Formal Quotes - Page 21

• By abstaining from all definite content, whether as formal logic and theory of science or as the legend of Being beyond all beings, philosophy declared its bankruptcy regarding concrete social goals.

  Theodor Adorno

  Philosophy, Goal, Legends

  Theodor W. Adorno (2012). “Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords”, p.6, Columbia University Press

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• Relying on words to lead you to the truth is like relying on an incomplete formal system to lead you to the truth. A formal system will give you some truths, but as we shall soon see, a formal system, no matter how powerful cannot lead to all truths.

  Douglas Hofstadter

  Powerful, Giving, Matter

  "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid". Book by Douglas Hofstadter, 1979.

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• This merely formal conceiving of the facts of one's own wretchedness is at the same time a departure from them--placing them in the object. It is not idle, therefore, to observe reflexively that in that very Thought, one has separated himself from them, and is no longer that which empirically he still sees himself to be.

  William Ernest Hocking

  Facts, Departure, Idle

  William Ernest Hocking, Ph.D. (1912). “The Meaning of God in Human Experience”

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• The fact that scientists do not consciously practice a formal methodology is very poor evidence that no such methodology exists. It could be said-has been said-that there is a distinctive methodology of science which scientists practice unwittingly, like the chap in Moliere who found that all his life, unknowingly, he had been speaking prose.

  Peter Medawar

  Science, Practice, Facts

  Peter Brian Medawar (1969). “Induction and intuition in scientific thought”

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• Real Freedom is to not feel limited when wearing this Zen robe, this troublesome formal robe. Similarly, in our busy life we should wear this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, without being caught by it.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Real, Civilization, Busy

  "Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen". Book by Shunryū Suzuki. Chapter: "Not Always So", p. 95, 2002.

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• An artist doesn't necessarily have deeper feelings than other people, but he can express these feelings. He is like everyone else-only more so! He speaks with a Formal Sigh.

  Ned Rorem

  Artist, People, Feelings

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• I don't meditate in any formal way, but I often lie in bed or find myself in nature and enter into that state of quiet where I get images, feelings, or melodies.

  Julian Lennon

  Lying, Feelings, Bed

  "Mindful Music: The Creation of ‘Everything Changes’ With Julian Lennon". Interview with Ronald Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 8, 2013.

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• The notion of a formal structure of command must be abandoned. It is more useful to think of the mature corporation as a series of concentric circles.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Thinking, Circles, Corporations

  John Kenneth Galbraith (1971). “The new industrial state”, Houghton Mifflin

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• Abstract art as it is conceived at present is a game bequeathed to painting and sculpture by art history. One who accepts its premises must consent to limit his imagination to a depressing casuistry regarding the formal requirements of modernism.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Depressing, Art, Games

  Harold Rosenberg (1983). “Art on the Edge: Creators and Situations”, p.71, University of Chicago Press

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• What interests me about thoughts is not the moment when it crystallises into formal ideas but its earlier stages.

  Jean Dubuffet

  Ideas, Moments, Stage

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• At a purely formal level, one could call probability theory the study of measure spaces with total measure one, but that would be like calling number theory the study of strings of digits which terminate.

  Terence Tao

  Probability Theory, Numbers, Space

  Terence Tao (2012). “Topics in Random Matrix Theory”, p.2, American Mathematical Soc.

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• Formal religion was organized for slaves: it offered them consolation which earth did not provide.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Atheism, Earth, Slave

  Elbert Hubbard (1908). “Health & Wealth”

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• I never considered I might make a career out of writing as I was going to school, so when I did turn my attentions that way, I was very ill prepared, having only what I read as a guide, and no formal training whatsoever. I credit that very ignorance with a great deal of my success.

  Kim Harrison

  Writing, School, Ignorance

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• I don't think it's necessary for artists to have any formal training in painting or art history, but I do think it's essential to continually experiment with different subject matter, types of paint and methods of painting.

  Ron Parker

  Art, Thinking, Training

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• I've never known anyone who has fallen into sin and been successfully restored by the formal church structure. Nor have I ever seen a formal church structure wisely deal with sin, enabling ministry to continue without interruption.

