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;void(0)) REAGAN (RONALD) --- REALISM --- REALITY . . . Ronald Reagan (1911—2004) U.S. President [1981-1989] and former Hollywood actor see "PEOPLE" for related links see "POLITICS" for related links Ronald Reagan won America's respect with his greatness, and won its love with his goodness. He had the confidence that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character, the grace that comes with humility, and the humor that comes with wisdom. [...] He always told us that for America, the best was yet to come. We comfort ourselves in the knowledge that this is true for him, too. His work is done. And now a shining city awaits him. May God bless Ronald Reagan. --George W. Bush (1946— ) The 43rd President of the United States and a former Governor of Texas. Paris [5 June 2004] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/5/185723.shtml - Ronald Reagan might have owed his reputation as The Great Communicator to baseball: one of his first communicating jobs was as a long-distance announcer, re-creating Chicago Cubs games on the radio in Iowa. Later, during his Hollywood days, Reagan played a Hall of Famer in the 1952 film 'The Winning Team,' a sanitized biography of the Phillies, Cubs, and Cardinals pitching great Grover Cleveland Alexander. Bob Lemon, a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians and a future Hall of Famer himself, served as Reagan's stand-in for scenes requiring play. At one point the script called for Alexander to hit a catcher's mitt nailed to the side of a barn. "Piece of cake," Lemon said. Maybe it was the cameras, but Lemon proceeded to hit everything except the mitt. "Mind if I try it?" Reagan asked in an affable voice. "One pitch, smack in the middle of that mitt," Lemon later told a reporter. "I've never been so embarrased in all my life." --Carl M. Cannon, _The Oval Office and the Diamond_, 'The Atlantic Monthly' [May 2001] - One thing about Ronald Reagan that struck me time and again was his obvious, visceral loathing of communism. For him it wasn't just a difference of opinion about economics or governance: he saw through the whole thing to its essentially anti-human nature. And this was at a time, we all too easily forget, when plenty of people in the West -- I think a majority of the intellectual classes even as late as the 1980s -- didn't mind communism at all, thought in fact that it was just the ticket, if perhaps not for the USA, at least for poor counties like Nicaragua. Reagan had the firmest, clearest, truest moral compass of any modern President. May he rest in peace. --John Derbyshire (1945— ) British-born American author. - In 1983 Reagan's popularity took a dip, mostly due to a rise in unemployment. One of his advisers came to him with the bad polling data, announcing that for the first time since he took office, a majority of Americans disapproved of his job performance. Reagan thought for a moment, then said, "I know what we can do. I'll just have to go and get shot again." --Bob Dole (1923— ) Republican senator and majority leader and unsuccesful candidate in the 1996 presidential election. In _Great Political Wit: Laughing (Almost) All The Way To The White House_ [1998]. - When that fool Reagan said that the Soviet Union was a failed experiment headed for the ash heap of history, I knew he was a demagogue. When that fool Reagan said that the Soviet Union was an evil empire, I knew he was a dangerous kook. When that fool Reagan said that we could end the Cold War by escalating the arms race, I knew the odds favored nuclear annihilation. When the Soviet Union went broke, dissolved, and repudiated its past, I knew it was all Gorbachev's genius, and that fool Reagan had nothing to do with it. Because if that fool Reagan was right all along ...what kind of fool am I? --Jules Feiffer (1929— ) American cartoonist and author. - Many of his jokes were learned by heart or even written for him. But some of his best one-liners were spontaneous. Of a mob of peace protestors: 'Their signs say make love not war, but they didn't look as if they could do either.' To a bearded man who shouted, 'We are the future,' Reagan replied, 'I'll sell my bonds.' When he was shot and nearly died in 1981, he let out a string of one-liners. Thus, to his wife Nancy, 'Honey, I forgot to duck,' a recycling of Jack Dempsey's famous 1926 joke about his defeat by Gene Tunney. Just before being wheeled into the operating theater, he said to the doctors, 'Please tell me you're all Republicans,' and when he was in the recovery room he said to the nurses, paraphrasing W. C. Fields during the wagon- train fight against the Sioux: 'All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.' --Paul Johnson (1928— ) British historian. _A History of the American People_ [1997] p. 921 Ronald Reagan's popularity soared after the [John W. Hinckley, Jr.] shooting because of the gallant way he had responded. Even with a bullet lodged centimeters from his heart, he walked into the hospital unaided, because he did not want the commander in chief to be shown on television as immobilized. --Kitty Kelley (1942— ) American journalist. _The