplicity which distinguished Pius and even Verus. This suspicion, unjust as it was, may serve to account for the superior applause bestowed upon personal qualifications, in preference to social virtues. Even Marcus Antoninus has been called a hypocrite; but the wildest scepticism never insinuated that Caesar might possibly be a coward, or Tully a fool. Wit and valour, are qualifications more easily ascertained, than HUMANITY of the love of justice.
- Trajan was ambitious of fame and AS LONG AS MANKIND SHALL CONTINUE TO BESTOW MORE LIBERAL APPLAUSE ON THEIR DESTROYERS THAN ON THEIR BENEFACTORS, the THIRST of MILITARY GLORY will EVER be the VICE of the most EXALTED CHARACTERS. The praises of Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan. Like him the Roman emperor undertook an expedition against the nations of the east, but he lamented with a sigh, that his advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equaling the renown of the son of Philip . . .
- BEAUTY is ETERNITY gazing at itself in a mirror.
- My SOUL is my council and has taught me to give ear to the voices
which are created neither by tongues nor uttered by throats.
Before my SOUL became my council, I was dull, and weak of hearing, reflecting only upon the tumult and the cry. But now, I can listen to SILENCE with SERENITY and can hear in the SILENCE the hymns of ages chanting exaltation to the sky and revealing the SECRETS of ETERNITY.
LOVE is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of seasons.
- My THOUGHT is a tender leaf that sways in every direction and finds pleasure in the swaying.
- The most SUBTLE, the STRONGEST and DEEPEST ART - SUPREME ART - is the one that does not at first allow itself to be RECOGNIZED.
- Without MYSTICISM man can achieve nothing great.
- MAN cannot DISCOVER new oceans unless he has the COURAGE to lose sight of the shore.
- C'Est avec les beaux sentiments que 1'on fait la mauvais littérature. With fine sentiments bad literature is made.
- :Since in the DISCOVERY of secret things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure EXPERIMENTS and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort; therefore to the end that the noble substance of the great LOADSTONE, our common mother (the earth), still quite unknown, and also the forces extraordinary and exalted of this globe may the better be understood, we have decided first to begin with the common stony and ferrugious matter, and magnetic bodies, and the parts of the earth that we may handle and may perceive with the senses; then to proceed with plain magnetic experiments, and to penetrate to the inner parts of the earth. For after we had, in order to discover the true substance of the earth, seen and examined very many matters taken out of lofty mountains, or the depths of seas, or deepest caverns, or hidden mines, we gave much attention for a long time to the study of magnetic forces - wondrous forces they, surpassing the powers of all other bodies around us, though the virtues of all things dug out of the earth were to be brought together. Nor did we find this our labour vain or fruitless, for every day, in our experiments, novel, unheard-of properties came to light: and our philosophy became so widened, as a result of diligent research, that we have attempted to set forth, according to magnetic principles, the inner constitution of the globe and its genuine substance, and in true demonstrations and in . experiments that appeal plainly to the senses, as though we were pointing with the finger to exhibit to mankind earth, mother of all.
- And even as GEOMETRY rises from certain slight and readily understood foundations to the highest and most difficult demonstrations, whereby the ingenious mind ascends above the aether: so does our magnetic doctrine and SCIENCE in due order first show forth certain facts of less rare occurrence; from these proceed facts of a more extraordinary kind; at length, in a sort of series, are revealed things most secret and privy in the earth, and the causes are recognized of things that, in the ignorance of those of old or through the heedlessness of the moderns, were unnoticed or disregarded. But why should I, in so vast an ocean of books whereby the minds of the studious are bemuddled and vexed - of books of . . .
- A CONCEPT is stronger than a fact.
- There is no FEMALE MIND. The BRAIN is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a FEMALE. LIVER."
Glynn, David
. . . . the Grassmannians of subspaces in projective spaces are intersections of QUADRICS in higher dimensions . . . . Thus an understanding of the properties of quadrics of higher dimensions is basic to the understanding of lower-dimensional spaces. The study of quadrics in geometry is as important as the wheel if to modern CIVILISATION - and the wheel is but a quadric- BELIEF is not the beginning but the END of all knowledge.
- You must either CONQUER or RULE or serve or lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer,
So muszt du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen so sagten schon Sibyllen, so Propheten; und keine Zeit and Macht zerstückelt geprägte FORM, die lebend sich entwickelt. You must be like this, you cannot escape yourself already the Sibyls said and the prophets; and no time or power disintegrates . impressed FORM which grows in life.
