Friday Filosophy v.10.15.2021

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY v.10.15.2021

In the last two decades with the arrival of social media and their platforms we have started to see various new challenges to one of our most fundamental rights; the Freedom of Speech. These quotations and thoughts should provoke some thinking on this subject. It is very critical to our lives and our future that we protect our rights.

  • If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent, we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. George Washington
  • The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. Albert Camus
  • It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. Samuel Adams
  • May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right. Peter Marshall
  • Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. Warren E. Burger
  • Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought. Pope John Paul II
  • ‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded. Friedrich August von Hayek
  • It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. Voltaire
  • Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. Ronald Reagan
  • When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free. Charles Evans Hughes
  • A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom. Bob Dylan
  • Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect. Eleanor Roosevelt
  • We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson
  • For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. Nelson Mandela
  • The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. Patrick Henry
  • Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others. Coretta Scott King
  • What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Salman Rushdie
  • What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long. Thomas Sowell

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.10.08.2021

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY v.10.08.2021

We have been focused on individuals in our Friday Filosophy. I am shifting this week to deal with personal issues, our lives. Over time there have been wonderful individuals who have made powerful statements regarding life. Perhaps some reflection on these people and these quotations is warranted. Enjoy

 

  • Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. Marie Curie
  • We do not remember days, we remember moments. Cesare Pavese
  • The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed. Eminem
  • Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. Buddha
  • Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. John Lennon
  • He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor. Sholom Aleichem
  • Life is a song – sing it. Life is a game – play it. Life is a challenge – meet it. Life is a dream – realize it. Life is a sacrifice – offer it. Life is love – enjoy it. Sai Baba
  • Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself. Harvey Fierstein
  • Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living? Bob Marley
  • Every man dies. Not every man really lives. William Wallace
  • Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. George Bernard Shaw
  • When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me’. Erma Bombeck
  • A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. Jackie Robinson
  • The only disability in life is a bad attitude. Scott Hamilton
  • Growth is the only evidence of life. John Henry Newman
  • Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them. Dalai Lama

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.10.01.2021

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY v.10.01.2021

Sun Tzu’s historicity is uncertain. The Han dynasty historian Sima Qian and other traditional Chinese historians placed him as a minister to King Helü of Wu and dated his lifetime to 544–496 BC. He was a Chinese general, military strategist, writer, and philosopher who lived in the Eastern Zhou period of ancient China. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War, an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. His works focus much more on alternatives to battle, such as stratagem, delay, the use of spies and alternatives to war itself, the making and keeping of alliances, the uses of deceit, and a willingness to submit, at least temporarily, to more powerful foes. The name Sun Tzu by which he is best known in the Western World is an honorific which means “Master Sun“. Before hiring Sun Tzu, the King of Wu tested Sun Tzu’s skills by commanding him to train a harem of 180 concubines into soldiers. Sun Tzu divided them into two companies, appointing the two concubines most favored by the king as the company commanders. When Sun Tzu first ordered the concubines to face right, they giggled. In response, Sun Tzu said that the general, in this case himself, was responsible for ensuring that soldiers understood the commands given to them. Then, he reiterated the command, and again the concubines giggled. Sun Tzu then ordered the execution of the king’s two favored concubines, to the king’s protests. He explained that if the general’s soldiers understood their commands but did not obey, it was the fault of the officers. Sun Tzu also said that, once a general was appointed, it was his duty to carry out his mission, even if the king protested. After both concubines were killed, new officers were chosen to replace them. Afterward, both companies, now well aware of the costs of further frivolity, performed their maneuvers flawlessly.[11]

  • If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
  • Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.
  • There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.
  • Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
  • The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.
  • To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
  • The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
  • A good commander is benevolent and unconcerned with fame.
  • The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom.
  • Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.
  • Victory usually goes to the army who has better trained officers and men.

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.09.24.2021

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY

For tonight’s Friday Filosophy v.09.24.2021, we are sharing pearls of wisdom from Joseph Rudyard Kipling.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)[1] was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work.

Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom’s most popular writers.[3] Henry James said “Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known.” In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both. Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets’ Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey.

  • God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.
  • If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what’s more, you’ll be a man, my son.
  • The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
  • Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
  • We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.
  • The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.
  • If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.
  • Heaven, grant us patience with a man in love.
  • And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves ‘It’s pretty, but is it Art?’
  • Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established.
  • Asia is not going to be civilized after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.
  • A man’s mind is wont to tell him more than seven watchmen sitting in a tower.

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.09.17.21

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY v.09.17.21

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced. He was raised in Hannibal, Missouri and left school after the fifth grade to become a printer’s apprentice. When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, joining the newly formed International Typographical Union, the printers trade union. He educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. Twain studied the Mississippi, learning its landmarks, how to navigate its currents effectively, and how to read the river and its constantly shifting channels, reefs, submerged snags, and rocks that would “tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated”. It was more than two years before he received his pilot’s license. Piloting also gave him his pen name from “mark twain“, the leadsman’s cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), which was safe water for a steamboat.

