100BaseTX "networking" The predominant form of {Fast Ethernet}. 100BaseTX runs over two pairs of wires in {category 5} cable. (1998-06-30)
100BaseVG "networking" A 100 {MBps} {Ethernet} standard specified to run over four pairs of {category 3} {UTP} wires (known as voice grade, hence the "VG"). It is also called 100VG-AnyLAN because it was defined to carry both {Ethernet} and {token ring} {frame} types. 100BaseVG was originally proposed by {Hewlett-Packard}, ratified by the {ISO} in 1995 and practically extinct by 1998. 100BaseVG started in the IEEE 802.3u committee as {Fast Ethernet}. One faction wanted to keep {CSMA/CD} in order to keep it pure Ethernet, even though the {collision domain} problem limited the distances to one tenth that of {10baseT}. Another faction wanted to change to a polling architecture from the hub (they called it "demand priority") in order to maintain the 10baseT distances, and also to make it a {deterministic} {protocol}. The CSMA/CD crowd said, "This is 802.3 -- the Ethernet committee. If you guys want to make a different protocol, form your own committee". The IEEE 802.12 committee was thus formed and standardised 100BaseVG. The rest is history. (1998-06-30)
10. Centrality (zhuban yuanming jude men): Each of the aforementioned categories explains and validates all the others. When focus is directed at any particular category, all the others become subordinate, and the one at hand becomes predominant. Each category involves the same principle of being collectively substantiated by all categories together. The same is true with all phenomena: the relation between centrality and marginality is relative and mutually substantiating.
1. Usual (strict) sense: consciousness of an intended object as itself (more or less fully) given; experience in the broadest sense. Contrasted with empty intending. Perfect evidence is a regulative idea: In any particular evidence the object is also emptily intended as the object of further, confirmative, evidence. Evidence is either original ("perceptual" in the broadest sense) or directly reproductive ("memorial" in the broadest sense); again, it is either impressional or retentional evidence. Empirical evidence, in general, is the category of evidence of real individual objects; within this category, sensuous perceiving is original evidence of sensible real individuals and their sensible real individual determinations. For every other category of objects there is a corresponding category of evidence in general and original evidence in particular.
A bar_graph ::: is a chart that plots data using rectangular bars (called bins) that represent the total amount of observations in the data for that category. A bar chart is a style of bar graph; it is often used to represent the price range of a stock over a single day. In finance and economics, an example of a bar graph is one that compares median household income for several states, in which one axis represents different categories, the different states, and the other represents a discrete range of data points, median income.
abhicAra. [alt. abhicara] (T. mngon spyod). In Sanskrit, "magic" or "wrathful action"; in ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, the fourth of the four activities (CATURKARMAN) of the Buddhist tantric adept. AbhicAra is broken down into mArana "killing," mohana "enchanting," stambhana "paralyzing," vidvesana "rendering harm through animosity," uccAtana "removing or driving away," and vasīkarana "subduing." After initiation (ABHIsEKA), adepts who keep their tantric commitments (SAMAYA) properly and reach the requisite yogic level are empowered to use four sorts of enlightened activity, as appropriate: these four types of activities are (1) those that are pacifying (S. sANTICARA); (2) those that increase prosperity, life span, etc. (PAUstIKA), when necessary for the spread of the doctrine; (3) those that subjugate or tame (S. VAsĪKARAnA) the unruly; and finally (4) those that are violent or drastic measures (abhicAra) such as war, when the situation requires it. In the MANJUsRĪNAMASAMGĪTI, CAnakya, Candragupta's minister, is said to have used abhicAra against his enemies, and because of this misuse of tantric power was condemned to suffer the consequences in hell. Throughout the history of Buddhist tantra, the justification of violence by invoking the category of abhicAra has been a contentious issue. PADMASAMBHAVA is said to have tamed the unruly spirits of Tibet, sometimes violently, with his magical powers, and the violent acts that RWA LO TSA BA in the eleventh century countenanced against those who criticized his practices are justified by categorizing them as abhicAra.
abhiprAya. (T. dgongs pa; C. yiqu; J. ishu; K. ŭich'wi 意趣). In Sanskrit, "hidden intention" or "purpose"; a term used in hermeneutics to refer to the concealed intent the Buddha had in mind when he made a statement that was not literally true (see also ABHISAMDHI). In the MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA, there are four abhiprAyas. (1) The Buddha may say that two things are the same when in fact they are similar in only one, albeit important, feature. Thus, sAKYAMUNI Buddha says that he is the past buddha VIPAsYIN, thinking of the fact that there is not the slightest difference in their DHARMAKAYAs. This is called the intention of sameness (samatAbhiprAya). (2) The Buddha may say one thing while intending something else (arthAntarAbhiprAya). This category is often invoked in YOGACARA exegesis to explain why the Buddha proclaimed the nonexistence of all phenomena in the PRAJNAPARAMITA sutras when he in fact did not intend this statement to be taken literally, thinking instead of the three natures (TRILAKsAnA) of all phenomena propounded by the YogAcAra. (3) The buddha may make a statement intending another time (kAlAntarAbhiprAya) than that suggested by his words. For example, he may assure lazy persons who are incapable of any virtuous practice whatsoever that they will be reborn in SUKHAVATĪ, the paradise of AMITABHA, if they will simply call on that buddha. He does this in order to encourage them to accumulate a modest amount of merit, although he knows that they will not be reborn there immediately or even in their next lifetime, but at some other time in the future. (4) The Buddha adjusts his teaching to the capacities of his students based on their dispositions (pudgalAntarAbhiprAya). For example, the Buddha will extol the benefits of the practice of charity (DANA) to a person who is disposed toward the accumulation of merit (PUnYA) but will underplay the importance of charity to a person who becomes complacently attached to that practice. See ABHISAMDHI; SANDHYABHAsA.
abhisaMdhi. (T. ldem por dgongs pa; C. miyi; J. mitchi/mitsui; K. mirŭi 密意). In Sanskrit, "implied intention," a term used in hermeneutics to classify the types of statements made by the Buddha. In the MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA, there are four such abhisaMdhi listed. (1) The first is implied intention pertaining to entrance (avatAranAbhisaMdhi). The Buddha recognizes that if he were to teach HĪNAYANA disciples that, in addition to the nonexistence of the self (ANATMAN), DHARMAs also did not exist (DHARMANAIRATMYA), they would be so terrified that they would never enter the MAHAYANA. Therefore, in order to coax them toward the MahAyAna, he teaches them that a personal self does not exist while explaining that phenomena other than the person do exist. (2) The second is implied intention pertaining to the [three] natures (laksanAbhisaMdhi). When the Buddha said that all phenomena are without own-nature, he had in mind the imaginary nature (PARIKALPITA) of phenomena. When he said that they were neither produced nor destroyed, he had in mind their dependent nature (PARATANTRA). When he said that they were inherently free from suffering, he had in mind their consummate nature (PARINIsPANNA). (3) The third is implied intention pertaining to antidotes (pratipaksAbhisaMdhi). In the hīnayAna, the Buddha teaches specific antidotes (PRATIPAKsA) to various defilements. Thus, as an antidote to hatred, he teaches the cultivation of love; as an antidote to sensuality, he teaches meditation on the foul, such as a decomposing corpse; as an antidote to pride, he teaches meditation on dependent origination; and as an antidote to a wandering mind, he teaches meditation on the breath. He indicates that these faults can be completely destroyed with these antidotes, calling them a supreme vehicle (agrayAna). In fact, these faults are only completely destroyed with full insight into non-self. Thus, the Buddha intentionally overstated their potency. (4) The final type is implied intention pertaining to translation (parinAmanAbhisaMdhi). This category encompasses those statements that might be termed antiphrastic, i.e., appearing to say something quite contrary to the tenor of the doctrine, which cannot be construed as even provisionally true. A commonly cited example of such a statement is the declaration in the DHAMMAPADA (XXI.5-6) that one becomes pure through killing one's parents; the commentators explain that parents are to be understood here to mean negative mental states such as sensual desire. See also ABHIPRAYA; SANDHYABHAsA.
AdīnavAnupassanANAna. In PAli, "knowledge arising from the contemplation of danger (ADĪNAVA)"; this is the fourth of nine knowledges (NAna) cultivated as part of the "purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path" (PAtIPADANAnADASSANAVISUDDHI) according to the outline in the VISUDDHIMAGGA. This latter category, in turn, constitutes the sixth and penultimate purity (VISUDDHI) to be developed along the path to liberation. Knowledge arising from the contemplation of danger is developed by noting the frightfulness of conditioned formations (saMkhAra; S. SAMSKARA), that is to say, the mental and physical phenomena (NAMARuPA) comprising the individual and the universe. Having seen that all phenomena are fearful because they are impermanent (anicca; S. ANITYA) and destined for annihilation, the practitioner finds no refuge in any kind of existence in any of the realms of rebirth. He sees no conditioned formation or station on which he can rely or that is worth holding onto. The Visuddhimagga states that the practitioner sees the three realms of existence as burning charcoal pits, the elements of the physical world as venomous snakes, and the five aggregates (khandha; S. SKANDHA) comprising the person as murderers with drawn swords. Seeing danger in continued existence and in every kind of becoming (BHAVA), the practitioner realizes that the only safety and happiness are found in nibbAna (S. NIRVAnA).
Adverse selection - Self-selection, within a single risk category, of persons of above-average risk.
Amal: “This must be sat-chit-ananda - Being, Consciousness and Bliss. Here the threefold reality seems subsumed under one category doing duty for the three.
Analogies of Experience: (Ger. Analogien der Erfahrung) Kant's three dynamic principles (substantiality, reciprocity, and causality) of the understanding comprising the general category of relation, through which sense data are brought into the unity of experience. (See Kantianism.) -- O.F.K.
aniyata. (T. gzhan 'gyur; C. buding; J. fujo; K. pujong 不定). In Sanskrit and PAli, "undetermined" or "indeterminate"; the term has separate usages in both ABHIDHARMA and VINAYA materials. In the abhidharma analysis of mind, among the mental constituents (CAITTA, P. CETASIKA), "indeterminate" refers to mental factors that, depending on the intention of the agent, may be virtuous, nonvirtuous, or neutral. They are variously listed as four (in the YOGACARA hundred-dharmas list) or eight (in the seventy-five dharmas list of the SARVASTIVADA school) and include sleep (MIDDHA), contrition (KAUKṚTYA, which can be nonvirtuous when one regrets having done a good deed), applied thought or investigation (VITARKA), and sustained thought or analysis (VICARA). ¶ In the vinaya (rules of discipline), "undetermined" refers to a category of ecclesiastical offenses of "uncertain" gravity, which therefore must be evaluated by the SAMGHA in order to make a determination. Aniyata offenses are of two types and always concern the conduct of a monk toward a woman in either (1) private or (2) semiprivate situations. For the monk, even to place himself in such a potentially compromising situation is an offense, since it can arouse suspicion among the laity about the monk's intentions. After learning of such an offense, the saMgha must then determine the seriousness of the monk's offense by evaluating his conduct while in that situation. After due evaluation, his "undermined" offense will then be judged accordingly as one of three types: (1) PARAJIKA, or most grave, entailing "defeat"; (2) SAMGHAVAsEsA (P. sanghAdisesa), the second most serious category, entailing confession before the assembly and expiation; and (3) PAYATTIKA (P. pAcittiya), the least serious offense, requiring only confession.
another ::: adj. 1. Being one more or more of the same; further; additional. 2. Very similar to; of the same kind or category as. 3. Different; distinct; of a different period, place, or kind. pron. **4. A person other than oneself or the one specified. 5. One more; an additional one. another"s**.
anulomaNAna. In PAli, "conformity knowledge"; according to the VISUDDHIMAGGA, this is the ninth and last of nine knowledges (P. NAna, S. JNANA) cultivated as part of the purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path (P. patipadANAnadassanavisuddhi). This latter category, in turn, constitutes the sixth of the seven purities (VIsUDDHI) to be developed along the path to liberation. "Conformity knowledge" refers to the last three so-called impulsion moments (javana) of consciousness that arise in the mind of the practitioner preceding his perception of the nibbAna element (NIRVAnADHATU). This knowledge is so named because it conforms itself to the preceding eight stages of knowledge, as well as to the immediately following supramundane path (P. AriyamAgga, S. ARYAMARGA) and the thirty-seven constituents of enlightenment (P. bodhipakkhiyadhamma, S. BODHIPAKsIKADHARMA). When the three moments are treated separately, they receive different names. The first impulsion moment is called "preparation" (P. parikamma), when adaptation knowledge takes as its object the compounded formations (SAMSKARA) as being something impermanent (ANITYA), suffering (DUḤKHA), and nonself (ANATMAN). Immediately thereafter, the second impulsion moment arises, which takes the same formations as its object and is called "access" (upacAra). Immediately following that the third impulsion moment arises taking the same object, which is called "conformity" (anuloma). At this point, the practitioner is at the threshold of liberation (P. vimokkha, S. VIMOKsA), and, therefore, conformity knowledge is described as the final stage in what is called "insight leading to emergence" (P. vutthAnagAminivipassanA). This category includes the sixth, seventh, and eighth knowledges (NAna) in the ninefold schema: namely, "knowledge arising from the desire for deliverance" (P. MUCCITUKAMYATANAnA), "knowledge arising from the contemplation on reflection" (P. PAtISAnKHANUPASSANANAnA), and "knowledge arising from equanimity regarding all formations of existence" (P. SAnKHARUPEKKHANAnA).
anupassanA. (S. ANUPAsYANA). In PAli, "contemplation." A term applied to several sets of meditation practices, most notably as enumerated under the category of the four "foundations of mindfulness" (P. satipatthAna; S. SMṚTYUPASTHANA). The first foundation is called "contemplation of the body" (kAyAnupassanA, S. KAYANUPAsYANA) and comprises fourteen practices, which include mindfulness of breathing (P. AnApAnasati, S. ANAPANASMṚTI), mindfulness of postures or deportments (P., iriyApatha, S. ĪRYAPATHA), full awareness of bodily actions, contemplation of bodily impurities, contemplation of the four physical elements (DHATU, MAHABHuTA), and nine cemetery meditations (P. asubhabhAvanA, S. AsUBHABHAVANA). The second foundation is called "contemplation of sensations" (P. vedanAnupassanA, S. vedanAnupasyanA) and consists of one practice: mindfulness of physical sensations (VEDANA) as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. The third foundation is called "contemplation of mind" (P. cittAnupassanA, S. cittAnupasyanA) and consists of one practice: mindfulness of one's general state of mind (CITTA), e.g. as calm or distracted, elated or depressed, etc. The fourth foundation is "contemplation of mind-objects" (P. dhammAnupassanA, S. dharmAnupasyanA) and includes five meditations on specific categories of factors (P. dhamma, S. DHARMA), namely: the five hindrances (NĪVARAnA), the five aggregates (SKANDHA), the six sense bases and six sense objects (AYATANA), the seven enlightenment factors (BODHYAnGA), and the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. In the PAli SATIPAttHANASUTTA, the four anupassanAs are extolled as the one path leading to the realization of nibbAna (NIRVAnA). Another common set of anupassanAs found in the PAli tradition includes three members: (1) contemplation of impermanence (aniccAnupassanA), (2) contemplation of suffering (dukkhAnupassanA), and (3) contemplation of nonself (anattAnupassanA). In the PAtISAMBHIDAMAGGA, this list is expanded to ten with the addition of (4) contemplation of nirvAna (nibbAnAnupassanA), (5) contemplation of dispassion (virAgAnupassanA), (6) contemplation of cessation (nirodhAnupassanA), (7) contemplation of renunciation (patinissaggAnupassanA), (8) contemplation of signlessness (animittAnupassanA), (9) contemplation of desirelessness (appanihitAnupassanA), and (10) contemplation of emptiness (suNNatAnupassanA).
anusmṛti. (P. anussati; T. rjes su dran pa; C. nian; J. nen; K. yom 念). In Sanskrit, "recollection." The PAli form anussati is applied to a number of mental exercises enumerated in the PAli tradition under the category of KAMMAttHANA, or topics of meditation. The fifth-century VISUDDHIMAGGA lists ten such recollections conducive to the cultivation of concentration (SAMADHI): namely, recollection of (1) the BUDDHA, (2) the DHARMA, (3) the SAMGHA, (4) morality, (5) generosity, (6) the gods, (7) death, (8) the body, (9) the in-breath and out-breath, and (10) peace. Of these, recollection or mindfulness (P. sati; S. SMṚTI) of the in-breath and out-breath can produce all four meditative absorptions (DHYANA; P. JHANA), while recollection of the body can produce the first absorption. The remaining recollections can produce only "access concentration" (UPACARASAMADHI), which immediately precedes but does not quite reach the first absorption. In East Asia, the practice of recollection of the Buddha (BUDDHANUSMṚTI) evolved into the recitation of name of the buddha AMITABHA in the form of the Chinese phrase namo Amituo fo (Homage to the buddha AmitAbha; see NAMU AMIDABUTSU). See also BUDDHANUSMṚTI.
anuttarayogatantra. (T. bla na med pa'i rnal 'byor rgyud). In Sanskrit, "unsurpassed yoga tantra." According to an Indian classification system, later adopted in Tibet, anuttarayogatantra is the highest category in the fourfold division of tantric texts, above YOGATANTRA, CARYATANTRA, and KRIYATANTRA. Texts classified as unsurpassed yoga tantras include such works as the GUHYASAMAJATANTRA, the HEVAJRATANTRA, and the CAKRASAMVARATANTRA. These tantras were further divided into mother tantras (MATṚTANTRA) and father tantras (PITṚTANTRA). The mother tantras, also known as dAKINĪ tantras, are traditionally said to emphasize wisdom (PRAJNA) over method (UPAYA), especially wisdom in the form of the mind of clear light (PRABHASVARACITTA). The father tantras are those that, between method (upAya) and wisdom (prajNA), place a particular emphasis on method, especially as it pertains to the achievement of the illusory body (MAYADEHA) on the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA). According to Tibetan exegetes, buddhahood can only be achieved through the practice of anuttarayogatantra; it cannot be achieved by the three "lower tantras" or by the practice of the PARAMITAYANA. The many practices set forth in the anuttarayogatantras are often divided into two larger categories, those of the stage of generation (utpattikrama) and those of the stage of completion (NIsPANNAKRAMA). The latter typically includes the practice of sexual yoga. The status of the KALACAKRATANTRA, historically the latest of the unsurpassed yoga tantras (the text includes apparent references to Muslim invaders in the Indian subcontinent), was accorded special status by DOL PO PA SHES RAB RGYAL MTSHAN; TSONG KHA PA in his SNGAGS RIM CHEN MO ("Great Exposition of the Stages of Tantra") gave it a separate place within a general anuttarayogatantra category, while others such as Red mda' ba Gzhon nu blo gros said it was not a Buddhist tantra at all.
anuyoga. (T. a nu yo ga). In Sanskrit, "subsequent yoga" or "further yoga," the eighth of the nine vehicles (THEG PA DGU) of Buddhism according to the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Here, the system of practice described elsewhere as ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA is divided into three: MAHAYOGA, anuyoga, and ATIYOGA, with anuyoga corresponding to the practices of the "stage of completion" (NIsPANNAKRAMA), mahAyoga to the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA) and atiyoga to the great completion (RDZOGS CHEN) and the spontaneous achievement of buddhahood. Thus, such stage of completion practices as causing the winds (PRAnA) to move through the channels (NAdĪ) to the CAKRAs are set forth in anuyoga. In Rnying ma, anuyoga is also a category of texts in the RNYING MA'I RGYUD 'BUM, divided under the following headings: the four root sutras (rtsa ba'i mdo bzhi), the six tantras clarifying the six limits (mtha' drug gsal bar byed pa'i rgyud drug), the twelve rare tantras (dkon rgyud bcu gnyis), and the seventy written scriptures (lung gi yi ge bdun bcu).
asaMjNAsamApatti. [alt. asaṁjNisamApatti] (P. asaNNasamApatti; T. 'du shes med pa'i snyoms par 'jug pa; C. wuxiang ding; J. musojo; K. musang chong 無想定). In Sanskrit, "equipoise of nonperception" or "unconscious state of attainment"; viz., a "meditative state wherein no perceptual activity remains." It is a form of meditation with varying, even contradictory, interpretations. In some accounts, it is positively appraised: for example, the Buddha was known for entering into this type of meditation in order to "rest himself" and, on another occasion, to recover from illness. In this interpretation, asaMjNAsamApatti is a temporary suppression of mental activities that brings respite from tension, which in some accounts, means that the perception (SAMJNA) aggregate (SKANDHA) is no longer functioning, while in other accounts, it implies the cessation of all conscious thought. In such cases, asaṁjNasamApatti is similar to AnimittasamApatti in functions and contents, the latter being a meditative stage wherein one does not dwell in or cling to the "characteristics" (NIMITTA) of phenomena, and which is said to be conducive to the "liberation of the mind through signlessness (ANIMITTA)" (P. Animittacetovimutti)-one of the so-called three gates to deliverance (VIMOKsAMUKHA). Elsewhere, however, asaṁjNAsamApatti is characterized negatively as a nihilistic state of mental dormancy, which some have mistakenly believed to be final liberation. Non-Buddhist meditators were reported to mistake this vegetative state for the ultimate, permanent quiescence of the mind and become attached to this state as if it were liberation. In traditional Buddhist classificatory systems (such as those of the YOGACARA school and the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA), asaMjNAsamApatti is sometimes also conflated with the fourth DHYANA, and the karmic fruition of dwelling in this meditation is the rebirth in the asaMjNA heaven (ASAMJNIKA) located in the "realm of subtle materiality," where the heavens corresponding to the fourth dhyAna are located (see RuPADHATU). Together with the "trance of cessation" (NIRODHASAMAPATTI), these two forms of meditation are classified under the CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKARA ("forces dissociated from thought") category in SARVASTIVADA ABHIDHARMA texts, as well as in the one hundred dharmas of the YogAcAra school, and are also called in the East Asian tradition "the two kinds of meditation that are free of mental activity" (er wuxin ding).
Ascended Dead ::: A category of the dead that have crystallized and maintained a sense of their living self-identity in such a manner that others can interact with and call upon it. Generally this refers to beings of sufficiently high levels of realization that have decided to maintain a form in more subtle levels of reality in order to teach or inspire beings at denser levels of manifestation.
A-social ::: One of several categories of people targeted by the Nazi regime. People in this category included homosexuals, prostitutes, Gypsies (Roma), and thieves.
AsokAvadAna. (T. Ku nA la'i rtogs pa brjod pa; C. Ayu wang zhuan; J. Aiku o den; K. Ayuk wang chon 阿育王傳). In Sanskrit, "The Story of Asoka," a text belonging to the category of "edifying tales" (AVADANA), which narrates the major events in the life of King AsOKA of the Indian Mauryan dynasty. The work focuses primarily on Asoka's conversion to Buddhism, his subsequent support of the DHARMA and monastic community (SAMGHA), his visits to the major sites of the Buddha's life (MAHASTHANA), and his construction of STuPAs. It also records the transmission of the Buddhist teachings by five early teachers: MAHAKAsYAPA, ANANDA, MADHYANTIKA, sAnAKAVASIN, and UPAGUPTA. The AsokAvadAna relates that, in a previous life, Asoka (then a small boy named Jaya) placed a handful of dirt in the Buddha's begging bowl (PATRA). The Buddha predicted that one hundred years after his passage into nirvAna, the child would become a DHARMARAJA and CAKRAVARTIN named Asoka. As emperor, Asoka becomes a devout Buddhist and righteous king, renowned for collecting the relics (sARĪRA) of the Buddha from eight (or in one version, seven of eight) stupas and redistributing them in 84,000 stupas across his realm. Parts of the Sanskrit text have been preserved in the DIVYAVADANA, and the entire work is extant in Chinese. Only the KunAla chapter of the AsokAvadAna was rendered into Tibetan, in the eleventh century, by PadmAkaravarman and RIN CHEN BZANG PO.
Attribute: Commonly, what is proper to a thing (Latm, ad-tribuere, to assign, to ascribe, to bestow). Loosely assimilated to a quality, a property, a characteristic, a peculiarity, a circumstance, a state, a category, a mode or an accident, though there are differences among all these terms. For example, a quality is an inherent property (the qualities of matter), while an attribute refers to the actual properties of a thing only indirectly known (the attributes of God). Another difference between attribute and quality is that the former refers to the characteristics of an infinite being, while the latter is used for the characteristics of a finite being. In metaphysics, an attribute is what is indispensable to a spiritual or material substance; or that which expresses the nature of a thing; or that without which a thing is unthinkable. As such, it implies necessarily a relation to some substance of which it is an aspect or conception. But it cannot be a substance, as it does not exist by itself. The transcendental attributes are those which belong to a being because it is a being: there are three of them, the one, the true and the good, each adding something positive to the idea of being. The word attribute has been and still is used more readily, with various implications, by substantialist systems. In the 17th century, for example, it denoted the actual manifestations of substance. [Thus, Descartes regarded extension and thought as the two ultimate, simple and original attributes of reality, all else being modifications of them. With Spinoza, extension and thought became the only known attributes of Deity, each expressing in a definite manner, though not exclusively, the infinite essence of God as the only substance. The change in the meaning of substance after Hume and Kant is best illustrated by this quotation from Whitehead: "We diverge from Descartes by holding that what he has described as primary attributes of physical bodies, are really the forms of internal relationships between actual occasions and within actual occasions" (Process and Reality, p. 471).] The use of the notion of attribute, however, is still favoured by contemporary thinkers. Thus, John Boodin speaks of the five attributes of reality, namely: Energy (source of activity), Space (extension), Time (change), Consciousness (active awareness), and Form (organization, structure). In theodicy, the term attribute is used for the essential characteristics of God. The divine attributes are the various aspects under which God is viewed, each being treated as a separate perfection. As God is free from composition, we know him only in a mediate and synthetic way thrgugh his attributes. In logic, an attribute is that which is predicated or anything, that which Is affirmed or denied of the subject of a proposition. More specifically, an attribute may be either a category or a predicable; but it cannot be an individual materially. Attributes may be essential or accidental, necessary or contingent. In grammar, an attribute is an adjective, or an adjectival clause, or an equivalent adjunct expressing a characteristic referred to a subject through a verb. Because of this reference, an attribute may also be a substantive, as a class-name, but not a proper name as a rule. An attribute is never a verb, thus differing from a predicate which may consist of a verb often having some object or qualifying words. In natural history, what is permanent and essential in a species, an individual or in its parts. In psychology, it denotes the way (such as intensity, duration or quality) in which sensations, feelings or images can differ from one another. In art, an attribute is a material or a conventional symbol, distinction or decoration.
Aufklärung: In general, this German word and its English equivalent Enlightenment denote the self-emancipation of man from mere authority, prejudice, convention and tradition, with an insistence on freer thinking about problems uncritically referred to these other agencies. According to Kant's famous definition "Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority, which is the incapacity of using one's understanding without the direction of another. This state of minority is caused when its source lies not in the lack of understanding, but in the lack of determination and courage to use it without the assistance of another" (Was ist Aufklärung? 1784). In its historical perspective, the Aufklärung refers to the cultural atmosphere and contrlbutions of the 18th century, especially in Germany, France and England [which affected also American thought with B. Franklin, T. Paine and the leaders of the Revolution]. It crystallized tendencies emphasized by the Renaissance, and quickened by modern scepticism and empiricism, and by the great scientific discoveries of the 17th century. This movement, which was represented by men of varying tendencies, gave an impetus to general learning, a more popular philosophy, empirical science, scriptural criticism, social and political thought. More especially, the word Aufklärung is applied to the German contributions to 18th century culture. In philosophy, its principal representatives are G. E. Lessing (1729-81) who believed in free speech and in a methodical criticism of religion, without being a free-thinker; H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768) who expounded a naturalistic philosophy and denied the supernatural origin of Christianity; Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) who endeavoured to mitigate prejudices and developed a popular common-sense philosophy; Chr. Wolff (1679-1754), J. A. Eberhard (1739-1809) who followed the Leibnizian rationalism and criticized unsuccessfully Kant and Fichte; and J. G. Herder (1744-1803) who was best as an interpreter of others, but whose intuitional suggestions have borne fruit in the organic correlation of the sciences, and in questions of language in relation to human nature and to national character. The works of Kant and Goethe mark the culmination of the German Enlightenment. Cf. J. G. Hibben, Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1910. --T.G. Augustinianism: The thought of St. Augustine of Hippo, and of his followers. Born in 354 at Tagaste in N. Africa, A. studied rhetoric in Carthage, taught that subject there and in Rome and Milan. Attracted successively to Manicheanism, Scepticism, and Neo-Platontsm, A. eventually found intellectual and moral peace with his conversion to Christianity in his thirty-fourth year. Returning to Africa, he established numerous monasteries, became a priest in 391, Bishop of Hippo in 395. Augustine wrote much: On Free Choice, Confessions, Literal Commentary on Genesis, On the Trinity, and City of God, are his most noted works. He died in 430. St. Augustine's characteristic method, an inward empiricism which has little in common with later variants, starts from things without, proceeds within to the self, and moves upwards to God. These three poles of the Augustinian dialectic are polarized by his doctrine of moderate illuminism. An ontological illumination is required to explain the metaphysical structure of things. The truth of judgment demands a noetic illumination. A moral illumination is necessary in the order of willing; and so, too, an lllumination of art in the aesthetic order. Other illuminations which transcend the natural order do not come within the scope of philosophy; they provide the wisdoms of theology and mysticism. Every being is illuminated ontologically by number, form, unity and its derivatives, and order. A thing is what it is, in so far as it is more or less flooded by the light of these ontological constituents. Sensation is necessary in order to know material substances. There is certainly an action of the external object on the body and a corresponding passion of the body, but, as the soul is superior to the body and can suffer nothing from its inferior, sensation must be an action, not a passion, of the soul. Sensation takes place only when the observing soul, dynamically on guard throughout the body, is vitally attentive to the changes suffered by the body. However, an adequate basis for the knowledge of intellectual truth is not found in sensation alone. In order to know, for example, that a body is multiple, the idea of unity must be present already, otherwise its multiplicity could not be recognized. If numbers are not drawn in by the bodily senses which perceive only the contingent and passing, is the mind the source of the unchanging and necessary truth of numbers? The mind of man is also contingent and mutable, and cannot give what it does not possess. As ideas are not innate, nor remembered from a previous existence of the soul, they can be accounted for only by an immutable source higher than the soul. In so far as man is endowed with an intellect, he is a being naturally illuminated by God, Who may be compared to an intelligible sun. The human intellect does not create the laws of thought; it finds them and submits to them. The immediate intuition of these normative rules does not carry any content, thus any trace of ontologism is avoided. Things have forms because they have numbers, and they have being in so far as they possess form. The sufficient explanation of all formable, and hence changeable, things is an immutable and eternal form which is unrestricted in time and space. The forms or ideas of all things actually existing in the world are in the things themselves (as rationes seminales) and in the Divine Mind (as rationes aeternae). Nothing could exist without unity, for to be is no other than to be one. There is a unity proper to each level of being, a unity of the material individual and species, of the soul, and of that union of souls in the love of the same good, which union constitutes the city. Order, also, is ontologically imbibed by all beings. To tend to being is to tend to order; order secures being, disorder leads to non-being. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal each to its own place and integrates an ensemble of parts in accordance with an end. Hence, peace is defined as the tranquillity of order. Just as things have their being from their forms, the order of parts, and their numerical relations, so too their beauty is not something superadded, but the shining out of all their intelligible co-ingredients. S. Aurelii Augustini, Opera Omnia, Migne, PL 32-47; (a critical edition of some works will be found in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna). Gilson, E., Introd. a l'etude de s. Augustin, (Paris, 1931) contains very good bibliography up to 1927, pp. 309-331. Pope, H., St. Augustine of Hippo, (London, 1937). Chapman, E., St. Augustine's Philos. of Beauty, (N. Y., 1939). Figgis, J. N., The Political Aspects of St. Augustine's "City of God", (London, 1921). --E.C. Authenticity: In a general sense, genuineness, truth according to its title. It involves sometimes a direct and personal characteristic (Whitehead speaks of "authentic feelings"). This word also refers to problems of fundamental criticism involving title, tradition, authorship and evidence. These problems are vital in theology, and basic in scholarship with regard to the interpretation of texts and doctrines. --T.G. Authoritarianism: That theory of knowledge which maintains that the truth of any proposition is determined by the fact of its having been asserted by a certain esteemed individual or group of individuals. Cf. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent; C. S. Peirce, "Fixation of Belief," in Chance, Love and Logic, ed. M. R. Cohen. --A.C.B. Autistic thinking: Absorption in fanciful or wishful thinking without proper control by objective or factual material; day dreaming; undisciplined imagination. --A.C.B. Automaton Theory: Theory that a living organism may be considered a mere machine. See Automatism. Automatism: (Gr. automatos, self-moving) (a) In metaphysics: Theory that animal and human organisms are automata, that is to say, are machines governed by the laws of physics and mechanics. Automatism, as propounded by Descartes, considered the lower animals to be pure automata (Letter to Henry More, 1649) and man a machine controlled by a rational soul (Treatise on Man). Pure automatism for man as well as animals is advocated by La Mettrie (Man, a Machine, 1748). During the Nineteenth century, automatism, combined with epiphenomenalism, was advanced by Hodgson, Huxley and Clifford. (Cf. W. James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, ch. V.) Behaviorism, of the extreme sort, is the most recent version of automatism (See Behaviorism). (b) In psychology: Psychological automatism is the performance of apparently purposeful actions, like automatic writing without the superintendence of the conscious mind. L. C. Rosenfield, From Beast Machine to Man Machine, N. Y., 1941. --L.W. Automatism, Conscious: The automatism of Hodgson, Huxley, and Clifford which considers man a machine to which mind or consciousness is superadded; the mind of man is, however, causally ineffectual. See Automatism; Epiphenomenalism. --L.W. Autonomy: (Gr. autonomia, independence) Freedom consisting in self-determination and independence of all external constraint. See Freedom. Kant defines autonomy of the will as subjection of the will to its own law, the categorical imperative, in contrast to heteronomy, its subjection to a law or end outside the rational will. (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, § 2.) --L.W. Autonomy of ethics: A doctrine, usually propounded by intuitionists, that ethics is not a part of, and cannot be derived from, either metaphysics or any of the natural or social sciences. See Intuitionism, Metaphysical ethics, Naturalistic ethics. --W.K.F. Autonomy of the will: (in Kant's ethics) The freedom of the rational will to legislate to itself, which constitutes the basis for the autonomy of the moral law. --P.A.S. Autonymy: In the terminology introduced by Carnap, a word (phrase, symbol, expression) is autonymous if it is used as a name for itself --for the geometric shape, sound, etc. which it exemplifies, or for the word as a historical and grammatical unit. Autonymy is thus the same as the Scholastic suppositio matertalis (q. v.), although the viewpoint is different. --A.C. Autotelic: (from Gr. autos, self, and telos, end) Said of any absorbing activity engaged in for its own sake (cf. German Selbstzweck), such as higher mathematics, chess, etc. In aesthetics, applied to creative art and play which lack any conscious reference to the accomplishment of something useful. In the view of some, it may constitute something beneficent in itself of which the person following his art impulse (q.v.) or playing is unaware, thus approaching a heterotelic (q.v.) conception. --K.F.L. Avenarius, Richard: (1843-1896) German philosopher who expressed his thought in an elaborate and novel terminology in the hope of constructing a symbolic language for philosophy, like that of mathematics --the consequence of his Spinoza studies. As the most influential apostle of pure experience, the posltivistic motive reaches in him an extreme position. Insisting on the biologic and economic function of thought, he thought the true method of science is to cure speculative excesses by a return to pure experience devoid of all assumptions. Philosophy is the scientific effort to exclude from knowledge all ideas not included in the given. Its task is to expel all extraneous elements in the given. His uncritical use of the category of the given and the nominalistic view that logical relations are created rather than discovered by thought, leads him to banish not only animism but also all of the categories, substance, causality, etc., as inventions of the mind. Explaining the evolution and devolution of the problematization and deproblematization of numerous ideas, and aiming to give the natural history of problems, Avenarius sought to show physiologically, psychologically and historically under what conditions they emerge, are challenged and are solved. He hypothesized a System C, a bodily and central nervous system upon which consciousness depends. R-values are the stimuli received from the world of objects. E-values are the statements of experience. The brain changes that continually oscillate about an ideal point of balance are termed Vitalerhaltungsmaximum. The E-values are differentiated into elements, to which the sense-perceptions or the content of experience belong, and characters, to which belongs everything which psychology describes as feelings and attitudes. Avenarius describes in symbolic form a series of states from balance to balance, termed vital series, all describing a series of changes in System C. Inequalities in the vital balance give rise to vital differences. According to his theory there are two vital series. It assumes a series of brain changes because parallel series of conscious states can be observed. The independent vital series are physical, and the dependent vital series are psychological. The two together are practically covariants. In the case of a process as a dependent vital series three stages can be noted: first, the appearance of the problem, expressed as strain, restlessness, desire, fear, doubt, pain, repentance, delusion; the second, the continued effort and struggle to solve the problem; and finally, the appearance of the solution, characterized by abating anxiety, a feeling of triumph and enjoyment. Corresponding to these three stages of the dependent series are three stages of the independent series: the appearance of the vital difference and a departure from balance in the System C, the continuance with an approximate vital difference, and lastly, the reduction of the vital difference to zero, the return to stability. By making room for dependent and independent experiences, he showed that physics regards experience as independent of the experiencing indlvidual, and psychology views experience as dependent upon the individual. He greatly influenced Mach and James (q.v.). See Avenarius, Empirio-criticism, Experience, pure. Main works: Kritik der reinen Erfahrung; Der menschliche Weltbegriff. --H.H. Averroes: (Mohammed ibn Roshd) Known to the Scholastics as The Commentator, and mentioned as the author of il gran commento by Dante (Inf. IV. 68) he was born 1126 at Cordova (Spain), studied theology, law, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy, became after having been judge in Sevilla and Cordova, physician to the khalifah Jaqub Jusuf, and charged with writing a commentary on the works of Aristotle. Al-mansur, Jusuf's successor, deprived him of his place because of accusations of unorthodoxy. He died 1198 in Morocco. Averroes is not so much an original philosopher as the author of a minute commentary on the whole works of Aristotle. His procedure was imitated later by Aquinas. In his interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics Averroes teaches the coeternity of a universe created ex nihilo. This doctrine formed together with the notion of a numerical unity of the active intellect became one of the controversial points in the discussions between the followers of Albert-Thomas and the Latin Averroists. Averroes assumed that man possesses only a disposition for receiving the intellect coming from without; he identifies this disposition with the possible intellect which thus is not truly intellectual by nature. The notion of one intellect common to all men does away with the doctrine of personal immortality. Another doctrine which probably was emphasized more by the Latin Averroists (and by the adversaries among Averroes' contemporaries) is the famous statement about "two-fold truth", viz. that a proposition may be theologically true and philosophically false and vice versa. Averroes taught that religion expresses the (higher) philosophical truth by means of religious imagery; the "two-truth notion" came apparently into the Latin text through a misinterpretation on the part of the translators. The works of Averroes were one of the main sources of medieval Aristotelianlsm, before and even after the original texts had been translated. The interpretation the Latin Averroists found in their texts of the "Commentator" spread in spite of opposition and condemnation. See Averroism, Latin. Averroes, Opera, Venetiis, 1553. M. Horten, Die Metaphysik des Averroes, 1912. P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin, 2d ed., Louvain, 1911. --R.A. Averroism, Latin: The commentaries on Aristotle written by Averroes (Ibn Roshd) in the 12th century became known to the Western scholars in translations by Michael Scottus, Hermannus Alemannus, and others at the beginning of the 13th century. Many works of Aristotle were also known first by such translations from Arabian texts, though there existed translations from the Greek originals at the same time (Grabmann). The Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle was held to be the true one by many; but already Albert the Great pointed out several notions which he felt to be incompatible with the principles of Christian philosophy, although he relied for the rest on the "Commentator" and apparently hardly used any other text. Aquinas, basing his studies mostly on a translation from the Greek texts, procured for him by William of Moerbecke, criticized the Averroistic interpretation in many points. But the teachings of the Commentator became the foundation for a whole school of philosophers, represented first by the Faculty of Arts at Paris. The most prominent of these scholars was Siger of Brabant. The philosophy of these men was condemned on March 7th, 1277 by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, after a first condemnation of Aristotelianism in 1210 had gradually come to be neglected. The 219 theses condemned in 1277, however, contain also some of Aquinas which later were generally recognized an orthodox. The Averroistic propositions which aroused the criticism of the ecclesiastic authorities and which had been opposed with great energy by Albert and Thomas refer mostly to the following points: The co-eternity of the created word; the numerical identity of the intellect in all men, the so-called two-fold-truth theory stating that a proposition may be philosophically true although theologically false. Regarding the first point Thomas argued that there is no philosophical proof, either for the co-eternity or against it; creation is an article of faith. The unity of intellect was rejected as incompatible with the true notion of person and with personal immortality. It is doubtful whether Averroes himself held the two-truths theory; it was, however, taught by the Latin Averroists who, notwithstanding the opposition of the Church and the Thomistic philosophers, gained a great influence and soon dominated many universities, especially in Italy. Thomas and his followers were convinced that they interpreted Aristotle correctly and that the Averroists were wrong; one has, however, to admit that certain passages in Aristotle allow for the Averroistic interpretation, especially in regard to the theory of intellect. Lit.: P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin au XIIIe Siecle, 2d. ed. Louvain, 1911; M. Grabmann, Forschungen über die lateinischen Aristotelesübersetzungen des XIII. Jahrhunderts, Münster 1916 (Beitr. z. Gesch. Phil. d. MA. Vol. 17, H. 5-6). --R.A. Avesta: See Zendavesta. Avicehron: (or Avencebrol, Salomon ibn Gabirol) The first Jewish philosopher in Spain, born in Malaga 1020, died about 1070, poet, philosopher, and moralist. His main work, Fons vitae, became influential and was much quoted by the Scholastics. It has been preserved only in the Latin translation by Gundissalinus. His doctrine of a spiritual substance individualizing also the pure spirits or separate forms was opposed by Aquinas already in his first treatise De ente, but found favor with the medieval Augustinians also later in the 13th century. He also teaches the necessity of a mediator between God and the created world; such a mediator he finds in the Divine Will proceeding from God and creating, conserving, and moving the world. His cosmogony shows a definitely Neo-Platonic shade and assumes a series of emanations. Cl. Baeumker, Avencebrolis Fons vitae. Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. MA. 1892-1895, Vol. I. Joh. Wittman, Die Stellung des hl. Thomas von Aquino zu Avencebrol, ibid. 1900. Vol. III. --R.A. Avicenna: (Abu Ali al Hosain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina) Born 980 in the country of Bocchara, began to write in young years, left more than 100 works, taught in Ispahan, was physician to several Persian princes, and died at Hamadan in 1037. His fame as physician survived his influence as philosopher in the Occident. His medical works were printed still in the 17th century. His philosophy is contained in 18 vols. of a comprehensive encyclopedia, following the tradition of Al Kindi and Al Farabi. Logic, Physics, Mathematics and Metaphysics form the parts of this work. His philosophy is Aristotelian with noticeable Neo-Platonic influences. His doctrine of the universal existing ante res in God, in rebus as the universal nature of the particulars, and post res in the human mind by way of abstraction became a fundamental thesis of medieval Aristotelianism. He sharply distinguished between the logical and the ontological universal, denying to the latter the true nature of form in the composite. The principle of individuation is matter, eternally existent. Latin translations attributed to Avicenna the notion that existence is an accident to essence (see e.g. Guilelmus Parisiensis, De Universo). The process adopted by Avicenna was one of paraphrasis of the Aristotelian texts with many original thoughts interspersed. His works were translated into Latin by Dominicus Gundissalinus (Gondisalvi) with the assistance of Avendeath ibn Daud. This translation started, when it became more generally known, the "revival of Aristotle" at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. Albert the Great and Aquinas professed, notwithstanding their critical attitude, a great admiration for Avicenna whom the Arabs used to call the "third Aristotle". But in the Orient, Avicenna's influence declined soon, overcome by the opposition of the orthodox theologians. Avicenna, Opera, Venetiis, 1495; l508; 1546. M. Horten, Das Buch der Genesung der Seele, eine philosophische Enzyklopaedie Avicenna's; XIII. Teil: Die Metaphysik. Halle a. S. 1907-1909. R. de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l'Avicennisme Latin, Bibl. Thomiste XX, Paris, 1934. --R.A. Avidya: (Skr.) Nescience; ignorance; the state of mind unaware of true reality; an equivalent of maya (q.v.); also a condition of pure awareness prior to the universal process of evolution through gradual differentiation into the elements and factors of knowledge. --K.F.L. Avyakta: (Skr.) "Unmanifest", descriptive of or standing for brahman (q.v.) in one of its or "his" aspects, symbolizing the superabundance of the creative principle, or designating the condition of the universe not yet become phenomenal (aja, unborn). --K.F.L. Awareness: Consciousness considered in its aspect of act; an act of attentive awareness such as the sensing of a color patch or the feeling of pain is distinguished from the content attended to, the sensed color patch, the felt pain. The psychologlcal theory of intentional act was advanced by F. Brentano (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte) and received its epistemological development by Meinong, Husserl, Moore, Laird and Broad. See Intentionalism. --L.W. Axiological: (Ger. axiologisch) In Husserl: Of or pertaining to value or theory of value (the latter term understood as including disvalue and value-indifference). --D.C. Axiological ethics: Any ethics which makes the theory of obligation entirely dependent on the theory of value, by making the determination of the rightness of an action wholly dependent on a consideration of the value or goodness of something, e.g. the action itself, its motive, or its consequences, actual or probable. Opposed to deontological ethics. See also teleological ethics. --W.K.F. Axiologic Realism: In metaphysics, theory that value as well as logic, qualities as well as relations, have their being and exist external to the mind and independently of it. Applicable to the philosophy of many though not all realists in the history of philosophy, from Plato to G. E. Moore, A. N. Whitehead, and N, Hartmann. --J.K.F. Axiology: (Gr. axios, of like value, worthy, and logos, account, reason, theory). Modern term for theory of value (the desired, preferred, good), investigation of its nature, criteria, and metaphysical status. Had its rise in Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas (Idea of the Good); was developed in Aristotle's Organon, Ethics, Poetics, and Metaphysics (Book Lambda). Stoics and Epicureans investigated the summum bonum. Christian philosophy (St. Thomas) built on Aristotle's identification of highest value with final cause in God as "a living being, eternal, most good." In modern thought, apart from scholasticism and the system of Spinoza (Ethica, 1677), in which values are metaphysically grounded, the various values were investigated in separate sciences, until Kant's Critiques, in which the relations of knowledge to moral, aesthetic, and religious values were examined. In Hegel's idealism, morality, art, religion, and philosophy were made the capstone of his dialectic. R. H. Lotze "sought in that which should be the ground of that which is" (Metaphysik, 1879). Nineteenth century evolutionary theory, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics subjected value experience to empirical analysis, and stress was again laid on the diversity and relativity of value phenomena rather than on their unity and metaphysical nature. F. Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885) and Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887) aroused new interest in the nature of value. F. Brentano, Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (1889), identified value with love. In the twentieth century the term axiology was apparently first applied by Paul Lapie (Logique de la volonte, 1902) and E. von Hartmann (Grundriss der Axiologie, 1908). Stimulated by Ehrenfels (System der Werttheorie, 1897), Meinong (Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie, 1894-1899), and Simmel (Philosophie des Geldes, 1900). W. M. Urban wrote the first systematic treatment of axiology in English (Valuation, 1909), phenomenological in method under J. M. Baldwin's influence. Meanwhile H. Münsterberg wrote a neo-Fichtean system of values (The Eternal Values, 1909). Among important recent contributions are: B. Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value (1912), a free reinterpretation of Hegelianism; W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God (1918, 1921), defending a metaphysical theism; S. Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity (1920), realistic and naturalistic; N. Hartmann, Ethik (1926), detailed analysis of types and laws of value; R. B. Perry's magnum opus, General Theory of Value (1926), "its meaning and basic principles construed in terms of interest"; and J. Laird, The Idea of Value (1929), noteworthy for historical exposition. A naturalistic theory has been developed by J. Dewey (Theory of Valuation, 1939), for which "not only is science itself a value . . . but it is the supreme means of the valid determination of all valuations." A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936) expounds the view of logical positivism that value is "nonsense." J. Hessen, Wertphilosophie (1937), provides an account of recent German axiology from a neo-scholastic standpoint. The problems of axiology fall into four main groups, namely, those concerning (1) the nature of value, (2) the types of value, (3) the criterion of value, and (4) the metaphysical status of value. (1) The nature of value experience. Is valuation fulfillment of desire (voluntarism: Spinoza, Ehrenfels), pleasure (hedonism: Epicurus, Bentham, Meinong), interest (Perry), preference (Martineau), pure rational will (formalism: Stoics, Kant, Royce), apprehension of tertiary qualities (Santayana), synoptic experience of the unity of personality (personalism: T. H. Green, Bowne), any experience that contributes to enhanced life (evolutionism: Nietzsche), or "the relation of things as means to the end or consequence actually reached" (pragmatism, instrumentalism: Dewey). (2) The types of value. Most axiologists distinguish between intrinsic (consummatory) values (ends), prized for their own sake, and instrumental (contributory) values (means), which are causes (whether as economic goods or as natural events) of intrinsic values. Most intrinsic values are also instrumental to further value experience; some instrumental values are neutral or even disvaluable intrinsically. Commonly recognized as intrinsic values are the (morally) good, the true, the beautiful, and the holy. Values of play, of work, of association, and of bodily well-being are also acknowledged. Some (with Montague) question whether the true is properly to be regarded as a value, since some truth is disvaluable, some neutral; but love of truth, regardless of consequences, seems to establish the value of truth. There is disagreement about whether the holy (religious value) is a unique type (Schleiermacher, Otto), or an attitude toward other values (Kant, Höffding), or a combination of the two (Hocking). There is also disagreement about whether the variety of values is irreducible (pluralism) or whether all values are rationally related in a hierarchy or system (Plato, Hegel, Sorley), in which values interpenetrate or coalesce into a total experience. (3) The criterion of value. The standard for testing values is influenced by both psychological and logical theory. Hedonists find the standard in the quantity of pleasure derived by the individual (Aristippus) or society (Bentham). Intuitionists appeal to an ultimate insight into preference (Martineau, Brentano). Some idealists recognize an objective system of rational norms or ideals as criterion (Plato, Windelband), while others lay more stress on rational wholeness and coherence (Hegel, Bosanquet, Paton) or inclusiveness (T. H. Green). Naturalists find biological survival or adjustment (Dewey) to be the standard. Despite differences, there is much in common in the results of the application of these criteria. (4) The metaphysical status of value. What is the relation of values to the facts investigated by natural science (Koehler), of Sein to Sollen (Lotze, Rickert), of human experience of value to reality independent of man (Hegel, Pringle-Pattlson, Spaulding)? There are three main answers: subjectivism (value is entirely dependent on and relative to human experience of it: so most hedonists, naturalists, positivists); logical objectivism (values are logical essences or subsistences, independent of their being known, yet with no existential status or action in reality); metaphysical objectivism (values --or norms or ideals --are integral, objective, and active constituents of the metaphysically real: so theists, absolutists, and certain realists and naturalists like S. Alexander and Wieman). --E.S.B. Axiom: See Mathematics. Axiomatic method: That method of constructing a deductive system consisting of deducing by specified rules all statements of the system save a given few from those given few, which are regarded as axioms or postulates of the system. See Mathematics. --C.A.B. Ayam atma brahma: (Skr.) "This self is brahman", famous quotation from Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19, one of many alluding to the central theme of the Upanishads, i.e., the identity of the human and divine or cosmic. --K.F.L.
AUGOEIDES (Gr.) Pythagorean term of a certain category of devas who are
46- and 45-selves. They make up collective beings and have tasks closely connected with the evolution of our mankind. Among other tasks they administer the execution of the law of destiny in mankind and take care of men&
category ::: n. --> One of the highest classes to which the objects of knowledge or thought can be reduced, and by which they can be arranged in a system; an ultimate or undecomposable conception; a predicament.
Class; also, state, condition, or predicament; as, we are both in the same category.
category "theory" A category K is a collection of objects, obj(K), and a collection of {morphisms} (or "{arrows}"), mor(K) such that 1. Each morphism f has a "typing" on a pair of objects A, B written f:A-"B. This is read 'f is a morphism from A to B'. A is the "source" or "{domain}" of f and B is its "target" or "{co-domain}". 2. There is a {partial function} on morphisms called {composition} and denoted by an {infix} ring symbol, o. We may form the "composite" g o f : A -" C if we have g:B-"C and f:A-"B. 3. This composition is associative: h o (g o f) = (h o g) o f. 4. Each object A has an identity morphism id_A:A-"A associated with it. This is the identity under composition, shown by the equations id__B o f = f = f o id__A. In general, the morphisms between two objects need not form a {set} (to avoid problems with {Russell's paradox}). An example of a category is the collection of sets where the objects are sets and the morphisms are functions. Sometimes the composition ring is omitted. The use of capitals for objects and lower case letters for morphisms is widespread but not universal. Variables which refer to categories themselves are usually written in a script font. (1997-10-06)
category ::: (theory) A category K is a collection of objects, obj(K), and a collection of morphisms (or arrows), mor(K) such that1. Each morphism f has a typing on a pair of objects A, B written f:A->B. This is read 'f is a morphism from A to B'. A is the source or domain of f and B is its target or co-domain.2. There is a partial function on morphisms called composition and denoted by an infix ring symbol, o. We may form the composite g o f : A -> C if we have g:B->C and f:A->B.3. This composition is associative: h o (g o f) = (h o g) o f.4. Each object A has an identity morphism id_A:A->A associated with it. This is the identity under composition, shown by the equations id_B o f = f = f o id_A.In general, the morphisms between two objects need not form a set (to avoid problems with Russell's paradox). An example of a category is the collection of sets where the objects are sets and the morphisms are functions.Sometimes the composition ring is omitted. The use of capitals for objects and lower case letters for morphisms is widespread but not universal. Variables which refer to categories themselves are usually written in a script font. (1997-10-06)
Being: In early Greek philosophy is opposed either to change, or Becoming, or to Non-Being. According to Parmenides and his disciples of the Eleatic School, everything real belongs to the category of Being, as the only possible object of thought. Essentially the same reasoning applies also to material reality in which there is nothing but Being, one and continuous, all-inclusive and eternal. Consequently, he concluded, the coming into being and passing away constituting change are illusory, for that which is-not cannot be, and that which is cannot cease to be. In rejecting Eleitic monism, the materialists (Leukippus, Democritus) asserted that the very existence of things, their corporeal nature, insofar as it is subject to change and motion, necessarily presupposes the other than Being, that is, Non-Being, or Void. Thus, instead of regarding space as a continuum, they saw in it the very source of discontinuity and the foundation of the atomic structure of substance. Plato accepted the first part of Parmenides' argument. namely, that referring to thought as distinct from matter, and maintained that, though Becoming is indeed an apparent characteristic of everything sensory, the true and ultimate reality, that of Ideas, is changeless and of the nature of Being. Aristotle achieved a compromise among all these notions and contended that, though Being, as the essence of things, is eternal in itself, nevertheless it manifests itself only in change, insofar as "ideas" or "forms" have no existence independent of, or transcendent to, the reality of things and minds. The medieval thinkers never revived the controversy as a whole, though at times they emphasized Being, as in Neo-Platonism, at times Becoming, as in Aristotelianism. With the rise of new interest in nature, beginning with F. Bacon, Hobbes and Locke, the problem grew once more in importance, especially to the rationalists, opponents of empiricism. Spinoza regarded change as a characteristic of modal existence and assumed in this connection a position distantly similar to that of Pinto. Hegel formed a new answer to the problem in declaring that nature, striving to exclude contradictions, has to "negate" them: Being and Non-Being are "moments" of the same cosmic process which, at its foundation, arises out of Being containing Non-Being within itself and leading, factually and logically, to their synthetic union in Becoming. -- R.B.W.
beings ::: things or entities that exist, esp. things or entities that cannot be assigned to any category.
Besides the universal intelligible being of things, Aristotle was also primarily concerned with an investigation of the being of things from the standpoint of their generation and existence. But only individual things are generated and exist. Hence, for him, substance was primarily the individual: a "this" which, in contrast with the universal or secondary substance, is not communicable to many. The Aristotelian meaning of substance may be developed from four points of view: Grammar: The nature of substance as the ultimate subject of predication is expressed by common usage in its employment of the noun (or substantive) as the subject of a sentence to signify an individual thing which "is neither present in nor predicable of a subject." Thus substance is grammatically distinguished from its (adjectival) properties and modifications which "are present in and predicable of a subject." Secondary substance is expressed by the universal term, and by its definition which are "not present in a subject but predicable of it." See Categoriae,) ch. 5. Physics: Independence of being emerges as a fundamental characteristic of substance in the analysis of change. Thus we have: Substantial change: Socrates comes to be. (Change simply). Accidental change; in a certain respect only: Socrates comes to be 6 feet tall. (Quantitative). Socrates comes to be musical (Qualitative). Socrates comes to be in Corinth (Local). As substantial change is prior to the others and may occur independently of them, so the individual substance is prior in being to the accidents; i.e., the accidents cannot exist independently of their subject (Socrates), but can be only in him or in another primary substance, while the reverse is not necessarily the case. Logic: Out of this analysis of change there also emerges a division of being into the schema of categories, with the distinction between the category of substance and the several accidental categories, such as quantity, quality, place, relation, etc. In a corresponding manner, the category of substance is first; i.e., prior to the others in being, and independent of them. Metaphysics: The character of substance as that which is present in an individual as the cause of its being and unity is developed in Aristotle's metaphysical writings, see especiallv Bk. Z, ch. 17, 1041b. Primary substnnce is not the matter alone, nor the universal form common to many, but the individual unity of matter and form. For example, each thing is composed of parts or elements, as an organism is composed of cells, yet it is not merely its elements, but has a being and unity over and above the sum of its parts. This something more which causes the cells to be this organism rather than a malignant growth, is an example of what is meant by substance in its proper sense of first substance (substantia prima). Substance in its secondary sense (substantia secunda) is the universal form (idea or species) which is individuated in each thing.
bhangAnupassanANAna. In PAli, "knowledge arising from the contemplation of dissolution"; according to BUDDHAGHOSA's VISUDDHIMAGGA, the second of nine types of knowledge (P. NAnA) cultivated as part of the "purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path" (PAtIPADANAnADASSANAVISUDDHI). This latter category, in turn, constitutes the sixth and penultimate purity (VIsUDDHI) that is to be developed along the path to liberation. "Knowledge arising from the contemplation of dissolution" is developed by observing the dissolution of material and mental phenomena (NAMARuPA). Having keenly observed the arising, subsistence, and decay of phenomena, the meditator turns his attention solely to their dissolution or destruction (bhanga). He then observes, for example, that consciousness arises because of causes and conditions: namely, it takes as its objects the five aggregates (P. khandha, S. SKANDHA) of matter (RuPA), sensation (VEDANA), perception (P. saNNA, S. SAMJNA) conditioned formations (P. sankhAra, S. SAMSKARA) and consciousness (P. viNNAna, S. VIJNANA), after which it is inevitably dissolved. Seeing this, the meditator understands that all consciousness is characterized by the three marks of existence (tilakkhana; S. TRILAKsAnA); namely, impermanence (anicca; S. ANITYA), suffering (dukkha; S. DUḤKHA) and nonself (anattA; S. ANATMAN). By understanding these three marks, he feels aversion for consciousness and overcomes his attachment to it. Eight benefits accrue to one who develops knowledge arising from the contemplation of dissolution; (1) he overcomes the view of eternal existence, (2) he abandons attachment to life, (3) he develops right effort, (4) he engages in a pure livelihood, (5 & 6) he enjoys an absence of anxiety and of fear, (7) he becomes patient and gentle, and (8) he overcomes boredom and sensual delight.
bhayatupatthAnANAna. In PAli, "knowledge arising from the awareness of terror"; according to the VISUDDHIMAGGA, the third of nine knowledges (NAna; JNANA) cultivated as part of "purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path" (PAtIPADANAnADASSANAVISUDDHI). This latter category, in turn, constitutes the sixth and penultimate purity (VISUDDHI) to be developed along the path to liberation. Knowledge arising from the contemplation of terror is developed by noting how all conditioned formations (sankhAra; SAMSKARA) or mental and physical phenomena (NAMARuPA) of the past, present and future have either gone, are going, or are destined to go to destruction. A simile given in the Visuddhimagga is that of a woman whose three sons have offended the king. The woman, who has already witnessed the beheading of her eldest son, witnesses the beheading of her middle son. And having witnessed the beheadings of her two older sons, the woman is filled with terror at the knowledge that her youngest son will likewise be executed. In the same way, the practitioner observes how phenomena of the past have ceased, how phenomena of the present are ceasing, and how those of the future are likewise destined to cease. Seeing conditioned formations as destined to destruction in this way, that is, as impermanent (anicca; ANITYA), the practitioner is filled with terror. Similarly, the practitioner sees conditioned formations as suffering (dukkha; DUḤKHA), and as impersonal and nonself (anattA; ANATMAN) and is filled with terror. In this way, the practitioner comes to realize that all mental and physical phenomena, being characterized by the three universal marks of existence (tilakkhana; TRILAKsAnA), are frightful.
Bon. In Tibetan, "reciter"; originally a term for a category of priest in the royal cult of pre-Buddhist Tibet. Traditional Tibetan histories present these priests as opponents of the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet during the seventh and eighth centuries. In the eleventh century, Bon emerged as fully elaborated sect of Tibetan religion, with its own buddha, its own pantheon, and its own path to liberation from rebirth. Bon should not be regarded as the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, but rather as the leading non-Buddhist religion of Tibet, which has had a long history of mutual influence and interaction with the Buddhist sects.
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. A term coined by the Sanskritist FRANKLIN EDGERTON, who compiled the definitive grammar and dictionary of the language, to refer to the peculiar Buddhist argot of Sanskrit that is used both in many Indic MAHAYANA scriptures, as well as in the MAHAVASTU, a biography of the Buddha composed within the LOKOTTARAVADA subgroup of the MAHASAMGHIKA school. Edgerton portrays Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit texts as the products of a gradual Sanskritization of texts that had originally been composed in various Middle Indic dialects (PRAKRIT). Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS) texts were not wholesale renderings of vernacular materials intended to better display Sanskrit vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, but rather were ongoing, and often incomplete, reworkings of Buddhist materials, which reflected the continued prestige of Sanskrit within the Indic scholarly community. This argot of Sanskrit is sometimes called the "GATHA dialect," because its peculiarities are especially noticeable in MahAyAna verse forms. Edgerton describes three layers of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit based on the extent of their hybridization (and only loosely chronological). The first, and certainly earliest, class consists solely of the MahAvastu, the earliest extant BHS text, in which both the prose and verse portions of the scripture contain many hybridized forms. In the second class, verses remain hybridized, but the prose sections are predominantly standard Sanskrit and are recognizable as BHS only in their vocabulary. This second class includes many of the most important MahAyAna scriptures, including the GAndAVYuHA, LALITAVISTARA, SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA, and SUKHAVATĪVYuHASuTRA. In the third class, both the verse and prose sections are predominantly standard Sanskrit, and only in their vocabulary would they be recognized as BHS. Texts in this category include the AstASAHASRIKAPRAJNAPARAMITA, BODHISATTVABHuMI, LAnKAVATARASuTRA, MuLASARVASTIVADA VINAYA, and VAJRACCHEDIKAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA.
Bu ston chos 'byung. (Buton Chojung). A history of Buddhism in India and Tibet composed in 1322 by the Tibetan polymath BU STON RIN CHEN GRUB. The full name of the work is Bde bar gshegs pa'i bstan pa'i gsal byed chos kyi 'byung gnas gsung rab rin po che'i mdzod; it is available in English in the 1931-1932 translation of major parts by EUGÈNE OBERMILLER, done in collaboration with Mongolian monks educated in Tibetan monasteries. The text is in two parts: a history and an important general catalogue of Tibetan Buddhist canonical literature, one of the first of its kind. The first chapter of the Chos 'byung draws on the VYAKHYAYUKTI and is a general discussion of the exposition and study of Buddhist doctrine. The second chapter is a traditional history dealing with the spread of the doctrine in the human world, the three turnings of the wheel of DHARMA (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA), the councils (SAMGĪTI), the collection of the Buddhist doctrine into authoritative scriptures, the date of the Buddha, the followers who came after him, and the decline of the doctrine in India. The history of Buddhism in Tibet is divided into a section on the earlier (SNGA DAR) and later spread (PHYI DAR) of the doctrine. The third section is the general catalogue of Buddhist canonical literature in Tibetan translation. It is divided into SuTRAs and TANTRAs, then again into the words of the Buddha (bka') and authoritative treatises (bstan bcos). The words of the Buddha are subdivided based on the three turnings of the wheel of the dharma with a separate section on MAHAYANA sutras; treatises are divided into treatises explaining specific works of the Buddha (again subdivided based on the three turnings of the wheel of the dharma), general expositions, and miscellaneous treatises. Bu ston similarly divides the tantras into words of the Buddha and authoritative treatises and deals with both under the division into four "sets" (sde) of KRIYA, CARYA, and YOGA, and MAHAYOGA tantras. This latter division is again subdivided into method (UPAYA), wisdom (PRAJNA), and both (ubhaya) tantras. In MKHAS GRUB DGE LEGS DPAL BZANG's explanation (Rgyud sde spyi'i rnam bzhag), a work based on Bu ston's model, but incorporating the influential scheme of TSONG KHA PA, the divisions of mahAyoga are subsumed under the general category of ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA (highest yoga tantra). The tantric commentaries are organized following the same schema.
caitta. [alt. caitasika] (P. cetasika; T. sems byung; C. xinsuo; J. shinjo; K. simso 心所). In Sanskrit, "mental concomitants" or "mental factors." In the ABHIDHARMA, the term encompasses those mental factors that accompany, in various combinations, the mind (CITTA) and its six sensory consciousnesses (VIJNANA), viz., visual (lit. eye), auditory (ear), olfactory (nose), gustatory (tongue), tactile (body), and mental. The VAIBHAsIKA school of SARVASTIVADA abhidharma lists forty-six caittas, the PAli ABHIDHAMMA lists fifty-two (called CETASIKA), while the mature YOGACARA system of MAHAYANA abhidharma gives a total of fifty-one specific mental concomitants, listed in six categories. The first, mental concomitants of universal application (SARVATRAGA), includes the five factors of sensory contact (SPARsA), sensations (VEDANA), intention or volition (CETANA), perception (SAMJNA), and attention (MANASKARA). The second category, five concomitants that are of specific application (VINIYATA) in spiritual progress, includes mindfulness (SMṚTI), concentration (SAMADHI), and wisdom (PRAJNA). The third category, salutary (KUsALA) factors, includes nine positive mental states such as faith (sRADDHA), lack of greed (ALOBHA), lack of hatred (ADVEsA), and vigor (VĪRYA). The fourth category, the primary afflictions (KLEsA), includes six negative mental states such as sensuality (RAGA), aversion (PRATIGHA), pride (MANA), and doubt (VICIKITSA). The fifth category, secondary afflictions (UPAKLEsA), includes twenty lesser forms of negative mental states, such as envy (ĪRsYA), harmfulness (VIHIMSA), and carelessness (PRAMADA). The sixth and final category, mental concomitants of indeterminate (ANIYATA) quality, includes the four factors of remorse (KAUKṚTYA), torpor (MIDDHA), thought (VITARKA), and analysis (VICARA). See also CETASIKA.
CakrasaMvaratantra. (T. 'Khor lo bde mchog gi rgyud). In Sanskrit, the "Binding of the Wheel Tantra" an important Buddhist tantra, often known simply as the CakrasaMvara (T. 'Khor lo bde mchog). The text is extant in Sanskrit and in a Tibetan translation in seven hundred stanzas, which is subdivided into fifty-one sections; it is also known by the name srīherukAbhidhAna (a name appearing at the end of each section), and commonly known in Tibet as the CakrasaMvara Laghutantra ("short tantra" or "light tantra") or Mulatantra ("root tantra") because, according to legend, there was once a longer text of one hundred thousand stanzas. The main deity of the tantra is HERUKA (also known as CakrasaMvara) and his consort is VAJRAVARAHĪ. Historically, the tantra originated as part of a literature that focused on a class of female divinities called YOGINĪ or dAKINĪ. It and its sister tantra, the HEVAJRATANTRA, probably appeared toward the end of the eighth century, and both show the influence of the Sarvabuddhasamayoga-dAkinījAlasaMvaratantra (referred to by Amoghavajra after his return from India to China in 746 CE). All are classed as yoginītantras. The use of skulls, the presence of the KHATVAnGA staff, and the references to sites holy to saivite KApAlikas (those who use skulls) point to a very close relationship between the saiva KApAlika literature and the early yoginītantras, such that some scholars have suggested an actual appropriation of the saiva literature by Buddhists outside mainstream Buddhist practice. Other scholars suggest this class of tantric literature originates from a SIDDHA tradition, i.e., from individual charismatic yogins and yoginīs with magical powers unaffiliated with particular religions or sects. Among the four classes of tantras-KRIYATANTRA, CARYATANTRA, YOGATANTRA, and ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA-the CakrasaMvaratantra is included in the last category; between the father tantras (PITṚTANTRA) and mother tantra (MATṚTANTRA) categories of anuttarayogatantras, it is classified in the latter category. The siddhas Luipa and SARAHA are prominent in accounts of its origin and transmission, and the siddha NAROPA is of particular importance in the text's transmission in India and from there to Tibet. Like many root tantras, the text contains very little that might be termed doctrine or theology, focusing instead on ritual matters, especially the use of MANTRA for the achievement of various powers (SIDDHI), especially the mundane (LAUKIKA) powers, such as the ability to fly, become invisible, etc. The instructions are generally not presented in a systematic way, although it is unclear whether this is the result of the development of the text over time or the intention of the authors to keep practices secret from the uninitiated. Later commentators found references in the text to elements of both the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA) and stage of completion (NIsPANNAKRAMA). The DAkArnavatantra is included within the larger category of tantras related to the CakrasaMvara cycle, as is the Abhidhanottara and the SaMvarodayatantra. The tantra describes, in greater and less detail, a MAndALA with goddesses in sacred places in India (see PĪtHA) and the process of ABHIsEKA. The practice of the MAYADEHA (T. sgyu lus, "illusory body") and CAndALĪ (T. gtum mo, often translated as "psychic heat") are closely associated with this tantra. It was translated twice into Tibetan and is important in all three new-translation (GSAR MA) Tibetan sects, i.e., the SA SKYA, BKA' BRGYUD, and DGE LUGS. Iconographically, the CakrasaMvara mandala, starting from the outside, has first eight cremation grounds (sMAsANA), then a ring of fire, then VAJRAs, then lotus petals. Inside that is the palace with five concentric placement rings going in toward the center. In the center is the main deity Heruka with his consort VajravArAhī trampling on BHAIRAVA and his consort KAlarAtri (deities associated with saivism). There are a number of different representations. One has Heruka (or CakrasaMvara) dark blue in color with four faces and twelve arms, and VArAhī with a single face and two hands, red and naked except for bone ornaments. In the next circles are twenty-four vīras (heroes) with their consorts (related with the twenty-four pītha), with the remaining deities in the mandala placed in different directions in the outer circles.
cakravartin. (P. cakkavattin; T. 'khor lo sgyur ba'i rgyal po; C. zhuanlun wang; J. tenrin'o; K. chollyun wang 轉輪王). In Sanskrit, lit. "wheel-turning emperor" or "universal monarch"; a monarch who rules over the entire universe (CAKRAVAdA), commonly considered in Buddhism to be an ideal monarch who rules his subjects in accordance with the DHARMA. Just as with a buddha, only one cakravartin king can appear in a world system at any one time. Also like a buddha, a cakravartin is endowed with all the thirty-two major marks of a great man (MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA). Hence, when the future buddha GAUTAMA was born with these marks, seers predicted that he had two possible destinies: to become a cakravartin if he remained in the world, or a buddha if he renounced it. A cakravartin's power derives from a wheel or disc of divine attributes (CAKRA) that rolls across different realms of the earth, bringing them under his dominion. The ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA lists four classes of cakravartin, depending on the basic element from which his disc is forged: (1) a suvarnacakravartin (referred to in some texts as a caturdvīpakacakravartin, or "cakravartin of four continents"), whose wheel is gold, who reigns over all the four continents of a world system (see CAKRAVAdA), and who conquers the world through the spontaneous surrender of all rival kings whose lands his wheel enters; (2) a rupyacakravartin, whose wheel is silver, who reigns over three continents (all except UTTARAKURU), and who conquers territory by merely threatening to move against his rivals; (3) a tAmracakravartin, whose wheel is copper, who reigns over two continents (JAMBUDVĪPA and VIDEHA), and who conquers territory after initiating battle with his rivals; (4) an ayascakravartin, whose wheel is iron, who reigns over one continent (Jambudvīpa only), and who conquers territory only after extended warfare with his rivals. Some texts refer to a balacakravartin or "armed cakravartin," who corresponds to the fourth category. The cakravartins discussed in the sutras typically refers to a suvarnacakravartin, who conquers the world through the sheer power of his righteousness and charisma. He possesses the ten royal qualities (rAjadharma) of charity, good conduct, nonattachment, straightforwardness, gentleness, austerity, nonanger, noninjury, patience, and tolerance. A cakravartin is also said to possess seven precious things (RATNA): a wheel (cakra), an elephant (HASTINAGA), a horse (asva), a wish-granting gem (MAnI), a woman (strī), a financial steward or treasurer (GṚHAPATI), and a counselor (parinAyaka). Various kings over the course of Asian history have been declared, or have declared themselves to be, cakravartins. The most famous is the Mauryan emperor AsOKA, whose extensive territorial conquests, coupled with his presumed support for the dharma and the SAMGHA, rendered him the ideal paradigm of Buddhist kingship.
cardinality ::: (mathematics) The number of elements in a set. If two sets have the same number of elements (i.e. there is a bijection between them) then they have the same cardinality. A cardinality is thus an isomorphism class in the category of sets.aleph 0 is defined as the cardinality of the first infinite ordinal, omega (the number of natural numbers). (1995-03-29)
cardinality "mathematics" The number of elements in a set. If two sets have the same number of elements (i.e. there is a {bijection} between them) then they have the same cardinality. A cardinality is thus an {isomorphism class} in the {category} of sets. {aleph 0} is defined as the cardinality of the first {infinite} {ordinal}, {omega} (the number of {natural numbers}). (1995-03-29)
Cat 3 {Category 3}
Cat 5 {Category 5}
categorical ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a category.
Not hypothetical or relative; admitting no conditions or exceptions; declarative; absolute; positive; express; as, a categorical proposition, or answer.
categories ::: pl. --> of Category
categorisation: a short cut used when processing information. A category is a set of items perceived to have at least one feature in common. In interpersonal perception, categories such as young-old and male-female are used.
categorist ::: n. --> One who inserts in a category or list; one who classifies.
categorize ::: v. t. --> To insert in a category or list; to class; to catalogue.
Category 3 "hardware" (Cat 3, or "voice grade") An American Standards Institute standard for {UTP} cables. Used, e.g., for {100BaseVG} network cabling. (1998-06-30)
Category 3 ::: (hardware) (Cat 3, or voice grade) An American Standards Institute standard for UTP cables. Used, e.g., for 100BaseVG network cabling. (1998-06-30)
Category 5 "hardware" (Cat 5) An American Standards Institute standard for {UTP} cables. Used, e.g., for {100BaseTX} cabling. (1998-06-30)
Category 5 ::: (hardware) (Cat 5) An American Standards Institute standard for UTP cables. Used, e.g., for 100BaseTX cabling. (1998-06-30)
Category: (Gr. kategoria) In Aristotle's logic (1) the predicate of a proposition; (2) one of the ultimate modes of being that may be asserted in predication, viz.: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, passion. -- G.R.M.
Category of Unity: Kant: The first of three a priori, quantitative (so-called "mathematical") categories (the others being "plurality" and "totality") from which is derived the synthetic principle, "All intuitions (appearances) are extensive magnitudes." By means of this principle Kant seeks to define the object of experience a priori with reference to its spatial features. See Crit. of pure Reason, B106, B202ff. -- O.F.K Catharsis: (Gr. katharsis) Purification; purgation; specifically the purging of the emotions of pity and fear effected by tragedy (Aristotle). -- G.R.M.
Causa sui: Cause of itself; necessary existence. Causa sui conveys both a negative and a positive meaning. Negatively, it signifies that which is from itself (a se), that which does not owe its being to something else; i.e., absolute independence of being, causelessness (God as uncaused). Positively, causa sui means that whose very nature or essence involves existence; i.e., God is the ground of his own being, and regarded as "cause" of his own being, he is, as it were, efficient cause of his own existence (Descartes). Since existence necessarily follows from the very essence of that which is cause of itself, causa sui is defined as that whose nature cannot be conceived as not existing (Spinoza). -- A.G.A.B. Causality: (Lat. causa) The relationship between a cause and its effect. This relationship has been defined as a relation between events, processes, or entities in the same time series, such that when one occurs, the other necessarily follows (sufficient condition), when the latter occurs, the former must have preceded (necessary condition), both conditions a and b prevail (necessary and sufficient condition), when one occurs under certain conditions, the other necessarily follows (contributory, but not sufficient, condition) ("multiple causality" would be a case involving several causes which are severally contributory and jointly sufficient); the necessity in these cases is neither that of logical implication nor that of coercion; a relation between events, processes, or entities in the same time series such that when one occurs the other invariably follows (invariable antecedence), a relation between events, processes, or entities such that one has the efficacy to produce or alter the other; a relation between events, processes, or entities such that without one the other could not occur, as in the relation between the material out of which a product is made and the finished product (material cause), structure or form and the individual embodying it (formal cause), a goal or purpose (whether supposed to exist in the future as a special kind of entity, outside a time series, or merely as an idea of the pur-poser) and the work fulfilling it (final cause), a moving force and the process or result of its action (efficient cause); a relation between experienced events, processes, or entities and extra-experiential but either temporal or non-temporal events, processes, or entities upon whose existence the former depend; a relation between a thing and itself when it is dependent upon nothing else for its existence (self-causality); a relation between an event, process, or entity and the reason or explanation for its being; a relation between an idea and an experience whose expectation the idea arouses because of customary association of the two in this sequence; a principle or category introducing into experience one of the aforesaid types of order; this principle may be inherent in the mind, invented by the mind, or derived from experience; it may be an explanatory hypothesis, a postulate, a convenient fiction, or a necessary form of thought. Causality has been conceived to prevail between processes, parts of a continuous process, changing parts of an unchanging whole, objects, events, ideas, or something of one of these types and something of another. When an entity, event, or process is said to follow from another, it may be meant that it must succeed but can be neither contemporaneous with nor prior to the other, that it must either succeed or be contemporaneous with and dependent upon but cannot precede the other, or that one is dependent upon the other but they either are not in the same time series or one is in no time series at all.
Cedar Throughout Asia Minor initiates were called the trees of righteousness, hence the mystical meaning of “the cedars of Lebanon,” in which category belong also some kings of Israel; and the same term was applied in India, but mostly to adepts of the left-hand path (SD 2:494-5).
CHARITY ::: (language) A functional language based purely on category theory by Cockett, Spencer, and Fukushima, 1990-1991.A version for Sun-4 is available from Tom Fukushima .[About Charity, J.R.B. Cockett, U. Calgary, Canada, et al].(2000-10-30)
CHARITY "language" A {functional language} based purely on {category theory} by Cockett, Spencer, and Fukushima, 1990-1991. A version for {Sun-4} is available from Tom Fukushima "fukushim@ucalgary.ca". ["About Charity", J.R.B. Cockett, U. Calgary, Canada, et al]. (2000-10-30)
cittasaMprayuktasaMskAra. (T. sems dang mtshungs ldan gyi 'du byed; C. xin xiangying fa; J. shinsoobo; K. sim sangŭng pop 心相應法). In Sanskrit, "conditioned forces associated with thought"; an ABHIDHARMA term synonymous with the mental concomitants (CAITTA), the dharmas that in various combinations accompany mind or thought (CITTA). The ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA, for example, explains that mind and its concomitants always appear in conjunction with one another and cannot be independently generated. These factors are "associated" because of five equalities that they share with mind, i.e., equality as to (1) support (AsRAYA), in this context, meaning the six sensory bases; (2) object (ALAMBANA), viz., the six sensory objects; (3) aspect (AKARA), the aspects of sensory cognition; (4) time (kAla), because they occur simultaneously; and (5) the number of their substance (DRAVYA), because mind and its concomitants are in a one-to-one association. The different schools of ABHIDHARMA enumerate various lists of such forces. The VAIBHAsIKA school of SARVASTIVADA abhidharma lists forty-six cittasamprayuktasaMskAras, while the mature YOGACARA system of MAHAYANA scholasticism gives a total of fifty-one, listed in six categories. The VaibhAsika and YogAcAra schools also posited a contrasting category of "conditioned forces dissociated from thought" (CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKARA), which served to account for specific types of complex moral and mental processes (such as where both physicality and mentality were temporarily suspended in higher meditative absorptions), and anomalous doctrinal problems. (The PAli equivalent cittasaMpayuttasankhAra is attested, but only rarely, in PAli commentarial literature; it does not appear in canonical ABHIDHAMMA texts. This doctrinal category therefore has no significance in the THERAVADA abhidhamma.) For more detailed discussion, see CAITTA; and for the complete lists, see SEVENTY-FIVE DHARMAS OF THE SARVASTIVADA SCHOOL and ONE-HUNDRED DHARMAS OF THE YOGACARA SCHOOL in the List of Lists.
cittaviprayuktasaMskAra. (T. sems dang ldan pa ma yin pa'i 'du byed; C. xin buxiangying fa; J. shinfusoobo; K. sim pulsangŭng pop 心不相應法). In Sanskrit, "conditioned forces dissociated from thought"; forces that are associated with neither materiality (RuPA) nor mentality (CITTA) and thus are listed in a separate category of factors (DHARMA) in ABHIDHARMA materials associated with the SARVASTIVADA school and in the hundred-dharmas (BAIFA) list of the YOGACARA school. These conditioned forces were posited to account for complex moral and mental processes (such as the states of mind associated with the higher spheres of meditation, where both physicality and mentality were temporarily suspended), and anomalous doctrinal problems (such as how speech was able to convey meaning or how group identity was established). A standard listing found in the DHARMASKANDHA and PRAKARAnAPADA, two texts of the SarvAstivAda abhidharma canon, includes sixteen dissociated forces: (1) possession (PRAPTI); (2) equipoise of nonperception (ASAMJNASAMAPATTI); (3) equipoise of cessation (NIRODHASAMAPATTI); (4) nonperception (AsaMjNika); (5) vitality (JĪVITA); (6) homogeneity (sabhAgatA); (7) acquisition the corporeal basis (*AsrayapratilAbha); (8) acquisition of the given entity (*vastuprApti); (9) acquisition of the sense spheres (*AyatanaprApti); the four conditioned characteristics (SAMSKṚTALAKsAnA), viz., (10) origination, or birth (JATI); (11) continuance, or maturation (STHITI); (12) senescence, or decay (JARA); and (13) desinence, or death (anityatA); (14) name set (nAmakAya); (15) phrase set (padakAya); 16) syllable set (vyaNjanakAya). The later treatise ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA includes only fourteen, dropping numbers 7, 8, 9 and adding nonpossession (APRAPTI). These listings, however, constituted only the most generic and comprehensive types employed by the VAIBHAsIKA school of SarvAstivAda abhidharma; the cittaviprayuktasaMskAras thus constituted an open category, and new forces could be posited as the need arose in order to resolve thorny doctrinal issues. The four conditioned characteristics (saMskṛtalaksana) are a good example of why the cittaviprayuktasaMskAra category was so useful in abhidharma-type analysis. In the SarvAstivAda treatment of causality, these four characteristics were forcesthat exerted real power over compounded objects, escorting an object along from origination, to continuance, to senescence or decay, until the force "desinence," or death finally extinguishes it; this rather tortured explanation was necessary in order to explain how factors that the school presumed continued to exist in all three time periods (TRIKALA) of past, present, and future nevertheless still appeared to undergo change. The YOGACARA school subsequently includes twenty-four cittaviprayuktasaMskAras in its list of one hundred dharmas (see BAIFA), including such elements as the state of an ordinary being (pṛthagjanatva), time (KALA), place (desa), and number (saMkhyA).
class ::: A taxonomic category subordinate to phylum; comprises animal orders.
Concrete Universal: In Hegel's system a category is concrete when it possesses the basic character of the real, i.e. tension, change dialectical opposition. Such a universal comprises a synthesis of two opposite abstractions; and with one exception, it in turn becomes an abstract member of a piir of logical opposites united or "sublated" in a higher category. The lowest of such dynamic or concrete universals is Becoming, which is a dialectical synthesis of Being and Not-Being. The only absolutely concrete universal, however, is Reality itself, the World Whole, conceived as an all-inclusive, organic svstem of self-thinking Thought.
Confirmation ::: refers to the use of an additional indicator or indicators to substantiate a trend suggested by one indicator. Since technical indicators are not perfect predictors of future price movements, a trader often feels more secure deciding to act on a signal if more than one indicator is sending the same signal. If different indicators send conflicting signals, this is known as divergence. Confirmation can also refer to a broker's written acknowledgment that they have completed a trade. These can be in electronic or paper form, and record information such as the date, price, commission, fees and settlement terms of the trade. Brokers typically send a confirmation within one week of the trade's completion. Technical indicators fall into four broad categories: trend, momentum, volatility and volume. When seeking confirmation for a trade signal provided by one indicator, it is usually best to look to an indicator from a different category. Otherwise, the same or similar inputs are counted multiple times, giving the illusion of confirmation when in fact little new information has been taken into account. Trend indicators include moving averages, moving average convergence divergence (MACD) and the parabolic SAR. Momentum indicators include the stochastic oscillator, the commodity channel index (CCI) and the relative strength index (RSI). Volatility indicators include Bollinger Bands, standard deviation and average true range (ATR). Volume indicators include the Chaikin Oscillator (also used to measure momentum), on-balance volume (OBV) and the volume rate of change. (To learn more, see: How do Traders Identify Confirmation of Prices on a Chart?) Confirmation Example Suppose a trader notices a golden cross, which occurs when the 50-day moving average, crosses above the 200-day moving average. This is a signal to buy the stock, based on a trend indicator (the moving averages). Because this signal alone does not guarantee higher prices, the trader might seek confirmation from a different type of indicator. In this case, a high trading volume would reinforce the buy signal, while lower volumes might make the trader reconsider taking a position in the stock. The OBV indicator would, therefore, be a logical choice to confirm the trade: a rising OBV would confirm the golden cross' bullish signal, while a flat or falling OBV would suggest that the price is nearing a top.
context-free grammar "grammar" (CFG) A {grammar} where the {syntax} of each constituent ({syntactic category} or {terminal symbol}) is independent of the symbols occuring before and after it in a sentence. A context-free grammar describes a context-free language. Context-free grammars can be expressed by a set of "production rules" or syntactic rules. For example, a language with symbols "a" and "b" that must occur in unequal numbers can be represented by the CFG: S → U | V U → TaU | TaT | UaT V → TbV | TbT | VbT T → aTbT | bTaT | ε meaning the top-level category "S" consists of either a "U" or a "V" and so on. The special category "ε" represents the empty string. This grammar is context-free because each rule has a single symbol on its left-hand side. {Parsers} for context-free grammars are simpler than those for context-dependent grammars because the parser need only know the current symbol. {Algol} was (one of?) the first languages whose syntax was described by a context-free grammar. This became a common practice for programming languages and led to the notation for grammars called {Backus-Naur Form}. (2014-11-24)
Behemot (Behemoth) :::Behemot is the name of an archetypal beast destined to wage battle against the Leviathan, only to be consumed by the righteous at the end of days; an animal of &
denomination ::: n. --> The act of naming or designating.
That by which anything is denominated or styled; an epithet; a name, designation, or title; especially, a general name indicating a class of like individuals; a category; as, the denomination of units, or of thousands, or of fourths, or of shillings, or of tons.
A class, or society of individuals, called by the same name; a sect; as, a denomination of Christians.
Dhammasangani. [alt. Dhammasanganī]. In Pāli, lit. "Enumeration (sanganī) of Factors (dhamma)"; the first of the seven books of the THERAVĀDA ABHIDHAMMAPItAKA. The text undertakes a systematic analysis of all the elements of reality, or factors (dhamma; S. DHARMA), discussed in the suttapitaka, organizing them into definitive rosters. The elaborate analysis of each and every element of existence provided by the Dhammasangani is considered to be foundational to the full account of the conditional relations pertaining between all those dharmas found in the PAttHĀNA, the last book of the Pāli abhidhamma. ¶ The Dhammasangani consists of an initial "matrix" (mātikā; S. MĀTṚKĀ), followed by four main divisions: (1) mind (CITTA) and mental concomitants (CETASIKA), (2) materiality (RuPA), (3) analytical summaries (nikkhepa; S. NIKsEPA), and (4) exegesis (AttHAKATHĀ). In the opening matrix, the complete list of subjects to be treated in both the Dhammasangani, as well as the entire abhidhammapitaka, is divided into three groups. (1) The triad matrix (tikamātikā) consists of twenty-two categories of factors (dhamma; S. DHARMA), each of which is treated as triads. For example, in the case of the matrix on wholesomeness (kusala; S. KUsALA), the relevant factors are divided into wholesome factors (kusaladhamma; S. kusaladharma), unwholesome factors (akusaladhamma; S. akusaladharma), and neither wholesome nor unwholesome factors (avyākatadhamma; S. AVYĀKṚTA-DHARMA). (2) The dyad matrix (dukamātikā) consists of one hundred categories of factors, treated as dyads. For example, in the matrix on cause (HETU), factors are divided between factors that are root causes (hetudhamma) and factors that are not root causes (na hetudhamma). (3) The dyad matrix from the sutras (suttantikadukamātikā) consists of forty-six categories of factors found in the suttapitaka that are treated as dyads. According to the AttHASĀLINĪ, the commentary to the Dhammasangani, this section was added by Sāriputta (S. sĀRIPUTRA), one of the two main disciples of the Buddha, to facilitate understanding of the suttapitaka. Of the four main divisions of the Dhammasangani that follow this initial matrix, the first two, the division on mind and mental concomitants (cittuppādakanda) and the division on materiality (rupakanda), expound upon the first category in the triad matrix, the matrix on wholesomeness, so as to provide a basis for the analysis of other categories of dharmas. The division on mind and mental concomitants contains the analysis of wholesome factors, unwholesome factors, and the first two of the four categories of factors that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome (avyākata; S. AVYĀKṚTA), namely, resultant (VIPĀKA) and noncausative action (kiriya); the division on materiality (rupakanda) treats the remaining two categories of abyākatadhammas, namely, materiality (rupa) and nibbāna (S. NIRVĀnA), although nibbāna does not receive a detailed explanation. In the first division on wholesomeness in the triad category, each aspect is analyzed in relation to the various realms of existence: wholesome states of mind and mental concomitants: (1) pertaining to the sensuous realm (KĀMĀVACARA) (P. kāmāvacara-atthamahācitta), (2) pertaining to the realm of subtle materiality (rupāvacara) (P. rupāvacarakusala), (3) pertaining to the immaterial realm (arupāvacara) (P. arupāvacarakusala), (4) leading to different levels of existence within the three realms, and (5) leading to liberation from the three realms (lokuttaracitta). The third division, the division on analytical summaries (nikkhepakanda), provides a synopsis of the classifications found in all the triads and dyads, organized in eight categories: roots (mula), aggregates (khandha; S. SKANDHA), doors (dvāra), field of occurrence (BHuMI), meaning (attha; S. ARTHA), doctrinal interpretation (dhamma), nomenclature (nāma), and grammatical gender (linga). The final division on exegesis (atthakathākanda) offers additional detailed enumeration of other triads and dyads.
dharmabhānaka. (P. dhammabhānaka; T. chos smra ba; C. shuofashi; J. sepposhi; K. solbopsa 法師). In Sanskrit, "reciter of the dharma"; a term used to describe a monastic vocation. Before the Buddhist canon was committed to writing, perhaps four hundred years after the Buddha's death, the canon was transmitted orally within monastic families of reciters. In the Pāli tradition, "reciters" were typically assigned to memorize one specific subcategory of the canon, i.e., Mahjjhimabhānaka ("reciters of the MAJJHIMANIKĀYA"), Jātakabhānaka ("reciters of the JĀTAKA"), etc. The term also occurs in the MAHĀYĀNA sutras to describe a teacher of the Mahāyāna; indeed, such teachers may have played an important role in the dissemination of the Mahāyāna sutras.
dharmadhātu. (P. dhammadhātu; T. chos kyi dbyings; C. fajie; J. hokkai; K. popkye 法界). In Sanskrit, "dharma realm," viz., "realm of reality," or "dharma element"; a term that has two primary denotations. In the ABHIDHARMA tradition, dharmadhātu means an "element of the dharma" or the "reality of dharma." As one of the twelve ĀYATANA and eighteen DHĀTU, the dharmadhātu encompasses every thing that is or could potentially be an object of cognition and refers to the "substance" or "quality" of a dharma that is perceived by the mind. Dhātu in this context is sometimes read as "the boundary" or "delineation" that separates one distinct dharma from the other. The ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA lists the sensation aggregate (VEDANĀ-SKANDHA), the perception aggregate (SAMJNĀ-skandha), the conditioning forces aggregate (SAMSKĀRA-skandha), unmanifest materiality (AVIJNAPTIRuPA), and unconditioned dharmas (viz., NIRVĀnA) to be the constituents of this category. ¶ In the MAHĀYĀNA, dharmadhātu is used primarily to mean "sphere of dharma," which denotes the infinite domain in which the activity of all dharmas takes place-i.e., the universe. It also serves as one of several terms for ultimate reality, such as TATHATĀ. In works such as the DHARMADHĀTUSTAVA, the purpose of Buddhist practice is to recognize and partake in this realm of reality. ¶ In East Asian Mahāyāna, there is a list of "ten dharmadhātus," which are the six traditional levels of nonenlightened existence-hell denizens (NĀRAKA), hungry ghosts (PRETA), animals (TIRYAK), demigods (ASURA), humans (MANUsYA), and divinities (DEVA)-together with the four categories of enlightened beings, viz., sRĀVAKAs, PRATYEKABUDDHAs, BODHISATTVAs, and buddhas. ¶ The Chinese HUAYAN school recognizes a set of four dharmadhātus (SI FAJIE), that is, four successively more profound levels of reality: (1) the dharmadhātu of phenomena (SHI FAJIE); (2) the dharmadhātu of principle (LI FAJIE); (3) the dharmadhātu of the unimpeded interpenetration between phenomena and principle (LISHI WU'AI FAJIE); and (4) the dharmadhātu of unimpeded interpenetration of phenomenon and phenomena (SHISHI WU'AI FAJIE). ¶ In YOGATANTRA, the dharmadhātu consists of the realms of vajradhātu (see KONGoKAI) and garbhadhātu (see TAIZoKAI), categories that simultaneously denote the bivalence in cosmological structure, in modes of spiritual practice, and in the powers and qualities of enlightened beings. Dharmadhātu is believed to be the full revelation of the body of the cosmic buddha VAIROCANA.
Dharmapāla, Anagārika. (1864-1933). An important figure in the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and the dissemination of Buddhism in the West. Born Don David Hēvāvirtarne in Sri Lanka, at that time the British colony of Ceylon, he was raised in the English-speaking middle class of Colombo and educated in Christian schools run by Anglican missionaries, where he is said to have memorized large portions of the Bible. His family was Buddhist, however, and in 1880, at the age of sixteen, he met HENRY STEEL OLCOTT and MADAME BLAVATSKY, founders of the Theosophical Society, during their visit to Sri Lanka in support of Buddhism. In 1881, he took the Buddhist name Dharmapāla, "Protector of the Dharma," and in 1884 was initiated into the Theosophical Society by Colonel Olcott, later accompanying Madame Blavatsky to the headquarters of the Society in Adyar, India. Under the initial patronage of Theosophists, he studied Pāli, choosing to adopt the lifestyle of a celibate lay religious. Prior to that time in Sri Lanka, the leadership in Buddhism had been provided exclusively by monks and kings. Dharmapāla established a new role for Buddhist laypeople, creating the category of the anagārika (meaning "homeless wanderer"), a layperson who studied texts and meditated, as did monks, but who remained socially active in the world, as did laypeople. Free from the restrictions incumbent on the Sinhalese monkhood, yet distinct from ordinary laity, he regarded this new lifestyle of the anagārika as the most suitable status for him to work for the restoration and propagation of Buddhism. A social reformer, rationalist, and religious nationalist, he promoted rural education and a reformist style of Buddhism, stripped of what he considered extraneous superstitions, as a means of uplifting Sinhalese society and gaining independence for his country as a Buddhist nation. While he was in India in 1891, he was shocked to see the state of decay of the great pilgrimage sites of India, all then under Hindu control, and most especially of BODHGAYĀ, the site of the Buddha's enlightenment. In that same year, he joined a group of leading Sri Lankan Buddhists to found the MAHĀBODHI SOCIETY, which called on Buddhists from around the world to work for the return of important Indian Buddhist sites to Buddhist control, and one of whose aims was the restoration of the MAHĀBODHITEMPLE at Bodhgayā. This goal only came to fruition in 1949, well after his death, when the newly independent Indian government granted Buddhists a role in administering the site. His influential Buddhist journal, The Mahā-Bodhi, also established in 1891, continues to be published today. A gifted orator, in 1893 Anagārika Dharmapāla addressed the World's Parliament of Religions, held in conjunction with the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, drawing much acclaim. Although he was one of several Buddhist speakers, his excellent English and Anglican education made him an effective spokesperson for the dharma, demonstrating both its affinities with, and superiority to, Christianity. In 1925, he founded the British Mahā Bodhi Society in London and a year later established the first THERAVĀDA monastery in the West, the London Buddhist Vihāra. In 1931, he was ordained as a monk (bhikkhu; BHIKsU), taking the name Devamitta. He died in 1933 at SĀRNĀTH, site of the Buddha's first sermon.
dharmavinaya. (P. dhammavinaya; T. chos 'dul ba; C. falü; J. horitsu; K. pomnyul 法律). In Sanskrit, the "teaching" (DHARMA) and "discipline" (VINAYA) expounded by the Buddha and recommended to his followers as the highest refuge and spiritual guide after his demise. The compound dharmavinaya, with dharma referring to the Buddha's discourses (SuTRA) and vinaya referring to monastic discipline, appears to be an early term used prior to the development of the ABHIDHARMA as a separate category of teachings and the tripartite division of the Buddhst canon (TRIPItAKA). Dharmavinaya is one of the terms (along with BUDDHADHARMA) within the tradition that is closest to what in the West is called "Buddhism." Generally, the sutras and the vinaya were collectively called dharmavinaya; the Chinese term falü may also less precisely refer only to the monastic precepts (see PRĀTIMOKsA) and does not always denote two separate categories.
Dhātukathā. In Pāli, "Discourse on Elements"; traditionally listed as the third of the seven canonical books of the THERAVĀDA abhidhammapitaka, and probably deriving from the middle stratum of Pāli abhidhamma literature, after the earlier VIBHAnGA and PUGGALAPANNATTI, but before the later KATHĀVATTHU; the proposed dating varies widely, but the first century BCE is its terminus ad quem. The Dhātukathā presents a psychological analysis of noble states of mind, supplementing the subject matter of the DHAMMASAnGAnI. Its fourteen chapters are presented in catechetic style, describing the relationship that pertains between specific factors (dhamma; S. DHARMA) and the three broader categories of the aggregates (khandha; S. SKANDHA), elements (DHĀTU), and sense-fields (ĀYATANA). In its analysis of the relationships that pertain between these various factors and categories, rigorous definitions of each factor are provided. The analytical approach taken in the text-e.g., whether a specific factor is both included and not included in a particular category, etc.-anticipates the sophisticated logical analysis found later in the four antinomies (CATUsKOtI). The Dhātukathā is reminiscent in style and exegetical approach to the SARVĀSTIVĀDA DHĀTUKĀYA, and may derive from a common urtext, although there are few similarities in their respective contents.
Dignāga. [alt. Dinnāga] (T. Phyogs glang; C. Chenna; J. Jinna; K. Chinna 陳那) (c. 480-c. 540). Indian monk regarded as the formalizer of Buddhist logic (NYĀYA; HETUVIDYĀ). Dignāga was an influential innovator in Buddhist inferential reasoning or logical syllogisms (PRAYOGA; SĀDHANA), an important feature of Indian philosophy more broadly, which occupies a crucial place in later Indian and Tibetan philosophical analysis. The Indian Nyāya (Logic) school advocated that there were five necessary stages in syllogistic reasoning: (1) probandum or proposition (PRATIJNĀ), "The mountain is on fire"; (2) reason (HETU), "because there is smoke," (3) analogy (udāharana), "Whatever is smoky is on fire, like a stove, but unlike a lake"; (4) application (upanāya), "Since this mountain is smoky, it is on fire"; (5) conclusion (nigamana), "The mountain is on fire." Using the same example, Dignāga by contrast reduced the syllogism down to only three essential steps: (1) probandum or proposition (PAKsA), "the mountain is on fire"; (2) reason (hetu), "because there is smoke"; (3) exemplification (dṛstānta), "whatever is smoky is on fire, like a stove," and "whatever is not on fire is not smoky, like a lake," or, more simply, "like a stove, unlike a lake." Dignāga is also the first scholiast to incorporate into Buddhism the Vaisesika position that there are only two valid means of knowledge (PRAMĀnA): direct perception (PRATYAKsA, which also includes for Buddhists the subcategory of YOGIPRATYAKsA) and inference (ANUMĀNA). Dignāga's major works include his PRAMĀnASAMUCCAYA ("Compendium on Valid Means of Knowledge"), ĀLAMBANAPARĪKsĀ ("Investigation of the Object"), and Nyāyamukha ("Primer on Logic"), which is available only in Chinese translation. See also DHARMAKĪRTI.
discrete variable: measurement using of a discrete category (eg. Gender) as opposed to a continuous score (e.g height, weight, intelligence).
dravyasat. (T. rdzas yod; C. shi you; J. jitsuu; K. sil yu 實有). In Sanskrit, "substantially existent," or "existent in substance"; a term used in Buddhist philosophical literature to describe phenomena whose inherent nature is more real than those designated as PRAJNAPTISAT, "existent by imputation." The contrast drawn in doctrinal discussions between the way things appear to be and the way they exist in reality appears to have developed out of the early contrast drawn between the false view (MITHYĀDṚstI) of a perduring self (ĀTMAN) and five real aggregates (SKANDHA). The five aggregates as the real constituents of compounded things were further elaborated into the theory of factors (DHARMA), which were generally conceived as dravyasat, although the ABHIDHARMA schools differed regarding how they defined the term and which phenomena fell into which category. In the SARVĀSTIVĀDA abhidharma, for example, dharmas are categorized as dravyasat because they have "inherent existence" (SVABHĀVA), while all compounded things, by contrast, are prajNaptisat, or merely conventional constructs that derive from dravyasat. In the MADHYAMAKA school of MAHĀYĀNA scholasticism, however, all things are considered to lack any inherent existence (NIḤSVABHĀVA). Therefore, Madhyamaka asserts that even dharmas are marked by emptiness (suNYATĀ) and thus nothing is "substantially existent" (dravyasat). In contrast to the Madhyamaka's exclusive rejection of anything being dravyasat, the YOGĀCĀRA school maintained that at least one thing, the flow of consciousness or the process of subjective imputation (VIJNAPTI), was substantially existent (dravyasat). For Yogācāra followers, however, the reason that the flow of consciousness is dravyasat is not because it is free from causal conditioning and thereby involves inherent existence (svabhāva), but because the Yogācāra denies the ontological claim that causal conditioning involves the absence of svabhāva, or vice versa. Thus the flow of consciousness, even though it is causally conditioned, may still be conceived as "substantially existent" (dravyasat) because its inherent existence is "dependent" (PARATANTRA), one of the three natures (TRISVABHĀVA) recognized in the school. Another strand of Mahāyāna thought that asserts there is something that is substantially existent is the doctrine of the buddha-nature (BUDDHADHĀTU) or TATHĀGATAGARBHA. As the potentiality inherent in each sentient being to become a buddha, the tathāgatagarbha is sometimes said to be both empty (of all afflictions) and nonempty (of all the attributes and qualities inherent in enlightenment). In this context, there has been some dispute as to whether the buddhadhātu or tathāgatagarbha should be conceived as only dravyasat, or as both dravyasat and prajNaptisat.
dunjiao. (J. tongyo; K. ton'gyo 頓教). In Chinese, "sudden teachings," or "subitism"; a polemical term used by HOZE SHENHUI in the so-called "Southern school" (NAN ZONG) of Chan to disparage his rival "Northern school" (BEI ZONG) as a gradualist, and therefore inferior, presentation of Chan teachings and practice. Unlike the Northern school's more traditional soteriological approach, which was claimed to involve gradual purification of the mind so that defilements would be removed and the mind's innate purity revealed, the Southern school instead claimed to offer immediate access to enlightenment itself (viz., "sudden awakening"; see DUNWU) without the necessity of preparatory practices or conceptual mediation. See also LIUZU TAN JING. ¶ The "sudden teaching" (dunjiao) was also the fourth of the five classifications of the teachings in the Huayan school (see HUAYAN WUJIAO), as outlined by DUSHUN and FAZANG (643-712). In a Huayan context, the sudden teachings were ranked as a unique category of subitist teachings befitting sharp people of keen spiritual faculties (S. TĪKsNENDRIYA), which therefore bypassed systematic approaches to enlightenment. Huayan thus treats the Chan school's touted methods involving sudden enlightenment (dunwu) and its rejection of reliance on written texts (BULI WENZI) as inferior to the fifth and final category of the "perfect" or "consummate teaching" (YUANJIAO), which was reserved for the HUAYAN ZONG.
duplication of the cube: Ancient, classical mathematical problem belonging to the same category as trisecting an angle and squaring a circle - all of these are supposed to be solved by straight edge and compasses, and all of these have since been proven to be impossible.
durbhāsita. (P. dubbhāsita; T. nyes par smra ba; C. eshuo; J. akusetsu; K. aksol 惡). In Sanskrit, "mischievous talk"; a supplementary category of ecclesiastical offenses. See DUsKṚTA; PRĀTIMOKsA; VINAYA.
duskṛta. (P. dukkata; T. nyes byas; C. ezuo/tujiluo; J. akusa/tokira; K. akchak/tolgilla 惡作/突吉羅). In Sanskrit, "wrongdoing"; a general category for the least serious of ecclesiastical offenses; for this reason, the term is also rendered in Chinese as "minor misdeed" (xiaoguo) or "light fault" (qingguo). In some recensions of the VINAYA, such as the Pāli, wrongdoings are treated as a category supplementary to the eight general classifications of rules and regulations appearing in the monastic code of conduct (PRĀTIMOKsA). The eight are: (1) PĀRĀJIKA ("defeat," entailing expulsion from the order in some vinaya recensions); (2) SAMGHĀVAsEsA (requiring a formal meeting and temporary suspension from the order); (3) ANIYATA (undetermined or indefinite offenses); (4) NAIḤSARGIKAPĀYATTIKA (offenses entailing expiation and forfeiture); (5) PĀYATTIKA (offenses entailing confession and forfeiture); (6) PRATIDEsANĪYA (offenses that are to be publicly acknowledged); (7) sAIKsADHARMA (minor rules of training); and (8) ADHIKARAnA (rules for settling disputes). Other such supplementary categories include STHuLĀTYAYA (various grave, but unconsummated offenses), and DURBHĀsITA (mischievous talk). In such treatments, the duskṛta category typically is said to entail deliberate disobeying of any of the saiksadharma rules, which involve a whole range of possible transgressions of monastic decorum and public conduct, such as improperly wearing one's robes, misconduct during alms round (PIndAPĀTA), or incorrect toilet habits. In addition, failed attempts to break any of rules in the relatively minor categories of the pāyattika, or pratidesanīya are a duskṛta, while failed attempts to break the much more serious pārājika and saMghāvasesa rules are both a duskṛta and a sthulātyaya. Finally, various offenses that are not specifically treated in a formal rule in the prātimoksa may also be treated as a duskṛta, e.g., striking a layperson, which is not specifically enjoined in the prātimoksa, although striking a monk is. Other vinayas, however, such as the DHARMAGUPTAKA VINAYA (C. Sifen lü), list the duskṛta offenses as one of the five categories of precepts, along with pārājika, saMghāvasesa, pāyattika, and pratidesanīya; alternatively, the Dharmaguptaka vinaya also lists seven categories of precepts, which include the preceding five categories, plus stulātyaya and durbhāsita. In such categorizations, the duskṛta essentially replace the saiksadharma rules of other vinayas. These duskṛta offenses are typically said to be expiated through confession; more specifically, the Dharmaguptaka vinaya stipulates that a deliberate wrongdoing should be confessed to a single monk or nun, while an accidental case of wrongdoing may simply be repented in the mind of the offender. Similarly, the MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA VINAYA includes the 112 duskṛta in the 253 PRĀTIMOKsA rules recited during the UPOsADHA confession. In MAHĀYĀNA discussions of bodhisattva precepts (according to ASAnGA and others, these are a second set of precepts that supplement the prātimoksa rules but do not contradict them), all offenses except the eighteen involving defeat (pārājika) [alt. mulāpatti, T. rtsa ltung] are classified as "minor offenses" (C. qing gouzui; T. nyas byas), i.e., duskṛta. There are, for instance, forty-two types of duskṛta discussed in the BODHISATTVABHuMI (Pusa dichi jing), forty-eight in the FANWANG JING, and fifty in the Pusa shanjie jing. In tantric Buddhism, gross infractions (sthula) are any form of behavior that does not constitute defeat (mulāpatti), but are a weaker form of the infraction.
Ebionites, Ebionism ::: A Judeo-Christian sect (or category) in the 2nd-4th centuries CE; accepted much of Mosaic Torah (circumcision, sabbath, etc.) but rejected sacrifices; accepted Jesus/Joshua as messiah but not his divinity; some Ebionites opposed the doctrines of Paul.
