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W Quotes

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All W Quotes

“What is Nothing? When we use the word “is,” that usually means what follows must be something. But if what follows is nothing, this means that nothing does not exist. If nothing does not exist, then the question is why we would even bother saying that. When something is, it usually means that it exists. How can something be anything, even nothing, if it does not exist? So, nothing is only a word, and we can use the “is” before the word nothing in that sense. It still does not mean that the real nothing, of which the word nothing is only a verbal representation, a written sign, exists. Without nothing, there can be no largest nor smallest of anything material.”

“What is now called "green architecture" is an opportunistic caricature of a much deeper consideration of the issues related to sustainability that architecture has been engaged with for many years. It was one of the first professions that was deeply concerned with these issues and that had an intellectual response to them.”

“What is now happening to the people of the East as of the West is like what happens to every individual when he passes from childhood to adolescence and from youth to manhood. He loses what had hitherto guided his life and lives without direction, not having found a new standard suitable to his age, and so he invents all sorts of occupations, cares, distractions, and stupefactions to divert his attention from the misery and senselessness of his life. Such a condition may last a long time.”

“What is now Tanzania was once Tanganyika and before that part of British East Africa and prior to that a colony of Germany. During World War I the fighting actually came to the Continent of Africa. Known as the East African Campaign, many of the battles almost went unreported and are little known, however the romance of this war is portrayed by many novels and the well-known movie “African Queen,” starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. The film is a stretch, but strictly speaking it is based on a true story, however even saying this, neither the original novel nor the movie bears more than a passing resemblance to reality. The four years of warfare mostly fought in Europe, cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and affected many millions more. The campaigns, skirmishes and battles in Africa, although relatively small, cost the lives of 14 German soldiers with 34 being wounded whereas the British had a total of about 150 casualties. “In actual fact the four years of warfare from 1914 to 1918, cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and affected many millions more. The campaigns, skirmishes and battles although relatively small, cost the lives of 14 German troops with 34 being wounded whereas the British had a total of about 150 casualties. An example of the type of battles fought in Africa was the Battle of Bukoba. Here the British objective was the destruction of the Bukoba wireless station on the shore of Lake Victoria, it was decided that the raid should take the form of an amphibious assault by the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and the 25th Frontier Royal Fusiliers who served in the African Theatre of war around Lake Tanganyika, British East African and German East African territory. Upon reaching the objective at Bukoba, the attackers were mistakenly landed in a large swamp and were pinned down by fierce rifle”

“What is objectification? From Simone de Beauvoir to Martha Nussbaum to Catharine MacKinnon, feminist philosophers have long been interested in analysing the concept. Broadly speaking, to objectify a woman is to treat or represent her as a partly or wholly dehumanised, de-mentalised object. There are various ways to do that. Fashion and advertising offer several possibilities for doing so visually. You can represent her as a dazed, passive thing to be fucked, with a vacant expression and glazed eyes, as in many high-end fashion advertising campaigns. Extending this, you can represent her as sexually dominated, with her personal autonomy diminished or removed: bound or gagged, for instance. You can dress her up in animal skins or leopard print and represent her as a kind of wild, highly sexualised animal, something the fashion industry has been particularly fond of doing to black women over the years. You can dress and pose her as a stereotype: the Capable Housewife (in domestic setting, comfortable clothes, tolerant rueful smile), the Brainy Scientist (white coat, stern expression, glasses on end of nose), the Little Girl (kneesocks, pigtails, blowing bubblegum), the Sexy Vamp (cleavage, tongue on front teeth, wink). You can place her in a row with other similarly shaped, similarly adorned women, visually emphasising what they all have in common in looks and dress, so that individuality is rhetorically diminished, and one woman looks replaceable with any other. You can make her just a pair of legs, or breasts, or an arse, focusing the camera on body parts and even omitting the head and face. In all such cases, the thinking mind, personality, autonomy or particular individuality of the woman in the image is downplayed, diminished and ignored, to a greater or lesser extent. She’s ‘objectified’ in the sense she’s made more like an object and less like a fully individuated human being: less rational, less individual, less present, less important for who she actually is. In extreme cases, she can even be used as if or pictured as an inanimate object: a ‘table’ for men’s feet, or as a ‘plate’ for food– as in the Japanese practice of Nyotaimori, using a woman’s naked body as a receptacle for sushi in restaurants.”