The best writing is an essential truth wrapped in a beautiful lie

 --- Julian Barnes quoted by Edmund de Waal on "By Design" podcast of the the Sir John Soane's Museum in conversation with Will Gompertz, at 

The best writing is an essential truth wrapped in a beautiful lie

There seem to be many variations of this expression, including

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth,” Picasso, quoted in BooksAtWork

“The best lie is wrapped around a core of truth,” Michael Scott, The Magician, quoted in Goodreads

“fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth,” Albert Camus quoted by Paul Marks

All that is gold does not glitter, | Not all those who wander are lost

 --- J.R.R. Tolkein, The Fellowship of the Ring

Excerpt from goodreads:

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

(This kind of sentiment makes me rebellious. Sure, not all those who wander are lost -- but many of us are lost. Most of the crownless die crownless.)

And the end of all our exploring | Will be to arrive where we started | And know the place for the first time.

--- T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding (No. 4 of the "Four Quartets")

V

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from. . . .

. . .

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this

     Calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

. . . 

Quick now, here, now, always—

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

his job was never to be the leader, it was to inspire others to lead

--- @SpacemanSR, in the YouTube essay Andor Is A Star Wars Masterpiece From 1978, time code 3:09

Cassian may seem one note to the song of others, but his job was never to be the leader. It was to inspire others to lead. And that complexity and that choice enhanced his own character's shell as an osmosis of story. One that again is an anchor for the development of others. And through their progressions the common denominator is still Cassian Andor.

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it

 --- Richard Feynman, quoted on the internet passim, but I haven't been able to find a source. There are also some alternative wordings to "it may give some practical results," like "it has consequences" and "sometimes something useful comes out"

a seething debating society in which the debate never stops, in which people never give up

 --- George Schultz, decribing the Washington foreign-policy establishment, quoted by Richard Sokolsky & Gordon Adams in Don’t Let the DC ‘Blob’ Guide Trump’s Foreign Policy, Nov 2016, 

Excerpt

Nearly thirty years ago, in testimony before Congress, then secretary of state George Shultz offered a rare window into the inner workings of the Washington foreign-policy establishment. He told members of Congress, “Nothing ever gets settled in this town. It’s not like running a company or even a university. It’s a seething debating society in which the debate never stops, in which people never give up, including me, and that’s the atmosphere in which you administer.”

President Obama called the foreign-policy establishment “the Blob.” He was critical of the playbook it wanted to use, which invariably advocated the use of U.S. military force to effect regime change, interfere in other countries’ civil wars, and promote democracy and human rights, as well as a hyperactive and muscular approach to dealing with the world’s problems. Obama had a mixed record in taming the Blob; he succumbed to its preferences in Libya, but has kept it largely at bay in Syria. 

mirrors ought to be merely glanced at, not stared at

--- Mamoru Oshii, script of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, around time code 1:24:55.

A conversation between the Major, acting through a doll, and Batou, as they attack the control center of the Locus Solus ship.

The Major: There are few who can hold up a mirror and not become evil. A mirror does not expose evil. Rather, it creates it. 

Batou: This ain't the time to become philosophical. I'm running short on ammo here. 

The Major: In short, mirrors ought to be merely glanced at, not stared at.

 

Mirrors are associated with the occult. From occult-world.com:

• In lore, mirrors are believed to reflect the soul and must be guarded against lest the soul be lost.
• The Aztecs used mirrorlike surfaces to keep witches away.
• Medieval and renaissance village wizards frequently employed mirrors to detect thieves.

the uncertainty that perhaps something that doesn't appear to be alive, actually is

--- Mamoru Oshii, script of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, around time code 1:06. 

The speaker is a manikin looking like detective Togusa, animated by the hacker Kim, during Togusa's hallucination.

This is seriously disturbing isn't it? Trust me, I know how you feel. It's the uncertainty that something that appears to be alive, actually isn't. On the other hand, it might be the uncertainty that perhaps something that doesn't appear to be alive, actually is. 

 

issues are real but politics are just an invented way to solve those issues

 --- Trevor Noah, in What Did Trevor Learn from The Daily Show?  at time code 1:24 on The Daily Show

Great cities are like any other living things, being born and maturing and wearying and dying in their turn

 --- N.K. Jemisin in The City We Became (2020)

Excerpt

This is the lesson: Great cities are like any other living things, being born and maturing and wearying and dying in their turn.

Duh, right? Everyone who's visited a real city feels that, one way or another. All those rural people who hate cities are afraid of something legit; cities really are different. They make a weight on the world, a tear in the fabric of reality, like ... like black holes, maybe. Yeah. (I go to museums sometimes. They're cool inside, and Neil deGrasse Tyson is hot.) As more and more people come in and deposit their strangeness and leave and get replaced by others, the tear widens. Eventually it gets so deep that it forms a pocket, connected only by the thinnest thread of ... something to ... something. Whatever cities are made of.

