World Congress Of Philosophy Quotes

Where will they all sleep and dine? How do philosophers party? What should we print on the pillows and promotional cups? ~ Thorsten J. Pattberg

The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress. ~ Hendrik Willem Van Loon

I think if more members of Congress would talk about what they see and what they want to do and what they want to accomplish, rather than talking about their opponent, we would begin to shape and reshape American public opinion on what the political world looks like. ~ Reid Ribble

First of all I express sincerity. There's also that sense of humor, by which people sometimes learn to laugh about themselves. I mean, the situation is so serious that the people could go crazy because of it. They need to smile and realize how ridiculous everything is. A race without a sense of humor is in bad shape. A race needs clowns. In earlier days people knew that. Kings always had a court jester around. In that way he was always reminded how ridiculous things are. I believe that nations too should have jesters, in the congress, near the president, everywhere ... You could call me the jester of the Creator. The whole world, all the disease and misery, it's all ridiculous. ~ Sun Ra

Presidents lie all the time. Really great presidents lie. Abraham Lincoln managed to end slavery in America partially by deception. (In an 1858 debate, he flatly insisted that he had no intention of abolishing slavery in states where it was already legal  -  he had to say this in order to slow the tide of secession.) Franklin Roosevelt lied about the U.S. position of neutrality until we entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Though the public and Congress believed his public pledge of impartiality, he was already working in secret with Winston Churchill and selling arms to France.) Ronald Reagan lied about Iran-Contra so much that it now seems like he was honestly confused. Politically, the practice of lying is essential. By the time the Lewinsky story broke, Clinton had already lied about many, many things. (He'd openly lied about his level of commitment to gay rights during the '92 campaign.) The presidency is not a job for an honest man. It's way too complex. If honesty drove the electoral process, Jimmy Carter would have served two terms and the 2008 presidential race would have been a dead heat between Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. ~ Chuck Klosterman

...the Constitution is an invitation for the president and Congress to struggle for the privilege of directing foreign policy. Although the president is the principal foreign policy actor, the Constitution delegates more specific foreign policy powers to Congress than to the executive. It designates the president as commander-in-chief and head of the executive branch, whereas it gives Congress the power to declare war and the power of the purse. The president can negotiate treaties and nominate foreign policy officials, but the Senate must approve them. Congress is also granted the power to raise and support armies, establish rules on naturalization, regulate foreign commerce, and define and punish offenses on the high seas.

Although the president is the chief foreign policy maker, Congress has a responsibility to be both an informed critic and constructive partner of the president. The ideal established by the founders is neither for one branch to dominate nor for there to be an identity of views between them. Rather, the founders wisely sought to encourage a creative tension between the president and Congress that would produce policies that advance national interests and reflect the views of the American people. Sustained consultation between the president and Congress is the most important mechanism for fostering an effective foreign policy with broad support at home and respect and punch overseas. In a world of both danger and opportunity, we need such a forei ~ Lee H. Hamilton

Although it has become the most visible of American suburban landscapes, the edge node has few architectural defenders. Even developers despair: 'Shopping centers built only in the 1960s are already being abandoned. Their abandonment brings down the values of nearby neighbourhoods. Wal-Marts built five years ago are already being abandoned for superstores. We have built a world of junk, a degraded environment. It may be profitable for a short-term, but its long-term economic prognosis is bleak.' -Dolores Hayden quoting Robert Davis, 'Postscript,' in Congress for the New Urbanism, Charter of the New Urbanism, 2002. ~ Dolores Hayden

All over the world, there are libraries of a sort. They are among the most beautiful places on the earth, and they hold more information than the Library of Congress. Within these libraries are millions of books, each a uniques masterpiece to see and touch. They are teaching this language to scientists. However, so far only one percent of the books have been deciphered. Some tell how to find new medicines; others reveal new things to eat ... These treasure houses of knowledge are the ancient forests of our planet. ~ Brock Adams

There are 316 million people in the United States of America. About six million of them watch 'Homeland,' Showtime's thriller about world terror, paranoia, and bipolar disorder. That's about 2 percent of the population; roughly what the guy with the beard running on the Libertarian Party ticket gets when he runs for Congress. ~ Stephen Rodrick

The same people own the media that own the White House that own the Congress that own the oil fields. They all work together to give a false view of the world to the American people. ~ Gore Vidal

What is especially ironic about these professors' rhetoric of "otherness" and "queerness" is that they are, in fact, by any real-world measure, extremely conservative, lockstep, institutional, careerist creatures. Their sense of identification with their universities, their departments, and their fields of "study", not to mention the obvious way they size one another up by their titles, academic affiliation, and publications, is stifling. So are their endless pious references to Marx, Foucault, and Derrida, which bring to mind the obligatory nods to the Great Leader at some Communist Party congress. ~ Bruce Bawer

Congress right now is dismantling legislation instituted by Richard Nixon - really the last liberal president of the U.S., literally, and that shows you what's been going on. They're dismantling the limited measures of the Nixon administration to try to do something about what is a growing, emerging catastrophe. And this is connected with a huge propaganda system, proudly and openly declared by the business world, to try to convince people that climate change is just a liberal hoax. "Why pay attention to these scientists?" And we're really regressing back to the medieval period. It's not a joke. ~ Noam Chomsky

And this is not just the United States' problem, it is a global problem. One of the primary arguments used by apologists for this surveillance state that has developed across the United States and in every country worldwide is a trust of the government. This is critical - even if you trust the U.S. government and their laws[...] think about the governments you fear the most, whether it is China, Russia or North Korea, or Iran. These spying capabilities exist for everyone.