Edgerton, Franklin. (1885-1963). American scholar of Sanskrit; born in Le Mars, Iowa, he received his undergraduate education at Cornell. He then studied at Munich and Jena before returning to the United States, where he studied Sanskrit and comparative philology at Johns Hopkins. Edgerton taught at the University of Pennsylvania, before moving to Yale in 1926 as Salisbury Professor of Sanskrit. He remained there for the remainder of his academic career, retiring in 1953. Edgerton's great contribution to Buddhist studies was the 1953 publication of his Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary and his Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Reader, the result of some three decades of work. Edgerton coined the term BUDDHIST HYBRID SANSKRIT to describe the language of PRAKRIT, mixed Sanskrit, and Sanskrit that occurs in many Buddhist Sanskrit texts, especially the MAHĀYĀNA SuTRA literature. Prior to Edgerton, this language was sometimes called the Gāthā dialect because it occurred frequently in the verses, or GĀTHĀ, in the Mahāyāna sutras. Edgerton divided Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit into three classes based on the degree of hybridization within a given text. Since its publication, Edgerton's work, and the entire category of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit itself, has been the subject of much scholarly debate, but Edgerton's dictionary remains widely used.
E. Landau, Grundlagen der Analysis, Leipzig, 1930. Numinous: A word coined from the Latin "numen" by Rudolf Otto to signify the absolutely unique state of mind of the genuinely religious person who feels or is aware of something mysterious, terrible, awe-inspiring, holy and sacred. This feeling or awareness is a mysterium tremendum, beyond reason, beyond the good or the beautiful. This numinous is an a priori category and is the basis of man's cognition of the Divine. See his book The Idea of the Holy (rev. ed., 1925). -- V.F.
Empirio-criticism: Avenarius' system of pure experience in which all metaphysical additions are eliminated. Opposed to every form of apriorism, it admits of no basic difference between the psychical and the physical, subject and object, consciousness and being. Knowledge consists in statements about contents which are dependent upon System C in man in the form of experience. Ideal of knowledge is the winning of a purely empirical world conception, removal of every dualism and metaphysical category. -- H.H.
Ens (Latin) [from esse to be, being] According to scholastic philosophy, being in the most abstract sense, not necessarily existent, requiring the addition of a category to yield reality. Equivalent to the Greek ousia (essence), the essential nature of a thing; or the Hindu sat. In alchemy, an extract containing the essential qualities of a substance; e.g., primum ens melissae (the spirit of balm).
Episodic Memory ::: Subcategory of Declarative memory where information regarding life events are stored.
equational logic ::: (logic) First-order equational logic consists of quantifier-free terms of ordinary first-order logic, with equality as the only predicate symbol. The al. [Birkhoff, Gratzer, Cohn]. It was later made into a branch of category theory by Lawvere (algebraic theories). (1995-02-21)
equational logic "logic" First-order equational logic consists of {quantifier}-free terms of ordinary {first-order logic}, with equality as the only {predicate} symbol. The {model theory} of this logic was developed into {Universal algebra} by Birkhoff et al. [Birkhoff, Gratzer, Cohn]. It was later made into a branch of {category theory} by Lawvere ("algebraic theories"). (1995-02-21)
Essence [from Latin esse to be] The characteristic nature of an entity or element. In one sense equivalent to svabhava (characteristic nature, type-being, pure individuality). As the name of a logical category its use was not uniform even among the Schoolmen who originated it, and it has been both identified with and discriminated from substance.
Ethernet "networking" A {local area network} first described by Metcalfe & Boggs of {Xerox PARC} in 1976. Specified by {DEC}, {Intel} and {XEROX} (DIX) as {IEEE 802.3} and now recognised as the industry standard. Data is broken into {packets} and each one is transmitted using the {CSMA/CD} {algorithm} until it arrives at the destination without colliding with any other packet. The first {contention slot} after a transmission is reserved for an {acknowledge} packet. A {node} is either transmitting or receiving at any instant. The {bandwidth} is about 10 Mbit/s. Disk-Ethernet-Disk transfer rate with {TCP/IP} is typically 30 kilobyte per second. Version 2 specifies that {collision} detect of the transceiver must be activated during the {inter-packet gap} and that when transmission finishes, the differential transmit lines are driven to 0V (half step). It also specifies some {network management} functions such as reporting {collisions}, retries and {deferrals}. Ethernet cables are classified as "XbaseY", e.g. 10base5, where X is the data rate in {Mbps}, "base" means "{baseband}" (as opposed to {radio frequency}) and Y is the category of cabling. The original cable was {10base5} ("full spec"), others are {10base2} ("thinnet") and {10baseT} ("twisted pair") which is now (1998) very common. {100baseT} ("{Fast Ethernet}") is also increasingly common. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.lans.ethernet}. {(http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/ethernet/ethernet-home.html)}. (1997-04-16)
exclamation mark ::: (character) The character ! with ASCII code 33.Common names: bang; pling; excl (/eks'kl/); shriek; ITU-T: exclamation mark, exclamation point (US). Rare: factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey; wham; eureka; soldier; INTERCAL: spark-spot.The Commonwealth Hackish, pling, is common among Acorn Archimedes owners. Bang is more common in the USA.The occasional CMU usage, shriek, is also used by APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists.Exclamation mark is used in C and elsewhere as the logical negation operation (NOT). (1998-09-17)
exclamation mark "character" The character "!" with {ASCII} code 33. Common names: {bang}; pling; excl (/eks'kl/); shriek; {ITU-T}: exclamation mark, exclamation point (US). Rare: {factorial}; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey; wham; eureka; soldier; {INTERCAL}: spark-spot. The {Commonwealth Hackish}, "pling", is common among {Acorn Archimedes} owners. {Bang} is more common in the USA. The occasional {CMU} usage, "shriek", is also used by {APL} fans and mathematicians, especially {category} theorists. Exclamation mark is used in {C} and elsewhere as the logical negation {operation} ({NOT}). (1998-09-17)
family ::: A taxonomic category subordinate to order; comprises genera.
fast-and-frugal trees ::: A type of classification tree. Fast-and-frugal trees can be used as decision-making tools which operate as lexicographic classifiers, and, if required, associate an action (decision) to each class or category.[172]
Fayuan zhulin. (J. Hoon jurin; K. Pobwon churim 法苑珠林). In Chinese, "A Grove of Pearls in the Garden of the Dharma," compiled in 668 by the Tang-dynasty monk Daoshi (d. 683) of XIMINGXI; a comprehensive encyclopedia of Buddhism, in one hundred rolls and one hundred chapters, based on the DA TANG NEIDIAN LU and XU GAOSENG ZHUAN, which were compiled by Daoshi's elder brother, the monk DAOXUAN (596-667). The encyclopedia provides definitions and explanations for hundreds of specific Buddhist concepts, terms, and numerical lists. Each chapter deals with a single category such as the three realms of existence (TRILOKA[DHĀTU]), revering the Buddha, the DHARMA, and the SAMGHA, the monastery, relics (sARĪRA), repentance, receiving the precepts, breaking the precepts, and self-immolation (SHESHEN), covering these topics with numerous individual entries. The Fayuan zhulin is characterized by its use of numerous passages quoted from Buddhist scriptures in support of its explanations and interpretations. Since many of the texts that Daoshi cites in the Fayuan zhulin are now lost, the encyclopedia serves as an invaluable source for the study of medieval Chinese Buddhism.
Fissile Waste ::: A subcategory of the other radioactive waste types (LLW, TRU, HLW) that contains U233, U235, Pu238,Pu239, and Pu241 of sufficient percentage to release energy by fission after absorbing neutrons.
functional database "database, language" A {database} which uses a {functional language} as its {query language}. Databases would seem to be an inappropriate application for functional languages since, a {purely functional language} would have to return a new copy of the entire database every time (part of) it was updated. To be practically {scalable}, the update mechanism must clearly be {destructive} rather than functional; however it is quite feasible for the {query language} to be purely functional so long as the database is considered as an argument. One approach to the update problem would use a {monad} to encapsulate database access and ensure it was {single threaded}. Alternative approaches have been suggested by Trinder, who suggests non-destructive updating with shared data structures, and Sutton who uses a variant of a Phil Wadler's {linear type} system. There are two main classes of functional database languages. The first is based upon {Backus}' {FP} language, of which {FQL} is probably the best known example. {Adaplan} is a more recent language which falls into this category. More recently, people have been working on languages which are syntactically very similar to modern {functional programming languages}, but which also provide all of the features of a database language, e.g. bulk data structures which can be incrementally updated, type systems which can be incrementally updated, and all data persisting in a database. Examples are {PFL} [Poulovassilis&Small, VLDB-91], and {Machiavelli} [Ohori et al, ACM SIGMOD Conference, 1998]. {Query optimisation} is very important for database languages in general and the {referential transparency} of functional languages allows optimisations which would be harder to verify in presence of {side-effects}. [Trinder, P., "Referentially transparent database languages", 1989 Glasgow Workshop on Functional programming] [Breazu-Tannen et al., DBPL-91]. [Poulovassilis, VLDB-94]. (1995-05-09)
functional database ::: (database, language) A database which uses a functional language as its query language.Databases would seem to be an inappropriate application for functional languages since, a purely functional language would have to return a new copy of the it is quite feasible for the query language to be purely functional so long as the database is considered as an argument.One approach to the update problem would use a monad to encapsulate database access and ensure it was single threaded. Alternative approaches have been suggested by Trinder, who suggests non-destructive updating with shared data structures, and Sutton who uses a variant of a Phil Wadler's linear type system.There are two main classes of functional database languages. The first is based upon Backus' FP language, of which FQL is probably the best known example. Adaplan is a more recent language which falls into this category.More recently, people have been working on languages which are syntactically very similar to modern functional programming languages, but which also provide all data persisting in a database. Examples are PFL [Poulovassilis&Small, VLDB-91], and Machiavelli [Ohori et al, ACM SIGMOD Conference, 1998].Query optimisation is very important for database languages in general and the referential transparency of functional languages allows optimisations which would be harder to verify in presence of side-effects.[Trinder, P., Referentially transparent database languages, 1989 Glasgow Workshop on Functional programming][Breazu-Tannen et al., DBPL-91].[Poulovassilis, VLDB-94]. (1995-05-09)
functor In {category theory}, a functor F is an operator on types. F is also considered to be a {polymorphic} operator on functions with the type F : (a -" b) -" (F a -" F b). Functors are a generalisation of the function "{map}". The type operator in this case takes a type T and returns type "list of T". The map function takes a function and applies it to each element of a list. (1995-02-07)
functor ::: In category theory, a functor F is an operator on types. F is also considered to be a polymorphic operator on functions with the type F : (a -> b) -> (F a -> F b). T. The map function takes a function and applies it to each element of a list. (1995-02-07)
gandha. (T. dri; C. xiang; J. ko; K. hyang 香). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "smell," "odor," or "fragrance," the olfactory objects of the olfactory or nose consciousness (GHRĀnAVIJNĀNA). The Sanskrit term has a more neutral sense than the pleasing "fragrance" or the unpleasant "smell" or "odor" in English. There are said to be two basic types of olfactory objects, the pleasant and the unpleasant, with each category further subdivided into two based on whether the fragrance of the pleasant or the odor of the unpleasant infuses other objects, like the fragrance of garlic, or does not, like the fragrance of sesame. A particular class of demigod, the GANDHARVA, is said to consume fragrances.
ganying. (J. kanno; K. kamŭng 感應). In Chinese, "sympathetic resonance," or "stimulus and response," a seminal concept in traditional Chinese philosophy, which is appropriated in early Chinese Buddhism to explain the Buddhist concepts of action (KARMAN) and grace (i.e., the "response" of a buddha or BODHISATTVA to a supplicant's invocation, or "stimulus"). Ganying is a mode of seemingly spontaneous (although not "uncaused") response that occurs naturally in a universe conceived holistically in terms of pattern or "principle" (LI) and interdependent order. The notion itself is deceptively simple: objects belonging to the same category or class are conceived as resonating spontaneously with each other, just as would two identically tuned strings on a pair of zithers. The notion of resonance was used in traditional Chinese philosophy to explain or rationalize the mechanism behind the elaborate system of correlated categories generally known as five-phase (wuxing) thought-viz., the primary elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and soil. According to early Chinese cosmology, the underlying principles and patterns of the universe seemingly give rise to, or resonate spontaneously with, correlative manifestations in the physical world. The Chinese conception of the universe as an interconnected harmonious whole finds expression in theories concerning the cyclic progression of the five phases and yin (dark) and yang (light), as well as in elaborate prescriptions pertaining to the ritual life of the court. The universe, according to this view, is in a state of continual motion and flux. The patterns of change are the result of the cyclic interactions between the five phases and the forces (or vital energies, C. qi) of yin and yang, which tend naturally in the direction of rhythmic balance and harmony. Humans do not stand apart from the natural universe but rather constitute a fundamental and integral part of this whole. Early Buddhist thinkers in China adapted the mechanism of sympathetic resonance to explain in Chinese terms how an action (karman) performed in one time period could evoke a corresponding response, or fruition (VIPĀKA), in another. In addition, sympathetic resonance was used by early Chinese Buddhist thinkers to make sense of the notion of grace. In this later sense, sentient beings' faith (sRADDHĀ) and/or roots of virtue (KUsALAMuLA) would invoke a "sympathetic response" in the minds of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, which prompts them to respond accordingly with salvific grace. In the PURE LAND traditions, sentient beings' recitation of the name of AMITĀBHA (see NIANFO) creates a sympathetic response in the mind of that buddha, which prompts him in turn to bring them to his pure land, where they may become enlightened. The rubric of ganying is just as prevalent in popular religious tracts in China, where it refers to the principle of moral retribution-the belief that one's good and evil deeds will result in corresponding rewards and punishments. While the Chinese notion of moral retribution (bao) meted out in this life or the next was indebted to Buddhist notions of karman and rebirth, in the premodern period, such retribution emerged as a fundamental principle of Chinese popular religious belief and practice, irrespective of one's specific religious affiliation. This doctrine was propagated through innumerable tales of miraculous retribution-such as "numinous attestation" (lingyan), "responsive attestation" (yingyan), or "numinous response" (lingying), and so on-that "attested" (yan) to the reality of the "numinous" or "supernatural" (ling) and the inevitability of divine justice.
genre: A category of literature or film marked by defined shared features orconventions. The three broadest categories of genre are poetry, drama, and fiction. These general genres are often subdivided, for example murder mysteries, westerns, sonnets, lyric poetry, epics and tragedies.
Gezerah Shavah (&
Gnostic; Both a specific sect mentioned by heresiologists, and a category for a number of sects that believed "Gnosis" had a salvational purpose.
gotrabhuNāna. In Pāli, "change-of-lineage knowledge," a specific type of knowledge (P. Nāna; S. JNĀNA) included in the category "purity of knowledge and vision" (NĀnADASSANAVISUDDHI), which is the seventh and final purity (P. VISUDDHI) to be developed along the path to liberation. Change-of-lineage knowledge takes as its object the unconditioned NIRVĀnA element (P. nibbānadhātu), by virtue of which the practitioner leaves the lineage of ordinary worldlings (P. puthujjanagotta; cf. S. PṚTHAGJANA; GOTRA) and enters the lineage of the noble ones (P. ariyagotta; S. āryagotra). Change-of-lineage knowledge itself is reckoned as a transitional moment of consciousness in that it has not yet entered onto any one of the four supramundane or noble paths (P. ariyamagga; S. ĀRYAMĀRGA),viz., that of the stream-enterer (P. sotāpanna; S. SROTAĀPANNA), once-returner (P. sakadāgāmi; S. SAKṚDĀGĀMIN), nonreturner (ANĀGĀMI) or worthy one (P. arahant; S. ARHAT). Immediately following the occurrence of change-of-lineage knowledge there arises a moment of consciousness called MAGGACITTA, or "path consciousness," that signals the practitioner's actual entry into the noble path. It is this path consciousness that, technically speaking, constitutes the aforementioned "purity of knowledge and vision." At this point, if the practitioner has entered the path of the stream-enterer, he has permanently uprooted the first three of ten fetters (SAMYOJANA) that bind beings to the cycle of existence, viz., (1) belief in the existence of a self in relation to the body (P. sakkāyaditthi; S. SATKĀYADṚstI), (2) doubt about the efficacy of the path (P. vicikicchā; S. VICIKITSĀ), and (3) belief in the efficacy of rites and rituals (P. sīlabbataparāmāsa; S. sĪLAVRATAPARĀMARsA). Having become a stream-enterer, the practitioner is destined never again to be reborn in any of the three unfortunate realms (DURGATI) of the hells, hungry ghosts, or animals, and is guaranteed to attain nirvāna in at most seven more lifetimes.
grammar ::: A formal definition of the syntactic structure of a language (see syntax), normally given in terms of production rules which specify the order of or an operator in a computer language). A non-terminal symbol is the left-hand side of some rule.One rule is normally designated as the top-level rule which gives the structure for a whole sentence.A grammar can be used either to parse a sentence (see parser) or to generate one. Parsing assigns a terminal syntactic category to each input token and a starts from the top-level rule and chooses one alternative production wherever there is a choice.See also BNF, yacc, attribute grammar, grammar analysis.
grammar "language" A formal definition of the syntactic structure (the {syntax}) of a language. A grammar is normally represented as a set of {production rules} which specify the order of constituents and their sub-constituents in a {sentence} (a well-formed string in the language). Each rule has a left-hand side symbol naming a syntactic category (e.g. "noun-phrase" for a {natural language} grammar) and a right-hand side which is a sequence of zero or more symbols. Each symbol may be either a {terminal symbol} or a non-terminal symbol. A terminal symbol corresponds to one "{lexeme}" - a part of the sentence with no internal syntactic structure (e.g. an identifier or an operator in a computer language). A non-terminal symbol is the left-hand side of some rule. One rule is normally designated as the top-level rule which gives the structure for a whole sentence. A {parser} (a kind of {recogniser}) uses a grammar to parse a sentence, assigning a terminal syntactic category to each input token and a non-terminal category to each appropriate group of tokens, up to the level of the whole sentence. Parsing is usually preceded by {lexical analysis}. The opposite, generation, starts from the top-level rule and chooses one alternative production wherever there is a choice. In computing, a formal grammar, e.g. in {BNF}, can be used to {parse} a linear input stream, such as the {source code} of a program, into a data structure that expresses the (or a) meaning of the input in a form that is easier for the computer to work with. A {compiler compiler} like {yacc} might be used to convert a grammar into code for the parser of a {compiler}. A grammar might also be used by a {transducer}, a {translator} or a {syntax directed editor}. See also {attribute grammar}. (2009-02-06)
Greece. Homeric thought centered in Moira (Fate), an impersonal, immaterial power that distributes to gods and men their respective stations. While the main stream of pre-Socratic thought was naturalistic, it was not materialistic. The primordial Being of things, the Physis, is both extended and spiritual (hylozoism). Soul and Mind are invariably identified with Physis. Empedocles' distinction between inertia and force (Love and Hate) was followed by Anaxagoras' introduction of Mind (Nous) as the first cause of order and the principle of spontaneity or life in things. Socrates emphasized the ideological principle and introduced the category of Value as primary both in Nature and Man. He challenged the completeness of the mechanical explanation of natural events. Plato's theory of Ideas (as traditionally interpreted by historians) is at once a metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. Ideas, forming a hierarchy and systematically united in the Good, are timeless essences comprising the realm of true Being. They are archetypes and causes of things in the realm of Non-Being (Space). Aristotle, while moving in the direction of common-sense realism, was also idealistic. Forms or species are secondary substances, and collectively form the dynamic and rational structure of the World. Active reason (Nous Poietikos), possessed by all rational creatures, is immaterial and eternal. Mind is the final cause of all motion. God is pure Mind, self-contained, self-centered, and metaphysically remote from the spatial World. The Stoics united idealism and hylozoistic naturalism in their doctrine of dynamic rational cosmic law (Logos), World Soul, Pneuma, and Providence (Pronoia).
HAKMEM "publication" /hak'mem/ MIT AI Memo 239 (February 1972). A legendary collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks contributed by many people at MIT and elsewhere. (The title of the memo really is "HAKMEM", which is a 6-letterism for "hacks memo".) Some of them are very useful techniques, powerful theorems, or interesting unsolved problems, but most fall into the category of mathematical and computer trivia. Here is a sampling of the entries (with authors), slightly paraphrased: Item 41 (Gene Salamin): There are exactly 23,000 prime numbers less than 2^18. Item 46 (Rich Schroeppel): The most *probable* suit distribution in bridge hands is 4-4-3-2, as compared to 4-3-3-3, which is the most *evenly* distributed. This is because the world likes to have unequal numbers: a thermodynamic effect saying things will not be in the state of lowest energy, but in the state of lowest disordered energy. Item 81 (Rich Schroeppel): Count the magic squares of order 5 (that is, all the 5-by-5 arrangements of the numbers from 1 to 25 such that all rows, columns, and diagonals add up to the same number). There are about 320 million, not counting those that differ only by rotation and reflection. Item 154 (Bill Gosper): The myth that any given programming language is machine independent is easily exploded by computing the sum of powers of 2. If the result loops with period = 1 with sign +, you are on a sign-magnitude machine. If the result loops with period = 1 at -1, you are on a twos-complement machine. If the result loops with period greater than 1, including the beginning, you are on a ones-complement machine. If the result loops with period greater than 1, not including the beginning, your machine isn't binary - the pattern should tell you the base. If you run out of memory, you are on a string or bignum system. If arithmetic overflow is a fatal error, some fascist pig with a read-only mind is trying to enforce machine independence. But the very ability to trap overflow is machine dependent. By this strategy, consider the universe, or, more precisely, algebra: Let X = the sum of many powers of 2 = ...111111 (base 2). Now add X to itself: X + X = ...111110. Thus, 2X = X - 1, so X = -1. Therefore algebra is run on a machine (the universe) that is two's-complement. Item 174 (Bill Gosper and Stuart Nelson): 21963283741 is the only number such that if you represent it on the {PDP-10} as both an integer and a {floating-point} number, the bit patterns of the two representations are identical. Item 176 (Gosper): The "banana phenomenon" was encountered when processing a character string by taking the last 3 letters typed out, searching for a random occurrence of that sequence in the text, taking the letter following that occurrence, typing it out, and iterating. This ensures that every 4-letter string output occurs in the original. The program typed BANANANANANANANA.... We note an ambiguity in the phrase, "the Nth occurrence of." In one sense, there are five 00's in 0000000000; in another, there are nine. The editing program TECO finds five. Thus it finds only the first ANA in BANANA, and is thus obligated to type N next. By Murphy's Law, there is but one NAN, thus forcing A, and thus a loop. An option to find overlapped instances would be useful, although it would require backing up N - 1 characters before seeking the next N-character string. Note: This last item refers to a {Dissociated Press} implementation. See also {banana problem}. HAKMEM also contains some rather more complicated mathematical and technical items, but these examples show some of its fun flavour. HAKMEM is available from MIT Publications as a {TIFF} file. {(ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker)}. (1996-01-19)
H. B. Curry, Consistency and completeness of the theory of combinators, ibid , pp. 54-61. Comedy: In Aristotle (Poetics), a play in which chief characters behave worse than men do in daily life, as contrasted with tragedy, where the main characters act more nobly. In Plato's Symposium, Socrates argues at the end that a writer of good comedies is able to write good tragedies. See Comic. Metaphysically, comedy in Hegel consists of regarding reality as exhausted in a single category. Cf. Bergson, Le rire (Laughter). Commentator, The: Name usually used for Averroes by the medieval authors of the 13th century and later. In the writings of the grammarians (modistae, dealing with modis significandi) often used for Petrus Heliae. -- R.A.
homocategoric ::: a. --> Belonging to the same category of individuality; -- a morphological term applied to organisms so related.
Huayan wujiao. (J. Kegon no gokyo; K. Hwaom ogyo 華嚴五教). In Chinese, "Huayan's five classifications of the teachings." The HUAYAN ZONG recognizes two different versions of this doctrinal-classification schema, which ranks different strands of Buddhist teachings. The best-known version was outlined by DUSHUN and FAZANG: (1) The HĪNAYĀNA teachings (xiaojiao; cf. XIAOSHENG JIAO), also known as the srāvakayāna teaching (shengwenjiao), was pejoratively referred to as "teachings befitting the [spiritually] obtuse" (yufa). The ĀGAMAs and the ABHIDHARMAs were relegated to this class, which supposedly dealt primarily with theories of elements (DHĀTU) and more basic concepts such as dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA). (2) The "elementary teaching [of Mahāyāna]" ([Dasheng] SHIJIAO). Within this category, two additional subgroups were differentiated. The first was the "initial teaching pertaining to emptiness" (kong shijiao), which encompassed the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ literature and exegetical traditions such as MADHYAMAKA. This class of teachings was characterized by an emphasis (or, in Huayan's polemical assessment, an overemphasis) on the doctrine of emptiness (suNYATĀ). The second subgroup, the "initial teaching pertaining to phenomena" (xiang shijiao), broaches the dynamic and phenomenal aspects of reality and did not confine itself to the theme of emptiness. YOGĀCĀRA and its traditional affiliate sutras and commentaries were classified under this subgroup. Together, these two subgroups were deemed the provisional teachings (quanjiao) within the MAHĀYĀNA tradition. (3) The "advanced [Mahāyāna] teachings" ([Dasheng] ZHONGJIAO) focused on the way true suchness (ZHENRU; S. TATHATĀ) was innately immaculate but could be activated in response to myriad conditions. The DASHENG QIXIN LUN ("Awakening of Faith"), sRĪMĀLĀDEVĪSIMHANĀDASuTRA, and LAnKĀVATĀRASuTRA are examples of texts belonging to this doctrinal category. The treatment in these texts of the one mind (YIXIN) and TATHĀGATAGARBHA thought was considered a more definitive rendition of the MAHĀYĀNA teachings than were the elementary teachings (shijiao). (4) The "sudden teachings" (DUNJIAO), which includes texts like the VIMALAKĪRTINIRDEsA, was ranked as a unique category of subitist teachings befitting people of keen spiritual faculties (TĪKsnENDRIYA), and therefore bypasses traditional, systematic approaches to enlightenment. The CHAN ZONG's touted soteriological methods involving sudden enlightenment (DUNWU) and its rejection of reliance on written texts led some Huayan teachers to relegate that school to this advanced, but still inferior, category of the teachings. Chan was thus superseded by, (5) the "perfect teachings" or "consummate teachings" (YUANJIAO). This supposedly most comprehensive and definitive strand of Buddhist teaching was reserved for the Huayan school and especially its definitive scripture, the AVATAMSAKASuTRA. ¶ The second version of five classifications was made by GUIFENG ZONGMI (780-841) in his YUANREN LUN: (1) The "teachings pertaining to the human and heavenly realms" (RENTIAN JIAO) encompassed "mundane" (LAUKIKA) practices, such as the observation of the five precepts (PANCAsĪLA) and the ten wholesome ways of action (KUsALA-KARMAPATHA); this classification was named because of its believed efficacy to lead practitioners to higher realms of rebirth. (2) The "HĪNAYĀNA teachings" (XIAOSHENG JIAO), which were similar to the previous "xiaojiao." (3) The "dharma-characteristics teachings of MAHĀYĀNA" (Dasheng faxiang jiao), which was analogous to the aforementioned "elementary teaching pertaining to phenomena" (xiang shijiao) in the preceding classification scheme. (4) The "characteristics-negating teachings of MAHĀYĀNA" (Dasheng poxiang jiao) was analogous to the preceding "elementary teaching pertaining to emptiness." (5) The "nature-revealing teaching of the one vehicle" (yisheng xiangxing jiao) was equivalent to the last three categories Fazang's system combined together. See also HUAYAN WUJIAO ZHANG.
Idealists regard such an equalization of physical laws and psychological, historical laws as untenable. The "tvpical case" with which physics or chemistry analyzes is a result of logical abstraction; the object of history, however, is not a unit with universal traits but something individual, in a singular space and at a particular time, never repeatable under the same circumstances. Therefore no physical laws can be formed about it. What makes it a fact worthy of historical interest, is iust the fullness of live activity in it; it is a "value", not a "thing". Granted that historical events are exposed to influences from biological, geological, racial and traditional sources, they aie always carried by a human being whose singularity of character has assimilated the forces of his environment and surmounted them There is a reciprocal action between man and society, but it is always personal initiative and free productivity of the individual which account for history. Denying, therefore, the logical primacy of physical laws in history, does not mean lawlessness, and that is the standpoint of the logic of history in more recent times. Windelband and H. Rickert established another kind of historical order of laws. On their view, to understand history one must see the facts in their relation to a universally applicable and transcendental system of values. Values "are" not, they "hold"; they are not facts but realities of our reason, they are not developed but discovered. According to Max Weber historical facts form an ideally typical, transcendental whole which, although seen, can never be fully explained. G, Simmel went further into metaphysics: "life" is declared an historical category, it is the indefinable, last reality ascending to central values which shaped cultural epochs, such as the medieval idea of God, or the Renaissance-idea of Nature, only to be tragically disappointed, whereupon other values rise up, as humanity, liberty, technique, evolution and others.
In Cournot, following Aristotle, the co-incidence of two causally determined series of events. In Peirce (q.v.), a vera causa and metaphysically grounded category. See Tychism.
In Shah-Nameh (the Book of Kings) it was Jamshid (Yima) who categorized society into four classes. The first of these four were the Atourbans. The kings of the early Aryans were also chosen from among the first category, who were royal sages.
Inventory valuation - determination of the cost assigned to raw materials Inventory, work in process, finished goods, and any other inventory item. Various methods are allowed in valuing Inventory including last in ,first out (LIFO), first in, first out (FIFO), an weighted average. Inventory is valued at the lower of cost or market value applied on either an item-by-item basis, a category basis, or a total basis.
Jivakoti: Belonging to the category or class of the individual soul.
Kālacakratantra. (T. Dus kyi 'khor lo rgyud). A late ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA that was highly influential in Tibet. Although the title of the tantra is often translated as "Wheel of Time," this translation is not attested in the text itself. Kālacakra is the name of the central buddha of the tantra, and the tantra deals extensively with time (kāla) as well as various macrocosmic and microcosmic cycles or wheels (CAKRA). According to legend, King SUCANDRA came to India from his kingdom of sAMBHALA and asked that the Buddha set forth a teaching that would allow him to practice the dharma without renouncing the world. In response, the Buddha, while remaining at Vulture Peak (GṚDHRAKutAPARVATA) in RĀJAGṚHA in the guise of a monk, set forth the Kālacakratantra at Dhānyakataka in southern India (near present-day Amarāvatī) in the guise of the buddha Kālacakra. The king returned to sambhala, where he transcribed the tantra in twelve thousand verses. This text is referred to as the root tantra (mulatantra) and is no longer extant. He also wrote a commentary in sixty thousand verses, also lost. He built a three-dimensional Kālacakra MAndALA at the center of the country, which was transformed into an ideal realm for Buddhist practice, with 960 million villages. The eighth king of sambhala, MaNjusrīkīrti, condensed the original version of the tantra into the abridged version (the Laghukālacakra). A later king of sambhala, Pundarīka, composed the VIMALAPRABHĀ commentary, considered crucial for understanding the tantra. These two texts were eventually transported from sambhala to India. Internal evidence in the text makes it possible to date the composition of the tantra rather precisely to between the dates 1025 and 1040 CE. This was the period of Muslim invasions of northern India under Mahmud of Ghazni, during which great destruction of Buddhist institutions occurred. The tantra, drawing on Hindu mythology, describes a coming apocalyptic war in which Buddhist armies will sweep out of sambhala, defeat the barbarians (mleccha), described as being followers of Madhumati (i.e., Muhammad), and restore the dharma in India. After its composition in northern India, the tantra was promulgated by such figures as Pindo and his disciple ATIsA, as well as NĀROPA. From India, it spread to Nepal and Tibet. The millennial quality of the tantra has manifested itself at particular moments in Tibetan history. Prior to World War II, the PAn CHEN LAMA bestowed the Kālacakra initiation in China in an effort to repel the Japanese invaders. The fourteenth DALAI LAMA has given the initiation many times around the world to promote world peace. ¶ The tantra is an anuttarayogatantra dedicated to the buddha Kālacakra and his consort Visvamātā. However, it differs from other tantras of this class in several ways, including its emphasis on the attainment of a body of "empty form" (sunyatābimba) and on its six-branched yoga (sadangayoga). The tantra itself, that is, the Laghukālacakra or "Abridged Kālacakra," has five chapters, which in the Tibetan commentarial tradition is divided into three sections: outer, inner, and other or alternative. The outer, corresponding to the first chapter, deals with the cosmos and treats such topics as cosmology, astrology, chronology, and eschatology (the story of the apocalyptic war against the barbarians is told there). For example, this section describes the days of the year; each of the days is represented in the full Kālacakra mandala as 360 golden (day/male) and dark (night/female) deities in union, with a single central Kālacakra and consort (YAB YUM) in the center. The universe is described as a four-tiered mandala, whose various parts are homologous to the cosmic body of a buddha. This section was highly influential in Tibetan astrology and calendrics. The new calendar of the Tibetans, used to this day, starts in the year 1027 and is based on the Kālacakra system. The inner Kālacakra, corresponding to the second chapter, deals with human embryology, tantric physiology, medicine, yoga, and alchemy. The human body is described as a microcosm of the universe. The other or alternative Kālacakra, corresponding to the third, fourth, and fifth chapters, sets forth the practice of Kālacakra, including initiation (ABHIsEKA), SĀDHANA, and knowledge (JNĀNA). Here, in the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA), the initiate imagines oneself experiencing conception, gestation, and birth as the child of Kālacakra and Vismamātā. In the stage of completion (NIsPANNAKRAMA), one practices the six-branched yoga, which consists of retraction (pratyāhāra), concentration (DHYĀNA), breath control (PRĀnĀYĀMA), retention (dhāranā), recollection (ANUSMṚTI), and SAMĀDHI. In the last of these six branches, 21,600 moments of immutable bliss are created, which course through the system of channels and CAKRAS to eliminate the material aspects of the body, resulting in a body of "empty form" and the achievement of buddhahood as Kālacakra. The Sekoddesatīkā of Nadapāda (or Nāropa) sets forth this distinctive six-branched yoga, unique to the Kālacakra system. ¶ BU STON, the principal redactor of the canon in Tibetan translation, was a strong proponent of the tantra and wrote extensively about it. DOL PO PA SHES RAB RGYAL MTSHAN, a fourteenth-century JO NANG PA writer, championed the Kālacakra over all other Buddhist writings, assigning its composition to a golden age (kṛtayuga). Red mda' ba gzhon nu blo gros, an important scholar associated with SA SKYA sect, regarded the tantra as spurious. TSONG KHA PA, who was influenced by all of these writers, accepted the Kālacakratantra as an authentic ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA but put it in a category by itself.
kāmarāga. (T. 'dod pa la 'dod chags; C. yutan; J. yokuton; K. yokt'am 欲貪). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "sensual craving,"; an intensification of mere "sensuality" (KĀMA), which is listed as the fourth of the ten fetters (SAMYOJANA) that keep beings bound to the cycle of rebirth (SAMSĀRA). Kāmarāga is the desire for physical pleasure and sensuality; it belongs to the more general psychological category of craving (S. TṚsnĀ; P. tanhā, lit. "thirst"), which ceaselessly seeks pleasure here and there and is the chief root of suffering.
kāma. (T. 'dod pa; C. yu; J. yoku; K. yok 欲). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "sensuality," especially in the sense of sexual desire. Kāma often appears compounded with various intensifiers to emphasize its affective dimensions. KĀMARĀGA means "sensual craving" and is listed as the fourth of ten fetters (SAMYOJANA) that keep beings bound to the cycle of rebirth (SAMSĀRA). Kāmarāga is the desire for physical pleasure and sensuality; it belongs to the more general psychological category of craving (S. TṚsnĀ; P. tanhā, lit. "thirst"), which ceaselessly seeks pleasure here and there and is the chief root of suffering. The five "strands of sensuality" (kāmaguna) refer to the sensual pleasures of the five physical senses (see GUnA). KĀMACCHANDA means "sensual pleasure" or "sensual gratification" and is also classified as one of five hindrances (NĪVARAnA) that prevent the mind from achieving meditative absorption (DHYĀNA). Kāmacchanda is temporarily overcome with the attainment of the first meditative absorption and is eradicated in its grosser forms by attaining the stage of once-returner (SAKṚDĀGĀMIN), the second degree of Buddhist sanctity or holiness (ĀRYAPUDGALA); it is completely eliminated upon attaining the stage of nonreturner (ANĀGĀMIN), the third and penultimate degree of Buddhist holiness. Finally, KĀMADHĀTU, or the sensuous realm, is the lowest of the three realms of existence (TRAIDHĀTUKA) (excluding the realms of subtle materiality and immateriality) and receives this name because of the predominance of sensuous desire among the beings reborn there.
kāranahetu. (T. byed pa'i rgyu; C. nengzuo yin; J. nosain; K. nŭngjak in 能作因). In Sanskrit, the "efficient," "generic," or "enabling" "cause," the first of the six causes (HETU) recognized in the SARVĀSTIVĀDA-VAIBHĀsIKA ABHIDHARMA system. This category of cause subsumes all five other causes within it, and it corresponds with the predominant effect (ADHIPATAPHALA) as its specific effect. Each conditioned DHARMA serves as the enabling cause for all other dharmas besides itself by the mere fact that it does not obstruct the others' arising. The kāranahetu provides the broad context necessary for the operation of causality, so that the process of production and cessation will continue unabated.
Karma, Karman: (Skr.) Action, movement, deed, a category e.g. in the Vaisesika (q.v.). In Indian philosophy generally thought of as a metaphysical entity carried by the individual along in samsara (q.v.). As law, karma would be identical with physical causation or causality while working with equal rigor in man's psychic and thought life. As such it is the unmitigated law of retribution working with equal precision in "good" and "evil" deeds and thoughts, thus determining the nature and circumstances of incarnation. Karma is classified into prarabdha (effects determining the unavoidable circumstances of man's life), samcita (effects able to be expiated or neglected, e.g., through jnana), and agami (effects currently generated and determining the future). Jainas (q.v.) enumerate 148 kinds of karma. -- K.F.L.
karmapatha. (P. kammapatha; T. las kyi lam; C. yedao; J. godo; K. opto 業道). In Sanskrit, "course of action"; the name given to a standardized list of ten types of wholesome (KUsALA) and unwholesome (AKUsALA) actions (KARMAN), which lead respectively to salutary rebirths (viz., in the realms of humans and divinities) or unsalutary rebirths (APĀYA; DURGATI, viz., in the realms of hungry ghosts, animals, or hell denizens). The respective ten types are further subdivided into three subsets according to whether they pertain to physical actions, speech acts, or mental actions. The ten unwholesome courses of action (akusalakarmapatha) include, under the category of the body: (1) killing (prānātipāta; P. pānātipāta), (2) stealing (adattādāna; P. adinnādāna), and (3) sexual misconduct (KĀMAMITHYĀCĀRA; P. kāmamicchācāra); under the category of speech: (4) lying (mṛsāvāda; P. musāvāda), (5) slander or malicious speech (paisunyavāda; P. pisunavācā), (6) offensive or harsh speech (pārasyavāda; P. pharusavācā), and (7) frivolous prattle (saMbhinnapralāpa; P. samphappalāpa); and under the category of mind: (8) covetousness (ABHIDHYĀ; P. abhijjhā), (9) ill will (VYĀPĀDA), and (10) wrong views (MITHYĀDṚstI; P. micchāditthi). The root causes of the ten unwholesome courses of action are greed (LOBHA), hatred (DVEsA), or delusion (MOHA): for example, killing, ill will, and offensive speech are generally motivated by hatred; sexual misconduct, covetousness, and stealing are generally motivated by desire and greed; wrong views are generally motivated by delusion; and lying, slander, and frivolous prattle are motivated by a combination of all three. For a thought to be classified as an unwholesome mental course of action, it must be particularly extreme-for example, the wish to misappropriate someone else's property, the malicious intention to harm someone, or the adherence to pernicious doctrines. The ten wholesome courses of action (kusalakarmapatha) are the opposite of those given in the preceding list: under the category of body, the avoidance of killing, the avoidance of stealing, and the avoidance of sexual misconduct; under the category of speech, the avoidance of lying, the avoidance of slander, the avoidance of offensive speech, and the avoidance of prattle; under the category of mind, unselfishness, good will, and right views (SAMYAGDṚstI). The list of ten wholesome and ten unwholesome courses of action is frequently found in all strata of Buddhist literature.
kind ::: 1. A class or group of individual objects, people, animals, etc., of the same nature or character, or classified together because they have traits in common; category. 2. Nature or character as determining likeness or difference between things. 3. One"s family, clan, kin, or kinsfolk. earth-kind, god-kind, self-kind.
king ::: 1. A male sovereign. 2. One that is supreme or preeminent in a particular group, category, or sphere. 3. Fig. One who or that which is preeminent in a particular category or group or field. king"s, kings, Kings, king-children, king-sages.
kusala. (P. kusala; T. dge ba; C. shan; J. zen; K. son 善). In Sanskrit, "wholesome," "virtuous," "salutary," or "meritorious." Kusala is the primary term used to identify salutary deeds of body, speech, and mind (often enumerated as ten) that result in favorable rebirths. A "wholesome" action generally refers to any volition (CETANĀ) or volitional action, along with the consciousness (VIJNĀNA) and mental constructions (SAMSKĀRA) associated with it, that is not motivated by the afflictions (KLEsA) of greed (LOBHA), hatred (DVEsA; P. dosa), or delusion (MOHA). Such volitional actions produce fortunate results for the actor and ultimately are the cause of the favorable rebirths in the destinies (GATI) of humans and divinities (DEVA). A list of ten wholesome courses of actions (kusalakarmapatha; see KARMAPATHA), which are the opposite of the unwholesome (AKUsALA) courses of action is typically given. These include, under the category of body, the avoidance of killing and instead sustaining life, the avoidance of stealing and instead giving, and the avoidance of sexual misconduct and instead maintaining sexual morality; under the category of speech, the avoidance of lying and instead speaking truthfully, the avoidance of slander and instead speaking harmoniously, the avoidance of offensive speech and instead speaking kindly, and the avoidance of prattle and instead speaking sensibly; under the category of mind, unselfishness, good will, and right views (SAMYAGDṚstI).
languages of choice ::: C and Lisp. Nearly every hacker knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities.There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with Fortran, or even assembler, as their language of choice. They often prefer to be known as hardware-specific uses in systems programs. Fortran occupies a shrinking niche in scientific programming.Most hackers tend to frown on languages like Pascal and Ada, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for hacking (see connected with COBOL or other traditional card walloper languages as a total and unmitigated loss.[Jargon File]
languages of choice {C} and {Lisp}. Nearly every hacker knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities. There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with Fortran, or even assembler, as their language of choice. They often prefer to be known as {Real Programmers}, and other hackers consider them a bit odd (see "{The Story of Mel}"). Assembler is generally no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but {HLL} implementation, {glue}, and a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems programs. Fortran occupies a shrinking niche in scientific programming. Most hackers tend to frown on languages like {Pascal} and {Ada}, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for hacking (see {bondage-and-discipline language}), and to regard everything even remotely connected with {COBOL} or other traditional {card walloper} languages as a total and unmitigated {loss}. [{Jargon File}]
Leviathan :::Leviathan is the name of an archetypal sea-creature, which is destined to wage battle against the Behemoth, only to be consumed by the righteous at the end of days; an animal of &
Madhyamaka. (T. Dbu ma pa; C. San lun zong/Zhongguan; J. Sanronshu/Chugan; K. Sam non chong/Chunggwan 三論/中). In Sanskrit, "Middle Way (school)"; a proponent or follower of the middle way" (MADHYAMAPRATIPAD); Buddhism is renowned as the middle way between extremes, a term that appears in the Buddha's first sermon (see P. DHAMMACAKKAPPAVATTANASUTTA) in which he prescribed a middle path between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. Thus, all proponents of Buddhism are in a sense proponents of the middle way, for each school of Buddhist philosophy identifies different versions of the two extremes and charts a middle way between them. The term Madhyamaka has however come to refer more specifically to the school of Buddhist philosophy that sets forth a middle way between the extreme of eternalism (sĀsVATADṚstI) and the extreme of annihilationism (UCCHEDADṚstI). The Madhyamaka school derives from the works of NĀGĀRJUNA, the c. second century CE philosopher who is traditionally regarded as its founder. His major philosophical works, especially his MuLAMADHYAMAKAKĀRIKĀ (a.k.a. MADHYAMAKAsĀSTRA), as well as the writings of his disciple ĀRYADEVA, provide the locus classicus for the school (which only seems to have been designated the Madhyamaka school after Āryadeva's time). Commentaries on their works (by such figures as BUDDHAPĀLITA, BHĀVAVIVEKA, and CANDRAKĪRTI) provide the primary medium for philosophical expression in the school. Madhyamaka was highly influential in Tibet, where it was traditionally considered the highest of the four schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy (Madhyamaka, YOGĀCĀRA, SAUTRĀNTIKA, and VAIBHĀsIKA). Tibetan exegetes discerned two branches in the Madhyamaka, the PRĀSAnGIKA (associated with Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti) and the SVĀTANTRIKA (associated with Bhāvaviveka and sĀNTARAKsITA). The works of Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva were also widely studied in East Asia, forming the basis of the "Three Treatises" school (C. SAN LUN ZONG; K. Sam non chong; J. Sanronshu), where the three treatises are the ZHONG LUN (the "Middle Treatise," or Madhyamakasāstra), the SHI'ERMEN LUN ("Twelve Gate Treatise," or *Dvādasamukhasāstra), and the BAI LUN ("Hundred Verses Treatise," *sATAsĀSTRA), the latter two attributed to Āryadeva. The Madhyamaka school is most renowned for its exposition of the nature of reality, especially its deployment of the doctrines of emptiness (suNYATĀ) and the two truths (SATYADVAYA). Because of its central claim that all phenomena are devoid or empty (sunya) of intrinsic existence (SVABHĀVA), its proponents are also referred to as suNYAVĀDA and Niḥsvabhāvavāda. The doctrine of emptiness has also led to the charge, going back to the time of Nāgārjuna and continuing into the contemporary era, that the Madhyamaka is a form of nihilism, a charge that Nāgārjuna himself deftly refuted. Central to Madhyamaka philosophy is the relation between emptiness and dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA). Dependent origination in its Madhyamaka interpretation refers not only to the twelvefold chain but more broadly to the fact that all phenomena arise in dependence on other factors. Hence, everything is dependent, and thus is empty of independent and intrinsic existence (NIḤSVABHĀVA). As Nāgārjuna states, "Because there are no phenomena that are not dependently arisen, there are no phenomena that are not empty." This analysis becomes key to the Madhyamaka articulation of the middle way: because everything is dependently arisen, the extreme of annihilation (UCCHEDĀNTA) is avoided; because everything is empty, the extreme of permanence (sĀSVATĀNTA) is avoided. Although most of the major schools of Buddhist philosophy speaks of the two truths-the ultimate truth (PARAMĀRTHASATYA) and the conventional truth (SAMVṚTISATYA)-this category is especially important for Madhyamaka, which must simultaneously proclaim the emptiness of all phenomena (the ultimate truth) while describing the operations of the world of cause and effect and the processes governing the path to enlightenment (all of which are deemed conventional truths). Although the true character of conventional truth is misperceived as a result of ignorance (AVIDYĀ), conventional truths themselves are not rejected; as Nāgārjuna states, "Without relying on the conventional, the ultimate cannot be taught; without understanding the ultimate, NIRVĀnA is not attained." The precise nature of the two truths and their relation is explored in detail in the Madhyamaka treatises, most famously in the sixth chapter of Candrakīrti's MADHYAMAKĀVATĀRA. Although most renowned for its doctrine of emptiness, Madhyamaka is a MAHĀYĀNA school and, as such, also offers detailed expositions of the path (MĀRGA) to the enlightenment. These works that focus on soteriological issues include the SUHṚLLEKHA and RATNĀVALĪ of Nāgārjuna, the CATUḤsATAKA of Āryadeva, the MADHYAMAKĀVATĀRA of Candrakīrti, the BODHICARYĀVATĀRA of sĀNTIDEVA, the BHĀVANĀKRAMA of KAMALAsĪLA, and the BODHIPATHAPRADĪPA of ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNĀNA.
madhyendriya. (T. dbang po 'bring; C. zhonggen; J. chukon; K. chunggŭn 中根). In Sanskrit, "average faculties"; a term used to describe those disciples of the Buddha whose intellectual capacity is between that of the least intelligent (MṚDVINDRIYA) and the most intelligent (TĪKsnENDRIYA), and thus average. The term appears particularly in discussions of UPĀYA, the Buddha's ability to adapt his teachings to the intellects, interests, and aspirations of his disciples. Thus, in consideration of the abilities of his audience, the Buddha would teach different things to different people, sometimes extolling a particular practice to those of middling and lesser faculties, knowing that they were temporarily unable to practice the highest teaching. Precisely what constitutes the Buddha's highest teaching is a point of considerable disagreement over the course of Buddhist thought, with the advocates of one faction consigning the teaching held to be highest by another faction to the category of teachings intended for those of middling or lesser faculties.
magic ::: 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain; compare automagically and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. magically computes the parity of an 8-bit byte in three instructions.2. Characteristic of something that works although no one really understands why (this is especially called black magic).3. (Stanford) A feature not generally publicised that allows something otherwise impossible or a feature formerly in that category but now unveiled.Compare wizardly, deep magic, heavy wizardry.For more about hackish magic see Magic Switch Story.4. magic number.[Jargon File](2001-03-19)
magic ::: 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain; compare automagically and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology isindistinguishable from magic. magically computes the parity of an 8-bit byte in three instructions.2. Characteristic of something that works although no one really understands why (this is especially called black magic).3. (Stanford) A feature not generally publicised that allows something otherwise impossible or a feature formerly in that category but now unveiled.Compare wizardly, deep magic, heavy wizardry.For more about hackish magic see Magic Switch Story.4. magic number.[Jargon File](2001-03-19)
magic 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain; compare {automagically} and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. "TTY echoing is controlled by a large number of magic bits." "This routine magically computes the parity of an 8-bit byte in three instructions." 2. Characteristic of something that works although no one really understands why (this is especially called {black magic}). 3. (Stanford) A feature not generally publicised that allows something otherwise impossible or a feature formerly in that category but now unveiled. Compare {wizardly}, {deep magic}, {heavy wizardry}. For more about hackish "magic" see {Magic Switch Story}. 4. {magic number}. [{Jargon File}] (2001-03-19)
Maitreya. (P. Metteya; T. Byams pa; C. Mile; J. Miroku; K. Mirŭk 彌勒). In Sanskrit, "The Benevolent One"; the name of the next buddha, who now abides in TUsITA heaven as a BODHISATTVA, awaiting the proper time for him to take his final rebirth. Buddhists believed that their religion, like all conditioned things, was inevitably impermanent and would eventually vanish from the earth (cf. SADDHARMAVIPRALOPA; MOFA). According to one such calculation, the teachings of the current buddha sĀKYAMUNI would flourish for five hundred years after his death, after which would follow a one-thousand-year period of decline and a three-thousand-year period in which the dharma would be completely forgotten. At the conclusion of this long disappearance, Maitreya would then take his final birth in India (JAMBUDVĪPA) in order to reestablish the Buddhist dispensation anew. According to later calculations, Maitreya will not take rebirth for some time, far longer than the 4,500 years mentioned earlier. He will do so only after the human life span has decreased to ten years and then increased to eighty thousand years. (Stalwart scholiasts have calculated that his rebirth will occur 5.67 billion years after the death of sākyamuni.) Initially a minor figure in early Indian Buddhism, Maitreya (whose name derives from the Indic MAITRĪ, meaning "loving-kindness" or "benevolence") evolved during the early centuries of the Common Era into one of the most popular figures in Buddhism across Asia in both the mainstream and MAHĀYĀNA traditions. He is also known as AJITA, although there are indications that, at some point in history, the two were understood to be different deities. As the first bodhisattva to become a figure of worship, his imagery and cult set standards for the development of later bodhisattvas who became objects of cultic worship, such as AVALOKITEsVARA and MANJUsRĪ. Worship of Maitreya began early in Indian Buddhism and became especially popular in Central and East Asia during the fifth and sixth centuries. Such worship takes several forms, with disciples praying to either meet him when he is reborn on earth or in tusita heaven so that they may then take rebirth with him when he becomes a buddha, a destiny promised in the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra") to those who recite his name. Maitreya is also said to appear on earth, such as in a scene in the Chinese pilgrim XUANZANG's account of his seventh-century travels to India: attacked by pirates as he sailed on the Ganges River, Xuanzang prayed to and was rescued by the bodhisattva. Maitreya also famously appeared to the great Indian commentator ASAnGA in the form of a wounded dog as a means of teaching him the importance of compassion. Devotees across the Buddhist world also attempt to extend their life span in order to be alive when Maitreya comes, or to be reborn at the time of his presence in the world, a worldly paradise that will be known as ketumati. His earliest iconography depicts him standing or sitting, holding a vase (KUndIKĀ), symbolizing his imminent birth into the brāhmana caste, and displaying the ABHAYAMUDRĀ, both features that remain common attributes of his images. In addition, he frequently has a small STuPA in his headdress, believed to represent a prophecy regarding his descent to earth to receive the robes of his predecessor from MAHĀKĀsYAPA. Maitreya is also commonly depicted as a buddha, often shown sitting in "European pose" (BHADRĀSANA; see also MAITREYĀSANA), displaying the DHARMACAKRAMUDRĀ. He is said to sit in a chair in "pensive" posture in order to be able to quickly stand and descend to earth at the appropriate time. Once he is reborn, Maitreya will replicate the deeds of sākyamuni, with certain variations. For example, he will live the life of a householder for eight thousand years, but having seen the four sights (CATURNIMITTA) and renounced the world, he will practice asceticism for only one week before achieving buddhahood. As the Buddha, he will first travel to Mount KUKKUtAPĀDA near BODHGAYĀ where the great ARHAT Mahākāsyapa has been entombed in a state of deep SAMĀDHI, awaiting the advent of Maitreya. Mahākāsyapa has kept the robes of sākyamuni, which the previous buddha had entrusted to him to pass on to his successor. Upon his arrival, the mountain will break open, and Mahākāsyapa will come forth from a stupa and give Maitreya his robes. When Maitreya accepts the robes, it will only cover two fingers of his hands, causing people to comment at how diminutive the past buddha must have been. ¶ The cult of Maitreya entered East Asia with the initial propagation of Buddhism and reached widespread popularity starting in the fourth century CE, a result of the popularity of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra and several other early translations of Maitreya scriptures made in the fourth and fifth centuries. The Saddharmapundarīkasutra describes Maitreya's present abode in the tusita heaven, while other sutras discuss his future rebirth on earth and his present residence in heaven. Three important texts belonging to the latter category were translated into Chinese, starting in the fifth century, with two differing emphases: (1) the Guan Mile pusa shangsheng doushuo tian jing promised sentient beings the prospect of rebirth in tusita heaven together with Maitreya; and (2) the Guan Mile pusa xiasheng jing and (3) the Foshuo Mile da chengfo jing emphasized the rebirth of Maitreya in this world, where he will attain buddhahood under the Dragon Flower Tree (Nāgapuspa) and save numerous sentient beings. These three texts constituted the three principal scriptures of the Maitreya cult in East Asia. In China, Maitreya worship became popular from at least the fourth century: DAO'AN (312-385) and his followers were among the first to propagate the cult of Maitreya and the prospect of rebirth in tusita heaven. With the growing popularity of Maitreya, millenarian movements associated with his cult periodically developed in East Asia, which had both devotional and political dimensions. For example, when the Empress WU ZETIAN usurped the Tang-dynasty throne in 690, her followers attempted to justify the coup by referring to her as Maitreya being reborn on earth. In Korea, Maitreya worship was already popular by the sixth century. The Paekche king Mu (r. 600-641) identified his realm as the world in which Maitreya would be reborn. In Silla, the hwarang, an elite group of male youths, was often identified with Maitreya and such eminent Silla monks as WoNHYO (617-686), WoNCH'ŬK (613-696), and Kyonghŭng (fl. seventh century) composed commentaries on the Maitreya scriptures. Paekche monks transmitted Maitreya worship to Japan in the sixth century, where it became especially popular in the late eighth century. The worship of Maitreya in Japan regained popularity around the eleventh century, but gradually was replaced by devotions to AMITĀBHA and KsITIGARBHA. The worship of Maitreya has continued to exist to the present day in both Korea and Japan. The Maitreya cult was influential in the twentieth century, for example, in the establishment of the Korean new religions of Chŭngsan kyo and Yonghwa kyo. Maitreya also merged in China and Japan with a popular indigenous figure, BUDAI (d. 916)-a monk known for his fat belly-whence he acquired his now popular East Asian form of the "laughing Buddha." This Chinese holy man is said to have been an incarnation of the bodhisattva Maitreya (J. Miroku Bosatsu) and is included among the Japanese indigenous pantheon known as the "seven gods of good fortune"(SHICHIFUKUJIN). Hotei represents contentment and happiness and is often depicted holding a large cloth bag (Hotei literally means "hemp sack"). From this bag, which never empties, he feeds the poor and needy. In some places, he has also become the patron saint of restaurants and bars, since those who drink and eat well are said to be influenced by Hotei. Today, nearly all Chinese Buddhist monasteries (and many restaurants as well) will have an image of this Maitreya at the front entrance; folk belief has it that by rubbing his belly one can establish the potential for wealth.
McDougall, William: (1871-1938) Formerly of Oxford and later of Harvard and Duke Universities, was the leading exponent of purposive or "hormic" (from Gr. horme, impulse) psychology. "Purposive psychology . . . asserts that active striving towards a goal is a fundamental category of psychology, and is a process of a type that cannot be mechanistically explained or resolved into mechanistic sequences." Psychologies of 1930, p. 4. In his epoch-making book, Introduction to Social Psychology (1908), McDougall developed a purposive theory of the human instincts designed to serve as an adequate psychological foundation for the social sciences. His social psychology listed among the primary instincts of man: flight, repulsion, curiosity, self-abasement, self-assertion and the parental instinct. McDougall's teleological theory is psychological rather than metaphysical, but he believed that the psychological fact of purpose was a genuine instance of teleologilcal causation. (Modern Materialism and Emergent Evolution, 1929.) He was also led by his psychological studies to adopt a metaphysical dualism and interactionism which he designated "animism." See Body and Mind, 1911. -- L.W.
modality ::: A category of function. For example, vision, hearing, and touch are different sensory modalities.
monad ::: (theory, functional programming) /mo'nad/ A technique from category theory which has been adopted as a way of dealing with state in functional programming languages in such a way that the details of the state are hidden or abstracted out of code that merely passes it on unchanged.A monad has three components: a means of augmenting an existing type, a means of creating a default value of this new type from a value of the original type, and a replacement for the basic application operator for the old type that works with the new type.The alternative to passing state via a monad is to add an extra argument and return value to many functions which have no interest in that state. Monads can encapsulate state, side effects, exception handling, global data, etc. in a purely lazily functional way.A monad can be expressed as the triple, (M, unitM, bindM) where M is a function on types and (using Haskell notation): unitM :: a -> M a bindM :: M a -> (a -> M b) -> M b bindM applies a function to a monadic value after de-monadising it. E.g. a state transformer monad: type S a = State -> (a, State) unitS a = \ s0 -> (a, s0) and k take a state as input and return a new state as part of their output. The construction m `bindS` k composes these two state transformers into one while also passing the value of m to k.Monads are a powerful tool in functional programming. If a program is written using a monad to pass around a variable (like the state in the example above) Only the parts of the program which deal directly with the quantity concerned need be altered, parts which merely pass it on unchanged will stay the same.In functional programming, unitM is often called initM or returnM and bindM is called thenM. A third function, mapM is frequently defined in terms of then and return. This applies a given function to a list of monadic values, threading some variable (e.g. state) through the applications: mapM :: (a -> M b) -> [a] -> M [b] mapM f [] = returnM [] (2000-03-09)
monad ::: (theory, functional programming) /mo'nad/ A technique from category theory which has been adopted as a way of dealing with state in functional programming languages in such a way that the details of the state are hidden or abstracted out of code that merely passes it on unchanged.A monad has three components: a means of augmenting an existing type, a means of creating a default value of this new type from a value of the original type, and a replacement for the basic application operator for the old type that works with the new type.The alternative to passing state via a monad is to add an extra argument and return value to many functions which have no interest in that state. Monads can encapsulate state, side effects, exception handling, global data, etc. in a purely lazily functional way.A monad can be expressed as the triple, (M, unitM, bindM) where M is a function on types and (using Haskell notation): unitM :: a -> M abindM :: M a -> (a -> M b) -> M b bindM applies a function to a monadic value after de-monadising it. E.g. a state transformer monad: type S a = State -> (a, State)unitS a = \ s0 -> (a, s0) and k take a state as input and return a new state as part of their output. The construction m `bindS` k composes these two state transformers into one while also passing the value of m to k.Monads are a powerful tool in functional programming. If a program is written using a monad to pass around a variable (like the state in the example above) Only the parts of the program which deal directly with the quantity concerned need be altered, parts which merely pass it on unchanged will stay the same.In functional programming, unitM is often called initM or returnM and bindM is called thenM. A third function, mapM is frequently defined in terms of then and return. This applies a given function to a list of monadic values, threading some variable (e.g. state) through the applications: mapM :: (a -> M b) -> [a] -> M [b]mapM f [] = returnM [] (2000-03-09)
monad "theory, functional programming" /mo'nad/ A technique from {category theory} which has been adopted as a way of dealing with {state} in {functional programming languages} in such a way that the details of the state are hidden or abstracted out of code that merely passes it on unchanged. A monad has three components: a means of augmenting an existing type, a means of creating a default value of this new type from a value of the original type, and a replacement for the basic application operator for the old type that works with the new type. The alternative to passing state via a monad is to add an extra argument and return value to many functions which have no interest in that state. Monads can encapsulate state, side effects, exception handling, global data, etc. in a purely lazily functional way. A monad can be expressed as the triple, (M, unitM, bindM) where M is a function on types and (using {Haskell} notation): unitM :: a -" M a bindM :: M a -" (a -" M b) -" M b I.e. unitM converts an ordinary value of type a in to monadic form and bindM applies a function to a monadic value after de-monadising it. E.g. a state transformer monad: type S a = State -" (a, State) unitS a = \ s0 -" (a, s0) m `bindS` k = \ s0 -" let (a,s1) = m s0 in k a s1 Here unitS adds some initial state to an ordinary value and bindS applies function k to a value m. (`fun` is Haskell notation for using a function as an {infix} operator). Both m and k take a state as input and return a new state as part of their output. The construction m `bindS` k composes these two state transformers into one while also passing the value of m to k. Monads are a powerful tool in {functional programming}. If a program is written using a monad to pass around a variable (like the state in the example above) then it is easy to change what is passed around simply by changing the monad. Only the parts of the program which deal directly with the quantity concerned need be altered, parts which merely pass it on unchanged will stay the same. In functional programming, unitM is often called initM or returnM and bindM is called thenM. A third function, mapM is frequently defined in terms of then and return. This applies a given function to a list of monadic values, threading some variable (e.g. state) through the applications: mapM :: (a -" M b) -" [a] -" M [b] mapM f [] = returnM [] mapM f (x:xs) = f x `thenM` ( \ x2 -" mapM f xs `thenM` ( \ xs2 -" returnM (x2 : xs2) )) (2000-03-09)
muccitukamyatāNāna. [alt. muNcitukamyatāNāna]. In Pāli, "knowledge arising from the desire for deliverance"; according to the VISUDDHIMAGGA, the sixth of nine total types of knowledge cultivated as part of "purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path" (PAtIPADĀNĀnADASSANAVISUDDHI). This latter category, in turn, constitutes the sixth and penultimate purity (P. visuddhi; S. VIsUDDHI) to be developed along the path to liberation. Having cultivated aversion toward all conditioned formations (P. sankhāra; S. SAMSKĀRA) and the mental and physical phenomena (NĀMARuPA) comprising the individual and the universe, because of their frightful nature and fundamental unsatisfactoriness, the practitioner generates the desire to be free from them. The Visuddhimagga explains that, like a frog caught in a snake's mouth, a bird caught in a cage, or a deer caught in a hunter's snare, the practitioner, being fearful of, dissatisfied with, and taking no delight in any kind of becoming in any realm or abode of existence, wishes only for deliverance from the cycle of rebirth.
mulaklesa. (T. rtsa ba'i nyon mongs; C. genben fannao; J. konpon bonno; K. kŭnbon ponnoe 根本煩惱). In Sanskrit, "root afflictions," "basic afflictions"; a subcategory of the forty-six mental concomitants (CAITTA) according to the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school of ABHIDHARMA and fifty-one according to the YOGĀCĀRA school. It comprises the fundamental negative mental states, enumerated as six: sensuality (RĀGA), anger (PRATIGHA), pride (MĀNA), ignorance (AVIDYĀ), doubt (VICIKITSĀ), and views (DṚstI). They are called root afflictions because they are the sources of all other afflictions, and are distinguished from the "secondary afflictions" (UPAKLEsA), which are narrower in applicability. The list is also closely related to the three poisons (TRIVIsA) of sensuality or greed (rāga or LOBHA), hatred or aversion (DVEsA), and delusion (MOHA).
musitasmṛti. (P. mutthassati; T. brjed nges; C. shinian; J. shitsunen; K. sillyom 失念). In Sanskrit, "inattentiveness," "negligence," or "forgetfulness"; one of the forty-six mental concomitants (CAITTA) according to the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school of ABHIDHARMA (where the term is also called smṛtināsa) and one of the fifty-one according to the YOGĀCĀRA school. Within this group, it falls into the category of the "secondary afflictions" (UPAKLEsA). "Inattentiveness" refers to the lack of clarity caused by the failure to attend properly to and be mindful of either the present moment or an intended object of attention, or the failure to recollect what had transpired in the immediately preceding moments. It involves the inattentiveness to virtuous objects, thus leading to attention to nonvirtuous objects. The term is taken to be one of the possible derivative mental states of "ignorance" (AVIDYĀ), because it causes the mind to become distracted to the objects of the afflictions. It is the opposite of "attentiveness," "proper recollection," and "presence of mind" (SMṚTI).
naiḥsargikapāyattika. (P. nissaggiyapācittiya; T. spang ba'i ltung byed; C. sheduo; J. shada; K. sat'a 捨墮). In Sanskrit, "forfeiture offense," a category of monastic infraction in the PRĀTIMOKsA that includes offenses committed by a monk or a nun pertaining to the improper acquisition or characteristics of the alms bowl (PĀTRA), robes (TRICĪVARA), and other kinds of requisites. Such an offense always entails the forfeiture of property (although in some cases it is later returned). The offense is rectified when the guilty party forfeits the objects in question and confesses the misdeed to a SAMGHA composed of four or more monks, to a gana composed of two or three monks, or to an individual monk. In the Pāli VINAYA, there are thirty rules in this category, falling under three categories: robes, silk (although the rules pertain to other materials as well), and bowls. As an example of the first category, if a monk is given robe cloth by a layperson who is unrelated to him, he may accept only enough cloth to make an upper robe (UTTARĀSAMGA) and an under robe (NIVĀSANA). Any additional cloth must be forfeited, and it is a violation to horde it. As an example of the second category, if a monk receives gold or silver, it must be forfeited; it is a violation of the rule to keep it. As an example of the third category, it is a violation for a monk to be in possession of an additional undamaged and properly made alms bowl for more than ten days; after ten days, the extra bowl must be forfeited and the transgression confessed.
Natural election: The inherent desire of all things for all other things in a certain order. First employed by Francis Bacon (1561-1626) in a passage quoted by A. N. Whitehead (1861-) from the Silva Silvarum "there is a kind of election to embrace that which is agreeable and to exclude or expel that which is ingrate". First erected into a philosophical principle by John Laird (1887-) in The Idea of Value, following a suggestion m Montaigne's Essays. Value, considered as a larger category than human value, an ingredient of the natural world but regarded without its affective content. Syn. with objective value, as independent of the cognitive process. -- J.K.F.
network management "networking" The process of controlling a {network} so as to maximise its efficiency and productivity. {ISO}'s model divides network management into five categories: {fault management}, {accounting management}, {configuration management}, {security management} and {performance management}. Fault management is the process of identifying and locating faults in the network. This could include discovering the existence of the problem, identifying the source, and possibly repairing (or at least isolating the rest of the network from) the problem. Configuration management is the process of identifying, tracking and modifying the setup of devices on the network. This category is extremely important for devices that come with numerous custom settings (e.g. {routers} and {file servers}). Security management is the process of controlling (granting, limiting, restricting or denying) access to the network and resources thereon. This could include setting up and managing {access lists} in {routers} (creating "{firewalls}" to keep intruders out), creating and maintaining password access to critical network resources, identifying the points of entry used by intruders and closing them. Performance Management is the process of measuring the performance of various network components. This also includes taking measures to optimise the network for maximum system performance (periodically measuring of the use of network resources). {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.net-management}. ["Network Management: A Practical Perspective", Allan Leinwand and Karen Fang]. (1994-11-18)
network management ::: (networking) The process of controlling a network so as to maximise its efficiency and productivity. ISO's model divides network management into five categories: fault management, accounting management, configuration management, security management and performance management.Fault management is the process of identifying and locating faults in the network. This could include discovering the existence of the problem, identifying the source, and possibly repairing (or at least isolating the rest of the network from) the problem.Configuration management is the process of identifying, tracking and modifying the setup of devices on the network. This category is extremely important for devices that come with numerous custom settings (e.g. routers and file servers).Security management is the process of controlling (granting, limiting, restricting or denying) access to the network and resources thereon. This could network resources, identifying the points of entry used by intruders and closing them.Performance Management is the process of measuring the performance of various network components. This also includes taking measures to optimise the network for maximum system performance (periodically measuring of the use of network resources).Usenet newsgroup: comp.dcom.net-management.[Network Management: A Practical Perspective, Allan Leinwand and Karen Fang]. (1994-11-18)
nibbidānupassanāNāna. In Pāli, "knowledge arising from the contemplation of disgust." According to the VISUDDHIMAGGA, the fifth of nine knowledges (Nāna; S. JNĀNA) cultivated as part of "purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path" (patipadāNānadassanavisuddhi). This latter category, in turn, constitutes the sixth and penultimate purity (visuddhi) to be developed along the path to liberation. The knowledge arising from the contemplation of disgust (P. nibbidā; S. NIRVEDA) refers to the sense of disillusionment that the adept feels toward the aggregates (khandha; S. SKANDHA) or the mental and material phenomena (NĀMARuPA) comprising the individual and the universe; this response is prompted by the realization that all phenomena are frightening and dangerous because they are characterized by impermanence (P. anicca; S. ANITYA), suffering (P. dukkha; S. DUḤKHA), and nonself (P. anatta; S. ANĀTMAN). The practitioner thus becomes dissatisfied with the things of this world and takes no delight in the thought of any further becoming (BHAVA) in any realm of rebirth (GATI). The Visuddhimagga states that this fifth knowledge, arising from the contemplation of disgust, is in essence not different from the preceding two knowledges: "knowledge arising from the contemplation of terror" (BHAYATUPAttHĀNANĀnA) and "knowledge arising from the contemplation of danger" (ĀDĪNAVĀNUPASSANĀNĀnA; see also ĀDĪNAVA). The differences among the three are said to be only nominal.
NIRMANAKAYA (Skt) Particular category of second selves who have kept their first triads. Their task is to accumulate higher energies and transform them for use in worlds 47-49.
nominal data: data that is organised on the basis of category.
Non-Being: Non-existence or the non-existent; absence or piivation of existence or the existent; absence of determinateness or what is thus indeterminate; unreality of the unreal --either lack of any reality or what is so lacking (absence, negation, or privation of reality), or lack of a particular kind of reality or what is so lacking; otherness or existents of another order of reality than a specified type; failure to fulfill the defining criteria of some category, or what so fails; a category encompassing any of the above. Confusion of non-existence and unreality renders paradoxical the question whether non-being is. -- M.T.K.
On-Line Analytical Processing ::: (database) (OLAP) A category of database software which provides an interface such that users can transform or limit raw data according to user-defined or pre-defined functions, and quickly and interactively examine the results in various dimensions of the data.OLAP primarily involves aggregating large amounts of diverse data. OLAP can involve millions of data items with complex relationships. Its objective is to analyze these relationships and look for patterns, trends, and exceptions.The term was originally coined by Dr. Codd in 1993 with 12 rules. Since then, the OLAP Council, many vendors, and Dr. Codd himself have added new requirements and confusion.Richard Creeth and Nigel Pendse define OLAP as fast analysis of shared multidimensional information. Their definition requires the system to respond to consider include data duplication, RAM and disk space requirements, performance, and integration with data warehouses.Various bodies have attempted to come up with standards for OLAP, including The OLAP Council and the Analytical Solutions Forum (ASF), however, the Microsoft OLE DB for OLAP API is the most widely adopted and has become the de facto standard. .Usenet newsgroup: comp.databases.olap. .[What's a multidimensional conceptual view?] (1996-09-24)
On-Line Analytical Processing "database" (OLAP) A category of {database} software which provides an interface such that users can transform or limit raw data according to user-defined or pre-defined functions, and quickly and interactively examine the results in various dimensions of the data. OLAP primarily involves aggregating large amounts of diverse data. OLAP can involve millions of data items with complex relationships. Its objective is to analyze these relationships and look for patterns, trends, and exceptions. The term was originally coined by {Dr. Codd} in 1993 with 12 "rules". Since then, the {OLAP Council}, many vendors, and Dr. Codd himself have added new requirements and confusion. Richard Creeth and Nigel Pendse define OLAP as fast analysis of shared multidimensional information. Their definition requires the system to respond to users within about five seconds. It should support logical and statistical processing of results without the user having to program in a {4GL}. It should implement all the security requirements for confidentiality and concurrent update locking. The system must provide a multidimensional conceptual view of the data, including full support for multiple hierarchies. Other aspects to consider include data duplication, {RAM} and disk space requirements, performance, and integration with {data warehouses}. Various bodies have attempted to come up with standards for OLAP, including The {OLAP Council} and the {Analytical Solutions Forum} (ASF), however, the {Microsoft OLE DB for OLAP API} is the most widely adopted and has become the {de facto standard}. {(http://access.digex.net/~grimes/olap/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.databases.olap}. {(http://arborsoft.com/papers/finkTOC.html)}. [What's a "multidimensional conceptual view"?] (1996-09-24)
order ::: A taxonomic category subordinate to class; comprises animal families.
Other assets - Refers to the balance sheet category for minor assets not classified under the typical headings (e.g., current assets, intangible asset, and long-term investments). This type of asset may be immaterial in amount relative to total assets. An example is obsolete machinery to be sold.
Padartha (Sanskrit) Padārtha [from pada step, stride, foot + artha relating to a thing or object; purpose or object, motive or reason] The meaning of a word; also that which corresponds to the meaning of a word, hence a material object and even a man, a person. In philosophy and logic, used as a category or predicament, the Vaiseshika school and the Vedantins enumerating seven, while the Sankhyas enumerate 25. Blavatsky compares the seven padarthas of the Vaiseshikas to the seven attributes of the seven principles as follows: dravya to sthula-sarira; guna to jiva; karma to linga-sarira; samanya to kama; visesha to manas; samavaya to buddhi; abhava to atman (BCW 4:580).
paisunya. (P. pisuna; T. phra ma; C. lijianyu; J. rikengo; K. igano 離間語). In Sanskrit, "slander," or "malicious speech" (and sometimes rendered as "backbiting"); one of the ten unwholesome courses of action (dasākusalakarmapatha; see KARMAPATHA) that lead to suffering in the future; also written as paisunyavāda (P. pisunavācā). These ten unwholesome actions are classified into three negative physical deeds, four negative verbal deeds, and three negative verbal deeds. Slander falls into the second category, together with lying (mṛsāvāda), offensive or harsh speech (PĀRUsYA), and frivolous prattle (SAMBHINNAPRALĀPA). Slander is speech intended to cause dissension and divisiveness between two parties. It has the effect of creating dissension between friends or greater dissension between enemies. It may be motivated by greed, hatred, or ignorance.
paranoid schizophrenia: a subcategory of schizophrenia, whereby an individual possesses an organised and systematic set of delusions or hallucinations, including that of persecution or jealousy.
paratantra. (T. gzhan dbang; C. yitaqi xing; J. etakisho; K. ŭit'agi song 依他起性). In Sanskrit, lit., "other-powered," viz., "dependent"; the second of the three natures (TRISVABHĀVA), a central tenet of the YOGĀCĀRA school in which all phenomena are classified as having three natures: an imaginary (PARIKALPITA), dependent (paratantra), and consummate (PARINIsPANNA) nature. In the Yogācāra system, external objects do not exist as materially distinct entities that are separate from the consciousness that perceives them. According to this school, the perception of forms, sounds, smells, and so on is produced not by an external sensory stimulus, but from the ripening of karmic seeds (BĪJA); i.e., from residual impressions (literally "perfumings"; see VĀSANĀ) left by earlier perceptions of a similar type. The paratantra is the category of dependently originated, impermanent phenomena that arise from seeds stored in the foundational consciousness (ĀLAYAVIJNĀNA), seeds that fructify as states of consciousness. Sentient beings do not comprehend the paratantra nature because sense experience is distorted by subject-object bifurcation (see GRĀHYAGRĀHAKAVIKALPA), called the imaginary (parikalpita) nature. The paratantra category encompasses all impermanent phenomena, which are produced in dependence on causes and conditions. The SAMDHINIRMOCANASuTRA describes the paratantra as lacking any intrinsic nature of production (utpattiniḥsvabhāvatā); that is, no impermanent phenomenon can produce itself. They provide for the functioning of SAMSĀRA and the path to NIRVĀnA and enlightenment (BODHI). However, they also serve as the basis of misconceptions (parikalpita) due to ignorance, which falsely imagines objects to be separate entities from the consciousness that perceives them. The absence of this falsely imagined separation with regard to dependent phenomena is called the consummate (parinispanna).
parinispanna. (T. yongs su grub pa; C. yuanchengshi xing; J. enjojissho; K. wonsongsil song 圓成實性). In Sanskrit, "perfected" or "consummate," the third of the three natures (TRISVABHĀVA), a central tenet of the YOGĀCĀRA school, in which all phenomena are classified as having three natures: an imaginary (PARIKALPITA), dependent (PARATANTRA), and consummate (parinispanna) nature. Parinispanna is the emptiness or lack of an imaginary external world (bāhyārtha) materially different from the consciousness that perceives it. The paratantra category encompasses the conventional truth (SAMVṚTISATYA) of dependently originated impermanent phenomena that arise from seeds stored in the foundational consciousness (ĀLAYAVIJNĀNA). The parinispanna category is their ultimate truth (PARAMĀRTHASATYA). Thus parinispannasvabhāva, the consummate nature, is an absence of an object that is different in nature from the consciousness that perceives it. The consummate (parinispanna) is sometimes defined as the absence of the imaginary (parikalpita) in the dependent (paratantra). The consummate nature is the highest reality according to Yogācāra; the SAMDHINIRMOCANASuTRA describes it as paramārthaniḥsvabhāva, the "lack of intrinsic nature, which is the ultimate."
pariyatti. (S. paryavāpti; C. tong; J. tsu; K. t'ong 通). In Pāli, lit. "mastery" or "comprehension" (of a body of scriptural literature), or (in later Pāli commentarial usage) the "scriptures" themselves as transmitted through an oral tradition; one of the two principal monastic vocations noted in the Pāli commentarial literature, along with PAtIPATTI (meditative practice). The pariyatti monk serves an important role within the Buddhist tradition by continuing the transmission of a corpus of scriptural literature down to the next generation. Pariyatti monks thus performed the function of a bhānaka (reciter) or DHARMABHĀnAKA (reciter of the dharma), who were typically assigned to memorize one specific subcategory of the canon, i.e., Mahjjhimabhānaka ("reciters of the MAJJHIMANIKĀYA"), Jātakabhānaka ("reciters of the JĀTAKA"), etc. Monks in the contemporary Southeast Asian traditions who study Pāli literature are now also referred to as pariyatti monks; thus the term has come to mean a "study monk." ¶ Pariyatti is also the first of three progressive kinds of religious mastery. In this context, pariyatti is understood as a thorough comprehension of the theories, terms, and texts that ground Buddhist doctrine and that are enumerated in the literature of the TRIPItAKA (the canon). The second is patipatti, or "practice" of the prescriptions encountered in one's study of pariyatti. The final stage is pativedha (S. PRATIVEDHA), direct "penetration" to truth. See also GANTHADHURA.
paroksa. (T. lkog gyur; C. zhiwai; J. chige; K. chioe 智外). In Sanskrit, "hidden," a term used in the twofold classification of phenomena into the manifest (ABHIMUKHĪ), those things that are evident to sense perception, and the hidden (paroksa), those things whose existence must be inferred through reasoning. The latter category includes such important matters as subtle impermanence, the existence of rebirth, and the existence of liberation. A third category of the "very hidden" (atyantaparoksa) is sometimes added, comprising those things that are known only by a buddha, such as the specific deeds in a past life that produced specific consequences in the present. Because those things that are "very hidden" are not accessible to direct perception or inference, they are known through statements by the Buddha in the scriptures (ĀGAMA).
pārusya. (P. pharusavācā; T. tshig rtsub; C. ekou; J. akuku; K. akku 惡口). In Sanskrit, "harsh speech," one of the ten unsalutary ways of action (AKUsALA-KARMAPATHA) that lead to suffering in the future. The ten are classified into three negative physical deeds, four negative verbal deeds, and three negative verbal deeds. Harsh speech falls into the second category, together with lying (mṛsāvāda), slander (PAIsUNYA) and senseless speech (SAMBHINNAPRALĀPA). Harsh speech would include insults, abusive speech, and sarcasm intended to hurt another person. It may be directed against a living being or a physical object. Harsh speech is typically motivated by hatred, but it can also be motivated by jealousy or ignorance.
patisankhānupassanāNāna. In Pāli, "knowledge arising from contemplation of reflection"; according to the VISUDDHIMAGGA, the seventh of nine types of knowledge (NĀnA) cultivated as part of "purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path" (PAtIPADĀNĀnADASSANAVISUDDHI). This latter category, in turn, constitutes the sixth and penultimate purity (VISUDDHI; cf. S. VIsUDDHI) to be developed along the path to liberation. The practitioner cultivates this knowledge as a means of escape from the conditioned factors (P. sankhāra; S. SAMSKĀRA) comprising the universe, having become desirous of deliverance from all forms of existence in the cycle of rebirth. He develops this by reflecting again upon the conditioned factors by noting how they are characterized by the three marks (P. tilakkhana; S. TRILAKsAnA) of impermanence (P. anicca; S. ANITYA), suffering (P. dukkha; S. DUḤKHA) and nonself (P. anatta; S. ANĀTMAN). Seeing them as evanescent, temporary, limited by arising and passing away, perishable, unstable, formed, subject to annihilation and death, etc., the practitioner understands these formations to be impermanent. Seeing them as oppressed, unbearable, the cause of pain, a disease, a tumor, a dart, a calamity, subject to birth, aging, illness, sorrow, lamentation, despair, etc., he understands these conditioned factors to be suffering. Seeing them as alien, empty, vain, void, ownerless and without a master, as neither "I" nor "mine" nor belonging to anyone else, etc., he understands them to be nonself.
pāyattika. [alt. prāyascittika, pātayantika, etc.] (P. pācittiya; T. ltung byed; C. danduo; J. tanda; K. tant'a 單墮). In Sanskrit, lit. "requiring expiation," "transgression to be confessed," a lesser category of violations of the monastic code (PRĀTIMOKsA). Transgressions fall under three major headings: (1) those that result in "defeat" (PĀRĀJIKA), (2) those that are expiated through penance and probation imposed by the SAMGHA (SAMGHĀVAsEsA), and (3) those that are expiated simply by being confessed to another monk. The pāyattika constitute this last category. In the Pāli VINAYA, there are ninety-two acts that fall under this category, comprising a wide range of offenses, ranging from lying to digging in the earth, damaging a plant, lying down in the same lodging with a woman, not putting away bedding, sewing the robe of a nun who is not a relative, drinking alcohol, swimming for pleasure, offering food to a naked ascetic, staying more than two or three consecutive nights with an army, and hiding another monk's bowl as a joke. The term also appears in another category of transgressions, called "forfeiture" (S. NAIḤSARGIKAPĀYATTIKA; P. nissaggiyapācittiya), in which a monk or nun possesses an object that is prohibited or has been wrongly acquired; in that case, the object must be forfeited and the deed confessed.
phi. In Thai, "spirit"; used to refer to a diverse group of entities believed to have power over humans and thus requiring propitiation. In some cases, they are local demigods; in others, they are reincarnations of the dead. The category also includes the ghosts of the prominent dead as well as those who died mysterious or violent deaths. Phi inhabit trees, hills, water, the earth, and certain animals. "Spirit houses" are constructed for the phi, to which offerings are made.
phylogeny ::: The evolutionary history of a species or other taxonomic category.
pibo sat'ap sol. (裨補寺塔). In Korean, "reinforcing [the land] through monasteries and STuPAs"; geomantic theory of the Korean monk TOSoN (827-898), who proposed that building monasteries and pagodas at geomantically fragile locations around the Korean peninsula could correct adverse energy flows in the native geography and thus alleviate topological weaknesses, in much the same way that acupuncture could correct adverse energy flows within the physical body. This term pibo (lit. "assisting and supplementing," and thus "reinforcing," or "remediation") is not attested as a technical term in Chinese geomancy, but seems to have been coined by Toson. Pibo also comes to be used as an official ecclesiastical category to designate important monasteries that had figured in the founding of the Koryo dynasty.
pie chart: A form of representation of qualitative (or discrete categories of) data. Useful in representing the frequency of a category presented as relative to the overall total.
pitaka. (T. sde snod; C. zang; J. zo; K. chang 藏). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "basket" (in a figurative sense), or canonical "collection," viz. a collection of scriptures organized by category. (The Chinese translates pitaka as "repository.") The use of the term pitaka to refer to such collections of scriptures may derive from the custom of collecting in baskets the individual bark slips on which the pages of the scriptures were written. The VINAYA, SuTRA, and ABHIDHARMA (alt. sāstra) pitakas together constitute the TRIPItAKA (P. tipitaka), the "three baskets" of the Buddhist canon, a term that is employed in both the mainstream and MAHĀYĀNA schools. The various schools of Indian Buddhism differ, however, on precisely which texts are to be included in these collections. The abhidharma was likely added later, since early texts refer only to monks who are masters of the SuTRAPItAKA and the VINAYAPItAKA. A number of the MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS seem also to have had a bodhisattvapitaka, which included texts related to the past lives of the BODHISATTVA, such as the JĀTAKA. This term BODHISATTVAPItAKA was adopted in the MAHĀYĀNA, and it was used as the title of a single text, a specific set of Mahāyāna sutras, as well as to refer to the Mahāyāna sutras collectively. With the rise of tantric Buddhism, the term vidyādharapitaka, the pitaka of the "keepers of knowledge" (VIDYĀDHARA), came to be used to refer collectively to the Buddhist TANTRAs. See also DAZANGJING.
pitṛtantra. (T. pha rgyud). In Sanskrit, "father tantra," one of the categories of ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA. This category is paired with "mother tantra" (MĀTṚTANTRA); in some cases a third category of "nondual" (ADVAYA) tantras is added. The father tantras are those that place particular emphasis on method (UPĀYA) over wisdom (PRAJNĀ), especially as it pertains to the achievement of the illusory body (MĀYĀDEHA) on the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA). The chief tantra of this category is the GUHYASAMĀJATANTRA.
platinum-iridium "standard" A standard, against which all others of the same category are measured. Usage: silly. The notion is that one of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium alloy and placed in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris, as the bar defining the standard {metre} once was. "This {garbage collection} {algorithm} has been tested against the platinum-iridium cons cell in Paris." Compare {golden}. [{Jargon File}] (1997-02-20)
platinum-iridium ::: (standard) A standard, against which all others of the same category are measured. Usage: silly.The notion is that one of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium alloy and placed in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris, as the bar defining the standard metre once was.This garbage collection algorithm has been tested against the platinum-iridium cons cell in Paris.Compare golden.[Jargon File] (1997-02-20)
Postulate: (Lat. postulatum; Ger. Postulat) In Kant (1) An indemonstrable practical or moral hypothesis, such as the reality of God, freedom, or immortality, belief in which is necessary for the performance of our moral duty. (2) Any of three principles of the general category of modality, called by Kant "postulates of empirical thought." See Modality and Kantianism. -- O.F.K.
prajNaptisat. (T. btags yod; C. jiaming you; J. kemyoyu; K. kamyongyu 假名有). In Sanskrit, "imputed existence," a term used by the Buddhist philosophical schools to describe the ontological status of those phenomena that exist as designations, imputations, or conventions. The term is often contrasted with DRAVYASAT, or "substantial existence," a quality of those phenomena that possess a more objective nature. The various school of Buddhist philosophy differ on the meaning and extension of the category of prajNaptisat. The VAIBHĀsIKA school of SARVĀSTIVĀDA ABHIDHARMA held that the world is composed of indivisible particles of matter and indivisible moment of time, which are dravyasat, and that everything composed of an aggregation of those particles or moments is prajNaptisat. In MADHYAMAKA, all dharmas are prajNaptisat and no dharmas are dravyasat. See PRAJNAPTI; DRAVYASAT.
prajNapti. (T. gdags pa/btags pa; C. jiaming; J. kemyo; K. kamyong 假名). In Sanskrit, "designation," "imputation," or "convention," a term used to describe those things that are not intrinsic, ultimate, or primary, with phenomena whose reality is merely imputed (prajNapti), often contrasted with substantial phenomena (see DRAVYASAT). The various philosophical schools differ in the definition, extent, and deployment of the category, with the MADHYAMAKA arguing that all factors (DHARMA) are merely designations that exist only through imputation (PRAJNAPTISAT), and nothing in the universe, including the Buddha or emptiness (suNYATĀ) exists substantially (dravyasat). However, the fact that conditioned dharmas are mere imputations does not imply that they lack functionality as conventional truths (SAMVṚTISATYA). According to a YOGĀCĀRA explanation in the CHENG WEISHI LUN (*VijNaptimātratāsiddhi), all dharmas are said to have only imputed existence because (1) "dharmas are insubstantial and are contingent on fallacious imagining" (wuti suiqing jia); and (2) "dharmas have real substance but are real only in a provisional sense" (youti shishe jia). The first reason is based on the Yogācāra argument that the diversity, duality, and reality of things are merely mental projections (see PARIKALPITA), and are therefore artificial and imagined, existing only as fallacious conceptions. The second reason is based on the Yogācāra tenet of PARATANTRA, the "dependent nature of things." Accordingly, although things are "real" or "substantial" in that they have viable efficacy and functions, they are ultimately transformations of "activated" karmic "seeds" (BĪJA) stored within the eighth storehouse consciousness (ĀLAYAVIJNĀNA). They are therefore said to be "dependent" on the consciousness and thus have only a "conditional" nature.
pratidesanīya. (P. pātidesanīya; T. so sor bshags par bya ba; C. duishou/boluotitisheni; J. taishu/haradaidaishani; K. taesu/parajejesani 對首/波羅提提舍尼). In Sanskrit, lit., "entailing acknowledgment" or "disclosure"; a group of four ecclesiastical offenses related to the receiving and eating of food, which are to be disclosed to, or confessed before, another monk. These offenses include (1) receiving food from an unrelated nun in an uninhabited area, (2) not dismissing a nun who is giving orders while monks are eating, (3) consuming food received from a "family in training," that is, a family too poor to provide alms, and (4) consuming unsolicited food received in one's own residence in the wilderness while one is not ill. In certain recensions of the PRĀTIMOKsA, such as the Pāli and MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA, the offenses entailing acknowledgment form a separate category of transgressions from other misdeeds that require confession, in that the words used in acknowledging the violation are specifically prescribed for these four rules.
prātimoksa. (P. pātimokkha; T. so sor thar pa; C. boluotimucha; J. haradaimokusha; K. parajemokch'a 波羅提木叉). In Sanskrit, "code" or "rules," referring to a disciplinary code of conduct (of which there are several versions) for fully ordained monks (BHIKsU) and nuns (BHIKsUnĪ), or a text that sets forth that code, which probably constitutes the oldest part of the various Buddhist VINAYAs. The pre-Buddhist denotation of prātimoksa is uncertain, and may perhaps mean a promise that is to be redeemed; the Buddhist etymologies seem to indicate a "binding obligation" and, by extension, a monastic regulation. Indian Buddhist schools tended to define themselves in terms of the particular monastic code to which they adhered, and differences in the interpretation of the rules of conduct resulted in the convening of councils (SAMGĪTI) to adjudicate such differences and, ultimately, in the schisms that produced the various mainstream Buddhist schools. Several different recensions of the prātimoksa are extant, but there are three main lineages followed within the Buddhist tradition today: the THERAVĀDA pātimokkha followed in Sri Lankan and Southeast Asian Buddhism; the DHARMAGUPTAKA prātimoksa followed in Chinese and Korean Buddhism; and the MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA prātimoksa followed in Tibetan Buddhism. Despite divergences in the numbers of rules listed in these codes (the Theravāda, for example, has 227 rules for bhiksus, the Dharmaguptaka 250, and the Mulasarvāstivāda 253, and all have considerably more rules for bhiksunī), there is substantial agreement among the prātimoksa of the various mainstream Buddhist schools. They are all similarly structured, with separate codes for monks and nuns, enumerating a set of categories of transgressions: (1) PĀRĀJIKA transgressions of ethical expectations that were so serious as to bring "defeat" and in some vinaya traditions to require expulsion from the order, e.g., engaging in sexual intercourse and murder; (2) SAMGHĀVAsEsA, transgressions entailing temporary suspension from the order, such as masturbation, acting as a go-between for sexual liaisons, or attempting to cause schism in the order (SAMGHABHEDA); (3) ANIYATA, undetermined cases exclusive to monks who are found with women, which require investigation by the saMgha; (4) NAIḤSARGIKAPĀYATTIKA, transgressions requiring confession and forfeiture of a prohibited object, such as hoarding excessive numbers of robes (CĪVARA), begging bowls (PĀTRA), and medicine, or keeping gold and silver; (5) PĀYATTIKA, transgressions that can be expiated through confession alone, such as lying; (6) PRATIDEsANĪYA, minor transgressions to be acknowledged, related to receiving and eating food, which were to be confessed; (7) sAIKsA, minor training rules governing monastic etiquette and deportment, such as not wearing robes sloppily or eating noisily, violations of which were called DUsKṚTA, lit. "bad actions." Both the bhiksu and bhiksunī prātimoksa also include (8) ADHIKARAnAsAMATHA, seven methods of resolving ecclesiastical disputes. Regardless of the school, the prātimoksa was recited separately during the fortnightly UPOsADHA ceremony by chapters of monks and nuns who gather inside a purified SĪMĀ boundary. All monks and nuns were expected to have confessed (see PĀPADEsANĀ) to any transgressions of the rules during the last fortnight prior to the recitation of the code, thus expiating them of that transgression. At the conclusion of the recitation of each category of transgression, the reciter questions the congregation as to whether the congregation is pure; silence indicates assent.
Predicament: (Ger. from Lat. praedicamentum, a category) The Kantian name for the innate a priori forms of the understanding, since each category is a way of predicating something of a subject, and since there are twelve types of judgment, Kant enumerated twelve praedicaments: totality, plurality, unity, reality, negation, limitation, substantiality-inherence, causality-dependence, reciprocity, possibility-impossibility, being and non-being, necessity-contingency. -- V.J.B.
predicament ::: n. --> A class or kind described by any definite marks; hence, condition; particular situation or state; especially, an unfortunate or trying position or condition.
See Category.
Proprietary asset - An asset that falls under the category of intellectual property and therefore should not be disclosed by an employee e.g., all information to do with customers or clients including class="d-title" names, addresses, telephone numbers and other contact information, as well as any business related or personal information and unique proprietary asset to a company. Proprietary assets could also include things like trade secrets and new inventions.
PROTOGONOS (Gr.) Pythagorean term for a category of devas having 44- and 43-consciousness. Their tasks in connection with the human evolution consist, among other duties, in being in charge of the third triads until the second selves can take possession of them.
purusakāraphala. (T. skyes bu'i byed pa'i 'bras bu; C. shiyong guo; J. jiyuka; K. sayong kwa 士用果). In Sanskrit, "effect produced by a person," or "virile fruition"; this is one of the five effects (PHALA) enumerated in the SARVĀSTIVĀDA ABHIDHARMA and the YOGĀCĀRA system. The purusakāraphala is the fruition of the coexistent cause (SAHABHuHETU) and conjoined cause (SAMPRAYUKTAHETU) and refers to effects that are the result of human effort (rather than the result of the ripening of past KARMAN), whether that effort be virtuous (KUsALA), unvirtuous (AKUsALA), or neutral. In this sense, the action performed by the person himself or herself leads to a result that is conjoined with that person: thus, a pot made by a potter would fall into this category of phala, as would a meditator's attainment of one of the noble paths (ĀRYAMĀRGA).
Realistic Idealism recognizes the reality of non-ideal types of being, but relegates them to a subordinate status with respect either to quantity of being or power. This view is either atheistic or theistic. Realistic theism admits the existence of one or more kinds of non-mental being considered as independently co-eternal with God, eternally dependent upon Deity, or as a divine creation. Platonic Idealism, as traditionally interpreted, identifies absolute being with timeless Ideas or disembodied essences. Thtse, organically united in the Good, are the archetypes and the dynamic causes of existent, material things. The Ideas are also archetypes of rational thought, and the goal of fine art and morality. Axiological Idealism, a modern development of Platonism and Kantianism, maintains that the category of Value is logically and metaphysically prior to that of Being.
Religious A Priori: A separate, innate category of the human consciousness, religious in that it issues certain insights and indisputable certainties concerning God or a Superhuman Presence. Man's religious nature rests upon the peculiar character of his mind. He possesses a native apprehension of the Divine. God's existence is guaranteed as an axiomatic truth. For Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) this a priori quality of the mind is both a rational intuition and an immediate experience. God is present as a real fact both rationally and empirically. For Rudolf Otto this a priori quality of the mind is a non-rational awareness of the holy, mysterious and awe-inspiring divine Reality. Man posesses a kind of eerie sense of a Presence which is the basis of the genuinely religious feeling. See Numinous. -- V.F.
Ritschlianism: A celebrated school of 19th century Christian thought inaugurated by Albrecht Ritschl (1822-89). This school argued for God upon the basis of what is called the religious value-judgment. Two kinds of judgments are said to characterize man's reaction to his world of experience: (1) dependent or concomitant, those dependent upon perceived facts, such as the natural sciences; (2) independent or religious those which affirm man's superior worth independent of the limitations of the finite world and man's dependence upon a superhuman order of reality, God. God is not reached by speculation, nor by the "evidences" in nature, nor by intuitions or mystic experience, nor by a rational a priori or intimate feeling. God is implied in the religious value judgment: "though he slay me will I trust him." That man needs God as a deliverer from his bonds is the assertion of the independent religious value-judgment; the consequences following this judgment of need and worth sustain him with courage and victory over every obstacl.e Ritschlianism is notable in the emphasis it placed upon the category of value, an emphasis which has grown stronger in contemporary theistic belief. -- V.F.