But the separation starts a process, and in that pocket the many parts of the city begin to multiply and differentiate. Its sewers extend into places where there is no need for water. Its slums grow teeth; its art centers, claws. Ordinary things within it, traffic and construction and stuff like that, start to have a rhythm like a heartbeat, if you record their sounds and play them back fast. The city ... quickens.

Not all cities make it this far. There used to be a couple of great cities on this continent, but that was before Columbus fucked the Indians' shit up, so we had to start over. New Orleans failed, like Paulo said, but it survived, and that's something. It can try again. Mexico City's well on its way. But New York is the first American city to reach this point.

The gestation can take twenty years or two hundred or two thousand, but eventually the time will come. The cord is cut and the city becomes a thing of its own, able to stand on wobbly legs and do ... well, whatever the fuck a living, thinking entity shaped like a big-ass city wants to do.

And just as in any other part of nature, there are things lying in wait for this moment, hoping to chase down the sweet new life and swallow its guts while it screams.

That's why Paulo's here to teach me. That's why I can clear the city's breathing and stretch and massage its asphalt limbs. I'm the midwife, see.

anxious meat puppets tranquillised by culturally constructed trivialities

--- Sheldon Solomon, quoted in How do we make the most of our time? The power of confronting death, New Scientist, 15 June 2022

In context:

Subconscious fears about death drive much of human thought and behaviour, according to psychology’s terror management theory. “The idea is that we would be overwhelmed with existential terror if we didn’t have some way to manage it,” says Sheldon Solomon, a psychologist at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. And we manage it, the idea goes, by doing things that give us a sense of meaning and value, from believing in the afterlife to creating art.

For Solomon, this leads to a startling conclusion: that we are all just “anxious meat puppets tranquillised by culturally constructed trivialities”. But while Solomon and his colleagues have shown that subtle reminders of death make people more likely to cling to their own world view and discriminate against outsiders, there is also a bright side to this awareness of the inevitability of death.

a bunch of old men taken in by a seemingly great young woman

 --- Rupert Murdoch, quoted in "Theranos Investors React With Sadness, Satisfaction" by Christopher Weaver in the WSJ, 18 Nov 2022.

From the piece:

Investors in Theranos Inc. reacted to the sentence with sadness, embarrassment and some satisfaction.

“Of course it was fraud,” said Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal, in an email after the sentencing. “But I only have myself to blame for not asking a lot more questions. One of a bunch of old men taken in by a seemingly great young woman! Total embarrassment.”

For the fine line between fraud and folly, cf. this excerpt:

Early investor Marc Ostrofsky, a venture capitalist, said he didn’t believe Ms. Holmes set out to commit fraud.

“I don’t think she started out to be a dishonest person,” Mr. Ostrofsky said. “I think Silicon Valley, fake it till you make it, is where she ended up.”

See also "The Risky Business of Sam Bankman-Fried" by Ben Cohen, WSJ, 14 Nov 2022

There is much that remains unknown about the meltdown, and one big question for the investigators figuring out what happened is whether it was folly or fraud—a cautionary tale of excess risk or an empire built on a house of cards.

one big question ... is whether it was folly or fraud

 --- Ben Cohen, in his Nov 14, 2022 story for the WSJ, "The Risky Business of Sam Bankman-Fried"

From the story:

There is much that remains unknown about the meltdown, and one big question for the investigators figuring out what happened is whether it was folly or fraud—a cautionary tale of excess risk or an empire built on a house of cards.

"Folly or fraud" is often at issue tricksters, with some leaning to folly (Coyote), others to fraud (Reynard the Fox), and yet others where it's not clear (Loki).

the organism will behave as it damn well pleases

--- This is attributed to Joel Garreau on quotefancy: 

“The Harvard Law of Animal Behavior holds that under controlled experimental conditions of temperature, time, lighting, feeding, and training, the organism will behave as it damn well pleases.”

It's widely seen on the internet in variant forms, e.g. this from Philip Ball on Aeon: "Under carefully controlled experimental circumstances, the animal behaves as it damned well pleases."

Brembs in "Towards a scientific concept of free will as a biological trait: spontaneous actions and decision-making in invertebrates" in Proc Biol Sci. 278(1707), doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.2325, cites to: Grobstein P. 1994. Variability in behavior and the nervous system. In The encyclopedia of human behavior (ed. Ramachandran V. S.), pp. 447–458 New York, NY: Academic Press, but I think this is to further support the claim the quotation is used to illustrate.

