Functions Quotes
More Functions Quotes
Our exploration of emergent social structures across domains of human activity and experience leads to an over-arching conclusion: as an historical trend, dominant functions and processes in the Information Age are increasingly organized around networks. Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power, and culture. While the networking form of social organization has existed in other times and spaces, the new information technology paradigm provides the material basis for its pervasive expansion throughout the entire social structure.
— Manuel Castells (1996) The Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture Volume I (Information Age Series). p. 500
Just as Banaras is a prototype for sacred India , her sacred features are prototypes for the divine roles of the city as a whole. Foremost among these features are the Ganga and the two famous cremation grounds ( Shmashans ) along her banks. Pilgrims commonly say that Banaras is like the Mother Ganga, who accepts and purifies anyone and anything that come to her and transforms them into herself… each of these features, - the Ganga, the Shmashans and the city as a whole – functions as a kind of cosmic sink, a sacred dumping ground…
— Ronald L. Barrett, in p.29, 34 (Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (3 February 2008)])
The comprehensive picture drawn here of Vyasa in the MBh includes his functions as seer, priest, ascetic, and spiritual preceptor. Of all the epic’s, Vyasa is the one who most closely corresponds to the idea of brahminhood promulgated by the dharma literature and the MBh’s Shanti Parvan - The section of the epic having the greater similarity to the dharma literature.
— In pp.50-51 (Seer of the Fifth Veda: Kr?a Dvaip?yana Vy?sa in the Mah?bh?rata)
I hesitate to say what the functions of the modern journalist may be, but I imagine that they do not exclude the intelligent anticipation of the facts even before they occur.
Lord George Nathaniel Curzon (of Kedleston)— 1898 House of Commons, 29 Mar.
The same Being that fashioned the insect, whose existence is only discerned by a microscope, and gave that invisible speck a system of ducts and other organs to perform its vital functions, created the enormous mass of the planet thirteen hundred times larger than our earth, and launched it in its course round the sun, and the comet, wheeling with a velocity that would carry it round our globe in less than two minutes of time, and yet revolving through so prodigious a space that it takes near six centuries to encircle the sun!
brougham, henry, 1st baron brougham and vaux— Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895, pg. 274).
The mind is like an umbrella - it functions best when open.
walter gropius— As quoted in The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher, p. 129
[Islam] leaves no room of human legislation in an Islamic state, because herein all legislative functions vest in God and the only function left for Muslims lies in their observance of the God-made law.
abul ala maududi— 1967 Islamic Law and Constitution, Mawdudi's writings collected and translated into English by Khurshid Ahmad, p.77; quoted in: Charles J. Adam, "Mawdudi and the Islamic State," in John L. Esposito, ed., Voices of Resurgent Islam, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) on page 125
The purposes of functional charts is 1. to get an overall picture of the existing organizational structure 2. discover organizational weaknesses such as: a. confused lines of authority and responsibility b. duplication of functions c. inefficient allocation of personnel d. too extended a span of control e. lack of intermediate supervisory levels 3. discover organizational strengths which may be used in setting standards of good structure 4. provide a basis for planning 5. provide a basis for reorganization
— William Bouck Cornell (1928) Industrial organization and management. p. 120 ; Cited in: John J. Unterkofler (1954; p. 17)
The expedition had now performed its functions. I saw that old father Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria Nyanza, and as I had foretold, that lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belief.
John Hanning Speke— 1863 Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.
It cannot but happen?that those will survive whose functions happen to be most nearly in equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces? This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.
Herbert Spencer— 1865 Principles of Biology, pt.3, ch.12, sect.164.
Very important functions can be performed very wastefully and often are.
john kenneth galbraith— The Affluent Society, Chapter 17, Section I (1958, pg. 190).
I could prove God statistically. Take the human body alone — the chances that all the functions of an individual would just happen is a statistical monstrosity.
— Quoted in Readers Digest (October 1943)
Whatever the practical origins of aesthetic discernment may have been, it has been used to create great works of art. When the very loftiest human creations are seen to derive from humble origins and functions, what needs revision is not our esteem for these creations but our notion of nobility.
