“
In my opinion, giving a kiss is a much better prize than receiving one.
”
”
Hiro Fujiwara (Maid-sama! Vol. 02 (Maid-sama! #2))
“
The highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. Creative effort spent for any other reason than the joy of being in that light filled space, love, god, whatever we want to call it, is lacking in integrity. . .
”
”
Marianne Williamson
“
Simon received the Nobel Prize in 1978 for his contribution to organizational decision making: It is impossible to have perfect and complete information at any given time to make a decision.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Workweek)
“
Climbing Mount Everest is more satisfying than standing at the top; flirting and foreplay are more exciting than having an orgasm; and conducting groundbreaking lab experiments is more interesting than receiving praise and prizes.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
“
It is difficult to call myself a writer, even when I stand at a podium to receive a prize, I feel uncomfortable calling myself a writer—I am merely a word criminal.
”
”
Murong Xuecun
“
All through my life the counsel to depend on prayer has been prized above almost any other advice I have ever received. It has become an integral part of me, an anchor, a constant source of strength and the basis of my knowledge of things divine.
”
”
Ezra Taft Benson
“
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
”
”
William Faulkner
“
WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I was so girlie and ambitious, I was practically a drag queen. I wanted to be everything at once: a prima ballerina, an actress, a model, a famous artist, a nurse, an Ice Capades dancer, and Batgirl. I spent inordinate amounts of time waltzing around our living room with a doily on my head, imagining in great detail my promenade down the runway as the new Miss America, during which time I would also happen to receive a Nobel Prize for coloring.
”
”
Susan Jane Gilman
“
Alfred Nobel stipulated that no distinction of race or colour will determine who received of his generosity.
”
”
Abdus Salam
“
Sir Peter Medawar, an eminent British biologist who received a Nobel Prize the same year as Macfarlane Burnet, defined a virus as “a piece of bad news wrapped up in a protein.
”
”
David Quammen (Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic)
“
[Concerning the Word preached:] Do we prize it in our judgments? Do we receive in into our hearts? Do we fear the loss of the Word preached more than the loss of peace and trade? Is it the removal of the ark that troubles us? Again, do we attend to the Word with reverential devotion? When the judge is giving the charge on the bench, all attend. When the Word is preached, the great God is giving us his charge. Do we listen to it as to a matter of life and death? This is a good sign that we love the Word.
”
”
Thomas Watson
“
He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon, and that is all. [...] Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love [...] and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
After receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918, Max Planck went on tour across Germany. Wherever he was invited, he delivered the same lecture on new quantum mechanics. Over time, his chauffeur grew to know it by heart: “It has to be boring giving the same speech each time, Professor Planck. How about I do it for you in Munich? You can sit in the front row and wear my chauffeur’s cap. That’d give us both a bit of variety.” Planck liked the idea, so that evening the driver held a long lecture on quantum mechanics in front of a distinguished audience. Later, a physics professor stood up with a question. The driver recoiled: “Never would I have thought that someone from such an advanced city as Munich would ask such a simple question! My chauffeur
”
”
Rolf Dobelli (The Art of Thinking Clearly)
“
I might paraphrase Churchill and say: never have I received so much for so little.
[Exemplifying humility, upon accepting the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.]
”
”
Luis Federico Leloir
“
i used schutzhund methods of training to teach the duck to attack on command. we went on a killing rampage that lasted three days. we killed many small children and received the nobel prize for our achievements.
”
”
Ellen Kennedy (Yesterday I Was Talking to Myself...)
“
In 1906, J. J. Thomson had received the Nobel Prize for proving that electrons are particles; in 1937 he saw his son awarded the Nobel Prize for proving that electrons are waves. Both father and son were correct, and both awards were fully merited.
”
”
John Gribbin (In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics And Reality)
“
The sons of gods received a hero's training, divine gifts, and everlasting fame.
Their daughters, like Helen, were prizes to be won.
”
”
Luna McNamara (Psyche and Eros)
“
Clearly prize money received more serious attention than scurvy or signals.
”
”
Barbara W. Tuchman (The First Salute : View of the American Revolution)
“
Interesting, but futile,’ said his diary,
Where day by day his movements were recorded
And nothing but his loves received inquiry;
He knew, of course, no actions were rewarded,
There were no prizes: though the eye could see
Wide beauty in a motion or a pause,
It need expect no lasting salary
Beyond the bounds’ momentary applause.
He lived for years and never was surprised:
A member of his foolish, lying race
Explained away their vices: realised
It was a gift that he possessed alone:
To look the world directly in the face;
The face he did not see to be his own.
- A Writer
”
”
Philip Larkin
“
Listen! I will be honest with you,
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you,
What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting,
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you."
-from "Song of the Open Road
”
”
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
“
Today I understand vocation quite differently-
not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice "out there" calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice "in here" calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God,
”
”
Parker J. Palmer (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation)
“
When did men become the measure? When did we collectively decide writing was more worthy if men embraced it? I suppose it was the “literary establishment” that made this decision when, for too long, men dominated the canon, and it was men whose work was elevated as worthy, who received the majority of the prestigious literary prizes and critical attention.
”
”
Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist: Essays)
“
I once interviewed Robert Solow, winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Economics and a noted baseball enthusiast. I asked if it bothered him that he received less money for winning the Nobel Prize than Roger Clemens, who was pitching for the Red Sox at the time, earned in a single season. “No,” Solow said. “There are a lot of good economists, but there is only one Roger Clemens.” That is how economists think.
”
”
Charles Wheelan (Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science)
“
Allow me to pay this small tribute to you who taught so much to those of us who wanted to be writers when we were young. I deplore the fact that you have not yet received a Nobel Prize, especially when it was given to so many who deserved it less, like me, who am only an adventurer.
”
”
Ernest Hemingway
“
Excellence in Western Fiction, is a member of the American Writers Hall of Fame and is a Pulitzer Prize nominee. Vaughn is also a retired army officer, helicopter pilot with three tours in Vietnam. And received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, The Bronze Star with three
”
”
Robert Vaughan (The Battle of Badwater)
“
Connection terminated.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, Elizabeth. If you still even remember that name.
But I'm afraid you've been misinformed.
You are not here to receive a gift. Nor, have you been called here by the individual you assume. Although, you have indeed been called.
You have all been called here. Into a labyrinth of sounds and smells, misdirection and misfortune.
A labyrinth with no exit. A maze with no prize. You don't even realize that you are trapped. Your lust of blood has driven you in endless circles. Chasing the cries of children in some unseen chamber, always seeming so near.
Yet somehow out of reach.
But, you will never find them. None of you will.
This is where your story ends.
And to you, my brave volunteer, who somehow found this job listing not intended for you. Although, there was a way out planned for you, I have a feeling that's not what you want. I have a feeling that you are right where you want to be.
I am remaining as well. I am nearby.
This place will not be remembered and the memory of everything that started this, can finally begin to fade away. As the agony of every tragedy should.
And to you monsters trapped in the corridors. Be still. And give up your spirits.
They don't belong to you.
As for most of you, I believe there is peace and perhaps, warm, waiting for you after the smoke clears.
Although, for one of you, the darkest pit of Hell has opened to swallow you whole. So, don't keep the Devil waiting, friend.
My daughter, if you can hear me, I knew you would return as well. It's in your nature to protect the innocent. I'm sorry that on that day, the day you were shut out and left to die, no one was there to lift you up in their arms, the way you lifted others into yours.
And then, what became of you, I should have known, you wouldn't be content to disappear. Not my daughter. I couldn't save you then.
So, let me save you now. It's time to rest, for you, and for those you have carried in your arms...
This ends.
For all of us.
End communication.
”
”
Scott Cawthon
“
Whilst he was very young, he was a soldier in the expedition against Potidaea, where Socrates lodged in the same tent with him, and stood next him in battle. Once there happened a sharp skirmish, in which they both behaved with signal bravery; but Alcibiades receiving a wound, Socrates threw himself before him to defend him, and beyond any question saved him and his arms from the enemy, and so in all justice might have challenged the prize of valor. But
”
”
Plutarch (Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans)
“
As you take your eyes off the false prize (of more, better, and different stuff), you put them on the real prizes: friends, family, sharing, caring, learning, meeting challenges, intimacy, rest, and being present, connected, and respected. In other words, those best things in life that are free. Like all things natural, building this wealth takes time, attention, patience, and reciprocity (that volleying of giving and receiving that builds relationships).
