S Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with S. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Suppose that throughout your childhood you were good with numbers. Other kids used to copy your homework. You figured store discounts faster than your parents. People came to you for help with such things. So you took accounting and eventually became a tax auditor for the IRS. What an embarrassing job, right? You feel you should be writing poetry or doing aviation mechanics or whatever. But then you realize that tax collecting can be a calling too.”
“Suppose that we agree that the two atrocities can or may be mentioned in the same breath. Why should we do so? I wrote at the time (The Nation, October 5, 1998) that Osama bin Laden 'hopes to bring a "judgmental" monotheism of his own to bear on these United States.' Chomsky's recent version of this is 'considering the grievances expressed by people of the Middle East region.' In my version, then as now, one confronts an enemy who wishes ill to our society, and also to his own (if impermeable religious despotism is considered an 'ill'). In Chomsky's reading, one must learn to sift through the inevitable propaganda and emotion resulting from the September 11 attacks, and lend an ear to the suppressed and distorted cry for help that comes, not from the victims, but from the perpetrators. I have already said how distasteful I find this attitude. I wonder if even Chomsky would now like to have some of his own words back? Why else should he take such care to quote himself deploring the atrocity? Nobody accused him of not doing so. It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made.”
Source: Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
“Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.”
“Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know - even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction - than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.”
“Suppose that we believe what we are taught. . . . destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies . . . of institutional lunacy.”
“Suppose that we could close our eyes today and see the real certainties and uncertainties of tomorrow, we would have never wished to open our eyes again for the real certainties and uncertainties of tomorrow never ends!”
“suppose that when you begged for something desperately
a man should neither grant it you nor give sympathy even; but later when you were glutted with all your heart's desire, should give it then, when charity was no charity at all?”
Source: The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone
“Suppose... that you acquit me... Suppose that, in view of this, you said to me 'Socrates, on this occasion we shall disregard Anytus and acquit you, but only on one condition, that you give up spending your time on this quest and stop philosophizing. If we catch you going on in the same way, you shall be put to death.' Well, supposing, as I said, that you should offer to acquit me on these terms, I should reply 'Gentlemen, I am your very grateful and devoted servant, but I owe a greater obedience to God than to you; and so long as I draw breath and have my faculties, I shall never stop practicing philosophy and exhorting you and elucidating the truth for everyone that I meet. I shall go on saying, in my usual way, "My very good friend, you are an Athenian and belong to a city which is the greatest and most famous in the world for its wisdom and strength. Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honour, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?" And if any of you disputes this and professes to care about these things, I shall not at once let him go or leave him; no, I shall question him and examine him and test him; and if it appears that in spite of his profession he has made no real progress towards goodness, I shall reprove him for neglecting what is of supreme importance, and giving his attention to trivialities. I shall do this to everyone that I meet, young or old, foreigner or fellow-citizen; but especially to you my fellow-citizens, inasmuch as you are closer to me in kinship. This, I do assure you, is what my God commands; and it is my belief that no greater good has ever befallen you in this city than my service to my God; for I spend all my time going about trying to persuade you, young and old, to make your first and chief concern not for your bodies nor for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls, proclaiming as I go 'Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the State.' ...And so, gentlemen, I would say, 'You can please yourselves whether you listen to Anytus or not, and whether you acquit me or not; you know that I am not going to alter my conduct, not even if I have to die a hundred deaths.”
Source: Apology, Crito And Phaedo Of Socrates.
“Suppose that you could mark the molecules in a glass of water; then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and stir the latter throughly so as to distribute the marked molecules uniformly throughout the seven seas; if then you took a glass of water anywhere out of the ocean, you would find in it about a hundred of your marked molecules.”
“Suppose that you want to teach the 'cat' concept to a very young child. Do you explain that a cat is a relatively small, primarily carnivorous mammal with retractible claws, a distinctive sonic output, etc.? I'll bet not. You probably show the kid a lot of different cats, saying 'kitty' each time, until it gets the idea. To put it more generally, generalizations are best made by abstraction from experience.”
“Suppose that, say, China established military bases in Colombia to carry out chemical warfare in Kentucky and North Carolina to destroy this lethal crop [tobacco] that is killing huge numbers of Chinese.”
“Suppose the hellfire of the orthodox really existed! We have no assurance that it does not! It seems incredible, but many incredible things are true. We do not know that God is not as cruel as a Spanish inquisitor. Suppose, then, He is! If, after Death, we wicked ones were shovelled into a furnace of fire- we should have to burn. There would be no redress. It would simply be the Divine Order of things. It is outrageous that we should be so helpless and so dependent on any one- even God.”
“Suppose the looking glass smashes, the image disappears, and the romantic figure with the green of forest depths all about it is there no longer, but only that shell of a person which is seen by other people - what an airless, shallow, bald, prominent world it becomes! A world not to be lived in. As we face each other in omnibuses and underground railways we are looking into the mirror that accounts for the vagueness, the gleam of glassiness, in our eyes.”