Family: The Real Story of The Bush Dynasty_ [2004], Ch. 19 - As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom. --Ronald Reagan "Tear Down This Wall" speech, West Berlin [12 June 1987] There are advantages to being President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret. --Ronald Reagan I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. --Ronald Reagan _Daily Telegraph_ [5 January 1995] (In a statement to the American people revealing that he had Alzheimer's disease.) & see: I admire Ronald Reagan. He had the courage to write a letter to the world when he knew he had Alzheimer's disease. This courageous act, speaking so openly about a disease that would inevitably conquer him, helped so many other people, not only those with that treacherous malady, but also their friends and family. --Kirk Douglas [Issur Danielovitch] (1916— ) American film actor and producer. _My Stroke of Luck_ [2002], "Presidents" Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement. --Ronald Reagan (1911—2004) U.S. President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor. Speech, in Lou Cannon "Thanks for the Reaganisms" _Washington Post_ [2 January 1989]. ^ It was a cold winter day in Washington, and the president was walking with his Secret Service detail from the residence to the Oval Office, and I was headed in the opposite direction. We spoke at a distance and then he said something to the agents accompanying him. I stopped, not sure of what was taking place, and he came toward me while the agents held their positions. He stopped, looked me straight in the eye, and said, "Choose your weapon." Puzzled, I said, "Mr. President, I'm not sure what you mean." He replied, "Snowballs at 20 paces; I have the one on the left." I said, "I have the one on the right." We made our snowballs and fired them at the agents along the rose garden, hitting our intended targets, and the story around the White House was that it was the first time Secret Service agents had been fired on and had not returned the fire. The playful event was typical of a man who, for me, was larger than life. He gave so much to this country and to the cause of freedom and democracy -- a contribution that will outlast us all. We are honored to have been in his presence. --Ronald K. Sable [in a letter to "The Wall Street Journal"] (The author was special assistant for national security affairs to President Reagan.) ^ Nearly 20 years ago, confined to an 8-by-10 cell in a prison on the border of Siberia, I was granted by my Soviet jailers the 'privilege' of reading the latest copy of Pravda, the official mouthpiece of the Communist regime. splashed across the front page was a condemnation of Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an 'evil empire.' Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, prisoners quickly spread the word of Reagan's 'provocation' throughout the prison. The dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth--a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us. --Natan Sharansky (1948— ) Ukranian-born anti-Communist and Israeli politician and writer. "Afraid of the Truth", _The Washington Post_ [12 October 2000] - Those Greenpeace dudes breaking into Menwith Hill have it easy: they're against anything America does. But the clever people - the folks whose impeccable track record of getting everything wrong never dents their contempt for boneheads like Reagan and Bush - are obliged to find more artful arguments. [...] 'China has more immediate fears that even a limited missile defence could nullify its far smaller number of long-range missiles, ' the Times leader-writer noted. 'These concerns are legitimate.' Read that again slowly: China has a 'legitimate' right to target Los Angeles and San Francisco without the Americans being so unsporting as to put up defences. [...] Twenty years ago, Ronald Reagan foresaw a missile defence shield. [... And now,] 144 miles over the Pacific, the Pentagon blew a warhead out of the sky. So who are the fantasists and who are the realists? No doubt Colin Powell and Condi Rice will be happy to assure the French, German and even the Canadian governments that if they are determined to ensure that their citizens remain vulnerable to nuclear attack, the Americans will not stand in their way. But it's no longer possible for the smart set to argue that this is a fool's obsession. --Mark Steyn (1959— ) Canadian journalist. "Ronald Ray-gun Was Right", _The Spectator_ [28 July 2001] http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=35 Ronald Reagan was three years into the decade-long twilight of his illness, and unable to recognize most of his colleagues from the Washington days. But [Ukrainian emigre Yacob] Ravin wanted to express his appreciation. "Mr President," he said, "thank you for everything you did for the Jewish people, for Soviet people, to destroy the Communist empire." And somewhere deep within there was a flicker of recognition. "Yes," said the old man, "that is my job." Yes, that was his job. --Mark Steyn (1959— ) Canadian journalist. "Yes, that was his job" Edmund Morris has described his subject as an “airhead” and concluded that it’s “like dropping