So here we are with the first round up of quotes for 2020. And it’s an action-packed issue!
Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease; or was it made to preserve all her children?
[Gerrard Winstanley; 1649]
As you close your eyes and inhale frankincense oil, you see yourself walking in a pine and eucalyptus forest, your steps taking you to a sun-bathed clearing. Here, a steamy spring welcomes you in its warm and surprisingly citrus-scented water. While you thought you couldn’t be more relaxed, a misty incense smoke spreads around you, balancing and settling your mind.
[Cosmetics company Lush]
People take way more pictures of giraffes than they do of boring rocks or bushes. As a result, AIs seem to have leaned that giraffes are everywhere. If they’re not sure what’s in a picture – and they do get confused a lot – they’ll often guess “giraffe”.
[Janelle Shane; New Scientist; 21 December 2019]
Someone once trained a neural net to place bets on horseraces. Its winning strategy? To place zero bets.
[Janelle Shane; New Scientist; 21 December 2019]
Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.
[Susan Sontag]
Every age has its own Fascism, and we see the warning signs wherever the concentration of power denies citizens the possibility and the means of expressing and acting on their own will. There are many ways of reaching this point, not just through the terror of police intimidation, but by denying and distorting information, by undermining systems of justice, by paralysing the education system, and by spreading in a myriad subtle ways nostalgia for a world where order reigned, and where the security of the privileged few depended on the forced labour and the forced silence of the many.
[Primo Levi, 1974]
If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.
[Shunryu Suzuki]
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly … is a movie about cowboys – that is to say, misogynistic, murdering, rootin’-tootin’ gunmen who meander about 19th-century American Wild West in search of a credit sequence.
[Feedback; New Scientist; 04 January 2020]
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbours, and let each new year find you a better man.
[Benjamin Franklin, 1755]
How do we preserve Britain as a tolerant place when we don’t have Europe to blame for our problems any more? … How [do] we keep the flexibility of an unwritten constitution, but maintain certainty in human rights and control executive power?
[Gina Miller; Guardian; 11 January 2020]
Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock.
[John Barrymore (1882-1942)]
Everyone has ancestors and it is only a question of going back far enough to find a good one.
[Howard Kenneth Nixon (1927-2009)]
The fundamental defect with fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
[Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)]
Foure things make us happy here
Health is the first good lent to men;
A gentle disposition then:
Next, to be rich by no by-wayes;
Lastly, with friends t’enjoy our dayes.
[Robert Herrick (1591–1674)]
Get naked, drink mead and party like a Pagan because a Christmas spent queuing at Argos is just bollocks.
Only at Christmas?