”
”
Vicki Robin (Your Money or Your Life)
“
I started out by saying that I had already received my prize in the pleasure I got in discovering what I did, from the fact that others used my work, and so on. I tried to explain that I had already received everything I expected to get, and the rest was nothing compared to it. I had already received my prize.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman ("Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character)
“
All of this highlights several important ideas. First, growth under authoritarian, extractive political institutions in China, though likely to continue for a while yet, will not translate into sustained growth, supported by truly inclusive economic institutions and creative destruction. Second, contrary to the claims of modernization theory, we should not count on authoritarian growth leading to democracy or inclusive political institutions. China, Russia, and several other authoritarian regimes currently experiencing some growth are likely to reach the limits of extractive growth before they transform their political institutions in a more inclusive direction—and in fact, probably before there is any desire among the elite for such changes or any strong opposition forcing them to do so. Third, authoritarian growth is neither desirable nor viable in the long run, and thus should not receive the endorsement of the international community as a template for nations in Latin America, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, even if it is a path that many nations will choose precisely because it is sometimes consistent with the interests of the economic and political elites dominating them. Y
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
Upon receiving the prize, Mother Teresa was asked, “What can we do to promote world peace?” and she responded, “Go home and love your family.
”
”
Anthony Taylor (Mother Teresa - The Inspiring Story and Lessons of Mother Teresa (Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Catholic, Biography, Mother Theresa))
“
Sadie had invented a game where if Naomi called bedtime before Sadie did for seven nights in a row, Naomi received a prize. Yes, it was manipulative and basically bribery, but it was also effective
”
”
Gabrielle Zevin (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow)
“
Without family, Tover had spent many birthdays in lonely places, but being sold by his lover to a bunch of unscrupulous pirates definitely won the prize as being the worst birthday present ever received.
”
”
Astrid Amara (Song of the Navigator)
“
Those who work for money alone, and who receive for their pay nothing but money, are always underpaid, no matter how much they receive. Money is necessary, but the big prizes of life cannot be measured in dollars and cents. No
”
”
Napoleon Hill (The Law of Success: In Sixteen Lessons)
“
as nucleosynthesis. In 1957, working with others, Hoyle showed how the heavier elements were formed in supernova explosions. For this work, W. A. Fowler, one of his collaborators, received a Nobel Prize. Hoyle, shamefully, did not.
”
”
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
“
Although Penzias and Wilson had not been looking for cosmic background radiation, didn’t know what it was when they had found it, and hadn’t described or interpreted its character in any paper, they received the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics. The Princeton researchers got only sympathy. According to Dennis Overbye in Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, neither Penzias nor Wilson altogether understood the significance of what they had found until they read about it in the New York Times.
”
”
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
“
Did he say anything to you?”
“Just that I was supposed to watch you while he was gone. A hunt can take several days.”
“Really? I had no idea it would take that long.” I hestitated, “So…he doesn’t mind you staying here while he’s gone.”
“Oh, he minds,” he chuckled, “but he wants to make sure you’re safe. At least he trusts me that much.”
“Well, I think he’s mad at both of us right now.”
Kishan looked at me curiously with a raised eyebrow. “How so?”
“Um…let’s just say we had a misunderstanding.”
Kishan’s face turned hard. “Don’t worry, Kelsey. I’m sure that whatever he’s upset about is foolish. He’s very argumentative.”
I sighed and shook my head sadly. “No, it’s really all my fault. I’m difficult, a hindrance, and I’m a pain to have around sometimes. He’s probably used to being around sophisticated, more experienced women who are much more…more…well, more than I am.”
Kishan quirked an eyebrow. “Ren hasn’t been around any women as far as I know. I must confess that I’m now exceedingly curious as to what your argument was about. Whether you tell me or not, I won’t tolerate any more derogatory comments about yourself. He’s lucky to have you, and he’d better realize it.”
He grinned. “Of course, if you did have a falling out, you’re always welcome to stay with me.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t really want to live in the jungle.”
He laughed. “For you, I would even consider a change of residence. You, my lovely, are a prize worth fighting for.”
I laughed and punched him lightly on the arm. “You, sir, are a major flirt. Worth fighting for? I think you two have been tigers for too long. I’m no great beauty, especially when I’m stuck out here in the jungle. I haven’t even picked a college major yet. What have I ever done that would make someone want to fight over me?”
Kishan apparently took my rhetorical questions seriously. He reflected for a moment, and then answered, “For one thing, I’ve never met a woman so dedicated to helping others. You put your own life at risk for a person you met only a few weeks ago. You are confident, feisty, intelligent, and full of empathy. I find you charming and, yes, beautiful.”
The golden-eyed prince fingered a strand of my hair. I blushed at his assessment, sipped my water, and then said softly, “I don’t like him being angry with me.”
Kishan shrugged and dropped his hand, looking slightly annoyed that I’d steered the conversation back to Ren. “Yes. I’ve been on the receiving side of his anger, and I’ve learned not to underestimate his ability to hold a grudge.
”
”
Colleen Houck (Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, #1))
“
I saw everything crumble around me, every single daydream of wandering through the grammar school cloisters citing poetry, of my parents wiping tears away as I went up on a platform to receive yet another prize for Debating Skills or Most Graceful Netball Player, of sitting in the garden of our new bungalow being applauded by my Aunties and Uncles as the first family member to win a university scholarship and meet a future husband on the same day - all that potential, all that hope, all gone because I made friends once with Anita Rutter.
”
”
Meera Syal (Anita and Me)
“
She could look back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate, almost as another being, the young unmarried girl absorbed in her love, having no eyes but for one special object, receiving parental affection if not ungratefully, at least indifferently, and as it were her due-her whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of one desire. The review of those days, so lately gone yet so far away, touched her with shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled her with tender remorse. Was the prize gained-the heaven of life-and the winner still doubtful and unsatisfied? As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the other distant shore.
”
”
William Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair)
“
In 1949, neurologist Egas Moniz (1874-1955) received a Nobel Prize for his discovery of ‘the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses’. Today, prefrontal leucotomy is derided as a barbaric treatment from a much darker age, and it is to be hoped that, one day, so too might antipsychotic drugs.
”
”
Neel Burton (The Meaning of Madness)
“
No institution of learning of Ingersoll's day had courage enough to confer upon him an honorary degree; not only for his own intellectual accomplishments, but also for his influence upon the minds of the learned men and women of his time and generation.
Robert G. Ingersoll never received a prize for literature. The same prejudice and bigotry which prevented his getting an honorary college degree, militated against his being recognized as 'the greatest writer of the English language on the face of the earth,' as Henry Ward Beecher characterized him. Aye, in all the history of literature, Robert G. Ingersoll has never been excelled -- except by only one man, and that man was -- William Shakespeare. And yet there are times when Ingersoll even surpassed the immortal Bard. Yes, there are times when Ingersoll excelled even Shakespeare, in expressing human emotions, and in the use of language to express a thought, or to paint a picture. I say this fully conscious of my own admiration for that 'intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought.'
Ingersoll was perfection himself. Every word was properly used. Every sentence was perfectly formed. Every noun, every verb and every object was in its proper place. Every punctuation mark, every comma, every semicolon, and every period was expertly placed to separate and balance each sentence.
To read Ingersoll, it seems that every idea came properly clothed from his brain. Something rare indeed in the history of man's use of language in the expression of his thoughts. Every thought came from his brain with all the beauty and perfection of the full blown rose, with the velvety petals delicately touching each other.
Thoughts of diamonds and pearls, rubies and sapphires rolled off his tongue as if from an inexhaustible mine of precious stones.
Just as the cut of the diamond reveals the splendor of its brilliance, so the words and construction of the sentences gave a charm and beauty and eloquence to Ingersoll's thoughts.
Ingersoll had everything: The song of the skylark; the tenderness of the dove; the hiss of the snake; the bite of the tiger; the strength of the lion; and perhaps more significant was the fact that he used each of these qualities and attributes, in their proper place, and at their proper time. He knew when to embrace with the tenderness of affection, and to resist and denounce wickedness and tyranny with that power of denunciation which he, and he alone, knew how to express.
”
”
Joseph Lewis (Ingersoll the Magnificent)
“
There is a horrid beauty in following God slightly blind. The victory later is sweeter, the prize more valuable than breath. Obviously, we are Americans; we like a plan, we like assurances. But the ways of faith exist so far outside of our tidy boundaries, it is a wonder we can ever receive its mysteries at all.
”
”
Jen Hatmaker (Interrupted: When Jesus Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity)
“
Edward Snowden was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and grew up in the shadow of Fort Meade. A systems engineer by training, he served as an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency and worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency. He has received numerous awards for his public service, including the Right Livelihood Award, the German Whistleblower Prize, the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, and the Carl von Ossietzky Medal from the International League of Human Rights. Currently, he serves as president of the board of directors of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. You can sign up for email updates here
”
”
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
“
Destiny
The chicken I bought last night,
Frozen,
Returned to life,
Laid the biggest egg in the world,
And was awarded the Nobel Prize.
The phenomenal egg
Was passed from hand to hand,
In a few weeks had gone all round the earth,
And round the sun
In 365 days.
The hen received who knows how much hard currency,
Assessed in buckets of grain
Which she couldn’t manage to eat
Because she was invited everywhere,
Gave lectures, granted interviews,
Was photographed.
