#preservation

I was trying to discover examples of a living restoration, trying to go beyond discussions about correct historic colors, materials, and techniques. I looked to the past for guidance, to find the graces we need to save. I want to be an importer. This is not nostalgia; I am not nostalgic. I am not looking for a way back. "From where will a renewal come to us, to us who have devastated the whole earthly globe?" asked Simone Weil. "Only from the past if we love it." What I am looking for is the trick of having the same ax twice, for a restoration that renews the spirit, for work that transforms the worker. We may talk of saving antique linens, species, or languages; but whatever we are intent on saving, when a restoration succeeds, we rescue ourselves. -- Howard Mansfield, The Same Ax Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age ↗

— Howard Mansfield

#historic-preservation #age

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war. If it is held that the instinct for preserving the species should always be obeyed at the expense of other instincts, whence do we derive this rule of precedence? To listen to that instinct speaking in its own case and deciding in its own favour would be rather simple minded. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the rest. By the very act of listening to one rather than to others we have already prejudged the case. If we did not bring to the examination of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we could never learn it from them. And that knowledge cannot itself be instinctive: the judge cannot be one of the parties judged: or, if he is, the decision is worthless and there is no ground for placing preservation of the species above self-preservation or sexual appetite. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#morality #self-preservation #values #self-knowledge

Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant. ↗

— Ann Coulter

#always #america #defending #difference #either

He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich. ↗

— Evelyn Waugh

#gifted #instinct #passes #rich #self-preservation

I first began to dry specimens for preservation carelessly perhaps at first, but before the season was over, I had collected between one and two hundred species. ↗

— George Bentham

#began #between #carelessly #collected #dry

In particular, for younger researchers on whom the future of mankind may depend. We believe that they are working with all the scientific wisdom at their disposal for the preservation of the inheritance of the earth and for the lasting survival of mankind. ↗

— Kenichi Fukui

#depend #disposal #earth #future #inheritance

But, when Scripture makes a clear distinction between the act of creation and the process of preservation, we cannot accept the idea of a progressive creation process. ↗

— Walter Lang

#act #between #cannot #clear #clear distinction

Following the creation concept that creation processes differed from preservation processes, it is suggested that God endowed each created kind, at the time of its creation, with potential for vast variety. ↗

— Walter Lang

#created #creation #differed #each #endowed

It seems we will continue to have problems with this classification and it may be because it comes under the heading of creation rather than preservation. ↗

— Walter Lang

#classification #comes #continue #creation #heading

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#inform #liberty #mass #only #our