a pebble in a well and hearing no splash.” Morris may not have heard the splash, but he’s still all wet: The elites were stupid about Reagan in a way that only clever people can be. Take that cheap crack: If you drop a pebble in a well and you don’t hear a splash, it may be because the well is dry but it’s just as likely it’s because the well is of surprising depth. I went out to my own well and dropped a pebble: I heard no splash, yet the well supplies exquisite translucent water to my home. But then I suspect it’s a long while since Morris dropped an actual pebble in an actual well: As with walls, his taste runs instinctively to the metaphorical. Reagan looked at the Berlin Wall and saw not a poem-quoting opportunity but prison bars. I once discussed Irving Berlin, composer of “God Bless America”, with his friend and fellow songwriter Jule Styne, and Jule put it best: “It’s easy to be clever. But the really clever thing is to be simple.” At the Berlin Wall that day, it would have been easy to be clever, as all those ’70s detente sophisticates would have been. And who would have remembered a word they said? Like Irving Berlin with “God Bless America”, only Reagan could have stood there and declared without embarrassment: Tear down this wall! - and two years later the wall was, indeed, torn down. Ronald Reagan was straightforward and true and said it for everybody - which is why his “rhetorical opportunity missed” is remembered by millions of grateful Eastern Europeans. The really clever thing is to have the confidence to say it in four monosyllables. --Mark Steyn (1959— ) Canadian journalist. - In his lifetime Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk. [...] Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure. [...] And surely it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan's life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed. Others prophesied the decline of the West; he inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom. Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity. Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union; he won the Cold War - not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends. [...] Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth. Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform. Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow's 'evil empire'. But he realised that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors. So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation. --Margaret Thatcher (1925— ) British conservative stateswoman and Prime Minister [1979—1990]. Eulogy of Reagan. http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38914 - In Solidarity By Lech Walesa June 11, 2004; _The Wall Street Journal_ GDANSK, Poland -- When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989. Poles fought for their freedom for so many years that they hold in special esteem those who backed them in their struggle. Support was the test of friendship. President Reagan was such a friend. His policy of aiding democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe in the dark days of the Cold War meant a lot to us. We knew he believed in a few simple principles such as human rights, democracy and civil society. He was someone who was convinced that the citizen is not for the state, but vice-versa, and that freedom is an innate right. I often wondered why Ronald Reagan did this, taking the risks he did, in supporting us at Solidarity, as well as dissident movements in other countries behind the Iron Curtain, while pushing a defense buildup that pushed the Soviet economy over the brink. Let's remember that it was a time of recession in the U.S. and a time when the American public was more interested in their own domestic affairs. It took a leader with a vision to convince them that there are greater things worth fighting for. Did he seek any profit in such a policy? Though our freedom movements were in line with the foreign policy of the United States, I doubt it. I distinguish between two kinds of politicians. There are those who view politics as a tactical game, a game in which they do not reveal any individuality, in which they lose their own face. There are, however, leaders for whom politics is a means of defending and furthering values. For them, it is a moral pursuit. They do so because the values they cherish are endangered. They're convinced that there are values worth living for, and even values worth dying for. Otherwise they would consider their life and work pointless. Only such politicians are great politicians and Ronald Reagan was one of them. The 1980s were a curious time -- a time of realization that a new age was upon us. Communism was coming to an end. It had used up its means and possibilities. The ground was set for change. But this change needed the cooperation, or unspoken understanding, of different political players. Now, from the perspective of our time, it is obvious that like the pieces of a global chain of events, Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and even Mikhail Gorbachev helped bring about this new age in Europe. We at Solidarity like to claim