Source: A arte da brevidade: Contos
“Suppose the Universe is understood, first and above all, like life. This life must have its logic (not necessarily human logic), which feeds this purpose, and that is the preservation of life and its meaning, in its universal connotation, as it is and not as we necessarily see it or would like to see it.
Although everything is not based only on thought but is the thought itself, this still does not mean that everything that came into existence, as we see it, must be aware of its existence or the thought feeding it.
If there is no real matter (other than matter as we perceive it through senses), then even “matter,” unaware of itself, is only a manifestation of a mind expressed through something unaware of itself yet serving an essential purpose in the whole structure of the world (as a manifestation).
If the world itself is the Universal Mind's primary purpose, then this world is the only subject, one living organism, to the very Being (Ultimate Mind) that feeds it and sustains it. If it is one organism, it becomes easier to understand why it can be or contain thinking and unthinking “thoughts.”
If we analyzed a human organism biologically or in any other way, part by part, without taking it as a whole, we would soon find out that none of these parts, taken separately, would be aware of anything, either of existence or thinking; not even any part of the brain. What is a thinking thing, a thinking thought, a personality, or an I?
We can hardly find anything in the Universe that does not contain information in one way or another, irrespective of its awareness or unawareness of itself, because there is a law to be found everywhere, from atoms to galaxies. These laws are information (“thoughts”). Even if the information is a program, there is still a “thought” powering it.
We would have to separate the thought, as it is usually understood, to understand the thought as an instruction, the way to the way. If we acknowledge thought in this manner as a function of a living mind, then this thought has different levels of manifestation and expression.
If we understand the Universal Mind (Being) this way, we know that the mind (thought) becomes its matter. The mind (thought) is the medium and matter. The mind becomes its material.
Awareness or unawareness hides the purpose of every particular mode (thing) with its specific function and purpose. The purpose of every single mode is not awareness on every level but to serve the higher modes it is a part of. Without these particularities and modes, no awareness is possible in the actual Universe, which means that unaware information is the ultimate source of awareness and that awareness itself is impossible without these (lower) modes (unawareness). However, lower modes are possible without awareness.”
Source: ABSOLUTE
“Suppose the world were only one of God's jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?”
“Suppose there are some things that we don't understand about the universe, but if you understand human intelligence and you understand the gaps in our abilities to think about things, maybe we can engineer in a computer more advanced intelligences that can help augment our ability to think.”
“Suppose there aren't any more A + days once you get to be twelve? Wouldn't that be something! To spend the rest of your life looking for an A + day and not finding it.”
“Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, in that case, to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches?”
“Suppose there comes a situation where the husband's body is full of sores , with pus and blood oozing out of from them , it is said that even if the wife uses her tongue to lick these wounds clean , she will still not be able to completely repay the debt”
Source: Heart Lamp: Selected Stories
“Suppose there is a group of friends who create a club where the rule is to “not follow any rules.” However, “do not follow any rules” is a rule. If the friends followed the rule, then they are breaking the rule at the same time, but if they try to break the rule, they would be following rules, which is forbidden. What a paradox! What should the friends do, without changing the rule?”
Source: The Reformation
“Suppose there is a very hungry and weak dog. And then there is a healthy dog. If you go to feed them, which one is more likely to bite you? The hungry and weak one. Those who bark and bite you are actually in dire need of help. Don't curse them further. They are already cursed.”
“Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences?...Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think that it's all actually happening...Would you plug in?”
Source: Anarchy, state, and utopia
“Suppose there were groups of secularists at hospitals who went round the terminally ill and urged them to adopt atheism: 'Don't be a mug all your life. Make your last days the best ones. People might suppose this was in poor taste.”
“Suppose they gave a war, and no one came?”
“Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came? Why then, the war would come to you!”
“Suppose this was just a Hawthorne effect.” ——that is to say a byproduct of being observed in a study rather than proof of the checklist’s power. (later ruled out)”
Source: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
“Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.”
Source: Einstein's Dreams
“Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to his moment which will tell if he is to die at that man’s hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man’s worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand is thereby removed from existence. This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one’s will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.”
Source: Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
“Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?”
Source: PREJUDICES A SELECTION
“Suppose Vietnam could separate itself from the American dominated global system and carry out a successful social and economic development. Then that is very dangerous because then it could be a model to other movements and groups in neighboring countries. And gradually there could be an erosion from within by indigenous forces of American domination of the region.”
“Suppose Watergate had not been uncovered? I'd still be on the City Desk.”
“Suppose we begin to use it, as you say we should. And then, as more and more little girls acquire Láadan and being to speak a language that expresses the perceptions of women rather than those of men, reality will begin to change. Isn't that true?”
Source: Native Tongue
“Suppose we blasted all politicians into space. Would the SETI project find even one of them?”
“Suppose we concede that if I had been born of Muslim parents in Morocco rather than Christian parents in Michigan, my beliefs would be quite different. [But] the same goes for the pluralist...If the pluralist had been born in [Morocco] he probably wouldn't be a pluralist. Does it follow that...his pluralist beliefs are produced in him by an unreliable belief-producing process?”
