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. . . see: "RELIGION" for related links I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure that is all that agnosticism means. --Clarence Darrow (18571938) American lawyer. Courtroom argument at the trial of John Thomas Scopes [15 July 1925]. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Letter to Ensign Guy H. Raner [summer of 1945]. ^ W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield] (18791946), American film actor and comedian. A lifelong agnostic, Fields was discoverd reading a Bible on his deathbed. 'I'm looking for a loophole,' he explained. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ I don't know about God...the only things I know are what I see, hear, feel and smell. --Gunther Grass (b. 1927) Polish born Nobel Prize winning author. Paris "Herald Tribune" [23 March 1970]. No matter how I probe and prod I cannot quite believe in God. But oh! I hope to God that he Unswervingly believes in me. --E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (18961981) American songwriter. "The Agnostic" [1965] - In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. ... do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him. --T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley (18251895) English biologist; grandfather of Aldous Huxley. "Agnosticism" (essay) [1889] When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure that they had attained a certain "gnosis" had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion. [ . . . ] So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic". It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. --T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley (18251895) English biologist; grandfather of Aldous Huxley. "Agnosticism" (essay) [1889] - - Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be one, He must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to Peter Carr [10 August 1787]. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But 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 (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. _Notes on the State of Virginia_, query 17 [1784] - There must be either a predestined Necessity and inviolable plan, or a gracious Providence, or a chaos without design or director. If then there be an inevitable Necessity, why kick against the pricks? If a Providence that is ready to be gracious, render thyself worthy of divine succour. But if a chaos without guide, congratulate theyself that amid such a surging sea thou hast a guiding Reason. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121180) Roman emperor [161180] and Stoic philosopher. _Meditations_, trans. C. R. Haines I was much cheered upon my arrival (in prison), by the warden at the gate, who had to take particulars about me. He asked my religion, and I replied, 'Agnostic.' He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh, 'Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.' --Bertrand Russell (18721970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 19141944_ [1968] Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant? Is it not a spectacle to make the angels laugh? We are a company of ignorant beings, feeling our way through mists and darkness, learning only be incessantly repeated blunders, obtaining a glimmering of truth by falling into every conceivable error, dimly discerning light enough for our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures to declare that we don't know the map of the universe as well as the map of our infinitesimal parish, he is hooted, reviled, and perhaps told that he will be damned to all eternity for his faithlessness. --Sir Leslie Stephen (18321904) English critic, man of letters, and first editor of the _Dictionary of National Biography_. "An Agnostic's Apology", _Fortnightly Review_ [1876] There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. --Alfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892) English poet. "In Memoriam A. H. H." [1850] ----- nescient (adj.) ['ne-shent, 'ne-si-yκnt] (1) Ignorant, lacking knowledge; (2) agnostic, believing that man is incapable of understanding the nature of the universe.  . . see: "APPROVAL" see: "CONTRADICTION" see: "DISSENT" Esteeming others merely for their agreement with us in religion, opinion, and manner of living is only a less offensive kind of self-adoration. --Thomas Adam (17011784) England clergyman and religious writer. _Private Thoughts on Religion_ [pub. 1824 from his diary] If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world. --Joseph Addison (16721719) English essayist, poet, and dramatist. Attributed in _Journal of the American Osteopathic Association_ [April 1906]. A man after his own heart. --Bible "The First Book of Samuel" 13:14 As I usually do when I want to get rid of someone whose conversation bores me, I pretended to agree. --Albert Camus (19131960) French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. _The Stranger_, 2.1 [1942], tr. Stuart Gilbert [1946] I don't like to talk much with people who always agree with me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it. --Thomas Carlyle (17951881) Scottish historian and political philosopher. Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 89 [1891]. 'My idea of an agreeable person,' said Hugo Bohun, 'is a person who agrees with me.' --Benjamin Disraeli (18041881) British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 18741880]. _Lothair_, ch. 41 [1870] Damn those who have said what we wanted to say! --attributed to Aelius Donatus (late 4th cent. A.D.) Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. I feel ill at ease with that little word "We." No man is at one with another, you see. Behind all agreement lies something amiss. All seeming accord cloaks a lurking abyss. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Quoted in "New Yorker", p.93 [20 June 1994]. [Defining "compromise":] An agreement between two men to do what both agree is wrong. --Lord Edward Gascoyne-Cecil (18671918) British soldier and colonial administrator in Egypt. Letter [3 September 1911] No matter what side of an argument you're on, you always find some people on your side that you wish were on the other. --attributed to Jascha Heifetz (19011987) Russian-born American violinist. This hitteth the nail on the head. --John Heywood (14971580) English playwright. _Proverbs_ [1546] Th' feller that agrees with ever'thing you say is either a fool er he is gettin' ready t'skin you. --Frank McKinney (Kin) Hubbard (18681930) American humorist. _Back Country Folks_ [1913] We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us. --Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (16131680) French classical author. _Reflections; or, Sentences and Moral Maxims_, # 347 [1678] Stand with anybody that stands *right*. Stand will him while he is right and *part* with him when he goes wrong. --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [18611865]. Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Peoria, Illinois [16 October 1854]. When all men think alike, no one thinks very much. --Walter Lippmann (18891974) American journalist. Quoted in _Speakers Encyclopedia_, NY [1955]. There's nothing in this world more instinctively abhorrent to me than finding myself in agreement with my fellow humans. --Malcolm Muggeridge (19031990) British writer, broadcaster, and journalist. Radio broadcast [29 April 1955]. Nobody agrees with anybody else anyhow, but adults conceal it and infants show it. --Ogden Nash (19021971) American writer of humorous poetry. In _The Bad Parents' Garden of Verse_ [1936]. Agreeing to differ. [Latin: Discors concordia.] --Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso] (43 B.C.18 A.D.) Roman poet. "Metamorphoses" I. 433 That character in conversation which commonly passes for agreeable is made up of civility and falsehood. --Alexander Pope (16881744) English poet. _Thoughts on Various Subjects_ [1727] Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said. --Donald Rumsfeld (b. 1932) American Secretary of Defense [19751977] & [20012006]. At a Pentagon briefing, as quoted in Ross Petras & Kathryn Petras _The Lexicon of Stupidity_, p. 42 [2005]. We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say and to feel 'Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought.' --John Steinbeck (19021968) American novelist. Quoted in George Plimpton (ed.) _Writers at Work, Fourth Series_ [1981]. "That was excellently observed," say I, when I read a passage in an author where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken. --Jonathan Swift (16671745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. _Thoughts on Various Subjects_ [1706] If you wish to appear agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you know already. --Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Pιrigord (17541838) French statesman. _Reminiscences of Prince Talleyrand; Edited from the Papers of the Late M. Colmache, Private Secretary to the Prince_ [2 vol., 2nd ed., 1850] Them's my sentiments. --William Makepeace Thackeray (18111863) English novelist. _Vanity Fair_, vol. I, ch. 21 [18471848] - When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary. --William Wrigley, Jr. (18611932) American industrialist. Quoted in "Reader's Digest" [July 1940]. & similarly: If two men on the same job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time, then both are useless. --attributed to Darryl F. Zanuck (19021979) American producer, writer, actor and director who headed 20th Century Fox. 23 October 1949, "Sayings of the Week" _Observer_, as quoted in David Crystal & Hilary Crystal _Words on Words: Quotations about Language and Languages_ [2000]. - ----- accede [ak-SEED], intransitive verb: 1. To agree or assent; to give in to a request or demand. 2. To become a party to an agreement, treaty, convention, etc. 3. To attain an office or rank; to enter upon the duties of an office. accord [uh-KAWRD], intransitive verb: 1. To be in agreement or harmony; agree. transitive verb: 1. To cause to conform or agree; bring into harmony. 2. To grant; bestow. noun: 1. Agreement; harmony. 2. A settlement or compromise of conflicting opinions. 3. A settlement of points at issue between nations. apposite (adjective) ['ζ-pκ-zit] Strikingly appropriate, applicable, or fitting; well put. asseverate [uh-SEV-uh-rayt], transitive verb: To affirm or declare positively or earnestly. concordat (noun) A signed written agreement between two or more parties (nations) to perform some action. Synonyms: compact, covenant gybe, gibe, jibe (verb) ['jIb] 1. Spelled: "gybe": To swing a fore-and-aft sail or its boom from one side of the vessel to the other when the wind is behind you or (intransitive) the action itself. 2. Spelled "gibe": To taunt or jeer someone 3. Spelled "jibe" and used mostly in the U.S.: To agree, or fit; to correlate or be in alignment with. proponent [pruh-POH-nuhnt], noun: One who argues in support of something; an advocate; a supporter. . . see: "HEALTH" for related links Quite often, people who mean well will inquire of me whether I ever ask myself, in the face of my diseases, "Why me?" I never do. If I ask "Why me?" as I am assaulted by heart disease and AIDS, I must ask "Why me?"about my blessings, and question my right to enjoy them. The morning after I won Wimbledon in 1975 I should have asked "Why me?" and doubted that I deserved the victory. If I don't ask "Why me?" after my victories, I cannot ask "Why me?" after my setbacks and disasters. --Arthur Ashe (19431993) American tennis player and the first black winner of a major men's single championship. _Days of Grace_, p. 326 [1993] Sometimes I have a terrible feeling that I am dying not from the virus, but from being untouchable. --Amanda Heggs (19571992) English writer. In "Guardian" [12 June 1989]. Breast cancer and AIDS aren't among the leading killers. Among diseases, breast cancer is ninth, AIDS 18th. Yet in 2001, AIDS research got $4,439 per patient from NIH, breast cancer $290, Parkinson's $175. Diabetes, which killed more people than AIDS and breast cancer combined, got $41. Heart disease, the number one killer, got just $58 per patient. --John Stossel (b. 1947) American television journalist and author. _Give Me A Break_ [2005] Our society is afflicted with the scourge of AIDS and other diseases that owe their origin to promiscuity. Yet the cry is not, "How can we stop promiscuity?" but rather, "How can we cure AIDS?" --Terry Virgo (b. 1940) English bible teacher and author. _Men Of Destiny_ [1987] "Blessed Are Those Who Mourn" ;void(0)) AIR FORCE . . see: "WAR & PEACE" for related links [On the skill and courage of British airmen:] Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. Speech, House of Commons, 20 August 1940. ;void(0)) AIRPLANES . . see: "FLYING" see: "TRAVEL" for other related links We were one of those wretched traveling families you see getting on planes the kind where you don't actually see the people, just this mound of baby equipment shufling slowly down the aisle toward you. This sight is always hugely popular with the other passengers, some of whom will yank open the emergency exits and dive out of the plane. Because they know what babies do on planes: They stand on their parents' laps and stick their heads up over the seats, so they can get maximum range when they shriek. On a baby-intensive airplane, you see shrieking baby heads constantly popping up all over, like prairie dogs from hell. --Dave Barry (b. 1947) American humorist. _Boogers Are My Beat_ [2003] - Given the national mood, it was only appropriate that suddenly, in 1927, the overnight hero of the world was an American. On a drizzly May morning, an airplane lined up on a muddy, primitive runway on Long Island. It was going for a shot at a $25,000 prize for a nonstop transatlantic flight. Of the three contenders, one was both the strangest and the smallest: it was twenty-seven feet, three inches long, had no radio and no sextant, and its instrument panel was less pretentious than that of a 1927 automobile. It had cost $10,580, and every inch of its construction had been carefully watched over by the man who was going to fly it; unlike the others he was going alone, and he did not intend to hop islands or countries, he was going