160 quotes found
"The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people who can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum."
"Behind every man's external life, which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart. We see but one aspect of our neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us."
"The worst families are those in which the members never really speak their minds to one another; they maintain an atmosphere of unreality, and everyone always lives in an atmosphere of suppressed ill-feeling."
"Whatever may be the defects of Gibbon's history, none can deny him a proud precision and a style in marching order."
"... Practical people have little idea of the practical ability required to write a large book, and especially a large history. Long before you get to the pen, there is an immensity of pure business: heaps of material are strewn every where; but they lie in disorder, unread, uncatalogued, unknown. It seems a dreary waste of life to be analysing, indexing, extracting works and passages, in which one per cent of the contents are interesting, and not half of that per centage will ultimately appear in the flowing narrative."
"... The fame of Gibbon is highest among writers; those especially who have studied for years particular periods included in his theme (and how many those are; for in the East and West he has set his mark on all that is great for ten centuries!) acutely feel and admiringly observe how difficult it would be to say so much, and leave so little untouched ; to compress so many telling points; to present in so few words so apt and embracing a narrative of the whole."
"... For ancient heroes the exhaustive method is possible: all that can be known of them is contained in a few short passages of Greek and Latin, and it is quite possible to say whatever can be said about every one of these; the result would not be unreasonably bulky, though it might be dull. But in the case of men who have lived in the thick of the crowded modern world, no such course is admissible; overmuch may be said, and we must choose what we will say. Biographers, however, are rarely bold enough to adopt the selective method consistently. They have, we suspect, the fear of the critics before their eyes."
"... Nothing is so simple as the subject matter of his works. The two greatest of his creations, the character of Satan and the character of Eve, are two of the simplest—the latter probably the very simplest—in the whole field of literature. On this side, Milton's art is classical. On the other hand, in no writer is the imagery more profuse, the illustrations more various, the dress altogether more splendid; and in this respect the style of his art seems romantic and modern. In real truth, however, it is only ancient art in a modern disguise: the dress is a mere dress, and can be stripped off when we will.—we all of us do perhaps in memory strip it off for ourselves."
"... Satan is made interesting. This has been the charge of a thousand orthodox and even heterodox writers against Milton."
"A new Constitution does not produce its full effect as long as all its subjects were reared under an old Constitution, as long as its statesmen were trained by that old Constitution. It is not really tested till it comes to be worked by statesmen and among a people neither of whom are guided by a different experience."
"A political country is like an American forest; you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them."
"But the mass of the old electors did not analyse very much: they liked to have one of their "betters" to represent them; if he was rich they respected him much; and if he was a lord, they liked him the better. The issue put before these electors was, which of two rich people will you choose? And each of those rich people was put forward by great parties whose notions were the notions of the rich—whose plans were their plans. The electors only selected one or two wealthy men to carry out the schemes of one or two wealthy associations."
"In excited states of the public mind they have scarcely a discretion at all; the tendency of the public perturbation determines what shall and what shall not be dealt with. But, upon the other hand, in quiet times statesmen have great power; when there is no fire lighted, they can settle what fire shall be lit. And as the new suffrage is happily to be tried in a quiet time, the responsibility of our statesmen is great because their power is great too."
"An ancient and ever-altering constitution is like an old man who still wears with attached fondness clothes in the fashion of his youth: what you see of him is the same; what you do not see is wholly altered."
"No orator ever made an impression by appealing to men as to their plainest physical wants, except when he could allege that those wants were caused by some one’s tyranny. But thousands have made the greatest impression by appealing to some vague dream of glory, or empire, or nationality."
"A cabinet is a combining committee,—a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other."
"Cabinet governments educate the nation; the presidential does not educate it, and may corrupt it."
"Under a cabinet constitution at a sudden emergency this people can choose a ruler for the occasion. It is quite possible and even likely that he would not be ruler before the occasion. The great qualities, the imperious will, the rapid energy, the eager nature fit for a great crisis are not required—are impediments—in common times. A Lord Liverpool is better in everyday politics than a Chatham—a Louis Philippe far better than a Napoleon. By the structure of the world we want, at the sudden occurrence of a grave tempest, to change the helmsman—to replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot of the storm."
"The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other. It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations."
"The masses of Englishmen are not fit for an elective government."
"But the Queen has no such veto; She must sign her own death-warrant if the two Houses unanimously send it up to her."
