Category: Verandah
“We shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful.” – Booker T. Washington, “1895 Atlanta Exposition Address”
“This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community.” – Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth”
“More often than not, the still, small voice of our genius requires many decades to get our attention.” – George Scialabba, “Self-Reliance: A Syllabus”
“Only very wise people know how much they can do without before wasting many years doing with.” – George Scialabba, “Self-Reliance: A Syllabus”
“In the process of decline a civilization may, from time to time, rally for a while; but it is the overall trajectory, the structural properties of the situation, that ultimately determine the outcome.” – Morris Berman, Dark Ages America
“Avoid swimming in places where you may resemble part of the food chain.” – The Navy SEAL Physical Fitness Guide
“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a weekend with your parents.” – Bob Walker (quoted by Jean Stein in West of Eden)
“In proportion as the body grows fat, so does the soul wither away.” – Abba Daniel of Skettis
“I’d listen to my conscience if I were sure it was really mine.” – James Richardson, “Vectors 4.2: Everyone Else”
“However far you extend a horizontal, it will not turn vertical.” – Timothy Williamson
“We still are living in the reality of the cosmos and not in the universe of physics, the brainwashing propaganda of our scientistic ideologues notwithstanding.” – Eric Voegelin (quoted by John Bussanich in “Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of Myth”)
“In a very deep sense mythical symbols are unavoidable for humans because reality transcends all types of representation and because our formulations cannot dispense completely with concrete phenomena. . . . Although over time particular symbols and myths may become referentially opaque, the realities symbolized do not cease to exist, which is evidenced by the fact that invalidated myths and symbols are replaced by new or revitalized ones.” – John Bussanich, “Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of Myth”
“No more than the truth of myth can the truth of reason be conveyed by information; it must be acquired by an act of meditative articulation.” – Eric Voegelin (quoted by John Bussanich in “Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of Myth”)
“Every concrete symbol is true insofar as it envisages the truth, but none is completely true insofar as the truth about being is essentially beyond human reach.” – Eric Voegelin (quoted by John Bussanich in “Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of Myth”)
“The most interesting thing for an artist is to pick through the debris of a culture, to look at what’s been forgotten or not really taken seriously. Once something is categorized and accepted, it becomes part of the tyranny of the mainstream, and it loses its potency.” – David Bowie (interviewed by Michael Kimmelman in The New York Times)
“God’s Word is no longer grace, and grace itself is no longer grace, if we ascribe to man a predisposition towards this Word, a possibility of knowledge regarding it, that is intrinsically and independently native to him.” – Karl Barth, The Church Dogmatics
“Religion’s essence is neither thinking nor acting, but intuition and feeling.” – Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion
“My being non-alienated cannot be the same thing as what I would naturally do, not at least if what I would naturally do is supposed to mean what I would do anyway. ‘What I would do anyway’ is an incomplete phrase, and therefore, one without determinate sense. ‘Anyway’ means ‘in the absence of preventing factors or influences’, so the sense of ‘what I would do anyway’ depends on which factors or influences we are supposing to be absent. But it is just incoherent to suppose that all factors and influences could be absent; since something like this supposition is nonetheless resiliently an ingredient, albeit often a covert ingredient, of all sorts of thinking about autonomy, freedom, and the voluntary, we might call that supposition ‘the fantasy of freedom an sich’. For the supposition is indeed a fantasy: necessarily and universally, human action always pushes against some resistance. Moreover, it always pushes against some particular resistance: there is no more resistance an sich than there is freedom an sich. In the absence of either, then, there is no such thing as the pure and ahistorical state of unalienated nature, either.” – Sophie-Grace Chappell, “Rôles and Reasons” (footnote omitted; emphases in original)
“To understand a practice is to come to grasp the reasons that that practice gives you—reasons that are not intelligible from outside the practice. Induction into the rôle of participant in the practice entails induction into the reasons characteristic and definitive of the practice. So by adopting the rôle I learn—and before that, commit myself to learn—to have the reasons. Not necessarily quickly or easily, either; induction into a practice can be, indeed usually is, hard work. By such induction I ‘systematically extend’ my own capacities to achieve the various kinds of excellence; and that means, too, that I systematically extend my own repertoire of reasons.” – Sophie-Grace Chappell, “Rôles and Reasons” (emphasis in original)
“Work really is the answer to so many problems, and it’s a form of play, too, that you take very seriously and keep trying to expand.” – Diane Keaton (interviewed by Meg Grant in “Diane Keaton Can’t Stop”)
“Fate is definite and there is no altering—the suit always fits.” – Major General Edward F. Witsell, United States Army Air Forces (quoted by Rick Atkinson in The Guns at Last Light)
“As long as fifty-one percent of your decisions are right, you’ll succeed.” – Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery (quoted by Rick Atkinson in The Guns at Last Light)
“Great minds discuss ideas, average ones discuss events, and small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Nothing is so beautiful, marvelous, ever new, ever surprising, so full of sweet and continual delight, as the good. Nothing is so barren and dismal, monotonous and boring as evil. That is the way with real good and evil. Fictional good and evil are quite the opposite, though. Fictional good is boring and flat. Fictional evil is varied, interesting, attractive, profound, and seductive. This is because in reality, there is a necessity, like gravity, governing us that is missing in fiction.” – Simone Weil, “Literature and Morals”
“Don’t come to work just for the paycheck. You want to be challenged, you want to learn, and you want to grow. Break out of your comfort zone and keep an open mind. As long as you’re in a position where you’re expanding your mind and learning new things, you’re going to be fulfilled.” – Nicole Guyer McMurrian, E-Discovery Project Manager
“Artists do their best work when they’re old or young. Middle age is the enemy of art.” – Orson Welles
“I want to fight the champ. If you lose, you’ve lost to the champ and it’s no disgrace. If you win, you’re the new champ.” – General George S. Patton, Jr., USA (quoted by Rick Atkinson in An Army at Dawn)
“Boundaries on talent exist, but they manifest with reluctance. Dream big. Train hard. Find limits. And don’t bet your life on success.” – Paul Voosen, “Bringing Up Genius”
“There is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle. There is not a law under which any part of this universe is governed which does not come into play, and is not touched upon, in these phenomena.” – Michael Faraday, “The Chemical History of a Candle”
“We become ourselves by wanting other people: not only wanting to have them, but wanting sometimes more urgently to become them, to feel as we imagine they feel, to think or create or whatever else we wish to do as naturally as we imagine they do. We take assignments in being by adopting as our ideals the things other people never were, or failed to become, and then never stop doubting whether what we are is theirs or ours.” – Jedediah Purdy, “Maybe Connect”