James Webb Quotes

An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements (Quoted from Vilfredo Pareto)

If they didn't want to know, they shouldn't have asked.

In learning any art the important things to learn are, first, Principles, and second, Method. This is true of the art of producing ideas.

We tend to forget that words are, themselves, ideas. They might be called ideas in a state of suspended animation. When the words are mastered the ideas tend to come alive again.

Thus, words being symbols of ideas, we can collect ideas by collecting words. The fellow who said he tried reading the dictionary but couldn't get the hang of the story simply missed the point: namely, that it is a collection of short stories.

You know what we've lost, William? We've lost a sense of responsibility, at least on the individual level. We have too many people like Mark who believe that the government owes them total, undisciplined freedom. If everyone thought that way, there would be no society. We're so big, so strong now, that people seem to have forgotten that a part of our strength comes from each person surrendering a portion of his individual urges to the common good. And the common good is defined by who wins at the polls, and the policies they make. Like it or lump it.

Self-discipline is never simple.

I settled in to watch a Dragnet rerun. I bought the judge in four of Jack Webb’s drunk-driving beefs. I shtupped Jack’s ex-wife, soaring songstress Julie London.

The production of ideas is just as definite a process as the production of Fords.” —James Webb Young

When his parents announced the newest rules to Jamal, he defiantly announced back to them that, as a matter of principle, he would not be "manipulated or forced into complying with a Fascist parenting style.

My war is not as simple as yours was, Father. People seem to question their obligation to serve on other than their own terms. But enough of that. I fight because we have always fought. It doesn't matter who.

Moshe watched spellbound from the wings as Webb, a tiny man with a curved spine clad in a white suit, roared with laughter and enthusiasm as he played, egging his band on from the rear with his masterful drumming, the thunderous band shaking the floor with rip-roaring waves of gorgeous sound. That man, Moshe decided, was a joymaker. And Moshe could not help but notice that Webb, like his lovely Chona, had a physical disability. Though he was a hunchback of some kind, he moved with a certain feeling of joy, a lightness, as if every moment were precious.

They have become spoilers because in their view America’s political elites, both Republican and Democrat, have grown together into an almost indiscernible “hybrid royalty” that offers them little to choose from in terms of how the nation is actually being governed.

In such a wild, uncharted place the book of God was vital, for it nourished their spirit and laid boundaries for their conduct. Other subjects simply had no relevance. Trigonometry and calculus would not help them find their way among the mountain trails. Adam Smith's economics were of no consequence in the matter of planting corn and breeding cattle. Nor did they need the essays of Plato or the plays of Shakespeare to teach them how to shoot a rifle, or to make clothes from animal skins, or to clear away the wilderness with their own bare hands.

I roamed L.A. by night. I got repeatedly rousted by LAPD. I sensed that a cop-street fool compact existed. I behaved accordingly. I denied all criminal intent. I acted respectfully. My height-to-weight ratio and unhygienic appearance caused some cops to taunt me. I sparred back. Street schtick often ensued. I mimicked jailhouse jigs like some WASP Richard Pryor. Rousts turned into streetside yukfests. They played like Jack Webb unhinged. I started to dig the LAPD. I started to grok cop humor. I couldn't quite peg it as performance art. I hadn't read Joseph Wambaugh yet.

The neglected genius is a familiar figure of mythology; but there are also neglected lunatics who are worthy of study.

things to learn are, first, Principles; and second, Method.

He’s wearing a dog tag. His name is Henry Webb. His unit is called BLM.” “What does it mean?” “Black Like Me. A solidarity movement, I suppose.

I don't actually breakdance.

An idea, I thought, has some of that mysterious quality which romance lends to tales of the sudden appearance of islands in the South Seas.

The Northern army was most often run like a business, solving a problem. The Southern army was run like a family, confronting a human crisis.

In learning any art the important things to learn are, first, Principles; and second, Method. This is true of the art of producing ideas.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world around him. The unreasonable man expects the world to adapt itself to him. Therefore all progress is made by unreasonable men.

In advertising an idea, results from a new combination of specific knowledge about. products and people, will general knowledge about life and events.

Riding horseback along a country lane I saw wild roses in bloom, against an old stone wall. The expensive, improved varieties in my garden have lost something. Sophistication always does.

They came with nothing, and for a complicated set of reasons, many of them still have nothing. The slurs stick to me, standing on these graves. Rednecks . Trailer-park trash. Racists. Cannon fodder. My ancestors. My people. Me.

But to tar the sacrifices of the Confederate soldier as simple acts of racism, and reduce the battle flag under which he fought to nothing more than the symbol of a racist heritage, is one of the great blasphemies of our modern age.

The consequence of this reality was that in virtually every major battle of the Civil War, Confederate soldiers who did not own slaves were fighting against a proportion of Union Army soldiers who had not been asked to give theirs up.

