Sure, they all have iPods, smartphones, whatever. Generally speaking, it’s in our own best interest to keep some kind of electronic device in their hands. Otherwise they might talk to us.
Self-interest, that leprosy of the age, attacks us from infancy, and we are startled to observe little heads calculate before knowing how to reflect.
I feel quite thankful for any little misfortune; it is like paying something of the large debt of happiness we owe, though it is but a very trifling interest, and the capital we must owe for ever.
Get up in one of our industrial centres today and say that two and two make four, and if there is any financial interest concerned in maintaining that two and two make five, the police will bash your head in.
As peace in States has for its sole object the safe preservation of the property of the people, so the peace of the Church has for its sole object the safe preservation of truth, her property and the treasure where her heart is. And as to allow the enemy to enter into a State, and pillage without opposition, for fear of troubling repose, would be to work against the good of peace, because peace, being only just and useful for the security of property, it becomes unjust and harmful when it suffers property to be destroyed, while war in the defence of property becomes just and necessary. So in the Church, when truth is assailed by the enemies of faith, when men would tear it from the heart of the faithful, and cause error to reign there, to remain in peace is rather to betray than to serve the Church, to ruin rather than defend. And as it is plainly a crime to trouble peace where truth reigns, so is it also a crime to rest in peace when truth is destroyed. There is then a time when peace is just, and another when it is unjust. And it is written that there is a time for peace and a time for war, and it is the interest of truth to discern them. But there is not a time for truth and a time for error, and it is written, on the contrary, that the truth of God abideth for ever; and this is why Jesus Christ, who said that he came to bring peace, said also that he came to bring war. But he did not say that he came to bring both truth and falsehood. Truth is then the first rule and the ultimate end of things.
The habit of lying, when once formed, is easily extended to serve the designs of malice or interest; like all habits, it spreads indeed of itself.
Thus, all this abundant wealth of money and of vivid life is Nature's interest upon her investment in club-mosses, and the like, so long ago. But what becomes of the coal which is burnt in yielding this interest? Heat comes out of it, light comes out of it; and if we could gather together all that goes up the chimney, and all that remains in the grate of a thoroughly-burnt coal-fire, we should find ourselves in possession of a quantity of carbonic acid, water, ammonia, and mineral matters, exactly equal in weight to the coal. But these are the very matters with which Nature supplied the club-mosses which made the coal. She is paid back principal and interest at the same time; and she straightway invests the carbonic acid, the water, and the ammonia in new forms of life, feeding with them the plants that now live. Thrifty Nature! Surely no prodigal, but most notable of housekeepers!
I cannot bring myself to take much interest in all the controversies that are going on (1865) in the Church of England.... No doubt the points at issue are great, and appeal to our hearts and minds, but the spirit in which they are treated seems to me so very small. How few men on either side give you the impression that they write face to face with God, and not face to face with men and the small powers that be. Surely this was not so in the early centuries, nor again at the time of the Reformation?
There are two levers for moving men--interest and fear.
Even if people have no interest in what they say, it must not therefore be certainly concluded they are not lying, for there are those who lie simply for lying's sake.
In order to assail it they ought to urge that they have sought everywhere with all their strength, and even in that which the Church proposes for their instruction, but without avail. Did they thus speak, they would indeed assail one of her claims. But I hope here to show that no rational person can thus speak, and I am even bold to say that no one has ever done so. We know well enough how men of this temper behave. They believe they have made great efforts for their instruction, when they have spent a few hours in reading some book of Scripture, and have talked with some Ecclesiastic on the truths of the faith. Whereupon they boast that they have in vain consulted books and men. But indeed I will tell them what I have often said, that such carelessness is intolerable. We are not here dealing with the light interest of a stranger, that we should thus treat it; but with that which concerns ourselves and our all.
For when disputes are wearied out, / 'Tis interest still resolves the doubt.
Under a despotic government there is no such thing as patriotic feeling, and its place is supplied in other ways, by private interest, public fame, and devotion to one's chief.
