All Quotes

"Archaeology, like other human sciences such as anthropology and history, allowed a European mapping of the subjugated terrain of the Other. While ethnography portrayed the colonised native as a savage requiring Western education and whose culture needed modernisation, archaeology and its practices provided a way of charting the past of colonised lands. (Bahrani 1999: 160)"

"This obsessive desire to disassociate the past of the region from its present and to present it instead as a primitive stage in the evolution of mankind facilitated the concept of ‘Mesopotamia’ as the rightful domain of the West […] (Bahrani 1999: 166)"

"The image of Mesopotamia, upon which we still depend, was necessary for a march of progress from East to West, a concept of world cultural development that is explicitly Eurocentric and imperialist. (Bahrani 1999: 172)"

"The creation of a historical narrative in which space and time became transcendental horizons for the Being—Mesopotamia, was part of the larger discursive project through which Europe attempted its mastery of the colonised. The narrative of the progress of civilisation was an invention of European imperialism, a way of constructing history in its own image and claiming precedence for Western culture. (Bahrani 1999: 171)"

"I just hope we can all be reminded of love, of compassion and forgiveness."

"Within this disciplinary organisation the term that came to be the acceptable name for Iraq in the Pre-Islamic period was ‘Mesopotamia.’ This revival of a name applied to the region in the European Classical tradition came to underscore the Babylonian/Assyrian position within the Western historical narrative of civilisation as the remoter, malformed, or partially formed, roots of European culture which has its telos in the flowering of Western culture and, ultimately, the autonomous modern Western man. Thus the term Mesopotamia refers to an atemporal rather than a geographical entity, which is, in the words of the renowned Mesopotamian scholar, A. Leo Oppenheim (1964), a ‘Dead Civilisation.’ This civilisation had to be entirely dissociated, by name, from the local inhabitants and contemporary culture in order to facilitate the portrayal of the history of human civilisation as a single evolutionary process with its natural and ideal outcome in the modern West. (Bahrani 1999: 165)"

"Strictly speaking, Old Babylonian (and, in general, Mesopotamian) mathematics might therefore better be characterized as computation; instead of ‘mathematicians’ we should speak of ‘calculators’ and ‘teachers of calculation’; supra-utilitarian activities represent ‘pure calculation’ rather than ‘pure mathematics.’ The ultimate interest in finding a number is of course also a characteristic of most present-day applications of mathematics; but it remains a feature which distinguishes both the Mesopotamian and the contemporary calculating orientation from the investigation of the properties of mathematical objects which (since the Greeks) constitutes our ideal type of mathematics proper. (Hoyrup 2018)"

"[…] whatever is closely connected with the ancient Indian religion must be considered as having sprung up among the Indian themselves, unless positive evidence of the strongest kind point to a contrary conclusion."

"I was amazed at how this outstanding connoisseur of Indian knowledge in the field of exact sciences showed himself to be so captive to Cantor’s authority."

"I cannot help thinking that it shows battle weariness rather than a considered opinion."

"[…] nor did he [Thibaut] formulate the obvious conclusion, namely, that the Greeks were not the inventors of plane geometry, rather it was the Indians. At least this was the message that the Greek scholars saw in Thibaut’s paper. And they didn’t like it... If the Indians invented plane geometry, what was to become of Greek ‘genius’ or of the Greek ‘miracle’?"

"I was amazed at how this outstanding connoisseur of Indian knowledge in the field of exact sciences showed himself to be so captive to Cantor’s authority."

"For Egypt, in my opinion, the one fact of experience was sufficient that there was a right-angled triangle 4, 3, 5. Then Pythagoras took the matter geometrically in hand and proved the theorem named after him by ascending in ancient Greek manner from individual case to individual case, finally to the quite general theorem. (Cantor 1905: 70)."

"[…] should it […] boil down to the fact that individual parts of the Sulbasutras are relatively modern interpolations?"

"Therefore, we do not doubt for a moment that Pythagoras’ stay in Egypt, that the lessons he received from the priests there, were among the things that were common truth."

"So much appears certain to us, that Pythagoras could have been in Babylon."