- Über allen GIPFELN ist Ruh in allen Wipfeln spürest du kaum einen Hauch. Die Vöglein schweigen im Walde. Warte nur: balde Ruhest du auch . Over all the mountains is peace in all the tree-tops you feel hardly a breath. The little birds are silent in the woods. Wait awhile: soon you too will rest.
- The decline of LITERATURE indicates the decline of a NATION; the two keep pace in their downward trend.
- I have heard myself accused of being an opponent and enemy of MATHEMATICS, which no one can value more highly than I, for it accomplishes the very thing whose achievement has been denied me.
- MUSIC, in the best sense, does not require novelty; nay, the older it is, and the more we are accustomed to it, the greater its effect.
- A man should hear a little MUSIC, read a little POETRY, and see a FINE PICTURE every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the BEAUTIFUL which God has implanted in the human soul.
- The more I think about it, there is something futile, mediocre, even (I am tempted to say) FOPPISH about SPEECH. By contrast, how the GRAVITY of NATURE and her silence STARTLE you."
Let us fathom it, whatever may befall, In this, thy NOTHING, may I find my ALL!.
- To one man it (SCIENCE) is the highest thing, a heavenly GODDESS; to another it is a productive and prifient cow, who supplies him with butter.
- Observe, probe, Details unfold. Let nature's SECRETS be stammeringly retold.
- Wä' r nicht das Auge SONNENHAFT, Die SONNE könnt' es nie erblicken. Were the eye not like a SUN it could never behold the sub.
- MAN is born, not to solve the problem of the UNIVERSE, but to find out where the problem applies, and then to restrain himself within the limits of the comprehensible. His faculties are not
sufficient to measure the actions of the universe; and an attempt to explain the outer world by reason is, with his narrow view vain. The reason of man and the reason of the Deity are two different things.
- Denn eben we Begriffe fehlen Da stellt ein WORT zu rechter Zeit sich ein
- Just where concepts are lacking a WORD arrives in time
This, I think, is the situation with TIME. We all have, as the basic proof of our consciouness, the sensation of the passing of time. Just as we cannot conceive describing the outside world without reference to its geometrical properties, so we cannot describe it without reference to the passage of time.
Yet is that really the only way of describing the WORLD? Is there really a uniform flow of time within which events occur?
The alternative hypothesis I propose in "Art and Illusion" converged, as I said, with an explanation mooted by JULIAN HOCHBERG. It appeals to the use we can make of order for the discovery of deviations. Take a man in the dark trying to gain information about the unseen environment. He will not grope and thrash at random, but will use every finding to form a hypothesis about the meaning of his encounters, a hypothesis which subsequent gropings will serve to confirm or refute. The first and almost automatic assumption with which he is likely to operate is that hypothesis of a relative stability of objects which must also guide the movements of the lonely organism (or lonelier robot) described above. In a nightmare situation, in which every feature of the environment silently and unpredictably changed shape and place between his gropings, he would be forced to give up. But if the environment exhibits any REGULARITIES to be discovered, his only strategy would be to test it for orders of his own creation, modifying histories in a progression from simple to more complex configurations.
Taking a further clue from Popper's methodology of scientific RESEARCH I argue that: 'WITHOUT some INITIAL SYSTEM, WITHOUT a FIRST GUESS to which we can STICK unless it is DISPROVED, we would indeed make no 'SENSE' of the milliards of ambiguous stimuli that reach us from our environment. In order to learn, we must make MISTAKES, and the most fruitful mistake which nature could have implanted in us would be the assumption of even greater simplicities than we are likely to meet with in this bewildering world of ours. Whatever the fate of the GESTALT school may be in the field of neurology, it may still prove logically right in insisting that the simplicity hypothesis cannot be learnt. It is, indeed, the only condition under which we could learn at all. . . . We have a tendency to probe both the real world and its representations within a hypothesis of regularity which is not abandoned unless it is refuted.
- ART must ENNOBLE PEOPLE.
- ART and the PEOPLE prosper and rise TOGETHER.
- CONSERVATISM is fertilized by COMFORT.
- The purpose of LITERATURE is to help man understand himself, to buttress his faith in himself, and to foster his yearning for the TRUTH, to fight evil in people, to spot the good in them, to arouse shame, anger, and courage in their souls and to make people nobly strong.
- You must write for CHILDREN in the same way as you do for adults, only BETTER.