"A constitutional sovereign must in the common course of government be a man of but common ability. I am afraid, looking to the early acquired feebleness of hereditary dynasties, that we must expect him to be a man of inferior ability. Theory and experience both teach that the education of a prince can be but a poor education, and that a royal family will generally have less ability than other families."
"The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights—the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others."
"A pompous man easily sweeps away the suggestions of those beneath him."
"To wish to be a despot ... marks in our day an uncultivated mind."
"[T]he two most singular prerogatives of an English king [are] the power of creating new peers and the power of dissolving the Commons."
"[W]hatever is unnecessary in government is pernicious."
"An Act of Parliament is at least as complex as a marriage settlement; and it is made much as a settlement would be if it were left to the vote and settled by the major part of persons concerned, including the unborn children."
"The best test of a machine is the work it turns out. Let any one who knows what legal documents ought to be, read first a will he has just been making and then an Act of Parliament; he will certainly say, “I would have dismissed my attorney if he had done my business as the legislature has done the nation’s business.”"
"[A]dministration is an art as painting is an art; and ... no book can teach the practice of either."
"Nations touch at their summits."
"It always perhaps happens in a great nation, that certain bodies of sensible men posted prominently in its constitution, acquire functions, and usefully exercise functions, which at the outset, no one expected from them, and which do not identify themselves with their original design. This has happened to the House of Lords especially."
"An assembly in which the mass of the members have nothing to lose, where most have nothing to gain, where every one has a social position firmly fixed, where no one has a constituency, where hardly any one cares for the minister of the day, is the very assembly in which to look for, from which to expect, independent criticism."
"A good horse likes to feel the rider’s bit; and a great deliberative assembly likes to feel that it is under worthy guidance. A minister who succumbs to the House,—who ostentatiously seeks its pleasure,—who does not try to regulate it,—who will not boldly point out plain errors to it, seldom thrives. The great leaders of Parliament have varied much, but they have all had a certain firmness. A great assembly is as soon spoiled by over-indulgence as a little child."
"Whatever expenditure is sanctioned—even when it is sanctioned against the ministry's wish—the ministry must find the money. Accordingly, they have the strongest motive to oppose extra outlay.... The ministry is (so to speak) the breadwinner of the political family, and has to meet the cost of philanthropy and glory; just as the head of a family has to pay for the charities of his wife and the toilette of his daughters."
"Nobody will understand parliamentary government who fancies it an easy thing, a natural thing, a thing not needing explanation."
"The caucus is a sort of representative meeting which sits voting and voting till they have cut out all the known men against whom much is to be said, and agreed on some unknown man against whom there is nothing known, and therefore nothing to be alleged."
"Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best."
"If happily, by its intelligence and attractiveness, a cabinet can gain a hold upon the great middle part of Parliament, it will continue to exist notwithstanding the hatching of small plots and the machinations of mean factions."
"The greatest teacher of all in Parliament, the head-master of the nation, the great elevator of the country—so far as Parliament elevates it—must be the Prime Minister."
"The great maxim of modern thought is not only the toleration of everything, but the examination of everything. It is by examining very bare, very dull, very unpromising things, that modern science has come to be what it is."
"In many matters of business, perhaps in most, a continuity of mediocrity is better than a hotch-potch of excellences."
"The greatest enjoyment possible to man was that which this philosophy promises its votaries—the pleasure of being always right, and always reasoning—without ever being bound to look at anything."
"The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the most imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks about them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendour of those who eclipsed and preceded them."
"The great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step. What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better."
"Maternity," it has been said, "is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion."
"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea."
"All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those times was never weary of inculcating that "delays are dangerous," and that the sluggish man — the man "who roasteth not that which he took in hunting" — will not prosper on the earth, and indeed will very soon perish out of it. And in consequence an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind."
"I wish the art of benefiting men had kept pace with the art of destroying them; for though war has become slow, philanthropy has remained hasty. The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the, benevolence of mankind does most good or harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy that they can do much by rapid action — that they will most benefit the world when they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an evil is seen "something" ought to be done to stay and prevent it."
"Most men of business think "Anyhow this system will probably last my time. It has gone on a long time, and is likely to go on still.""
"Credit means that a certain confidence is given, and a certain trust reposed. Is that trust justified? and is that confidence wise? These are the cardinal questions. To put it more simply credit is a set of promises to pay; will those promises be kept?"
"The less money lying idle the greater is the dividend."
