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Function Quotes

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“claiming that the destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining, blowing the tops off mountains to get at the coal beneath, performs the "necessary" function of creating flat land for development To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.”

“I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby -- not even money, certainly not my soul.”

“I would have government defend the life and property of all citizens equally; protect all willing exchange; suppress and penalize all fraud, all misrepresentation, all violence, all predatory practices; invoke a common justice under law; and keep the records incidental to these functions. Even this is a bigger assignment than governments, generally, have proven capable of. Let governments do these things and do them well. Leave all else to men in free and creative effort.”

“This is the essential distinction--even opposition--between the painting and the film: the painting is composed subjectively, thefilm objectively. However highly we rate the function of the scenario writer--in actual practice it is rated very low--we must recognize that the film is not transposed directly and freely from the mind by means of a docile medium like paint, but must be cut piece-meal out of the lumbering material of the actual visible world.”

“Teaching a practice can also be a hindrance if it becomes one's identity. To be a spiritual teacher is a temporary function. I'm a spiritual teacher when somebody comes to me and some teaching happens, but the moment they leave I'm no longer a spiritual teacher. If I carry the identity of spiritual teacher, it will cause suffering.”

“Your body is you. That's your temple. So, eating wisely helps you function for the day. If you want to look good and feel good, you gotta eat good. What you put into your temple, man, is very important. I learned that later on in life, but I started putting that into practice. I'm not perfect in my eating. I just try to live healthily, and to take care of myself so that during this lifetime I can live good.”

“The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state.”

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

“Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice.”

“All living organisms are but leaves on the same tree of life. The various functions of plants and animals and their specialized organs are manifestations of the same living matter. This adapts itself to different jobs and circumstances, but operates on the same basic principles. Muscle contraction is only one of these adaptations. In principle it would not matter whether we studied nerve, kidney or muscle to understand the basic principles of life. In practice, however, it matters a great deal.”

“Scientific practice is above all a story-telling practice. ... Biology is inherently historical, and its form of discourse is inherently narrative. ... Biology as a way of knowing the world is kin to Romantic literature, with its discourse about organic form and function. Biology is the fiction appropriate to objects called organisms; biology fashions the facts "discovered" about organic beings.”