Very often reporters insisted
That I too should pose
Beside her.
And so, having served art
Throughout my life,
All of a sudden I’ve attained to fame
As a poultry breeder.
”
”
Marin Sorescu
“
You don't need to be 100 percent better to see a 100 percent improvement. You just need to be a little better. There's a concept in play here called the winning edge. It means that a small change in the right place makes a huge difference in the end result. In golf, a 1-mm difference in the angle of the club head means the difference between “middle of the fairway” and “you can't find your ball.” In a horse race, the winning horse often wins “by a nose,” but that split second is usually a fourfold increase in prize money. In sales, the tiniest perceived difference between competitors can mean the difference between receiving all of the business or none.
”
”
Roger Seip (Train Your Brain For Success: Read Smarter, Remember More, and Break Your Own Records)
“
He called it a proteinaceous infectious particle, or prion. Prusiner’s paper fared well in peer review, but the editors of Science hesitated for months before publishing it, afraid of a backlash. The idea was outlandish—but it was also right. Prusiner received a Nobel Prize for his heresy in 1997. Further work by Prusiner and others revealed that prions behave something like the secret weapon from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle. Vonnegut imagined a form of water called ice-nine, a “super-crystal” that froze at room temperature and turned any normal water it touched into itself. A single crystal would set off a chain reaction, causing the oceans to ice over, ending all life on Earth.
”
”
Michio Kaku (The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2020)
“
Scientists who grapple with biological origins are still affected by Platonic idealism today; Charles Lyell’s nineteenth-century geological theories still influence our understanding of human evolution; quantum theory is still wrestling with Francis Bacon’s methods. To interpret science, we have to know something about its past. We have to continually ask not just “What have we discovered?” but also “Why did we look for it?” In no other way can we begin to grasp why we prize, or disregard, scientific knowledge in the way we do; or be able to distinguish between the promises that science can fulfill and those we should receive with some careful skepticism. Only then will we begin to understand science.
”
”
Susan Wise Bauer (The Story of Western Science: From the Writings of Aristotle to the Big Bang Theory)
“
I advise you to look for a chance to break away, to find a subject you can make your own. That is where the quickest advances are likely to occur, as measured by discoveries per investigator per year. Therein you have the best chance to become a leader and, as time passes, to gain growing freedom to set your own course.
If a subject is already receiving a great deal of attention, if it has a glamorous aura, if its practitioners are prizewinners who receive large grants, stay away from that subject. Listen to the news coming from the hubbub, learn how and why the subject became prominent, but in making your own long-term plans be aware it is already crowded with talented people. You would be a newcomer, a private amid bemedaled first sergeants and generals. Take a subject instead that interests you and looks promising, and where established experts are not yet conspicuously competing with one another, where few if any prizes and academy memberships have been given, and where the annals of research are not yet layered with superfluous data and mathematical models.
”
”
Edward O. Wilson (Letters to a Young Scientist)
“
It was a sunny Sunday morning in spring when I got the call from an editor at the literary journal Gunzo telling me that Hear the Wind Sing had been short-listed for their Prize for New Writers. Almost a year had passed since the season opener at Jingu Stadium, and I had already turned thirty. It was around eleven a.m., but I was still fast asleep, having worked very late the night before. I picked up the receiver, but I was so groggy I had no idea at first who was on the other end or what he was trying to say. To tell the truth, by that time I had quite forgotten having sent Hear the Wind Sing to Gunzo. Once I had finished the manuscript and put it in someone else’s hands, my desire to write had completely subsided. Composing it had been, so to speak, an act of defiance—I had written it very easily, just as it came to me—so the idea that it might make the short list had never occurred to me. In fact, I had sent them my only copy. If they hadn’t selected it, it probably would have vanished forever. I probably never would have written another novel. Life is strange, when you think about it.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Novelist as a Vocation)
“
She also managed to win a citywide spelling bee, beating out students at all the other Negro schools in Jacksonville. “I received an atlas of the world and a Bible as prizes,” she recalled, “besides so much lemonade and cake that I told President Collier that I could feel it coming through my skin. He had such a big laugh that I made up my mind to hurry up and get grown and marry him.” Decades
”
”
Valerie Boyd (Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston)
“
We cannot ignore the tremendous negative effects that bad grades have on the emotional systems of the brain: discouragement, stigmatization, feelings of helplessness. . . . Let us listen to the insightful voice of a professional dunce: Daniel Pennac, today a leading French writer who received the famous Renaudot Prize in 2007 for his book School Blues, but who was at the bottom of his class year after year:
”
”
Stanislas Dehaene (How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now)
“
I always imagined rape as this violent scene of a woman walking alone down a dark alley and getting mugged and beaten by some masked criminal. Rape was an angry man forcing himself inside a damsel in distress. I would not carry the trauma of a cliché rape victim. I would not shriek in the midst of my slumber with night terrors. I would not tremble at the sight of every dark haired man or the mention of Number 1’s name. I would not even harbor ill will towards him. My damage was like a cigarette addiction- subtle, seemingly innocent, but everlasting and inevitably detrimental.
Number 1 never opened his screen door to furious crowds waving torches and baseball bats. Nobody punched him out in my honor. The Nightfall crowd never socially ostracized him. Even the ex-boyfriend who’d second handedly fused the entire fiasco continued to mingle with him in drug circles. Everybody continued with business as usual. And when I told my parents I lost my virginity against my will, unconscious on a bathroom floor, Carl did not erupt in fury and demand I give him all I knew about his whereabouts so he could greet him with a rifle. Mom blankly shrugged and mumbled, “Oh, that’s too bad,” and drifted into the kitchen as if I’d received a stubbed toe rather than a shredded hymen.
Everyone in my life took my rape as lightly as a brief thunderstorm that might have been frightening when it happened, but was easy to forget about. I adopted that mentality as the foundation of my sex life. I would, time and time again, treat sex as flimsily as it started. I would give it away as if it was cheap, second hand junk, rather than a prize that deserved to be earned.
”
”
Maggie Georgiana Young (Just Another Number)
“
At any particular moment in a man's life, he can say that everything he has done and has not done, that has been done and not been done to him, has brought him to this moment. If he's being installed as Chieftain or receiving a Nobel Prize, that's a fulfilling notion. But if he's in a sleeping bag at ten thousand feet in a snowstorm, parked in the middle of a highway and waiting to freeze to death, the idea can make him feel calamitously stupid.
”
”
William Least Heat-Moon (Blue Highways)
“
For exactly the same reason, the nuts we humans seek to gather – lucrative jobs, big houses, good-looking partners – seldom satisfy us for long. Some may say that this is not so bad, because it isn’t the goal that makes us happy – it’s the journey. Climbing Mount Everest is more satisfying than standing at the top; flirting and foreplay are more exciting than having an orgasm; and conducting ground-breaking lab experiments is more interesting than receiving praise and prizes.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
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Elizabeth actively despises the landline’s inefficiency in regard to their everyday lives. The only calls the phone receives are credit card offers, scam vacation prizes, charities and fringe political groups looking for money, and the occasional mass recorded message from the town of Ames broadcasting the closing of school during snowstorms. When the kids were little, Elizabeth wanted to keep the landline so that they’d be able to dial 911 should “anything bad happen.” That was the phrase
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Paul Tremblay (Disappearance at Devil's Rock)
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the other by Dicke’s team explaining its nature. Although Penzias and Wilson had not been looking for cosmic background radiation, didn’t know what it was when they had found it, and hadn’t described or interpreted its character in any paper, they received the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics. The Princeton researchers got only sympathy. According to Dennis Overbye in Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, neither Penzias nor Wilson altogether understood the significance of what they had found until they read about it in the New York Times.
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Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
“
An exchange is a transaction in which the two contracting parties both gain. Whenever I make an exchange freely, and without constraint, it is because I desire the thing I receive more than that I give; and, on the contrary, he with whom I bargain desires what I offer more than that which he renders me. When I give my labour for wages it is because I esteem the wages more than what I should have been able to produce by labouring for myself; and he who pays me prizes more the services I render him than what he gives me in return.
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Antoine Destutt de Tracy (A Treatise on Political Economy)
“
You have to imagine what it was like to be on the receiving end of vicious antagonism: sneering, contempt, ridicule, slights about one’s intelligence, integrity and motives. In those days, women even ran the risk of dismissal for their opinions. And this treatment came from other women, as well as men. In fact, “in-fighting” between various schools of nurses who had some sort of training in midwifery was particularly nasty. One eminent lady – the matron of St Bartholomew’s Hospital – branded the aspiring midwives as “anachronisms, who would in the future be regarded as historical curiosities”. The medical opposition seems to have arisen mainly from the fact that “women are striving to interfere too much in every department of life”.* Obstetricians also doubted the female intellectual capacity to grasp the anatomy and physiology of childbirth, and suggested that they could not therefore be trained. But the root fear was – guess what? – you’ve got it, but no prizes for quickness: money. Most doctors charged a routine one guinea for a delivery. The word got around that trained midwives would undercut them by delivering babies for half a guinea! The knives were out.
