I maintain “A personal book of quotes”. What it is not, I will tell you first. It is not a collection of quotable quotes from some compilation. The statements are my personal collections found during my reading newspaper and magazine articles, books, interviews and posts of other bloggers whom I admire. Even discounting for the fact I am saying it, they are quite pithy, particularly in the context I found them. I refer to the set quite frequently and that helps me recall the context and the meaning I had attributed to any statement when I read it first. It also helps me that I do not quote out of the original context.
I have collected about 400 quotes and have made a few blog posts out of a significant number of them over time. But only recently I have, after heeding the advice of some of my well-wishers, taken to expressing how these sentences made sense to me. In this post, I am going to give only nine statements that I came across recently and which resonated deeply with me. Here I go:
• ‘What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?’ – Sherwood Roland
The above is akin to pronouncing judgment on people who are fence-sitters on the issue of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). The science of climate change is highly convincing except to those who do not want to be convinced, like the hydrocarbon lobby. The honest climate skeptics are confused. They are waiting for AGW to manifest itself, ignoring the accumulating evidence.
• ‘…dissent is the native activity of the scientist’ – Jacob Bronowski
This is an unalloyed statement of the mandate for the scientist - never to be free of doubt. Any doubt can be cleared only after it has engendered more doubts. Scientists will never be out of work. It is always a matter of something better than what came before and at the same time never being the truth.
• ‘If you love nature, stay away from it’ –Edward Glaeser
I read it in a book that staunchly advocates dense living, going vertical, reducing transport demand and such; I endorse these ideas. The statement is a strong negation of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pondish sentiments, which I think this is regressive. Living with nature is NOT living “Green”. You cannot live “Green” in a gated community in the middle of nowhere, no matter the lush green lawns. It is rather a danger signal, on matters like resource consumption, carbon emissions, bio-diversity.
• ‘The noble art of losing face will one day save the human race’ – Hans Blix
Obviously George Bush, Barack Obama, Manmohan Singh, L K Advani, Anna Hazare, Pope Benedict XVI, Wall Street bankers, and a host of others have not learned the subtle art losing face in a noble manner – apologize without delay and sincerely. If we do not educate them and educate them quick and well, let us blame ourselves for the human race going extinct.
• ‘Science is a series of judgments, revised without ceasing’ – Pierre Emile Duclaux
How many times, how many people are going to keep saying this? We do not know. Whether the question is scientific or not, the answer truly is. Indeed, it IS science, not just scientific. But, going beyond, we must ask how many people, some even among scientists, would still claim that science has proved something. Science only pronounces judgments. Neither Newton nor Einstein, the template scientists, proved anything. Will the Second Coming of Jesus be the ultimate scientist? Hope in vain.
• ‘Engineering helps society unlock the gifts of science’ – Sir ‘Ted’ Happold
I am an engineer and the above statement has made me a lowly lock picker, or at least an abetter of the crime! But, I am proud of it. There was a time when engineering was antipodal to science. It was empiricism, through and through. It was mainly when industrial revolution happened that science and engineering started coming closer and now they are almost inseparable. Empiricism still has a place in engineering, but it has lost its throne.
• ‘No man can be grateful at the cost of his honor, and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty’ – Sukhadeo Thorat
I truly loved this statement. For one, it resonates with one of my favourite statements: If you’d trade freedom for safety, you deserve neither. Here it is a triad – gratefulness, honor and liberty, but as two dyads. What the statement beseeches one is to give up gratefulness if the individual’s honor or the nation’s liberty is at stake. Don’t grovel in the name of gratefulness, be you an individual or a nation.
• ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right’ – Steve Jobs
True, but you may not know that you had been right at least once, after all! Perhaps Jobs wanted the message to be starker, to be black like the turtleneck that was his trademark – live your life like there is no tomorrow. It is a motivational statement, but I feel that it does not come through that way. Yet, it will motivate if only one thought about it a second time (I am a tube light, after all).
• ‘Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers. It’s a sort of crime against children’ – Richard Dawkins
I have often wondered why Dawkins was specific about children being the victims. While he admits to the power of religion, he refuses to acknowledge that religionists themselves are victims. It is the equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome. Only yesterday I heard Dawkins saying in an interview that he has sympathy for the religionists who are not obviously threatening, like the fundamentalists typically are. This is about how close as he has come to acknowledging the victimhood of religionists.
If you told me I had come out 5-4 on the side of sense in the above, I would be thrilled!
Raghuram Ekambaram
I have collected about 400 quotes and have made a few blog posts out of a significant number of them over time. But only recently I have, after heeding the advice of some of my well-wishers, taken to expressing how these sentences made sense to me. In this post, I am going to give only nine statements that I came across recently and which resonated deeply with me. Here I go:
• ‘What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?’ – Sherwood Roland
The above is akin to pronouncing judgment on people who are fence-sitters on the issue of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). The science of climate change is highly convincing except to those who do not want to be convinced, like the hydrocarbon lobby. The honest climate skeptics are confused. They are waiting for AGW to manifest itself, ignoring the accumulating evidence.
• ‘…dissent is the native activity of the scientist’ – Jacob Bronowski
This is an unalloyed statement of the mandate for the scientist - never to be free of doubt. Any doubt can be cleared only after it has engendered more doubts. Scientists will never be out of work. It is always a matter of something better than what came before and at the same time never being the truth.
• ‘If you love nature, stay away from it’ –Edward Glaeser
I read it in a book that staunchly advocates dense living, going vertical, reducing transport demand and such; I endorse these ideas. The statement is a strong negation of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pondish sentiments, which I think this is regressive. Living with nature is NOT living “Green”. You cannot live “Green” in a gated community in the middle of nowhere, no matter the lush green lawns. It is rather a danger signal, on matters like resource consumption, carbon emissions, bio-diversity.