  Ted Haggard

  Church, Enabling, Ministry

  Ted Haggard (1998). “The Life-Giving Church”, Regal Books

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• We on the left have forgotten that the question is not how do you get good people to rule, most people who rule are mediocre at best and usually venal. The question is how do we make those in power frightened of us and not be seduced by formal political processes.

  Chris Hedges

  People, Political, Forgotten

  "Thom Hartmann Talks to Chris Hedges About How Liberals Are a Useless Lot". Interview with Thom Hartmann, www.thomhartmann.com. December 07, 2009.

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• People used to wear ordinary clothes weekdays, and formal attire on Sunday. Today it is the exact reverse.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Sunday, Clothes, People

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.1720, Random House

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• It was Rudolf Carnap's dream for the last three decades of his life to show that science proceeds by a formal syntactic method; today no one to my knowledge holds out any hope for that project.

  Hilary Putnam

  Dream, Today, Lasts

  "Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism". Book by James Conant and Urszula M. Zeglen, 2002.

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• At the turn of the [21st] century it was really Sergey Brin at Google who just had the thought of, well, if we give away all the information services, but we make money from advertising, we can make information free and still have capitalism. But the problem with that is it reneges on the social contract where people still participate in the formal economy. And it's a kind of capitalism that's totally self-defeating because it's so narrow. It's a winner-take-all capitalism that's not sustaining.

  Jaron Lanier

  Self, People, Giving

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• From any vocabulary of ideas we can build other ideas by formal combinations of signs. But not any set of ideas will be instructive. One must have the right ideas.

  Ian Hacking

  Vocabulary, Ideas, Combination

  Ian Hacking (2006). “The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference”, p.139, Cambridge University Press

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• I recently went mad and spent 1,000 in one afternoon on bras and knickers. I love classy, lacy stuff that makes you feel dead sexy knowing you've got it on. I've never worn stockings and suspenders, though. But I could imagine they'd make you feel really sexy worn under something formal. I think I'll save that experience and wear them under my wedding dress.

  Jennifer Ellison

  Sexy, Thinking, Knowing

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• Unless the Arab states give Israel formal recognition, within secure, recognised and mutually agreed boundaries, as a permanent feature of the geography and politics of the Middle East. But if Israel is to obtain this recognition, she must, in a settlement, put an end to the territorial occupation which she has maintained since the war of 1967; the nine members of the European Community have declared that this is an essential element in a settlement. On behalf of the British Government I underline that need today.

  Anthony Crosland

  War, Government, Israel

  Speech to the UN General Assembly, October 5, 1976.

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• Dialectical logic undoes the abstractions of formal logic and of transcendental philosophy, but it also denies the concreteness of immediate experience. To the extent to which this experience comes to rest with the things as they appear and happen to be, it is a limited and even false experience. It attains its truth if it has freed itself from the deceptive objectivity which conceals the factors behind the facts - that is, if it understands its world as a historical universe, in which the established facts are the work of the historical practice of man.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Philosophy, Men, Objectivity

  "One-Dimensional Man" by Herbert Marcuse, (p. 141), 1964.

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• In [Aristotle's] formal logic, thought is organized in a manner very different from that of the Platonic dialogue. In this formal logic, thought is indifferent toward its objects. Whether they are mental or physical, whether they pertain to society or to nature, they become subject to the same general laws of organization, calculation, and conclusion - but they do so as fungible signs or symbols, in abstraction from their particular "substance." This general quality (quantitative quality) is the precondition of law and order - in logic as well as in society - the price of universal control.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Order, Law, Organization

  "One-Dimensional Man" by Herbert Marcuse, (p. 136), 1964.

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• The essence and foundation of House of Commons debating is formal conversation. The set speech, the harangue addressed to constituents, or to the wider public out of doors, has never succeeded much in our small wisely-built chamber. To do any good you have got to get down to grips with the subject and in human touch with the audience.

  Winston Churchill

  Doors, Essence, House

  Winston Churchill (1959). “Great Contemporaries”

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