"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -Albert Einstein
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
"If you can lay down two black stripes from the apex of one corner all the way to the braking zone of the next corner, you might have enough horsepower."
-Mark Donahue.
Note: This is coming from the man that mastered the art of driving the awe inspiring 1200hp plus Porsche 917-30 around some of the toughest tracks in the world and that still wasn't enough hp for him.
"Aerodynamics is for those that can't build engines."
-Enzo Ferrari.
I realize this is completely the wrong forum for those quotes but they are my favorites.
"I say we should take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Posted by M81 (Member # 13194) on :
Thank you for sharing.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
"Never underestimate the power and beauty of human stupidity." Jesse Blankenship--a friend of mine.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
"Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid." -John Wayne (From "The Sands of Iwo Jima")
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
"Everyone is Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots." -Tenacious D
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
What one should add here is that self-consciousness is itself unconscious: we are not aware of the point of our self-consciousness. If ever there was a critic of the fetishizing effect of fascinating and dazzling "leitmotifs", it is Adorno: in his devastating analysis of Wagner, he tries to demonstrate how Wagnerian leitmotifs serve as fetishized elements of easy recognition and thus constitute a kind of inner-structural commodification of his music. It is then a supreme irony that traces of this same fetishizing procedure can be found in Adorno's own writings. Many of his provocative one-liners do effectively capture a profound insight or at least touch on a crucial point (for example: "Nothing is more true in pscyhoanalysis than its exaggeration"); however, more often than his partisans are ready to admit, Adorno gets caught up in his own game, infatuated with his own ability to produce dazzlingly "effective" paradoxical aphorisms at the expense of theoretical substance (recall the famous line from Dialectic of Englightment on how Hollywood's ideological maniuplation of social reality realized Kant's idea of the transcendental constitution of reality). In such cases where the dazzling "effect" of the unexpected short-circuit (here between Hollywood cinema and Kantian ontology) effectively overshadows the theoretical line of argumentation, the brilliant paradox works precisely in the same manner as the Wagnerian leitmotif: instead of serving as a nodal point in the complex network of structural mediation, it generates idiotic pleasure by focusing attention on itself. This unintended self-reflexivity is something of which Adorno undoubtedly was not aware: his critique of the Wagnerian leitmotif was an allegorical critique of his own writing. Is this not an exemplary case of his unconscious reflexivity of thinking? When criticizing his opponent Wagner, Adorno effectively deploys a critical allegory of his own writing - in Hegelese, the truth of his relation to the Other is a self-relation
Posted by M81 (Member # 13194) on :
Samprimary, can you simplify that? It was difficult for me to get the theme and message out of it. The context was difficult to grasp and I am confused as to what you were trying to communicate. Thank you.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by M81: Samprimary, can you simplify that? It was difficult for me to get the theme and message out of it. The context was difficult to grasp and I am confused as to what you were trying to communicate. Thank you.
I think that's the point. He's very meta like that.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
"This is not the day I die" - oberyn
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: What one should add here is that self-consciousness is itself unconscious: we are not aware of the point of our self-consciousness. If ever there was a critic of the fetishizing effect of fascinating and dazzling "leitmotifs", it is Adorno: in his devastating analysis of Wagner, he tries to demonstrate how Wagnerian leitmotifs serve as fetishized elements of easy recognition and thus constitute a kind of inner-structural commodification of his music. It is then a supreme irony that traces of this same fetishizing procedure can be found in Adorno's own writings. Many of his provocative one-liners do effectively capture a profound insight or at least touch on a crucial point (for example: "Nothing is more true in pscyhoanalysis than its exaggeration"); however, more often than his partisans are ready to admit, Adorno gets caught up in his own game, infatuated with his own ability to produce dazzlingly "effective" paradoxical aphorisms at the expense of theoretical substance (recall the famous line from Dialectic of Englightment on how Hollywood's ideological maniuplation of social reality realized Kant's idea of the transcendental constitution of reality). In such cases where the dazzling "effect" of the unexpected short-circuit (here between Hollywood cinema and Kantian ontology) effectively overshadows the theoretical line of argumentation, the brilliant paradox works precisely in the same manner as the Wagnerian leitmotif: instead of serving as a nodal point in the complex network of structural mediation, it generates idiotic pleasure by focusing attention on itself. This unintended self-reflexivity is something of which Adorno undoubtedly was not aware: his critique of the Wagnerian leitmotif was an allegorical critique of his own writing. Is this not an exemplary case of his unconscious reflexivity of thinking? When criticizing his opponent Wagner, Adorno effectively deploys a critical allegory of his own writing - in Hegelese, the truth of his relation to the Other is a self-relation
I don't know what book that's from, but Zizek definitely wrote it. It's especially funny that if you substitute "Zizek" for "Adorno," then the criticism is even more apropos.
