“
But the floor retained an unparalleled measure of excellence with a decorative array of ceramic tiles precisely laid by an anonymous Muslim artisan with limitless patience, pride, or skill. He left behind an ornate work of art in a short, squat, non-descript building near the most dangerous piece of real estate on the planet. Silva often wondered how an architect so careless came to work with a craftsman so precise. Looking at that floor, she often thought that if everyone applied just a fraction of his dedication to their own work, it might cancel out the hatred driving the destruction.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
Life is Beautiful?
Beyond all the vicissitudes that are presented to us on this short path
within this wild planet, we can say that life is beautiful.
No one can ever deny that experiencing the whirlwind of emotions
inside this body is a marvel,
we grow with these life experiences,
we strengthen ourselves and stimulate our feelings every day,
in this race where the goal is imminent death
sometimes we are winners and many other times we lose and the darkness surprises us
and our heart is disconnected from this reality halfway
and connects us to the server of the matrix once more,
debugging and updating our database,
erasing all those experiences within this caracara of flesh and blood,
waiting to return to earth again.
"Life is beautiful gentlemen" is cruel and has unfair behavior
about people who looked like a bundle of light
and left this platform for no apparent reason,
but its nature is not similar to our consciousness and feelings,
she has a script for each of us
because it was programmed that way, the architects of the game of life
they know perfectly well that you must experiment with all the feelings, all the emotions and evolve to go to the next levels.
You can't take a quantum leap and get through the game on your own.
inventing a heaven and a hell in order to transcend,
that comes from our fears of our imagination
not knowing what life has in store for us after life is a dilemma
"rather said" the best kept secret of those who control us day by day.
We are born, we grow up, we are indoctrinated in the classrooms
and in the jobs, we pay our taxes,
we reproduce, we enjoy the material goods that it offers us
the system the marketing of disinformation,
Then we get old, get sick and die. I don't like this story!
It looks like a parody of Noam Chomsky,
Let's go back to the beautiful description of beautiful life, it sounds better!
Let's find meaning in all the nonsense that life offers us,
'Cause one way or another we're doomed
to imagine that everything will be fine until the end of matter.
It is almost always like that.
Sometimes life becomes a real nightmare.
A heartbreaking horror that we find impossible to overcome.
As we grow up, we learn to know the dark side of life.
The terrors that lurk in the shadows,
the dangers lurking around every corner.
We realize that reality is much harsher
and ruthless than we ever imagined.
And in those moments, when life becomes a real hell,
we can do nothing but cling to our own existence,
summon all our might and fight with all our might
so as not to be dragged into the abyss.
But sometimes, even fighting with all our might is not enough.
Sometimes fate is cruel and takes away everything we care about,
leaving us with nothing but pain and hopelessness.
And in that moment, when all seems lost,
we realize the terrible truth: life is a death trap,
a macabre game in which we are doomed to lose.
And so, as we sink deeper and deeper into the abyss,
while the shadows envelop us and terror paralyzes us,
we remember the words that once seemed to us
so hopeful: life is beautiful. A cruel and heartless lie,
that leads us directly to the tragic end that death always awaits us.
”
”
Marcos Orowitz (THE MAELSTROM OF EMOTIONS: A selection of poems and thoughts About us humans and their nature)
“
Arcades are altruism turned architecture – private property given to an entire community.
”
”
Bernard Rudofsky (Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture)
“
When we look, for example, at the Parthenon for the first time, we look at it already knowing that generations of architects chose precisely that style of building for the museums, town-halls, and banks of most of our major cities.
”
”
Mary Beard (Classics: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
“
The second was that the creative architects always deferred making decisions for as long as they were allowed.
”
”
John Cleese (Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide)
“
a modern-day conservator of Monticello says that Woodmont Jefferson as an amateur architect rather than a professional was that he made things more complicated than they needed to be for any practical purpose.
”
”
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
“
All librarians, deep down, loathe their buildings. Something is always wrong—the counter is too high, the shelves too narrow, the delivery entrance too far from the offices. The hallway echoes. The light from windows bleaches books. In short, libraries are constructed by architects, not librarians.
”
”
Elizabeth McCracken (The Giant's House)
“
I jolted from the shocking, acute pleasure. I loved it when a guy went down on me, but this? It was insanity, and it’d never felt like this before. Each lush stroke of his tongue caused static in my body. It was so good, it short-circuited my brain, and my body didn’t know how to handle the overload.