  • It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
  • The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
  • Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
  • If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
  • Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
  • Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
  • Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
  • Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
  • There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.
  • Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
  • The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
  • We have the best government that money can buy
  • I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.9.10.21

September 10, 2021

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY

Throughout history, women have been working hard to ensure that the female voice is heard. Whether that means working in politics, becoming an activist for social change, or breaking barriers in athletics, women have gone the extra mile to gain equality and advocate for a better world. Regardless of age, race, or nationality. By working with purpose and confidence, women demonstrate that having strength and tenacity doesn’t mean sacrificing your vulnerability. And all of these quoted women show that failure shouldn’t be an obstacle in meeting your goals. So, in honor of all the incredible women who have blazed a trail forward—both in the past and present—here are some inspirational quotes. The words of these wise women prove that through action, anything is possible.

  • Girls are capable of doing everything men are capable of doing. Sometimes they have more imagination than men. – Katherine Johnson, mathematician and one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist
  • I raise up my voice—not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard… We cannot succeed when half of us are held back. – Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate
  • Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.” – Shirley Chisholm, first African-American woman elected to U.S. Congress
  • Have no fear of perfection; you’ll never reach it. – Marie Curie, chemist who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
  • You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. – Indira Gandhi, first female Prime Minister of India
  • No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt, former U.S. First Lady and U.S. Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly
  • Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right. – Jane Goodall, world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees and environmental activist
  • We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers. –Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the UK suffragette movement
  • Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. – Frida Kahlo, was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.09.03.2021

September 3, 2021

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 – 180) He was a Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher. Born in Rome in 121 AD. His father died when he was three months old. He was adopted by his grandfather and the moral training he received from his mother and grandfather must have been all but perfect. Marcus said “To the gods I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good.” From his teachers he learned to work hard, to deny himself, to avoid listening to slander, to endure misfortunes, never deviate from his purpose, to be grave without affection and delicate in correcting others. The comprehensiveness of his legal and judicial reforms is very striking. Slaves, heirs, women and children were benefited and he made serious attempts to deal with the steady for in the birthrate of legitimate children.

  • When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
  • Our life is what our thoughts make it.
  • If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
  • The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
  • Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
  • Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight
  • Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again, begin with this, and thou wilt have finished.
  • A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.
  • Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
  • Poverty is the mother of crime.
  • To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.
  • Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
  • Men exist for the sake of one another.

The Time is Now

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Friday Filosophy v.8.27.21

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY v.8.27.21

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, 30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965 was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was a Sandhurst-educated soldier, a Nobel Prize-winning writer and historian, a prolific painter, and one of the longest-serving politicians in British history, he was a Member of Parliament  from 1900 to 1964.

Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British India, the Anglo-Sudan War, and the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Widely considered one of the 20th century’s most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and Western world, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending Europe’s liberal democracy against the spread of fascism. He is also praised as a social reformer.  

  • We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
  • A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
  • Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
  • The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
  • Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
  • A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
  • I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.
  • It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
  • The price of greatness is responsibility.
  • My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

The Time is Now

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Friday Filosophy v.8.20.21

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY c.8.20.21

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British polymath.

As an academic, he worked in philosophy, mathematics, and logic. His work has had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science, and various areas of analytic philosophy, especially philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. He was a public intellectual, historian, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate.

Russell was one of the early 20th century’s most prominent logicians, and one of the founders of analytic philosophy. Together with his former teacher Alfred North Whitehead, Russell wrote Principia Mathematica, a milestone in the development of classical logic, and a major attempt to reduce the whole of mathematics to logic (see Logicism). Russell’s article “On Denoting” has been considered a “paradigm of philosophy”.

Russell was a pacifist who championed anti-imperialism and chaired the India League. He occasionally advocated preventive nuclear war, before the opportunity provided by the atomic monopoly had passed and he decided he would “welcome with enthusiasm” world government. He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I. Throughout his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist, although he later wrote he had “never been any of these things, in any profound sense”.

  • Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.
  • The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts.
  • A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.
  • The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
  • Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.
  • I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
  • The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
  • To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

The Time is Now

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Friday Filosophy v.8.13.21

Friday Filosophy v.8.13.21

Our Friday Filosophy v.8.13.21 offers thoughts from Aristotle with quotes that highlight the thinking of one of the most influential philosophers the world has ever known. He was a student of Plato and the Tutor to Alexander the great.

Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as “The First Teacher” and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply “The Philosopher”, while Dante (one of the most important poets of the Middle Ages) called him “the master of those who know”. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, studied by medieval scholars such as Peter Abelard and John Buridan. Aristotle’s influence on logic continued well into the 19th century. In addition, his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics.

Aristotle has been called “the father of logic”, “the father of biology”, “the father of political science”, “the father of zoology”, “the father of embryology”, “the father of natural law”, “the father of scientific method”, “the father of rhetoric”, “the father of psychology”, “the father of realism”, “the father of criticism”, “the father of individualism”, “the father of teleology”, and “the father of meteorology.”[8]

  • It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
  • The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
  • The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
  • Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.
  • It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
  • You will never do anything in the world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
  • You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
  • The most important relationship we can all have is the one you have with yourself, the most important journey you can take is one of self-discovery. To know yourself, you must spend time with yourself, you must not be afraid to be alone. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
  • What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.

The Time is Now.

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