Thus Quotes - page 47
I have repeatedly mentioned to your Excellency, for some months past, that the supplies of money furnished the department were very unequal to the current expenses. I have all along flattered myself that affairs would take a new and more favorable turn. As Congress were deliberating upon the subject of finance, I was led to believe that the schemes and plans they were adopting would afford more ample relief; and have encouraged the agents, under such an expectation, to proceed in the execution of the business. They have been enabled to extend their credit thus far, so as to keep the wheels in motion, hoping not to fail until government could find ways and means for furnishing us with cash more adequate to the demands.
Nathanael Greene
What Phædrus thought and said is significant. But no one was listening at that time and they only thought him eccentric at first, then undesirable, then slightly mad, and then genuinely insane. There seems little doubt that he was insane, but much of his writing at the time indicates that what was driving him insane was this hostile opinion of him. Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self-stoking cycles until some sort of climax is reached. In Phædrus' case there was a court-ordered police arrest and permanent removal from society.
Robert M. Pirsig
If sin must be kept alive, then hell must be kept alive; but while I regard the smallest sin as infinitely loathsome, I do not believe that any being, never good enough to see the essential ugliness of sin, could sin so as to deserve such punishment. I am not now, however, dealing with the question of the duration of punishment, but with the idea of punishment itself; and would only say in passing, that the notion that a creature born imperfect, nay, born with impulses to evil not of his own generating, and which he could not help having, a creature to whom the true face of God was never presented, and by whom it never could have been seen, should be thus condemned, is as loathsome a lie against God as could find place in heart too undeveloped to understand what justice is, and too low to look up into the face of Jesus.
George MacDonald
Sunzi said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.
Sun Tzu
In heav'n, the saint nor pity feels, nor care,
For those thus sentenced - pity might disturb
The delicate sense and most divine repose
Of spiritus angelical
Blessed be God,
The measure of his judgments is not fixed
By man's erroneous standard. He discerns
No such inordinate difference and vast
Betwixt the sinner and the saint, to doom
Such disproportion'd fates.
Compared with him,
No man on earth is holy called: they best
Stand in his sight approved, who at his feet
Their little crowns of virtue cast, and yield,
To him of his own works the praise, his due.
Charles Lamb
I accept the fact that the important painting of the last hundred years was done in France. American painters have generally missed the point of modern painting from beginning to end... Thus the fact that good European moderns [European artists who lived in the U. S. because of the Nazi-regime] are now here is very important, for they bring with them an understanding of the problems of modern painting. I am particularly impressed with their concept of the source of art being the unconscious. These idea interests me more than these specific artists do, for the two artists I admire most, Picasso and Joan Miró, are still abroad.
Jackson Pollock
We expect salvation from him-not because he stands aloof from us, but because ingrafting us into his body he not only makes us partakers of all his benefits, but also of himself. ... Since Christ has been communicated to you with all his benefits, so that all which is his is made yours, you become a member of him, and hence one with him. His righteousness covers your sins-his salvation extinguishes your condemnation; he interposes with his worthiness, and so prevents your unworthiness from coming into the view of God. Thus it truly is. It will never do to separate Christ from us, nor us from him; but we must, with both hands, keep firm hold of that alliance by which he has riveted us to himself.
John Calvin
Our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us ... that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself; that is, so long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.
John Calvin
Part of the strength of science is that it has tended to attract individuals who love knowledge and the creation of it. Just as important to the integrity of science have been the unwritten rules of the game. These provide recognition and approbation for work which is imaginative and accurate, and apathy or criticism for the trivial or inaccurate... Thus, it is the communication process which is at the core of the vitality and integrity of science...
Philip Abelson
Arithmetic and geometry, according to Plato, are the two wings of the mathematician. The object indeed of all mathematical questions, is to determine the ratios of numbers, or of magnitudes ; and it may even be said, to continue the comparison of the ancient philosopher, that arithmetic is the mathematician's right wing; for it is an incontestable truth, that geometrical determinations would, for the most part, present nothing satisfactory to the mind, if the ratios thus determined could not be reduced to numerical ratios. This justifies the common practice, which we shall here follow, of beginning with arithmetic.
Jacques Ozanam
I marvel'd how Man, by his GOD-sent wit,
Thus tam'd the salamander Element
And loos'd the Metal in the mountain pent
To make us Saws, and Shears, and useful Plows,
Swords for our hands, and Helmets for our brows,
The surgeon's Scalpel, vehicle of Health,
And all our humble Tools for gaining wealth...
”De Arte Munificente,” Seventeenth century.
John Brunner
Everything is flowing - going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores, with streams of music and fragrance; water streams carrying rocks .... While the stars go streaming through space pulsed on and on forever like blood globules in Nature's warm heart.
John Muir
