Basic Quotes
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That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.
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More Basic Quotes
Secrecy, censorship, dishonesty, and blocking of communication threaten all the basic needs.
abraham maslow— p. 23 (Motivation and Personality (1954))
That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.
aldo leopold— Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949.
The problem is that everywhere the gas drilling industry goes, a trail of water contamination, air pollution, health concerns and betrayal of basic American civic and community values follows.
Josh Fox— From article, Josh Fox's view: Ban fracking now, June 6, 2011
Our challenge for the future is that we realize we are very much a part of the earth's ecosystem, and we must learn to respect and live according to the basic biological laws of nature.
jim fowler— American professional zoologist and host
Humanity in its basic form is co-humanity.
Karl Barth— 1948 Kirchliche Dogmatik vol.3, pt.2 (translated by H Knight as Church Dogmatics,1960).
The subject matter covered in Carmina stays pretty basic: love, lust, the pleasures of drinking and the heightened moods evoked by springtime. These primitive and persistently relevant themes are nicely camouflaged by the Latin and old German texts, so the listener can actually feign ignorance while listening to virtually X-rated lyrics. (Veni Veni Venias! Come, come come now!)The music itself toggles between huge forces and a single voice, juxtaposing majesty and intimacy with ease...
carl orff— Marin Alsop in "Love, Lust and Drinking Stir Carmina" for Weekend Edition Saturday (11 November 2006)
In our time of ever-increasing specialization, there is a tendency to concern ourselves with relatively narrow scientific problems. The broad foundations of our present-day scientific knowledge and its historical development tend to be forgotten too often. This is an unfortunate trend, not only because our horizon becomes rather limited and our perspective somewhat distorted, but also because there are many valuable lessons to be learned in looking back over the years during which the basic concepts and the fundamental laws of a particular scientific discipline were first formulated.
— in Einstein's Researches on the Nature of Light, Emil Wolf (2001). Selected works of Emil Wolf: with commentary. World Scientific. p. 536. ISBN 9810242042.
"So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it's gratifying to have something you have done linger in people's memories." "There’s a very basic human, non-verbal aspect to our need to make music and use it as part of our human expression. It doesn’t have to do with body movements, it doesn't have to do with articulation of a language, but with something spiritual."
john williams— John Williams, quoted from the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial CD liner notes
There is no reason to deny the Macedonians' own traditions about their early kings and the migration of the Macedones[..] The basic story as provided by Herodotus and Thucydides, minus the interpolation of the Temenid connections, undoubtedly reflects the Macedonians' own traditions about their early history.
eugene n. borza— p. 84 (In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon (1990))
As Akins observes, it is not the point of our sensory systems that they should detect "basic" or "natural" properties of the environment, but that they should serve our "narcissistic" purposes in staying alive; nature doesn't build epistemic engines.
daniel c. dennett— citing Kathleen Akins. "On Piranhas, Narcissism and Mental Representations: An Essay on Intentionality and Naturalism" (1989)
And, in this case, science could learn an important lesson from the literati who love contingency for the same basic reason that scientists tend to regard the theme with suspicion. Because, in contingency lies the power of each person, to make a difference in an unconstrained world bristling with possibilities, and nudgeable by the smallest of unpredictable inputs into markedly different channels spelling either vast improvement or potential disaster.
stephen jay gould— p. 1341 (The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002))
The story of Joseph in Egypt and of the seven fat and the seven lean years has passed into the homely wisdom of the ages; but our economic thinking seems to have lost contact with so simple and basic approach to prudent management of a nations welfare.
benjamin graham— Chapter V, Stabilization of Raw Materials, p. 56
We do not demand for our own people any more than the basic human rights which we would extend to every nation, people and tribe on this planet: the right to preserve their own territory, traditions and ethnic identity. The right to preserve, in other words, the things which, by marking their differences from the mass of humanity, make them human and turn their society from an ant heap into a community.
nicholas john griffin— Nick Griffin, The BNP: Anti-asylum protest, racist sect or power-winning movement?
The first statement of the two principals reads as follows. First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both(a)reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.
john rawls— Chapter II, Section 11, pg. 60
A solid working knowledge of productivity software and other IT tools has become a basic foundation for success in virtually any career. Beyond that, however, I don't think you can overemphasise the importance of having a good background in maths and science .
— Bill Gates, Bill Gates: The skills you need to succeed. BBC News (14 December 2007).