"The best way for the bank or banks who have the custody of the bank reserve to deal with a drain arising from internal discredit, is to lend freely. The first instinct of everyone is the contrary. There being a large demand on a fund which you want to preserve, the most obvious way to preserve it is to hoard it—to get in as much as you can, and to let nothing go out which you can help. But every banker knows that this is not the way to diminish discredit. This discredit means, 'an opinion that you have not got any money,' and to dissipate that opinion, you must, if possible, show that you have money: you must employ it for the public benefit in order that the public may know that you have it."
"The owners of savings not finding, in adequate quantities, their usual kind of investments, rush into anything that promises speciously, and when they find that these specious investments can be disposed of at a high profit, they rush into them more and more. The first taste is for high interest, but that taste soon becomes secondary. There is a second appetite for large gains to be made by selling the principal which is to yield the interest. So long as such sales can be effected the mania continues; when it ceases to be possible to effect them, ruin begins."
"The name ‘London Banker’ had especially a charmed value. He was supposed to represent, and often did represent, a certain union of pecuniary sagacity and educated refinement which was scarcely to be found in any other part of society."
"To a great experience one thing is essential — an experiencing nature."
"The purse strings tie us to our kind."
"A highly developed moral nature joined to an undeveloped intellectual nature, an undeveloped artistic nature, and a very limited religious nature, is of necessity repulsive. It represents a bit of human nature — a good bit, of course, but a bit only — in disproportionate, unnatural and revolting prominence."
"The Ethiop gods have Ethiop lips, Bronze cheeks, and woolly hair; The Grecian gods are like the Greeks, As keen-eyed, cold and fair."
"A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities."
"You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor... Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits."
"It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations."
"[Of Guizot] A Puritan born in France by mistake."
"In truth, poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."
"Every trouble in life is a joke compared to madness."
"Honor sinks where commerce long prevails."
"Why don’t you call, you swine, and announce your approach!"
"Our tragic age demands poetry of courage and not whimpers about the inevitable end of all maya."
"Not a virgin or a rupee was safe in his realm."
"Please look out for the few thorns that might have got mixed up with the roses."
"The trouble with liberal democracy is that it takes a long time to mature."
"Mulk Raj Anand, an Indian novelist, was convinced of conspiracy. The rapes were so systematic and pervasive that they had to be conscious Army policy, “planned by the West Pakistanis in a deliberate effort to create a new race” or to dilute Bengali nationalism, Anand passionately told reporters."
"The Forlorn Hope was for the brave. It may have been a courage born of desperation, or foolhardiness, but it was courage just the same. (pg. 13)"
"Over many great races an enthusiastic movement seems at a certain period to sweep, carrying them during a few years to success, alike in arms and song, till the- stream sinks back into its old channel, and the nation continues a career, honourable, it may be, but wanting in the peculiar ardour of its great age."
"I can only hope that at some point there will be a positive change and I will get to cover that as well."
"“And there’s so much more to the region. There’s so much history, so much culture, so many people doing incredible things in different industries. It’s nice to see those aspects being showcased now, in magazines, in TV, in film, in music. To see that actually there’s a different side to the region, which has always been there. It just hasn’t really been given the platform.”"
"The place of origin of the is unknown, but both and ', today neatly separated by the Sahara, found their earliest ancestors in the , while a Potamochoerine, ', survived in into the ."
"This useful book surveys endangered species (and subspecies), stating where each lives and why it is endangered. ... The non-Australian conservationist will find much of interest here. The devastation wreaked by introduced species has been astounding: so many formerly widespread species have been swept off their entire mainland ranges by competition from the introductions, survivng only if their ranges happened to include offshore islands which were not reached by rabbits, hares, foxes, feral cats, introduced rats and mice, goats, donkeys, horses, camels, buffaloes, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds."
"The first of the 'complete theories' of evolution developed in modern times was the of (1969; translation of work published in 1922). While badly hampered by an ignorance of genetics, slow to reach the Russia of the early twentieth century, Berg's consideration of the Darwinian model led him to the conclusion that it was incompatible, at least as the major mechanism, with what he knew of the pattern of living organisms and their evolution."
"As new methods of investigation become available to us, levels of analysis can be conducted: nuances undreamed of by , , , even . Science had advanced, but human behavior has not. People still hunt gorillas for food or trophies, and still cut down their forests; but now those same advances in science also enable forests to be cut down more efficiently, gorillas to be hunted more efficiently, human populations to increase ever faster and press in on the remaining habitat, so that our second-closest relative is threatened with disappearing for ever. More and more, the work of taxonomists and other biologists must be put into the service of conservation."