RJ-45 ::: (hardware) A serial connector which looks very much like a standard telephone connector, except it houses eight wires instead of four.RJ-45s are typically found on computers either integrated into the mother board or on a NIC. Because they are so small they are often used on devices such as terminal servers that have many ports.Ethernet (10baseT) and Token Ring sometimes use four wires of an RJ-45 plug, 100baseVG uses all eight. 100BaseTX uses the same four wires of the RJ-45 connector as 10baseT but the wire must be category 5 instead of category 3.[Would the cable normally be shielded twisted pair or unshielded twisted pair?](2004-05-22)
RJ-45 "hardware" A {serial} connector which looks very much like a standard telephone connector, except it houses eight wires instead of four. RJ-45s are typically found on {computers} either integrated into the {mother board} or on a {NIC}. Because they are so small they are often used on devices such as {terminal servers} that have many {ports}. {Ethernet} ({10baseT}) and {Token Ring} sometimes use four wires of an RJ-45 plug, {100baseVG} uses all eight. {100BaseTX} uses the same four wires of the RJ-45 connector as 10baseT but the wire must be {category 5} instead of {category 3}. [Would the cable normally be {shielded twisted pair} or {unshielded twisted pair}?] (2004-05-22)
Saddharmapundarīkasutra. (T. Dam pa'i chos padma dkar po'i mdo; C. Miaofa lianhua jing/Fahua jing; J. Myohorengekyo/Hokekyo; K. Myobop yonhwa kyong/Pophwa kyong 妙法蓮華經/法華經). In Sanskrit, "Sutra of the White Lotus of the True Dharma," and known in English simply as the "Lotus Sutra"; perhaps the most influential of all MAHĀYĀNA sutras. The earliest portions of the text were probably composed as early as the first or second centuries of the Common Era; the text gained sufficient renown in India that a number of chapters were later interpolated into it. The sutra was translated into Chinese six times and three of those translations are extant. The earliest of those is that made by DHARMARAKsA, completed in 286. The most popular is that of KUMĀRAJĪVA in twenty-eight chapters, completed in 406. The sutra was translated into Tibetan in the early ninth century. Its first translation into a European language was that of EUGÈNE BURNOUF into French in 1852. The Saddharmapundarīkasutra is perhaps most famous for its parables, which present, in various versions, two of the sutra's most significant doctrines: skill-in-means (UPĀYA) and the immortality of the Buddha. In the parable of the burning house, a father lures his children from a conflagration by promising them three different carts, but when they emerge they find instead a single, magnificent cart. The three carts symbolize the sRĀVAKA vehicle, the PRATYEKABUDDHA vehicle, and the BODHISATTVA vehicle, while the one cart is the "one vehicle" (EKAYĀNA), the buddha vehicle (BUDDHAYĀNA). This parable indicates that the Buddha's previous teaching of three vehicles (TRIYĀNA) was a case of upāya, an "expedient device" or "skillful method" designed to attract persons of differing capacities to the dharma. In fact, there is only one vehicle, the vehicle whereby all beings proceed to buddhahood. In the parable of the conjured city, a group of weary travelers take rest in a magnificent city, only to be told later that it is a magical creation. This conjured city symbolizes the NIRVĀnA of the ARHAT; there is in fact no such nirvāna as a final goal in Buddhism, since all will eventually follow the bodhisattva's path to buddhahood. The apparently universalistic doctrine articulated by the sutra must be understood within the context of the sectarian polemics in which the sutra seems to have been written. The doctrine of upāya is intended in part to explain the apparent contradiction between the teachings that appear in earlier sutras and those of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra. The former are relegated to the category of mere expedients, with those who fail to accept the consummate teaching of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra as the authentic word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA) repeatedly excoriated by the text itself. In a device common in Mahāyāna sutras, the sutra itself describes both the myriad benefits that accrue to those who recite, copy, and revere the sutra, as well as the misfortune that will befall those who fail to do so. The immortality of the Buddha is portrayed in the parable of the physician, in which a father feigns death in order to induce his sons to commit to memory an antidote to poison. The apparent death of the father is compared to the Buddha's entry into nirvāna, something which he only pretended to do in order to inspire his followers. Elsewhere in the sutra, the Buddha reveals that he did not achieve enlightenment as the prince Siddhārtha who left his palace, but in fact had achieved enlightenment eons before; the well-known version of his departure from the palace and successful quest for enlightenment were merely a display meant to inspire the world. The immortality of the Buddha (and other buddhas) is also demonstrated when a great STuPA emerges from the earth. When the door to the funerary reliquary is opened, ashes and bones are not found, as would be expected, but instead the living buddha PRABHuTARATNA, who appears in his stupa whenever the Saddharmapundarīkasutra is taught. sĀKYAMUNI joins him on his seat, demonstrating another central Mahāyāna doctrine, the simultaneous existence of multiple buddhas. Other famous events described in the sutra include the miraculous transformation of a NĀGA princess into a buddha after she presents a gem to sākyamuni and the tale of a bodhisattva who immolates himself in tribute to a previous buddha. The sutra contains several chapters that function as self-contained texts; the most popular of these is the chapter devoted to the bodhisattva AVALOKITEsVARA, which details his ability to rescue the faithful from various dangers. The Saddharmapundarīkasutra was highly influential in East Asia, inspiring both a range of devotional practices as well as the creation of new Buddhist schools that had no Indian analogues. The devotional practices include those extolled by the sutra itself: receiving and keeping the sutra, reading it, memorizing and reciting it, copying it, and explicating it. In East Asia, there are numerous tales of the miraculous benefits of each of these practices. The practice of copying the sutra (or having it copied) was a particularly popular form of merit-making either for oneself or for departed family members. Also important, especially in China, was the practice of burning either a finger or one's entire body as an offering to the Buddha, emulating the self-immolation of the bodhisattva BHAIsAJYARĀJA in the twenty-third chapter (see SHESHEN). In the domain of doctrinal developments, the Saddharmapundarīkasutra was highly influential across East Asia, its doctrine of upāya providing the rationale for the systems of doctrinal taxonomies (see JIAOXIANG PANSHI) that are pervasive in East Asian Buddhist schools. In China, the sutra was the central text of the TIANTAI ZONG, where it received detailed exegesis by a number of important figures. The school's founder, TIANTAI ZHIYI, divided the sutra into two equal parts. In the first fourteen chapters, which he called the "trace teaching" (C. jimen, J. SHAKUMON), sākyamuni appears as the historical buddha. In the remaining fourteen chapters, which Zhiyi called the "origin teaching" (C. benmen, J. HONMON), sākyamuni reveals his true nature as the primordial buddha who achieved enlightenment many eons ago. Zhiyi also drew on the Saddharmapundarīkasutra in elucidating two of his most famous doctrines: the three truths (SANDI, viz., emptiness, the provisional, and the mean) and the notion of YINIAN SANQIAN, or "the trichiliocosm in an instant of thought." In the TENDAISHu, the Japanese form of Tiantai, the sutra remained supremely important, providing the scriptural basis for the central doctrine of original enlightenment (HONGAKU) and the doctrine of "achieving buddhahood in this very body" (SOKUSHIN JoBUTSU); in TAIMITSU, the tantric form of Tendai, sākyamuni Buddha was identified with MAHĀVAIROCANA. For the NICHIREN schools (and their offshoots, including SoKA GAKKAI), the Saddharmapundarīkasutra is not only its central text but is also considered to be the only valid Buddhist sutra for the degenerate age (J. mappo; see C. MOFA); the recitation of the sutra's title is the central practice in Nichiren (see NAMU MYoHoRENGEKYo). See also SADĀPARIBHuTA.
sāgaramudrāsamādhi. (T. rgya mtsho'i phyag rgya ting nge 'dzin; C. haiyin sanmei; J. kaiin zanmai; K. haein sammae 海印三昧). In Sanskrit, "ocean-seal samādhi," or "oceanic reflection samādhi," a concentration (SAMĀDHI) often treated as emblematic of the HUAYAN ZONG's most profound vision of reality. "Ocean seal" is a metaphor for the pure and still mind that is able to reflect all phenomena while remaining perpetually unaffected by them, just as the calm surface of the ocean is said to be able to reflect all the phenomena in the universe. The AVATAMSAKASuTRA includes the sāgaramudrāsamādhi among several other types of samādhi that it mentions. In the "SAMANTABHADRA Bodhisattva Chapter" (Puxian pusa pin), the first of the ten samādhis taught by this bodhisattva is the sāgaramudrāsamādhi; through its power, a buddha is enabled to perform all types of works to rescue sentient beings, such as manifesting himself as a buddha and using numerous skillful means (UPĀYA) in order to guide them. The "Ten Bhumis Chapter" (Shidi pin) mentions sāgaramudrāsamādhi as one of a list of eleven samādhis that occur to bodhisattvas who reach the tenth stage (BHuMI) on the path. The "Manifestation of the Tathāgata Chapter" (Rulai chuxian pin) says that sāgaramudrāsamādhi is so named because it is like the ocean that reflects the images of all sentient beings. In the Huayan scholastic tradition, sāgaramudrāsamādhi is raised to pride of place within its doctrinal system. Sāgaramudrāsamādhi is considered to be the generic samādhi (zongding) that the Buddha enters prior to beginning the elucidation of the various assemblies recounted in the AvataMsakasutra itself; the seven subsequent samādhis that the Buddha enters as he preaches the teaching of the AvataMsakasutra at each of the eight assemblies (hui) (there is no samādhi prior to the second assembly) are regarded instead as specific types of samādhis (bieding). ZHIYAN (602-668), the second Huayan patriarch, associated sāgaramudrāsamādhi with the teaching of one vehicle (EKAYĀNA) in his KONGMU ZHANG, where he says that the common and distinctive teachings of the one vehicle (yisheng tongbie) are revealed through the "ocean-seal" samādhi, while the teachings of the three vehicles (TRIYĀNA) are revealed through the subsequently obtained wisdom (C. houde zhi; S. PṚstHALABDHAJNĀNA). FAZANG (643-712), the third Huayan patriarch, following his teacher Zhiyan's view, declares at the beginning of his HUAYAN WUJIAO ZHANG that his work was written to reveal the teaching of the one vehicle that the Buddha attained through the "ocean-seal" samādhi. It is Fazang who formalized the place of the sāgaramudrāsamādhi in the Huayan doctrinal system. In his XIU HUAYAN AOZHI WANGJIN HUANYUAN GUAN, Fazang noted that the "ocean-seal" samādhi and the Huayan samādhi (C. Huayan sanmei), both mentioned among the ten samādhis in the Xianshou pusa pin of the AvataMsakasutra, correspond to the "two functions" (er YONG): respectively, to the "function of the eternal abiding of all things reflected on the ocean" (haiyin senluo changzhu yong) and the "function of the autonomy of the perfect luminosity of the DHARMADHĀTU" (fajie yuanming zizai yong). Both of these types of functions were subordinated to the highest category of the "one essence" (yi TI), viz., the "essence of the pure and perfect luminosity of the self-nature" (zixing qingjing yuanming ti). The first type of function, which was associated with the sāgaramudrāsamādhi, was the perfect reflection of all things in the pure mind; like the unsullied ocean that reflected all phenomena, it also was freed from any type of delusion or falsity. For Fazang, "ocean seal" (haiyin) was interpreted to mean the "original enlightenment of true thusness" (ZHENRU BENJUE) by correlating this function with the "ocean of the thusness of the dharma nature" (faxing zhenru hai) as mentioned in the DASHENG QIXIN LUN ("Awakening of Faith According to the Mahāyāna"). In Fazang's Huayan youxin fajie ji, the "ocean-seal" samādhi was classified as a cause and the Huayan samādhi as a fruition. Elsewhere, in his HUAYAN JING TANXUAN JI, Fazang additionally differentiates the ocean-seal samādhi itself into two phases of cause and fruition: the stage of the cause is attained by the bodhisattva SAMANTABHADRA at the tenth of the ten stages of faith, while the fruition stage corresponds to the samādhi of a tathāgata. In addition to its importance in the AvataMsakasutra and the Huayan school, there are several other sutras that also mention the sāgaramudrāsamādhi. For example, the MAHĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRA says that the sāgaramudrāsamādhi incorporates all other samādhis. The RATNAKutASuTRA states that one should abide in sāgaramudrāsamādhi in order to obtain complete, perfect enlightenment (ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI). Finally, the MAHĀSAMNIPĀTASuTRA says that one can see all sentient beings' mental functions and gain the knowledge of all teaching devices (DHARMAPARYĀYA) through the sāgaramudrāsamādhi.
saMgha. (P. sangha; T. dge 'dun; C. sengqie; J. sogya; K. sŭngga 僧伽). A BUDDHIST HYBRID SANSKRIT term, generally translated as "community" or "order," it is the term most commonly used to refer to the order of Buddhist monks and nuns. (The classical Sanskrit and Pāli of this term is sangha, a form often seen in Western writings on Buddhism; this dictionary uses saMgha as the generic and nonsectarian Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit form.) The term literally means "that which is struck together well," suggesting something that is solid and not easily broken apart. In ancient India, the term originally meant a "guild," and the different offices in the saMgha were guild terms: e.g., ĀCĀRYA, which originally meant a "guild master," was adopted in Buddhism to refer to a teacher or preceptor of neophytes to the monastic community. The Buddhist saMgha began with the ordination of the first monks, the "group of five" (PANCAVARGIKA) to whom the Buddha delivered his first sermon, when he turned the wheel of the dharma (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA) at SĀRNĀTH. At that time, there was no formal ordination ceremony; the Buddha simply used the EHIBHIKsUKĀ formula, lit. "Come, monk," to welcome someone who had joined the order. The order grew as rival teachers were converted, bringing their disciples with them. Eventually, a more formal ritual of ordination (UPASAMPADĀ) was developed. In addition, as circumstances warranted, the Buddha slowly began making rules to organize the daily life of the community as a whole and its individual members (see VINAYA). Although it seems that in the early years, the Buddha and his followers wandered without fixed dwellings, donors eventually provided places for them to spend the rainy season (see VARsĀ) and the shelters there evolved into monasteries (VIHĀRA). A saMgha came to be defined as a group of monks who lived within a particular geographical boundary (SĪMĀ) and who gathered fortnightly (see UPOsADHA) to recite the monastic code (PRĀTIMOKsA). That group had to consist of at least ten monks in a central region and five monks in more remote regions. In the centuries after the passing of the Buddha, variations developed over what constituted this code, leading to the formation of "fraternities" or NIKĀYAs; the tradition typically recognizes eighteen such groups as belonging to the MAINSTEAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS, but there were clearly more. ¶ There is much discussion in Buddhist literature on the question of what constitutes the saMgha, especially the saMgha that is the third of the three jewels (RATNATRAYA), to which Buddhists go for refuge (sARAnA). One of the oldest categories is the eightfold saMgha, composed only of those who have reached a certain level of spiritual attainment. The eight are four groups of two, in each case one who is approaching and one who has attained one of the four ranks of stream-enterer, or SROTAĀPANNA; once-returner, or SAKṚDĀGĀMIN; nonreturner, or ANĀGĀMIN; and worthy one, or ARHAT. This is the saMgha of the saMgha jewel, and is sometimes referred to as the ĀRYASAMGHA, or "noble saMgha." A later and more elaborate category expanded this group of eight to a group of twenty, called the VIMsATIPRABHEDASAMGHA, or "twenty-member saMgha," based on their different faculties (INDRIYA) and the ways in which they reach NIRVĀnA; this subdivision appears especially in MAHĀYĀNA works, particularly in the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ literature. Whether eight or twenty, it is this group of noble persons (ĀRYAPUDGALA) who are described as worthy of gifts (daksinīyapudgala). Those noble persons who are also ordained are sometimes referred to as the "ultimate saMgha" (PARAMĀRTHASAMGHA) as distinguished from the "conventional saMgha" (SAMVṚTISAMGHA), which is composed of the ordained monks and nuns who are still ordinary persons (PṚTHAGJANA). In a still broader sense, the term is sometimes used for a fourfold group, composed of monks (BHIKsU), nuns (BHIKsUnĪ), lay male disciples (UPĀSAKA), and lay female disciples (UPĀSIKĀ). However, this fourfold group is more commonly called PARIsAD ("followers" or "congregation"), suggesting that the term saMgha is more properly used to refer to the ordained community. In common parlance, however, especially in the West, saMgha has come to connote any community of Buddhists, whether monastic or lay, or a combination of the two. In the long history of Buddhism, however, the presence or absence of the Buddhist dispensation (sĀSANA) has traditionally been measured by the presence or absence of ordained monks who virtuously maintain their precepts. In the history of many Buddhist lands, the establishment of Buddhism is marked by the founding of the first monastery and the ordination of the first monks into the saMgha. See also SAMGHABHEDA; SAMMUTISAnGHA; ĀRYAPUDGALA; SŬNGT'ONG; SAnGHARĀJA.
saMghāvasesa. [alt. saMghātisesa] (P. sanghādisesa; T. dge 'dun lhag ma; C. sengcanzui/sengcanfa; J. sozanzai/sozanho; K. sŭngjanjoe/sŭngjanpop 僧殘罪/僧殘法). In Sanskrit, "probationary offense"; a category of offenses in the roster of monastic rules (PRĀTIMOKsA) that require penance and/or probation. The saMghāvasesa offenses are the second most serious category of offense in the VINAYA, second only to the "defeats" (PĀRĀJIKA), which render a monk or nun "not in communion" (ASAMVĀSA) with the community. A saMghāvasesa infraction requires either an open confession of the offense before a gathering of monks or else expulsion from the order (SAMGHA) if the offender refuses to confess. According to one paranomastic gloss, because the remedy for these offenses requires the intervention of the saMgha at both the beginning (ādi) and the end (sesa) of the expiation process, these offenses are known collectively as saMghādisesa. The probationary offender receives two different kinds of punishments: penance (MĀNATVA) and temporary probation (PARIVĀSA). The mānatva penance is imposed on a monk who commits a saMghāvasesa offense when that monk immediately confesses the infraction to another monk. In the Pāli vinaya, the penance imposed in this circumstance is called "penance for unconcealed offenses" (apaticchannamānatta), which entails the loss of the usual privileges of monkhood for a set period of six nights. If a monk instead conceals a saMghāvasesa offense for a period of time before confessing it, he must undergo a "probationary penance" called either parivāsa or, in Pāli, "penance for concealed offenses" (paticchannamānatta). This probationary penance likewise entails the loss of privileges, but in this case that probation must last for as long as the offense was concealed. After the parivāsa penance is completed, the monk must then undergo mānatta penance for six nights. These penances are similar in some vinaya traditions to those meted out to "pārājika penitents" (sIKsĀDATTAKA). During his probationary period, the offender is stripped of his seniority and expected to observe certain social constraints. For example, the VINAYAPItAKA states that such offenders may not leave the monastery grounds without being accompanied by at least four monks (BHIKsU) who are not themselves on probation. Also, every day of his probation, the offending monk must inform the other monks of the offense for which he is being punished. The exact number of precepts that fall under the category of saMghāvasesa varies somewhat among the different vinaya traditions; a typical list of thirteen rules for monks includes (1) willingly emitting semen, (2) engaging in lustful physical contact with a woman, (3) using sexually inappropriate language toward a woman, (4) praising sexual intercourse as a religious act, (5) acting as the liaison in the arrangement of a marriage, (6) building a personal hut that is larger than the prescribed dimensions, (7) building a monastery (VIHĀRA) for the community that does not meet the prescribed specifications, (8) falsely and maliciously accusing another monk of an infraction, (9) taking up an issue as a ploy to falsely accuse another monk of an infraction, (10) taking any action that may result in a schism within the community (SAMGHABHEDA), (11) siding with or following a monk who has created a schism in the order, (12) refusing to acknowledge and to heed the admonishments of training given by other monks, and finally (13) corrupting families. Nuns are typically subject to seventeen rules, including a few additional restrictions enumerated in the bhiksunīprātimoksa. After completing the parivāsa penance and his six nights of mānatva, the monk approaches the saMgha, which in this case means a quorum of monks consisting of at least twenty members, and requests to be "called back into community" (S. ABHYĀYANA, P. abbhāna). If the saMgha agrees, the monk is declared free of the saMghāvasesa offense and is restored to his former status.
saMskṛta. (T. 'dus byas; C. youwei; J. ui; K. yuwi 有爲). In Sanskrit, "conditioned," a term that describes all impermanent phenomena, that is, all conditioned factors (saMskṛtadharma) that are produced through the concomitance of causes and conditions; these phenomena are subject to the four characteristics (CATURLAKsAnA) governing all conditioned objects (SAMSKṚTALAKsAnA), viz., "origination," or birth (JĀTI), "continuance," or maturation (STHITI), "senescence," or decay (JARĀ), and "desinence," or death (ANITYA). SaMskṛta is contrasted with ASAMSKṚTA, "unconditioned," a common adjective of NIRVĀnA, but also a category that in some traditions includes space (ĀKĀsA) and other types of absence and cessation. The fact that the objects of ordinary experience are conditioned is commonly cited as a reason why they are unreliable and thus should be abandoned, and why the unconditioned state should be sought. See also SAMSKĀRA.
sankhārupekkhāNāna. In Pāli, "knowledge arising from equanimity regarding all formations"; according to the VISUDDHIMAGGA, the eighth of nine knowledges (P. Nāna, S. JNĀNA) cultivated as part of "purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path" (PAtIPADĀNĀnADASSANAVISUDDHI). This latter category, in turn, constitutes the sixth and penultimate purity (P. visuddhi, S. VIsUDDHI) to be developed along the path to liberation. Knowledge arising from equanimity regarding all formations arises as a consequence of understanding all conditioned formations (S. SAMSKĀRA) that comprise the individual and the universe as being characterized by the three marks (S. TRILAKsAnA) of impermanence (S. ANITYA), suffering (S. DUḤKHA) and nonself (S. ANĀTMAN). This understanding is the product of the immediately preceding (seventh) knowledge called "knowledge arising from contemplation of reflection" (PAtISAnKHĀNUPASSANĀNĀnA). Understanding the formations to be void (see suNYATĀ) in this way, the practitioner abandons both terror and delight, and, regarding them as neither "I" nor "mine," he becomes indifferent and neutral towards them. The sixth, seventh, and eighth knowledges when taken together are called "insight leading to emergence" (vutthānagāmini vipassanā) because they stand at the threshold of liberation. The Visuddhimagga states that, at this stage in the practice, one can continue to contemplate the formations with equanimity, or, if the mind turns towards the nibbāna element (S. NIRVĀnADHĀTU) as its object, one of three types of liberation (S. VIMUKTI) ensues. If liberation occurs while contemplating impermanence, it is called "signless liberation," if it occurs while contemplating suffering it is called "wishless liberation," and if it occurs while contemplating nonself it is called "empty liberation" (see VIMOKsAMUKHA).
sanmei jing. (S. samādhisutra; J. sanmaikyo; K. sammae kyong 三昧經). In Chinese, "SAMĀDHI scriptures"; a category of MAHĀYĀNA sutras that are primarily or exclusively concerned with the practice or experience of meditation (SAMĀDHI), or whose title contains the term sanmei. The earliest reference to sanmei jing as a scriptural category appears in the oldest extant Chinese scriptural catalogue, CHU SANZANG JIJI ("Compilation of Notices on the Translation of the TRIPItAKA"), compiled by SENGYOU (445-518) around 515; there, Sengyou remarks that Zhu Fahu (DHARMARAKsA) translated several sanmei jings. The Chinese Buddhist canon (DAZANGJING) contains more than fifty sutras that use the term sanmei in their titles. These include sanmei jings whose Sanskrit titles do not use the term samādhi and to which the term sanmei was added when these scriptures were translated into Chinese. There are also other scriptures of uncertain provenance whose titles in earlier Chinese translations did not contain the term sanmei. An examination of successive Chinese Buddhist scriptural catalogues (JINGLU) in fact reveals that there were several sutras that circulated first with one title, and later with a revised title that added sanmei to the original. Furthermore, there are a number of indigenous Chinese Buddhist scriptures (see APOCRYPHA), that were not entered into the canon, which call themselves sanmei jing. This phenomenon began early in the history of Chinese Buddhism. DAO'AN's 374 CE scriptural catalogue (ZONGLI ZHONG-JING MULU), which is no longer extant but portions of which are excerpted in Sengyou's Chu sanzang jiji, lists twenty-six scriptures of dubious authenticity; of these, six are titled sanmei jing. Several sanmei jings, such as the Banzhou sanmeijing (S. PRATYUTPANNABUDDHASAMMUKHĀVASTHITASAMĀDHISuTRA), offer instruction regarding the full range of practices involved in cultivating a specific samādhi technique. The majority of sanmei jings, however, are instead concerned with the various states of mind that the Buddha or BODHISATTVAs attained through samādhi, praising that samādhi, and/or emphasizing the merit gained through keeping and transmitting the text of the sanmei jing. The popularity of the sanmei jing genre in Chinese Buddhism can be at least partially attributed to Chinese Buddhists' faith and interest in the religious practice of copying and reciting scriptures, which most sanmei jings encourage as a means of attaining enlightenment. Higher meditative states like samādhi sometime seem ancillary to the topic of certain sanmei jings: the JINGDU SANMEI JING, for example, offers a detailed account of thirty separate levels of the hells and the incumbent punishments meted out there; in order to avoid the torments of hell, the scripture exhorts laypeople not to meditate, but instead to observe the five precepts (PANCAsĪLA) and perform the "eight-restrictions fast" (BAGUAN ZHAI) on specific Chinese seasonal days.
Satyadvayavibhanga. (T. Bden pa gnyis rnam par 'byed pa). In Sanskrit, "Distinction Between the Two Truths," a work by the eighth-century MADHYAMAKA master JNĀNAGARBHA. According to Tibetan classification, the work belongs to the SVĀTANTRIKA-MADHYAMAKA, and within that, the SAUTRĀNTIKA-SVĀTANTRIKA-MADHYAMAKA. This work, together with the MADHYAMAKĀLAMKĀRA by sĀNTARAKsITA and the MADHYAMAKĀLOKA of KAMALAsĪLA are known in Tibet as the "three works of the eastern *SVĀTANTRIKAs" (rang rgyud shar gsum) because the three authors were from Bengal. The Satyadvayavibhanga is composed in verses (kārikā) and includes a prose autocommentary (vṛtti) by the author. There is also a commentary (paNjikā) by sāntaraksita, who is said to have been a student of JNānagarbha. The text presumably takes its title from Nāgārjuna's statement in his MuLAMADHYAMAKAKĀRIKĀ: "Those who do not comprehend the distinction between these two truths do not know the nature of the profound doctrine of the Buddha." The ultimate truth (PARAMĀRTHASATYA) is nondeceptive; its nature accords not with appearance, but with valid knowledge gained through reasoning (nyāya). It is also free from discursive thought (NIRVIKALPA). The conventional truth (SAMVṚTISATYA) includes ordinary appearances, or as the text says, "whatever appears even to cowherds and women." Within the category of the conventional, there are true and false conventions, which are distinguished based on their ability to perform a function (ARTHAKRIYĀ) in accordance with their appearance; thus water is a true convention and a mirage is a false convention. The work ends with a discussion of the three bodies (TRIKĀYA) of a buddha.
sedative: a category of drugs that result in drowsiness and reduced sensori-motor skills by reducing central nervous system functioning.
Self-consciousness Awareness of oneself as the experiencer, attribution of one’s experiences to an ego, consciousness of being a separate individual; whereas consciousness in the abstract is merely awareness of the experience. Animals and very young children are conscious, man is self-conscious; yet the adult, when engrossed in an experience, may lose his self-consciousness for a while. But even man is only partially self-conscious, because he can contemplate only part of his being; that in him which is now the contemplator may become part of what is contemplated. As the subject, the knower, shifts upwards and inwards, so to speak, more and more of the vestures pass into the category of objects or what is known. The Unknown manifests the universe in order to attain full self-consciousness; and in man, the microcosm, an unself-conscious spark of divinity passes through stages of evolution and experience in order to achieve relatively full self-consciousness. The potentiality of self-consciousness, however, is in every atom. In order to become self-conscious, spirit must pass through every cycle of cosmic being, until every ego has attained full self-consciousness as a human being or equivalent entity. Man’s self-consciousness depends on his triple nature; it is man who is the separator of the One into various contrasted aspects.
semantics "theory" The meaning of a string in some language, as opposed to {syntax} which describes how symbols may be combined independent of their meaning. The semantics of a programming language is a function from programs to answers. A program is a {closed term} and, in practical languages, an answer is a member of the syntactic category of values. The two main kinds are {denotational semantics} and {operational semantics}. (1995-06-21)
semantics ::: (theory) The meaning of a string in some language, as opposed to syntax which describes how symbols may be combined independent of their meaning.The semantics of a programming language is a function from programs to answers. A program is a closed term and, in practical languages, an answer is a member of the syntactic category of values. The two main kinds are denotational semantics and operational semantics. (1995-06-21)
Sethian; It is a name for a specific sect of Gnostics, but also a category created by scholors to refer to a number of sects that are similar in their difference to Valentinians
Sonirei. (僧尼令). In Japanese, "Regulations for Monks and Nuns"; a decree issued in 701 by the Japanese imperial court to regulate the activities of Buddhist clerics; the extant twenty-seven-article recension of these regulations was codified within the Yoro ritsurei ("Civil and Penal Codes of the Yoro Era"), which was compiled in 718 and promulgated in 757. The Sonirei is believed to be modeled after the Tang-dynasty code regulating the activities of Daoist and Buddhist clerics, the Daoseng ge. The Sonirei was also based on the traditional Buddhist precepts of the Chinese translation of the DHARMAGUPTAKA VINAYA (C. SIFEN LÜ): for example, it stipulated that committing a PĀRĀJIKA transgression, the most serious category of monastic offense-viz., sexual intercourse, murder, grand theft, and false claims of spiritual achievement-required punishment in accord with civil law. The code also forbade monks from consuming alcohol, meat, and strong-smelling herbs, and prohibited a monk from entering a nun's cell, and vice versa. The Sonirei also reflected the state's concern about the possible threat to its power from an unregulated Buddhist clergy, as shown in the example of GYoGI (668-749), a Hosso (FAXIANG ZONG) monk who disseminated Buddhism among the commoners and gained widespread popularity as a charismatic teacher and thaumaturge. Many of the Sonirei regulations targeted such maverick clerics: to give but a few examples, monks and nuns were prohibited from predicting good and bad fortunes based on heavenly portents; speaking against the state; studying military tactics; living outside the temples or building a Buddhist chapel off temple grounds; giving scriptures or buddha images to a layperson or teaching outside the monastery; or accumulating private property or wealth. The Sonirei also required all monks and nuns to receive official permission before ordaining. However, violations of the Sonirei were widespread and the regulations had lost much of their effectiveness by the middle of the Heian period.
species ::: A taxonomic category subordinate to genus; members of a species are defined by extensive similarities, including the ability to interbreed.
Spending level – Refers to the true expenditure or cash outlay of any entity in a given category or budgetary area.
sprul sku. A Tibetan term often seen transcribed in English as "tulku"; it is the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit term NIRMĀnAKĀYA, the third of the three bodies of a buddha (TRIKĀYA), the "emanation body" that appears in the world for the benefit of sentient beings. Although the term retains this standard Buddhological meaning in Tibetan, sprul sku is used by extension to refer to an "incarnate lama," and the term is sometimes translated as such. It is not believed in every case that each incarnate lama is the emanation body of a buddha. However, the implication is that there is a difference in the processes whereby ordinary beings and incarnate lamas take birth in the world. For the former, rebirth is process over which one has no control, with a strong possibility that one's new life will be in the lower rebirth destinies (DURGATI) as an animal, hungry ghost, or hell denizen. The rebirth of an "emanation body" is instead considered to be a voluntary choice. The sprul sku are said to exercise control over their rebirth; a dying incarnation will often leave instructions for his disciples as to where to find his next rebirth. The practice of identifying children as the incarnations of deceased masters may date from as early as the eleventh or twelfth century. By the fifteenth century, all sects of Tibetan Buddhism had adopted the practice of identifying the successive rebirths of a great teacher, the most famous instance of which are the DALAI LAMAs. There were some three thousand lines of incarnation in Tibet (only several of whom are female). It was also the case that a single lama may have more than one incarnation; there were sometimes three, which were considered individual incarnations of the body, speech, and mind of the deceased master. The institution of the incarnate lama became a central component of Tibetan society, providing the means by which authority and charisma, both symbolic and material, was passed from one generation to another. The spread of Tibetan Buddhism can be traced by the increasingly large geographical areas in which incarnate lamas have been discovered. A variety of types and levels of sprul sku are identified. A mchog gi sprul sku (choki tulku) (UTTAMANIRMĀnAKĀYA) is a buddha, such as sĀKYAMUNI, who appears in the world with a body adorned with the major and minor marks of a MAHĀPURUsA. A skye ba'i sprul sku (kyewe tulku) (JANMANIRMĀnAKĀYA) is the appearance of a buddha in the form of an animal, human, or divinity. Tibetan incarnate lamas would fall into this category. Also in this category would be those cases in which a buddha appears as an inanimate object that provides benefit to sentient beings, such as a bridge across a river, a path, a tree, or a cooling breeze. A bzo bo sprul sku (sowo tulku) (sILPANIRMĀnAKĀYA) is an artisan or craftsman or a particular manifestation of artistic beauty that subdues the afflictions (KLEsA). Within the the large DGE LUGS PA monasteries, a monk with the title of tshogs chen sprul sku (tsokchen tulku, "great assembly tulku") is excused from performing regular assembly duties. In Tibetan, an incarnate lama is addressed and referred to as RIN PO CHE (precious one), although that term is also used for abbots and other holders of high ecclesiastical office; it may also be used for one's teacher, even if he or she is not an incarnate lama. The term BLA MA (lama) is typically used to refer to incarnations but is also used widely for a teacher.
srotaāpannaphalapratipannaka. (P. sotāpattimagga; T. rgyun du zhugs pa'i 'bras bu la zhugs pa; C. yuliu xiang; J. yoruko; K. yeryu hyang 預流向). In Sanskrit, one who is practicing, or is candidate for the fruit of stream-enterer. Both the srotaāpannaphalapratipannaka and SROTAĀPANNAPHALASTHA (one who has reached, or is the recipient of the fruit of stream-enterer) are called "stream-enterer" (SROTAĀPANNA) and are noble persons (ĀRYA); the srotaāpannaphalapratipannaka has only reached the ĀNANTARYAMĀRGA (unimpeded path), the srotaāpannaphalastha has reached the VIMUKTIMĀRGA (path of freedom) of the path of vision (DARsANAMĀRGA). The level of ordinary humans is the sensuous realm (KĀMADHĀTU), viz., the level where beings are dominated by sense pleasure (KĀMA). Those whose prior store of actions is such that, prior to reaching the path of vision, they have eliminated as many as five of the nine sets of afflictions (KLEsA) that cause rebirth in the sensuous realm, are candidates for the fruit stream-enterer when they reach the path of vision's unimpeded path; and they are recipients of the fruit of stream-enterer when they reach the path of freedom. This is one of the VIMsATIPRABHEDASAMGHA ("twenty varieties of the ārya saMgha") based on the list given in the ABHISAMAYĀLAMKĀRA; srotaāpannaphalapratipannaka is also included in the category of follower of faith (sRADDHĀNUSĀRIN).
srotaāpannaphalastha. (P. sotāpattiphala; T. rgyun du zhugs pa'i 'bras bu la gnas pa; C. zheng yuliu guo; J. shoyoruka; K. chŭng yeryu kwa 證預流果). In Sanskrit, one who has reached, or is the recipient of the fruit of stream-enterer, one of the eight ĀRYAPUDGALA ("noble persons") and one of the VIMsATIPRABHEDASAMGHA ("twenty varieties of the āryasaMgha") based on the list given in the ABHISAMAYĀLAMKĀRA. The srotaāpannaphalastha is also included in the category of those who have aspired through faith (sRADDHĀDHIMUKTA). See SAKṚDĀGĀMIPHALASTHA.
statistical classification ::: In machine learning and statistics, classification is the problem of identifying to which of a set of categories (sub-populations) a new observation belongs, on the basis of a training set of data containing observations (or instances) whose category membership is known. Examples are assigning a given email to the "spam" or "non-spam" class, and assigning a diagnosis to a given patient based on observed characteristics of the patient (sex, blood pressure, presence or absence of certain symptoms, etc.). Classification is an example of pattern recognition.
sthulātyaya. (P. thullaccaya; T. nyes pa sbom po; C. toulanzhe; J. churanja/churansha; K. t'uranch'a 偸蘭遮). In Sanskrit, "grave offense" or "important fault"; a category of misdeed in the Buddhist VINAYA, it includes the most serious offenses that can be expiated through simple confession to another monk, rather than the more severe sanction of "defeat" (PĀRĀJIKA) or the sanction of confession at a formal meeting of the order (SAMGHĀVAsEsA). The misdeeds that fall under this category generally involve a failed or lesser version of a misdeed that would otherwise entail a stronger sanction. Such transgressions would include, for example, attempting to kill someone but only inflicting injury, testing poison on a human being, killing a nonhuman being, such as a PRETA, NĀGA, or YAKsA, stealing something of little or no value (defined in the Pāli vinaya as being worth more than one māsaka and less than five māsaka), touching the hem of a woman's garment with a lustful motivation, making lustful contact with an animal that one has mistaken for a woman, seeking to ejaculate but failing to do so, attempting to have sexual intercourse with a corpse, lustfully touching the genitals of cattle, making lascivious reference to a woman's private parts without her understanding the reference, performing two of the three deeds of a go-between (accepting the request, inquiring, reporting back), going naked, wearing a garment made of owls' wings, wearing a garment of bark, castrating oneself, eating human flesh, giving away a monastery, giving away a metal pot, causing a boat to rock in place although it does not move up or down stream, delivering the penultimate blow in chopping down a tree, causing an animal to move any of its feet, moving a boundary marker (SĪMĀ), causing an owner to give up attempts to regain possession of property, implying (although not stating explicitly) that one is endowed with supranormal powers, and unsuccessfully attempting to cause a schism in the order (SAMGHABHEDA).
Strictly speaking, there are no contraries in the category of substance, since substances are the subject of contraries, nor in the category of quantity, since these are relative. Two contrary states cannot obtain in one and the same individual at the same time and in the same respect; cf. contradiction. Some contraries, e.g. good-bad, black-white, have intermediaries; while others do not, e.g. odd-even. (ii) Propositions: Two universal propositions, having opposite quality (i.e. one affirmative and one negative) are contrary; De Interpretattone, 17b-4, See Logic, formal § 4, 8.
sutrānta. (P. suttanta; T. mdo sde). A synonym for SuTRA, used also to designate the category of sutras. In Pāli, SUTTANTA is typically reserved for the longer suttas collected in the DĪGHANIKĀYA.
suttanta. In Pāli, a synonym for SuTRA, used also to designate the category of scriptural literature. In Pāli, suttanta is typically reserved for the longer suttas collected in the DĪGHANIKĀYA. See also SuTRĀNTA.
suttavibhanga. In Pāli, "analysis of the suttas"; the first major section of the Pāli VINAYAPItAKA. Embedded within the suttavibhanga is the pātimokkha (S. PRĀTIMOKsA), a collection of 227 rules (311 for nuns) that were to be followed by fully ordained members of the Buddhist monastic community. The bulk of the suttavibhanga contains narratives and commentaries related to the promulgation of the pātimokkha rules, which explain the events that led to the Buddha's decision to establish a specific rule. Following the Buddha's pronouncement of the rule, the rule may be interpreted with word-for-word commentary and/or details that might justify an exception to the rule. In the suttavibhanga, these narrative and commentarial treatments are organized in the same way as the pātimokkha itself, that is, according to the category of offense. Thus, the suttavibhanga begins with the PĀRĀJIKA (defeat) offenses and works its way through the remaining sections of the pātimokkha. See also SuTRAVIBHAnGA.
syntax directed translation A technique where the structure of a language processor (e.g. a compiler) is based on the structure of the language's {abstract syntax}. There might be one procedure in the translator corresponding to each category in the abstract syntax. That procedure is responsible for processing constructs of that category. Each procedure would call others corresponding to the construct's subconstituents and then combine their results to give the overall result for that construct.
Technology-Based Standards ::: Effluent limitations applicable to direct and indirect sources which are developed on a category-by-category basis using statutory factors, not including water-quality effects.
Technology costs – Are the category of costs associated with the development, acquisition, implementation, and maintenance of technology assets.
Telecommunications Industry Association ::: (body, standard) (TIA) An association that sets standards for communications cabling.Cables that TIA set standards for include: EIA/TIA-568A and EIA/TIA-568B category three, four and five cable. .[Details?](2000-04-24)
Telecommunications Industry Association "body, standard" (TIA) An association that sets {standards} for communications cabling. Cables that TIA set standards for include: {EIA}/TIA-568A and EIA/TIA-568B category three, four and five cable. {(http://tiaonline.org/)}. [Details?] (2000-04-24)
The critique of Kant resolves substance into the a priori category of Inherence-and-subsistence, and so to a necessary synthetic activity of mind upon the data of experience. In the dialectic of Hegel, the effort is made to unify the logical meanings of substance as subject and the meaning of absolute independent being as defined in Spinoza. -- L.M.H.
Thus the method is the delineation of systems which are real, and the doctrine of reality nothing other than a detailed statement of the result. Such a statement is the final category of dialectical analysis, the Absolute Idea, this is the "truth" of Being. What this category is in detail can be specified only by the method whereby it is warranted. In general it is the structure of fact, possibility and value as determined by dialectical negation. It is the all-comprehensive system, the "whole," which harmoniously includes every statement of fact, possibility and value by "sublating" (through dialectical negation) every such statement within its own structure. It is also of the nature of "subject" in contradistinction to "substance" as defined by Spinoza; Hegel sometimes speaks of it as Absolute Spirit. If this doctrine is to be called absolute idealism, as is customary, its distinguishing characteristic should not be submerged in the name: the system which is here identified with reality is structured precisely as disclosed in the process of dialectical negation which exhibits it.
Tiantai bajiao. (J. Tendai hakkyo; K. Ch'ont'ae p'algyo 天台八教). In Chinese, "The Eight [Classes of] Teachings according to the TIANTAI." According to the TIANTAI ZONG's system of doctrinal classification (JIAOXIANG PANSHI), the entirety of the Buddhist canon and its teachings can be divided into two groups of four teachings each. The first group of four was called "the four modes of transformative teachings" (huafa sijiao), which categorizes Buddhist teachings based on the content of their teachings and different doctrinal themes and their scriptural bases. The second group of four was called "the four styles of transformative edification" or "four modes of exposition" (huayi sijiao), which categorizes different strands of Buddhism primarily according to their means of conversion or pedagogical styles. ¶ The first group of four teachings, the transformative teachings (huafa sijiao), classifies Buddhism into four categories based on content: (1) zangjiao, the "TRIPItAKA teachings," the basic teachings that are foundational to the HĪNAYĀNA schools, such as the notions of impermanence, suffering, and no-self, and the imperative of attaining NIRVĀnA; (2) tongjiao, the "joint" or "common teachings," a basic strand of MAHĀYĀNA teaching that shares many of the preceding doctrinal themes jointly with the "hīnayāna teachings," the main difference being that it additionally embraces the BODHISATTVA aspiration of helping others; (3) biejiao, the "distinct" or "separate teachings," so named because, unlike the previous category, this strand of Mahāyāna includes notions exclusive to that tradition and not shared with the "hīnayāna"; (4) yuanjiao, the "consummate" or "perfect teaching," which is the exclusive domain of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA, the main scripture the Tiantai school itself espouses. ¶ The second group of four teachings, the modes of exposition or conversion (huayi sijiao), contains the following divisions based on pedagogical style: (1) dunjiao, the "sudden teachings" or a direct pedagogical style. Epitomized by the AVATAMSAKASuTRA, this mode of teaching is characterized by a direct revelation of the stage of buddhahood, circumventing the gradual, and more conventional, stages of beginning bodhisattva practices and the "hīnayāna" tradition. (2) Jianjiao, the "gradual teachings" or pedagogical style. Representing these sequential, step-by-step soteriological approaches and pedagogical styles are the ĀGAMAs, the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ sutras, and the VAIPULYA sutras. (3) Budingjiao, the "indefinite teachings" or pedagogical style. The same utterance of the Buddha might be given without differentiation to various members of the audience, but the depth to which they were able to penetrate to that message, and the different interpretations they gave to it, varied depending on their spiritual maturity. (4) Mimijiao, the "esoteric teachings" or pedagogical style. Not to be confused with tantric teachings, "esoteric" here refers to the Tiantai belief that the Buddha sometimes preached in such a way that his same utterance resonated differently with various members within the audience, so that each received the instruction most suitable to his needs and temperament; with this pedagogical style, the Buddha essentially left members of the audience free to fathom an inexhaustibly elastic teaching and be benefited from it according to their unique conditions. See also WUSHI; CH'oNT'AE SAGYO ŬI.
tiryak. [alt. tiryascīna, tiryaNc] (P. tiracchāna; T. dud 'gro; C. chusheng; J. chikusho; K. ch'uksaeng 畜生). In Sanskrit, lit. "going horizontally" (i.e., not erect), viz., an animal; one of five or six rebirth destinies (GATI) in SAMSĀRA. Among these, animals are classified as the one of the three (or four) unfortunate rebirth destinies (APĀYA; DURGATI), along with denizens of hell (NĀRAKA), ghosts (PRETA), and in some lists demigods or titans (ASURA). The category of animals includes both land and sea creatures, as well as insects. The specific kinds of suffering that animals undergo are frequently mentioned in Buddhist texts; these include the constant need to search for their own food while always seeking to avoid becoming food for others. Unlike humans, animals are generally killed not for some deed they have done but for the taste of their flesh or the texture of their skin. The possibility of achieving rebirth out of the realm of animals is said to be particularly difficult because of either the inevitable killing in which predators engage or because of animals' constant fear of becoming prey; neither mental state is conducive to higher rebirth. Despite this difficulty, there are many stories in Buddhist literature of predators who have willed themselves to stop killing (the first of the lay precepts) in order to create a karmic propensity that will be more conducive to rebirth out of the animal destiny. See also DAOTU.
top-down approach: in the context of offender profiling, an approach that examines evidence from the crime scene in light of existing classifications and theories of serious crimes (the 'top') and appraises which category a particular crime fits into. Commonly used by American criminal profilers.
Toson. (道詵) (827-898). Korean SoN master during the Later Silla and the early Koryo kingdoms, who is said to have been the first Korean to combine geomancy (K. p'ungsu; C. fengshui) and Buddhism in order to assess and correct adverse energy flows in the indigenous Korean landscape. Toson was probably a relatively little-known figure during his own lifetime, but he became the stuff of legend for supposedly predicting the rise to prominence of the founder of the Koryo dynasty, Wang Kon (r. 918-943), and using his geomatic prowess to locate the most auspicious site for the founding of its new capital, Kaesong. Toson developed a theory of deploying Buddhist architectural sites as a palliative to geographic anomalies. This theory, called "reinforcing [the land] through monasteries and STuPAs" (K. PIBO SAT'AP SoL), proposed that building monasteries and pagodas at geomantically fragile locations could alleviate or correct weaknesses in the native topology, in much the same way that acupuncture could correct feeble energy flows within the physical body. His geomantic theory is unusual, because Chinese geomancy of the time focused more on the discovery of hidden propitious sites within the landscape, not correcting geomantic weaknesses. This term pibo (lit. "assisting and supplementing," and thus "reinforcing," or "remediation") is also unattested as a technical term in Chinese geomancy. The term may derive from similar terms used in the geomantic theories of the Chinese CHAN school and thence the Korean Nine Mountains Son school (KUSAN SoNMUN), with which Toson was affiliated. The geomancy of Yang Yunsong (834-900) was popular in the Jiangxi region of China; this type of geomancy sought to interpret the lay of the land as a way of locating the most auspicious sites for constructing buildings. This tradition seems to have entered into the Chan lineages in that region, whence it might have been introduced in turn into Korea by the several Son masters in the Nine Mountains school who studied in Jiangxi. The frequency with which late Silla and early Koryo period Son monks located their monasteries following geomantic principles may well derive from the fact that seven of these nine early lineages of Korean Son were associated with the Hongzhou school and the Jiangxi region. Some scholars instead propose that the source of Toson's geomancy is to be found in esoteric Buddhism: Toson viewed the country as a MAndALA and, in order to protect the nation, proposed to situate monasteries at locations chosen through the ritual of demarcating a sacred site (sīmābandha). Finally, Korean indigenous religion and Togyo (Daoism) are also sometimes presented as sources of Toson's geomantic teachings. Toson's theory of geomancy also played a role in resituating the religious center of Korean Buddhism, which had previously been focused on the Silla capital of KYoNGJU or such indigenous sacred mountains as the five marchmounts (o'ak). The Silla royal and aristocratic families founded monasteries around the capital of Kyongju based on the belief that this region had previously been a Buddha land (Pulgukt'o). Toson's theory resulted in an expansion of the concept of "Buddha land" to take in the entire Korean peninsula, instead. After the establishment of the new Koryo dynasty in 918, Toson's theory was appropriated as a means of integrating into the dynastic political structure local power groups and monasteries. In the posthumous "Ten Injunctions" (hunyo sipcho) attributed to Wang Kon, the Koryo founder is reputed to have instructed that monasteries should only be constructed at sites that had been specifically designated as auspicious by Toson. For this reason, the term pibo later comes to be used as an official ecclesiastical category in Korea to designate important monasteries that had figured in the founding of the Koryo dynasty. Toson's thought also subsequently became associated with the theory of geomancy and divination (TOCH'AM) taught by the diviner-monk MYOCH'oNG (d. 1135), who eventually led an unsuccessful rebellion against the Koryo dynasty.
tourist information Information in an on-line display that is not immediately useful, but contributes to a viewer's gestalt of what's going on with the software or hardware behind it. Whether a given piece of info falls in this category depends partly on what the user is looking for at any given time. The "bytes free" information at the bottom of an {MS-DOS} "dir" display is tourist information; so (most of the time) is the TIME information in a {Unix} "ps(1)" display. [{Jargon File}]
tower: A countable category of objects, indexed by the natural numbers, such that morphisms go (and only go) from higher-indexed objects to lower-indexed objects.
udāna. (T. ched du brjod pa; C. youtuona; J. udana; K. udana 優陀那). In Sanskrit and Pāli, lit. "utterance," or "meaningful expression," a term with three important denotations. ¶ The Udāna is the third book of the Pāli KHUDDAKANIKĀYA and comprises eighty stories containing eighty utterances of the Buddha. The utterances are mostly in verse and are accompanied by prose accounts of the circumstances that prompted the Buddha to speak on those occasions. ¶ The name udāna is also given to a broader classification of texts within the Pāli canon as a whole, and in this usage it refers to a set of eighty-two suttas containing verses uttered out of joy. ¶ Finally, udāna are one of the standard sections in the division of the word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA) into nine NAVAnGA (Pāli) or twelve (DVĀDAsĀnGA) categories based on genre. In that context, udāna are defined as solemn utterances intended to convey an understanding of the dharma. Many of the Buddha's statements in the DHAMMAPADA are said to fall into this category.
udayabbayānupassanāNāna. In Pāli, "knowledge arising from the contemplation of arising and passing away"; the first of nine knowledges (P. Nāna) cultivated as part of the "purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path" (P. PAtIPADĀNĀnADASSANAVISUDDHI), according to the account in the VISUDDHIMAGGA. This latter category, in turn, constitutes the sixth and penultimate purity (P. visuddhi; S. VIsUDDHI) to be developed along the path to liberation. Knowledge arising from the contemplation of arising and passing away refers to the clear comprehension of the arising, presence, and dissolution of material and mental phenomena (NĀMARuPA). Through contemplating this process, the three universal marks of existence (P. tilakkhana; S. TRILAKsAnA) become apparent, viz., (1) impermanence (ANITYA), (2) suffering (DUḤKHA), and (3) no-self (ANĀTMAN). Full comprehension of the three universal marks of existence is not possible so long as the mind is disturbed by attachment to any of the ten "defilements of insight" (P. vipassanupakkilesa), which arise as concomitants of insight meditation (P. vipassanābhāvanā); these are (1) a vision of radiant light (obhāsa), (2) knowledge (Nāna), (3) rapture (pīti), (4) tranquillity (passaddhi), (5) happiness (sukha), (6) determination (adhimokkha), (7) energy (paggaha), (8) heightened awareness (upatthāna), (9) equanimity (upekkhā), and (10) delight (nikanti). The ten defilements are overcome by understanding them for what they are, as mere by-products of meditation. This understanding is developed through perfecting the "purity of knowledge and vision of what is and is not the path" (P. MAGGĀMAGGANĀnADASSANAVISUDDHI), which is the fifth of seven "purities" (visuddhi) to be developed along the path to liberation.
Universal benefits - Benefits paid to everyone in a certain category irrespective of their income or assets.
upapadyavedanīyakarman. (P. upapajjavedanīyakamma; T. skyes nas myong 'gyur gyi las; C. shunci shengshou ye; J. junjishojugo; K. sunch'a saengsu op 順次生受業). In Sanskrit, "action experienced upon birth," a category of deed whose karmic effect is experienced in the immediately following lifetime, as opposed to the present life or some other lifetime in the future.
vaipulya. [alt. vaidalya] (cf. P. vedalla; T. shin tu rgyas pa; C. fangdeng; J. hodo; K. pangdŭng 方等). In Sanskrit, lit. "vast" or "extended," viz., "works of great extent"; a term that appears in the title of a number of MAHĀYĀNA sutras meant to indicate their profundity, comprehensiveness, and stereotypically great length. Such sutras will typically offer a more comprehensive overview of Buddhist thought and practice than shorter sutras that may have a single, or more circumscribed, message. The term is used to name one of the nine (NAVAnGA) (Pāli) or twelve (DVĀDAsĀnGA[PRAVACANA]) (Sanskrit) categories (AnGA) of Buddhist scripture according to their structure or literary style. As one of the nine categories of scriptures organized by type or style, vaipulya corresponds to the Pāli category of vedalla (S. vaidalya), which refers to such catechetical texts as the SAKKAPANHASUTTANTA or the SAMMĀDIttHISUTTA. In the twelve types of scripture used in Mahāyāna classifications, the vaipulyasutras are listed as the eleventh category and especially refer to scriptures of massive size. Mahāyāna sutras included in the vaipulya category include many of the seminal works of the tradition, including the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ sutras, the RATNAKutASuTRA collection, and the AVATAMSAKASuTRA.
vajrācārya. (T. rdo rje slob dpon; C. jingang asheli/jingangshi; J. kongoajari/kongoshi; K. kŭmgang asari/kŭmgangsa 金剛阿闍梨/金剛師). In Sanskrit, "VAJRA master"; referring to a tantric GURU (BLA MA) who has mastered the tantric arts, received the appropriate initiations, and is qualified to confer initiations and dispense tantric teachings. He is traditionally listed as having ten qualities. ¶ The title vajrācārya is also awarded to a person who has received a specific set of initiations (ABHIsEKA) in the ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA systems. Although numerous variations occur, the main sequence of initiations in KRIYĀTANTRA, CARYĀTANTRA, and YOGATANTRA are (1) the water initiation (udakābhiseka), (2) the crown initiation (mukutābhiseka), (3) the VAJRA initiation (vajrābhiseka), (4) the bell initiation (ghantābhiseka), and (5) the name initiation (nāmābhiseka). One who has received these initiations is regarded as a vajrācārya. In the yogatantras, an additional initiation, called the vajrācārya initiation (vajrācāryābhiseka), is bestowed. In the anuttarayoga systems, this set of five or six is often condensed into one, becoming the first of four initiations, called the vajrācārya initiation or the vase initiation (KALAsĀBHIsEKA). ¶ In the Newar Buddhism of Nepal, the name vajrācārya is also used by an endogamous caste of lay priests who perform a wide variety of rituals for the Buddhist community, including life-cycle rites, fire rituals, temple rituals, protective rites. They also perform tantric initiation for high-caste members of the Newar community. According to the anuttarayoga systems, one becomes a vajrācārya as a result of a series of initiations; in the Newar community, however, it is a hereditary category.
Vajrayana Buddhism ::: Esoteric traditions of Buddhism are grouped under the more general category of Vajrayana Buddhism. What they practice is often referred to as Tantra.
Vātsīputrīya. (P. Vajjiputtakā/Vajjiputtiyā; T. Gnas ma'i bu pa; C. Duzi bu; J. Tokushibu; K. Tokcha pu 犢子部). One of the traditional eighteen schools of "mainstream" (i.e., non-MAHĀYĀNA) Indian Buddhism, which takes its name from its leader, Vātsīputra. An offshoot of the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school, it is remembered primarily as one of the schools labeled by others as PUDGALAVĀDA, or "proponents of the person," that is, the apparently heretical position that there is a "person" (PUDGALA) with qualities that are "inexpressible" (avācya), which transmigrates from lifetime to lifetime. This position was criticized by exegetes in virtually all rival Buddhist schools, and earned a long critique in the ninth chapter of VASUBANDHU's ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA, where it was denigrated as the assertion of a permanent self or soul (ĀTMAN). In their defense, the Vātsīputrīyas argued that the pudgala was neither the same as nor different from the five aggregates (SKANDHA)-viz., that the pudgala was in an "indeterminate" relationship vis-à-vis the skandhas-thus conforming to the Buddha's dictum that there was no self to be discovered among the aggregates. For the Vātsīputrīyas, it was argued that it was necessary to posit the existence of the pudgala in order to account for personal continuity over the course of a single lifetime, karmic continuity over the course of multiple lifetimes, and, ultimately, so that there would be something that would attain NIRVĀnA upon the cessation of the aggregates. However, recognizing the special nature of their view of the person, the Vātsīputrīya posited it as a fifth category of dharmas in addition to the standard four of the Sarvāstivāda school, viz., (1)-(3) conditioned factors (SAMSKṚTADHARMA) belonging to the three time periods of past, present, and future; (4) an unconditioned factor (ASAMSKṚTADHARMA), which for the Vātsīputrīyas, like the STHAVIRANIKĀYA, included only nirvāna; and (5) "inexpressible dharmas" (S. *avācyadharma; C. bukeshuo fa), a category exclusive to the Vātsīputrīyas, which included the notion of a pudgala. Despite the apparent heresy of this position, Chinese pilgrims reported the prominence in India of schools that held this view. The Vātsīputrīya spawned four additional mainstream schools: the Dharmottarīya, Bhadrayānīya, SAMMITĪYA, and sannagarika.
viniyata. (T. yul nges; C. biejing [xinsuo]; J. betsukyo [no shinjo]; K. pyolgyong [simso] 別境[心所]). In Sanskrit, "determinative," or "object-specific"; the second of the six categories of mental concomitants (CAITTA) according to the hundred dharmas (BAIFA) schema of the YOGĀCĀRA school, along with the omnipresent (SARVATRAGA), the wholesome (KUsALA), the root afflictions (MuLAKLEsA), the secondary afflictions (UPAKLEsA), and the indeterminate (ANIYATA). There are five mental factors in the category of determinative mental concomitants; their function is to aid the mind in ascertaining or determining its object. The five are aspiration or desire-to-act (CHANDA), determination or resolve (ADHIMOKsA), mindfulness (SMṚTI), concentration (SAMĀDHI), and wisdom (PRAJNĀ). According to ASAnGA, these five determinative factors accompany wholesome (kusala) states of mind, so that if one is present, all are present.
vipaksa. [alt. vipaksabhuta] (T. mi mthun phyogs; C. yipin/suoduizhi; J. ihon/shotaiji; K. ip'um/sodaech'i 異品/所對治). In Sanskrit, "opposite class"; referring to a category that is the opposite of another category, such that one must be absent for the other to be present. The term appears especially in two contexts in Buddhist literature. First, in Buddhist logic (HETUVIDYĀ), vipaksa is one of three terms: PAKsA (logical subject), SAPAKsA (similar instance), and vipaksa (dissimilar instance). For example, in the syllogism (PRAYOGA) "sound is impermanent because it is produced," sound is the paksa. A pot would be an example or sapaksa (a "similar instance" or "in the similar class;" knowledge that a pot breaks because it is produced can be extended to sound). Space would be a counterexample or vipaksa (a dissimilar instance or in the dissimilar class; knowledge that it is not produced because it is permanent can be extended to exclude a sound from the dissimilar class because it is articulated and produced). Second, in Buddhist literature on the practice of the path (MĀRGA), vipaksa is contrasted with PRATIPAKsA ("counteracting force" or "antidote") to the afflictions (KLEsA). For example, the opposing class of hatred (DVEsA) is counteracted by loving-kindness (MAITRĪ), such that meditation on loving-kindness temporarily displaces hatred from the mind but does not permanently remove it, as does a pratipaksa.
visaMyogaphala. (T. bral ba'i 'bras bu; C. liji guo; J. rikeka; K. igye kwa 離繫果). In Sanskrit, "separation effect"; a term used to describe liberation from rebirth and the reality of NIRVĀnA. This is one of the five effects (PHALA) enumerated in the VAIBHĀsIKA school of SARVĀSTIVĀDA ABHIDHARMA and the YOGĀCĀRA system. Liberation (VIMOKsA) and nirvāna are forms of cessation (NIRODHA) and as such are unconditioned phenomena (ASAMSKṚTADHARMA) and permanent (NITYA) because they do not change moment by moment. Specifically, they are classified as "analytical cessations" (PRATISAMKHYĀNIRODHA), that is, states of cessation that arise through the process of insight. In the Buddha's delineation of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvāry āryasatyāni), the third truth of cessation (NIRODHASATYA) is followed by the fourth truth of the path (MĀRGASATYA). Later commentators would explain that cessation and path stand in a relationship of effect and cause, respectively. However, this is not possible in the literal sense, because an impermanent and conditioned phenomenon such as the path cannot serve as the cause for a permanent and unconditioned phenomenon such as cessation. In order to preserve this distinction but nonetheless acknowledge the role of religious practice in bringing about the state of nirvāna, the Vaibhāsika school proposed the category of visaMyogaphala, which is essentially an effect that has no cause. Thus, the practice of the path leads to a permanent separation from the KLEsAs, and because that state of separation is permanent, it not formally the effect of a cause.
Visesha (Sanskrit) Viśeṣa [from the verbal root śiṣ to distinguish, particularize] Distinction, characteristic difference or property. In the Vaiseshika system used as the fifth padartha (logical category), visesha belonging to the nine substances (dravyas) of the Nyaya philosophy. Used in the Nyaya to signify the everlasting distinctions characterizing the primary substances or elements (mahabhutas).
Visual BASIC "language" (VB) A popular {event-driven} {visual programming} system from {Microsoft Corporation} for {Microsoft Windows}. VB is good for developing Windows interfaces, it invokes fragments of {BASIC} code when the user performs certain operations on graphical objects on-screen. It is widely used for in-house {application program} development and for prototyping. It can also be used to create {ActiveX} and {COM} components. Version 1 was released in 1991 [by Microsoft?]. {(http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/)}. {History (http://iessoft.com/scripts/vbhistry.asp)}. {Strollo Software (http://op.net/~jstrollo/vblinks.html)}. {Books (http://wrox.com/Consumer/Default.asp?Category=Visual+Basic)}. (1999-11-26)
Voluntarism: (Lat. voluntas, will) In ontology, the theory that the will is the ultimate constituent of reality. Doctrine that the human will, or some force analogous to it, is the primary stuff of the universe; that blind, purposive impulse is the real in nature. (a) In psychology, theory that the will is the most elemental psychic factor, that striving, impulse, desire, and even action, with their concomitant emotions, are alone dependable. (b) In ethics, the doctrine that the human will is central to all moral questions, and superior to all other moral criteria, such as the conscience, or reasoning power. The subjective theory that the choice made by the will determines the good. Stands for indeterminism and freedom. (c) In theology, the will as the source of all religion, that blessedness is a state of activity. Augustine (353-430) held that God is absolute will, a will independent of the Logos, and that the good will of man is free. For Avicebron (1020-1070), will is indefinable and stands above mature and soul, matter and form, as the pnmary category. Despite the metaphysical opposition of Duns Scotus (1265-1308) the realist, and William of Occam (1280-1347) the nominalist, both considered the will superior to the intellect. Hume (1711-1776) maintained that the will is the determining factor in human conduct, and Kant (1724-1804) believed the will to be the source of all moral judgment, and the good to be based on the human will. Schopenhauer (1788-1860) posited the objectified will as the world-substance, force, or value. James (1842-1910) followed up Wundt's notion of the will as the purpose of the good with the notion that it is the essence of faith, also manifest in the will to believe. See Will, Conation. Opposed to Rationalism, Materialism, Intellectualism. -- J.K.F.
vyākarana. (P. veyyākarana; T. lung bstan pa; C. shouji/piqieluo; J. juki/bigara; K. sugi/pigara 授/毘伽羅). In Sanskrit, "prediction" or "prophecy"; a statement made by a buddha indicating the course of future events, especially regarding when, where, and with what name a BODHISATTVA will become a buddha. The most famous instance of such prophecy in the MAHĀYĀNA sutras appears in the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), where the Buddha makes predictions that the great ARHATs, beginning with sĀRIPUTRA, will all eventually achieve buddhahood. ¶ Vyākarana is also used to refer to one of the nine (NAVAnGA) (Pāli) or twelve (DVĀDAsĀnGA[PRAVACANA]) (Sanskrit) categories (AnGA) of Buddhist scripture according to their structure or literary style, where it refers to prophetic teachings or expositions. In the ninefold Pāli division, BUDDHAGHOSA defines veyyākarana as something of a default category, which comprises the entire ABHIDHAMMAPItAKA, all suttas that do not contain verses, and any teaching of the Buddha that does not fall into any of the other eight categories.
vyāpti. (T. khyab pa; C. bian/bianzhi; J. hen/henshi; K. p'yon/p'yonji 遍/遍至). In Sanskrit, "pervasion" or "concomitance"; a term used in logic to indicate the relation that obtains between the reason and the predicate in a correct syllogism (PRAYOGA). There is positive concomitance (anvaya) and negative concomitance (VYATIREKA). For example, in order for the syllogism (PRAYOGA) "Sound is impermanent because of being produced" to be correct, it must be true that whatever is impermanent must necessarily be produced. That is, the category of the reason must either be coextensive with or subsume the category of the predicate. In Tibetan monastic debate, the term figures in one of three answers that the defender of a position may give. When presented with a syllogism or consequence (PRASAnGA) by the challenger, the defender may (1) accept the thesis ('dod), (2) state that the reason is not a quality of the subject (rtags ma grub), or (3) state that there is no pervasion between the reason and the predicate (ma khyab).
Wearable technology - a category of technology devices that can be worn by a consumer and often include tracking information related to health and fitness. See /r/wearables
Xu gaoseng zhuan. (J. Zoku kosoden; K. Sok kosŭng chon 續高僧傳). In Chinese, "Supplement to the Biographies of Eminent Monks," compiled by the VINAYA master DAOXUAN; also known as the Tang gaoseng zhuan. As the title suggests, the Xu gaoseng zhuan "supplements" or "continues" the work of HUIJIAO's earlier GAOSENG ZHUAN and records the lives of monks who were active in the period between Huijiao's composition during the Liang dynasty and Daoxuan's own time. The Xu gaoseng zhuan contains 485 major and 219 appended biographies, neatly categorized under translators (yijing), exegetes (yijie), practitioners of meditation (xichan), specialists of VINAYA(minglü), protectors of the DHARMA (hufa), sympathetic resonance (GANTONG), sacrifice of the body (YISHEN), chanters (dusong), benefactors (xingfu), and miscellaneous (zake). Although Daoxuan generally followed Huijiao's earlier categorizations, he made several changes. In lieu of Huijiao's divine wonders (shenyi), viz., thaumaturgists, Daoxuan opted to use the term sympathetic resonance, instead; he also subsumed Huijiao's hymnodists (jingshi) and propagators (changdao) under the "miscellaneous" category. Daoxuan also introduced the new category of protectors of the dharma order to leave a record of disputes that occurred at court with Daoists. These adjustments seem to reflect ongoing developments within Chinese Buddhism in how to conceive of, and write, history. Other related biographical collections include ZANNING's SONG GAOSENG ZHUAN, Shi Baochang's BIQIUNI ZHUAN, the Korean HAEDONG KOSŬNG CHoN, and the Japanese HONCHo KoSoDEN.
Xy-pic ::: (graphics, publication) A package for typesetting graphs and diagrams using TeX. It is structured as several modules, each defining a custom notation arrows, curves, and frames. These can be organised in matrix, directed graph, path, polygon, knot, and 2-cell structure.Xy-pic works with LaTeX, AMS-LaTeX, AMS-TeX, and plain TeX, and has been used to typeset complicated diagrams from many application areas including category theory, automata theory, algebra, neural networks and database theory. . (1997-11-20)
Xy-pic "graphics, publication" A package for {typesetting} graphs and diagrams using {TeX}. It is structured as several modules, each defining a custom notation for a particular kind of graphical object or structure. Example objects are arrows, curves, and frames. These can be organised in matrix, {directed graph}, path, polygon, knot, and 2-cell structure. Xy-pic works with {LaTeX}, {AMS-LaTeX}, {AMS-TeX}, and {plain TeX}, and has been used to typeset complicated diagrams from many application areas including {category theory}, {automata} theory, {algebra}, {neural networks} and {database} theory. {(http://ens-lyon.fr/~krisrose/Xy-pic.html)}. (1997-11-20)
Yet no polished or cultivated nation of antiquity, no more so than the Christians today, worshiped these animal emblems as otherwise than figurations, or also at times as manifestations, of cosmic powers or beings — end-products of divine cosmic originants. Man himself falls into the same category, not only as being an offspring of the gods, but as an end-product of a divine hierarchy manifesting in greater or less degree the spiritual-divine attributes, functions, faculties, and powers of his sublime ancestors or parents.
yogatantra. (T. rnal 'byor rgyud). One of the four traditional Indian categories of tantric texts. In a late Indian categorization of Buddhist TANTRA, a hierarchy was established that placed texts into one of four categories, in descending order: ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, yogatantra, CARYĀTANTRA, and KRIYĀTANTRA. The precise meaning of these categories, their parameters, and their contents were widely discussed, especially in Tibet. In one influential description, yogatantra was said to emphasize internal yoga over external ritual practice and therefore did not employ the practice of sexual union. An examination of texts included in this category shows, however, that this description is somewhat arbitrary. Important texts classed as yogatantras include the SARVATATHĀGATATATTVASAMGRAHA, the MANJUsRĪMuLAKALPA, the SARVADURGATIPARIsODHANATANTRA, and the VAJRAsEKHARA. MAndALAs with the buddha VAIROCANA as the central deity occur often in the yogatantras.
yoni. (T. skye gnas; C. sheng; J. sho; K. saeng 生). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "modes of birth"; four modes by which sentient beings are born into the three realms of existence (TRAIDHĀTUKA): (1) oviparous birth (andajayoni), viz., beings born from eggs, such as birds, reptiles, fish, and insects; (2) viviparous birth (jarāyuja-yoni), viz., beings born from a womb, such as mammals and human beings; (3) moisture-born (saMsvedajayoni), viz., beings such as maggots generated by rotten meat or mosquitoes born from swamp water, which are understood to be born as the result of the combination of heat and moisture; (4) metamorphic birth (UPAPĀDUKAYONI), viz., spontaneously generated beings, such an divinities (DEVA), hungry ghosts (PRETA), denizens of hell (NĀRAKA), and those residing in the intermediate state (ANTARĀBHAVA). In some interpretations, even beings generally classified in one category may in certain circumstances be born through other modes. For example, although human beings are viviparously born, the five hundred sons of the king of PaNcāla, one of the sixteen ancient kingdoms of India, are said to have been born from eggs, King Māndhātṛ was born from moisture, and the first humans to appear at the beginning of the KALPA are born by metamorphosis. Among animals, although the first three modes of birth are most common, there are also some animals born by metamorphosis, such as NĀGAs and GARUdAs. Finally, among beings that are born through metamorphosis, there are certain types of preta who are said to be born viviparously.
Yuzunenbutsushu. (融通念佛宗). In Japanese, "School of Consummate-Interfusion Recitation of the Buddha's Name"; one of the first Japanese PURE LAND schools. The school was founded by the TENDAISHu monk RYoNIN (1072-1132), who claimed to have a direct revelation from the buddha Amida (S. AMITĀBHA) regarding the principle of YuZuNENBUTSU, in which every individual benefits from both his own and other's chanting of the Buddha's name ( J. nenbutsu; C. NIANFO) through a mutual transfer of merit. Ryonin traveled around Japan to teach the practice and spread the school, keeping a register of new adherents as he traveled. Indeed, carrying this register of adherents became a privilege of the leader of the school. Ryonin also made Dainenbutsuji (Great Recitation of the Buddha's Name Temple), in the osaka area, the center for his campaign in 1127. ¶ The Yuzunenbutsu school declined after six generations. When the sixth patriarch of the school Ryochin (d. 1182) died without a successor, the register of adherents was entrusted to the Iwashimizu Hachiman shrine, in the hopes that the HACHIMAN KAMI cum BODHISATTVA resident there would select the next patriarch of the school. About 140 years later, the Yuzunenbutsu school was revitalized through the efforts of Homyo (1279-1349), who claimed to have received a revelation from Hachiman. After becoming Ryonin's seventh successor in 1321, Homyo restored Dainenbutsuji and several other branch temples that had long been neglected. He also received imperial patronage from the monarch Godaigo (r. 1318-1339), who added his name and the names of many government officials to the school's register of adherents. After Homyo's death, the school declined again as other pure land schools gained popularity, until 1689, when Daitsu (1649-1716) became the forty-sixth patriarch of the school. Daitsu rejuvenated the school, ardently propagating the school's teachings and the practice of chanting the Buddha's name. Daitsu systematized the school's teachings: he established an academic institute and wrote two treatises, the Yuzu enmonsho ("Essay on the Complete Teachings of Perfect Interpenetration [Yuzu]") and the Yuzunenbutsu shingesho ("Essay on Faith and Understanding in the Yuzunenbutsu"). In the former text, Daitsu lists five classifications of the Buddhist teachings in ascending order (the teaching of humans and divinities, HĪNAYĀNA, gradual, sudden, and consummate teachings) and classified Yuzunenbutsu teachings in the fifth category of the "consummate teachings" (see YUANJIAO); he also discusses the school's daily practice of chanting Amida Buddha's name ten times while facing west. The Yuzunenbutsu school remains active today at its head temple of Dainenbutsuji, although it is relatively small in size compared to the major Japanese pure land schools of JoDOSHu and JoDO SHINSHu. The AVATAMSAKASuTRA and the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA are the principal scriptures of the school, with the three major pure land sutras (JINGTU SANBUJING) of secondary importance.
KEYS (10k)
2 Rosch
1 Werner Jaeger
1 Thomas Keating
1 Sogyal Rinpoche
1 R Buckminster Fuller
1 M Alan Kazlev
1 Kant
1 Immanuel Kant
1 Claudio Naranjo
1 The Mother
1 Sri Aurobindo
1 A B Purani
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
38 Marie Kond
32 Anonymous
11 Noam Chomsky
11 Nassim Nicholas Taleb
8 Neal Stephenson
8 Al Ries
7 Ian McDonald
7 Hannah Arendt
7 George Lakoff
6 Rebecca Solnit
6 Julian Barnes
6 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5 Wendell Berry
5 Seth Godin
5 Mehmet Murat ildan
5 Al Gore
4 Ta Nehisi Coates
4 S ren Kierkegaard
4 Sherrilyn Kenyon
4 Richelle Mead
1:The peak of empathogens can be characterised as earthly paradise in comparison to the heavenly paradise of LSD and hallucinogens of that category. ~ Claudio Naranjo, #KEYS
2:I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing - a noun, I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process - an integral function of the universe. ~ R Buckminster Fuller, #KEYS
3:Yet in this victory of the rational I over traditional authority, there is latent a force which is to triumph over the individual: the concept of Truth, a new universal category to which every personal preference must yield. ~ Werner Jaeger, Paideia I:155, #KEYS
4:Quoting Dudjom Rinpoche on the buddha-nature: No words can describe it No example can point to it Samsara does not make it worse Nirvana does not make it better It has never been born It has never ceased It has never been liberated It has never been deluded It has never existed It has never been nonexistent It has no limits at all It does not fall into any kind of category ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #KEYS
5:Many experiments have shown that categories appear to be coded in the mind neither by means of lists of each individual member of the category, nor by means of a list of formal criteria necessary and sufficient for category membership, but, rather, in terms of a prototype of a typical category member. The most cognitively economical code for a category is, in fact, a concrete image of an average category member.
~ Rosch, 1977, p. 30,#KEYS
6:Although there is a difference of procedure between a Shaman of the Tungas and a Catholic prelate of Europe or between a coarse and sensual Vogul and a Puritan Independent of Connecticut, there is no difference in the principle of their creeds; for they all belong to the same category of people whose religion consists not in becoming better, but in believing in and carrying out certain arbitrary regulations. Only those who believe that the worship of God consists in aspiring to a better life differ from the first because they recognize quite another and certainly a loftier principle uniting all men of good faith in an invisible temple which alone can be the universal temple. ~ Immanuel Kant, #KEYS
7:Although there is a difference of procedure between a Shaman of the Tungas and a Catholic prelate of Europe or between a coarse and sensual Vogul and a Puritan Independent of Connecticut, there is no difference in the principle of their creeds; for they all belong to the same category of people whose religion consists not in becoming better, but in believing in and carrying out certain arbitrary regulations. Only those who believe that the worship of God consists in aspiring to a better life differ from the first because they recognize quite another and certainly a loftier principle uniting all men of good faith in an invisible temple which alone can be the universal temple. ~ Kant, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
8:Two general and basic principles are proposed for the formation of categories: The first has to do with the function of category systems and asserts that the task of category systems is to provide maximum information with the least cognitive effort [("cognitive economy")]; the second has to do with the structure of the information so provided and asserts that the perceived world comes as structured information rather than than arbitrary or unpredictable attributes [("perceived world structure")]. Thus maximum information with least cognitive effort is achieved if categories map the perceived world structure as closely as possible. This condition can be achieved either by the mapping of categories to given attribute structures or by the definition or redefinition of attributes to render a given set of categories appropriately structured.
~ Rosch, 1978, p. 28,#KEYS
9:scope and aim of the works of sacrifice :::
Into the third and last category of the works of sacrifice can be gathered all that is directly proper to the Yoga of works; for here is its field of effectuation and major province. It covers the entire range of lifes more visible activities; under it fall the multiform energies of the Will-to-Life throwing itself outward to make the most of material existence. It is here that an ascetic or other-worldly spirituality feels an insurmountable denial of the Truth which it seeks after and is compelled to turn away from terrestrial existence, rejecting it as for ever the dark playground of an incurable Ignorance. Yet it is precisely these activities that are claimed for a spiritual conquest and divine transformation by the integral Yoga. Abandoned altogether by the more ascetic disciplines, accepted by others only as a field of temporary ordeal or a momentary, superficial and ambiguous play of the concealed spirit, this existence is fully embraced and welcomed by the integral seeker as a field of fulfilment, a field for divine works, a field of the total self-discovery of the concealed and indwelling Spirit. A discovery of the Divinity in oneself is his first object, but a total discovery too of the Divinity in the world behind the apparent denial offered by its scheme and figures and, last, a total discovery of the dynamism of some transcendent Eternal; for by its descent this world and self-will be empowered to break their disguising envelopes and become divine in revealing form and manifesting process as they now are secretly in their hidden essence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 169,#KEYS
10:Hence, it's obvious to see why in AA the community is so important; we are powerless over ourselves. Since we don't have immediate awareness of the Higher Power and how it works, we need to be constantly reminded of our commitment to freedom and liberation. The old patterns are so seductive that as they go off, they set off the association of ideas and the desire to give in to our addiction with an enormous force that we can't handle. The renewal of defeat often leads to despair. At the same time, it's a source of hope for those who have a spiritual view of the process. Because it reminds us that we have to renew once again our total dependence on the Higher Power. This is not just a notional acknowledgment of our need. We feel it from the very depths of our being. Something in us causes our whole being to cry out, "Help!" That's when the steps begin to work. And that, I might add, is when the spiritual journey begins to work. A lot of activities that people in that category regard as spiritual are not communicating to them experientially their profound dependence on the grace of God to go anywhere with their spiritual practices or observances. That's why religious practice can be so ineffective. The real spiritual journey depends on our acknowledging the unmanageability of our lives. The love of God or the Higher Power is what heals us. Nobody becomes a full human being without love. It brings to life people who are most damaged. The steps are really an engagement in an ever-deepening relationship with God. Divine love picks us up when we sincerely believe nobody else will. We then begin to experience freedom, peace, calm, equanimity, and liberation from cravings for what we have come to know are damaging-cravings that cannot bring happiness, but at best only momentary relief that makes the real problem worse. ~ Thomas Keating, Divine Therapy and Addiction, #KEYS
11:Disciple: If the Asuras represent the dark side of God on the vital plane - does this dark side exist on every plane? If so, are there beings on the mental plane which correspond to the dark side?
Sri Aurobindo: The Asura is really the dark side of God on the mental plane. Mind is the very field of the Asura. His characteristic is egoistic strength, which refuses the Higher Law. The Asura has got Self-control, Tapas, intelligence, only, all that is for his ego.
On the vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshashas which represent violent passions and impulses. There are other beings on the vital plane which we call pramatta and piśacha and these; manifest, more or less, on the physico-vital plane.
Distiple: What is the corresponding being on the higher plane?
Sri Aurobindo: On the higher plane there are no Asuras - there the Truth prevails. There are "Asuras" there in the Vedic sense,- "beings with divine powers". The mental Asura is only a deviation of that power.
The work of the Asura has all the characteristics of mind in it. It is mind refusing to submit to the Higher Law; it is the mind in revolt. It works on the basis of ego and ignorance.
Disciple: What are the forces that correspond to the dark side of God on the physical plane?
Sri Aurobindo: They are what may be called the "elemental beings", or rather, obscure elemental forces - they are more "forces" than "beings". It is these that the Theosophists call the "Elementals". They are not individualised beings like the Asura and the Rakshasas, they are ignorant forces working oh the subtle physical plane.
Disciple: What is the word for them in Sanskrit;?
Sri Aurobindo: What are called bhūtas seem most nearly to correspond to them.
Disciple: The term "Elemental" means that these work through the elements.
Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of "elementals": one mischievous and the other innocent. What the Europeans call the gnomes come under this category. ~ A B Purani, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, 15-06-1926,#KEYS
12:At it's narrowest (although this is a common and perhaps the official position; need to find ref in What is Enlightenment) "integral", "turquois" (Spiral Dynamics), and "second tier" (ditto) are all synonms, and in turn are equivalent to Wilber IV / AQAL/Wilber V "Post-metaphysical" AQAL. This is the position that "Integral = Ken Wilber". It constitutes a new philosophical school or meme-set, in the tradition of charismatic spiritual teachers of all ages, in which an articulate, brilliant, and popular figure would arise, and gather a following around him- or her-self. After the teacher passes on, their teaching remains through books and organisations dedicated to perpetuating that teaching; although without the brilliant light of the Founder, things generally become pretty stultifying, and there is often little or no original development. Even so, the books themselves continue to inspire, and many people benefit greatly from these tecahings, and can contact the original Light of the founders to be inspired by them on the subtle planes. Some late 19th, 20th, and early 21st century examples of such teachers, known and less well-known, are Blavatsky, Theon, Steiner, Aurobindo, Gurdjieff, Crowley, Alice Bailey, Carl Jung, Ann Ree Colton, and now Ken Wilber. Also, many popular gurus belong in this category. It could plausibly be suggested that the founders of the great world religions started out no different, but their teaching really caught on n a big way.
...
At its broadest then, the Integral Community includes not only Wilber but those he cites as his influences and hold universal and evolutionary views or teachings, as well as those who, while influenced by him also differ somewhat, and even those like Arthur M Young that Wilber has apparently never heard of. Nevertheless, all share a common, evolutionary, "theory of everything" position, and, whilst they may differ on many details and even on many major points, taken together they could be considered a wave front for a new paradigm, a memetic revolution. I use the term Daimon of the Integral Movement to refer to the spiritual being or personality of light that is behind and working through this broader movement.
Now, this doesn't mean that this daimon is necessarily a negative entity. I see a lot of promise, a lot of potential, in the Integral Approach. From what I feel at the moment, the Integral Deva is a force and power of good.
But, as with any new spiritual or evolutionary development, there is duality, in that there are forces that hinder and oppose and distort, as well as forces that help and aid in the evolution and ultimate divinisation of the Earth and the cosmos. Thus even where a guru does give in the dark side (as very often happens with many gurus today) there still remains an element of Mixed Light that remains (one finds this ambiguity with Sai Baba, with Da Free John, and with Rajneesh); and we find this same ambiguity with the Integral Community regarding what seems to me a certain offputting devotional attitude towards Wilber himself. The light will find its way, regardless. However, an Intregral Movement that is caught up in worship of and obedience to an authority figure, will not be able to achieve what a movement unfettered by such shackles could. ~ M Alan Kazlev, Kheper, Wilber, Integral,#KEYS
13:
Why do we forget our dreams?
Because you do not dream always at the same place. It is not always the same part of your being that dreams and it is not at the same place that you dream. If you were in conscious, direct, continuous communication with all the parts of your being, you would remember all your dreams. But very few parts of the being are in communication.
For example, you have a dream in the subtle physical, that is to say, quite close to the physical. Generally, these dreams occur in the early hours of the morning, that is between four and five o'clock, at the end of the sleep. If you do not make a sudden movement when you wake up, if you remain very quiet, very still and a little attentive - quietly attentive - and concentrated, you will remember them, for the communication between the subtle physical and the physical is established - very rarely is there no communication.
Now, dreams are mostly forgotten because you have a dream while in a certain state and then pass into another. For instance, when you sleep, your body is asleep, your vital is asleep, but your mind is still active. So your mind begins to have dreams, that is, its activity is more or less coordinated, the imagination is very active and you see all kinds of things, take part in extraordinary happenings.... After some time, all that calms down and the mind also begins to doze. The vital that was resting wakes up; it comes out of the body, walks about, goes here and there, does all kinds of things, reacts, sometimes fights, and finally eats. It does all kinds of things. The vital is very adventurous. It watches. When it is heroic it rushes to save people who are in prison or to destroy enemies or it makes wonderful discoveries. But this pushes back the whole mental dream very far behind. It is rubbed off, forgotten: naturally you cannot remember it because the vital dream takes its place. But if you wake up suddenly at that moment, you remember it. There are people who have made the experiment, who have got up at certain fixed hours of the night and when they wake up suddenly, they do remember. You must not move brusquely, but awake in the natural course, then you remember.
After a time, the vital having taken a good stroll, needs to rest also, and so it goes into repose and quietness, quite tired at the end of all kinds of adventures. Then something else wakes up. Let us suppose that it is the subtle physical that goes for a walk. It starts moving and begins wandering, seeing the rooms and... why, this thing that was there, but it has come here and that other thing which was in that room is now in this one, and so on. If you wake up without stirring, you remembeR But this has pushed away far to the back of the consciousness all the stories of the vital. They are forgotten and so you cannot recollect your dreams. But if at the time of waking up you are not in a hurry, you are not obliged to leave your bed, on the contrary you can remain there as long as you wish, you need not even open your eyes; you keep your head exactly where it was and you make yourself like a tranquil mirror within and concentrate there. You catch just a tiny end of the tail of your dream. You catch it and start pulling gently, without stirring in the least. You begin pulling quite gently, and then first one part comes, a little later another. You go backward; the last comes up first. Everything goes backward, slowly, and suddenly the whole dream reappears: "Ah, there! it was like that." Above all, do not jump up, do not stir; you repeat the dream to yourself several times - once, twice - until it becomes clear in all its details. Once that dream is settled, you continue not to stir, you try to go further in, and suddenly you catch the tail of something else. It is more distant, more vague, but you can still seize it. And here also you hang on, get hold of it and pull, and you see that everything changes and you enter another world; all of a sudden you have an extraordinary adventure - it is another dream. You follow the same process. You repeat the dream to yourself once, twice, until you are sure of it. You remain very quiet all the time. Then you begin to penetrate still more deeply into yourself, as though you were going in very far, very far; and again suddenly you see a vague form, you have a feeling, a sensation... like a current of air, a slight breeze, a little breath; and you say, "Well, well...." It takes a form, it becomes clear - and the third category comes. You must have a lot of time, a lot of patience, you must be very quiet in your mind and body, very quiet, and you can tell the story of your whole night from the end right up to the beginning.
Even without doing this exercise which is very long and difficult, in order to recollect a dream, whether it be the last one or the one in the middle that has made a violent impression on your being, you must do what I have said when you wake up: take particular care not even to move your head on the pillow, remain absolutely still and let the dream return.
Some people do not have a passage between one state and another, there is a little gap and so they leap from one to the other; there is no highway passing through all the states of being with no break of the consciousness. A small dark hole, and you do not remember. It is like a precipice across which one has to extend the consciousness. To build a bridge takes a very long time; it takes much longer than building a physical bridge.... Very few people want to and know how to do it. They may have had magnificent activities, they do not remember them or sometimes only the last, the nearest, the most physical activity, with an uncoordinated movement - dreams having no sense.
But there are as many different kinds of nights and sleep as there are different days and activities. There are not many days that are alike, each day is different. The days are not the same, the nights are not the same. You and your friends are doing apparently the same thing, but for each one it is very different. And each one must have his own procedure.
Why are two dreams never alike?
Because all things are different. No two minutes are alike in the universe and it will be so till the end of the universe, no two minutes will ever be alike. And men obstinately want to make rules! One must do this and not that.... Well! we must let people please themselves.
You could have put to me a very interesting question: "Why am I fourteen years old today?" Intelligent people will say: "It is because it is the fourteenth year since you were born." That is the answer of someone who believes himself to be very intelligent. But there is another reason. I shall tell this to you alone.... I have drowned you all sufficiently well! Now you must begin to learn swimming!
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 36?,#KEYS
1:The best experiences and the biggest ideas don't fit into a category. They change it. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 2:There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 3:Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 4:If there is a category of human being for whom his work ought to speak for itself, it is the writer. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 5:Competition validates you. It creates a category. It permits the sale to be this or that, not yes or no. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 6:An era similar to the one in which the black rotary phone dominated its product category may not recur anytime soon. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 7:The curious thing about individuals is that their singularity always goes beyond any category or generalization in the book. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 8:Wise Old Sayings is a database of thousands of inspirational, humorous, and thoughtful quotes, sorted by category for your enjoyment ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 9:Wise Old Sayings is a database of thousands of inspirational, humorous, and thoughtful quotes, sorted by category for your enjoyment ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 10:Most people have put anything that earns money in the category of the things that I HAVE to do. And that is why the money often comes so hard. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 11:Do not compromise yourself and put your goodness in the same impermanent category as whatever circumstance happening. Be the best you in every circumstance. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 12:Faced with the opportunity to become the category of one, we almost always hesitate, almost always compromise, almost always dumb it down to play it a little bit safer ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 13:Sometimes you recognize that there is a category of human experience that has not been identified but everyone knows about it. That is when I find a term to describe it. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 14:We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life - the unborn - without diminishing the value of all human life . . . there is no cause more important. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 15:When you had an ‘anam cara,’ (soul friend), your friendship cut across all convention and category. You were joined in an ancient and eternal way with the friend of your soul. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 16:How ironical that it is by means of speech that man can degrade himself below the level of dumb creation - for a chatterbox is truly of a lower category than a dumb creature. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 17:The iPod is not a new category. Music is not new. It's not a speculative market. It's a very, very large market. It's been around for thousands of years and will be around as long as humans exist. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 18:Among the letters my readers write me, there is a certain category which is continuously growing, and which I see as a symptom of the increasing intellectualization of the relationship between readers and literature. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 19:Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however - that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 20:I feel like there are women who are genuinely born to be mothers, and women who are born to be aunties, and women who really probably not should be allowed near children. The tragedy that happens is when any one of those women ends up in the wrong category. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 21:Everybody has the blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called jazz, there is a stepping-stone to all of these. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 22:If there is existence, there must be non-existence. And if there was a time when nothing existed, there must have been a time before that - when even nothing did not exist. Suddenly, when nothing came into existence, could one really say whether it belonged to the category of existence or non-existence? ~ zhuangzi, @wisdomtrove 23:The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world - and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end - is being destroyed. ~ hannah-arendt, @wisdomtrove 24:If prosperity means God wants us to be blessed and healthy and have good relationships then yes, I'm a prosperity teacher. But if it's about money, no, I never preach about money. I probably stay away from it more than normal because televangelists get a bad name. People put me in that category because I do believe that God does want us to be happy, healthy, and whole. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 25:Universities are fantastic places to gain knowledge on a subject, develop a personal network, explore your character and learn new techniques to approach problems. I do however believe that there is a strong argument for students who have an idea they are passionate about to just try and turn it into a reality. I fell into this category and I don't regret not going to University. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 26:the right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right ... Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to & 27:According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being & 28:Irrationality is the opposite of rationality: it means unreasonable, unfounded, ill-conceived. Irrationality is reason, practiced badly. A trance brought about by ecstatic dancing or drumming is certainly not rational, but it isn't irrational either. It's non-rational—it belongs to another category of experience entirely. Indeed, much of its value lies quite precisely in the fact that it takes us on a holiday away from reason. ~ bernard-haisch, @wisdomtrove 29:Because You have called me here not to wear a label by which I can recognize myself and place myself in some kind of a category. You do not want me to be thinking about what I am, but about what You are. Or rather, You do not even want me to be thinking about anything much: for You would raise me above the level of thought. And if I am always trying to figure out what I am and where I am and why I am, how will that work be done? ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 30:The major asset in this category is gold, currently a huge favorite of investors who fear almost all other assets, especially paper money (of whose value, as noted, they are right to be fearful). Gold, however, has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative. True, gold has some industrial and decorative utility, but the demand for these purposes is both limited and incapable of soaking up new production. Meanwhile, if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 31:There is no class of substance to which the Brahman belongs, no common genus. It cannot therefore be denoted by words which, like “being” in the ordinary sense, signify a category of things. Nor can it be denoted by quality, for it is without qualities; nor yet by activity because it is without activity—“at rest, without parts or activity,” according to the Scriptures. Neither can it be denoted by relationship, for it is “without a second” and is not the object of anything but its own self. Therefore it cannot be defined by word or idea; as the Scripture says, it is the One “before whom words recoil.” Shankara” ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Category Theory by Tom LaGatta ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
2:tidy by category, not by place. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
3:changes are another category of work ~ Gene Kim, #NFDB
4:Intelligence is a moral category. ~ Theodor Adorno, #NFDB
5:Praise by name, criticize by category ~ Peter Bevelin, #NFDB
6:Praise by name, criticize by category. ~ Alice Schroeder, #NFDB
7:always think in terms of category, not place. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
8:hang clothes in the same category side by side, ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
9:The good is not a category that interests me. ~ Rem Koolhaas, #NFDB
10:Capital, like capitalism, seems an overrated category. ~ Ernest Gellner, #NFDB
11:Modernity is a qualitative, not a chronological, category. ~ Theodor Adorno, #NFDB
12:You will never become a category of one if you run with the pack. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
13:Not everyone needs to be slammed into a category and locked there. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
14:Friend? Yeah, he didn’t plan to be in that category for long. Ruby’s ~ Katie Reus, #NFDB
15:I think making features has got to be in the addiction category. ~ Laurie Simmons, #NFDB
16:Most artists are notoriously insecure, and I fall into that category. ~ Anita Baker, #NFDB
17:For Jesus, the person was more important than any category or label. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
18:History: the category of human phenomena which tends to catastrophe. ~ Jules Romains, #NFDB
19:It discloses that faithlessness begets every category of sin. ~ Christopher W Morgan, #NFDB
20:We end up all belonging to the same category, that of the non-young. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
21:The best way to make news is to announce a new category, not a new product. ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
22:I'm more of an 'erotic clown,' it doesn't fall into the female category. ~ Roy Haylock, #NFDB
23:But I definitely think there are Category 5 moments in every marriage. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
24:In addition, organize the clothes within each category from heavy to light. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
25:Philosophy is the replacement of category-habits by category-disciplines. ~ Gilbert Ryle, #NFDB
26:Undecidability is a useful category even in dealing with restaurant menus. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
27:P. F. Chang’s sees itself in the same category as the Cheesecake Factory, ~ Jennifer 8 Lee, #NFDB
28:this particular category of asshole compounds temerity with obliviousness. ~ Eduardo Sacheri, #NFDB
29:Category:
Inner-space fiction
For there is never anywhere to go but in. ~ Doris Lessing,#NFDB
30:Everyone can sing. Some better than others. I fall into the ‘others’ category. ~ Maureen Smith, #NFDB
31:In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
32:Are you now so deluded you think you exist outside the category of everything? ~ Rivers Solomon, #NFDB
33:I want to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press for even having a comedy category. ~ Michael Keaton, #NFDB
34:When you think hotness appeal, vampires automatically fall into that category. ~ Josh Hutcherson, #NFDB
35:The best experiences and the biggest ideas don't fit into a category. They change it. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
36:I know how the Academy Awards works: It's a card game, and I'm in the toss-up category. ~ Tom Hanks, #NFDB
37:just like the smallest possible set, this is initial in the category of categories. ~ Eugenia Cheng, #NFDB
38:The category of sex is the political category that founds society as heterosexual. ~ Monique Wittig, #NFDB
39:Here is something Category-Theorists like: it is trivial, but not trivially trivial. ~ Timothy Gowers, #NFDB
40:In all the edifice of thought, I have not found a category upon which to rest my head. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
41:John Goodman isn't fat. He's in a category beyond fat. What does one call it? Whalelike. ~ Sam Kinison, #NFDB
42:What I write could only be called poetry because there is no other category to put it. ~ Marianne Moore, #NFDB
43:[T]he category of 'consumer' is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity. ~ Clay Shirky, #NFDB
44:You want to be the last company in a category. Those are the ones that are really valuable. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
45:Every library is a library of preferences, and every chosen category implies an exclusion. ~ Alberto Manguel, #NFDB
46:He did not tolerate fools and had an ever-expanding definition of those who fit that category. ~ James Comey, #NFDB
47:My dear boy, please don’t put a label on me—don’t make me a category before you get to know me! ~ John Irving, #NFDB
48:So many paintings have hidden meanings or need wall texts, but my work is not in that category. ~ Caio Fonseca, #NFDB
49:There aren't a lot of great parts out there that are interesting for people in my category. ~ Timothy Omundson, #NFDB
50:I am very clear that I am not a feminist. It puts you into a category and I don't like that. ~ Marina Abramovic, #NFDB
51:I don't fall into the category of tortured artist. But it's not made me more or less anything. ~ Noel Gallagher, #NFDB
52:Shyness is a condition foreign to the heart - a category, a dimension which leads to loneliness. ~ Pablo Neruda, #NFDB
53:And also, Sergio Leone was considered in Italy a director of category B, not a big director. ~ Claudia Cardinale, #NFDB
54:Follow your musical instincts. Do what you feel is right. Don't be relegated to a certain category. ~ Glenn Frey, #NFDB
55:There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
56:language is precisely designed to be a self-identifying category of institutional facts. The ~ John Rogers Searle, #NFDB
57:There is no good reason for the government to treat homosexuals as a special category of persons. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
58:There's a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste. ~ Sarah Vaughan, #NFDB
59:It's anticipated that Hurricane Rita will still be a Category 3 storm when it hits Port Arthur. ~ Kenneth Williams, #NFDB
60:The meaningful glances of an animal immediately raises it into a human category in our minds! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
61:By category, coats would be on the far left, followed by dresses, jackets, pants, skirts, and blouses. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
62:Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
63:If there is a category of human being for whom his work ought to speak for itself, it is the writer. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
64:It will only take you ten minutes to rearrange your closet by category, so trust me and give it a try. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
65:I think there are going to be a bunch of tablet-like devices. It's really a different product category. ~ Jeff Bezos, #NFDB
66:You know the old saying: you win some, you lose some... and then there's that little-known third category. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
67:Competition validates you. It creates a category. It permits the sale to be this or that, not yes or no. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
68:Irritability was an occupational disease. Intolerant and intolerable belong in the same category. ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
69:80 per cent of people who care about politics and national issues fall in the ‘taking sides’ category. ~ Chetan Bhagat, #NFDB
70:I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it. ~ Marianne Moore, #NFDB
71:Most segregation does fall into the category of open and explicit government-sponsored segregation ~ Richard Rothstein, #NFDB
72:Category after category, Barack Obama hasn't met the promises that he laid out to the American people. ~ Reince Priebus, #NFDB
73:Marcuse also believed that sexuality was a political., an ideological, category, not found but made. ~ Richard A Posner, #NFDB
74:Historically, terrorism falls in a category different from crimes that concern a criminal court judge. ~ Jurgen Habermas, #NFDB
75:I was a different sort of child, as half the children are. I was in that category of being free-spirited. ~ Lana Del Rey, #NFDB
76:Seeing how I've held your penis in my hand, I think that puts you firmly in the not a stranger category. ~ Jessica Scott, #NFDB
77:I also don't believe that "everything happens for a reason," which is in a similar category of world-views. ~ Andrew Bird, #NFDB
78:that coolness is a social category, not a natural attribute (with the possible exception of Keith Richards) ~ Carl Wilson, #NFDB
79:But category theory, like the New York marathon, is more about the journey and what you see along the way. ~ Eugenia Cheng, #NFDB
80:I like people who lead unusual lives, and very often a person with a disability fits into that category. ~ Arthur Bradford, #NFDB
81:Laughter, and the broader category of humor, are key elements in helping us go on with our life after a loss. ~ Allen Klein, #NFDB
82:Seeing as how I’ve held your penis in my hand, I think that puts you firmly in the not a stranger category. ~ Jessica Scott, #NFDB
83:the worst off might very well be those in the category “some college,” which means debt without the degree. ~ Malcolm Harris, #NFDB
84:Deciding what you're not before you decide what you are let's you stand strong in your own category ~ Ahmir Questlove Thompson, #NFDB
85:Women are crazy.” Go didn’t consider herself part of the general category of women, a word she used derisively. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
86:An era similar to the one in which the black rotary phone dominated its product category may not recur anytime soon. ~ Tom Peters, #NFDB
87:The fact that I haven't been married might qualify me as belonging in the nutty category to a lot of women. ~ Thomas Haden Church, #NFDB
88:The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
89:The only currency that we really have to spend during our lives is time. Everything else is just a sub-category. ~ Stephen R Bown, #NFDB
90:In all the edifices of thought, I have found no category on which to rest my head. Whereas Chaos—there's a pillow! ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
91:I'd be worried if I was put in the same category as Michael Bubl I'm trying to sound like a young man, for starters. ~ Jamie Cullum, #NFDB
92:And, so yeah, I'll always want to work in independent films because you're not forced into a category or a formula. ~ Terrence Howard, #NFDB
93:I was neither black enough for the black kids or Dominican enough for the Dominican kids. I didn't have a safe category. ~ Junot Diaz, #NFDB
94:The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
95:Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it ~ William James, #NFDB
96:Never oversimplify yourself by using a single word or category to describe who you are. Take the time to tell your story. ~ Derek Webb, #NFDB
97:There is a class system in acting just like in anything else. Black females fall in a category below black male actors. ~ Debra Wilson, #NFDB
98:Love is not a feeling. It does not belong to that category of bodily experience which would include, for instance, pain. ~ William Boyd, #NFDB
99:Maybe we need a new category other than theism, atheism or agnosticism that takes paradox and unknowing into account. ~ Frank Schaeffer, #NFDB
100:The Gita, for example, speaks of shudras, vaishyas and women as one category, all being papa-yoni, born of sinful wombs. ~ Romila Thapar, #NFDB
101:Five of these ancient events were catastrophic enough that they’re put in their own category: the so-called Big Five. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert, #NFDB
102:It's better to work with a nice category containing some nasty objects, than a nasty category containing only nice objects. ~ John C Baez, #NFDB
103:...the number of saintly men has not yet risen to the level where the census makes them a separate statistical category. ~ George Stigler, #NFDB
104:Every category has its snobs: music, books, movies. There are so many things a man is only pressured into liking or disliking. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
105:Among skilled craftsmen—a category that included John Shakespeare—some 60 percent could read, a clearly respectable proportion. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
106:I belong to a specific category of writers, those who speak and write in a language different from that of their parents. ~ Tahar Ben Jelloun, #NFDB
107:Limiting the freedom of news 'just a little bit' is in the same category with the classic example 'a little bit pregnant. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
108:Science works its miracles by turning its enterprise into a kind of parlor game confined to the category matter and energy. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
109:If we really talked about what's wrong with you, you'd need a 7-1/2-hour movie and nobody would know what category to put it in! ~ Judd Apatow, #NFDB
110:it is technically a Category Two SoulCrime to remove or conceal a Ministry of Pain–assigned famulus from your immediate person. ~ Ian McDonald, #NFDB
111:The curious thing about individuals is that their singularity always goes beyond any category or generalization in the book. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
112:San Francisco leads the world in the category of Most People On The Sidewalk Holding Conversations With Purely Imaginary Companions. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
113:There's a very fine line between political comedian and activist, and I don't really think I fall over into the activist category. ~ Samantha Bee, #NFDB
114:You have people who can't act and they get all these parts. Paris Hilton falls into her own category. She's made a career out of it ~ Kate Hudson, #NFDB
115:A category 5 hurricane carries an explosive force several times greater than that of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. ~ James Lee Burke, #NFDB
116:It's quite hard to find a ballsy or complex character. So the roles I've taken are those. Lot's of people put me in the dark category. ~ Eva Green, #NFDB
117:Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you, sir, that your polar ice caps are below regulation size for a planet of this category, sir. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
118:When it comes to security, when it comes to ISIS, when it comes to the military, every single category I`m leading, like, by a lot. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
119:Few people ever kill for the right reasons, June. Most do it for the wrong reasons. I just hope you never have to be in either category. ~ Marie Lu, #NFDB
120:I think he supersedes Peyton Manning but let's not throw Tom Brady in the category with Joe Montana, who was 4-for-4. He's royalty. ~ Deion Sanders, #NFDB
121:Just figure out what you think jazz is, and then if it fits into that category, it's jazz, and if it doesn't, it isn't. It's no big deal. ~ Kenny G, #NFDB
122:There are bad types and good types, and the whole science and art of typography begins after the first category has been set aside. ~ Beatrice Warde, #NFDB
123:My dear boy, " Miss Frost said sharply. "My dear boy, please don't put a label on me - don't make a category before you get to know me! ~ John Irving, #NFDB
124:she is not a porn category or the type you look for on a friday night she is not needy or easy or weak - daddy issues is not a punch line ~ Rupi Kaur, #NFDB
125:Within the category of Kitsch we can thus distinguish between more and less successful paintings. Kitsch, too has its masterpieces. ~ Karsten Harries, #NFDB
126:you could put Nick Lidström in that category. Players like that are always two or three steps ahead of everyone else on the ice. As ~ Catherine Gayle, #NFDB
127:In Nurturant Parent morality, the teenage girl is “in trouble,” she needs help and deserves empathy (moral-action Category 2—helping). ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
128:Miles nodded agreement in principle, even though he was inclined to include Ivan himself in the category of my God the company. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold, #NFDB
129:If you put too many things in your need category, you will end up frustrated with life, hurt by others, and doubting God’s goodness. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
130:In my studies I found that children were most likely to see this new category of object, the computational object, as “sort of” alive—a ~ Sherry Turkle, #NFDB
131:Some people learn from books, some listen to the advice of others, some learn from mistakes. I fit into the last category. So sue me. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
132:Sometimes its said that psychiatrists are doctors who are frightened by the sight of blood. I might have fallen into that category. ~ Robert Jay Lifton, #NFDB
133:Basically this category would include those who think that the cure for obesity is to inform people that they should be healthy. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
134:Less speed, less strength, less stamina since I hadn't "bloomed". But I'd bet I was outweighing everyone around me in the brain category. ~ Lili St Crow, #NFDB
135:My writing circle isn't too full of people who fall into the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Tuesdays With Morrie" category. ~ Alissa Nutting, #NFDB
136:... the notions category and functor were not formulated or put in print until the idea of a natural transformation was also at hand. ~ Saunders Mac Lane, #NFDB
137:Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking even the courage of a personal hatred. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
138:Once in a while an entire sub-sub-category that had long been thought safely dormant would take wing with an indescribable papery susurrus. ~ Lev Grossman, #NFDB
139:Straight white males: that's the predominant moviegoing category, and the persistence of that is a dismaying maintenance of the status quo. ~ Wesley Morris, #NFDB
140:Unfortunately, this category of secret is itself so secret that it's very existance is secret, and he can't actually reveal it to anyone. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
141:If people try to push me over into the category of not being a major success, I can think to myself, "Well, of course I'm not. I just started!" ~ Rob Pruitt, #NFDB
142:…to apply scientific arguments to the question of God’s existence, as if this were somehow a showstopper, is committing a category error ~ Francis S Collins, #NFDB
143:Especially when it came to the videogames. Videogames were my area of expertise. My double-weapon specailization. My dream Jeopardy! category. ~ Ernest Cline, #NFDB
144:I have noticed before that there is a category of acquaintanceship that is not friendship or business or romance, but speculation, fascination. ~ Jane Smiley, #NFDB
145:I'm not too bothered about what category my music goes in and there's no point in limiting in who you can reach, but I want it to be respected. ~ Emeli Sande, #NFDB
146:It is a category mistake to ask, 'Who made the Unmade?' or 'Who created the Uncreated?' One may as well ask, 'Where is the bachelor's wife?' ~ Norman Geisler, #NFDB
147:I am somebody who - my path to my faith is very kind of individual, and I don't want to be lumped into the category of those Westboro Baptists. ~ Jim Gaffigan, #NFDB
148:I like a bit of eye candy like anyone but to have it solely about the eye candy and have it fall into a category so rigidly as well is wrong. ~ Siouxsie Sioux, #NFDB
149:I'm going to put that on my gravestone. "He created such a category of unwanted pop culture - Famous for directing unwanted cultural references". ~ Tim Burton, #NFDB
150:In all these situations, there was not enough violence against them to take it beyond the category of sex; they were not coerced enough. ~ Catharine MacKinnon, #NFDB
151:The government of Israel doesn't like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
152:There are two different categories of love. The first category is called a fairytale. The second category of love is called just another lesson ~ Taylor Swift, #NFDB
153:Fear of the right type can be beneficial to the people of God (see Prov. 1:7), but the fear of man's hostile intentions seldom fits that category. ~ Max Anders, #NFDB
154:There are two kinds of people in the world: Submissive and rebellious. The problem of the world is that majority is in the first category! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
155:...to apply scientific arguments to the question of God's existence, as if this were somehow a showstopper, is committing a category error. ~ Francis S Collins, #NFDB
156:When I think about it, the curious thing about individuals is that their singularity always goes beyond any category or generalization in the book. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
157:Lust," she said. "Lust is a deadly sin." "And spanking." "I think that falls under lust." "I think it should have its own category." said Jace ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
158:others may prefer to go naked in the home and therefore have no loungewear at all. (You’d be surprised at how many fall into this latter category.) ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
159:The process of trying to assimilate into an existing category in many ways runs counter to efforts to produce radical or revolutionary results. ~ Angela Y Davis, #NFDB
160:Few people put veal stock in the same category as, say, the Goldberg Variations or Plato’s cave allegory, and this lack of understanding amazes ~ Michael Ruhlman, #NFDB
161:she is not a porn category
or the type you look for
on a friday night
she is not needy or easy or weak
-daddy issues is not a punch line ~ Rupi Kaur,#NFDB
162:You wonder if God doesn't have an answering machine to screen out the prayers of the venal and the boring? And in which category has he placed you? ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
163:It's a privilege to be in such a great category of people and... I don't believe in God, so I'd like to thank dogs. Dogs have given me everything. ~ Ricky Gervais, #NFDB
164:I've been lucky-my looks haven't put me into one category. I don't look like a blue blood. I don't look like a criminal. I don't look like anything. ~ Tim Robbins, #NFDB
165:No, I don't like legend. I mean, I don't like the category. And to begin with, to me, a legend is something that is not on the Earth, that is dead ~ Lauren Bacall, #NFDB
166:The category of first sentence makes sense only if it is looking forward to the development of thematic concerns it perhaps only dimly foreshadows. ~ Stanley Fish, #NFDB
167:There is a sense in which we create religion as a category to keep Jesus from meddling with our cherished ideas about nationalism, freedom, and war. ~ Brian Zahnd, #NFDB
168:War drags human beings from their tasks of building and improving, and pushes them en masse into the category of destroyers and killers. ~ Helen and Scott Nearing, #NFDB
169:have put in the category of “I’ll worry about that when the time comes”? Planning for the future shouldn’t be postponed until the future arrives. When ~ Bill Walsh, #NFDB
170:I was in the category of people who thought that his [Bernie Sanders ]campaign was worthy, even noble and it would push Hillary [Clinton] to the left. ~ Tom Hayden, #NFDB
171:Mothers and their children are in a category all their own. There's no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving. ~ Gail Tsukiyama, #NFDB
172:Social programs are also seen by liberals as ways for the government to simultaneously help people (Category 2) and strengthen itself (Category 5). ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
173:The first category comprised those for whom books were the only breath of fresh air in their claustrophobic daily lives. His favorite customers. They ~ Nina George, #NFDB
174:The peak of empathogens can be characterised as earthly paradise in comparison to the heavenly paradise of LSD and hallucinogens of that category. ~ Claudio Naranjo, #NFDB
175:Few people put veal stock in the same category as, say, the Goldberg Variations or Plato’s cave allegory, and this lack of understanding amazes me. ~ Michael Ruhlman, #NFDB
176:The peak of empathogens can be characterised as earthly paradise in comparison to the heavenly paradise of LSD and hallucinogens of that category. ~ Claudio Naranjo, #NFDB
177:I have never been able to see myself as fitting into one category, and I have never been able to limit my contact with people to one group of people. ~ Andres Serrano, #NFDB
178:Technically speaking, classes belong in the callable objects category too, but we normally call them to generate instances rather than to do actual work — ~ Mark Lutz, #NFDB
179:Before choosing what to keep, collect everything that falls within the same category at one time. Take every last item out and lay everything in one spot. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
180:Liberals also see many social programs as functioning to promote fairness (Category 1). They see certain people and groups of people as “disadvantaged. ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
181:You live in a world at war. Spiritual attack must be a category you think in or you will misunderstand more than half of what happens in your marriage. ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
182:At awards time, The Exorcist was nominated in 11 categories, everybody but the janitor was up for an Oscar. There was no category for what I did. ~ Mercedes McCambridge, #NFDB
183:Lucky fools do not bear the slightest suspicion that they may be lucky fools—by definition, they do not know that they belong to such a category ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
184:Dancing falls into the same category as poetry for a woman – it equals dreaming, which may inspire thoughts about such banned topics as love and desire. ~ Jenny Nordberg, #NFDB
185:I think you’re permanently disqualified from the lucky category after four miscarriages, a virtual divorce, and a face that could scare small children. ~ Jennifer Coburn, #NFDB
186:Lust," she said. "Lust is a deadly sin."
"And spanking."
"I think that falls under lust."
"I think it should have its own category." said Jace ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
187:Both chronic, long-term poverty and downward mobility from the middle class are in the same category of things that America likes not to think about. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich, #NFDB
188:I've had to work very hard, and I don't really have a category or fit into any niche, so each time I come out with a new record, it's like, I'm a new guy. ~ Lenny Kravitz, #NFDB
189:Las Vegas is incredible. Either you love it or you're a classy person with morals. I fall into the former category. It's definitely bled into my writing. ~ Alissa Nutting, #NFDB
190:Sometimes I feel like when someone asks me if I believe in God, it's like a blind person asking if I'm black, so that they can put me in the right category. ~ Hank Green, #NFDB
191:Amateur production, the result of all this new capability, means that the category of ‘consumer’ is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity ~ Clay Shirky, #NFDB
192:I don't really feel like a rock artist, but I guess in the small category of the world of music genres, that's where I fall in because I've got a guitar. ~ Courtney Barnett, #NFDB
193:Because our minds process information solely through analogy and categorization, we are often defeated when presented with something that fits no category. ~ Jeff VanderMeer, #NFDB
194:Citizen Grissom Bunt of the yulp caste, in the name of the Compassionate Society you are under arrest for a Category Twelve PainCrime and LifeRight Violation; ~ Ian McDonald, #NFDB
195:Do not compromise yourself and put your goodness in the same impermanent category as whatever circumstance happening. Be the best you in every circumstance. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
196:I’m listening to a lot of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Rihanna. A lot of pop female artists. I have to say I’m pretty well-versed in the pop female category. ~ Steve Carell, #NFDB
197:Jean-Pierre Marquis, From a Geometrical Point of View: A Study of the History and Philosophy of Category Theory, Springer Science & Business Media, 2008. ~ Roger Scruton, #NFDB
198:It did not quite do it justice to call it adventure travel, and it certainly was not pleasure travel. My Congo journey deserved its own category: ordeal travel. ~ Tim Butcher, #NFDB
199:If it had a name, he says, what would that change, exactly? Would it be more acceptable to you? Would it be a thing people do? Would it have a category unto itself? ~ Jess Row, #NFDB
200:I'm the only talk show host, I think, if there's such a category in, what's called, the book of records, to have a guest die while we were taping the show, yeah. ~ Dick Cavett, #NFDB
201:Reaching out to any fellow ghetto kids is an act he puts in the same category as doing drugs: the initial rush of warmth and euphoria puts you on a path to ruin. ~ Ron Suskind, #NFDB
202:A painter is always overjoyed when anybody pays any attention to him at all, puts him in any category, calls him anything - as long as they call him something. ~ Wayne Thiebaud, #NFDB
203:Consistently practice love and everything that falls under the category of love: gratitude, laughter, friendship, joy, forgiveness, acceptance, peace, and trust. ~ Renee Marino, #NFDB
204:People look at you, and they've got just the perfect little box for you, the perfect category. Call you a redneck. Call you a hillbilly. Like those were insults. ~ Travis Tritt, #NFDB
205:The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category—except for the category of familiarity. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
206:In her own special category, she was quite beautiful. This was the category of all the women, in his entire life, who had ever thought he was worth smiling at. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
207:So if, like many of my clients, you have any books that fall into this category, I urge you to stop insisting that you will use them someday. Get rid of them today. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
208:I kind of hate the fact that people are always trying to put you into a category. I hate walls, and I hate boundaries. I don't like that. I listen to everything. ~ Brian McKnight, #NFDB
209:Jesus Christ, being 2000 years old and some change, is a relatively "new" god of the older god category - and has done quite well for himself, in terms of worship. ~ Bryan Fuller, #NFDB
210:We are not prepared to consider special category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime. Crime is crime is crime, it is not political ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
211:I put myself in the category of "Lucky Guy," and my hopes for the future are that I can continue to push the envelope for myself, and creatively and see what's next. ~ Charlie Day, #NFDB
212:We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life -- the unborn -- without diminishing the value of all human life . . . there is no cause more important. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
213:Faced with the opportunity to become the category of one, we almost always hesitate, almost always compromise, almost always dumb it down to play it a little bit safer ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
214:My first Grammy wasn't even in a jazz category, but of course I was really excited. 'Rockit' was the beginning of kind of a new era for the whole hip-hop movement. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
215:There is such an overvaluation of technology stocks that it is absurd. I would include our stock in that category. It is bad for the long-term worth of the economy. ~ Steve Ballmer, #NFDB
216:This gentleman evidently belonged to the category of those people who wish the Government to interfere in everything, even in their daily quarrels with their wives. ~ Nikolai Gogol, #NFDB
217:Sometimes you recognize that there is a category of human experience that has not been identified but everyone knows about it. That is when I find a term to describe it. ~ Brian Eno, #NFDB
218:So the idea of being able to shop cross-category to buy the beach bag, the summer lip gloss, and the pillows for your pool house makes it into very focused, easy life. ~ Aerin Lauder, #NFDB
219:The data is going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category. ~ Tavis Smiley, #NFDB
220:To me, a feminist belong in the same category as a humanist or an advocate for human rights. I don't see why someone who's a feminist should be thought of differently. ~ Suzanne Vega, #NFDB
221:Women's fiction is just a marketing category, designed to appeal more to women than to men. But there are stories in that category that any human being would like. ~ Kristine Grayson, #NFDB
222:But now sustainability is such a political category that it's getting more and more difficult to think about it in a serious way. Sustainability has become an ornament. ~ Rem Koolhaas, #NFDB
223:Sometimes it is when we stop trying to understand or interrogate apparently 'absurd' phenomena - like the category of the 'new' in art- that we become more open to them. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
224:Writers, Composers, Painters, - also artists like directors and actors fall into the same category. They have to be handled with kid gloves, mentally and physically ~ Marlene Dietrich, #NFDB
225:Some visual artworks are made to be talked about more than to be seen, others are made to be seen more than to be talked about. I think I belong in the latter category. ~ Mati Klarwein, #NFDB
226:We don't have to be harsh with ourselves when we think, sitting here, that our meditation or our oryoki or the way we are in the world is in the category of worst horse. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
227:You want to know what pain is? Try running out of Advil when you’ve got a Category Five period. I’ve had cramps that would make grown men beg for a bullet between the eyes. ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
228:Depression - it falls into that small category of things like combat that, if you haven't been in it, you can say you can imagine it all you like. But it's truly different. ~ Dick Cavett, #NFDB
229:Many of my works fall into the category of "Zeitgeist novels." Yet I hope that they aren't only reportage, but also attempts to convey the sense of the present to the future. ~ Will Self, #NFDB
230:The virtue of the civil partnerships scheme lay in the attempt to treat the needs of gay and lesbian couples as what they are, not to bundle them into some other category. ~ John Sentamu, #NFDB
231:For Alan Turing did not think of himself as placed in a superior category by virtue of his brains, and only insisted upon playing what happened to be his own special part. ~ Andrew Hodges, #NFDB
232:Jesse is not as charismatic as Ty, but they both fall under the category of people who can tell you to do just about anything, including rimming a dead donkey, and you’d do it. ~ L J Shen, #NFDB
233:Dealing with beautiful women, Your Grace, Craw had warned, is like dealing with known criminals, and the lady you are about to solicit undoubtedly falls within that category. ~ John le Carr, #NFDB
234:Dear God, if I made it through this alive and conscious, my name deserved to be added to some X-rated category in the Guinness Book of World Records or something.