“Suppose we have a bucket filled with dirty water and pour a glass of clean water into it. Although we will see no difference when we look at it, the addition of that glass of water has made the water in the bucket that much cleaner. Likewise, when we sit for even a single period of zazen our personality becomes purified in proportion to the length of that sitting. Although we may not be the least aware of it, we can be certain we have moved a step closer to the realization of our essential nature.”
Source: Zen: The Authentic Gate
“Suppose we have a motor and our transmission doesn't work or our clutch or whatever. Then our body, our motor, just takes us down the road. Or our brakes don't work! We must have a coordination system.”
“Suppose we pick a name for him, eh?" Caius Pompeius stepped over and eyed the child. "He looks a little like my proconsul, Marcus. We could call him Marcus." Josiah Worthington said, "He looks more like my head gardener, Stebbins. Not that I'm suggesting Stebbins as a name. The man drank like a fish." "He looks like my nephew Harry," said Mother Slaughter... "He looks like nobody but himself," said Mrs.Owens, firmly. "He looks like nobody." "Then Nobody it is," said Silas. "Nobody Owens.”
“Suppose we suddenly wake up and see that what we thought to be this and that, ain't this and that at all?”
Source: The Dharma Bums
“Suppose we think while we talk or write--I mean, as we normally do--we shall not in general say that we think quicker than we talk, but the thought seems not to be separate from the expression.”
Source: Philosophical Investigations
“Suppose we took a thousand negatives...
combining the elegances, the squalor, the curiosities, the monuments, the sad faces, the triumphant faces, the power, the irony, the strength, the decay, the past, the present, the future of a city - that would be my favorite picture.”
“Suppose we use cosmological constant interchangeably with dark energy. That leads us to conclude that this kind of a universe, like our own if limited to our perception of it, would not be a sound basis for explaining dark energy or cosmological constant within the realm of the Absolute or its potential. The real meaning of the Absolute is not the Absolute itself but its potential. Its potential is both in the Being and in the Nonbeing.”
Source: ABSOLUTE
“Suppose we were (as we might be) an influence, an idea, a thing intangible, invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head. We might be a vapour, blowing where we listed Ours should be a war of detachment. We were to contain the enemy by the silent threat of a vast, unknown desert”
“Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture.”
Source: Changing consciousness: exploring the hidden source of the social, political, and environmental crises facing our world
“Suppose we were to teach creationism. What would be the content of the teaching? Merely that a creator formed the universe and all species of life ready-made? Nothing more? No details?”
“Suppose we wonder whether we should trust the deliverances of our basic epistemic competences. If those are indeed our basic competences, then in order properly to satisfy our curiosity we will inevitably rely on one or more of them. So, either we squelch our curiosity or we will have to fall into the circularity or regress to which the skeptic objects.”
“Suppose whether or not someone tells me a lie depends only on whether he wants to, but he is morally indifferent, he doesn't care much about the truth or about me, and his self interest, which he worships, tells him to lie, and so it comes about that given his psychology, it is a forgone conclusion that he will lie to me. I think in this case he is still blameworthy, and that implies, among other things, that he did something he ought not do.”
“Suppose within each book there is another book, and within every letter on every page another volume constantly unfolding; but these volumes take no space on the desk. Suppose knowledge could be reduced to a quintessence, held within a picture, a sign, held within a place which is no place. Suppose the human skull were to become capacious, spaces opening inside it, humming chambers like beehives.”
“Suppose you and Pa were gone, and we were lost. Suppose we were inside of Lord of the Flies What would happen then?
I wonder what my sister, who understand books better than life, would say if she were confronted with a question like this one. She's so good at explaining books and their meanings, beyond the obvious. Maybe she'd say that all those books and stories devoted to adult-less children – books like Peter Pan, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that short story by García Márquez, "Light is Like Water," and of course Lord of the Flies – are nothing but desperate attempts by adults to come to terms with childhood. That although they may seem to be stories about children's worlds – worlds without adults – they are in fact stories about children's worlds – worlds without adults – they are in fact stores about an adult's world when there are children in it, about the way that children's imaginations destabilize our adult sense of reality and force us to question the very grounds of that reality. The more time one spends surrounded by children, disconnected by other adults, the more their imaginations leak through the cracks of our own fragile structures.”
Source: Lost Children Archive
“Suppose you are chilling somewhere and see a diamond a few meters away on your right side. Your mind’s first reaction would be, “That must be a piece of glass, not diamond.”
Now, on your left side a few meters away you spot an unknown object towards which 2 people are running from opposite side. Your mind’s reaction would be, “If two people are running towards that object, it must be something precious. Run and grab it before they do.”
Often, our mind makes us compete with others over peanuts while the diamond which is meant for us lies unattended.”
“Suppose you are drinking a cup of tea. When you hold your cup, you may like to breathe in, to bring your mind back to your body, and you become fully present. And when you are truly there, something else is also there - life, represented by the cup of tea. In that moment you are real, and the cup of tea is real. You are not lost in the past, in the future, in your projects, in your worries. You are free from all of these afflictions. And in that state of being free, you enjoy your tea. That is the moment of happiness, and of peace.”