We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters

 --- attrib. to Peter Thiel, reportedly written in 2011 as part of a manifesto for his venture fund, Founders Fund

The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things

 --- Hans Christian Andersen, from The Complete Stories, ed. British Library Board (2005) (according to LibQuotes)

the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too

 --- W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition (1951):

But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money--booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: 

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. 

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

The secret in exploring a philosophical thesis is to maintain the excitement while increasing the intelligibility

 --- Donald Davidson, quoted (paraphrased) in List, C., & Pettit, P. (2006). Group agency and supervenience. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 44, 85–105. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-6962.2006.tb00032.x

Institutions create shadowed places in which nothing can be seen and no questions asked

 --- Mary Douglas, How Institutions Think (1986), p. 69

In context:

Every ten years or so classroom text books go out of date. Their need to be revised is in some part due to new work in science or to the deeper delving of historians. Much more, it is because science has come to seem over-religious or scandalously irreligious (Nelkin 1977), or because the history of the last decade gives a wrong political feeling (Fitzgerald 1979). In the intervening years, some slogans have become risible, some words have become empty, and others too full, holding too much cruelty or bitterness to modern ears. Some names count for more, and others that count for less are due to be struck out. The revisionary effort is not aimed at producing the perfect optic flat. The mirror, if that is what history is, distorts as much after revision as it did before. The aim of revision is to get the distortions to match the mood of the present times. But the mirror is a poor metaphor of the public memory. The seeker after historical truth is not trying to get a clearer image of his own face, or even a more flattering image. Conscious tinkering and remaking is only a small part of the shaping of the past. When we look closely at the construction of past time, we find the process has very little to do with the past at all and everything to do with the present. Institutions create shadowed places in which nothing can be seen and no questions asked. They make other areas show finely discriminated detail, which is closely scrutinized and ordered.

The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting

 --- Plutarch, in "On Listening"

From Plutarch, Essays, transl. Robin Waterfield, Penguin Books, p. 50 (1992), Google Books

For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting - no more - then it motivates one towards originality and instils the desire for truth.

See also On Listening to Lectures, as published in Vol. I of the Loeb Classical Library edition, transl. F. C. Babbit (1927) (uchicago.edu)

For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.

H/t to redditors Ctrl-C and jean-luc_gohard in a thread on r/askphilosophy.

Life is a matter of really tough choices

 --- Joe Biden, quoted by Ned Temko in Biden in Saudi Arabia: The strategy behind ‘making nice’, CSMonitor, July 13, 2022.

From the piece"

It’s a maxim coined by Joe Biden a dozen years ago, when he was still vice president. But it might just as well be emblazoned on Air Force One as he embarks on his first presidential visit to the Middle East: “Life is a matter of really tough choices.”

Back then, he was talking about a political trade-off on tax-cut legislation. Now, however, he’s had to face a much tougher choice on a larger stage: a world seismically jolted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The result: an even more difficult, and controversial, trade-off. It’s between the emphasis on democracy and human rights he has placed at the core of his foreign policy, and his campaign to build and sustain international support to isolate Mr. Putin and deny him victory.

the proper relationship to the emerging ontology

 --- John Vervaeke, in Egregores, Mobs and Demons | with Jordan Hall & John Vervaeke, Jun 24, 2022, on Jonathan Pageau's YouTube channel, at time code 1:05:51

... how can we virtuously and with virtuosity participate in the largely virtual medium in which the kairos is presenting itself so that we can discover the proper relationship to the emerging ontology, if i can put it that way. That, to me, is the question. ...

He often causes the gods terrible problems, and just as often solves those problems with his schemes

 --- A description of Loki, from Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda; given by Jackson Crawford in his Norse Mythology for The Great Courses, lecture 7, "Loki and his Children"

From Crawford's course notes (I don't know which translation he's using; it may be his own)

One is counted among the Aesir gods, who is called by some “the slanderer of the gods” or “the first maker of lies” or “the blemish on all the gods and all humankind.” … He is handsome in appearance, evil in disposition, and extremely changeable in mood. Before all others, he is the champion of the kind of wisdom that is deceit, and he uses lies for all his purposes. He often causes the gods terrible problems, and just as often solves those problems with his schemes.

From the Gylfaginning, translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (1916)

XXXIII. “Also numbered among the Æsir is he whom some call the mischief-monger of the Æsir, and the first father of falsehoods, and blemish of all gods and men: he is named Loki or Loptr, son of Fárbauti the giant; his mother was Laufey or Nál; his brothers are Býleistr and Helblindi. Loki is beautiful and comely to look upon, evil in spirit., very fickle in habit. He surpassed other men in that wisdom which is called ‘sleight,’ and had artifices for all occasions; he would ever bring the Æsir into great hardships, and then get them out with crafty counsel. His wife was called Sigyn, their son Nari or Narfi.