"Some of the things, which belong particularly to the history of mathematics, we will not refrain from attributing to Pythagoras himself. Among them is the Pythagorean theorem, which we want to preserve under all circumstances. (Cantor 1880: 129)"

"Pythagoras remarked, we think, that 9+16=25. When he made this under all circumstances interesting remark, he already knew, no matter from which source, the experienced fact that a right angle is constructed by assuming the measure numbers 3, 4, 5 for the lengths of the two legs and for the distance of the end points of the same. We have pointed out that the Egyptians and the Babylonians perhaps possessed the same knowledge that the Chinese certainly had (Cantor 1880: 153)"

"Pythagoras, so we tried to prove, certainly acquired mathematical knowledge in Egypt, perhaps in the Euphrates countries. The former can be seen from the explicit traditions, as well as from the Egyptian character of some geometrical developments, the latter from the Babylonian seeming number differences of the Pythagoreans. The sum of geometrical knowledge, which was made accessible by Pythagoras and his school to the Greeks before the year 400, is not quite a minor one [...] It included the Pythagorean theorem […]. (Cantor 1880: 158)"

"It is hardly conceivable that these writers [Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhaskaracharya etc.], should have been unacquainted with the Greek sources, which were available to Varahamihira [the earliest of these writers]; it is even less conceivable that they [the Indian writers], acquainted with the same, did not let themselves be influenced by them [the Greek sources]. Thus, it is again a conclusion to be assumed in advance, only waiting for a confirmation, that Greek mathematics had brought its traces into those Indian works."

"But instead of Cantor admitting the independence or at least the relative independence of the Indians, i.e. the independence of their geometry from the Greeks, he expresses himself extremely tortuous, even he did not give up his Heron hypothesis by hiding it behind the doubtful question at the end, whether there are not at the end in the Sulbasutras relatively modern insertions."

"Cantor concludes that Indian geometry and Greek geometry, especially of Heron, are related; and the only question is, Who borrowed from whom? He expresses the opinion that the Indians were, in geometry, the pupils of the Greeks."

"I am fully conscious of the fact that my late husband and I did nothing special; we simply tried to remain human in the midst of inhumanity."

"The difficulties which arise from assuming a direct borrowing by the Greeks from India fall away on the assumption of a common origin in Babylonia."

"Die Schwierigkeiten, die einer direkten griechischen Entlehnung aus Indien entgegenstehen, fallen bei der Annahme von Babylon als gemeinsames Ursprungsgebiet ohne weiteres weg."

"(About the song Ma il cielo è sempre più blu) I had had this subject in mind for some time. I knew Rino Gaetano well because, as a young girl, I was friends with his sister Anna, and we used to hang out together in Rome. I liked his music and I liked him, a deeply intelligent young man. His is the story of a modern-day hero, as relevant today as his songs are. Stories about young people are rarely told on television: this one aims to be just that."

"It's easy to crucify people. We all know that drugs are bad. Even those who use them know it. But since so many people take drugs, we have to ask ourselves whether it is society that is creating the problem. Apart from what he said about cocaine, which I don't agree with even if it refers to the past, I appreciated Morgan's comments about hypocritical and evil society. I don't take drugs and I agree with him. And you can't condemn someone who said something in a moment of weakness. I don't think there are more drug addicts in this world than in others. However, the world of artists is easier to target. Artists have no power. In fact, they have the power to hurt themselves."

"(About Rino Gaetano) His biography is emblematic, beautiful, interesting to tell. Everything about him deserves attention. Even the car accident that caused his death."

"Sanremo is never completely independent. Otherwise, certain appearances and certain exclusions cannot be justified. And it does not represent Italian music."

"I would abolish all those fake, phoney do-gooder programmes that are mainly broadcast in the afternoon. I would work to bring back children's television. Then I would eliminate those programmes where you can win lots of money just by opening a package or making a phone call."

"I love Adriano very much. I love and respect him. And he still makes me laugh. No one can speak ill of Adriano. He is deeply good, honest and consistent."

"I hardly knew my mother. And I will always miss her, even though I can find her again in the eyes of a woman."

"My mother was very authoritarian. A woman of rare beauty. I am a sick aesthete, I fight with Oscar Wilde and this mother who is so beautiful and so distant. My mother is my lost bride."

"My father and mother remain a mystery to me. I left home at 18, not because I hated them, but because they were too young to have three children, and artists are too self-absorbed."

"Qui nun c'è Gianna, Aida, né Berta che filava | e quando tramonta il sol, Maria se n'è già andata. | Malgrado i cambiamenti, 'sto cielo è sempre blu, | è sempre der colore che l'hai lasciato tu."

