Relative Quotes - Page 20

• Man's freedom is relative and it cannot be held solely responsible for the imperfection of his nature.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Men, Imperfection, Responsible

  Sri Aurobindo (2016). “The Life Divine: Art of living”, p.296, editionNEXT.com

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• Our initial sensory data are always "first derivatives," statements about differences which exist among external objects or statements about changes which occur either in them or in our relationship to them. Objects and circumstances which remain absolutely constant relative to the observer, unchanged either by his own movement or by external events, are in general difficult and perhaps always impossible to perceive. What we perceive easily is difference and change and difference is a relationship.

  Gregory Bateson

  Data, Differences, Events

  Jurgen Ruesch, Gregory Bateson (2006). “Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry”, p.173, Transaction Publishers

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• I do not define time, space, place, and motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common.

  Isaac Newton

  Space, People, Bears

  Isaac Newton (1966). “Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World: The motion of bodies”, p.6, Univ of California Press

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• I find focusing clearly on the problem is the first step to seeing a solution. The problem is (a) the insane amount of time spent raising money from (b) a freakishly tiny proportion of America. Basically .05% are the "relevant funders" of campaigns, meaning candidates can't help but be overly sensitive to the views of that tiny fraction relative to the rest of us. IF that's the problem, THEN the solution is to spread the funders out: to increase the range of us who are the relevant funders of elections, through schemes like vouchers or coupons given to every voter.

  Lawrence Lessig

  America, Views, Insane

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• As long as we try to project from the relative and conditioned to the absolute and unconditioned, we shall keep the pendulum swinging between dogmatism and skepticism. The only way to stop this increasingly tiresome pendulum swing is to change our conception of what philosophy is good for. But that is not something which will be accomplished by a few neat arguments. It will be accomplished, if it ever is, by a long, slow process of cultural change - that is to say, of change in common sense, changes in the intuitions available for being pumped up by philosophical arguments.

  Richard Rorty

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Swings

  "Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3". Book by Richard Rorty (Introduction), March 13, 1998.

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• The soufflé is considered the prima donna of the culinary world. The timbale is her more even-tempered relative. On closer acquaintance, both become quite tractable and are great glamorizers for leftover foods.

  Irma S. Rombauer

  Cooking, World, Culinary

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• One of the effects of modern liberal Protestantism has been gradually to turn religion into poetry and therapy, to make truth vaguer and vaguer and more and more relative, to banish intellectual distinctions, to depend on feeling instead of thought, and gradually to come to believe that God has no power, that he cannot communicate with us, cannot reveal himself to us, indeed has not done so, and that religion is our own sweet invention.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Sweet, Women, Believe

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• Kids are told there are no differences between boys and girls. They are told there is no such thing ultimately as right and wrong. Values are relative. Truth is relative. Morality is defined by individual choice. If that isn't a recipe for sexual harassment and other forms of sexual and physical abuse, I don't know what it is.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Girl, Kids, Boys

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• Humanists hold that ethical values are relative to human experience and need not be derived from theological or metaphysical foundations.

  Paul Kurtz

  Atheism, Foundation, Needs

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• O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Where, indeed. Many a badly stung survivor, faced with the aftermath of some relative's funeral, has ruefully concluded that the victory has been won hands down by a funeral establishment - in disastrously unequal battle.

  Jessica Mitford

  Hands, Funeral, Victory

  Jessica Mitford (2011). “The American Way of Death Revisited”, p.14, Vintage

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• Unlike proportionality, progression provides no principle which tells us what the relative burden of different persons ought to be the argument based on the presumed justice of progression provides no limitation, as has often been admitted by its supporters, before all incomes above a certain figure are confiscated, and those below left untaxed.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Justice, Principles, Different

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Chap. 20 : Taxation and Redistribution, 1960.

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• The chief point we must remember is that the great and rapid advance of the physical sciences took place in fields where it proved that explanation and prediction could be based on laws which accounted for the observed phenomena as functions of comparatively few variables - either particular facts or relative frequencies of events.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Law, Events, Variables

  Friedrich August von Hayek's Prize Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1974.