For comparison, this from Niel Gaiman's Norse Mythology (2017)

Loki is very handsome. He is plausible, convincing, likable, and far and away the most wily, subtle, and shrewd of all the inhabitants of Asgard. It is a pity, then, that there is so much darkness inside him: so much anger, so much envy, so much lust. . . . Loki is the son of Laufey, who was also known as Nal, or needle, because she was slim and beautiful and sharp. His father was said to be Farbauti, a giant; his name means "he who strikes dangerous blows," and Farbauti was as dangerous as his name. . . He is tolerated by the gods, perhaps because his stratagems and plans save them as often as they get them into trouble. 

Loki makes the world more interesting but less safe. He is the father of monsters, the author of woes, the sly god.

it is not irrational for an administrator to defend a policy as good without being able to specify what it is good for

 --- Charles Lindblom, The Science of “Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review, 19(2), 79–88, 1959. https://doi.org/10.2307/973677 (h/t Dale Hatfield)

In context

Agreement on policy thus becomes the only practicable test of the policy's correctness. And for one administrator to seek to win the other over to agreement on ends as well would accomplish nothing and create quite unnecessary controversy.

If agreement directly on policy as a test for "best" policy seems a poor substitute for testing the policy against its objectives, it ought to be remembered that objectives themselves have no ultimate validity other than they are agreed upon. Hence agreement is the test of "best" policy in both methods. But where the root method requires agreement on what elements in the decision constitute objectives and on which of these objectives should be sought, the branch method falls back on agreement wherever it can be found.

In an important sense, therefore, it is not irrational for an administrator to defend a policy as good without being able to specify what it is good for.

we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions

 --- Henri Matisse, Notes of a Painter, 1908, reproduced in Obelisk Art History

Closing paragraph

Rules have no existence outside of individuals: otherwise a good professor would be as great a genius as Racine. Any one of us is capable of repeating fine maxims, but few can also penetrate their meaning. I am ready to admit that from a study of the works of Raphael or Titian a more complete set of rules can be drawn than from the works of Manet or Renoir, but the rules followed by Manet and Renoir were those which suited their temperaments and I prefer the most minor of their paintings to all the work of those who are content to imitate the Venus of Urbino or the Madonna of the Goldfinch. These latter are of no value to anyone, for whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions. All artists bear the imprint of their time, but the great artists are those in whom this is most profoundly marked. Our epoch for instance is better represented by Courbet than by Flandrin, by Rodin better than by Frémiet. Whether we like it or not, however insistently we call ourselves exiles, between our period and ourselves an indissoluble bond is established, and M. Péladan himself cannot escape it. The aestheticians of the future may perhaps use his books as evidence if they get it in their heads to prove that no one of our time understood anything about the art of Leonardo da Vinci.

both parties are effectively minorities — but each continues to think it is on the verge of winning big

 --- Yuval Levin, Why do our politicians keep pursuing a losing strategy?, AEI blog, 29 Mar 2022

In context:

The very fact that voters are unhappy with both parties makes it hard for either one to take a hint from its electoral failures. Even more than polarization, it is the closeness of elections that has degraded the capacity of our democracy to respond to voter pressure. In an era of persistent, polarized deadlock, both parties are effectively minorities — but each continues to think it is on the verge of winning big.

His explanation:

You might think that two minority parties would each feel pressure to expand its coalition and become a majority, but actually both have behaved as if they were the rightful majorities already. Each finds ways to dismiss the other’s wins as narrow flukes and treat its own as massive triumphs.

This is sustainable only because elections are so close. Politicians learn big lessons from big losses or big wins, so neither of our parties has learned much in a long time, and neither can quite grasp that it just isn’t very popular and could easily lose the next election.

This dynamic has many causes — from the advent of party primaries to the evolution of the media and much in between. Polarization doesn’t have to mean deadlock, but a long-term pattern of growing negative polarization, in which each party sees the other as the country’s biggest problem, creates incentives for the parties to seek narrower but ideologically purer wins rather than build broader if less ideologically coherent coalitions. 

Everybody worships

 --- David Foster Wallace, from a speech given by David Foster Wallace to Kenyon College's 2005 graduating class, on YouTube.

From the transcript, courtesy Captain_Unremarkable on Reddit:

[time code 17:53] Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.

On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

When you argue with reality, you always lose - but only 100 percent of the time

 --- Byron Katie, passim (wasn't able to find original)

A journey of self-discovery starts with a single step… But so does falling down a flight of stairs.