This is not just an American thing; this is happening in every country in every part of the world. We first need to move beyond the argumentation by policy officials of wishing for something that is technically impossible. The idea 'Let's get rid of encryption'. It is out of their hands. The jurisdiction of Congress ends at its borders. Even if all strong encryption is banned in the United States because we don't want Al Qaeda to have it, we can't stop a group from developing these tools in Yemen, or in Afghanistan, or any other region of the world and spreading the tools globally. ~ Edward Snowden

Mr Speaker, Mr Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans, last month I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought, and several thousand gave their lives. We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. ~ Barack Obama

My claims are not meant to be persuasive, but are used to make intangibility, concrete. I do not make claim for causing acts of God, I simply illustrate the coincidence and proximity of time between my words and acts of God and the exact date and time of said claims can never be changed because this data was recorded by International Press Releases. Being a scientist automatically makes me a reliable, objective and intellectual source but what gives me more credibility than the average scientist, is the fact that these claims are completely independent from myself for the fact they were recorded by an unbiased and independent third-party (i.e., The Library of Congress and PRLog.org). Therefore, there is no possible debate regarding the validity of this information, unless of course the debate is over whether the world is flat or round. ~ Alejandro C. Estrada

In his mind Vaughan saw the whole world dying in a simultaneous automobile disaster, millions of vehicles hurled together in a terminal congress of spurting loins and engine coolant. ~ J.G. Ballard

They must believe they were heading somewhere. Or did they not care? Was it a case of following the tracks laid down yesterday? A boot in a hole, a boot in a hole, round and round. Did these men see themselves as deck hands on some great ark with a noble purpose? Or were they walking in circles simply because they knew the way? Donald remembered running for Congress, thinking he was going to do real good for the future. And then he found himself in an office surrounded by a bewildering tempest of rules, memos and messages, and he quickly learned just to pray for the end of each day. He went from thinking he was going to save the world to passing the time until ... until time ran out. ~ Hugh Howey

Remember one thing as South Africa prepares to go to the polls this week and the world grapples with the ascendancy of the African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma: South Africa is not Zimbabwe.
In South Africa, no one doubts that Wednesday's elections will be free and fair. While there is an unacceptable degree of government corruption, there is no evidence of the wholesale kleptocracy of Robert Mugabe's elite. While there has been the abuse of the organs of state by the ruling ANC, there is not the state terror of Mugabe's Zanu-PF. And while there is a clear left bias to Zuma's ANC, there is no suggestion of the kind of voluntarist experimentation that has brought Zimbabwe to its knees. ~ Mark Gevisser

Let me tell you the following words as if I were showing you the rungs of a ladder leading upward and upward: Herzl; the Zionist Congress; the English Uganda proposition; the future world war; the peace conference where with the help of England a free and Jewish Palestine will be created. ~ Max Nordau

Nixon was the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. He lied to his wife, his family, his friends, his colleagues in the Congress, lifetime members of his own political party, the American people and the world. ~ Barry Goldwater

I never supported violence. Before the formation of TMC, I was a member of the Congress Party. Gandhi's Congress. Non-violence is a philosophy that runs deep. ~ Mamata Banerjee

Today the path of total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government - a bureaucratic elite. ~ William E. Jenner

solve the nation's debt crisis. The task was daunting. The country had been living on expedients since 1775; the Continental Congress had more creditors than any other regime in the world and no means of payment.When Hamilton totaled how much the country owed, it was staggering: foreign debt alone amounted to $11 million, plus $1.6 million in interest. ~ George C. Daughan

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The member of Congress who is not making a career of politics looks quite differently at the world. ~ Robert Novak

As heirs to a legacy more than two centuries old, it is understandable why present-day Americans would take their own democracy for granted. A president freely chosen from a wide-open field of two men every four years; a Congress with a 99% incumbency rate; a Supreme Court comprised of nine politically appointed judges whose only oversight is the icy scythe of Death
all these reveal a system fully capable of maintaining itself. But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign countries still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them. ~ Jon Stewart

I think it's a lovely idea, but it will not pass the Congress. I live in a world of realities. The policy of our country is that we can drill our way to independence. I think that's a march to folly. ~ Anna Eshoo

The message from too many Democrats and Republicans alike remains that we should not let facts get in the way of our day-dreams. It's so much easier to fantasize about an alternative and ideal world, rather than making the hard and unpopular decisions that are necessary to deal with the complicated and frustrating one in which we live. It is so much easier to imagine that world as a blank slate on which America can draw as it wishes, rather than to recognize that limits on American power, and recalibrate strategy accordingly. If Americans fail to reexamine their fundamental attitudes toward that world, then the risk for the future is that failure in Iraq will make the United States more cautious, but not wiser. ~ John Hulsman

If you have assimilated even one idea and made it your life, you have more education than any person who has got by heart the entire Library of Congress. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Most US presidents since World War II have led military actions without a declaration of war by Congress, though most, if not all, have properly consulted and sought support from Congress. That is the wise thing to do. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

The New World Order run by the United Nations ain't gonna happen. Because they've shown their hand, and at least some corner of Congress and the American people are awake to it: they've blown it all. ~ Michael Moriarty