Today Quotes - Page 36

• Today it is generally accepted that although the earliest humans probably ate some meat, it was unlikely to have played a major role in their diet. Plants would have been a much more important source of food.

  Jane Goodall

  Important, Meat, Roles

  "Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating". Book by Gail Hudson, Gary McAvoy, Jane Goodall, 2006.

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• Few books today are forgivable. Black on canvas, silence on the screen, an empty white sheet of paper are perhaps feasible.

  R. D. Laing

  Book, White, Silence

  R.D Laing (1967). “The Politics of Experience”

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• We must remember that we are living in an age in which the ground is shifting and the foundations are shaking. I cannot answer for other times and places. Perhaps it has always been so. We know it is true today.

  R. D. Laing

  Age, Foundation, Answers

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• Today the Israeli government continues seizures of Palestinian land for settlements, military incursions into surrounding countries and denial of the right of Palestinians expelled by terror to return. Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office. Israel's own Kahan commission found that Sharon shared responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

  Ken Livingstone

  Country, Military, War

  "This is about Israel, not anti-semitism" by Ken Livingstone, www.theguardian.com. March 4, 2005.

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• I'm working on the Star Wars script today and the people in my office have covered up all my windows with black paper. I guess they wanted to make sure no one could see what I was doing. It seems rather extreme.

  J. J. Abrams

  Stars, War, Covered Up

  "JJ Abrams: Hollywood's Renaissance man" by Horatia Harrod, www.telegraph.co.uk. January 25, 2014.

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• Keep your head down, avoid all the distractions of being a writer today—all the shifts in the business, all the drama, all the debating about where publishing is going—and write the best story that you can. It sounds a bit glib, but I think this is advice a lot of people are having trouble following right now. It is so hard to focus. But that is the single key to success.

  Jeff Abbott

  Drama, Writing, Thinking

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• The only thing not worth destroying is science. That would be useless. Science is unchangeable, and if you destroyed it today, it would rise up again the same as before.

  Leonid Andreyev

  Would Be, Useless, Destroying

  Leonid Andreyev (1914). “Savva: The Life of Man : Two Plays ...”

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• I simply want tomorrow to be better than today. I want Palestine to be independent and sovereign... Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

  Mahmoud Abbas

  Fall, Independent, Hands

  "Hamas rejects Abbas unity pledge". Mahmoud Abbas' address to the UN General Assembly, news.bbc.co.uk. September 21, 2006.

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• Philosophy that satisfies its own intention, and does not childishly skip behind its own history and the real one, has its lifeblood in the resistance against the common practices of today and what they serve, against the justification of what happens to be the case.

  Theodor Adorno

  Philosophy, Real, Practice

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

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• Christianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so in the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes. Pragmatism exhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; today he is divine because he has been able to create equipment which makes him the master of matter.

  Julien Benda

  Spiritual, Men, Law

  Julien Benda, Roger Kimball (2017). “The Treason of the Intellectuals”, p.57, Routledge

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• I now say that the world has the technology - either available or well advanced in the research pipeline - to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology? While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called "organic" methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot.

  Norman Borlaug

  Technology, Pertinent Questions, People

  Norman Borlaug's 30th anniversary lecture at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo (September 8, 2000), as quoted in Ronald Bailey "Global Warming and Other Eco Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death" (p. 59), 2002.

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• You can raise good children in single parent households, and many of you perhaps here today come from that type of environment. It is possible and many do it in heroic situations, but it's much more difficult and the numbers move against us in a broad society.

  Sam Brownback

  Children, Moving, Numbers

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• As a graduate student at Columbia University, I remember the a priori derision of my distinguished stratigraphy professor toward a visiting Australian drifter [a supporter of the theory of continental drift]. Today my own students would dismiss with even more derision anyone who denied the evident truth of continental drift - a prophetic madman is at least amusing; a superannuated fuddy-duddy is merely pitiful.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Students, Graduates, Remember

  "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History". Book by Stephen Jay Gould. "The Validation of Continental Drift", pp. 160-161, 1977.

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• Society today is no longer in revolt against particular laws which it finds alien, unjust, and imposed, but against law as such, against the principle of law. And yet we must not regard this revolt as entirely negative. The energy that rejects many obsolete laws is an entirely positive impulse for renewal of life and law.

  Abraham Joshua Heschel

  Law, Energy, Principles

  Abraham Joshua Heschel (1997). “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays”, p.264, Macmillan

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• Human beings today are surrounded by huge institutions we can never penetrate: the City, the banking system, political and advertising conglomerates, vast entertainment enterprises. They've made themselves user friendly, but they define the tastes to which we conform. They're rather subtle, subservient tyrants, but no less sinister for that.

  J. G. Ballard

  Wall, Cities, Tyrants

  "A User's Guide to the Millennium". Book by J. G. Ballard, 1996.

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• For Humanity sweeps onward: where today the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.

  James Russell Lowell

  Yesterday, Hands, Humanity

  James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.190, Delphi Classics

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• Summoning artists to participate In the august occasions of the state Seems something artists ought to celebrate. Today is for my cause a day of days.

  Robert Frost

  Artist, August, Causes

  1961 'For John F Kennedy: His Inauguration', 20 Jan. Snowblindness prevented the aged poet from reading beyond the first three lines on the occasion.

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• Men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew.

  Martin Luther

  Boys, Men, Doctors

  Martin Luther (2007). “Through the Year with Martin Luther: A Selection of Sermons Celebrating the Feasts and Seasons of the Christian Year”, p.43, Hendrickson Publishers

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• Perhaps I am not I even if my little dog knows me but anyway I like what I have and now it is today.

  Gertrude Stein

  Dog, Littles, Know Me

  Gertrude Stein (2013). “Everybody's Autobiography”, p.348, Vintage

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• Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today.Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  Past, Law, Evil

  Jawaharlal Nehru, M. Chalapathi Rau, H. Y. Sharada Prasad, Bal Ram Nanda (1972). “Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru: Advisory Board: M. Chalapathi Rau, H. Y. Sharada Prasad, and B. R. Nanda; General Editor: S. Gopal”

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• Today our approaches to children are fragmented and partial. Those who care for well children know little of children who are sick. The deep knowledge that comes from the intensive attempt to cure is separated from the knowledge of those whose main task is to teach.

  Margaret Mead

  Children, Sick, Who Cares

  Margaret Mead (1964). “Continuities in Cultural Evolution”, p.321, Transaction Publishers

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• There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance implies only ignorance that may someday be conquered. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

  Isaac Asimov

  Ignorance, May, Surrender

  "The 'Threat' Of Creationism" by Isaac Asimov, www.nytimes.com. June 14, 1981.

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• Pompey had fought brilliantly and in the end routed Caesar's whole force... but either he was unable to or else he feared to push on. Caesar [said] to his friends: 'Today the enemy would have won, if they had had a commander who was a winner.'

  Plutarch

  Enemy, Pompey, Winner

  "The Life of Pompey". Book by Plutarch,

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• A slave's soul has no worth, my brothers; it lacks strength to tread on this great earth with gallantry and freedom. I pity the poor slaves, they're nought but airy mist, a light breeze scatters them, a fragrance knocks them down; it's only just they crawl on the earth on hands and knees. Today I'll write a hymn to God and pray for this great grace.

  Nikos Kazantzakis

  Brother, Writing, Light

  Nikos Kazantzakis (1958). “The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel”, New York : Simon and Schuster

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• The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success. I'm not sure that I would as of today push it as hard as I once did.

  Milton Friedman

  Target, Use, Not Sure

  Financial Times (UK), June 7, 2003.

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