 --- Kathy Lette, quoted in "The meaning and origin of the expression: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" on The Phrase Finder

From the article

The proverb 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step' is first found in the Tao Te Ching, which is a classical Chinese Taoist text usually credited to Laozi (a.k.a. Lao Tzu), and probably written between the 4th and 6th century BC. The original text is:

"A journey of a thousand li [a Chinese mile] starts beneath one's feet"

. . . 

The 'self-help' nature of the phrase has led to some parody, including this from the Anglo/Australian writer Kathy Lette:

A journey of self-discovery starts with a single step… But so does falling down a flight of stairs.

I have nothing to say. Only to show.

---  Walter Benjamin, from the Arcades Project

From opensourceguinea.org: 

"Methode dieser Arbeit: literarische Montage. Ich habe nichts zu sagen. Nur zu zeigen. Ich werde keine geistvollen Formulierungen mir aneignen, nichts Wertvolles entwenden. Aber die Lumpen, den Abfall, den Abfall: die will ich nicht beschreiben sondern vorzeigen."

Gessamelte Schriften, Band V2, page 1030, {O° 36}.

Translation by opensourceguinea.org (Enrique Martino?): "Method of this project: literary montage. I have nothing to say. Only to show. I wont attempt any spirited expressions, no pilfering of valuables. But the tatter, the waste, the abject: Them I don't want to describe, but just demonstrate."

The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive

 --- Bill Watterson, in a speech to the 1990 graduating class at Kenyon College

In context

When it seemed I would be writing about "Midnite Madness Sale-abrations" for the rest of my life, a friend used to console me that cream always rises to the top. I used to think, so do people who throw themselves into the sea.

I tell you all this because it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.

For more excerpts and Watterson gems (and a few of the strips), see Maria Popova's piece "Advice on Life and Creative Integrity from Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson" in The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings), via Pocket.

if the state is an artificial version of us, and if the state is well built, then the state will have a life of its own, and the state will be capable of telling its own stories

 --- David Runciman, in his lecture Arendt on Action, 15 May 2021, objecting to Arendt's critique of Hobbes

[38:23] It's not Arendt's version of action -- she thinks the thing that ultimately lasts is the story -- but you could say, among the other things that Hobbes was doing, that he was telling a story of the modern state. The fact that that book, Leviathan, is so metaphorical and allegorical is because it's a story. It's meant to fire our imaginations. 

[38:48] But it's also true that it makes a huge difference to say that the state is an artificial version of us, rather than to say that we are artificial versions of the state. Because if the state is an artificial version of us, and if the state is well built, then the state will have a life of its own, and the state will be capable of telling its own stories. And these stories could be imaginative, creative, empowering, fulfilling -- they could also not, they could be terrible, and stupid, and crass, and cruel. Anything is possible when a person tells a story, even an artificial person telling a story, because storytelling, for Arendt, is the most creative thing of all. So if what Hobbes was trying to do was to build something that was capable of mimicking human action [as Arendt defines it], then he was adding to the world of action something that he thought would make more action possible. He may have been wrong - it's possible that that may have been a quixotic enterprise because in the end these artificial versions of the human are always reductive, and they're not convincing. And that the stories that the state tells, this state that Arendt so feared because of its ability actually to consume human beings into unthinking mindless functionaries [like Eichmann], that this state was dangerous, because . . . .

...

[41:58] But there is in Arendt's argument, I think, a mistaken assumption. The assumption being that the modern state, the Hobbesian state, because it's a machine, will inevitably side with the other machines; that in the age of Artificial Intelligence, the mechanical state will do what the robots want, because the robots will be able to infiltrate its systems, because its nothing but a machine. [But] Hobbes's state is more than a machine, it's a kind of person. It's meant, at some level, to mimic, not mechanical action, but human action. It's actually meant to be on our side. It's the machine that we built, to control the machines. It's the machine that we built, to take our side against mindless, heartless, robotic forms of action and politics. 

[42:58] So actually I think there's another question we could ask, and it doesn't necessarily produce Arendt's answer. I don't know what the answer is, but at least it's possible that in the age of Artificial Intelligence, in the new machine age in which we live, the state is not on the machines' side. The state could be on our side. Indeed, it's even possible to say that the state is the only instrument we have, because it's the instrument we built to be like us. It's the only instrument we have to take on the machines.

When you study a million things in a few people you’re going to find a lot of stuff and not all of it is real

 --- Steven Deeks, quoted in WSJ article The New Clues About Who Will Develop Long Covid by Sumathi Reddy, Jan. 31, 2022

In context

While promising, the findings in all of the studies need to be tested further in larger groups of people, says Steven Deeks, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who wasn’t involved in the studies and is heading a separate study on long Covid.

“When you study a million things in a few people you’re going to find a lot of stuff and not all of it is real,” says Dr. Deeks.

