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Language Quotes

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Language Quotes

“With the subsequent strong support from cybernetics , the concepts of systems thinking and systems theory became integral parts of the established scientific language, and led to numerous new methodologies and applications -- systems engineering, systems analysis, systems dynamics, and so on.”

ThinkingLanguageStrongSupportTheoryConceptsAnalysisApplicationEngineeringDynamicsSystems ThinkingMethodologyCyberneticsSystems AnalysisSystems Theory
Book:The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems
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“What joins the Americans one to another is not a common ancestry, language or race, but a shared work of the imagination that looks forward to the making of a future, not backward to the insignia of the past. Their enterprise is underwritten by a Constitution that allows for the widest horizons of sight and the broadest range of expression, supports the liberties of the people as opposed to the ambitions of the state, and stands as premise for a narrative rather than plan for an invasion or a monument. The narrative was always plural; not one story, many stories.”

PeopleLooksStatesStoriesAmericaPastLanguageImaginationCommonRaceLibertySupportPlansExpressionAmbitionSightConstitutionNarrativeRangeEnterpriseHorizonMonumentInvasionPremisesAncestry
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Rumors and reports of man's relation with animals are the world's oldest news stories, headlined in the stars of the zodiac, posted on the walls of prehistoric caves, inscribed in the languages of Egyptian myth, Greek philosophy, Hindu religion, Christian art, our own DNA. Belonging within the circle of mankind's intimate acquaintance ... constant albeit speechless companions, they supplied energies fit to be harnessed or roasted.”

MenWorldArtPhilosophyStoriesChristianEnergyLanguageStarsAnimalMankindWallFitNewsRelationConstantMythCirclesGreekIntimateReportsCompanionBelongingCavesDnaAcquaintanceRumorEgyptianSpeechlessReligion ChristianPrehistoricZodiacNews StoriesHindu ReligionGreek PhilosophyChristian Art
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“There were times, especially when I was traveling for 'Eat, Pray, Love,' when, I swear to God, I would feel this weight of my female ancestors, all those Swedish farmwives from beyond the grave who were like, 'Go! Go to Naples! Eat more pizza! Go to India, ride an elephant! Do it! Swim in the Indian Ocean. Read those books. Learn a language.'”

FeelsBookLanguagePrayingOceanFemaleWeightIndiaGravesIndianSwimAncestorSwearElephantsPizzaPray LoveSwedishEat Love PrayNaplesSwear To God
Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
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“Whereas, according to the declaration of that true man of the world Talleyrand, the use of language is to conceal the thoughts; this is to declare in the present instance, when I say I am not able to bear much talking, it means really, and without any mistake, or equivocation, or oblique meaning, or implication, or subterfuge, or omission, that I am not able; being at present rather weak in the head, and able to work no more.”

MenWorldMeanUseAbleLanguageMistakeTalkingBearsWeakInstanceDeclarationImplicationsOmissionTrue ManUse Of LanguageSubterfuge
Author:Michael Faraday
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“Television is a new, hard test of our wisdom. If we succeed in mastering the new medium it will enrich us. But it can also put our mind to sleep. We must not forget that in the past the inability to transport immediate experience and to convey it to others made the use of language necessary and thus compelled the human mind to develop concepts. For in order to describe things one must draw the general from the specific; one must select, compare, think. When communication can be achieved by pointing with the finger, however, the mouth grows silent, the writing hand stops, and the mind shrinks.”

IfsThinkingWritingMindHumansMadeHardUseHandsPastOrderLanguageGrowsSleepForgetTelevisionCommunicationSucceedDrawsMouthsConceptsTestsSilentFingersMediumsCompareHuman MindCompelledInabilityPointingShrinksSelectTransportUse Of Language
Book:Film as Art
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“The twentieth century saw an amazing development of scholarship and criticism in the humanities, carried out by people who were more intelligent, better trained, had more languages, had a better sense of proportion, and were infinitely more accurate scholars and competent professional men than I. I had genius. No one else in the field known to me had quite that.”

PeopleMenHumanityLanguageKnownSawsCenturyFieldsDevelopmentGeniusCriticismIntelligentProportionScholarAccurateTwentieth CenturyScholarshipCompetent
Book:Northrop Frye unbuttoned: wit and wisdom from the notebooks and diaries
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“In every art we are always obliged to return to the accepted means of expression, the conventional language of the art. What is a black-and-white drawing but a convention to which the beholder has become so accustomed that with his mind's eye he sees a complete equivalent in the translation from nature?”

MindMeanArtEyeLanguageBlackWhiteExpressionReturnDrawingAcceptedConventionsBlack And WhiteConventionalAccustomedTranslationsObligedBeholder
Author:Eugene Delacroix
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“The idea of human rights and freedoms must be an integral part of any meaningful world order. Yet, I think it must be anchored in a different place, and in a different way, than has been the case so far. If it is to be more than just a slogan mocked by half the world, it cannot be expressed in the language of a departing era, and it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith in a purely scientific relationship to the world.”

IfsThinkingWorldWayHumansHas BeensIdeasDifferentOrderLanguageWaterHalfCasesRightsMereHuman RightsMeaningfulErasDifferent WaysFloatingSlogansDifferent PlaceWorld OrderRights And FreedomsDeparting
Author:Vaclav Havel
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“The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble.”

MeanChildrenArtBookKidsOrderFightingCoursesReadingLiteratureLanguageChallengesLevelsRoomsAttentionTroubleDisciplineOfficeStuckBackgroundsAgencyAcademicCopSupportiveFilesCivicsInterpersonalDelinquentsInterpersonal RelationshipLanguage Arts
Book:Up the Down Staircase
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“Do we regard language as more public, more ceremonial, than thought? Just as family men condemn the profanity on the stage that they use constantly in conversation, in the same way we may look to written language as an idealization rather than a reflection of ourselves.”

MenWayLooksMayUseLanguageWrittenStageConversationReflectionRegardProfanityFamily ManWritten Language
Book:States of Desire Revisited: Travels in Gay America
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“Modern women are just bombarded. There's nothing but media telling us we're all supposed to be great cooks, have great style, be great in bed, be the best mothers, speak seven languages, and be able to understand derivatives. And we don't really have women we're modeling after, so we're all looking for how to do this.”

AbleMotherSpeakLanguageWomenModernMediaStyleBedSevenSupposed To BeCooksBeing The BestModelingDerivativesBest MotherBombardedModern WomanBombarded By
Author:Jamie Lee Curtis
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“The relationship between science and the humanities is two-way. Science changes our view of the world and our place in it. In the other direction, the humanities provide the store of ideas and images and language available to us in understanding the world. The exploding star of A.D. 1054, the Crab Nebula, was sighted and documented by the Chinese, but nowhere mentioned in the West, where the Aristotelian notion of the immortality of stars still held sway. We often do not see what we do not expect to see.”

WorldWayStillsTwoIdeasHumanityLanguageStarsUnderstandingViewsWestNotionAvailableStoresChineseImmortalityTwo WaysExplodingCrabsUnderstanding The WorldNebula
Book:Great Ideas in Physics
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“In the form of the oeuvre, the actual circumstances are placed in another dimension where the given reality shows itself as that which it is. Thus it tells the truth about itself; its language ceases to be that of deception, ignorance, and submission. Fiction calls the facts by their name and their reign collapses; fiction subverts everyday experience and shows it to be mutilated and false.”

FactsShowsRealityFormNamesLanguageGivenFictionIgnoranceCircumstancesEverydayCeaseDeceptionDimensionsTelling The TruthCollapseReignSubmissionReality Shows
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“This organization of functional discourse is of vital importance; it serves as a vehicle of coordination and subordination. The unified, functional language is an irreconcilably anti-critical and anti-dialectical language. In it, operational and behavioral rationality absorbs the transcendent, negative, oppositional elements of Reason.”

ReasonLanguageElementsNegativeOrganizationImportanceCriticalVehicleDiscourseRationalityTranscendentUnifiedCoordinationSubordination
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“Freed from the sublimated form which was the very token of its irreconcilable dreams - a form which is the style, the language in which the story is told - sexuality turns into a vehicle for the bestsellers of oppression. ... This society turns everything it touches into a potential source of progress and of exploitation, of drudgery and satisfaction, of freedom and of oppression. Sexuality is no exception.”

StoriesDreamFormTurnsLanguageProgressStyleSourceSatisfactionSexualityOppressionExceptionVehicleExploitationTokensThis SocietyDrudgery
Author:Herbert Marcuse
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“The constitution of madness as a mental illness, at the end of the eighteenth century, affords the evidence of a broken dialogue, posits the separation as already effected, and thrusts into oblivion all those stammered, imperfect words without fixed syntax in which the exchange between madness and reason was made. The language of psychiatry, which is a monologue of reason about madness, has been established only on the basis of such a silence.”

Has BeensMadeEndsReasonLanguageSilenceCenturyBrokenEvidenceBasesConstitutionMadnessIllnessSeparationMental IllnessDialogueFixedImperfectOblivionPsychiatryThrustMonologuesSyntax
Book:Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry
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“This is what Wisdom means: To be changed without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not, merely by waking to the reality that is not words , that lies beyond the reach of words. If you are fortunate enough to be Awakened thus, you will know why the finest language is the one that is not spoken, the finest action is the one that is not done and the finest change is the one that is not willed.”

IfsKnowsBelieveMeanDoneEnoughRealityActionLyingLanguageEffortChangedFortunateWakingTransformedFinestAwakened
Book:One Minute Wisdom
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“Although our grammar schools are teaching a whole generation computer language to adjust to the technological needs of a Stage II [post survival-focused] society, we have neglected to teach this generation relationship language and conflict resolution skills to address the social and psychological needs of a Stage II society. And when it is taught, in countries like Germany, although called social competence it focuses on workplace teamwork - still on survival, breadwinner oriented work goals.”

NeedsStillsCountryWholeSchoolLanguageSocialGoalTeachGenerationsTeachingStageTaughtSkillsConflictComputerSurvivalFocusedPsychologicalPostsGermanyAddressesResolutionTeamworkTechnologicalWorkplaceGrammarCompetenceNeglectedThis GenerationConflict ResolutionComputer LanguageGrammar SchoolBreadwinnerPsychological Needs
Author:Warren Farrell
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