former-roman-catholics

"I use it to receive scripts, and send e-mails. But I prefer pigeon! They’re much more friendly, and you can talk to them as well!"

"Theatre is like broad brush painting, where you can go anywhere with your brush. But film is like painting with one of those little, pointy brushes, a stroke here and a stroke there. I love that as well. You have to internalise everything and get it right deep inside. And when you feel you get it right, it’s almost orgasmic! It’s a lovely experience."

"As an actor – I’d been an actor for many years before I did Doctor Who – you have an effect on an audience. You hear them laugh, you hear them cry in the theatre, or every now and again if you do a telly or a film, you bump into someone in the street and they might say something nice. But working with the fans and meeting them all around the world, they come to you and tell you that ‘you got me through my childhood’, ‘I had an unhappy childhood but Doctor Who was there for me’. I’ve met scientists who said ‘I became a scientist, I became a doctor because of you and Doctor Who’ and you think ‘wow, I was only trying to learn the lines and not bump into the monsters’. I didn’t realise that there was this other effect. So it’s very touching, moving and humbling. I’d say that."

"I'd hate to be a teetotaller. Imagine getting up in the morning and knowing that's as good as you're going to feel all day."

"If two objects or human beings show similar behaviour in all their relevant aspects open to observation, the assumption of some unobservable hidden difference between them must be regarded as a completely gratuitous hypothesis and one contrary to sound scientific method."

"Early in 1954 I was appointed Lecturer in Economics at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. Then, in 1956, I was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship, enabling me and Anne to spend two years at Stanford University, where I got a Ph.D. in economics, whereas Anne got an M.A. in psychology. I had the good fortune of having Ken Arrow as advisor and as dissertation supervisor. I benefitted very much from discussing many finer points of economic theory with him. But I also benefitted substantially by following his advice to spend a sizable part of my Stanford time studying mathematics and statistics. These studies proved very useful in my later work in game theory."

"The paper develops a new theory for the analysis of games with incomplete information where the players are uncertain about some important parameters of the game situation, such as the payoff functions, the strategies available to various players, the information other players have about the game, etc. However, each player has a subjective probability distribution over the alternative possibilities. In most of the paper it is assumed that these probability distributions entertained by the different players are mutually "consistent," in the sense that they can be regarded as conditional probability distributions derived from a certain "basic probability distribution" over the parameters unknown to the various players. But later the theory is extended also to cases where the different players' subjective probability distributions fail to satisfy this consistency assumption."

"If somebody prefers an income distribution more favorable to the poor for the sole reason that he is poor himself, this can hardly be considered as a genuine value judgment on social welfare."

"We can regard the vector ci as representing certain physical, social, and psychological attributes of player i himself in that it summarizes some crucial parameters of player i's own payoff function Ui as well as the main parameters of his beliefs about his social and physical environment... the rules of the game as such allow any given player i to belong to any one of a number of possible types, corresponding to the alternative values of his attribute vector c i could take... Each player is assumed to know his own actual type but to be in general ignorant about the other players' actual types."

"Following von Neumann and Morgenstern [7, p. 30], we distinguish between games with complete information, to be sometimes briefly called C-games in this paper, and games with incomplete information, to be called I-games. The latter differ from the former in the fact that some or all of the players lack full information about the "rules" of the game, or equivalently about its normal form (or about its extensive form). For example, they may lack full information about other players' or even their own payoff functions, about the physical facilities and strategies available to other players or even to themselves, about the amount of information the other players have about various aspects of the game situation, etc. In our own view it has been a major analytical deficiency of existing game theory that it has been almost completely restricted to C-games, in spite of the fact that in many real-life economic, political, military, and other social situations the participants often lack full information about some important aspects of the "game" they are playing."

"In principle, every social situation involves strategic interaction among the participants. Thus, one might argue that proper understanding of any social situation would require game-theoretic analysis. But in actual fact, classical economic theory did manage to sidestep the game-theoretic aspects of economic behavior by postulating perfect competition, i.e., by assuming that every buyer and every seller is very small as compared with the size of the relevant markets, so that nobody can significantly affect the existing market prices by his actions."

"Game theory is a theory of strategic interaction. That is to say, it is a theory of rational behavior in social situations in which each player has to choose his moves on the basis of what he thinks the other players’ countermoves are likely to be."