The experience of art is exemplary in its provision of truths that are inaccessible by scientific methods

 --- Jadranka Skorin-Kapov on Hans-Georg Gadamer's view that “truth” and “method” were at odds with one another, in Skorin-Kapov (2016), The Intertwining of Aesthetics and Ethics: Exceeding of Expectations, Ecstasy, Sublimity, Lexington Books, p. 105, cited in the Wikipedia article on Gadamer (accessed 25 January 2022).

Context:

Gadamer's task in Truth and Method is to legitimate knowledge and truth in human sciences, away from the grip of the natural sciences's explicit and programmable method. The natural sciences employ ... The experience of art is exemplary in its provision of truths that are inaccessible by scientific methods, and this experience is projected to the whole domain of human sciences. Cognition is scientific understanding, based on concepts and scientific methods, and provides verifiable knowledge—but it is only a part of understanding. Understanding is much wider than cognition—it is also interpretation.

There are no facts about the future

 --- often attributed to Dr. David T. Hulett, authority on risk; however, in "What Should We Do with Unknowns in Schedule Risk Analysis?," (PM World Journal, Vol. IV, Issue VIII – August 2015), he cites a reference I haven't been able to find online:

Moses, Lincoln
Energy Information Administration Annual Report to Congress
Volume 3, Administrator’s Message
1977 US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Amateurs talk about strategy ... Professionals talk about logistics ...

 --- R.H. Barrow, according to Barry Popik 

From Popik's piece on Quora:

“Amateurs talk about strategy and tactics. Professionals talk about logistics and sustainability in warfare” was said by Robert Hilliard Barrow (1922-2008), a United States Marine Corps four-star general, in an interview published in the San Diego (CA) Union on November 11, 1979.

Omar Bradley (1893-1981), the last five-star officer of the United States, is often credited, but it’s uncertain if he ever said it. “For military command is as much a practice of human relations as it is a science of tactics and a knowledge of logistics”—a somewhat related quotation—was printed in Bradley’s book, A Soldier’s Story (1951). “I was reminded of what General Omar Bradley once said: ‘Amateurs talk about strategy; professionals talk about logistics’” was a letter printed in The Economist (London, UK) on November 16, 1996. General Bradley’s statements were usually recorded, and it’s unlikely that he said it and that it would not be cited in print before 1996.

in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has their reasons

 --- attrib. to Jean Renoir, via Peter Rainer's movie review Oscar contender ‘A Hero’ explores the complexities of doing the right thing, CS Monitor January 6, 2022

From the review:

The title of the new Iranian movie, “A Hero,” is ironic. There are no real heroes in this film, and no bad guys, either. The writer-director, Asghar Farhadi, best known for his Oscar-winning 2011 masterpiece “A Separation,” is too much of a humanist to resort to the tactics of melodrama. 

The credo of the great French director Jean Renoir, to whom Farhadi has sometimes been compared, was that “in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has their reasons.” And so it is in “A Hero,” which is shortlisted for a best international feature film Oscar. Just when you think you’ve pinned down someone as good or bad, the tables are turned and the complexities thicken. Just like in real life. 

old age is a little like obscenity: impossible to define, but you know it when you see it, and then you want to look away

 --- Sally Adee, in a review of Aliya Whiteley's From the Neck Up, New Scientist, 27 October 2021

Excerpt

For many of us, ageing is both science fiction (something that will happen in a future too distant to care about) and gothic horror (it’s coming, and it will be awful).

In this way, old age is a little like obscenity: impossible to define, but you know it when you see it, and then you want to look away.

... Whiteley’s worlds may be icy and gothic, but the people in them are altogether human, and their funny and cantankerous inner lives make them good company. You will miss these grumpy old people: they’re getting too old for this shit, but so, I would wager, are you. 

a work wicked in its end and destination, but in respect of art and contrivance excellent and admirable

 --- Francis Bacon on Daedalus's Labyrinth, Of the Wisdom of the Ancients (1857), XIX. Dædalus, Or the Mechanic

Excerpt:

Many and excellent works, as well in honour of the gods as for the adornment and ennobling of cities and public places, had been built and modelled by him; but it is for unlawful inventions that his name is most famous. For he it was who supplied the machine which enabled Pasiphae to satisfy her passion for the bull; so that the unhappy and infamous birth of the monster Minotaurus, which devoured the ingenuous youth, was owing to the wicked industry and pernicious genius of this man. Then to conceal the first mischief he added another, and for the security of this pest devised and constructed the Labyrinth; a work wicked in its end and destination, but in respect of art and contrivance excellent and admirable.