-Emma ~ Rachael Wade,#NFDB
235:Singing is not about timbres or category labels, singing is about fascinating acoustical properties like the colors of the human voice which derive from thought and emotion. ~ Thomas Hampson, #NFDB
236:If Emrys was acting normally, like the typical self-gratifying narcissist he was, then it would have been easier to keep him in that special category of potential enemy. ~ Jennifer Silverwood, #NFDB
237:Kafka’s The Castle came to mind, a book I had not read but that fell into that category of literature that culture reads on your behalf and deposits somewhere inside you. ~ Patrick McGuinness, #NFDB
238:A teacher had once told them that men were either beasts, gentlemen, or beasts masquerading as gentlemen. Might there be a fourth category — gentlemen masquerading as beasts? ~ Sabrina Jeffries, #NFDB
239:next actions. Those ideas fall into the broad category of “project support materials,” and may be anything from a notion about something you might want to do on your next vacation ~ David Allen, #NFDB
240:Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
241:Emotions are but one category of the many different mental formations we can have. They come, they stay for a while, and then they go. Why should we have to die for an emotion? ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
242:He’s like a trip wire, rigged to detonate a category five hurricane of emotions inside of me. But I’m a masochist of the highest order, so I let him obliterate me. Again and again. ~ A Zavarelli, #NFDB
243:How do you even speak of, let alone propose regulation of, [any] category [so] full of internal contradictions? . . . Maybe, like so many other things, it is a language problem. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
244:How ironical that it is by means of speech that man can degrade himself below the level of dumb creation -- for a chatterbox is truly of a lower category than a dumb creature. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
245:Not until her parents came to visit did the McGraw clan, Caleb included, learn that Snow’s father was half black, landing Snow squarely and immediately in the undesirable category. ~ Terri Osburn, #NFDB
246:She says that the world is divided into the people who imagine their own funerals and the people who don’t, and that smart and artistic people naturally fall into the former category. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
247:Women in America work so hard and not all of them get their shot. And I feel like I worked hard, but I also got my opportunity, which puts in a different category of blessings. ~ Kellyanne Conway, #NFDB
248:I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend? ~ Robert Redford, #NFDB
249:The truth is, no matter how trying they become, babies two and under don't have the ability to make moral choices, so they can't be bad. That category only exists in the adult mind. ~ Anne Cassidy, #NFDB
250:I do not think much of ages. People are people. What does it matter how old or young they are? It is a category, and I do not like categories. It is a sort of pigeonhole or a label. ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
251:Last guy I was interested in turned out to be an incestuous necrophiliac," she said. "So no, not currently dating, and definitely not doing any more shopping in the 'sociopath' category ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
252:She says that the world is divided into the people who imagine their own funerals and the people who don't, and that smart and artistic people naturally fall into the former category. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
253:If you attach better services to a diagnostic category, some doctors will apply that diagnosis to children from whom it is not entirely appropriate in order to access those services. ~ Andrew Solomon, #NFDB
254:I have a good reason for choosing off-season clothing for their first foray into this tidying gala. It’s the easiest category for tuning in to one’s intuition concerning what feels good. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
255:I submit that the traditional definition of psychiatry, which is still vogue, places it alongside such things as alchemy and astrology, and commits it to the category of pseudo-science. ~ Thomas Szasz, #NFDB
256:Once a small planet is discovered, astronomers try to determine which category it belongs to. This is like biologists trying to classify a new animal as either being a mammal or reptile. ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
257:The starving, the unwanted old and unborn, the criminal, those of wrong color, ideology, sex, nation, class—whatever category renders a person least in our minds—bear the face of Jesus. ~ Jen Hatmaker, #NFDB
258:Everybody's vaguely miserable sometimes...and most people are vaguely miserable most of the time. The trick is to scrap your way from the most-of-the-time to the some-of-the-time category. ~ Tim Sandlin, #NFDB
259:The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
260:Clothes, like people, can relax more freely when in the company of others who are very similar in type, and therefore organizing them by category helps them feel more comfortable and secure. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
261:The new normal is to have strong women and girls as typical a character for television, films, and books. There wouldn't be a need to have a category for "Strong Women". Strong by Kailin Gow ~ Kailin Gow, #NFDB
262:Every country has a cultural legacy and religious practices for reasons that I don’t believe fall under the category of superstition, something that a religious scholar should understand. ~ Santosh Kalwar, #NFDB
263:(Honorable mention in the Six-Feet-Under category to the reader who writes: “In my hometown [Amarillo, TX], there is a funeral director called Boxwell Brothers. This one can’t be beat.”) ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
264:I think all the great studio filmmakers are dead or no longer working. I don't put myself, my friends, and other contemporary filmmakers in their category. I just see us doing some work. ~ Martin Scorsese, #NFDB
265:If you fall into the category of people who want to make a great use of their existence, you need to ask yourself these two questions; “what am I doing now”?; “Where is it taking me to? ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
266:I offer early Christianity as a case-study to show that the phenomena that we group under "religion(s)" comprise a somewhat artificial category, and that "religions" are not "all the same." ~ Larry Hurtado, #NFDB
267:The greatest of mythologies divided its gods into creators, preservers and destroyers. Tidiness obviously belongs to the second category, which mitigates the terrific impact of the other two. ~ Freya Stark, #NFDB
268:The only category I do badly in is my personality. And that`s OK. Who cares? And you know what? You want to know something? I`m a better person than the people I`m running against. I see it. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
269:To get into the consumer's mind, you have to sacrifice. You have to reduce the essence of your brand to a single thought or attribute. An attribute that nobody else already owns in your category. ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
270:When you’re the first in a new category, promote the category. In essence, you have no competition. DEC told its prospects why they ought to buy a minicomputer, not a DEC minicomputer. In ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
271:America has the strongest, best-trained, best-led military force in the world, and we have failed them. Our military today is struggling in virtually every category that measures preparedness. ~ John McCain, #NFDB
272:Some great people are leaders and others are more lucky, in the right place at the right time. I'd put myself in the latter category. But I'd never call myself a normal designer of anything. ~ Steve Wozniak, #NFDB
273:Those little age differentials, so crucial and so gross when we are young, erode. We end up belonging to the same category, that of the non-young. I've never much minded this myself. [p. 66] ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
274:If you fall into the category of people who want to make a great use of their existence, you need to ask yourself these two questions; “what am I doing now”?; “Where is it taking me to?”. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
275:I regard this conclusion as coming in the same sort of category, of historical probability so high as to be virtually certain, as the death of Augustus in AD 14 or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
276:I think one of the most important things punk brought back was the whole concept of staying independent and doing things yourself. It made music a lot less boring in any category you can name. ~ Jello Biafra, #NFDB
277:The debate's over. The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
278:category. A church doesn’t need to pray about whether it should pray. It doesn’t need to pray about whether it should serve. It doesn’t need to pray about whether it should evangelize. ~ Erwin Raphael McManus, #NFDB
279:Our goal is to get sport hunting in the same category as **** fighting and dog fighting. We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States. ~ Wayne Pacelle, #NFDB
280:The faceless, sexless, raceless proletariat. The faceless, raceless, classless category of "all women". Both creations of white Western self-centeredness. -Notes Toward a Politics of Location. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
281:...the solution to the Jewish question merely produced a new category of refugees, the Arabs, thereby increasing the number of the stateless and rightless by another 700,000 to 800,000 people. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
282:I am disappointed by this controversy surrounding A Million Little Pieces because I rely on the publishers to define the category that a book falls within and also the authenticity of the work. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
283:Social justice does not belong to the category of error but to that of nonsense, like the term 'a moral stone'. —F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice, 1976 ~ Vox Day, #NFDB
284:The Company of Wolves doesn't belong in any category, so it's difficult to prepare an audience for it. It's not a horror film, it's not a fantasy film, it's not a children's film - so what is it? ~ Neil Jordan, #NFDB
285:The iPod is not a new category. Music is not new. It's not a speculative market. It's a very, very large market. It's been around for thousands of years and will be around as long as humans exist. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
286:There were people whom you positively ached to please. If you failed with such people they would put you into a category in their minds where they could kee you and have contempt for you forever. ~ Alice Munro, #NFDB
287:Women who are Unreceptive are just that: they’re unavailable and/or uninterested in having a sexual/romantic relationship with you. The most common reasons that put women in this category are the ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
288:You want the president to be uninfluenced by any factors other than his advisers and the best interests of the United States. I think, on that category, Donald Trump easily beats Hillary Clinton. ~ Kris Kobach, #NFDB
289:I have successfully avoided being stereotyped into a specific category. I've worked very hard at that, and I'm proud of not being easily lumped into anybody's preconceived notions or expectations. ~ Amber Heard, #NFDB
290:The only thing I could think of - because I really don't like categories - but the only thing I could think of is inspirational, and I think music that is from the heart falls right into that category. ~ Prince, #NFDB
291:I feel that when the reforms in UN take place and the Security Council will be expanded in the permanent membership category, India will have a place, I hope so, but first it is to be expanded. ~ Pranab Mukherjee, #NFDB
292:Ralph, honey, did Maurice suggest this topic as the way to go in the ‘getting to know you on an intimate level’ chit-chat category?” “No. He said to shut up.” “Listen to Maurice. He is your friend.” I ~ Gini Koch, #NFDB
293:There are two kinds of science: The black science and the white science. The science of weapon production is the black one. Working in this category of science is a great betrayal to humanity! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
294:You want to know what pain is? Try running out of Advil when you've got a Category Five period. I've had cramps that would make grown men beg for a bullet between the eyes." - Jennifer, "Beauty Queens ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
295:And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into. ~ Dave Brubeck, #NFDB
296:If we meet an honest and intelligent politician, a dozen, a hundred, we say they aren't like politicians at all, and our category of politicians stays unchanged; we know what politicians are like. ~ Randall Jarrell, #NFDB
297:There does not exist a category of science to which one can give the name applied science. There are sciences and the applications of science, bound together as the fruit of the tree which bears it. ~ Louis Pasteur, #NFDB
298:How nice of Acheron to send us a playmate. (Daimon) Play is for children and dogs. Now that you have identified which category you fall into, I'll show you what Romans do to rabid dogs. (Valerius) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
299:If being an attractive woman got you attention for directing, then the entire best director category would be comprised of models. To me, that is just the most ludicrous connection that you could make. ~ Diablo Cody, #NFDB
300:Vast multitudes of professing Christians fit into the category spoken of here. They call Jesus 'Lord,' but they practice lawlessness. They profess faith in Jesus, but have no regard for the divine law. ~ Ray Comfort, #NFDB
301:When you launch a new product, the first question to ask yourself is not 'How is this new product better than the competition?' but 'First what?' In other words, what category is this new product first in? ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
302:About the only valid definition (of science fiction) that I’m willing to accept is this: all of modern, mainstream, and realistic fiction is simply a branch, a category, or a subset of science fiction. ~ Mike Resnick, #NFDB
303:Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. The modern industrial proletariat does not belong to the category of such classes. ~ Vladimir Lenin, #NFDB
304:I don't tend to do category fiction very well. One of my problems when I was starting off was that publishers were hesitant to handle my books because they were never sure what I was going to do next. ~ Joanne Harris, #NFDB
305:I don't think Jennifer Lawrence deserves to be in this category [leading role]? Joy is a great movie, obviously. She's a great actress and I don't want to take anything from her, but it ain't American Hustle. ~ Bun B, #NFDB
306:You want to know what pain is? Try running out of Advil when you've got a Category Five period. I've had cramps that would make grown men beg for a bullet between the eyes."
- Jennifer, "Beauty Queens ~ Libba Bray,#NFDB
307:I don't care if you call it AO for Adults Only, or Chopped Liver or Father Goose. Your movie will still have the stigma of being in a category that's going to be inhabited by the very worst of pictures. ~ Jack Valenti, #NFDB
308:I'm only two years older than Brad Pitt, but I look a lot older, which used to greatly frustrate me. It doesn't anymore. I don't have to fit into that category and get trounced by Tom Cruise and Brad. ~ George Clooney, #NFDB
309:Everyone has been taught that technique is an application of science.... This traditional view is radically false. It takes into account only a single category of science and only a short period of time ~ Jacques Ellul, #NFDB
310:How nice of Acheron to send us a playmate. (Daimon)
Play is for children and dogs. Now that you have identified which category you fall into, I'll show you what Romans do to rabid dogs. (Valerius) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
311:Science fiction writers and thriller writers and traditional so-called ‘literary’ novelists are all novelists, and they finally have to be judged on how good they are, not on which category they belong in. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
312:I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe. ~ R Buckminster Fuller, #NFDB
313:No one wore high heels anymore. They were in the same category as corsets –a torturous invention of the past that had served to make men desire women and caused women nothing but sore feet and broken ankles. ~ Elin Peer, #NFDB
314:I hope we, the American people, can come to the understanding that we are not each other's enemies. The enemies are those who are stoking the flames of division, trying to divide us into every category. ~ Benjamin Carson, #NFDB
315:... That's why you're going directly back to the house. The last thing we need is for you to end up in jail again, and I'm quite certain disassembling another lady's hair falls under the category of assault. ~ Jen Turano, #NFDB
316:More precisely, I’m an econometrician.” In Michael’s book, that put her solidly in the brainiac category, and an odd feeling ghosted up the back of his neck. Damned if he didn’t have a thing for smart girls. ~ Helen Hoang, #NFDB
317:Research says that 80 per cent of all submitted manuscripts are rejected, and I have no reason to doubt it. But ask yourself exactly what category (or categories) yours may have fallen into – what pigeonhole. ~ Fay Weldon, #NFDB
318:When I decided to launch my first knitwear line, it was because I saw a void in the basics category. The editors were always looking for cool, fashion-forward tees and sweaters. So that's where I started. ~ Alexander Wang, #NFDB
319:Store items from the same category in one spot. If you are living with a family, sort by person first, then by category, and finally by type of material. If you follow this order, storage will be much simpler. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
320:There is no such thing as a special category of science called applied science; there is science and its applications, which are related to one another as the fruit is related to the tree that has borne it. ~ Louis Pasteur, #NFDB
321:I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe. ~ R Buckminster Fuller, #NFDB
322:They possessed what economists call noncognitive skills, which is the catchall category for hidden qualities that can’t be easily counted or measured, but which in real life lead to happiness and fulfillment. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
323:I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing - a noun, I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process - an integral function of the universe. ~ R Buckminster Fuller, #NFDB
324:The prostitute became uncomfortable -- as if 'talk' were in a category of aberrant behavior, short of which she drew the line. 'You have to pay more for that,' the redhead said. 'Talk can go on for a long time. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
325:The racial categories that are used in a given society (for example, in contemporary America) are biologically meaningless, but sometimes it turns out that a vernacular racial category has biological reality. ~ Elliott Sober, #NFDB
326:I want to be able to create characters for as long as I can and I want to tell stories for as long as I can but unfortunately I'm not given those opportunities because I'm often boxed into the former category... ~ Amber Heard, #NFDB
327:There are those who work all day. Those who dream all day. And those who spend an hour dreaming before setting to work to fulfill those dreams. Go into the third category because there's virtually no competition. ~ Steve Ross, #NFDB
328:I told the truth about the Miami life. It's a nice place to visit, but you don't want to live here. I lived through two major riots and three Category 5 hurricanes, I don't know if a lot of people could say that. ~ Trick Daddy, #NFDB
329:There are martyrs [between Mexican people], now I will canonize two. It is a population that you can't explain, you can't explain it because the word 'people' is not a logical category, it's a mythical category. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
330:We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
331:Mostly they all were products of single parents, and in the most tragic category - black boys, with no particular criminal inclinations but whose very lack of direction put them in the crosshairs of the world. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
332:I'm a point guard, I've always been a point guard, I've played point guard all my life. Personally, I feel the best point guards make other players look better and create their own shot. I fit in that category. ~ Chauncey Billups, #NFDB
333:Whatever you may believe about it, the birth of Jesus was so important that it split history into two parts. Everything that has ever happened on this planet falls into a category of before Christ or after Christ. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
334:Once in a Moscow chess club I saw how two first-category players knocked pieces off the board as they were exchanged, so that the pieces fell onto the floor. It was as if they were playing skittles and not chess! ~ Alexander Kotov, #NFDB
335:When people hear our record, they're not going to be able to put us into the 'New Metal' category or the 'pop-punk' category or the 'aggressive emo' category. I think people will be able to take it for what it is. ~ Bert McCracken, #NFDB
336:A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them. ~ Gilbert Ryle, #NFDB
337:Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, let alone revising their categories. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
338:For [target customers] Who are dissatisfied with [the current offerings in the market]. My idea/product is a [new idea or product category] That provides [key problem/solution features]. Unlike [the competing product]. ~ Oren Klaff, #NFDB
339:If you want to write, then write; if you don't want to write, then don't write. I fell into the former category, and I just made the decision that I'd keep on because I liked it and might someday do something decent. ~ Ben Fountain, #NFDB
340:Some things I think are very conservative, or very liberal. I think when someone falls into one category for everything, I'm very suspicious. It doesn't make sense to me that you'd have the same solution to every issue. ~ Louis C K, #NFDB
341:Among the letters my readers write me, there is a certain category which is continuously growing, and which I see as a symptom of the increasing intellectualization of the relationship between readers and literature. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
342:I try to take people at face value and then beyond, taking them out of face value and out of the category of being Black, Latino, Asian, White, Jewish, Muslim or Christian or Atheist, none of that matters to me. ~ Immortal Technique, #NFDB
343:I'm at the age where I just want to experiment. You know, play a crime investigator one week, a pregnant girl one week, an angel of darkness another week. I don't want to define myself by any category, or age, or role. ~ Leven Rambin, #NFDB
344:I never use hedge funds because I am well aware of what drives future performance, and hedge funds start out with a great disadvantage in every major category: taxes, fees, risk management, transparency and liquidity. ~ Peter Mallouk, #NFDB
345:Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can't be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
346:In January 1995 three prisoners, two category ‘A’ prisoners and a lifer escaped from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. After four days of freedom they were recaptured. My length of freedom far surpassed theirs. ~ Stephen Richards, #NFDB
347:There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumber the living many times over. Most beautiful children are dead. Most soldiers, most cowards. The fairest women and the most learned men—all are dead. ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
348:while there are 'women writers' there are not, and have never been, 'men writers.' This is an empty category, a class without specimens; for the noun 'writer' - the very verb 'writing' - always implies masculinity. ~ Joyce Carol Oates, #NFDB
349:In the U.S. Constitution there was a category of creatures called three-fifth humans—the enslaved population. They weren’t considered persons. And in fact women were barely considered persons, so they didn’t have rights. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
350:It is of no importance to know who I am since some day I shall no longer be”—that is what each of us should answer those who bother about our identity and desire at any price to coop us up in a category or a definition. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
351:The general definition of being muscle-bound is that you have so many muscles that you can't move freely. I don't know of any bodybuilder in that category; in fact, many of them are quite active in other sports. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger, #NFDB
352:I feel grown-up. I am no longer in the category with the children, I am one of the adults! And I love it! They have accepted me as an individual, as a personality, as an entity. I belong! I am important! I am somebody! ~ Beatrice Sparks, #NFDB
353:Some preachers master thier subjects; some subjects master the preacher; once in awhile one meets a preacher who is both master of, and also mastered by his subject. The apostle Paul, I am sure, was in that category. ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
354:All categories are no category; What relation have these to my insight? Beyond praise, beyond blame, -- Like space itself it has no bounds.
~ Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia, 38 - All categories are no category (from The Shodoka)
,#NFDB
355:Richard Feynman said that the differences between true sciences and the pseudo-sciences – a category that includes the management-speak of the business schools – was that the former try to be honest, while the latter do not. ~ Nick Cohen, #NFDB
356:This does not mean that every copyright must prove its value initially. That would be a far too cumbersome system of control. But it does mean that every system or category of copyright or patent should prove its worth. ~ Lawrence Lessig, #NFDB
357:Unfortunately, most followers do not know that they can also become leaders because to them, leadership is confined to an "assumed" category of people who have authority or social prestige as their background pillows. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
358:The deep cultural animus against the category of sin means that many preachers much prefer to talk about weaknesses, mistakes, tragedies, failures, inconsistencies, hurts, disappointment, blindness—anything but sin. ~ Christopher W Morgan, #NFDB
359:Whatever the case, as long as she kept her feelings firmly entrenched in the "like" category, she'd be fine. Anything less than complete emotional vigilance would be dangerous; Owen was leaving in a few weeks, end of story. ~ Lissa Manley, #NFDB
360:But being an American woman married to an Arab guy - and a Muslim to boot! - put me in a different category. People would open up, and tell me things that they would never tell another journalist, no matter how persistent. ~ Annia Ciezadlo, #NFDB
361:Rebirth. I mean by this simply what happens when the child begins to realise the fact that the black does not enter through the white’s front door is not in the same category as the fact that the dead will never come back. ~ Nadine Gordimer, #NFDB
362:There are very few people in the world with courage enough to admit that they do not care for music (dogs and children come into the same category) and so brand themselves forever as Philistines in the eyes of their friends. ~ D E Stevenson, #NFDB
363:Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, let alone revising their categories. Contagion ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
364:I’m beginning to think a dictionary would have been a far more advantageous birthday gift for you.”
“More advantageous than being eaten alive by a giant, carnivorous bunny? Yes, most things fall in that category, I think. ~ William Ritter,#NFDB
365:Law is no explanation of anything; law is simply a generalization, a category of facts. Law is neither a cause, nor a reason, nor a power, nor a coercive force. It is nothing but a general formula, a statistical table. ~ Florence Nightingale, #NFDB
366:Exactly, and now I have to play nice with him and ‘work together.’ Ever since elementary school I’ve gotten marked down in the ‘plays well with others’ category.” “A problem that has dogged you well into adulthood,” Malone said. ~ Marie Force, #NFDB
367:It is a primary text of the Vaishnava branch of Hinduism, and one of the Cnanonical puranas of the Visnhu Category. Among the portions of interest are a cycle of legends of the boyhood deeds of Krishna and Rama. ~ Sacred Texts, in "Hinduism"., #NFDB
368:Society likes to file you away, put you in this or that category. And I never fit any category. Maybe that's why I was left out of a lot of things, or why my work was not really understood, because there was no precedent for it. ~ Agnes Denes, #NFDB
369:The implication that women as a category are unreliable and that false rape charges are the real issue is used to silence individual women and to avoid discussing sexual violence, and to make out men as the principal victims. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
370:You never had the opportunity to play with some of the great ballplayers, but being that close around them, and being in the same category, was a great feeling, to feel that vibe of all the best players who played the game. ~ Rickey Henderson, #NFDB
371:A considerable percentage of these respondents [to a question about their ability to mix cocktails] are in the “somewhat” category on ability to mix cocktails.… Evidently, they do not have much confidence in their cocktail-mixing ~ John Brooks, #NFDB
372:My favorite place in the whole world is the city of Paris. to me, Paris stands at the frontier of every major category of travel - in food, art, theater, history, in so many different areas that I simply don't get tired of it. ~ Arthur Frommer, #NFDB
373:When we disperse storage of a particular item throughout the house and tidy one place at a time, we can never grasp the overall volume and therefore can never finish. To escape this negative spiral, tidy by category, not by place. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
374:Do not mistake my compassion for injured creatures as any kind of personal interest, Mr. Devlin. I once bandaged the paw of a stray dog I found in the village. I would place you in the same category as he."
"My angel of mercy. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
375:In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society. In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
376:I am extremely excited to develop and design a brand representative of my life, experiences and style. Working closely with Cherokee will help establish a worldwide presence with best-in-class retailers and category leaders. ~ Alessandra Ambrosio, #NFDB
377:it is technically a Category Two SoulCrime to remove or conceal a Ministry of Pain–assigned famulus from your immediate person.” Lightning flared again as, muttering and mouthing, Benji Dog was stuffed back into Courtney Hall’s bag. ~ Ian McDonald, #NFDB
378:It's always gratifying to share a hobby with a friend, and pining for erstwhile suitors falls into that category. In the months to come, Libby and I would analyze our respective exes with the gusto and intellectual rigor of Jesuits. ~ Patricia Marx, #NFDB
379:No important national language, at least in the Occidental world, has complete regularity of grammatical structure, nor is there a single logical category which is adequately and consistently handled in terms of linguistic symbolism. ~ Edward Sapir, #NFDB
380:The person that I most admire is Jesus Christ. He is the only perfect Person. There is simply no comparison. The difference between Him and all other men is not merely quantitative, but qualitative. He is in a category all to Himself. ~ Paul Washer, #NFDB
381:That is probably why pride is not simply another sin among many, but a sin in a category of its own. Other sins lead the sinner further away from God, but pride is particularly heinous in that it attempts to elevate the sinner above God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
382:The queen's guards might have been the best of the best, but Dimitri . . . well, my former lover and instructor was in a category all his own. His fighting skills were beyond anyone else's, and he was using them all in defense of me. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
383:[P]leasure belongs to the category of events which cannot be brought about by direct intention; on the contrary, it is a mere side effect or by-product. Therefore the more one strives for pleasure, the less one is able to attain it. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
384:Think of brilliant trickster Vik Muniz as the offspring of Man Ray and Jacques Henri Lartigue, combining the former's relentless experimentation, the latter's effortless wit, and their mutual inventiveness in work that defies category. ~ Vince Aletti, #NFDB
385:The second category in our litmus test is the denial of the legitimacy of one’s opponents. Authoritarian politicians cast their rivals as criminal, subversive, unpatriotic, or a threat to national security or the existing way of life. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
386:No longer can we parse our fellow humans into the categories of ‘lovable’ and ‘unlovable.’ If love is an act of the will — not motivated by need, not measuring worth, not requiring reciprocity — then there is no such category as ‘unlovable. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
387:...but Dimitri...well, my former lover and instructor was in a category all his own. His fighting skills were beyond anyone else's, and he was using them all in defense of me. "Stay back," he ordered me. "They aren't laying a hand on you. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
388:I'm a Red Tory. To get a fix on this category, you have to go back to the 19th century. The Tories were the ones who believed that those in power had a responsibility to the community, that money should not be the measure of all things. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
389:There is still the feeling that women's writing is a lesser class of writing, that what goes on in the nursery or the bedroom is not as important as what goes on in the battlefield, that what women know about is a less category of knowledge. ~ Erica Jong, #NFDB
390:Communism has become an intensely dogmatic and almost mystical religion, and whatever you say, they have ways of twisting it into shapes which put you in some lower category of mankind,” wrote novelist and screenwriter F. Scott Fitzgerald, ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
391:There used to be a category called women's fiction - meaning not too rude, not too much sex, a bit domestic and internal. Women have changed so much. We're so varied. And we've become more interested in the same varied experience in fiction. ~ Janet Fitch, #NFDB
392:Beliefs are not some special category of idea sitting at a higher station of truth than our ordinary, everyday mortal thoughts. Beliefs are not neccesarily "the truth" at all. (Remember, there was a time everyone believed the earth was flat) ~ John Assaraf, #NFDB
393:I personally think that people should get the book because it is like a blueprint. It shows you the work that needs to be done if we're ever going to get economic equality, health, reproductive health, violence. I mean, it's every category. ~ Eleanor Smeal, #NFDB
394:Women with body image or eating disorders are not a special category; [they’re] just more extreme in their response to a culture that emphasizes thinness and impossible standards of appearance for women instead of individuality and health. ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
395:...but Dimitri...well, my former lover and instructor was in a category all his own. His fighting skills were beyond anyone else's, and he was using them all in defense of me.
"Stay back," he ordered me. "They aren't laying a hand on you. ~ Richelle Mead,#NFDB
396:Often when managers say, "Testing takes too long," what they should be saying is, "Fixing the bugs in the product takes too long"—a different cost category. Make sure you're accounting for effort and time under the correct cost category. ~ Gerald M Weinberg, #NFDB
397:A cloud can look like a camel, but a camel is unlikely to look like a cloud. This is so because the signifier must be able to stand for the whole category of the signified. The cloud looks like all camels, but no camel looks like all clouds. ~ Rudolf Arnheim, #NFDB
398:If you want to build a successful brand, you have to understand divergence. You have to look for opportunities to create new categories by divergence of existing categories. And then you have to become the first brand in this emerging new category. ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
399:The privileged position of whiteness doesn't allow for someone with one drop of Negro blood to be considered white, which allows whiteness to be a fairly pure category while blackness has to absorb an expansive reality of representation. ~ Kerry James Marshall, #NFDB
400:If we relate to people believing that we can categorize them, we will neither identify nor nuture the parts, the vital parts, of the other that transcends category. The enabling relationship always assumes that the other is never fully knowable. ~ Irvin D Yalom, #NFDB
401:I think I am the most impressed with writing styles that defy category, like Kharms or Selby, Breton or Jarry, where you become as interested in the writer as much as the writing itself. It's all these things that make reading so appealing to me. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
402:Perhaps he felt a touch of gratitude too for the fact that they had each other, for better or worse. They might be facing the worse right now, but the fact that they could lean on each other in the midst of it moved it into the better category. ~ Karen Witemeyer, #NFDB
403:The science called ‘economics’ is based on an initial act of abstraction that consists in dissociating a particular category of practices, or a particular dimension of all practice, from the social order in which all human practice is immersed. ~ Pierre Bourdieu, #NFDB
404:Civilization is the process in which one gradually increases the number of people included in the term "we" or "us" and at the same time decreases those labeled "you" or "them" until that category has no one left in it. - Howard Winters (115) ~ Carol Lynn Pearson, #NFDB
405:Does it, does it—I'm flailing here—does it have a name? What you've done?
If it had a name, he says, what would that change, exactly? Would it be more acceptable to you? Would it be a thing people do? Would it have a category unto itself? ~ Jess Row,#NFDB
406:If there was a National Tweaker Olympics, Oregon would bring home the gold in every category (Living in Squalor, Poisoning Your Neighbors, Developing Facial Scabs, Public Aggression, Theft of Useless Things, Taking Stuff Apart, and Crazy Talking). ~ Laurie Notaro, #NFDB
407:There’s the bullshit you know that you know; the bullshit you don’t know and know you don’t know; and the bullshit you just think you know but really don’t. Making a promise in the middle of an alien black op falls under the last category. So…sorry! ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
408:Hi, Lisa.” Janet stooped for an air kiss from Lisa. At five seven and one hundred and thirty pounds, Janet was no giant. Fine, maybe she was not dainty, but her weight was smack in the middle of the healthy category for her height. But at five two and ~ Marie Astor, #NFDB
409:My mom has a written apology from me for the entire category of brutal sarcasm. Eli has one entitled Excessive Bitchiness, Hogging of Parental Attention by Repeatedly Being Sick Unto Death but Not Actually Dying, and Variant Category: Theft of Clothing. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
410:Something must be done when you find an opposing set of desires of this kind well to the fore in your category of strong desires. You must set in operation a process of competition, from which one must emerge a victor and the other set be defeated. ~ Robert Collier, #NFDB
411:[T]he important thing is that you should not argue with them. Communism has become an intensely dogmatic and almost mystical religion, and whatever you say, they have ways of twisting into shapes which put you in some lower category of mankind. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
412:I won a scholarship to come to LA and compete in a modeling and talent completion and was amazed when I won it. I had never acted before in my life and won the acting category. I began to wonder what this is about and then decided to see what happened. ~ Eva Longoria, #NFDB
413:A strip club is one of the few places where two groups voluntarily come together who have such precipitous contrasts in net worth and familiarity with violence, each group with a head-and-shoulders edge in one category. The basic math of a tropical storm. ~ Tim Dorsey, #NFDB
414:meditation per day part of your spiritual practice, read several pages of spiritual literature each day, or pray or send your thoughts to someone dealing with a problem. My set point in this category is fifteen minutes minimum of daily meditation. 9. ~ Vishen Lakhiani, #NFDB
415:The problem is that buried among the things we hate is a class of products that are in that category only because they are weird. They make us nervous. They are sufficiently different that it takes some time to understand that we actually like them. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
416:Your Inner Self-Concept This category can be pretty difficult to achieve in optimal proportions in our culture. Your inner self-concept involves your beliefs about the invisible energy and intelligence that is the most significant portion of your being. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
417:I felt more doubtful than usual with 'Goon Squad,' because I knew that the book's genre wasn't easily named - Novel? Stories? Novel-in-stories? - and I worried that its lack of a clear category would count against it. My hopes for it were pretty modest. ~ Jennifer Egan, #NFDB
418:Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however - that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
419:genes and fetal environment are relevant. But most important, recall the logic of collapsing different types of trauma into a single category. What counts is the sheer number of times a child is bludgeoned by life and the number of protective factors. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
420:I do identify the escape hatch through which Foucault eludes the charge that he himself is an author/authority, hence a tyrant. He establishes the category of "founder of discursivity" for the authors he likes. Slippery, perhaps, but you can see what he means. ~ Paul Fry, #NFDB
421:We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely — those against private citizens or those against itself? ~ Murray N Rothbard, #NFDB
422:I hate over-privileged people in general. You just happen to fall into that category. No offense. But Nykyrian said you weren’t a total bitch so I’ll trust him until you make him out a liar. (Hauk)
You seriously lack social skills, don’t you? (Kiara) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
423:I think as you get older, you find you can play more things because you're moving to a different category. You play a certain thing as a younger man, playing action roles like I did. Then I moved out, and I kept trying to do different things all the time. ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
424:No longer in print ... There are sentences, and phrases that, in all their simplicity, say much more than they seem to at first: two months to live, never heard of it, dead on arrival ... For a writer, no longer in print must fall somewhere in that category. ~ Herman Koch, #NFDB
425:when we talk about the Background we are talking about a certain category of neurophysiological causation. Because we do not know how these structures function at a neurophysiological level, we are forced to describe them at a much higher level. There ~ John Rogers Searle, #NFDB
426:There is something nonphilosophical about investing one’s pride and ego into a “my house/ library/ car is bigger than that of others in my category”—it is downright foolish to claim to be first in one’s category all the while sitting on a time bomb. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
427:depression in its major stages possesses no quickly available remedy: failure of alleviation is one of the most distressing factors of the disorder as it reveals itself to the victim, and one that helps situate it squarely in the category of grave diseases. ~ William Styron, #NFDB
428:Most works of art are effectively treated as commodities and most artists, even when they justly claim quite other intentions, areeffectively treated as a category of independent craftsmen or skilled workers producing a certain kind of marginal commodity. ~ Raymond Williams, #NFDB
429:on the door when a PMS-stricken woman was trying to insert her last tampon? That definitely fell into the category of bad behavior. Oh, and when he screamed, What are you doing in there? she’d been tempted to tell him the truth. That would have shut him up. ~ Christie Craig, #NFDB
430:The diversity of India cannot thrive on facile attempts to create the homogeneous category of "Indian." Nor can it thrive on dubious attempts to gloss over xenophobic provincialism or a highly culpable state-sponsored marginalization of a minority community. ~ Nyla Ali Khan, #NFDB
431:Clothes, like people, can relax more freely when in the company of others who are very similar in type, and therefore organizing them by category helps them feel more comfortable and secure. You can literally transform your closet just by applying this principle. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
432:The dream has a very striking way of dealing with the category of opposites and contradictions. This is simply disregarded. To the dream ‘No’ does not seem to exist. In particular, it prefers to draw opposites together into a unity or to represent them as one. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
433:I feel like there are women who are genuinely born to be mothers, and women who are born to be aunties, and women who really probably not should be allowed near children. The tragedy that happens is when any one of those women ends up in the wrong category. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
434:I think we're fooling ourselves if we think that regulators are going to be able to outsmart the bankers. So, the task of designing regulatory reform is trying to make more or less foolproof regulation and that's one of the advantages of the systemic category. ~ Robert F Engle, #NFDB
435:The Census Bureau is thinking of creating a new category because so many kids don't know how to describe themselves using the existing categories. I call these kids the "Keanu Reeves Generation," after the actor who has a Hawaiian father and a Welsh mother. ~ Richard Rodriguez, #NFDB
436:The privilege of privilege is that the terms of privilege are rendered invisible. It is a luxury not to have to think about race, or class, or gender. Only those marginalized by some category understand how powerful that category is when deployed against them. ~ Michael Kimmel, #NFDB
437:Also, in the category of 'obvious but still shocking,' an animal called a 'killer whale' killed someone who was trying to play with it. Now, no one knows exactly what enraged the whale, but earlier in the week, it had been thrown off a flight by Southwest Airlines. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
438:It had been a fix-up, a blind date set up by a well-meaning skinny coworker who had no clue that most men in Southern California placed overweight women in the same category as serial killers and believed them worthy of the same punishment—the death penalty. ~ Sue Ann Jaffarian, #NFDB
439:It’s delicious, ingenious, perfect, intelligent that you never felt like you fit in. It means that you were always alive, and therefore unique and irreplaceable, designed to resist any kind of labeling whatsoever, unable to be pinned down or reduced to a category. ~ Jeff Foster, #NFDB
440:One of my top ten favorite novels in any category is Stephanie Plowman’s The Road to Sardis, a heartbreaking retelling of the events of the Peloponnesian War, which broke out in 431 B.C. between longtime rivals Athens and Sparta, and lasted for twenty-seven years. ~ Nancy Pearl, #NFDB
441:Don’t be scared,” said a voice behind me.
Those must certainly fall into the category of Famous Last Words, the sort that are the last thing you hear before your death. (Along with “it isn’t loaded” and “he only wants to play.”) Of course I was terrible scared. ~ Kerstin Gier,#NFDB
442:Outside speech, the association that is made in the memory between words having something in common creates different groups, series, families, within which very diverse relations obtain but belonging to a single category: these are associative relations. ~ Ferdinand de Saussure, #NFDB
443:Needless to say that the ideas of this book fall squarely into the Tragic category: We are faulty and there is no need to bother trying to correct our flaws. We are so defective and so mismatched to our environment that we can just work around these flaws. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
444:Wonder, as a point of concern, denies its own consideration. It has the remarkable capacity to hide in the midst of its revelation. Wonder, to preserve itself, withdraws. It withdraws from the mind, from the willing mind, which would make of mystery a category. ~ Dan Beachy Quick, #NFDB
445:In short the problem is this: far too few who believe in the risen Christ actually believe in his revolutionary ideas. There is a sense in which we create religion as a category to keep Jesus from meddling with our cherished ideas about nationalism, freedom, and war. ~ Brian Zahnd, #NFDB
446:A lot has been written about the Internet bust. From my point of view, it's quite clear the Internet isn't a category; the Internet is a technological infrastructure that can be deployed to facilitate a disruptive business model or a sustaining business model. ~ Clayton Christensen, #NFDB
447:Meaning that loving a werewolf can be difficult. They’re big and strong, but that only means their luggage is a whole hell of a lot heavier. It takes a good soul mate to help them figure out how to carry it all. And right now, you suck in the soul mate category, dear. ~ Paige Tyler, #NFDB
448:Everybody has the blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called jazz, there is a stepping-stone to all of these. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
449:First, I look at history the way I look at evolution. Some things die out for a good reason, and should be left dead. I put dictatorships and velociraptors in the same category: leave them in the past, where they can serve as frightening object lessons for the present. ~ Holly Lisle, #NFDB
450:I think that the perceived downs in my own career come from just managing my time and not feeling that I have enough time for my family or my friends. You could put that in the personal life category but it's all one category because I've got to balance my family. ~ Steven Spielberg, #NFDB
451:There are many directors in the middle range who've made mostly successful pictures, and then there are a few great directors who've had some successes and some failures. I suppose my life would be smoother if I wasn't almost totally enamored of the latter category. ~ Jack Nicholson, #NFDB
452:Before M2, I really felt self-conscious about some of my choices, and I was slotted into a category. At Rolling Stone, I was the alternative chick, and that was just the way it was. That did break me open a little bit, and that was maybe its legacy. And it's a nice one. ~ Jancee Dunn, #NFDB
453:The reality for me is simple. When music is written, it is usually categorized as classical. When it is improvised, it can still be called classical if it is an inspired improvisation. In either category, it is still music, and it can be good or bad or simply mediocre. ~ Dave Brubeck, #NFDB
454:The scar doesn’t bother her. If anything, it takes his face out of the category of symmetrical and ordered things to which everybody else’s face belongs. It’s a face like the throw of a dice. She likes that arbitrariness, instinctively. It’s something she’s drawn to. What ~ M R Carey, #NFDB
455:...the idea of cannibalism had become a handy symbol for unacceptable behavior practiced by "Others"--a broad and malleable category of evildoers that included enemies, followers of non-Christian religions, and any groups determined to retain their "uncivilized" customs. ~ Bill Schutt, #NFDB
456:There are two categories of friendship: those in which people enliven one another and those in which people must be enlivened to be with one another. In the first category one clears the decks to be together; in the second one looks for an empty space in the schedule. ~ Vivian Gornick, #NFDB
457:What troubles me about the "hostile workplace" category of sexual harassment policy is that women are being returned to their old status of delicate flowers who must be protected from assault by male lechers. It is anti-feminist to ask for special treatment for women. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
458:Cultural traits, however, are a more general category than memes, because they also include quantitative (smoothly-varying) characteristics that cannot be easily represented as discrete alternatives: for example, the inclination to trust strangers. (More on that below.) ~ Peter Turchin, #NFDB
459:Here's the thing. We do a movie with a predominantly black cast, and it's put in a category of being a black film. When other movies are done with a predominantly white cast, we don't call them a white film. I'm trying to remove the stigma off things they call black films. ~ Kevin Hart, #NFDB
460:I don't ever want to stick myself in one category. I do really love making movies, but the thing about live performances is you don't have to wait around. Literally, we're still waiting to see what the reaction is to the film, so it's a slower process. But it is enjoyable. ~ Jim Carrey, #NFDB
461:I think I can design a children's line after I have a child. For me, when I take on a new category I feel like I need to be really well educated in it. I have lots of friends with kids, and I enjoy shopping for them, but I think until you have a child, it's really hard. ~ Lauren Conrad, #NFDB
462:The sound coming out of me is nothing like a cough, nothing even in the same category of a song, but some kind of bird of prey roar, shredding my throat, pulsating my fingers, and Milekt beneath it, singing inside my voice, amplifying me, and making me stronger. ~ Maria Dahvana Headley, #NFDB
463:You are most humble and gentle when you think that the person you are ministering to is more like you than unlike you. When you have inserted yourself into another category that tends to make you think you have arrived, it is very easy to be judgmental and impatient. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
464:Management who fall into this category are often so concerned about digital that they latch on to any idea, no matter how inappropriate. They want quick-fix solutions that will somehow solve digital. That makes them vulnerable to any charlatan with a digital product to sell. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
465:So, they dig up my address and stick it in the mail. “David Wong will know what to do with it!” No, I absolutely will not. It just piles up and the stuff that doesn’t seem too dangerous gets sold on eBay (there’s a whole “Metaphysical” category on the site now, it’s great). ~ David Wong, #NFDB
466:There are two categories of friendship: those in which people enliven one another and those in which people must be enlivened to be with one another. In the first category one clears the decks to be together; in the second one looks for an empty space in the schedule. I ~ Vivian Gornick, #NFDB
467:Child labour was the norm. It is not a problem, or even a category, that most Romans would have understood. The invention of ‘childhood’ and the regulation of what work ‘children’ could do only came fifteen hundred years later and is still a peculiarly Western preoccupation. ~ Mary Beard, #NFDB
468:I feel quite blessed that I can actually balance between the two worlds, because a lot of really talented actors I know end up getting set in a certain category and no one will ever buy that they can exist outside that category, even though you know full well that they can. ~ Donal Logue, #NFDB
469:I think he is marvellous. I think he will fit in whatever category of Cricket that has been played or will be played, from the first ball that has ever been bowled to the last ball that's going to be. He can play in any era and at any level. I would say he's 99.5% perfect. ~ Viv Richards, #NFDB
470:Live. How many of us need to be reminded that living has nothing to do with trying to be as good as someone else, or trying to fit into some category, or filling in the blanks on some stupid checklist. That it has nothing to do with punishing yourself for past mistakes. ~ Suzanne Selfors, #NFDB
471:Whenever a buddha appears, this is the problem: we cannot define him, we cannot put him into any category. You cannot label him. There is no way you can put him anywhere. Either he belongs everywhere or he belongs nowhere. He transcends all categories. Pigeonholes are not for him. ~ Osho, #NFDB
472:I found an online knife store. I'd rather go and pick one up so that I had it today, but then I noticed they had a category called. California Legal. Apparently, I lived in a state that had really solid knife control-but still allowed you to own a machine gun. Logical. ~ Marshall Thornton, #NFDB
473:I was once told by a very well-respected editor, "Category horror is about good vs. evil, that's all it is." And I thought, "That's why it's no good. That's why I find that stuff unreadable." One is looking for something that's a little more emotionally complex and nuanced. ~ Peter Straub, #NFDB
474:Ever since Genesis decreed ‘thorns and thistles’ as a long-term punishment for our misbehaviour in the Garden of Eden, weeds have seemed to transcend value judgements, to be ubiquitous and self-evident, as if, like bacteria, they were a biological, not a cultural, category. ~ Richard Mabey, #NFDB
475:We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under . . . The fourth category, the rarest, is the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers. ~ Milan Kundera, #NFDB
476:But then,” the elf went on in condescending tones, “humans must name everything, must map it and place it in some tidy little package and category, that they believe they have found some measure of control over what cannot be controlled. A false sense of godliness, I suppose. ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
477:I don't categorize people by who I'm allowed to like and who I'm allowed to love. Love doesn't fit into boxes like that. It's blurry, slippery, quantum. It's only limited by our perceptions and before we slap a label on it and cram it into some category, everything is possible. ~ Leah Raeder, #NFDB
478:So now we're after a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a guy-and-gal thing. To the founders, this would have been like an amendment requiring the sun to rise in the east; it would fall under the category of obvious truths that the Constitution need not address. ~ James Lileks, #NFDB
479:The conscious events that we are aware of are physical events in their own right, just as much as the brain events observed in the lab by researchers. If we allow the mental its own existence as a category disjoint from the physical, we will never be able to get it back in. ~ William Hirstein, #NFDB
480:And Jeopardy is a pretty broad task. It involves similes and jokes and riddles. For example, it was given "a long tiresome speech delivered by a frothy pie topping" in the rhyme category and quickly responded: "A meringue harangue." Which is pretty clever: the humans didn't get it. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
481:But had Minkowski and Einstein not recognized it long before us, our schizophrenic children would have taught us that space-time is a unity that precedes any separate understanding of either category; just as grasping this unity is a precondition for understanding causality. ~ Bruno Bettelheim, #NFDB
482:Live. How many of us need to be reminded that living has nothing to do with trying to be as good as someone else, or trying to fit into some category, or filling in the blanks on some stupid checklist. That it has nothing to do with punishing yourself for past mistakes. ~ Suzanne Selfors, #NFDB
483:Critics have always questioned whether players like Pele from the 50s could play today. Lionel Messi could play in the 1950s and the present day, as could Di Stefano, Pele, Maradona, Cruyff because they are all great players. Lionel Messi without question fits into that category. ~ Alex Ferguson, #NFDB
484:I don't want to be labeled as one thing or another. In the past I've had successful relationships with men, and now I'm in this successful relationship with a woman. When it comes to love I am totally open. And I don't want to be put into a category, as in "I'm this" or "I'm that." ~ Amber Heard, #NFDB
485:members of multiple categories and possess multiple identities (Gaertner & Dovidio). For example, he wrote that “in-group memberships are not permanently fixed. For certain purposes an individual may affirm one category of membership, for other purposes a slightly larger category ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
486:My uncle said physically disciplining children fell into the same category as hitting an animal, neither has the emotional or intellectual capacity to understand the action on any level other than pain and fear. He said discipline is a concept that can only be understood by adults. ~ Fabian Black, #NFDB
487:Prayer did not come easily to me for I always feel that prayer is a silent thing, an opening of the heart. To ask for earthly benefits, to reel out a list of requirements and expect them to be supplied is not prayer. It is putting God in the same category as an intelligent grocer. ~ D E Stevenson, #NFDB
488:We can simply adjust our posture to consider a wider, more inclusive community. If we adjust our posture, it will change the way we speak. If we adjust our posture, it will change the way we listen. If we adjust our posture, we will see the person, not the category they fall into. ~ Rachel Hollis, #NFDB
489:In life, the categories we belong to can change very easily and can change so very easily that we in fact belong to every single category! We are hunter, we are victim; we are master, we are slave; we are rich, we are poor; we are lock, we are key! We belong to every category! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
490:The determination and enthusiasm of the Category 5 team makes it the perfect home for my music as I embark on this next stage of my career. The promotional savvy and level of support they've pledged meets or exceeds anything I've seen from the major labels I've been associated with. ~ Travis Tritt, #NFDB
491:I’m not arguing here that women and children don’t lie. Men, women, and children lie, but the latter two are not disproportionately prone to doing so, and men—a category that includes used-car salesmen, Baron von Münchhausen, and Richard Nixon—are not possessed of special veracity. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
492:People always ask me, 'Is there a rivalry between the Nickelodeon and Disney stars? Do you guys hate each other?' Like everyone has to be on one team. If you're a Selena Gomez fan, you can't be a Victoria Justice fan. We're both half-Latin, and people put us in the same category. ~ Victoria Justice, #NFDB
493:So my advice to startups in this particular category is if you’re going to put your product in beta - put your business model in beta with it. Far too often we are too product focused and not business-model focused. That’s one thing I definitely would have done differently with JotSpot. ~ Joe Kraus, #NFDB
494:Mislove manages the neat trick of having two meanings that are almost opposite each other. While this is not an uncommon phenomenon (for example, left can refer to both having departed and remaining), words in this category are usually significantly more boring than mislove. Monodynamic ~ Ammon Shea, #NFDB
495:Certain supplementary restrictions imposed on the text compel us to perceive it as poetry. As soon as one assigns a given text to the category of poetry, the number of meaningful elements in it acquires the capacity to grow and the system of their combinations also becomes more complex. ~ Yuri Lotman, #NFDB
496:The art of leadership . . . consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention. . . . The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belong to one category. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
497:The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
498:And what I further don't understand is how little you appreciate the nature of your departure. Think of all the poor souls who go in violent accidents. These are the nonprecognition victim. We are not permitted to forewarn them. You, Mr. Bookman, fall into the category of natural causes. ~ Rod Serling, #NFDB
499:Pac-Man?" The beast looked up at me, oversized fangs giving it an expression that straddled the line between deadly and dopey. A string of drool waved pendulum-like from the jaw, pushing it firmly into the latter category. "When he was a puppy, he tried to eat a ghost," Pallas explained. ~ Jim C Hines, #NFDB
500:He pulled out handcuffs and snapped them around my wrists. "Where's your bag? You didn't bring your staff?"
"I have it. It's hidden." Charlie was currently tucked inside the leg of my Harry Potter pajama bottoms, which were beneath my jeans, but that fell under the category of TMI. ~ Suzanne Johnson,#NFDB
501:In a 2009 Harris Poll of 2,303 adult Americans, people were asked to “indicate for each [category below] if you believe in it, or not.” The results were revealing.1 God 82 % Miracles 76 % Heaven 75 % Jesus is God or the Son of God 73 % Angels 72 % Survival of the soul after death 71 % ~ Michael Shermer, #NFDB
502:The answer was straightforward: instances of the class will be retrieved from memory, and if retrieval is easy and fluent, the category will be judged to be large. We defined the availability heuristic as the process of judging frequency by “the ease with which instances come to mind. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
503:We all belonged to the same category marked down for absolute destruction. The astonishing thing is not that so many of us went to concentration camps or died there, but that some of us survived. Caution did not help. Only chance could save you. —NADEZHDA MANDELSTAM, HOPE ABANDONED, P. 67 ~ Clive James, #NFDB
504:Libertines, who consciously develop their fantasies and who set about to realize them. It is this third category, the libertines, which Sade saw as the apex of humanity. By active use of the imagination, libertines transform themselves through acts of will, in accordance with Nature. ~ Stephen E Flowers, #NFDB
505:There is a certain category of fool-the overeducated, the academic, the journalist, the newspaper reader, the mechanistic scientist, the pseudo-empiricist, those endowed with what I call epistemic arrogance, this wonderful ability to discount what they did not see, the unobserved. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
506:We just say there are five, you know, racial groups in the US. I say that these folks are what we call a sixth American. There's something different. They are somebody who - they don't exist in any particular racial category, so they all feel it and they kind of congregate to each other. ~ Michael Emerson, #NFDB
507:Science can only be comprehended epistemologically, which means as one category of possible knowledge, as long as knowledge is not equated either effusively with the absolute knowledge of a great philosophy or blindly with scientistic self-understanding of the actual business of research. ~ Jurgen Habermas, #NFDB
508:You know, people give things like greed and wrath a bad rap. Sure, they’ll cause plenty of folks to make some poor, shortsighted decisions, but in the end they lack staying power. Now love, on the other hand, love is in a whole different category. Love is what can truly turn people into demons. ~ Drew Hayes, #NFDB
509:I grew up as an artist. Science fiction allows for design and creatures and guns and all the stuff that I like as well. So I think most of the films I make, I'm sure, will be in that category. But I can also see myself making a film like 'Black Hawk Down,' and I could also totally do horror. ~ Neill Blomkamp, #NFDB
510:The important thing is that you should not argue with them [Communists]....Whatever you say, they have ways of twisting it into shapes which put you in some lower category of mankind, ‘Fascist,’ ‘Liberal,’ ‘Trotskyist,’ and disparage you both intellectually and personally in the process. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
511:The theoretically interesting category-mistakes are those made by people who are perfectly competent to apply concepts, at least in the situations with which they are familiar, but are still liable in their abstract thinking to allocate those concepts to logical types to which they do not belong) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
512:Well, there's the type of person who says there are certain types of people and then tries to be one type or the other. And then there are others who say bananas to the whole concept of types and won't allow themselves to be filed neatly away under some sort of ridiculously limiting category. ~ Matthew Quick, #NFDB
513:I leave, and I should earn a commendation for self-restraint. I’m going to contact the Guys’ Committee and let them know what I accomplished tonight in the resistance category. I’ll fully expect a gold medal in the morning and, frankly, an awards ceremony, considering the level of difficulty. ~ Lauren Blakely, #NFDB
514:I think the category of perpetual adolescence, it's a new thing, and it's a dangerous thing. Adolescence is a pretty glorious concept. It's about intentionally transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Being stuck in adolescence - that's a hell. Peter Pan is a dystopia, and we forget that. ~ Benjamin E Sasse, #NFDB
515:People try to put me in a category as a bad-ass, a good ol’ boy, asshole, sniper, SEAL, and probably other categories not appropriate for print. All might be true on any given day. In the end, my story, in Iraq and afterward, is about more than just killing people or even fighting for my country. ~ Chris Kyle, #NFDB
516:I clearly wasn’t in the inner circle, nor was I a member of the orbiters. I wasn’t sure if I even fit into the category of outsider. Then was I even lower than garbage? Was it my lot in life to stand forever on heaven’s shores watching the glittering swirl of celestial bodies on the other side? ~ Natsuo Kirino, #NFDB
517:I want to love. I want to love indiscriminately - people, places, and things. But not just those. I want to love verbs. Adjectives. I want to love beyond category. Because, in my heart, I know that's what I was born to do. And life? Life is just the time I have to figure out how to do it well. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
518:I, you know, am all over the place — every category of pictures I have made, good, bad or indifferent. I could not make, like Hitchcock did, one Hitchcock picture after another. … I wanted to do a Hitchcock picture, so I did `Witness for the Prosecution,’ then I was bored with it, so I moved on. ~ Billy Wilder, #NFDB
519:An image system is a strategy of motifs, a category of imagery embedded in the film that repeats in sight and sound from beginning to end with persistence and great variation, but with equally great subtlety, as a subliminal communication to increase the depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion. ~ Robert McKee, #NFDB
520:Our society must understand that a minority--a certain category of people-- must be paid very well by the state, so that they can secure the interests of the majority. When will we finally begin to understand this? Our people aren't stupid. It's just that it hasn't been explained the right way. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
521:He was fifteen years old. This meant he belonged to a special sub-category of human called a ‘teenager’, the chief characteristics of which were a weakened resistance to gravity, a vocabulary of grunts, a lack of spatial awareness, copious amounts of masturbation, and an unending appetite for cereal. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
522:When I was in the Army, the unit I served in, you could never stop. It was a volunteer unit, and there was a fairly high rate of attrition. The people who stayed through are the people who were either great at it or the people who just didn't know how to stop. And I fell into that second category. ~ Michael Arad, #NFDB
523:Although data on this are sparse, it also seems that US politicians of both parties are much wealthier than their European counterparts and in a totally different category from the average American, which might explain why they tend to confuse their own private interest with the general interest. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
524:I always say that you should just listen to it and see what you think it sounds like it is. I don't think it should be labeled. Most musicians feel like that. No one wants to put their music in a category. But, I don't think it's all over the place. I don't go from metal to jazz, or anything crazy. ~ Tinsel Korey, #NFDB
525:I don't think you have to earn your income as an artist to be an artist. But if you are an artist, then art is what you do, whether or not you're paid for doing it; it is what you do, not what you are. I regard artist not as a description of temperament but as a category of profession, of vocation. ~ Tony Kushner, #NFDB
526:S&M is just a set of practices that get classified as a single category, when more accurately they are a part of much larger set of behaviors: expressions of love, and self, and play, and even art. There is no hard line between "vanilla" sex and S&M sex, or any other kind of relation between people. ~ Melissa Febos, #NFDB
527:These days I find myself wanting to avoid being pigeon-holed, ghettoized, held in a different category than other authors. And when people ask me if I'm a black writer, or just a writer who happens to be black, I tend to say that it's either a dumb question or a question which happens to be dumb. ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
528:When abuse or neglect is severe enough, any one category of it can cause the child to develop Cptsd. This is true even in the case of emotional neglect if both parents collude in it, as we will see in chapter 5. When abuse and neglect is multidimensional, the severity of the Cptsd worsens accordingly. ~ Pete Walker, #NFDB
529:And we are the ones who made it about race in the first place—our ancestors did this by literally making race as a category, as a system to ensure hierarchies of economic, political, and social control. That we benefit from, every day. We made race, and so we need to keep making it about race. ~ Carolina De Robertis, #NFDB
530:Are men and beasts of the same category? Is there no essential difference between them in respect to the quality of their value?…It is an offense to the majesty of the human spirit; for if any man deserves to be regarded as of the same quality as a beast of burden, then no man has any dignity left. ~ Lloyd C Douglas, #NFDB
531:Today brands are born, not made. A new brand must be capable of generating favorable publicity in the media or it won’t have a chance in the marketplace. And just how do you generate publicity? The best way to generate publicity is by being first. In other words, by being the first brand in a new category. ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
532:ASSOCIATE WITH WINNERS
Four groups of people will dramatically influence how your business evolves:
» Customers
» Employees
» Vendors
» Peers
Line yourself up with the wrong people in each category and, like a poorly created bonsai tree, your business will grow up twisted and misshapen. ~ Seth Godin,#NFDB
533:Disability is not predictive of the happiness of either the parent or the child, which reflects the larger puzzle that people who have won the lottery are, in the long run and on average, only marginally happier than amputees—people in each category having adjusted rather quickly to their new normal. ~ Andrew Solomon, #NFDB
534:There is an additional and compelling question that probably also will go unaddressed: what is a Protestant? In this brief Introduction I will demonstrate that the category ‘Protestant’ includes so much variation on such important matters as to be essentially meaningless, except when used very narrowly. ~ Rodney Stark, #NFDB
535:Where would we be without our friends? Honestly, every friend is so unique and special. I have my friends back in New Zealand, I have my friends in New York and California. Then you have your friends who are your family. Barbara Palvin falls into that category. I have a lot of love for all my friends. ~ Stella Maxwell, #NFDB
536:All socio-political phenomena in the U.K. come laden with the baggage of a class-based theory or two attached to them. In the case of gay Tories, there is one particularly silly variant of the category, which asserts that gayness is bred in public schools and thus fits with Conservatism like hand in glove. ~ Evan Davis, #NFDB
537:If we value human life – as any reasonable and moral person must – then fearing anarchists rather than political leaders is like fearing spontaneous combustion rather than heart disease. In the category of “causing deaths,” a single government leader outranks all anarchists tens of thousands of times. ~ Stefan Molyneux, #NFDB
538:Where Grissom Bunt, Category Twelve PainCriminal, whoever he was, had gone. From which Grissom Bunt would never emerge again. Not as Grissom Bunt. She pictured a shaved naked skull crisscrossed with blue-ridged suture lines, heard a voice saying, “I wouldn’t hurt a fly, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, ~ Ian McDonald, #NFDB
539:In that moment, I realize this is how it’s going to be between us: a demand for honesty, respect, and time. All qualities I’ve never been able to give to one single human. I’ve always faltered in at least one category, but the way her eyes fix on me, a startling awareness strikes me: I want to try for her. ~ Meghan Quinn, #NFDB
540:On the supply side, for innovation, you'd say, go look at those R&D budgets, and they haven't moved in the last 20 years. In the case of the US - which is the majority of R&D funding across every category you can name: health, energy, whatever - it's been about $5 billion a year from the Department of Energy. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
541:There is no greater country on Earth for entrepreneurship than America. In every category, from the high-tech world of Silicon Valley, where I live, to University R&D labs, to countless Main Street small business owners, Americans are taking risks, embracing new ideas and - most importantly - creating jobs. ~ Eric Ries, #NFDB
542:This was a game popular among nobles and commoners alike. A category would be chosen—animals, plants, books, furniture—and everyone took turns comparing himself to an object from the chosen category. If the others judged the comparison apt, they would drink. If not, the player who made the comparison would drink. ~ Ken Liu, #NFDB
543:As a politician - particularly as a politician in a coalition - you quickly realise that compromise is a part of the game. But there are some issues where you have to draw the line - where you have to stand up and be counted, and you have to do the right thing. I think climate change is firmly in that category. ~ Edward Davey, #NFDB
544:He really just wanted to go about his business. I would put Eddie Murray in the same category as Andre Dawson. He would like to kid around with the press and (be surly), but he was a total professional. I see why he is a Hall of Famer. I am just glad I had the pleasure of playing for Eddie (Murray) for one year. ~ Gary Carter, #NFDB
545:To protect women’s rights, we must be able to say what a woman is. If postmodernism is correct—that the body itself is a social construct—then it becomes impossible to argue for rights based on the sheer fact of being female. We cannot legally protect a category of people if we cannot identify that category. ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
546:I find that an entertainer is quite content to sit still, and I think an artist always has a little motion, always going somewhere. May not know where it is, but there is some sort of unnamed destination. There is some pulling, some movement. So I just found myself in that category according to my own analysis. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
547:A life without love is a waste. “Should I look for spiritual love, or material, or physical love?”, don’t ask yourself this question. Discrimination leads to discrimination. Love doesn’t need any name, category or definition. Love is a world itself. Either you are in, at the center…either you are out, yearning. ~ Shams i Tabrizi, #NFDB
548:If you are a policeman and if an order is given to you to attack brutally the peaceful protesters, only one option will keep you in the category of human: To refuse the order and to resign! Always listen to the voice of your conscience! Refuse the evil orders of the evil men! This will bring you good honour. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
549:They are more than travel hubs: this is a special category of city-state, with a stable location, but citizens in flux.They are airport-republics...(a)n example of an extroverted system,where the constitution is spelled out on every ticket, and where one's boarding pass is one's only identification as a citizen. ~ Olga Tokarczuk, #NFDB
550:A life without love is a waste. 'Should I look for spiritual love, or material, or physical love?', don't ask yourself this question. Discrimination leads to discrimination. Love doesn't need any name, category or definition. Love is a world itself. Either you are in, at the center... either you are out, yearning. ~ Shams Tabrizi, #NFDB
551:Any number of celebrities are dogged by "gay rumors" because we cannot quite place them into a given category. We act like placing these people in categories will have some impact on our lives, or that creating these categories is our responsibility, when, most of the time, such taxonomy won’t change anything at all. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
552:For the last several years and culminating in six months in orbit next year, I've been training for my third space flight. This one is almost in a category completely different than the previous two, specifically to live in on the space station for six months, to command a space ship and to fly a new rocket ship. ~ Chris Hadfield, #NFDB
553:Infrequently used papers include insurance policies, guarantees, and leases. Unfortunately, these must be kept automatically regardless of the fact that they spark no particular joy in your heart. As you will almost never need to access papers in this category, you don’t have to put a lot of effort into storing them. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
554:In the years following 1945 it seemed to most intelligent observers as though the Austrians had made a simple category error. Like so many of their fellow refugees, they had assumed that the conditions which brought about the collapse of liberal capitalism in interwar Europe were permanent and infinitely reproducible. ~ Tony Judt, #NFDB
555:It´s a good thing when a man is different from your image of him. Is shows he isn´t a type. If he were, it would be the end of him as a man. But if you can´t place him in a category, it means that at least a part of him is what a human being ought to be. He has risen above himself, he has a grain of immortality. ~ Boris Pasternak, #NFDB
556:Okay. Yeah. Sure.” Maggie’s head was spinning. She decided that what had just happened wasn’t any more remarkable than Johnny himself. She couldn’t think about it. It fell under the ‘accept, don’t question’ category. She shoved the miracle into a mental drawer with all the others he had performed and locked it tight. ~ Amy Harmon, #NFDB
557:An herbal medicine made from a plant native to Asia is about to be banned in the U.S. It's known as either kratom or kratom, and forms of it are sold in shops and on the internet. In the next few weeks, kratom is set to be classified as a Schedule I drug. That puts it in the same category with marijuana and heroin. ~ Audie Cornish, #NFDB
558:Near the end of his life, Einstein was asked by the New York State Education Department what schools should emphasize. “In teaching history,” he replied, “there should be extensive discussion of personalities who benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment.”5 Einstein fits into that category. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
559:The availability heuristic, like other heuristics of judgment, substitutes one question for another: you wish to estimate the size of a category or the frequency of an event, but you report an impression of the ease with which instances come to mind. Substitution of questions inevitably produces systematic errors. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
560:it would appear to be a general truth that the more harm a category of powerful people do in the world, the more yes-men and propagandists will tend to accumulate around them, coming up with reasons why they are really doing good—and the more likely it is that at least some of those powerful people will believe them. ~ David Graeber, #NFDB
561:Sometimes people ask: should we pursue obedience to God or joy in God? Edwards would answer: The question involves a category confusion. It's like asking: should I pursue fruit or apples? Obedience is doing what we are told. And we are told to delight ourselves in the Lord. Therefore pursuing joy in God is obedience. In ~ John Piper, #NFDB
562:The new antipsychotics are now a multibillion-dollar industry in this country, and by 2011 they had surpassed statins—cholesterol-lowering agents such as Lipitor and Zocor—as the best-selling category of drugs in the United States, a truly mind-boggling fact when one considers how rare psychosis is in the population. ~ Lauren Slater, #NFDB
563:If anti-Semitism is a variety of racism, it is a most peculiar variety, with many unique characteristics. In my view as a historian, it is so peculiar that it deserves to be placed in a quite different category. I would call it an intellectual disease, a disease of the mind, extremely infectious and massively destructive. ~ Paul Johnson, #NFDB
564:I would say that most of my books are contemporary realistic fiction... a couple, maybe three, fall into the 'historic fiction' category. Science fiction is not a favorite genre of mine, though I have greatly enjoyed some of the work of Ursula LeGuin. I haven't read much science fiction so I don't know other sci-fi authors. ~ Lois Lowry, #NFDB
565:As soon as I saw written that which I didn’t want to see – my birth pains started,’ she said. ‘Even if I couldn’t imagine anything else, that was that. It was a fact . . . I was so frightened that I started labour. Mauthausen was in the same category as Auschwitz. Gas chambers, selections – in short, an extermination camp. ~ Wendy Holden, #NFDB
566:But if you think these are the only categories of sex that exist, you find you are mistaken. Because there is a category which you had not known to exist, something which isn’t, as you might have guessed had you heard about it before, merely a subcategory of bad sex; and that is sad sex. Sad sex is the saddest sex of all. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
567:Comedy is hard to do, and I don't know why it doesn't have its own category in awards. I don't understand why people think it's harder to do drama than it is to do comedy. It doesn't get respect. It's hard. It's really hard. It would be more gratifying to get something for a comedy, because it doesn't happen much or at all. ~ Leslie Mann, #NFDB
568:The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
569:Grace, too, is not an impersonal, metaphysical substance that trickles down to people through the sacraments, as in much popular Catholicism. Grace is an irreducibly personal category, first, in that it is a personal attitude of favor from God’s heart, bringing us into relationship with him as our Savior, Friend, and Father. ~ John M Frame, #NFDB
570:I'd been taught from an early age that I was in the other category on the standardized tests. You know, I had to go down the checklist - Caucasian, African-American, Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander, and then, you know, at the bottom is other. So, you know, very early on I was taught, in a way, that I was somehow this anomaly. ~ Jordan Peele, #NFDB
571:We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realise that we are apes. Our common ancestor with the chimpanzees and gorillas is much more recent than their common ancestor with the Asian apes - the gibbons and orangutans. There is no natural category that includes chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans but excludes humans. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
572:Fascinatingly, as companies begin to struggle, the third category always seems to grow much faster than the first. In addition, the sudden wave of “semi-performance-related attrition” usually happens in companies that claim to have a “super-high talent bar.” How do all these superstar employees suddenly go from great to crap? ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
573:Yet, despite their many surgeries and jobs, most of them looked like old girls – girls who had suffered some wasting disease. These same things, breasts and botox, like independence and immodesty, had been powerful and shameful a few short years back, put in the same category as an extra toe or a stutter; they were quaint now. ~ Meghna Pant, #NFDB
574:Since, according to the doctrine, minds belong to the same category as bodies and since bodies are rigidly governed by mechanical laws, it seemed to many theorists to follow that jninds must be similarly governed by rigid non-mechanical laws/The physical world is a deterministic system, so the mental world must be a deterministic ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
575:The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world - and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end - is being destroyed. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
576:Only in the West did a philosophy develop that was not only no longer the love of wisdom but went so far as to deny the category of wisdom as a legitimate form of knowledge. The result was a hatred of wisdom that should more appropriately be called ‘misosophy’ (literarily hatred of Sophia, Wisdom) rather than philosophy. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, #NFDB
577:She upset the kids. She told them a really awful story about a pet she had when she was little.” “How bad could a pet story be?” “Well,” Clea said, knowing this fell in the “only in our family” category, “it eviscerated her cats and could have killed my mother in her sleep. I’d say that’s good for a few nightmares, wouldn’t you? ~ Luanne Rice, #NFDB
578:I have completed and uncompleted screenplays, but they both fall into the category of “unsold.” I've seen quite a few movies where the screenplays seemed to be in the “uncompleted” category yet still got sold and made into movies, so I generally refer too all screenplays as “sold” or “unsold.” But that's just my own filing system. ~ Gary Reilly, #NFDB
579:A 'very good friend' is a dangerous category with Indian girls. From here you can either make fast progress or if you play it wrong, you can go down to the lowest category invented by the Indian women ever - rakhi brother. Rakhi brother really means 'you can talk to me, but don't even freaking think about anything else you bore'. ~ Chetan Bhagat, #NFDB
580:He railed against the baleful precedent that would be set if the legislature exiled an entire category of people without hearings or trials. If that happened, “no man can be safe, nor know when he may be the innocent victim of a prevailing faction. The name of liberty applied to such a government would be a mockery of common sense. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
581:I look at it [Moonlight] and young Alex Hibbert who plays the young Chiron gives such a beautiful performance. By the time you get to the third story there have been so many great performances that you forget this kid was brilliant. Everybody does their job. It really is a true ensemble. I wish that were a category at the Oscars. ~ Andre Holland, #NFDB
582:Prototype frames. Among the most important of the commonplace frames are the prototype frames, where you reason about a category on the basis of some subcategory (real or imagined). The best known is the social stereotype. For instance, both conservatives and progressives use stereotypes of immigrants, though very different ones. ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
583:The most basic rule is to hang clothes in the same category side by side, dividing your closet into a jacket section, a suit section, and so on. Clothes, like people, can relax more freely when in the company of others who are very similar in type, and therefore organizing them by category helps them feel more comfortable and secure. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
584:Watching Jamila sometimes made me think the world was divided into three sorts of people: those who knew what they wanted to do; those (the unhappiest) who never knew what their purpose in life was; and those who found out later on. I was in the last category, I reckoned, which didn't stop me wishing I'd been born into the first. ~ Hanif Kureishi, #NFDB
585:If there is any animal in the whole category of four-legged creatures that more thoroughly deserves to be called a pig than the pig, I don't know what it is. He looks like a pig, he behaves like a pig, and he eats like a pig—in fact he is a pig, and Adam never did anything better than when he invented that name and applied it. ~ John Kendrick Bangs, #NFDB
586:Statistically, I'd say comedy writers are perhaps the sanest category of show people. And why not? They make big money, and although it's not an easy trade - particularly when you're at your galley oar five days a week - it's easier on the nerves and the psyche than living with the brain-squeezing pressure and cares of being the Star. ~ Dick Cavett, #NFDB
587:By exposing them to the light of day and jolting them alive, so to speak, you’ll find it’s surprisingly easy to judge whether they touch your heart. Dealing with just one category within a single time frame speeds up the tidying process. So be sure to gather every item in the category you are working on. Don’t let any slip by unnoticed. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
588:Human beings should only use technology which if the worst case happens, it leads to an acceptable damage. Definitely nuclear energy is not in that category. I want an industrial world where people are allowed to make errors. Because human creativity has to do with being allowed to make errors. We want an error-friendly environment. ~ Hans Peter Durr, #NFDB
589:Sometimes we treat God like an antique chair, when, in fact, God is a lot more like an IKEA couch. I don’t mean in his worth or his beauty or his grandeur, of course—in every category he is beyond compare. But in terms of relationship, we often treat God more like an expensive antique, when he invites us to treat him like an IKEA couch. ~ Judah Smith, #NFDB
590:There are only two kinds of Indians: those who take bribes and those who give them.’ Actually, there are a third and a fourth class of Indians as well. In the third category are those quite willing to accept bribes but are not considered worth bribing. And the fourth who are quite willing to give bribes but do not have the means to do so. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
591:According to Business Insider, VR headsets alone will grow from a $37 million dollar industry in 2015 to $2.8 billion in 2020—growing by a factor of 75. Goldman Sachs predicts revenue from all categories of VR including software will reach $110 billion by 2020, making the category bigger than the TV industry in its first five years. We ~ Robert Scoble, #NFDB
592:I send my friends e-mail messages about the progress of my garden, especially of my roses. It left them with the impression, I think, that I was concerned with nothing else. I felt no urgency in correcting that notion. People obsessed with their gardens have probably caused the least suffering in the world of any category of men. ~ David Brendan Hopes, #NFDB
593:Well, it had to be about the stories and the people who live under the volcano, what kind of new gods do they create? What sort of demons? And of course North Korea falls clearly into this category since the socialist revolution at the end of the Second World War. Somehow they adopted the myth of the power and dynamics of their volcano. ~ Werner Herzog, #NFDB
594:No armies are needed, no weapons are needed, no nations are needed, no religions are needed. All that is needed is a little meditativeness, a little silence, a little love, a little more humanity... just a little more, and existence will become fragrant with something so totally unique and new that you will have to find a new category for it. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
595:Since the most important element of any concept is that its originating question be appropriately framed, any theory demanding an explanation for homosexuality is a problematic one because it maintains our existence as a category of deviance. I mean, no one is running around trying to figure out why some people like sports, for example. ~ Sarah Schulman, #NFDB
596:Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is beyond bad. It carves out its own category of godawfulness. And, please, you don't have to remind me that the original was a colossal hit ($700 million worldwide) and the sequel will probably do just as well. I know it's popular. So is junk food, and they both poison your insides and rot your brain. ~ Peter Travers, #NFDB
597:Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. From a biological point of view it is inconceivable that any culture will forget that it needs to reproduce itself. But it is quite possible for a culture to exist without a social idea of children. Unlike infancy, childhood is a social artifact, not a biological category. ~ Neil Postman, #NFDB
598:It's good when a man deceives your expectations, when he doesn't correspond to the preconceived notion of him. To belong to a type is the end of a man, his condemnation. If he doesn't fall into any category, if he's not representative, half of what's demanded of him is there. He's free of himself, he has achieved a grain of immortality. ~ Boris Pasternak, #NFDB
599:The majority of people live neither in low-income countries nor in high-income countries, but in middle-income countries. This category doesn’t exist in the divided mind-set, but in reality it definitely exists. It’s where 75 percent of humanity lives, right there where the gap is supposed to be. Or, to put it another way, there is no gap. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
600:You can’t improve the things you love if you never allow them to be imperfect. Thinking in this way, if you looked hard enough so that you saw every flaw in every example, you would soon find that nothing matched your expectations or deserved your definitions, and the membership of every group and category you hold dear would drop to zero. ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
601:I have two different categories of favorite films. One is the emotional favorites, which means these are generally films that I saw when I was a kid; anything you see in your formative years is more powerful, because it really stays with you forever. The second category is films that I saw while I was learning the craft of motion pictures. ~ John Carpenter, #NFDB
602:My doctor told me that I really should lose some weight. "You're mildly obese," he said. And I thought, "Well, who couldn't afford to lose 20 or 30 pounds?" He said, "Well, a person in your category." I said, "What is that category, doctor?" He said, "Well, you're what I call upwardly middle aged." And I said, "I forgive you for everything." ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
603:They have sex. They do not have a sex. In their erotic lives, they are not required to act out their status in a category system—because there is no category system. There are no sexes to belong to, so sex between creatures is free to be between genuine individuals—not representatives of a category. They have sex. They do not have a sex. ~ John Stoltenberg, #NFDB
604:First, Olay needed to convince skin-care-savvy women that the new Olay products were just as good as, or better than, higher-priced competitors. It began with advertising in the same magazines and on the same television shows as those populated by the more expensive brands; the idea was to put Olay into the same category in the consumer’s mind. ~ A G Lafley, #NFDB
605:the Apple Stores’ sleek minimalist design and close control over the consumer experience, the omnipresent advertising campaigns, the price positioning as a maker of premium goods, and the lingering nimbus of Steve Jobs’s personal charisma all contribute to a perception that Apple offers products so good as to constitute a category of their own. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
606:When we're young, everyone over the age of thirty looks middle-aged, everyone over fifty antique. And time, as it goes by, confirms that we weren't that wrong. Those little age differentials, so crucial and so gross when we are young erode. We end up all belonging to the same category, that of the non-young. I've never much minded this myself. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
607:The kitchen clock is more convenient than sidereal time. We must use the popular category, as we do by the Linnæan classification, for convenience, and not as exact and final. Otherwise, we are presently confounded, when the best-settled traits of one race are claimed by some new ethnologist as precisely characteristic of the rival tribe. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
608:I'm a member of the Recording Academy and I see the way it works and even with the whole voting process it's broken down into specific categories. There are Pop categories and Dance and Rock and Metal and Film and Score and everything else. Basically when you are voting you are urged not to vote in the category that you don't know anything about. ~ John Petrucci, #NFDB
609:Look Mister, I don't care what you think, you are bald. If the census had a "bald" category, You'd be in it, no problem. If you go to heaven, you're going to bald heaven. If you go to hell, you're going to bald hell. Have you got that straight? Then stop looking away from the truth. Let's go now. I'm taking you straight to bald heaven, nonstop. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
610:We’ve covered power and politics in the wizarding world sensibly and thoroughly. But to end on something altogether more uplifting, let’s take a look at the potent presence of Peeves the poltergeist. If there were an unpopularity contest among the staff and students of Hogwarts, surely Peeves would at least be a finalist in the ‘nuisance’ category? ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
611:But what boggles my mind is that the Black and Brown communities in this country have the highest numbers of negatives in every category. So why is voter apathy in the Black and Brown communities creeping back into the discussion at a time when voter suppression is still an issue, more than fifty years after the Voting Rights Act was passed into law? ~ April Ryan, #NFDB
612:There are other dimensions of biotechnology. If you think of biotechnology like the Internet, it's not a category - it's an infrastructure that can be deployed to sustain or disrupt. In health care, the most complex problems at the high end have to be dealt with in a problem-solving mode by the best, most experienced physicians you can find. ~ Clayton Christensen, #NFDB
613:Microsoft has one more shot at a role in smart phone software through its deployment on Nokia phones. Nokia is still the global market share leader in cell phones. Maybe it will work out, but this is hard to envision great success in the area coming on the heels of so much disappointment in missed opportunity in this important and visible category. ~ David Einhorn, #NFDB
614:Brands must have a point of view on that purposeful engagement, whether it's directed towards the environment, poverty, water as a resource or causes such as breast cancer or education. Merely declaring your commitment to a category or cause will not be enough the distinguish your brand sufficiently to see a return on these well-intended efforts. ~ Simon Mainwaring, #NFDB
615:I do definitely get boxed into this #BlackGirlMagic social activist category. But it makes me think, "Well, maybe people are able to start thinking about that concept earlier and will hopefully be inspired to delve deeper into it and research it more." I think that's just how the media works. It's just very good at compartmentalizing human beings. ~ Amandla Stenberg, #NFDB
616:To be sure, like the rest of race, whiteness is a fiction, what in the jargon of the academy is termed a social construct, an agreed-on myth that has empirical grit because of its effect, not its essence. But whiteness goes even one better: it is a category of identity that is most useful when its very existence is denied. That’s its twisted genius. ~ Robin DiAngelo, #NFDB
617:If religion is true, one must believe. And if one chooses not to believe, one’s choice is marked under the category of a refusal, and is thus never really free: it has the duress of a recoil.” With literary belief, however, “one is always free to choose not to believe.” This, Wood argues, is the freedom of literature; it is what constitutes its “reality. ~ James Wood, #NFDB
618:There are two kinds of personalities. There are those who have everything and still complain as if they have nothing. And there are those who lose everything and act like life has given them everything. I know you belong to the second category. Enjoy life so much that others are jealous of you and give them a shock that you are still alive and inspired ~ Ajay K Pandey, #NFDB
619:Under,” he said in a shaky voice, “normal circumstances, I’d certainly be in love with you.” “Nobody falls in love under normal circumstances,” she said softly, rubbing his finger with her warm thumb. He restrained an impulse to look to see if there was still ink on it. “Love isn’t in the category of normal things. Not any worthwhile kind of love, anyway. ~ Tim Powers, #NFDB
620:I think that people have been claiming hip-hop as being dead since the moment it started. I think there are people - and I can be included in that category sometimes - that get frustrated feeling like maybe the industry has handcuffed itself, or trained its artists to do or think about music in a way that classically hasn't led to the greatest records in hip-hop. ~ El P, #NFDB
621:The Beatitudes are deliberately designed to shock us. If we’re not shocked by the Beatitudes, it’s only because we have tamed them with a patronizing sentimentality—and being sentimental about Jesus is the religious way of ignoring Jesus! Too often the Beatitudes are set aside into the category of “nice things that Jesus said that I don’t really understand. ~ Brian Zahnd, #NFDB
622:I think it's important not to view Martin Luther King Jr. in a narrow political manner. His fundamental commitment is to a radical love of humanity, and especially of poor and working people. And that radical love leads him to a radical analysis of power, domination and oppression. What's difficult is to situate him ideologically under a particular category. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
623:A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send checks to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
624:If I could just get the one I’m infatuated with to just look in my direction. I’m firmly stuck in the friend category, though, and I don’t know how to get out of it. I’m afraid to tell her how I feel because the look on her face will break me. I know she doesn’t want me the way I want her, and I’d rather be her friend than not have her in my life at all. ~ Heidi McLaughlin, #NFDB
625:Alice was momentarily taken aback. Justice was in the same category as diamonds and gold—utterly unavailable to her, and therefore not worth thinking about. She was rather surprised that Mrs. Wraxhall still believed in it. But then again, people clung to stupid ideas long past the point of reason. She glanced at the parcel in her hands. Hope was one of them. ~ Cat Sebastian, #NFDB
626:I mean, we've always had gold bugs, but now we sort of realize that Treasure Bills might be in the same category. And we have derivatives like credit default swaps which are in this category, and we have derivatives like volatilities that are actually an asset class that we can invest in which are now - would out perform if we have another financial crisis. ~ Robert F Engle, #NFDB
627:Italian-Americans in New York had not been in much of a flag-waving mood prior to DiMaggio's arrival. By the All-Star break, the rookie had established himself as a wonderful player (.358, 10HR, 60 RBIs), fully justifying the acclaim. But Gehrig was even better (.399, 20 HR, 61 RBIs). He was leading the league in nearly every category, including invisibility. ~ Jonathan Eig, #NFDB
628:We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we'll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don't want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters. ~ Gene Weingarten, #NFDB
629:Too often, however, greed gets confused with positioning thinking. Charging high prices is not the way to get rich. Being the first to (1) establish the high-price position (2) with a valid product story (3) in a category where consumers are receptive to a high-priced brand is the secret of success. Otherwise, your high price just drives prospective customers away. ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
630:I have had the rich satisfaction of knowing and working with many openly gay and lesbian Americans, and I have come to realize that "gay" is an artificial category when it comes to measuring a man or woman's on-the-job performance or commitment to shared goals. It says little about the person. Our differences and prejudices pale next to our historic challenge. ~ Alan K Simpson, #NFDB
631:Running is a huge category for us. To be able to run to work and have lightweight, breathable, windproof materials you can chuck in your bag that work on technical level but also on a lifestyle level are really important to me. I work out - and I think most people do - and I want to encourage women and inspire them in a way that fits in with their lifestyle. ~ Stella McCartney, #NFDB
632:The men who espoused unpopular causes may have been considered misguided, but they were rarely attacked for their morals or their masculinity. Women who did the same thing were apt to be denounced as harlots or condemned for being unfeminine - an all-purpose word that was used to describe almost any category of female behavior of which men disapproved. ~ Margaret Truman Daniel, #NFDB
633:we can speak of marriage as an adventure, but only because for disciples, marriage is now subsumed under the category of an aspect of our adventure in Christ. How on earth could we explain how ordinary people could risk commitment to another person for a lifetime, especially since we have no way of knowing all the implications that this commitment entails? ~ William H Willimon, #NFDB
634:Most of us have only one story to tell. I don't mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there's only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine.
Perhaps this is an illusion all lovers have about themselves: that they escape both category and description. ~ Julian Barnes,#NFDB
635:Or take the health category. Adding is on the left, removing to the right. Removing medication, or some other unnatural stressor—say, gluten, fructose, tranquilizers, nail polish, or some such substance—by trial and error is more robust than adding medication, with unknown side effects, unknown in spite of the statements about “evidence” and shmevidence. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
636:That’s how you tell what a man’s really made of. It’s one thing for a man to be big and brave and kill a spider. Any man could do that. Trailin’ after a woman when she’s shopping for thongs and push-up bras is a whole other category of man. And then if you want to see how far you can go with it, you ask him to carry one of those little pink bags they give you. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
637:And some scientists and other intellectuals are convinced—too eagerly in my view—that the question of God's existence belongs in the forever inaccessible PAP category. From this, as we shall see, they often make the illogical deduction that the hypothesis of God's existence, and the hypothesis of his non-existence, have exactly equal probability of being right. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
638:Testing gathers information about a product; it does not fix things it finds that are wrong. Testing does not improve a product; the improving is done by people fixing the bugs that testing has uncovered. Often when managers say, "Testing takes too long," what they should be saying is, "Fixing the bugs in the product takes too long"—a different cost category. ~ Gerald M Weinberg, #NFDB
639:Employees remember that when the home and kitchen category was introduced in the fall of 1999, kitchen knives would fly down the conveyor chutes, free of protective packaging. Amazon’s internal logistics software didn’t properly account for new categories, so the computers would ask workers whether a new toy entering the warehouse was a hardcover or a paperback book. ~ Brad Stone, #NFDB
640:I never try to be religious. I never try to be any type of religious cat. Spiritual, yes, but religion, when you get into that you get into a category where you lock yourself in and people look at you a certain way and then they become that way. Nah, I'm still an MC, I'm an MC first. People try to figure out my origin, at the end of the day it's just clever songs. ~ Killah Priest, #NFDB
641:To each memorable image you attach a thought, a label, a category, a piece of the cosmic furniture, syllogisms, an enormous sorites, chains of apothegms, strings of hypallages, rosters of zeugmas, dances of hysteron proteron, apophantic logoi, hierarchic stoichea, processions of equinoxes and parallaxes, herbaria, genealogies of gymnosophists—and so on, to infinity. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
642:He never told me that he loved me."
"Some men don't," she says. "Some men say it all the time and don't mean it."
I recognize myself in the latter category, not with Demetri but with one of his predecessors. I sometimes said "I love you" to Josh because I was afraid I didn't; toward the end, I hardly said it at all, and when I did I meant, I WISH I LOVED YOU. ~ Melissa Bank,#NFDB
643:The battle with Men Who Explain Things has trampled down many women—of my generation, of the up-and-coming generation we need so badly, here and in Pakistan and Bolivia and Java, not to speak of the countless women who came before me and were not allowed into the laboratory, or the library, or the conversation, or the revolution, or even the category called human. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
644:I grant we should add a third category: that of the true healers. But it is a fact one doesn't come across many of them, and anyhow it must be a hard vocation. That's why I decided to take, in every predicament, the victim's side, so as to reduce the damage done. Among them I can at least try to discover how on attains to the third category; in other words, to peace. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
645:In divine union, work and play should rise to meet together as one. This is your calling. “To me, work that does not rise to the level of play is flawed work and play that is simply an escape from the expenditure of effort is flawed play,” says Capon. “Play is the sovereign category, not work. If we have any final vocation, any ultimate calling, it is into that play. ~ John Crowder, #NFDB
646:I guess it would fall into the stalker category more or less. I was being stalked by a mime - silent but maybe deadly. Somehow, this mime would appear on the set of 'Bringing Out the Dead' and start doing strange things. I have no idea how it got past security. Finally, the producers took some action and I haven't seen the mime since. But it was definitely unsettling. ~ Nicolas Cage, #NFDB
647:Morgan punched her thigh lightly to remember her own careless mistake: the age of consent. She’d researched it online. It was sixteen in Michigan, and she was seventeen. They should have been in the clear; she never intended this. She didn’t know that there was a special legal category for a teacher and student. Didn’t know it would be “criminal sexual conduct III. ~ Kristina Riggle, #NFDB
648:Ohio was the second-ranked state in this category of physician purchasers. Its doctors bought about a million doses of oxycodone in 2009. The same year, through his doctors, Chris George bought more than twice as much oxy as every single doctor in Ohio. Four of American Pain’s full-time doctors ranked among the top nine physician purchasers of oxycodone in the country. ~ John Temple, #NFDB
649:The battle with Men Who Explain Things has trampled down many women — of my generation, of the up-and-coming generation we need so badly, here and in Pakistan and Bolivia and Java, not to speak of the countless women who came before me and were not allowed into the laboratory, or the library, or the conversation, or the revolution, or even the category called human. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
650:For example, if you are a blogger who wrote something about a local official and you're going to prison for that, you're a political prisoner. If you're a businessman who has refused to cede his business to the local official and you're going to prison for that, you're not a political prisoner. In that second category there are hundreds of thousands of people in Russia. ~ Masha Gessen, #NFDB
651:The most common secret is a deep conviction of basic inadequacy - a feeling that one is basically incompetent, that one bluffs one's way through life. Next in frequency is a deep sense of interpersonal alienation - that, despite appearances, one really does not, or cannot care for or love another person. The third most frequent category is some variety of sexual secret. ~ Irvin D Yalom, #NFDB
652:And I still believe that there are two basic kinds of people--people who cultivate the narcissistic delusion of being watched at all times through the viewfinder of a camera, and people who cultivate the paranoid delusion of being watched at all times through the high-powered optics of a sniper's rifle, and I think I fall--and have always fallen--into this latter category. ~ Mark Leyner, #NFDB
653:I'm not fine. Soon, the tears will come. I can sense them building in the pit of my stomach, coating the belly of candy. They will come when I am alone in the dark, in my own bed, with no one to comfort me. I will mourn Laura then, in private. A Category 5 hurricane is building in my heart and soul, but right now it's offshore, waiting to make landfall, waiting to crush me. ~ Rachel Cohn, #NFDB
654:Men must have somewhat altered the course of nature; for they were not born wolves, yet they have become wolves. God did not give them twenty-four-pounders or bayonets, yet they have made themselves bayonets and guns to destroy each other. In the same category I place not only bankruptcies, but the law which carries off the bankrupts’ effects, so as to defraud their creditors. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
655:Categories such as Category:Male reproductive system and Category:Penis show that Commons has a large quantity of images relating to human genitalia,” reads the site’s official guidelines on nudity, created in response to the near-constant torrent of boners. “Commons does not need you to drop your pants and grab a camera.” The exhibitionists, however, seem to think otherwise. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
656:Because everybody on the school board, and the railroad, and the PTA and paper mill had to be somebody’s mother or father, whether really or as a member of a category; and there was a point at which the reflex to their covering warmth, protection, effectiveness against bad dreams, bruised heads and simple loneliness took over and made worthwhile anger with them impossible. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
657:Yepsen (n.) The amount that can be held in two hands cupped together; also, the two cupped hands themselves. A measurement that has never really caught on like the teaspoon, the yepsen also falls firmly within the category of things for which you never thought there was a word—at least, not until some interfering busybody like me came along and told you what it was. Yesterneve ~ Ammon Shea, #NFDB
658:I think I fall into the category of the hopeless romantic, and I think youdo too, because you're here...The tricky thing about us, the hopeless romantic, is when we fall in love with someone, when we say hello—and it’s magical—we never imagine that hello can turn into a goodbye. And when we kiss someone—and it’s magical—we never ever imagine that it can turn into a last kiss. ~ Taylor Swift, #NFDB
659:Quoting Dudjom Rinpoche on the buddha-nature: No words can describe it No example can point to it Samsara does not make it worse Nirvana does not make it better It has never been born It has never ceased It has never been liberated It has never been deluded It has never existed It has never been nonexistent It has no limits at all It does not fall into any kind of category ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
660:Adams’ attitude toward employees exemplified the New England view defining people mostly by performance. Class was accidental, a matter of birth and category. Performance was individual, partly under the control of character. He was interested in people of every class. Steerage and cabin passengers mingled in a twice-a-week political discussion group in which he took part. When ~ Fred Kaplan, #NFDB
661:Quoting Dudjom Rinpoche on the buddha-nature: No words can describe it No example can point to it Samsara does not make it worse Nirvana does not make it better It has never been born It has never ceased It has never been liberated It has never been deluded It has never existed It has never been nonexistent It has no limits at all It does not fall into any kind of category ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
662:There is in fact a category of people who get unusually close to the truth about themselves and the world. Their self-perceptions are more balanced,they assign responsibility for success and failure more even-handedly, and their predictions for the future are more realistic. These people are living testimony to the dangers of self-knowledge. They are the clinically depressed. ~ Cordelia Fine, #NFDB
663:One reason so many of us never succeed at tidying is because we have too much stuff. This excess is caused by our ignorance of how much we actually own. When we disperse storage of a particular item throughout the house and tidy one place at a time, we can never grasp the overall volume and therefore can never finish. To escape this negative spiral, tidy by category, not by place. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
664:Eleanor Roosevelt could easily have told negroes the deceitful maneuvering of the United States government that was going on behind the scenes. She never did it. In my opinion she was just another white woman whose profession was to make it appear that she was on the negro's side. You have a lot of whites who are in this category. Therefore, they have made negro loving a profession. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
665:You want to capture a gun-crazed murderer during a Category Four hurricane.” Shelton’s gaze rose to the heavens. “Any idea how dangerous that sounds?”
“Good thing we’re Virals,” Ben said.
Our eyes met. He actually smiled.
“I’m with Tory,” Ben said firmly. “To the end.”
“Thank you.” I felt a rush of affection.
When it really matters, I can always count on Ben. ~ Kathy Reichs,#NFDB
666:An Albanian’s house is the dwelling of God and the guest.’ Of God and the guest, you see. So before it is the house of its master, it is the house of one’s guest. The guest, in an Albanian’s life, represents the supreme ethical category, more important than blood relations. One may pardon the man who spills the blood of one’s father or of one’s son, but never the blood of a guest. ~ Ismail Kadare, #NFDB
667:short piece headlined “Elvis Died of Constipation” had run as the site’s lead story (and its middle and last story) under the category Constipation News. Why didn’t the colonic inertia theory come up earlier? Nichopoulos says that at the time, he had never heard of it. Nor had the gastroenterologist who treated Presley in the 1970s. “Nobody knew about it back then,” Nichopoulos says. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
668:I push back against a deeply-entrenched tendency in American culture to label quickly and no longer even examine the labels that were initially stamped on a person. I don't have a problem with any of my "hyphenated" biography - I don't have any problem with that at all. The world would be a better place if our thread of hyphenation were truly embraced beyond mere naming and category. ~ Fady Joudah, #NFDB
669:Numbers are difficult to calculate in part because sex workers can’t be divided neatly into categories of those working voluntarily and those working involuntarily. Some commentators look at prostitutes and see only sex slaves; others see only entrepreneurs. But in reality there are some in each category and many other women who inhabit a gray zone between freedom and slavery. ~ Nicholas D Kristof, #NFDB
670:One reason so many of us never succeed at tidying is because we have too much stuff. This excess is caused by our ignorance of how much we actually own. When we disperse storage of a particular item throughout the house and tidy one place at a time, we can never grasp the overall volume and therefore can never finish. To escape this negative spiral, tidy by category, not by place. Don ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
671:Universities are fantastic places to gain knowledge on a subject, develop a personal network, explore your character and learn new techniques to approach problems. I do however believe that there is a strong argument for students who have an idea they are passionate about to just try and turn it into a reality. I fell into this category and I don't regret not going to University. ~ Richard Branson, #NFDB
672:When you listen to someone complaining, you are forced to acknowledge them as a human being instead of a category. You are forced to witness how social systems are borne out in personal experience, to recognize that hardship hurts, that solutions are not as simple as they seem. You are forced to trust, and you are forced to care. In complaint lies a path to compassion. --Originally ~ Sarah Kendzior, #NFDB
673:There’s probably no category for a woman in my position, no word in the lexicon to describe the emotions I feel. Perhaps my tears are unique, the information they contain dense and unanticipated and full of newness. They should be scooped up and preserved, at least analysed. Perhaps the pattern of them expresses who I am, or where, and something strange could come of looking at them. ~ Nick Harkaway, #NFDB
674:If you have a conversation "Why is it you think masculinity is linked with heterosexuality? Or why is it you think masculinity is linked with sexual dominance or the sexually active position in the sex act?" If you start to ask people those questions, then they realize "Maybe gender is not one thing. Maybe I have collected a number of things under one category and I've made a mistake". ~ Judith Butler, #NFDB
675:I think it's vital to be honest with yourself. You do have to satisfy yourself first. If you're drawing something, you have to ask yourself if it's something you genuinely think is funny. Or is it starting to fall into just a category, just kind of a shtick thing? I think it's important for all cartoonists to be honest with themselves about their own sense of humor and what they're doing. ~ Gary Larson, #NFDB
676:According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone else' for 'everyone else' is a category that comprises the mediocre and the conformist, the boring and the suburban. The goal of all right-thinking people should be to mark themselves off from the crowd and 'stand out' in whatever way their talents allow. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
677:Imagine, capitalist America also divides the anarchists into two categories, philosophic and criminal. The first are accepted in highest circles; one of them is even high in the councils of the Wilson Administration. The second category, to which we have the honor of belonging, is persecuted and often imprisoned. Yours also seems to be a distinction without a difference. Don't you think so? ~ Emma Goldman, #NFDB
678:the right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right ... Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
679:In general, we taught that love and action were more important than intellect or speculative truth. Love is the highest category for the Franciscan School (the goal), and we believe that authentic love is not possible without true inner freedom of conscience,18 nor will love be real or tested unless we somehow live close to the disadvantaged (its method), who remind us about what is important. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
680:It's mind-boggling to consider that movies this bad are actually committed to film. The poor quality of The Pest in almost every category - humor, intelligence, creativity, and just plain entertainment value - ranks it somewhere between a bad infomercial and a local cable newscast. Rarely do I consider the act of seeing a movie to be a chore, but this kind of experience is the exception. ~ James Berardinelli, #NFDB
681:There's just a law to the universe. We can have the San Andreas rip tonight. You've nothing to do with that. We could have had that super hurricane, that, look what it did to South Carolina two or three hundred miles offshore! Imagine if a category 5 eye wall went right up the Chesapeake Bay. They can say "well, mankind did that." No, mother nature decides. So, will we survive? I'm sure we will. ~ Matt Drudge, #NFDB
682:The difference between a simpleton and an intelligent man, according to the man who is convinced that he is of the latter category, is that the former wholeheartedly accepts all things that he sees and hears while the latter never admits anything except after a most searching scrutiny. He imagines his intelligence to be a sieve of closely woven mesh through which nothing but the finest can pass. ~ R K Narayan, #NFDB
683:The difference between a simpleton and an intelligent man, according to the man who is convinced that he is of the latter category, is that the former wholeheartedly accepts all things that he sees and hears while the latter never admits anything except after a most searching scrutiny. He imagines his intelligence to be a sieve of closely woven mesh through which nothing but the finest can pass. ~ R K Narayan, #NFDB
684:When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment. ~ Jane Smiley, #NFDB
685:Beans SIDEKICKS: All beans are included in this SuperFood category, though we’ll discuss the most popular and readily available beans such as pinto, navy, Great Northern, lima, garbanzo (chickpeas), lentils, green beans, sugar snap peas, and green peas TRY TO EAT: at least four ½-cup servings per week Beans contain: Low-fat protein Fiber B vitamins Iron Folate Potassium Magnesium Phytonutrients ~ Steven G Pratt, #NFDB
686:It's always made me feel odd when I'd get a Dove Award for an instrumental album that has nothing to do with gospel. When I think of gospel music, I think of spreading the Good News with words. But maybe it's just because I was heralded once upon a time as one of theirs. The category of instrumental music seems sort of important to the big picture, but I felt a little embarrassed at the same time. ~ Phil Keaggy, #NFDB
687:the planet has undergone change so wrenching that the diversity of life has plummeted. Five of these ancient events were catastrophic enough that they’re put in their own category: the so-called Big Five. In what seems like a fantastic coincidence, but is probably no coincidence at all, the history of these events is recovered just as people come to realize that they are causing another one. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert, #NFDB
688:There were things in nature that took their beauty from delicate structure and intricate symmetry. Flowers. Seashells. Butterfly wings. And then there were things that were beautiful for their wild power and their refusal to be tamed. Snowcapped mountains. Churning thunderclouds. Shaggy, sharp-toothed lions.
This man silhouetted before her? He belonged, quite solidly, in the latter category. ~ Tessa Dare,#NFDB
689:All the way down in the elevator to the level-forty cablecar junction, her famulus lectured her from her bag. “That really wasn’t very Socially Harmonious of you, Courtney, that was a Category Three PainCrime and I feel I must also remind you that you are leaving your work two full hours ahead of your optimum psychofiled quitting time as prepared for you by the Department of Personpower Services … ~ Ian McDonald, #NFDB
690:Self-righteousness and presumptive moral judgments pose a great danger in the political arena. To become convinced of the divine infallibility of one's personal predilections on a secular political issue is to play God, to assume to oneself the attributes of deity. It cultivates an arrogant intolerance of dissenting viewpoints and relegates one's political adversaries to the category of evil per se. ~ Jim Wright, #NFDB
691:And then she reverses direction and heads straight for Willesden Bookshop, an independent shop that rents space from the council and provides--no matter what Brent Council may claim--an essential local service. It is run by Helen. Helen is an essential local person. I would characterize her essentialness in the following way: 'Giving the people what they didn't know they wanted.' Important category. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
692:As you can imagine when you have to summon a force like that together, the opposing elements are pretty freaking gnarly. I would think of those pioneer movies where they've got the cook and the ladies loading the guns and firing at the surrounded wagons. I don't put Coulson in that category, I think he is on the upper tier of people who come to scrap at situations like that but everybody's involved. ~ Clark Gregg, #NFDB
693:For the first category, clothing, I recommend dividing further into the following subcategories to increase efficiency: Tops (shirts, sweaters, etc.) Bottoms (pants, skirts, etc.) Clothes that should be hung (jackets, coats, suits, etc.) Socks Underwear Bags (handbags, messenger bags, etc.) Accessories (scarves, belts, hats, etc.) Clothes for specific events (swimsuits, kimonos, uniforms, etc.) Shoes ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
694:He grinned. “I was trying to remember all the deadly sins the other day,” he said. “Greed,envy, gluttony, irony, pedantry…” “I’m pretty sure irony isn’t a deadly sin.” “I’m pretty sure it is.” “Lust,” she said. “Lust is a deadly sin.” “And spanking.” “I think that falls under lust.” “I think it should have its own category,” said Jace. “Greed, envy, gluttony, irony, pedantry, lust, and spanking. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
695:It's been six months, Nancy.'
'What's your hurry? It took me a year to get used to living with Carl. I mean, what do men do anyway? They work, eat, drink, and play games. Sex for them is in the sports and recreation category. You can't live with a man and not be lonely.'
'You think so?'
'Absolutely. Besides, once you have kids, it all changes anyway. Everything seems to make sense then. ~ Andre Dubus III,#NFDB
696:I asked her who he was and she said, “He was a man ahead of his time.” She actually liked Malcolm X. She put him in nearly the same category as her other civil rights heroes, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Eleanor Roosevelt, A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Kennedys—any Kennedy. When Malcolm X talked about “the white devil” Mommy simply felt those references didn’t apply to her. ~ James McBride, #NFDB
697:I very much doubt that our grandchildren will understand the distinction between that which is a computer and that which isn’t. Or, to put it another way, they will not know “computers” as any distinct category of object or function. This, I think, is the logical outcome of genuinely ubiquitous computing: the wired world. The wired world will consist, in effect, of a single unbroken interface. The ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
698:People fear what they cannot categorize, which is another way of saying what they don’t understand. You will feel lost for a time without a solid category to belong to. Don’t let that fool you into choosing a premature identity. There is no single way to be a traveler, an artist, a scholar, a superhero, or a philosopher. You accept other people’s definitions when you are too weak to make your own. ~ Gregory V Diehl, #NFDB
699:Simply put, this means we need to eat lots of high-nutrient, natural plant foods: vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and seeds. In conjunction, we need to eat much less from the animal products category and eat far fewer (or no) foods that are completely empty of nutrients or indeed are toxic for the body—foods such as sugar, other sweeteners, white flour, processed foods, refined oils, and fast foods. ~ Joel Fuhrman, #NFDB
700:There are skeptics who do not come to their view because they have a source of income from carbon polluters. I don't mean to imply that they're all in that category at all. There are also those who are also not motivated by ideological resistance for any role of government. But I don't know of any arguments or any presenters of arguments that overturn the consensus that I think have gained any legitimacy. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
701:Neat categories of valid relationships that everyone understood, phrases of belonging that could be etched concisely onto tombstones: beloved son, devoted wife. There were even rules for how to grieve people in each category, how many months to wear a black armband and whether one could dance. Captain Dacre didn’t have any of that, and Ben felt his heart twist in his chest at what that must cost him. ~ Cat Sebastian, #NFDB
702:I'm not suggesting at all that we take away all of the characters' vices. I am suggesting that this particular vice is so insidious, so nefarious, and so deadly that simply by glamorizing it or poisoning our young adults, and I think it's a very separate category, but in no way am I suggesting that we move on from banning smoking in movies to banning drinking, you know, or whatever else we want to do. ~ Joe Eszterhas, #NFDB
703:She picked one up. “I thought you hated me.” He shrugged and flipped stations on her viewer. “I hate over-privileged people in general. You just happen to fall into that category. No offense. But Nykyrian said you weren’t a total bitch so I’ll trust him until you make him out a liar.” Kiara shook her head. “You seriously lack social skills, don’t you?” “Basically. Kind of pride myself on that, too. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
704:For the first category, clothing, I recommend dividing further into the following subcategories to increase efficiency: Tops (shirts, sweaters, etc.) Bottoms (pants, skirts, etc.) Clothes that should be hung (jackets, coats, suits, etc.) Socks Underwear Bags (handbags, messenger bags, etc.) Accessories (scarves, belts, hats, etc.) Clothes for specific events (swimsuits, kimonos, uniforms, etc.) Shoes And, ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
705:The most basic rule is to hang clothes in the same category side by side, dividing your closet into a jacket section, a suit section, and so on. Clothes, like people, can relax more freely when in the company of others who are very similar in type, and therefore organizing them by category helps them feel more comfortable and secure. You can literally transform your closet just by applying this principle. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
706:You don’t have to be who you first were. That early version of yourself, that season you were in, even the phase you are currently experiencing—it is all good or purposeful or at least useful and created a fuller, nuanced you and contributed to your life’s meaning, but you are not stuck in a category just because you were once branded that way. Just because something was does not mean it will always be. ~ Jen Hatmaker, #NFDB
707:Congratulations. You have met your conscience. In my experience, the world is divided between those who have one and those who don't. And the ones with one are divided into those who will act on their conscience and those who won't. Those who will are, I'm afraid, the smallest category. They will *jeito*. It's Brazilian Portuguese. It means to find a way to get something done, no matter what the obstacles. ~ Jean Ferris, #NFDB
708:Difference between a vocation and a category. Those who fulfill their vocation to sanctity--or who are fulfilling it--are by that very fact unaccountable. They do not fit into categories. If you use a category in speaking of them you have to qualify statement at once, as if they also belonged to some completely different category. In actual fact, they are in no category, they are particular themselves... ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
709:I turned forty this year. Forty! Which is so weird because I’ve always been young. I’ve been young my whole life, as a matter of fact. No matter how I dissect this, I’ve aged out of the “young” category and graduated to the “middle” group. My brain feels confused about this because I am so juvenile. I make up my own words to hip-hop songs and quote Paul Rudd as a parenting strategy. Surely I am a preteen. ~ Jen Hatmaker, #NFDB
710:I learned a strange thing... that in a jumble of unintelligible talk, the word "nigger" leaps out with electric clarity. You always hear it and it always stings. And always it casts the person using it into a category of brute ignorance. I thought with some amusement that if these two women only knew what they were revealing about themselves to every Negro on that bus, they would have been outraged. ~ John Howard Griffin, #NFDB
711:To eat liver, knowing that you, too, have a liver, brushes up against the cannibalism taboo. The closer we are to a species, emotionally or phylogenetically, the more potent our horror at the prospect of tucking in, the more butchery feels like murder. Pets and primates, wrote Mead, come under the category “unthinkable to eat.” The same cultures that eat monkey meat have traditionally drawn the line at apes. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
712:One of my clients went so far as to make a tidying journal. The first page presented her “Ideal Lifestyle.” This was followed by a section called “Current Situation (Tidying Problems, Storage Units, List of Things by Category).” The last section was a progress sheet titled “The Tidying Process,” in which she recorded everything from the discoveries she made about tidying to the number of garbage bags she used. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
713:Rice and peas fit into that category of dishes where two ordinary foods, combined together, ignite a pleasure far beyond the capacity of either of its parts alone. Like rhubarb and strawberries, apple pie and cheese, roast pork and sage, the two tastes and textures meld together into the sort of subtle transcendental oneness that we once fantasized would be our experience when we finally found the ideal mate. ~ John Thorne, #NFDB
714:There are two kind of men,' said Ka, in a didatic voice. 'The first kind does not fall in love until he's seen how the girls eats a sandwich, how she combs her hair, what sort of nonsense she cares about, why she's angry at her father, and what sort of stories people tell about her. The second type of man -- and I am in this category -- can fall in love with a woman only if he knows next to nothing about her. ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
715:Jersey chasers are a dime a dozen, always willing to take a ride on the football side, but you’ve got to be careful with the overly eager ones, the ones who aren’t just trying to make a trophy outta you, but a fuckin’ Lifetime Achievement award. As in, poking holes in condoms and look at that, you’re a baby daddy. I don’t know if Josie falls into that latter category, but she’s a little too eager for my taste. ~ Jen Frederick, #NFDB
716:What would be wicked would be to say, 'I will not give this person a job because he belongs to this category of people, and there's some kind of statistical tendency for this category of person to be different from that category...' Treat them as individuals! Look at the qualifications of this individual, and forget about the group, race, whatever you want to call it, to which he belongs. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
717:1975 was International Women's Year. I had never heard the word 'feminism' before then. I was writing my books from the experiences of my own life and from watching and studying the lives of those around me in general. I did not know that writing the way I was, was putting me into a special category. I had the first inkling of it on 28 June 1975 when the International Women's League invited me to give a speech. ~ Buchi Emecheta, #NFDB
718:My father learned his disinterest under the guise of masculinity. Boys don’t cry. There are whole disciplines, institutions, rubrics in our culture which serve as categories of denial.