Edit: Which of course ends up being evidence for the truth of what he's saying.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me." - Frank Costello, The Departed Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
And then I thought to myself, "You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it's impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!"
It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failure.
- Richard Feynman
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
,An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated." -Madelyn Murray O'Hair
"It's not true I had nothing on. I had the radio on." On reports of her nude photographs for a calendar, as quoted in TIME magazine (1952)
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by M81: Samprimary, can you simplify that? It was difficult for me to get the theme and message out of it. The context was difficult to grasp and I am confused as to what you were trying to communicate. Thank you.
oh that's just zizek, the dude who i have for some inexplicable reason decided to make a temporary focus, to really make sure I can process his statements and philosophy, and then incorporate him into a sense of (or critique of) the current state of Philosophy as an academic institution and community as it continues to cruise on a moribund orbit towards self-obsessed abstract-mostly-irrelevance
he makes an excellent candidate because he's so polarizing and possibly the picture of modern day philosophy itself
appropriately he's crazy so that helps
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
Stanisław Lem, Fables for Robots, my poor translation. I just love the humor.
A young scholar lived on Actinuria, Pyron was his name. He learned how to draw a platinum wire so thin, that one could fashion a net out of it and then snatch clouds with the net. Pyron invented a wired telegraph and then he drew a wire so thin, that it was no more; thusly a wireless telegraph was created.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by M81: Samprimary, can you simplify that? It was difficult for me to get the theme and message out of it. The context was difficult to grasp and I am confused as to what you were trying to communicate. Thank you.
oh that's just zizek, the dude who i have for some inexplicable reason decided to make a temporary focus, to really make sure I can process his statements and philosophy, and then incorporate him into a sense of (or critique of) the current state of Philosophy as an academic institution and community as it continues to cruise on a moribund orbit towards self-obsessed abstract-mostly-irrelevance
he makes an excellent candidate because he's so polarizing and possibly the picture of modern day philosophy itself
appropriately he's crazy so that helps
So you're reading him with a thesis already in mind? Doesn't that come perilously close to being an example of what the quote is talking about?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
i am reading him with a general approximation of the value of academic philosophy coalescing in my brain and figure i best get him out of the way before i pass any significant i'll-stand-by-this judgment on the value of spending my time caring about philosophy at all or investing any future time and effort on philosophy
So, Less Than Nothing?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
yes! let us return to and exceed hegel himself, as part of the zizekian editorialized crusade towards murderous idealized leninism
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
When was the last time the popular reception of a philosopher was in any way accurate? It's a scourge that philosophy suffers from uniquely; sure, Darwin had social Darwinism and quantum physics has new age garbage, but the list of philosophers who have been watered down or twisted into silliness is much larger.
I'm sympathetic to the guy, though I'm a bit bewildered at his popularity. If you're already reading Less Than Nothing, then you don't really need this, but here's a nice little intro anyways:
quote:Originally posted by Sean Monahan: And then I thought to myself, "You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it's impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!"
It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failure.
- Richard Feynman
I love that quote. Such an interesting guy.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: When was the last time the popular reception of a philosopher was in any way accurate? It's a scourge that philosophy suffers from uniquely; sure, Darwin had social Darwinism and quantum physics has new age garbage, but the list of philosophers who have been watered down or twisted into silliness is much larger.
I don't think i have any particular care or consideration for his popular reception, but i do admit that when the article says "he is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking writers working in philosophy today" my initial reaction is to think "i didn't know philosophy was in that much trouble"
Posted by PanaceaSanans (Member # 13395) on :
"Never take another person's dignity: it is worth everything to them and nothing to you." - Frank Barron
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
I saw this thread and was about to post the Feynman quote, then saw that I had already done so 2 years ago.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
From The Old Astronomer (To His Pupil) by Sarah Williams
I misquote her for my email tag...
~For I have loved the stars too fondly to fear the night.~
Posted by PanaceaSanans (Member # 13395) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sean Monahan: "You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it's impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!"
It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failure.
That's a great one! ( I wish more people realized how this applies to OSC... )
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
One of my personal favorites. It is so comforting to look to the stars in Egypt or Los Angeles or Bangkok and recognize them as the same ones you see from your birthplace. <3
Posted by Elcheeko75 (Member # 13292) on :
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx. Maybe Posted by Jeni (Member # 1454) on :
My favorite quotes come from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, winnie the pooh, and Neil Peart.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
The two most important days of your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why. - Mark Twain
A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are for. - John Shedd
Faith is a refusal to panic. - Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. - Romans 13:10
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Joining the Feynman Love Club, I kept this quote from the Challenger accident report up on my whiteboard at work.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." -RPF