Arbiter Quotes

The ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one's a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one's theoretical models. ~ Lawrence M. Krauss

Reason is Life's sole arbiter, themagic Laby'rinth's single clue ... ~ Richard Francis Burton

Everyone in my orbit would have a terrible day: the arbiter of days has decreed it. ~ John Darnielle

What gives you the right? "What right?" "The right to be the arbiter of what is good." "Great knowledge. Great position." "No. Wrong. That does not give you the right. No matter what good you might do, you can't pretend to be Jesus or whatever you want to think of yourself. You don't get to pick the winners. You don't get to change our fate and take our will from us." "Natasha, I don't think you--" "You say you're about doing good and helping villages and being altruistic, but I know what you're really about, Prophet. You and everyone else in the present and the future who wants to be God... You just want power. ~ Nathan Edmondson

If you want to win this argument with Dad, look in chapter two of the first book of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. There's a quote there about how philosophers say a great deal about what science absolutely requires, and it is all wrong, because the only rule in science is that the final arbiter is observation - that you just have to look at the world and report what you see. Um ... off the top of my head I can't think of where to find something about how it's an ideal of science to settle things by experiment instead of arguments - ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

Who is the arbiter of the Constitution?

"Now, the President may be right in how he reads the Constitution," Jaworski said. "But he may also be wrong. And if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so? And if there is no one, The President, of course, is free to pursue his course of erroneous interpretation. What then becomes of our constitutional form of government? ... That nation's constitutional form of government is in serious jeopardy if the President, any President, is to say that the Constitution means what he says it does and that there is no one, not even the Supremer Court, to tell him otherwise. ~ Bob Woodward

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

For, while the authority of the doctor or plumber is never questioned, everyone deems himself a good judge and an adequate arbiter of what a work of art should be and how it should be done. ~ Mark Rothko

The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature. ~ Ambrose Bierce

The leader of armies is the arbiter of the people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or in peril. ~ Sun Tzu

The still small voice within you must always be the final arbiter when there is a conflict of duty. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony. ~ Emma Goldman

If there is such a person on the planet, then he or she-this self-appointed arbiter of "appropriateness"-deserves to be confronted with as many "inappropriate" transgressions as possible. ~ Simon Doonan

The reader is the final arbiter. ~ Sam Reaves

Now." After Ifemelu hung up, still amused, she decided to change the title of her blog to Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black. Job Vacancy in America - National Arbiter in Chief of "Who Is Racist" In America, racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past. Racists are the thin-lipped mean white people in the movies about the civil rights era. Here's the thing: the manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not. So if you haven't ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The State has a legal monopoly on the right to use aggression against others in the form of taxation and compulsory edicts (legislation). Not only must "customers" pay into its operation without regard to their consent, but they must surrender to the rules its internal processes determine at all times. Additionally, the State has a monopoly on the provision of security, and has anointed itself as the ultimate arbiter in all conflicts, including those conflicts which involve its own agents. It ~ Christopher Chase Rachels

To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Traditions are neither good nor bad, they simply are ... Rationality is not an arbiter of traditions, it is itself a tradition or an aspect of a tradition. ~ Paul Feyerabend

I do not regard the procuring of peace as a matter in which we should play the role of arbiter between different opinions ... more that of an honest broker who really wants to press the business forward. ~ Otto Von Bismarck

It is a rash man indeed who would set himself up as final arbiter on all that happened the incredible night the Titanic went down. ~ Walter Lord

Just by imagining the clump it seemed to me that I could hear whispers secret surges smell the beating of hot blood under wild unsecret flesh watching against red eyelids the swine untethered in pairs rushing coupled into the sea and he we must just stay awake and see evil done for a little while its not always and i it doesnt have to be even that long for a man of courage and he do you consider that courage and i yes sir dont you and he every man is the arbiter of his own virtues whether or not you consider it courageous is of more importance than the act itself than any act otherwise you could not be in earnest and i you dont believe i am serious and he i think you are too serious to give me any cause for alarm you wouldnt have felt driven to the expedient of telling me you had committed incest otherwise and i i wasnt lying i wasnt lying and he you wanted to sublimate a piece of natural human folly into a horror and then exorcise it with truth ~ William Faulkner

PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. ~ Ambrose Bierce

I see myself as an arbiter of taste. ~ Vera Wang

The guardian and arbiter of superlative eating, with every meal an unforgettable experience in pleasure, starting with the soup, which he said, 'must be the agent provocateur of a good dinner.' ~ Marie-Antoine Careme

Is it what you call civilization that makes England flourish? Is it the universal development of the faculties of man that has rendered an island, almost unknown to the ancients, the
arbiter of the world? Clearly not. It is the inhabitants that have done this. It is an affair of race ... All is race, there is no other truth. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

When a critic sets himself up as an arbiter of morality, a judge of the matter and not the manner of a work, he is no longer a critic; he is a censor. ~ Edward Albee

The Supreme Court, the final arbiter of legal conflicts, reviews, acts of the executive and Congress. With this power, the Court is seen as a political institution as well. "Because the key provisions of the Constitution are couched in grand ambiguities and because the key provisions concern the larger issues of our life, of our liberties, and of our happiness, the Supreme Court, by the exercise of judicial review, wields tremendous political power," Joaquin Bernas, a Jesuit priest and constitutionalist, said. ~ Marites Dañguilan Vitug

It was a single poppy seed ... she rolled it between her fingers and raised her eyes past the straining sails, to the star-filled vault above. On any other night she would have scanned the sky for the planet she had always thought to be the arbiter of her fate - but tonight her eyes dropped instead to the tiny sphere she was holding between her thumb and forefinger. She looked at the seed as if she had never seen one before, and suddenly she knew that it was not the planet above that governed her life: it was this minuscule orb - at once bountiful and all-devouring, merciful and destructive, sustaining and vengeful. This was her Shani, her Saturn. ~ Amitav Ghosh

I'm no editor, no artisan, no expert. And certainly no arbiter of what you should buy, wear, or eat. ~ Blake Lively

Ratio et prudentia curas,
Non locus effusi late maris arbiter, aufert.
[it is reason and wisdom which take away cares, not places affording wide views over the sea.] ~ Horace

Time, the ultimate arbiter of what is of value in life ... ~ Aaron David Miller

[Harvey] Weinstein appointed himself as the arbiter of your family safety. When was the last time his life was in danger, probably choking on a veal chop. He doesn't need a gun because he has security. He travels in rarified air. His feet never touch the street - feet, mind you, that he can't see because he's a corpulent cretin. ~ Kimberly Guilfoyle

Do I believe in God? Sure. So I believe the Bible is the arbiter of theological knowledge? There it gets a little hazy. ~ Don Hoesel

The job of the critic, as it might have been conceived in the 1950's or 1960's, was some kind of role of moral arbiter for people, not a huge number of people, but people who were, you know, fairly educated, well-placed people. ~ Louis Menand

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Court life for a queen of France at that time was, however, stultifyingly routine. Eleanor found that she was expected to be no more than a decorative asset to her husband, the mother of his heirs and the arbiter of good taste and modesty. ~ Alison Weir

Aristocracy is relative: there are all sorts of inexpensive little resorts where the son of a furniture salesman may be the arbiter of all things elegant, holding court like a young Prince of Wales. ~ Marcel Proust

Art has a smaller audience than, say, movies or other forms of mass consumption. But that doesn't mean the work doesn't have an impact in a way that transcends just a few cultural arbiters. ~ Todd Solondz

The director is the ultimate creative arbiter of what's going to happen. And as a director myself, you really appreciate collaborating with people who are trying to help you find what you need and what you want. ~ Roman Coppola