"Se stamo qui stasera è pe salutà un amico, | pe ricordà un fratello che se chiamava Rino. | So annato lì al Verano solo pe fa un saluto | perché, lo posso dì, co te so cresciuto. | Ce fosse un monumento, verrebbero in milioni | a rende omaggio ar genio che cantava le canzoni."

"Then third place Simone Cristicchi, who went to Sanremo with his song about disabled people and blew everyone away! He sang ‘I want to be like Biagio Antonacci’. Guys! What the hell is wrong with us! Oh well, never mind."

"Gaber belonged to a generation for whom the concepts of revolution and protest were not mere slogans. They were something that had been experienced. And it was clear that when Gaber called for change, or tackled sensitive political issues, he did so because it was an inner need that he felt he had to convey to people."

"How can I not hesitate before accepting? Are we sufficiently aware, against the background of the darkest chapter in German history, of how guilty we are for rescuing no more than a tiny droplet out of the endless sea of despair of that period? Righteous can therefore have no other meaning than the attempt, the obligation, to do what is right and to live humanly even during times of inhumanity."

"[‘After Turin, you were sent to serve in Garlasco. How did that go?’] I would say well, although I must confess that my mind was focused on music. I carried out my duties as a “CC” with the necessary attention and respect for the uniform with the stars, but I felt that my destiny was to play and sing. So much so that, having learned that Ron lived in Garlasco, one day I plucked up all my courage and went to ring his doorbell to leave him some of my songs recorded on a cassette tape'."

"[Giorgio Gaber] He was always “different” from his fellow songwriters. He made courageous choices that he pursued with consistency, singing about his surroundings through completely new physical and musical languages and becoming, I might say, a cultural model. Because, even though he stayed out of the spotlight, he said important things to a great many people."

"I carry the Carabinieri in my heart, as well as in my memory. If I hadn't made it big with music, I would have continued to carry out what has always been an essential social mission for me. This does not mean that serving in the Arma is less important than rock music, quite the contrary, but only that I was lucky enough to succeed in what is my passion. Otherwise, you could easily call me Marshal Antonacci now."

"[Unlike the previous generation] We songwriters who started out in the 1980s, on the other hand, explored reality in a socio-emotional sense. Anyone familiar with my songs can see how I am closer, if anything, to the legacy of Mogol, an artist who always avoided talking about politics in order to put normality in the spotlight instead."

"I hope no one ever tells me that eternal love does not exist: I do not want to know. It would be like taking a toy away from a child when there is still light and time before bedtime."

"Everything that life brings is unexpected. Planned things fail, but when we don't aim and just shoot from the hip, we always hit the target. Magically. Following our instinct leads us to the sun."

"“Being a beauty queen is putting your best foot forward. It’s my job to be the best I can be.”"

"It was precisely this attitude that struck me when I heard the first “things” from a young man from Crotone who, wearing a strange hat, enjoyed teasing people with his own songs, which were beautiful songs. It seems a bit of a jumbled thought, but I hope it conveys the idea of what this young man from Crotone, “named” Rino Gaetano, seemed to me to be doing. So I began to “play him” (radio language of the time...) and talk about him in newspaper columns in the weekly magazines of the same period. I was thrilled once again that Gaetano invented ‘the other song’, the song of the song, that he pursued the rhymes that first came to mind... (and therefore the most inspired...). That he sang everything with ease and lightness; even that some people didn't like Gaetano; this thrilled me."

"Gaetano wrote some of the songs that are part of our country's memory. Songs of memory are important, think, I don't know, ‘Zazà’, ‘I papaveri alti alti’ are songs of memory that were not commercially successful or whatever, but they do not live only in the space of a fashion, of a period, they are the ones that remain in the collective memory, they are handed down orally."

"Rino Gaetano writes songs with a particular, cultured, refined language; a kind of realistic poetry in some cases, symbolic in others. I like it best when he shouts Tu, forse non essenzialmente tu (You, perhaps not essentially you), a rather desperate song, helped by a beautiful melody."

"When I got Rino Gaetano's record, I was delighted because I found someone who was as unconventional as me. In reality, those were years when singer-songwriters were committed; if you weren't “committed”—a cursed word, damnably fashionable—you were out of the loop. But then Rino Gaetano came along with his seemingly uncommitted songs."