"Taxonomy has a well-defined role, which is much more than simply stamp-collecting and pigeon-holing. are the units of classification, and ; as such they must be defined as objectively as possible. The biological species concept, still widely used in biology, though predominantly by non-taxonomists and all too often misunderstood, is a process-based concept, which offers no criterion for the classification of beyond and hypothesis. The phylogenetic species concept—a pattern-based concept—is as nearly objective as we are likely to get. Amount of difference is not a criterion for recognizing species. It is not possible to insist on at the specific level, but it is mandatory for the higher categories (, , etc.). The rank we assign to a given supraspecific category should be determined by its time depth."
"This article reviews changes in , especially those pertaining to the meaning of the term species, since its inception two and a half centuries ago. Despite continuing discoveries and the involvement of competent practitioners, the adoption of the polytypic species concept, especially underpinned by the biological species concept, ensured that primate taxonomy was in a sorry state by the middle of the twentieth century. In the latter half of the twentieth century, a gradual rethinking of the nature of species took place, and many different species concepts were proposed. The phylogenetic species concept has been widely adopted over the past ∼20 years, sustained by a gradual realization that species are evolutionary lineages. This review provides examples of how the old way of thinking about species hampered our understanding of primate biodiversity and of how the phylogenetic species concept (or the diagnosability criterion under the general lineage concept) has clarified matters, opening them up for discussion. The adoption of this evolutionary view of species has implications for conservation, particularly because it increases recognition of biodiversity."
"There has been a lot of discussion about ‘the species question’ over the past 20–30 years, and several surveys have converged on the essence of what we mean by species: they are evolutionary lineages ... Species thus have a real existence. This settles the ontological status of the species concept, but it does not necessarily solve the question of how to recognise them; the most logical way of defining species operationally is by the so-called Phylogenetic Species Concept: ‘A species is the smallest population or aggregation of populations which has fixed heritable differences from other such populations or aggregations’ ..."
"While studying under the supervision of , he had the good fortune to meet , , and , all of them famous researchers in the field of Anthropology and Primatology. Equally important to Colin, as he recalled in Groves (2008), was his meeting with − then at ."
", whose life and adventures should be known to all who know his writings, must be held to have succeeded in nothing that his friends would have had him succeed in. He was intended for a clergyman, and was rejected when he applied for orders; he practiced as a physician, and never made what would have paid for a degree; what he was not asked or expected to do, was to write, but he wrote and paid the penalty. His existence was a continued privation. The days were few, in which he had resources for the night, or dared to look forward to the morrow."
"... No one conversant with can have failed to be struck by the extraordinary lawlessness that prevailed at sea. The coasts for the most part were without watch or defence. The dissolute extravagance of the court took no heed of the subject's claim to protection; and if a needy lord could fill his spendthrift purse for a day by help of a maritime freebooter, the honest merchant was helpless against the plunderer and pirate. As a consequence, the coasts swarmed with such; but of all who had so obtained infamous distinction, the most notorious was Captain . This man had possessed himself of several pirate ships,and no point along the Irish or western sea was safe from his attacks."
"... It is the fact that teaches, and not any sermonizing drawn from it. Oliver Twist is the history of a child born in a and brought up by overseers, and there is nothing introduced that is out of keeping with the design."
"... If to owe nothing to other men is to be original, a more original man than Swift never lived; but, with the wonderful subtlety of thought so rarely joined to the same robustness of intellect which placed his wit and philosophy on the level of Rabelais, he had the same habit as the great Frenchman of turning things inside out, and putting away decencies as if they were shows or hypocrisies. In both it led to an insufferable coarseness."
"By 1831, when Forster was 18 and Lamb 55, they had met and become friends. Lamb was then living in retirement at as a distinguished literary man. Like Leigh Hunt he would have attracted Forster because of his links with the recent and glamorous past, for Lamb had known the young Wordsworth, had known Southey and Hazlitt; Coleridge had been his 'fifty years old friend without a dissension'. ... He was a fine critic and a great essayist. His sister was a lunatic and he himself a saddened, garrulous, humorous, and gregarious bachelor who often drank too much. Drinking and gregarious gossiping suited the young Forster, and Forster suited Lamb, who treated him with a mixture of patronage, affection and reliance."