Our manic accumulation of wealth,' Kuru Qan went on. 'Our headlong progress, as if motion was purpose and purpose inherently virtuous. Our lack of compassion, which we called being realistic. The extremity of our judgements, our self-righteousness - all a flight from death, Brys. All a vast denial smothered in semantics and euphemisms. Bravery and sacrifice, pathos and failure, as if life is a contest to be won or lost. As if death is the arbiter of meaning, the moment of final judgement, and above all else judgement is a thing to be delivered, not delivered unto. ~ Steven Erikson

We are the arbiters of our destiny. ~ Irina Tweedie

Wisdom may be the ultimate arbiter, but is seldom the immediate agent in human affairs. ~ James Fitzjames Stephen

Unless we recognize a higher power to whom we are responsible and who observes and knows our actions, we will not transcend the selfishness of our character and the subjectivity of our intellect. If each person is the final arbiter of right and wrong, then 'right' for him or her will be what he or she desires, regardless of its consequences for the other inhabitants of Earth. ~ Daniel Friedmann

Modern science kills God and takes his place on the vacant throne. Science is the sole legitimate arbiter of all relavent truth. ~ Vaclav Havel

When the Apostles were taken away, Christianity did not at once break into portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be wanted. Christians ~ John Henry Newman

The word 'truth' itself ceases to have its old meaning. It describes no longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief; it becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to believed in the interest of unity of the organized effort and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it. ~ Friedrich Hayek

Brutally put, it makes little philosophical sense for the elected representatives of a government that is subordinate to the people to be able to disarm those people. As an enlightened state may by no means act as the arbiter of its critics' words, it may not remove from the people the basic rights that are recognized in the very document to which it owes its existence. "Shall not be infringed" and "shall make no law" are clear enough even for the postmodern age. To ask, "Why do you need an AR-15?" is to invert the relationship. A better question: "Why don't you want me to have one? ~ Charles C.W. Cooke

Product Hunt, an online publisheraggregator that's become the hot arbiter of tech products. ~ Anonymous

If ever there was a sentence more quickly imprinted in my consciousness, more oft repeated, one that stood as more of an arbiter against which to judge all else, I do not know it. In the beginning, the repetition was the numb sort, the words impenetrable. Only occasionally did they have the power to stop me midstep as I walked upstairs. Or seize my stomach as I ate. Or clear my head as I attempted to speak. ~ Miriam Gershow

That's a well-thought out layout," Caldenia said. "But why pink marble?" She waved at the ceiling. "Pink marble, white ceiling, golden accents ... With the electric lighting it will turn into this ghastly orange."
"I had one chance to impress the Arbiter and I had to improvise."
Caldenia arched one eyebrow.
"I saw it in a movie once," I explained. "It was easy to visualize."
"Was it a movie for adults?"
"It had a talking candelabra who was friends with a grumpy clock."
"I see. ~ Ilona Andrews

When I saw the head part from the body and how they thumped separately into the box, I understood, not with my mind but with my whole being, that no theory of the reasonableness of our present progress could justify this deed; and that though everybody from the creation of the world had held it to be necessary, on whatever theory, I knew it to be unnecessary and bad; and therefore the arbiter of what is good and evil is not what people say and do, nor is it progress, but it is my heart and I. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Neoconservatism in all its pomp conceived - in the Project for a New American Century - that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world could be remade in the American image, that the previous bipolar world could be replaced by a unipolar one in which the U.S. was the dominant arbiter of global and regional affairs. ~ Martin Jacques

Ernestine Warner was working with the same rough information available to traders like Eisman. This was insane: The arbiter of the value of the bonds lacked access to relevant information about the bonds. "When we asked her why", said Vinny, she said "The issuers won't give it to us". That's when i lost it. "You need to demand to get it!" She looked at us like, We can't do that. We were like, "Who is in charge here? You're the grown-up. You're the cop! Tell them the fucking give it to you!!!" Eisman concluded that "S&P was worried that if they demanded the data from Wall Street, Wall Street would just go to Moody's for their ratings. ~ Michael Lewis

Taking the decision-making process away from people disempowers them. It also makes them much less likely to buy into the decision, however right it may be. One's own conscience remains the ultimate arbiter. ~ Lama Surya Das