Can words, studied as emotional symbols, yield better advertising education than words studied as parts of rhetoric? What is the one word-symbol which will best arouse the emotion with which I wish this particular advertisement to be charged?

the cotton fields and strawberry patches of a much harsher world whose tragedies and daily burdens had blunted her temperament and quelled her emotions. But its most immediate impact on this teenage girl was not the lack of a demure coquettishness that otherwise might have defined her had she grown up in better circumstances; it was the visible evidence of the hardship of her journey. This was not a pom-pom-waving homecoming queen or a varsity athlete who had toned her body in a local gym. My mother never complained, but it was her struggles that had visibly shaped her shoulders, grown her biceps, and crusted her palms—while in a less visible way narrowing her view of her own long-term horizons. Decades later, when I was in my forties, I suppressed a defensive anger as I watched my mother sit quietly in an expansive waterfront Florida living room while a well-bred woman her age described the supposedly difficult impact of the Great Depression on her family. As the woman told it, the crash on Wall Street and the failed economy had made it necessary for them to ship their car by rail from New York to Florida when they headed south for the winter. Who could predict, she reasoned, whether there would be food or gasoline if their driver had to refuel and dine in the remote and hostile environs of small-town Georgia? My mother merely smiled and nodded, as

Fort Ord would be lovely in the autumn, washed by the warm desert winds as an ugly winter descended upon Japan.

Up till the Age of Reason, the collection of beliefs which modern occultists have used as a quarrying-ground can be shown to have had a certain consistency. this consistency is a mystical-philosophical-religious approach deriving from the religions displaced by Christianity. This approach remains the nucleus of occult Tradition.

or

I can puzzle over a thing until I am in a state of utter confusion, giving it up, and then suddenly have the answer leap into my mind without an apparent reason.

First, the gathering of raw materials—both the materials of your immediate problem and the materials which from a constant enrichment of your store of general knowledge. Second, the working over of these materials in your mind. Third, the incubating stage, where you let something beside the conscious mind do the work of synthesis. Fourth, the actual birth of the Idea—the "Eureka! I have it" stage. And fifth, the final shaping and development of this idea to practical usefulness.

I am convinced, however that you gather vicarious experience best, not when you are honing up on it for an immediate purpose, but when you are pursuing it as an end in itself.

But the principle of constantly expanding your experience, both personally and vicariously, does matter tremendously in any idea-producing job. Make no mistake about it.

We tend to forget that words are, themselves, ideas. They might be called ideas in a state of suspended animation. When the words are mastered the ideas tend to come alive again.

Meanwhile, John Barentine, an astronomer with the Arizona-based dark-sky conservation organization Dark Sky Consulting, found a more accidental finding in one of JWST's first photographs. The image of the Southern Ring Nebula, which is 2,500 light-years away from Earth, was exceptionally clear. A fascinating galaxy seen on the edge-on (a unique vantage position for examining the galaxy's core bulge) popped into view off to the side, earlier misunderstood as part of the nebula itself. "We have this extremely sensitive equipment that will disclose stuff we didn't even know we were searching for," Barentine said. "It's worth looking about in the backdrop of practically every photograph Webb shoots.

The Soviets persisted in offering no information as to the Chief Designer’s identity. For that matter, they identified no one involved in Gagarin’s flight other than Gagarin himself. Nor did they offer any pictures of the rocket or even such elementary data as its length and its rocket thrust. Far from casting any doubt as to the capabilities of the Soviet program, this policy seemed only to inflame the imagination. The Integral! Secrecy was by now accepted as “the Russian way.” Whatever the CIA might have been able to do in other parts of the world, in the Soviet Union they drew a blank. Intelligence about the Soviet space program remained very sketchy. Only two things were known: the Soviets were capable of launching a vehicle of tremendous weight, five tons; and whatever goal NASA set for itself, the Soviet Union reached it first. Using those two pieces of information, everyone in the government, from President Kennedy to Bob Gilruth, seemed to experience an involuntary leap of the imagination similar to that of the ancients … who used to look into the sky and see a clump of stars, sparks in the night, and deduce therefrom the contours of … an enormous bear! … the constellation Ursa Major! … On the evening of Gagarin’s flight, April 12, 1961, President Kennedy summoned James E. Webb and Hugh Dryden, Webb’s deputy administrator and NASA’s highest-ranking engineer, to the White House; they met in the Cabinet room and they all stared into the polished walnut surface of the great conference table and saw … the mighty Integral! … and the Builder!—the Chief Designer! … who was laughing at them … and it was awesome!

when relationships of this kind are seen they lead to the extraction of a general principle This general principle when grasped, suggests the key to a new application, a new combination, and the result is an idea.

two general principles in mind—the principle that an idea is a new combination, and the principle that the ability to make new combinations is heightened by an ability to see relationships