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Jennifer Worth (Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1))
“
When readers who are White, middle class, cisgender, heterosexual, and able-bodied enter the fantastic dream, they are empowered and afforded a sense of transcendence that can be elusive within the real world. If this is the case, then readers and hearers of fantastic tales who have been endarkened and Othered by the dominant culture can never be plausible conquering heroes nor prizes to be won in the fantastic. Unless the tale is meant to be comedic, tongue-in-cheek, a wink and a nod that breaks the fourth wall and assures audiences that this is a parody of the fantastic, not the real story . . . . . . the implicit message that readers, hearers, and viewers of color receive as they read these texts is that we are the villains. We are the horde. We are the enemies.
(Page 23).
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Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (Postmillennial Pop, 13))
“
A belief is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything in a person’s life. Are you a scientist? A liberal? A racist? These are merely species of belief in action. Your beliefs define your vision of the world; they dictate your behavior; they determine your emotional responses to other human beings. If you doubt this, consider how your experience would suddenly change if you came to believe one of the following propositions:
1. You have only two weeks to live.
2. You've just won the lottery prize of one hundred million dollars.
3. Aliens have implanted a receiver in your skull and are manipulating your thoughts.
These are mere words- until you believe them. once believed, they become part of the very apparatus of your mind, determining your desires, fears, expectations, and subsequent behavior.
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Sam Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason)
“
The system used to elect members of the legislatures of most countries in the British political tradition is that each district (or ‘constituency’) in the country is entitled to one seat in the legislature, and that seat goes to the candidate with the largest number of votes in that district. This is called the plurality voting system (‘plurality’ meaning ‘largest number of votes’) – often called the ‘first-past-the-post’ system, because there is no prize for any runner-up, and no second round of voting (both of which feature in other electoral systems for the sake of increasing the proportionality of the outcomes). Plurality voting typically ‘over-represents’ the two largest parties, compared with the proportion of votes they receive. Moreover, it is not guaranteed to avoid the population paradox, and is even capable of bringing one party to power when another has received far more votes in total.
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David Deutsch (The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World)
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It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit. To the crowd, success ears almost the features of true mastery, and the greatest dupe of this counterfeit talent is History. Juvenal and Tacitus alone mistrust it. In these days an almost official philosophy has come to dwell in the house of Success, wear its livery, receive callers in its ante-chamber. Success in principle and for its own sake. Prosperity presupposes ability. Win a lottery-prize and you are a clever man. Winners are adulated. To be born with a caul is everything; luck is what matters. Be fortunate and you will be thought great. With a handful of tremendous exceptions which constitute the glory of a century, the popular esteem is singularly short-sighted. Gilt is as good as gold. No harm in being a chance arrival provided you arrive. The populace is an aged Narcissus which worships itself and applauds the commonplace. The tremendous qualities of Moses, an Aeschylus, a Dante, a Michelangelo or a Napoleon are readily ascribed by the multitude to any man, in any sphere, who has got what he set out to get - the notary who becomes a deputy, the hack playwright who produces a mock-Corneille, the eunuch who acquires a harem, the journeyman-general who by accident wins the decisive battle of an epoch. The profiteer who supplies the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse with boot-soles of cardboard and earns himself an income of four hundred thousand a year; the huckster who espouses usury and brings her to bed of seven or eight millions; the preacher who becomes bishop by loudly braying; the bailiff of a great estate who so enriches himself that on retirement he is made Minister of Finance - all this is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. The confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.
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Victor Hugo
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Without help or a supportive husband, Lenore was as alone as she had been after her first husband died, as she had been before marrying Salem. It was too late to curry friendship with neighboring women, who she had made sure knew their level and hers. Pleading with Jackie’s mother was humiliating as well as fruitless since the answer was “Sorry.” Now she had to be content with the company of the person she prized most of all—herself. Perhaps it was that partnership between Lenore and Lenore that caused the minor stroke she suffered on a sweltering night in July. Salem found her kneeling beside the bed and ran to Mr. Haywood’s house. He drove her to the hospital in Mount Haven. There, after a long, perilous wait in the corridor, she finally received treatment that curtailed further damage. Her speech was slurred but she was ambulatory—if carefully so. Salem saw to her basic needs, but was relieved to learn he could not understand a word she spoke. Or so he said.
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Toni Morrison (Home)
“
A good way to measure the ubiquity of the male perspective masquerading a the human perspective is to check out the Nobel Prizes. The Nobel Prizes are awarded in six categories: literature, medicine, chemistry, peace, physics, and economics. Who we are as a species, what we value, where we expend our energy and our resources, and our priorities, goals, and dreams can be charted through the development of these categories. As of 2018, Nobel Prizes in total have been awarded to 853 men and 51 women. One hundred ten Nobel Prizes in Literature have been awarded since 1901, and only 14 of those were awarded to women... The world would have been different-and better-if women had had equal say in the development of literature, medicine, chemistry, physics, peace, and economics. Better, not because women are better, but because they are more than half of humanity, representing more than half of what it means to be human. If you can convince me otherwise, you should receive a Nobel Prize." The Greatest Books - pg. 80-81
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Elizabeth Lesser (Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes)
“
We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly-spawning class of human beings who should never have been born at all.1 —Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization In 2009, Hillary Clinton came to Houston, Texas, to receive the Margaret Sanger award from Planned Parenthood. Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood and the award is its highest prize. In receiving the award, Hillary said of Sanger, “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision. I am really in awe of her. There are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life and the cause she launched and fought for and sacrificed so greatly.”2 What was Margaret Sanger’s vision? What was the cause to which she devoted her life? Sanger is known as a champion of birth control, of providing women with the means to avoid unwanted pregnancies. But the real Margaret Sanger was very different from how she’s portrayed in Planned Parenthood brochures. The real Margaret Sanger did not want women in general to limit their pregnancies. She wanted white, wealthy, educated women to have more children, and poor, uneducated, black women to have none. “Unwanted” for Sanger didn’t mean unwanted by the mother—it meant unwanted by Sanger. Sanger’s influence contributed to the infamous Tuskegee experiments in which poor blacks were deliberately injected with syphilis without their knowledge. Today the Tuskegee Project is falsely portrayed as an example of southern backwardness and American bigotry; in fact, it was a progressive scheme carried out with the very eugenic goals that Margaret Sanger herself championed. In 1926, Sanger spoke to a Women’s Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey about her solution for reducing the black birthrate. She also sponsored a Negro Project specifically designed, in her vocabulary, to get rid of “human beings who should never have been born.” In one of her letters Sanger said, “We do not want word to get out that we are trying to exterminate the Negro population.”3 The racists loved it; other KKK speaking invitations followed. Now it may seem odd that a woman with such views would be embraced by Planned Parenthood—even odder that she would be a role model for Hillary Clinton. Why would they celebrate Sanger given her racist philosophy? In
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Dinesh D'Souza (Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party)
“
Bohr was a colossus in the world of physics. The only scientist to achieve a similar degree of influence during the first half of the twentieth century was Albert Einstein, who was as much his rival as his friend. In 1922, Bohr had already received the Nobel Prize, and he had a gift for discovering young talents and bringing them under his wing. Such was the case with Heisenberg: during their strolls in the mountains, he convinced the young physicist that, when discussing atoms, language could serve as nothing more than a kind of poetry. Walking with Bohr, Heisenberg had his first intuition of the radical otherness of the subatomic world. “If a mere particle of dust contains billions of atoms,” Bohr said to him as they were scaling the massifs of the Harz range, “what possible way is there to talk meaningfully of something so small?” The physicist—like the poet—should not describe the facts of the world, but rather generate metaphors and mental connections. From that summer onwards, Heisenberg understood that to apply concepts of classical physics such as position, velocity and momentum to a subatomic particle was sheer madness. That aspect of nature required a completely new language.”
Excerpt From: Benjamín Labatut. “When We Cease to Understand the World”.
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Benjamín Labatut (When We Cease to Understand the World)
“
No one believed that the author was the Chinese who received the prize. At the end of the last century, fleeing the scourge of yellow fever that devastated Panama during the construction of the railroad between the two oceans, he had arrived with many others who stayed here until they died, living in Chinese, reproducing in Chinese, and looking so much alike that no one could tell one from the other. At first, there were no more than ten, some of them with their wives and children and edible dogs, but in a few years, four narrow streets in the slums along the port were overflowing with other unexpected Chinese, who came into the country without leaving a trace in the customs record....In the popular view, they were divided into two kinds: bad Chinese and good Chinese. The bad ones were the ones in the lugubrious restaurants along the water front where one was as likely to eat like a King as to die a sudden death at the table, sitting before a plate of rat meat with sunflowers, and which were thought to be nothing more than fronts for white slavery, and many other kinds of trafficking. The good ones were the Chinese in the laundries, heirs of a sacred knowledge, who returned one's shirts cleaner than new, with collars and cuffs like recently ironed communion wafers.
