Relative Quotes - Page 23

• 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.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a strong current in contemporary culture advocating ' holistic ' views as some sort of cure-all... Reductionism implies attention to a lower level while holistic implies attention to higher level. These are intertwined in any satisfactory description: and each entails some loss relative to our cognitive preferences, as well as some gain... there is no whole system without an interconnection of its parts and there is no whole system without an environment.

  Francisco Varela

  Strong, Loss, Views

  "From autopoiesis to neurophenomenology: Francisco Varela's exploration of the biophysics of being" by D. Rudrauf, Biol Res 36: 27-65, 2003.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• When you choose a language, youre also choosing a community. The programmers youll be able to hire to work on a Java project wont be as smart as the ones you could get to work on a project written in Python. And the quality of your hackers probably matters more than the language you choose. Though, frankly, the fact that good hackers prefer Python to Java should tell you something about the relative merits of those languages.

  Philip Greenspun

  Smart, Python, Community

  6 Copy quote

• The impact of the Kyoto Protocol on global temperature is quite modest, especially for the first century. The reduction in global mean temperature in the Annex I case relative to the reference in 2100 is 0.13ºC; this compares with a difference of 0.17ºC from the Kyoto Protocol calculated by Wigley. The temperature reduction in the optimal run is essentially the same as the Kyoto runs by the 22nd century.

  Henry Sylvester Jacoby

  Running, Mean, Kyoto Protocol

  4 Copy quote

• There are important arguments to be made about the relative merits of an hereditary or an elected head of state: but not at the level of the human frailties of particular monarchs or presidents. No one seriously contends that the American presidency should be abolished because Bill Clinton is a self-confessed adulterer. So why should the abolition of the British monarchy be contemplated because the same is true of Prince Charles?

  David Cannadine

  Self, Important, President

  David Cannadine (1998). “History in Our Time”, Penguin Group USA

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Money is not a part of the visible sector of the economy; people do not consume money. Money is not a physical factor of production, but rather a yardstick for measuring economic input, economic outtake and the relative values of the real goods and services of the economic world. Money provides a method of measuring obligations, rights, powers and privileges. It provides a means whereby certain individuals can accumulate claims against others, or against the economy as a whole, or against many economies.

  Louis O. Kelso

  Real, Mean, Relative Value

  Louis O. Kelso, Patricia Hetter Kelso (1967). “Two-factor Theory: the Economics of Reality; how to Turn Eighty Million Workers Into Capitalists on Borrowed Money, and Other Proposals”, New York : Vintage Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things.

  Giordano Bruno

  Space, Atheism, Body

  "Cause, Principle, and Unity". Book by Giordano Bruno, 1584.

  99 Copy quote

  Show source

• What played to what had been a relative weakness for us-this was exploding overseas as well, and we had to scramble to mount some reach and get into places and be competitive on the ground.

  Brit Hume

  Weakness, Literature, Wells

  7 Copy quote

• Our past affects us, our present affects us, and even our future can affect us. We live in the relative world of time and space.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Science, Past

  4 Copy quote

• Economics is important because it's possible to buy the places that are necessary to live in relative inaccessibility and seclusion, or to move with a bit of style and chicness into the middle of civilization.

  Frederick Lenz

  Success, Moving, Buddhism

  4 Copy quote

• As long as you are in the relative worlds, you should be realistic and know there is winning and losing here.

  Frederick Lenz

  Success, Buddhism, Winning

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  29 Copy quote

• Poverty is relative, and the lack of food and of the necessities of life is not necessarily a hardship. Spiritual and social ostracism, the invasion of your privacy, are what constitute the pain of poverty

  Alice Foote MacDougall

  Spiritual, Pain, Hardship

  11 Copy quote

• We do not see and estimate the relative importance of objects so easily and clearly from the level or the waving land as from the elevation of a lone peak, towering above the plain; for each looks through his own mist.

  Albert Pike

  Land, Looks, Levels

  Albert Pike “Morals and Dogma : Scottish Rite in Freemasonry”, Lulu.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our perception of space-time can be thought of in terms of event coordinates relative to our current state of consciousness.

  Wayne Gerard Trotman

  Space, Perception, Events

  4 Copy quote

• Size is relative. If everyone is fat, no-one is fat

  Lionel Shriver

  Size, Fats, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places.The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Poetry, Attention, Definitions

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835). “Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge: In Two Volumes”, p.214

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Three elements go to make up an idea. The first is its intrinsic quality as a feeling. The second is the energy with which it affects other ideas, an energy which is infinite in the here-and-nowness of immediate sensation, finite and relative in the recency of the past. The third element is the tendency of an idea to bring along other ideas with it.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Past, Ideas, Feelings

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1974). “Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce”, Harvard University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• One will meet, for example, the virtual assumption that what is relative to thought cannot be real. But why not, exactly? Red is relative to sight, but the fact that this or that is in that relation to vision that we call being red is not itself relative to sight; it is a real fact.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Real, Sight, Vision

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1958). “Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)”, p.198, Courier Corporation

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Families and societies are small and large versions of one another. Both are made up of people who have to work together, whose destinies are tied up with one another. Each features the components of a relationship: leaders perform roles relative to the led, the young to the old, and male to female; and each is involved with the process of decision-making, use of authority, and the seeking of common goals.

  Virginia Satir

  Destiny, Goal, People

  Virginia Satir (1988). “The new peoplemaking”, Science & Behavior Books

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am not fooling myself with dreams of immortality, know how relative all literature is, don't have any faith in mankind, derive enjoyment from too few things. Sometimes these crises give birth to something worth while, sometimes they simply plunge one deeper into depression, but, of course, it is all part of the same thing.

  Stefan Zweig

  Depression, Dream, Giving

  Stefan Zweig, Friderike Maria Burger Winternitz Zweig (1954). “Stefan and Friderike Zweig: their correspondence, 1912-1942”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is because everything is relative
  That we shall never see in that sphere of pure wisdom and
  Entertainment much more than groping shadows of an incomplete
  Former existence so close it burns like the mouth that
  Closes down over all your effort like the moment
  Of death

  John Ashbery

  Death, Wisdom, Effort

  John Ashbery, Lee Harwood, Tom Raworth (1971). “John Ashbery, Lee Harwood, Tom Raworth”, Not Avail

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We may produce at will, from a sending station. an electrical effect in any particular region of the globe; we may determine the relative position or course of a moving object, such as a vessel at sea, the distance traversed by the same, or its speed.

  Nikola Tesla

  Distance, Moving, Sea

  Nikola Tesla (2016). “My Inventions: And Other Writings”, p.123, Courier Dover Publications

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't think I'll ever meet the perfect woman. I might have to get me one of them mail order women. You can do that: you send away to the Philippines, and they send you a wife. The only thing is, once you're on their mailing list, they keep sending you a relative a month whether you want it or not.

  Adam Ferrara

  Funny, Humor, Thinking

  6 Copy quote

• What we often take to be family values--the work ethic, honesty, clean living, marital fidelity, and individual responsibility--are in fact social, religious, or cultural values. To be sure, these values are transmitted by parents to their children and are familial in that sense. They do not, however, originate within the family. It is the value of close relationships with other family members, and the importance of these bonds relative to other needs.

  David Elkind

  Religious, Children, Honesty

  8 Copy quote