All Quotes

"Catholicism has begotten much great art; Protestantism none at all – not a single painting. But Catholicism has fostered art in the very teeth of Christianity. The Kingdom of Christ, if it ever comes, will contain no art; Christ never showed the least concern with it. His church has inspired much but not because of anything the Master said. Who then was the inspirer? The much-maligned Devil, one supposes. It is he who understands and ministers to man's carnal and intellectual self, and art is carnal and intellectual."

"It was a philosophy deformed by that disease so fatal to philosophers – personal experience."

"The art of the quoter is to know when to stop."

"In the minds of politicians, perhaps more than anywhere, the notion of a million dollars has this accordion-like ability to expand or contract; if they are disposing of it, the million is a pleasing sum, reflecting warmly upon themselves; if somebody else wants it, it becomes a figure of inordinate size, not to be compassed by the rational mind."

"The Star Trek computer doesn't seem that interesting. They ask it random questions, it thinks for a while. I think we can do better than that."

"I have a simple algorithm, which is, wherever you see paid researchers instead of grad students, that's not where you want to be doing research."

"If you look at things like Google Now also. Maybe you want to just have [a question] answered for you before you ask it."

"It's hard to keep things moving. And that's always a big trick. I think for me, the key is setting really big goals. And, you know, with YouTube, I think we've had tremendous leadership, both with the founders and now with Salar, who's been running it."

"Sometimes it’s important to wake up and stop dreaming. When a really great dream shows up, grab it"

"I don't know how long I would've stayed, to be honest."

"Have a healthy disregard for the impossible."

"One flying car seems absurd; Larry Page has three."

"Page has long been reclusive, a computer scientist who pondered technical problems away from the public eye, preferring to chase moonshots over magazine covers."

"The revolutionary's role is to liberate, and to be liberated, with the people—not to win them over."

"You cannot imagine the wild enthusiasm that these two men created in Vienna. Newspapers went into raptures over each new waltz, and innumerable articles appeared about Lanner and Strauss."

"That the sweetly intoxicating three-four rhythm which took hold of hand & foot, necessarily eclipsed great & serious music & made the audience unfit for any intellectual effort goes without saying."

"The Prelude to Tristan and Isolde reminds me of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel."

"(Referring to the music of Anton Bruckner) "Nightmarish hangover style" (traumverwirrten Katzenjammerstil)"

"The beautiful is and remains beautiful though it arouse no emotion whatever, and though there be no one to look at it. In other words, although the beautiful exists for the gratification of an observer, it is independent of him. In this sense music, too, has no aim (object), and the mere fact that this particular art is so closely bound up with our feelings by no means justifies the assumption that its aesthetic principles depend on this union."

"Music means itself."

"[Music is] a language which we speak and understand but cannot translate"

"Dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed."

"Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in 'changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them.'"

"The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves."

"The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors"

"They have no consciousness of themselves as persons or as members of an oppressed class."

"The oppressed find in the oppressors their model of 'manhood.'"

"The behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor."

"The oppressor, who is himself dehumanized because he dehumanizes others, is unable to lead this struggle."

"This book will present some aspects of what the writer has termed the pedagogy of the oppressed, a pedagogy which must be forged with, not for, the oppressed (whether individuals or peoples) in the incessant struggle to regain their humanity."

"How can the oppressed, as divided unauthentic beings, participate in the pedagogy of their liberation?"

"As long as they live in the duality in which to be is to to be like, and to be like is to be like the oppressor, this contribution is impossible."

"Liberation is thus a childbirth, and a painful one."

"Discovering himself to be an oppressor may cause considerable anguish, but it does not necessarily lead to solidarity with the oppressed."

"True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love, and in its existentiality, in its praxis."

"A fact which is not denied but whose truths are rationalized loses its objective base. It ceases to be concrete and becomes a myth created in defense of the class of the perceiver."

"It would be a contradiction in terms if the oppressors not only defended but actually implemented a liberating education."

"The former oppressors do not feel liberated. On the contrary, they genuinely consider themselves to be oppressed."

"Money is the measure of all things, and profit the primary goal. For the oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more—always more—even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have."

"For them, having more is an inalienable right."

"Certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation."

"Our converts, on the other hand, truly desire to transform the unjust order; but because of their background they believe that they must be the executors of the transformation."

"A real humanist can be identified more by his trust in the people, which engages him in their struggle."

"The oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors."

"They call themselves ignorant and say the 'professor' is the one who has knowledge and to whom they should listen."

"Almost never do they realize that they, too, 'know things' they have learned in their relations with the world."

"Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation."

"In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing."

"Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building."

"It is necessary to trust in the oppressed and in their ability to reason."