"So much has been said by Forster himself in the Life about the dramatic performances in aid of the comparatively short-lived , that to do more than touch upon it here would be superfluous. Of course its real founder was Dickens himself, seconded, though I fancy with not quite so much enthusiasm, by , Forster, Mr. (afterwards Sir) , , , , and many others in the world of Literature and Art."
"It was Forster who suggested that should die. Dickens took this and ran with it — he thought it was brilliant."
"Perhaps I should have been more persistent."
"Eliza Orme had argued more generally in the 1890s that it was necessary to break down conventional barriers, allowing “each individual to do what natural talent prompts rather than what social status demands”"
"Things look more hopeful now than ever."
"Eliza Orme’s Ambitions fills out earlier scant accounts of this intriguing life, while speculating about why it has been overlooked."
"Then there is the twisted copper or bronze drill discovered by Rao at Lothal. Sankalia records the find and comments: "Its occurrence at so early a date is of great moment in the history of civilization.'"
"Indeed, Sankalia’s statement of 1962 still remains valid, that despite almost a century of investigations, “we have not found anything “Aryan” on the ruins of the Indus Valley Civilisation” (Coningham and Young 2015)"
"Perhaps such fire-altars also existed at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, but were missed in mass diggings, and have only been revealed in a slow, careful excavation."
"The cow's a gentle, patient soul, With milk she fills the flowing bowl. She's kind to babies, mean to flies, She has the most coquettish eyes."
"And here’s the happy, bounding flea — You cannot tell the he from she. The sexes look alike, you see; But she can tell, and so can he."
"Now, children, you must never laugh At the stately tall giraffe. She's sensitive, as you can tell; But, my dears, she kicks like hell!"
"The plural of goose is geese, But the plural of moose ain't meese, And the plural of noose ain't neese, But the plural of goose — is geese."
"In this mechanic age the skunk Inspires no terror — he's the bunk; For people in cars, Returning from bars, Quite frequently flatten the skunk."
"The sacred ape, now, children, see. He's searching for the modest flea. If he should turn around we'd find He has no hair on his behind."
"The little penguins look alike Even as Ike resembles Mike. They are so gentle and so nice God keeps these little birds on ice."
"The }} constitute by far the larger proportion of the inhabitants of the ; they vary considerably in number at different periods of the year, in consequent of their being short lived, and breeding being arrested during the depth of winter. In spring they become exceedingly numerous; so that, in May or June, a good colony will give off a swarm of more than 20,000 bees, and retain a sufficiency of workers to rear the brood and feed the young grubs that remain behind. This number may appear incredible; as as 300 bees weigh only one , and a good swarm often weighs above five s, the statement admits an easy proof."
"This treatise, small as it is, could hardly be regarded as complete, without directions for the manufacture of , a drink so much in fashion, that had some made yearly for her own especial benefit. , an old and quaint bee author, who printed his work entitled "," with a phonetic alphabet of his own invention, gives the exact recipe for making mead, as used by "our renowned Queen Elizabeth of happy memory;" but the taste of our race has become more refined and we should now fail to appreciate the mead brewed with and sweet-briar leaves as relished by the virgin queen ..."
"The first, and by no means the least important, consideration of every prospective poultry keeper is the situation and construction of the poultry houses and yards. It is trued that poultry may be kept almost anywhere; good specimens of s have been reared in an attic, and many very fine ones have never known there was any world beyond a small back yard in the street of a county town. These, however, are extreme cases; and success under such disadvantageous conditions can only be achieved by constant attention, extreme cleanliness, and great judgment in supplying artificially those requirements of the birds which the place of confinement does not afford. The best of all s on which to establish a poultry yard is , or sand resting on or a substratum of gravel. If the soil is clayey, or from other causes of wet, the whole should be well drained. This is essential to success, as a wet soil is more inductive than any other circumstance of cramp, , and other diseases."
"and possess one great recommendation as sitters, in the soft and abundant supply of downy feathers that so specially distinguish these varieties; for under no other hens do the eggs appear to maintain a higher or more constant temperature."
"The structure and habits of the family or group of pigeons are so peculiar and so strikingly distinct from those of any other birds, that they demand special attention. The pigeons were formerly classed by the majority of naturalists along with the , the true poultry, and by others with the or -like birds; but more accurate observation has rendered evident the fact that they form a perfectly distinct family, distinguished from all other birds by the singular manner in which their young are nourished. Unlike the true gallinaceae—which are hatched in a very perfect state and able to follow the parent hen within a few hours after birth—the young pigeons are born in a most immature and helpless condition, and are fed with a curdy secretion, produced in the crops of the parents, the "soft food" of the pigeon-fancier. This is expressly produces at the period of hatching, for the support of the callow young."