"In the period 1965 - 69, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency employed a group of about ten young game theorists as consultants. It was as a member of this group that I developed the simpler approach, already mentioned, to the analysis of I-games. I realized that a major problem in arms control negotiations is the fact that each side is relatively well informed about its own position with respect to various variables relevant to arms control negotiations, such as its own policy objectives, its peaceful or bellicose attitudes toward the other side, its military strength, its own ability to introduce new military technologies, and so on - but may be rather poorly informed about the other side's position in terms of such variables. I came to the conclusion that finding a suitable mathematical representation for this particular problem may very well be a crucial key to a better theory of arms control negotiations, and indeed to a better theory of all I-games."

"My interest in game-theoretic problems in a narrower sense was first aroused by John Nash's four brilliant papers, published in the period 1950-53, on cooperative and on noncooperative games, on two-person bargaining games and on mutually optimal threat strategies in such games, and on what we now call Nash equilibria."

"In November 1944 the Nazi authorities finally decided to deport my labor unit from Budapest to an Austrian concentration camp, where most of my comrades eventually perished. But I was lucky enough to make my escape from the railway station in Budapest, just before our train left for Austria. Then a Jesuit father I had known gave me refuge in the cellar of their monastery."

"Now a value judgment on the distribution of income would show the required impersonality to the highest degree if the person who made this judgment had to choose a particular income distribution in complete ignorance of what his own relative position... would be within the system chosen. This would be the case if he had exactly the same chance of obtaining the first position (corresponding to the highest income) or the second or the third, etc. up to the last position (corresponding to the lowest income) available within that scheme."

"While Christianity committed its monstrous atrocities, Buddhism, which did not create an organized church in the manner of the occident in India, nor did it create a central authority to decide on the true faith, was much more tolerant."

"Die Geheimnisse der Welt ertrage ich gut; nicht die Erklärungen dafür."

"Ich will lieber mit den meisten irren als auf meine Weise. So dachte Augustinus. Ich denke umgekehrt."

"Aufklärung ist Ärgernis, wer die Welt erhellt, macht ihren Dreck deutlicher."

"Meine Skepsis bewahrt mich davor, Fanatiker zu werden wovor noch kein Glaube geschützt hat."

"Denken überzeugt Denkende; darum überzeugt Denken selten."

"Vieles bewundere ich zwischen Himmel und Erde; doch nichts bewundere ich weniger als die Wunder der Religionen."

"Am wenigsten widerstehen kann ich dem Zweifel. Ich bezweifle alles, selbst meinen Zweifel. Ich glaube wenig und auch das nicht ganz. Skepsis ist für mich keine der «schönen Künste », sondern Teil meiner Existenz."

"Freie Presse: jeder darf lesen, was gedruckt wird."

"When I was a young man, I found out that if you hurt somebody bad enough, they'll leave you alone. When I tried to leave everybody alone and just do my own thing, everybody just wanted to hurt me. Until one day I just decided, well, I've had enough of this picking. And there were like six young men still figuring they were going to mess with my head. And we went to war. To their surprise, I was no longer taking the beating, I was giving it."

"The irreplaceable loss of the most radical and successful persecutor of all enemies of the state."

"I believe that Heydrich was the worst criminal of them all. I myself saw him and he looked with such a glance of hatred that I shall never forget it."

"He was very young, very handsome, save that his eyes were too close-set; an outstanding example of that blond mixture of effeminacy and toughness which may be observed in any Teutonic night-club. He had immense drive, which was liable to carry him too far; total ruthlessness in the attainment of his own ends, which were wrapped up in personal ambition; no active enjoyment of cruelty except sometimes, perhaps, almost as an afterthought; and a devilish sense of humor. Vain as a peacock, but mockingly aware of his vanity, clever, perhaps too clever by half, and contemptuous of the clumsiness of most of his colleagues and superiors, he nevertheless could be clumsy in his use of force and, unlike Himmler, was liable to over-reach himself. He was dynamite, like a character in an American gangster story; and in the S.S. he was able to canalise his nihilism into a constructive purpose."

"Truth and goodness had no intrinsic meaning for him; they were instruments to be used for the gaining of more and more power. To debate whether any action was of itself right appeared so stupid to him that it was certainly a question he never asked himself."

"Heydrich had an incredibly acute perception of the moral, human, professional and political weaknesses of others. His unusual intellect was matched by the ever-watchful instincts of a predatory animal. He was inordinately ambitious. It seemed as if, in a pack of ferocious wolves, he must always prove himself the strongest and assume the leadership."