A wonderfully concise exposition of our ambivalence about tech and technologists.

studying archetypes, mythology and fairytales is a kind of vaccination against archetypal possession

 --- Joseph R Lee, This Jungian Life podcast, episode 172 - Archetypes

When he [CG Jung] or other clinicians began to feel that an individual's psyche was on the verge of a major archetypal activation, he would task them with reading fairytales endlessly, reading mythology endlessly, so that there would be images and structures other than just the personal life within which this archetypal god could inhabit, and minimize the damage to the individual. So I would venture to say that [42:09] studying archetypes, mythology and fairytales is a kind of vaccination against archetypal possession. 

Skill is just recognizing when you’ve gotten lucky

 --- investor Wilmot Kidd, in a profile by Jason Zweig, Meet the Kidd Who Goes Toe to Toe With Warren Buffett, WSJ, Dec 10, 2021.

Last two paragraphs of the story:

When I ask Mr. Kidd if he attributes his long success to luck or skill, he lets out a long, quiet, dry laugh before saying something I don’t think I will ever forget: “Skill is just recognizing when you’ve gotten lucky.”

He explains, “It’s when you’ve been fortunate enough to make an investment in a great company, and suddenly you realize just how very lucky you were, and you buy more. That’s skill, I suppose. That—and holding on to what you have and not chickening out.”

Without constructs, you will unravel few mysteries. Without knowledge of mysteries, your constructs will fail.

 --- Becky Chalmers, in A Psalm for the Wild-built (2021), p. 135

Excerpt

“Find the strength to do both,” Mosscap said, quoting the phrase painted on the wagon.

“Exactly,” Dex said.

“But what’s both?”

Dex recited: “ ‘Without constructs, you will unravel few mysteries. Without knowledge of mysteries, your constructs will fail. These pursuits are what makes us, but without comfort, you will lack the strength to sustain either.’ ”

“Is that from your Insights?” Mosscap asked.

“Yeah,” Dex said.

Well, we all know the Navy's never wrong. But in this case, it was a little weak on bein' right.

 --- Wendell Mayes, line given to Adm. Nimitz-character, played by Henry Fonda, in the movie "In Harm's Way"

Politics is spending your money on my priorities

 --- JP de Vries (yours truly), though I imagine I saw this somewhere once.

A slightly longer version:

Politics is the business of trying to make you live according to my values, including spending your money on my priorities.

nomen est omen

 --- Latin saying, via Jason Zweig's essay in the WSJ, "Donald Trump’s Ageless Advice for Mark Zuckerberg," 5 November 2021

Excerpt

The Latin saying “nomen est omen” can be loosely translated as “your name is your fate.” By renaming itself Meta, Facebook has identified itself inextricably with a metaverse future. In the eyes of the public, the business will become what it is named. That could end up making the company even more of a lightning rod for criticism than it already is.

In another excerpt he compares names with strategies, which resonates for me with mythology: it's easier to grab onto a god's name than to understand what they represent.

That’s because a name is easier to criticize than a strategy, says Margaret Wolfson, founder of River and Wolf LLC, a naming agency in New York. “To talk about a strategy takes a lot more time and analysis,” she says. “But names are handles: They’re easy to grab onto, and criticizing them can turn into a blood sport.” 

You may not be interested in X, but X is interested in you

--- (update 13 Dec 2023) the earliest match using “war” attributed to popular author Fannie Hurst by QuoteInvestigator, 2 Aug 2021

--- (original post 4 Nov 2021) attributed to Leon Trotsky for X = "the dialectic" and "war", see Wikipedia entry

From QuoteInvestigator (QI)

The earliest match using “war” located by QI appeared in the “Cleveland Plain Dealer” of Ohio in 1941. The popular author Fannie Hurst used the expression while addressing a “Freedom Day” rally in Cleveland. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:

“We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us. I’m not trying to sell it to you, but no one can evade the fact that we are in the path of the storm. We dare not be disunited when liberty, the most precious jewel in our national strongbox, is at stake.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

QI has found no substantive evidence that Leon Trotsky employed the saying about war. QI conjectures that the attribution to Trotsky occurred via a multistep process that began with statements about dialectics.

From Wikipedia, accessed 4 Nov 2021

This was attributed to Trotsky in an epigraph in Night Soldiers: A Novel (1988) by Alan Furst but it may actually be a revision of a statement earlier attributed to Trotsky: "You may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in you." Only a very loose translation of "the dialectic" would produce "war."

...

In a later work, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (2000) by Michael Walzer, the author states: "War is most often a form of tyranny. It is best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic: 'You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.'"

This statement on dialectic itself seems to be a paraphrase, with the original in In Defense of Marxism Part VII : "Petty-Bourgeois Moralists and the Proletarian Party" (1942) — where Trotsky publishes a letter to Albert Goldman (5 June 1940) has been translated as "Burnham doesn't recognize dialectics but dialectics does not permit him to escape from its net."