And our safe word?"
"Wonderwall."
Lindsey turned around and cast Luc a sardonic look. " Your safe word is the name of an Oasis song?"
"Blondie, I am the arbiter of all things fashionable in this House. Why not music?"
"Spoken by a man wearing cowboy boots. I mean, seriously. Who wears cowboy boots ? ~ Chloe Neill

The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene. ~ Hannah Arendt

Reasonable argument is impossible when authority becomes the arbiter. ~ Orson Scott Card

The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men. ~ James Buchanan

When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit. ~ Ayn Rand

My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument." Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right. ~ Desmond Tutu

To spread healthy ideas among even the lowest classes of people, to remove men from the influence of prejudice and passion, to make reason the arbiter and supreme guide of public opinion; that is the essential goal of the sciences; that is how science will contribute to the advancement of civilization, and that is what deserves protection of governments who want to insure the stability of their power. ~ Georges Cuvier

The desire to "do more in less time" is not a neutral force in our culture; it is the handmaiden of miserable experts, specialists, and leaders. Not everyone has rushed to become efficient. Something else exists on the periphery: an inefficient utopia, a culture of consensus, collectives, and do-it-yourself ethics. A place where time is not bought, sold, or leased and no clock is the final arbiter of our worth. For many people in North America, the problem is not just poverty but lack of time to do the things that are actually meaningful. This is not a symptom of personal failures but the consequence of a time-obsessed society. Today, desire for efficiency springs from the scarcity model, which is the foundation of capitalism. Time is seen as a limited resource when we get caught up in meaningless jobs, mass-produced entertainment, and – the common complaint of activists – tedious meanings. ~ Curious George Brigade

The first principle of recovery is the empowerment of the survivor. She must be the author and arbiter of her own recovery. Others may offer advice, support, assistance, affection, and care, but not cure. ~ Judith Lewis Herman

I always looked forward to being an adult, because I thought the adult world was, well - adult. That adults weren't cliquey or nasty, that the whole notion of being cool, or in, or popular would case to be the arbiter of all things social, but I was beginning to realize that the adult world was as nonsensically brutal and socially perilous as the kingdom of childhood. ~ Peter Cameron

The National Security Adviser is supposed to be an arbiter of policy and open minded in internal debates. But the playing field was never balanced. It was always tilted toward Rumsfeld's position, which is obviously the same as Bush's. ~ Seymour Hersh

The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. ~ Lysander Spooner

Human Error lies in judgment. While many will say that it's wrong to judge, one cannot survive in the light or the darkness without equipping the ability to judge. One must judge their morality. One must judge their potentiality. One must judge their actuality. One must judge their life. One must judge their very existence. What happens when God no longer lends a helping a hand? What happens when
God longer judges you? Only you can be the arbiter of your own existence. However, you will have to judge. So let me ask you, what's the difference between judging the subjective reality that one exists in, and judging the value of the subjective reality of another? The only difference lies is the sameness of one conception ... judgment. So tell me, is it wrong to judge others, when your very existence depends on you judging reality for validity? ~ Lionel Suggs

Traditions can also be dangerous. Jesus warned us: "Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8 NASB). God's Word must be the arbiter of all our ideas, not historic teaching. Remember the Church is asleep, and sleeping saints developed many of the traditional theories we currently hold. These saints may have been mighty men of God, but in regard to Jesus's return, many were only dreaming. ~ Nelson Walters

It is indeed a misfortune for a woman to be without beauty, as with men the eye is the chief arbiter of qualities in the sex. Her beauty is her capital
her worth in the market matrimonial depends upon it. With her the Virtues are less reverenced when unaccompanied by the Graces. The sex understand this very well; and hence they seek mainly to make captive the eye, knowing the mind and heart will follow as a matter of course. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

Emotion is the surest arbiter of a poetic choice, and it is the priest of all supreme unions in the mind. ~ Max Eastman