”
”
Nikki Sloane (The Architect (Nashville Neighborhood, #3))
“
In short, the architect is an artist, but in a renewed sense he is more than anything a ‘trend-setter’.
”
”
Franco La Cecla (Against Architecture (Green Arcade))
“
designed and built the world’s first municipal park. This park so captivated the American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted that he modeled Central Park in New York on it.
”
”
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
“
The first was that the creative architects knew how to play.
”
”
John Cleese (Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide)
“
at Birkenhead, near Liverpool, designed and built the world’s first municipal park. This park so captivated the American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted that he modeled Central Park in New York on it.
”
”
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
“
My name is Alem Kelo. I live with the Fitzgeralds, my foster family, at 202 Meanly Road, Manor Park, London. I have also lived in Ethiopia and Eritrea. I have spent a few nights in a hotel in Datchet, one night in a children’s home in Reading, and for a short while I stayed in a hotel in Forest Gate, which was a bit rough. I have stayed in all these places in the last year. To be really honest I would prefer to live in Africa with my mother and my father but they have both been killed and there is war in my country. Things are very hard for me. Look at me, look at all the things that I am capable of, and think of all the things you could call me – a student, a lover of literature, a budding architect,
”
”
Benjamin Zephaniah (Refugee Boy)
“
Robert Hooke, who is perhaps best remembered now as the first person to describe a cell, and the great and stately Sir Christopher Wren, who was actually an astronomer first and architect second, though that is not often generally remembered now. In 1683, Halley, Hooke, and Wren were dining in London when the conversation turned to the motions of celestial objects. It was known that planets were inclined to orbit in a particular kind of oval known as an ellipse—“a very specific and precise curve,” to quote Richard Feynman—but it wasn’t understood why. Wren generously offered a prize worth forty shillings (equivalent to a couple of weeks’ pay) to whichever of the men could provide a solution.
”
”
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
“
Language brings with it an identity and a culture, or at least the perception of it. A shared language says “We’re the same.” A language barrier says “We’re different.” The architects of apartheid understood this. Part of the effort to divide black people was to make sure we were separated not just physically but by language as well. In the Bantu schools, children were only taught in their home language. Zulu kids learned in Zulu. Tswana kids learned in Tswana. Because of this, we’d fall into the trap the government had set for us and fight among ourselves, believing that we were different. The great thing about language is that you can just as easily use it to do the opposite: convince people that they are the same. Racism teaches us that we are different because of the color of our skin. But because racism is stupid, it’s easily tricked. If you’re racist and you meet someone who doesn’t look like you, the fact that he can’t speak like you reinforces your racist preconceptions: He’s different, less intelligent. A brilliant scientist can come over the border from Mexico to live in America, but if he speaks in broken English, people say, “Eh, I don’t trust this guy.” “But he’s a scientist.” “In Mexican science, maybe. I don’t trust him.” However, if the person who doesn’t look like you speaks like you, your brain short-circuits because your racism program has none of those instructions in the code. “Wait, wait,” your mind says, “the racism code says if he doesn’t look like me he isn’t like me, but the language code says if he speaks like me he… is like me? Something is off here. I can’t figure this out.
”
”
Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood)
“
This has been a long and imperfect journey. It is a journey I am still on. I will always be on. And it is one I would like to share with you. I want company along my road. This is an invitation to question your life and, should you desire, to find the courage to erase the lines that imprison you and to reimagine a better you. And if you do not get it just right (none of us do), you are invited to keep redrawing and redrawing until you feel your outer world matches your inner life. If falling short of our goals is truly what terrifies us, then we should do away with half measures. The notion that dipping a toe in the water somehow protects us is nothing short of fear propagation—and in fact guarantees the hurt we fear. Be bold. Name what you want. Give it voice and then give it action. Success is not guaranteed but commitment and courage are the only insurance we have. This is serious. Every day that passes is another day closer to looking back on your life and seeing whether you have done something meaningful. Don’t let the days pass without doing something great. Be the architect of your dreams.