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Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)
“
Meeting Andrew’s steady gaze, Ian said, “Did you really tell Dougal that you would see him and Pharlain in hell before you would let Lina marry him?”
“I did, aye. After he made his vile threats, I also told him I’d gut him and feed his entrails to the beasts o’ the forest here afore I’d give him our Lina.” He added mildly, “I think the man understands that I didna like the notion.”
Hearing a strange sound from Rob, Ian darted a glance at him to see that his friend had clapped a hand to his mouth. Above it, his eyes twinkled merrily.
“Did you just laugh?” Ian demanded.
Rob shook his head, lowering his hand, and eyes still atwinkle, said, “I choked.” Extending a hand to Andrew, he said, “It is an honor to know you, sir.”
“Aye, good, for I’ve one more daughter t’ marry off, ye ken—our Muriella. She’s a mite young yet, her mam says. But if ye’d be interested . . .”
Sobering instantly, Rob said, “You do me great honor, my lord, and I thank you. But I’ll not inflict myself so on any female at present.”
Andrew gave him a long look but said no more on the subject of Muriella.
Instead, he turned to Ian and said, “Shall we send for our Lina and tell her the good news, lad? Or d’ye need me to tell ye what a rare prize the lassie is, so ye can think more on the notion?”
Ian’s thoughts had flown to Lina’s likely reaction to the “good news.” She would scarcely receive it as such.
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Amanda Scott (The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch, #2))
“
Speaking of gendered differences in reaction and action—you’ve talked of a certain “bullying reception” to your book here in New Zealand by a certain set of older male critics. The omniscient narrator, the idea that you “had to be everywhere,” seems to have affronted some male readers, as has the length of the book. Have you experienced this reaction in the UK, too, or in Canada? Has it been a peculiarly New Zealand response, perhaps because of the necessarily small pool of literary competition here? This is a point that has been perhaps overstated. There’s been a lot written about what I said, and in fact the way I think and feel about the reviewing culture we have in New Zealand has changed a lot through reading the responses and objections of others. Initially I used the word “bullying” only to remark that, as we all learn at school, more often than not someone’s objections are more to do with their own shortcomings or failures than with yours, and that’s something that you have to remember when you’re seeing your artistic efforts devalued or dismissed in print. I don’t feel bullied when I receive a negative review, but I do think that some of the early reviewers refused to engage with the book on its own terms, and that refusal seemed to me to have a lot to do with my gender and my age. To even things out, I called attention to the gender and age of those reviewers, which at the time seemed only fair. I feel that it’s very important to say that sexism is a hegemonic problem, written in to all kinds of cultural attitudes that are held by men and women alike. As a culture we are much more comfortable with the idea of the male thinker than the female thinker, simply because there are so many more examples, throughout history, of male thinkers; as an image and as an idea, the male thinker is familiar to us, and acts in most cases as a default. Consequently female thinkers are often unacknowledged and discouraged, sometimes tacitly, sometimes explicitly, sometimes by men, and sometimes by women. I am lucky, following the Man Booker announcement, that my work is now being read very seriously indeed; but that is a privilege conferred for the most part by the status of the prize, and I know that I am the exception rather than the rule. I’d like to see a paradigm shift, and I’m confident that one is on the way, but the first thing that needs to happen is a collective acknowledgment that reviewing culture is gendered—that everything is gendered—and that until each of us makes a conscious effort to address inequality, we will each remain a part of the problem, rather than a part of the solution. Protesting the fact of inequality is like protesting global warming or evolution: it’s a conservative blindness, born out of cowardice and hostility.
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Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries)
“
Nothing is ever good enough, and they experience the gap between what is and what could be as both a tragedy and a source of unending motivation. No one can stand in the way of their achieving what they’re going after. On one of the personality assessments there is a category they all ranked low on called “Concern for Others.” But that doesn’t mean quite what it sounds like. Consider Muhammad Yunus, for example. A great philanthropist, he has devoted his life to helping others. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering the ideas of microcredit and microfinance and has won the Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Gandhi Peace Prize, and more. Yet he tested low on “Concern for Others.” Geoffrey Canada, who has devoted most of his adult life to taking care of all the disadvantaged children in a hundred-square-block area of New York’s Harlem, also tested low on “Concern for Others.” Bill Gates, who is devoting most of his wealth and energy to saving and improving lives, tested low as well. Obviously Yunus, Canada, and Gates care deeply about other people, yet the personality tests they took rated them low. Why was that? In speaking with them and reviewing the questions that led to these ratings, it became clear: When faced with a choice between achieving their goal or pleasing (or not disappointing) others, they would choose achieving their goal every time.
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Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
“
Of all the texts in which Jesus contrasts the kingdom of this world with the kingdom of God, the most succinct is in Luke 6. There, Jesus gives us two lists: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you. . . . (Luke 6:20–22) But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you. (Luke 6:24–26) Biblical scholar Michael Wilcock, in his study of this text, observes that in the life of God’s people there will be a remarkable reversal of values: “Christians will prize what the world calls pitiable and suspect what the world calls desirable.”66 The things the world puts at the bottom of its list are at the top of the kingdom of God’s list. And the things that are suspect in the kingdom of God are prized by the kingdom of this world. What’s at the top of the list of the kingdom of this world? Power and money (“you who are rich”); success and recognition (“when all men speak well of you”). But what’s at the top of God’s list? Weakness and poverty (“you who are poor”); suffering and rejection (“when men hate you”). The list is inverted in the kingdom of God.
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Timothy J. Keller (Jesus the King: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God)
“
The year 1915 was fated to be disastrous to the cause of the Allies and to the whole world. By the mistakes of this year the opportunity was lost of confining the conflagration within limits which though enormous were not uncontrolled. Thereafter the fire roared on till it burnt itself out. Thereafter events passed very largely outside the scope of conscious choice. Governments and individuals conformed to the rhythm of the tragedy, and swayed and staggered forward in helpless violence, slaughtering and squandering on ever-increasing scales, till injuries were wrought to the structure of human society which a century will not efface, and which may conceivably prove fatal to the present civilization. But in January, 1915, the terrific affair was still not unmanageable. It could have been grasped in human hands and brought to rest in righteous and fruitful victory before the world was exhausted, before the nations were broken, before the empires were shattered to pieces, before Europe was ruined. It was not to be. Mankind was not to escape so easily from the catastrophe in which it had involved itself. Pride was everywhere to be humbled, and nowhere to receive its satisfaction. No splendid harmony was to crown the wonderful achievements. No prize was to reward the sacrifices of the combatants. Victory was to be bought so dear as to be almost indistinguishable from defeat. It was not to give even security to the victors. There never was to be ‘The silence following great words of
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Winston S. Churchill (The World Crisis Vol 2: 1915)
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NO MATTER WHAT PART OF THE WORLD we come from, fundamentally we are all the same human beings. We all seek happiness and want to avoid suffering. We all have essentially the same needs and similar concerns. As human beings, we all want to be free, to have the right to decide our own destiny as individuals as well as the destiny of our people. That is human nature. The problems that confront us today are created by man, whether they are violent conflicts, destruction of the environment, poverty, or hunger. These problems can be resolved thanks to human efforts, by understanding that we are brothers and sisters and by developing this sense of fraternity. We must cultivate a universal responsibility toward each other and extend it to the planet that we have to share. I feel optimistic that the ancient values that have sustained mankind are reaffirming themselves today, preparing the way for a better, happier twenty-first century. I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, so that together we can succeed in building a better world through mutual understanding and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.3 On December 10, 1989, the Dalai Lama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, quoted in part above, was broadcast throughout the world. The cause of Tibet had become international. But it was not as the leader of a government in exile, or as a Tibetan, that the Dalai Lama accepted the Nobel Prize. He shared this distinction as a human being with all those who recognize each other’s basic human values. By claiming his humanity in the universal language of the heart, which goes beyond ideological rifts and notions of cultural identity, the Dalai Lama gave us back our humanity. In Oslo on December 10, 1989, we all received the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Dalai Lama XIV (My Spiritual Journey: Personal Reflections, Teachings, and Talks)
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I've asked a number of analytic metaphysicians whether they can distinguish their enterprise from naïve naïve naive auto-anthropology of their clan, and have not received any compelling answers.
The alternative is sophisticated naïve anthropology (both auto- and hetero-)-- the anthropology that reserves judgment about whether any of the theorems produced by the exercise deserve to be trusted--and this is a feasible and frequently valuable project. I propose that this is the enterprise to which analytic metaphysicians should turn, since it requires rather minimal adjustments to their methods and only one major revision of their raison d'être : they must rollback their pretensions and acknowledge that their research is best seen as a preparatory reconnaissance of the terrain of the manifest image, suspending both belief and disbelief the way anthropologists do when studying an exotic culture: let's pretend for the nonce that the natives are right, and see what falls out. Since at least a large part of philosophy’s task, in my vision of the discipline, consists in negotiating the traffic back and forth between the manifest and scientific images, it is a good idea for philosophers to analyze what they are up against in the way of focus options before launching into their theory-building and theory-criticizing.