Science is such a category. The torture and death that Heinrich Himmler found disturbing to witness became acceptable to him when it fell under this rubric. He liked to watch the scientific experiments in the concentration camps ~ Susan Griffin,#NFDB
719:Okay,” George Biondi was saying, “here’s an easy one, Henry. Henry? You there, Henry? Earth to Henry, Earth peo-ple need you. Come in, Henry. I say again: come in, H—” “I’m here, I’m here,” Henry said. His voice was the slurry, muddy voice of a man who is still asleep telling his wife he’s awake so she’ll leave him alone for another five minutes. “Okay. The category is Arts and Entertainment. The question is … Henry? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
720:This was why your grandparents banned Tarzan and the Lone Ranger and toys with white faces from the house. They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental "firsts" - first black five star general, first black congressman, first black mayor - always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit. Serious history was the West, and the West was white. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
721:What the Metaphysics of Quality would do is take this separate category, Quality, and show how it contains within itself both subjects and objects. The Metaphysics of Quality would show how things become enormously more coherent-fabulously more coherent-when you start with an assumption that Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world. . . . . . . but showing that, of course, was a very big job. . . . ~ Robert M Pirsig, #NFDB
722:He grinned. “I was trying to remember all the deadly sins the other day,” he said. “Greed,envy, gluttony, irony, pedantry…”
“I’m pretty sure irony isn’t a deadly sin.”
“I’m pretty sure it is.”
“Lust,” she said. “Lust is a deadly sin.”
“And spanking.”
“I think that falls under lust.”
“I think it should have its own category,” said Jace. “Greed, envy, gluttony, irony, pedantry, lust, and spanking. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
723:If left untreated, depression can become serious. It can rob people from many hours of effective functioning—and sometimes rob them of life itself. At any given time, it is estimated that up to 20 percent of the population have disturbed daily functioning due to clinical depression. If you find yourself in this category and have experienced any of these symptoms for longer than two weeks, seek professional help. ~ Archibald D Hart, #NFDB
724:hang heavy items on the left side of the closet and light items on the right. Heavy items include those with length, those made from heavier material, and those that are dark in color. As you move toward the right side of the closet, the length of the clothing grows shorter, the material thinner, and the color lighter. By category, coats would be on the far left, followed by dresses, jackets, pants, skirts, and blouses. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
725:Happiness was never important. The problem is that we don't know what we really want. What makes us happy is not to get what we want. But to dream about it. Happiness is for opportunists. So I think that the only life of deep satisfaction is a life of eternal struggle, especially struggle with oneself. If you want to remain happy, just remain stupid. Authentic masters are never happy; happiness is a category of slaves. ~ Slavoj i ek, #NFDB
726:People who write for reward by way of recognition or monetary gain don't know what they're doing. They're in the category of those who write; they are not writers. Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. Writing is selfish and contradictory in its terms. First of all, you're writing for an audience of one, you must please the one person you're writing for. Yourself. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
727:When it comes to making more money, most people look at the world and see the same opportunities they've seen before: typically, a job. Because they don't awaken their mind and expand their vision, they don't see other opportunities. Yet opportunities do exist. So how do you change your thinking so you can see them? One way to jolt the brain out of its preconceived category thinking is to bombard it with new experiences. ~ Joe Vitale, #NFDB
728:It’s nice to hear your voice…?” The statement came out sounding like a question, as though I
were playing jeopardy and I’d chosen my category-
‘I’ll take ‘Charming Chit Chat’ for $200, Alex’ and behind the $200 read: ‘This is what you say
to the hot guy- you abandoned- when he returns after you inexplicably leave him and his private
jet in Las Vegas after having amazing and multiple occurrences of the hot sex. ~ Penny Reid,#NFDB
729:Many experiments have shown that categories appear to be coded in the mind neither by means of lists of each individual member of the category, nor by means of a list of formal criteria necessary and sufficient for category membership, but, rather, in terms of a prototype of a typical category member. The most cognitively economical code for a category is, in fact, a concrete image of an average category member.
~ Rosch, 1977, p. 30,#NFDB
730:Obama took 20 million people from the category of ignorables and put them into the category of unignorables. No one had to do anything for these 20 million people because they were outside the system. Now they're inside the system. Taking away their health care imposes all kind of political pain. We don't know the outcome, but every passing day it show how difficult it is for Trump to deprive them of what they now have. ~ Jonathan Chait, #NFDB
731:Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best and raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off? ~ Kenneth Grahame, #NFDB
732:I think that’s the difference in the marriages that survive and the marriages that don’t. Some people think the focus in a marriage should be put on all the perfect days. They love as much and as hard as they can when everything is going right. But if a person gives all of themselves in the good times, hoping the bad times never come, there may not be enough resources or energy left to withstand those Category 5 moments. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
733:Around the time of the Terran Caesar Augustus, a Martian artist had been composing a work of art. It could have been called a poem, a musical opus, or a philosophical treatise; it was a series of emotions arranged in tragic, logical necessity. Since it could be experienced by a human only in the sense in which a man blind from birth might have a sunset explained to him, it does not matter which category it be assigned. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
734:As an actor, you very rarely have the experience of picking up a script and getting a few pages into it and realizing that what you're holding in your hands is not just a role on a TV show, but it's one of those special parts that comes along, once or twice in a career. If you're lucky, you get an opportunity to do something really memorable and to be part of one of those rare shows that passes into that special category. ~ Holt McCallany, #NFDB
735:Jobs is the one area where I think Donald Trump is striking a chord that really resonates and should resonate. Both parties need to do a better job of rejecting poorly negotiated trade agreements. And I would put the president's TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, in that category. We have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs just in the state of Maine alone, and that resonates with people, and understandably so. ~ Susan Collins, #NFDB
736:But the real struggle for women—what amplifies shame regardless of the category—is that we’re expected (and sometimes desire) to be perfect, yet we’re not allowed to look as if we’re working for it. We want it to just materialize somehow. Everything should be effortless. The expectation is to be natural beauties, natural mothers, natural leaders, and naturally good parents, and we want to belong to naturally fabulous families. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
737:I don't want to preach, but I would like to see metal become more of a united thing. I'm tired of people breaking things down into categories like thrash metal and death metal. I think people tend to stick to one category, and I want people to support all kinds of bands, whether it be Slayer or Queensryche or Death. I miss the days when it was acceptable to listen to everything from Priest and Maiden to Slayer and Venom. ~ Chuck Schuldiner, #NFDB
738:It didn’t really make sense. The ID on the fingerprint could not have come back yet—there was no way it could have worked its way through all the layers of ossified bureaucracy in just a few hours—but as far as I knew that was the only lead. Besides, she would never do something insanely risky without me along to take the hit for her, and cornering a homicidal psycho with a hammer certainly fit in the category of “risky.” Of ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
739:Christianity will not be content to be an evolution within the total category of human nature; an engagement such as that is too little to offer to a god. Neither does it even want to be the paradox for the believer, and then surreptitiously, little by little, provide him with understanding, because the martyrdom of faith (to crucify one's understanding) is not a martyrdom of the moment, but the martyrdom of continuance. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
740:There are several kinds of truths, and it is customary to place in the first order mathematical truths, which are, however, only truths of definition. These definitions rest upon simple, but abstract, suppositions, and all truths in this category are only constructed, but abstract, consequences of these definitions ... Physical truths, to the contrary, are in no way arbitrary, and do not depend on us. ~ Georges Louis Leclerc Comte de Buffon, #NFDB
741:But the reality is that women today do not think of themselves in the context of helping "their man." Women today have been brainwashed into thinking that efforts in that direction are in the category of oppression, subservience, and catering to frail male egos. It is sad that this is the prevalent point of view, because interdependence is what ultimately feeds both the man and the woman what they truly need to be happy. ~ Laura Schlessinger, #NFDB
742:Some bemoan the brutalism of socialist architecture, but was the blandness of capitalist architecture any better? One could drive for miles along a boulevard and see nothing but parking lots and the kudzu of strip malls catering to every need, from pet shops to water dispensaries to ethnic restaurants and every other imaginable category of mom-and-pop small business, each one an advertisement for the pursuit of happiness. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
743:Each category is generalized to the greatest possible extent, so that it eventually loses all specificity and is reabsorbed by all the other categories. When everything is political, nothing is political anymore, the word itself is meaningless. When everything is sexual, nothing is sexual any more, and sex loses its determinants. When everything is aesthetic, nothing is beautiful or ugly any more, and art itself disappears. ~ Jean Baudrillard, #NFDB
744:Here is something I learned in the hundreds of years I spent in the center of the Earth and later in the libraries and bedchambers, pressed between your pages, carving my way out of your stories with one of the knives you gave me to show your readers that I was a spitfire, a flame-breathing beauty with black hair and barbed bits. Imaginary countries and imaginary cunts are in the same category. They are the same story. ~ Maria Dahvana Headley, #NFDB
745:To do so, hang heavy items on the left side of the closet and light items on the right. Heavy items include those with length, those made from heavier material, and those that are dark in color. As you move toward the right side of the closet, the length of the clothing grows shorter, the material thinner, and the color lighter. By category, coats would be on the far left, followed by dresses, jackets, pants, skirts, and blouses. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
746:Irrationality is the opposite of rationality: it means unreasonable, unfounded, ill-conceived. Irrationality is reason, practiced badly. A trance brought about by ecstatic dancing or drumming is certainly not rational, but it isn't irrational either. It's non-rational—it belongs to another category of experience entirely. Indeed, much of its value lies quite precisely in the fact that it takes us on a holiday away from reason— ~ Bernard Haisch, #NFDB
747:Because You have called me here not to wear a label by which I can recognize myself and place myself in some kind of a category. You do not want me to be thinking about what I am, but about what You are. Or rather, You do not even want me to be thinking about anything much: for You would raise me above the level of thought. And if I am always trying to figure out what I am and where I am and why I am, how will that work be done? ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
748:If you want a reality check, take a look at the study that’s regularly put out by S&P Dow Jones Indices, part of McGraw Hill Financial. The study is known as the SPIVA Scorecard, short for Standard & Poor’s Indices Versus Active. It compares actively managed funds to appropriate benchmark indexes. Over a 10-year period, typically 20 percent or less of actively managed funds outperform their category’s benchmark index. ~ Jonathan Clements, #NFDB
749:My belief about performance capture is that it's a technology which allows actors to play extraordinary characters. But from an acting perspective, I've never drawn a distinction between playing a conventional, live action character and playing a role in a performance capture suit. And from a purely acting point-of-view, I don't believe there should be a special Oscar category because I think it sort of muddies the waters in a way. ~ Andy Serkis, #NFDB
750:I hope to prove that it is entirely false, and false not in detail but in principle. It is not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category-mistake. It represents the facts of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type or category (or range of types or categories), when they actually belong to another r)The dogma is therefore a philosopher's myth. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
751:Newness only becomes mere evil in its totalitarian format, where all the tension between individual and society, that once gave rise to the category of the new, is dissipated. Today the appeal to newness, of no matter what kind, provided only that it is archaic enough, has become universal, the omnipresent medium of false mimesis. The decomposition of the subject is consummated in his self-abandonment to an ever-changing sameness. ~ Theodor Adorno, #NFDB
752:In the ordinary, everyday understandings of the words involved, to say that someone survived death is to contradict yourself; while to assert that all of us live forever is to assert a manifest falsehood, the flat contrary of a universally known truth: namely, the truth that all human beings are mortal. For when, after some disaster, the 'dead' and the 'survivors' have both been listed, what logical space remains for a third category? ~ Antony Flew, #NFDB
753:The death of literature had been exaggerated. Whereas on dating websites, those who like books are usually bracketed into a single category, the broad selections on offer at WH Smith spoke to the diversity of individuals’ motives for reading. If there was a conclusion to be drawn from the number of bloodstained covers, however, it was that there was a powerful desire, in a wide cross-section of airline passengers, to be terrified. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
754:The scope of the transgender empire may be reaching its peak, as transcriticism is increasing at a fast pace both within activist feminism and from wives and regretters. There is an increasing groundswell of criticism of the concept and practice of transgenderism from a newly invigorated radical feminist movement. Moreover, the idea of transgenderism has become so vague and general that the category is in danger of being exploded. ~ Sheila Jeffreys, #NFDB
755:Towards the end of your life you have something like a pain schedule to fill out - a long schedule like a federal document, only it's your pain schedule. Endless categories. First, physical causes - like arthritis, gallstones, menstrual cramps. New category, injured vanity, betrayal, swindle, injustice. But the hardest items of all have to do with love. The question then is: So why does everybody persist? If love cuts them up so much. ~ Saul Bellow, #NFDB
756:The distribution of tasks amongst the various employees follows a simple rule, which is that the duty of the members of each category is to do as much work as they possibly can, so that only a small part of that work need be passed to the category above. This means the clerks are obliged to work without cease from morning to night, whereas senior clerks do so only now and then, the deputies very rarely, and the Registrar almost never. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
757:If hatred strikes you, if you get accused, thrown to the lions, you can expect one of two reactions from people who know you: some of them will join in the kill, the others will discreetly pretend to know nothing, hear nothing, so you can go right on seeing them and talking to them. That second category, discreet and tactful, those are your friends. 'Friends' in the modern sense of the term. Listen, Jean-Marc, I've known that forever. ~ Milan Kundera, #NFDB
758:Look at the paintings of Picasso. He is a great painter, but just a subjective artist. Looking at his paintings, you will start feeling sick, dizzy, something going berserk in your mind. You cannot go on looking at Picasso's painting long enough. You would like to get away, because the painting has not come from a silent being. It has come from a chaos. It is a by product of a nightmare. But ninety-nine percent art belongs to that category. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
759:It iscrucial that we understand lesbian/feminism in the deepest, most radical sense: as that love for ourselves and other women, that commitment to the freedom of all of us, which transcends the category of "sexual preference" and the issue of civil rights, to become a politics of asking women's questions, demanding a world in which the integrity of all women--not a chosen few--shall be honored and validated in every respect of culture. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
760:The fact that used cars is our largest category is a good example. We would not have sat in a conference room and said, "Hey, how about used cars?" So what can be learned that is extensible to other companies is to ask what are your customers doing with your products that maybe you didn't anticipate that they would do? How do you think of your customers as your research and development lab, as opposed to having an R&D lab at headquarters? ~ Meg Whitman, #NFDB
761:According to mythological thinking, God has his domicile in heaven. What is the meaning of this statement? The meaning is quite clear. In a crude manner it expresses the idea that God is beyond the world, that He is transcendent. The thinking which is not yet capable of forming the abstract idea of transcendence expresses its intention in the category of space. ~ Rudolf Bultmann, “Jesus Christ and Mythology,” Interpreting Faith for the Modern Era, p. 294, #NFDB
762:I’ve always admired stylists. I put the writers of bumphable, ready-to-wear prose, calculated to sell, guaranteed not to shock, in the same category as artists who can’t draw. There is a lack of bravery and a lot of fraud in them. I have tried never to write a book that didn’t attempt something new in the way of narrative technique. Writing is an assault on cliche. I find little to admire in writers who make no attempt at originality. ~ Alexander Theroux, #NFDB
763:pitfall. The root of the problem lies in the fact that people often store the same type of item in more than one place. When we tidy each place separately, we fail to see that we’re repeating the same work in many locations and become locked into a vicious circle of tidying. To avoid this, I recommend tidying by category. For example, instead of deciding that today you’ll tidy a particular room, set goals like “clothes today, books tomorrow. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
764:Shu required that “all day and every day” we looked into our own hearts, discovered what caused us pain, and then refrained, under all circumstances, from inflicting that distress upon other people. It demanded that people no longer put themselves into a special, separate category but constantly related their own experience to that of others. Confucius was the first to promulgate the Golden Rule. For Confucius it had transcendent value. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
765:The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution.... There should be, therefore, great resistance to ... redefining the category of rights deemed to be fundamental. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily takes to itself further authority to govern the country without express constitutional authority. ~ Byron White, #NFDB
766:My audience is comprised of three categories. The first category contains the people who decide after the first five minutes that they've made a mistake and leave. The second category is the people who give the film a chance and leave annoyed after 40 minutes. The third category includes the people that watch the whole film and return to see it again. If I'm able to persuade 33% of the audience to stay, then I can say that I've succeeded. ~ Peter Greenaway, #NFDB
767:Subjects who reciprocally recognize each other as such, must consider each other as identical, insofar as they both take up the position of subject; they must at all times subsume themselves and the other under the same category. At the same time, the relation of reciprocity of recognition demands the non-identity of one and the other, both must also maintain their absolute difference, for to be a subject implies the claim of individuation. ~ Jurgen Habermas, #NFDB
768:Lucian Blackstone was a hurricane, and I was the land he intended to destroy. He was a category five, creating and wreaking havoc, knocking down defenses as he obliterated me. He ripped me apart, tore me down to my basic animal instincts, and there was no knowing how much damage would be left when he was finished. The worst part was that I wasn't sure I wanted to survive this storm. Some storms were worth dying for just to be witness to them. ~ Amelia Hutchins, #NFDB
769:Yvonne Sell, the Hay Group’s director of the leadership and talent practice in the United Kingdom, who did the study, found such leaders are rare: only 18 percent of executives attained this level. Three-quarters of leaders with three or fewer strengths in people skills created negative climates, where people felt indifferent or demotivated. Lame leadership seems all too prevalent—more than half of leaders fell within this low-impact category. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
770:[For example] whoever is faced with the repayment of a debt at a given time, and then immediately establishes and enters into the sanctity of prayer - which is the most evident means of proximity to God - has disobeyed his Lord. It does not suffice for a person to be considered obedient because his acts fall into the category of acts of obedience if he pays no attention to the precise moment, incumbent conditions, and order of occurrence. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
771:I must have apologized to him a thousand times during those two snowbound days. I’m sorry, Sams. I said no matter what, but what you’re too young to understand is there’s more than one kind of bullshit. There’s the bullshit you know that you know; the bullshit you don’t know and know you don’t know; and the bullshit you just think you know but really don’t. Making a promise in the middle of an alien black op falls under the last category. So…sorry! ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
772:It turned out that for every category of traumatic experience you went through as a kid, you were radically more likely to become depressed as an adult. If you had six categories of traumatic events in your childhood, you were five times more likely to become depressed as an adult than somebody who didn’t have any. If you had seven categories of traumatic event as a child, you were 3,100 percent more likely to attempt to commit suicide as an adult. ~ Johann Hari, #NFDB
773:Since substance is infinite, the universe as a whole, i.e., god, Hegel is telling us that philosophy is knowledge of the infinite, of the universe as a whole, i.e, god. You cannot get more metaphysical than that. I think that Hegel scholars have to admit this basic fact rather than burying their heads in the sand and trying to pretend that Hegel is concerned with conceptual analysis, category theory, normativity or some such contemporary fad. ~ Frederick C Beiser, #NFDB
774:While the meetings included traders, that is, people who are judged on their numerical performance, it was mostly a forum for salespeople (people capable of charming customers), and the category of entertainers called Wall Street “economists” or “strategists,” who make pronouncements on the fate of the markets, but do not engage in any form of risk taking, thus having their success dependent on rhetoric rather than actually testable facts. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
775:Although she failed to grasp the meaning of this speech, she did understand that it might belong to the category of 'scoldings' and scenes of reproach or supplication, and her familiarity with men enabled her, without paying attention to the details of what they said, to conclude that they would not makes such scenes if they were not in love, that since they were in love it was pointless to obey them, they they would be only more in love afterward. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
776:For the first category, clothing, I recommend dividing further into the following subcategories to increase efficiency: Tops (shirts, sweaters, etc.) Bottoms (pants, skirts, etc.) Clothes that should be hung (jackets, coats, suits, etc.) Socks Underwear Bags (handbags, messenger bags, etc.) Accessories (scarves, belts, hats, etc.) Clothes for specific events (swimsuits, kimonos, uniforms, etc.) Shoes And, yes, I include handbags and shoes as clothing. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
777:For one thing, she hadn't exactly chosen a field; although she has since childhood imagined picking up her Oscar, the category has never been determined. There was some thought that by the time she grew up they would give out Oscars for Best Novel (and that by then she would have written one), or that maybe she would just get some kind of honorary Oscar for her distinctive life observations made in everyday conversations, or the occasional letter. ~ Elizabeth Crane, #NFDB
778:Some children like how-to-do-it or all-about-everything type books, but I suspect parents like them best because they look so educational. These really should be in a separate category because they don't usually classify and literature but are more nearly manuals of information. Paul Hazard suggests that instead of pouring out so much knowledge on a child's soul that it is crushed, we should plant a seed of an idea that will develop from the inside. ~ Gladys M Hunt, #NFDB
779:Incredibly, nearly 70,000 Young Adults between 15-39 are diagnosed with cancer each year. 10,000 will not survive. This is a very important stat for me, because I fall in this category. I am one of these statistics. Unlike every other age group, there has been no improvement in the 5-year survival of young adults in 30 years. That means many young adults have the same chance of getting cancer and dying from it as they did in the 1970's. This is not OK. ~ Jenna Morasca, #NFDB
780:Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have "really happened,"or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
781:The non-beating of poor whites is time off for good behavior and an assurance of future cooperation. Their color exempts them to some degree from the criminal class - which is how the entire working class was defined before the invention of race and is still treated in those parts of the world where race, or some functional equivalent, does not exist as a social category. It is a cheap way of buying some people’s loyalty to a social system that exploits them. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
782:If you look at the Oscars and look at the Best Foreign Language series, you see that the films are coming from everywhere - from Quebec, Israel, Poland, and Belgium. It's not the usual French, German, etc. This category is opening up to socially engaged and political films. I think we're going to see a cross over to the main categories also. It's part of this global environment now and I'm grateful that the Academy is having this window on world cinema. ~ Philippe Falardeau, #NFDB
783:There are people at the extremes who aren't able to do anything musically, and then others sort of fall in the middle. And the same thing with math, and the same thing with art. You'll find people who are geniuses, or prodigies at the far end of the bell shaped curve, and I think you will find some of the acquired savants in that category who happened to have been endowed with that kind of talent, which explains why not everyone becomes an acquired savant. ~ Darold Treffert, #NFDB
784:The title 'Lord of All-Rus' did not possess much basis either in history or in current reality. It came into the same category as that whereby the kings of England laid claim to France. In the 1490s, two-and-a-half centuries after all traces of a united Kyivan Rus' had been destroyed, it had the same degree of credibility that the king of France might have enjoyed if, in his struggle with the German Empire, he had proclaimed himself 'Lord of all the Franks'. ~ Norman Davies, #NFDB
785:Back there, before Jim Crow, before the invention of the Negro or the white man or the words and concepts to describe them, the Colonial population consisted largely of a great mass of white and black bondsmen, who occupied roughly the same economic category and were treated with equal contempt by the lords of the plantations and legislatures. Curiously unconcerned about their color, these people worked together and relaxed together.3 —Lerone Bennett Jr. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
786:Certain kinds of typeface design and typographic design are designed to persuade: we can make this company look modern if we use a crisp sans serif typeface, or we can make this restaurant look like its been around forever if we use typefaces and layout styles that have been around forever too. But there are other categories, and ballot design is one of them, where the goal should be to be purely functional. There have been notable failures in this category. ~ Michael Bierut, #NFDB
787:I don't agree with most forms of censorship, and I especially don't agree with the idea that one needs to be from the same cultural, ethnic, or religious background as the subjects they portray in order to be qualified to portray those subjects. I believe that compassion and empathy should cross all of those category barriers, and the conversations art creates can be inflammatory initially, but I think are most often constructive and healing in the long run. ~ Shepard Fairey, #NFDB
788:Everyone accepts the abstraction of Bach. My work aspires to the same kind of abstraction, which is so engaging that you're distracted from asking about what it means. So many paintings have hidden meanings or need wall texts, but my work is not in that category. Once it's in the viewer's eyes my job will be judged on whether or not it is engaging and pulls you in to a kind of intelligence or poetic something going on there that makes it sustainable to look at. ~ Caio Fonseca, #NFDB
789:... There is a publication classification in an upper corner. It reads Religion. I'm immediately skeptical <...> because I've always group books such as this in a category with crap like Astrology, Aromatherapy, Crystalology, Pyramid Power, Psychic Healing and Feng Shui <...> that anyone would actually believe that these things could solve their problems, really solve them, instead of just making them forget about them for a while, is asinine to me... ~ James Frey, #NFDB
790:? “What’s up, wifey?” Mina said, grabbing her by the cheeks, then smacking her ass. Seema always felt better about being the child of immigrants when she hung out with Mina, her first-year roommate. The girl had no plans before, during, or after Michigan. She worked in graphic web design, which these days was simply a catchall category for anything not involving finance or escorting. Then again, her parents were so rich she didn’t even have to grow up Asian. ~ Gary Shteyngart, #NFDB
791:I think "Avatar" is kind of a unique category where people are enjoying the unique theatrical experience even though they may have seen it on the small screen. They want to have that immersive, transportive experience. "2001: A Space Odyssey" played for three years at the Loews cinema in Toronto. I remember that. It just kept playing. People wanted to return to that experience. That may not be the best example because I think "2001" took 25 years to break even. ~ James Cameron, #NFDB
792:I thought cocaine was a fantastic drug. A wonder drug, like everybody else. It gave you [an] energy burst. You could stay awake for days on end, and it was just marvelous and I didn't think it was evil at all. I put it almost in the same category as marijuana, only hell of a lot better. It was a tremendous energy boost. It gave the feeling, a high, but nobody knew, well maybe a small percentage of people knew. But eventually everybody knew how evil it really was. ~ George Jung, #NFDB
793:How do you have a think in pictures? Well, you have to sort the pictures into categories. You know, for example, a dog knows that, you know, there's good people and there's bad people. And I talked to a lady the other day where her dog was afraid of people with white beards because she had adopted him from an animal shelter and somebody with a white beard had abused him. And this dog was now afraid of everybody that had a white beard. That was the bad category. ~ Temple Grandin, #NFDB
794:You can be horrified by the state of the prisons, the misery in certain neighborhoods of its cities, or their level of poverty. Anti-Americanism, by which I mean a hatred for America as such-its transformation into a metaphysical category, which incarnates all the evil in the world-is one of fascism's favorite themes. Look at writer and political theorist Charles Maurras in France. The philosopher Martin Heidegger in Germany. The radical Islamists of today! ~ Bernard Henri Levy, #NFDB
795:Do you know why you’re here?' the doctor said.
Clumsiness. Clumsiness is the first and then we have a list: lazy, wayward, headstrong, fat, ugly, mean, tactless, and cruel. Also a liar. That category includes subheads: (a) False blindness, imaginary pains causing real doubling-up, untrue lapses of hearing, lying leg injuries, fake dizziness, and unproved and malicious malingering s; (b) Being a bad sport. Did I leave out unfriendliness?…Also unfriendliness. ~ Joanne Greenberg,#NFDB
796:La Raza stands for 'The Race' - and they say so openly. They are a pro-Hispanic organization; I will call them a racist organization. They base their philosophy on race. They advocate for those minorities that fit within the category that they define as drives them. They are apologists for illegal immigrants - and we are funding them with your tax dollars in this administration through earmarks. It is outrageous. It's an in-your-face act on the part of this Congress. ~ Steve King, #NFDB
797:The demon-of-all-demons for conservatives is, not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton! She’s an uppity woman (Category 5, opposing the moral order), a former antiwar activist who is pro-choice (Category 4), a protector of the “public good” (Category 3), someone who gained her influence not on her own but through her husband (Category 2), and a supporter of multiculturalism (Category 1). It would be hard for the conservatives to invent a better demon-of-all-demons. These ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
798:High modernism is numinous through and through, as the work of art provides one of the last outposts of enchantment in a spiritually degenerate world. Postmodernism, with its notorious absence of affect, is post-numinous. It is also in a sense post-aesthetic, since the aestheticisation of everyday life extends to the point where it undermines the very idea of a special phenomenon known as art. Stretched far enough, the category of the aesthetic cancels itself out. ~ Terry Eagleton, #NFDB
799:One of the overriding points of Liberal Fascism is that all of the totalitarian "isms" of the left commit the fallacy of the category error. They all want the state to be something it cannot be. They passionately believe the government can love you, that the state can be your God or your church or your tribe or your parent or your village or all of these things at once. Conservatives occasionally make this mistake, libertarians never do, liberals almost always do. ~ Jonah Goldberg, #NFDB
800:Is there anyone’s life story you don’t want to know?”
“Not really.” His expression was unexpectedly serious. “Because people make a story of their lives.
Gains, losses, tragedy and triumph—you can tell a lot about someone simply by what they put into each
category. You can learn a lot about what you put into each category by your reaction to them. They
teach you about yourself without ever intending to do it—and they teach you a lot about life. ~ Michelle Sagara West,#NFDB
801:Michael Bay and his team are experts in exciting tentpole-type film and television, and the combination of their film experience plus the great television writers that have come on will be really successful in bringing us something really unique. We are looking to put on these big canvas shows, and Black Sails is going to fit into that. The scripts have been terrific. Everything that we are trying to do is incredibly ambitious, and this is certainly in that category. ~ Chris Albrecht, #NFDB
802:Most of the ethical dilemmas that I have faced have all been in the category of, you know, I know something and what's my obligation to disclose it. So, for example, you see people make a mistake in the contract that you're making between the businesses and do you disclose it or do you reveal it? And generally speaking, the way that I solve these is I kind of go through a list of, you know, what's the most, what are the obligations and constituencies and in what order? ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
803:I know that a lot of feminist fears about the trans movement have been, "Wait, we never got to the part where we focus on women! We tried for a minute, but we don't want to lose the category all of a sudden. We haven't heard yet from the females with children called mothers, we haven't heard yet from all these groups!" On the one hand I'm very sympathetic to that, but the category of Women or Mothers, any of these categories, are on shifting sands and always have been. ~ Maggie Nelson, #NFDB
804:[Christ] is the head from whence the new man must have influences of life and strength, or it will decay every day” (chapter 14). Oh, that our people would feel the urgency of daily supplies of grace because “grace decays.” Do they know this? Is it a category in their mind—that grace decays? How many try to live their lives on automatic pilot with no sense of urgency that means of grace are given so that the riches of Christ may daily be obtained with fresh supplies of grace? ~ John Owen, #NFDB
805:When Fox News’s Sean Hannity asked black talk-show host Tavis Smiley in October of 2013 if black Americans were “better off five years into the Obama presidency,” Smiley responded: “Let me answer your question very forthrightly: No, they are not. The data is going to indicate, sadly, that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category. On that regard, the president ought to be held responsible.”2 ~ Jason L Riley, #NFDB
806:A very strong player can manage and can just know how to manage a thousand positions. I get it; it's a very arbitrary number. So then you have the world champion who could do more. But, again, any increase in numbers creates, sort of, a new level of playing. And then you go to the very top, and the difference is so minimal, but it does exist. So even a few players who never became world champion, like Vassily Ivanchuk, for instance, I think they belong to the same category. ~ Garry Kasparov, #NFDB
807:Nurturance implies empathy, self-nurturance, the nurturance of social ties, the cultivation of happiness, and self-development. When one understands Morality As Nurturance metaphorically, a host of other metaphors are entailed: Morality As Empathy, Moral Self-Nurturance, Morality As the Nurturance of Social Ties, Morality As Happiness, and Morality As Self-Development. The Nurturant Parent model of the family gives this whole category of moral schemes its highest priority. M ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
808:Where do whites fit in the New Africa? Nowhere, I'm inclined to sayand I do believe that it is true that even the gentlest and most westernised Africans would like the emotional idea of the continent entirely without the complication of the presence of the white man for a generation or two. But nowhere, as an answer for us whites, is in the same category as remarks like What's the use of living? in the face of the threat of atomic radiation. We are living; we are in Africa. ~ Nadine Gordimer, #NFDB
809:So far as this argument is concerned nonhuman animals and infants and retarded humans are in the same category; and if we use this argument to justify experiments on nonhuman animals we have to ask ourselves whether we are also prepared to allow experiments on human infants and retarded adults; and if we make a distinction between animals and these humans, on what basis can we do it, other than a bare-faced - and morally indefensible - preference for members of our own species? ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
810:According to Augustine, the power of sin is such that it takes hold of our will, and as long as we are under its sway we cannot move our will to be rid of it. The most we can accomplish is to struggle between willing and not willing, which does little more than show the powerlessness of our will against itself. The sinner can will nothing but sin. Within that condition, there certainly are good and bad choices; but even the best choices still fall within the category of sin. ~ Justo L Gonz lez, #NFDB
811:This category of divine risk, which is proper to a personal God freely creating personal beings endowed with freedom, is foreign to all abstract conceptions of the divine dominion - to the rationalist theology which thinks it exalts the omnipotence of the living God in attributing to him the perfections of a lifeless God who is incapable of being subject to risk. But he who takes no risk does not love… God’s dominion must be thought of in these terms of God’s personal love... ~ Vladimir Lossky, #NFDB
812:As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. … Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
813:Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
814:Of course, Cato did not fall into this category. But his inability to compromise made him as fatal to his cause, Cicero believed, as the moral dereliction of the others did. “As for our dear friend Cato,” he observed to Atticus while the land bill was being debated, “I have as warm a regard for him as you do. The fact remains that with all his patriotism, he can be a political liability. He speaks in the Senate as if he were living in Plato’s Republic instead of Romulus’s cesspool. ~ Anthony Everitt, #NFDB
815:Some believe in the merits of the enterprise and devote their careers to ever greater nosological precision. Others, and among them I include myself, marvel that anyone can take diagnosis seriously, that it can ever be considered more than a simple cluster of symptoms and behavioral traits. Nonetheless, we find ourselves under ever-increasing pressure (from hospitals, insurance companies, governmental agencies) to sum up a person with a diagnostic phrase and a numerical category. Even ~ Irvin D Yalom, #NFDB
816:I lost my religion about the same time I lost my city. When it comes to war, people tend to go one of two ways: either they find God, or they do away with him. I fell into the latter category.
I never blamed him, not like some of the others that gave up religion. They seemed more like jaded lovers than atheists. God just never was a man in my mind. He was food, shelter, safety, and—ultimately—peace. And when all that fled, I realized that my world no longer had a place for him. ~ Laura Thalassa,#NFDB
817:The dream has a very striking way of dealing with the category of opposites and contradictions. This is simply disregarded. To the dream 'No' does not seem to exist. In particular, it prefers to draw opposites together into a unity or to represent them as one. Indeed, it also takes the liberty of representing some random element by its wished-for opposite, so that at first one cannot tell which of the possible poles is meant positively or negatively in the dream-thoughts. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
818:Therefore, philosophy does not give sense in mind happiness. It keeps in mind the only truth. However, it is very possible that the truth may be painful, may be distressing, may be destructive of happiness or makes it impossible. Religion, unlike philosophy, is under the category of the useful one. It promises happiness and says what it is necessary to do and what it is necessary to be to deserve or to obtain it. Consequently, illusion is more important than truth if it gets happiness. ~ Marcel Conche, #NFDB
819:There are certainly people for whom politics is not a category that helps you understand human existence. In fact, it's kind of a detour into superficiality, and although I disagree with those people, I don't think it's the case that everyone who writes has to write politically or has to write in opposition to the really horrendous things that are going on on a political level in the world today. There are some writers who simply aren't any good at that and really should stay away from it. ~ Tony Kushner, #NFDB
820:Political scientists followed up on Todorov’s initial research by identifying a category of voters for whom the automatic preferences of System 1 are particularly likely to play a large role. They found what they were looking for among politically uninformed voters who watch a great deal of television. As expected, the effect of facial competence on voting is about three times larger for information-poor and TV-prone voters than for others who are better informed and watch less television. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
821:Two hundred years ago, the mothers of the books we take for granted were lumped together in the same lowly category as factory workers, governesses, and prostitutes. A respectable woman didn't write, she took care of her household: if she were rich, she oversaw a staff of servants and entertained for a living; if she were poor, she carried out endless labors punctuated by births and deaths. Jane Austen had to publish her books anonymously at a time when women were lucky to be taught to read. ~ Erin Blakemore, #NFDB
822:Many a scientist has patiently designed experiments for the purpose of substantiating his belief that animal operations are motivated by no purposes. He has perhaps spent his spare time in writing articles to prove that human beings are as other animals so that 'purpose' is a category irrelevant for the explanation of their bodily activities, his own activities included. Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
823:The reason knowledge workers are losing their familiarity with deep work is well established: network tools. This is a broad category that captures communication services like e-mail and SMS, social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, and the shiny tangle of infotainment sites like BuzzFeed and Reddit. In aggregate, the rise of these tools, combined with ubiquitous access to them through smartphones and networked office computers, has fragmented most knowledge workers’ attention into slivers. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
824:There was, and still is, a sense that those who make it are of two varieties. The first are lucky: They come from wealthy families with connections, and their lives were set from the moment they were born. The second are the meritocratic: They were born with brains and couldn’t fail if they tried. Because very few in Middletown fall into the former category, people assume that everyone who makes it is just really smart. To the average Middletonian, hard work doesn’t matter as much as raw talent. It’s ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
825:Well, I'm not sure the New York Times was consciously trying to trivialise me, but the effect of it is to put everything in the same category as the gossip you read in the magazines you pick up at supermarket counters. I was asked, for example, why I thought there were so many euphemisms for genitalia. It's not a serious question. Whatever the purpose of such a tone is, the effect is to make it appear that anyone who departs from orthodox political doctrine is in some ways laughable. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
826:Don’t look at people by their category—gender, race, social standing, age—but relate to them inside-to-inside, soul-to-soul, from and to that place where we’re so much more alike than different. A notion like that would be fodder for mockery. My friends and I—most Americans—lived in a stew of propaganda that insisted on the categorization of humanity. We were gay or straight, we were male or female or part of each, we were conservative or liberal, black or white or red or yellow or brown or mixed ~ Roland Merullo, #NFDB
827:Maybe we need to start with the rethinking of what is "west" and what is "non-west." It seems to me that there are any number of populations who already cross that divide, and we could probably point to several existing states that belong exclusively neither to one category nor to the other. Do we use these terms to designate geographical realities, geopolitical ones, or perhaps sites of power, exploitation, orientalism that move through space and time in ways that have to be tracked historically. ~ Judith Butler, #NFDB
828:You're going to see a lot of it. People getting ahead unfairly because of the category into which they were born: male or white or straight or rich. I'm in a few of those categories myself, which is why I make it a point to reach out and help those who aren't, those who might not necessarily be seen if I didn't make the effort. We need to shake this field up, you know? We need more people with different points of view and experiences and thought processes so we can keep innovating and moving ahead. ~ Sandhya Menon, #NFDB
829:And while it is okay to acknowledge that all kinds of women, whether white, Black, Indigenous, Latina, Asian, cis, gender nonconforming, trans, queer, bi, or straight might have different experiences, it's not cool to act as though transwomen are in some entirely separate category from the more general category of woman. That is something that feminism needs to be clear on - that it isn't feminism if all women's concerns, particularly the most marginalized women's concerns, aren't taken seriously. ~ Brittney Cooper, #NFDB
830:I wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times about the amazing effect of shared wonder - how I have an audience filled with people who you'd think would hate each other, people from every religious category, all at the same show at the same time. And it's an amazing phenomenon to watch this shared sense of wonder, where these people who really don't like each other - for good and bad reasons, reasons that make sense and that don't make sense - are in the same room, experiencing this unification. ~ David Copperfield, #NFDB
831:It's not a matter of whether the reviews of your books are good or bad, it's about being taken seriously, both as a woman writer and as a writer of color. Also, it worries me when people point to a couple of women writers or writers of color who get some attention - and I am sometimes pulled into that category - to prove that others are getting a fair shot. It's like those people who keep saying that racism no longer exists in this country because Barack Obama was a President of the United States. ~ Edwidge Danticat, #NFDB
832:Political scientists followed up on Todorov’s initial research by identifying a category of voters for whom the automatic preferences of System 1 are particularly likely to play a large role. They found what they were looking for among politically uninformed voters who watch a great deal of television. As expected, the effect of facial competence on voting is about three times larger for information-poor and TV-prone voters than for others who are better informed and watch less television. Evidently, ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
833:There was something in his manner of seduction, no show of desire at all; what he offered was a transaction, and again he showed no disappointment when reflexively and without hesitation I said no to him. It was the answer I had always given to such proposals (which are inevitable in the places I frequent), not out of any moral conviction but out of pride, a pride that had weakened in recent years, as I realized I was being shifted by the passage of time from one category of erotic object to another. ~ Garth Greenwell, #NFDB
834:Demons never die quietly, and a week ago the storm was a proper demon, sweeping through the Caribbean after her long ocean crossing from Africa, a category five when she finally came ashore at San Juan before moving on to Santo Domingo and then Cuba and Florida. But now she's grown very old, as her kind measures age, and these are her death throes. So she holds tightly to this night, hanging on with the desperate fury of any dying thing, any dying thing that might once have thought itself invincible. ~ Caitl n R Kiernan, #NFDB
835:Dostoevsky’s novel is dialogic. It is constructed not as the whole of a single consciousness, absorbing other consciousnesses as objects into itself, but as a whole formed by the interaction of several consciousnesses, none of which entirely becomes an object for the other; this interaction provides no support for the viewer who would objectify an entire event according to some ordinary monologic category (thematically, lyrically or cognitively)–and this consequently makes the viewer also a participant. ~ Mikhail Bakhtin, #NFDB
836:The D’Souza case is the one panned by Alan Dershowitz as “selective” and “outrageous.” The piddling sum allegedly involved, $15,000, is well beneath the Justice Department’s norm for criminal enforcement; it falls into the category that is routinely settled with a fine paid to the Federal Election Commission. Certainly it is not in the same stratosphere as the Obama campaign’s own multimillion-dollar campaign finance violations, which are felonies that the same Justice Department opted not to prosecute. ~ Andrew McCarthy, #NFDB
837:In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
838:I love secrets. Here's a bunch of people who think they know each other over a long period of time. And they do. And they don't. Secrets aren't the same thing as shame, but they can fall in that category. I'm very interested in the ways that people are open and honest with one another and simultaneously in hiding. What we know about those we love is only part of the story. Who do we protect with our secrets? Others? Ourselves? These are questions that interest me in fiction. The public and the private self. ~ Victoria Redel, #NFDB
839:The fact/value split has taught most people to put religion in the same category. This explains why Christians are often accused of imposing their views, no matter how gentle and polite they may be in person. Christians intend to communicate life-giving, objective truths about the real world. But their statements are interpreted as attempts to impose personal preferences. For the secularist, then, Christians are not merely wrong or mistaken. They are violating the rules of the game in a democratic society. ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
840:An attempt to create a new conceptual terrain for imagining alternatives to imprisonment involves the ideological work of questioning why "criminals" have been constituted as a class and, indeed, a class of human beings undeserving of the civil and human rights accorded to others. Radical criminologists have long pointed out that the category "lawbreakers" is far greater than the category of individuals who are deemed criminals since, many point out, almost all of us have broken the law at one time or another. ~ Angela Y Davis, #NFDB
841:An attempt to create a new conceptual terrain for imagining alternatives to imprisonment involves the ideological work of questioning why “criminals” have been constituted as a class and, indeed, a class of human beings undeserving of the civil and human rights accorded to others. Radical criminologists have long pointed out that the category “lawbreakers” is far greater than the category of individuals who are deemed criminals since, many point out, almost all of us have broken the law at one time or another. ~ Angela Y Davis, #NFDB
842:What Do the Results of a Successful Tour of Duty Look Like for the Company? A successful mission objective delivers results for the company for either quantitative or qualitative goals, such as launching a new product line and generating a certain dollar amount in first-year revenues, or achieving thought leadership in a specific market category, as measured by the writings of industry analysts. At LinkedIn, for example, managers ask, “How will the company be transformed by this employee?” What Do the Results of ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
843:My journey through the Congo had its ow unique category. It did not quite do it justice to call it adventure travel, and it certainly wasn't pleasure travel. My Congo journey deserved its own category: ordeal travel. At every turn I faced challenges, difficulties and threats when in the Congo. The challenge was to assess and choose the option best suited to making progress. But there were moments when there were no alternatives, or shortcuts or clever ideas. At these times, ordeal travel became really no ordeal at all. ~ Tim Butcher, #NFDB
844:I have learned to prioritize my actions into three buckets: things that drain my energy, things I don’t mind and are important and useful, and things that give me energy and bring me joy. My goal is to break my daily actions down so that I spend none of my time on tasks that fall into the first category, 10 percent of my time on the second category, and 90 percent of my time in the final category, the one that Robert Greene calls primal inclinations. When I find myself drifting too far from the goal, I reset my actions. ~ Dave Asprey, #NFDB
845:I gesture at the hair, the dress, the shiny, sexy costume that somehow caught his attention in a way that "just Meg" never did. Because the fact is, he's looked right past me all year. Even in my old gown, I didn't register - like I don't exist unless I fit their weird category of hotness. I suppose that's what they don't tell you about makeovers in the movies - that maybe the people who gasp with grand double takes aren't worth the effort. Because if I don't deserve his attention when I'm myself, then what good is he? ~ Abby McDonald, #NFDB
846:And then it arose and struck Vimes that, in her own special category, she was quite beautiful; this was the category of all the women, in his entire life, who had ever thought he was worth smiling at. She couldn’t do worse, but then, he couldn’t do better. So maybe it balanced out. She wasn’t getting any younger but then, who was? And she had style and money and common-sense and self-assurance and all the things that he didn’t, and she had opened her heart, and if you let her she could engulf you; the woman was a city. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
847:Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking the heat and even the courage of a personal hatred. Categorical hatred is the hatred of the mob, which makes cowards brave. And there is nothing more fearful than a religious mob overflowing with righteousness, as at the crucifixion, and before, and since. This sort of violence can happen only after we have made a categorical refusal of kindness to heretics, foreigners, enemies, or any other group different from ourselves. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
848:When two terms belong to the same category, it is proper to construct conjunctive propositions embodying them. Thus a purchaser may say that he bought a left-hand glove and a right- hand glove, but not that he bought a left-hand glove, a right- hand glove, and a pair of gloves. 'She came home in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair' is a well known joke based on the absurdity of conjoining terms of different types. Now the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine does just this. It maintains that there exist both bodies and minds. ~ Gilbert Ryle, #NFDB
849:KEY POINTS • Your brain is a sophisticated filter, which makes irrelevant information forgettable and meaningful information memorable. Foreign words tend to fall into the “forgettable” category, because they sound odd, they don’t seem particularly meaningful, and they don’t have any connection to your own life experiences. • You can get around this filter and make foreign words memorable by doing three things: • Learn the sound system of your language • Bind those sounds to images • Bind those images to your past experiences ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
850:But I knew the first question Mom asked Gail was, Is its a boy or a girl? Because, for some reason, that is the first thing everybody wants to know the minute you’re born. Should we label it with pink or blue? Wouldn’t want anyone to mistake the gender of a infant! Why is that so important? Its a baby! And why does it have to be a simple answer? One or the other? Not all of us fit so neatly into the category we get saddled with on Day One when the doctor glances down and makes a quick assessment of the available equipment. ~ Ellen Wittlinger, #NFDB
851:I enjoy the presence of a woman in the house for brief periods of time. They fall into two categories: the organizers and the slobs. There’s probably a third category—the naggers, who try to get you to do things, but I’ve never run into one of those. Oddly, I have no preference regarding oganizers or slobs, as long as they don’t try to pick my clothes for me. Basically, all women are nurturers and healers, and all men are mental patients to varying degrees. It works fine if people stick to their fated roles. But nobody does. ~ Nelson DeMille, #NFDB
852:What if, instead of being afraid of even talking about death, we saw our lives in some ways as preparation for it.
What if we were taught to ponder it and reflect on it and talk about it and enter it and rehearse it and try it on?What if, rather than being cast out and defined by some terminal category, you were identified as someone in the middle of a transformation that could deepen your soul, open your heart, and all the while-even if and particularly when you were dying-you would be supported by and be part of a community? ~ Eve Ensler,#NFDB
853:At the bottom of the social heap is the black man in the big-city ghetto. He lives night and day with the rats and the cockroaches and drowns himself with alcohol and anesthetizes himself with dope, to try and forget where and what he is. That Negro has given up all hope. He's the hardest one for us to reach, because he's the deepest in the mud. But when you get him, you've got the best kind of Muslim. I look upon myself as a prime example of this category - as graphic an example as you could find of the salvation of the black man. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
854:I guess maybe my art can be said to be a protest. I see things a certain way, and as an artist I’m privileged in that arena to protest or say publicly what I’m thinking about. Maybe the strongest work I’ve done is because it was done with indignation. Considering myself as a feminist, I don’t want my work to be a reaction to what male art might be or what art with a capital A would be. I just want it to be art. In a convoluted way, I am protesting- protesting the usual way art is looked at, being shoved into a period or category. ~ Nancy Spero, #NFDB
855:His stare shifted back over to Qhuinn. The guy's huge body was arching into the human woman, his broad shoulders and his tight hips and his long, powerful legs guaranteeing her one hell of a ride. He was amazing at sex.
Not that Blay would know firsthand. He'd seen it and he'd heard it...and he'd imagined what it would be like. But when the opportunity had arisen, he'd been relegated to a small, special class: denied. Actually, it was more of a category than a class...because he was the only one who Qhuinn would not have sex with. ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
856:The major asset in this category is gold, currently a huge favorite of investors who fear almost all other assets, especially paper money (of whose value, as noted, they are right to be fearful). Gold, however, has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative. True, gold has some industrial and decorative utility, but the demand for these purposes is both limited and incapable of soaking up new production. Meanwhile, if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
857:The Poison Maiden has conceived by him, and is plumb ready to enter the divine category of mother, only one last fiend clubs her to death. The final clinch of male romanticism is that each man kills the thing he loves; whether she be Catharine in A Farewell to Arms, or the Grecian Urn, the 'tension that she be perfect' means that she must die, leavinf the hero's status as a great lover unchallenged. The pattern is still commonplace: the hero cannot marry. The sexual exploit must be conquest, not cohabitation and mutual tolerance. ~ Germaine Greer, #NFDB
858:As a teenager, I began to question the Great Christian Sorting System. My gay friends in high school were kind and funny and loved me, so I suspected that my church had placed them in the wrong category... Injustices in the world needed to be addressed and not ignored. Christians weren't good; people who fought for peace and justice were good. I had been lied to, and in my anger at being lied to about the containers, I left the church. But it turns out, I hadn't actually escaped the sorting system. I had just changed the labels. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
859:The stigma for bus travel has evaporated,” says Joseph P. Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University. “People are willing to endure a longer commute for a mobile office benefit.” His research found that nearly 60 percent of discount bus travelers used a personal electronic device en route in 2014, up from 46 percent a year earlier, while the numbers held steady at 52 percent for Amtrak and 35 percent for the airlines. The study did not include a separate category for luxury buses. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
860:[W]hich category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely? [T]hose against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State's lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax. ~ Murray Rothbard, #NFDB
861:Repentance is the highest ethical contradiction, partly because by demanding ideality it has to content itself with accepting repentance, partly because repentance is dialectically ambiguous regarding what it is to cancel, an ambiguity that dogmatics cancels only in the Atonement, in which the category of hereditary sin becomes clear. Moreover repentance delays action, and action is precisely what ethics demands. Finally, repentance must become an object to itself, seeing that the moment of repentance becomes a deficit of action. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
862:The Fourteenth Amendment, after the civil war, in principle brought former slaves into the category of persons, theoretically. But if you actually look, almost all the cases brought up for personal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were by corporations. Freed slaves couldn't do it. In fact they were pretty much driven back into something like slavery by a north - south compact, that allowed former slave states to criminalize black life, which made a criminal force that was basically used as a forced labor force, up until the 1930s. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
863:I don't think any of us have the answers to everything. There's no human being on earth who fits that category. So why wouldn't you ask for help? Why wouldn't you run ideas by people that you respect? Too many young people cast around trying to figure out what the answer is themselves, because they're afraid to come back and say, "I'm not sure I understood you," or "Could you give me a little more information about what you need?" Just do that. It saves you time, it saves your boss's or mentor's time. And it's a great lesson to learn. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
864:My impression was and is that many programming languages and tools represent solutions looking for problems, and I was determined that my work should not fall into that category. Thus, I follow the literature on programming languages and the debates about programming languages primarily looking for ideas for solutions to problems my colleagues and I have encountered in real applications. Other programming languages constitute a mountain of ideas and inspiration-but it has to be mined carefully to avoid featurism and inconsistencies. ~ Bjarne Stroustrup, #NFDB
865:There are two broad categories of avataras. Some, like Sri Krishna, Sri Rama and Sri Nrsingha, are Vishnu-tattva, direct forms of God Himself, the source of all power. Others are individual souls (jiva-tattva) who are empowered by the Lord in one or more of seven ways: with knowledge, devotion, creative ability, personal service to God, rulership over the material world, power to support planets, or power to destroy rogues and miscreants. This second category of avatara is called shaktyavesa. Included herein are Buddha, Christ and Muhammed. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
866:The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood—that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
867:At the center of this worldview is the evil of oppression, the virtue of “marginalized” identities—based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion or disability—and the perfectionist quest to eliminate anything the marginalized may perceive as oppressive or “invalidating.” Such perceptions are given a near-absolute presumption of validity, even if shared by a fraction of the “oppressed group.” Meanwhile, the viewpoints of the “privileged”—a category that includes economically disadvantaged whites, especially men—are radically devalued. ~ Cathy Young, #NFDB
868:THE VAST MAJORITY OF ALL LEGAL IMMIGRANTS—TWO-THIRDS—GET IN ON “family reunification” policies each year. In other words, America has no say about the single largest category of immigrants and we end up with gems like Octomom, the Boston Marathon bombers, and one hundred thousand Somalis in Minnesota. Entire villages from Pakistan are dumped on the country, based not on their expertise in nuclear engineering, but because everyone in the village is related to the first guy who got in. If they’re not, in the strict sense, related, they’ll lie. In ~ Ann Coulter, #NFDB
869:Believing that only under God Almighty, to Whom we render all homage, do we Americans hold our vast Power, we shall guarantee to all persons absolute freedom of religious worship, provided, however, that no atheist, agnostic, believer in Black Magic, nor any Jew who shall refuse to swear allegiance to the New Testament, nor any person of any faith who refuses to take the Pledge to the Flag, shall be permitted to hold any public office or to practice as a teacher, professor, lawyer, judge, or as a physician, except in the category of Obstetrics. ~ Sinclair Lewis, #NFDB
870:It is always revealing to see how a person responds to those situations where he’s told: “There’s nothing you can do about it. This is the way of the world.” Peter Thiel’s friend, the mathematician and economist Eric Weinstein, has a category of individual he defines as a “high-agency person.” How do you respond when told something is impossible? Is that the end of the conversation or the start of one? What’s the reaction to being told you can’t—that no one can? One type accepts it, wallows in it even. The other questions it, fights it, rejects it. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
871:I'm so happy and relieved for the indie spirited film world because ... I don't even know if it's indie, it's just alternative cinema that's just different than what the studios are doing and it's a big variety in that category. Everyone always is complaining about the film industry but I think it's important to acknowledge when it's actually a pretty good time when that comes back around. I'd be remiss not to say, "Hey, it's a pretty good era right now for these reasons," and maybe that doesn't last or maybe it does, but I will acknowledge it. ~ Richard Linklater, #NFDB
872:Men have it worse … women have it worse … or no one has it worse? These are the options we can consider. This is my ridiculous game for us to speak of, here, as we view the ravine. We should establish categories, I said, and assign points to each category depending on how important that category is to overall life happiness. There should be a winner for each one. We should keep score. That seems fair. After debating and assigning points, then tallying them up while the possums scrambled in the darkness around us, we agreed that men had it better. ~ Catherine Lacey, #NFDB
873:When I was a kid, I'd go to the African-American section in the bookstore, and I'd try and find African-American people I hadn't read before. So in that sense the category was useful to me. But it's not useful to me as I write. I don't sit down to write an African-American zombie story or an African-American story about elevators. I'm writing a story about elevators which happens to talk about race in different ways. Or I'm writing a zombie novel which doesn't have that much to do with being black in America. That novel is really about survival. ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
874:An essay course started at the Academy, I wrote about Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, one of the books I was really passionate about, alongside Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and even though they didn’t fall into the category of literature the teachers favoured and taught, I still received some praise from Fosse, he said my language was tight and precise, my arguments solid and interesting and that I obviously had a talent for non-fiction. The praise was two-edged: did it mean that my future lay in literature about literature and not in literature itself? ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd, #NFDB
875:when Jesus again and again says things like the last shall be first, and the first shall be last, and the poor are blessed, and the rich are cursed, and that prostitutes make great dinner guests, it makes me wonder if our need for pure black-and-white categories is not true religion but maybe actually a sin. Knowing what category to place hemlock in might help us know whether it’s safe to drink, but knowing what category to place ourselves and others in does not help us know God in the way that the church so often has tried to convince us it does. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
876:However, of the three, action has the closest connection with the human condition of natality; the new beginning inherent in birth can make itself felt in the world only because the newcomer possesses the capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of acting. In this sense of initiative, an element of action, and therefore of natality, is inherent in all human activities. Moreover, since action is the political activity par excellence, natality, and not mortality, may be the central category of political, as distinguished from metaphysical, thought. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
877:The sad thing about our society is that women are put in one of two categories. You're either in the beautiful category and you're seen as sexy and beautiful, or some version of that, or you're put into another category... The latter category affords women the opportunity to be smart, funny, independent, mean, strong, intelligent and opinionated. We take them seriously as politicians, if they fit into that latter category. We respect their opinions more and give them higher expectations. That latter category is what allows female actors to be characters. ~ Amber Heard, #NFDB
878:The gray tomcat with the white priest’s collar enjoyed sharpening his claws on Franz Kafka’s Investigations of a Dog, a fable that analyzes the human world from a dog’s perspective. On the other hand, orange-white, long-eared Lindgren liked to lie near the books about Pippi Longstocking; she was a fine-looking cat who peered out from the back of the bookshelves and scrutinized each visitor. Lindgren and Kafka would sometimes do Perdu a favor by dropping off one of the upper shelves without warning onto a third-category customer, one of the greasy-fingered ~ Nina George, #NFDB
879:Drenched in café au lait stucco, the mall was bordered by an example of America’s most unique architectural contribution to the world, a parking lot. Some bemoan the brutalism of socialist architecture, but was the blandness of capitalist architecture any better? One could drive for miles and see nothing but parking lots and the kudzu of strip malls catering to every need, from pet shops to water dispensaries to ethnic restaurants and every other imaginable category of mom-and-pop small business, each one an advertisment for the pursuit of happiness. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
880:The reason this is a serious issue is that both the pool of users and the pool of talent available to be recruited into open-source cooperation for any given product category is limited, and recruitment tends to stick. If two producers are the first and second to open-source competing code of roughly equal function, the first is likely to attract the most users and the most and best-motivated co-developers; the second will have to take leavings. Recruitment tends to stick, as users gain familiarity and developers sink time investments in the code itself. ~ Eric S Raymond, #NFDB
881:...he was fascinated by the mid-western/middle American phenomenon of recombinant cuisine. Rice Krispie Treats being a prototypical example in that they were made by repurposing other foods that had already been prepared (to wit, breakfast cereal and marshmallows). And of course, any recipe that called for a can of cream of mushroom soup fell into the same category. The unifying principle behind all recombinant cuisine seemed to be indifference, if not outright hostility, to the use of anything that a coastal foodie would define as an ingredient. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
882:When it comes to loving D/ s relationships, the three little words mostly likely to have a significant , positive, and lasting impact on your partner’s well-being is probably “I love you.” Once we venture beyond that simple three-word endearment, however, the competition gets much stiffer. If I had to predict a winner in the four little words category, I’d choose “I believe in you.” When a Dominant believes in his submissive, she eventually grows to believe in herself. That sort of empowerment is priceless beyond measure, and almost always bears sweet fruit. ~ Michael Makai, #NFDB
883:Development isn't a collection of things but rather a process that yields things. Not knowing this, governments, their development and aid agencies, the World Bank, and much of the public put faith in a fallacious 'Thing Theory' of development. The Thing Theory supposes that development is the result of possessing things such as factories, dams, schools, tractors, whatever- often bunches of things subsumed under the category of infrastructure.
To suppose that things, per se, are sufficient to produce development creates false expectations and futilities. ~ Jane Jacobs,#NFDB
884:Somebody once said that all people are either intelligent or stupid, and either lazy or enterprising. There are lazy idiots, usually irrelevant and innocuous; then there are the intelligent and ambitious, who can be given important tasks to perform. The greatest achievements, in all fields, are nearly always the work of those intelligent and lazy. But one thing should be kept in mind: the most dangerous category, the people who are unfailingly responsible for the most appalling disasters, the ones you have to avoid at all costs, are enterprising idiots. ~ Gianrico Carofiglio, #NFDB
885:If you would induce your hearer to adopt a given course, you must not only prove to his wisdom that it is the proper means to its end, but you must show to his heart that the end is desirable. Hence all suasive discourse, whatever its particular topic, may be reduced to two elements: that which places the proposition in the category of the true, and that which shows it in the category of the good. Both elements are essential to the oration. The latter may be present only by implication, but unless it is virtually present there is no rhetorical discourse. ~ Robert Lewis Dabney, #NFDB
886:To win with Olay in mass, the company had to bridge the mass and prestige markets, creating what it would come to call a masstige category. Olay needed to shift the perception of beauty care in the mass channel, selling higher-end, more prestigious products in a traditionally high-volume environment. It needed to attract consumers from both the mass and the prestige channels. To do so, the product itself was only a part of the battle; Olay also needed to shift consumer perception of the brand and channel through its positioning, packaging, pricing, and promotions. ~ A G Lafley, #NFDB
887:Category IV spending tends also to corrupt the people involved. All such programs put some people in a position to decide what is good for other people. The effect is to instill in the one group a feeling of almost God-like power; in the other, a feeling of childlike dependence. The capacity of the beneficiaries for independence, for making their own decisions, atrophies through disuse. In addition to the waste of money, in addition to the failure to achieve the intended objectives, the end result is to rot the moral fabric that holds a decent society together. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
888:It is not only the weary Homo faber, who objectifies the world in the 'doing' mode, who must vacate his place on the logical stage; the time has also come for Homo religiosus, who turns to the world above in surreal rites, to bid a deserved farewell. Together, workers and believers come into a new category. It is time to reveal humans as the beings who result from repetition. Just as the nineteenth century stood cognitively under the sign of production and the twentieth under that of reflexivity, the future should present itself under the sign of the exercise. ~ Peter Sloterdijk, #NFDB
889:We have to find a way of understanding how one category of sex can be "assigned" from both and another sense of sex can lead us to resist and reject that sex assignment. How do we understand that second sense of sex? It is not the same as the first - it is not an assignment that others give us. But maybe it is an assignment we give ourselves? If so, do we not need a world of others, linguistic practices, social institutions, and political imaginaries in order to move forward to claim precisely those categories we require, and to reject those that work against us? ~ Judith Butler, #NFDB
890:Even if the self he or she is struggling to display and get recognized is deemed by the actor to precede, pre-empt and predetermine the choice of individual identity (ethnic, race, religious and gender ascriptions claim to belong to that category of self), it is the urge of selection and the effort to make the choice publicly recognizable that constitutes the self-definition of the liquid modern individual. That effort would have hardly been undertaken if the identity in question was indeed endowed with the determining power it claims and/or is believed to possess. ~ Zygmunt Bauman, #NFDB
891:You’re a force of nature, Your Grace,” she said. “But so am I. So am I.” She hadn’t said that she was charming…and, in point of fact, she wasn’t. Not in the usual sense. But there was something utterly compelling about her. He had no idea who she was any longer. He’d thought at first that she was a high-spirited, clever woman. He’d wondered next if she were a wallflower. But at the moment, she seemed beyond any category, larger and far more complex than anyone he’d encountered thus far. “If you want me to back down,” he said softly, “you shouldn’t be so interesting. ~ Courtney Milan, #NFDB
892:Monopolies are not justified by theory; they should be permitted only when justified by facts. If there is no solid basis for extending a certain monopoly protection, then we should not extend that protection. This does not mean that every copyright must prove its value initially. That would be a far too cumbersome system of control. But it does mean that every system or category of copyright or patent should prove its worth. Before the monopoly should be permitted, there must be reason to believe it will do some good -- for society, and not just for monopoly holders. ~ Lawrence Lessig, #NFDB
893:. . . the membership relation for sets can often be replaced by the composition operation for functions. This leads to an alternative foundation for Mathematics upon categories -- specifically, on the category of all functions. Now much of Mathematics is dynamic, in that it deals with morphisms of an object into another object of the same kind. Such morphisms (like functions) form categories, and so the approach via categories fits well with the objective of organizing and understanding Mathematics. That, in truth, should be the goal of a proper philosophy of Mathematics. ~ Saunders Mac Lane, #NFDB
894:This is the part that's going to be hard to explain: How can I tell you why two people who were afraid of everything—other people, open places, noise, confusion, life itself—wound up riding the subways alone under Manhattan late at night? Okay, it's like this: When everything is unfamiliar and scary, your heart pounds just getting change from the grocery cashier. That feels like enough to kill you right there. So the danger of the subways at night can't be much worse. All danger begins to fall into the same category. You have no way to sink any deeper into fear. Besides, ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde, #NFDB
895:I dealt with men who had tempers, and who could get violent-Lord knows how I had to defend myself against Howard Hughes and Frank Sinatra, and from Artie Shaw's verbal abuse. But George [C. Scott] was a different category of animal when he got drunk. He'd break into my hotel room, which he did in Italy, London and at the Beverly Hills Hotel, attack me to where I was frightened for my life, and scream, 'Why won't you marry me?' Well, I would never marry a man who couldn't control his liquor. Me, I'm a happy drunk. I laugh, I dance. I certainly don't break bottles and threaten to kill. ~ Ava Gardner, #NFDB
896:In short, Strict Father morality requires perfect, precise, literal communication, together with a form of behaviorism. Thus, Strict Father morality requires that four conditions on the human mind and human behavior must be met: 1. Absolute categorization: Everything is either in or out of a category. 2. Literality: All moral rules must be literal. 3. Perfect communication: The hearer receives exactly the same meaning as the speaker intends to communicate. 4. Folk behaviorism: According to human nature, people normally act effectively to get rewards and avoid punishments. Cognitive ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
897:Virtually every major technological advance in the history of the human species- back to the invention of stone tools and the domestication of fire has been ethically ambiguous. If you want to reason about faith, and offer a reasoned (and reason responsive) defense of faith as an extra category of belief worthy of special consideration, I'm eager to play. I certainly grant the existence of the phenomenon of faith; what I want to see is a reasoned ground for taking faith seriously as a way of getting to the truth , and not, say, just as a way people comfort themselves and each other ~ Daniel Dennett, #NFDB
898:Activism spawned by Sanders campaign is beginning to make inroads into electoral politics. Under Barack Obama, the Democratic Party pretty much collapsed at the crucial local and state levels, but it can be rebuilt and turned into a progressive force. That would mean reviving the New Deal legacy and moving well beyond, instead of abandoning, the working class and turning into Clintonite New Democrats, which more or less resemble what used to be called moderate Republicans, a category that has largely disappeared with the shift of both parties to the right during the neoliberal period. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
899:There’s a category of prayer in which god is begged to intervene in human history or just to right some real or imagined injustice or calamity—for example, when a bishop from the American West prays for god to intervene and end a devastating dry spell. Why is the prayer needed? Didn’t god know of the drought? Was he unaware that it threatened the bishop’s parishioners? What is implied here about the limitations of a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient deity? The bishop asked his followers to pray as well. Is god more likely to intervene when many pray for mercy than when only a few do? ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
900:I think that ties into our name and the meaning behind our name, going Against the Current. We don't really want to fit in to one section. If we're able to be grouped into one category then we've become something that already exists, probably. We want all of those kids that would come out to that pizza shop to come to our show and all of those kids who know us from the radio to come to that show. We have kids that come to our show that have been coming to concerts for years, and ones that it's their first concert and they just wanted to see it. I think that's the best way to do it. ~ Chrissy Costanza, #NFDB
901:At the end of their relationship she asked if they could still remain friends. His face stayed expressionless until he said "No. Because we put friends in boxes. You see them once in a while, or even a lot, but still they have their box in your life, their specific place. Their *category.* That's one of the great things about being someone's love-- you have no box in their life because you're part of all their boxes. You're their friend, their lover, their confidante-- all those things. I don't want to be put in one of your boxes and I don't want to shrink you to fit into one of mine. ~ Jonathan Carroll, #NFDB
902:I understand the hesitation that some relationships are the very things that drain us. Be smart and honest about the relationships to which you give your time. But we must be careful, if we’ve gotten burned by a few, that we don’t lump all relationships into the hard category. Get smart with whom you spend your time. But do take this time. Yes, all relationships require work. And yes, relationships can complicate things. But they also have the power to force us into a much simpler rhythm. Stop. Listen. Talk. Process. Walk. Notice. Engage. Compliment. Thank. Hold hands. Just be together. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
903:Paul's One Way Out is a fresh, intelligently arranged, and satisfyingly complete telling of the lengthy (and unlikely) history of the group that almost singlehandedly brought rock up to a level of jazz-like sophistication and virtuosity, introducing it as a medium worthy of the soloist's art. Oral histories can be tricky things: either penetrating, delivering information and backstories that get to the heart of how timeless music was made. Or too often, they lie flat on the page, a random retelling of repeated facts and reheated yarns. I'm happy to say that Paul's is in that first category. ~ Ashley Kahn, #NFDB
904:Well, I wouldn’t exactly call myself bald. I know my hairline is a little …” “Shut up, will you?” Aomame said, trying her best not to frown. I shouldn’t scare him too much, she thought, softening her tone somewhat. “That’s really not important.” Look, mister, I don’t care what you think, you are bald. If the census had a “bald” category, you’d be in it, no problem. If you go to heaven, you’re going to bald heaven. If you go to hell, you’re going to bald hell. Have you got that straight? Then stop looking away from the truth. Let’s go now. I’m taking you straight to bald heaven, nonstop. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
905:Lars is played by Ryan Gosling, the Prince of Tics, whose idea of acting is to wait a few beats before reacting to other people's remarks, as if acting were merely a matter of adhering to the seven-second delay rule. Jack Nicholson has made a career out of doing this sort of thing, as did Paul Newman, as did Marlon Brando (who the other two learned it from), but they didn't do it all the time and they were more fun to look at... Lars And The Real Girl joins a number of other recent films in the category of motion pictures where the director doesn't know that his protagonist is unsympathetic. ~ Joe Queenan, #NFDB
906:To oppose one class perpetually to another — young against old, manual labor against brain-worker, rich against poor, woman against man — is to split the foundations of the State; and if the cleavage runs too deep, there remains no remedy but force and dictatorship. If you wish to preserve a free democracy, you must base it — not on classes and categories, for this will land you in the totalitarian State, where no one may act or think except as the member of a category. You must base it upon the individual Tom, Dick and Harry, and the individual Jack and Jill — in fact, upon you and me. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
907:Abstract systems depend on trust, yet they provide none of the moral rewards which can be obtained from personalised trust, or were often available in traditional settings from the moral frameworks within which everyday life was undertaken. Moreover, the wholesale penetration of abstract systems into daily life creates risks which the individual is not well placed to confront; high-consequence risks fall into this category. Greater interdependence, up to and including globally independent systems, means greater vulnerability when untoward events occur that affect those systems as a whole. ~ Anthony Giddens, #NFDB
908:Now it turns out that a few broadsheet film critics in Britain do indeed belong to a category of people who would have resisted Hitler when he came to power. So the great shame is, clearly film critics should have been running Austria at the time, because Hitler would have represented no problem to them at all. [The Guardian's] Peter Bradshaw would have known exactly what to do, and he would not have been remotely fallible to any Nazi who threatened his life. No, he would have died in heroic acts of individual resistance. So it's a privilege to live among people who enjoy such moral certainty. ~ David Hare, #NFDB
909:When one of the emperors of China asked Bodhidharma (the Zen master who brought Zen from India to China) what enlightenment was, his answer was, “Lots of space, nothing holy.” Meditation is nothing holy. Therefore there’s nothing that you think or feel that somehow gets put in the category of “sin.” There’s nothing that you can think or feel that gets put in the category of “bad.” There’s nothing that you can think or feel that gets put in the category of “wrong.” It’s all good juicy stuff—the manure of waking up, the manure of achieving enlightenment, the art of living in the present moment. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
910:Yes, I had. That will is destroyed. I burnt it with my own hand, so that there should be no mistake about it. In that will I had named two executors, you and Jackson. I was then partner with Jackson in the York and Yeovil Grand Central. I thought a deal of Jackson then. He’s not worth a shilling now.” “Well, I’m exactly in the same category.” “No, you’re not. Jackson is nothing without money; but money’ll never make you.” “No, nor I shan’t make money,” said the doctor. “No, you never will. Nevertheless, there’s my other will, there, under that desk there; and I’ve put you in as sole executor. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
911:One piece of moral equipment natural selection implanted in our brains is a sense of justice—the intuition that good deeds should be rewarded and bad deeds should be punished. So seeing evildoers suffer can give us the gratifying sense that justice has been done. And, conveniently, it’s our enemies and rivals who typically are guilty of doing bad things; when our friends and allies do them, they are likely just victims of circumstance and so not deserving of harsh punishment. Unless, perhaps, they do bad things to us, which may be cause to start moving them out of the “friends and allies” category. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
912:Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial; the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade. But do not pity them overly, it is your own death and your soul's death that they work by their deception. ~ R A Lafferty, #NFDB
913:When you stand in front of a closet that has been reorganized so that the clothes rise to the right, you will feel your heart beat faster and the cells in your body buzz with energy. This energy will also be transmitted to your clothes. Even when you close the closet door, your room will feel fresher. Once you have experienced this, you’ll never lose the habit of organizing by category. Some may question whether paying attention to such details can possibly cause such a change, but why waste your time doubting if incorporating this exciting magic into all your storage spaces could keep your room tidy? ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
914:He hoped it didn’t show on his face that just looking at her in the dim firelight was a treat, a delight. Her hair all mussed from bed, her feet bare, her cheeks pinked up from anxiety, she almost took his breath away. He knew she was skittish around men to the point that she couldn’t even go to a coed gym to work out, and he didn’t delude himself that he was exempt from that category, not even after all the time they’d had together. Oh, perhaps at the moment, as they shared a couch with a couple of feet separating them. But if he tried to get too close right now, she would freak. Bolt. Melt down. “Maybe ~ Robyn Carr, #NFDB
915:Citizen Courtney Hall of the yulp caste, in the name of the Compassionate Society, you are under arrest for a Category Eight PainCrime violation; namely that you did, at or about twenty-thirty of the previous day, unlawfully gain access to, and utilize, a restricted security code, and through use of same, did with full cognizance and malice aforethought cause the general publication of Material Detrimental to the General Populace as specified under Section 29C, Paragraph 12, subsection 6, of the Social Responsibility (Publications and Mass Media) Act: Satire, Irony, and Associated Nonconstructive Criticism. ~ Ian McDonald, #NFDB
916:If any field needs integration, it is medicine. If any field needs an integrative paradigm that can make sense out of all the different models of healing, it is medicine. The weaknesses of the conventional medical model have been clear for some time. Its procedures are too invasive and have too many harmful side effects. There is no conventional medical model for the treatment of most chronic and degenerative diseases (germ theory and genetic predisposition are not adequate explanations for most conditions in this category). Last, but not least, conventional medicine is expensive. In contrast, there are so many ~ Amit Goswami, #NFDB
917:Therefore we can posit this generalization: That a painting is the representation of the artist’s notion of reality in the terms of the plastic elements. The creation of a plastic unit reduces all the phenomena of the time to a unity of sensuality and thereby relates the subjective and objective in its relevance to man. Art therefore is a generalization. The use of the plastic elements to any other ends, which are most usually particularizations and descriptions of appearances, or which serve the stimulation of separate senses, are not in the category of art and must be classified in the category of applied arts. ~ Mark Rothko, #NFDB
918:a functor F from a category X to a category Y takes the objects of X to the objects of Y and the morphisms of X to the morphisms of Y in such a way that the identity of a is taken to the identity of Fa and the composite of f and g is taken to the composite of Ff and Fg. An important example of a functor is the one that takes a topological space S with a “marked point” s to its fundamental group π(S, s): it is one of the basic theorems of algebraic topology that a continuous map between two topological spaces (that takes marked point to marked point) gives rise to a homomorphism between their fundamental groups. ~ Timothy Gowers, #NFDB
919:This way of thinking suggests that it’s not varying environments, false negatives, or bad experiments that are obscuring evidence of the brains of women and men being sexually dimorphic. It’s that there isn’t dimorphism in the brain to begin with. “Every brain is different from every other brain,” Gina Rippon explains. “We should take more of a fingerprint type of approach. So there is some kind of individual characteristic of the brain, which is true of the life experiences of that person. That’s going to be much more interesting than to try to put them all together, trying to squeeze into some kind of category. ~ Angela Saini, #NFDB
920:"Yeah, they do. [Witches] do exist. They just don’t exist the way you think they exist. They certainly exist. You may say well dragons don’t exist. It’s, like, yes they do — the category predator and the category dragon are the same category. It absolutely exists. It’s a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists. What exists is not obvious. You say, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as witches.’ Yeah, I know what you mean, but that isn’t what you think when you go see a movie about them. You can’t help but fall into these categories. There’s no escape from them." ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
921:"Yeah, they do. [Witches] do exist. They just don’t exist the way you think they exist. They certainly exist. You may say well dragons don’t exist. It’s, like, yes they do — the category predator and the category dragon are the same category. It absolutely exists. It’s a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists. What exists is not obvious. You say, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as witches.’ Yeah, I know what you mean, but that isn’t what you think when you go see a movie about them. You can’t help but fall into these categories. There’s no escape from them." ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
922:It turns out that French parents don’t start their babies off on bland, colorless grains. From the first bite, they serve babies flavor-packed vegetables. The first foods that French babies typically eat are steamed and pureed green beans, spinach, carrots, peeled zucchini, and the white part of leeks. American babies eat vegetables, too, of course, sometimes even from the start. But we Anglophones tend to regard vegetables as obligatory vitamin-delivery devices and mentally group them in a dull category called “vegetables.” Although we’re desperate for our kids to eat vegetables, we don’t always expect them to. ~ Pamela Druckerman, #NFDB
923:Red activities are extremely sedentary, such as lounging and watching TV, and burn just 0 to 50 calories per hour. Yellow activities generally have you up on your feet and puttering about. Activities such as standing and stretching while on the phone and chopping vegetables for dinner fall in this category. A few of the more energetic sitting activities, such as board games (e.g., Cranium), crafts, and sewing, also fall into yellow. They burn 50 to 100 calories per hour. Green activities have you on the move and include things such as mowing the lawn and playing with your kids. They burn 100 to 200 calories an hour. ~ James A Levine, #NFDB
924:a Navajo verb is conjugated not solely according to its subject, but also according to its object. The verb ending depends on which category the object belongs to: long (e.g., pipe, pencil), slender and flexible (e.g., snake, thong), granular (e.g., sugar, salt), bundled (e.g., hay), viscous (e.g., mud, feces) and many others. The verb will also incorporate adverbs, and will reflect whether or not the speaker has experienced what he or she is talking about, or whether it is hearsay. Consequently, a single verb can be equivalent to a whole sentence, making it virtually impossible for foreigners to disentangle its meaning. ~ Simon Singh, #NFDB
925:This is the actual answer to Auschwitz. We are told insistently to remember the Holocaust. Eloquent, horrifying books describe the facts to us in every detail. The truth about a monstrous, historic evil virtually screams out from hundreds of thousands of pages. But few, including the authors, seem to hear the scream. The commentators do not say that the camps are the final, perfect embodiment of all the fundamental ideas which made Hitler possible, and that the way to avenge the victims is to fight those ideas. Most commentators do not know the category of issues necessary to reach or even consider such a conclusion. ~ Leonard Peikoff, #NFDB
926:I wish men weren’t so fucking weak. You make me look bad. I have to answer for all the bullshit you get up to. I have to endure women saying shit like, “Ok, there’s so much testosterone in the air,” when she sees some men fixing a car. I hate it when men go to strip bars. It lowers the rest of us that know if a man has to pay to see a woman naked, he is a loser and probably should get weeded out. I hate having to be put in the same category as with these pieces of shit that wouldn’t make it in the jungle. Little boys in men’s bodies. No wonder women hate them. I do too. Fuck it. I hate all of you. People are disgusting. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
927:second category, practitioners who, instead of studying future events, try to understand how things react to volatility (but practitioners are usually too busy practitioning to write books, articles, papers, speeches, equations, theories and get honored by Highly Constipated and Honorable Members of Academies). The difference between the two categories is central: as we saw, it is much easier to understand if something is harmed by volatility—hence fragile—than try to forecast harmful events, such as these oversized Black Swans. But only practitioners (or people who do things) tend to spontaneously get the point. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
928:IN DISCUSSING SHUNYATA, we found that we impose our preconceptions, our ideas, our version of things onto phenomena instead of seeing things as they are. Once we are able to see through our veil of preconception, we realize that it is an unnecessary and confused way of attaching handles to experiences without considering whether the handles fit or not. In other words, preconceptions are a form of security. When we see something, immediately we name it and place it in a category. But form is empty; it does not need our categorizations to express its full nature, to be what it is. Form is in itself empty of preconception. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
929:found myself sniffing Lily Anne’s head frequently—certifiably odd behavior, I know, but, from what I could gather, completely in keeping with my new human persona. The smell was remarkable, unlike anything else I had ever smelled. It was an odor that was almost nothing at all, and it did not really fit into any category like “sweet” or “musty,” although it contained elements of both—and more, and neither. But I sniffed and was unable to say what the smell was, and then I sniffed again just because I wanted to, and then suddenly a new odor welled up from the region of the diaper, one that was quite easy to identify. Changing ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
930:Names don't matter, many managers believe; it's the product that matters. With the right product at the right price, goes the thinking, we can win the battle of the marketplace. Names do matter. Depending on the category, the name alone can represent the primary reason for the brand's success. A company might spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a new product and then give that new product a brand name that almost guarantees failure. Innovation alone is never enough. Along with innovation, a company needs marketing to assure the brand's eventual success and survival. The heart of a good marketing program is a great name. ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
931:It would be easy to make this purely about local authority budgets, but the privatisation of social care has cloaked the profession in a profit-making penumbra which at times seems to trump the welfare of those the sector is supposed to serve. For many of the companies that vie with each other for business, elderly people are first and foremost pound symbols on a balance sheet. The corporate jargon which permeates the sector reflects this avaricious raison d'être. Elderly people are 'clients', 'customers', and 'service users'. 'Patients' are a separate category of people for whom the NHS has to send a ambulance in emergencies. ~ James Bloodworth, #NFDB
932:Without explaining what’s on my mind, I ask Nafus and Schreiner: Have they seen any recent invasions by exotic arthropods, or any dramatic population outbreaks among native ones? I inquire about arthropods rather than insects because it’s a broader category, inclusive also of such charming non-insect invertebrates as ticks, centipedes, millipedes, and spiders. Asking a professional entomologist about arthropods (and not about, say, bugs) is a way of signaling at least some familiarity with the subject. Still, Nafus rocks backward in his chair, rebounding from the dumbness of my question. “We have invasions and outbreaks all the t ~ David Quammen, #NFDB
933:I've come out many times publicly in support of the death penalty. I've stated that I'd be more than willing personally to pull the switch on some of the monsters I've hunted in my career with the FBI. But Bruno Hauptmann just doesn't fit into this category -- the evidence just wasn't, and isn't, there to have confidently sent him to the electric chair. To impose the one sentence for which there is no retroactive correction requires a far higher standard of proof than was seen here. Blaming him for the entire crime was, to my mind, an expedient and simpleminded solution to a private horror that had become a national obsession. ~ John Edward Douglas, #NFDB
934:THIS SCENE WAS REPEATED IN every previously uninhabited nook, elbow, spit, lot, and underpass throughout the foreclosed and abandoned suburbs and exurbs and trailer parks of America, now squatted by the millions who had walked out on mortgages, been foreclosed upon, or simply could no longer afford a fixed address. They were all lumped together by the media into a category called 'subprimes,' a less descriptive label, perhaps, than 'homeless,' but one that in this era of raw, rapacious capitalism gave all the information anyone needed: the credit rating of the men, women, and children who inhabited these Ryanvilles was subprime. ~ Karl Taro Greenfeld, #NFDB
935:And what of the dead? I own that I thought of myself, at times, almost as dead. Are they not locked below ground in chambers smaller than mine was, in their millions of millions? There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumber the living many times over. Most beautiful children are dead. Most soldiers, most cowards. The fairest women and the most learned men—all are dead. Their bodies repose in caskets, in sarcophagi, beneath arches of rude stone, everywhere under the earth. Their spirits haunt our minds, ears pressed to the bones of our foreheads. Who can say how intently they listen as we speak, or for what word? ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
936:And I did find it, in an impressive organization called the Mind Body Awareness (MBA) Project. MBA was doing mindfulness work (both meditation and yoga) with kids in juvenile hall and getting some solid results. I had seen the data on how many kids in juvie have their own fair share of ACEs (one study that came out later on looked at more than sixty thousand young people in the Florida juvenile justice system and found that 97 percent had experienced at least one ACE category and 52 percent four or more), so I figured it would be a good fit. After I met with MBA’s executive director, Gabriel Kram, and heard his story, I was even more ~ Nadine Burke Harris, #NFDB
937:And what of the dead? I own that I thought of myself, at times, almost as dead. Are they not locked below ground in chambers smaller than mine was, in their millions of millions? There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumber the living many times over. Most beautiful children are dead. Most soldiers, most cowards. The fairest women and the most learned men – all are dead. Their bodies repose in caskets, in sarcophagi, beneath arches of rude stone, everywhere under the earth. Their spirits haunt our minds, ears pressed to the bones of our foreheads. Who can say how intently they listen as we speak, or for what word? ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
938:Papers are organized into only three categories: needs attention, should be saved (contractual documents), and should be saved (others). The point is to keep all papers in one category in the same container or folder and to purposely refrain from subdividing them any further by content. In other words, you only need three containers or folders. Don’t forget that the “needs attention” box ought to be empty. If there are papers in it, be aware that this means you have left things undone in your life that require your attention. Although I have never managed to completely empty my “needs attention” box, this is the goal to which we should aspire. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
939:Fyodor Pavlovich, for example, began with practically nothing, was a landowner of the very least important category, went trotting around other people’s dinner tables, aspired to the rank of sponge, but at the moment of his decease turned out to possess something to the tune of one hundred thousand roubles in ready money. And yet at the same time he had persisted all his life in being one of the most muddle-headed madcaps in the whole of our district. I repeat: here there was no question of stupidity; the bulk of these madcaps are really quite sharp and clever — but plain muddle-headedness, and, moreover, of a peculiar, national variety. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
940:The theology of littleness is a basic category of Christianity. After all, the tenor of our faith is that God's distinctive greatness is revealed precisely in powerlessness. That in the long run, the strength of history is precisely in those who love, which is to say, in a strength that, properly speaking, cannot be measured according to categories of power. So in order to show who he is, God consciously revealed himself in the powerlessness of Nazareth and Golgotha. Thus, it is not the one who can destroy the most who is the most powerful...but, on the contrary, the least power of love is already greater than the greatest power of destruction. ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
941:You put me in an awkward position, brothers. It is my duty to protect the females under my care. As my bride’s friend, Kat falls squarely into that category.” “Kat should be ours to protect,” Deep snarled, taking a step forward. “Lock and I have shared a joining with her and you already have a bride.” Baird took a step forward too, glowering. “If I’m hearing correctly, she wants nothing more to do with you. And it seems you took unfair advantage of her last night.” The tension in the room was suddenly so thick it was stifling. Liv could almost smell the testosterone filling the air, a thick, hot odor like the musk of male animals in rut. ~ Evangeline Anderson, #NFDB
942:Citizen Courtney Hall of the yulp caste, in the name of the Compassionate Society, you are under arrest for a Category Eight PainCrime violation; namely that you did, at or about twenty-thirty of the previous day, unlawfully gain access to, and utilize, a restricted security code, and through use of same, did with full cognizance and malice aforethought cause the general publication of Material Detrimental to the General Populace as specified under Section 29C, Paragraph 12, subsection 6, of the Social Responsibility (Publications and Mass Media) Act: Satire, Irony, and Associated Nonconstructive Criticism. Have you anything to say for yourself? ~ Ian McDonald, #NFDB
943:I usually say, “Let’s start with off-season clothes.” I have a good reason for choosing off-season clothing for their first foray into this tidying gala. It’s the easiest category for tuning in to one’s intuition concerning what feels good. If they start with clothes they are currently using, clients are more likely to think, “It doesn’t spark joy, but I just wore it yesterday,” or “If I don’t have any clothes left to wear, what am I going to do?” This makes it harder for them to make an objective decision. Because off-season clothes are not imminently necessary, it is much easier to apply the simple criterion of whether or not they bring you joy. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
944:One reasonable way to measure liquidity is by tracking the percentage of listings that lead to interactions within a given time period. Of course, both the definition of “interactions” and the appropriate time period will vary depending on the market category. On an information and entertainment platform, an interaction might be the click-through that takes a consumer from a headline to a complete story; on a marketplace platform, it might be the purchase of a product; on a professional networking platform, it might be the offer of a recommendation, the swapping of contact information, or a posted response to a question on a discussion page. ~ Geoffrey G Parker, #NFDB
945:Epictetus actually says all the enmity between people is down to a single judgement of this kind, they ‘put themselves and what belongs to themselves in the category of things which lie outside the sphere of volition’ (Discourses, 2.22). We see dogs playfully fawning on each other and might say that they ‘love’ one another as ‘friends’ but if we throw a piece of meat between them then a fight breaks out and they are quickly pitted against each other. Throw some land or money between father and son, he says, and we will see how fragile the bond is between them, as long as external things are confused with our ultimate good (Discourses, 3.24). ~ Donald J Robertson, #NFDB
946:Personally, I think knowing the difference between a racist and a saint is kind of important. But when Jesus again and again says things like the last shall be first, and the first shall be last, and the poor are blessed, and the rich are cursed, and that prostitutes make great dinner guests, it makes me wonder if our need for pure black-and-white categories is not true religion but maybe actually a sin. Knowing what category to place hemlock in might help us know whether it's safe to drink, but knowing what category to place ourselves and others in does not help us know God in the way that the church so often has tried to convince us it does. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
947:Personally, I think knowing the difference between a racist and a saint is kind of important. But when Jesus again and again says things like the last shall be first, and the first shall be last, and the poor are blessed, and the rich are cursed, and that prostitutes make great dinner guests, it makes me wonder if our need for pure black-and-white categories is not true religion but maybe actually a sin. Knowing what category to place hemlock in might help us know whether it’s safe to drink, but knowing what category to place ourselves and others in does not help us know God in the way that the church so often has tried to convince us it does. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
948:I had to take a moment to wonder who else fell into this category of default enemy. I went through a mental list of people who, in theory, I’d want to hit in the face with a meat tenderizer. My coworker from ten years ago who owes me like three grand? It was ten years ago! You were addicted to OxyContin! Go! Be free! My seventh-grade teacher, who told me that most child actors don’t succeed as adult actors? You just wanted to scare me into having a backup plan! Farewell! Good luck! Tori from fourth grade, who accused me of writing mean stuff about all our friends on the playground wall? BURN IN HELL, TORI. I KNOW IT WAS YOU!!! I’m still working on it. ~ Anna Kendrick, #NFDB
949:It is important to note that the relevant factor to sexual harassment in this story is not gender identity but gender perception. Some friends and acquaintances who have experienced harassment do not, in fact, identify as women; they were perceived as women. As I sought support, the key issue was not their gender identity, but the gender signifiers that led them to be perceived as women. If we don’t admit that sexual harassment is a gendered experience, we can never shed light on the sexism implicit in many cases of harassment. However, in addressing these sorts of gendered experiences, we may find that gender identity is not the most useful category. ~ Kate Bornstein, #NFDB
950:For religious man of the archaic cultures, every every existence begins in time; before a thing exists, its particular time could not exist. Before the cosmos came into existence, there was no cosmic time. Before a particular vegetable species was created, the time that now causes it to grow, bear fruit, and die did not exist. It is for this reason that every creation is imagined as having taken place at the beginning of time, in principio, Time gushes forth with the first appearance of a new category of existents, This is why myth plays such an important role; as we shall show later, the way in which a reality came into existence is revealed by its myth. ~ Mircea Eliade, #NFDB
951:Amish Baked Oatmeal
I would love to boast that I was taught how to make this breakfast dish by my Amish friend three farms over, but that isn’t the case. Instead, I learned how to make it from fellow homeschooling moms--which, if you don’t happen to live near an Amish community, is the next best thing. Homeschooling moms are rich with ideas for recipes that are quick, easy, nutritious, and gol-darn delicious…and that just so happens to be the exact Merriam-Webster definition for Amish Baked Oatmeal!
This is pretty much an oatmeal cookie that decided to defect to the breakfast category, and I’m so very glad it did. It’s super easy to make, too! ~ Ree Drummond,#NFDB
952:The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, declared in 1991: ‘A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.’6 NED receives virtually all its financing from the US government ($5 billion in total since 19917), but it likes to refer to itself as an NGO (non-governmental organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO. ~ William Blum, #NFDB
953:U.S. occupying forces in Panama were quickly ordered to arrest most political activists and union leaders, because they are "bad guys of some sort," the U.S. Embassy told reporters. The "good guys" to be restored to power are the bankers who were happily laundering drug money in the early 1980s. Then Noriega was also a "good guy,"running drugs, killing and torturing and stealing elections -- and, crucially, following American
orders. He had not yet shown the dangerous streak of independence that transferred him to the category of demon. Apart from tactics, nothing changes over the years, including the ability of educated opinion to perceive that 2 and 2 is 4. ~ Noam Chomsky,#NFDB
954:This habit starts awfully early. Social psychologist Marilynn Brewer, who has been studying the nature of stereotypes for many years, once reported that her daughter returned from kindergarten complaining that “boys are crybabies.”25 The child’s evidence was that she had seen two boys crying on their first day away from home. Brewer, ever the scientist, asked whether there hadn’t also been little girls who cried. “Oh yes,” said her daughter. “But only some girls cry. I didn’t cry.” Brewer’s little girl was already dividing the world, as everyone does, into us and them. Us is the most fundamental social category in the brain’s organizing system, and it’s hardwired. ~ Carol Tavris, #NFDB
955:Tropical storm update flashes menacingly across the television screen, and I reach for the remote, turning up the volume several notches. Tropical Storm Paloma has been officially upgraded to hurricane status, the local meteorologist announces--just a little too gleefully, if you ask me. It’s currently a category one, but they expect it to strengthen to a two before making landfall.
Oh, joy.
The US model is predicting landfall just west of Pensacola, Florida, while the European model predicts Gulfport, Mississippi. Seems like a toss-up, except that they’re sending Jim Cantore to Gulfport, and everyone knows what that means.
The Mississippi coast is doomed. ~ Kristi Cook,#NFDB
956:The ceiling is actually the jungle that keeps most people away from the hidden treasure. And if you’re ready to work on the skills category of your Career Savings Account, this is a tremendous gift. Author Seth Godin calls it the “Dip.” He says, “The Dip is the set of artificial screens set up to keep people like you out. If you took organic chemistry in college, you’ve experienced the Dip. Academia doesn’t want too many unmotivated people to attempt medical school, so they set up a screen. Organic chemistry is the killer class, the screen that separates the doctors from the psychologists. If you can’t handle organic chemistry, well, then you can’t go to med school.”2 ~ Jon Acuff, #NFDB
957:The displacement of class politics by identity politics has been very confusing to older Marxists, who for many years clung to the old industrial working class as their preferred category of the underprivileged. They tried to explain this shift in terms of what Ernest Gellner labeled the “Wrong Address Theory”: “Just as extreme Shi’ite Muslims hold that Archangel Gabriel made a mistake, delivering the Message to Mohamed when it was intended for Ali, so Marxists basically like to think that the spirit of history or human consciousness made a terrible boob. The awakening message was intended for classes, but by some terrible postal error was delivered to nations. ~ Francis Fukuyama, #NFDB
958:Although there is a difference of procedure between a Shaman of the Tungas and a Catholic prelate of Europe or between a coarse and sensual Vogul and a Puritan Independent of Connecticut, there is no difference in the principle of their creeds; for they all belong to the same category of people whose religion consists not in becoming better, but in believing in and carrying out certain arbitrary regulations. Only those who believe that the worship of God consists in aspiring to a better life differ from the first because they recognize quite another and certainly a loftier principle uniting all men of good faith in an invisible temple which alone can be the universal temple. ~ Kant, #NFDB
959:Modernism, philosophically speaking, is in a sense the ‘‘worship’’ of time and the transient, a kind of deification of time and becoming and all that flows in the temporal order. That is why it resulted quickly in historicism and evolutionism and the theories all of those 19th-century philosophers such as Hegel and Marx and scientists such as Darwin. Such people are very different from one point of view, but they all in a sense divinize history even if Marx rejected the category of ‘‘divine.’’ The historical process is the reality that is domi- nant in modern thought. It is that which determines values and even real- ity today in the dominant Western paradigm. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, #NFDB
960:So which country will lead in the broader category of business AI? Today, the United States enjoys a commanding lead (90–10) in this wave, but I believe in five years China will close that gap somewhat (70–30), and the Chinese government has a better shot at putting the power of business AI to good use. The United States has a clear advantage in the most immediate and profitable implementations of the technology: optimizations within banking, insurance, or any industry with lots of structured data that can be mined for better decision-making. Its companies have the raw material and corporate willpower to apply business AI to the problem of maximizing their bottom line. ~ Kai Fu Lee, #NFDB
961:Over the years, completely out of channels, a classification system for cases had grown up among sector-level inspectors. The Ministry often sent down memos warning against the use of this unsanctioned system, only reinforcing suspicions that it was pretty close to accurate. Category one cases were simple enough - those we were expected to investigate and, where possible, solve. Category two cases were those we were expected to be seen as investigating but not to solve. Category three cases were those we were to avoid - leave every stone unturned. In fact, for a category three case, it was best not even to record that there were any stones. No records, no files, no nothing. ~ James Church, #NFDB
962:Although there is a difference of procedure between a Shaman of the Tungas and a Catholic prelate of Europe or between a coarse and sensual Vogul and a Puritan Independent of Connecticut, there is no difference in the principle of their creeds; for they all belong to the same category of people whose religion consists not in becoming better, but in believing in and carrying out certain arbitrary regulations. Only those who believe that the worship of God consists in aspiring to a better life differ from the first because they recognize quite another and certainly a loftier principle uniting all men of good faith in an invisible temple which alone can be the universal temple. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
963:The elements of mythical thought similarly lie half-way between percepts and concepts. It would be impossible to separate percepts from the concreteskuations in which they appeared, while recourse to concepts would require that thought could, at least provisionally, put its projects (to use Husserl's expression) 'in brackets'. Now, there is an intermediary between images and concepts, namely signs. For signs can always be defined in the way introduced by Saussure in the case of the particular category of linguistic signs, that is, as a link between images and concepts. In the union thus brought about, images and concepts play the part of the signifying and signified respectively. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
964:If I was gay, I wouldn't need an asterisk beside my name. I could stop worrying if the girl I like will bounce when she finds out I also like dick. I could have a coming-out party without people thinking I just want attention. I wouldn't have to explain that I fall in love with minds, not genders or body parts. People wouldn't say I'm 'just a slut' or 'faking it' or 'undecided' or 'confused.' I'm not confused. I don't categorize people by who I'm allowed to like and who I'm allowed to love. Love doesn't fit into boxes like that. It's blurry, slippery, quantum. It's only limited by our perceptions and before we slap a label on it and cram it into some category, everything is possible. ~ Leah Raeder, #NFDB
965:With the world securely in order, Dain was able to devote the leisurely bath time to editing his mental dictionary. He removed his wife from the general category labeled "Females" and gave her a section of her own. He made a note that she didn't find him revolting, and proposed several explanations: (a) bad eyesight and faulty hearing, (b)a defect in a portion of her otherwise sound intellect, (c) an inherited Trent eccentricity, or (d) an act of God. Since the Almighty had not done him a single act of kindness in at least twenty-five years, Dain thought it was about bloody time, but he thanked his Heavenly Father all the same, and promised to be as good as he was capable of being. ~ Loretta Chase, #NFDB
966:This is all we can say about a certain category of men in view of the fulfillment of the times, a category that by virtue of its own nature must be that of a minority. This dangerous path may be trodden. It is a real test. In order for it to be complete in its resolve it is necessary to meet the following conditions: all the bridges are to be cut, no support found, and no returns possible; also, the only way out must be forward. It is typical of a heroic vocation to face the greatest wave knowing that two destinies lie ahead: that of those who will die with the dissolution of the modern world, and that of those who will find themselves in the main and regal stream of the new current. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
967:It had been a fix-up, a blind date set up by a well-meaning skinny coworker who had no clue that most men in Southern California placed overweight women in the same category as serial killers and believed them worthy of the same punishment - the death penalty. I finally had given in to her assurances that this man and I had a lot in common. Which, sadly, we did. But I saw the look of disappointment on his face when he entered the restaurant and realized that I was his date. I had seen that look before. It was unmistakable disgust encased in civility. Like a dead fish wrapped in clean white butcher paper, the covering kept your hands from being soiled but could not stop the stink. ~ Sue Ann Jaffarian, #NFDB
968:IN THE MIDDLE AGES BOTH SIDES OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS, WITHIN AS WELL AS WITHOUT, LAY DREAMING OR HALF AWAKE BENEATH A COMMON VEIL. THE VEIL WAS WOVEN OF FAITH, ILLUSION, AND CHILDISH PREPOSSESSION, THROUGH WHICH THE WORLD AND HISTORY WERE SEEN CLAD IN STRANGE HUES. MAN WAS CONSCIOUS OF HIMSELF ONLY AS A MEMBER OF A RACE, PEOPLE, PARTY, FAMILY, OR CORPORATION - ONLY THROUGH SOME GENERAL CATEGORY. IN ITALY THIS VEIL FIRST MELTED INTO AIR; AN OBJECTIVE TREATMENT AND CONSIDERATION OF THE STATE AND OF ALL THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD BECAME POSSIBLE. THE SUBJECTIVE SIDE AT THE SAME TIME ASSERTED ITSELF WITH CORRESPONDING EMPHASIS; MAN BECAME A SPIRITUAL INDIVIDUAL, AND RECOGNIZED HIMSELF AS SUCH. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
969:i used to classify my books in two categories: architecture books and other books. then i realized that my first category mostly dealt with architecture as an aestheticized formalism, whereas the second category posed cities, buildings and settings as integrated with life and human character. During the past thirty years, i have come to view all books as architecture books, because all human situations, histories, fictions, actions and thoughts are framed by human constructions and artifacts; our spatial, material and mental constructions provide essential horizons of understanding. i read poems, listen to music, look at paintings, and watch films as potential architectural propositions.18 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
970:The true danger of romanticism is that the principles through which it rules itself are of such nature that everybody can invoke them to grant themselves the category of artist. Taking the anxiety of an unreachable happiness, the angst of unrealized dreams, the indifference towards action and life, as the defining criteria of genius or talent, immediately facilitates everyone who feels or has felt that same anxiety, suffers that same angst and is prey of that particular indifference, to feel themselves convinced that they themselves are an interesting individuality, and that Destiny, granting them that longing, suffering and dreams, implicitly bestowed on them intellectual greatness. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
971:In all reality I never “leave home.” My backyard has just grown progressively bigger and more globular until now the whole world is my spherical backyard. “Where do you live?” and “What are you?” are progressively less sensible questions. “At present I am a passenger on Spaceship Earth,” and “I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category, a highbred specialization. I am not a thing—a noun. I am not flesh. At eighty-five, I have taken in over a thousand tons of air, food, and water, which temporarily became my flesh and which progressively dissassociated from me. You and I seem to be verbs—evolutionary processes. Are we not integral functions of the Universe?” ~ Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, #NFDB
972:I needed to be brought into the loop about who's hot and who's not, when I moved here. You know how it is," he added. "Social status and all that."
And then I was deflated, because I understood what he meant.
"Yes, I'm sure they were happy to fill you in that I'm part of the 'who's not' category. In fact, I'd imagine I'm probably on the top of that list."
He lifted an eyebrow in question, and I noticed the colour of his eyes again for the second time today. "You're kidding, right? I don't think any guy has you on his 'who's not' list."