”
”
Jewel (Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story)
“
write animal stories. This one was called Dialogues Between a Cow and a Filly; a meditation on ethics, you might say; it had been inspired by a short business trip to Brittany. Here’s a key passage from it: ‘Let us first consider the Breton cow: all year round she thinks of nothing but grazing, her glossy muzzle ascends and descends with impressive regularity, and no shudder of anguish comes to trouble the wistful gaze of her light-brown eyes. All that is as it ought to be, and even appears to indicate a profound existential oneness, a decidedly enviable identity between her being-in-the-world and her being-in-itself. Alas, in this instance the philosopher is found wanting, and his conclusions, while based on a correct and profound intuition, will be rendered invalid if he has not previously taken the trouble of gathering documentary evidence from the naturalist. In fact the Breton cow’s nature is duplicitous. At certain times of the year (precisely determined by the inexorable functioning of genetic programming) an astonishing revolution takes place in her being. Her mooing becomes more strident, prolonged, its very harmonic texture modified to the point of recalling at times, and astonishingly so, certain groans which escape the sons of men. Her movements become more rapid, more nervous, from time to time she breaks into a trot. It is not simply her muzzle, though it seems, in its glossy regularity, conceived for reflecting the abiding presence of a mineral passivity, which contracts and twitches under the painful effect of an assuredly powerful desire. ‘The key to the riddle is extremely simple, and it is that what the Breton cow desires (thus demonstrating, and she must be given credit here, her life’s one desire) is, as the breeders say in their cynical parlance, “to get stuffed”. And stuff her they do, more or less directly; the artificial insemination syringe can in effect, whatever the cost in certain emotional complications, take the place of the bull’s penis in performing this function. In both cases the cow calms down and returns to her original state of earnest meditation, except that a few months later she will give birth to an adorable little calf. Which, let it be said in passing, means profit for the breeder.’ * The breeder, of course, symbolized God. Moved by an irrational sympathy for the filly, he promised her, starting from the next chapter, the everlasting delight of numerous stallions, while the cow, guilty of the sin of pride, was to be gradually condemned to the dismal pleasures of artificial fertilization. The pathetic mooing of the ruminant would prove incapable of swaying the judgment of the Great Architect. A delegation of sheep, formed in solidarity, had no better luck. The God presented in this short story was not, one observes, a merciful God.
”
”
Michel Houellebecq (Whatever)
“
Missy and I became best friends, and soon after our first year together I decided to propose to her. It was a bit of a silly proposal. It was shortly before Christmas Day 1988, and I bought her a potted plant for her present. I know, I know, but let me finish. The plan was to put her engagement ring in the dirt (which I did) and make her dig to find it (which I forced her to do). I was then going to give a speech saying, “Sometimes in life you have to get your hands dirty and work hard to achieve something that grows to be wonderful.” I got the idea from Matthew 13, where Jesus gave the Parable of the Sower. I don’t know if it was the digging through the dirt to find the ring or my speech, but she looked dazed and confused. So I sort of popped the question: “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?” She eventually said yes (whew!), and I thought everything was great.
A few days later, she asked me if I’d asked her dad for his blessing. I was not familiar with this custom or tradition, which led to a pretty heated argument about people who are raised in a barn or down on a riverbank. She finally convinced me that it was a formality that was a prerequisite for our marriage, so I decided to go along with it. I arrived one night at her dad’s house and asked if I could talk with him. I told him about the potted plant and the proposal to his daughter, and he pretty much had the same bewildered look on his face that she’d had. He answered quite politely by saying no. “I think you should wait a bit, like maybe a couple of years,” he said. I wasn’t prepared for that response. I didn’t handle it well. I don’t remember all the details of what was said next because I was uncomfortable and angry. I do remember saying, “Well, you are a preacher so I am going to give you some scripture.” I quoted 1 Corinthians 7:9, which says: “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” That didn’t go over very well. I informed him that I’d treated his daughter with respect and he still wouldn’t budge. I then told him we were going to get married with him or without him, and I left in a huff.
Over the next few days, I did a lot of soul-searching and Missy did a lot of crying. I finally decided that it was time for me to become a man. Genesis 2:24 says: “For this reason [creation of a woman] a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” God is the architect of marriage, and I’d decided that my family would have God as its foundation. It was time for me to leave and cleave, as they say. My dad told me once that my mom would cuddle us when we were in his nest, but there would be a day when it would be his job to kick me out. He didn’t have to kick me out, nor did he have to ask me, “Who’s a man?” Through prayer and patience, Missy’s parents eventually came around, and we were more than ready to make our own nest.
”
”
Jase Robertson (Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Fowl)
“
late 1857, Frederick Law Olmsted, short on cash and desperate for a job, had campaigned to be appointed park superintendent, a position that reported to Viele. Calvert Vaux, remembering Olmsted’s Walks and Talks of an American Farmer and his keen interest in the principles of park design, approached him to form a partnership. Vaux, the trained architect, brought to the table his drafting skills, his knowledge of construction, and a sense of how to sell a project.
