Morality and Force

For force always attracts men of low morality ....

Source: Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, 1931
Taken From: Antiwar.com

Guardian of Freedom

...don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with...

Source:  Gerard K. O'Neill, 2081 (written 1981)

Rights and Rulers

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?

Blaise Pascal
Source: Pensèes, Section V - Link

Economical Numbers

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

Richard Feynman (Unsourced)

On Infinity

the whole is no greater than some of its parts.

Edward Kasner and James Newman
  Mathematics and Imagination (2001, Beyond the Googol) - Link
  Taken From:  The Western Tradition Blog - Link

Minority

Never underestimate the power of a minority who cherish the vision of a just and gentle world,

Robert Bellah (Quoted in Speech by John Stott)

Conditioning and Foretelling

The Führer once told his secretary that during one of the regular beatings given him by his father he was able to stop crying, to feel nothing, and even to count the thirty-two blows he received. 

As paraphrased by Alice Miller (1998)

Wealth is

Wealth is the product of the progressive mastery of matter by mind,

Richard Buckminster Fuller (1968, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth)

Peer Review

Scientists understand that peer review per se provides only a minimal assurance of quality, and that the public conception of peer review as a stamp of authentication is far from the truth.

Nature Magazine (2006 editorial)

Monderman and responsibility

The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.

Hans Monderman (11/16/2006 in Spiegel Online, german news agency)

Idiots and Idiots

When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.

Hans Monderman (11/16/2006 in Spiegel Online, german news agency)

Monderman on Behavior

The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior.

Hans Monderman (11/16/2006 in Spiegel Online, german news agency)

Overgeneralizations

if one writes a book or article having to do with "the child" (this has been done many times), this is an effective way of overgeneralizing without calling attention to the fact that a generalization has been made. It implies (but is careful not to state) that all children are alike and that the prototype, child, should be our primary concern. Similarly one may surreptitiously generalize about the newspaper reader, the churchgoer or the criminal. The honest thing is to speak of "children," "newspaper readers," "churchgoers," "criminals." If one wants to make generalizations, he can then do so at his own risk; the sneaky thing to do is to try to get the generalization by without stating it.

Roger J. Williams (1967, You Are Extraordinary)

Chaos

Chaos is but unperceived order; it is a word indicating the limitations of the human mind and the paucity of observational facts. The words ‘chaos,’ ‘accidental,’ ‘chance,’ ‘unpredictable,’ are conveniences behind which we hide our ignorance.

Harlow Shapley  (1885-1972, an American astronomer)

Nature of Science

The nature of science is such that people who look for confirming evidence will always find it.

David Deming (12/02/2009)

Medieval Warm Period

We must get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.

A major person working in the area of climate change according to Professor Deming (2008?)

Laplace on Expanding Knowledge

An educated man knows how little he knows.

Marquis Pierre Simone de Laplace (1749 - 1827)