more than a little credit, too, for bringing about the end of the Cold War. In the Europe of the 1980s, Ronald Reagan presented a vision. For us in Central and Eastern Europe, that meant freedom from the Soviets. Mr. Reagan was no ostrich who hoped that problems might just go away. He thought that problems are there to be faced. This is exactly what he did. Every time I met President Reagan, at his private estate in California or at the Lenin shipyard here in Gdansk, I was amazed by his modesty and even temper. He didn't fit the stereotype of the world leader that he was. Privately, we were like opposite sides of a magnet: He was always composed; I was a raging tower of emotions eager to act. We were so different yet we never had a problem with understanding one another. I respected his honesty and good humor. It gave me confidence in his policies and his resolve. He supported my struggle, but what unified us, unmistakably, were our similar values and shared goals. I have often been asked in the United States to sign the poster that many Americans consider very significant. Prepared for the first almost-free parliamentary elections in Poland in 1989, the poster shows Gary Cooper as the lonely sheriff in the American Western, "High Noon." Under the headline "At High Noon" runs the red Solidarity banner and the date -- June 4, 1989 -- of the poll. It was a simple but effective gimmick that, at the time, was misunderstood by the Communists. They, in fact, tried to ridicule the freedom movement in Poland as an invention of the "Wild" West, especially the U.S. But the poster had the opposite impact: Cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for Poles. Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom, both physical and spiritual. Solidarity trounced the Communists in that election, paving the way for a democratic government in Poland. It is always so touching when people bring this poster up to me to autograph it. They have cherished it for so many years and it has become the emblem of the battle that we all fought together. As I say repeatedly, we owe so much to all those who supported us. Perhaps in the early years, we didn't express enough gratitude. We were so busy introducing all the necessary economic and political reforms in our reborn country. Yet President Ronald Reagan must have realized what remarkable changes he brought to Poland, and indeed the rest of the world. And I hope he felt gratified. He should have. Mr. Walesa, winner of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, was president of Poland from 1990 to 1995. - His philosophical approach is superficial, overly simplistic, one-dimensional. What he preaches is pure economic pap, glossed over with uplifting homilies and inspirational chatter. Yet so far the guy is making it work. Appalled by what seems to me a lack of depth, I stand in awe never- theless of his political skill. I am not sure that I have seen its equal. --Jim Wright Jr. (1922— ) American politician. (Of Ronald Reagan.) - Reagan was advised by many to continue the policy of détente that had been practiced by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. But while most policymakers were content to push the ideas of yesterday, Reagan had already moved on to formulating the battle plans of tomorrow. He believed that the Soviet system was on the verge of collapse, and that he could bring the Cold War to a victorious end. In comments to his future National Security Advisor, Richard Allen, Reagan said, "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: We win and they lose. What do you think of that?" --Pejman Yousefzadeh, "The Liberator", http://www.techcentralstation.com/060704H.html & see If anything is laid to rest with him at the end of this remarkable week, it ought to be the lazy condescension of the elites. That's all but indestructible, alas. Last Monday, the Washington Post and many other papers carried an Associated Press story by Adam Geller on Reagan's economic legacy which began, "He had almost no schooling in economics..." Actually, that's one of the few things he did have schooling in: In 1932, he earned a bachelor's degree in social science and economics from Eureka College. I guess a certificate from Eureka just doesn't impress these reporters the way Bush's Yale Business School diploma impresses them. What is an ''intelligent'' person? As defined by the media, it seems to mean someone who takes the media seriously. Someone wonkish on the nuts and bolts of particular topics of interest to media types, and able to sit around yakking about them till 3 in the morning. Ronald Reagan had a much rarer intelligence -- a strategic intelligence. In 1977, he told Richard Allen, ''My theory of the Cold War is that we win and they lose.'' Cute. So few politicians talked like that a quarter-century ago that I'd have been content if it was just a neat line. But Reagan figured out a way to make it come true. Within 10 years. That's strategic thinking. Those who disparage him say it would have happened anyway. It was obvious to all that the Soviet Union was on the verge of total collapse. After all, as big-time Ivy League history prof Arthur