- At the beginning was the PEOPLE, and the people was the source every material and spiritual value. The people created language, myth, religion, epic poetry and also the images of heroes. With the growth of communities and their struggle against other groups, leaders and priests became a necessity. INDIVIDUALS were invested with the attributes of the epic heroes. This was the beginning of the EGO. At first these privileges INDIVIDUALS were organs of the community, but they emancipated themselves and led an independent life next to the community in so far as they were the incarnation of epic heroes who were an emanation of the people. But a day would come when these men, having acquired a taste for power over others, desired it for its own sake. This was followed by a period of struggles between community and those individuals who tried to rise above the masses. Private property was one of the services introduced by these men, in order to gain power, and the community declined henceforth. They became stronger and more aggressive as time went by, and in the end came to the era of the struggle of everyone against everyone, which resulted in the decline of the individual himself.
- WE ever long for VISIONS of BEAUTY, we ever DREAM of unknown worlds.
- The purpose of LITERATURE is to help man understand himself, to buttress his faith in himself, and to foster his yearning for the TRUTH, to fight evil in people, to spot the good in them, to arouse shame, anger, and courage in their souls and to make people nobly strong.
- The PEOPLE is not only the force that creates material values; it is also the only inexhaustible source of SPIRITUAL values, the first philosopher and poet in time, in beauty, in genius, the maker of all the great poems, of all the tragedies on earth, and of the greatest of them all - the HISTORY of WORLD CULTURE.
- I very early realized that a MAN is made by his RESISTANCE to the MILIEU which SURROUNDS HIM.
- The PEOPLE is not only the force that creates material values; it is also the only inexhaustible source of SPIRITUAL values, the first philosopher and poet in time, in beauty, in genius, the maker of all the great poems, of all the tragedies on earth, and of the greatest of them all - the HISTORY of WORLD CULTURE.
- True CREATIVITY often resides in the joining of previously disparate fields, in the recognition that APPARENTLY UNRELATED phenomena from other disciplines may offer solutions to old dilemmas.
- . . . IDEAS are cheap; mere statement amounts to little or nothing. Intellectual fame accrues to people with the vision to make a good IDEA work in two ways: by using it to make new discoveries and by RECOGNIZING its IMPLICATIONS as a far-reaching instrument in TRANSFORMING general attitudes.
- We often think, naively, that missing data are the primary impediments to intellectual progress - just find the right facts and all problems will dissipate. But barriers are often deeper and more abstract in THOUGHT. We must have access to the right METAPHOR, not only to the requisite information. REVOLUTIONARY THINKERS are not, primarily, gatherers of facts, but WEAVERS of new intellectual structures. Ultimately, Maupertuis failed because his age had not yet developed a dominant metaphor of our own time - coded instructions as the precursor to material complexity.
- Pristine ORIGINALITY is an illusion; all great IDEAS were thought and expressed before a conventional founder first proclaimed them. Copernicus did not reverse heavenly motion single-handedly, and Darwin did not invent evolution. Conventional founders win their just reputations because they prepare for action and grasp the full implication of ideas that predecessors expressed with little appreciation of their revolutionary power.
Let EVERY DAY be a dream we can touch. Let every day be a love we can feel. Let every day be a Reason to live.
Green, J.R.
I know what men will say of me, "He died LEARNING?"- He made us in His image - so our evil is his evil too. How could I love GOD if he were not like me? Divided like me. Tempted like me.
- HAPPINESS is like one of those islands far out in the Pacific which has been reported by sailors when it emerges from the haze where no cartographer has ever marked it. The island disappears again for a generation, but no navigator can be quite certain that it only existed in the imagination of some long-dead look-out.
- the terrible force of PRAYER, the mysterious untapped power to move mountains. n
- Strange, the amusements one finds in SOLITUDE. I can remember standing for half an hour on the staircase to my bedroom watching two flies make love.
- My life has been just the opposite of BORING in the last year. It has been a very UNPLEASANT YEAR.
- We think of PERCEPTION as an active process of using information to suggest and test HYPOTHESES.
- PERCEPTION cannot be described purely in terms of STIMULI eliciting responses, for we respond to features of objects not being represented to the eye or other senses. We expect an ice cream to be cold, though the (stimulus) image of the ice cream in our eyes is no cold. We act towards a table as though it had four legs, though two are hidden. In short, behaviour is appropriate to what is not available to the senses. Further action is aimed, not at the present but at future events . . . Perception can, I think, be described by saying that from sensory data we build hypotheses of the external world of objects.