"Then please, enlighten me as to which lucky category I've fallen into. It's always nice to be sorted like inanimate objects. ~ Lacey Weatherford,#NFDB
973:One of the characters in our story, Gavril Ardalionovitch Ivolgin, belonged to the other category; he belonged to the category of "much cleverer" people; though head to toe he was infected with the desire to be original. But this class of person, as we have observed above, is far less happy than the first. The difficulty is that the intelligent "ordinary" man, even if he does imagine himself at times (and perhaps all his life) a person of genius and originality, nevertheless retains within his heart a little worm of doubt, which sometimes leads the intelligent man in the end to absolute despair. If he does yield in this belief, he is still completely poisoned with inward-driven vanity. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
974:Some of the subjects of Puppies and Babies may not identify as queer, but it doesn’t matter: the installation queers them. By which I mean to say that it partakes in a long history of queers constructing their own families—be they composed of peers or mentors or lovers or ex-lovers or children or non-human animals—and that it presents queer family making as an umbrella category under which baby making might be a subset, rather than the other way around. It reminds us that any bodily experience can be made new and strange, that nothing we do in this life need have a lid crammed on it, that no one set of practices or relations has the monopoly on the so-called radical, or the so-called normative. ~ Maggie Nelson, #NFDB
975:first, he called idiot savant. The type of person who is so smart in his or her field of expertise that their mind is literally elsewhere. In layman’s terms he explained that these people were smart in school and dumb on the bus. The second category was made up of perfectionists, people who were incapable of letting go of one task and moving on to another. These people were always playing catch-up, rarely rose to any real position of power, and needed to be managed properly. The third category, and the one to be most wary of, were the egomaniacs. These were the people who not only felt that their time was more important than anyone else’s, but who needed to prove it by constantly making others wait ~ Vince Flynn, #NFDB
976:I’d like them to appreciate the power of the individual—and I don’t mean me; I mean the power each person has to make choices and be accountable for himself or herself. I’ve noticed that people are quick to put you in a category—if you come from this place then you are that thing. But I’ve never placed much value in statistics and trends, bar graphs and socioeconomic data that sum people up. I stop listening when somebody asks me if I know what my chances are. I don’t know that I believe in probability. People are inexplicable and incomprehensible, and nobody really knows what’s possible until they try. I prefer the exceptions to the rules. I like people who try, even when their chances are zero. ~ Kenny Porpora, #NFDB
977:By far the biggest category of resistance is fear — fear of the unknown. Listen to these: I’m not ready yet. I might fail. They might reject me. What would the neighbors think? I’m afraid to tell my husband/wife. I might get hurt. I may have to change. It might cost me money. I would rather die first, or get a divorce first. I don’t want anyone to know I have a problem. I’m afraid to express my feelings. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t have the energy. Who knows where I might end up? I may lose my freedom. It’s too hard to do. I don’t have enough money now. I might hurt my back. I wouldn’t be perfect. I might lose my friends. I don’t trust anyone. It might hurt my image. I’m not good enough. ~ Louise L Hay, #NFDB
978:If anyone had asked me what existence was, I would have answered, in good faith, that it was nothing, simply an empty form which was added to external things without changing anything in their nature. And then all of a sudden, there it was, clear as day: existence had suddenly unveiled itself. It had lost the harmless look of an abstract category: it was the very paste of things, this root was kneaded into existence. Or rather the root, the park gates, the bench, the sparse grass, all that had vanished: the diversity of things, their individuality, were only an appearance, a veneer. This veneer had melted, leaving soft, monstrous masses, all in disorder—naked, in a frightful, obscene nakedness. ~ Jean Paul Sartre, #NFDB
979:And the years flow past, each of them as unremarkable as the next, as unnoticed as nanoseconds, in fact, not even long enough to contain anything noticeable – centuries just barely registered as moments in space/time. Soon the millennia are passing by at a modest rate of 47 per minute, and of course all manner of things noticeable and not-so-noticeable occur along the way (though most falling into the latter category). Naturally there come periods where lying is greatly rewarded, followed by periods where lying is greatly punished (our poor unlucky editor!), along with every other conceivable and inconceivable reversal and re-reversal of standards, and…
Wait, did anyone else just hear God yawn? ~ Arthur Graham,#NFDB
980:Keep in mind that sugar is powerfully addictive.7 I put sugar in the same category as addictive drugs like crack or heroin. Take Oreos, for example. One study from Connecticut showed that rats fed the iconic cookie liked it as much as cocaine and morphine.8 When the rats ate Oreo cookies, the pleasure center of their brains, the nucleus accumbens, lit up like a Christmas tree—the same area in the brain that lights up with cocaine. Sugar and cocaine both stimulate the addictive part of the brain with a neurotransmitter called dopamine, known for its role in pleasure and satisfaction. Rats in the study even broke open the cookie to eat the sugary middle first. Still not sure if you’re addicted to sugar? ~ Sara Gottfried, #NFDB
981:Key survey results, which showed that Democrats were roughly twice as likely to have been diagnosed with a mental disorder as Republicans, included: post-traumatic stress disorder (Democrats 7.95 percent, Republicans 3.97 percent), ADD/ADHD (Democrats 9.13 percent, Republicans 3.97 percent), anxiety (Democrats 20.84 percent, Republicans 10.26 percent), depression (Democrats 34.43 percent, Republicans 23.51 percent). In fact, in every category polled – dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, Asperger’s/autism, depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, narcissistic personality disorder, anorexia, and bulimia – Democrats reported higher incidences than Republicans, except for dyslexia.37 Nevertheless, ~ David Kupelian, #NFDB
982:These tribal wars, like the practice of circumcision, are brought about by the ego, selfishness, and aggression of men. I hate to say that, but it’s true. Both acts stem from their obsession with their territory—their possessions—and women fall into that category both culturally and legally. Perhaps if we cut their balls off, my country would become paradise. The men would calm down and be more sensitive to the world. Without that constant surge of testosterone, there’d be no war, no killing, no thieving, no rape. And if we chopped off their private parts, and turned them loose to run around and either bleed to death or survive, maybe they could understand for the first time what they’re doing to their women. ~ Waris Dirie, #NFDB
983:What's all this, I expect you're thinking, about "the tallest mountain in the world"? Everest, surely, deserves at least an honourable mention in this category? Well, it all depends on your point of view. Certainly, Everest stands a sturdy 29,028 feet above sea level, which is, in its way, impressive. But if you were going to climb Everest, you would probably start, fi you were using a reliable guide, somewhere in the Himalayas. Anywhere in the Himalayas is pretty damn high to start with, and so, to hear some people tell it, it's just a smartish jog to do the last little bit to the actual top of Everest. The way to keep it interesting these days is to do it without oxygen or in your underpants or something. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
984:There are many small charges that are tacked on to your monthly bill statements, such as credit cards, cable, Internet, utilities, and ATM fees. All of them seem like a small amount, but when you add them up, the total amount wasted each month can be startling. They are the proverbial death of a thousand cuts. By creating a monthly habit to review these bills, you can identify opportunities to reduce or eliminate your recurring expenditures. Description: Once a month, go through each statement and highlight any questionable item. Also, if you feel that you’re spending too much money in a specific category, then earmark that expenditure. You’ll call this company and negotiate a lower price, which we’ll talk about next. ~ S J Scott, #NFDB
985:The second category in our litmus test is the denial of the legitimacy of one’s opponents. Authoritarian politicians cast their rivals as criminal, subversive, unpatriotic, or a threat to national security or the existing way of life. Trump met this criterion, as well. For one, he had been a “birther,” challenging the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency by suggesting that he was born in Kenya and that he was a Muslim, which many of his supporters equated with being “un-American.” During the 2016 campaign, Trump denied Hillary Clinton’s legitimacy as a rival by branding her a “criminal” and declaring repeatedly that she “has to go to jail.” At campaign rallies he applauded supporters who chanted “Lock her up! ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
986:Indeed, they felt it their duty to disabuse me of my weaponized history. They had seen so many Malcolmites before and were ready. Their method was rough and direct. Did black skin really convey nobility? Always? Yes. What about the blacks who’d practiced slavery for millennia and sold slaves across the Sahara and then across the sea? Victims of a trick. Would those be the same black kings who birthed all of civilization? Were they then both deposed masters of the galaxy and gullible puppets all at once? And what did I mean by “black”? You know, black. Did I think this a timeless category stretching into the deep past? Yes? Could it be supposed that simply because color was important to me, it had always been so? I ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
987:So many people think that they are not gifted because they don’t have an obvious talent that people can recognize because it doesn’t fall under the creative arts category—writing, dancing, music, acting, art or singing. Sadly, they let their real talents go undeveloped, while they chase after fame. I am grateful for the people with obscure unremarked talents because they make our lives easier---inventors, organizers, planners, peacemakers, communicators, activists, scientists, and so forth. However, there is one gift that trumps all other talents—being an excellent parent. If you can successfully raise a child in this day in age to have integrity then you have left a legacy that future generations will benefit from. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
988:When a person feels threatened, scared, nervous, or begins to experience some other negative emotion, that person will display discomfort. This is part of the second category of clusters that combat profilers attempt to identify. Just as dominant behavior resulted from the limbic system’s fight response, uncomfortable behavior comes from a person’s flight response. People who perceive a threat will either want to remove themselves from the situation or do something to protect themselves. Distancing behaviors, using barriers, and pacifying behaviors are clear indicators that someone is uncomfortable. However, any combination of three indicators from the following list should immediately identify someone as uncomfortable. ~ Patrick Van Horne, #NFDB
989:We’ve got nothing to do with right-wing, left-wing or any other half-assed political category. If you work within the system, you come to one of the either/or choices that were implicit in the system from the beginning. You’re talking like a medieval serf, asking the first agnostic whether he worships God or the Devil. We’re outside the system’s categories. You’ll never get the hang of our game if you keep thinking in flat-earth imagery of right and left, good and evil, up and down. If you need a group label for us, we’re political non-Euclideans. But even that’s not true. Sink me, nobody of this tub agrees with anybody else about anything, except maybe what the fellow with the horns told the old man in the clouds: Non serviam. ~ Robert Shea, #NFDB
990:A great many of my thoughts fell into the ‘unhelpful and unproductive’ category. ‘If you’re worried about losing these creative thoughts,’ he gestured somewhat dismissively, ‘then where do you think they come from in the first place? Do those moments of inspiration come from cold, rational thinking, or do they arise from the stillness and the spaciousness of the mind? When the mind is always busy there’s no room for these thoughts to arise, so by training your mind you’ll actually make more space for these creative thoughts to arise. The point is, don’t be a slave to your mind. If you want to direct your mind and use it well, then good. But what use is the mind if it’s all over the place, with no sense of direction or stability? ~ Andy Puddicombe, #NFDB
991:company and for similar companies in the same industry. • The percentage of institutional ownership. The lower the better. • Whether insiders are buying and whether the company itself is buying back its own shares. Both are positive signs. • The record of earnings growth to date and whether the earnings are sporadic or consistent. (The only category where earnings may not be important is in the asset play.) • Whether the company has a strong balance sheet or a weak balance sheet (debt-to-equity ratio) and how it’s rated for financial strength. • The cash position. With $16 in net cash, I know Ford is unlikely to drop below $16 a share. That’s the floor on the stock. SLOW GROWERS • Since you buy these for the dividends (why else would ~ Peter Lynch, #NFDB
992:To do so, hang heavy items on the left side of the closet and light items on the right. Heavy items include those with length, those made from heavier material, and those that are dark in color. As you move toward the right side of the closet, the length of the clothing grows shorter, the material thinner, and the color lighter. By category, coats would be on the far left, followed by dresses, jackets, pants, skirts, and blouses. This is the basic order, but depending on the trends in your wardrobe, what classifies as “heavy” in each category will differ. Use your intuition to create a balance that makes it appear as if the clothes are sloping up to the right. In addition, organize the clothes within each category from heavy to light. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
993:And so if we want to see real change in this world, she continued, adjusting the incline on her running machine until I, who walked on a neighboring one, seemed to be watching her dash up the side of Kilimanjaro, well, then we ourselves have to be the ones to do it, yes, we have to be the change we want to see. By “we” she meant people like herself, of financial means and global reach, who happen to love freedom and equality, want justice, feel an obligation to do something good with their own good fortune. It was a moral category but also an economic one. And if you followed its logic all the way to the end of the revolving belt, then after a few miles you arrived at a new idea, that wealth and morality are in essence the same thing [...] ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
994:We are always completely, and therefore equally, known to God. That is our destiny whether we like it or not. But though this knowledge never varies, the quality of our being known can….Ordinarily, to be known by God is to be, for this purpose, in the category of things. We are, like earthworms, cabbages, and nebulae, objects of Divine knowledge, But when we (a) become aware of this fact--the present fact, not the generalization--and (b) assent with all our will to be known, then we treat ourselves, in relation to God, not as things but as persons. We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled his sight. The change is in us. The passive changes to the active. Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
995:PARNELL: Do you recall an afternoon, along about the middle of the second decade of this century, when you took my sister to the Plaza Hotel for tea under the grossly misleading and false pretext that you knew how to dance? And as my reply comes weakly, “Yes, sir,” I hear the murmur run through the committee room and see reporters bending over their notebooks, scribbling hard. In my dream, I am again seated with Eileen at the edge of the dance floor, frightened, stunned, and happy—in my ears the intoxicating drumbeat of the dance, in my throat the dry, bittersweet taste of cinnamon. I don’t know about the guilt, really. I guess a good many girls might say that an excursion such as the one I conducted Eileen on belongs in the un-American category. ~ E B White, #NFDB
996:Some historians think those first blacks in Virginia were considered as servants, like the white indentured servants brought from Europe. But the strong probability is that, even if they were listed as “servants” (a more familiar category to the English), they were viewed as being different from white servants, were treated differently, and in fact were slaves. In any case, slavery developed quickly into a regular institution, into the normal labor relation of blacks to whites in the New World. With it developed that special racial feeling—whether hatred, or contempt, or pity, or patronization—that accompanied the inferior position of blacks in America for the next 350 years—that combination of inferior status and derogatory thought we call racism. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
997:One can even imagine that inflation tends to improve the relative position of the wealthiest individuals compared to the least wealthy, in that it enhances the importance of financial managers and intermediaries. A person with 10 or 50 million euros cannot afford the money managers that Harvard has but can nevertheless pay financial advisors and stockbrokers to mitigate the effects of inflation. By contrast, a person with only 10 or 50 thousand euros to invest will not be offered the same choices by her broker (if she has one): contacts with financial advisors are briefer, and many people in this category keep most of their savings in checking accounts that pay little or nothing and/or savings accounts that pay little more than the rate of inflation. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
998:The camera goes out- side as the noise reaches a crescendo, and we see the parking lot. In the Southern Californian section, all the cars are huge, gas-guzzling land yachts. In the Northern Californian lot, everyone has a Honda. The commercial finishes with the line, "Is Honda the Perfect Car for Northern California, or What?" ========== Truth, lies & advertising (Jon Steel) - Your Highlight on Location 2671-2674 | Added on Wednesday, November 12, 2014 1:53:39 PM defining the product outside traditional category boundaries changed the rules of engagement and allowed the companies to compete on what they did best, avoiding areas of potential weakness or competitive activity. This doesn't work for everyone, but when it does, it can be very potent. ========== ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
999:Despite the proliferation of personal storytelling in recent years, and the shift in social conditions that has facilitated these stories being told and heard, there are still certain stories that cannot be told—either because we have no language with which to articulate them or because there is no interpretive community to hear and understand them. These stories become, instead, secrets and lies—stories that signal social isolation and disempowerment rather than connection and strength. One such story within contemporary culture, as the epigraphs from Dorothy Allison and Victoria Brownworth suggest, is the story of class—a story that often only becomes tellable as a lie, joke, or dirty secret. This is especially the case with the category of “white trash. ~ Annalee Newitz, #NFDB
1000:Evangelical zeal also permeated into the youth culture, as seen in the explosion of youth-oriented organizations like Young Life (1941), Youth for Christ (1946), Fellowship of Christian Athletes (1954), and Student Venture (1966). In response to the immediate popularity of these organizations and the supportive desire to see young people reached with the gospel, churches began their own version of “youth ministry.” Youth ministry quickly became a church-norm, especially in the United States, even developing into its own culture with rock bands, skits, and inspirational talks by the newly-formed category—the Youth Pastor. Some today are calling for this culture of youth ministry to give up their gimmicks and return to a biblical model of means of grace ministry. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1001:We may distinguish both true and false needs. “False” are those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression: the needs which perpetuate toil, aggressiveness, misery, and injustice. Their satisfaction might be most gratifying to the individual, but this happiness is not a condition which has to be maintained and protected if it serves to arrest the development of the ability (his own and others) to recognize the disease of the whole and grasp the chances of curing the disease. The result then is euphoria in unhappiness. Most of the prevailing needs to relax, to have fun, to behave and consume in accordance with the advertisements, to love and hate what others love and hate, belong to this category of false needs. ~ Herbert Marcuse, #NFDB
1002:Perhaps the most important single step in the whole history of writing was the Sumerians’ introduction of phonetic representation, initially by writing an abstract noun (which could not be readily drawn as a picture) by means of the sign for a depictable noun that had the same phonetic pronunciation. For instance, it’s easy to draw a recognizable picture of arrow, hard to draw a recognizable picture of life, but both are pronounced ti in Sumerian, so a picture of an arrow came to mean either arrow or life. The resulting ambiguity was resolved by the addition of a silent sign called a determinative, to indicate the category of nouns to which the intended object belonged. Linguists term this decisive innovation, which also underlies puns today, the rebus principle. ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
1003:The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us...During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing specialty...pornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and thirty-three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal...More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers. ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
1004:Rogers had been open about a year, and everything was just piled up on tables, with no rhyme or reason whatsoever. Sam asked me to kind of group the stuff by category or department, and that’s when we began our department system. The thing I remember most, though, was the way we priced goods. Merchandise would come in and we would just lay it down on the floor and get out the invoice. Sam wouldn’t let us hedge on a price at all. Say the list price was $1.98, but we had only paid 50 cents. Initially, I would say, ‘Well, it’s originally $1.98, so why don’t we sell it for $1.25?’ And he’d say, ‘No. We paid 50 cents for it. Mark it up 30 percent, and that’s it. No matter what you pay for it, if we get a great deal, pass it on to the customer.’ And of course that’s what we did.” It ~ Sam Walton, #NFDB
1005:For the first category, clothing, I recommend dividing further into the following subcategories to increase efficiency: Tops (shirts, sweaters, etc.) Bottoms (pants, skirts, etc.) Clothes that should be hung (jackets, coats, suits, etc.) Socks Underwear Bags (handbags, messenger bags, etc.) Accessories (scarves, belts, hats, etc.) Clothes for specific events (swimsuits, kimonos, uniforms, etc.) Shoes And, yes, I include handbags and shoes as clothing. Why is this the optimal order? I am actually not sure why, but based on the experience I’ve gained devoting half my life to tidying, I can tell you for certain that it works! Believe me. If you follow this order, you’ll speed through the work and achieve visible results surprisingly quickly. Moreover, because you will keep only the ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
1006:For all of these reasons Packer is concerned about how many Christians tend to pray from long “prayer lists.” The theological thinking and self-reflection that should accompany supplication takes time. Prayer lists and other such methods may lead us to very speedily move through names and needs with a cursory statement “if it is your will” without the discipline of backing up our requests with thoughtful reasoning. Packer writes that “if we are going to take time to think our way into the situations and personal lives on which our intercessions focus,” we may not be able to pray for as many items and issues. “Our amplifyings and argumentation will [then] lift our intercessions from the shopping list, prayer-wheel level to the apostolic category of what Paul called ‘struggle ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1007:In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven’t Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn’t Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
1008:The multiplication of technologies in the name of efficiency is actually eradicating free time by making it possible to maximize the time and place for production and minimize the unstructured travel time in between…Too, the rhetoric of efficiency around these technologies suggests that what cannot be quantified cannot be valued-that that vast array of pleasures which fall into the category of doing nothing in particular, of woolgathering, cloud-gazing, wandering, window-shopping, are nothing but voids to be filled by something more definite, more production, or faster-paced…I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought or thoughtfulness. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
1009:Ordinary conservatives – and many, possibly most, people fall into this category – are constantly told that their ideas and sentiments are reactionary, prejudiced, sexist or racist. Just by being the thing they are they offend against the new norms of inclusiveness and non-discrimination. Their honest attempts to live by their lights, raising families, enjoying communities, worshipping their gods, and adopting a settled and affirmative culture – these attempts are scorned and ridiculed by the Guardian class. In intellectual circles conservatives therefore move quietly and discreetly, catching each other’s eyes across the room like the homosexuals in Proust, whom that great writer compared to Homer’s gods, known only to each other as they move in disguise around the world of mortals. ~ Roger Scruton, #NFDB
1010:when someone is constantly late, they fall into three categories. The first, he called idiot savant. The type of person who is so smart in his or her field of expertise that their mind is literally elsewhere. In layman’s terms he explained that these people were smart in school and dumb on the bus. The second category was made up of perfectionists, people who were incapable of letting go of one task and moving on to another. These people were always playing catch-up, rarely rose to any real position of power, and needed to be managed properly. The third category, and the one to be most wary of, were the egomaniacs. These were the people who not only felt that their time was more important than anyone else’s, but who needed to prove it by constantly making others wait for them. Kennedy ~ Vince Flynn, #NFDB
1011:Until now, I had conceived of sleep as a kind of model for death. I had imagined death as an extension of sleep. A far deeper sleep than ordinary sleep. A sleep devoid of all consciousness. Eternal rest. A total blackout.
But now I wondered if I had been wrong. Perhaps death was a state entirely unlike sleep, something that belonged to a different category altogether—like the deep, endless wakeful darkness I was seeing now.
Finally, though, no one knows what death is. Who has ever truly seen it? No one. Except the ones who are dead. No one living knows what death is like. They can only guess. And the best guess is still a guess. Maybe death is a kind of rest, but reasoning can't tell us that. The only way to find out what death is is to die. Death can be anything at all. ~ Haruki Murakami,#NFDB
1012:Labor and work, as well as action, are also rooted in natality in so far as they have the task to provide and preserve the world for, to foresee and reckon with, the constant influx of newcomers who are born into the world as strangers. However, of the three, action has the closest connection with the human condition of natality; the new beginning inherent in birth can make itself felt in the world only because the newcomer possesses the capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of acting. In this sense of initiative, an element of action, and therefore of natality, is inherent in all human activities. Moreover, since action is the political activity par excellence, natality, and not mortality, may be the central category of political, as distinguished from metaphysical, thought. The ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
1013:Grothendieck transformed modern mathematics. However, much of the credit for this transformation should go to a lesser-known forerunner of his, Emmy Noether. It was Noether, born in Bavaria in 1882, who largely created the abstract approach that inspired category theory.1 Yet as a woman in a male academic world, she was barred from holding a professorship in Göttingen, and the classicists and historians on the faculty even tried to block her from giving unpaid lectures—leading David Hilbert, the dean of German mathematics, to comment, “I see no reason why her sex should be an impediment to her appointment. After all, we are a university, not a bathhouse.” Noether, who was Jewish, fled to the United States when the Nazis took power, teaching at Bryn Mawr until her death from a sudden infection in 1935. ~ Jim Holt, #NFDB
1014:It was a Black-Art bookstore on Seventh Avenue dedicated to the writing of black people of all times and from all places. It was in the same category of black witchcraft, black jazz and Black Nationalism. It was run by a well-known black couple with some black people helping out and aside from selling books by black people to black people it served as a kind of headquarters for all the black nationalist movements in Harlem.
There were books everywhere. The main store, entered from Seventh Avenue, had books lining both walls, books back to back in chest-high stalls down the center of the floor. The only place there weren't any books was the ceiling.
"If I had read all these books I wouldn't be a cop," Coffin Ed said.
"Just as well, just as well," Grave Digger said enigmatically. ~ Chester Himes,#NFDB
1015:when technology predominantly was composed of prosthetic devices (functional additions to the mechanical abilities of the human body), it could always be argued that humans are unique by virtue of their intellectual faculties; no prosthetic device could emulate a human’s ability to reason, know, and understand. The work of AI, however, attempts to develop a technology that emulates action and performance previously accredited to unique human intellectual abilities. Consequently, the advent of computers, and of AI in particular, has raised questions about the uniqueness of man in a slightly different form. For example, in some discussions, emotion is now invoked as the category of attributes that testify to man’s uniqueness, just as intellect was invoked when the debate focused on prosthetic technologies. ~ Wiebe E Bijker, #NFDB
1016:Which war are you referring to, I asked, when you say the "last"? I meant the big one, the world war, he answered, because little ones, like ours, don't count as real wars. For those who are no longer alive, I said, every war is real. That is correct agreed Isak Levi, but a local war is actually abuse of the noun war, since it is most often armed conflict of limited intensity being waged on limited territory. Of course, he said, most of the conflicts registered in history belong to that category, I admit, and there are few wars that were truly grandiose. You speak of wars, I said, at least of the big ones, as though you admire them, and I see no justification for that. He saw no reason to admire them either, Isak Levi replied, but if they did exist, there was no point in closing one's eyes to the fact. ~ David Albahari, #NFDB
1017:The category of Other is as original as consciousness itself. The duality between Self and Other can be found in the most primitive societies, in the most ancient mythologies; the division did not always fall into the category of the division of the sexes (...) No group ever defines itself as One without immediately setting up the Other opposite itself. It only takes three travelers brought together by chance in the same train compartment for the rest of the travellers to become vaguely hostile 'others'. Village people view anyone not belonging to the village as suspicious 'others'. For the native of a country, inhabitants of other countries are viewed as 'foreigners'; Jews are the 'others' for anti-Semites, blacks for racist Americans, indigenous people for colonists, proletarians for the propertied classes. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
1018:Antinomy, that is, the existence of two laws or tendencies which are opposed to each other, is possible, not only with two different things, but with one and the same thing. Considered in their thesis, that is, in the law or tendency which created them, all the economical categories are rational, — competition, monopoly, the balance of trade, and property, as well as the division of labor, machinery, taxation, and credit. But, like communism and population, all these categories are antinomical; all are opposed, not only to each other, but to themselves. All is opposition, and disorder is born of this system of opposition. Hence, the sub-title of the work, — “Philosophy of Misery.” No category can be suppressed; the opposition, antinomy, or contre-tendance, which exists in each of them, cannot be suppressed. ~ Pierre Joseph Proudhon, #NFDB
1019:The simplest thing to do with pain is to deceive yourself into thinking it offers you an opportunity: by making it into a game, it becomes less by which you suffer. By playing with it, you can turn it into the category of things you pick up, and can therefore put down. Thinking about your pain puts it in the category of the imaginary. But pain is not imaginary. It is wrong to think that the thoughtful escape it, or the very tricky, or the very wise. Those who skip town do not escape it, and those who skip between lovers do not. Drinking is no escape; gratitude lists are not. When you stop making a project of trying to escape your pain, it will still be there, but also a realization: that the pain is only as much as you can handle - like a glass of water filled to the brim, the water hovering at the meniscus, not running over. ~ Sheila Heti, #NFDB
1020:To be honest, my dryad has been sexually assaulted a few times, but I guess that comes with the territory. It’s just in a video game, after all, so it doesn’t really get to me. On the first day, I put my video channel in the category 'strictly 18+' and, since that time, I’ve been doing live streams. I've already gotten eight thousand paid subscribers. On top of that, many viewers have sent me considerable sums of money and want to meet me in real life. Mr. Lavrius told me yesterday that I had already passed the trial period and hired me on as a permanent employee, so I now have the ability to turn game money into cash. Yesterday, with the money I've earned, I bought myself a penthouse with a pool on the roof of a skyscraper. This evening, after I buy myself a flying car, I'll never have to use the elevator or come down to earth again... ~ Michael Atamanov, #NFDB
1021:Two general and basic principles are proposed for the formation of categories: The first has to do with the function of category systems and asserts that the task of category systems is to provide maximum information with the least cognitive effort [("cognitive economy")]; the second has to do with the structure of the information so provided and asserts that the perceived world comes as structured information rather than than arbitrary or unpredictable attributes [("perceived world structure")]. Thus maximum information with least cognitive effort is achieved if categories map the perceived world structure as closely as possible. This condition can be achieved either by the mapping of categories to given attribute structures or by the definition or redefinition of attributes to render a given set of categories appropriately structured.
~ Rosch, 1978, p. 28,#NFDB
1022:The title ‘Lord of All-Rus'’ did not possess much basis either in history or in current reality. It came into the same category as that whereby the kings of England laid claim to France. In the 1490s, two-and-a-half centuries after all traces of a united Kievan Rus' had been destroyed, it had the same degree of credibility that the king of France might have enjoyed if, in his struggle with the German Empire, he had proclaimed himself ‘Lord of all the Franks’. By that time, it conflicted with the separate identity that the ‘Ruthenes’ of Lithuania had assumed from the ‘Russians’ of Moscow. Indeed, it all seemed sufficiently unreal for the Lithuanians to accept it as a small price to pay for Ivan’s good humour. They were not to know it, but they were conceding the ideological cornerstone of territorial ambitions that would be pursued for 500 years. ~ Norman Davies, #NFDB
1023:Gary Millar is perhaps the most imaginative, distilling the categories but coming at them in a more practical rather than abstract manner. He counsels getting to Jesus by (1) following out a theme through every stage to Jesus, (2) jumping immediately to fulfillment in Christ, (3) exposing a human problem and showing Jesus as the solution, (4) highlighting a divine attribute and showing Jesus as its ultimate embodiment, (5) focusing on the divine saving action in the text and pointing to how this comes to its ultimate form in Christ’s salvation, (6) explaining a theological category and tying it to Christ, (7) pointing out sin’s consequences and finding the only remedy in Christ, (8) describing an aspect of human godliness and goodness and showing Christ as the epitome of it, or (9) seeing a human longing and pointing to Christ as its satisfaction. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1024:Hinduism perhaps is always better lived first, and then understood; like any path of wisdom and spirit. Hinduism is often described as a way of life rather than a religion, perhaps, for that reason. We do not begin with a theory or doctrine that we then try to bend the world to conform to. We are, one might say, ‘spiritual anarchists’. We are ever evolving, ever free. Our constraints on occasion have been responses to history and circumstances rather than our own effort to impose our will onto others; in our philosophy, we have no Others, no reviled category for non-believers. We can be atheists, and Hindu. We can be monotheists and polytheists. But in all our freedom, we do, still, have a sense of a center of gravity; and that is the sense of You, Alone, around which we have created all our philosophy, culture, art, science, and indeed civilization too. ~ Vamsee Juluri, #NFDB
1025:abbreviation 1. [Physics] barn(s). 2. (b.) — born (used to indicate a date of birth) • George Lloyd (b. 1913). 3. billion. 4. bass. 5. basso. B1 /bē / b I. noun 1. the second letter of the alphabet. 2. the second highest class of academic mark. 3. denoting the second-highest-earning socioeconomic category for marketing purposes, including intermediate management and professional personnel. 4. (b) — [Chess] denoting the second file from the left, as viewed from White's side of the board. 5. (usu. b) — the second constant to appear in an algebraic equation. 6. [Geology] denoting a soil horizon of intermediate depth, typically the subsoil. 7. the human blood type (in the ABO system) containing the B antigen and lacking the A. 8. (usu. B) — [Music] the seventh note of the diatonic scale of C major. 9. a key based on a scale with B as its keynote. II. phrases plan ~ Erin McKean, #NFDB
1026:[W]hat counts as ‘realistic’, what seems possible at any point in the social field, is defined by a series of political determinations. An ideological position can never be really successful until it is naturalized, and it cannot be naturalized while it is still thought of as a value rather than a fact. Accordingly, neoliberalism has sought to eliminate the very category of value in the ethical sense. Over the past thirty years, capitalist realism has successfully installed a ‘business ontology’ in which it is simply obvious that everything in society, including healthcare and education, should be run as a business. … [E]mancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a ‘natural order’, must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable. ~ Mark Fisher, #NFDB
1027:I have always thought that art is not a category, not a realm covering innumerable concepts and derivative phenomena, but that, on the contrary, it is something concentrated, strictly limited. It is a principle that is present in every work of art, a force applied to it and a truth worked out in it. And I have never seen art as form but rather as a hidden, secret part of content…A literary creation can appeal to us in all sorts of ways—by its theme, subject, situations, characters. But above all it appeals to us by the presence in it of art...You can call it an idea, a statement about life, so all-embracing that it can’t be split up into separate words; and if there is so much as a particle of it in any work that includes other things as well, it outweighs all the other ingredients in significance and turns out to be the essence, the heart and soul of the work. ~ Boris Pasternak, #NFDB
1028:My aunt had by degrees erased every other visitor’s name from her list, because they all committed the fatal error, in her eyes, of falling into one or other of the two categories of people she most detested. One group, the worse of the two, and the one of which she rid herself first, consisted of those who advised her not to take so much care of herself, and preached (even if only negatively and with no outward signs beyond an occasional disapproving silence or doubting smile) the subversive doctrine that a sharp walk in the sun and a good red beefsteak would do her more good (her, who had had two dreadful sips of Vichy water on her stomach for fourteen hours!) than all her medicine bottles and her bed. The other category was composed of people who appeared to believe that she was more seriously ill than she thought, in fact that she was as seriously ill as she said. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1029:History lessons remind us that the states in which we live, their institutions, even their laws, have come to us through conflict, often of the most bloodthirsty sort. Our daily diet of news brings us reports of the shedding of blood, often in regions quite close to our homelands, in circumstances that deny our conception of cultural normality altogether. We succeed, all the same, in consigning the lessons both of history and of reportage to a special and separate category of "otherness" which invalidate our expectations of how our own world will be tomorrow and the day after not at all. Our institutions and our laws, we tell ourselves, have set the human potentiality for violence about with such restraints that violence in everyday life will be punished as criminal by our laws, while its use by our institutions of state will take the particular form of "civilised warfare. ~ John Keegan, #NFDB
1030:Price matters too, though not always how you think it would. Saving money can be part of the problem. The well-known, long-standing cheapness of offal, Mead wrote, condemned it to the wordy category “edible for human beings but not by own kind of human being.” Eating organs, in 1943, could degrade one’s social standing. Americans preferred bland preparations of muscle meat partly because for as long as they could recall, that’s what the upper class ate. So powerful are race- and status-based disgusts that explorers have starved to death rather than eat like the locals. British polar exploration suffered heavily for its mealtime snobbery. “The British believed that Eskimo food . . . was beneath a British sailor and certainly unthinkable for a British officer,” wrote Robert Feeney in Polar Journeys: The Role of Food and Nutrition in Early Exploration. Members of the 1860 Burke ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1031:Better to stay cool just in case things go south. Researcher Dr. Brené Brown calls that “foreboding joy,” a fear that although things look wonderful right now, they probably won’t stay that way. So why get too happy? However, there is another reason that some women dampen their positive emotions. People who like and value themselves—those who have high self-esteem—view happiness as a state of being that mirrors their own perception of who they are. A woman in this category might say something like, “I am valuable. God loves me and blesses me.” To the contrary, a woman who does not like herself or see herself as valuable sees unhappiness as a state of being that she deserves. When positive emotions come, she is more likely to dampen those feelings by downplaying them. She is actually motivated to be unhappy because unhappiness is consistent with who she believes she is. Now, ~ Valorie Burton, #NFDB
1032:I also became familiar with an entirely new category of people: the unhappily married person. They are everywhere, and they are ten thousand times more depressing than a divorced person. My friend Tim, whose name I've changed, obviously, has gotten more and more depressing since he married his girlfriend of seven years. Tim is the kind of guy who corners you at a party to tell you, vehemently, that marriage is work And that you have to work on it constantly. And that going to couples' therapy is not only normal but something that everyone needs to do. Tim has a kind of manic, cult-y look in his eye from paying thousands of dollars to a marriage counselor. He is convinced that his daily work on his marriage, and his acknowledgement that it is basically a living hell, is modern. The result is that he has helped to relieve me of any romantic notions I had about marriage. ~ Mindy Kaling, #NFDB
1033:Arrange your clothes so that they rise to the right. Take a moment to draw an arrow rising toward the right and then another descending to the right. You can do this on paper or just trace them in the air. Did you notice that when you draw an arrow rising to the right it makes you feel lighter? Lines that slope up to the right make people feel comfortable. By using this principle when you organize your closet, you can make the contents look far more exciting. To do so, hang heavy items on the left side of the closet and light items on the right. Heavy items include those with length, those made from heavier material, and those that are dark in color. As you move toward the right side of the closet, the length of the clothing grows shorter, the material thinner, and the color lighter. By category, coats would be on the far left, followed by dresses, jackets, pants, skirts, and blouses. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
1034:Mrs. Heath wanted to sprinkle their minds with grass seed and watch the blades spike up through the earth, flat and predictable as a golf course. She wanted dependable students, well fed but not necessarily nourished. But he was not in that category. Admittedly, he could not count on his perceptions of letters and words, and he was not always accurate. He misused words most when he liked their sound. A sentence had a kind of music, and the word sounded right. The definitions were never as interesting as the sound they made coming out of your mouth. He rolled their flavors around on his tongue, tasting every nook and cranny, but he could not be trusted to deliver the right answer and she would never give him better than a C, no matter what genius work he produced. The way he saw it, his mind was a big unruly field of wildflowers. One day he would shower the world with blossoms. ~ Elizabeth Brundage, #NFDB
1035:Salvage
Daily the cortege of crumpled
defunct cars
goes by by the lasagnalayered flatbed
truckload: hardtop
reverting to tar smudge,
wax shine antiqued to crusted
winepress smear,
windshield battered to
intact ice-tint, a rarity
fresh from the Pleistocene.
I like it; privately
I find esthetic
satisfaction in these
ceremonial removals
from the category of
received ideas
to regions where pigeons'
svelte smoke-velvet
limousines, taxiing
in whirligigs, reclaim
a parking lot,
and the bag-laden
hermit woman, disencumbered
of a greater incubus,
the crush of unexamined
attitudes, stoutly
follows her routine,
mining the mountainsides
of our daily refuse
for artifacts: subversive
re-establishing
with each arcane
25
trash-basket dig
the pleasures of the ruined.
~ Amy Clampitt,#NFDB
1036:Over the following years, the concept of “person” was changed by the courts in two ways. One way was to broaden it to include corporations, legal fictions established and sustained by the state. In fact, these “persons” later became the management of corporations, according to the court decisions. So the management of corporations became “persons.” It was also narrowed to exclude undocumented immigrants. They had to be excluded from the category of “persons.” And that’s happening right now. So the legislations that you’re talking about, they go two ways. They broaden the category of persons to include corporate entities, which now have rights way beyond human beings, given by the trade agreements and others, and they exclude the people who flee from Central America where the U.S. devastated their homelands, and flee from Mexico because they can’t compete with the highly-subsidized U.S. agribusiness. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1037:always think in terms of category, not place. Before choosing what to keep, collect everything that falls within the same category at one time. Take every last item out and lay everything in one spot. To demonstrate the steps involved, let’s go back to the example of clothing above. You start by deciding that you are going to organize and put away your clothes. The next step is to search every room of the house. Bring every piece of clothing you find to the same place, and spread them out on the floor. Then pick up each outfit and see if it sparks joy. Those and only those are the ones to keep. Follow this procedure for every category. If you have too many clothes, you can make subcategories such as tops, bottoms, socks, and so on, and examine your clothes, one subcategory at a time. Gathering every item in one place is essential to this process because it gives you an accurate grasp of how much you have. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
1038:Her best friend and the best friend’s cousin also lived in our dorm. I went once to an ice cream shop with them and saw the pity in their eyes when Missy relayed the lack of Titanic in my life. I was put in the help category. Meaning, they thought I needed help and I was no longer in their group because it’s obvy I’m weird.
Dirty Dancing, A Walk to Remember, Hope Floats, and so many other movies were the repertoire of their conversation. I wasn’t allowed in. There were inside jokes, inside quotes, even a weird inside-type of laugh.
The one friend I did have was Kristina. She was a gift from above, though she lived two floors below, and I always jumped at her movie night invite.
Sometimes, I was tempted to ask how high, but I refrained. She wouldn’t have gotten the joke.
See, I could have my own inside jokes. Take that, snotty roommate and two friends.
Insert karate chop here. ~ Tijan,#NFDB
1039:It is the question that is also asked by modern political theory: Can politics accept truth as a structural category? Or must truth, as something unattainable, be relegated to the subjective sphere, its place taken by an attempt to build peace and justice using whatever instruments are available to power? By relying on truth, does not politics, in view of the impossibility of attaining consensus on truth, make itself a tool of particular traditions that in reality are merely forms of holding on to power?
And yet, on the other hand, what happens when truth counts for nothing? What kind of justice is then possible? Must there not be common criteria that guarantee real justice for all—criteria that are independent of the arbitrariness of changing opinions and powerful lobbies? Is it not true that the great dictatorships were fed by the power of the ideological lie and that only truth was capable of bringing freedom? ~ Benedict XVI,#NFDB
1040:...The discrepancy is that the ethical self should be found immanently in the despair, that the individual won himself by persisting in the despair. True, he has used something within the category of freedom, choosing himself, which seem to remove the difficulty, one that presumably has not struck many, since philosophically doubting everything and then finding the true beginning goes one, two, three. But that does not help. In despairing, I use myself to despair, and therefore I can indeed despair of everything by myself. But if I do this, I cannot come back by myself. It is in this moment of decision that the individual needs divine assistance, whereas it is quite correct that in order to be at this point one must first have understood the existence-relation between the aesthetic and the ethical; that is to say, by being there in passion and inwardness, one surely becomes aware of the religious - and of the leap. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
1041:Controversy has always existed among psychiatrists and psychologists about the validity of personality diagnosis. Some believe in the merits of the enterprise and devote their careers to ever greater nosological precision. Others, and among them I include myself, marvel that anyone can take diagnosis seriously, that it can ever be considered more than a simple cluster of symptoms and behavioral traits. Nonetheless, we find ourselves under ever-increasing pressure (from hospitals, insurance companies, governmental agencies) to sum up a person with a diagnostic phrase and a numerical category.
Even the most liberal system of psychiatric nomenclature does violence to the being of another. If we relate to people believing we can categorize them, we will neither identify nor nurture the parts, the vital parts, of the other that transcend category. The enabling relationship always assumes that the other is never fully knowable. ~ Irvin D Yalom,#NFDB
1042:One might say that immensity is a philosophical category of daydream. Daydream undoubtedly feeds on all kinds of sights, but through a sort of natural inclination, it contemplates grandeur. And this contemplation produces an attitude that is so special, an inner state that is so unlike any other, that the daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.
Far from the immensities of sea and land, merely through memory, we can recapture, by means of meditation, the resonances of this contemplation of grandeur. But is this really memory? Isn't imagination alone able to enlarge indefinitely the images of immensity? In point of fact, daydreaming, from the very first second, is an entirely constituted state. We do not see it start, and yet it always starts the same way, that is, it flees the object nearby and right away it is far off, elsewhere, in the space of elsewhere. ~ Gaston Bachelard,#NFDB
1043:The proponents of identity politics on the left would argue that assertions of identity on the right are illegitimate and cannot be placed on the same moral plane as those of minorities, women, and other marginalized groups. Rather, they reflect the perspectives of a dominant mainstream culture that has been historically privileged and continues to be so. These arguments have obvious truth. Perceptions on the part of conservatives of advantages being unfairly given to minorities, women, or refugees are greatly exaggerated, as is the sense that political correctness has run amok everywhere. Social media contributes heavily to this problem, since a single comment or incident can ricochet around the internet and become emblematic of an entire category of people. The reality for many marginalized groups continues as before: African-Americans continue to be objects of police violence, and women continue to be assaulted and harassed. ~ Francis Fukuyama, #NFDB
1044:Kant distinguished between two types of truths: (1) analytic propositions, which derive from logic and “reason itself” rather than from observing the world; for example, all bachelors are unmarried, two plus two equals four, and the angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees; and (2) synthetic propositions, which are based on experience and observations; for example, Munich is bigger than Bern, all swans are white. Synthetic propositions could be revised by new empirical evidence, but not analytic ones. We may discover a black swan but not a married bachelor or (at least so Kant thought) a triangle with 181 degrees. As Einstein said of Kant’s first category of truths: “This is held to be the case, for example, in the propositions of geometry and in the principle of causality. These and certain other types of knowledge… do not previously have to be gained from sense data, in other words they are a priori knowledge.” Einstein ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1045:For centuries the church, while affirming Genesis 2 and the goodness of marriage, conceded the distractions of domestic life. One medieval solution proposed to divide the “housekeeping” among the people of God. Married people would tend to “earth” while monks and nuns, who renounced marriage, would do the work of heaven, praying “for the world, in the world’s stead.”7 During the Reformation, theologians like John Calvin and Martin Luther abolished what had become a sacrosanct division between celibates and married. By developing the concept of vocation, they taught that domestic obligation could be rendered as service to God, just as prayer and fasting were forms of worship: “Everyone [was] now expected to live all their lives coram Deo; before the face of God.”8 At the most fundamental level, vocation became a Christological category—a way of baptizing the housekeeping as sacred duty performed to God in the service of one’s neighbor. ~ Jen Pollock Michel, #NFDB
1046:agape is a love primarily based on best interest. When Scripture speaks of God's love for His children, it almost always refers to agape love. God's love for us undoubtedly prioritizes what is in our best interest. While I desperately want God to be my friend and think of me as His, what I need more than anything is a courageous heavenly Father who will look after my best interests even when I'm too nearsighted to recognize them. That's what our children need from us too. They need courageous parents who are willing to insist on their best interest even when they don't understand. Even when our decisions won't make us popular. What our culture refers to as “tough love” falls under the category of agape. Sometimes tough love is in the best interest of a terribly and repeatedly rebellious child. Our children don't need a buddy. They need a parent. Sometimes we have to be willing to love our children more than we're desperate for them to like us. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
1047:When sacrifice is the only way to save a person from death, or, as I have come to notice in this culture, from fatal psychic or physical disruption — auto accidents, psychological illness, stress or depression — how does one find ritual space or sacred space when everywhere around no one seems to be aware that some kind of sacrificial ritual is needed? There are many cases in which people live separated from their souls in this culture. There are many cases of people actually ending their lives because there was no home to go to nor any kind of ritual to receive, such as the one from which I was fortunate enough to benefit. A Dagara elder would include such situations as accidents, heart attacks, or any sudden death within the category of separated souls. So the question as to whether an accident could have been avoided has its answer linked to whether it is possible for society to see the soul of the dying before its actual death. So ~ Malidoma Patrice Som, #NFDB
1048:This easy obedience to tyrants, which often verged on devotion, always surprised him. He had come to believe that the majority of human beings aspired only to slavery. He had long wondered by what ruse this enormous enterprise of mystification orchestrated by the wealthy had been able to spread and prosper on every continent. Karamallah belonged to that category of true aristocrats who had tossed out like old soiled clothes all the values and all the dogma that these infamous individuals had generated over centuries in order to perpetuate their supremacy. And so his joy in being alive was in no way altered by these stinking dogs' enduring power on the planet. On the contrary, he found their stupid and criminal acts to be an inexhaustible source of entertainment -- so much so that there were times when he had to admit he would miss this mob were they to disappear; he feared the aura of boredom that would envelop mankind once purged of its vermin. ~ Albert Cossery, #NFDB
1049:The first conversation began awkwardly, although Espinoza had been expecting Pelletier's call, as if both men found it difficult to say what sooner or later the would have to say. The first twenty minutes were tragic in tone, with the word fate used ten times and the word friendship twenty-four times. Liz Norton's name was spoken fifty times, nine of them in vain. The word Paris was said seven times, Madrid, eight. The word love was spoken twice, once by each man. The word horror was spoken six times and the word happiness once (by Espinoza). The word solution was said twelve times. The word solipsism seven times. The world euphemism ten times. The word category, in the singular and the plural, nine times. The word structuralism once (Pelletier). The term American literature three times. The words dinner or eating or breakfast or sandwich nineteen times. The words eyes or hands or hair fourteen times. The the conversation proceeded more smoothly. ~ Roberto Bola o, #NFDB
1050:Without the concept of communion it would not be possible to speak of being. Substance has no ontological content, no true being, apart from communion.
In this way, communion becomes an ontological concept. Nothing in existence is conceivable in itself, as an individual. In this manner, it is communion which makes things 'be'.
But this communion is not a relationship understood for its own sake. Just like 'substance,' 'communion' does not exist by itself. This thesis introduces a concept of incalculable importance. For it means that the ultimate ontological category which makes something really *be*, is neither an impersonal and incommunicable 'substance,' nor a structure of communion existing by itself or imposed by necessity, but rather the *person*.
True being comes only from the free person, from the person who loves freely - that is, who freely affirms his being, his identity, by means of an event of communion with other persons. ~ John D Zizioulas,#NFDB
1051:The main trend on the job market isn’t that we’re moving into entirely new professions. Rather, we’re crowding into those pieces of terrain in figure 2.2 that haven’t yet been submerged by the rising tide of technology! Figure 3.6 shows that this forms not a single island but a complex archipelago, with islets and atolls corresponding to all the valuable things that machines still can’t do as cheaply as humans can. This includes not only high-tech professions such as software development, but also a panoply of low-tech jobs leveraging our superior dexterity and social skills, ranging from massage therapy to acting. Might AI eclipse us at intellectual tasks so rapidly that the last remaining jobs will be in that low-tech category? A friend of mine recently joked with me that perhaps the very last profession will be the very first profession: prostitution. But then he mentioned this to a Japanese roboticist, who protested: “No, robots are very good at those things! ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
1052:People will love people
no matter what
terrible shit they do.
We forgive people, even when
they don’t ask for forgiveness.
When there is no
atonement,
no penance.
Why do we love people?
Why do we forgive evil?
Stupidity—
Shallowness—
the darkest motives.
We forgive
because we are attached,
we have known them a long time,
we have put them into the
category of family or friend.
We want to have sex with them.
Because they entertain us.
We even forgive child molesters
if they make good movies.
The unspeakable truth
is that we need written laws
that have mystic origins—
with weapons to keep
them upheld.
Because we are too
forgiving of our friends
and family. We take their side,
even when we know
they are wrong, and lying.
The world would collapse
into chaos without law
not because we are
savage beasts, but because
we are so forgiving. ~ Noah Cicero,#NFDB
1053:So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16)
Our outer self is wasting away. Our bodies don’t work correctly. They fall apart and fail us at the worst times. While we live in this fallen world, we live in bodies that are wasting away.
I would argue that if we truly believe in total depravity, then we must accept mental illness as a biblical category. If I believe that sin has affected every part of my body, including my brain, then it shouldn’t surprise me when my brain doesn’t work correctly. I’m not surprised when I get a cold; why should I be surprised if I experience mental illness? To say that depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, and every other disorder, are purely spiritual disorders is to ignore the fact that we are both body and soul.
Mental illness is not something invented by secular psychiatrists. Rather, it is part and parcel with living in fallen, sinful world. ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
1054:We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely—those against private citizens or those against itself?
The gravest crimes in the State’s lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax.
Or compare the degree of zeal devoted to pursuing the man who assaults a policeman, with the attention that the State pays to the assault of an ordinary citizen. Yet, curiously, the State’s openly assigned priority to its own defense against the public strikes few people as inconsistent with its presumed raison d’etre. ~ Murray N Rothbard,#NFDB
1055:Concern flickers across his eyes and he frowns, looking away. “There is something I should tell you.”
My eyes widen to saucers. I knew it. My mind races with possibilities—drugs? Arrest record? Wife?—before I spit out an apprehensive, “What?”
“The thing is,” he starts, dragging his eyes back to mine, “depending on the market, I’m not technically a billionaire. Most days my net worth is still in the millionaire category.”
“Oh, my God. You’re an idiot.” I groan and laugh, flopping back onto the bed.
“Honestly, the money is a hassle most of the time.”
“A hassle?”
“Draws more attention than I’m interested in, truthfully.” He rubs his forehead. “Investors, media, security.” He drops his hand. “I’m not interested in being a Wikipedia page, you know?”
I nod. I can understand that.
“And my future children, I already wonder if I’m going to have to send them to the playground with security. Shit, I know I will. They’ll be worth too much. ~ Jana Aston,#NFDB
1056:It is important to stress that, in America at least, no matter how small and how badly off a particular stigmatized category is, the viewpoint of its members is likely to be given public presentation of some kind. It can thus be said that Americans who are stigmatized tend to live in a literarily-defined world, however uncultured they might be. If they don’t read books on the situation of persons like themselves, they at least read magazines and see movies; and where they don’t do these, then they listen to local, vocal associates. An intellectually worked-up version of their point of view is thus available to most stigmatized persons. A comment is here required about those who come to serve as representatives of a stigmatized category. Starting out as someone who is a little more vocal, a little better known, or a little better connected than his fellow-sufferers, a stigmatized person may find that the “movement” has absorbed his whole day, and that he has become a professional. ~ Erving Goffman, #NFDB
1057:She had gone to sleep on these facts years ago, after a period of much misery, her head resting on them as on a pillow; and she had a great dread of being awakened out of so simple and untroublesome a condition. Therefore it was that she searched with earnestness for a heading under which to put Mrs. Wilkins, and in this way illumine and steady her own mind; and sitting there looking at her uneasily after her last remark, and feeling herself becoming more and more unbalanced and infected, she decided pro tem, as the vicar said at meetings, to put her under the heading Nerves. It was just possible that she ought to go straight into the category Hysteria, which was often only the antechamber to Lunacy, but Mrs. Arbuthnot had learned not to hurry people into their final categories, having on more than one occasion discovered with dismay that she had made a mistake; and how difficult it had been to get them out again, and how crushed she had been with the most terrible remorse. Yes. ~ Elizabeth von Arnim, #NFDB
1058:NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes — some of which have a large sale. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
1059:Up to this moment in her life, Audrey had never evinced the slightest sentimentality about children. Insofar as she had recognized them as an independent category of personhood, she had tended to think of them as trainee humans. Inadequate adults. She loved her own daughters well enough - wanted them to be happy and so forth - but they had failed to inspire in her that mad, lioness passion to which other mothers so preeningly testified. She was still in some shock regarding the servility of motherhood - the sheer, thankless drudgery of it. All the cleaning up of messes she had made and preparing meals she did not want to eat. She fed her girls regularly and diligently brushed their teeth twice a day and made sure they were more or less appropriately dressed for the weather, but beyond a dull sense of satisfaction at having fulfilled her maternal duties, she received no pleasure from performing these tasks. Try as she might, she she could not feel her daughters' happiness and sorrows as her own. ~ Zo Heller, #NFDB
1060:So let us first look at why some technologies do not feel like standard technologies. Money is a means to the purpose of exchange, and therefore qualifies as a technology. (I am talking here about the monetary system, not the coins and paper notes that we carry.) Its principle is that any category of scarce objects can serve as a medium for exchange: gold, government-issued paper, or when these fail, cigarettes and nylons. The monetary system makes use of the "phenomenon" that we trust a medium has value as long as we believe that others trust i has value and we believe this trust will continue in the future. Notice the phenomenon here is a behavioral, not a physical one. This explains why money fulfills the requirements of a technology but does not feel like a technology. It is not based on a physical phenomenon. The same can be said for the other nontechnology-like technologies listed above. If we examine them we find they too are based upon behaioral or organizational "effects," not on physical ones. ~ W Brian Arthur, #NFDB
1061:well? I began to imagine a credit card of a different kind—a self-control credit card that would let people restrict their own spending behavior. The users could decide in advance how much money they wanted to spend in each category, in every store, and in every time frame. For instance, users could limit their spending on coffee to $20 every week, and their spending on clothing to $600 every six months. Cardholders could fix their limit for groceries at $200 a week and their entertainment spending at $60 a month, and not allow any spending on candy between two and five PM. What would happen if they surpassed the limit? The cardholders would select their penalties. For instance, they could make the card get rejected; or they could tax themselves and transfer the tax to Habitat for Humanity, a friend, or long-term savings. This system could also implement the “ice glass” method as a cooling-off period for large items; and it could even automatically trigger an e-mail to your spouse, your mother, or a friend: ~ Dan Ariely, #NFDB
1062:The construction of civilizational difference is not exclusive in any simple sense. The de-essentialization of Islam is paradigmatic for all thinking about the assimilation of non-European poeples to European civilization. The idea that people's historical experience is inessential to them, that it can be shed at will, makes it possible to argue more strongly for the Enlightenment's claim to universality: Muslims, as members of the abstract category "humans," can be assimilated or (as some recent theorist have put it) "translated" into a global ("European") civilization once they have divested themselves of what many of them regard (mistakenly) as essential to themselves. The belief that human beings can be separated from their histories and traditions makes it possible to urge a Europeanization of the Islamic world. And by the same logic, it underlies the belief that the assimilation to Europe's civilization of Muslim immigrants who are--for good or for ill--already in European states is necessary and desirable. ~ Talal Asad, #NFDB
1063:Tidying up by location is a fatal mistake. I’m ashamed to admit that it took me three years to see this. Many people are surprised to hear that such a seemingly viable approach is actually a common pitfall. The root of the problem lies in the fact that people often store the same type of item in more than one place. When we tidy each place separately, we fail to see that we’re repeating the same work in many locations and become locked into a vicious circle of tidying. To avoid this, I recommend tidying by category. For example, instead of deciding that today you’ll tidy a particular room, set goals like “clothes today, books tomorrow.” One reason so many of us never succeed at tidying is because we have too much stuff. This excess is caused by our ignorance of how much we actually own. When we disperse storage of a particular item throughout the house and tidy one place at a time, we can never grasp the overall volume and therefore can never finish. To escape this negative spiral, tidy by category, not by place. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
1064:The construction of civilizational difference is not exclusive in any simple sense. The de-essentialization of Islam is paradigmatic for all thinking about the assimilation of non-European peoples to European civilization. The idea that people's historical experience is inessential to them, that it can be shed at will, makes it possible to argue more strongly for the Enlightenment's claim to universality: Muslims, as members of the abstract category "humans," can be assimilated or (as some recent theorist have put it) "translated" into a global ("European") civilization once they have divested themselves of what many of them regard (mistakenly) as essential to themselves. The belief that human beings can be separated from their histories and traditions makes it possible to urge a Europeanization of the Islamic world. And by the same logic, it underlies the belief that the assimilation to Europe's civilization of Muslim immigrants who are--for good or for ill--already in European states is necessary and desirable.
~ Talal Asad,#NFDB
1065:When we’re young, everyone over the age of thirty looks middle-aged, everyone over fifty antique. And time, as it goes by, confirms that we weren’t that wrong. Those little age differentials, so crucial and so gross when we are young, erode. We end up all belonging to the same category, that of the non-young. I’ve never much minded this myself.
But there are exceptions to the rule. For some people, the time differentials established in youth never really disappear: the elder remains the elder, even when both are dribbling greybeards. For some people, a gap of, say, five months means that one will perversely always think of himself – herself – as wiser and more knowledgeable than the other, whatever the evidence to the contrary. Or perhaps I should say because of the evidence to the contrary. Because it is perfectly clear to any objective observer that the balance has shifted to the marginally younger person, the other one maintains the assumption of superiority all the more rigorously. All the more neurotically. ~ Julian Barnes,#NFDB
1066:But perhaps a compromise lies where Augustine’s checklists leave you, when you do have room to maneuver. You lean, bend, or tilt in a certain direction when choosing between order and justice, war and peace, Caesar and God. You’re aligning aspirations with capabilities, for in Augustine’s thinking justice, peace, and God fit the first category, while order, war, and Caesar inhabit the second. Alignment, in turn, implies interdependence. Justice is unattainable in the absence of order, peace may require the fighting of wars, Caesar must be propitiated—perhaps even, like Constantine, converted—if man is to reach God. Each capability brings an aspiration within reach, much as Sun Tzu’s practices tether his principles, but what’s the nature of the tether? I think it’s proportionality: the means employed must be appropriate to—or at least not corrupt—the end envisaged. This, then, is Augustine’s tilt: toward a logic of strategy transcending time, place, culture, circumstance, and the differences between saints and sinners. ~ John Lewis Gaddis, #NFDB
1067:think of myself as a plain dealer and I am rather proud of the honesty of my transactions. After all, I have had to make my way in the world, and I could only do so by being clear-eyed and self-reliant. I forbid myself to remember that it has not always been easy, and I never, ever, blame my parents: that sort of thing is so old hat. I pass lightly through life, without anguished attachments, and this was nearly always the way I intended it to be. I say nearly always because I do sometimes have these odd dreams. The dreams are of no interest in themselves, but they leave me wondering where they came from. In dreams I bear children, sink smiling into loving arms, fight my way out of empty rooms, and regularly drown. I wake up in a state of astonishment, and sometimes of fear, but I banish the memory of the dreams, of which no one knows anything. Telling dreams, like blaming one’s parents, or falling in love and making a fool of oneself, comes into my category of forbidden things. And yet the ghastly Teddy, who was obviously ~ Anita Brookner, #NFDB
1068:In the course of my intellectual life I experienced very acutely the problem of whether it isn't actually presumptuous to say that we can know the truth - in the face of all our limitations. I also asked myself to what extent it might not be better to suppress this category. In pursuing this question, however, I was able to observe and also to grasp that relinquishing truth doesn't solve anything but, on the contrary, leads to the tyranny of caprice. In that case, the only thing that can remain is really what we decide on and can replace at will. Man is degraded if he can't know truth, if everything, in the final analysis, is just the product of an individual or collective decision.
In this way it became clear to me how important it is that we don't lose the concept of truth, in spite of the menaces and perils that it doubtless carries with it. It has to remain as a central category. As a demand on us that doesn't give us rights but requires, on the contrary, our humility and our obedience and can lead us to the common path. ~ Benedict XVI,#NFDB
1069:There are multiple ways to label people, as you may well know. In the literate world, we can simplify this in that there are readers and non-readers. Within the readers category, we can further label people by how passionate they are with the books they choose. Some people escape into the stories they read. Some read for purpose or information. Some read out of resentment or necessity. But let us, in this moment, focus on those who find books to be an escape or an extension of their imagination. These readers see, within their mind’s eye, the characters and settings in the pages below their fingers. They feel the emotions woven between the words. They live through every heartache, every embrace, every terror. Books, to these people, become tangible, living things. The characters they read become genuine souls.” A half smile curves his lips. “People like this are often accused of living within their fantasies. They’re said to have their noses stuck in books. But the reality is that some of these people actually do escape into books. ~ Heather Lyons, #NFDB
1070:Finally, I ask our managers to weigh one other critical factor as they handicap the prospect. Do they believe the candidate has the capacity to become one of the top three performers on our team in his or her job category? If people cannot ever develop into one of our top three cooks, servers, managers, or maître d’s, why would we hire them? How will they help us improve and become champions? It’s pretty easy to spot an overwhelmingly strong candidate or even an underwhelmingly weak candidate. It’s the “whelming” candidate you must avoid at all costs, because that’s the one who can and will do your organization the most long-lasting harm. Overwhelmers earn you raves. Underwhelmers either leave on their own or are terminated. Whelmers, sadly, are like a stubborn stain you can’t get out of the carpet. They infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity; they’re comfortable, and so they never leave; and, frustratingly, they never do anything that rises to the level of getting them promoted or sinks to the level of getting them fired. And ~ Danny Meyer, #NFDB
1071:Penises and ejaculate and prostate glands occur in nature, but the notion that these anatomical traits comprise a sex—a discrete class, separate and distinct, metaphysically divisible from some other sex, the “other sex” —is simply that: a notion, an idea. The penises exist; the male sex does not. The male sex is socially constructed. It is a political entity that flourishes only through acts of force and sexual terrorism. Apart from the global inferiorization and subordination of those who are defined as “nonmale,” the idea of personal membership in the male sex class would have no recognizable meaning. It would make no sense. No one could be a member of it and no one would think they should be a member of it. There would be no male sex to belong to. That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t still be penises and ejaculate and prostate glands and such. It simply means that the center of our selfhood would not be required to reside inside an utterly fictitious category—a category that only seems real to the extent that those outside it are put down. ~ John Stoltenberg, #NFDB
1072:In some cases, perfectionists may forgive other people’s sins, but be unable to receive forgiveness themselves. Many perfectionists will sabotage potentially good relationships for one reason: being found out. They are afraid to get too close to someone, because their bad self might start leaking out, and the shame and self-condemnation they feel is unbearably painful. Generally, perfectionists opt for isolation rather than to be exposed in their failings. It is sadly ironic that perfectionists shun the very safety that could heal them. The well-known “commitment-phobic” man is often in this category. He’s the type who starts a relationship, gets close, and then disappears. As a single woman friend of mine said after one of these episodes, “I’d understand it if he’d bailed out after a fight. But on our last date, we both started sharing our fears and insecurities. Silly me. I thought that tended to bring people closer together.” What actually happened to the man was just the opposite: He started trusting my friend, and his defenses began slipping. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
1073:It is always revealing to see how a person responds to those situations where he’s told: “There’s nothing you can do about it. This is the way of the world.” Peter Thiel’s friend, the mathematician and economist Eric Weinstein, has a category of individual he defines as a “high-agency person.” How do you respond when told something is impossible? Is that the end of the conversation or the start of one? What’s the reaction to being told you can’t—that no one can? One type accepts it, wallows in it even. The other questions it, fights it, rejects it. This choice defines us. Puts us at a crossroads with ourselves and what we think about the kind of person we are. “Anyone who is threatened and is forced by necessity either to act or to suffer,” writes Machiavelli, “becomes a very dangerous man to the prince.” And Peter Thiel was driven into a desperate position, of and not of his own making, that had started with a matter of his identity and become about a deeper identity. Now he had not only decided to act against Gawker, but he would conspire to destroy them. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1074:Women are the only “oppressed” group to share the same parents as the “oppressor”; to be born into the middle class and upper class as frequently as the “oppressor”; to own more of the culture’s luxury items than the “oppressor”; the only “oppressed” group whose “unpaid labor” enables them to buy most of the fifty billion dollars’ worth of cosmetics sold each year; the only “oppressed” group that spends more on high fashion, brand-name clothing than their “oppressors”; the only “oppressed” group that watches more TV during every time category than their “oppressors.”33 Feminists often compare marriage to slavery—with the female as slave. It seems like an insult to women’s intelligence to suggest that marriage is female slavery when we know it is 25 million American females34 who read an average of twenty romance novels per month,35 often with the fantasy of marriage. Are feminists suggesting that 25 million American women have “enslavement” fantasies because they fantasize marriage? Is this the reason Danielle Steele is the best-selling author in the world? ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
1075:however, I evaluate a problem and decide that it really is a big deal, I move to step two of what I will call my method for dealing with problems. Look at me; I have a method. In my life, most of the problems that fall into this category have to do with my disease. Some examples include: realizing my arms are a lot weaker than they were a year ago, thinking about my long-term future, and being unable to do things because of my wheelchair. These are problems that, no matter how you look at them, just plain old suck—a lot. But therein lies the key to step two of my method. As long as I’m not thinking about these problems, they can’t bring me down, so I simply don’t think about them! It’s not rocket science. There’s nothing I can do to solve any of those above-mentioned problems, so what good will come from spending my time being sad about them? Instead, I focus my mind and energy on doing things that make me happy like laughing, joking, eating, and spending time with friends. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there really is no other way to live. ~ Shane Burcaw, #NFDB
1076:I do admit to worrying sometimes about future generations of the Waltons. I know it’s unrealistic of me to expect them all to get up and throw paper routes, and I know it’s something I can’t control. But I’d hate to see any descendants of mine fall into the category of what I’d call “idle rich”—a group I’ve never had much use for. I really hope that somehow the values both Helen and I, and our kids, have always embraced can be passed on down through the generations. And even if these little future Waltons don’t feel the need to work from dawn on into the night to stay ahead of the bill collector, I hope they’ll feel compelled to do something productive and useful and challenging with their lives. Maybe it’s time for a Walton to start thinking about going into medical research and working on cures for cancer, or figuring out new ways to bring culture and education to the underprivileged, or becoming missionaries for free enterprise in the Third World. Or maybe—and this is strictly my idea—there’s another Walton merchant lurking in the wings somewhere down the line. ~ Sam Walton, #NFDB
1077:Goethe (I don’t know why, but Goethe somehow always speaks up in my critical moments) said: “Man must experience his own destiny” - not a factual destiny forced on him by History, but the nonrecurrent, his very own. Perhaps this was possible a hundred years ago. At the time of the French Revolution and also of the Napoleonic Wars, an individual still had the means of turning against the collective destiny adroitly, cunningly. He could hide or build emergency dams hastily in his soul. And a hundred years ago when someone mounted the scaffold or fell on the battlefield, he knew that what was then being consummated personally was his destiny. But today? There is no longer a “personal destiny;” there are only statistical probabilities. One cannot feel it to be personal destiny when an atom bomb explodes or when a dictatorship enunciates an outmoded, stupid judgment on a society. This is why I must go somewhere from this place where, perhaps, it will be possible for me to live my own destiny for a time. Because here I have already become only a piece of data in a category. ~ S ndor M rai, #NFDB
1078:I felt disoriented. Didn't I already know my gift? I had my super-self-control that had allowed me to skip right over the horrifying newborn year. Vampires only had one extra ability at most, right?
Or had Edward been correct in the beginning? Before Carlisle had suggested that my self-control could be something beyond the natural, Edward had thought my restraint was just a product of good preparation- focus and attitude, he'd declared.
Which one had been right? Was there more I could do? A name and a category for what I was?"
"Can you project?" Kate asked interestedly.
"Project?" I asked.
"Push it out from yourself," Kate explained. "Shield someone besides yourself."
...
I wished fervently that I might be good at this projecting thing, too, like I was somehow mysteriously good at all the other aspects of being a vampire. My human life had not prepared me for things that came naturally, and I couldn't make myself trust this aptitude to last.
It felt like I had never wanted anything so badly before this: to be able to protect what I loved. ~ Stephenie Meyer,#NFDB
1079:So tell me about yourself,” I say, mentally rolling my eyes for sounding like an interviewer. “Where’d you grow up? What’s your favorite color? Biggest fear? All the basics.”
He laughs, kicking at a cluster of broken flower petals on the ground. “I’d hardly put my biggest fear in the basics category.”
“You know what I mean. I feel like I don’t know that much about you, in the broad scheme of things.”
“Well, in the broad scheme,” he begins, “I grew up all over the world, my favorite color changes every day, and I’m terrified of green eyes.”
I raise my brows and imagine my eyes shooting him with green laser beams. “That’s--” I stop myself from saying weird. “Why?”
“It’s just this feeling I have.”
“My eyes are sort of greenish,” I say through a nervous laugh. “Am I that scary?”
He looks at me and we both slow to a stop. A Vespa shoots past, swirling our hair in the wind. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t blink, so I don’t either. I get the impression he’s trying to subliminally relay his answer to me. That I’m supposed to know what he’s thinking. I don’t. ~ Kristin Rae,#NFDB
1080:In this book, therefore, I divide the things that are “impossible” into three categories. The first are what I call Class I impossibilities. These are technologies that are impossible today but that do not violate the known laws of physics. So they might be possible in this century, or perhaps the next, in modified form. They include teleportation, antimatter engines, certain forms of telepathy, psychokinesis, and invisibility. The second category is what I term Class II impossibilities. These are technologies that sit at the very edge of our understanding of the physical world. If they are possible at all, they might be realized on a scale of millennia to millions of years in the future. They include time machines, the possibility of hyperspace travel, and travel through wormholes. The final category is what I call Class III impossibilities. These are technologies that violate the known laws of physics. Surprisingly, there are very few such impossible technologies. If they do turn out to be possible, they would represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics. ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
1081:Therapy entails the application of conceptual machinery to ensure that actual or potential deviants stay within the institutionalized definitions of reality, or, in other words, to prevent the “inhabitants” of a given universe from “emigrating.” It does this by applying the legitimating apparatus to individual “cases.” Since, as we have seen, every society faces the danger of individual deviance, we may assume that therapy in one form or another is a global social phenomenon. Its specific institutional arrangements, from exorcism to psychoanalysis, from pastoral care to personnel counseling programs, belong, of course, under the category of social control. What interests us here, however, is the conceptual aspect of therapy. Since therapy must concern itself with deviations from the “official” definitions of reality, it must develop a conceptual machinery to account for such deviations and to maintain the realities thus challenged. This requires a body of knowledge that includes a theory of deviance, a diagnostic apparatus, and a conceptual system for the “cure of souls. ~ Peter L Berger, #NFDB
1082:These are the “problem children” who are periodically put through the torture of the teachers’ complaints to their parents, and through the helpless despair of seeing their parents side with the torturers. Some of these children are violently rebellious; others seem outwardly timid and passive, but are outside the reach of any pressure or influence. Whatever their particular forms of bearing the unbearable, what they all have in common is the inability to fit in, i.e., to accept the intellectual authority of the pack. (Not all “misfits” belong to this category; there are children who reject the pack for entirely different reasons, such as frustrated powerlust.) The nonconformists are heroic little martyrs who are given no credit by anyone—not even by themselves, since they cannot identify the nature of their battle. They do not have the conceptual knowledge or the introspective skill to grasp that they are unable and unwilling to accept anything without understanding it, and that they are holding to the sovereignty of their own judgment against the terrifying pressure of everyone around them. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1083:Suddenly, a ball flies through the air and hits Matt on the forehead. He reaches for it and catches it in the air. It’s a little, blue Nerf ball and not something that would hurt him. He squeezes it in his fist. “Very amusing,” he says to the room. “You’re going to corrupt the kids,” one of the twins says. I think it’s Sam, but they look so much alike that I can’t be sure. Then I see the other one is cuddled up with Reagan, so this one must be Sam. “The kids are in the other fucking room, dumbass,” Matt says. He hurls the ball back at Sam. It bounces off his shoulder, and Paul reaches up to pluck it from the air. He throws it back at Sam, where it deflects off his ear. Seth raises a hand tentatively. “I’m a kid, and I’m still here,” he reminds us playfully. Any other time he wouldn’t be caught dead in the kid category. Sam raises his hand, too. “I am, too. You’re going to corrupt me.” He shivers playfully. “All that lovey-dovey shit makes me want to throw up my cupcakes.” He burps loudly and covers his mouth with his closed fist after. “And I worked hard on those cupcakes,” he reminds everyone. ~ Tammy Falkner, #NFDB
1084:To do so, hang heavy items on the left side of the closet and light items on the right. Heavy items include those with length, those made from heavier material, and those that are dark in color. As you move toward the right side of the closet, the length of the clothing grows shorter, the material thinner, and the color lighter. By category, coats would be on the far left, followed by dresses, jackets, pants, skirts, and blouses. This is the basic order, but depending on the trends in your wardrobe, what classifies as “heavy” in each category will differ. Use your intuition to create a balance that makes it appear as if the clothes are sloping up to the right. In addition, organize the clothes within each category from heavy to light. When you stand in front of a closet that has been reorganized so that the clothes rise to the right, you will feel your heart beat faster and the cells in your body buzz with energy. This energy will also be transmitted to your clothes. Even when you close the closet door, your room will feel fresher. Once you have experienced this, you’ll never lose the habit of organizing by category. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
1085:Exilic Intellectuals 1 "It is part of morality not to be at home in one's home." —Theodore W. Adorno "[I am] the outlander, not only regionally, but down bone deep for good...my Texas grandfather has something to do with that." —C. Wright Mills Edward Said's Representations of the Intellectual must be considered a landmark in radically reawakening the crucial consciousness of that critical community of counter-interpreters we have habitually called "The Intellectuals." It appears that the problem of intellectuals in the United States is reformulated periodically as a crucial barometer of issues and concerns centered around, but much beyond, the immediate conception of this social category. It was in Democracy in America that Tocqueville opened his second, theoretically more significant, volume with the startling pronouncement that: I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States. The Americans have no philosophical school of their own, and they care but little for all the schools into which Europe is divided, the very names of which are scarcely known to them. 2 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1086:Quadrant II is the important but not urgent. This may be the most important use of your time as an EntreLeader. The things that fall in this category impact the quality of your life and business possibly more than any other area. Examples of what falls into this area are exercise, strategic planning, goal setting, reading nonfiction leadership/business books, taking a class or three, relationship building, prayer, date night with your spouse, a day off devoted to brainstorming, doing your will/estate plan, saving money, and having the oil changed in your car. We can all agree that things that aren’t urgent but are important may be the most important activities we engage in as we look back at our life. The problem is we live in a society where the urge to be in motion, frenetic motion, at all times seems to be the spirit of the age. There is something about a quad II activity that causes you to pause and let a breath out, sigh, then engage in it. Activities like the ones mentioned above are the building blocks of a high-quality life and business, and yet because they are not urgent they seem to be some of the things we avoid the most. ~ Dave Ramsey, #NFDB
1087:There is one problem, however, at least for alternative experiments of the American variety (and possibly some European as well), namely that we have no clear litmus test to determine which models are truly steady-state (non-expansionist) and which are business as usual hiding under “green wigs.” This latter trend is known as “greenwashing,” in which the language is hip and the bottom line remains profit. Thomas Friedman and Al Gore are major (and wealthy) players in this category, perpetuating the notion of “green corporations.” Other examples include a 2012 conference on “Sustainable Investing,” sponsored by Deepak Chopra, among others, which had as its slogans “Make Money and Make a Difference” and “Capitalism for a Democratic Society.” All of this is the attempt to have one’s cake and eat it too (or simply eat someone else’s cake); there is no real interest in disconnecting from growth, and it is growth that is the core of the problem. As Professor Magnuson tells us, while traveling around the U.S. to interview varous alternative businesses and experiments, he discovered that many of them were shams—capitalist wolves in green clothing. ~ Morris Berman, #NFDB
1088:There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, with many rounds; but three of these are the most important. Once on a time men sacrificed human beings to their God, and perhaps just those they loved the best — to this category belong the firstling sacrifices of all primitive religions, and also the sacrifice of the Emperor Tiberius in the Mithra-Grotto on the Island of Capri, that most terrible of all Roman anachronisms. Then, during the moral epoch of mankind, they sacrificed to their God the strongest instincts they possessed, their “nature”; THIS festal joy shines in the cruel glances of ascetics and “anti-natural” fanatics. Finally, what still remained to be sacrificed? Was it not necessary in the end for men to sacrifice everything comforting, holy, healing, all hope, all faith in hidden harmonies, in future blessedness and justice? Was it not necessary to sacrifice God himself, and out of cruelty to themselves to worship stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, nothingness? To sacrifice God for nothingness — this paradoxical mystery of the ultimate cruelty has been reserved for the rising generation; we all know something thereof already. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1089:We all need someone to look at us. we can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. the first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. the second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. they are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. they are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. this happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. people in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. one day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. and finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. they are the dreamers. ~ Milan Kundera, #NFDB
1090:The fact is, I just don’t like you, Ma’am. Working with you this past month has been pretty Goddamn unpleasant and I’m ready to see the end of your pretty little backside.” Celeste’s eyes grew wide with disbelief. “How dare you? Do you have any idea of who I really am and what I could do to you if I chose?” He shrugged. “Yeah, I know you think you’re hot shit—a three-star vamp and hotter than a firecracker to look at—but I’ve seen how you treat your people. Pretty is as pretty does, my nana used to say and let me tell you, Celeste, you’re one of the ugliest fucking people I’ve ever met.” “I… why… you…” I had never seen my old mistress so flustered before. “You will stay with me,” she said at last, glaring at him. “You will see this to the end or… or…” “Go ahead,” he said coolly. “Tell me how you’re going to kill me. Then just come on and try it. I may be too much of a gentleman to hit a lady but somehow I don’t think you fall into that category.” Celeste’s eyes narrowed. “You will finish the job I hired you to do or I will ruin your reputation, Mr. Shadowlock. No one will ever hire you in Florida again.” “What a big loss that would be,” he said dryly. ~ Evangeline Anderson, #NFDB
1091:As Aaron Levie, the founder of the online file storage company Box noted in a tweet in 2014, “Sizing the market for a disruptor based on an incumbent’s market is like sizing a car industry off how many horses there were in 1910.” The other factor that can lead to underestimating a market is neglecting to account for expanding into additional markets. Amazon began as Amazon Books, the “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.” But Jeff Bezos always intended for bookselling to serve as a beachhead from which Amazon could expand outward to encompass his massive vision of “the everything store.” Today, Amazon dominates the bookselling industry, but thanks to relentless market expansion, book sales represent less than 7 percent of Amazon’s total sales. The same effect can be seen in the financial results of Apple. In the first quarter of 2017, Apple generated $ 7.2 billion from the sale of personal computers, a category the company pioneered and once dominated. That’s a great number to be sure, but, over that same financial quarter, Apple’s total revenue was a whopping $ 78.4 billion, which meant that Apple’s original market accounted for less than 10 percent of its total sales. ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
1092:Melians: And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?
Athenians: Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.
Melians: So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side.
Athenians: No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
Melians: Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?
Athenians: As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea. ~ Thucydides,#NFDB
1093:secularism is not neutral, though it often claims to be. In relation to the biblical God, secularists may be skeptics. But in relation to their own god substitutes, they are true believers. To adapt an observation from C. S. Lewis, their skepticism is only on the surface. It is for use on other people’s beliefs. “They are not nearly skeptical enough” about their own beliefs.83 And when they enforce secular views in the realm of law, education, sexuality, and health care, they are imposing their own beliefs on everyone else across an entire society. The consequence of those secular views is inevitably dehumanizing. The reason is that secularism in all its forms is reductionistic. A worldview that does not start with God must start with something less than God—something within creation—which then becomes the category to explain all of reality. Think back to Walker Percy’s metaphor of a box. Empiricism puts everything in the box of the senses. Rationalism puts everything into the box of human reason. Anything that does not fit into the box is denied, denigrated, or declared to be unreal. The diverse and multi-faceted world God created is reduced to a single category. ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
1094:You “burn” your way into the mind by narrowing the focus to a single word or concept. It’s the ultimate marketing sacrifice. Federal Express was able to put the word overnight into the minds of its prospects because it sacrificed its product line and focused on overnight package delivery only. In a way, the law of leadership—it’s better to be first than to be better—enables the first brand or company to own a word in the mind of the prospect. But the word the leader owns is so simple that it’s invisible. The leader owns the word that stands for the category. For example, IBM owns computer. This is another way of saying that the brand becomes a generic name for the category. “We need an IBM machine.” Is there any doubt that a computer is being requested? You can also test the validity of a leadership claim by a word association test. If the given words are computer, copier, chocolate bar, and cola, the four most associated words are IBM, Xerox, Hershey’s, and Coke. An astute leader will go one step further to solidify its position. Heinz owns the word ketchup. But Heinz went on to isolate the most important ketchup attribute. “Slowest ketchup in the West” is how the company ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
1095:Countless aid organizations and governments are convinced that they know what poor people need, and invest in schools, solar panels, or cattle. And, granted, better a cow than no cow. But at what cost? A Rwandan study estimated that donating one pregnant cow costs around $3,000 (including a milking workshop). That’s five years’ wages for a Rwandan.17 Or take the patchwork of courses offered to the poor: Study after study has shown that they cost a lot but achieve little, whether the objective is learning to fish, read, or run a business.18 “Poverty is fundamentally about a lack of cash. It’s not about stupidity,” stresses the economist Joseph Hanlon. “You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have no boots.”19 The great thing about money is that people can use it to buy things they need instead of things that self-appointed experts think they need. And, as it happens, there is one category of product which poor people do not spend their free money on, and that’s alcohol and tobacco. In fact, a major study by the World Bank demonstrated that in 82% of all researched cases in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, alcohol and tobacco consumption actually declined.20 ~ Rutger Bregman, #NFDB
1096:IT WAS three days after the satisfactory resolution of the Patel case. Mma Ramotswe had put in her bill for two thousand pula, plus expenses, and had been paid by return of post. This astonished her. She could not believe that she would be paid such a sum without protest, and the readiness, and apparent cheerfulness with which Mr Patel had settled the bill induced pangs of guilt over the sheer size of the fee. It was curious how some people had a highly developed sense of guilt, she thought, while others had none. Some people would agonise over minor slips or mistakes on their part, while others would feel quite unmoved by their own gross acts of betrayal or dishonesty. Mma Pekwane fell into the former category, thought Mma Ramotswe. Note Mokoti fell into the latter. Mma Pekwane had seemed anxious when she had come into the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Mma Ramotswe had given her a strong cup of bush tea, as she always did with nervous clients, and had waited for her to be ready to speak. She was anxious about a man, she thought; there were all the signs. What would it be? Some piece of masculine bad behaviour, of course, but what? “I’m worried that my husband ~ Alexander McCall Smith, #NFDB
1097:Sooner or later something seems to call us onto a particular path. You may remember this “something” as a signal calling in childhood when an urge out of nowhere, a fascination, a peculiar turn of events struck like an annunciation: This is what I must do, this is what I’ve got to have. This is who I am…If not this vivid and sure, the call may have been more like gentle pushings in the stream in which you drifted unknowingly to a particular spot on the bank. Looking back, you sense that fate had a hand in it…. A calling may be postponed, avoided, intermittently missed. It may also possess you completely. Whatever; eventually it will out. It makes its claim…. Extraordinary people display calling most evidently. Perhaps that’s why they fascinate. Perhaps, too, they are extraordinary because their calling comes through so clearly and they are so loyal to it…. Extraordinary people bear the better witness because they show what ordinary mortals simply can’t. We seem to have less motivation and more distraction. Yet our destiny is driven by the same universal engine. Extraordinary people are not a different category; the workings of this engine in them are simply more transparent…. —JAMES HILLMAN ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1098:This was when my head really started to spin, because the Quantum Cards experiment is just one particular example of how microscopic quantum weirdness gets amplified into macroscopic quantum weirdness. As we discussed in the last chapter, such amplification of small differences into big differences happens virtually all the time, like when a cosmic ray-particle hit does/doesn't give someone a cancerous mutation, when today's atmospheric conditions do/don't evolve into a Category 4 hurricane next year, or when you use your neurons to make decisions. In other words, parallel-universe splitting is happening constantly, making the number of quantum parallel universes truly dizzying. Since such splitting has been going on ever since our Big Bang, pretty much any version of history that you can imagine has actually played out in a quantum parallel universe, as long as it doesn't violate any physical laws. This makes vastly more parallel universes than there are grains of sand in our Universe. In summary, Everett showed that if the wavefunction never collapses, then the familiar reality that we perceive is merely the tip of an ontological iceberg, constituting a minuscule part of the true quantum reality. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
1099:In the train, I read a special issue of Der Spiegel, about the Germans who had been driven out in ethnic cleansing campaigns at the end of World War One. Almost three million from Sudetenland. The Czechs, who offered hardly any resistance to the Germans, celebrated the victory given them by Russians in such a manner. Poland, Yugoslavia, Germans were driven out of these countries, mass executed. The story is not given much attention because people are put in the mass category—Germans, the perpetrators, not the victims. Well, are they all the same? Did they all vote the same way? Those in other countries didn’t vote at all, and their sympathies may have been largely with the invading armies, but it is not these Germans who decided anything or started anything. If the US were suddenly to lose a war that Bush initiates, should all the Americans be driven out from everywhere, be mass executed, all on account of being Americans, even if Bush didn’t win the presidency with a majority vote? Hitler, likewise, never got the majority, but worked with coalitions. If one is not to romanticize, and permanently divide nations into the good ones and the bad ones, and thus perpetrate chauvinism, all these stories have to be told. ~ Josip Novakovich, #NFDB
1100:Factfulness is … recognizing when a category is being used in an explanation, and remembering that categories can be misleading. We can’t stop generalization and we shouldn’t even try. What we should try to do is to avoid generalizing incorrectly. To control the generalization instinct, question your categories. • Look for differences within groups. Especially when the groups are large, look for ways to split them into smaller, more precise categories. And … • Look for similarities across groups. If you find striking similarities between different groups, consider whether your categories are relevant. But also … • Look for differences across groups. Do not assume that what applies for one group (e.g., you and other people living on Level 4 or unconscious soldiers) applies for another (e.g., people not living on Level 4 or sleeping babies). • Beware of “the majority.” The majority just means more than half. Ask whether it means 51 percent, 99 percent, or something in between. • Beware of vivid examples. Vivid images are easier to recall but they might be the exception rather than the rule. • Assume people are not idiots. When something looks strange, be curious and humble, and think, In what way is this a smart solution? ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
1101:I’d gone on dates with every flavor of cute boy under the sun.
Except for one. Cowboy. I’d never even spoken to a cowboy, let alone ever known one personally, let alone ever dated one, and certainly, absolutely, positively never kissed one--until that night on my parents’ front porch, a mere couple of weeks before I was set to begin my new life in Chicago. After valiantly rescuing me from falling flat on my face just moments earlier, this cowboy, this western movie character standing in front of me, was at this very moment, with one strong, romantic, mind-numbingly perfect kiss, inserting the category of “Cowboy” into my dating repertoire forever.
The kiss. I’ll remember this kiss till my very last breath, I thought to myself. I’ll remember every detail. Strong, calloused hands gripping my upper arms. Five o’clock shadow rubbing gently against my chin. Faint smell of boot leather in the air. Starched denim shirt against my palms, which have gradually found their way around his trim, chiseled waist…
I don’t know how long we stood there in the first embrace of our lives together. But I do know that when that kiss was over, my life as I’d always imagined it was over, too.
I just didn’t know it yet. ~ Ree Drummond,#NFDB
1102:Psychologist J.P. Guilford, who carried out a long series of systematic psychological studies into the nature of creativity, found that several factors were involved in creative thinking; many of these, as we shall see, relate directly to the cognitive changes that take place during mild manias as well. Fluency of thinking, as defined by Guilford, is made up of several related and empirically derived concepts, measured by specific tasks: word fluency, the ability to produce words each, for example, containing a specific letter or combination of letters; associational fluency, the production of as many synonyms as possible for a given word in a limited amount of time; expressional fluency, the production and rapid juxtaposition of phrases or sentences; and ideational fluency, the ability to produce ideas to fulfill certain requirements in a limited amount of time. In addition to fluency of thinking, Guilford developed two other important concepts for the study of creative thought: spontaneous flexibility, the ability and disposition to produce a great variety of ideas, with freedom to switch from category to category; and adaptive flexibility, the ability to come up with unusual types of solutions to set problems. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, #NFDB
1103:Ian, about Elizabeth Cameron. Her duenna said some things-“
That alarmingly pleasant yet distant smile returned to Ian’s face. “I’ll spare you further conversation, Duncan. It’s over.”
“The discussion or-“
“All of it.”
“It didn’t look over to me!” Duncan snapped, nudged to the edge by Ian’s infuriating calm. “That scene I witnessed-“
“You witnessed the end.”
He said that, Duncan noted, with the same deadly finality, the same amused calm with which he’d spoken of his grandfather. It was as if he’d resolved matters to his complete satisfaction in his own mind, and nothing and no one could ever invade the place where he put them to rest. Based on Ian’s last reaction to the matter of Elizabeth Cameron, she was now relegated to the same category as the Duke of Stanhope. Frustrated, Duncan jerked the bottle of brandy off the table at Ian’s elbow and splashed some into his glass. “There’s something I’ve never told you,” he said angrily.
“And that is?” Ian inquired.
“I hate it when you turn all pleasant and amused. I’d rather see you furious! At least then I know I still have a chance of reaching you.”
To Duncan’s boundless annoyance, Ian merely picked up his book and started reading again. ~ Judith McNaught,#NFDB
1104:Sections in the bookstore
- Books You Haven't Read
- Books You Needn't Read
- Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading
- Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to the Category of Books Read Before Being Written
- Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
- Books You Mean to Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
- Books Too Expensive Now and You'll Wait 'Til They're Remaindered
- Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback
- Books You Can Borrow from Somebody
- Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too
- Books You've Been Planning to Read for Ages
- Books You've Been Hunting for Years Without Success
- Books Dealing with Something You're Working on at the Moment
- Books You Want to Own So They'll Be Handy Just in Case
- Books You Could Put Aside Maybe to Read This Summer
- Books You Need to Go with Other Books on Your Shelves
- Books That Fill You with Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified
- Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time to Re-read
- Books You've Always Pretended to Have Read and Now It's Time to Sit Down and Really Read Them ~ Italo Calvino,#NFDB
1105:Yet if we are to judge by the analogy of the past, when our science once becomes old-fashioned, it will be more for its omissions of fact, for its ignorance of whole ranges and orders of complexity in the phenomena to be explained, than for any fatal lack in its spirit and principles. The spirit and principles of science are mere affairs of method; there is nothing in them that need hinder science from dealing successfully with a world in which personal forces are the starting-point of new effects. The only form of thing that we directly encounter, the only experience that we concretely have, is our own personal life. The only complete category of our thinking, our professors of philosophy tell us, is the category of personality, every other category being one of the abstract elements of that. And this systematic denial on science's part of personality as a condition of events, this rigorous belief that in its own essential and innermost nature our world is a strictly impersonal world, may, conceivably, as the whirligig of time goes round, prove to be the very defect that our descendants will be most surprised at in our own boasted science, the omission that to their eyes will most tend to make it look perspectiveless and short. ~ William James, #NFDB
1106:Female prophecy must be situated in the crisis of reproduction in the middle of the seventeenth century. This was the peak period for the criminalization of women in England and throughout Europe, as prosecutions for infanticide, abortion, and witchcraft reached their highest rate. It was also the period in which men began to wrest control of reproduction from women (male midwives appeared in 1625 and forceps soon thereafter); previously, "childbirth and the lying-in period were a kind of ritual collectively staged and controlled by women, from which men were usually excluded." Since the ruling class had begun to recognize its interest in increased fecundity, "attention was focussed on the 'population' as fundamental category for economic and political analysis." The simultaneous births of modern obstetrics and modern demography were responses to this crisis. Both, like the witchcraft prosecutions, sought to rationalize social reproduction in a capitalist context - that is, as the breeding of labor power. A recurring motif in the ruling-class imagination was intercourse between the English witch and the "black man" - a devil or imp. The terror was not limited to an imaginary chamber of horrors; it was an actuality of counterevolution. ~ Peter Linebaugh, #NFDB
1107:As a whole, and at times, the efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of a people, as always concentrating it on a single enemy. The more uniformly the fighting will of a people is put into action, the greater will be the magnetic force of the movement and the more powerful the impetus of the blow. It is part of the genius of a leader to make adversaries of different fields appear as always belonging to one category only, because to weak and unstable characters, the knowledge that there are various enemies will lead only too easily to incipient doubts as to their own cause.
As soon as the wavering masses find themselves confronted with too many enemies, objectivity at once steps in, and the question is raised whether actually all the others are wrong and their own nation or their own movement alone is right.
Also, with this comes the first paralysis of their own strength. Therefore, a number of essentially different enemies must always be regarded as one in such a way that in the opinion of the mass of one‘s own adherents the war is being waged against one enemy alone. This strengthens the belief in one‘s own cause and increases one‘s bitterness against the attacker. ~ Adolf Hitler,#NFDB
1108:To make matters worse, some of the books had actually become migratory. In the nineteenth century Brakebills had appointed a librarian with a highly Romantic imagination who had envisioned a mobile library in which books fluttered from shelf to shelf like birds, reorganizing themselves spontaneously under their own pwer in response to searches. For the first few months the effect was sadi to have been quite dramatic. A painteding the scned survived as a mural behind the circulation desk, with enormaous atlases soaring around the place like condors.
But the system turned out to be totally impractical. The wear and tear o the spines alone was too costly, and the books were horribly disobedient. The librarian had imagined he could summon a given book to perch on his hand just by shouting out its call number, but in actuality they were just too willful, and some were actively predatory. The librarian was swiftly dposed, and his successor set about domesticating the books again, but even now there were stragglers, notably in Swiss History and Architecture 300-1399, that stubbornly flapped around near the ceiling. Once in a while an entire sub—sub-category that had long been thought safely dormant would take wing with an indescribably papery susurrus. ~ Lev Grossman,#NFDB
1109:There are really only two kinds of monsters in the world, which you already know if you've been watching horror movies: Breeders and Non-breeders. So for instance, Frankenstein’s monster would fall into the second category if he was real. He’s a freak, a singular being and once you kill him, he’s gone. Problem solved.
The Breeders are an exponentially bigger problem. Within that group you've got slow breeders like vampires (if they were real, which they’re not) which breed in a small-scale controlled way, but mainly to avoid extinction rather than spread. But then you've got the fast breeders, like zombies (if they existed, which they don’t) where breeding is all they do. They are basically walking epidemics, and are the worst of the worst-case scenarios, because such a creature could, hypothetically, wipe out civilization. This is humanity’s greatest fear, which is why at the moment half of the world’s horror novels, movie posters and video games have zombies on the cover. So in any situation like this, step one is to find out what category of creature you’re dealing with. Step two is to anticipate what the creature is going to do next, based on what you determined in step one. Then step three is you find out if the thing can be killed with a chainsaw. ~ David Wong,#NFDB
1110:HM Belmarsh prison, or Hellmarsh as the inmates call it, is a category A prison situated in the South East of London. The prison service manual states that Category A prisoners are: “Those whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public or national security. Offenses that may result in consideration for Category A or Restricted Status include: Attempted murder, Manslaughter, Wounding with intent, Rape, Indecent assault, Robbery or conspiracy to rob (with firearms), Firearms offences, Importing or supplying Class A controlled drugs, Possessing or supplying explosives, Offenses connected with terrorism and Offeses under the Official Secrets Act.” In other words, Belmarsh prison is filled with some very bad people. But there is nothing to worry about. Belmarsh is a state of the art facility. High walls, well-trained guards and a system of electronically controlled Mag-locks that secure every door on every cell. Even in the event of an EMP or similar power outage there is a hardened back up battery that keeps the cells secure. The batteries last for sixteen hours. Or until 10:00 am in the morning. It is now 10:01 am. Belmarsh houses approximately eight hundred and eighty inmates. Or, to put it more correctly - Belmarsh used to hold eight hundred and eighty inmates. ~ Craig Zerf, #NFDB
1111:The first conversation began awkwardly, although Espinoza had been expecting Pelletier’s call, as if both men found it difficult to say what sooner or later they would have to say. The first twenty minutes were tragic in tone, with the word fate used ten times and the word friendship twenty-four times. Liz Norton’s name was spoken fifty times, nine of them in vain. The word Paris was said seven times, Madrid, eight. The word love was spoken twice, once by each man. The word horror was spoken six times and the word happiness once (by Espinoza). The word solution was said twelve times. The word solipsism seven times. The word euphemism ten times. The word category, in the singular and the plural, nine times. The word structuralism once (Pelletier). The term American literature three times. The words dinner or eating or breakfast or sandwich nineteen times. The words eyes or hands or hair fourteen times. Then the conversation proceeded more smoothly. Pelletier told Espinoza a joke in German and Espinoza laughed. In fact, they both laughed, wrapped up in the waves or whatever it was that linked their voices and ears across the dark fields and the wind and the snow of the Pyrenees and the rivers and the lonely roads and the separate and interminable suburbs surrounding Paris and Madrid. ~ Roberto Bola o, #NFDB
1112:Behind the picture of fresh human possibilities I have been drawing all through 'The Myth of the Machine' is a profound truth to which almost a century ago William James gave expression. "When from our present advanced standpoint," he observed, "we look back upon past stages of human thought, we are amazed that a universe which appears to us of so vast and mysterious a complication should ever have seemed to anyone so little and plain a thing....There is nothing in the spirit and principles of science that need hinder science from dealing successfully with a world in which personal forces are the starting point of new effects. The only form of thing we directly encounter, the only experience that we concretely have, is our own personal life. The only complete category of our thinking, our professors of philosophy tell us, is the abstract elements of that. And this systematic denial on science's part of the personality as a a condition of events, this rigorous belief that in its own essential and innermost nature our world is a strictly impersonal world, may conceivably, as the whirligig of time goes round, prove to be the very defect that our descendants will be most surprised at in our boasted science, the omission that to their eyes will most tend to make it look perspectiveless and short. ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
1113:There seems to be a vicious cycle at work here, making ours not just an economy but a culture of extreme inequality. Corporate decision makers, and even some two-bit entrepreneurs like my boss at The Maids, occupy an economic position miles above that of the underpaid people whose labor they depend on. For reasons that have more to do with class — and often racial — prejudice than with actual experience, they tend to fear and distrust the category of people from which they recruit their workers. Hence the perceived need for repressive management and intrusive measures like drug and personality testing. But these things cost money — $20,000 or more a year for a manager, $100 a pop for a drug test, and so on — and the high cost of repression results in ever more pressure to hold wages down. The larger society seems to be caught up in a similar cycle: cutting public services for the poor, which are sometimes referred to collectively as the 'social wage,' while investing ever more heavily in prisons and cops. And in the larger society, too, the cost of repression becomes another factor weighing against the expansion or restoration of needed services. It is a tragic cycle, condemning us to ever deeper inequality, and in the long run, almost no one benefits but the agents of repression themselves. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich, #NFDB
1114:For the Church, the option for the poor is primarily a theological category rather than a cultural, sociological, political, or philosophical one. God shows the poor "his first mercy." This divine preference has consequences for the faith life of all Christians, because we are called to have "this mind...which was in Jesus Christ" (Phil. 2:5). Inspired by this, the Church has made an option for the poor, which is understood as a "special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness." This option - as Benedict XVI has taught - "is implicit in our Christian faith in a God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty." This is why I want a Church that is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them. The new evangelization is an invitation to acknowledge the saving power at work in their lives and to put them at the center of the Church's pilgrim way. We are called to find Christ in them, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them, and to embrace the mysterious wisdom that God wishes to share with us through them. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1115:The “food system,” according to Professor Shaw, now uses 16.5 percent of all energy used in the United States. This 16.5 percent is used in the following ways: On-farm production 3.0% Manufacturing 4.9% Wholesale marketing 0.5% Retail marketing 0.8% Food preparation (in home) 4.4% Food preparation (commercial) 2.9% Apologists for industrial agriculture frequently stop with that first figure—showing that agriculture uses only a small amount of energy, relatively speaking, and that people hunting a cause of the “energy crisis” should therefore point their fingers elsewhere. The other figures, amounting to 13.5 percent of national energy consumption, are more interesting, for they suggest the way the food system has been expanded to make room for industrial enterprise. Between farm and home, producer and consumer, we have interposed manufacturers, a complex marketing structure, and food preparation. I am not sure how this last category differs from “manufacturing.” And I would like to know what percentage of the energy budget goes for transportation, and whether or not Professor Shaw figured in the miles that people now drive to shop. The gist is nevertheless plain enough: The industrial economy grows and thrives by lengthening and complicating the essential connection between producer and consumer. In ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1116:Capitalist realism insists on treating mental health as if it were a natural fact, like weather (but, then again, weather is no longer a natural fact so much as a political-economic effect). In the 1960s and 1970s, radical theory and politics (Laing, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, etc.) coalesced around extreme mental conditions such as schizophrenia, arguing, for instance, that madness was not a natural, but a political, category. But what is needed now is a politicization of much more common disorders. Indeed, it is their very commonness which is the issue: in Britain, depression is now the condition that is most treated by the NHS. In his book The Selfish Capitalist, Oliver James has convincingly posited a correlation between rising rates of mental distress and the neoliberal mode of capitalism practiced in countries like Britain, the USA and Australia. In line with James’s claims, I want to argue that it is necessary to reframe the growing problem of stress (and distress) in capitalist societies. Instead of treating it as incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological distress, instead, that is, of accepting the vast privatization of stress that has taken place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are ill? ~ Mark Fisher, #NFDB
1117:Dear Forrest,
I am sorry there was no time for us to speech other before I left. The doctors made their decision quickly, and before I knew it, I was being taken away, but I asked if I could stop long enough to write you this note, because you have been so kind to me whileI was here.
I sense, Forrest, that you are on the verge of something very significant in your life, some change, or event that will move you in a different direction, and you must seize the moment, and not let it pass. When I think back on it now, there is something in your eyes, some tiny flash of fire that comes now and then, mostly when you smile, and , on those infrequent occasions, I believe what I saw was almost a Genesis of our ability as humans to think, to create, to be.
This war is to for you, old pal - nor me - and I am well out of it as I'm sure you will be in time. The crucial question is, what will you do? I don't think you're an idiot at all. Perhaps by the measure of tests or the judgement of fools, you might fall into some category or other, but deep down, Forrest, I have seen that glowing sparkle of curiosity burning deep in your mind. Take the tide, my friend, and as you are carried along, make it work for you, fight the shallows and the snags and never give up. You are a good fellow, forrest, and you have a big heart.
Your pal,
Dan ~ Winston Groom,#NFDB
1118:Her relationships were more about shared memories and common values than about strategic partnerships to help each other succeed. That one killed me. I’d ask why we were getting together with so-and-so and she’d say something about how they hadn’t seen each other in a long time and one time they’d stayed up all night smoking cigarettes on the lawn and talking about boys. I had no mental category for that kind of friendship. I wasn’t sure how that kind of friendship profited anybody anything. What were they trying to build? Who were they trying to beat? What were the rules of the game, and how were they going to win? These are the questions in life that matter, right? “Staying up all night smoking cigarettes and talking about boys seems to me a waste of time,” I said sweetly. Betsy rolled her eyes. “Sometimes the real bonding happens in conversations about nothing, Don,” she said. “Sometimes being willing to talk about nothing shows how much we want to be with each other. And that’s a powerful thing.” She might be right. I’m unwilling to say at this point. God knows I’m not staying up all night to sit on a lawn and talk about nothing. Betsy said if we have children I’ll do it and I suppose I will. It’s funny what happens to you when part of your heart gets born inside somebody else. I trust I’ll do the crazy things parents do and they won’t seem crazy. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
1119:I daresay that the gradual “decomposition” of scripture, its dissolution in more and more specialized and negative criticism, is a result of its alienation from the eucharist – and practically from the Church herself – as an experience of a spiritual reality. And in its own turn, this same alienation deprived the sacrament of its evangelical content, converting it into a self-contained and self-sufficient “means of sanctification.” The scriptures and the Church are reduced here to the category of two formal *authorities*, two "sources of the faith"--as they are called in the scholastic treatises, for which the only question is which authority is the higher: which "interprets" which.
As a matter of fact, by its own logic, this approach demands a further contraction, a further "reduction." For if we proclaim holy scripture to be the supreme authority for teaching the faith in the Church, then what is the “criterion” of scripture? Sooner or later it becomes “biblical science” – i.e., in the final analysis, naked reason. But if, on the other hand, we proclaim the Church to be the definitive, highest and inspired interpreter of scripture, then through whom, where and how is this interpretation brought about? And however we answer this question, this “organ” or “authority” in fact proves to be standing over the scriptures, as an *outside* authority. ~ Alexander Schmemann,#NFDB
1120:What if our understanding of ourselves were based not on static labels or stages but on our actions and our ability and our willingness to transform ourselves? What if we embraced the messy, evolving, surprising, out-of-control happening that is life and reckoned with its proximity and relationship to death? What if, instead of being afraid of even talking about death, we saw our lives in some ways as preparation for it? What if we were taught to ponder it and reflect on it and talk about it and enter it and rehearse it and try it on? What if our lives were precious only up to a point? What if we held them loosely and understood that there were no guarantees? So that when you got sick you weren’t a stage but in a process? And cancer, just like having your heart broken, or getting a new job, or going to school, were a teacher? What if, rather than being cast out and defined by some terminal category, you were identified as someone in the middle of a transformation that could deepen your soul, open your heart, and all the while—even if and particularly when you were dying—you would be supported by and be part of a community? And what if each of these things were what we were waiting for, moments of opening, of the deepening and the awakening of everyone around us? What if this were the point of our being here rather than acquiring and competing and consuming ~ Eve Ensler, #NFDB
1121:The most interesting finding appeared when we subdivided the dog and human scents into their subcategories of familiar and unfamiliar. One, and only one, type of smell activated the caudate: familiar human. This was especially true for Callie. In her case, the familiar human was Kat. Kat’s sweat activated Callie’s caudate—same as the signal for hot dogs. But Kat wasn’t even at the scanner. This meant that Callie had identified the scent as Kat even though she wasn’t physically present. And if Callie had a mental category for Kat that didn’t require her physical presence, then this suggested that Callie had a sense of permanence for the people in her household. She knew who her family was, and she remembered them. We found further evidence for this interpretation in an area called the inferior temporal lobe. This part of the brain is closely associated with memory function, and like the caudate, the inferior temporal lobe was strongly activated by the smell of a familiar human. The inferior temporal activation told us that the dogs remembered their human family, and the caudate activation, more prominent in Callie, told us that her remembrance of Kat was a positive one. Could it be longing? Or love? It seemed entirely possible. These patterns of brain activation looked strikingly similar to those observed when humans are shown pictures of people they love. ~ Gregory Berns, #NFDB
1122:Benefits Now—Costs Later We have seen that predictable problems arise when people must make decisions that test their capacity for self-control. Many choices in life, such as whether to wear a blue shirt or a white one, lack important self-control elements. Self-control issues are most likely to arise when choices and their consequences are separated in time. At one extreme are what might be called investment goods, such as exercise, flossing, and dieting. For these goods the costs are borne immediately, but the benefits are delayed. For investment goods, most people err on the side of doing too little. Although there are some exercise nuts and flossing freaks, it seems safe to say that not many people are resolving on New Year’s Eve to floss less next year and to stop using the exercise bike so much. At the other extreme are what might be called sinful goods: smoking, alcohol, and jumbo chocolate doughnuts are in this category. We get the pleasure now and suffer the consequences later. Again we can use the New Year’s resolution test: how many people vow to smoke more cigarettes, drink more martinis, or have more chocolate donuts in the morning next year? Both investment goods and sinful goods are prime candidates for nudges. Most (nonanorexic) people do not need any special encouragement to eat another brownie, but they could use some help exercising more. ~ Richard H Thaler, #NFDB
1123:When K & I returned to the gingerbread house after taking Nana home, I was beyond exhausted. But I couldn't sleep, not for a long time. I stayed awake. Thinking of boys, of myself, & of all the intersections in between.
...
Regardless, there were times when I was at least part boy. A femme boy deep down. Shy sweater fag, my cardigan on hand to comfort me in the cold world. Bookworm queer boy at heart, K told me on more than one occasion. Certain moods & I was the most enviable of drag princesses, eyelashes all a-flutter & my fingers tickling the air with each gesture. Sometimes I was full of flirtatious swagger, but that playful swag could turn fierce snarl for defense, if need be. Never, I promised myself one line I wouldn't cross, never would I be the mean kind of boy that laughed me back inside the store's red doors when I did no good at hot afternoon sour pissing contests. Of course, there were plenty of times I was such a fairy lady that I ceased to be even part boy.
