Childhood is analogous to language learning. It has a biological basis but cannot be realized unless a social environment triggers and nurtures it, that is, has need of it. If a culture is dominated by a medium that requires the segregation of the young in order that they learn unnatural, specialized, and complex skills and attitudes, then childhood, in one form or another, will emerge, articulate and indispensable.
neil postmanThe notion of good, which generally speaking, appears later than the notion of pure duty, particularly in the case of the child, is perhaps the final conscious realization of something that is the primary condition of the moral life the need for reciprocal affection. And since moral realism is, on the contrary, the result of constraint exercised by the adult on the child, it may perhaps be a secondary growth in comparison to the simple aspiration after good, while still remaining the first notion to be consciously realized when the child begins to reflect upon morality and to attempt formulation.
jean piagetChristianity is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves, to the perpetuation of a slave society; in short, to the very conditions confronting us to-day. … The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun.
emma goldmanAt first, when California started winning its water lawsuits and shutting off cities, the displaced people just followed the water—right to California. It took a little while before the bureaucrats realized what was going on, but finally someone with a sharp pencil did the math and realized that taking in people along with their water didn't solve a water shortage.
paolo bacigalupiI was going to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized that I have no character.
charles barkleyI realized that the only possible response was to go to my wonderful local café, Maison Bertaux, check everyone was well, eat a little cake and then make art. To me, making art, and in particular public art, is always an assertion of our humanity and our strength.
martin firrellI realized that the future of aviation, to which I had devoted so much of my life, depended less on the perfection of aircraft than on preserving the epoch-evolved environment of life, and that this was true of all technological progress.
charles lindberghAs you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie" I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas. You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me. … Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.
Don McLeanUp to that time I never realized that I possessed any particular gift of discovery, but Lord Rayleigh, whom I always considered as an ideal man of science, had said so and if that was the case, I felt that I should concentrate on some big idea.
nikola teslaIn all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.
james allenI used to be an atheist , until I realized I had nothing to shout during blowjobs. "Oh Random Chance! Oh Random Chance!" just doesn't cut it….
robert anton wilsonThe wisest of you men is he who has realized, like Socrates, that in respect of wisdom he is really worthless.
PlatoI realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike — and I don't think there really is a distinction between the two — are always dominated by fools, knaves, charlatans and bureaucrats.
Harold Bloom"I was on an airplane last year when a talk show began playing on the TVs. I decided to start narrating for the people, which is a really great game if you're ever bored enough. I realized a time will probably come when television will watch us if we're watching it, if that hasn't already happened, figuratively or literally. It sounded like some sort of pseudo-Big Brother nightmare, so I wrote it down."
brandon boydThere is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.
w. e. b. duboisI think managers have realized that most software people are slightly brain damaged, that they're off on their own planets.
eugene jarvisThis visit "north of 60" was to complete what might be called at least a preliminary survey. I arrived here and realized that my survey had hardly begun.
vincent masseyAnd then he realized that he could never make anything out of the Unmaker, could never make the Unmaker do or be anything because it was only Undoing and Unbeing. It wasn’t the Unmaker he needed to call to, it was all the living things around him, the trees, the grass, the earth, the air itself. It was the greensong that he needed to restore.
orson scott cardThe moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage , everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.
O Arjuna! The Supreme Self, having no beginning, (no ending,) and no attributes, even though it dwells in a body (as a realized master), neither acts nor is touched by any action.
God cannot be realized without love. Yes, sincere love.
As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife . Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.