"Having described the breed known as the Carrier, and the varieties allied to it, we have now to consider the different kinds of s, or those that are remarkable for their powers of flight and their attachment to the home in which they have been reared and first flown. There are numerous varieties that exhibit this peculiarity, such as the Dragon, the ordinary flying , and the Skinnum, or mongrel race, between these two breeds. Among the pure breeds that can be flown good distances may be mentioned that called the . But the varieties in which this homing faculty is developed to the highest degree are unquestionably the different races of Belgian birds, which are termed in England by the general name of Antwerps, and in Belgium are known as , s, Demi Bees, &c."
"But when Science, passing beyond its own limits, assumes to take the place of Theology, and sets up its own conception of the Order of Nature as a sufficient account of its Cause, it is invading a province of Thought to which it has no claim, and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of those who ought to be its best friends."
"Selling food on the streets is very uncertain. You’ve got to be a bit of a gambler and you’ve got to be really, really resilient and willing to get on with a lot of hard work. It’s really physical, but for those who ‘get it’, it creates an amazing energy to be around. I wanted to create more of that."
"I love consolidating talents. I wanted to create a new movement that provides strength in numbers for street traders and cultivates more people doing great food on the streets. Festival organisers prefer to deal with collectives rather than individuals."
"We want to democratise good food. The idea of 'street food' is being trendified as a career option. But we're saying: let's leverage this so it touches all cultures, not just middle-class life-changers."
"Ask yourself if you’re ready to get comfortable with nothing being predictable and flying by the seat of your pants for the foreseeable future. If you like to have certainty about your future, this may not be for you."
"We all know how unpredictable the comments section can be—but I said yes. Not because I’m fearless, but because I believe in showing up, as I am, with confidence and kindness"
"confidence is the most powerful thing you can wear. It doesn’t come in a bottle, a bikini, or a lipstick tube—it comes from how you feel in your own skin. And that feeling? It’s something you build, not something you wait for permission to have."
"If a red lip gives you a spark—put it on."
"If you feel powerful in a black swimsuit—wear it with pride"
"And if you feel your best with bare skin and a strong brow? Go for it."
"If you like it, wear it"
"Makeup, style, and beauty should never be about restriction. They should be about freedom—the freedom to feel like you, at every stage and in every season of life"
"You are allowed to feel good. You are allowed to enjoy beauty. You are allowed to be seen."
"Confidence is ongoing. Let’s keep showing up for ourselves"
"Skin first, confidence always. Less is more, but it’s not about doing less, more so choosing better. The beauty of now about embracing who we are - knowing what suits YOU, what brings you joy, and what makes you feel your best. These days, I’ve ditched the drama in place of well-prepped skin - the secret to glowing, long-lasting makeup isn’t in the foundation or setting spray, it’s in the skin underneath. When your skin is healthy and you’re already glowing, all you need is a touch of makeup to bring your face to life. I look for multi-tasking products infused with skincare ingredients, and use only where needed. Whilst the drama may have softened, confidence is stronger than ever."
"Whether it was over-drawn, over-plucked brows or, in my case, striped eyeshadow, every look served its purpose. The most beautiful thing about style is that it evolves and grows with you… so rather than look back with embarrassment, it gives me huge joy to look back and see myself experimenting and just having fun with it. At the end of the day, that’s what makeup should be - FUN"
"Looking good is all about self-confidence"
"True beauty is not defined by age, colour, size or sex - it is reflected by the spirit within. Someone who has a ready smile, who shows kindness and warmth is always beautiful"
"The darkest berry shade looks beautiful on me as someone with a nude complexion and equally as beauty on someone with a pale skin tone"
"We are constantly discussing ingredients, sustainability, formulation advancements and new packaging innovation. Whilst we have to be conscious of costs in the given climate, launching products that don’t deliver would be detrimental to my credibility as an artist and brand founder"
"Our main goal is to enhance people’s natural beauty, creating a safe space to ask questions online and encourage people to embrace their unique looks"
"Does your product or service already exist? What is your point of difference? Also, don’t be overwhelmed by other people’s opinions"
"I may not shout and scream but I have always stood up for accessibility. Nobody should go into a store or shop online and find that nothing works for them"
"When I browsed stores, I noticed a lot of complicated products being touted as ‘perfect’ for altering your appearance to look like someone else. The increase of filters being used online created a gap in the market for those that wanted a more natural, simple approach. I want to see people celebrating themselves and feeling comfortable in their own skin"
"Nothing could have prepared us for the complications that arose. Applying makeup was banned, so technology became key to the business rather than a hands-on approach. You had to learn to adapt"
"I wanted people to feel free to use them whenever they wanted, using their creativity rather than feeling constrained to a name. I use the tapered brush for shadow work on the eyes as well as to strategically apply concealer. Everything is designed by an artist, made for you"
"I’m constantly on the lookout for new and innovative products. It can be overwhelming when you see brands with thousands of lines. As an artist, I’m constantly editing down the products I have for my kit, and I wanted to make it easy for everybody to do the same"
"AI will be disruptive, but will ultimately provide opportunities."