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• If there's anythin' on earth that can be more tryin' than any kind of relative, I don't know what it is, but relatives by marriage comes first - easy.

  Myrtle Reed

  Earth, Firsts, Kind

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• People need to understand. If they go to a show on Broadway and find seventy people working but only fifty spectators, how much would the ticket cost? That's what El Bulli's about. There are seventy actors who are playing for just fifty spectators. Is the price expensive? It's relative. How much does a normal dinner at a five-star hotel restaurant cost? Four hundred dollars. It's the same as El Bulli. But you can also think of it this way: How much would it cost to eat something that nobody else is eating?

  Ferran Adria

  Stars, Thinking, People

  "Ferran Adrià: What I've Learned" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. December 16, 2010.

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• The truth that could be extracted from words was such a fluctuating, relative truth.

  Henry Handel Richardson

  Truth, Relative Truth

  Henry Handel Richardson (2008). “Maurice Guest”, p.18, Sydney University Press

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• This planet might be able to support perhaps as many as half a billion people who could live a sustainable life in relative comfort. Human populations must be greatly diminished, and as quickly as possible to limit further environmental damage.

  Eric Pianka

  People, Support, Environmental

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• First and foremost I feel I am a child of God ....Today I think that everything matters, but like a nice game of relative importance and value, certainly not absolute like conversion.

  Augusto De Luca

  Children, Nice, Thinking

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• The real conflict in the abortion issue is between a value - the right to choose whether or not to have the child - and a moral dictum - don't kill other humans. The more here, even, is flexible and relative. "Thou shall not kill" really means, "don't kill productive, contributing members of your own society that aren't a threat to your safety." If it was not relative, then no "Judeo-Christian" person could ever go to war or execute someone.

  Morris Sullivan

  Christian, Children, Real

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• Every year is different and every team is different. Your talent is different, how it gets is different, your leadership is different. That's one of the things that I really enjoy about it [coaching] - trying to maximize the potential of your team relative to how it changes every year.

  Pete Lembo

  Team, Years, Coaching

  Source: www.usatoday.com

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• How to know, oh how to know! All is relative ease and facility in orthodoxy, yet how can it be denied that good is in itself undeniable? Absolutes are the most uncertain of all formulations, while the uncertainties are the most real.

  Jack Vance

  Real, Ease, Orthodoxy

  Jack Vance (2007). “The Jack Vance Treasury”, Subterranean

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• Truth is relative, and there is always something missing in truth that prevents it from being perfect.

  Nawal El Saadawi

  Truth, Perfect, Missing

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• If you are accused of being associated with terrorism, which could mean you are an Arab- American and you've sent e-mails to a relative in the Middle East, you should get your day in court, and I think you should get a lawyer and a trial, and I think most Americans agree to that.

  Rand Paul

  Mean, Thinking, Middle East

  "Sen. Rand Paul on top congressional issues; pivotal moment in the battle over gay marriage". "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace", www.foxnews.com. March 24, 2013.

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• It is my observation that 98% of the people are spending 98% of their time focusing on the 98% of things that don't matter. Stopping meditation is one of the easiest, quickest and most powerful forms of meditation. It is virtually effortless and its power relative to the effort is remarkable.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Powerful, People, Effort

  Source: www.trulyalive.net

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• If you have any doubt that time is relative, try stretching fifteen minutes' worth of input of over four hours cubicle-cell time with an ultra-slow internet connection and frequent visits from supervisors.

  Rob Payne

  Cells, Doubt, Trying

  "Working Class Zero". Book by Rob Payne, 2003.

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• It appears, from all that precedes, reasonably certain that if there be any relative motion between the earth and the luminiferous ether, it must be small; quite small enough entirely to refute Fresnel's explanation of aberration.

  Albert A. Michelson

  Aberration, Earth, Enough

  "On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether". Article by by Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley. American Journal of Science, 1887, 34 (203), p. 341, en.wikisource.org. 1887.

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