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Modern Quotes

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Modern Quotes

“Curiosity, which may or may not eventuate in something useful, is probably the most outstanding characteristic of modern thinking ... Institutions of learning should be devoted to the cultivation of curiosity, and the less they are deflected by the consideration of immediacy of application, the more likely they are to contribute not only to human welfare, but to the equally important satisfaction of intellectual interest, which may indeed be said to have become the ruling passion of intellectual life in modern times.”

“Americans also seem to believe that the monarchy is a kind of mediaeval hangover, encumbered by premodern notions of decorum; the reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution - perhaps the first modern political institution.”

Firsts Believe Kind Reality Seems Political Modern Institutions Notion Ill British Monarchy Hangover Decorum Political Institutions Constitutional Monarchy British Monarchy

Author:Adam Gopnik

“By and large, the answer to the question "How do large institutions survive?" is "They don't!" The vast majority of large modern-day institutions - some of them extremely vital to the functioning of our complex civilization - simply fail to exist in the first place.”

Firsts Answers Failing Modern Civilization Institutions Majority Complexes Modern Day

Author:Eliezer Yudkowsky

“The exclusion of true esoteric religion has been the business of the State since ancient times. At first this was done via the establishment of the popular idealism of exoteric religious institutions in league with the State. But in modern times the same process is done by the strategic exclusion of conventional religious cultism, mystical idealism, and higher evolutionary Wisdom from the mechanisms of popular culture.”

Source: Scientific proof of the existence of God will soon be announced by the White House!: prophetic wisdom about the myths and idols of mass culture and popular religious cultism, the new priesthood of scientific and political materialism, and the secrets of enlightenment hidden in the body of man

“On the surface the avant garde as a whole seems united primarily in terms of what they are against: the rejection of social institutions and established artistic conventions, or antagonism towards the public (as representative of the existing order). By contrast any positive programme tends to be claimed as exclusive property by isolated and even mutually antagonistic sub-groups. So modern art appears fragmented and sectarian, defined as much by manifestos as imaginative work.”

“Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman Empire... Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a hold sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers.”

Men World Christian Law Order Heaven Economy Wife Modern Divine Institutions Empires Rome Founders Sacraments Mistress Restriction Roman Empire Polygamy Robbers Monogamy

Author:Brigham Young

“Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor.”

Men Shows Government Certain Doubt Modern Capitalism Institutions Genuine Vigor Modern Man

Author:H. L. Mencken

“No technological achievements can mitigate the disappointment of modern man, his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror. Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him.”

Men War Feelings Lost Generations Modern Loneliness Revolution Achievement Institutions Terror Disappointment Providence Technological Inferiority Our Generation Modern Man Lost Faith

Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer

Source: Aspects of I.B. Singer

“Modern marriage is first and foremost a romantic and private union, but the tax laws and inheritance laws and religious implications that still surround this institution indicate that marriage has evolved without casting away its earlier purposes or assumptions. It's like we just keep building on this thing, piling new advancements on the old model.”

Firsts Stills Law Purpose Religious Modern Building Taxes Models Institutions Unions Assumption Surround Casting Inheritance Advancement Implications Modern Marriage

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“The institution of representative government to us seems an essential part of democracy, but the ancients never thought of it. Its immense merit was that it enabled a large constituency to exert indirect power, and thus made possible the distribution of political responsibility throughout the great states of modern times.”

Made States Seems Government Political Responsibility Democracy Modern Essentials Institutions Merit Immense Representatives Distribution Indirect Modern Times Representative Government Political Responsibility

Book:The Quotable Bertrand Russell

Source: The Quotable Bertrand Russell

“No institutions in modern society are better equipped to catalyze the necessary transition to a sustainable world than colleges and universities. They have access to the leaders of tomorrow and the leaders of today. What they do matters to the wider public.”

World Matter Today Leader Modern College Tomorrow Institutions Environmental University Access Transition Sustainability Modern Society Colleges And Universities Leaders Of Tomorrow

Author:David W. Orr

“The origins of the modern West are often seen in the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, but the roots of the Enlightenment can be found in habits of mind cultivated in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, and the institutions that grew from them.”

Mind Found Modern Century Grew Habit Enlightenment Roots Institutions West Rome Jerusalem Athens Habits Of Mind

Book:Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy

Source: Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy

“There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live. Surely these should never be confused in the mind of any man who has the slightest inlinkng of what culture is. For most of us it is essential that we should make a living... In the complications of modern life and with our increased accumulation of knowledge, it doubtless helps greatly to compress some years of experience into far fewer years by studying for a particular trade or profession in an institution.”

“Apparently modern financial regulators are vastly more sophisticated than we were as financial regulators 25 years ago - because we had never figured out that the key to financial stability was leaving felons in charge of the largest financial institutions in the world.”

World Years Modern Keys Years Ago Institutions Leaving Financial Stability Sophisticated Regulators Financial Institutions Felons Financial Stability

Author:William K. Black

“I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature. I think it ought to be governed by the standards of how it affects the individual animals, just as we'd want to deal with institutions that deal with humans by how they affect individual humans.”

Thinking Want Humans Individual Animal Deals Modern Ought Standards Institutions Notion Gross Farming Interference

Author:Peter Singer

“Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn't organised to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.”

“To have a museum like the Museum of Modern Art in New York is to have power. I don't have any interest in being the director of an institution that has power.”

Art Interest Modern New York Directors Institutions Museums Modern Art

Author:Luis Gonzalez

“Anthropologists have often described what happens to a primitive society when its spiritual values are exposed to the impact of modern civilisation. Its people lose the meaning of their lives, their social organisation disintegrates, and they themselves morally decay. We are now in the same condition. But we have never really understood what we have lost, for our spiritual leaders unfortunately were more interested in protecting their institutions than in understanding the mystery that symbols present.”