Key Quotes - page 63
Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Persians, Chinese and Japanese could be cited as examples of ethnic continuity, since, despite massive cultural changes over the centuries, certain key identifying components-name, language, customs, religious community and territorial association-were broadly maintained and reproduced for millennia.
Anthony D. Smith
In Plan 9 and Inferno, the key ideas are the protocol for communicating between components and the simplification and extension of particular concepts. In Plan 9, the key abstraction is the file system-anything you can read and write and select by names in a hierarchy-and the protocol exports that abstraction to remote channels to enable distribution. Inferno works similarly, but it has a layer of language interaction above it through the Limbo language interface-which is like Java, but cleaner I think.
Ken Thompson
Monoculture is the single most powerful simplification of modern agriculture, the key move in reconfiguring nature as a machine, yet nothing else in agriculture is so poorly fitted to the way nature seems to work. Very simply, a vast field of identical plants will always be exquisitely vulnerable to insects, weeds, and disease-to all the vicissitudes of nature. Monoculture is at the root of virtually every problem that bedevils the modern farmer, and from which virtually every agricultural product is designed to deliver him.
Michael Pollan
After the desk clerk hands you your key, the bellman will grab your suitcase and ask, "So where are you coming in from today?" Like everyone else at the hotel, he doesn't really listen to your answer. His words are just a hook to hang a tip on. You could say you're from a town ten miles down the road or from another dimension. Either way, you get the same response: "You're a long way from home, aren't you?"
David Sedaris
Every time man stands before God wholeheartedly − that is, "poor" and without being puffed up − he stands on the ground of absolute certitude, the certitude of his conditional salvation and the certitude of God. And that is why God has given us the gift of this supernatural key that is prayer: in order that we might stand before Him as in the primordial state, and as always and everywhere; or as in eternity.
Frithjof Schuon
The irony, of course, is that high development theory was right. By this I do not mean that the Big Push is really the right story of how development takes place, or even that the issues raised in high development theory are necessarily the key ones for making poor countries rich. What I do mean is that the unconventional themes put forth by the high development theorists their emphasis on strategic complementarity in investment decisions and on the problem of coordination failure - did in fact identify important possibilities that are neglected in competitive equilibrium models. But the high development theorists failed to convince their colleagues of the importance of those possibilities. Worse, they failed even to communicate clearly what they were talking about. And so good ideas, important ideas, were ignored for a generation after they were first enunciated.
Paul Krugman
We did manage to forge partnerships on key legislation, such as the Ryan White AIDS Care Act, State Children's Health Insurance Program, and most recently, the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. Ted was a lion among liberals, but he was also a constructive and shrewd lawmaker. He never lost sight of the big picture and was willing to compromise on certain provisions in order to move forward on issues he believed important. And, perhaps most importantly, he always kept his word. When our carefully balanced compromise legislation came to the Senate floor, Ted often had to lead the opposition to amendments offered by Democratic colleagues that he would rather have supported. But, he took the integrity of our agreement seriously and protected the negotiated package.
Ted Kennedy
Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns.... Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees. The key to the solution of the crisis is dialogue and mediation... There is nothing more undemocratic than a coup d'état and nothing more corrosive to the rule of law and to international stability when foreign governments meddle in the internal affairs of other states...
Alfred de Zayas
On electronic music: "The source is electronic, but what you do with it is the same as with acoustic instruments. Sound is sound and vibration is vibration, whether from an electronic source or an acoustic instrument. The way we use these sources is the key in order to define the required musical result. Without neglecting the acoustic conventional instruments, I spend a fair amount of time dealing with the electronic sources of sound. But please do not think computers! Computers are extremely helpful and amazing for a multitude of scientific areas, but for me, when it comes to creation, they are insufficient and slow. Therefore all of my efforts are to stay away from that beast".
Vangelis
His great object was to obtain the glitter and sparkle of nature after a shower; and for this purpose, passing by the oak and elm, our two first trees, he took the white poplar and the ash - the one for the leaf, the other for the bark. This I had from himself, and it is a key to his pictures. A French paysagiste [landscape-painter] once came from Paris to request him to show him his method of painting. Constable said he should have been most happy to meet his wishes, but that unfortunately he had no method, and got his pictures up he did not know how. This I had from Mr. Field, who was present.
John Constable
I agree with you that a grave calamity overhangs the Liberal party in connection with the plan which I described to you in two peculiar monosyllabic epithets [mad and drunk]... Liberalism cannot put on the garb of Jingoism without suffering for it... [For sixty years my life has been] a constant effort to do all I could for economy & for peace; not the peace of this country only but of the world... it is not now economy but peace which supplies the key note of the situation... If the thing is to be done at all let it be done by those who think it right.
William Ewart Gladstone
I had an incredible 10-year run with Marvel which pushed me creatively. I now have tons more ambition to do things I haven't done before. Evolving is key - the worst thing you can do is get in your own way. Just in the matter of me wanting to be a fit father, husband and citizen, it'd be irresponsible of me to not keep my eye ahead so I can prepare my mind for what's to come and the transition. As an actor, every time I get a script now, I think about the commitment and time I'd be away from my missus and kiddos.
Robert Downey Jr.
As memetic evolution picked up steam, humans were transformed. No longer were we devices designed solely to pass on our genes. Suddenly, we became hybrid creatures, torn between passing on our genes and passing on our memes. This vision of our species helps to explain much of what most puzzled the alien scientist: our moral systems, our religions, our art and music and science. Cultural evolution is the key to unravelling the deepest mysteries of the human animal.
Steve Stewart-Williams
The key to the four modernizations is the modernization of science and technology. Without modern science and technology, it is impossible to build modern agriculture, modern industry or modern national defence. Without the rapid development of science and technology, there can be no rapid development of the economy. The Central Committee of the Party decided to call this national science conference in order to bring home to the Party and country the importance of science, to map out a programme, to commend advanced units and individuals and to discuss measures for speeding up the development of science and technology in China.
Deng Xiaoping