Yes, Rob would have accused me of bringing the communal growl down for saying I'm part boy. And pre-Stonewall dykes would have wanted to call my game. What kind of dyke was I, anyway? Good question. Simple & complicated all at once, I wasn't a pigeon to be tucked away neatly into a hole. I didn't wear a fixed category without feeling pain. I was more, or less, or something different entirely. ~ Felicia Luna Lemus,#NFDB
1124:depression in its major stages possesses no quickly available remedy: failure of alleviation is one of the most distressing factors of the disorder as it reveals itself to the victim, and one that helps situate it squarely in the category of grave diseases. Except in those maladies strictly designated as malignant or degenerative, we expect some kind of treatment and eventual amelioration, by pills or physical therapy or diet or surgery, with a logical progression from the initial relief of symptoms to final cure. Frighteningly, the layman-sufferer from major depression, taking a peek into some of the many books currently on the market, will find much in the way of theory and symptomatology and very little that legitimately suggests the possibility of quick rescue. Those that do claim an easy way out are glib and most likely fraudulent. There are decent popular works which intelligently point the way toward treatment and cure, demonstrating how certain therapies—psychotherapy or pharmacology, or a combination of these—can indeed restore people to health in all but the most persistent and devastating cases; but the wisest books among them underscore the hard truth that serious depressions do not disappear overnight. All of this emphasizes an essential though difficult reality which I think needs stating at the outset of my own chronicle: the disease of depression remains a great mystery. It has yielded its secrets ~ William Styron, #NFDB
1125:Each of the three recognized categories—care, service, and education—would encompass a wide range of activities, with different levels of compensation for full- and part-time participation. Care work could include parenting of young children, attending to an aging parent, assisting a friend or family member dealing with illness, or helping someone with mental or physical disabilities live life to the fullest. This category would create a veritable army of people—loved ones, friends, or even strangers—who could assist those in need, offering them what my entrepreneur friend’s touchscreen device for the elderly never could: human warmth. Service work would be similarly broadly defined, encompassing much of the current work of nonprofit groups as well as the kinds of volunteers I saw in Taiwan. Tasks could include performing environmental remediation, leading afterschool programs, guiding tours at national parks, or collecting oral histories from elders in our communities. Participants in these programs would register with an established group and commit to a certain number of hours of service work to meet the requirements of the stipend. Finally, education could range from professional training for the jobs of the AI age to taking classes that could transform a hobby into a career. Some recipients of the stipend will use that financial freedom to pursue a degree in machine learning and use it to find a high-paying job. ~ Kai Fu Lee, #NFDB
1126:CONFUSION 2: HOW TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY WITH YOUR CUSTOMER The next step in the Customer Satisfaction Process is to decide how to magnify the characteristics of your business that are most likely to appeal to your category of Customer. That begins with what marketing people call your Positioning Strategy. What do I mean by positioning your business? You position your business with words. A few well-chosen words to tell your Customers exactly what they want to hear. In marketing lingo, those words are called your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition. For example, if you are targeting Tactile Customers (people), your USP could be: “Superior Contracting, where the feelings of people really count!” If you are targeting Experimental Customers (new things), your USP could be: “Superior Contracting, where living on the edge is a way of life!” In other words, when they choose to do business with your company, they can count on your job being unique, original, on the cutting edge. Do you get it? Do you see how the ordinary things most Contractors do to get Customers can be done in a significantly more effective way? Once you understand the essential principles of marketing The E-Myth Way, the strategies by which you attract customers can make an enormous difference in your market share. When applied to your business, your Positioning Strategy becomes the foundation of what we at E-Myth call your Lead Generation System. ~ Michael E Gerber, #NFDB
1127:Around this time, Pelletier and Espinoza, worried about the current state of their mutual lover, had two long conversations on the phone. The first conversation began awkwardly, although Espinoza had been expecting Pelletier's call, as if both men found it difficult to say what sooner or later they would have to say. The first twenty minutes were tragic in tone, with the word 'fate' used ten times and the word 'friendship' twenty-four times. Liz Norton's name was spoken fifty times, nine of them in vain. The word 'Paris' was said seven times, 'Madrid', eight. The word 'love' was spoken twice, once by each man. The word 'horror' was spoken six times and the word 'happiness' once (by Espinoza). The word 'solution' was said twelve times. The word 'solipsism' once (Pelletier). The word 'euphemism' ten times. The word 'category', in the singular and plural, nine times. The word 'structuralism' once (Pelletier). The term 'American literature' three times. The word 'dinner' or 'eating' or 'breakfast' or 'sandwich' nineteen times. The word 'eyes' or 'hands' or 'hair' fourteen times. Then the conversation proceeded more smoothly. Pelletier told Espinoza a joke in German and Espinoza laughed. In fact, they both laughed, wrapped up in the waves of whatever it was that linked their voices and ears across the dark fields and the windows and the snow of the Pyrenees and the rivers and lonely roads and the separate and interminable suburbs surrounding Paris and Madrid. ~ Roberto Bola o, #NFDB
1128:Slavery's fundamental offense against human rights was not that it took liberty away (which can happen in many other situations), but that it excluded a certain category of people even from the possibility of fighting for freedom—a fight possible under tyranny, and even under the desperate conditions of modern terror (but not under any conditions of concentration-camp life). Slavery's crime against humanity did not begin when one people defeated and enslaved its enemies (though of course this was bad enough), but when slavery became an institution in which some men were "born" free and others slave, when it was forgotten that it was man who had deprived his fellow-men of freedom, and when the sanction for the crime was attributed to nature. Yet in the light of recent events it is possible to say that even slaves still belonged to some sort of human community; their labor was needed, used, and exploited, and this kept them within the pale of humanity. To be a slave was after all to have a distinctive character, a place in society—more than the abstract nakedness of beig human and nothing but human. Not the loss of specific rights, then, but the loss of a community willing and able to guarantee any rights whatsoever, has been the calamity which has befallen ever-increasing numbers of people. Man, it turns out, can lose all so-called Rights of Man without losing his essential quality as man, his human dignity. Only the loss of a polity itself expels him from humanity. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
1129:LEADERSHIP | Intuit’s CEO on Building a Design-Driven Company Brad Smith | 222 words Although 46 similar products were on the market when Intuit launched Quicken, in 1983, it immediately became the market leader in personal finance software and has held that position for three decades. That’s because Quicken was so well designed that using it is intuitive. But by the time Smith became CEO, in 2008, the company had become overly focused on adding incremental features that delivered ease of use but not delight. What was missing was an emotional connection with customers. He and his team set out to integrate design thinking into every part of Intuit. They changed the layout of the office, reduced the number of cubes, and added more collaboration spaces and places for impromptu work. They increased the number of designers by nearly 600% and now hold quarterly design conferences. They bring in people who have created exceptionally designed products, such as the Nest thermostat and the Kayak travel website, to share insights with Intuit employees. The company acquired one start-up, called Mint, and collaborates with another, called ZenPayroll, to improve customer experience. Although most people don’t think of financial software as a category driven by emotion or design, Smith writes, Intuit’s D4D (“design for delight”) program has paid off. For example, its SnapTax app, inspired by consumers’ migration to smartphones, led one user to write, “I want this app to have my babies. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1130:that? Masculinity is and was a broad category that encompassed many forms of behaviour; the manliness of these particular men was inflected by identities of class, ethnicity and profession. Yet it is striking how often the key protagonists appealed to pointedly masculine modes of comportment and how closely these were interwoven with their understanding of policy. ‘I sincerely trust we shall keep our backs very stiff in this matter,’ Arthur Nicolson wrote to his friend Charles Hardinge, recommending that London reject any appeals for rapprochement from Berlin.156 It was essential, the German ambassador in Paris, Wilhelm von Schoen wrote in March 1912, that the Berlin government maintain a posture of ‘completely cool calmness’ in its relations with France and approach ‘with cold blood’ the tasks of national defence imposed by the international situation.157 When Bertie spoke of the danger that the Germans would ‘push us into the water and steal our clothes’, he metaphorized the international system as a rural playground thronging with male adolescents. Sazonov praised the ‘uprightness’ of Poincaré’s character and ‘the unshakable firmness of his will’;158 Paul Cambon saw in him the ‘stiffness’ of the professional jurist, while the allure of the reserved and self-reliant ‘outdoorsman’ was central to Grey’s identity as a public man. To have shrunk from supporting Austria-Hungary during the crisis of 1914, Bethmann commented in his memoirs, would have been an act of ‘self-castration’. ~ Christopher Clark, #NFDB
1131:[C]an readers think of instances in which blacks publicly urged other blacks to set aside racial concerns, to consider themselves Americans first, and to work for the good of all? When have black authority figures expressed regret for even the most horrific anti-white crimes? When have blacks praised diversity if it meant giving up black majorities? How many wealthy blacks make charitable donations to broadly American rather than explicitly black institutions? When has a black person publicly chided other blacks for excessive concern with narrowly black issues?
Blacks differ from whites both in what they say and do and what they do not say or do. We find among many blacks—perhaps the majority—a view of race sharply at odds with what the civil rights movement was presumably working for: the elimination of race as a relevant category in American life. White racism is commonly alleged to be the great obstacle to harmonious race relations in the United States, but whites are the only group that actually subscribes to the goal of eliminating race consciousness and that actively polices its members for signs of such consciousness. If whites were the great obstacle to harmony, it would be they who unapologetically put their interests first, who fantasized about killing blacks, who were careful to show they were “white enough,” and ostracized those who were not. Instead, any white person who spoke or acted in ways blacks take for granted would be hounded out of public life and scorned in private. ~ Jared Taylor,#NFDB
1132:Six Strategy Traps
1) The do-it-all strategy: failing to make choices, and making everything a priority. Remember, strategy is choice.
2) The Don Quixote strategy: attacking competitive "walled cities" or taking on the strongest competitor first, head-to-head. Remember, where to play is your choice. Pick somewhere you can have a choice to win.
3) The Waterloo Strategy: starting wars on multiple fronts with multiple competitors at the same time. No company can do everything well. If you try to do so, you will do everything weakly.
4) The something-for-everyone strategy: attempting to capture all consumer or channel or geographic or category segments at once. Remember, to create value, you have to choose to serve some constituents really well and not worry about the others.
5) The dreams-that-never-come-true strategy: developing high-level aspirations and mission statements that never get translated into concrete where-to-play and how-to-win choices, core capabilities, and management systems. Remember that aspirations are not strategy. Strategy is the answer to all five questions in the choice cascade.
6) The program-of-the-month strategy: settling for generic industry strategies, in which all competitors are chasing the same customers, geographies, and segments in the same way. The choice cascade and activity system that supports these choices should be distinctive. The more your choices look like those of your competitors, the less likely you will ever win. ~ A G Lafley,#NFDB
1133:The now-famous yearly Candlebrow Conferences, like the institution itself, were subsidized out of the vast fortune of Mr. Gideon Candlebrow of Grossdale, Illinois, who had made his bundle back during the great Lard Scandal of the '80s, in which, before Congress put an end to the practice, countless adulterated tons of that comestible were exported to Great Britain, compromising further an already debased national cuisine, giving rise throughout the island, for example, to a Christmas-pudding controversy over which to this day families remain divided, often violently so. In the consequent scramble to develop more legal sources of profit, one of Mr. Candlebrow's laboratory hands happened to invent "Smegmo," an artificial substitute for everything in the edible-fat category, including margarine, which many felt wasn't that real to begin with. An eminent Rabbi of world hog capital Cincinnati, Ohio, was moved to declare the product kosher, adding that "the Hebrew people have been waiting four thousand years for this. Smegmo is the Messiah of kitchen fats." [...]
Miles, locating the patriotically colored Smegmo crock among the salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, steak sauce, sugar and molasses, opened and sniffed quizzically at the contents. "Say, what is this stuff?"
"Goes with everything!" advised a student at a nearby table. "Stir it in your soup, spread it on your bread, mash it into your turnips! My doormates comb their hair with it! There's a million uses for Smegmo! ~ Thomas Pynchon,#NFDB
1134:Among the many symbols used to frighten and manipulate the populace of the democratic states, few have been more important than "terror" and "terrorism." These terms have generally been confined to the use of violence by individuals and marginal groups. Official violence, which is far more extensive in both scale and destructiveness, is placed in a different category altogether. This usage has nothing to do with justice, causal sequence, or numbers abused. Whatever the actual sequence of cause and effect, official violence is described as responsive or provoked ("retaliation," "protective reaction," etc.), not as the active and initiating source of abuse. Similarly, the massive long-term violence inherent in the oppressive social structures that U.S. power has supported or imposed is typically disregarded. The numbers tormented and killed by official violence-wholesale as opposed to retail terror-during recent decades have exceeded those of unofficial terrorists by a factor running into the thousands. But this is not "terror," [...] "security forces" only retaliate and engage in "police action."
These terminological devices serve important functions. They help to justify the far more extensive violence of (friendly) state authorities by interpreting them as "reactive" and they implicitly sanction the suppression of information on the methods and scale of official violence by removing it from the category of "terrorism." [...] Thus the language is well-designed for apologetics for wholesale terror. ~ Noam Chomsky,#NFDB
1135:You Play the Game How You Act How You Think How You Brand & Market Yourself How You Sound How You Look How You Respond 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. Category Total Category Total Category Total Category Total Category Total Category Total Category Total Overall Total INTERPRETATION OF YOUR SCORES Overall Score of 159–196 or A Category Score of 22–28 You go, girl! Your score indicates you must already have the corner office or are well on your way to getting it. To stay on track, focus on those questions where you rated yourself “1” or “2.” Also, remember to pay it forward by mentoring other women. Overall Score of 110–158 or A Category Score of 14–21 Fine-tuning is the name of your game! Although you often engage in behaviors worthy of a winning woman, there are times when you don’t get your due because you get caught up in nice girl syndrome. First read the chapters that correspond with your lowest category scores, then go back and read the rest as a refresher course. Overall Score of 49–109 or A Category Score of 7–13 Danger! You are falling into the trap of acting like the nice little girl you were taught to be in childhood. You frequently wonder why you’re not achieving the success you’ve worked so hard for. This book was written for you, so take out your pen and start making notations for what you commit to doing differently. ~ Lois P Frankel, #NFDB
1136:Local power is also the realm of the small nonprofit, church, and civic association. A handful of people, properly organized, can drive enormous changes in a city’s dynamics. I’ll offer yet another example from Portland, Oregon. A group of water-conservation enthusiasts, frustrated at the illegal status of graywater reuse in the city and state, formed an organization called Recode. Although many in the group were young, among them they had built solid relationships with a number of local officials, business leaders, and other key people in the politics of the area. Recode pooled their respective connections to gather together relevant stakeholders, such as health officials, state legislature staff, the plumbing board, and developers. To the surprise of all, everyone at the meeting supported graywater use. So, everyone wondered, what was up? A state legislature staffer in attendance zeroed in on the main obstacle: There was no provision in the state codes for graywater. Legally, all of Oregon’s water fell into one of two categories, potable water or sewage. Since graywater was not potable, it had to be considered sewage. The staffer told them, “So, all we need to do is create a third water category, graywater.” They drafted a resolution doing that, got it to their state representative, and it passed at the next legislative session. After three subsequent years of bureaucratic wrangling and gentle pressure from Recode, graywater use became legal in Oregon. Recode then tackled urban composting toilets as their next target for legalization. ~ Toby Hemenway, #NFDB
1137:In the past, my brain could only compute perfection or failure—nothing in between. So words like competent, acceptable, satisfactory, and good enough fell into the failure category. Even above average meant failure if I received an 88 out of 100 percent on an exam, I felt that I failed. The fact is most things in life are not absolutes and have components of both good and bad. I used to think in absolute terms a lot: all, every, or never. I would all of the food (that is, binge), and then I would restrict every meal and to never eat again. This type of thinking extended outside of the food arena as well: I had to get all of the answers right on a test; I had to be in every extracurricular activity […] The ‘if it’s not perfect, I quit’ approach to life is a treacherous way to live. […] I hadn’t established a baseline of competence: What gets the job done? What is good enough? Finding good enough takes trial and error. For those of us who are perfectionists, the error part of trial and error can stop us dead in our tracks. We would rather keep chasing perfection than risk possibly making a mistake. I was able to change my behavior only when the pain of perfectionism became greater than the pain of making an error. […] Today good enough means that I’m okay just the way I am. I play my position in the world. I catch the ball when it is thrown my way. I don’t always have to make the crowd go wild or get a standing ovation. It’s good enough to just catch the ball or even to do my best to catch it. Good enough means that I finally enjoy playing the game. ~ Jenni Schaefer, #NFDB
1138:this matter will not go uninvestigated.” He glanced at Madam Bones, who readjusted her monocle and stared back at him, frowning slightly. “I would remind everybody that the behavior of these dementors, if indeed they are not figments of this boy’s imagination, is not the subject of this hearing!” said Fudge. “We are here to examine Harry Potter’s offenses under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery!” “Of course we are,” said Dumbledore, “but the presence of dementors in that alleyway is highly relevant. Clause seven of the Decree states that magic may be used before Muggles in exceptional circumstances, and as those exceptional circumstances include situations that threaten the life of the wizard or witch himself, or witches, wizards, or Muggles present at the time of the —” “We are familiar with clause seven, thank you very much!” snarled Fudge. “Of course you are,” said Dumbledore courteously. “Then we are in agreement that Harry’s use of the Patronus Charm in these circumstances falls precisely into the category of exceptional circumstances it describes?” “If there were dementors, which I doubt —” “You have heard from an eyewitness,” Dumbledore interrupted. “If you still doubt her truthfulness, call her back, question her again. I am sure she would not object.” “I — that — not —” blustered Fudge, fiddling with the papers before him. “It’s — I want this over with today, Dumbledore!” “But naturally, you would not care how many times you heard from a witness, if the alternative was a serious miscarriage of justice,” said Dumbledore. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1139:There are, of course, innumerable subdivisions, but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood – that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for much anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right; they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal right to exist. In ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1140:We have a crisis in this nation, and it has nothing to do with regulatory reform or marginal tax rates. This book is not going to be about politics. (Sorry to disappoint.) It’s about something deeper and more meaningful. Something a little harder to quantify but a lot more personal. Despite the astonishing medical advances and technological leaps of recent years, average life span is in decline in America for the third year in a row. This is the first time our nation has had even a two-year drop in life expectancy since 1962—when the cause was an influenza epidemic. Normally, declines in life expectancy are due to something big like that—a war, or the return of a dormant disease. But what’s the “big thing” going on in America now? What’s killing all these people? The 2016 data point to three culprits: Alzheimer’s, suicides, and unintentional injuries—a category that includes drug and alcohol–related deaths. Two years ago, 63,632 people died of overdoses. That’s 11,000 more than the previous year, and it’s more than the number of Americans killed during the entire twenty-year Vietnam War. It’s almost twice the number killed in automobile accidents annually, which had been the leading American killer for decades. In 2016, there were 45,000 suicides, a thirty-year high—and the sobering climb shows no signs of abating: the percentage of young people hospitalized for suicidal thoughts and actions has doubled over the past decade.1 We’re killing ourselves, both on purpose and accidentally. These aren’t deaths from famine, or poverty, or war. We’re literally dying of despair. ~ Ben Sasse, #NFDB
1141:I’ve tested half of them. And of the number I’ve tested I have disqualified one pit bull because of aggressive tendencies. They have done extremely well. They have a good temperament. They are very good with children.” It can even be argued that the same traits that make the pit bull so aggressive toward other dogs are what make it so nice to humans. “There are a lot of pit bulls these days who are licensed therapy dogs,” the writer Vicki Hearne points out. “Their stability and resoluteness make them excellent for work with people who might not like a more bouncy, flibbertigibbet sort of dog. When pit bulls set out to provide comfort, they are as resolute as they are when they fight, but what they are resolute about is being gentle. And, because they are fearless, they can be gentle with anybody.” Then which are the pit bulls that get into trouble? “The ones that the legislation is geared toward have aggressive tendencies that are either bred in by the breeder, trained in by the trainer, or reinforced in by the owner,” Herkstroeter says. A mean pit bull is a dog that has been turned mean, by selective breeding, by being cross-bred with a bigger, human-aggressive breed like German shepherds or Rottweilers, or by being conditioned in such a way that it begins to express hostility to human beings. A pit bull is dangerous to people, then, not to the extent that it expresses its essential pit bull-ness but to the extent that it deviates from it. A pit-bull ban is a generalization about a generalization about a trait that is not, in fact, general. That’s a category problem. 4. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1142:If there was anything really wrong with Shady Hill, anything that you could put your finger on, it was the fact that the village had no public library – no foxed copies of Pascal, smelling of cabbage; no broken sets of Dostoevski and George Eliot; no Galsworthy, even; no Barrie and no Bennett. This was the chief concern of the Village Council during Marcie’s term. The library partisans were mostly newcomers to the village; the opposition whip was Mrs Selfredge, a member of the Council and a very decorous woman, with blue eyes of astonishing brilliance and inexpressiveness. Mrs Selfredge often spoke of the chosen quietness of their life. ‘We never go out,’ she would say, but in such a way that she seemed to be expressing not some choice but a deep vein of loneliness. She was married to a wealthy man much older than herself, and they had no children; indeed, the most indirect mention of sexual fact brought a deep color to Mrs Selfredge’s face. She took the position that a library belonged in that category of public service that might make Shady Hill attractive to a development. This was not blind prejudice. Carsen Park, the next village, had let a development inside its boundaries, with disastrous results to the people already living there. Their taxes had been doubled, their schools had been ruined. That there was any connection between reading and real estate was disputed by the partisans of the library, until a horrible murder – three murders, in fact – took place in one of the cheese-box houses in the Carsen Park development, and the library project was buried with the victims. ~ John Cheever, #NFDB
1143:That summer, Harrison Miller and Bezos butted heads in front of the board of directors over the size of the bet on toys. Bezos wanted Miller to plow $120 million into stocking every possible toy, from Barbie dolls to rare German-made wooden trains to cheap plastic beach pails, so that kids and parents would never be disappointed when they searched for an item on Amazon. But a prescient Miller, sensing disaster ahead, pushed to lower his own buy. “No! No! A hundred and twenty million!” Bezos yelled. “I want it all. If I have to, I will drive it to the landfill myself!” “Jeff, you drive a Honda Accord,” Joy Covey pointed out. “That’s going to be a lot of trips.” Bezos prevailed. And the company would make a sizable contribution to Toys for Tots after the holidays that year. “That first holiday season was the best of times and the worst of times,” Miller says. “The store was great for customers and we made our revenue goals, which were big, but other than that everything that could go wrong did. In the aftermath we were sitting on fifty million dollars of toy inventory. I had guys going down the back stairs with ‘Vinnie’ in New York, selling Digimons off to Mexico at twenty cents on the dollar. You just had to get rid of them, fast.” The electronics effort faced even greater challenges. To launch that category, David Risher tapped a Dartmouth alum named Chris Payne who had previously worked on Amazon’s DVD store. Like Miller, Payne had to plead with suppliers—in this case, Asian consumer-electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Samsung. He quickly hit a wall. The Japanese electronics ~ Brad Stone, #NFDB
1144:When a high IQ-test score is accompanied by subpar performance in some other domain, this is thought "surprising," and a new disability category is coined to name the surprise. So, similarly, the diagnostic criterion for mathematics disorder (sometimes termed dyscalculia) in DSM IV is that "Mathematical ability that falls substantially below that expected for the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education" (p. 50)-
The logic of discrepancy-based classification based on IQ-test performance
has created a clear precedent whereby we are almost obligated to create a new disability category when an important skill domain is found to be somewhat dissociated from intelligence. It is just this logic that I exploited in creating a new category of disability- dysrationalia.T he proposed definition of the disability was as follows:
Dysrationalia is the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. It is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in belief formation, in the assessment of belief consistency, and/or in the determination of action to achieve one's goals. Although dysrationalia may occur concomitantly with other handicapping conditions (e.g., sensory impairment), dysrationalia is not the result of those conditions. The key diagnostic criterion for dysrationalia is a level of rationality, as demonstrated in thinking and behavior, that is significantly below the level of the individual's intellectual capacity (as determined by an individually administered IQ test). ~ Keith E Stanovich,#NFDB
1145:My position was terrible. I knew that I could find nothing in the way of rational knowledge except a denial of life; and in faith I could find nothing except a denial of reason, and this was even more impossible than a denial of life. According to rational knowledge, it followed that life is evil, and people know it. They do not have to live, yet they have lived and they do live, just as I myself had lived, even though I had known for a long time that life is meaningless and evil. Try as he might, Tolstoy could identify only four means of escaping from such thoughts. One was retreating into childlike ignorance of the problem. Another was pursuing mindless pleasure. The third was “continuing to drag out a life that is evil and meaningless, knowing beforehand that nothing can come of it.” He identified that particular form of escape with weakness: “The people in this category know that death is better than life, but they do not have the strength to act rationally and quickly put an end to the delusion by killing themselves….” Only the fourth and final mode of escape involved “strength and energy. It consists of destroying life, once one has realized that life is evil and meaningless.” Tolstoy relentlessly followed his thoughts: Only unusually strong and logically consistent people act in this manner. Having realized all the stupidity of the joke that is being played on us and seeing that the blessings of the dead are greater than those of the living and that it is better not to exist, they act and put an end to this stupid joke; and they use any means of doing it: a rope around the neck, water, a knife in the heart, a train. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1146:My position was terrible. I knew that I could find nothing in the way of rational knowledge except a denial of life; and in faith I could find nothing except a denial of reason, and this was even more impossible than a denial of life. According to rational knowledge, it followed that life is evil, and people know it. They do not have to live, yet they have lived and they do live, just as I myself had lived, even though I had known for a long time that life is meaningless and evil. Try as he might, Tolstoy could identify only four means of escaping from such thoughts. One was retreating into childlike ignorance of the problem. Another was pursuing mindless pleasure. The third was “continuing to drag out a life that is evil and meaningless, knowing beforehand that nothing can come of it.” He identified that particular form of escape with weakness: “The people in this category know that death is better than life, but they do not have the strength to act rationally and quickly put an end to the delusion by killing themselves….” Only the fourth and final mode of escape involved “strength and energy. It consists of destroying life, once one has realized that life is evil and meaningless.” Tolstoy relentlessly followed his thoughts: Only unusually strong and logically consistent people act in this manner. Having realized all the stupidity of the joke that is being played on us and seeing that the blessings of the dead are greater than those of the living and that it is better not to exist, they act and put an end to this stupid joke; and they use any means of doing it: a rope around the neck, water, a knife in the heart, a train. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1147:In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. All that is set forth in books, all that seems so terribly vital and significant, is but an iota of that from which it stems and which it is within everyone’s power to tap. Our whole theory of education is based on the absurd notion that we must learn to swim on land before tackling the water. It applies to the pursuit of the arts as well as to the pursuit of knowledge. Men are still being taught to create by studying other men’s works or by making plans and sketches never intended to materialize. The art of writing is taught in the classroom instead of in the thick of life. Students are still being handed models which are supposed to fit all temperaments, all kinds of intelligence. No wonder we produce better engineers than writers, better industrial experts than painters.
My encounters with books I regard very much as my encounters with other phenomena of life or thought. All encounters are configurate, not isolate. In this sense, and in this sense only, books are as much a part of life as trees, stars or dung. I have no reverence for them per se. Nor do I put authors in any special, privileged category. They are like other men, no better, no worse. They exploit the powers given them, just as any other order of human being. If I defend them now and then — as a class — it is because I believe that, in our society at least, they have never achieved the status and the consideration they merit. The great ones, especially, have almost always been treated as scapegoats. ~ Henry Miller,#NFDB
1148:They are all in the same category, both those who are afflicted with fickleness, boredom and a ceaseless change of purpose, and who always yearn for what they left behind, and those who just yawn from apathy. There are those too who toss around like insomniacs, and keep changing their position until they find rest through sheer weariness. They keep altering the condition of their lives, and eventually stick to that one in which they are trapped not by weariness with further change but by old age which is too sluggish for novelty. There are those too who suffer not from moral steadfastness but from inertia, and so lack the fickleness to live as they wish, and just live as they have begun. In fact there are innumerable characteristics of the malady, but one effect - dissatisfaction with oneself. This arises from mental instability and from fearful and unfulfilled desires, when men do not dare or do not achieve all they long for, and all they grasp at is hope: they are always unbalanced and fickle, an inevitable consequence of living in suspense. They struggle to gain their prayers by every path, and they teach and force themselves to do dishonourable and difficult things; and when their efforts are unrewarded the fruitless disgrace tortures them, and they regret not the wickedness but the frustration of their desires. Then they are gripped by repentance for their attempt and fear of trying again, and they are undermined by the restlessness of a mind that can discover no outlet, because they can neither control nor obey their desires, by the dithering of life that cannot see its way ahead, and by the lethargy of a soul stagnating amid its abandoned hopes. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
1149:Under conditions of a truly human existence, the difference between succumbing to disease at the age of ten, thirty, fifty, or seventy, and dying a "natural" death after a fulfilled life, may well be a difference worth fighting for with all instinctual energy. Not those who die, but those who die before they must and want to die, those who die in agony and pain, are the great indictment against civilization. They also testify to the unredeemable guilt of mankind. Their death arouses the painful awareness that it was unnecessary, that it could be otherwise. It takes all the institutions and values of a repressive order to pacify the bad conscience of this guilt. Once again, the deep connection between the death instinct and the sense of guilt becomes apparent. The silent "professional agreement" with the fact of death and disease is perhaps one of the most widespread expressions of the death instinct -- or, rather, of its social usefulness. In a repressive civilization, death itself becomes an instrument of repression. Whether death is feared as constant threat, or glorified as supreme sacrifice, or accepted as fate, the education for consent to death introduces an element of surrender into life from the beginning -- surrender and submission. It stifles "utopian" efforts. The powers that be have a deep affinity to death; death is a token of unfreedom, of defeat. Theology and philosophy today compete with each other in celebrating death as an existential category: perverting a biological fact into an ontological essence, they bestow transcendental blessing on the guilt of mankind which they help to perpetuate -- they betray the promise of utopia. ~ Herbert Marcuse, #NFDB
1150:By far, the most important distortions and confabulations of memory are those that serve to justify and explain our own lives. The mind, sense-making organ that it is, does not interpret our experiences as if they were shattered shards of glass; it assembles them into a mosaic. From the distance of years, we see the mosaic’s pattern. It seems tangible, unchangeable; we can’t imagine how we could reconfigure those pieces into another design. But it is a result of years of telling our story, shaping it into a life narrative that is complete with heroes and villians, an account of how we came to be the way we are. Because that narrative is the way we understand the world and our place in it, it is bigger than the sum of its parts. If on part, one memory, is shown to be wrong, people have to reduce the resulting dissonance and even rethink the basic mental category: you mean Dad (Mom) wasn’t such a bad (good) person after all? You mean Dad (Mom) was a complex human being? The life narrative may be fundamentally true; Your father or mother might really have been hateful, or saintly. The problem is that when the narrative becomes a major source of self-justification, one the storyteller relies on to excuse mistakes and failings, memory becomes warped in its service. The storyteller remembers only the confirming examples of the parent’s malevolence and forgets the dissonant instances of the parent’s good qualities. Over time, as the story hardens, it becomes more difficult to see the whole parent — the mixture of good and bad, strengths and flaws, good intentions and unfortunate blunders.
Memories create our stories, but our stories also create our memories. ~ Carol Tavris,#NFDB
1151:scope and aim of the works of sacrifice :::
Into the third and last category of the works of sacrifice can be gathered all that is directly proper to the Yoga of works; for here is its field of effectuation and major province. It covers the entire range of lifes more visible activities; under it fall the multiform energies of the Will-to-Life throwing itself outward to make the most of material existence. It is here that an ascetic or other-worldly spirituality feels an insurmountable denial of the Truth which it seeks after and is compelled to turn away from terrestrial existence, rejecting it as for ever the dark playground of an incurable Ignorance. Yet it is precisely these activities that are claimed for a spiritual conquest and divine transformation by the integral Yoga. Abandoned altogether by the more ascetic disciplines, accepted by others only as a field of temporary ordeal or a momentary, superficial and ambiguous play of the concealed spirit, this existence is fully embraced and welcomed by the integral seeker as a field of fulfilment, a field for divine works, a field of the total self-discovery of the concealed and indwelling Spirit. A discovery of the Divinity in oneself is his first object, but a total discovery too of the Divinity in the world behind the apparent denial offered by its scheme and figures and, last, a total discovery of the dynamism of some transcendent Eternal; for by its descent this world and self-will be empowered to break their disguising envelopes and become divine in revealing form and manifesting process as they now are secretly in their hidden essence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 169,#NFDB
1152:The racial conflict and self-segregation described [...] are not what we would expect if widespread assumptions about the advantages of diversity are true. The prevailing view in the media and some parts of academia is that race is not even a legitimate biological category, and that it is only because of prejudiced conditioning that we even notice it.
This view ignores the large body of scientific work that suggests racial and ethnic consciousness is deeply rooted in human psychology. Our species seems to have an instinct for determining who is in our group and who is not. Studies of individuals point to unconscious processes in the brain that reflect a suspicion of people unlike ourselves, leading some researchers to conclude that ethnocentrism is part of human nature.
At the same time, studies at the group level show that ethnic conflict is universal. In all countries, diversity of religion, ethnicity, or race causes conflict. For the better part of the post-war period, sociologists and political scientists downplayed ethnic conflict, on the assumption that it was a pre modern relic that would be replaced by competition based on class or professional affiliation. This has not happened. As one researcher has concluded, “ethnicity based on common descent tends to be more important than class based on common interest. Blood runs thicker than money.”
It is from two directions, therefore, that scientists have begun to question the view that ethnic or racial mixing can be easily achieved. Laboratory investigations of individuals have found what may be tribal or ethnocentric instincts, while analysis of societies suggests that diversity invariably brings conflict. ~ Jared Taylor,#NFDB
1153:One of the seven essential ingredients of effective military leadership laid down by Field Marshal Montgomery was, “He must have the power of clear decision.” The apostle Paul, as a spiritual field commander, fully qualified in this category of leadership. Indeed this was a key feature of his character which he displayed at the very time of his conversion. When the heavens burst open and he saw the exalted Christ, his first question was, “Who are you, Lord?” The answer, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 22:8), toppled his entire theological universe, but he immediately accepted the implications of his discovery. An absolute capitulation to the Son of God was the only possible response, and, with his newly completed soul, he decided on the spot that he needed to have unreserved allegiance and obedience. This led to his second question, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10). Vacillation and indecision were foreign to Paul’s training. Once he was sure of the facts, he moved to swift decision. To be granted light was to follow it. To see his duty was to do it. Once he is sure of the will of God, the effective leader will go into action regardless of consequences. He will be willing to burn his bridges behind him and accept responsibility for failure as well as for success. Procrastination and vacillation are fatal to leadership. A sincere though mistaken decision is better than no decision. Indeed, no decision is a decision—a decision that the present situation is acceptable. In most decisions the difficulty is not in knowing what we ought to do, but in summoning the moral purpose to come to a decision about it. This resolution process was no problem to Paul. ~ J Oswald Sanders, #NFDB
1154:Through The Mecca I saw that we were, in our own segregated body politic, cosmopolitans. The black diaspora was not just our own world but, in so many ways, the Western world itself.
Now, the heirs of those Virginia planters could never directly acknowledge this legacy or reckon with its power. And so that beauty that Malcolm pledged us to protect, black beauty, was never celebrated in movies, in television, or in the textbooks I’d seen as a child. Everyone of any import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white. This was why your grandparents banned Tarzan and the Lone Ranger and toys with white faces from the house. They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental “firsts”—first black five-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor—always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit. Serious history was the West, and the West was white. This was all distilled for me in a quote I once read from the novelist Saul Bellow. I can’t remember where I read it, or when—only that I was already at Howard. “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?” Bellow quipped. Tolstoy was “white,” and so Tolstoy “mattered,” like everything else that was white “mattered.” And this view of things was connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense of dispossession. We were black, beyond the visible spectrum, beyond civilization. Our history was inferior because we were inferior, which is to say our bodies were inferior. And our inferior bodies could not possibly be accorded the same respect as those that built the West. Would it not be better, then, if our bodies were civilized, improved, and put to some legitimate Christian use? ~ Ta Nehisi Coates,#NFDB
1155:The spheres with which philosophy properly has to deal, the spheres proper to thought, are logic, nature, and history. Here necessity rules and therefore mediation has its validity. That this is true of logic and nature, no one will deny, but with history there is a difficulty, for here, it is said, freedom prevails. But I think that history is incorrectly interpreted and that the difficulty arises from the following: History, namely, is more than a product of the free actions of free individuals. The individual acts, but his action enters into the order of things that maintains the whole of existence. What is going to come of his action, one who acts does not really know. But this higher order of things that digests, so to speak, the free actions and works them together in its eternal laws is necessity, and this necessity is the movement of world history; it is therefore quite proper for philosophy to use mediation-that is, relative mediation. If I am contemplating a world-historical individuality, I can then distinguish between the deeds of which Scripture says “they follow him” and the deeds by which he belongs to history. Philosophy has nothing to do with what could be called the inner deed, but the inner deed is the true life of freedom. Philosophy considers the external deed, yet in turn it does not see this as isolated but sees it as assimilated into and transformed in the world-historical process. This process is the proper subject for philosophy and it considers this under the category of necessity. Therefore it reject the reflection that wants to point out that everything could be otherwise; it views world-history in such a way that there is no question of an either/or. ~ Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Part II, Hong p. 174., #NFDB
1156:Three researchers at Stanford University noticed the same thing about the undergraduates they were teaching, and they decided to study it. First, they noticed that while all the students seemed to use digital devices incessantly, not all students did. True to stereotype, some kids were zombified, hyperdigital users. But some kids used their devices in a low-key fashion: not all the time, and not with two dozen windows open simultaneously. The researchers called the first category of students Heavy Media Multitaskers. Their less frantic colleagues were called Light Media Multitaskers. If you asked heavy users to concentrate on a problem while simultaneously giving them lots of distractions, the researchers wondered, how good was their ability to maintain focus? The hypothesis: Compared to light users, the heavy users would be faster and more accurate at switching from one task to another, because they were already so used to switching between browser windows and projects and media inputs. The hypothesis was wrong. In every attentional test the researchers threw at these students, the heavy users did consistently worse than the light users. Sometimes dramatically worse. They weren’t as good at filtering out irrelevant information. They couldn’t organize their memories as well. And they did worse on every task-switching experiment. Psychologist Eyal Ophir, an author of the study, said of the heavy users: “They couldn’t help thinking about the task they weren’t doing. The high multitaskers are always drawing from all the information in front of them. They can’t keep things separate in their minds.” This is just the latest illustration of the fact that the brain cannot multitask. Even if you are a Stanford student in the heart of Silicon Valley. ~ John Medina, #NFDB
1157:There are Christian fiction writers and then there are Christians who write fiction. There is Christian fiction, then there is what some consider to be church fiction or church drama. You have some authors who didn’t necessarily set out to write Christian fiction, but they were placed in that category by either their publisher or the book stores simply shelve them that way. And of course you have the writers whose work is categorized as Christian fiction but they do not write for a Christian fiction imprint, which means they are not necessarily writing with any type of guidelines. I can’t speak for any other Christian fiction author or author who either chose or by default was placed in the Christian fiction category, but I am a Christian fiction writer who writes for a Christian fiction imprint. That is my choice on purpose.
I’ll be the first to admit that yes, I have a ghost writer; the Holy Ghost! I take dictation from the Holy Spirit when I write my stories. My Holy Spirit does not curse nor does He describe explicit sex scenes for me to deliver to God’s people. I write Christian fiction, not inspirational fiction, not faith based fiction or anything else. Christ is in what I do “CHRISTian” fiction. I’m not worrying about “keepin’” it real. The Bible is as real as it gets and if the Holy Spirit didn’t instruct the authors of the Bible to curse people out and describe explicit sex scenes, then why on earth should He start using me to do it now? So my concern is not about “keepin’ it real” for the world as much as it is keepin’ it holy for the Kingdom. My ultimate goal is, yes, to please the readers, but I must first please God.
P.S. Maybe Peter did curse. But even the author of the Bible didn’t feel the need to write the actual curse words. ~ E N Joy,#NFDB
1158:That must be my surgeon coming aboard. You will like him; a reading man too, most amazing learned; a full-blown physician into the bargain, and my particular friend. But I must tell you this, Yorke; he is wealthy – ‘ In point of fact Captain Aubrey had little idea of his surgeon’s fortune, apart from knowing that he owned a good deal of hilly land in Catalonia with a tumbledown castle on it. But Stephen had done pretty well out of the Mauritius campaign; his manner of living was Spartan – one suit of clothes every five years and perhaps a couple of shirts – and apart from books he had no visible expenses at all. Jack was no Macchiavel, but he did know that to the rich it should be given; that capital possessed a mystical significance; that even the most perfectly disinterested respected it and its owner; and that although a naval surgeon was ordinarily a person of no great consequence, the same man moved into quite a different category the moment he was endowed with comfortable private means. In short, that whereas an ordinary surgeon, living on his pay, might not readily be indulged in room for exotic livestock, an imperfectly- preserved giant squid, and several tons of natural specimens, in a stranger’s ship, a wealthy natural philosopher might meet with more consideration; and Jack knew how Stephen prized the collection he had made during their arduous voyage. ‘ – he is wealthy, and he only comes with me because of the opportunities for natural philosophy; though he is a first-rate surgeon, too, and we are lucky to have him. But this voyage the opportunities have been prodigious, and he has turned the Leopard into a down-right Ark. Most of the Desolation creatures are stuffed or pickled but there are some from New Holland that skip and bound about: I hope you are not too crowded in La Fleche? ~ Patrick O Brian, #NFDB
1159:For a while, every smart and shy eccentric from Bobby Fischer to Bill Gate was hastily fitted with this label, and many were more or less believably retrofitted, including Isaac Newton, Edgar Allen Pie, Michelangelo, and Virginia Woolf. Newton had great trouble forming friendships and probably remained celibate. In Poe's poem Alone, he wrote that "All I lov'd - I lov'd alone." Michelangelo is said to have written "I have no friends of any sort and I don't want any." Woolf killed herself.
Asperger's disorder, once considered a sub-type of autism, was named after the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, a pioneer, in the 1940s, in identifying and describing autism. Unlike other early researchers, according to the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, Asperger felt that autistic people could have beneficial talents, especially what he called a "particular originality of thought" that was often beautiful and pure, unfiltered by culture of discretion, unafraid to grasp at extremely unconventional ideas. Nearly every autistic person that Sacks observed appeard happiest when alone. The word "autism" is derived from autos, the Greek word for "self."
"The cure for Asperger's syndrome is very simple," wrote Tony Attwood, a psychologist and Asperger's expert who lives in Australia. The solution is to leave the person alone. "You cannot have a social deficit when you are alone. You cannot have a communication problem when you are alone. All the diagnostic criteria dissolve in solitude."
Officially, Asperger's disorder no longer exists as a diagnostic category. The diagnosis, having been inconsistently applied, was replaced, with clarified criteria, in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Asperger's is now grouped under the umbrella term Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD. ~ Michael Finkel,#NFDB
1160:Hence, it's obvious to see why in AA the community is so important; we are powerless over ourselves. Since we don't have immediate awareness of the Higher Power and how it works, we need to be constantly reminded of our commitment to freedom and liberation. The old patterns are so seductive that as they go off, they set off the association of ideas and the desire to give in to our addiction with an enormous force that we can't handle. The renewal of defeat often leads to despair. At the same time, it's a source of hope for those who have a spiritual view of the process. Because it reminds us that we have to renew once again our total dependence on the Higher Power. This is not just a notional acknowledgment of our need. We feel it from the very depths of our being. Something in us causes our whole being to cry out, “Help!” That's when the steps begin to work. And that, I might add, is when the spiritual journey begins to work. A lot of activities that people in that category regard as spiritual are not communicating to them experientially their profound dependence on the grace of God to go anywhere with their spiritual practices or observances. That's why religious practice can be so ineffective. The real spiritual journey depends on our acknowledging the unmanageability of our lives. The love of God or the Higher Power is what heals us. Nobody becomes a full human being without love. It brings to life people who are most damaged. The steps are really an engagement in an ever-deepening relationship with God. Divine love picks us up when we sincerely believe nobody else will. We then begin to experience freedom, peace, calm, equanimity, and liberation from cravings for what we have come to know are damaging—cravings that cannot bring happiness, but at best only momentary relief that makes the real problem worse. ~ Thomas Keating, #NFDB
1161:Aristotle very famously said in his Politics I.V.8 that some people are born to be slaves. He meant that some people are not as capable of higher rational thought and therefore should do the work that frees the more talented and brilliant to pursue a life of honor and culture. Modern people bristle with outrage at such a statement, but while we do not today hold with the idea of literal slavery, the attitudes behind Aristotle’s statement are alive and well. Christian philosopher Lee Hardy and many others have argued that this “Greek attitude toward work and its place in human life was largely preserved in both the thought and practice of the Christian church” through the centuries, and still holds a great deal of influence today in our culture.43 What has come down to us is a set of pervasive ideas. One is that work is a necessary evil. The only good work, in this view, is work that helps make us money so that we can support our families and pay others to do menial work. Second, we believe that lower-status or lower-paying work is an assault on our dignity. One result of this belief is that many people take jobs that they are not suited for at all, choosing to aim for careers that do not fit their gifts but promise higher wages and prestige. Western societies are increasingly divided between the highly remunerated “knowledge classes” and the more poorly remunerated “service sector,” and most of us accept and perpetuate the value judgments that attach to these categories. Another result is that many people will choose to be unemployed rather than do work that they feel is beneath them, and most service and manual labor falls into this category. Often people who have made it into the knowledge classes show great disdain for the concierges, handymen, dry cleaners, cooks, gardeners, and others who hold service jobs. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1162:The twin aspects of genius, the passive and the active, are possessed by the fully realized artist; they also form the necessary equipment of the Adept. Yet in very few people are these twin aspects manifested. Nearly everyone has a capacity for the passive aspect, which involves some sort of appreciation of aesthetic values. There are few people totally unresponsive to the beauties of nature, and none at all that is not responsive to its ferocious manifestations.Fewer are able to respond profoundly to the beauty of natural phenomena, and fewer still to so-called works of art. It takes a degree of genius to respond to such manifestations the whole time. Artists in this category are among the saints, some of whom thrilled with rapture at the constant awareness of the total unity, harmony, and beauty of things.
Such were Boehme, Ramakrishna, etc. Some yogis are immersed in an unsullied and vibrant bliss derived from the incessant contemplation of this 'world-bewitching maya'4-the breath-taking wonder of the great and glamorous illusion which surrounds us.
On the other side of the fence, on the side of active or creative genius, there are yet fewer. Active or creative genius means nothing less than the ability to translate the wonder or the terror of the great lfla (the great play of life) in terms of visual, tactile, audible, olfactory, or some other sensual presentation of phenomena.
But there is a third aspect of genius which is yet more rare. It is the ability to open the door of the theatre and admit the influences from outside, from the swarming gulfs beyond the grasp of the mind, and accessible only to the magical entity whose fantastic feelers can snare the most fugitive impulses as they flash through the holes in space, the kinks in time, to be reflected in the magic mirror of the artist's mind. ~ Kenneth Grant,#NFDB
1163:Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, “simpler” time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can’t read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them. Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches. Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Moslem, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or even a Catholic. A witch may also be an atheist, a “cultist,” or a well-to-do eccentric. Well-to-do eccentrics often have no protectors or much that’s worth stealing. And “cultist” is a great catchall term for anyone who fits into no other large category, and yet doesn’t quite match Jarret’s version of Christianity. Jarret’s people have been known to beat or drive out Unitarians, for goodness’ sake. Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of “heathen houses of devil-worship,” he has a simple answer: “Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.” He’s had notable success with this carrot-and-stick approach. Join us and thrive, or whatever happens to you as a result of your own sinful stubbornness is your problem. ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
1164:Hence, it's obvious to see why in AA the community is so important; we are powerless over ourselves. Since we don't have immediate awareness of the Higher Power and how it works, we need to be constantly reminded of our commitment to freedom and liberation. The old patterns are so seductive that as they go off, they set off the association of ideas and the desire to give in to our addiction with an enormous force that we can't handle. The renewal of defeat often leads to despair. At the same time, it's a source of hope for those who have a spiritual view of the process. Because it reminds us that we have to renew once again our total dependence on the Higher Power. This is not just a notional acknowledgment of our need. We feel it from the very depths of our being. Something in us causes our whole being to cry out, "Help!" That's when the steps begin to work. And that, I might add, is when the spiritual journey begins to work. A lot of activities that people in that category regard as spiritual are not communicating to them experientially their profound dependence on the grace of God to go anywhere with their spiritual practices or observances. That's why religious practice can be so ineffective. The real spiritual journey depends on our acknowledging the unmanageability of our lives. The love of God or the Higher Power is what heals us. Nobody becomes a full human being without love. It brings to life people who are most damaged. The steps are really an engagement in an ever-deepening relationship with God. Divine love picks us up when we sincerely believe nobody else will. We then begin to experience freedom, peace, calm, equanimity, and liberation from cravings for what we have come to know are damaging-cravings that cannot bring happiness, but at best only momentary relief that makes the real problem worse. ~ Thomas Keating, Divine Therapy and Addiction, #NFDB
1165:She grabbed a brush and stroked Blue’s neck. He nudged her with his big head wanting more.
Caught up rubbing down Blue, she didn’t hear Jack come in behind her.
He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. Jenna jumped and almost lost her footing. Ever protective, Jack steadied her by wrapping his arms around her and drawing her back to his chest. His voice came out low and husky at her ear.
“It’s me. Leave my horse alone and come to bed with me.”
She leaned into him, savored his warmth and strength wrapped around her.
“You scared me. I’m all wound up about tomorrow. I thought a little exercise would help me sleep.”
Blue shifted and nudged Jack’s shoulder. “I think your horse is jealous.”
Jenna gave Jack a sweet smile over her shoulder.
“Yeah, well he can join the club. So far, Sam and Ben fit into that category, too. They both think I don’t deserve you. I’m sure they’re plotting to steal you away from me.”
“No way,” she said, astonished and embarrassed. She turned in his arms and placed her hands on his chest.
“Sam’s convinced he can get you to leave with him. He doesn’t even mind the babies are mine, because, well, technically we have the same DNA, so no one can prove they aren’t his.”
“Good lord. Is this what you guys talk about while you’re watching ball games and drinking beer?”
“Nah, mostly he and Ben talk about how they’ll get rid of me and hide my body.”
“Stop it. That’s not funny. Besides, that’d be hard to do these days with all the guards. Three are watching us right now.”
“Not us, you. They’re plotting how they can get rid of me and still keep an eye on you at the same time.”
“All right, that’s enough. Take me to bed and claim me as yours.”
“I’ve already done that, it doesn’t seem to convince anyone. They still want you for their own.”
-Jack & Jenna ~ Jennifer Ryan,#NFDB
1166:Many a time when I sat in the balcony, or hanging garden, on which my window opened, I have watched her rising in the air on her radiant wings, and in a few moments groups of infants below, catching sight of her, would soar upward with joyous sounds of greeting; clustering and sporting around her, so that she seemed a very centre of innocent delight. When I have walked with her amidst the rocks and valleys without the city, the elk-deer would scent or see her from afar, come bounding up, eager for the caress of her hand, or follow her footsteps, till dismissed by some musical whisper that the creature had learned to comprehend. It is the fashion among the virgin Gy-ei to wear on their foreheads a circlet, or coronet, with gems resembling opals, arranged in four points or rays like stars. These are lustreless in ordinary use, but if touched by the vril wand they take a clear lambent flame, which illuminates, yet not burns. This serves as an ornament in their festivities, and as a lamp, if, in their wanderings beyond their artificial lights, they have to traverse the dark. There are times, when I have seen Zee’s thoughtful majesty of face lighted up by this crowning halo, that I could scarcely believe her to be a creature of mortal birth, and bent my head before her as the vision of a being among the celestial orders. But never once did my heart feel for this lofty type of the noblest womanhood a sentiment of human love. Is it that, among the race I belong to, man’s pride so far influences his passions that woman loses to him her special charm of woman if he feels her to be in all things eminently superior to himself? But by what strange infatuation could this peerless daughter of a race which, in the supremacy of its powers and the felicity of its conditions, ranked all other races in the category of barbarians, have deigned to honour me with her preference? ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton, #NFDB
1167:She observed the dumb-show by which her neighbour was expressing her passion for music, but she refrained from copying it. This was not to say that, for once that she had consented to spend a few minutes in Mme. de Saint-Euverte's house, the Princesse des Laumes would not have wished (so that the act of politeness to her hostess which she had performed by coming might, so to speak, 'count double') to shew herself as friendly and obliging as possible. But she had a natural horror of what she called 'exaggerating,' and always made a point of letting people see that she 'simply must not' indulge in any display of emotion that was not in keeping with the tone of the circle in which she moved, although such displays never failed to make an impression upon her, by virtue of that spirit of imitation, akin to timidity, which is developed in the most self-confident persons, by contact with an unfamiliar environment, even though it be inferior to their own. She began to ask herself whether these gesticulations might not, perhaps, be a necessary concomitant of the piece of music that was being played, a piece which, it might be, was in a different category from all the music that she had ever heard before; and whether to abstain from them was not a sign of her own inability to understand the music, and of discourtesy towards the lady of the house; with the result that, in order to express by a compromise both of her contradictory inclinations in turn, at one moment she would merely straighten her shoulder-straps or feel in her golden hair for the little balls of coral or of pink enamel, frosted with tiny diamonds, which formed its simple but effective ornament, studying, with a cold interest, her impassioned neighbour, while at another she would beat time for a few bars with her fan, but, so as not to forfeit her independence, she would beat a different time from the pianist's. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1168:The mystery of this courage of Bauer’s is Hegel’s Phenomenology. As Hegel here puts self-consciousness in the place of man, the most varied human reality appears only as a definite form, as a determination of self-consciousness. But a mere determination of self-consciousness is a “pure category,” a mere “thought” which I can consequently also abolish in “pure” thought and overcome through pure thought. In Hegel’s Phenomenology the material, perceptible, objective bases of the various estranged forms of human self-consciousness are left as they are. Thus the whole destructive work results in the most conservative philosophy because it thinks it has overcome the objective world, the sensuously real world, by merely transforming it into a “thing of thought” a mere determination of self-consciousness and can therefore dissolve its opponent, which has become ethereal, in the “ether of pure thought.” Phenomenology is therefore quite logical when in the end it replaces human reality by “Absolute Knowledge”—Knowledge, because this is the only mode of existence of self-consciousness, because self-consciousness is considered as the only mode of existence of man; absolute knowledge for the very reason that self-consciousness knows itself alone and is no more disturbed by any objective world. Hegel makes man the man of self-consciousness instead of making self-consciousness the self-consciousness of man, of real man, man living in a real objective world and determined by that world. He stands the world on its head and can therefore dissolve in the head all the limitations which naturally remain in existence for evil sensuousness, for real man. Besides, everything which betrays the limitations of general self-consciousness—all sensuousness, reality, individuality of men and of their world—necessarily rates for him as a limit. The whole of Phenomenology is intended to prove that self-consciousness is the only reality and all reality. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
1169:On Aditya," First Citizen Yaggo declared, "there are no classes, and on Aditya everybody works. 'From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.'"
"On Aditya," an elderly Counselor four places to the right of him said loudly to his neighbor, "they don't call them classes, they call them sociological categories, and they have nineteen of them. And on Aditya, they don't call them nonworkers, they call them occupational reservists, and they have more of them than we do."
"But of course, I was born a king," Ranulf said sadly and nobly. "I have a duty to my people."
"No, they don't vote at all," Lord Koreff was telling the Counselor on his left. "On Durendal, you have to pay taxes before you can vote."
"On Aditya the crime of taxation does not exist," the First Citizen told the Prime Minister.
"On Aditya," the Counselor four places down said to his neighbor, "there's nothing to tax. The state owns all the property, and if the Imperial Constitution and the Space Navy let them, the State would own all the people, too. Don't tell me about Aditya. First big-ship command I had was the old Invictus, 374, and she was based on Aditya for four years, and I'd sooner have spent that time in orbit around Niffelheim."...
"But if they don't have votes to sell, what do they live on?" a Counselor asked in bewilderment.
"The nobility supports them; the landowners, the trading barons, the industrial lords. The more nonworking adherents they have, the greater their prestige." And the more rifles they could muster when they quarreled with their fellow nobles, of course. "Beside, if we didn't do that, they'd turn brigand, and it costs less to support them than to have to hunt them out of the brush and hang them."
"On Aditya, brigandage does not exist."
"On Aditya, all the brigands belong to the Secret Police, only on Aditya they don't call them Secret Police, they call them Servants of the People, Ninth Category. ~ H Beam Piper,#NFDB
1170:The cornerstone of control is the state’s system of surveillance, exposed by Snowden. I saw the effect of blanket surveillance as a reporter in the Stasi sate of Communist East Germany. I was followed by men, invariably with crew cuts and leather jackets, whom I presumed to be agents of the Stasi— the Ministry for State Security, which the ruling Communist Party described as the “shield and sword” of the nation. Stasi agents visited those I interviewed soon after I left their homes. My phone was bugged. Some of those I worked with were pressured to become informants. Fear hung like icicles over every conversation. People would whisper to me to convey the most banal pieces of information.
The Stasi did not set up massive death camps and gulags. It did not have to. Its network of as many as 2 million informants in a country of 17 million was everywhere. There were 102,000 secret police officers employed full-time to monitor the population— one for every 166 East Germans. The Nazis broke bones. The Stasi broke souls. The East German security apparatus pioneered the psychological disintegration skills that torturers and interrogators in America’s black sites, and within our prison system, have honed to a chilling perfection.
The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism, is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population”. This is what happened to [Lynne] Stewart. And because Americans’ emails, phone conversations, Web searches, and geographical movements are recorded and stored in perpetuity in government databases, there will be more than enough “evidence” to seize us should the state deem it necessary. This information waits like a dormant virus inside government vaults to be released against us. It does not matter how trivial or innocent that information is. In totalitarian states, justice, like truth, is irrelevant. ~ Chris Hedges,#NFDB
1171:Disciple: If the Asuras represent the dark side of God on the vital plane - does this dark side exist on every plane? If so, are there beings on the mental plane which correspond to the dark side?
Sri Aurobindo: The Asura is really the dark side of God on the mental plane. Mind is the very field of the Asura. His characteristic is egoistic strength, which refuses the Higher Law. The Asura has got Self-control, Tapas, intelligence, only, all that is for his ego.
On the vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshashas which represent violent passions and impulses. There are other beings on the vital plane which we call pramatta and piśacha and these; manifest, more or less, on the physico-vital plane.
Distiple: What is the corresponding being on the higher plane?
Sri Aurobindo: On the higher plane there are no Asuras - there the Truth prevails. There are "Asuras" there in the Vedic sense,- "beings with divine powers". The mental Asura is only a deviation of that power.
The work of the Asura has all the characteristics of mind in it. It is mind refusing to submit to the Higher Law; it is the mind in revolt. It works on the basis of ego and ignorance.
Disciple: What are the forces that correspond to the dark side of God on the physical plane?
Sri Aurobindo: They are what may be called the "elemental beings", or rather, obscure elemental forces - they are more "forces" than "beings". It is these that the Theosophists call the "Elementals". They are not individualised beings like the Asura and the Rakshasas, they are ignorant forces working oh the subtle physical plane.
Disciple: What is the word for them in Sanskrit;?
Sri Aurobindo: What are called bhūtas seem most nearly to correspond to them.
Disciple: The term "Elemental" means that these work through the elements.
Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of "elementals": one mischievous and the other innocent. What the Europeans call the gnomes come under this category. ~ A B Purani, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, 15-06-1926,#NFDB
1172:War and Peace has to be put in a group not with Madame Bovary, Vanity Fair, or The Mill on the Floss, but with the Iliad, in the sense that when the novel is finished nothing is finished—the stream of life flows on, and with the appearance of Prince Andrew’s son the novel ends on the beginning of a new life. All the time there are openings out of the story into the world beyond. This is a thing that had never been attempted by historical novelists before Tolstóy. As for the open form, it has often been attempted, but never so successfully. In a very different way the open form was achieved by James Joyce in Ulysses. As Tolstóy is compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, so critics say that Joyce’s novel is of a mythological nature. John Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga and Arnold Bennett’s The Old Wives’ Tale may also claim to belong to the category of “open” novels. No novel has received more enthusiastic praise both in Russia and England than War and Peace. John Galsworthy spoke of it as “the greatest novel ever written,” and those fine critics Percy Lubbock and E. M. Forster have been no less emphatic. In The Craft of Fiction Lubbock says that War and Peace is: “a picture of life that has never been surpassed for its grandeur and its beauty. . . . The business of the novelist is to create life, and here is life created indeed! In the whole of fiction no scene is so continually washed by the common air, free to us all, as the scene of Tolstóy, the supreme genius among novelists. “Pierre and Andrew and Natásha and the rest of them are the children of yesterday and today and tomorrow; there is nothing in any of them that is not of all time. To an English reader of today it is curious—and more, it is strangely moving—to note how faithfully the creations of Tolstóy, the nineteenth-century Russian, copy the young people of the twentieth century and of England: it is all one, life in Moscow then, life in London now, provided only that it is young enough.” E. M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel says: “No English novelist is as great ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1173:Our situation is much like that of a little girl who was taken by her mother to visit a chiropractor friend of mine. Her mother said, “I think something is wrong with my daughter. She is a very quiet little girl and always well behaved, but never once have I heard her laugh. In fact, she rarely even smiles.” My friend examined her and discovered a spinal misalignment that, she judged, would give the girl a terrific headache all the time. Fortunately, it was one of those misalignments that a chiropractor can correct easily and permanently. She made the adjustment—and the girl broke into a big laugh, the first her mother had ever heard. The omnipresent pain in her head, which she had come to accept as normal, was miraculously gone. Many of you might doubt that we live in a “sea of pain.” I feel pretty good right now myself. But I also carry a memory of a far more profound state of well-being, connectedness, and intensity of awareness that felt, at the time, like my birthright. Which state is normal? Could it be that we are bravely making the best of things? How much of our dysfunctional, consumptive behavior is simply a futile attempt to run away from a pain that is in fact everywhere? Running from one purchase to another, one addictive fix to the next, a new car, a new cause, a new spiritual idea, a new self-help book, a bigger number in the bank account, the next news story, we gain each time a brief respite from feeling pain. The wound at its source never vanishes though. In the absence of distraction—those moments of what we call “boredom”—we can feel its discomfort. Of course, any behavior that alleviates pain without healing its source can become addictive. We should therefore hesitate to cast judgment on anyone exhibiting addictive behavior (a category that probably includes nearly all of us). What we see as greed or weakness might merely be fumbling attempts to meet a need, when the true object of that need is unavailable. In that case the usual prescriptions for more discipline, self-control, or responsibility are counterproductive. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1174:Let us assume that the reader shared my opinion, that the market over the next week had a 70% probability of going up and 30% probability of going down. However, let us say that it would go up by 1% on average, while it could go down by an average of 10%. What would the reader do? Is the reader bullish or bearish? Table 6.2 Event Probability Outcome Expectation Market goes up 70% Up 1% 0.7 Market goes down 30% Down 10% -3.00 Total -2.3 Accordingly, bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who have no experience in handling risk. Alas, investors and businesses are not paid in probabilities; they are paid in dollars. Accordingly, it is not how likely an event is to happen that matters, it is how much is made when it happens that should be the consideration. How frequent the profit is irrelevant; it is the magnitude of the outcome that counts. It is a pure accounting fact that, aside from the commentators, very few people take home a check linked to how often they are right or wrong. What they get is a profit or loss. As to the commentators, their success is linked to how often they are right or wrong. This category includes the “chief strategists” of major investment banks the public can see on TV, who are nothing better than entertainers. They are famous, seem reasoned in their speech, plow you with numbers, but, functionally, they are there to entertain—for their predictions to have any validity they would need a statistical testing framework. Their frame is not the result of some elaborate test but rather the result of their presentation skills. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1175:As for my division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I acknowledge that it’s somewhat arbitrary, but I don’t insist upon exact numbers. I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. There are, of course, innumerable sub- divisions, but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood—that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for such anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with me—and vive la guerre éternelle—till the New Jerusalem, of course! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1176:In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out:
the Books You've Been Planning To Read For Ages,
the Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success,
the Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment,
the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case,
the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,
the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,
the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified,
Now you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and the Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them. ~ Italo Calvino,#NFDB
1177:One final note here: you’ve probably noticed that whenever I mention serial killers, I always refer to them as “he.” This isn’t just a matter of form or syntactical convenience. For reasons we only partially understand, virtually all multiple killers are male. There’s been a lot of research and speculation into it. Part of it is probably as simple as the fact that people with higher levels of testosterone (i.e., men) tend to be more aggressive than people with lower levels (i.e., women). On a psychological level, our research seems to show that while men from abusive backgrounds often come out of the experience hostile and abusive to others, women from similar backgrounds tend to direct the rage and abusiveness inward and punish themselves rather than others. While a man might kill, hurt, or rape others as a way of dealing with his rage, a woman is more likely to channel it into something that would hurt primarily herself, such as drug or alcohol abuse, prostitution, or suicide attempts. I can’t think of a single case of a woman acting out a sexualized murder on her own. The one exception to this generality, the one place we do occasionally see women involved in multiple murders, is in a hospital or nursing home situation. A woman is unlikely to kill repeatedly with a gun or knife. It does happen with something “clean” like drugs. These often fall into the category of either “mercy homicide,” in which the killer believes he or she is relieving great suffering, or the “hero homicide,” in which the death is the unintentional result of causing the victim distress so he can be revived by the offender, who is then declared a hero. And, of course, we’ve all been horrified by the cases of mothers, such as the highly publicized Susan Smith case in South Carolina, killing their own children. There is generally a particular set of motivations for this most unnatural of all crimes, which we’ll get into later on. But for the most part, the profile of the serial killer or repeat violent offender begins with “male.” Without that designation, my colleagues and I would all be happily out of a job. ~ John Edward Douglas, #NFDB
1178:The feelings of powerlessness are an adaptive function. The child adopts behavior that sets himself or herself up for more of the same. He or she becomes antisocial and stops evoking a feeling of warmth in other people, thus reinforcing the notion of powerlessness. Children then stay on the same pathway. These courses are not set in stone, but the longer a child stays on one course, the harder it is to move on to another. By studying the behavior of adults in later life who had shared this experience of learning powerlessness during infancy, the psychologists who specialize in attachment theory have found that an assumption of powerlessness, once lodged in the brains of infants, turns out to be difficult—though not impossible—to unlearn. Those who grow into adulthood carrying this existential assumption of powerlessness were found to be quick to assume in later life that impulsive and hostile reactions to unmet needs were the only sensible response. Indeed, longitudinal studies conducted by the University of Minnesota over more than thirty years have found that America’s prison population is heavily overrepresented by people who fell into this category as infants. The key difference determining which lesson is learned and which posture is adopted rests with the pattern of communication between the infant and his or her primary caregiver or caregivers, not with the specific information conveyed by the caregiver. What matters is the openness, responsiveness, and reliability, and two-way nature of the communication environment. I believe that the viability of democracy depends upon the openness, reliability, appropriateness, responsiveness, and two-way nature of the communication environment. After all, democracy depends upon the regular sending and receiving of signals—not only between the people and those who aspire to be their elected representatives but also among the people themselves. It is the connection of each individual to the national conversation that is the key. I believe that the citizens of any democracy learn, over time, to adopt a basic posture toward the possibilities of self-government. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
1179:Because by definition they lack any such sense of mutuality or wholeness, our specializations subsist on conflict with one another. The rule is never to cooperate, but rather to follow one's own interest as far as possible. Checks and balances are all applied externally, by opposition, never by self-restraint. Labor, management, the military, the government, etc., never forbear until their excesses arouse enough opposition to force them to do so. The good of the whole of Creation, the world and all its creatures together, is never a consideration because it is never thought of; our culture now simply lacks the means for thinking of it.
It is for this reason that none of our basic problems is ever solved. Indeed, it is for this reason that our basic problems are getting worse. The specialists are profiting too well from the symptoms, evidently, to be concerned about cures -- just as the myth of imminent cure (by some 'breakthrough' of science or technology) is so lucrative and all-justifying as to foreclose any possibility of an interest in prevention. The problems thus become the stock in trade of specialists. The so-called professions survive by endlessly "processing" and talking about problems that they have neither the will nor the competence to solve. The doctor who is interested in disease but not in health is clearly in the same category with the conservationist who invests in the destruction of what he otherwise intends to preserve. The both have the comfort of 'job security,' but at the cost of ultimate futility.
... This has become, to some extent at least, an argument against institutional solutions. Such solutions necessarily fail to solve the problems to which they are addressed because, by definition, the cannot consider the real causes. The only real, practical, hope-giving way to remedy the fragmentation that is the disease of the modern spirit is a small and humble way -- a way that a government or agency or organization or institution will never think of, though a person may think of it: one must begin in one's own life the private solutions that can only in turn become public solutions. ~ Wendell Berry,#NFDB
1180:dependability of your business. 6. If your Customer is Traditional, you have to talk about the financial competitiveness of your business. Additionally, what your Customers want is determined by who they are. Who they are is regularly demonstrated by what they do. Think about the Customers with whom you do business. Ask yourself: In which of the categories would I place them? What do they do for a living? For example: If they are mechanical engineers, they are probably Neutral Customers. If they are cardiologists, they are probably Tactile. If they are software engineers, they are probably Experimental. If they are accountants, they are probably Traditional. But don’t take my word for it. Make your own analysis. CONFUSION 2: HOW TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY WITH YOUR CUSTOMER The next step in the Customer Satisfaction Process is to decide how to magnify the characteristics of your business that are most likely to appeal to your category of Customer. That begins with what marketing people call your Positioning Strategy. What do I mean by positioning your business? You position your business with words. A few well-chosen words to tell your Customers exactly what they want to hear. In marketing lingo, those words are called your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition. For example, if you are targeting Tactile Customers (people), your USP could be: “Superior Contracting, where the feelings of people really count!” If you are targeting Experimental Customers (new things), your USP could be: “Superior Contracting, where living on the edge is a way of life!” In other words, when they choose to do business with your company, they can count on your job being unique, original, on the cutting edge. Do you get it? Do you see how the ordinary things most Contractors do to get Customers can be done in a significantly more effective way? Once you understand the essential principles of marketing The E-Myth Way, the strategies by which you attract customers can make an enormous difference in your market share. When applied to your business, your Positioning Strategy becomes the foundation of what we at E-Myth call your Lead Generation System. ~ Michael E Gerber, #NFDB
1181:Because money is convertible into all other things, it infects them with the same feature, turning them into commodities—objects that, as long as they meet certain criteria, are seen as identical. All that matters is how many or how much. Money, says Seaford, 'promotes a sense of homogeneity among things in general.' All things are equal, because they can be sold for money, which can in turn be used to buy any other thing.
In the commodity world, things are equal to the money that can replace them. Their primary attribute is their 'value'—an abstraction. I feel a distancing, a letdown, in the phrase, 'You can always buy another one.' Can you see how this promotes an antimaterialism, a detachment from the physical world in which each person, place, and thing is special, unique? No wonder Greek philosophers of this era [when modern money originated] began elevating the abstract over the real, culminating in Plato's invention of a world of perfect forms more real than the world of the senses. No wonder to this day we treat the physical world so cavalierly. No wonder, after two thousand years' immersion in the mentality of money, we have become so used to the replaceability of all things that we behave as if we could, if we wrecked the planet, simply buy a new one.
[...]
The development of monetary abstraction fits into a vast meta-historical context. Money could not have developed without a foundation of abstraction in the form of words and numbers. Already, number and label distance us from the real world and prime our minds to think abstractly. To use a noun already implies an identity among the many things so named; to say there are five of a thing makes each a unit. We begin to think of objects as representatives of a category, and not unique beings in themselves. So, while standard, generic categories didn't begin with money, money vastly accelerated their conceptual dominance. Moreover, the homogeneity of money accompanied the rapid development of standardized commodity goods for trade. Such standardization was crude in preindustrial times, but today manufactured objects are so nearly identical as to make the lie of money into the truth. ~ Charles Eisenstein,#NFDB
1182:Because money is convertible into all other things, it infects them with the same feature, turning them into commodities—objects that, as long as they meet certain criteria, are seen as identical. All that matters is how many or how much. Money, says Seaford, 'promotes a sense of homogeneity among things in general.' All things are equal, because they can be sold for money, which can in turn be used to buy any other thing.
In the commodity world, things are equal to the money that can replace them. Their primary attribute is their 'value'—an abstraction. I feel a distancing, a letdown, in the phrase, 'You can always buy another one.' Can you see how this promotes an antimaterialism, a detachment from the physical world in which each person, place, and thing is special, unique? No wonder Greek philosophers of this era [when modern money originated] began elevating the abstract over the real, culminating in Plato's invention of a world of perfect forms more real than the world of the senses. No wonder to this day we treat the physical world so cavalierly. No wonder, after two thousand years' immersion in the mentality of money, we have become so used to the replaceability of all things that we behave as if we could, if we wrecked the planet, simply buy a new one.
[...]
The development of monetary abstraction fits into a vast meta-historical context. Money could not have developed without a foundation of abstraction in the form of words and numbers. Already, number and label distance us from the real world and prime our minds to think abstractly. To use a noun already implies an identity among the many things so named; to say there are five of a thing makes each a unit. We begin to think of objects as representatives of a category, and not unique beings in themselves. So, while standard, generic categories didn't begin with money, money vastly accelerated their conceptual dominance. Moreover, the homogeneity of money accompanied the rapid development of standardized commodity goods for trade. Such standardization was crude in preindustrial times, but today manufactured objects are so nearly identical as to make the lie of money into the truth. ~ Charles Eisenstein,#NFDB
1183:FEELING IT It’s useful to think about how emotional feelings emerge in consciousness by way of analogy with the way the flavor of a soup is the product of its ingredients.92 For example, salt, pepper, garlic, and water are common ingredients that go into a chicken soup. The amount of salt and pepper added can intensify the taste of the soup without radically changing its nature. You can add other ingredients, like celery, green peppers, and parsley, and have a variant of a chicken soup. Add roux and it becomes gumbo, whereas curry paste pushes it in a different direction. Substitute shrimp for chicken, and the character again changes. None of these individual items are soup ingredients per se: They are things that exist independent of soup and that would exist if a soup had never been made. The idea that emotions are psychologically constructed states is related to Claude Levi-Strauss’s notion of “bricolage.”93 This is the French word referring to something put together (constructed) from items that happen to be available. Levi-Strauss emphasized the importance of the individual, the “bricoleur,” and his social context, in the construction process. Building on this idea, Shirley Prendergast and Simon Forrest note that “maybe persons, objects, contexts, the sequence and fabric of everyday life are the medium through which emotions come into being, day to day, a kind of emotional bricolage.”94 In the brain, working memory can be thought of as the “bricoleur,” and the content of emotional consciousness resulting from the construction process as the bricolage. Similarly, fear, anxiety, and other emotions arise from intrinsically nonemotional ingredients, things that exist in the brain for other reasons but that create feelings when they coalesce in consciousness. The pot in which the ingredients of conscious feelings are cooked is working memory (Figure 8.9). Different ingredients, or varying amounts of the same ingredients, account for differences between fear and anxiety, and for variations within each category. Although my soup analogy is new, I’ve been promoting the basic idea that conscious feelings are assembled from nonemotional ingredients for quite some time.95 ~ Joseph E LeDoux, #NFDB
1184:This was the big advantage of “Oriental“ campaign excavations: whereas in Europe they were forced by their budgets to dig themselves, archaeologists in Syria, like their glorious predecessors, could delegate the lowly tasks. As Bilger said, quoting The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”: “you see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig.” So the European archaeologists had acquired an extremely specialized and technical Arabic vocabulary: dig here, clear there, with a shovel, a pickax, a small pick, a trowel — the brush was the privilege of Westerners. Dig gently, clear quickly, and it was not rare to overhear the following dialogue:
“Go one meter down here.”
“Yes boss. With an excavation shovel?”
“Um, big shovel… Big shovel no. Instead pickax.”
“With the big pickax?”
“Big pickax no. Little pick.”
“So, we should dig down to one meter with the little pick?”
“Na’am, na’am. Shwia shwia, Listen, don’t go smashing in the whole world to finish more quickly, OK?”
In these circumstances there were obviously misunderstandings that led to irreparable losses for science: a number of walls and stylobates fell victim to the perverse alliance of linguistics and capitalism, but on the whole the archaeologists were happy with their personnel, whom they trained, so to speak, season after season....[I am] curious to know what these excavations represent, for these workers. Do they have the feeling that we are stripping them of their history, that Europeans are stealing something from them, once again?
Bilger had a theory: he argued that for these workmen whatever came before Islam does not belong to them, is of another order, another world, which falls into the category of the qadim jiddan, the “very old”; Bilger asserted that for a Syrian, the history of the world is divided into three periods: jadid, recent; qadim, old; qadim jiddan, very old, without it being very clear if it was simply his own level of Arabic that was the cause for such a simplification: even if his workers talked to him about the succession of Mesopotamian dynasties, they would have had to resort, lacking a common language that he could understand, to the qadim jiddan. ~ Mathias nard,#NFDB
1185:This was the big advantage of “Oriental“ campaign excavations: whereas in Europe they were forced by their budgets to dig them selves, archaeologists in Syria, like their glorious predecessors, could delegate the lowly tasks. As Bilger said, quoting The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”: “you see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig.” So the European archaeologists had acquired an extremely specialized and technical Arabic vocabulary: dig here, clear there, with a shovel, a pickax, a small pick, a trowel — the brush was the privilege of Westerners. Dig gently, clear quickly, and it was not rare to overhear the following dialogue:
“Go one meter down here.”
“Yes boss. With an excavation shovel?”
“Um, big shovel… Big shovel no. Instead pickax.”
“With the big pickax?”
“Big pickax no. Little pick.”
“So, we should dig down to one meter with the little pick?”
“Na’am, na’am. Shwia shwia, Listen, don’t go smashing in the whole world to finish more quickly, OK?”
In these circumstances there were obviously misunderstandings that led to irreparable losses for science: a number of walls and stylobates fell victim to the perverse alliance of linguistics and capitalism, but on the whole the archaeologists were happy with their personnel, whom they trained, so to speak, season after season....[I am] curious to know what these excavations represent, for these workers. Do they have the feeling that we are stripping them of their history, that Europeans are stealing something from them, once again?
Bilger had a theory: he argued that for these workmen whatever came before Islam does not belong to them, is of another order, another world, which falls into the category of the qadim jiddan, the “very old”; Bilger asserted that for a Syrian, the history of the world is divided into three periods: jadid, recent; qadim, old; qadim jiddan, very old, without it being very clear if it was simply his own level of Arabic that was the cause for such a simplification: even if his workers talked to him about the succession of Mesopotamian dynasties, they would have had to resort, lacking a common language that he could understand, to the qadim jiddan. ~ Mathias nard,#NFDB
1186:There are two famous quips of Stalin which are both grounded in this logic. When Stalin answered the question "Which deviation is worse, the Rightist or the Leftist one?" by "They are both worse!", the underlying premise is that the Leftist deviation is REALLY ("objectively," as Stalinists liked to put it) not leftist at all, but a concealed Rightist one! When Stalin wrote, in a report on a party congress, that the delegates, with the majority of votes, unanimously approved the CC resolution, the underlying premise is, again, that there was really no minority within the party: those who voted against thereby excluded themselves from the party... In all these cases, the genus repeatedly overlaps (fully coincides) with one of its species. This is also what allows Stalin to read history retroactively, so that things "become clear" retroactively: it was not that Trotsky was first fighting for the revolution with Lenin and Stalin and then, at a certain stage, opted for a different strategy than the one advocated by Stalin; this last opposition (Trotsky/Stalin) "makes it clear" how, "objectively," Trotsky was against revolution all the time back.
We find the same procedure in the classificatory impasse the Stalinist ideologists and political activists faced in their struggle for collectivization in the years 1928-1933. In their attempt to account for their effort to crush the peasants' resistance in "scientific" Marxist terms, they divided peasants into three categories (classes): the poor peasants (no land or minimal land, working for others), natural allies of the workers; the autonomous middle peasants, oscillating between the exploited and exploiters; the rich peasants, "kulaks" (employing other workers, lending them money or seeds, etc.), the exploiting "class enemy" which, as such, has to be "liquidated." However, in practice, this classification became more and more blurred and inoperative: in the generalized poverty, clear criteria no longer applied, and other two categories often joined kulaks in their resistance to forced collectivization. An additional category was thus introduced, that of a subkulak, a peasant who, although, with regard to his economic situation, was to poor to be considered a kulak proper, nonetheless shared the kulak "counter-revolutionary" attitude. ~ Slavoj i ek,#NFDB
1187:Cases of unauthorized absence, over-stayal, insubordination, use of abusive language, etc. do not have any vigilance angle. There are some border line cases, such as gross or willful negligence; recklessness in decision making; blatant violations of systems and procedures; exercise of discretion in excess, where no ostensible public interest is evident; failure to keep the controlling authority/superiors informed in time – these are some of the irregularities where the disciplinary authority with the help of the CVO should carefully study the case and weigh the circumstances to come to a conclusion whether there is reasonable ground to doubt the integrity of the officer concerned.4. What are the two parts of the register for recording complaints? One part of the register is meant for registering the complaints in respect of category ‘A’ officers i.e. those in respect of whom the advice of the CVC is required. The other part pertains to Category ‘B’ officers are those in respect of whom CVC advice is not required. As far as central Government employees are concerned Category ‘A’ refers to Group ‘A’ officers. If a complaint involves both the categories of officers, it shall be entered in the higher category i.e. category ‘A’.5. How to deal with anonymous and pseudonymous complaints? Para 3.8.1 of the CVC Manual provides that as a general rule, no action is to be taken by the administrative authorities on anonymous/pseudonymous complaints received by them. It is also open to the administrative authorities to verify by enquiring from the signatory of the complaint whether it had actually been sent by him so as to ascertain whether it is pseudonymous. CVC has also laid down that if any department/organisation proposes to look into any verifiable facts alleged in such complaints, it may refer the matter to the Commission seeking its concurrence through the CVO or the head of the organisation, irrespective of the level of employees involved therein.Besides, any complaint referred to by the Commission is required to be investigated and if it emerges to be a pseudonymous, the matter must be reported to the Commission.6. What action is required in the case of false complaints? If a complaint is found to be malicious, vexatious or unfounded, departmental or criminal action as necessary should be initiated against the author of false complaints 33 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1188:Ten Best Song to Strip
1. Any hip-swiveling R&B fuckjam. This category includes The Greatest Stripping Song of All Time: "Remix to Ignition" by R. Kelly.
2. "Purple Rain" by Prince, but you have to be really theatrical about it. Arch your back like Prince himself is daubing body glitter on your abdomen. Most effective in nearly empty, pathos-ridden juice bars.
3. "Honky Tonk Woman" by the Rolling Stones. Insta-attitude. Makes even the clumsiest troglodyte strut like Anita Pallenberg. (However, the Troggs will make you look like even more of a troglodyte, so avoid if possible.)
4. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard. The Lep's shouted choruses and relentless programmed drums prove ideal for chicks who can really stomp. (Coincidence: I once saw a stripper who, like Rick Allen, had only one arm.)
5. "Amber" by 311. This fluid stoner anthem is a favorite of midnight tokers at strip joints everywhere. Mellow enough that even the most shitfaced dancer can make it through the song and back to her Graffix bong without breaking a sweat. Pass the Fritos Scoops, dude.
6. "Miserable" by Lit, but mostly because Pamela Anderson is in the video, and she's like Jesus for strippers (blonde, plastic, capable of parlaying a broken nail into a domestic battery charge, damaged liver). Alos, you can't go wrong stripping to a song that opens with the line "You make me come."
7. "Back Door Man" by The Doors. Almost too easy. The mere implication that you like it in the ass will thrill the average strip-club patron. Just get on all fours and crawl your way toward the down payment on that condo in Cozumel. (Unless, like most strippers, you'd rather blow your nest egg on tacky pimped-out SUVs and Coach purses.)
8. Back in Black" by AC/DC. Producer Mutt Lange wants you to strip. He does. He told me.
9. "I Touch Myself" by the Devinyls. Strip to this, and that guy at the tip rail with the bitch tits and the shop teacher glasses will actually believe that he alone has inspired you to masturbate. Take his money, then go masturbate and think about someone else.
10. "Hash Pipe" by Weezer. Sure, it smells of nerd. But River Cuomo is obsessed with Asian chicks and nose candy, and that's just the spirit you want to evoke in a strip club. I recommend busting out your most crunk pole tricks during this one. ~ Diablo Cody,#NFDB
1189:The term ‘gender’ itself is problematic. It was first used in a sense that was not simply about grammar by sexologists – the scientists of sex such as John Money in the 1950s and 1960s – who were involved in normalising intersex infants.They used the term to mean the behavioural characteristics they considered most appropriate for persons of one or other biological sex. They applied the concept of gender when deciding upon the sex category into which those infants who did not have clear physical indications of one biological sex or another should be placed (Hausman, 1995).Their purpose was not progressive.These were conservative men who believed that there should be clear differences between the sexes and sought to create distinct sex categories through their projects of social engineering. Unfortunately, the term was adopted by some feminist theorists in the 1970s, and by the late 1970s was commonly used in academic feminism to indicate the difference between biological sex and those characteristics that derived from politics and not biology, which they called ‘gender’ (Haig, 2004).
Before the term ‘gender’ was adopted, the term more usually used to describe these socially constructed characteristics was ‘sex roles’. The word ‘role’ connotes a social construction and was not susceptible to the degeneration that has a afflicted the term ‘gender’ and enabled it to be wielded so effectively by transgender activists. As the term ‘gender’ was adopted more extensively by feminists, its meaning was transformed to mean not just the socially constructed behaviour associated with biological sex, but the system of male power and women’s subordination itself, which became known as the ‘gender hierarchy’ or ‘gender order’ (Connell, 2005; Mackinnon, 1989). Gradually, older terms to describe this system, such as male domination, sex class and sex caste went out of fashion, with the effect that direct identification of the agents responsible for the subordination of women – men – could no longer be named. Gender, as a euphemism, disappeared men as agents in male violence against women, which is now commonly referred to as ‘gender violence’. Increasingly, the term ‘gender’ is used, in official forms and legislation, for instance, to stand in for the term ‘sex’ as if ‘gender’ itself is biological, and this usage has overwhelmed the feminist understanding of gender. ~ Sheila Jeffreys,#NFDB
1190:But Christianity has protected itself from the beginning. It begins with the teaching about sin. The category of sin is the category of individuality. Sin cannot be thought speculatively
at all. The individual human being lies beneath the concept; an individual human being cannot be thought, but only the concept "man." —That is why speculation promptly embarks upon the teaching about the predominance of the generation over the individual, for it is too much to expect that speculation should acknowledge the impotence of the concept in relation to actuality. —But just as one individual person cannot be thought, neither can one individual sinner; sin can be thought (then it becomes negation), but not one individual sinner. That is precisely why there is no earnestness about sin if it is only to be thought, for earnestness is simply this: that you and I are sinners. Earnestness is not sin in general; rather, the accent of earnestness rests on the sinner, who is the single individual. With respect to "the single individual," speculation, if it is consistent, must make light of being a single individual or being that which cannot be thought. If it cares to do anything along this line, it must say to the individual: Is this anything to waste your time on? Forget it! To be an individual human being is to be nothing! Think—then you are all mankind: cogito ergo sum [I think therefore I am]. But perhaps that is a lie; perhaps instead the single individual human being and to be a single human being are the highest. Just suppose it is. To be completely consistent, then, speculation must also say: To be an individual sinner is not to be something; it lies beneath the concept; do not waste any time on it etc. [. . .] Sin is a qualification of the single individual; it is irresponsibility and new sin to pretend as if it were nothing to be an individual sinner—when one himself is this individual sinner. Here Christianity steps in, makes the sign of the cross before speculation; it is just as impossible for speculation to get around this issue as for a sailing vessel to sail directly against a contrary wind. The earnestness of sin is its actuality in the single individual, be it you or I. Speculatively, we are supposed to look away from the single individual; therefore, speculatively, we can speak only superficially about sin. The dialectic of sin is diametrically contrary to that of speculation ~ S ren Kierkegaard,#NFDB
1191:The Cheskin company demonstrated a particularly elegant example of sensation transference a few years ago, when they studied two competing brands of inexpensive brandy, Christian Brothers and E & J (the latter of which, to give some idea of the market segment to which the two belong, is known to its clientele as Easy Jesus). Their client, Christian Brothers, wanted to know why, after years of being the dominant brand in the category, it was losing market share to E & J. Their brandy wasn’t more expensive. It wasn’t harder to find in the store. And they weren’t being out-advertised (since there is very little advertising at this end of the brandy segment). So, why were they losing ground? Cheskin set up a blind taste test with two hundred brandy drinkers. The two brandies came out roughly the same. Cheskin then decided to go a few steps further. “We went out and did another test with two hundred different people,” explains Darrel Rhea, another principal in the firm. “This time we told people which glass was Christian Brothers and which glass was E & J. Now you are having sensation transference from the name, and this time Christian Brothers’ numbers are up.” Clearly people had more positive associations with the name Christian Brothers than with E & J. That only deepened the mystery, because if Christian Brothers had a stronger brand, why were they losing market share? “So, now we do another two hundred people. This time the actual bottles of each brand are in the background. We don’t ask about the packages, but they are there. And what happens? Now we get a statistical preference for E & J. So we’ve been able to isolate what Christian Brothers’ problem is. The problem is not the product and it’s not the branding. It’s the package.” Rhea pulled out a picture of the two brandy bottles as they appeared in those days. Christian Brothers looked like a bottle of wine: it had a long, slender spout and a simple off-white label. E & J, by contrast, had a far more ornate bottle: more squat, like a decanter, with smoked glass, foil wrapping around the spout, and a dark, richly textured label. To prove their point, Rhea and his colleagues did one more test. They served two hundred people Christian Brothers Brandy out of an E & J bottle, and E & J Brandy out of a Christian Brothers bottle. Which brandy won? Christian Brothers, hands-down, by the biggest margin of all. Now they had the right taste, the right brand, and the right bottle. The company redesigned their bottle to be a lot more like E & J’s, and, sure enough, their problem was solved. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1192:Essentially you can put pet owners into one of four categories—excellent, good, fair, and bad or abusive. The excellent pet owner absolutely adores and loves his pets and will do anything for them. This pet owner has made an absolute bond with his or her pets that many times supersedes even human relationships, and these types of owners can treat their pets like human beings. This category of pet owner generally considers his pets to be part of his family, and because they are animal lovers they usually have more than one pet. They also tend to spend more money on their pets and on health care for their pets. The good pet owner is probably the category under which most pet owners fall. The good owners treat their pets kindly and give them varying amounts of attention and love and may or may not consider them to be part of the family. This category of pet owner also includes the majority of families that have children. Typically because the family does have children, pets may not get the attention and devotion that the excellent pet owner gives, simply because there is not as much to go around after the children get their rightful share. The fair pet owner is generally one that doesn’t necessarily give a lot of attention or love to their pets, but does make sure that they are properly fed and basically taken care of. You will find this owner many times to be one who has animals as service or working animals as well as pets. Their pets may work for their room and board, so to speak. You will also find that this owner has too many things going on in his life to give much time or attention to his pet, and usually his pet is not an indoor pet. These pet owners may like animals but aren’t necessarily big animal lovers. This type of owner also will give his pet away or give him to the pound if the pet becomes too much of an inconvenience in his life. Generally speaking, this type of owner should not have pets because he doesn’t give them the love and attention that they should have, and the only thing that saves him from being a bad owner is that he does feed and care for them minimally well. The bad pet owner is just that—not only a bad owner but a bad human being. These pet owners give their pets practically no attention or love and, in fact, many times will beat and abuse them unmercifully. This type of owner will also translate that abuse into their own lives and many times will be involved in alcohol or drug abuse, unlawful activities, and perhaps into child and spousal abuse. This is the owner that will starve or neglect his animals or even train them to fight for pleasure or profit. Sharing ~ Sylvia Browne, #NFDB
1193:This was something new. Or something old. I didn’t think of what it might be until after I had let Aubrey go back to the clinic to bed down next to her child. Bankole had given him something to help him sleep. He did the same for her, so I won’t be able to ask her anything more until she wakes up later this morning. I couldn’t help wondering, though, whether these people, with their crosses, had some connection with my current least favorite presidential candidate, Texas Senator Andrew Steele Jarret. It sounds like the sort of thing his people might do—a revival of something nasty out of the past. Did the Ku Klux Klan wear crosses—as well as burn them? The Nazis wore the swastika, which is a kind of cross, but I don’t think they wore it on their chests. There were crosses all over the place during the Inquisition and before that, during the Crusades. So now we have another group that uses crosses and slaughters people. Jarret’s people could be behind it. Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, “simpler” time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can’t read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them. Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches. Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Moslem, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or even a Catholic. A witch may also be an atheist, a “cultist,” or a well-to-do eccentric. Well-to-do eccentrics often have no protectors or much that’s worth stealing. And “cultist” is a great catchall term for anyone who fits into no other large category, and yet doesn’t quite match Jarret’s version of Christianity. Jarret’s people have been known to beat or drive out Unitarians, for goodness’ sake. Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of “heathen houses of devil-worship,” he has a simple answer: “Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again. ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
1194:What cannot be resolved inside the psyche,” put in the Expedition alienist, Otto Ghloix, “must enter the outside world and become physically, objectively ‘real.’ For example, one who cannot come to terms with the, one must say sinister unknowability of Light, projects an Æther, real in every way, except for its being detectable.” “Seems like an important property to be missing, don’t you think? Puts it in the same class as God, the soul—” “Fairies under mushrooms,” from a heckler somewhere in the group, whom nobody, strangely, seemed quite able to locate. Icelanders, however, had a long tradition of ghostliness that made the Brits appear models of rationalism. Earlier members of the Expedition had visited the great Library of Iceland behind the translucent green walls facing the sunlit sea. Some of these spaces were workshops or mess-halls, some centers of operation, stacked to the top of the great cliff, easily a dozen levels, probably more. Among the library shelves could be found The Book of Iceland Spar, commonly described as “like the Ynglingasaga only different,” containing family histories going back to the first discovery and exploitation of the eponymic mineral up to the present, including a record of each day of this very Expedition now in progress, even of days not yet transpired. “Fortune-telling! Impossible!” “Unless we can allow that certain texts are—” “Outside of time,” suggested one of the Librarians. “Holy Scripture and so forth.” “In a different relation to time anyhow. Perhaps even to be read through, mediated by, a lens of the very sort of calcite which according to rumor you people are up here seeking.” “Another Quest for another damned Magic Crystal. Horsefeathers, I say. Wish I’d known before I signed on. Say, you aren’t one of these Sentient Rocksters, are you?” Mineral consciousness figured even back in that day as a source of jocularity—had they known what was waiting in that category . . . waiting to move against them, grins would have frozen and chuckles turned to dry-throated coughing. “Of course,” said the Librarian, “you’ll find Iceland spar everywhere in the world, often in the neighborhood of zinc, or silver, some of it perfectly good for optical instruments. But up here it’s of the essence, found in no other company but its own. It’s the genuine article, and the sub-structure of reality. The doubling of the Creation, each image clear and believable. . . . And you being mathematical gentlemen, it can hardly have escaped your attention that its curious advent into the world occurred within only a few years of the discovery of Imaginary Numbers, which also provided a doubling of the mathematical Creation. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
1195:I will give technology three definitions that we will use throughout the book.
The first and most basic one is that a technology is a means to fulfill a human purpose. For some technologies-oil refining-the purpose is explicit. For others- the computer-the purpose may be hazy, multiple, and changing. As a means, a technology may be a method or process or device: a particular speech recognition algorithm, or a filtration process in chemical engineering, or a diesel engine. it may be simple: a roller bearing. Or it may be complicated: a wavelength division multiplexer. It may be material: an electrical generator. Or it may be nonmaterial: a digital compression algorithm. Whichever it is, it is always a means to carry out a human purpose.
The second definition I will allow is a plural one: technology as an assemblage of practices and components. This covers technologies such as electronics or biotechnology that are collections or toolboxes of individual technologies and practices. Strictly speaking, we should call these bodies of technology. But this plural usage is widespread, so I will allow it here.
I will also allow a third meaning. This is technology as the entire collection of devices and engineering practices available to a culture. Here we are back to the Oxford's collection of mechanical arts, or as Webster's puts it, "The totality of the means employed by a people to provide itself with the objects of material culture." We use this collective meaning when we blame "technology" for speeding up our lives, or talk of "technology" as a hope for mankind. Sometimes this meaning shades off into technology as a collective activity, as in "technology is what Silicon Valley is all about." I will allow this too as a variant of technology's collective meaning. The technology thinker Kevin Kelly calls this totality the "technium," and I like this word. But in this book I prefer to simply use "technology" for this because that reflects common use.
The reason we need three meanings is that each points to technology in a different sense, a different category, from the others. Each category comes into being differently and evolves differently. A technology-singular-the steam engine-originates as a new concept and develops by modifying its internal parts. A technology-plural-electronics-comes into being by building around certain phenomena and components and develops by changing its parts and practices. And technology-general, the whole collection of all technologies that have ever existed past and present, originates from the use of natural phenomena and builds up organically with new elements forming by combination from old ones. ~ W Brian Arthur,#NFDB
1196:The problem with racial discrimination, though, is not the inference of a person's race from their genetic characteristics. It is quite the opposite: it is the inference of a person's characteristics from their race. The question is not, can you, given an individual's skin color, hair texture, or language, infer something about their ancestry or origin. That is a question of biological systematics -- of lineage, taxonomy, of racial geography, of biological discrimination. Of course you can -- and genomics as vastly refined that inference. You can scan any individual genome and infer rather deep insights about a person's ancestry, or place of origin. But the vastly more controversial question is the converse: Given a racial identity -- African or Asian, say -- can you infer anything about an individual's characteristics: not just skin or hair color, but more complex features, such as intelligence, habits, personality, and aptitude? /I/ Genes can certainly tell us about race, but can race tell us anything about genes? /i/
To answer this question, we need to measure how genetic variation is distributed across various racial categories. Is there more diversity within races or between races? Does knowing that someone is of African versus European descent, say, allow us to refine our understanding of their genetic traits, or their personal, physical, or intellectual attributes in a meaningful manner? Or is there so much variation within Africans and Europeans that intraracial diversity dominates the comparison, thereby making the category "African" or "European" moot?
We now know precise and quantitative answers to these questions. A number of studies have tried to quantify the level of genetic diversity of the human genome. The most recent estimates suggest that the vast proportion of genetic diversity (85 to 90 percent) occurs within so-called races (i.e., within Asians or Africans) and only a minor proportion (7 percent) within racial groups (the geneticist Richard Lewontin had estimated a similar distribution as early as 1972). Some genes certainly vary sharply between racial or ethnic groups -- sickle-cell anemia is an Afro-Caribbean and Indian disease, and Tay-Sachs disease has a much higher frequency in Ashkenazi Jews -- but for the most part, the genetic diversity within any racial group dominates the diversity between racial groups -- not marginally, but by an enormous amount. The degree of interracial variability makes "race" a poor surrogate for nearly any feature: in a genetic sense, an African man from Nigria is so "different" from another man from Namibia that it makes little sense to lump them into the same category. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee,#NFDB
1197:You need to come with us right now," one of the queen's guards said. "If you resist, we'll take you by force."
"Leave him alone!" I yelled, looking from face to face. That angry darkness exploded within me. How could they still not believe? Why were they still coming after him? "He hasn't done anything! Why can't you guys accept that he's really a dhampir now?"
The man who'd spoken arched an eyebrow. "I wasn't talking to him."
"You're...you're here for me?" I asked. I tried to think of any new spectacles I might have caused recently. I considered the crazy idea that the queen had found out I'd spent the night with Adrian and was pissed off about it. That was hardly enough to send the palace guard for me, though...or was it? Had I really gone too far with my antics?
"What for?" demanded Dimitri. That tall, wonderful bod of his—the one that could be so sensual sometimes—was filled with tension and menace now.
The man kept his gaze on me, ignoring Dimitri. "Don't make me repeat myself: Come with us quietly, or we will make you." The glimmer of handcuffs showed in his hands.
My eyes went wide. "That's crazy! I'm not going anywhere until you tel me how the hell this—"
That was the point at which they apparently decided I wasn't coming quietly. Two of the royal guardians lunged for me, and even though we technically worked for the same side, my instincts kicked in. I didn't understand anything here except that I would not be dragged away like some kind of master criminal. I shoved the chair I'd been sitting in earlier at the one of the guardians and aimed a punch at the other. It was a sloppy throw, made worse because he was taller than me. That height difference allowed me to dodge his next grab, and when I kicked hard at his legs, a grunt told me I'd hit home.
[...]
Meanwhile, other guardians were joining the fray. Although I got a couple of good punches in, I knew the numbers were too overwhelming. One guardian caught hold of my arm and began trying to put the cuffs on me. He stopped when another set of hands grabbed me from the other side and jerked me away.
Dimitri.
"Don't touch her," he growled.
There was a note in his voice that would have scared me if it had been directed toward me. He shoved me behind him, putting his body protectively in front of mine with my back to the table. Guardians came at us from all directions, and Dimitri began dispatching them with the same deadly grace that had once made people call him a god. [...] The queen's guards might have been the best of the best, but Dimitri...well, my former lover and instructor was in a category all his own. His fighting skills were beyond anyone else's, and he was using them all in defense me.
"Stay back," he ordered me. "They aren't laying a hand on you. ~ Richelle Mead,#NFDB
1198:Asians are still a small minority—14.5 million (including about one million identified as part Asian) or 4.7 percent of the population—but their impact is vastly disproportionate to their numbers. Forty-four percent of Asian-American adults have a college degree or higher, as opposed to 24 percent of the general population. Asian men have median earnings 10 percent higher than non Asian men, and that of Asian women is 15 percent higher than non-Asian women. Forty-five percent of Asians are employed in professional or management jobs as opposed to 34 percent for the country as a whole, and the figure is no less than 60 percent for Asian Indians.
The Information Technology Association of America estimates that in the high-tech workforce Asians are represented at three times their proportion of the population. Asians are more likely than the American average to own homes rather than be renters. These successes are especially remarkable because no fewer than 69 percent of Asians are foreign-born, and immigrant groups have traditionally taken several generations to reach their full economic potential. Asians are vastly overrepresented at the best American universities. Although less than 5 percent of the population they account for the following percentages of the students at these universities: Harvard: 17 percent, Yale: 13 percent, Princeton: 12 percent, Columbia: 14 percent, Stanford: 25 percent.
In California, the state with the largest number of Asians, they made up 14 percent of the 2005 high school graduating class but 42 percent of the freshmen on the campuses of the University of California system.
At Berkeley, the most selective of all the campuses, the 2005 freshman class was an astonishing 48 percent Asian.
Asians are also the least likely of any racial or ethnic group to commit crimes. In every category, whether violent crime, white-collar crime, alcohol, or sex offenses, they are arrested at about one-quarter to one-third the rate of whites, who are the next most law-abiding group.
It would be a mistake, however, to paint all Asians with the same brush, as different nationalities can have distinctive profiles. For example, 40 percent of the manicurists in the United States are of Vietnamese origin and half the motel rooms in the country are owned by Asian Indians.
Chinese (24 percent of all Asians) and Indians (16 percent), are extremely successful, as are Japanese and Koreans. Filipinos (18 percent) are somewhat less so, while the Hmong face considerable difficulties. Hmong earn 30 percent less than the national average, and 60 percent drop out of high school.
In the Seattle public schools, 80 percent of Japanese-American students passed Washington state’s standardized math test for 10th-graders—the highest pass rate for any ethnic group. The group with the lowest pass rate—14 percent—was another “Asian/Pacific Islanders” category: Samoans.
On the whole, Asians have a well-deserved reputation for high achievement. ~ Jared Taylor,#NFDB
1199:New Rule: America must stop bragging it's the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the "faith over facts" crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers. Infant mortality rate: America ranks forty-eighth in the world. Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year old kids in this country who can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with?
America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We're not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag.
And sadly, we're no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail.
Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, "If Brazil can do it, America can, too!" Since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the lightbulb, they invented the bikini wax, and now they're ahead?
In most of the industrialized world, nearly everyone has health care and hardly anyone doubts evolution--and yes, having to live amid so many superstitious dimwits is also something that affects quality of life. It's why America isn't gonna be the country that gets the inevitable patents in stem cell cures, because Jesus thinks it's too close to cloning.
Oh, and did I mention we owe China a trillion dollars? We owe everybody money. America is a debtor nation to Mexico. We're not a bridge to the twenty-first century, we're on a bus to Atlantic City with a roll of quarters. And this is why it bugs me that so many people talk like it's 1955 and we're still number one in everything.
We're not, and I take no glee in saying that, because I love my country, and I wish we were, but when you're number fifty-five in this category, and ninety-two in that one, you look a little silly waving the big foam "number one" finger. As long as we believe being "the greatest country in the world" is a birthright, we'll keep coasting on the achievements of earlier generations, and we'll keep losing the moral high ground.
Because we may not be the biggest, or the healthiest, or the best educated, but we always did have one thing no other place did: We knew soccer was bullshit. And also we had the Bill of Rights. A great nation doesn't torture people or make them disappear without a trial. Bush keeps saying the terrorist "hate us for our freedom,"" and he's working damn hard to see that pretty soon that won't be a problem. ~ Bill Maher,#NFDB
1200:The electronics effort faced even greater challenges. To launch that category, David Risher tapped a Dartmouth alum named Chris Payne who had previously worked on Amazon’s DVD store. Like Miller, Payne had to plead with suppliers—in this case, Asian consumer-electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Samsung. He quickly hit a wall. The Japanese electronics giants viewed Internet sellers like Amazon as sketchy discounters. They also had big-box stores like Best Buy and Circuit City whispering in their ears and asking them to take a pass on Amazon. There were middlemen distributors, like Ingram Electronics, but they offered a limited selection. Bezos deployed Doerr to talk to Howard Stringer at Sony America, but he got nowhere. So Payne had to turn to the secondary distributors—jobbers that exist in an unsanctioned, though not illegal, gray market. Randy Miller, a retail finance director who came to Amazon from Eddie Bauer, equates it to buying from the trunk of someone’s car in a dark alley. “It was not a sustainable inventory model, but if you are desperate to have particular products on your site or in your store, you do what you need to do,” he says. Buying through these murky middlemen got Payne and his fledgling electronics team part of the way toward stocking Amazon’s virtual shelves. But Bezos was unimpressed with the selection and grumpily compared it to shopping in a Russian supermarket during the years of Communist rule. It would take Amazon years to generate enough sales to sway the big Asian brands. For now, the electronics store was sparely furnished. Bezos had asked to see $100 million in electronics sales for the 1999 holiday season; Payne and his crew got about two-thirds of the way there. Amazon officially announced the new toy and electronics stores that summer, and in September, the company held a press event at the Sheraton in midtown Manhattan to promote the new categories. Someone had the idea that the tables in the conference room at the Sheraton should have piles of merchandise representing all the new categories, to reinforce the idea of broad selection. Bezos loved it, but when he walked into the room the night before the event, he threw a tantrum: he didn’t think the piles were large enough. “Do you want to hand this business to our competitors?” he barked into his cell phone at his underlings. “This is pathetic!” Harrison Miller, Chris Payne, and their colleagues fanned out that night across Manhattan to various stores, splurging on random products and stuffing them in the trunks of taxicabs. Miller spent a thousand dollars alone at a Toys “R” Us in Herald Square. Payne maxed out his personal credit card and had to call his wife in Seattle to tell her not to use the card for a few days. The piles of products were eventually large enough to satisfy Bezos, but the episode was an early warning. To satisfy customers and their own demanding boss during the upcoming holiday, Amazon executives were going to have to substitute artifice and improvisation for truly comprehensive selection. ~ Brad Stone, #NFDB
1201:Once a country is included on the “counterinsurgency” list, or any other such category, a move is made to develop a CIA echelon, usually within the structure of whatever U.S. military organization exists there at the time. Then the CIA operation begins Phase I by proposing the introduction of some rather conventional aircraft. No developing country can resist such an offer, and this serves to create a base of operations, usually in a remote and potentially hostile area. While the aircraft program is getting started the Agency will set up a high frequency radio network, using radios positioned in villages throughout the host country. The local inhabitants are told that these radios will provide a warning of guerrilla activity. Phase II of such a project calls for the introduction of medium transport type aircraft that meet anti-guerrilla warfare support requirements. The crew training program continues, and every effort is made to develop an in-house maintenance capability. As the level of this activity increases, more and more Americans are brought in, ostensibly as instructors and advisers; at this phase many of the Americans are Army Special Forces personnel who begin civic action programs. The country is sold the idea that it is the Army in most developing nations that is the usual stabilizing influence and that it is the Army that can be trusted. This is the American doctrine; promoting the same idea, but in other words, it is a near paraphrase of the words of Chairman Mao. In the final phase of this effort, light transports and liaison type aircraft are introduced to be used for border surveillance, landing in remote areas, and for resupplying small groups of anti-guerrilla warfare troops who are operating away from fixed bases. These small specialized aircraft are usually augmented by helicopters. When the plan has developed this far, efforts are made to spread the program throughout the frontier area of the country. Villagers are encouraged to clear off small runways or helicopter landing pads, and more warning network radios are brought into remote areas. While this work is continuing, the government is told that these activities will develop their own military capability and that there will be a bonus economic benefit from such development, each complementing the other. It also makes the central government able to contact areas in which it may never have been able to operate before, and it will serve as a tripwire warning system for any real guerrilla activities that may arise in the area. There is no question that this whole political economic social program sounds very nice, and most host governments have taken the bait eagerly. What they do not realize, and in many cases what most of the U.S. Government does not realize, is that this is a CIA program, and it exists to develop intelligence. If it stopped there, it might be acceptable but intelligence serves as its own propellant, and before long the agents working on this type of project see, or perhaps are a factor in creating, internal dissension. ~ L Fletcher Prouty, #NFDB
1202:There's a class of things to be afraid of: it's "those things that you should be afraid of". Those are the things that go bump in the night, right? You're always exposed to them when you go to horror movies, especially if they're not the gore type of horror movie. They're always hinting at something that's going on outside of your perceptual sphere, and they frighten you because you don't know what's out there. For that the Blair Witch Project was a really good example, because nothing ever happens in that movie but it's frightenting and not gory. It plays on the fact tht you do have a category of Those Things Of Which You Should Be Afraid. So it's a category, frightening things. And only things capable of abstraction can come up with something like the caregory of frightenting things.
And so Kali is like an embodied representation of the category of frightening things. And then you might ask yourself, well once you come up with the concept of the category of frightening things, maybe you can come up with the concept of what to do in the face of frightening things. Which is not the same as "what do you do when you encounter a lion", or "what do you do when you encounter someone angry". It's a meta question, right?
But then you could say, at a philosophical level: "You will encounter elements of the category of all those things which can frighten and undermine you during your life. Is there something that you can do *as a category* that would help you deal with that." And the answer is yeah, there is in fact. And that's what a lot of religious stories and symbolic stories are trying to propose to you, is the solution to that. One is, approach it voluntarily. Carefully, but voluntarily. Don't freeze and run away. Explore, instead. You expose yourself to risk but you gain knowledge.
And you wouldn't have a cortex which, you know, is ridiculously disproportionate, if as a species we hadn't decided that exploration trumps escape or freezing. We explore. That can make you the master of a situation, so you can be the master of something like fire without being terrified of it.
One of the things that the Hindus do in relationship to Kali, is offer sacrifices. So you can say, well why would you offer sacrifices to something you're afraid of. And it's because that is what you do, that's always what you do. You offer up sacrifices to the unknown in the hope that good things will happen to you.
One example is that you're worried about your future. Maybe you're worried about your job, or who you're going to marry, or your family, there's a whole category of things to be worried about, so you're worried about your future. SO what're you doing in university? And the answer is you're sacrificing your free time in the present, to the cosmos so to speak, in the hope that if you offer up that sacrifice properly, the future will smile upon you. And that's one of the fundamental discoveries of the human race. And it's a big deal, that discovery: by changing what you cling to in the present, you can alter the future. ~ Jordan Peterson,#NFDB
1203:There's a class of things to be afraid of: it's "those things that you should be afraid of". Those are the things that go bump in the night, right? You're always exposed to them when you go to horror movies, especially if they're not the gore type of horror movie. They're always hinting at something that's going on outside of your perceptual sphere, and they frighten you because you don't know what's out there. For that the Blair Witch Project was a really good example, because nothing ever happens in that movie but it's frightenting and not gory. It plays on the fact tht you do have a category of Those Things Of Which You Should Be Afraid. So it's a category, frightening things. And only things capable of abstraction can come up with something like the caregory of frightenting things.
And so Kali is like an embodied representation of the category of frightening things. And then you might ask yourself, well once you come up with the concept of the category of frightening things, maybe you can come up with the concept of what to do in the face of frightening things. Which is not the same as "what do you do when you encounter a lion", or "what do you do when you encounter someone angry". It's a meta question, right?
But then you could say, at a philosophical level: "You will encounter elements of the category of all those things which can frighten and undermine you during your life. Is there something that you can do *as a category* that would help you deal with that." And the answer is yeah, there is in fact. And that's what a lot of religious stories and symbolic stories are trying to propose to you, is the solution to that. One is, approach it voluntarily. Carefully, but voluntarily. Don't freeze and run away. Explore, instead. You expose yourself to risk but you gain knowledge.
And you wouldn't have a cortex which, you know, is ridiculously disproportionate, if as a species we hadn't decided that exploration trumps escape or freezing. We explore. That can make you the master of a situation, so you can be the master of something like fire without being terrified of it.
One of the things that the Hindus do in relationship to Kali, is offer sacrifices. So you can say, well why would you offer sacrifices to something you're afraid of. And it's because that is what you do, that's always what you do. You offer up sacrifices to the unknown in the hope that good things will happen to you.
One example is that you're worried about your future. Maybe you're worried about your job, or who you're going to marry, or your family, there's a whole category of things to be worried about, so you're worried about your future. SO what're you doing in university? And the answer is you're sacrificing your free time in the present, to the cosmos so to speak, in the hope that if you offer up that sacrifice properly, the future will smile upon you. And that's one of the fundamental discoveries of the human race. And it's a big deal, that discovery: by changing what you cling to in the present, you can alter the future. ~ Jordan B Peterson,#NFDB
1204:The government has a great need to restore its credibility, to make people forget its history and rewrite it. The intelligentsia have to a remarkable degree undertaken this task. It is also necessary to establish the "lessons" that have to be drawn from the war, to ensure that these are conceived on the narrowest grounds, in terms of such socially neutral categories as "stupidity" or "error" or "ignorance" or perhaps "cost."