THE MAIN DUTY OF LAW enforcement is law breaking. Right now the disciplined forces jobs are the reserve of the 'elite' and security has little meaning, money is the arbiter of law breaking. ~ Vincent De Paul

But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force. ~ Thomas Jefferson

This may account for Americans' overuse of the courts as a means of finding coherence and stability. As other institutions become unusable as mechanisms for the control of wanton information, the courts stand as a final arbiter of truth. For how long, no one knows. I ~ Neil Postman

I for one don't need a supreme "sacred" arbiter in order to be a moral being. ~ Salman Rushdie

Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade - with reason, not force, as their final arbiter - it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability - and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil? ~ Ayn Rand

If your only arbiter of anything is money, really you should ... go and rob banks. ~ Bruce Dickinson

Christ, who gave the law and required obedience to it, was willing to abide by the conditions that He had laid down for others, and upon man's failure, to take his place and suffer the penalty that He Himself had ordained. With these facts in mind we can never charge God with injustice. He does not require of anyone that which He is not willing to do Himself. This qualifies Him for being the final judge of mankind, the Arbiter of man's destiny. ~ M.L. Andreasen

We live and move and think; but we are not the creators of our own origin and existence. We are not the arbiters of every motion of our own complicated nature; we are not the masters of our own imaginations and moods of mental being. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Proof then, has retreated in the face of belief. Science, once heralded as the arbiter of truth, has had its facade of objectivity punctured. Intellectuals may point to the uncertainty of Heisenberg, but generally this has more to do with the growing distrust of statistics and the knowledge that scientists in the pay of governments and multi-nationals are no more objective than their masters. Science, once the avowed enemy of religion, now sees books BT Christian physicists and Taoist mathematicians. Science sells washing powders and status symbols and comes in the form of icons of technological nostalgia. ~ Phil Hine

Those who govern must see how the people react to administration. Ultimately, the people are the final arbiters. ~ Lal Bahadur Shastri

The point I wish plainly to bring before you on this occasion is the individuality of each human soul
our Protestant idea, the right of individual conscience and judgment
our republican idea, individual citizenship. In discussing the rights of woman, we are to consider, first, what belongs to her as an individual, in a world of her own, the arbiter of her own destiny, an imaginary Robinson Crusoe with her woman Friday on a solitary island. Her rights under such circumstances are to use all her faculties for her own safety and happiness. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The Supreme Court is not elected, and it is therefore not a proper arbiter of social policy. ~ Lamar S. Smith

Every family has one living patriarch or matriarch, the final arbiter and repository of ancient family history, and Nicole's Aunt Patti was the last woman standing. ~ Liz Rosenberg

If you allow a political catchword to go on and grow, you will awaken some day to find it standing over you, arbiter of your destiny, against which you are powerless. ~ William Graham Sumner

The experience that a publication creates for its audience is the very essence of that publication's brand - and without deep engagement, that publication's brand will be weak. A good publication is a convener and an arbiter - it expresses a core narrative that becomes a badge of sorts for its readership. ~ John Battelle

Do you like my brother?" And there goes Dan's confidence. He keeps his eyes resolutely on the field.
"Uh... yes? I mean... I think everyone likes your brother, don't they?"
She leans over and gives him a little hip check. "No, you know what I mean. Do you /like/ him?" Dan just states out at the horses, hoping that one of them will do something, anything, to distract this girl from her question. But the horses just keep grazing and Tat continues. "'Cause he likes you. I mean, he likes Jeff, too, but... you can like two people at once, right?"
"Uh... yes? I think you can like two people at once."
"Yeah. I know it's none of my business or whatever, but... I just wanted to make sure you know... if you like him, that's cool with me. I mean, I like Jeff too, but... you know."
Dan has a brief moment of wanting to shake her. No, he /doesn't/ know. Is everything really so clear to everyone but him? Is he just adding extra complications where they don't need to be? Then he remembers that he's talking to a fifteen-year-old girl. Maybe she shouldn't be the arbiter of what's simple or complicated.
He realizes that she's still waiting for a response from him. "Okay, well... thanks for letting me know."
"Are you guys going to, like... date?"
"Sweet Jesus, Tat, I don't know!" Possibly that's a bit of an overreaction, but she looks more amused than upset.
"All right, all right...." She gets a mischievous look in her eyes. ~ Kate Sherwood

