Significance Quotes - page 21
Review by Noam Chomsky: That the Obama phenomenon is of considerable significance in American social and political history should hardly be in doubt. But what exactly is it, and where might it lead? This lucid and penetrating book situates it firmly within the ‘corporate-dominated and militaristic U.S. elections system and political culture,' explores in depth its substantive content and its limits, and draws valuable lessons about how these might be transcended in the unending struggle to achieve a more just and free society and a peaceful world. It is a very welcome contribution in complex and troubled times.
Noam Chomsky
I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today - and even professional - seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is - in my opinion - the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.
Albert Einstein
Of what significance is one's existence, one is basically unaware. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life The bitter and the sweet come from outside. The hard from within, from one's own efforts. For the most part I do what my own nature drives me to do. It is embarrassing to earn such respect and love for it.
Albert Einstein
The individual, if left alone from birth would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member of a great human society, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.
Albert Einstein
We may be able to tell how many stars are in the Milky Way we may be able to count the petals of every flower, and number the bones of every bird but unless faith leads us to a deeper understanding, a more reverent comprehension of the significance of the universe, God can be no more pleased with our knowledge than the painter is pleased with the fly which touches his picture with its feelers, and sips the varnish from the surface, and dies without dreaming of the meaning, thought, feeling, embodied in the colors.
Henry van Dyke
I am impressed by what I read, by the depth of his ideas, of his message. He speaks about peace from a very original and unique perspective. We are used to hearing speeches about peace. We usually tend to leave peace in the hands of governments or political organizations. Prem Rawat speaks about peace from a different perspective-more precise, more human-and he stresses the significance of each human being in the pursuit of world peace. I find great merit in his message.
Prem Rawat
That new language is the language of atomic warfare. The atomic age has moved forward at such a pace that every citizen of the world should have some comprehension, at least in comparative terms, of the extent of this development of the utmost significance to every one of us. Clearly, if the people of the world are to conduct an intelligent search for peace, they must be armed with the significant facts of today's existence.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Those forces that are preparing the appearance of Antichrist will have a leading significance in public life. Antichrist will be a man and not the devil incarnate. ... That man wants to be in place of Christ, to occupy His place and possess that which Christ ought to possess. He wants to possess the same attraction and authority over the whole world.
And he will receive that authority before his own destruction and that of the whole world. He will have a helper, a Magus, who, by the power of false miracles, will fulfill his will and kill those that do not recognize the authority of Antichrist.
John of Shanghai and San Francisco
Any author who uses mathematics should always express in ordinary language the meaning of the assumptions he admits, as well as the significance of the results obtained. The more abstract his theory, the more imperative this obligation.
In fact, mathematics are and can only be a tool to explore reality. In this exploration, mathematics do not constitute an end in itself, they are and can only be a means.
Maurice Allais
The possibility and significance of fractional angular momentum is discussed, and some simple physical realizations of it are mentioned. This leads naturally to consideration of the possibility of fractional quantum statistics, which is seen to be a possibility inherent in the kinematics of 2+1 dimensional quantum mechanics. Both sorts of fractionalization are intimately related to theories, and the classic considerations of Aharonov and Bohm on the significance of the vector potential in quantum mechanics. The meaning and importance of discrete gauge invariance in continuum theories is pointed out. Fractional statistics is shown to have a simple dynamical realization in the dynamics of charge-flux tube composites. Fractional statistics is shown to occur very naturally in the most geometrical quantum field theories in 2+1 dimensions, that is in the nonlinear sigma model and in quantum electrodynamics.
Frank Wilczek
Most books belong to the house and streets only, ... But thIS ... addresses what is deepest and most abidlllg in man .... Its truth speaks freshly to our experience. [the sentences of Manu] are a pIece with depth and serenity and I am sure they will have a place and significance as long as there is a sky to test them by.
Henry David Thoreau
I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or Christ, or Swedenborg, who are without the pale of their churches. It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ. I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I like him too.
Henry David Thoreau
Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage-the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.
Ayn Rand
At Chicago, Hayek put aside his more technical economic work for the development of a social and political theory that became in time the most ambitious and complete synthesis to emerge from the ranks of the post-war Right. Among its themes - the overriding significance of the rule of law, the need for social inequality, the function of unreflective tradition, the value of a leisured class - were many cultivated by Strauss across the campus. Neither thinker, however, ever referred to the other. Did temperamental antagonism, or intellectual indifference, dictate the silence? Whatever the case, latent tensions of outlook between them were to find expression in due course. Schmitt, on the other hand, was never far from Hayek's mind – standing for the prime example of a skilled jurist whose sophistry helped to destroy the rule of law in Germany, yet a political theorist whose stark definitions of the nature of sovereignty and the logic of party, at any rate, had to be accepted.
Friedrich Hayek
The explanation Marxism offered of the significance of History was ludicrously simple, and in this very simplicity lay its charm, and its strength. The whole history of the world was merely the record of the struggle of classes. Religion, philosophy, science, technics, music, painting, poetry, nobility, priesthood, Emperor and Pope State, war, and politics - all are simply reflections of economics. Not economics generally, but the "struggle" of "classes." The most amazing thing about this ideological picture is that it was ever put forward seriously, or taken seriously.
Francis Parker Yockey