One of the hallmarks of sophisticated naïve anthropology is its openness to counterintuitive discoveries. As long as you're doing naïve anthropology, counterintuitiveness (to the natives) counts against your reconstruction; when you shift gears and begin asking which aspects of the naïve “theory” are true, counterintuitiveness loses its force as an objection and even becomes, on occasion, a sign of significant progress. In science in general, counterintuitive results are prized, after all.
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Daniel C. Dennett (Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking)
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Origin of Justice.—Justice (reasonableness) has its origin among approximate equals in power, as Thucydides (in the dreadful conferences of the Athenian and Melian envoys) has[112] rightly conceived. Thus, where there exists no demonstrable supremacy and a struggle leads but to mutual, useless damage, the reflection arises that an understanding would best be arrived at and some compromise entered into. The reciprocal nature is hence the first nature of justice. Each party makes the other content inasmuch as each receives what it prizes more highly than the other. Each surrenders to the other what the other wants and receives in return its own desire. Justice is therefore reprisal and exchange upon the basis of an approximate equality of power. Thus revenge pertains originally to the domain of justice as it is a sort of reciprocity. Equally so, gratitude.—Justice reverts naturally to the standpoint of self preservation, therefore to the egoism of this consideration: "why should I injure myself to no purpose and perhaps never attain my end?"—So much for the origin of justice. Only because men, through mental habits, have forgotten the original motive of so called just and rational acts, and also because for thousands of years children have been brought to admire and imitate such acts, have they gradually assumed the appearance of being unegotistical. Upon this appearance is founded the high estimate of them, which, moreover, like all estimates, is continually developing, for whatever is highly esteemed is striven for, imitated,[113] made the object of self sacrifice, while the merit of the pain and emulation thus expended is, by each individual, ascribed to the thing esteemed.—How slightly moral would the world appear without forgetfulness! A poet could say that God had posted forgetfulness as a sentinel at the portal of the temple of human merit!
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Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits)
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RAIN IN MEASURED AMOUNTS
Another item of information provided in the Qur'an about rain is
that it is sent down to Earth in "due measure." This is mentioned in
Surat az-Zukhruf as follows:
It is He Who sends down water in measured amounts from the sky by
which We bring a dead land back to life. That is how you too will be
raised [from the dead]. (Qur'an, 43:11)
This measured quantity in rain has again been discovered by modern
research. It is estimated that in one second, approximately 16 million
tons of water evaporates from the Earth. This figure amounts to
513 trillion tons of water in one year. This number is equal to the
amount of rain that falls on the Earth in a year. Therefore, water continuously
circulates in a balanced cycle, according to a "measure." Life
on Earth depends on this water cycle. Even if all the available technology
in the world were to be employed for this purpose, this cycle could
not be reproduced artificially.
Even a minor deviation in this equilibrium would soon give rise to
a major ecological imbalance that would bring about the end of life on
Earth. Yet, it never happens, and rain continues to fall every year in
exactly the same measure, just as revealed in the Qur'an.
The proportion of rain does not merely apply to its quantity, but
also to the speed of the falling raindrops. The speed of raindrops,
regardless of their size, does not exceed a certain limit.
Philipp Lenard, a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize
in physics in 1905, found that the fall speed increased with drop diameter
until a size of 4.5 mm (0.18 inch). For larger drops, however, the fall
speed did not increase beyond 8 metres per second (26 ft/sec).57 He
attributed this to the changes in drop shape caused by the air flow as
the drop size increased. The change in shape thus increased the air
Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an
113
resistance of the drop and slowed its fall rate.
As can be seen, the Qur'an may also be drawing our attention to
the subtle adjustment in rain which could not have been known 1,400
years ago.
Harun Yahya
Every year, the amount of water that evaporates and that falls back to the
Earth in the form of rain is "constant": 513 trillion tons. This constant
amount is declared in the Qur'an by the expression "sending down water in
due measure from the sky." The constancy of this quantity is very important
for the continuity of the ecological balance, and therefore, life.
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Harun Yahya (Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an)
“
These Claudines, then…they want to know because they believe they already do know, the way one who loves fruit knows, when offered a mango from the moon, what to expect; and they expect the loyal tender teasing affection of the schoolgirl crush to continue: the close and confiding companionship, the pleasure of the undemanding caress, the cuddle which consummates only closeness; yet in addition they want motherly putting right, fatherly forgiveness and almost papal indulgence; they expect that the sights and sounds, the glorious affairs of the world which their husbands will now bring before them gleaming like bolts of silk, will belong to the same happy activities as catching toads, peeling back tree bark, or powdering the cheeks with dandelions and oranging the nose; that music will ravish the ear the way the trill of the blackbird does; that literature will hold the mind in sweet suspense the way fairy tales once did; that paintings will crowd the eye with the delights of a colorful garden, and the city streets will be filled with the same cool dew-moist country morning air they fed on as children. But they shall not receive what they expect; the tongue will be about other business; one will hear in masterpieces only pride and bitter contention; buildings will have grandeur but no flowerpots or chickens; and these Claudines will exchange the flushed cheek for the swollen vein, and instead of companionship, they will get sex and absurd games composed of pinch, leer, and giggle—that’s what will happen to “let’s pretend.”
'The great male will disappear into the jungle like the back of an elusive ape, and Claudine shall see little of his strength again, his intelligence or industry, his heroics on the Bourse like Horatio at the bridge (didn’t Colette see Henri de Jouvenel, editor and diplomat and duelist and hero of the war, away to work each day, and didn’t he often bring his mistress home with him, as Willy had when he was husband number one?); the great affairs of the world will turn into tawdry liaisons, important meetings into assignations, deals into vulgar dealings, and the en famille hero will be weary and whining and weak, reminding her of all those dumb boys she knew as a child, selfish, full of fat and vanity like patrons waiting to be served and humored, admired and not observed.
'Is the occasional orgasm sufficient compensation? Is it the prize of pure surrender, what’s gained from all that giving up? There’ll be silk stockings and velvet sofas maybe, the customary caviar, tasting at first of frog water but later of money and the secretions of sex, then divine champagne, the supreme soda, and rubber-tired rides through the Bois de Boulogne; perhaps there’ll be rich ugly friends, ritzy at homes, a few young men with whom one may flirt, a homosexual confidant with long fingers, soft skin, and a beautiful cravat, perfumes and powders of an unimaginable subtlety with which to dust and wet the body, many deep baths, bonbons filled with sweet liqueurs, a procession of mildly salacious and sentimental books by Paul de Kock and company—good heavens, what’s the problem?—new uses for the limbs, a tantalizing glimpse of the abyss, the latest sins, envy certainly, a little spite, jealousy like a vaginal itch, and perfect boredom.
'And the mirror, like justice, is your aid but never your friend.' -- From "Three Photos of Colette," The World Within the Word, reprinted from NYRB April 1977
”
”
William H. Gass (The World Within the Word)
“
gave up on the idea of creating “socialist men and women” who would work without monetary incentives. In a famous speech he criticized “equality mongering,” and thereafter not only did different jobs get paid different wages but also a bonus system was introduced. It is instructive to understand how this worked. Typically a firm under central planning had to meet an output target set under the plan, though such plans were often renegotiated and changed. From the 1930s, workers were paid bonuses if the output levels were attained. These could be quite high—for instance, as much as 37 percent of the wage for management or senior engineers. But paying such bonuses created all sorts of disincentives to technological change. For one thing, innovation, which took resources away from current production, risked the output targets not being met and the bonuses not being paid. For another, output targets were usually based on previous production levels. This created a huge incentive never to expand output, since this only meant having to produce more in the future, since future targets would be “ratcheted up.” Underachievement was always the best way to meet targets and get the bonus. The fact that bonuses were paid monthly also kept everyone focused on the present, while innovation is about making sacrifices today in order to have more tomorrow. Even when bonuses and incentives were effective in changing behavior, they often created other problems. Central planning was just not good at replacing what the great eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith called the “invisible hand” of the market. When the plan was formulated in tons of steel sheet, the sheet was made too heavy. When it was formulated in terms of area of steel sheet, the sheet was made too thin. When the plan for chandeliers was made in tons, they were so heavy, they could hardly hang from ceilings. By the 1940s, the leaders of the Soviet Union, even if not their admirers in the West, were well aware of these perverse incentives. The Soviet leaders acted as if they were due to technical problems, which could be fixed. For example, they moved away from paying bonuses based on output targets to allowing firms to set aside portions of profits to pay bonuses. But a “profit motive” was no more encouraging to innovation than one based on output targets. The system of prices used to calculate profits was almost completely unconnected to the value of new innovations or technology. Unlike in a market economy, prices in the Soviet Union were set by the government, and thus bore little relation to value. To more specifically create incentives for innovation, the Soviet Union introduced explicit innovation bonuses in 1946. As early as 1918, the principle had been recognized that an innovator should receive monetary rewards for his innovation, but the rewards set were small and unrelated to the value of the new technology. This changed only in 1956, when it was stipulated that the bonus should be proportional to the productivity of the innovation. However, since productivity was calculated in terms of economic benefits measured using the existing system of prices, this was again not much of an incentive to innovate. One could fill many pages with examples of the perverse incentives these schemes generated. For example, because the size of the innovation bonus fund was limited by the wage bill of a firm, this immediately reduced the incentive to produce or adopt any innovation that might have economized on labor.