”
”
James Nevius (Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers)
“
slavery while on a sales trip to the New World in 1829. Traveling through Mexico, Florida, Louisiana, and Cuba, he was especially horrified by the racial character of slavery. On his return to France, he condemned the exploitation of slaves in an article titled “Des Noirs,” but he stopped short of calling for immediate emancipation, suggesting instead a gradual process of manumission over some forty to sixty years. It was only when he learned that plantation owners refused to educate their slaves that he turned against gradualism and came out in favor of “the immediate abolition of slavery”—the subtitle of his 1842 account of his trip to the West Indies. Tireless in his advocacy of abolition, he served as undersecretary for the colonies and president of the Commission on Slavery, and became, in effect, the architect of the post-slavery order in the Antilles. The novelist Victor Hugo offered a telling description of the ceremony at which Schœlcher announced the final abolition of slavery, held in Guadeloupe on May 19, 1848:
”
”
Adam Shatz (The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon)
“
Like so much in the centre, it was under construction or reconstruction. Scaffolding, cranes, the temporary business of architects and workmen, the portable toilets, the short-term fencing, the crash-barriers and the skips. Rubble, more rubble. There was a history of Berlin to be written on the topic of rubble.
”
”
Gail Jones (A Guide to Berlin)
“
Thy kingdom is divided.” Shimon Peres was the architect of the peace plan through which Israel agreed to surrender her land for peace, thus dividing its kingdom. The name of the man responsible for this plan is Peres. The verdict: your kingdom is divided! THE COVENANT WITH DEATH SHALL BE DISANNULLED Isaiah continues saying “this covenant with death will be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand”. Isaiah reveals this treaty, signed with the forces of hell in the spiritual world, shall not stand. No, this covenant will not bring peace at all, for the other side of this covenant is war. A great war is coming! It will be called World War III before it is over! This is the battle spoken of in Ezekiel 38. Isaiah goes on to say that the critics of this agreement would complain “The bed is too short on which to stretch out, and the blanket is too small to wrap oneself in.” 81 The treaty would be deemed inadequate; it wouldn’t solve the conflict or bring peace, for it was signed with the father of lies. After Rabin was assassinated in 1995, the leaders of the world gathered in Jerusalem at his funeral service. “Each speaker called for the confirming of the Middle East peace accord so that the life of Rabin would not be in vain. They called for an agreement with his grave to continue the peace process. We watched as the world leaders came and confirmed the Middle East peace process. Standing in the front row of Rabin’s funeral were the world leaders and a prince of the Roman empire.” 82 Jerusalem and the Middle East peace process had now been moved onto the center stage of world politics. The death of Rabin gave new meaning to the prophecy regarding the covenant with death. The covenant with the many, the covenant with Rabin, now truly had become the covenant with the grave. The Lord gives a final warning admonishing you; do not mock this prophecy, unless you want the bands which bind you to be made stronger! The prophet also tells us the timing of this prophecy, for it refers to events at the end of the age, for at that time the Lord will bring His judgment upon the entire earth! Your covenant with death shall be
”
”
Benjamin Baruch (The Day of the LORD is at Hand: 7th Edition - 2014)
“
Even asleep, the little greyhound trailed after her madame, through a weave of green stars and gas lamps, along the boulevards of Paris. It was a conjured city that no native would recognize—Emma Bovary’s head on the pillow, its architect. Her Paris was assembled from a guidebook with an out-of-date map, and from the novels of Balzac and Sand, and from her vividly disordered recollections of the viscount’s ball at La Vaubyessard, with its odor of dying flowers, burning flambeaux, and truffles. (Many neighborhoods within the city’s quivering boundaries, curiously enough, smelled identical to the viscount’s dining room.) A rose and gold glow obscured the storefront windows, and cathedral bells tolled continuously as they strolled past the same four landmarks: a tremulous bridge over the roaring Seine, a vanilla-white dress shop, the vague façade of the opera house—overlaid in more gold light—and the crude stencil of a theater. All night they walked like that, companions in Emma’s phantasmal labyrinth, suspended by her hopeful mists, and each dawn the dog would wake to the second Madame Bovary, the lightly snoring woman on the mattress, her eyes still hidden beneath a peacock sleep mask. Lumped in the coverlet, Charles’s blocky legs tangled around her in an apprehensive pretzel, a doomed attempt to hold her in their marriage bed.