"We all have an innate desire to do something for humanity"
"Hierarchies are not structured for good decision making"
"We can build AI to represent every corner of society… we can use it to ensure we build a less biased experience"
"I’ve always been interested in what it means to be human, and in the nature of the universe. I did my undergraduate [degree] in AI and my master’s in AI, and my Ph.D. in AI, so I guess I’ve been doing 19 years’ worth of activity in AI."
"There are two definitions of AI, and the more popular one is the weakest. This first definition [concerns] machines that can do tasks that were traditionally in the realm of human beings. Over the past decade, due to advances in technologies like deep learning, we have started to build machines that can do things like recognize objects in images, and understand and respond to natural language. Humans are the most intelligent things we know in the universe, so when we start to see machines do tasks once constrained to the human domain, then we assume that is intelligence.But I would argue that humans are not that intelligent. Humans are good at finding patterns in, at most, four dimensions, and we’re terrible at solving problems that involve more than seven things. Machines can find patterns in thousands of dimensions and can solve problems that involve millions of things. Even these technologies aren’t AI — they’re just algorithms. They do the same thing over and over again. In fact, my definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result."
"The best definition of intelligence — artificial or human — that I’ve found is goal-directed adaptive behavior. I use goal-directed in the sense of trying to achieve an objective, which in business might be to roster your staff more effectively, or to allocate marketing spend to sell as [much] ice cream as possible. It might be whatever goal you’re seeking."
"There are four categories of AI skills. The first category is the data. Companies should ask: Are we getting our data into the shape where people can consume it? There are lots of companies out there that are throwing money at building data lakes — that’s all the raw data that a company holds from code generation to sales information — because they think at some point in the future data lakes will be useful. That’s not a bad investment, but I would also suggest that you need to be building applications straight away on top of that data lake that drive value into your business. Companies…should be thinking about building digital twins of their organizations, i.e., a perfect digital representation of their physical assets, like their infrastructure and employees."
"Next is recruiting data scientists who have the machine learning and statistics skills to find insights from the data. Then, the third is [finding] what I call the decision scientists: people who can understand how to make decisions or solve optimization problems that leverage those insights."
"And fourth, crucially, for true AI, you need to have an AI architect who understands how to glue these three components together: the data, the machine learning, and the optimization to build adaptive systems. And at the moment, it’s the CIO who is trying to step into that role of overseeing this. But I don’t know of many companies out there that have true AI architects. For now, companies are managing maybe part of this, but not all four categories."
"Digital twins are the next evolution of digital transformation. To be able to adapt more quickly to a changing world, companies need to create a digital replica of all of their physical assets, their infrastructure and people. Once you have a twin, you can start to run experiments and simulate scenarios to operate your business more effectively. Further down the line we may even have AI setting those experiments, and running experiments without the aid of the human. The role of the strategist and of leadership is to develop a strong vision and purpose, i.e., [determining] what key objective the organization needs to aspire to. I hope that organizations will realize that this objective needs to be much more sophisticated than a financial return to be able to attract, empower, and motivate talent. Exceptional talent wants to align with a strong purpose and inspirational leaders."
"There is a bit of a bubble in AI. I don’t think that it’s going to go to waste. I think that all this investment will be additive, but there’s an over-expectation of what machine learning can bring right now, because of a lack of appreciation of the fact that machine learning is only part of the journey. And the next part of the journey for most big companies is optimization and decision making."
