text:
Responsibility

Responsibility is the state of being "responsible", or answerable for an act performed or for its consequences, especially morally and legally.

Quotes

 * RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
 * Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

 * In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible for a person to be responsible. A simple example: a dam has been built somewhere, and it bursts. Who is responsible for that? Geologists worked out. They examined the terrain. Engineers drew up the construction plans. Workmen constructed it. And the politicians decided that the dam had to be in that spot. Who is responsible? No one. There is never anyone responsible. Anywhere. In the whole of our technological society the work is so fragmented and broken up into small pieces that no one is responsible. But no one is free either. Everyone has his own, specific task. And that's all he has to do. Just consider, for example, that atrocious excuse—it was one of the most horrible things I have ever heard. The director of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was asked at the Nuremburg trials trials, “But didn’t you find it horrible? All those corpses?” He replied, “What could I do? I couldn’t process all those corpses. The capacity of the ovens was too small. It caused me many problems. I had no time to think about these people. I was too busy with the technical problem of my ovens.”  That is the classic example of an irresponsible person. He carries out his technical task and isn't interested in anything else.
 * Jacques Ellul, The Betrayal by Technology (1993)

 * Responsibility is a rare thing in any case: a bastard child, often denied.
 * Michael F. Flynn, Built Upon the Sands of Time, in David G. Hartwell (ed.) Year's Best SF 6, p. 437 (Originally published in Analog magazine, July-August 2000)

 * Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.
 * , (1956) Man's Search for Meaning, p. 209-210.

 * Make children take responsibility only for what they have actually done! Otherwise you rob them of a true sense of responsibility, you make them servile, and you teach them to be two-faced, in both thought and deed. No one should have to make promises about their actions to another. Responsibility for what one does cannot be entrusted to a custodian. Each person, and that person alone, is the subject of his or her actions. Only when one realizes this will one be capable of acting responsibly, autonomously, and with true conviction, deceiving no one and in fear of no one.
 * Kaneko Fumiko, Translated by Jean Inglis

 * The ruling powers tell us poor lower-class folks that we have an obligation, a social responsibility to society, to abide by the law, but they don't have any social responsibility to us to help us meet our needs. It's pure bourgeoisie class-based morality, a morality that serves the ruling class, not the masses of the oppressed.
 * Kevin Rashid Johnson, Defying the Tomb (2010)

 * Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.
 * Gospel of Luke, 12:48, English Standard Version.

 * For of those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each of us—recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state—our success or failure, in whatever office we hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions: First, were we truly men of courage—with the courage to stand up to one's enemies—and the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one's associates—the courage to resist public pressure, as well as private greed?  Secondly, were we truly men of judgment—with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past—of our mistakes as well as the mistakes of others—with enough wisdom to know what we did not know and enough candor to admit it.  Third, were we truly men of integrity—men who never ran out on either the principles in which we believed or the men who believed in us—men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust?  Finally, were we truly men of dedication—with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and comprised of no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest?  Courage—judgment—integrity—dedication—these are the historic qualities ... which, with God's help ... will characterize our Government's conduct in the four stormy years that lie ahead.
 * John F. Kennedy, address to the Massachusetts legislature (January 9, 1961); Congressional Record (January 10, 1961), vol. 107, Appendix, p. A169.

 * Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each one of us individually.
 * Dalai Lama, Nobel lecture (December 11, 1989)

 * The possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility.
 * William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne Hansard, Thomas Curson. "Habeus Corpus Suspension Bill." The Parliamentary Debates From The Year 1803 To The Present Time. Vol. 36. London: T.C. Hansard, 1817. 1127. Print. Parliamentary Debates.
 * Misattributed to Voltaire: Voltaire. Jean, Adrien. Beuchot, Quentin and Miger, Pierre, Auguste. Œuvres de Voltaire, Volume 48. Lefèvre, 1832..
 * The sentiment is also found in Luke 12:48: "from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (NIV).

 * Upon the standard to which the wise and honest will now repair it is written: "You have lived the easy way; henceforth, you will live the hard way…. You came into a great heritage made by the insight and the sweat and the blood of inspired and devoted and courageous men; thoughtlessly and in utmost self-indulgence you have all but squandered this inheritance. Now only by the heroic virtues which made this inheritance can you restore it again…. You took the good things for granted. Now you must earn them again…. For every right that you cherish, you have a duty which you must fulfill. For every hope that you entertain, you have a task that you must perform. For every good that you wish to preserve, you will have to sacrifice your comfort and your ease. There is nothing for nothing any longer".
 * Walter Lippmann, speech to the Harvard Class of 1910 at their thirtieth reunion (June 18, 1940); Walter Lippmann papers, Yale University Library. President Jimmy Carter quoted from the latter part of this passage, with slight variations, in his State of the Union address to Congress (January 23, 1980). Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1980–81, book 1, p. 200.

 * 'Am I responsible or are you', a senior official asked his pilot, dubiously beginning a flight to Baghdad, 'for seeing that this machine is not overloaded?' 'That will have to be decided at the inquest.'
 * James (Jan) Morris, Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat (1978), p. 357.

 * One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.
 * P. J. O'Rourke, Rolling Stone (30 November 1989)

 * There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
 * P. J. O'Rourke, The Liberty Manifesto (1993)

 * We have been telling [young people] for decades to demand what they are owed by society. We have been implying that the important meanings of their lives will be given to them because of such demands, when we should have been doing the opposite: letting them know that the meaning that sustains life in all its tragedy and disappointment is to be found in shouldering a noble burden.
 * Jordan Peterson, Beyond Order (2021), p. 161

 * When doing a job — any job — one must feel that he owns it, and act as though he will remain in that job forever. He must look after his work just as conscientiously, as though it were his own business and his own money. If he feels he is only a temporary custodian, or that the job is just a stepping stone to a higher position, his actions will not take into account the long-term interests of the organization. His lack of commitment to the present job will be perceived by those who work for him, and they, likewise, will tend not to care. Too many spend their entire working lives looking for the next job. When one feels he owns his present job and acts that way, he need have no concern about his next job.
 * Hyman G. Rickover, as quoted in The Rickover Effect (1992), by Theodore Rockwell

 * Responsibility is a unique concept... You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you... If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible.
 * Hyman G. Rickover, as quoted in The Rickover Effect (1992), by Theodore Rockwell

 * Physical misery is great everywhere out here [Africa]. Are we justified in shutting our eyes and ignoring it because our European newspapers tell us nothing about it? We civilised people have been spoilt. If any one of us is ill the doctor comes at once. Is an operation necessary, the door of some hospital or other opens to us immediately. But let every one reflect on the meaning of the fact that out here millions and millions live without help or hope of it. Every day thousands and thousands endure the most terrible sufferings, though medical science could avert them. Every day there prevails in many and many a far-off hut a despair which we could banish. Will each of my readers think what the last ten years of his family history would have been if they had been passed without medical or surgical help of any sort? It is time that we should wake from slumber and face our responsibilities!
 * Albert Schweitzer, On the Edge of the Primeval Forest, trans. C. T. Campion (1948, reprinted 1976), p. 115.

 * Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
 * George Bernard Shaw, "Maxims for Revolutionists", Man and Superman (1903).

 * I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived.
 * Stephen Sondheim, intro to "Gee, Officer Krupke", in West Side Story.

 * In Donald's mind, even acknowledging an inevitable threat would indicate weakness. Taking responsibility would open him up to blame. Being a hero- being good- is impossible for him.
 * Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (2020), p. 210

 * Obra de comun, obra de ningun.
 * Everyone's business is no one's business.
 * "Matters that are of general concern, but are the responsibility of nobody in particular, tend to get neglected because everybody thinks that somebody else should deal with them."
 * Source for meaning:
 * Source for meaning:

 * In dreams begin responsibilities.
 * William Butler Yeats, epigram to the book Responsibilities (1914), later used as the title of the story "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" (1937) by Delmore Schwartz.

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989)

 * A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
 * Albert Einstein, "The World as I See It", Ideas and Opinions, trans. Sonja Bargmann, p. 8 (1954).

 * If I knew something useful to me and harmful to my family, I should put it out of my mind. If I knew something useful to my family and not to my country, I should try to forget it. If I knew something useful to my country and harmful to Europe, or useful to Europe and harmful to the human race, I should consider it a crime.
 * Montesquieu. Robert John Loy, Montesquieu, chapter 3, p. 122 (1968). Before giving this translation, Loy says, "Montesquieu was so fond of the passage that he composed it in several forms; it stands as his philosophical emblem". For the original French, see Montesquieu, Oeuvres Completes, p. 981 (1949).

 * There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
 * Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech accepting renomination for the presidency, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 27, 1936. The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936, p. 235 (1938).

 * In proportion to power is responsibility.
 * Ernestine Rose Address to the First Anniversary of the American Equal Rights Association (May 9, 1867)

 * God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.
 * John Ruskin, "The Lamp of Memory", The Seven Lamps of Architecture, chapter 6, section 9, p. 248 (1907).

 * The Buck Stops Here
 * Harry S. Truman, motto on his White House desk. Alfred Steinberg, Harry S. Truman (1963), p. 185.

 * For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. Soe that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.
 * John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, "A Modell of Christian Charity", discourse written aboard the Arbella during the voyage to Massachusetts, 1630. Robert C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop, p. 19 (1867). Robert C. Winthrop was a representative from Massachusetts, 1840–1850, and was Speaker of the House 1847–1849; he was a senator from Massachusetts 1850–1851. Walter F. Mondale referred to the "city on a hill" in a presidential campaign speech in Cleveland, Ohio, October 25, 1984; The Washington Post account notes that this quotation from Winthrop is a favorite of President Reagan's. October 26, 1984, p. 1. President-elect John F. Kennedy said, in an address to the Massachusetts Legislature on January 9, 1961, "During the last 60 days I have been engaged in the task of constructing an administration…. I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arabella [sic] 331 years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a government on a new and perilous frontier. 'We must always consider,' he said, 'that we shall be as a city upon a hill—the eyes of all people are upon us.' Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, State, and local, must be as a city upon a hill—constructed and inhabited by men aware of their grave trust and their great responsibilities". Congressional Record, January 10, 1961, vol. 107, Appendix, p. A169. For another portion of this speech, see No. 1494.

title: Responsibility


text:
Star Trek

Star Trek collectively refers to an American science-fiction franchise spanning six unique television series (which comprise 726 episodes) and thirteen feature films, in addition to hundreds of novels, computer and video games, fan stories, and other works of fiction—all of which are set within the same fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry during the mid-1960s. Since its debut, Star Trek has become one of the most popular names in the history of science fiction entertainment, and one of the most popular franchises in television history.

Television series

 * Star Trek: The Original Series
 * Star Trek: The Animated Series
 * Star Trek: The Next Generation
 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
 * Star Trek: Voyager
 * Star Trek: Enterprise
 * Star Trek: Discovery
 * Star Trek: Short Treks
 * Star Trek: Picard
 * Star Trek: Lower Decks
 * Star Trek: Prodigy
 * Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Feature films

 * Star Trek: The Motion Picture
 * Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
 * Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
 * Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
 * Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
 * Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
 * Star Trek Generations
 * Star Trek: First Contact
 * Star Trek: Insurrection
 * Star Trek Nemesis
 * Star Trek
 * Star Trek Into Darkness
 * Star Trek Beyond

Internet series (Fan films)

 * Star Trek: New Voyages

Video games

 * Star Trek: Borg
 * Star Trek: Klingon Academy

About

 * I'm always amused when Ted Cruz says that ‘Star Trek’ is his favorite television show. Because I don't think there is any world where Star Trek is anything but a progressive, liberal vision of the future — in which big government is a good thing, and we can all get along. It's a utopian ethos that is a result of one world government, and not exceptionalism of any particular country.
 * Mark A. Altman, "‘Star Trek’ turns 50 today. What would creator Gene Roddenberry think of life in 2016?", by Michael Cavna, Washington Post, (September 8, 2016).

 * One reason why Star Trek has endured from one generation to the next is that most of the stories themselves are indeed moral fables. Though the episodes are obviously self-contained, when taken as a whole they constitute a harmonious philosophy filled with hope. While our Star Trek heroes are far from perfect, they are nonetheless essentially decent beings whose interaction with "new life and new civilizations" is always guided by nobility and morality.
 * Judith Barad, The Ethics of Star Trek, (2000: xi) as qtd. in Robert H. Chaires, Bradley Stewart Chilton, Star Trek Visions of Law and Justice, (2003).

 * Burton has said that he got a call to audition for The Next Generation in 1986 because producer Bob Justman remembered how much Burton had loved the original Star Trek; the two had previously worked together and Burton had often talked about the series. Justman convinced Burton to consider The Next Generation by noting the involvement of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in the new spinoff series. (Wesley Snipes]] also auditioned for the role of Geordi and later hailed Burton as “a greater actor” when Burton got the part instead.) “Gene Roddenberry’s vision was one that really meant a lot to me,” Burton later told NPR. “It said when the future comes, there’s a place for you. Seeing Nichelle Nichols [the Black actress who played Uhura in the original series] on the bridge of that ship meant that when the future got here, there was a place for people who looked like me.”
 * Levar Burton as quoted by Aja Romano, ”Why LeVar Burton’s Jeopardy! quest feels so meaningful”, VOX, (Jul 26, 2021)

 * As it turns out, it is possible to name a movie or two, in which the captain or supervisor or organization aren't a blithering idiots. The Fugitive, The Silence of the Lambs, and Apollo 13 all show institutions and public officials functioning well. Incidentally, they were all big hits. One of the core differences between Star Wars and Star Trek lies in how those two franchises treat the question of civilization. In the cosmos of George Lucas, not a single institution is shown functioning or doing its job. Once. At all. Ever. In contrast, Trek always loved to chew on questions like when and how the social compact might work, or fail, or need adjustment, or call for flexibility, or be handled differently by alien minds. Civilization — along with its laws and codes and contradictions — is often a major character in each show. A participant, subject to scrutiny, skepticism, but also sometimes praise. But of course, Star Trek always was an exception to every rule.
 * David Brin, "Our Favorite Cliché: A World Filled With Idiots", DavidBrin.com, 2013.

 * I would have loved to have done a Star Trek crossover. The very first year, we talked about it. Then Star Trek finally went off air. Landing the Tardis on board the Enterprise would have been magnificent. Can you imagine what their script department would have wanted, and what I would have wanted? It would have been the biggest battle.
 * Russell T Davies, "David Tennant", Team-tennant.com

 * The franchise garners the kind of obsession that's endearingly embarrassing: flashing the Vulcan hand salute, having intimate knowledge of Klingon chess, making detailed costumes for conventions. “Trekkie” has become cultural shorthand for a very specific kind of fixation. It suggests, with a patronizing wink, that wanting to be part of the world of “Star Trek” requires a mix of social isolation and naiveté. Instead I think it requires hope, or a profound lack of it.
 * Miriam Francisco, “The optimism of ‘Star Trek’”, Michigan Daily,  (September 16, 2019)

 * According to “Star Trek,” everything we're worried about right now will be OK. There will be other things that go wrong — a species intent on taking over the universe, arguments between factions of aliens — but these concerns are foreign enough that they're intriguing rather than scary. The show depicts its fair share of pain and suffering, but usually it's the aliens who suffer in any permanent way; when humans do, it's an aberration from the new normal that's been created. By the time the Enterprise is exploring new worlds, we've eliminated climate change, war, disease, xenophobia and sexism. On Earth, everything is as it should be. In the rest of the universe, though, these things still exist, and nearly every conflict on the series involves starship crews becoming entangled with random and calculated unfairness, cruelty and moral complication. We get Klingon in-fighting, alien merchants selling slaves, a civilization about to be decimated by its dying star. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” is especially prone to depicting easily-recognizable versions of real quandaries. The characters encounter everything from sex trafficking to territorial disputes on distant planets, and they're forced to confront moral codes that exaggerate the ironies and falsehoods of our own beliefs. Familiar dramas play out: Apartheid is displaced onto a matriarchal society in “Angel One,” and the Israel-Palestine conflict plays out with a group of alien separatists in “The High Ground.” Here lies the ethical problem with “Star Trek,” and also the thing that is so deliciously attractive about it: Every earthly dilemma has been outsourced to an alien species, and we get to be the arbiters of goodness, the agents of scientific reason. Who wouldn't want to buy into this vision of the future?
 * Miriam Francisco, “The optimism of ‘Star Trek’”, Michigan Daily, (September 16, 2019)

 * Star Trek often has starships facing each other at close range, making everyone think, “That Admiral Nelson was really on to something with those sailing ships and broadside cannon battles!” While Star Trek is the archetype, Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars also feature ships facing off like the British against the French at Trafalgar. After travelling billions of miles and using entire solar systems as their battlegrounds, they fight to the death at ranges of a few feet.
 * Carl Forsling, *When It Comes To The Military, SciFi Movies Are Missing The Mark", Task and Purpose, (December 1, 2014).

 * Captains Kirk and Picard on Star Trek are one-man SEAL teams fighting the enemy whenever they decide to take a break from their real jobs commanding starships, even though they have crews of literally several hundred other people better suited to fighting than the ship's captain.
 * Carl Forsling, *When It Comes To The Military, SciFi Movies Are Missing The Mark", Task and Purpose, (December 1, 2014).

 * Star Trek is not like any other show because it is one unique vision, and if you agree with Gene Roddenberry's vision for the future, you should be locked up somewhere. It's wacky doodle, but it's his wacky doodle. If you can't deal with that, you can't do the show. There are rules on top of rules on top of rules...Gene sees this pollyanish view of the future where everything is going to be fine...I don't believe it, but you have to suppress all that and put it aside. You suspend your own feelings and your own beliefs, and you get with his vision...or you get rewritten.
 * Maurice Hurley in Starlog issue 152, p. 29.

 * Because creator Gene Roddenberry believed in showing the essential humanity of all sentient species regardless of their planet of origin, extraterrestrial nonhumans also let us look at real psychological processes. While Star Trek explores many aspects of human nature, key issues keep reappearing, particularly those of importance to understanding and resolving conflicts between diverse peoples. Even the ongoing struggle between logic and emotion usually manifests as a cultural issue.
 * Travis Langley, “Star Trek: The Mental Frontier”, Psychology Today, (Sep 05, 2012).

 * Each Star Trek series' cast includes a main character who seeks to understand human emotion: Spock the Vulcan-human hybrid (Star Trek, known to fans as The Original Series - TOS); Data the android (Star Trek: The Next Generation - TNG); Odo the shapeshifter (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - DS9); Tuvok the Vulcan and the Voyager's holographic Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager - VGR); and yet another Vulcan, T'Pol, a female for once (Star Trek: Enterprise - ENT). While the Vulcans suppress strong emotions beneath the veneer of logic, emotionless Data seeks to become more human and Odo, capable of mimicking human beings, dispassionately observes human nature with curiosity, rarely envy.
 * Travis Langley, “Star Trek: The Mental Frontier”, Psychology Today, (Sep 05, 2012).

 * Star Trek is an optimistic franchise, full of hope for the human race collectively and as individuals. Gene Roddenberry envisioned many struggles ahead of us and many advancements for the whole of humankind. He expected great things for the human condition. Positive psychology can make great use of Roddenberry's creations.
 * Travis Langley, “Star Trek: The Mental Frontier”, Psychology Today, (Sep 05, 2012).

 * Moore: Star Trek has very, very strong bones. The original concept was just very strong and, at the same time, flexible. You could play a lot of different kinds of stories in the idea of a starship boldly going, arriving in a new society, a completely alien world. You could play with a whole series of sets of problems and adventures with a starship crew and this society and then leave at the end of the episode and go do it again next week. There's just a huge canvas of stories you can tell. You can just keep riffing on that. It wasn't such a challenge to reinvent it. Even J.J.’s work… there just had been so much Star Trek by that point that it kind of needed to wipe the slate clean and start over. It wasn’t that Trek lacked imagination; it was just that the franchise had been burdened down by its own continuity.
 * Ronald D. Moore "You Ask The Q's, Ronald D. Moore Answers, Part 2", StarTrek.com, Apr 3, 2013

 * Interviewer: Frank Hunt asks: What were the most important lessons you took away (as a writer and producer) from your time working on Star Trek?
 * Moore: That it’s all about the characters and that you really have to be willing to dig into the characters and make it about the people and understand them. That means sitting in rooms for hours on end and arguing about who these people really are. It’s about trying to challenge the characters and challenge yourself. It’s really the lifeblood of television. It’s what it’s all about. People tune into these shows again and again not for the plot of the week and not because they want to be wowed by visual effects. They tune into the show because they fall in love with the characters. They fall in love with Kirk and Spock and Sisko and Janeway and Picard and Data. They want to see those people again. So it’s all about the characters, and that’s the most important thing I learned at Trek.
 * Ronald D. Moore "You Ask The Q's, Ronald D. Moore Answers, Part 2", StarTrek.com, Apr 3, 2013

 * Season 2 of the prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will deliver ten more episodic "classic" franchise stories about discovery, optimism and politics. Even for all its accolades, it couldn't avoid the "woke" label from critics angry at the new wave of Star Trek stories. While the definition of the term is as nebulous as the Delphic Expanse, its intention is easy to discern. Any show or movie with a diverse cast focused on stories of empowerment, compassion or inclusion is sure to be hit with the label. When it comes to Star Trek, however, this criticism doesn't make sense as creator Gene Roddenberry designed the series to advance his progressive political ideology about a diverse and equitable future. Star Trek: The Original Series featured the most diverse cast of principal characters at the time. It may have held that title well into the 1990s. This is because of Roddenberry's motto for the future he created: infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Even the tiny details about his future are radical political statements. Earth no longer uses money, and the driving force of society isn't about material gain. There are no longer countries, but rather a single Earth government. Gene Roddenberry was the original globalist, even though not everything in Star Trek held up. In fact, each Star Trek series has been representative of the uncorrected biases of their time. However, what makes Star Trek so progressive is that the franchise evolves to try and be better.
 * Joshua M. Patton, “Star Trek Has Always Been 'Woke' - Some Fans Just Forgot”, CBR, (Jun 5. 2023)

 * Star Trek often makes use of present-day events for its own history. A Season 2 episode of The Original Series called "A Private Little War" is a very unsubtle allegory about Vietnam being a destructive, losing gambit before the release of the Pentagon Papers. The Season 3 episode "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield," is an equally unsubtle examination of racism and its destructive nature less than a year after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. Similarly, in its series premiere, Strange New Worlds used footage from the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. It was shown to a warring alien race as part of a presentation on how Earth fell into World War III.
 * Joshua M. Patton, “Star Trek Has Always Been 'Woke' - Some Fans Just Forgot”, CBR, (Jun 5. 2023)

 * Star Trek as a franchise has lasted until today, but its message of hope and prosperity has found increasing difficulty resonating with contemporary audiences.
 * Jordan Pilenton, "Star Trek's optimistic future in a pessimistic present", University Star, (October 23, 2017)

 * When I was a kid, my dad and I never missed an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was fascinated by the adventures of the U.S.S. Enterprise's diverse, weird, and wondrous crew of future beings seeking, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard explained in the opening credits, "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before." Cue the horns. I was inspired by Star Trek's noble mission. (And I may have had a baby crush on actor Wil Wheaton.) More than that, however, Star Trek was a show that both I, in my budding queerness, and my father could enjoy together. No matter our differences, we bonded for one hour each weekend over our shared love of space adventures. This ability to swoop in viewers from different generations and persuasions is no accident. For over 55 years, Star Trek -- thanks to the vision of creator Gene Roddenberry -- advocated for big-tent inclusion. In doing so, it took historically marginalized people and made them heroes of their own stories. Star Trek: The Original Series not only broke ground when it aired the interracial kiss between Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), it also signaled to viewers that in the future -- and in the present – love is limitless.
 * Daniel Reynolds, “Why Star Trek Matters to LGBTQ+ People”, Out, (February 15, 2022)

 * Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.
 * Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek Philosophy, as quoted by Socialism in One Galaxy, Socialist Worker.org.

 * Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things.
 * Gene Roddenberry, Interview (20 September 1988), included in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, DVD 7, "Mission Logs: Year Five", "A Tribute to Gene Roddenberry", 0:26:09)

 * Believability is everything, is it the most essential element of any Star Trek story.
 * Gene Roddenberry Star Trek: The Next Generation Bible, p.9.

 * While the Enterprise's mission is ostensibly "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before," its function is really more akin to that naval vessels in the early age of mercantilism. In describing the similarities, series creator Gene Roddenberry noted: "In those days ships of the major powers were assigned to patrol specific areas of the world's oceans. They represented their governments in those areas and protected the national interests of their respective countries. Our of contact with the admiralty office back home for long periods of time, the captains of these ships had very broad discretionary powers. These included regulating trade, fighting bush wars, putting down slave traders, lending aid to scientific expeditions conducting exploration on a broad scale, [and] engaging in diplomatic exchanges and affairs....
 * Gene Roddenberry, as qtd. in Robert H. Chaires, Bradley Stewart Chilton, Star Trek Visions of Law and Justice, (2003), p. 75-76.

 * “It’s made clear and emphasized several times in the course of the show that the Federation does not have money,” Saadia says in Episode 205 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “You have Captain Picard saying, ‘We’ve overcome hunger and greed, and we’re no longer interested in the accumulation of things.'”
 * Manu Saadia in "The Economic Lessons of Star Trek’s Money-Free Society", WIRED, (5/28/2016).

 * “What really makes sense in the Star Trek universe and Star Trek society is to compete for reputation,” he says. “What is not abundant in Star Trek’s universe is the captain’s chair.”
 * Manu Saadia in "The Economic Lessons of Star Trek’s Money-Free Society", WIRED, (5/28/2016).

 * I love the Ferengi because they are sort of a 1990s or 2000s American acquisitive businessman. ... The Ferengi are really ignoble, really awful people, and they're really funny as a result. But they do change over time. When you watch the whole arc of the Ferengi in Deep Space Nine, the Ferengi, just by contact with the Federation, become more like the Federation, they become Keynesian social democrats, by the end. Suddenly you have the right to have unions and strikes, and there's health care for everybody. ... I always thought that this story of the Ferengi becoming more humanitarian just by contact with the Federation was a metaphor for all of us becoming better by watching Star Trek.
 * Manu Saadia in "The Economic Lessons of Star Trek’s Money-Free Society", WIRED, (5/28/2016).

 * The Borg are such great villains because they're so similar to the Federation, when you think about it. The Borg have perfect allocation of goods, and supply and demand, and everybody is connected to everybody in the beehive, and they just seem to be extremely efficient. They're also the other society in Star Trek that could be characterized as ‘post-scarcity.’ Any Borg drone never wants or needs anything, it's always provided by the Collective. So it is the mirror image—and the dangerous image, almost—of what a society that is both redistributive and satiated could look like. It's almost as if the writers tried to incorporate the criticism of the society they propose.
 * Manu Saadia in "The Economic Lessons of Star Trek’s Money-Free Society", WIRED, (5/28/2016).

 * The truth is that, in certain ways, Thiel’s philosophy of tech aligns well with “Star Trek.” In the Trekiverse, technological progress is inseparable from society and politics. As even quasi-fans will recall, the TV shows and films feature a machine called the replicator, which can produce any inanimate matter on demand—food, drink, warp-drive parts. (In his interview with Dowd, Thiel calls this device the “transporter,” in what can only be a swipe at nerds. Surely he knows better.) The replicator solves, albeit fictionally, what John Maynard Keynes once called “the economic question”—that is, the imbalance between supply and demand, and the resulting need for markets and price mechanisms to allocate scarce resources. The society of “Star Trek” has decided not to exact a fee for the use of the machine. Thus the replicator can be an engine both for the equal distribution of wealth and for personal enrichment. It does not bring about social change on its own. The post-scarcity world in “Star Trek” is the result of a political decision, not of pure technological progress. What is anathema to Thiel in “Star Trek” is the notion, drawn from Isaac Asimov’s fiction, that the market is but a temporary solution to imbalances in supply and demand, and that technology and plenty will eventually make it obsolete. “Star Trek” replicators are nothing but Asimov's robots disguised as coffee machines, let loose on the world as a public good. They dissolve the need for a pricing mechanism. They represent the logical endpoint of the Industrial Revolution, when all human labor has been offloaded onto machines. “Star Trek” and Asimov remind us that the market and all the behaviors associated with it are temporary and historically contingent. If that is so, then what Thiel thinks of human nature and motivations—that people are competitive, acquisitive, greedy—is temporary and contingent, too.
 * Manu Saadia, “Why Peter Thiel Fears “Star Trek”, Newyorker.com, (January 13, 2017)

 * “Star Trek” points to a future in which human civilization is advanced enough to provide everyone with the basic necessities of life. It also shows us the ways in which we have already achieved that society, even if we have not decided to make it available to all.
 * Manu Saadia, “Why Peter Thiel Fears “Star Trek”, Newyorker.com, (January 13, 2017)

 * The destiny of Google's search engine is to become that Star Trek computer, and that's what we are building.
 * Amit Singhal, the head of Google's search rankings team, at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival "Julian Assange Says Apolitical Futurism of Star Trek" Fits Google" Matt Novak, Paleofuture, 9/15/14.

 * 'Star Trek' fans totally accepted my sexual orientation. There are a great number of LGBT people across 'Star Trek' fandom. The show always appealed to people that were different — the geeks and the nerds, and the people who felt they were not quite a part of society, sometimes because they may have been gay or lesbian. 'Star Trek' is about acceptance and the strength of the Starship Enterprise is that it embraces diversity in all its forms.
 * George Takei "Here's why George Takei says ‘Star Trek’ fans are 'totally accepting' of sexual orientation", Aly Weisman, Business Insider, Jun. 30, 2015.

 * Well, you know, Star Trek and the Starship Enterprise was supposed to be a metaphor for Starship Earth. It was supposed to be an idealized representation of what our society should be. In our society, we have a lot of minorities. Asians, African-Americans, women getting on the upward mobility escalator. They're making progress going up, whether it's in the professional world or the business world, or in other various careers. But the problem seems to be that think called the glass ceiling. They make it up to a certain point and then it stops. I kept lobbying to the powers that be at Paramount saying to them, "if Starfleet is to represent that ideal, you just can't keep giving us advances in rank." By that time I was a Commander. The movie before that I was a Lieutenant Commander, but I was still there at the helm punching those same buttons. I said to them, "it's very important that if we are supposed to be that kind of bright, eminently capable people...professionals....we have to get that advancement. We have to be able to show that this idealized society truly works. It's very important than, that we see one of the characters moving up and becoming a captain. Of course, my character being Sulu, I lobbied most vigorously for him. Finally after 25 long years of lobbying, we were able to reach that idealized representation of Starfleet. The glass ceiling doesn't exist with Starfleet. He was a captain then.
 * George Takei interview, November 21, 1994 at 8:30pm eastern, conducted by Peter Anthony Holder, the evening talk show host on CJAD

 * ...there's really two things that we can say about that Trekonomics, that economics of Star Trek. The first being that you can't, on logical grounds, actually have an economics in such a world. And the second being that you can, but it will be the sort that Karl Marx was talking about. For the basic premise of the Star Trek universe is that we've conquered scarcity. And as Marx was most insistent about pointing out, communism couldn't arrive until the absence of scarcity.
 * Tim Worstall, “Star Trek Economics Is Just True Communism Arriving”, Forbes, (5/10/05).

 * There is also the problem of the dignity of work -- people enjoy feeling needed. But human values change over time, and there seems no obvious reason why people couldn't get their self-worth from artistic self-expression, or from hobbies. This is the basic Star Trek future. But actually, I think that the future has a far more radical transformation in store for us. I predict that technological advances will actually end economics as we know it, and destroy scarcity, by changing the nature of human desire. So, there's that one sense that we can't have an economics of such an environment. For economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. But if resources aren't scarce then how can we study the allocation of something that doesn't exist? Of course, you might think that most economists are only discussing angels on pinheads anyway. And if we're honest about it all economists would insist that at least one current major theory is nothing more than that. But in the entire absence of scarce resources, economics would be even more like that. Akin to asking whether those angels could waltz or jitterbug upon their pinhead. However, we do have another guide to what would be happening at this point, in the absence of scarcity. And that's the Bearded One himself, Karl Marx. And the answer is True Communism. Or at least, the way would then be open for True Communism to finally arrive.
 * Tim Worstall, “Star Trek Economics Is Just True Communism Arriving”, Forbes, (5/10/05).

Pop culture references

 * Skinny Pete: What do you think all those sparkles and shit are? Transporters are breaking you apart right down to your molecules and bones. They're makin' a copy. That dude who comes out on the other side? He's not you. He's a color Xerox.
 * Badger: So you're telling me every time Kirk went into the transport he was killing himself? So over the whole series, there was, like, 147 Kirks?
 * Skinny Pete: At least. Dude, no, why do you think McCoy never liked to beam nowhere? 'Cause he's a doctor, bitch! Look it up, it's science!
 * Peter Gould, "Blood Money", Breaking Bad, (August 11, 2013).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Star Trek


text:
User:Menchi

en:User:Menchi and zh:用户:Menchi

Not particularly interested in memorizing other people's quotes. Like reading funny and smart ones.

My first edit: Qin Shi Huang

My favourite edit: Middle name

I won't be here as often, so if there's something super-important and you want some answer within a year, drop me a note at en:User talk:Menchi.

title: User:Menchi


text:
User:ZachsMind~enwikiquote

ZachLinx

 * BuffyVerse Quotation Database
 * WhedonWiki

ZachsQuotes

 * Defending people from their own weaknesses by making more and more victimless acts criminal is robbing people of their rights. What scares me is the masses are just blindly allowing the supposed leaders of this country to make these wide sweeping decisions on the arrogant assumption that they have our best interests in mind. They don't.
 * Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Disorganized List of Quotes (not sure where or if to put them)

 * "Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching on magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
 * Marcus Brigstocke, British comedian.
 * Has been apocryphally attributed to Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc. 1989
 * "Children are innocent and love justice, while most adults are wicked and prefer mercy." - G. K. Chesterton
 * "We should call the guy who sounds like me, and then I could talk to myself." - David Letterman

title: User:ZachsMind~enwikiquote


text:
Parenting

Parenting or child rearing is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood.

B

 * What ... should be the effort on the part of parents and educators?...
 * 1. An atmosphere of love, wherein fear is cast out and the child realises he has no cause for timidity, shyness or caution, and one in which he receives courteous treatment at the hands of others, and is expected also to render equally courteous treatment in return...
 * 2. An atmosphere of patience, wherein the child can become, normally and naturally, a seeker after the light of knowledge; wherein he is sure of always meeting with a quick response to inquiry, and a careful reply to all questions, and wherein there is never the sense of speed or hurry... Impatience on the part of those upon whom they are so pathetically dependent, sows in them the seeds of irritation, and more lives are ruined by irritation than can be counted.
 * 3. An atmosphere of ordered activity, wherein the child can learn the first rudiments of responsibility... the shouldering of small duties and the sharing of responsibilities is a potent factor in determining a child's character and future vocation.
 * 4. An atmosphere of understanding, wherein a child is always sure that the reasons and motives for his actions will be recognized, and that those who are his older associates will always comprehend the nature of his motivating impulses, even though they may not always approve of what he has done, or of his activities.
 * Alice Bailey Education in the New Age (1954)

 * It is the older generation who foster in a child an early and most unnecessary sense of guilt, of sinfulness and of wrongdoing. So much emphasis is laid upon petty little things that are not really wrong, but are annoying to the parent or teacher, that a true sense of wrong (which is the recognition of failure to preserve right relations with the group) gets overlaid and is not recognized for what it is. The many small and petty sins, imposed upon the children by the constant reiteration of "No", by the use of the word "naughty", and based largely on parental failure to understand and occupy the child, are of no real moment. If these aspects of the child's life are rightly handled, then the truly wrong things, the infringements upon the rights of others, . . . the hurting or damaging of others in order to achieve personal gain, will emerge in right perspective and at the right time.
 * Alice Bailey Education in the New Age (1954)

 * Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage through their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day.  If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her.  It is quite like tidying up drawers.  You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight.  When you wake up in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
 * J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1904).

 * I am now the father of four. In the tradition of my mother, my wife and I read individually to them every night. As a result, they love books too. There is no greater tool for bonding with children than books. There is no greater instrument for teaching lessons for life. Now my children reach for books before they reach for the remote control.
 * Jeff Benedict in Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen (eds.) The Book That Changed My Life (2006), ISBN 1-592-40210-0, p. 21

 * Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
 * Napoleon Bonaparte, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 441.

 * The greatest gift you can bestow upon your children is your time and undivided attention.
 * Jim Brozina, in Alice Ozma, The Reading Promise ISBN 978-0-441-01179-7 (2011), Foreward, p. xiv

C

 * Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery — the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the "material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones." Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them.
 * Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), § 2223

 * Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies.
 * Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), § 2224

 * I learned the right way to live from my parents. I never heard any hate in my house. I never heard my father say a mean word to my mother, or my mother to my father, either. During the war, when food was hard to get, my parents fed their children first and they ate what was left. They always thought of us.
 * Roberto Clemente, as quoted in "Clemente, 32, Pays Tribute to Parents" by Les Biederman, in The Sporting News (September 3, 1966), p. 12

G

 * “Damn it, Dad. You make me crazy.” “That’s part of my job as a parent. If I read the manual correctly.”
 * Charles E. Gannon, Marque of Caine (2019), Chapter 5

 * “There’s a moment of disrecognition that I think occurs for all new parents. One minute you’re looking at your child lovingly, marveling how lucky you are; the very next instant you’re wondering, ‘Who let this loathsome reptilian thing into my life? Whose good idea was this?’ Eventually the perception shifts again, this time stabilizing into a more natural and permanent state. This isn't a loathsome reptilian thing after all; it's just a short person with some serious opinions of its own. And it expects to be listened to. Parenting is the acceptance of that other person's existence as a person, not a thing.”
 * David Gerrold, Introduction to The Martian Child, in Pamela Sargent (ed.) Nebula Awards 30, p. 151 (originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 1994)

 * “What’s the matter?” “What if I'm really not good enough?” I said. “That’s what I'm worried about—I can’t shake that feeling.” “Oh, that—” she said, lightly. “That’s normal. That’s the proof that you’re going to do okay. It’s only those parents who don’t worry who need to.”
 * David Gerrold, The Martian Child, in Pamela Sargent (ed.) Nebula Awards 30, p. 159 (originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 1994)

 * Parents face an uphill climb in understanding what their child is going through, more than ever with the internet consuming their child’s attention. Rather than assuming parents will harm their children, the state should recognize the inherent right of parents to make decisions for their own [children]. Practically, children need their parents to put boundaries around them, boundaries LGBT activists relentlessly work to remove. …Parents need to be ready to protect their [children], help them through severe emotional struggles, and keep them away from outside influences that want to isolate them.
 * Chad Felix Greene, "Yes, Parents Should Know If Their Child Is Gay", The Federalist (June 20, 2024)

H

 * The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes one a mother, which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.
 * Sidney J. Harris, as reported in The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations (Westminster John Knox Press: 2001), p. 253

 * When we talk of parental influence we do not think of terror in connection with it—that is not the primary idea—it is not terror and coercion, but kindness and affection, which may bias the child's mind, and induce the child to do that which may be highly imprudent, and which, if the child were properly protected, he would never do.
 * William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley, L.C., Turner v. Collins (1871), L. R. 7 Ch. Ap. Ca. 340; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 188.

 * The relationship between parents and children can break a thousand times over, and it is the job of a parent to go searching for the pieces, searching for the glue.
 * Monica Hesse, in "Hunter Biden’s mother" The Washington Post (June 12, 2024)

K

 * When parents know how to assign the task with authority, when the coachman knows from seasoned experience how to assign the task, it is indescribably helpful. So it is also for the adult when the task is firmly set with the authority of eternity, which is indescribably helpful in carrying out the task. If a child is so unfortunate as to have a father who does not know how to command, or the horses a second-rate driver, it seems as if the child and the horses would not have half of the powers they actually do have. Alas, and when the adult who is the sufferer surrenders his soul to the power of vacillation, he is actually weaker than a child. But then it is indeed also a joy that hardship is the road, because then the task is immediately at hand and stands unshakably fixed and firm. Hardship is the road-and this is the joy: that it is not a quality of the road that it is hard, but it is a quality of the hardship that it is the road; therefore the hardship must lead to something; it must be passable and practicable, not suprahuman.
 * Søren Kierkegaard Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 299-300 (1847)

 * It is the fundamental unfairness of parenthood that if we do our jobs well, the deepest bond we are given will walk out the door with a wave over the shoulder.
 * Robin Wall Kimmerer,

 * I suppose that every parent loves his child; but I know, without any supposing, that in a large number of homes the love is hidden behind authority, or its expression is crowded out by daily duties and cares.
 * Abbott Eliot Kittredge, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 442.

L

 * Long before a thermonuclear war can come about, we have had to lay waste our own sanity. We begin with the children. It is imperative to catch them in time. Without the most thorough and rapid brainwashing their dirty minds would see through our dirty tricks. Children are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like ourselves, with high I.Q. s if possible.
 * From the moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father, and their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this enterprise is successful.
 * R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (1967), p. 58

 * They fuck you up, your mum and dad.  They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had   And add some extra, just for you.
 * But they were fucked up in their turn  By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern   And half at one another's throats.
 * Man hands on misery to man.  It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can,   And don't have any kids yourself.
 * Philip Larkin, "This Be The Verse," High Windows (1974)

 * The height of parental maturity is, of course, to learn to live with your child as he is—even if he is just like you.
 * Sam Levenson, Everything but Money

 * The fourth, and most important principle of the universal sexual morality is that moral parents, in addition to supplying the physical and emotional needs of their children should educate them to become moral adults. “Train up the child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it,” says the Bible. John Stuart Mill wrote, “The moral training of mankind will never be adapted to the conditions of life for which all other human progress is a preparation, until they practice in the family the same moral rule which is adapted to the moral constitution of human society.” In the universal family morality, parents who neglect, abuse, or desert their young or who fail to train them to become moral citizens are bad parents.
 * Clare Boothe Luce, “Is the New Morality Destroying America?” May 28, 1978
 * A father would do well, as his son grows up, and is capable of it, to talk familiarly with him; nay, ask his advice, and consult with him about those things wherein he has any knowledge or understanding. By this, the father will gain two things, both of great moment. The sooner you treat him as a man, the sooner he will begin to be one; and if you admit him into serious discourses sometimes with you, you will insensibly raise his mind above the usual amusements of youth, and those trifling occupations which it is commonly wasted in. For it is easy to observe, that many young men continue longer in thought and conversation of school-boys than otherwise they would, because their parents keep them at that distance, and in that low rank, by all their carriage to them.
 * John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), § 95

R

 * Shifu and Shimu are the spiritual parents of the dizi, and the Tai Ji Men community would not have existed with only one of them.
 * Marco Respinti, "The Incessant Love of Tai Ji Men’s Shifu and Shimu", Bitter Winter (April 12, 2024)

 * Parental feeling, as I have experienced it, is very complex. There is, first and foremost, sheer animal affection, and delight in watching what is charming in the ways of the young. Next, there is the sense of inescapable responsibility, providing a purpose for daily activities which skepticism does not easily question. Then there is an egoistic element, which is very dangerous: the hope that one's children may succeed where one has failed, that they may carry on one's work when death or senility puts an end to one's own efforts, and, in any case, that they will supply a biological escape from death, making one's own life part of the whole stream, and not a mere stagnant puddle without any overflow into the future. All this I experienced, and for some years it filled my life with happiness and peace.
 * Bertrand Russell, in Autobiography (1967-1969), Ch. 11: Second Marriage.

S

 * Kids are a great analogy. You want your kids to grow up and you don't want your kids to grow up. And you can't have it both ways. You want your kids to become independent of you, but it's also in a way a parent's worst nightmare: for them to not need you. So, how do you reconcile those two very strong emotions? You don't. You live with that problem. It's the real tragedy of parenting. And maybe there's some sense in which in art you can have it both ways whereas in life you can't.
 * Jonathan Safran Foer, in "Those Things Tumbling Around Inside" (2013)

 * Every person needs to be parented. By this I mean that every person needs to be helped, encouraged, and supported in becoming accountable to themselves and others. To not be threatened by taking other people into account. To not be frightened of difference.
 * Sarah Schulman,

 * Walter Slezak says he's tired of arguing with his kids about borrowing the car. "The next time I want it," he says, "I'm just going to take it."
 * Walter Slezak, as paraphrased and quoted in "Gag Bag" by Larry Wolters, in The Chicago Tribune (September 1, 1963), Sec. 6, pg. 9

 * Cherish the children your love gave life.
 * to Gilgamesh, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Sippar tablet (Old Babylonian)

 * Parenting is the science of art of upbringing children.
 * Simon Soloveychik in Parenting for Everyone, (1996).

 * Have children to your heart's content.
 * Sumerian proverb, Collection I at,.

 * [H]e who does not support a child, has no cause for celebration.
 * Sumerian proverb, Collection I at,.

 * Marrying is human. Having children is divine.
 * Sumerian proverb, Collection I at,.

T

 * Many children harbor hidden anger and resentment toward their parents and often the cause is inauthenticity in the relationship. The child has a deep longing for the parent to be there as a human being, not as a role, no matter how conscientiously that role is being played. You may be doing all the right things and the best you can for your child, but even doing the best you can is not enough.
 * Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (2005)

 * Children in particular find strong negative emotions too overwhelming to cope with and tend to try not to feel them. In the absence of a fully conscious adult who guides them with love and compassionate understanding into facing the emotion directly, choosing not to feel it is indeed the only option for the child at that time. Unfortunately, that early defense mechanism usually remains in place when the child becomes an adult.
 * Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (2005)

 * Children's painbodies sometimes manifest as moodiness or withdrawal. The child becomes sullen, refuses to interact, and may sit in a corner, hugging a doll or sucking a thumb. They can also manifest as weeping fits or temper tantrums. The child screams, may throw him or herself on the floor, or become destructive. Thwarted wanting can easily trigger the painbody, and in a developing ego, the force of wanting can be intense. Parents may watch helplessly in incomprehension and disbelief as their little angel becomes transformed within a few seconds into a little monster.
 * Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (2005)

 * Highly sensitive children are particularly affected by their parents' painbodies. Having to witness their parents' insane drama causes almost unbearable emotional pain, and so it is often these sensitive children who grow into adults with heavy painbodies. Children are not fooled by parents who try to hide their painbody from them, who say to each other, "We mustn't fight in front of the children."  This usually means while the parents make polite conversation, the home is pervaded with negative energy.
 * Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (2005)

 * While the child is having a painbody attack, there isn't much you can do except to stay present so that you are not drawn into an emotional reaction. The child's painbody would only feed on it. Painbodies can be extremely dramatic. Don't buy into the drama. Don't take it too seriously. If the painbody was triggered by thwarted wanting, don't give in now to its demands. Otherwise, the child will learn: "The more unhappy I become, the more likely I am to get what I want." This is a recipe for dysfunction in later life. The painbody will be frustrated by your nonreaction and may briefly act up even more before it subsides. Fortunately, painbody episodes in children are usually more shortlived than in adults.
 * Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (2005)

W

 * You that are parents, discharge your duty; though you cannot impart grace to your children, yet you may impart knowledge. Let your children know the commandments of God. "Ye shall teach them your children." You are careful to leave your children a portion; leave the oracles of heaven with them; instruct them in the law of God. If God spake all these words, you may well speak them over again to your children.
 * Thomas Watson, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 441.

Z

 * The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents-- because they have a tame child-creature in their house.
 * Frank Zappa in Mojo Magazine (1993).

 * Your Lord has ordained that you must not worship anything other than Him and that you must be kind to your parents. If either or both of your parents should become advanced in age, do not express to them words which show your slightest disappointment. Never yell at them but always speak to them with kindness. Be humble and merciful towards them and say, "Lord, have mercy upon them as they cherished me in my childhood."
 * Quran, 17:23-24

 * Every young adult has the potential power to help the entire world. He just needs the right guidance and support. A garden with different flowers becomes beautiful when it blossoms. Similarly, if parents learn how to be a ‘gardener’ and are able to recognize their child's personality and nourish it, then their ‘garden’ will become fragrant! This is what positive parenting is all about!
 * Dada Bhagwan in  PARENT – CHILD INTERACTION IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A JUVENILE’S PERSONALITY (2019), p. 100.

title: Parenting


text: Wikiquote:Bug reports

title: Wikiquote:Bug reports