Why? Because soon it will be necessary to justify other confrontations, perhaps other U.S. interventions in the world, other Vietnams.
But this time, these will have to be successful intervention, which don't slip out of control. Chile, for example. It is even possible for the press to criticize successful interventions - the Dominican Republic, Chile, etc. - as long as these criticisms don't exceed "civilized limits," that is to say, as long as they don't serve to arouse popular movements capable of hindering these enterprises, and are not accompanied by any rational analysis of the motives of U.S. imperialism, something which is complete anathema, intolerable to liberal ideology.
How is the liberal press proceeding with regard to Vietnam, that sector which supported the "doves"? By stressing the "stupidity" of the U.S. intervention; that's a politically neutral term. It would have been sufficient to find an "intelligent" policy. The war was thus a tragic error in which good intentions were transmuted into bad policies, because of a generation of incompetent and arrogant officials. The war's savagery is also denounced, but that too, is used as a neutral category...Presumably the goals were legitimate - it would have been all right to do the same thing, but more humanely...
The "responsible" doves were opposed to the war - on a pragmatic basis. Now it is necessary to reconstruct the system of beliefs according to which the United States is the benefactor of humanity, historically committed to freedom, self-determination, and human rights. With regard to this doctrine, the "responsible" doves share the same presuppositions as the hawks. They do not question the right of the United States to intervene in other countries. Their criticism is actually very convenient for the state, which is quite willing to be chided for its errors, as long as the fundamental right of forceful intervention is not brought into question.
...
The resources of imperialist ideology are quite vast. It tolerates - indeed, encourages - a variety of forms of opposition, such as those I have just illustrated. It is permissible to criticize the lapses of the intellectuals and of government advisers, and even to accuse them of an abstract desire for "domination," again a socially neutral category not linked in any way to concrete social and economic structures. But to relate that abstract "desire for domination" to the employment of force by the United States government in order to preserve a certain system of world order, specifically, to ensure that the countries of the world remain open insofar as possible to exploitation by U.S.-based corporations - that is extremely impolite, that is to argue in an unacceptable way. ~ Noam Chomsky,#NFDB
1205:Hartung tells of a horrifying study by the Israeli psychologist George Tamarin. Tamarin presented to more than a thousand Israeli schoolchildren, aged between eight and fourteen, the account of the battle of Jericho in the book of Joshua: Joshua said to the people, ‘Shout; for the LORD has given you the city. And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction . . . But all silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.’ . . . Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword . . . And they burned the city with fire, and all within it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD. Tamarin then asked the children a simple moral question: ‘Do you think Joshua and the Israelites acted rightly or not?’ They had to choose between A (total approval), B (partial approval) and C (total disapproval). The results were polarized: 66 per cent gave total approval and 26 per cent total disapproval, with rather fewer (8 per cent) in the middle with partial approval. Here are three typical answers from the total approval (A) group: In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well, and here are the reasons: God promised them this land, and gave them permission to conquer. If they would not have acted in this manner or killed anyone, then there would be the danger that the Sons of Israel would have assimilated among the Goyim. In my opinion Joshua was right when he did it, one reason being that God commanded him to exterminate the people so that the tribes of Israel will not be able to assimilate amongst them and learn their bad ways. Joshua did good because the people who inhabited the land were of a different religion, and when Joshua killed them he wiped their religion from the earth. The justification for the genocidal massacre by Joshua is religious in every case. Even those in category C, who gave total disapproval, did so, in some cases, for backhanded religious reasons. One girl, for example, disapproved of Joshua’s conquering Jericho because, in order to do so, he had to enter it: I think it is bad, since the Arabs are impure and if one enters an impure land one will also become impure and share their curse. Two others who totally disapproved did so because Joshua destroyed everything, including animals and property, instead of keeping some as spoil for the Israelites: I think Joshua did not act well, as they could have spared the animals for themselves. I think Joshua did not act well, as he could have left the property of Jericho; if he had not destroyed the property it would have belonged to the Israelites. Once again the sage Maimonides, often cited for his scholarly wisdom, is in no doubt where he stands on this issue: ‘It is a positive commandment to destroy the seven nations, as it is said: Thou shalt utterly destroy them. If one does not put to death any of them that falls into one’s power, one transgresses a negative commandment, as it is said: Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth! ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1206:To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. there drew up a smart britchka—a light spring-carriage of the sort affected by bachelors, retired lieutenant-colonels, staff-captains, land-owners possessed of about a hundred souls, and, in short, all persons who rank as gentlemen of the intermediate category. In the britchka was seated such a gentleman—a man who, though not handsome, was not ill-favoured, not over-fat, and not over-thin. Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young. His arrival produced no stir in the town, and was accompanied by no particular incident, beyond that a couple of peasants who happened to be standing at the door of a dramshop exchanged a few comments with reference to the equipage rather than to the individual who was seated in it. "Look at that carriage," one of them said to the other. "Think you it will be going as far as Moscow?" "I think it will," replied his companion. "But not as far as Kazan, eh?" "No, not as far as Kazan." With that the conversation ended. Presently, as the britchka was approaching the inn, it was met by a young man in a pair of very short, very tight breeches of white dimity, a quasi-fashionable frockcoat, and a dickey fastened with a pistol-shaped bronze tie-pin. The young man turned his head as he passed the britchka and eyed it attentively; after which he clapped his hand to his cap (which was in danger of being removed by the wind) and resumed his way. On the vehicle reaching the inn door, its occupant found standing there to welcome him the polevoi, or waiter, of the establishment—an individual of such nimble and brisk movement that even to distinguish the character of his face was impossible. Running out with a napkin in one hand and his lanky form clad in a tailcoat, reaching almost to the nape of his neck, he tossed back his locks, and escorted the gentleman upstairs, along a wooden gallery, and so to the bedchamber which God had prepared for the gentleman's reception. The said bedchamber was of quite ordinary appearance, since the inn belonged to the species to be found in all provincial towns—the species wherein, for two roubles a day, travellers may obtain a room swarming with black-beetles, and communicating by a doorway with the apartment adjoining. True, the doorway may be blocked up with a wardrobe; yet behind it, in all probability, there will be standing a silent, motionless neighbour whose ears are burning to learn every possible detail concerning the latest arrival. The inn's exterior corresponded with its interior. Long, and consisting only of two storeys, the building had its lower half destitute of stucco; with the result that the dark-red bricks, originally more or less dingy, had grown yet dingier under the influence of atmospheric changes. As for the upper half of the building, it was, of course, painted the usual tint of unfading yellow. Within, on the ground floor, there stood a number of benches heaped with horse-collars, rope, and sheepskins; while the window-seat accommodated a sbitentshik[1], cheek by jowl with a samovar[2]—the latter so closely resembling the former in appearance that, but for the fact of the samovar possessing a pitch-black lip, the samovar and the sbitentshik might have been two of a pair. ~ Nikolai Gogol, #NFDB
1207:The last time I’d been unwell, suicidally depressed, whatever you want to call it, the reactions of my friends and family had fallen into several different camps:
The Let’s Laugh It Off merchants: Claire was the leading light. They hoped that joking about my state of mind would reduce it to a manageable size. Most likely to say, ‘Feeling any mad urges to fling yourself into the sea?’
The Depression Deniers: they were the ones who took the position that since there was no such thing as depression, nothing could be wrong with me. Once upon a time I’d have belonged in that category myself. A subset of the Deniers was The Tough Love people. Most likely to say, ‘What have you got to be depressed about?’
The It’s All About Me bunch: they were the ones who wailed that I couldn’t kill myself because they’d miss me so much. More often than not, I’d end up comforting them. My sister Anna and her boyfriend, Angelo, flew three thousand miles from New York just so I could dry their tears. Most likely to say, ‘Have you any idea how many people love you?’
The Runaways: lots and lots of people just stopped ringing me. Most of them I didn’t care about, but one or two were important to me. Their absence was down to fear; they were terrified that whatever I had, it was catching. Most likely to say, ‘I feel so helpless … God, is that the time?’ Bronagh – though it hurt me too much at the time to really acknowledge it – was the number one offender.
The Woo-Woo crew: i.e. those purveying alternative cures. And actually there were hundreds of them – urging me to do reiki, yoga, homeopathy, bible study, sufi dance, cold showers, meditation, EFT, hypnotherapy, hydrotherapy, silent retreats, sweat lodges, felting, fasting, angel channelling or eating only blue food. Everyone had a story about something that had cured their auntie/boss/boyfriend/next-door neighbour. But my sister Rachel was the worst – she had me plagued. Not a day passed that she didn’t send me a link to some swizzer. Followed by a phone call ten minutes later to make sure I’d made an appointment. (And I was so desperate that I even gave plenty of them a go.) Most likely to say, ‘This man’s a miracle worker.’ Followed by: ‘That’s why he’s so expensive. Miracles don’t come cheap.’
There was often cross-pollination between the different groupings. Sometimes the Let’s Laugh It Off merchants teamed up with the Tough Love people to tell me that recovering from depression is ‘simply mind over matter’. You just decide you’re better. (The way you would if you had emphysema.)
Or an All About Me would ring a member of the Woo-Woo crew and sob and sob about how selfish I was being and the Woo-Woo crew person would agree because I had refused to cough up two grand for a sweat lodge in Wicklow.
Or one of the Runaways would tiptoe back for a sneaky look at me, then commandeer a Denier into launching a two-pronged attack, telling me how well I seemed. And actually that was the worst thing anyone could have done to me, because you can only sound like a self-pitying malingerer if you protest, ‘But I don’t feel well. I feel wretched beyond description.’
Not one person who loved me understood how I’d felt. They hadn’t a clue and I didn’t blame them, because, until it had happened to me, I hadn’t a clue either. ~ Marian Keyes,#NFDB
1208:At it's narrowest (although this is a common and perhaps the official position; need to find ref in What is Enlightenment) "integral", "turquois" (Spiral Dynamics), and "second tier" (ditto) are all synonms, and in turn are equivalent to Wilber IV / AQAL/Wilber V "Post-metaphysical" AQAL. This is the position that "Integral = Ken Wilber". It constitutes a new philosophical school or meme-set, in the tradition of charismatic spiritual teachers of all ages, in which an articulate, brilliant, and popular figure would arise, and gather a following around him- or her-self. After the teacher passes on, their teaching remains through books and organisations dedicated to perpetuating that teaching; although without the brilliant light of the Founder, things generally become pretty stultifying, and there is often little or no original development. Even so, the books themselves continue to inspire, and many people benefit greatly from these tecahings, and can contact the original Light of the founders to be inspired by them on the subtle planes. Some late 19th, 20th, and early 21st century examples of such teachers, known and less well-known, are Blavatsky, Theon, Steiner, Aurobindo, Gurdjieff, Crowley, Alice Bailey, Carl Jung, Ann Ree Colton, and now Ken Wilber. Also, many popular gurus belong in this category. It could plausibly be suggested that the founders of the great world religions started out no different, but their teaching really caught on n a big way.
...
At its broadest then, the Integral Community includes not only Wilber but those he cites as his influences and hold universal and evolutionary views or teachings, as well as those who, while influenced by him also differ somewhat, and even those like Arthur M Young that Wilber has apparently never heard of. Nevertheless, all share a common, evolutionary, "theory of everything" position, and, whilst they may differ on many details and even on many major points, taken together they could be considered a wave front for a new paradigm, a memetic revolution. I use the term Daimon of the Integral Movement to refer to the spiritual being or personality of light that is behind and working through this broader movement.
Now, this doesn't mean that this daimon is necessarily a negative entity. I see a lot of promise, a lot of potential, in the Integral Approach. From what I feel at the moment, the Integral Deva is a force and power of good.
But, as with any new spiritual or evolutionary development, there is duality, in that there are forces that hinder and oppose and distort, as well as forces that help and aid in the evolution and ultimate divinisation of the Earth and the cosmos. Thus even where a guru does give in the dark side (as very often happens with many gurus today) there still remains an element of Mixed Light that remains (one finds this ambiguity with Sai Baba, with Da Free John, and with Rajneesh); and we find this same ambiguity with the Integral Community regarding what seems to me a certain offputting devotional attitude towards Wilber himself. The light will find its way, regardless. However, an Intregral Movement that is caught up in worship of and obedience to an authority figure, will not be able to achieve what a movement unfettered by such shackles could. ~ M Alan Kazlev, Kheper, Wilber, Integral,#NFDB
1209:Cage gestured to my running leg. “Testing a new leg?”
I shook my head. “Underwear.”
His brow wrinkled and the guys behind him inched a bit closer, ears perked.
“What?” Cage asked.
“My favorite underwear has been discontinued. I’m trying a new brand and the best way to test them out is to go for a jog. I want to know before I buy ten pairs if they’re going to ride up on me. I’m not a thong girl. I don’t like anything shoved up my ass.”
His cheeks turned red while taking a hard swallow. The fishing crew tried and failed to hide their chuckling. One of the guys slapped him on the shoulder.
“We’ll meet you out front.” He cleared his throat. “Our condolences on the ass news.”
That sparked a new round of laughter as the guys piled onto the elevator. When the doors shut, Cage pursed his lips and sighed. “Thanks for that.”
I shrugged. “What?”
“What …” It’s possible his intention was to be serious or maybe upset, but he couldn’t finish his thought without rubbing his hand over his mouth to hide his smirk. “You don’t like ‘anything shoved up your ass.’ Really, Lake?” Rolling his eyes to the ceiling, he shook his head.
“So you’re big into fishing, huh?”
“Don’t change the subject.” He narrowed his eyes at me. Too bad he still couldn’t keep a straight face. It would have given his case a lot more merit. Those were favorite moments of mine, when he was ninety percent sure my actions were an embarrassing side effect of my Sahara Desert humor, yet still ten percent holy-shit-she’s-serious.
I loved that ten percent. I worked my ass off for that ten percent.
“I’m sorry, what was the subject? Oh yeah, things I don’t like in my crack. Sounds like a Jeopardy category or a Family Feud survey. ‘Name something Lake Jones does not like up her crack. Underwear. Survey says? Ding ding ding … ninety-four people surveyed said underwear, the other six said cock. And I do believe those six lascivious idiots are downstairs waiting for you.”
Cage observed me; it was never just a stare or a lingering look. His eyes narrowed a fraction, but never lost their sparkle. The wetting of his lips was always followed by biting them together like he refused to speak until he’d figured me out. And just before he spoke, his dimples surrendered to his impending grin.
“I’m going to text you an address. Meet me there in three hours.”
“What if I haven’t sorted through this underwear situation by then?” My head tilted to the side as my poker face slipped a bit, revealing my own impending grin.
“Hmm …” He pulled me to him, his hands easing into the back of my running shorts. “Don’t fret over it,” he whispered before sucking my earlobe into his mouth.
My lips parted, and eyes closed, as I held onto his biceps to keep my knees from buckling.
“Panties are optional.”
Three words and my knees buckled. Thankfully—not really thankful at all—he fisted the back of my new panties and yanked up. My hero? No. The wedgie was underway a few seconds before my knees gave out.
I gasped.
He smirked.
“I think you should consider getting used to the idea—the feeling—of something in that sexy ass of yours.”
Not much left me speechless, but my first non-brother-male-induced wedgie left me with cow eyes and a numb tongue.
He winked just before the elevator doors shut. ~ Jewel E Ann,#NFDB
1210:Well, she would marry a man who didn't need or want her fortune. Mr. Pinter didn't fall into that category.
And given how blank his expression became as his gaze met hers, she'd been right to be skeptical. he would never be interested in her in that way.
He confirmed it by saying, with his usual formality, "I doubt any man would consider your ladyship unacceptable as a wife."
Oh, when he turned all hoity-toity, she could just murder him. "Then we agree that the gentlemen in question would find me satisfactory," she said, matching his cold tone. "So I don't see why you assume they'd be unfaithful."
"Some men are unfaithful no matter how beautiful their wives are," Mr. Pinter growled.
He thought her beautiful?
There she went again, reading too much into his words. He was only making a point. "But you have no reason to believe that these gentleman would be. Unless there's some dark secret you already know about them that I do not?"
Glancing away, he muttered a curse under his breath. "No."
"Then here's your chance to find out the truth about their characters. Because I prefer facts to opinions. And I was under the impression that you do, too."
Take that, Mr. Pinter! Hoist by your own petard. The man always insisted on sticking to the facts.
And he was well aware that she'd caught him out, for he scowled, then crossed his arms over his chest. His rather impressive chest, from what she could tell beneath his black coat and plain buff waistcoat.
"I can't believe I'm the only person who would object to these gentlemen," he said. "What about your grandmother? Have you consulted her?"
She lifted her eyes heavenward. He was being surprisingly resistant to her plans. "I don't need to. Every time one of them asks to dance with me, she beams. She's forever urging me to smile at them or attempt flirtation. And if they so much as press my hand or take my for a stroll, she quizzes me with great glee on what was said and done."
"She's been letting you go out on private strolls with these scoundrels?" Mr. Pinter said in sheer outrage.
"They aren't scoundrels."
"I swear to God, you're a lamb among the wolves," he muttered.
That image of her, so unlike how she saw herself, made her laugh. "I've spent half my life in the company of my brothers. Every time Gabe went to shoot, I went with him. At every house party that involved his friends, I was urged to show off my abilities with a rifle. I think I know how to handle a man, Mr. Pinter."
His glittering gaze bored into her. "There's a vast difference between gamboling about in your brother's company with a group of his friends and letting a rakehell like Devonmont or a devilish foreigner like Basto stroll alone with you down some dark garden path."
A blush heated her cheeks. "I didn't mean strolls of that sort, sir. I meant daytime walks about our gardens and such, with servants in plain view. All perfectly innocent."
He snorted. "I doubt it will stay that way."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, why are you being so stubborn? You know I must marry. Why do you even care whom I choose?"
"I don't care," he protested. "I'm merely thinking of how much of my time will be wasted investigating suitors I already know are unacceptable."
She let out an exasperated breath. Of course. With him, it was always about money. Heaven forbid he should waste his time helping her. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
1211:The Memory Business Steven Sasson is a tall man with a lantern jaw. In 1973, he was a freshly minted graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His degree in electrical engineering led to a job with Kodak’s Apparatus Division research lab, where, a few months into his employment, Sasson’s supervisor, Gareth Lloyd, approached him with a “small” request. Fairchild Semiconductor had just invented the first “charge-coupled device” (or CCD)—an easy way to move an electronic charge around a transistor—and Kodak needed to know if these devices could be used for imaging.4 Could they ever. By 1975, working with a small team of talented technicians, Sasson used CCDs to create the world’s first digital still camera and digital recording device. Looking, as Fast Company once explained, “like a ’70s Polaroid crossed with a Speak-and-Spell,”5 the camera was the size of a toaster, weighed in at 8.5 pounds, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixel, and took up to thirty black-and-white digital images—a number chosen because it fell between twenty-four and thirty-six and was thus in alignment with the exposures available in Kodak’s roll film. It also stored shots on the only permanent storage device available back then—a cassette tape. Still, it was an astounding achievement and an incredible learning experience. Portrait of Steven Sasson with first digital camera, 2009 Source: Harvey Wang, From Darkroom to Daylight “When you demonstrate such a system,” Sasson later said, “that is, taking pictures without film and showing them on an electronic screen without printing them on paper, inside a company like Kodak in 1976, you have to get ready for a lot of questions. I thought people would ask me questions about the technology: How’d you do this? How’d you make that work? I didn’t get any of that. They asked me when it was going to be ready for prime time? When is it going to be realistic to use this? Why would anybody want to look at their pictures on an electronic screen?”6 In 1996, twenty years after this meeting took place, Kodak had 140,000 employees and a $28 billion market cap. They were effectively a category monopoly. In the United States, they controlled 90 percent of the film market and 85 percent of the camera market.7 But they had forgotten their business model. Kodak had started out in the chemistry and paper goods business, for sure, but they came to dominance by being in the convenience business. Even that doesn’t go far enough. There is still the question of what exactly Kodak was making more convenient. Was it just photography? Not even close. Photography was simply the medium of expression—but what was being expressed? The “Kodak Moment,” of course—our desire to document our lives, to capture the fleeting, to record the ephemeral. Kodak was in the business of recording memories. And what made recording memories more convenient than a digital camera? But that wasn’t how the Kodak Corporation of the late twentieth century saw it. They thought that the digital camera would undercut their chemical business and photographic paper business, essentially forcing the company into competing against itself. So they buried the technology. Nor did the executives understand how a low-resolution 0.01 megapixel image camera could hop on an exponential growth curve and eventually provide high-resolution images. So they ignored it. Instead of using their weighty position to corner the market, they were instead cornered by the market. ~ Peter H Diamandis, #NFDB
1212:Every network has its own fitness distribution, which tells us how similar or different the nodes in the network are. In networks where most of the nodes have comparable fitness, the distribution follows a narrowly peaked bell curve. In other networks, the range of fitnesses is very wide such that a few nodes are much more fit than most others. Google, for example, is easily tens of thousands times more interesting to all Web surfers than any personal Webpage. Indeed, the mathematical tools developed decades earlier to describe quantum gases enabled us to see that, independent of the nature of links and nodes, a network's behavior and topology are determined by the shape of its fitness distribution. But even though each system, from the Web to Holywood, has a unique fitness distribution, Bianconi's calculation indicated that in terms of topology all networks fall into one of only two possible categories. In most networks the competition does not have an easily noticeable impact on the network's topology. In some networks, however, the winner takes all the links, a clear signature of Bose-Einstein condensation.
The first category includes all networks in which, despite the fierce competition for links, the scale-free topology survives. These networks display a fit-get-rich behavior, meaning that the fittest node will inevitably grow to become the biggest hub. The winner's lead is never significant, however. The largest hub is closely followed by a smaller one, which acquires almost as many links as the fittest node. At any moment we have a hierarchy of nodes whose degree distribution follows a power law. In most complex networks, the power law and the fight for links thus are not antagonistic but can coexist peacefully.
In networks belonging to the second category, the winner takes all, meaning that the fittest node grabs all links, leaving very little for the rest of the nodes. Such networks develop a star topology, in which all nodes are connected to a central hub. In such a hub-and-spokes network there is a huge gap between the lonely hub and everybody else in the system. Thus a winner-takes-all network is very different from the scale-free networks we encountered earlier, where there is a hierarchy of hubs whose size distribution follows a power law. A winner-takes-all network is not scale-free. Instead there is a single hub and many tiny nodes. This is a very important distinction. In fact, Google's rapid rise is not an indication of winner-takes-all behavior; it only tells us that the fit get rich. To be sure, Google is one of the fittest hubs. But it never succeeded in grabbing all links and turning into a star. It shares the spotlight with several nodes whose number of links is comparable to Google's. When the winner takes all, there is no room for a potential challenger.
Are there any real networks that display true winner-takes-all behavior? We can now predict whether a given network will follow the fit-get-rich or winner-takes-all behavior by looking at its fitness distribution. Fitness, however, remains a somewhat elusive quantity, since the tools to precisely measure the fitness of an individual node are still being developed. But winner-takes-all behavior has such a singular and visible impact on a network's structure that, if present, it is hard to miss. It destroys the hierarchy of hubs characterizing the scale-free topology, turning it into a starlike network, with a single node grabbing all the links. And there is a network in which we cannot fail to notice one node that carries the signature of a Bose-Einstein condensate. The node is called Microsoft. ~ Albert L szl Barab si,#NFDB
1213:The new GST: A halfway house In spite of all the favourable features of the GST, it introduces the anomaly of having an origin-based tax on interstate trade he proposed GST would be a single levy. 1141 words From a roadblock during the UPA regime, the incessant efforts of the BJP government have finally paved way for the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST). This would, no doubt, be a major reform in the existing indirect tax system of the country. With a view to introducing the GST, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has introduced the Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill 2014 in Parliament. The new tax would be implemented from April 1, 2016. Both the government and the taxpayers will have enough time to understand the implications of the new tax and its administrative nuances. Unlike the 119th Amendment Bill, which lapsed with the dissolution of the previous Lok Sabha, the new Bill will hopefully see the light of the day as it takes into account the objections of the state governments regarding buoyancy of the tax and the autonomy of the states. It proposes setting up of the GST Council, which will be a joint forum of the Centre and the states. This council would function under the chairmanship of the Union finance minister with all the state finance ministers as its members. It will make recommendations to the Union and the states on the taxes, cesses and surcharges levied by the Union, the states and the local bodies, which may be subsumed in the GST; the rates including floor rates with bands of goods and services tax; any special rate or rates for a specified period to raise additional resources during any natural calamity or disaster etc. However, all the recommendations will have to be supported by not less than three-fourth of the weighted votes—the Centre having one-third votes and the states having two-third votes. Thus, no change can be implemented without the consent of both the Centre and the states. The proposed GST would be a single levy. It would aim at creating an integrated national market for goods and services by replacing the plethora of indirect taxes levied by the Centre and the states. While central taxes to be subsumed include central excise duty (CenVAT), additional excise duties, service tax, additional customs duty (CVD) and special additional duty of customs (SAD), the state taxes that fall in this category include VAT/sales tax, entertainment tax, octroi, entry tax, purchase tax and luxury tax. Therefore, all taxes on goods and services, except alcoholic liquor for human consumption, will be brought under the purview of the GST. Irrespective of whether we currently levy GST on these items or not, it is important to bring these items under the Constitution Amendment Bill because the exclusion of these items from the GST does not provide any flexibility to levy GST on these items in the future. Any change in the future would then require another Constitutional Amendment. From a futuristic approach, it is prudent not to confine the scope of the tax under the bindings of the Constitution. The Constitution should demarcate the broad areas of taxing powers as has been the case with sales tax and Union excise duty in the past. Currently, the rationale of exclusion of these commodities from the purview of the GST is solely based on revenue considerations. No other considerations of tax policy or tax administration have gone into excluding petroleum products from the purview of the GST. However, the long-term perspective of a rational tax policy for the GST shows that, at present, these taxes constitute more than half of the retail prices of motor fuel. In a scenario where motor fuel prices are deregulated, the taxation policy would have to be flexible and linked to the global crude oil prices to ensure that prices are held stable and less pressure exerted on the economy during the increasing price trends. The trend of taxation of motor fuel all over the world suggests that these items ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1214:Take the famous slogan on the atheist bus in London … “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” … The word that offends against realism here is “enjoy.” I’m sorry—enjoy your life? Enjoy your life? I’m not making some kind of neo-puritan objection to enjoyment. Enjoyment is lovely. Enjoyment is great. The more enjoyment the better. But enjoyment is one emotion … Only sometimes, when you’re being lucky, will you stand in a relationship to what’s happening to you where you’ll gaze at it with warm, approving satisfaction. The rest of the time, you’ll be busy feeling hope, boredom, curiosity, anxiety, irritation, fear, joy, bewilderment, hate, tenderness, despair, relief, exhaustion … This really is a bizarre category error.
But not necessarily an innocent one … The implication of the bus slogan is that enjoyment would be your natural state if you weren’t being “worried” by us believer … Take away the malignant threat of God-talk, and you would revert to continuous pleasure, under cloudless skies. What’s so wrong with this, apart from it being total bollocks?
… Suppose, as the atheist bus goes by, that you are the fifty-something woman with the Tesco bags, trudging home to find out whether your dementing lover has smeared the walls of the flat with her own shit again. Yesterday when she did it, you hit her, and she mewled till her face was a mess of tears and mucus which you also had to clean up. The only thing that would ease the weight on your heart would be to tell the funniest, sharpest-tongued person you know about it: but that person no longer inhabits the creature who will meet you when you unlock the door. Respite care would help, but nothing will restore your sweetheart, your true love, your darling, your joy. Or suppose you’re that boy in the wheelchair, the one with the spasming corkscrew limbs and the funny-looking head. You’ve never been able to talk, but one of your hands has been enough under your control to tap out messages. Now the electrical storm in your nervous system is spreading there too, and your fingers tap more errors than readable words. Soon your narrow channel to the world will close altogether, and you’ll be left all alone in the hulk of your body. Research into the genetics of your disease may abolish it altogether in later generations, but it won’t rescue you. Or suppose you’re that skanky-looking woman in the doorway, the one with the rat’s nest of dreadlocks. Two days ago you skedaddled from rehab. The first couple of hits were great: your tolerance had gone right down, over two weeks of abstinence and square meals, and the rush of bliss was the way it used to be when you began. But now you’re back in the grind, and the news is trickling through you that you’ve fucked up big time. Always before you’ve had this story you tell yourself about getting clean, but now you see it isn’t true, now you know you haven’t the strength. Social services will be keeping your little boy. And in about half an hour you’ll be giving someone a blowjob for a fiver behind the bus station. Better drugs policy might help, but it won’t ease the need, and the shame over the need, and the need to wipe away the shame.
So when the atheist bus comes by, and tells you that there’s probably no God so you should stop worrying and enjoy your life, the slogan is not just bitterly inappropriate in mood. What it means, if it’s true, is that anyone who isn’t enjoying themselves is entirely on their own. The three of you are, for instance; you’re all three locked in your unshareable situations, banged up for good in cells no other human being can enter. What the atheist bus says is: there’s no help coming … But let’s be clear about the emotional logic of the bus’s message. It amounts to a denial of hope or consolation, on any but the most chirpy, squeaky, bubble-gummy reading of the human situation. St Augustine called this kind of thing “cruel optimism” fifteen hundred years ago, and it’s still cruel. ~ Francis Spufford,#NFDB
1215:
Why do we forget our dreams?
Because you do not dream always at the same place. It is not always the same part of your being that dreams and it is not at the same place that you dream. If you were in conscious, direct, continuous communication with all the parts of your being, you would remember all your dreams. But very few parts of the being are in communication.
For example, you have a dream in the subtle physical, that is to say, quite close to the physical. Generally, these dreams occur in the early hours of the morning, that is between four and five o'clock, at the end of the sleep. If you do not make a sudden movement when you wake up, if you remain very quiet, very still and a little attentive - quietly attentive - and concentrated, you will remember them, for the communication between the subtle physical and the physical is established - very rarely is there no communication.
Now, dreams are mostly forgotten because you have a dream while in a certain state and then pass into another. For instance, when you sleep, your body is asleep, your vital is asleep, but your mind is still active. So your mind begins to have dreams, that is, its activity is more or less coordinated, the imagination is very active and you see all kinds of things, take part in extraordinary happenings.... After some time, all that calms down and the mind also begins to doze. The vital that was resting wakes up; it comes out of the body, walks about, goes here and there, does all kinds of things, reacts, sometimes fights, and finally eats. It does all kinds of things. The vital is very adventurous. It watches. When it is heroic it rushes to save people who are in prison or to destroy enemies or it makes wonderful discoveries. But this pushes back the whole mental dream very far behind. It is rubbed off, forgotten: naturally you cannot remember it because the vital dream takes its place. But if you wake up suddenly at that moment, you remember it. There are people who have made the experiment, who have got up at certain fixed hours of the night and when they wake up suddenly, they do remember. You must not move brusquely, but awake in the natural course, then you remember.
After a time, the vital having taken a good stroll, needs to rest also, and so it goes into repose and quietness, quite tired at the end of all kinds of adventures. Then something else wakes up. Let us suppose that it is the subtle physical that goes for a walk. It starts moving and begins wandering, seeing the rooms and... why, this thing that was there, but it has come here and that other thing which was in that room is now in this one, and so on. If you wake up without stirring, you remembeR But this has pushed away far to the back of the consciousness all the stories of the vital. They are forgotten and so you cannot recollect your dreams. But if at the time of waking up you are not in a hurry, you are not obliged to leave your bed, on the contrary you can remain there as long as you wish, you need not even open your eyes; you keep your head exactly where it was and you make yourself like a tranquil mirror within and concentrate there. You catch just a tiny end of the tail of your dream. You catch it and start pulling gently, without stirring in the least. You begin pulling quite gently, and then first one part comes, a little later another. You go backward; the last comes up first. Everything goes backward, slowly, and suddenly the whole dream reappears: "Ah, there! it was like that." Above all, do not jump up, do not stir; you repeat the dream to yourself several times - once, twice - until it becomes clear in all its details. Once that dream is settled, you continue not to stir, you try to go further in, and suddenly you catch the tail of something else. It is more distant, more vague, but you can still seize it. And here also you hang on, get hold of it and pull, and you see that everything changes and you enter another world; all of a sudden you have an extraordinary adventure - it is another dream. You follow the same process. You repeat the dream to yourself once, twice, until you are sure of it. You remain very quiet all the time. Then you begin to penetrate still more deeply into yourself, as though you were going in very far, very far; and again suddenly you see a vague form, you have a feeling, a sensation... like a current of air, a slight breeze, a little breath; and you say, "Well, well...." It takes a form, it becomes clear - and the third category comes. You must have a lot of time, a lot of patience, you must be very quiet in your mind and body, very quiet, and you can tell the story of your whole night from the end right up to the beginning.
Even without doing this exercise which is very long and difficult, in order to recollect a dream, whether it be the last one or the one in the middle that has made a violent impression on your being, you must do what I have said when you wake up: take particular care not even to move your head on the pillow, remain absolutely still and let the dream return.
Some people do not have a passage between one state and another, there is a little gap and so they leap from one to the other; there is no highway passing through all the states of being with no break of the consciousness. A small dark hole, and you do not remember. It is like a precipice across which one has to extend the consciousness. To build a bridge takes a very long time; it takes much longer than building a physical bridge.... Very few people want to and know how to do it. They may have had magnificent activities, they do not remember them or sometimes only the last, the nearest, the most physical activity, with an uncoordinated movement - dreams having no sense.
But there are as many different kinds of nights and sleep as there are different days and activities. There are not many days that are alike, each day is different. The days are not the same, the nights are not the same. You and your friends are doing apparently the same thing, but for each one it is very different. And each one must have his own procedure.
Why are two dreams never alike?
Because all things are different. No two minutes are alike in the universe and it will be so till the end of the universe, no two minutes will ever be alike. And men obstinately want to make rules! One must do this and not that.... Well! we must let people please themselves.
You could have put to me a very interesting question: "Why am I fourteen years old today?" Intelligent people will say: "It is because it is the fourteenth year since you were born." That is the answer of someone who believes himself to be very intelligent. But there is another reason. I shall tell this to you alone.... I have drowned you all sufficiently well! Now you must begin to learn swimming!
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 36?,#NFDB
1216:Thus in altemate uproar and sad peace,
Amazed were those Titans utterly.
O leave them, Muse! O leave them to their woes;
For thou art weak to sing such tumults dire:
A solitary sorrow best befits
Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief.
Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find
Many a fallen old Divinity
Wandering in vain about bewildered shores.
Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp,
And not a wind of heaven but will breathe
In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute;
For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse.
Flush everything that hath a vermeil hue,
Let the rose glow intense and warm the air,
And let the clouds of even and of morn
Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills;
Let the red wine within the goblet boil,
Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp'd shells,
On sands, or in great deeps, vermilion turn
Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid
Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surpris'd.
Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades,
Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green,
And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech,
In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song,
And hazels thick, dark-stemm'd beneath the shade:
Apollo is once more the golden theme!
Where was he, when the Giant of the sun
Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers?
Together had he left his mother fair
And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower,
And in the morning twilight wandered forth
Beside the osiers of a rivulet,
Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale.
The nightingale had ceas'd, and a few stars
Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrush
Began calm-throated. Throughout all the isle
There was no covert, no retired cave,
Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves,
Though scarcely heard in many a green recess.
He listen'd, and he wept, and his bright tears
Went trickling down the golden bow he held.
Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood,
While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard by
With solemn step an awful Goddess came,
And there was purport in her looks for him,
Which he with eager guess began to read
Perplex'd, the while melodiously he said:
"How cam'st thou over the unfooted sea?
Or hath that antique mien and robed form
Mov'd in these vales invisible till now?
Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o'er
The fallen leaves, when I have sat alone
In cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced
The rustle of those ample skirts about
These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers
Lift up their heads, as still the whisper pass'd.
Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before,
And their eternal calm, and all that face,
Or I have dream'd."-"Yes," said the supreme shape,
"Thou hast dream'd of me; and awaking up
Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side,
Whose strings touch'd by thy fingers, all the vast
Unwearied ear of the whole universe
Listen'd in pain and pleasure at the birth
Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't not strange
That thou shouldst weep, so gifted? Tell me, youth,
What sorrow thou canst feel; for I am sad
When thou dost shed a tear: explain thy griefs
To one who in this lonely isle hath been
The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life,
From the young day when first thy infant hand
Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm
Could bend that bow heroic to all times.
Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power
Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones
For prophecies of thee, and for the sake
Of loveliness new born."-Apollo then,
With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes,
Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat
Throbb'd with the syllables.-"Mnemosyne!
Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how;
Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest?
Why should I strive to show what from thy lips
Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark,
And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes:
I strive to search wherefore I am so sad,
Until a melancholy numbs my limbs;
And then upon the grass I sit, and moan,
Like one who once had wings.-O why should I
Feel curs'd and thwarted, when the liegeless air
Yields to my step aspirant? why should I
Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet?
Goddess benign, point forth some unknown thing:
Are there not other regions than this isle?
What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun!
And the most patient brilliance of the moon!
And stars by thousands! Point me out the way
To any one particular beauteous star,
And I will flit into it with my lyre,
And make its silvery splendor pant with bliss.
I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power?
Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity
Makes this alarum in the elements,
While I here idle listen on the shores
In fearless yet in aching ignorance?
O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
That waileth every morn and eventide,
Tell me why thus I rave about these groves!
Mute thou remainest-Mute! yet I can read
A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:
Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal."-Thus the God,
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast kept
Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.
Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush
All the immortal fairness of his limbs;
Most like the struggle at the gate of death;
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life: so young Apollo anguish'd:
His very hair, his golden tresses famed,
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied. At length
Apollo shriek'd;-and lo! from all his limbs
Celestial * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
(last lines): 'Leigh Hunt says of this part of the fragment, "It strikes us that there is something too effeminate and human in the way in which Apollo receives the exaltation which his wisdom is giving him. He weeps and wonders somewhat too fondly; but his powers gather nobly on him as he proceeds." I confess that I should be disposed to rank all these symptoms of convulsion and hysteria in the same category as the fainting of lovers which Keats so frequently represented, -- a kind of thing which his astonishing powers of progress would infallibly have' outgrown had he lived a year or two longer."'
~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~ John Keats, Hyperion. Book III
,#NFDB
95 Integral Yoga
17 Philosophy
16 Christianity
14 Psychology
11 Occultism
8 Yoga
4 Science
3 Poetry
2 Integral Theory
1 Hinduism
1 Fiction
1 Education
1 Alchemy
56 Nolini Kanta Gupta
35 The Mother
20 Satprem
12 Sri Aurobindo
12 Carl Jung
7 Plotinus
6 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
4 Jordan Peterson
4 Aldous Huxley
3 Swami Vivekananda
3 Swami Krishnananda
3 Saint Augustine of Hippo
3 Plato
2 Paul Richard
2 Aleister Crowley
15 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
10 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
9 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
5 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
4 The Perennial Philosophy
4 The Future of Man
4 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
4 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
4 Maps of Meaning
4 Agenda Vol 06
4 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
3 The Study and Practice of Yoga
3 The Secret Doctrine
3 The Life Divine
3 Mysterium Coniunctionis
3 City of God
3 Agenda Vol 08
3 Agenda Vol 07
3 Agenda Vol 01
2 The Practice of Psycho therapy
2 The Phenomenon of Man
2 Questions And Answers 1955
2 Questions And Answers 1953
2 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
2 Magick Without Tears
2 Letters On Yoga I
2 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
2 Aion
2 Agenda Vol 12
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But what is not recognised in this view of things is that there are secrecies and secrecies. The material secrecies of Nature are of one category, the mystic secrecies are of another. The two are not only disparate but incommensurable. Any man with a mind and understanding of average culture can see and handle the 'scientific' forces, but not the mystic forces.
A scientist once thought that he had clinched the issue and cut the Gordian knot when he declared triumphantly with reference to spirit sances: "Very significant is the fact that spirits appear only in closed chambers, in half obscurity, to somnolent minds; they are nowhere in the open air, in broad daylight to the wide awake and vigilant intellect!" Well, if the fact is as it is stated, what does it prove? Night alone reveals the stars, during the day they vanish, but that is no proof that stars are not existent. Rather the true scientific spirit should seek to know why (or how) it is so, if it is so, and such a fact would exactly serve as a pointer, a significant starting ground. The attitude of the jesting Pilate is not helpful even to scientific inquiry. This matter of the Spirits we have taken only as an illustration and it must not be understood that this is a domain of high mysticism; rather the contrary. The spiritualists' approach to Mysticism is not the right one and is fraught with not only errors but dangers. For the spiritualists approach their subject with the entire scientific apparatus the only difference being that the scientist does not believe while the spiritualist believes.
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now the question is, does Reason never fail? Is it such a perfect instrument as intellectualists think it to be? There is ground for serious misgivings. Reason says, for example, that the earth revolves round the sun: and reason, it is argued, is right, for we see that all the facts are conformableto it, even facts that were hitherto unknown and are now coming into our ken. But the difficulty is that Reason did not say that always in the past and may not say that always in the future. The old astronomers could explain the universe by holding quite a contrary theory and could fit into it all their astronomical data. A future scientist may come and explain the matter in quite a different way from either. It is only a choice of workable theories that Reason seems to offer; we do not know the fact itself, apart perhaps from exactly the amount that immediate sense-perception gives to each of us. Or again, if we take an example of another category, we may ask, does God exist? A candid Rationalist would say that he does not know although he has his own opinion about the matter. Evidently, Reason cannot solve all the problems that it meets; it can judge only truths that are of a certain type.
It may be answered that Reason is a faculty which gives us progressive knowledge of the reality, but as a knowing instrument it is perfect, at least it is the only instrument at our disposal; even if it gives a false, incomplete or blurred image of the reality, it has the means and capacity of correcting and completing itself. It offers theories, no doubt; but what are theories? They are simply the gradually increasing adaptation of the knowing subject to the object to be known, the evolving revelation of reality to our perception of it. Reason is the power which carries on that process of adaptation and revelation; we can safely rely upon Reason and trust It to carry on its work with increasing success.
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is only in the last category - if one has chosen it in all
sincerity and pursued it with an unfailing patience - that one
0 1957-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
These three categories of tests are: those conducted by the forces of Nature, those conducted by the spiritual and divine forces, and those conducted by the hostile forces. This latter category is the most deceptive in its appearance, and a constant state of vigilance, sincerity and humility is required so as not to be caught by surprise or unprepared.
The most commonplace circumstances, people, the everyday events of life, the most seemingly insignificant things, all belong to one or another of these three categories of examiners. In this considerably complex organization of tests, those events generally considered the most important in life are really the easiest of all examinations to pass, for they find you prepared and on your guard. One stumbles more easily over the little pebbles on the path, for they attract no attention.
0 1960-08-10 - questions from center of Education - reading Sri Aurobindo, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(Pavitra:) Yes, Mother; in this dictionary each verb is shown the category it is in, how it is conjugated
The verbs
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But this way of seeing is too far removed from the state of mind and spiritual education in which X has lived,4 of course, for him to understand. Nor am I in favor of proselytizing (to convince X); it would disturb him quite needlessly. He has not come here for that. He came here for something special, something I wanted which he brought, and I have learnt it. Now its excellent, he is a part of the group in his own fashion, thats all. And in a certain way, his presence here is having a very good effect on a whole category of people who had not been touched but who are now becoming more and more favorably inclined. It was difficult to reach all the traditionalists, for example, the people attached to the old spiritual forms; well, they seem now to have been touched by something.
When Amrita,5 seized with zeal, wanted to make him understand what we were doing here and what Sri Aurobindo had wanted, it almost erupted into an unpleasant situation. So after that, I decided to identify myself with him to see I had never done this, because normally I only do it when I am responsible for someone, in order to truly help someone, and Ive never felt any responsibility in regard to X. So I wanted to see his inner situation, what could and could not be done. That was the day you saw him coming down from our meditation in an ecstatic state, when he told you that all separation between him and me had dropped awayit was to be expected, I anticipated as much!
--
When I got there, I felt a moment of anguish; my feeling was that nothing could be done. Not for him in particular, but universally, for all those in his categoryit seemed hopeless.6 If that was perfection, then nothing more could be done. This lasted only a second, but it was painful. And then I tried that is, I wanted to bring my consciousness down into the highest cubethis eternal, universal and infinite consciousness which is the first and foremost expression of the manifestation but nothing doing. It was impossible. I tried for several minutes and saw that it was absolutely impossible. So I had to make a curious movement (I couldnt get through it, it was impassable), I had to come back down into the so-called lower consciousness (not lower, actuallyit was vast and impersonal), and from there I came out and regained my equilibrium. This is what gave me that splitting headache I told you about. I came out of there as if I were carrying the weight the weight of an irreducible absoluteit was dreadful. Unfortunately, I was unable to rest afterwards, and as people were waiting to see me, I had to talkwhich is very tiring for me. And this produced a bubbling in my head, like a this dark blue light of power in matter was there, shot through with streaks of white and gold, and all this was flashing back and forth in my head, this way and that way I thought I was going to have a stroke! (Mother laughs)
This lasted a good half hour before I could calm it down, make it quiet, quiet. And I saw that this came from the fact that he wanted to bring the Power down, to transmit the Power into the physical mind! But as soon as Im put in contact with the Power, you understand, it makes everything explode! (Mother laughs) It felt exactly like my head was going to explode!
0 1961-02-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The other is to find something worth concentrating upon that diverts your attention from your small, personal self. The most effective is a big ideal, but there are innumerable things that enter into this category. Most commonly, people choose marriage, because it is the most easily available (Mother laughs). To love somebody and to love children makes you busy and compels you to forget your own self a little. But it is rarely successful, because love is not a common thing.
Others turn to art, others to science; some choose a social or a political life, etc., etc.
0 1962-09-05, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Of course, I am not speaking of what the universal Mother can know, thats quite another category! I am speaking of the experience of the psychic being, the purely terrestrial experience. Well, very few things seem in fact, none of them seem alien or unknown to me. The human state of mind, ah yes! Since my early childhood, I have been flabbergasted by the way people think and feelit seemed monstrous. But as for the circumstances and events of life, thats all more or less old hat.
The experiences that left the most acute impressions on me (Mother makes a poignant gesture)you know, the kind of things that make you say, Oh, no, not that again, Ive had enough!are connected with my lives as a monarch: empress, queen and the like oh! Those are painful impressions, the most painful of all. And I have a keen memory of a resolution taken in my last life as an empress: Never again! I said. Ive had enough, I want no more of it! Id rather be not even Id rather be, I chose deliberately: I WANT to be an obscure being in an obscure family, free at last to do what I want! And thats the first thing I remembered this time: Yes, its an obscure family, an obscure being in an obscure milieu, so I may be free to do what I want; there isnt a horde of people watching me and spying on everything I do and plaguing me with rules about what I ought to be doing.
0 1963-08-28, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had already told you about my misgivings.1 As to the motives for the decision, it always boils down to the same point: a sincere (though ambiguous) will of ecumenism, a broad rather than deep intellectual curiosity, permit mentalities such as those that give our firm its orientation and public image to pay some attention to academic essays regarded (wrongly so in the present instance) as dealing with the famous Eastern spirituality. But as soon as the essays are lived from within, the goodwill withdraws into its shell. The reaction is even worse if the author is a renegade, a Westerner who has gone over to the enemy side. (I can vouch for that!2) I must emphasize that this whole process is not only unintentional but, more than that, unconscious (which is not an excuse but an aggravating circumstance). The opposition put up against your first manuscript3 rather hardened with the second, a much more personal book, I mean less detached, still less objective than the firstand more ample. Through the medium of literature, you were able to convey whatever you liked. Through a direct essay, you will reach and so much the worse, or so much the betteronly those who seek. Our firm and its public do not belong, for that matter, to the category of those who seek.
Hes conscious!
0 1964-01-22, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now, its a little better, but it has become Why not me? Mother has seen such and such a category of people, therefore the entire category has a right to be seen! The birthdays1 too, it depends on the ages and occupations: if I see people of a certain age and occupation on their birthdays, all those of about the same age and similar occupation have a RIGHT to comethey have the rightand it is my DUTY to see them. And when I say that I dont have the time theyre upset.
Its a farce, you know! And that farce has been going on since 1929.
0 1965-03-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
After perfect stillness, there is the movement of inner aspiration (I am always referring to the aspiration of the cells I am using words to describe something wordless, but there is no other way to express oneself), the surrender, that is to say, the SPONTANEOUS AND TOTAL acceptance of the supreme Will (which is unknown to us). Does the total Will want things to go this way or that way, that is, towards the disintegration of certain elements or towards? And then again, there are endless nuances: there is the passage from one height to another (I am speaking of cellular realizations, of course, dont forget that), I mean that you have a certain inner equilibrium, an equilibrium of movement, of life, and its understood that in order to go from one movement to a higher movement, there is almost always a descent, then a new ascent there is a transition. So does the shock received impel you to go down in order to climb up again, or does it impel you do go down in order to abandon old movements? Because there are cellular ways of being that have to disappear in order to give way to others; there are others that climb down in order to climb up again with a higher harmony and organization. This is the second point. And you should wait and see WITHOUT POSTULATING IN ADVANCE what has to be. There is especially, of course, the desire: the desire to be comfortable, the desire to be in peace and all that that must cease absolutely and disappear. You must be absolutely without any reaction, like this (gesture of immobile offering Upward, palms open). And then, when you are like that (you, meaning the cells), after a while the perception comes of the category the movement belongs to, and you just have to follow the perception, whether it is that something must disappear and be replaced by something else (which one doesnt know yet), or whether it is that something must be transformed.
And so forth. And its like that all the time.
0 1965-05-29, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then its an individual question. It isnt a question of class or category: its the scientist who becomes ready to be something else.
(silence)
0 1965-06-02, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As for the sense of smell, the nature of my sense of smell changed long, long ago. To begin with, I practiced this (a long time ago, years, many years ago): being able to smell only when I wanted to and only what I wanted to. And it was perfectly mastered. It already prepared the instrument a great deal. I can see it was already a preparation. I can smell things I can smell the vibratory quality of things rather than simply their odor. There is a whole classification of odors: there are odors that lighten you, as if they opened up horizons to youthey lighten you, make you lighter, more joyful; there are odors that excite you (those belong to the category of odors I learnt not to smell); as for all the odors that disgust you, I smell them only when I want towhen I want to know, I smell them, but when I dont want to know, I dont. Now its automatic. But my sense of smell was very much cultivated even when I was just a child, very long ago: at that time I cultivated the eyes and the sense of smell, both. But my eyes have been used for everything, for all the visions, so its something much more complex, while the sense of smell has remained as it was: I can smell peoples psychological state when I come near them; I can smell it, it has an odorthere are very special odors a whole gamut. Ive had that for a very, very long time, its something thats quite dominated, mastered. I am able not to smell anything at all: when, for instance, there are bad odors that upset the bodys system, I can cut off the connection completely.
But I dont notice a great change in this domain because it had already been cultivated very much, while my eyes are much more (how can I put it?) ahead, in the sense that there is already a much greater difference between the old habit of seeing and the present one. I seem to be behind a veil thats really the feeling: a veil; and then, suddenly, something lives with the true vibration. But thats rare, its still rare. Probably (laughing) there arent many things worth seeing!
0 1965-12-04, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Basically, in order to feel at home in the world as it is today, one must belong to the category I spoke of the other day, of those who have established a harmony with all the human faculties, who are satisfied, and also who are egocentric enough not even to notice that things arent that way for others. Then its fine; otherwise Sri Aurobindo very much belonged (in his outward being) to the category of those who want things to change, who push for progress, who want to move on, who want to reject the past very much so. He had to make a great effort to be satisfied with things and people; it was his compassion that made him accept people around him as they were. Otherwise he used to suffer a lot.
And thats what wears out and tires and disorganizes.
0 1966-01-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was about those big shrimps that are called jumbo prawns here: they are as big as crayfish. Someone (a disciple here), who died rather a long time ago, came and brought me prawns; that is to say, I met him in the rooms downstairs There are rooms that are reproduced somewhere, in a sort of subconscient, in fact the subconscient that has to be transformed, organized and so on, and there exists a sort of reproduction of the rooms downstairs [below Mothers room], but not exactly the same (yet with the same layout), and a certain category of activities takes place there. Thats where we were together once, I told you: you were trying to clarify peoples ideas (!) Its the same place. Its not physical here, its in the subconscient. So then, there was that tall fellow who watched over the Samadhi for a long time, Haradhan; he was there. And when he saw me arrive, he told me, I have brought something for you. And in a sort of dark-blue cloth, he had wrapped two big prawns, which he gave me! There were already cooked, ready to be eaten. The cloth wasnt very much to my liking! So I thought, How can I make them a little cleaner before eating them? (Laughing) You know, its a farcea farce to make you understand your stupidity. I began by removing the (what is it called?), its not skin Oh, here too the word hasnt come, but on a tangent came cuirass! (Laughing) Cuirass and cartilage! Anyway I removed that, and as soon as I had removed it, I said to myself, You fool! Now its even more exposed than before! I looked for a way, and I ran to a corner (in the place of Pavitras laboratory), found a water tap and put my prawn under the tap. Immediately someone told me (not someone, the inner voice told me [laughing]), Your water is even dirtier than the cloth! So the consciousness came along with the light, and I was shown with such a clear vision the relativity of the measures we take, which are all preconceived ideas, based on no true knowledge. And finally he told me, Come on, eat, thats the best you can do! So I ate my prawn, and it was very good!
You know, we could write a farce. And scenes of such buffoonery!
0 1966-11-03, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother does not refer to a category of so-called higher "beings," but to higher levels of being or states of being.
If it is the battle of Magenta, it is not Murat but MacMahon. It seems more likely to be Murat and another battle.
0 1966-11-30, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is clearly a great movement. Yesterday again I saw a man who was governor of Madras for a while. He came here (he was passing through Pondicherry but wanted to stop here), and the man asked me, Is there a solution? And he added, We are all praying that you may give it. I answered (Mother smiles) that I had nothing to do with politics. But he represents a whole category of people in India who now think that there is indeed only one solution, which is precisely an attempt to realize a higher life.
There is a great movement.
0 1967-01-28, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a whole category of a way of thinking. Those who think they have superior intelligence and scorn what they dont understand are countlesscountless. And thats the very sign of stupidity! On the other hand, there are many (they are generally regarded as simple-minded, but for my part, I appreciate those simple-minded people, they have a warmth of soul), they admire everything they cannot understand. They have a sort of dumb admiration, which is looked upon as silly, for anything they dont understand. But they at least have goodwill. While the others on the lofty heights of their so-called intelligence, anything they dont understand is worthless. This man came here and said, One cant work with these people, they are Indians! (Mother laughs) And he says it quite naturally.
You met someone the other day, I heard?
0 1967-10-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All degrees are there, of course. When its refusal or incapacity, then the person HIMSELF flees, saying, Theyre fools, they are trying to do something impossible and unrealizable. (I know many such people, they think they have superior intelligence.) But even to place themselves, its they themselves who do it. She came with the idea of a hierarchy. I said yes, everything is always according to hierarchy, especially all conscious individuals, but there is no arbitrary will that classes them: its the people themselves who spontaneously take their place without knowing it, the place they must have. Its not, I told her, its not a decision, we dont want categories: this category, that category, and so this person will go here, that person will go thereall that I said, is mental constructions, its worthless! The true thing is that NATURALLY, according to his receptivity, his capacity, his inner mission, everyone takes up the post which in the hierarchy he truly and spontaneously occupies, spontaneously without any decision.
What can be done to facilitate the organization is a sort of plan or general map, so that everyone need not build his position but will find it all ready for him thats all.
0 1967-10-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Requests for admission to Auroville have been pouring in at a frightening pace these last few daysevery day a stack as big as thisand naturally, everyone must send his photo along with his request and say why he wants to be in Auroville, what his skills are, and to which category he belongs: there is the category of those who want to work to build Auroville, and the category of those who want to come and sit peacefully there once its ready. And what a humanity, mon petit! In fact, all those who come are generally the malcontents. Now and then, one of them has a light in his eyes and a need for something he hasnt found (then its very good). There are those that werent successful in anything and are completely disgusted, so they wonder if they might not be successful there. Then there are the old ones who have worked hard and want to rest. There are very few young people the few young people are all people of worth (the ordinary youth arent interested). And the few youth I have seen are those who want to work: they dont want to come and take advantage of others work, they want to work. So well soon have a rather interesting team. But (laughing) with the well-fed old ones, I postpone decision, put under observation (Mother laughs). Yesterday, there were a number of them like that. Well see: if they want to be useful, that is, give money or things, or propose to do something, then well see; but those such as the well-fed gentleman, or the well-established fat lady who want to come and spend the rest of their lives in peace, to them we say, Wait a bit, well see!
The workers arent asked anything, that is, they dont have to pay: they can come and work, on condition that they prove they are useful. But those who want a piece of land or a house to live in have to pay. And then, some have limited confidence (laughing) and say, Ill give you a little money right now and I will pay the rest little by little, in installmentsthose I generally turn down. Some are so eager to come that they send money in advance, and when theres some life or something in them, I accept them. But to nearly all, except two or three, I say, Under observationwell see how they react!
0 1971-03-10, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As there is a category of facts to which our senses are our best available but very imperfect guides, as there is a category of truths which we seek by the keen but still imperfect light of our reason, so according to the mystic, there is a category of more subtle truths which surpass the reach both of the senses and the reason but can be ascertained by an inner direct knowledge and direct experience. These truths are supersensuous, but not the less real for that: they have immense results upon the consciousness changing its substance and movement, bringing especially deep peace and abiding joy, a great light of vision and knowledge, a possibility of the overcoming of the lower animal nature, vistas of a spiritual self-development which without them do not exist. A new outlook on things arises which brings with it, if fully pursued into its consequences, a great liberation, inner harmony, unificationmany other possibilities besides. These things have been experienced, it is true, by a small minority of the human race, but still there has been a host of independent witnesses to them in all times, climes and conditions and numbered among them are some of the greatest intelligences of the past, some of the worlds most remarkable figures. Must these possibilities be immediately condemned as chimeras because they are not only beyond the average man in the street but also not easily seizable even by many cultivated intellects or because their method is more difficult than that of the ordinary sense or reason? If there is any truth in them, is not this possibility opened by them worth pursuing as disclosing a highest range of self-discovery and world discovery by the human soul? At its best, taken as true, it must be thatat its lowest taken as only a possibility, as all things attained by man have been only a possibility in their earlier stages, it is a great and may well be a most fruitful adventure.
Sri Aurobindo
0 1971-12-25, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
More and more I am convinced that we have a way of receiving things and reacting to them that CREATES difficulties I am more and more convinced of it. Because, for example, I have rather unpleasant physical and material experiences about food. You know that for a very long time now I have completely stopped being hungry (I eat only to be reasonable, because one must eat, otherwise), and I have some small difficulty in swallowing, or breathing (ridiculous things), but everything changes depending on whether you pay attention to them or not, depending on an attitude like this (gesture of being focused on oneself) in which you watch yourself living, or an attitude in which youre (vast gesture) in things, in movement, in life; and a third attitude in which you pay attention only to the Divine. If you succeed in being like that all the time, there are no difficultiesand yet things are the same. Thats the experience: the thing in itself is as it is, but it is our reaction to it that differs. The experience is more and more conclusive. You see, there are three categories: our attitude with respect to things, the things in themselves (those two always give you trouble), and there is a third category in which everything, but everything is in regard to the Divine, in the Consciousness of the Divineall is marvelous, all is easy! And I am speaking of material things, of the material, physical life (for psychological things, weve known it for long), I mean material things like little discomforts of the body, or reactions, feeling pain or not, circumstances going wrong, not being able to swallow your dinner the most banal things you dont pay attention to when youre young and strong and in good health (you dont pay any attention to them, and its like that for everyone), but when you live in the consciousness of your body and what happens to it and its ways of receiving things that come and so onoh, its misery! When you live in the consciousness of others, of what they want, what they need, their relationship with youits misery! But if you live in the Divine Presence and its the Divine who does everything, sees everything, is everything its Peaceits Peace, time has no duration, everything is easy and. Not that you feel joy or feel its not so its the Divine who is there. And its the ONLY solution. Thats where the world is going: the Consciousness of the Divine the Divine who does, the Divine who is, the Divine. So then, the same IDENTICAL circumstance (I am not speaking of different circumstances), the same IDENTICAL circumstance (its my experience these last few days, so concrete, you know, so concrete); day before yesterday I was sick as a dog, and yesterday circumstances were the same, my body was in the same state, all was the same and yet all was peaceful.
I am thoroughly convinced of that.
02.02 - Rishi Dirghatama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Today precisely it is of Dirghatama that we will speak. Dirghatama does not mean as the word would indicate to the layman, one who is verytalllaprmurmahbhuja in Kalidasa's phrase. Tama is not the superlative suffix (most), it istamas, darkness. So, from the name itself one may naturally expect that the person was not of an ordinary category. Indeed the amount of stories and legends that have been woven around the name is fantasticqueer, odd, unbelievable, impossible in every way. I need not open that chapter.
I shall speak only of what seems to me probable and believable and likely and it must be this that he passed a long time in darkness, engulfed in obscurity. The legend says that he was in his mother's womb long past the due time and it seems it was of his own will. His mother's name was Mamata and his father was Uchathya. When he came out of the darkness and saw the light, it was a light strangely glimmering with all the vibrations of the long obscurity to which he had been accustomed. It was indeed the Light beyond the confines of all darkness, nescience, and yet carrying a mystic imprint of the mysteries of darkness. So he started his quest with this questioning:
02.03 - The Shakespearean Word, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All these images however, or most of them, belong to one category or genre. They are painted pictures,still life, on the whole, presented in two dimensions. Kalidasa himself has described the nature or character of this artistic effect. In describing a gesture of Uma he says, 'she moved not, she stopped not' (na yayau na tasthau); it was, as it were, a movement suddenly arrested and held up on a canvas. The imagery is as though of a petrification. The figures of statuary present themselves to our eyes in this connection-a violent or intense action held at one point and stilled, as for example, in the Laocoon or the Discabolo.
This is usually what the poets, the great poets have done. They have presented living and moving bodies as fixed, stable entities, as a procession of statues. But Shakespeare's are not fixed stable pictures but living and moving beings. They do not appear as pictures, even like moving pictures on a screen, a two-dimensional representation. Life in Shakespeare appears, as in life, exactly like a three-dimensional phenomenon. You seem to see forms and figures in the round, not simply in a frontal view. A Shakespearean scene is not only a feast for the eye but is apprehended as though through all the' senses.
02.04 - Two Sonnets of Shakespeare, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
On the occasion of the 400th birth anniversary of Shakespeare, I present to you today two of the great Shakespearean sonnets. The sonnets, as you know, are all about love. They are however characterised by an incredible intensity and perhaps an equally incredible complexity, for the Shakespearean feeling is of that category.
Shakespeare has treated love in a novel way; he has given a new figure to that common familiar sentiment. And incidentally he has given a new sense and bearing to Death. From a human carnal base there is a struggle, an effort here to rise into something extracorporeal; that is, something outside and independent of the body and impersonal. The sense of the first sonnet is this: the body decays and dies, even as bleak winter seizes upon the beauties of Nature or black Night swallows up the light of the day. But love lingers stillas the song of sweet birdsand the dying cadence of love curiously invokes and evokes a resurgent love in the beloved. The second sonnet hymns the soul's conquest over Death. The soul is that which is sinless in the sinful, it is the pure, the unsullied the immortal lovein this filth and dirt of a mortal body with its crude passions. Death eats away the body, but in this way the soul grows and eats away Death. This is the final epiphany, the death of Death and the resurgence of the soul divine in its love divine.
03.05 - The Spiritual Genius of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To say that Europe was once as religious and spiritual as India herself is not precisely incorrect, but it is to view the matter from too general a stand-point, almost, we may say, grosso modo. In order to arrive at an accurate and precise estimation, and to find out the most significant truths, we have to look a little more closely, observe differences in shade and stress, make certain distinctions. For the things that the ordinary mind indiscriminately designates as religion, spirituality and the like, do not always fall in the same category. These names are often applied to distinct realities, each with its particular dharma, norm and form, wide apart from each other, although to the common eye they may appear to be of the same mould and substance.
Thus Religion and Spirituality, two fundamental categories that form one realm when held up in opposition to Materialism, are, when considered by themselves, really very different things and may be even contradictory to and destructive of each other. What then is Religion? and what, on the other hand, is Spirituality? Religion starts from and usually ends with a mental and emotional approach to realities beyond the mind; Spirituality goes straight forward to direct vision and communion with the Beyond. Religion labours to experience and express the world of Spirit in and through a turn, often a twist, given by the mental beingmanuin man; it bases itself upon the demands of the mental, the vital and the physical complex the triple nexus that forms the ordinary human personality and seeks to satisfy them under a holier garb. Spirituality knows the demands of the Spirit alone; it lives in a realm where the body, the life and the mind stand uplifted and transmuted into their utter realities. Religion is the human way of approaching and enjoying the Divine; Spirituality is the divine way of meeting the Divine. Religion, as it is usually practised, is a special art, one the highest it may be, still only oneamong many other pursuits that man looks to for his enjoyment and fulfilment; but spirituality is nothing if it does not swallow up the entire man, take in his each and every preoccupation and new-create it into an inevitable expression of its own master truth. Religion gives us a moral discipline for the internal consciousness, and for the external life, a code of conduct based upon a system of rules and rites and ceremonies; spirituality aims at a revolution in the consciousness and in the being.
03.05 - The World is One, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The distinctions and differences that held good in other times and climes can have no sense or value in the world of today. Race or religion can divide man no longer; even nationhood has lost much of its original force and meaning. It is strangeperhaps it is inevitable in the secret process of Nature's working that when everything in conditions and circumstances obviously demands and points to an obliteration of all frontiers of division and separationeconomically and politically tooand all drives towards a closer co-operation and intermingling, it is precisely then that the contrary spirit and impulse raises its head and seems even to gather added strength and violence. The fact may have two explanations. First of all, it may mean a defence gesture in Nature, that is to say, certain forces or formations have a permanent place in Nature's economy and when they apprehend that they are being ousted and neglected, when there is a one-pointed drive for their exclusion, naturally they surge up and demand recognition with a vengeance: for things forgotten or left aside that form indissolubly part of Nature's fabric and pattern, one has to retrace one's steps in order to pick them up again. But also the phenomenon may mean a simple case of atavism: for we must know that there are certain old-world aboriginal habits and movements that have to go and have no place in the higher scheme of Nature and these too come up off and on, especially when the demand is there for their final liquidation. They have to be recognised as such and treated as such. Radical and religious (including ideological) egoisms seem to us to belong to this category.
In the higher scheme of Nature, the next evolutionary status that is being forged,itis unity, harmony that is insisted upon, for that is the very basis of the new creation: whatever militates against that, whatever creates division and disruption must be banned and ruthlessly eschewed. In the reality of things, in the actual life that man lives, it will be found that on the whole, things that separate are less numerous and insistent than those which unite, man and man and nation and nation, if each one simply lives and lets live: on the contrary, it is the points of concordance and mutuality that abound. A certain knot or twist in the mind makes all the difference: it brings in the ignorance, selfishness, blind passiona possession by the dark forces of atavism that makes the mischief.
03.12 - Communism: What does it Mean?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Communism, in India at least, has come to mean things which it was not the original or the main purpose of the word to imply. Communism meant "holding in common", that is to say, there is no private property, one can claim nothing as exclusively one's ownthings are distributed, work as well as necessities, and one receives them, each in his turn, according to his need and desert, as determined by general planning. Let alone property, there are types of communism that speak of holding in common women and children even. In any case whatever one is given one possesses and enjoys only for the moment, there is nothing like permanent possession. All have equal right to all things. This is an ideal which I do not think many would care to adopt and follow. In India it appears the word "communism" has been taken in the sense of the rgime of the common man. Not that there is any harm in this deviation of the meaning. If it is a convenient label or a battle-cry for the common man's right to exist, to have his just lebensraum, well, none can object and all should sympathise and help towards that end. But the mischief is that the common man adopted by communism has a restrictive denotation, it takes in only a section of the common man: it is used mostly, if not exclusively in connection with wage-earners and that too only of the category of peasants and workmen. A large section of the common mass, even of wage earners in a sense, is left out in the communistic scheme, at least not given the same importance as the other. School teachers, especially primary school teachers, small office-clerks, for example, are not less "common" or less unfortunate or worthy of succour. These form a genuine proletariat: only they have not yet been called upon to take part in the Dictatorship.
Apart from this restrictive denotation, communism, in practice, has been given a restrictive connotation too which is more ominous and unhelpful. The communistic movement has become dynamic in so far as it is a movement for redressing grievances (although the methods employed at times it is alleged, are not as they should be, worthy of the civilised human being) in other words, it has been more or less negative in its work and outlook. The whole stress has been laid upon two items: (1) less hours of work, and (2) more wages I do not mention better housing, medical aid, pension etc., which are auxiliary items. When workers were considered as no more than slaves under the yoke of the blind and brutal exploiter, these demands had a meaning: but they have lost much of their point in the changed circumstances of today.
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We are familiar with the phrase "Augustan Age": it is in reference to a particular period in a nation's history when its creative power is at its highest both in respect of quantity and quality, especially in the domain of art and literature, for it is here that the soul of a people finds expression most easily and spontaneously. Indeed, if we look at the panorama that the course of human evolution unfolds, we see epochs of high light in various countries spread out as towering beacons or soaring peaks bathed in sunlight dominating the flat plains or darksome valleys of the usual normal periods. Take the Augustan Age itself which has given the name: it is a very crucial and one of the earlier outflowerings of the human genius on a considerable scale. We know of the appearance of individuals on the stage of life each with a special mission and role in various ages and various countries. They are great men of action, great men of thought, creative artists or spiritual and religious teachers. In India we call them Vibhutis (we can include the AvatarasDivine Incarnationsalso in the category). Even so, there is a collective manifestation too, an upsurge in which a whole race or nation takes part and is carried and raised to a higher level of living and achievement. There is a tide in the affairs not only of men, but of peoples also: and masses, large collectivities live on the crest of their consciousness, feeling and thinking deeply and nobly, acting and creating powerfully, with breadth of vision and intensity of aspiration, spreading all around something that is new and not too common, a happy guest come from elsewhere.
Ancient Greece, the fountainhead of European civilisationof the world culture reigning today, one can almost sayfound itself epitomised in the Periclean Age. The lightgrace, harmony, sweet reasonableness that was Greece, reached its highest and largest, its most characteristic growth in that period. Earlier, at the very beginning of her life cycle, there came indeed Homer and no later creation reached a higher or even as high a status of creative power: but it was a solitary peak, it was perhaps an announcement, not the realisation of the national glory. Pericles stood as the guardian, the representative, the emblem and nucleus of a nation-wide efflorescence. Not to speak of the great names associated with the age, even the common peoplemore than what was normally so characteristic of Greecefelt the tide that was moving high and shared in that elevated sweep of life, of thought and creative activity. Greece withdrew. The stage was made clear for Rome. Julius Caesar carried the Roman genius to its sublimest summit: but it remained for his great nephew to consolidate and give expression to that genius in its most characteristic manner and lent his name to a characteristic high-water mark of human civilisation.
04.03 - Consciousness as Energy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is this spiritual or Yogic Energy? Ordinary people, people with a modern mind, would concede at the most that there are two kinds of activity: (1) real activityphysical action, work, labour with muscle and nerve, and (2) passive activityactivity of mind and thought. According to the pragmatic standard especial, if not entire, importance is given the first category; the other category, sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, is held at a discount. The thoughtful people are philosophers at the most, they are ineffectual angels in this workaday world of ours. We need upon earth people of sterner stuff, dynamic people who are not thought-bound, but know how to apply and execute their ideas, whatever they may be. Lenin was great, not because he had revolutionary ideas, but because he gave a muscular frame to them. Such people alone are the pragmatic, dynamic, useful category of humanity. The others are, according to the more radical leftist view, merely parasitic, and according to a more generous liberal view, chiefly decorative elements in human society. Mind-energy can draw dream pictures, beautiful perhaps, but inane; it is only muscular energy that gives a living and material bodya local habitation and a nameto what otherwise would be airy nothing.
Energy, however, is not merely either muscular (physical) or cerebral. There are energies subtler than thought and yet more dynamic than the muscle (or the electric pile). One such, for example, is vital energy, although orthodox bio-chemists do not believe in any kind of vitalism that is something more than mere physico-chemical reaction. Indeed, this is the energy that counts in life; for it is this that brings about what we call success in the world. A man with push and go, as it is termed, is nothing but a person with abundant vital energy. But even of this energy there are gradations. It can be deep, controlled, organised or it can be hectic, effusive, confused: the latter kind expresses and spends itself often in mere external, nervous and muscular movements. Those, however, who are known as great men of action are precisely they who are endowed with life energy of the first kind.
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Viewed as a progressive growth of consciousness and transformation of nature, man's advance has been marked out in a few very definite stages. The first was the purely animal manPasuwhen man lived merely as a physical being, concerned solely about his body. Then came the Pisacha, the man of vital urges in their crudest form, the man of ignorant passions and dark instincts who has been imaged in the popular mind as the ghoul. At the next stage, with a further release of the consciousness, when the larger vital impulses come into play man becomes the Rakshasa, the demon. Egoistic hunger for possession, enjoyment, enlarged and increased appetite are his characteristics. Next came the Asura, the Titan, the egoistic mental man in his earlier avatar seeking to emerge out of the purely vital nature. Ambition and pride are his guiding spirit. Prometheus is his prototype. There are still two higher types which have been established in the human consciousness and in the world atmosphere as dynamic ideals, if not as common concrete facts of the material world. The first is the ethical man, who seeks to govern his life according to some principles of light and purity, such, for example, as unselfishness, altruism, chivalry, self-abnegation, rectitude, truthfulness etc. He is the Sattwic man, as known in India. There is also a still higher category, where consciousness endeavours to go beyond mind, enters into the consciousness of the Spirit; then we have the spiritual man, the saint and the sage. Beyond lie the supra-mental domains formed of the consciousness of the gods.
Man, individually and collectively, has passed and is passing through these steps of evolution. The last one is his goal at the present stage. To be a saint, seer or sage is not enough for man. He must be a god. Indeed when he has succeeded to be a god then only would it be possible for him to become what a saint or a seer or sage has to be in order to fulfil himself totally and integrally. The human race as a whole is progressing along the same line towards the same consummation. That is the secret purpose and end of Nature, to evolve a growing developing material form housing, embodying higher and wider ranges of consciousness, integrating all elements into a more and more intimate and inviolable unity and harmony.
04.05 - The Freedom and the Force of the Spirit, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
On lower levels, a conscious will made up of a compound energy of the mental and vital and physical will, when in sufficient proportions, has considerable effective force: great men of action have this distinction. Even then, however, theirs is not that type which is absolute or never-failing, nor that especial category which will bring about a collective change, a fundamental change, intensive as well as extensive, needed at this evolutionary crisis of earth and humanity.
The ordinary average man is part and parcel of Nature's movement and his life is almost wholly moulded by circumstances: he has not developed an independent inner being that can react against the universal Nature's current, that is to say, the Nature as it is, as it is actually and dynamically expressed. He is the creature, described graphically in the Gita, as being moved helplessly on the circling wheel of Ignorance.2 But even among the average men there are many who are called men of will, they are not entirely submerged in Nature's current, but endeavour to have their own way even against that current. Their psycho-vital, aided often by their physical consciousness, has an independent formation, being a strong centre of self-driven force, and can impress upon the outer Nature and circumstances its own pattern and disposition. Naturally, all depends upon the degree and character of that consciousness.
04.09 - Values Higher and Lower, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The crucial problem however lies, in a sense, in the way that the goal is to be reached, in the modus operandi. How is the higher status, whatever it is, to be brought down, made effective, be established here on earth and in life. Ideals there have been always and many; evidently we do not know how to go about the business and actualise what is thought and dreamed. About the new ideal too, suggestions have been made with regard to the path to be followed to reach it and are being tried and tested. Some say a life of inner or ethical discipline, conscious effort on the part of each Individual for his own sake is needed: the higher reality must be reached first by a few individuals, it cannot be attained by 'mass action. Others declare that personal effort will not lead very far; if there is to be a great or fundamental change in human nature, it is the Divine Grace alone that can bring it about. The surpassing of man is a miracle and only the supreme magician as an Avatara can do it. Others, again, are not prone to believe in a physical Incarnationsomewhat difficult usually for a European mind but would accept subtler forces or even superior beings, other than the human category, as aids and agents in the working out of the great future.
It is India's great achievement and speciality that she has found the way the way to all truly high fulfilment. It is Yoga and the Yogic consciousness. Yoga is the science and art of discovering the higher truths, indeed, the highest reality and of living there, not a midway moral elevation only. In its integral view it combines all the three processes mentioned above. The Yogic consciousness seeks to lift the consciousness as high as possible, in fact, to the very highestit literally means union or identity (with the highest Reality, Spirit or God). Thus it has the true perception or vision of the forces that act in and upon the world and the powers that decide and is in union with them. The Yogic consciousness and power is also embodied in the Divine Incarnation for he is Yogeshwara: and in India it is accepted as a commonplace that God descends in a human shape, whenever there is a great crisis and man needs salvaging and salvation. God comes then with all his angels, with the divine host to battle for him and with him to establish the Dharma.
Sri Aurobindo's stand in this field is very definite and clear. The goal or end is clear, and with it the way too. What he envisages is the transformation of Matter and material life, that is to say, neither rejecting it as an impossible thing nor trying to gloss it over with a coat of mental luminosity, but delving into it and cleaning and purifying it, removing its mire and dross wholly and absolutely so that its true divine nature comes out and remains as Nature's highest and fullest expression on earth. That is the goal: the waytoo is not less characteristic. The total spiritual transformation, the divinisation of Matter is possible, not only possible but inevitable, because it is : Matter that wants it, because Matter in its essence, in its true reality is spiritual energy, is the Spirit itself. That is the great secret Sri Aurobindo has brought to light. The ideals in the past for the reclamation of human nature and reformation of human society were tackled with mental and moral powers which were not adequate to the task. Even when the spiritual power was invoked, it was of the static category which is above, aloof, witness and can have at best a kindly look and influence. That the spirit dynamic is involved in Matter and as Matter is a truth that has to be discovered.
The supreme creative power of the SpiritTruth-Consciousness Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind. This power is not only up there above, but it is here below and within Matter. It is a power of Matter itself, its most secret power. Truth-Consciousness or Supermind congealed, solidified or crystallised under certain conditions becomes Matter: now to re-become its own true self and nature is the very drive of Matter, that is the true sense of evolution. The very nature of Matter makes its transformation absolutely inevitable. It obeys no alien force or rule, its achievement means self-fulfilment and therefore it is something destined and, when done, permanent and perfect.
05.03 - The Body Natural, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
With regard to the food that man takes, there are two factors that determine or prescribe it. First of all, the real need of the body, that is to say, what the body actually requires for its maintenance, the elements to meet the chemical changes occurring there, something quite material and very definite, viz, the kind of food and the quantity. But usually this real need of the body is obscured and sumberged under the demands of another kind of agency, almost altogether foreign to it, (I) vital desire and (2) mental notions. Indeed, the menu of our table, at least 90% of it, is arranged so as to satisfy the demands of the second category, the consideration that should come first comes last in fact. The body is at present a slave of the mind and the vital; it is hardly given the freedom of choosing its own requirements in the right quantity and quality. That is why the body is seen to suffer everywhere and it normally sick for the greater part of its earthly existence. It has been compelled to occupy an anomalous position in the human organism between these two tyrants. The vital goes by its greed, its attraction and repulsion, its impulse to excess (sometimes to its opposite of deprivation); what it has been accustomed to, what it has taken a fancy for, to that it clings, and if the body has not what it prescribes, it throws the suggestion into the body that it will fall ill. The physical mind has its own notions and schemes, pet ideas and plans (perhaps from what has been read in books or heard from persons) in respect of the body's needs; it thinks that if a certain prescription is not followed, the body will suffer. The mind and the vital are thus close friends and accomplices in regimenting the body. They impose their own demands and prejudices upon the body which helplessly gets entangled in them and loses its native instinct. The body left to itself is marvellously self-conscious; it knows spontaneously and unfailingly what is good for its health and strength. The animals usually, especially those of the forest, preserve still the unspoilt body instinct; for they have no mind to tyrannise over the body nor is their vital of a kind to go against the normal demands of the body. The body, segregated from the mind and the vital, can very easily choose the right kind of food and the right quantity and even vary them according to the varying conditions of the body. Common sense is an inherent attribute of the body consciousness; it never errs on the side of excess and immoderation or perversity. The vital is dramatic, the mind is imaginative, but the body is sanity itself. And that is not a sign of its inconscience and inertia. The dull and dumb immobility of which it is sometimes accused is after all perhaps a mode of its self-defence against the wild vagaries of the mind and the vital to which it is so often called upon to lend its support. Indeed, it may very well be that the accusation against the flesh that it is weak is only an opinion or suggestion imposed on the body by the mentalvital who throw the whole blame upon the body just to escape from the blame due to themselves. The vital is impatient and clamorous, and if it is all push and drive-towards physical execution and fulfilmentit is normally clouded and troubled and obscured and doubly twisted when counselled and supported by a mind, narrow and superficial, not seeing beyond its nose, bound within a frame of incorrect and borrowed notions.
The body, precisely because of its negative natureits dumb inertia, as it is calledprecisely because it has no axe of its own to grind, that is to say, as it has no fancies and impulsions, plans and schemes upon which it can pride itself, precisely because of this childlike innocence, it has a wonderful plasticity and a calm stability, when it is not troubled by the mind or vital. Indeed, the divine qualities that are secreted in the body, which the body seeks to conserve and express are a stable harmony, a balance and equilibrium, capable of supporting the whole weight of all the levels of consciousness from the highest peak to the lowest abysses even as physically it bears the weight of the entire depth of the atmosphere so lightly as it were, without feeling the burden in the least.
05.05 - Man the Prototype, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The essential appearance of Man is, as we have said, the prototype of the actual man. That is to say, the actual man is a projection, even though a somewhat disfigured projection, of the original form; yet there is an essential similarity of pattern, a commensurability between the two. The winged angels, the cherubs and seraphs are reputed to be ideal figures of beauty, but they are nothing akin to the Prototype, they belong to a different line of emanation, other than that of the human being. We may have some idea of what it is like by taking recourse to the distinction that Greek philosophers used to make between the formal and the material cause of things. The prototype is the formal reality hidden and imbedded in the material reality of an object. The essential form is made of the original configuration of primary vibrations that later on consolidate and become a compact mass, arriving finally at its end physico-chemical composition. A subtle yet perfect harmony of vibrations forming a living whole is what the prototype essentially is. An artist perhaps is in a better position to understand what we have been labouring to describe. The artist's eye is not confined to the gross physical form of an object, even the most realistic artist does not hold up the mirror to Nature in that sense: he goes behind and sees the inner contour, the subtle figuration that underlies the external volume and mass. It is that that is beautiful and harmonious and significant, and it is that which the artist endeavours to bring out and fix in a system or body of lines and colours. That inner form is not the outer visible form and still it is that form fundamentally, essentially. It is that and it is not that. We may add another analogy to illustrate the point. Pythagoras, for example, spoke of numbers being realities, the real realities of all sensible objects. He was evidently referring to the basic truth in each individual and this truth appeared to him as a number, the substance and relation that remain of an object when everything concrete and superficial is extractedor abstractedout of it. A number to him is a quality, a vibration, a quantum of wave-particles, in the modern scientific terminology, a norm. The human prototype can be conceived as something of the category of the Pythagorean number.
The conception of the Purusha at the origin of things, as the very source of things, so familiar to the Indian tradition, gives this high primacy to the human figure. We know also of the cosmic godhead cast in man's mouldalthough with multiple heads and feetvisioned and hymned by sages and seers. The gods themselves seem to possess a human frame. The Upanishads say that once upon a time the gods looked about for a proper body to dwell in, they were disappointed with all others; it is only when the human form was presented that they exclaimed, This is indeed a perfect form, a perfect form indeed. All that indicates the feeling and perception that there is something eternal and transcendent in the human body-frame.
05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, there are four positions possible with regard to the world and reality, depending on the relation between the observer and the observed, the subject and the object. They are:(I) subjective, (2) objective, (3) subjective objective and (4) objective subjective. The first two are extreme positions, one holding the subject as the sole or absolute reality, the object being a pure fabrication of its will and idea, an illusion, and the other considering the object as the true reality, the subject being an outcome, an epiphenomenon of the object itself, an illusion after all. The first leads to radical or as it is called monistic spirituality the type of which is Mayavada: the second is the highway of materialism, the various avataras of which are Marxism, Pragmatism, Behaviourism etc. In between lie the other two intermediate positions according to the stress or value given to either of the two extremes. The first of the intermediates is the position held generally by the idealists, by many schools of spirituality: it is a major Vedantic position. It says that the outside world, the object, is not an illusion, a mere fabrication of the mind or consciousness of the subject, but that it exists and is as real as the subject: it is dovetailed into the subject which is a kind of linchpin, holding together and even energising the object. The object can further be considered as an expression or embodiment of the subject. Both the subject and the object are made of the same stuff of consciousness the ultimate reality being consciousness. The subject is the consciousness turned on itself and the object is consciousness turned outside or going abroad. This is pre-eminently the Upanishadic position. In Europe, Kant holds a key position in this line: and on the whole, idealists from Plato to Bradley and Bosanquet can be said more or less to belong to this category. The second intermediate position views the subject as imbedded into the object, not the object into the subject as in the first one: the subject itself is part of the object something like its self-regarding or self-recording function. In Europe apart possibly from some of the early Greek thinkers (Anaxagoras or Democritus, for example), coming to more recent times, we can say that line runs fairly well-represented from Leibnitz to Bergson. In India the Sankhyas and the Vaisheshikas move towards and approach the position; the Tantriks make a still more near approach.
Once again, to repeat in other terms the distinction which may sometimes appear to carry no difference. First, the subjective objective in which the subject assumes the preponderant position, not denying or minimising the reality of the object. The external world, in this view, is a movement in and of the consciousness of a universal subject. It is subjective in the sense that it is essentially a function of the subject and does not exist apart from it or outside it; it is objective in the sense that it exists really and is not a figment or imaginative construction of any individual consciousness, although it exists in and through the individual consciousness in so far as that consciousness is universalised, is one with the universal consciousness (or the transcendental, the two can be taken together in the present connection). Instead of the Kantian transcendental idealism we can name it transcendental realism.
05.09 - The Changed Scientific Outlook, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is, of course, more than one line of scientific outlook at the present day. It is well known that continental scientists generally and Marxist scientists in particular belong to a different category from Jeans and Eddington. But the important point is this: a considerable body of scientists frankly hold the "idealist" view, and these come from the very front rank quascientists. Discussion arises when it is seriously put forward that Eddington and Jeans are not authorities in science equalling any other great names; as if it is contended that because a scientist holds the idealist view, ergo, he is a pseudo-scientist, a third-degree luminary, a back-bencher, a mediaevalist. The Marxists also declare, we may recall in this connection, that the bourgeois cannot be a true poet, in order to be a poet one must be a proletarian.
There is a scientific obscurantism, which is not less obscure because it is scientific, and one must guard against it with double care and watchfulness. It is the mentality of the no-changer whose motto seems to be: plus a change, plus a reste le mme.. Let me explain. The scientist who prefers still to be called a materialist must remember that the (material) ground under his feet has shifted considerably since the time he first propounded his materialistic position: he does not stand in the same place (or plane?) as he did even twenty years ago. The change has been basic and fundamentalfundamental, because the very definitions and postulates with which we once started have been called in question, thrown overboard or into the melting-pot.
05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The higher Gods, like those, for example, envisaged in the Veda, may be considered each as an emanation of one or other of these Divine Aspects. They are dwellers of Swar or the Overmind. Varuna seems to be an emanation of Mahavira, a son of Maheshwari: for he is pre-eminently the god of the pure and vast consciousness who releases us from the triple bonds and shows us the winding way into the embrace of the infinite Mother. His associate, Mitra, is the lord of love and harmony, evidently an emanation of Pradyumna (or Mahalakshmi). Other gods of the same category are Bhaga and Soma. The Balarama or Mahakali aspect is manifested in Aryaman: Rudra being another form of the same. And Mahasaraswati (or Aniruddha) must have given birth to and inspired the Ribhus, who are artisans of divinity. The Puranic trinityBrahma, Vishnu and Shivawith lndra as the fourth member forms a parallel system embodying a similar conception.
Another tradition gives the Four Supernals as (1) Light or Consciousness, (2) Truth or Knowledge, (3) Life and (4) Love. The tradition also says that the beings representing these four fundamental principles of creation were the first and earliest gods that emanated from the Supreme Divine, and that as they separated themselves from their source and from each other, each followed his own independent line of fulfilment, they lost their divinity and turned into their oppositesLight became obscurity, Consciousness unconsciousness or the inconscient, Truth became falsehood and Knowledge ignorance, Life became death and finally Love and Delight became suffering and hatred. These are the fallen angels, the Asuras that deny their divine essence and now rule the world. They have possessed mankind and are controlling earthly existence. They too have their emanations, forces and beings that are born out of them and serve them in their various degrees of power. Men talk and act inspired and impelled by these beings and when they do so, they lose their humanity and become worse than animals.
05.18 - Man to be Surpassed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Mr. Kahler does not define very clearly the nature and function of this commonalty: but it almost borders on what I may call human humanism, something in the manner of the other modern humanist Albert Schweitzer. Two types of humanism have been distinguished: man-centred humanism and God-centred humanism. Kahler's (and even Schweitzer's) humanism belongs, very much to the first category. He does not seem to believe in any transcendent Spirit or God apart from the universal totality of existence, the unitary life of all, somewhat akin to the Vie Unanime of Jules Romains.
The limitation of such a human ideal is for us evident. We demand a total surpassing of man, although that does not mean a rejection of man. Unless human life is built upon foundations quite other than what they are now, we say there can be no permanent or radical remedy to the ills it suffers from. Hence we are for utter transcendence; for, the highest height it is possible for the consciousness to reach and the being to dwell in, even the experience of Brahman or un-mitigated Absolute of the Mayavadin or the Zero, Shunyam of the Buddhist not excluded. Since it is there that the true foundations of creation lie hidden and it is from there that a new world has to be recreated, a new humanity reshaped. The very stuff of human nature has to be changed, not only what is considered as bad in it but what is valued as good also. For beyond good and evil is Nature Divine. Man has to find out this divine nature and dissolve his human nature into that, remould it, reshape it in that pattern. So long as human consciousness remains too human, it will be always branded with the bar sinister of all earthly things. Man has to grow into the immortal seated within mortality, into the light that shines inviolate on the other side of the darkness we live in. That immortality, that light one has to bring down here on earth and in ourselves, and out of it build a new earth and a new human self and life.
05.26 - The Soul in Anguish, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A range of mystics and philosophers or philosopher-mystics from Kierkegaard to Sartre have made much of the sentiment of "anguish". Naturally, it is not the usual feeling of grief or sorrow due to disappointment or frustration that they refer to, nor is it the "repentance" which is a cardinal virtue in the Christian spiritual discipline. Repentance or grief is for something amiss, for some wrong done, for some good not done. It has a definite cause that gives rise to it and determinate conditions that maintain and foster it: and therefore it has also an end, at least the possibility of an ending. It is not eternal and can be mastered and got over: it is of the category of the Sankhyan or Buddhistic dukhatrayabhighata for that matter even the lacrimae rerum(tears inherent in things) of Virgil1 are not eternal.
But the new Anguish spoken of is a strange phenomenon: it is causeless and it is eternal. It has sprung unbidden with no antecedent cause or condition: it is woven into the stuff of the being, part and parcel of the consciousness itself. Indeed it seems to be the veritable original sin, pertaining to the very nature. Kierkegaard makes of it an absolute necessity in the spiritual constituent and growth of the human soul something akin to, but deeper, because ineradicable, than the Socratic "divine discontent". Sartre puts it in more philosophical and rational terms, in a secular atmosphere as a kind of inevitable accompaniment to the sense of freedom and responsibility and loneliness that besets the individual being and consciousness at its inmost core, its deepest depth.
--
In his quest for Brahman, Bhrigu came in contact first of all with the material existence and so took Matter to be the ultimate Reality. He was asked to move on and at the next step he met Life and considered that as Brahman. He was asked to move farther on and at the third stage he found Mind which then appeared to him as the Reality. He had to proceed farther and enter and pass through other higher formulations till finally he entered the highest expanse (parame vyoman). Now applying the parable to the situation today and the modern quest we can say that Science like Bhrigu is at the first stepand, for some, stuck there contented like the Asura Virochana of another Upanishadic parable, although it has become fidgety and somewhat uncertain in recent times: some others the "vitalist" scientists and philosophersare in the second stage. And yet there is a third category, the idealist philosophers generally, who are emerging from the second into the third.
It seems that the School of Anguish is on the borderl and between the second and the third stage, that is to say, the vital rising into the mental or the mental still carrying an impress of the vital consciousness. It is the emergence of the Purusha consciousness, the individual being in its heart of hearts, in its pure status: for it is that that truly evolves, progresses from level to level, deploying and marshalling according to its stress and scheme the play of its outward nature. Now the Purusha consciousness, as separate from the outward nature, has certain marked characteristics which have been fairly observed and comprehended by the exponents of the school we are dealing with. Sartre, for example, characterises this beingtre en soi, as distinguished from tre pour soi which is something like dynamic purusha or purusha identified or associated with prakrtias composed of the sense of absolute freedom, of full responsibility, of unhindered choice and initiation. Indeed, Purusha is freedom, for in its own status it means liberation from all obligations to Prakriti. But such freedom brings in its train, not necessarily always but under certain conditions, a terrible sense of being all alone, of infinite loneliness. One is oneself, naked and face to face with one's singleness and unbreakable, unsharable individual unity. The others come as a product or corollary to this original sui generisentity. Along with the sense of freedom and choice or responsibility and loneness, there is added and gets ingrained into it the sense of fear and anxiety the anguish (Angst). The burden that freedom and loneliness brings seems to be too great. The Purusha that has risen completely into the mental zone becomes wholly a witness, as the Sankhyans discovered, and all the movements of his nature appear outside, as if foreign: an absolute calm and unperturbed tranquillity or indifference is his character. But it is not so with regard to the being that has still one foot imbedded in the lower region of the vital consciousness; for that indeed is the proper region of anguish, of fear and apprehension, and it is there that the soul becoming conscious of itself and separate from others feels lone, lonely, companionless, without support, as it were. The mentalised vital Purusha suffers from this peculiar night of the soul. Sartre's outlook is shot through with very many experiences of this intermediary zone of consciousness.
07.40 - Service Human and Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Just an illustration of the quality of the spirit that animates humanitarianism. A charitable man will give generously for a thing that is known, recognised, appreciated; he will be liberal if he finds his name attached to the work, announced and pronounced, if there is fame for him in it. But ask him a dole for something genuine, comparatively modest or out of the way, something that is truly spiritual and divine, you will find his purse-strings tightened, his heart closed up. A gift that bears no value to the giver does not tempt the ordinary humanitarian. There is indeed another different category of givers, of the opposite kind, who want precisely to remain anonymous: they would be displeased if their names were announced. But the motive here too is not very different; in fact it is the same motive acting rebours, backward as it were. Here there is an additional element of self-glorification: one gives and people do not know who he is; it is something all the more to be proud of.
You must look into yourself, question yourself before you do a thing and not do it simply because it is the thing normally done and it is how things are normally done. You can do good to others, if you know what is that good and if you possess that in yourself. If you wish to help others, you must be on a higher level than that of theirs. If you are one with the others, level with them in nature and consciousness, what can you do but share in their ignorance and blind movements and perpetuate them? So it happens really that the first thing to do is to serve yourself.
07.42 - The Nature and Destiny of Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The art of this decadent epoch is what I call mushroom art. You know how mushrooms grow? They grow anywhere and do not seem to form part, for example, of what you cultivate or where you cultivate. Just think of it! There is a spot on the wall which becomes humid and you see it soon covered with this growth. You have a tree which does not get the sunlight, you will find its roots covered with mushrooms. It is a kind of spontaneous growth which is not linked to the spot where it grows. It is not a limb of its environment, but something extraneous added to it. Instead of mushrooms I could have spoken of parasites: they belong to the same category. You have seen parasite plants? They grow upon trees, they fix themselves there. They have not their own life and organs, they do not draw their food directly from earth, as all normal plants do; they live upon the life of another, make use of the labour of another. There are also animal parasites that live upon another animal, growing and profiting by its labour. Parasites or mushrooms have no raison d'lre to be where they are-they are invaders, interpolators, anomalies.
In ancient times, in the great ages, in Greece, for example or even during the Italian Renaissance, particularly, however, in Greece and in Egypt, they erected buildings, constructed monuments for the sake of public utility. Their buildings were meant for the most part to be temples, sanctuaries to lodge their gods and deities. What they had in view was something total, whole and entire, beautiful and complete in itself. That was the purpose of architecture embodying the harmony of sweeping and majestic lines: sculpture was a part of architecture supplying details of expression and even painting came up to complete the expression: but the whole held together in a coordinated unity which was the monument itself. The sculpture was for the monument, the painting was for the monument; it was not that each was separate from the other and existed for itself and one did not know why it was there. In India, when a temple was being built, for example, what was aimed at was a total creation, all the parts combined to give effect to one end, to make a beautiful vesture for God, the one object of their adoration. All the great epochs of art were of this kind. But in modern times, in the latter part of the last century, Art' became a matter of business. A painting was done in order to be sold. You do your paintings, put each one in a frame and place them side by side or group them, that is, lump them together without much reason. The same with regard to sculpture. You make a statue and set it up anywhere without any connection whatsoever with the surroundings. It is always something foreign, extraneous in its setting, like a mushroom or a parasite. The thing in itself may not be quite ugly, but it is out of place, it is not part of an organic whole. We exhibit art today. Indeed, it is exhibitionism, it is the showing off of cleverness, talent, skill, virtuosity. A piece of architecture does not incarnate a living force as it used to do once upon a time. It is no longer the expression of an aspiration, of something that uplifts the spirit nor the expression of the magnificence of the Divine whose dwelling it is meant to be. You build houses here and there pell-mell or somehow juxtaposed without any coordinating idea governing them, without any relation to the environment where they are situated. When you enter a house, it is the same thing. A bit of painting here, a bit of sculpture there, some objects of art in one corner, a few others in another. Yes, it is an exhibition, a museum, a kaleidoscopic collection. It gives a shock to the truly sensitive artistic taste.
07.43 - Music Its Origin and Nature, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a graded scale in the source of music. A whole category of music is there that comes from the higher vital, for example: it is very catching, perhaps even a little vulgar, something that twines round your nerves, as it were, and twists them. It catches you somewhere about your loinsnavel centre and charms you in its way. As there is a vital music there is also what can be called psychic music coming from quite a different source; there is further a music which has spiritual origin. In its own region this higher music is very magnificent; it seizes you deeply and carries you away somewhere else. But if you were to express it perfectlyexecute ityou would have to pass this music too through the vital. Your music coming from high may nevertheless fall absolutely flat in the execution, if you do not have that intensity of vital vibration which alone can give it its power and splendour. I knew people who had very high inspiration, but their music turned to be quite commonplace, because their vital did not move. Their spiritual practice put their vital almost completely to sleep; yes, it was literally asleep and did not work at all. Their music thus came straight into the physical. If you could get behind and catch the source, you would see that there was really something marvellous even there, although externally it was not forceful or effective. What came out was a poor little melody, very thin, having nothing of the power of harmony which is there when one can bring into play the vital energy. If one could put all this power of vibration that belongs to that vital into the music of higher origin we would have the music of a genius. Indeed, for music and for all artistic creation, in fact, for literature, for poetry, for painting, etc. an intermediary is needed. Whatever one does in these domains depends doubtless for its intrinsic value upon the source of the inspiration, upon the plane or the height where one stands. But the value of the execution depends upon the strength of the vital that expresses the inspiration. For a complete genius both are necessary. The combination is rare, generally it is the one or the other, more often it is the vital that predominates and overshadows.
When the vital only is there, you have the music of caf concert and cinema. It is extraordinarily clever and at the same time extraordinarily commonplace, even vulgar. Since, however, it is so clever, it catches hold of your brain, haunts your memory, rings in (or wrings) your nerves; it becomes so difficult to get rid of its influence, precisely because it is done so well, so cleverly. It is made vitally with vital vibrations, but what is behind is not, to say the least, wholesome. Now imagine the same vital power of expression joined to the inspiration coming from above, say, the highest possible inspiration when the entire heaven seems to open out, then it is music indeed; Some things in Csar Franck, some in Beethoven, some in Bach, some in some others possess this sovereignty. But after all it is only a moment, it comes for a moment and does not abide. There is not a single artist whose whole work is executed at such a pitch. The inspiration comes like a flash of lightning, most often it lasts just long enough to be grasped and held in a few snatches.
08.14 - Poetry and Poetic Inspiration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
If you mean by inspiration that the poet does not think when he writes a poem, that is to say, he has gone beyond all thought, has made his mind silent, silent and immobile, has opened himself to inner or higher regions and writes almost automatically, well, such a thing happens perhaps once a thousand years. It is not a common phenomenon. A Yogi has the power to do that. What you normally mean, however, by an inspired poet is something quite different. People who have some kind of genius, who have an opening into other and higher regions are called "inspired" ; persons who have made some discovery are also included in that category. Each time you are in relation with a thing belonging to a domain superior to the normal human consciousness, you are inspired. And when you are not totally bound to the very ordinary level you do receive "inspirations" from above. It is the same in the case of a poet. The source of his creation is elsewhere up above the ordinary mind; for that he need not possess an empty vacant mind.
***
08.20 - Are Not The Ascetic Means Helpful At Times?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is something which puts you in contact with a consciousness higher than that you have ordinarily. You live in a certain state and you do not even know what it is like. That is the ordinary consciousness. Suddenly you become conscious within you of something very different and much superior that is a spiritual experience, whatever it may be. You may formulate it in a mental idea or you might not, you may explain it or you may not, it may last or it may not, it may be quite momentary. But if there is this difference in the essential quality of the consciousness, signifying something coming from above, from a greater height, something pure and true, purer and truer than anything you normally experience, that I call spiritual experience, although there are a thousand things that belong to that category.
***
10.02 - Beyond Vedanta, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
First, then, the total and absolute dissolution of this creation of ignorance, the Creation which is ignorance, and attaining a status of nothingness, absolute annihilation, then in that blank void emerges the Residue, the One True Realitya silent, infinite eternal immobility, a pure Existence. In the beginning the Non-Existence (Asat), then there arises the Pure Existence (Sat). That pure Existence is gradually found to possess or be Delight also. As Being is not the being in creation even so the Consciousness is not the normal or mental consciousness, and Delight too is not the joy of life; they are all of quite another quality and category.
In other words Purusha is given the exclusive reality, while Prakriti is negated, being identified with unconsciousness and ignorance, is relegated to a status of relative reality. Prakriti is considered as my, the illusory consciousness, the ignorance.
10.05 - Mind and the Mental World, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Furthermore, one may try to recognise thoughts that are of a different category, that do not seem to belong to the accustomed level of consciousness but carry a vibration that is of elsewhere, in other words, thought-movements that filter through and come down from higher ranges of consciousness. It means an elevation of consciousness, your being rises into higher realities.
The true individual, the being who is capable of living and creating independently, is formed of a stuff that lies in these higher regions.
1.013 - Defence Mechanisms of the Mind, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The term 'indriya nigrah' means sense-control; 'atma nigrah' means self-control. Both these terms are often thought of as having a synonymous meaning and are used as such, but the term 'self' has a larger connotation than 'sense', as we already know. So the term 'self-control' should mean something much more than what is indicated by the term 'sense-control', because the senses are only a few of the functions of the self and not all the functions, while self-control implies a restriction imposed upon every function of the self, meaning thereby the lower self, which has to be regulated by the principle of the higher self. The self that has to be controlled is any self which is lower than the Universal Self. The degrees of self gradually go on increasing in their comprehensiveness as we rise higher and higher, so that it becomes necessary that at every step the immediately succeeding stage, which is more comprehensive, acts as the governing principle of the category of self just below. An analogy would be the syllabi or curricula of education we do not suddenly jump into the topmost level of studies. There is always a governing principle exercised by systems of education, wherein the immediately succeeding stage determines the needs of the immediately preceding condition. The self, as far as we are concerned at the present moment, can be regarded as that principle of individuality which comprehends all that we regard as 'we', or connected with us.
The control of the self is, therefore, the refining of the individual personality in its manifold aspects, together with anything that may appear to belong to it, including taking into consideration all of its external relationships. Our individual existence is not limited to the physical body. It also includes its physical relationships - such as the family, for example. The members of a family are not visibly or physically attached to any individual in the family, not even to the head of the family, but there is an attachment psychologically; and the self is, therefore, to take note of that aspect of its individual existence. Both the internal structure and the external relationship are to be taken into consideration, because they are inseparable. We cannot say which precedes and which succeeds, or which has to come first and which later. They have to be taken into consideration simultaneously, almost.
10.17 - Miracles: Their True Significance, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A miracle is nothing but the intervention of a force from another plane of consciousness. It must be recognised at the very outset that the physical plane of existence is not the only reality, there are many other planes superimposed' one upon another, each having its own special consciousness and power, its own laws of being and action. Obviously we all know apart from the material or physical being there is the vital being, the life-force and there is the mental being, the mind-force. And there are many other levels like these. A miracle happens, that is to say, a material formation behaves in an abnormal way because a force has come down from the vital region and has influenced or taken control of the material object. So the material object instead of obeying the material law is obliged to obey a vital law which is of a much greater potency. Yogis who do miracles possess this vital power, they have acquired it through a regular discipline and training. Spirit-calling, table-turning, even curing diseases and ailments in a moment and many other activities of the kind are manifestations of very elementary energies of life. From the occult point of view these are very crude and rudimentary examples of what a different kind of force can achieve on a different plane. Even the vital plane possesses deeper and higher energies whose action on the material plane is of deeper and higher category. A deeper or higher vital power can change radically your character and long-standing habits, help to mould them into a different, nobler and more beautiful pattern. The mind too is capable of performing miracles, a strong mental energy can dictate its terms to life and even to the body. Only the miracles here are not of a dazzling kind that astound or confound you. They have a subtler composition, yet they belong to the same category. In the mind itself miracles happen also when a higher light, a superior consciousness intuition, inspiration, revelationdescends into the normal mental working and creates there a thing that is abnormal in beauty and truth and reality. Thus for example, a matter of fact mind is seen turned into a fine poet or a workaday hand is transmuted into a consummate artist.
A miracle can be said to be doubly a miracle; first of all, because it means an intervention from another plane, a superior level of being, and secondly because the process or the action of the intervention is not deployed or staged out but is occult and telescoped, the result being almost simultaneous with the pressure of the moving force. .
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
The Sumerian category of Sky (An), for example, is a domain of phenomena with similar implications
for behavioral output, or for affect; the same can be said for the category of Earth (Ki), and all other mythic
categories. The fact that the domain of the Sky has implications for action has motivational
--- Overview of noun category
The noun category has 2 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
1. (17) class, category, family ::: (a collection of things sharing a common attribute; "there are two classes of detergents")
2. (3) category ::: (a general concept that marks divisions or coordinations in a conceptual scheme)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun category
2 senses of category
Sense 1
class, category, family
=> collection, aggregation, accumulation, assemblage
=> group, grouping
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
category
=> concept, conception, construct
=> idea, thought
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun category
2 senses of category
Sense 1
class, category, family
=> grammatical category, syntactic category
=> substitution class, paradigm
=> brass family
=> violin family
=> woodwind family
=> stamp
=> sex
=> declension
=> conjugation
=> denomination
=> histocompatibility complex
Sense 2
category
=> kind, sort, form, variety
=> pigeonhole
=> rubric
=> way
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun category
2 senses of category
Sense 1
class, category, family
=> collection, aggregation, accumulation, assemblage
Sense 2
category
=> concept, conception, construct
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun category
2 senses of category
Sense 1
class, category, family
-> collection, aggregation, accumulation, assemblage
=> procession
=> pharmacopoeia
=> string
=> wardrobe
=> wardrobe
=> population, universe
=> armamentarium
=> art collection
=> backlog
=> battery
=> block
=> book, rule book
=> book
=> bottle collection
=> bunch, lot, caboodle
=> coin collection
=> collage
=> content
=> ensemble, tout ensemble
=> corpus
=> crop
=> tenantry
=> findings
=> flagging
=> flinders
=> pack
=> hand, deal
=> long suit
=> herbarium
=> stamp collection
=> statuary
=> sum, summation, sum total
=> agglomeration
=> gimmickry
=> nuclear club
=> pile, heap, mound, agglomerate, cumulation, cumulus
=> mass
=> combination
=> congregation
=> hit parade
=> Judaica
=> kludge
=> library, program library, subroutine library
=> library
=> mythology
HAS INSTANCE=> Nag Hammadi, Nag Hammadi Library
=> biota, biology
=> fauna, zoology
=> petting zoo
=> set
=> Victoriana
=> class, category, family
=> job lot
=> package, bundle, packet, parcel
=> defense, defence, defense team, defense lawyers
=> prosecution
=> planting
=> signage
=> generally accepted accounting principles, GAAP
=> pantheon
=> Free World
=> Third World
=> Europe
=> Asia
=> North America
=> Central America
=> South America
=> Oort cloud
=> galaxy
=> galaxy, extragalactic nebula
=> fleet
=> fleet
=> fleet
=> repertoire, repertory
=> repertory, repertoire
=> assortment, mixture, mixed bag, miscellany, miscellanea, variety, salmagundi, smorgasbord, potpourri, motley
=> batch, clutch
=> batch
=> rogue's gallery
=> exhibition, exposition, expo
=> convoy
=> traffic
=> aviation, air power
=> vegetation, flora, botany
=> law, jurisprudence
=> menagerie
=> data, information
=> ana
=> mail, post
=> treasure
=> treasure trove
=> trinketry
=> troponymy, troponomy
=> smithereens
HAS INSTANCE=> Wise Men, Magi
Sense 2
category
-> concept, conception, construct
=> conceptualization, conceptualisation, conceptuality
=> notion
=> category
=> rule, regulation
=> property, attribute, dimension
=> abstraction, abstract
=> quantity
=> part, section, division
=> whole
=> law, natural law
=> law, law of nature
=> lexicalized concept
=> hypothesis, possibility, theory
=> fact
=> rule, linguistic rule
--- Grep of noun category
category
grammatical category
syntactic category
taxonomic category
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