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
And who knows (there is no saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving
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lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four, and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that math- ematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacri ces his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to nd it, dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be noth- ing for him to look for. When workmen have nished their work they do at least receive their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to the police-station—and there is oc- cupation for a week. But where can man go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when he has attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd. In fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is a er all, something insu erable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo bar- ring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes ve is sometimes a very charming thing too.
And why are you so rmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive—in other words, only what is conducive to welfare—is for the advantage of man?
Notes from the Underground
Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of su ering? Perhaps su ering is just as great a bene t to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraor- dinarily, passionately, in love with su ering, and that is a fact. ere is no need to appeal to universal history to prove that; only ask yourself, if you are a man and have lived at all. As far as my personal opinion is concerned, to care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it’s good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things. I hold no brief for su ering nor for well-being either. I am standing for ... my caprice, and for its being guaran- teed to me when necessary. Su ering would be out of place in vaudevilles, for instance; I know that. In the ‘Palace of Crystal’ it is unthinkable; su ering means doubt, negation, and what would be the good of a ‘palace of crystal’ if there could be any doubt about it? And yet I think man will never renounce real su ering, that is, destruction and chaos. Why, su ering is the sole origin of consciousness. ough I did lay it down at the beginning that consciousness is the great- est misfortune for man, yet I know man prizes it and would not give it up for any satisfaction. Consciousness, for in- stance, is in nitely superior to twice two makes four. Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing le to do or to understand. ere will be nothing le but to bottle up your ve senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at least og yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up. Reactionary as it is, corporal
punishment is better than nothing.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
The Apostle writes that many run for the prize, but that he only receives it who runs till he wins: Know you not that they who run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain. It is not, then, enough for salvation simply to pray; but we must pray always, that we may come to receive the crown which God promises, but promises only to those who are constant in prayer till the end.
”
”
Alfonso María de Liguori (The Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection (Illustrated))
“
The Beautiful Ones
I hear their voice:
They call out to me.
I heed their cries:
They cry out to me.
I harken to their plight:
They look out for me everyday.
I hear their suffering.
The Beautiful Ones.
The Lovely Ones.
The Blessed Ones.
My mind is one with them.
My heart is one with them.
My soul is one with them.
The Good Lord loves them.
The Good Lord adores them.
The Good Lord honors them.
The Good Lord protects them.
The Good Lord will compensate them.
He heard their cries.
He witnessed their suffering.
He answered their prayers.
“Now they will wipe away their tears,
now they will laugh,
now they will rejoice.
I am their portion,” says the Lord of Hosts.
He declares, “You will receive double for your trouble.”
He proclaims, “You will receive triple for your misery.”
He affirms, “You will be fully compensated for all your pains.”
Beautiful Ones, oh Beautiful Ones, how you are cherished.
Beautiful Ones, oh Beautiful Ones, how you are treasured.
Beautiful Ones, oh Beautiful Ones, how you are loved!
More valuable are you to Yahweh than seven worlds:
You are His sons, He declares it in the heavens.
More prized are you to Elohim than seven skies:
You are His daughters, He proclaims it in the heavens.
More favoured are you to Adonai than seven suns:
You are His children, He affirms it in the heavens.
You are His now:
Rejoice, oh Beautiful Ones, you are cherished.
You are His tomorrow:
Rejoice, oh Beautiful Ones, you are treasured.
You are His forever.
Rejoice, oh Beautiful Ones, you are loved!
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Sister didn't have to make a special valentine for Billy Grizzwold. She found the perfect one for him at the card store.
It showed a scary-looking Frankenbear-type monster with a bolt on each side of his neck. It said:
Monsters come in
every shape and size.
But when it comes to creepy,
you take the prize!
She'd sign it, "Guess Who." She couldn't wait to see Billy's face when he opened it at the class Valentine's Day party.
But Sister forgot to watch when Billy opened her valentine because among the valentines she received was one that took her breath away. It was all hearts and flowers and inside it said, “Will you be my special friend?”
“Wow!” said Lizzy Bruin. “It must have cost a whole dollar!”
“It’s signed, ‘Guess who,’” said Sister. “Who do you suppose it’s from?”
“Well, I know who you hope it’s from,” said Lizzy.
“If somebody sent me a beautiful valentine that cost a whole dollar, I’d sure want to know who it was from. There’s Herbie over by the punch bowl. Go ask him.”
Sister started for the punch bowl, but Billy Grizzwold blocked her way. He had the valentine Sister had sent him.
“I’ll be glad to get you some punch,” said Billy.
“And throw it down my back?” said Sister.
“No, nothing like that,” said Billy. “I’m sorry about all the stuff I did. And I really don’t blame you for sending me this. It’s really pretty funny. How’d you like that valentine I sent you?”
“You sent me?” said Sister. “You sent me this valentine?”
“Yep,” said Billy. “I saved up for weeks to get it.”
Sister was confused. She didn’t know what to say, so she just said, “Thanks.
”
”
Stan Berenstain (The Berenstain Bears' Funny Valentine)
“
Born in 1938, Ellen Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa, serving as the 24th President of Liberia from January 16, 2006, until January 22, 2018. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and received the Indira Gandhi Prize from Pranab Mukherjee, President of India. In 2014, she was listed as the 70th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
This effect has long been known. Alexander Fleming described it in his 1945 Nobel Prize lecture upon receiving the prize for the discovery of penicillin. “Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant,” Fleming warned.
”
”
Shawn Lawrence Otto (the war on Science)
“
I've been reading poetry manuscripts for a poetry prize, not as many this time as in the past--I guess the screening process is more stringent than it used to be. But I haven't found a single book I can be enthusiastic about. I wish now I hadn't agreed to do it, because it puts me in a bind: I've already received and cashed the check, and I must choose a winner, I must write a statement about it, I must have my name attached to it. Which means, in effect, I must tell a lie and be a hypocrite. Of course I could write a check and turn down the assignment, late as it is. But that would bother me a lot too, it's not my style. Damn. These manuscripts--anonymous, but equally divided between women and men--are frightfully stylish and clever and Cantabridgian. Anyway to me they are, for all their brilliance, dry as dust, trivial, pretentious, over-refined, and unrewarding. Not the direction in which our poetry should be moving at this point--or at any point.
”
”
Hayden Carruth (Letters to Jane)
“
I've been reading poetry manuscripts for a poetry prize, not as many this time as in the past--I guess the screening process is more stringent than it used to be. But I haven't found a single book I can be enthusiastic about. I wish now I hadn't agreed to do it, because it puts me in a bind: I've already received and cashed the check, and I must choose a winner, I must write a statement about it, I must have my name attached to it. Which means, in effect, I must tell a lie and be a hypocrite. Of course I could write a check and turn down the assignment, late as it is. But that would bother me a lot too, it's not my style. Damn. These manuscripts--anonymous, buy equally divided between women and me--are frightfully stylish and clever and Cantabridgian. Anyway to me they are, for all their brilliance, dry as dust, trivial, pretentious, over-refined, and unrewarding. Not the direction in which our poetry should be moving at this point--or at any point.
”
”
Hayden Carruth (Letters to Jane)
“
Harvard’s Leslie Valiant received the Turing Award, the Nobel Prize of computer science, for inventing this type of analysis, which he describes in his book entitled, appropriately enough, Probably Approximately Correct.
”
”
Pedro Domingos (The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World)
“
Paul’s Farewell
The leaders of the church in Ephesus came to Miletus. “You know how I live my life,” Paul began. “I humbly serve the Lord with tears. I suffer the plots against my life. If there’s any way to help, I do it. I brought God’s message to your city and your houses. I told everyone about turning to God and faith in Jesus.
“And now the Spirit is leading me to Jerusalem. Prison and hardship are waiting for me there. But I don’t prize my life for my own sake. I just want to finish my work. This is the important thing: to declare the good news of God’s grace.
“Now, I know that none of you will ever see my face again. I wasn’t afraid to tell you God’s whole purpose. So the rest is up to you. I hand you over to God and the message of his grace.
“Remember that I never asked for money. Instead I worked with these two hands for myself and my friends. Remember the Lord’s words: “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.’” They knelt together in prayer. The men from Ephesus wept. They’d never see Paul again.