”
”
Jennifer Egan (The Best American Short Stories 2014 (The Best American Series))
“
Once the base of Reflective Control is built, you can start adding to your arsenal with a wide range of short-term cognitive techniques, destroying long-term cognitive obstacles, and engineering and architecting long-term cognitive infrastructure.
”
”
Sebastian Marshall (Gateless)
“
This book is really about the making of a great leader. In my own research and writings over many decades, I have concluded the following about leadership: You can neither manufacture nor can you buy leadership. You must earn it. Great leaders are great doers. They have a knack of organizing and inspiring the followers. Sometimes, they even generate cult-like loyalty. When the followers are ready, the leaders show up. Therefore, in times of crisis, uncertainty and chronic dissatisfaction, unexpected people become leaders. This was the case with Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. In short, ordinary people become extraordinary leaders. Great leaders are driven by purpose and passion. They derive boundless energy from their purpose and passion. To them, leadership is all about people. Management is all about grit and determination. Great leaders not only promise the future but deliver it. Great leaders are great architects. Like good architects, they imagine building something unique, enduring, and inspiring. Examples include the Pyramids, the ancient temples, churches and mosques; more recently, the Opera House in Sydney; the Olympic Stadium (Bird’s Nest) in Beijing; and Putrajaya, the new capital of Malaysia. There are three universal qualities of all great leaders: passion, caring, and capability. This is also true of great teachers.
”
”
Uday Mahurkar (Centrestage: Inside the Narendra Modi model of governance)
“
No foreign architect of stature, such as I. M. Pei, resides in Japan. Foreign architects come to Japan on short-term contracts, erect a skyscraper or a museum, and then leave. But subtle and sophisticated approaches to services and design—the core elements of modern building technology—cannot be transmitted in this way. Japan is left with the empty shells of architectural ideas, the hardware without the software.
”
”
Alex Kerr (Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan)
“
Queer contagion, including the anxiety triggered by gender nonnormativity, found its viral materiality in the early 1980s. The diagnosis of gay cancer, or GRID (gay-related immune disorder), the original name for AIDS, was a vengeful nomenclature for the perversion of existing in a world held together, at least in part, by trans/queer undoing. Found by chance, queers began showing symptoms of unexplainable illnesses such as Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP). Unresponsive to the most aggressive treatments, otherwise healthy, often well-resourced and white, young men were deteriorating and dying with genocidal speed. Without remedy, normative culture celebrated its triumph in knowing the tragic ends they always imagined queers would meet. This, while the deaths of Black, Brown, and Indigenous trans and cis women (queer or otherwise) were unthought beyond the communities directly around them. These women, along with many others, were stripped of any claim to tragedy under the conditions of trans/misogyny.
Among the architects of this silence was then-President Ronald Reagan, who infamously refused to mention HIV/AIDS in public until 1986. By then, at least 16,000 had died in the U.S. alone. Collective fantasies of mass disappearance through the pulsing death of trans/queer people, Haitians, and drug users - the wish fulfillment of a nightmare world concertized the rhetoric that had always been spoken from the lips of power. The true terror of this response to HIV/AIDS was not only its methodological denial but its joyful humor. In Scott Calonico's experimental short film, "When AIDS Was Funny", a voice-over of Reagan's press secretary Larry Speakes is accompanied by iconic still images of people close to death in hospital beds.
LESTER KINSOLVING: "Over a third of them have died. It's known as a 'gay plague.' [Press pool laughter.] No, it is. It's a pretty serious thing. One in every three people that get this have died. And I wonder if the president was aware of this."
LARRY SPEAKES: "I don't have it. [Press pool laughter.] Do you?"
LESTER KINSOLVING: "You don't have it? Well, I'm relieved to hear that, Larry!" [Press pool laughter.]
LARRY SPEAKES: "Do you?"
LESTER KINSOLVING: "No, I don't.
”
”
Eric A. Stanley (Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable)
“
…life is short. You get one chance to follow your dreams, to build the life you want to live. And the whole time, there’s going to be people trying to change your path. People who would rather see you as a brick in whatever dream they’re building for themselves, rather than the architect of your own.
”
”
Elisha Kemp (The Mountain (Endless Winter, #2))
“
Like architects of the soul, Abdulla and Maysa wove compassion, trust, and forgiveness into the very fabric of their beings, constructing an Empire of Hearts impervious to the ravages of time and doubt.