"So far you have been treated as an officer and a gentleman, but don't think that this will go on if you don't behave better than you have done. You have two hours left in which to confess everything. If you don't, I shall hand you over to the Gestapo, who are used to dealing with such gangsters and criminals — you won't enjoy their methods a bit."

"We will Germanize the Czech vermin."

"He was a terribly ambitious man with a great craving for power. This desire for power was measureless, and he was extraordinarily clever and cunning."

"The world is just a barrel-organ which the Lord God turns Himself. We all have to dance to the tune which is already on the drum."

"Himmler was a rival of Bormann, and Heydrich played both against each other. Heydrich pretended to be friendly with Bormann, but Bormann realized that Heydrich was a follower of Himmler. Bormann was trying to use Heydrich. Himmler saw what was happening. Between Himmler and Bormann, Heydrich grew bigger and bigger, until he was personally received by Hitler. But both Bormann and Himmler recognized Heydrich's threat."

"It is natural that people do not want to be involved with us too much. There is no problem down to the smallest egotistical longing which the Gestapo cannot solve. Regarded in this way we are, if a joke is permitted, looked upon as a cross between a general maid and the dustbin of the Reich."

"To take the place of emigration, and with the prior approval of the Führer, the evacuation of the Jews to the East has become another possible solution. Although both courses of action emigration and evacuation, must, of course, be considered as nothing more than... temporary expedients, they do help to provide practical experience which should be of great importance in view of the coming Endlösung (Final Solution) of the Jewish question."

"What ever actions he took he carried them out as a National Socialist and an SS man, from the very bottom of his heart and through his blood, he carried out felt and understood Adolf Hitler's world vision."

"One of the best national socialists, one of the best believers in the German ideology, and one of the greatest opponents to all enemies of the Third Reich."

"Death - by hanging! - that, at least, I did not deserve. The death part - all right, somebody has to stand for the responsibility. But that - that I did not deserve!"

"Yes, I'm very normal, everything is okay, I won't become a psychiatric case."

"My greetings to you, my Germany."

"My most profound confidence is however based upon the fact that at the head of Germany there stands a man by his entire development, his desires, and striving can only have been destined by fate to lead our people into a brighter future."

"In view of the vast size of the occupied areas in the East the forces available for establishing security in these areas will be sufficient only if all resistance is punished not by legal prosecution of the guilty but by the spreading of such terror by the occupying power as is appropriate to eradicate every inclination to resist among the population. The competent commanders must find the means of keeping order not by demanding more security forces but by applying suitable Draconian methods."

"But then I ask myself, I have never truly known the man whose flank I have led one difficult and ascetic life for. Perhaps he has played with my idealism, taking advantage for dark scopes that he has held hidden within himself. How can I expect to know a man who has never opened his heart to me? Till now, I do not know what he really thought, knew or wanted. I was alone with my thoughts and my suspicions. And now, the veil that covered this statue has fallen to the ground and instead of an art work, a monster has revealed itself. Now we leave to the historians of the future the task of discussing if that statue was therefore a sin from the beginning, or was changed because of the circumstances. I continue to make the same error: I try to think back to his humble origins. But then I remember how many sons of these people have sealed their history with his name."

"It is tragic that the Fuehrer should have the whole nation behind him with the single exception of the Army generals. In my opinion it is only by action that they can now atone for their faults of lack of character and discipline."

"The Pact of Munich is signed. Czechoslovakia as a power is out. The genius of the Führer and his determination not to shun even a world war have again won victory without the use of force. The hope remains that the incredulous, the weak and the doubters have been converted and will remain that way."

"Ah, you come to see the others but rarely to see me."

"Yes. I know that Heydrich, in a certain sense, really had something akin to a bad conscience when he committed his crimes. At any rate, he did not like it when those things were discussed openly in Gestapo circles. Nebe, who as Chief of the Criminal Police had the same rank as the Chief of the Gestapo, Mueller, always told me that Heydrich took care to conceal his crimes. With the entry of Kaltenbrunner into that organization, this practice ceased. All those things were now openly discussed among the department chiefs of the Gestapo. By now the war had started, of course. These gentlemen lunched together, and Nebe often came to me from such luncheons so completely exhausted that he had a nervous breakdown. On two occasions Nebe had to be sent on long sick leave because he simply could not stand the open cynicism with which mass murder, and the technique of mass murder, were discussed."