#them

The question of boundaries is a major question of the Jewish people because the Jews are the great experts of crossing boundaries. They have a sense of identity inside themselves that doesn't permit them to cross boundaries with other people. ↗

— A. B. Yehoshua

#boundaries #cross #crossing #experts #great

Magic is like a lot of other disciplines that people have recently begun developing, in historic terms. Working with magic is a way of understanding the universe and how it functions. You can approach it from a lot of different angles, applying a lot of different theories and mental models to it. You can get to the same place through a lot of different lines of theory and reasoning, kind of like really advanced mathematics. There's no truly right or wrong way to get there, either--there are just different ways, some more or less useful than others for a given application. And new vistas of thought, theory, and application open up on a pretty regular basis, as the Art develops and expands through the participation of multiple brilliant minds. But that said, once you have a good grounding in it,you get a pretty solid idea of what's possible and what isn't. No matter how much circumlocution you do with your formulae, two plus two doesn't equal five. (Except maybe very, very rarely, sometimes, in extremely specific and highly unlikely circumstances.) ↗

— Jim Butcher

#magic #mathematics #art

To the fantastic mental illness of Rationalism, hard facts are regrettable things, and to talk about them is to create them. ↗

— Francis Parker Yockey

#create #facts #fantastic #hard #illness

Existe una opinión generalizada según la cual la matemática es la ciencia más difícil cuando en realidad es la más simple de todas. La causa de esta paradoja reside en el hecho de que, precisamente por su simplicidad, los razonamientos matemáticos equivocados quedan a la vista. En una compleja cuestión de política o arte, hay tantos factores en juego y tantos desconocidos e inaparentes, que es muy difícil distinguir lo verdadero de lo falso. El resultado es que cualquier tonto se cree en condiciones de discutir sobre política y arte -y en verdad lo hace- mientras que mira la matemática desde una respetuosa distancia. ↗

— Ernesto Sabato

#matemáticas #mathematics #science #art

The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves. ↗

— M. H. Abrams

#century #enlightenment #major #philosophers #secular

Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with them men. ↗

— Theodor Adorno

#brutal #gestures #making #men #precise

I didn't say I wouldn't go into ghetto areas. I've been in many of them and to some extent I would say this; if you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all. ↗

— Spiro T. Agnew

#been #city #extent #ghetto #go

He could not believe that any of them might actually hit somebody. If one did, what a nowhere way to go: killed by accident; slain not as an individual but by sheer statistical probability, by the calculated chance of searching fire, even as he himself might be at any moment. Mathematics! Mathematics! Algebra! Geometry! When 1st and 3d Squads came diving and tumbling back over the tiny crest, Bell was content to throw himself prone, press his cheek to the earth, shut his eyes, and lie there. God, oh, God! Why am I here? Why am I here? After a moment's thought, he decided he better change it to: why are we here. That way, no agency of retribution could exact payment from him for being selfish. ↗

— James Jones

#bell #death #fear #geometry #machine-guns

There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves. ↗

— Cliff Fadiman

#great #great ones #kinds #ones #only

It's fun to do a comedy and hook people in and then hoodwink them into watching a serious movie. I like to lead in with the comedy and then hit them over the head with a drama. ↗

— Reese Witherspoon

#drama #fun #head #hit #hoodwink