Robert Nozick— The Nature of Rationality (1993), Ch. V : Instrumental Rationality and Its Limits; Rationality's Imagination, p. 181
Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited, to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified, but any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right.
Robert Nozick— Preface, p. ix
The Tsar is not treacherous but he is weak. Weakness is not treachery, but it fulfils all its functions.
— On his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, as quoted in Harold Nicolson, Sir Arthur Nicolson, Bart., First Lord Carnock: A Study in the Old Diplomacy, London: Constable & Co., 1930, p. 214.
Much of the early engineering development of digital computers was done in universities. A few years ago, the view was commonly expressed that universities had played their part in computer design, and that the matter could now safely be left to industry. [...] Apart from the obvious functions of keeping in the public domain material that might otherwise be hidden, universities can make a special contribution by reason of their freedom from commercial considerations, including freedom from the need to follow the fashion.
maurice wilkes— Sect. 1: Pioneering Days
It is true of opinions as of other compositions that those who are seeped in them, whose ears are sensitive to literary nuances, whose antennae record subtle silences, can gather from their contents meaning beyond the words. All this presupposes, of course, a grasp of the nature of the Supreme Court's functions the scope and limits of its constitutional authority and often, as well, familiarity with the record and briefs of a particular case whose opinion record and briefs of a particular case whose opinion is under scrutiny.
felix frankfurter— "'The Administrative Side' of Chief Justice Hughes", 63 Harvard Law Review 1, 2 (1949).
" as I became Speaker in 1986, I made a point of setting up a public information office to respond to requests and provide information about Parliament and how it functions."
john allen fraser— Preface, p. ix
It seems reasonable to envision, for a time 10 or 15 years hence, a 'thinking center' that will incorporate the functions of present-day libraries together with anticipated advances in information storage and retrieval. The picture readily enlarges itself into a network of such centers, connected to one another by wide-band communication lines and to individual users by leased-wire services. In such a system, the speed of the computers would be balanced, and the cost of the gigantic memories and the sophisticated programs would be divided by the number of users.
j. c. r. licklider— Cited in: Jacques Berleur, Markku I. Nurminen, John Impagliazzo (2006) Social Informatics: An Information Society for All?. p.436
As a beast of toil an ox is fixed capital. If he is eaten, he no longer functions as an instrument of labour, nor as fixed capital either.
karl marx— Vol. II, Ch. VIII, p. 163
In the study of ideas , it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling , as if it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact . Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasoning grasps at straws for premises and float on gossamer for deductions.
Alfred North Whitehead— p.91 (Adventures of Ideas (1933))
Some conservatives have expressed outrage that the views of professors are at odds with the views of students, as if ideas were entitled to be represented in proportion to their popularity and students were entitled to professors who share their political or social values. One of the more important functions of college that it exposes young people to ideas and arguments they have not encountered at home is redefined as a problem.
ellen willis— "The Pernicious Concept of 'Balance'", The Chronicle of Higher Education (9 September 2005)
One of the functions of an industrial designer is to bridge the gap between manufacturer and ultimate buyer.
— The Michigan Technic, Vol. 46-47, 1932, p. 13
For the computer security community, the moral is obvious: if you are designing a system whose functions include providing evidence, it had better be able to withstand hostile review.
— Ross Anderson in Vol. 18 Issue 25 of the RISKS Digest.
To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government, as a barrier against foreign foes,… to equalize and moderate the public contributions, that while the requisite services are invited by due renumeration, nothing beyond this may exist to attract the attention of our citizens from the pursuits of useful industry, nor unjustly to burthen those who continue in those pursuits these are functions of the General Government on which you have a right to call.
— President Thomas Jefferson, letter to Amos Marsh, November 20, 1801, reported in ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 10, p. 293 (1903).
[Tonality is] the special meaning [functions] that chords receive through their relationship to a fundamental sonority, the tonic triad.
— Hugo Riemann, cited in Gurlitt, W. (1950). "Hugo Riemann (1849-1919)".
To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be.
— Henry George, in Social Problems (1883), Ch. 17 : The Functions of Government
The notion of anarchy ...means that once industrial functions have taken over from political functions, then business transactions and exchange alone produce the social order.
— Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, in The Federal Principle (1863)
