“A state is absolute in the sense which I have in mind when it claims the right to a monopoly of all the force within the community, to make war, to make peace, to conscript life, to tax, to establish and disestablish property, to define crime, to punish disobedience, to control education, to supervise the family, to regulate personal habits, and to censor opinions. The modern state claims all of these powers, and, in the matter of theory, there is no real difference in the size of the claim between communists, fascists, and Democrats.” MindWarRealMatterStatesForceCommunityDifferencesOpinionModernCrimeTheoryHabitTaxesClaimsAbsolutesPropertyDemocratSizeCommunistMonopolyDisobedienceFascistsMaking Peace Book:A Preface to Morals Source: A Preface to Morals
“Slavery in the modern world implies the absolute deprivation of the individual's liberty, while possession of weapons and mastery of their use are means to the individual's liberation. We do not perceive how a man may be armed and at the same time bereft of his freedom.” MenWorldMayMeanUseIndividualLibertyModernWeaponsAbsolutesSlaveryPossessionLiberationPerceiveMasteryModern WorldDeprivationBereft Book:A History of Warfare Source: A History of Warfare
“We can't test these absolute limits on humans. We can't blast them with sound. However, we can do that to animals because they don't have the same political base that we do.” HumansPoliticalSoundCan DoAnimalModernLimitsTestsAbsolutesModern LifeBlast Author:John Baird
“Advertisement is an absolute necessity of modern life, and if it can be made beautiful as well as obvious, so much the better for the makers of soap and the public who are likely to wash.” IfsWellsMadeBeautifulModernAbsolutesObviousMakersSoapModern LifeAdvertisements Book:Aubrey Beardsley: a slave to beauty Source: Aubrey Beardsley: a slave to beauty
“My first fundamental premise of our faith is that God is real and so are eternal truths and values not provable by current scientific methods. These ideas are inevitably linked. Like other believers, we proclaim the existence of the ultimate lawgiver, God our Eternal Father, and the existence of moral absolutes. We reject the moral relativism that is becoming the unofficial creed of much of modern culture.” FirstsIdeasRealValuesCultureFatherExistenceMoralModernBecomingEternalUltimateAbsolutesMethodFundamentalsCurrentsBelieverRejectsCreedsLinkedPremisesScientific MethodRelativismAbsolutismModern CultureMoral RelativismGod Is Real Author:Dallin H. Oaks
“[Georg Cantor was the first to prove that there could be a series of infinities; that infinities come in an infinite number of sizes.] Thus Cantor's Absolute is a perfect image for what we experience of God. When I speak of a Big Enough God I am not merely thinking of an Infinite God, but the God of infinities, the Absolute, which either chooses to reveal itself or remains veiled in mystery. Modern mathematics does begin to feel like the language that God talks.” ThinkingFeelsFirstsDoeEnoughBigsSpeakLanguagePerfectNumbersMysteryModernProveAbsolutesInfiniteMathematicsRemainsSeriesSizeInfinity Author:Sara Maitland
“Most writers flinch at the thought of being completely honest about themselves. So absolute honesty is what marks the true modern.” ModernHonestHonestyMarkAbsolutes Author:J. G. Ballard
“The only difference between causation and the value is that the word "cause" implies absolute certainty whereas the implied meaning of "value" is one of preference. In classical science it was supposed that the world always works in terms of absolute certainty and that "cause" is the more appropriate word to describe it. But in modern quantum physics all that is changed. Particles "prefer" to do what they do. An individual particle is not absolutely committed to one predictable behavior. What appears to be an absolute cause is just a very consistent pattern of preferences.” WorldValuesIndividualCausesTermDifferencesModernChangedBehaviorAbsolutesPatternsCommittedPhysicsCertaintyConsistentAppropriateQuantumPreferenceParticlesPredictableQuantum PhysicsImpliedCausationAbsolute Certainty Author:Robert M. Pirsig
“What we've done with our modern food supply is absolute insanity. It's not even real any more. You used to be able to give a kid an apple and they would love it. Kids can't even taste apples any more. Apples taste like paper to kids now.” GivingRealDoneKidsAbleUsedModernTastePaperAbsolutesUsed To BeInsanityApplesFood Supply Author:Louis C. K.
“If you could read some of the stories that we had before us of parents of children dying of, let's say, bone cancer. Or people who dealt with family members drowning in their own bodies, in the end, suffering without any hope of modern medical science easing their pain or offering any comfort. With the absolute knowledge that they were going to die anyway. I can't quite comprehend how we could want those people to continue to suffer that extreme agony on the understanding that it is the will of a creator or some other philosophical concept.” PeopleIfsWantChildrenI CanEndsStoriesBodyPainSufferingDiesParentUnderstandingModernDyingComfortMembersConceptsAbsolutesPhilosophicalCancerCreatorExtremesBonesMedicalOfferingAgonyDrowningFamily MembersMedical ScienceChildren DyingBone Cancer Author:Kelvin Ogilvie