2.6.<odd>: still a stable kernel, but accept bigger changes leading up to it (timeframe: a month or two). 2.<odd>.x: aim for big changes that may destabilize the kernel for several releases (timeframe: a year or two) <odd>.x.x: Linus went crazy, broke absolutely everything , and rewrote the kernel to be a microkernel using a special message-passing version of Visual basic. (timeframe: "we expect that he will be released from the mental institution in a decade or two").
linus torvalds— Torvalds, Linus (2005-03-02). Message to Linux kernel mailing list. Retrieved on 2006-12-11.
A genuine invention in the realm of ideas must first emerge as an abstruse and even partial concept? At first blusha new idea appearstobe verycloseto insanity because to be new it must reverse important basic beliefs and assumptions which, in turn, have been institutionalized and are administered by one or another kind of priesthood with a vested interest in an old idea.
Arthur Miller— 1958 The Collected Plays,'Introduction, II'.
Almost all of the social tragedies occurring around the world today are caused by ignoring the basic biological laws of nature ... The quicker we humans learn that saving open space and wildlife is critical to our welfare and quality of life, maybe we'll start thinking of doing something about it.
jim fowler— [2]
Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things.
Gene Roddenberry— Interview (20 September 1988), included in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, DVD 7, "Mission Logs: Year Five", "A Tribute to Gene Roddenberry", 0:26:09)
A country, after all, is not something you build as the pharaohs built the pyramids, and then leave standing there to defy eternity. A country is something that is built every day out of certain basic shared values.
pierre trudeau— Part 5, Life After Politics, p. 366
If physics is too difficult for the physicists, the nonphysicist may wonder whether he should try at all to grasp its complexities and ambiguities. It is undeniably an effort, but probably one worth making, for the basic questions are important and the new experimental results are often fascinating. And if the layman runs into serious perplexities, he can be consoled with the thought that the points which baffle him are more than likely the ones for which the professionals have not found satisfactory answers.
edward condon— Physics, in What is Science?: Twelve Eminent Scientists and Philosophers Explain Their Various Fields to the Layman, by James Roy Newman, published by Simon and Schuster (1955), p. 102
My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits . The best way to show this is to demonstrate the limits and even the irrationality of some rules which she, or he, is likely to regard as basic. In the case that induction (including induction by falsification) this means demonstrating how well the counterinductive procedure can be supported by argument.
paul karl feyerabend— pg. 32, Italics are Feyerabend's
Notwithstanding their attacks on the basic conception of rationalism, on synthetic a priori judgments, that is, material propositions that cannot be contradicted by any experience, the empiricist posits the forms of being as constant.
max horkheimer— p. 146 ("The Latest Attack on Metaphysics" (1937))
Capitalist development requires, as a precondition, that the state foster a general sociopolitical and legal framework conducive to market relationships. An environment of security of property and predictability is basic to encourage investment; in turn, this requires political stability and a minimum degree of social harmony.
richard sandbrook— p. 320 (The State and Economic Stagnation in Tropical Africa)
General evolution theory, based on the integration of the relevant tenets of general system theory, cybernetics, information and communication theory, chaos theory, dynamical systems theory, and nonequilibrium thermodynamics, can convey a sound understanding of the laws and dynamics that govern the evolution of complex systems in the various realms of investigation.... The basic notions of this new discipline can be developed to give an adequate account of the dynamical evolution of human societies as well. Such an account could furnish the basis of a system of knowledge better able to orient human beings and societies in their rapidly changing milieu.
— Ervin László et al. (1993) pp. xvii- xix; as cited in: Alexander Laszlo and Stanley Krippner (1992) "Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development" In: J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Ch. 3, pp. 47-74
More direct evidence comes from a careful study of Large Group Awareness Training programs, variously known as Erhard Seminars Training (est), Lifespring, or simply the Forum. The basic procedure of these courses parallels the group training workshops ... but the emphasis shifts from group effectiveness to personal development. By talking through life challenges, aspirations, fears, and the like with fellow participants and professional counselors/teachers, individuals hope to change how they view themselves, their family and friends, and their prospects for a fulfilling life.
— Gastil, John (2010). The Group in Society. Los Angeles: SAGE. pp. 228-229. ISBN 9781412924689.
In a basic agricultural society, it's easy enough to swap five chickens for a new dress or to pay a schoolteacher with a goat and three sacks of rice . Barter works less well in a more advanced economy. The logistical challenges of using chickens to buy books on Amazon.com would be formidable.
— Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, (2010), p. 218
