The 25 best things ever said

Happy new year!  Here are my favorite quotations of all time.  (Links go to my posts about  the individual quotes; I will write more in the new year).

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

  -- Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973)
   (I have seen this attributed to Truman, as well) (I would change "men" to "people").

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

  -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) (quoting or paraphrasing John Locke)

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

--- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

 To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

  -- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.

  -- Desiderius Erasmus (1465-1536)

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

  -- Epictetus (c.55-c.135)

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.

  -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

--  Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

  -- John Donne (1572-1631), Meditation XVII

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

  -- Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)

My Country, right or wrong" is a thing no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober"

  -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)

I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.

  -- Barbara Jordan (1936-1996)

The gods are amused when the busy river condemns the idle clouds

  Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

  -- Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

  -- William Pitt (1759-1806)

 Pain shared is lessened, joy shared, increased

  --- Spider Robinson (1948 - )

The good old days. I was there. Where was they?

  --- Moms Mabley (1894-1975)

All models are wrong but some are useful.

  -- George Box (1919 - 2013)

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."

  -- Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.

  --- Hillel (c. 110 BCE - 10 CE)

If I am not for myself, who is for me?
If I am for myself alone, what am I?
If not now, when?

  --- Hillel (c. 110 BCE - 10 CE)

Those who would give up a little freedom to get a little security shall soon have neither

  --- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

 If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let each man march to his own rhythm, however measured, or far away.

  --- H. D. Thoreau (1817-1862)

There is nothing so horrible in nature as to see a beautiful theory murdered by an ugly gang of facts.

  --- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

  and, my favorite

Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we all ought to be worried abut our own souls, and other people's bellies.

--  Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810-1883)

What are you reading? Dec 30, 2017

Happy new year! (almost)

Here is what I am reading now.  Share what you are reading in comments.

• A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. This is a very good history of the subject, well written and clear.  Kenny follows an unusual strategy in that he takes two approaches: He first covers each era in a more-or-less chronological order, then he looks at the big topics of that era in a systematic way.  I am on p. 237.
• The Great Formal Machinery Works: Theories of Deduction and Computation at the Origins of the Digital Age by Jan van Plato.  An examination of formal logic and computation.  I am on p. 103.
• High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything you Know About Drugs and Society by Carl Hart. Why everything you know (or thought you knew) about illicit drugs is wrong. I am on p. 182. 
• I started and finished The Wanted by Robert Crais. Here is my brief review.
• I started Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.  It's magnificent.  I am on p. 169.
• I resumed reading The Complete Book of Takeout Doubles by Mike Lawrence. Excellent, as always with Lawrence.   I am on p. 187. 
• I am browsing through Best American Essays of 2017 by Leslie Jamison.

That's what I'm reading.  What are you reading?

Book review: The Wanted by Robert Crais

Book: The Wanted

Author: Robert Crais

Year published: 2017

Date finished: December 29, 2017

Genre: Mystery

Rating: 8/10

Review: The Wanted is the latest in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series. It starts when a woman hires Cole to how her teenage son got a very expensive watch and some very expensive clothes.  From there it  follows a fairly typical trajectory: Cole starts investigating and, when things become too violent, he calls in Joe Pike. It turns out the kid and some friends have been stealing from rich people's homes. But one of the thefts really pissed off one of the owners and that person hired the villains of the book to find what was lost. Those villains, Harvey and Stemms, are the most interesting addition. They are not your everyday nasties. I hope they return.

About the Author: Robert Crais is the author of more than 20 novels, including 17 in the Cole/Pike series. He has also written for television and has won several awards for his work.

Great quotations: Chomsky on Free Speech

The Quotation:"If we don't believe in free speech for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all".

Who said it:Noam Chomsky

Source: Brainyquote

Thoughts on the quote:  It's short and easy to remember, which is a good thing in a quote of this kind. More importantly, the message it conveys is key. It is easy to support free speech for people we agree with; it is more difficult to support it for people we despise. But it is key to do so, because, just as we despise one sort of speech, some others may despise what we say, and try to make a law about it. So, everyone has a right to free speech: The Black Panthers and the Ku Klux Klan; the John Birch Society and the Communist Party and, therefore, you. No matter how unpopular your views may be, the government cannot make laws preventing you from voicing them. Perhaps all your views are quite mainstream, perhaps not. No matter. Your ability to voice them is protected.
 

At the same time, we should not what the first amendment is and is not. The first amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from making laws limiting speech. It does not guarantee that everyone should have the opportunity to broadcast their speech, nor does it require individual companies (such as newspapers, radio stations, TV channels or web sites) to offer slots to people of all viewpoints. Further, it does not say that such a company may not dismiss a person for making statements it finds abhorrent or commercially nonviable.
 

Thus, free speech is both very broad and very narrow: With certain very narrow exceptions, anyone may stand on a street corner and say what they like. But no one can compel another person to help spread those views more widely.

About the author:   Noam Chomsky is a linguist, philosopher, historian and activist. He has been a professor at MIT for over 50 years.

Book review: The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius by Joyce Chaplin

Book: The First Scientific American

Author: Joyce Chaplin

Year published: 2007

Genre: Biography

Rating: 8/10

Review:  In this excellent biography, Joyce Chaplin stresses Benjamin Franklin's science, and how it got him entry into the world of politics. She also pursues the idea of "genius" - Franklin was one of the first people to be called a genius, as opposed to being a person who had a genius. Franklin achieved greater fame in his time that any scientist after him until Einstein. Chaplin traces this idea, and how the reception of geniuses may connect with the political mood of particular eras. Darwin, for example, did not achieve what Franklin and Einstein did - although Darwin's theories were certainly revolutionary. Chaplin posits that this may be due to the less revolutionary nature of the era in which Darwin lived.
 

Chaplin, like any biographer, spends time on the usual aspects of Franklin's life. His childhood and early life as a printer, his rise in society, his marriage and his relationship with his children. But her emphasis is on the science, and on the interplay between his science, his politics, and his reputation in three countries: The colonies (later the United States), England, and France. He achieved the greatest fame in France. She spends virtually no time on what might be called the National Enquirer aspects of his life, but she does bring up several less-than-nice things he did to get himself noticed.

The book is well written, it flows easily and is well organized. I have only two small complaints about it. First, although there are copious notes, there is no bibliography. Second, and more important, it would have been good to have more explanation of modern theories that relate to Franklin's theories. Which of his theories are still accepted? Which have been modified? Which rejected?
 

Overall, though, I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in Franklin, or in 18th century science.

About the Author: Joyce Chaplin is a professor of history at Harvard University.

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