”
”
Daniel Partner (365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories)
“
It is said that in the Grecian sports they had one game where the men ran with lights. They lit a torch at the altar, and ran a certain distance; sometimes they were on horseback. If a man came in with his light still burning, he received a prize; if his light had gone out, he lost the prize.
”
”
Dwight L. Moody (The Overcoming Life and Other Sermons)
“
Once again, Hitler paused briefly. Then he straightened his shoulders and declared, louder than before:
“I cannot believe that the civilized nations of the world are so blind that they will lacerate each other to smooth the way for Bolshevism. The contrary is essential: coalition, by groups, into confederacies of states, into families of nations, perhaps even here and there into federal states…
“It is all the more important that we work at coalition. And on that point I will tell you over and over again: without England it is not possible! England has the necessary power. We bring along only the idea and the will. I cannot imagine that England will not decide to climb down from its pedestal of arrogance and imperialism, which has been made outmoded by history, and to extend its hand to a community of nations. England cannot ignore present-day events to such an extent! It cannot discard the world mission of the Aryan race in the world to such an extent! It must surely recognize the danger of international Communism, even if its island realm might be the last to fall into its hands.
“And it must notice that for the world… a new great adversary has arisen across the Atlantic — America. As a result of excessive industrialization, which received its latest impetus precisely during the Great War, America has no choice but to wage an imperial policy all over the world. For the moment, Roosevelt hopes only to achieve ‘prosperity.’ But if he cannot make it come into being by peaceful means — and in this he will fail — then it can be coerced only by a war — a war intended to permanently eliminate economic competition from Europe and possibly also from Japan, securing for America the international markets of the future: South America and China, perhaps Russia as well.
“Now England is simply part of Europe, even if it was unwilling to admit it before this. Its front is against Russia and against America. The struggle has already begun in the oil fields of Persia, it will continue in India and the Far East. And in the end it will encompass the whole Empire!
“…England and Germany are equally threatened. But they are also the backbone of the West, the old world, the cultural source of mankind. And a Europe that stretches from Gibraltar to the Caucasus includes all the spheres of interest of the countries that belong to it in other parts of the world, especially all of Africa, India, the Malayan archipelago, Australia, and New Zealand. Canada will also remain loyal to such a concentration of power, which would otherwise fall to America; and the Arabic family of nations will complete the circle of these United States of the old world.
“This is the prize we offer England! World peace would be assured for all eternity. No earthly power could sow discord into such a community, and no army or navy in the world could shake such power.
“It cannot be that England does not recognize and understand this. In any case, I am prepared, even at the risk of failing to persuade England, to take this road, and I will never betray Europe to Bolshevism and Jewry.
Hitler raised his voice for the final words…
”
”
Otto Wagener (Hitler: Memoirs Of A Confidant)
“
Although the events surrounding the death of Antoine Mauroy remain somewhat cloudy, one thing was clear: Mauroy improved after his transfusions. How was this possible? In all likelihood, Mauroy’s psychosis was the result of a syphilis infection of his brain, which could account for all of his symptoms. One of the side effects of Mauroy’s transfusions was fever. It is now well established that the bacterium that causes syphilis (Treponema pallidum) is exquisitely sensitive to higher temperatures. Indeed, in 1927, Julius Wagner-Jauregg received a Nobel Prize for proving that syphilis could be treated with fever therapy, either by placing patients in a “fever cabinet” or by injecting them with malaria parasites before treating them with lifesaving quinine.
”
”
Paul A. Offit (You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation)
“
The problem is, with so many mining rigs now in play and only so many block prizes handed out, it can be a long time before a low-powered rig’s winning number comes up for a twenty-five-bitcoin prize. That’s why all but the very biggest of mining operators these days join mining pools, which divvy up the aggregate intake according to each member’s contributed computation power, with the smaller members typically receiving just fractions of a bitcoin each month.
”
”
Paul Vigna (The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order)
“
A remarkable fourteen winners of the Nobel Prize in scientific categories as well as three future presidents—Nixon, Ford, and Bush 41—received G.I. Bill benefits, but just as notable are the everyday people who never would have gone to college without the subsidies
”
”
Will Bunch (After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics—and How to Fix It)
“
The actual mechanics of cell division, according to Dick McIntosh at the University of Denver, require significantly more instructions than it takes to build a moon rocket or supercomputer. First of all, the cell needs to duplicate all of its molecules, that is DNA, RNA, proteins, lipids, etc. At the organelle level, several hundred mitochondria, large areas of ER, new Golgi bodies, cytoskeletal structures, and ribosomes by the million all need to be duplicated so that the daughter cells have enough resources to grow and, in turn, divide themselves. All these processes make up the ‘cell cycle’. Some cells will divide on a daily basis, others live for decades without dividing. The cell cycle is divided into phases, starting with interphase, the period between cell divisions (about 23 hours), and mitosis (M phase), the actual process of separating the original into two daughter cells (about 1 hour). Interphase is further split into three distinct periods: gap 1 (G1, 4–6 hours), a synthesis phase (S, 12 hours), and gap 2 (G2, 4–6 hours). Generally, cells continue to grow throughout interphase, but DNA replication is restricted to the S phase. At the end of G1 there is a checkpoint. If nutrient and energy levels are insufficient for DNA synthesis, the cell is diverted into a phase called G0. In 2001 Tim Hunt, Paul Nurse, and Leeland Hartwell received the Nobel Prize for their work in discovering how the cell cycle is controlled. Tim Hunt found a set of proteins called cyclins, which accumulate during specific stages of the cell cycle. Once the right level is reached, the cell is ‘allowed’ to progress to the next stage and the cyclins are destroyed. Cyclins then start to build up again, keeping a score of the progress at each point of the cycle, and only allowing progression to the next stage if the correct cyclin level has been reached.
”
”
Terence Allen (The Cell: A Very Short Introduction)
“
A new day has dawned. New Secondary Skills are unlocked: Strider’s Focus: You have grown closer to Nature and learned the basics of this skill without a trainer. Somatic Battle-Weaving: This skill has increased through extensive use without the need to allocate skill points to it. Equilibrium: This skill allows you to keep your balance and avoid effects that cause dizziness or disorientation. Suffer through more such effects to increase it. Blades: You have increased your knowledge of which techniques to use in which situations. He had little time to bask in the glory of his skill increases, as the true prize of level four awaited him: Focus Unlocked. At level 4, you may select a Focus for one of your Attributes. This Focus increases your effective score in that Attribute whenever the relevant trait is tested. For instance, Prowess(Strength) allows you better results when lifting heavy objects, but you receive no bonus for feats of agility (such as dodging attacks)
”
”
Gregory Blackburn (Unbound (Arcana Unlocked #1))
“
The cell door opened,
and I stepped out.
I left all my fear,
and all of my doubt.
I walked outside
and looked around.
All that was lost
had been found.
There was no more gloom
through my new eyes.
There was a purpose,
a race, and a prize.
Community service.
A forest growing
needing the stream
in my heart flowing.
The words of life
imparted to me
when I left the boat,
and walked on the sea.
Freely I received,
and freely I will give.
A life bearing witness
is the life I will live.
”
”
Calvin W. Allison
“
The gift of life must not only be received, it must also be highly prized because it is precious.
”
”
Gift Gugu Mona (The Extensive Philosophy of Life: Daily Quotes)
“
It might also be objected that the work of the particular laboratory we have studied is unusual in that it is relatively poor at the intellectual level; that its activity comprises routinely dull work, which is not typical of the drama and conjectural daring prevalent in other areas of scientific work. However, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to one of the members of our laboratory in 1977, soon after we began preparation of this manuscript. If the work of the laboratory is merely routine, then it is possible to receive what is perhaps the most prestigious kind of acclaim from the scientific community for the kind of routine work we portray.
”
”
Bruno Latour (Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (Princeton Paperbacks))
“
According to the website of the libertarian Cato Institute, “A frequent lament amongst libertarians is the number of talented individuals who never received the prize. Fritz Machlup, for example, was a leading theorist in the pure theory of international trade. Ludwig von Mises was one of the most pioneering economists of the twentieth century. Lord P. T. Bauer contributed vast scholarship to the literature of development economics. Gordon Tullock, Buchanan's partner in the creation of Public Choice, has done pioneering work in the field of rent seeking.
”
”
Friedrich A. Hayek
“
Imagine each day that you have just received an emergency message and that you will have to leave town tomorrow for a month. If you had to leave town for a month, what would you make absolutely sure that you got done before you left? Whatever your answer, go to work on that task right now. Another way to put pressure on yourself is to imagine that you just received an all-expenses-paid vacation at a beautiful resort as a prize, but you will have to leave tomorrow morning on the vacation or it will be given to someone else. What would you be determined to finish before you left so that you could take that vacation? Whatever it is, start on that one job immediately.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time)