"As [futurist] Roy Amara noted, the impact of technology tends to be overestimated in the short run and underestimated in the long run. For now, you can probably ignore the idea of having adaptive systems in your business. That will come later. In the short run, you can use AI to remove the friction of mundane and repetitive tasks across the organization. If used correctly, this can absolutely change your business. But there’s a lot of hype out there, and a lot of people investing in these technologies don’t know what they’re doing."
"The world is changing so quickly, it’s very difficult to actually have all the necessary data points to be able to help you forecast accurately. At the moment, that’s still in the realm of human beings."
"In the and the of the , grandiloquent homes were built for the nation's leaders and heroes with great avenues of approach and triumphal arches. Villages which were found to stand in the way of these grandiose undertakings were removed out of sight. Sweeping changes were made at the seat of the , the victor of , which necessitated the moving of the village of in ; was destroyed in the creating of 's dramatic for the ; disappeared in the lay-out for the magnificent seat of the in . The great Whig palaces and extensive gardens at , and overran ancient villages and hamlets that stood in the way of improvements. , who had envisaged an avenue of trees between London and his , began his improvements by removing the village of which lay in the shadow of his house. The village of in was resited to give breathing space to the family of . ... By the middle of the century great gardens were being made, not only to reflect their creator's importance or political beliefs, but to demonstrate the excellence of his taste. The new vogue was not for great avenues, canals, fountains and grand parterres but for naturalized landscape. Wealthy families in every county bought up vast tracts of land to make natural gardens, which would look like landscape paintings; some took the English countryside for these picture gardens and with the help of idealized and, 'improved' it; the with memories of their s revelled in the creation of Italian classical landscapes."
"… The accepted idea of the of a building, furniture or a painting, as the rehabilitation of an object already in existence, albeit in imperfect form, cannot be applied to gardens which are by their nature organic. They have allotted life spans and have been dug up and refashioned over the centuries. ... At the has been able to restore the garden of the great from original plans, so that the design of the s and seen today is much as Evelyn described it when he visited in 1678. At in the National Trust has restored a from engravings, existing evidence and plant list which have enabled them to use contemporary plants including old cultivars of Turkish irises, apples and pears and old tulips. A current true restoration is being undertaken at , , where the poet 's famous beds, painted by in 1777, are being reinstated with authentic planting. … The ultimate in scholarly garden reconstruction is the Roman garden at executed through excavation and .."
"Mavis fell in love with her future husband, , himself one of the Bletchley “break-in” experts, after he helped her with a particularly difficult code breaking problem: “I was alone on the evening shift in the cottage and I sought the help of what called 'one of the clever Cambridge mathematicians in Hut 6’. We put our heads together and in the calmer light of logic, and much ersatz coffee, solved the problem. Dilly made no objections to my having sought such help and when I told him I was going to marry the 'clever mathematician from hut 6’ he gave us a lovely wedding present.” After the war Mavis Batey brought her indefatigability to the protection of Britain’s historical gardens. Her interest began in the late 1960s, when her husband was appointed the “Secretary of the Chest”, the chief financial officer of Oxford University. They lived in a university-owned house on the park at and she set about ensuring that the overgrown gardens were restored to their original landscaped state."
"Make a list of herbs you want to grow. Begin with the s and greys, as these will make the framework of the garden and be most apparent in the winter. These plants include , , , , , and ."
"Chrysanthemum parthenium aureum, the golden feverfew — now known as aureum, is the golden variety of the old physic herb grown widely an antidote to fever and headache. it is native to Europe and reliably hardy."
"s are undoubtedly among the garden aristocrats and every garden should have one, somewhow, but not on an east-facing exposure. They are and their oval shiny leaves are a joy at all times of the year, but they come into full glory when covered in flowers. The sheer number of varieties and is bewildering. For years I only admired them from afar, put off from growing them, by my very limey soil and by the successful growers who made me fell too ignorant to own them"
"Rosemary Verey, who has died aged 82, was the doyenne of the gardening world. A pioneer gardener, designer and writer, she made "good" gardening popular, and by her example — both in the aesthetic and practical horticulture so admired at her home at , , and through her serious, but highly readable, books - she also made it achievable by a whole new generation. ... Verey's work as a designer established her particular style throughout Britain and in north America, with the Prince of Wales, Sir Elton John and among her clients. In the United States, she designed for many private individuals, as well as creating a large plan for a new (still to be implemented) at the ."
"Long before it was a fancy , was famous for its . Designed by the hallowed Rosemary Verey, its vistas of purple , avenues of trees, walls and emerald lawns still cause gardeners to gasp with pleasure."