Geography

"If we then make the obvious assumption that the content of a map is appropriate to its purpose, there yet remains the equally significant evaluation of the visual methods employed to convey that content."

"We may think of maps and mapping as an objective process, but that would be an illusion. What gets mapped, and more importantly, what does not, is a product of various social, economic, and political phenomena. Quite apart from border disputes and contentious sovereignty, mapping also reflects political priorities. Creating the survey data that can be used in maps is expensive, and large-scale mapping endeavors are typically the preserve of states, whose ability to deliver that data often depends on resources that compete with other governmental priorities. This is true especially in resource-constrained settings."

"The three basic mechanisms of averaging, feedback and division of labor give us a first idea of a how a CMM [Collective Mental Map] can be developed in the most efficient way, that is, how a given number of individuals can achieve a maximum of collective problem-solving competence. A collective mental map is developed basically by superposing a number of individual mental maps. There must be sufficient diversity among these individual maps to cover an as large as possible domain, yet sufficient redundancy so that the overlap between maps is large enough to make the resulting graph fully connected, and so that each preference in the map is the superposition of a number of individual preferences that is large enough to cancel out individual fluctuations. The best way to quickly expand and improve the map and fill in gaps is to use a positive feedback that encourages individuals to use high preference paths discovered by others, yet is not so strong that it discourages the exploration of new paths."

"Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change."

"In fact, it is Shakespeare who gives us the map of the mind. It is Shakespeare who invents Freudian Psychology. Freud finds ways of translating it into supposedly analytical vocabulary."

"The map is not the territory, and the name is not the thing named."

"History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are but, more importantly, what they must be."

"You fall in love with somebody who fits within what I call your 'love map,' an unconscious list of traits that you build in childhood as you grow up. And I also think that you gravitate to certain people, actually, with somewhat complementary brain systems."

"“It does not appear to be too difficult,” Alain agreed. “But I remember being cautioned that maps carry their own illusions, often making appear simple a journey which is actually far more difficult in practice.”"

"Let's not pretend that mental phenomena can be mapped on to the characteristics of billiard balls."

"Understanding how maps work and why maps work (or do not work) as representations in their own right and as prompts to further representations, and what it means for a map to work, are critical issues as we embark on a visual information age."

"Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, observed that elites in a society typically maintain their power not simply by controlling the means of production (ie money), but by dominating the cultural discourse too (ie a society’s intellectual map). And what is most important in relation to that cognitive map is not what is overtly stated and discussed – but what is left unstated, or ignored."

"The representational nature of maps, however, is often ignored – what we see when looking at a map is not the word, but an abstract representation that we find convenient to use in place of the world. When we build these abstract representations we are not revealing knowledge as much as are creating it."

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world."

"The map is not the territory … The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map."

"This seems highly likely, especially as it has been shown that in several systems mutations affecting the same amino acid are extremely near together on the genetic map."

"Believable fairy-stories must be intensely practical. You must have a map, no matter how rough. Otherwise you wander all over the place. In The Lord of the Rings I never made anyone go farther than he could on a given day"

"Heinz performs the magic trick of convincing us that the familiar objects of our existence can be seen to be nothing more than tokens for the behaviors of the organism that apparently create stable forms. These stabilities persist, for that organism, as an observing system. This is not to deny an underlying reality that is the source of objects, but rather to emphasize the role of process, and the role of the organism in the production of a living map, a map that is so sensitive that map and territory are conjoined."

"Many technologies for mapping and viewing are closely connected to the growth of surveillance in contemporary society and the power of defining who sees and who is seen (Parenti 2003, pp. 3, 9; Dodge & Perkins 2009). The use of surveillance technologies to examine the past does not exclude the present: When satellite imagery is used to search for archaeological sites and their spatial relationships to landforms, images of contemporary settlements and land use are also part of the picture. This intrusion into people’s lives takes place without consent, informed or otherwise."

"Ideas, unlike solid structures, do not perish. They remain immortal, immaterial and everywhere, like all Divine things. Ideas are a golden, savage landscape that we wander unaware, without a map. Be careful: in the last analysis, reality may be exactly what we think it is."

"Let not the cooings of the world allure thee: Which of her lovers ever found her true?"

"They most the world enjoy who least admire."

"I have my beauty,—you your Art— Nay, do not start: One world was not enough for two Like me and you."

"When the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart."

"I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

"What is this world? A net to snare the soule."

"Was ist ihm nun die Welt? ein weiter leerer Raum, Fortunen's Spielraum, frei ihr Rad herum zu rollen."

"I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them."

"The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours."

"The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."

"Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new."

"If we suppose a sufficient righteousness and intelligence in men to produce presently, from the tremendous lessons of history, an effective will for a world peace—that is to say, an effective will for a world law under a world government—for in no other fashion is a secure world peace conceivable—in what manner may we expect things to move towards this end?… It is an educational task, and its very essence is to bring to the minds of all men everywhere, as a necessary basis for world cooperation, a new telling and interpretation, a common interpretation, of history."

"Why is the world so beautiful? is a question that we all ought to be embracing."

"Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes."

"People can’t understand the world as a gift unless someone shows them how it’s a gift."

"I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world."

"The world's a bubble—and the life of man Less than a span. In his conception wretched, and from the womb So to the tomb. Nurst from the cradle, and brought up to years With cares and fears. Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns in water, and but writes in dust."

"For, if the worlds In worlds enclosed should on his senses burst * * * He would abhorrent turn."

"Anchorite, who didst dwell With all the world for cell!"

"Heed not the folk who sing or say In sonnet sad or sermon chill, "Alas, alack, and well-a-day! This round world's but a bitter pill." We too are sad and careful; still We'd rather be alive than not."

"There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself."

"Man of the World (for such wouldst thou be called)— And art thou proud of that inglorious style?"

"Do we have all the hatred and all the aversion for the world which Our Lord requires, and which his example must inspire in us?"

"The world is a looking glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion."

"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm; Till the war-drums throbb'd, no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law."

"Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist."

"Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

"In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless."

"A mad world, my masters."

"My feelings are too loud for words and too shy for the world."