”
”
Abdulhamid Ali (Empire of Hearts: A Short Story of Redemption and Love)
“
The Lower East Side was always an artist neighborhood. You had hippies there in the sixties. Artists and punks move into places that are kinda like the ghetto. They move in there and then it becomes an “artistic community” and after that is when gentrification happens, y’know? Punks move into the cheapest place and then the artists see, “Oh, look, punks are here already!” so they stay there. Then eventually musicians move in, and then it becomes this “hip place to be.” Shortly after that gentrification starts, no punk or artist can ever afford to live there ever again.
”
”
Brad Logan (Architects of Self-Destruction: The Oral History of Leftöver Crack)
“
to his great joy that he was the richest prince in Europe, with an inheritance in the vicinity of forty or fifty million thalers (between £8,000,000 and £10,000,000), an almost unheard of sum for the times. The Prince moved his court, his officials, his mistresses and bastards from Hanau to Cassel; and because he was short of space commissioned an Italian architect to present him with plans for a fine new palace.
”
”
Virginia Cowles (The Rothschilds (Dynasties Book 2))
“
The French had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very short space of time they had completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures. Burke, speech in the House of Commons (1790)
”
”
Ward Farnsworth (Farnsworth's Classical English Style (Farnsworth's Classical English series Book 3))
“
What do you do when you have two outstanding employees who logically both fit in the same place on the organizational chart? Perhaps you have a world-class architect who is running engineering, but she does not have the experience to scale the organization to the next level. You also have an outstanding operational person who is not great technically. You want to keep both in the company, but you only have one position. So you get the bright idea to put “two in the box” and take on a little management debt. The short-term benefits are clear: you keep both employees, you don’t have to develop either because they will theoretically help each other develop, and you instantly close the skill set gap. Unfortunately, you will pay for those benefits with interest and at a very high rate.
”
”
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
“
The Architect, growing tired, sat upon his unfinished work, looking down (or up) at the earth. What else could he do? He had many more ideas, but, by this time, they did not seem to add any true value. He scratched his chin. He watched his tools float about.
”
”
Nathan Walkowicz (of Dust and Dragonflies: Short Stories)
“
It was twenty doctors, nine architects, thirteen lawyers, and too many mothers and fathers to count. In short, it felt like everyone because to the mayor's wife, it was everyone, it was everyone she cared about, and they were all gone in a single, heartbreaking, unbelievable whop.
”
”
Hannah Pittard (Visible Empire)
“
People often assume that science is only about empirical research - that it's merely about facts and figures, which happens to be nowhere near the truth. Facts are the fundamental building blocks of science, but bringing those facts together to have an insight of a certain phenomenon requires a rational, conscientious and creative mind. It's only through rigorous analysis and observation, as well as, creative contemplation, of the empirical evidence, i.e. facts, discovered through decades of research, that we can understand a certain phenomenon. Science cannot exist without empirical evidence, but evidence alone can't take science ahead and upwards, for that, we need some rather naïve and conscientious minds who can pierce through the evidence in order to have a practical insight of the big picture of a certain phenomenon. In short, there's more to science than facts and figures. Think of facts and figures as bricks and cement, and science or scientific understanding as a building. Without the vision of the architect, it's impossible to construct the building no matter how much bricks and cement you have.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (All For Acceptance)
“
So it’s reasonable to ask, “Is there actually any reason to use abstract classes?”
The short answer is “No.” Abstract classes in an API are suspicious and often indicate an unwillingness to invest more time in the proper API design. The longer answer is, “Well, there might be reasons to use abstract classes in APIs after all.
”
”
Jaroslav Tulach (Practical API Design: Confessions of a Java Framework Architect)
“
We are becoming too solemn about downtown. The architects, planners—and businessmen—are seized with dreams of order, and they have become fascinated with scale models and bird’s-eye views. This is a vicarious way to deal with reality, and it is, unhappily, symptomatic of a design philosophy now dominant: buildings come first, for the goal is to remake the city to fit an abstract concept of what, logically, it should be. But whose logic? The logic of the projects is the logic of egocentric children, playing with pretty blocks and shouting “See what I made!”—a viewpoint much cultivated in our schools of architecture and design. And citizens who should know better are so fascinated by the sheer process of rebuilding that the end results are secondary to them.
”
”
Jane Jacobs (Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs)