Quotes
Quotes about Radical
I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.
Every genuine boy is a rebel and an anarch. If he were allowed to develop according to his own instincts, his own inclinations, society would undergo such a radical transformation as to make the adult revolutionary cower and cringe.
God has called the laity to be his basic ministers. He has called some to be "player-coaches" ... to equip the laity for the ministry they are to fulfill. This equipping ministry is of unique importance. One is appointed to this ministry by the Holy Spirit; therefore it must be undertaken with utmost seriousness. This is a radical departure from the traditional understanding of the roles of the laity and the clergy. The laity had the idea that they were already committed to a "full-time" vocation in the secular world, [and] thus they did not have timeâat least, much timeâto do God's work. Therefore they contributed money to "free" the clergy to have the time needed to fulfill God's ministry. This view is rank heresy. If we follow this pattern, we may continue to do God's work until the Lord comes again and never fulfill God's purpose as it ought to be done.
Though sympathizing with the revolutionaries' analysis of what was wrong with society and in fact being mistaken for a revolutionary himself by the political authorities of his day, nevertheless Jesus did not advocate a new political regime to be established by force through revolutionary action. He called for the love of our enemies, not their destruction; ... for readiness to suffer instead of using force; for forgiveness instead of hate and revenge. One might even say [that] Jesus was more revolutionary than the revolutionaries, or revolutionary in a very different way. The revolution he had in mind was a radical change of heart on the part of mankind, involving conversion away from selfishness and toward the willing service of God and of people in general.
Feast of Richard of Chichester, Bishop, 1253 Commemoration of Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, Moral Philosopher, 1752 The Christian should be a conscience in his group. His presence must never be used to provide a Christian justification for evil. To stand as a co-belligerent and not an ally will be to rally the middle ground for a genuine Third Way without mediocre compromise. The Third Way will not be easy. It will be lonely. Sometimes the Christian must have the courage to stand with the establishment, speaking boldly to the radicals and pointing out the destructive and counter-productive nature of their violence. At other times, he will stand as a co-belligerent with the radicals in their outrage and just demands for redress. The Christian is a co-belligerent with either or both when either or both are right, but... fearless in his opposition to either or both when they are wrong.
Behind the words of Jesus and the memories about him, there shines forth a self-authenticating portrait of a real person in all his human uniqueness, an impression which is accessible alike to the layman and to the expert, to believer and non-believer. No reader of the gospel story can fail to be impressed by Jesus' humble submission to the will of his God on the one hand, and his mastery of all situations on the other; by his penetrating discernment of human motives and his authoritative demand of radical obedience on the one hand, and his gracious, forgiving acceptance of sinners on the other. There is nothing, either in the Messianic hopes of pre-Christian Judaism or in the later Messianic beliefs of the early Christian Church to account for this portrait. It is characterized by an originality and freshness which is beyond the power of invention. (Continued tomorrow).
He challenged the church to rethink its own mission in the radically secular world of the twentieth century... The nonbelieving brave men he met in the anti-Nazi underground, the stark realities of prison life, and his disappointment in the professional churchmen of Germany, all may have influenced Bonhoeffer to see real Christianity as "non-religious" and "worldly"... The opposition between sacred and secular, supernatural and natural, seemed unreal to himâthe apparent opposites are united in Jesus Christ.
Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095 There is a misplaced sense of loyalty which makes many Christians feel reluctant to come out in open opposition to anything that calls itself by the same name, or uses words like "God" and "Christ"; even Christians who in practice dislike superstition as much as I do still often treat it as a minor aberration to be hushed up rather than a radical perversion to be denounced.
Enough has... been said to show that the impoverished secularized versions of Christianity which are being urged upon us for our acceptance today rest not upon a serious application of the methods of scientific scholarship nor upon a serious intuitive appreciation of the Gospels as a whole in their natural context, but upon a radical distaste for the supernatural.
Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552 We see him exalting love for neighbor along with love for God. He reaches out to foreigners who are beyond the borders of the "Israel of God". He seeks the release of captives, prisoners, and slaves. He denounces the scribes and religious leaders who "devour the houses of widows". Despite his well-known requirement of loyalty that surpasses family ties, he insists that a man put the care of his own parents ahead of his obligations to his religion. His treatment of women is radically opposed to the strictures of that day. He exhibits sympathy and understanding toward children. He operates an out-patient clinic wherever he happens to be. He insists upon justice as the basis for everyday dealings between citizens. The social teaching of parables like "the good Samaritan" and incidents such as the encounter with the rich young ruler have had an effect upon his followers that cannot easily be measured. If one summary statement of Jesus' ethics can be made, it is that love of God is best shown by love of fellow men.
A conservative is a worshipper of dead radicals.
A system support specialist's life is a sorry one. The only advantage he has over ER doctors is that malpractice suits are rare. On the other hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing new versions of their own innards! Dick Maliska Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. â¢Jeff Raskin Applying computer technology is simply finding the right wrench to pound in the correct screw. â¢Anonymous The Programmer's Time-Space Continuum is defined as "Programmers continuously space the time." â¢Leon Lanthier Computers are useless - they only give you answers. â¢Pablo Picasso "Paradosfunctionoracle" is the term used by technicians to describe the reason no one knows why your computer won't work. â¢J. H. Goldfuss No machine will increase the possibilities of life. They only increase the possibilities of idleness. â¢John Ruskin All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. â¢Anonymous Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in the world that just don't add up. â¢James Magary Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. â¢E W Dijkstra Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equpped with 18,000 vaccuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons. â¢Popular Mechanics, 1949 Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done. â¢Andy Rooney Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy computers. â¢Edward Shepherd Mead A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. â¢John Gall There won't be anything we won't say to people to try and convince them that our way is the way to go. â¢Bill Gates If you can't make it good, at least make it look good. â¢Bill Gates Looking at the proliferation of personal web pages on the net, it looks like very soon everyone on earth will have 15 Megabytes of fame. â¢MG Siriam Surfing on the Internet is like sex; everyone boasts about doing more than they actually do. But in the case of the Internet, it's a lot more. â¢Tom Fasulo Cyberspace: A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation. â¢William Gibson URLs are the 800 numbers of the 1990's. â¢Chris Clark My favorite thing about the Internet is that you get to go into the private world of real creeps without having to smell them. â¢Penn Jillett We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. â¢Robert Wilensky It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the Internet has evolved into a force strong enough to reflect the greatest hopes and fears of those who use it. After all, it was designed to withstand nuclear war, not just the puny huffs and puffs of politicians and religious fanatics. â¢Denise Caruso Wow! They've got the internet on computers now! â¢Homer Simpson Man is a game playing animal and a computer is another way to play games. â¢Scott Adams I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them. â¢Isaac Asimov Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idoits. So far, the Universe is winning. â¢Rich Cook If automobiles had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside. â¢Robert Cringely I try to get people to see what I have... When you run a computer company, you have to get people to buy into your dreams. â¢Steve Jobs The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a little. â¢Porterfield People who buy Macs are the same people who said BETA is better than VHS 15 years ago. â¢Anonymous Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand. â¢Anonymous But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. â¢Bruce Leverett Anybody who's studied software engineering knows that a schedule which underestimates the time needed to develop a project actually makes the project take longer.
I never dared be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.
Energetic action on debt would make a radical difference to the prospects of many of the poorest countries in the world, at no practical cost to creditor countries.
A radical thinks two and two makes five. A liberal is more conservative. he knows two and two make four, but he's unhappy about it.
By the end, everybody had a labelâpig, liberal, radical, revolutionary ... If you had everything but a gun, you were a radical but not a revolutionary.
We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs inordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
If a man is right, he can't be too radical; if he is wrong, he can't be too conservative.
I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty.
A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted in the air.
A radical is one who speaks the truth.
I admit that the generation which produced Stalin, Auschwitz and Hiroshima will take some beating; but the radical and universal consciousness of the death of God is still ahead of us; perhaps we shall have to colonize the stars before it is finally borne in upon us that God is not out there.
Conservatism is sometimes a symptom of sterility. Those who have nothing in them that can grow and develop must cling to what they have in beliefs, ideas and possessions. The sterile radical, too, is basically conservative. He is afraid to let go of the ideas and beliefs he picked up in his youth lest his life be seen as empty and wasted.
The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.