• ‘The noble art of losing face will one day save the human race’ – Hans Blix
Obviously George Bush, Barack Obama, Manmohan Singh, L K Advani, Anna Hazare, Pope Benedict XVI, Wall Street bankers, and a host of others have not learned the subtle art losing face in a noble manner – apologize without delay and sincerely. If we do not educate them and educate them quick and well, let us blame ourselves for the human race going extinct.
• ‘Science is a series of judgments, revised without ceasing’ – Pierre Emile Duclaux
How many times, how many people are going to keep saying this? We do not know. Whether the question is scientific or not, the answer truly is. Indeed, it IS science, not just scientific. But, going beyond, we must ask how many people, some even among scientists, would still claim that science has proved something. Science only pronounces judgments. Neither Newton nor Einstein, the template scientists, proved anything. Will the Second Coming of Jesus be the ultimate scientist? Hope in vain.
• ‘Engineering helps society unlock the gifts of science’ – Sir ‘Ted’ Happold
I am an engineer and the above statement has made me a lowly lock picker, or at least an abetter of the crime! But, I am proud of it. There was a time when engineering was antipodal to science. It was empiricism, through and through. It was mainly when industrial revolution happened that science and engineering started coming closer and now they are almost inseparable. Empiricism still has a place in engineering, but it has lost its throne.
• ‘No man can be grateful at the cost of his honor, and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty’ – Sukhadeo Thorat
I truly loved this statement. For one, it resonates with one of my favourite statements: If you’d trade freedom for safety, you deserve neither. Here it is a triad – gratefulness, honor and liberty, but as two dyads. What the statement beseeches one is to give up gratefulness if the individual’s honor or the nation’s liberty is at stake. Don’t grovel in the name of gratefulness, be you an individual or a nation.
• ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right’ – Steve Jobs
True, but you may not know that you had been right at least once, after all! Perhaps Jobs wanted the message to be starker, to be black like the turtleneck that was his trademark – live your life like there is no tomorrow. It is a motivational statement, but I feel that it does not come through that way. Yet, it will motivate if only one thought about it a second time (I am a tube light, after all).
• ‘Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers. It’s a sort of crime against children’ – Richard Dawkins
I have often wondered why Dawkins was specific about children being the victims. While he admits to the power of religion, he refuses to acknowledge that religionists themselves are victims. It is the equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome. Only yesterday I heard Dawkins saying in an interview that he has sympathy for the religionists who are not obviously threatening, like the fundamentalists typically are. This is about how close as he has come to acknowledging the victimhood of religionists.
If you told me I had come out 5-4 on the side of sense in the above, I would be thrilled!
Raghuram Ekambaram
8 comments:
when have you ever spoken
any thing without sense..even when you are angry,you mix sense with some spicy words but never non sense..
liked the way you look at things..
happy Diwali..
Thank you so much DS sir .. so I passed!
I am sure you are in the midst of grand Deepavali celebrations! Happy celebrating!
RE
Raghuram, when you claim to be biased in your post, you actually seem to be the most objective. Here, when you claim to present nonsense (?) there's too much sense.
The Dawkins quote made reminds me of my own problem with religion. It corrupts the child's mind. It brainwashes the mind at a tender age. Religion is given to the child; the child has no choice in the matter. This is the most terrifying aspect about religions.
Happy Diwali Raghu, you always make sense
Mostly your thoughts are very intense and deep, at times it does not make sense to me because of my own limitations of understanding things indepth
Matheikal, Dawkins' position on religion with respect to child is almost identical to what Bertrand Russel had said, in the 1920s. My problem with this position is religion has such a strong impact on a human mind, I have always tended to see religionists, at whatever age, as victims. I was one too, till I was about 27 or 28 years old. And, my mind got freed slowly, very slowly. I may rant way to severely against religionists, but I never condemn them to eternal hell! I get angry with them but do not curse them. My wife will tell you about this; and before that, my mother (I did not discuss much on religion with my father). I am frustrated with their persistence in their belief, but do not want to take that right away from them. They have to voluntarily shed them under the continuous onslaught I subject them to (Tara could tell you about this).
Anyways, I just opened up and it just poured out above! Thanks for appreciating.
I believe you would be interested in my next post, coming soon to the computer before you!
RE
Balu,
Happy Deepavali to you too!
I do not know whether my thoughts are deep, but I do know I take them to task more than anyone else does (amongst those who have the opportunity). That is one of the reasons, I readily accept the logical mistakes in my thought process (Aditi Ray hears a number of mea culpa from me!).
Thanks.
RE
Enjoyed the (non)sense, Raghu...they made a lot of sense to me.:).I particularly liked ‘If you love nature, stay away from it’..staying close to nature involves taking more of resources from nature, and on per capita terms it can be criminal.
And of course the quote about 'religion'...:). So you think religionists are Stockholm Syndrome victims? hahahaha. Following 'a' religion is of course deeply influenced (indoctrinated?) by family since childhood. But as one grows older, for many like me, a feeling that there is indeed a force beyond comprehension of intellect and reasoning becomes a belief, which is way beyond the mere ritualistic way of being religious.:)
Aditi, thanks for giving me pass marks on this :))).
I hate all these advertisements for gated communities with so much "Green" that are so non-"Green".
No one disallows a feeling of awe at the unknown; indeed scientists are the ones who most frequently let their jaws drop, but taking efforts to close them. It is OK to allow oneself to admit to be taken in by the unknown. But, this feeling must not be made fungible forcefully. This is what I think religion does, exclsuively. Each must be free to express that sense of awe in her own way.
RE
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