for the whole stretch-New York to Paris. He was a skinny, blond twenty-five-year-old from Minnesota, who had been a parachute jumper and an airmail pilot in the wildcat days. The plane which for balance carried all the gasoline it could in a cased-in cockpit up front, so that the pilot was literally flying blind wobbled and bounced into the heavy skies, and that night forty thousand baseball fans in New York stood and prayed for its pilot. In Tokyo, at their midnight, people swarmed into the streets. The stock exchanges of London, Berlin, and Amsterdam interrupted regular quotations with the word that there was no word. As the second night came on in Paris, an appeal went out to everybody who owned an automobile which might be from seventy to eighty thousand, maybe to head for a landing field at Le Bourget and line up in two files, switch the headlights on and thus create a visible shaft of white fog. Into it, thirty-three hours after just missing the telephone wires on Long Island, the strange plane trundled and stopped. It was engulfed by one hundred thousand Parisians. When they lifted the pilot out of the cockpit, if he had said he was Alexander the Great, they'd have believed him. He reportedly said simply: "I am Charles Lindbergh." He came home to naval salutes and a frenetic press, and a ticker-tape parade up Broadway. --Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (19082004) British-born American broadcater and journalist. _America_ [1973] - If God had intended us to fly, he'd never have given us the railways. --Flanders & Swann Musical duo who performed comic and satirical songs. "By Air" [1963] My inclination to go by Air Express is confirmed by the crash they had yesterday, which will make them careful in the immediate future. --A.E. [Alfred Edward] Houseman (18591936) English classical scholar and poet. Letter [17 August 1920]. I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on. --Jean Kerr (19232003) American writer, [wife of Walter Kerr]. _The Snake Has All the Lines_ [1958] Flights by machine heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. --Simon Newcomb (18351909) Canadian-born American astronomer and mathematician. (Eighteen months before the Wright brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk.) Quoted in Stephen Pile _The Book of Heroic Failures_ [1980]. It is doubtful if aeroplanes will ever cross the ocean ... The public has greatly overestimated the possibilities of the aeroplane, imagining that in another generation they will be able to fly over to London in a day. This is manifestly impossible. --William Pickering (18581938) American astronomer. Quoted in "The Aeronautical Journal" [1968]. [On airline food;] Anything that is white is sweet. Anything that is brown is meat. Anything that is grey, don't eat. --Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930) American musical theater lyricist and composer. "What Do We Do? We Fly!", in the musical _Do I Hear a Waltz?_ [1965] - There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror. --Orson Welles (19151985) American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer. Interview in "The Times" [6 May 1985]. & note: I like terra firma the more firma, the less terra. --attributed to George S. Kaufman (18891961) American playwright, director, and producer. - Success. Four flights Thursday morning. All against twenty-one mile wind. Started from level with engine power alone. Average speed through air thirty-one miles. Longest fifty-nine seconds. Inform press. Home Christmas. --Wilbur Wright (18671912) and Orville Wright (18711948) Designed the first airplane. Telegram to the Reverend Milton Wright, from Kitty Hawk, N.C. [17 December 1903]. - On April 25, 1974, the "Toronto Star" reported the deaths of Mr. Todd Missfield and Ms. Bonnie Johnson who died when their Cessna 150 airplane crashed into a billboard. The message on the billboard read: "Learn to Fly." ----- jetsam (noun) ['jet-sκm] Cargo thrown out of a ship or plane to lighten it. end page | ABILITY - ABUSE | ACADEMY AWARDS - ACCUSATION | ACHIEVEMENT - ACQUAINTANCE | ACTION/S | ACTORS / ACTING | ACTUARIES - ADVERSARIES | ADVERSITY - ADVERTISING | ADVICE | AFFAIRS - AFGHANISTAN | AGE | AGNOSTICS - AIRPLANES | ALCOHOL | ALIBI - AMBITION | AMERICA PAGE 1 (A-M) | AMERICA PAGE 2 (N-Z) | AMERICANS | AMERICAN INDIANS | AMERICAN REVOLUTION | AMUSEMENT - ANCESTORS | ANGER | ANIMAL RIGHTS - ANIMALS | ANIMOSITIES - APATHY | APOLOGY & APPEARANCE | APPEASEMENT | APPLAUSE - APRIL | ARCHAEOLOGISTS - ARCHITECTURE | ARGUMENT | ARISTOCRACY - ART | ASHAMED - ASTROLOGY | ATHEISM | ATOM BOMB - ATTRACTION | AUSTRALIA | AUTHORITY - AUTOMOBILES | AUTUMN - AWARENESS | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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