Every group calls other belief-systems myths, its own the truth

 --- Peter Heehs, in "Myth, History, and Theory," History and Theory 33(1), 1–19, https://doi.org/10.2307/2505649, paraphrasing William H. McNeill (I think)

Excerpt

William H. McNeill also is interested in the relationship between historiography and mythology. So-called scientific history, he asserts, is itself the result of a belief system with unquestioned assumptions. All such systems, the scientific included, are mythic. In a world of competing sets of assumptions, each group affirms its own beliefs in order "to live more comfortably, insulated from troublesome dissent." (This is reminiscent of the effort of Hobsbawm's inventors to avoid anxiety in an ever-changing world by linking up with an invariant past.) Every group calls other belief-systems myths, its own the truth; but of course other groups do the same. Formerly historians believed they were in a position to decide which "truth" was true and which was "myth." But this is not possible in the postmodern age. The best historians can do is to try to "attain better historiographical balance between Truth, truths and myth." When historians exert themselves to produce a presentation of "truths" (not Truth) that is credible and intelligible to a given audience, the result is what "might best be called mythistory." (Citation: William H. McNeill, "Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History and Historians," American Historical Review 91 (1986), 4, 8.

social progress rests essentially upon death

--- August Comte, quoted by Bobby Duffy in the essay "The Bunk of Generational Talk," WSJ, Oct 22, 2021

From the WSJ piece:

For the 19th-century French sociologist Auguste Comte, the generation was a key factor in “the basic speed of human development.” “We should not hide the fact that our social progress rests essentially upon death; which is to say that the successive steps of humanity necessarily require a continuous renovation…from one generation to the next,” Comte wrote. Generations differ from one another, and that’s a good thing, since it prevents society turning into a “stagnant pond.”

A monkey, in its mother’s eyes, is a gazelle.

 --- an Arabic proverb, quoted in a NYT story about Palestinian olive oil.

“Look, everybody thinks their oil is the best,” he said, “but the olive oil from Rameh is smooth and doesn’t burn. It’s like a ripe fruit: pungent but sweet.”

As Mazen Ali put it, referencing an Arabic proverb, “A monkey, in its mother’s eyes, is a gazelle.” Mr. Ali, 60, is the co-founder of a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving the region’s olive trees. Though he is from the neighboring village of Deir Hanna, even he acknowledged that Rameh’s oil is exceptional.

For the Greek version, see Swish! Swish! Swish! Patrick Leigh Fermor on the Mani olive harvest in the LRB:

‘Stavro,’ [his companion Petro] said as we set off. ‘Deep Mani olives are good. I’m not saying they’re not. But the best are the ones in the Outer Mani. The whole world knows it. It’s not just because I come from those parts – far from it. But it’s everybody’s opinion.’

‘So be it,’ Stavro said. He gave me a secret dig with his elbow and the ghost of a wink. I asked Petro where the best in the Outer Mani come from. ‘From Liasínova,’ he answered without hesitation. There was a scarcely audible chuckle from Barba Stavro. I asked Petro where he came from. ‘Me? You mean where do I come from?’ Then, in airy tones of slight surprise at the unexpected coincidence, he said: ‘From there. From Liasínova, that’s to say.’

It was a splendid illustration of local prejudice. But now, after many years and mature consideration, I think there was a lot in what he said. Certainly, the best olives in Greece come from the Outer Mani; and definitely from the region of Liasínova. But from Liasínova itself? I think a truly impartial and objective opinion might place the actual pinpoint of unsurpassable excellence a little further down the coast – only three or four kilometres away. More towards Kardamyli, perhaps.

Patrick Leigh Fermor's house, in case you didn't know, was in Kardamyli :-)

beware the vividness of transient events

 --- Carl von Clausewitz, quoted by Colin Powell, in a profile on Powell by Peter Grier

From the CSMonitor story:

Asked in an interview how he dealt – for years and years – with the firehose of news, opinions, advice, and criticism that washes over any top U.S. official, General Powell quoted one of the U.S. Army’s favorite military theoreticians, 19th-century German Gen. Carl von Clausewitz. 

“There’s a great Clausewitzian expression which says ‘beware the vividness of transient events,’” General Powell said. “There are lots of transient events out there, and I am trying to beware of their vividness.”

Lenni Brenner in an Oct 2001 piece ascribes the quote to Colin Powell’s (with Joseph Persico), autobiography, My American Journey, 1995, p. 419:

I consoled myself with the words of Clausewitz: ‘The vividness of transient impressions must not make us forget that such truth they maintain is of a lesser stamp.'

I haven't been able to track down the original.