Voyagers, I’ve always wanted to write about you. And now, at 4:41 a.m. on an autumn morning, Words have found their way into my mind. I picture myself like you— Distant from life, Alone, Yet moving towards an unknown destination! Like you, in the early stages of my journey, I could see, I could gather knowledge and transmit it, I was useful and efficient. But sometimes, to keep connected to the world, To be able to stay on course and conserve my energy, I had to shut parts of myself down, To survive, To go blind, to be deaf, to be isolated, and just occasionally signal my existence to the world. The same thing I do, that you do, that so many others do. The boundless reaches of space Have become somewhat more comprehensible through you, Yet the depths of the human soul remain unfathomable, And its pain incurable. We live in an age surrounded by a torrent of information, Yet somehow, we remain lonely and lost. Language has advanced, There are words for nearly everything, Everyone can describe their own state of mind, yet we’re still at war with one another. Earth has turned into a vast ship, Perhaps like Noah’s Ark, With maximum diversity and multiplicity, Yet everyone on this ship plays their own tune, rallies their own cause! Someone steps forward, claiming each individual’s thoughts and personal benefit are like rare pearls to be cherished, While another insists that collective welfare takes precedence, That the needs of the masses outweigh individual desires. Some launch movements to claim their rights, While others start movements to flaunt the rights they’ve acquired. No one knows what they truly want; We’re all still lost. I don’t know how Earth looks from afar— Perhaps like a blueberry-flavored lollipop, A lollipop with a stick, But Earth’s stick is an invisible one made of sorrow. I find something common among all the passengers on this ship, All the inhabitants of this blueberry lollipop: sorrow. A fetus in its mother’s womb is also like a lollipop, But connected by an umbilical cord. As a fetus, Growing in the mother’s womb, Suffering, malnutrition, and physical ailments can be painful for us. If the mother’s state is stable, We may enjoy brief periods of security and calm, but after that, We must endure the pain of separation, Learn how to breathe, And besides the sorrow of leaving security behind, We face new emotions like fear and anger. Later in life, We each take our own path. No matter how much they try to show humans as social creatures, It’s always the individual who walks their own way, who has the freedom to choose, Even if one finds the meaning of their path in joining a group or a collective, it’s their individual choice that put them on that path. Today, people have countless options to join others who are like them, And these options themselves bring confusion, And when you join a group out of confusion, You treat the other groups with hostility. Science, philosophy, religion, politics…each of them has thousands of branches, and each branch Wants to disprove the other, cleanse itself of its shameful past. Freedom of speech has become an excuse for verbal assaults and psychological wounds, Non-violence has become a breeding ground for new and emerging dictators, For heartless sects and brutal factions. Knowledge and science alone cannot save us, Just as religion couldn’t. I don’t want to write about chaos, Life isn’t that disorganized, In some corner of the world, A lover is staring up at his beloved’s window, A child is laughing joyfully. But writing about sorrow, Speaking of chaos and Asking questions can reveal where we stand. Now, we know so much about space, And about the Sun, too. The James Webb telescope has mapped out the cosmos for us, and countless projects are underway for the future, crafted with flawless precision and extraordinary coherence, but the rift between humans remains deep.

James Vincent Suarea, a small time Florida con man, said this of his more adept brethren: “These guys, they’ve got minds like corkscrews, and all they can figure is big rip-off. They’re not happy unless they’re screwing somebody.” Marvin

Change the fabric of their culture? It hasn’t happened yet, not in two thousand years. And it won’t happen now.

You know what we’ve lost, William? We’ve lost a sense of responsibility, at least on the individual level. We have too many people like Mark who believe that the government owes them total, undisciplined freedom. If everyone thought that way, there would be no society. We’re so big, so strong now, that people seem to have forgotten that a part of our strength comes from each person surrendering a portion of his individual urges to the common good. And the common good is defined by who wins at the polls, and the policies they make. Like it or lump it.

Political editors were a truculent breed. Leggett’s boss, William Cullen Bryant, took a cowskin whip to William Leete Stone of the Commercial Advertiser in 1831, who riposted with a sword cane, a thrust Bryant parried with his whip until onlookers broke them apart. In 1836 James Watson Webb would assault James Gordon Bennet in the middle of Wall Street. By

I just look at you and say, ‘that used to be me. But it isn't anymore.

Philadelphia became the Ulster Scots’ most popular port of entry for two reasons. The first was that the Pennsylvania colony had been created with an eye toward accommodating religious freedom and thus largely welcomed the Ulster dissenters , at least initially. And the second— equally as important—was that the communities in New England and New York wanted nothing to do with them.

As the American colonies moved toward declaring independence from Great Britain, the Scots -Irish were all but unanimous in their desire to be free of the English government. Although the trained minds of New England’s Puritan culture and Virginia’s Cavalier aristocracy had shaped the finer intellectual points of the argument for political disunion, the true passion for individual rights emanated from the radical individualism of the Presbyterian and, increasingly, Baptist pulpits.