I also believe that the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter of all federal questions. ~ Judy Biggert

And he then you will remember that for you to go to harvard has been your mothers dream since you were born and no compson has ever disappointed a lady and i temporary it will be better for me for all of us and he every man is the arbiter of his own virtues but let no man prescribe for another mans wellbeing and i temporary and he was the saddest word of all there is nothing else in the world its not despair until time its not even time until it was The last note sounded. At ~ William Faulkner

The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union. ~ Thomas Jefferson

By a steady adherence to the Union we may hope, erelong, to become the arbiter of Europe in America, and to be able to incline the balance of European competitions in this part of the world as our interest may dictate. ~ Alexander Hamilton

Tea was the great arbiter of many things, and for Pastaddams, his morning cup meant the difference between expressing rational thought and succumbing to the ineptitude that occupied recesses of his dormant mind. Merely having the cup in his hand facilitated the flow of ideas, and upon tea, the great nourishment of the tailor's life, rested all his claims to rational dependence. ~ Michelle Franklin

And he every man is the arbiter of his own virtues but let no man prescribe for another mans wellbeing and i temporary and he was the saddest word of all there is nothing else in the world of all there is nothing else in the world its not despair its not even time ~ William Faulkner

The Prince to a slightly more upbeat view of human action. In order "not to rule out our free will," he arrives at a formula by which Fortune is "the arbiter of half the things we do, leaving the other half or so to be controlled by ourselves. ~ Ross King

Aristocracy is a relative thing. And there are plenty of out-of-the-way places where the son of an upholsterer is the arbiter of fashion and reigns over a court like any young Prince of Wales. ~ Marcel Proust

We all say that this is the century of the common man, that he is the lord of the earth, the air and the water, and that on his decision hangs the historical fate of the nations. This proud picture of human grandeur is unfortunately an illusion only and is counterbalanced by a reality which is very different. In this reality man is the slave and victim of the machines that have conquered space and time for him; he is intimidated and endangered by the might of the war technique which is supposed to safeguard his physical existence; his spiritual and moral freedom, though guaranteed within limits in one half of his world, is threatened with chaotic disorientation, and in the other half it is abolished altogether. Finally, to add comedy to tragedy, this lord of the elements, this universal arbiter, hugs to his bosom notions which stamp his dignity as worthless and turn his autonomy into an absurdity. All his achievements and possessions do not make him bigger; on the contrary, they diminish him, as the fate of the factory worker under the rule of a 'just' distribution of goods clearly demonstrates. ~ C.G. Jung

The problem, however, eventually became evident: to make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also love, hate, meaning - to consider a world that is self-evidently not the world we live in. That's not to say that if you believe in meaning, you must also believe in God. It is to say, though, that if you believe that science provides no basis for God, then you are almost obligated to conclude that science provides no basis for meaning and, therefore, life itself doesn't have any. In other words, existential claims have no weight; all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Yet ~ Paul Kalanithi

to make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also love, hate, meaning - to consider a world that is self-evidently not the world we live in. That ~ Paul Kalanithi

Truly we are passing through disastrous times, when we may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: "There is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land" (Hosea 4:1). Yet in the midst of this tide of evil, the Virgin Most Merciful rises before our eyes like a rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man. ~ Pope Pius X

So someone can ask me what reflects my interpretation of the way things are, and I can tell them where they can get material that looks at the world the way I think it ought to be looked at-but then they have to decide whether or not that's accurate. Ultimately it's your own mind that has to be the arbiter: you've got to rely on your own common sense and intelligence, you can't rely on anyone else for the truth. ~ Noam Chomsky

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt