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Utilitarian Quotes

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Utilitarian Quotes

“I feel as though dispossessed from the semblances of some crystalline reality to which I’d grown accustomed, and to some degree, had engaged in as a participant, but to which I had, nevertheless, grown inexplicably irrelevant. But the elements of this phenomenon are now quickly dissolving from memory and being replaced by reverse-engineered Random Access actualizations of junk code/DNA consciousness, the retro-coded catalysts of rogue cellular activity. The steel meshing titters musically and in its song, I hear a forgotten tale of the Interstitial gaps that form pinpoint vortexes at which fibers (quanta, as it were) of Reason come to a standstill, like light on the edge of a Singularity. The gaps, along their ridges, seasonally infected by the incidental wildfires in the collective unconscious substrata. Heat flanks passageways down the Interstices. Wildfires cluster—spread down the base trunk Axon in a definitive roar: hitting branches, flaring out to Dendrites to give rise to this release of the very chemical seeds through which sentience is begotten. Float about the ether, gliding a gentle current, before skimming down, to a skip over the surface of a sea of deep black with glimmering waves. And then, come to a stop, still inanimate and naked before any trespass into the Field, with all its layers that serve to veil. Plunge downward into the trenches. Swim backwards, upstream, and down through these spiraling jets of bubbles. Plummet past the threshold to trace the living history of shadows back to their source virus. And acquire this sense that the viruses as a sample, all of the outlying populations withstanding: they have their own sense of self-importance, too. Their own religion. And they mine their hosts barren with the utilitarian wherewithal that can only be expected of beings with self-preservationist motives.”

RealityConsciousnessMetaphysicalDetachmentSelf PreservationSingularityEvent HorizonNeuronsVortexUtilitarianBurroughsExistentialistCollective UnconsciousWildfireSelf ImportanceQuantum RealitySurrealisticFree Verse PoetryJungianHuman ArroganceDispossessionJunk DnaDendritesParasitic SuperegoAxonsCollective Unconscious SubstrataLiving History Of ShadowsShadow VirusSource Virus
Book:Sinew of the Social Species
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“In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were [someone to] drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside. Our Planck is one of them, and that is why we love him.”

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Author:Albert Einstein
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“..если какой-нибудь свободный человек схватит свободную женщину за кисть руки, он должен будет заплатить 15 солидов; за руку ниже локтя - 30; выше локтя - 35; и, наконец, если он доберётся до груди - 45 солидов”

HistoryEthicsInnocenceFeminineUtilitarian
Book:A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium
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“So, you love the west," Tucker said. "Sure do." "Then it's a stupid love you got." "How you figure?" I asked. "'Cause the west don't love you back, son," Tucker said. "You're just whacking off in the sand. Sure, it feels all right, but you'll end up with nothing to show for it and just having to do it again. Plus, it ties up a perfectly good hand that you might be using for somethin' else.”

WesternSatireUnrequited LoveUtilitarianJerking OffWankingWhacking Off
Book:God's Country
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“Utilitarian economists, skeletons of schoolmasters, Commissioners of Fact, genteel and used-up infidels, gabblers of many little dog’s-eared creeds, the poor you will have always with you. Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much in need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you.”

RealityRomanceEmotionFeelingUtilitarianThe Poor
Book:Hard Times
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“Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. Nor must we forget that there has often been much more cultural and spiritual freedom under an autocratic rule than under some democracies and it is at least conceivable that under the government of a very homogeneous and doctrinaire majority democratic government might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship.”

MeanGovernmentMightSpiritualCertainIndividualForgetDemocracyWorstMajorityDemocraticInternalsDevicesDictatorshipInfallibleIndividual FreedomUtilitarianSpiritual FreedomDemocratic GovernmentHomogeneousSafeguardingInternal Peace
Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
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“The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. ... An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility”

ThinkingMayStillsFactsShowsSeemsEyeCenturyEverydayInterpretationPhenomenonBlindnessInnateUtilityCommonplaceNineteenth CenturyEpochUtilitarian
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
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“The ego must be able to listen attentively and to give itself, without any further design or purpose, to that inner urge toward growth. People living in cultures more securely rooted than our own have less trouble in understanding that it is necessary to give up the utilitarian attitude of conscious planning in order to make way for the inner growth of the personality.”

PeopleWayGivingAblePurposeOrderCultureUnderstandingGrowthAttitudeTroubleDesignPersonalityEgoGiving UpConsciousPlanningUrgesRootedUtilitarianInner Growth
Author:Marie-Louise von Franz
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“Unless the fundamental categories of economics such as 'property' were to be redefined in a radically personal way the liberal rationalist curse which had established economics as a scientific discipline cut off from human interests would proliferate. Economic models ... have failed to incorporate any meaningful index of individual benefit other than the original utilitarian one, ... the index of increasing income or an increasing flow of commodities.”

WayHumansIndividualInterestCuttingEconomicDisciplineBenefitsModelsEconomicsFlowOriginalsFundamentalsPropertyMeaningfulIncomeCurseCategoriesCommodityUtilitarianEconomic Models
Author:John Carroll
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“Mr. J.S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, "Utilitarianism," of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality," but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man?”

IfsMenShouldReasonFeelingsBeliefSpeakSocialNaturalMy OwnAnimalPowerfulMoralMoralityPagesEthicsBasesProfoundSentimentsThinkerVentureInnateHesitationMillsUtilitarianUtilitarianism
Book:The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
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“Modern anthropology ... opposes the utilitarian assumption that the primitive chants as he sows seed because he believes that otherwise it will not grow, the assumption that his economic goal is primary, and his other activities are instrumental to it. The planting and the cultivating are no less important than the finished product. Life is not conceived as a linear progression directed to, and justified by, the achievement of a series of goals; it is a cycle in which ends cannot be isolated, one which cannot be dissected into a series of ends and means.”

BelieveMeanImportantEndsLife IsGrowsGoalEconomicModernProductsActivityAchievementSeriesFinishedSeedsPrimariesAssumptionCyclesIsolatedPrimitiveJustifiedProgressionAnthropologyLinearCultivatingUtilitarianEnds And Means
Book:Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky
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“As the dolphin becomes just another victim of humanity's utilitarian attitudes towards the earth, it seems as though the ancient friendship between our respective species is no longer entirely reciprocal. Such exploitation is nowhere more evident than in the capture and display of cetaceans for profit. Stripped of their natural identity, deprived of their own culture and environment, the dolphin and whale incarcerated within the oceanarium not only symbolizes an abuse of that ancient relationship, but above all our estrangement from nature as a whole.”

WholeSeemsEarthHumanityCultureNaturalAttitudeEnvironmentIdentityAbuseVictimSpeciesAncientProfitCaptureDisplayExploitationEvidentDeprivedWhalesDolphinsReciprocalEstrangementUtilitarian
Author:Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan
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“If the flower were not attached to its stem, it would flee at the approach of man, like the insect or the bird; for the attribute of man on the earth, at least as long as he does not better understand his role, is to worry and frighten what he is not interested in taming for utilitarian purposes. Man is skillful in mistreating everything he can use”

IfsMenLongDoeUseEarthPurposeRolesWorryFlowerApproachBirdEnvironmentalAttributesNot InterestedStemInsectsStewardshipSkillfulUtilitarianTaming
Author:Andre Gide
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“Treading the soil of the moon, palpating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one's stomach the separation from Terra-these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known . . . this is the only thing I can say about the matter. The utilitarian results do not interest me.”

I CanMatterFeelingsFormInterestSpaceResultsKnownEventsMoonSeparationSoilSensationsStomachPanicPitsSplendorExplorersStar GazingPebblesTastingMost RomanticTreadingUtilitarian
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
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“Most of what I read is for reviewing purposes or related to something I want to write about. It's slightly utilitarian. I definitely miss that sense of being a disinterested reader who's reading purely for the pleasure of imagining his way into emotional situations and vividly realized scenes in nineteenth-century France or late nineteenth-century Russia.”

WayWantWritingPurposeReadingPleasureSituationCenturyMissingEmotionalReaderSceneLateRussiaFranceRelatedNineteenth CenturyDisinterestedUtilitarian
Author:Pankaj Mishra
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“In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes.”

LooksPurposeFoundSportsBrainSpecialProductsAmbitionIntellectualSatisfactionVariousSuperiorsMotiveTemplesJoyfulVividAltarsMansionsUtilitarian
Book:Essays in Science
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“I would describe that [friendship with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras] as a utilitarian friendship. At the time, his country was facing the prospect of leaving the euro zone and many Greeks felt abandoned by Europe. In such a situation, it seemed appropriate to me to present myself as a friend to Greece. It had to do with the country's dignity.”

CountryFeltSituationEuropeDignityLeavingMinistersGreekAppropriateZonePrimeAbandonedPrime MinisterGreeceEuroUtilitarianAlexis
Author:Jean-Claude Juncker
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“What interests me is the following paradox: of how, precisely in our liberal societies, where no one can even imagine a transcendental cause for which to die, we are allowed to adopt a hedonistic, utilitarian, or even more spiritually egotistical stance - like, the goal of my life is the realization of all my potential, fulfillment of my innermost desires, whatever you want.”

WantLife IsDesireDiesCausesGoalInterestImagineFollowingRealizationFulfillmentParadoxStanceTranscendentalEgotisticalUtilitarianHedonistic
Author:Slavoj Žižek
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“Opportunism towards knowledge is a utilitarian demand that knowledge must be immediately practical. Just like with sociology where we hope its purpose is to serve society, however, the true purpose of sociology lies in its impracticality. It cannot become practical or else it loses its meaning. Perhaps we should learn a different kind of knowledge: the knowledge to question knowledge.”

KindDifferentLyingPurposeDifferent KindsSociologyUtilitarian
Author:Wang Jianwei
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“[Aldous Huxley] compared the brain to a 'reducing valve'. In ordinary perception, the senses send an overwhelming flood of information to the brain, which the brain then filters down to a trickle it can manage for the purpose of survival in a highly competitive world. Man has become so rational, so utilitarian, that the trickle becomes most pale and thin. It is efficient, for mere survival, but it screens out the most wondrous part of man's potential experience without his even knowing it. We're shut off from our own world.”

MenWorldPurposeBrainKnowingInformationPerceptionSurvivalOrdinaryMereScreensSensesRationalManageOverwhelmingEfficientPaleFloodReducingFiltersWondrousHuxleyUtilitarianValveKool Aid
Book:The electric kool-aid acid test
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“It was also her nature that caused her letters to avoid emotional pitfalls and confine themselves to relating the events of her daily life in the utilitarian style of a ship's log. In reality they were distracted letters, intended to keep the coals alive without putting her hand in the fire, while Florentino Ariza burned himself alive in every line.”

HandsRealityLinesFireAliveStyleEventsEmotionalLettersShipsDaily LifeBurnedCoalDistractedPitfallsUtilitarian
Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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