Schlesinger wrote in 1982, "Those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse" are "wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves." No, hang on, I must be thinking of Professor J.K. Galbraith, who in 1984 was marveling at "the great material progress" of the USSR. In fairness to Galbraith, as the Associated Press would say, he has almost no schooling in economics, aside from being a Harvard economics professor for several decades. --Mark Steyn (1959— ) Canadian journalist. SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST, "Like Thatcher, Americans grasped Reagan's worth" [13 June 2004] - . . . Reagan, known as "The Great Communicator," was elected to office in a landslide victory over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 and is credited with revitalizing the country's stagnant economy and forcing the end of the Cold War during his two terms in office from 1981 to 1989. His charismatic personality and staunch conservatism led the nation in a Republican resurgence that kept the GOP in the White House for 12 years. Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani described Reagan as "the most dominating president of the 20th Century. He changed the map of the world. He defeated communism. He destroyed the Soviet Union. He tore down the Berlin Wall and he fought for the rights of the individual. --Fox News [5 June 2004] TOPICAL Bush's Critics Sing The Same Tune as Reagan's June 15, 2004 The Wall Street Journal [. . . ] But by any objective analysis, the quotient of political conflict and vitriol in the Reagan years was equivalent to that today. Indeed, some of the same people who were attacking Ronald Reagan in the 1980s are still around doing the same thing to President Bush. Teddy Kennedy was calling Ronald Reagan a warmonger in 1984, thus feeding useful nuggets to KGB propagandists; he today chortles that Iraq is President Bush's "Vietnam." Senator John Kerry, now on the campaign trail accusing the president of irresponsibility, was similarly scornful of President Reagan's moves to resist Soviet and Cuban efforts to grab Central America. He called the president's well-founded fears of an invasion of Honduras by the Nicaraguan Sandinistas "ridiculous." In a recent newspaper article lauding Senator Kerry, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.- that well-known chronicler of Democratic Party triumphs and Republican failures- wanted to make sure that George W. gets the blame if things go wrong in Iraq. He wrote that the war "was a matter of presidential choice, not of national necessity." In 1982, Mr. Schlesinger came back from a trip to Moscow to report that there was fat chance that Ronald Reagan could push the Soviet Union into a social and economic collapse. Things were looking bright there, he said, admiringly. But of course that is exactly what Reagan did by touching off an arms race that overtaxed the sluggish, muscle-bound communist system. I'm indebted for these recollections to Peter Schweizer's excellent book, published in 2002 by Doubleday, titled "Reagan's War." As he points out, Democrats were not the only Reagan doubters. A majority of the president's own cabinet was against the massive $32 billion military- budget increase he launched two weeks after entering the Oval Office. He replied that his primary responsibility was for the security of the U.S. and that the arms buildup would go ahead. Former Republican presidents Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon also thought Mr. Reagan was spending too much on defense. Republican Senator Charles Percy of Illinois, a former corporate boy wonder (Bell & Howell), took it upon himself to counsel Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin not to "play into Reagan's hands" by taking a hard-line position. The stakes were high in those Cold War years. As Mr. Schweizer recounts, President-elect Reagan just before his 1981 inauguration was briefed on the procedures to be followed if the Soviets launched a nuclear attack. Because Soviet missile submarines, called "boomers," were cruising in the Atlantic not far off the American coast, the president would have to decide how to respond to an attack within a space of six to eight minutes. An officer carrying the "football," a briefcase with the codes for launching a U.S. counterstrike, was standing nearby as Mr. Reagan took his oath of office. In harking back to those years, it seems clear that Ronald Reagan was no more free of political adversaries than George W. Bush today. The idea that he got along better than Mr. Bush with Europe doesn't hold up to close scrutiny either. His support for a NATO plan to deploy Pershing II rockets and cruise missiles in Germany to counter Soviet SS-20 intermediate missiles trained on Europe provoked protest riots in Rome, Bonn and Berlin. Charges that he was a wild- eyed Western "cowboy" were similar to those leveled against President Bush today. Yet Reagan won in the end, and it is quite likely that George W. Bush will win in Iraq if he sticks to his program of maintaining a strong security presence in the country while turning political administration over to Iraqis. If so, he can say that he struck another blow for human freedom, not unlike those that Ronald Reagan was celebrated for before he was finally laid to rest last week.  ;void(0)) REALISM . . see: "EMOTIONS" see: "OBJECTIVITY" To live happily with other people one should ask of them only what they can give. --Tristan [Paul] Bernard (1866—1947) French playwright, novelist, journalist, and lawyer. _L'Enfant Prodigue du Vesinet_ [1921] Graham Greene famously remarked that there was a splinter of ice in the heart of every writer, and the comment is borne out by Arnold Bennett. A realist writer, Bennett took trouble to get the details right. He claimed that the description of the death of an old character in one of his novels could not be improved on. 'I took infinite pains over it ,' he said. 'All the time my father was dying I was at the bedside making copious notes.' --in _The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes_ ed. Philip Gooden [2002]. I don't think it does any harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn't in flames, that there are other people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals. --Charles Kuralt (1934—1997) American journalist and broadcaster. The pessimist complains about the wind; The optimist expects it to change; The realist adjusts the sails. --William Arthur Ward (1921—1994) American college administrator and author. ----- pragmatic (adj.) [præg-'mæ-tik] 1. Realistic, relating to facts, causal relations, and action as opposed to speculation, theory, or abstract principles; 2. A school of philosophy that claims that nothing without real, observable manifestations is relevant to human thought. . . see: "ADAPTABILITY" see: "APPEARANCE" see: "FACTS" see: "PERCEPTION" see: "TRUTH" Beware the writer who always encloses the word reality in quotation marks: He's trying to slip something over on you. Or into you. --Edward Abbey (1927—1989) American author. _A Voice Crying in the Wilderness_ (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) [1989], ch. 1 "Philosophy, Religion, and so Forth." - Many of us leave home convinced we are going to conquer the world. We are anxious to shuck off the restraints of family and traditions, to cut our own swath and make our own rules. We know we can do it better, make it faster and see it all. Somewhere along the way we learn we didn't know quite as much as we thought. Our ideas weren't as new as we took them to be. Suddenly the "quaint" homespun wisdom that once was rejected takes on new life. The first trip home after such an awakening is a return to reality. --Gary L. Bauer (1946— ) American conservative politician who ran for the Republican nomination in 2000. _Our Journey Home_ - Happy season of virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable barrier, and the sacred air-cities of hope have not shrunk into the mean clay hamlets of reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free. --Thomas Carlyle (1795—1881) Scottish historian and political philosopher If you walk on snow you cannot hide your footprints. --Chinese proverb. Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. --Philip K. Dick (1928—1982) American science fiction writer. Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it. --Margaret Drabble (1939— ) English novelist. _A Summer Bird-Cage_ [1963] We should tackle reality in a slightly joky way, otherwise we miss the point. --Lawrence Durrell (1912—1990) British novelist and poet. Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one. --Albert Einstein (1879—1955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. --George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (1819—1880) English novelist. Human kind Cannot bear very much reality. --T.S. Eliot (1888—1965) Anglo-American poet, critic, and dramatist. "Burnt Norton" in _Four Quartets_, pt. I [1936—1942] The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say. --Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931) Lebanese poet. _Sand and Foam_ [1926] Few people have the imagination for reality. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you. --Alex Haley (1921—1992) American author. Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced. Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. --John Keats (1795—1821) English poet. Letter to George and Georgiana Keats [19 March 1819], in _The Letters of John Keats_ [1958], ed. Hyder Edward Rollins. Some days you need to look reality in the eye, and deny it. --Garrison Keillor (1942— ) American writer and radio host. What we see depends mainly on what we look for. --attributed to both Sir John Lubbock, 3rd Baronet (1803—1865) English banker, mathematician and astronomer. & Sir John Lubbock (1834—1913) The First Lord and Baron Avebury who was a British banker, politician, and archaeologist. There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realised until personal experience has brought it home. --John Stuart Mill (1806—1873) English philosopher and social reformer. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. --Henry Miller (1891—1980) American novelist and essayist. Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. --Baron Münchhausen (1720—1797) German nobleman. He made no resistance whatever, and was stabbed in the back... I must not dwell upon the fearful repast... Words have no power to impress the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality. --Edgar Allan Poe (1809—1849) American poet and short-story writer. No one shows himself as he is, but wears his mask and plays his part. Indeed, the whole of our social arrangements may be likened to a perpetual comedy; and this is why a man who is worth anything finds society so insipid, while a blockhead is quite at home in it. --Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860) German philosopher. _Studies in Pessimism_ [1851] - The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?" --A Zen Fable ----- ontology (noun) The philosophical study of existence and the nature of reality. Derived: ontological, adj.; ontologist, n. veritable [VER-ih-tuh-bul], adjective: Agreeable to truth or to fact; actual; real; true; genuine. . . see "THE MIND" for other related links Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason. --Samuel Adams (1722—1803) American revolutionary leader. In a letter to Samuel Cooper [30 April 1776]. Those who will not reason Perish in the act: Those who will not act Perish for that reason. --W.H. [Wystan Hugh] Auden (1907—1973) English-born poet and man of letters. Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. --Buddha [Gautama] (c. 6th—4th century B.C.) Founder of Buddhism. There is hardly any error into which men may not easily be led if they base their conduct upon reason only. --Samuel Butler (1835—1902) English novelist, essayist, and critic. _Erewhon, Or: Over the Range_ [1872] We should never allow ourselves to be persuaded excepting by the evidence of our Reason, of our Reason and not of our imagination nor of our senses. --René Descartes (1596—1650) French philosopher and mathematician. In E.F. Schumacher _A Guide for the Perplexed_ [1977]. I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859—1930) Scottish-born writer of detective fiction. _The Lost World_ He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not, is a slave. --Sir William Drummond (c.1780—1828) Scottish scholar and philosopher. _Academical Questions_ [1805] The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882) American philosopher and poet. Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason. --attributed to Euripides (485?—406 B.C.) Greek dramatist by James Boswell in his _Life of Johnson_. If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins. --Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. _Poor Richard's Almanack_ [May 1749] - Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. --Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931) Lebanese poet. "On Reason and Passion" _The Prophet_ [1923] Let reason, not impulse, be your guide. --Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931) Lebanese poet. - A man cannot govern a nation if he cannot govern a city; he cannot govern a city if he cannot govern a family; he cannot govern a family unless he can govern himself; and he cannot govern himself unless his passions are subject to reason. --Hugo Grotius (1583—1645) Dutch philosopher. playwright, and poet. That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where nonconformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter out convictions in the open lists, to win or lose. --Learned Hand (1872—1961) American judge. Speech to the Board of Regents, University of the State of New York [24 October 1952]. There is no way of proving your point to someone whose income or position depends on believing the contrary. --Sydney J. Harris (1917—1986) American journalist. _Pieces of Eight_ [1982] Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. --David Hume (1711—1776) Scottish philosopher. _A Treatise Upon Human Nature_ [1738] In matters of the intellect follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration... and 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 (1825—1895) English biologist {grandfather of Aldous Huxley}. The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action. --William James (1842—1910) American philosopher. 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 a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. --Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826) American statesman and president [1801—1809]. Letter to Peter Carr [10 August 1787]. All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason. --Immanuel Kant (1724—1804) Prussian philosopher. _Critique of Pure Reason_ [1781] I have no high opinion of human beings: they are always going to fight and do nasty things to each other. They are always going to be part animal, governed by their emotions and subconscious drives rather than by reason. --George Frost Kennan (1904—2005) Ambassador to the USSR in 1952, and to Yugoslavia from 1961 to 1963 and chief architect of the U.S. Cold War policy of containment and deterrence against communism. In an interview with George Urban published in "Encounter" magazine, September, 1976. Perfect reason avoids all extremes. --Jean Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622—1673) French comic dramatist. _Le Misanthrope_ [1666] He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592) French moralist and essayist. A man always has two reasons for what he does — a good one, and the real one. --John Pierpont Morgan, Sr. (1837—1913) American banker, financier, and benefactor of the arts. Attrib. by Owen Wister in _Roosevelt :The Story of a Friendship_ [1930]. Pousser la raison à ses limites aboutit au délire. (Pushing reason to its limits leads to delirium) --Edgar Morin [Edgar Nahoum] (1921— ) French sociologist. "Amour, poésie, sagesse" The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. --Blaise Pascal (1623—1662) French mathematician, physicist, and moralist. _Pensées_ [1670], # 267 Judge not of actions by their mere effect; Dive to the center, and the cause detect; Great deeds from meanest springs may take their course, And smallest virtues from a mighty source. --Alexander Pope (1688—1744) English poet. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge; For, on their answer, will we set on them, And God befriend us as our cause is just! --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist, _Henry IV_ [1597] Women prefer emotions to reasoning. --Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle] (1783—1842) French writer. _Love_, p. 55, translated by Suzanne Sale [Published 1975]. It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. --Jonathan Swift (1667—1745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. ----- adamant [AD-uh-muhnt], adjective: Not capable of being swayed by pleas, appeals, or reason; not susceptible to persuasion; unyielding. adduce [uh-DOOS; -DYOOS], verb: To offer as a reason in support of an argument; bring up as an example; give as proof or evidence; cite. Ex.: Nor does he adduce any historic arguments to prove that doctors make great governors of men, perhaps because such arguments are difficult to find. --"Carrel's Man", _Time_, September 15, 1931 casuistry (noun) ['kæzh(ê)-wi-stree] The resolution of questions of morality by comparing specific cases against general (religious) principles; specious reasoning; that is, reasoning that sounds logical but is false. cogent [KOH-juhnt], adjective: Having the power to compel conviction; appealing to the mind or to reason; convincing. discursive (adj.) 1. Ranging over numerous topics, esp. in an orderly or coherent way. 2. Proceeding by reason rather than intuition, as an argument or discourse. Synonyms: deductive Similar: rational, logical, inductive, reasonable. incongruous [in-KONG-groo-us], adjective: 1. Lacking in harmony, compatibility, or appropriateness. 2. Inconsistent with reason, logic, or common sense. ratiocination (noun) [ræ-shi-ah-sê-'ney-shên] To reason methodically with precise logic. remonstrate [rih-MAHN-strayt], intransitive verb: 1. To present and urge reasons in opposition to an act, measure, or any course of proceedings -- usually used with 'with'. 2. To say or plead in protest, opposition, or reproof. . . see "ACTIONS" for related links It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841—1935) Justice of the United States Supreme Court, legal historian, and philosopher. [1884 Memorial Day Address] There is a destiny that makes us brothers, None goes his way alone; All that we send into the lives of others, Comes back into our own. --Edwin Markham (1852—1940) American poet and lecturer. _A Creed_ [1900] . . see "FRIENDS / FRIENDSHIP" for related links see "KINDNESS" for related links Remember, they only name things after you when you're dead or really old. --Barbara Bush (1925— ) Wife of American the 41st U.S.president, George H.W. Bush and mother of the 43rd president, Geowge W. Bush. At the naming ceremony at the George Bush Center for Intelligence, in "Independent" [28 April 1999]. 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come. --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824) English Romantic poet and satirist. The applause of a single human being is of great consequence. --Samuel Johnson (1709—1784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. In James Boswell _Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791]. A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results. --Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850—1919) American author and poet. - During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: 'What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?' Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark- haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. 'Absolutely,' said the professor. 'In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello'. I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy. --anon. - Nobel Prize Winners end page | RABBITS - RAIN | RAP - READING | REAGAN (RONALD) - RECOGNITION | RED HEADS - RELIEF | RELIGION - PAGE 1 (A-M) | RELIGION - PAGE 2 (N-Z) | REMEMBERING - REPORTERS | REPUTATION - RESPONSIBILITY | REST - REWARD | RICH (THE) - RIGHTEOUS | RIGHTS - ROLLER COASTERS | ROMANCE - RUSSIA | | R | S | T | U - END | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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