The freest government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in a few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and penniless. In such a case, the popular power must break in upon the rights of property, or else the influence of property must limit and control the exercise of popular power.…In the nature of things, those who have not property, and seeing their neighbours possess much more than they think them to need, cannot be favorable to laws made for the protection of property. When this class becomes numerous, it grows clamorous. It looks on property as its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, at all times, for violence and revolution. It would seem, then, to be the part of political wisdom to found government on property; and to establish such distribution of property, by the laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as to interest the great majority of society in the protection of the government. This is, I imagine, the true theory and the actual practice of our republican institutions. [Address to the Massachusetts Convention, 1820. Journal of Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of Delegates Chosen to Revise the Constitution of Massachusetts . Boston, 1853, pp. 304-317.]
In democratic countries as well as elsewhere most of the branches of productive industry are carried on at a small cost by men little removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they employ. These manufacturing speculators are extremely numerous; their interests differ; they cannot therefore easily concert or combine their exertions. On the other hand, the workmen have always some sure resources which enable them to refuse to work when they cannot get what they conceive to be the fair price of their labor. In the constant struggle for wages that is going on between these two classes, their strength is divided and success alternates from one to the other. It is even probable that in the end the interest of the working class will prevail, for the high wages which they have already obtained make them every day less dependent on their masters, and as they grow more independent, they have greater facilities for obtaining a further increase of wages. I shall take for example that branch of productive industry which is still at the present day the most generally followed in France and in almost all the countries of the world, the cultivation of the soil. In France most of those who labor for hire in agriculture are themselves owners of certain plots of ground, which just enable them to subsist without working for anyone else. When these laborers come to offer their services to a neighboring landowner or farmer, if he refuses them a certain rate of wages they retire to their own small property and await another opportunity. [ Democracy in America, Volume II , pp. 189-190.]
The Sabbath is the savings-bank of human life, into which we deposit one day in seven to be repaid in the autumn of life with compound interest.--_Selected._
“In the shadow of the old order, a small, spirited group of Americans campaigned audaciously to construct a new order — the U.S. economy reorganized around Louis Kelso’s revolutionary principle of universal capital ownership. The revolution, these ambitious activists decided, ought to begin right in the nation’s capital — Washington, D.C. — a city mired in financial insolvency, with accelerating social and economic deterioration, with extremes of wealth and poverty as stark as any found in America. Under congressional oversight, the District of Columbia could become the laboratory, they thought, the place where Kelso’s ideas were actually applied. If the concept worked for D.C., every city and region in America would want to emulate it…. The power of Louis Kelso’s vision… has attracted an odd assortment of converts-idealists from right and left and from across the usual racial and religious divides, people who believed Kelso’s thinking held the key for renewing American society. Some of them joined with [Norman] Kurland in his Center for Economic and Social Justice to promote a daring experiment: Congress should designate the District of Columbia a “super empowerment zone” that would launch new enterprises and industries (and privatize some governmental functions) through Kelso’s mechanism of citizen and worker ownership trusts. new economic development would be attracted to D.C., not by tax subsidies or relaxed laws, but because low-interest capital credit would be available to the community trusts-cheap credit provided through the Federal Reserve’s discount lending. [ One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism , Chapter 18, pp. 432-433.]
These three different kinds of enemies generally assail her in different ways, but here they assail her in the same fashion. As they are all without miracles, and as the Church has always had miracles against them, they have all had the same interest in eluding them; and all avail themselves of this pretext, that we must not judge of doctrine by miracles, but of miracles by doctrine. There were two parties among those who heard Jesus Christ, those who followed his doctrine by reason of his miracles; others who said.... There were two parties in the time of Calvin. There are now the Jesuits, etc.
[T]he ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil. [ General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money , Book VI, Section V.]
Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song The force, the charm that to thy voice belong; Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way, To nerve my country with the patriot lay, To teach all men where all their interest lies, How rulers may be just and nations wise: Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee, Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.
Die grosse Moral--das Interesse, sagte Mirabeau, totet in der Regel die kleine--das Gewissen=--The great moral teacher, interest, as Mirabeau said, ordinarily slays conscience, the less.
Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"
The Keswick, “higher-life” movement ... also contributed to a reduction of interest in biblical theology and deeper scholarship. No Christian in his right mind will desire anything other than true holiness and righteousness in the church of God. But Keswick had isolated one doctrine, holiness, and altered it by the false simplicity contained in the slogan, “Give up, let go and let God.” If you want to be holy and righteous, we are told, the intellect is dangerous and it is thought generally unlikely that a good theologian is likely to be a holy person.... You asked me to diagnose the reasons for the present weakness and I am doing it.... If you teach that sanctification consists of “letting go” and letting the Holy Spirit do all the work, then don’t blame me if you have no scholars!171
Despite the best that has been done by everyone — the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of Our servants of the State, and the devoted service of Our one hundred million people — the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.
Education is the only interest worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man.
Man is ever the most interesting object to man, and perhaps should be the only one to interest him.
It is given to few scholars only to be allowed to devote the whole of their time and labour to the one subject in which they feel the deepest interest. We have all to fight the battle of life before we can hope to secure a quiet cell in which to work in the cause of learning and truth.
There is no one for spying on people's actions like those who are not concerned in them. . . . They will follow up such and such a man or woman for whole days; they will do sentry duty for hours at a time on the corners of the streets, under alley-way doors at night, in cold and rain; they will bribe errand-porters, they will make the drivers of hackney-coaches and lackeys tipsy, buy a waiting-maid, suborn a porter. Why? For no reason. A pure passion for seeing, knowing, and penetrating into things. A pure itch for talking. And often these secrets once known, these mysteries made public, these enigmas illuminated by the light of day, bring on catastrophies, duels, failures, the ruin of families, and broken lives, to the great joy of those who have "found out everything," without any interest in the matter, and by pure instinct. A sad thing.
La justice de nos jugements et de nos actions n'est jamais que la rencontre heureuse de notre interet avec l'interet public=--The justice of our judgment and actions is never anything but the happy coincidence of our private with the public interest.
Workers would have a deeper interest in the success of the enterprise with which they are identified if they knew they would get a share of the profits each year….Experience has shown that productivity rises substantially under such an incentive system so that the higher pay to workers is not inflationary. There are other benefits to be derived…. Any program which gives employees a share of a company’s earnings would certainly induce more cooperation towards greater profits and fewer strikes. [ U. S. News and World Report .]
Our own self-interest surely would seem to suggest as severe a trial of our own religion as of other religions, nay, even a more severe trial. Our religion has sometimes been compared to a good ship that is to carry us through the waves and tempests of this life to a safe haven. Would it not be wise, therefore, to have it tested, and submitted to the severest trials, before we entrust ourselves and those dear to us to such a vessel. And remember, all men, except those who take part in the foundation of a new religion, or have been converted from an old to a new faith, have to accept their religious belief on trust, long before they are able to judge for themselves. And while in all other matters an independent judgment in riper years is encouraged, every kind of influence is used to discourage a free examination of religious dogmas, once engrafted on our intellect in its tenderest stage. We condemn an examination of our own religion, even though it arises from an honest desire to see with our own eyes the truth which we mean to hold fast; and yet we do not hesitate to send missionaries into all the world, asking the faithful to re-examine their own time-honoured religions. We attack their most sacred convictions, we wound their tenderest feelings, we undermine the belief in which they have been brought up, and we break up the peace and happiness of their homes. Yet if some learned Jew, or subtle Brahman, or outspoken Zulu asks us to re-examine the date and authorship of the Old or New Testament, or challenges us to produce the evidence on which we also are quite ready to accept certain miracles, we are offended, forgetting that with regard to these questions we can claim no privilege, no immunity.
Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. [Funeral Oration for Justice Story, September 12, 1845.]
Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!
The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite,--a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm By thoughts supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
The excesses of our youth are draughts upon our age, payable with interest about thirty years after date.
Enthusiasm gives life to what is invisible, and interest to what has no immediate action on our comfort in this world.
A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.
Attempting mischievous and salutary irritation of his peers . . . he [Keynes] may only succeed in becoming an academic idol of our worst cranks and charlatans — not to mention the possibilities of the book as the economic bible of a fascist movement…. [Comments on John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money , in Christian Century , July 22, 1936, pp. 1016, 1017.]
(Professor of Sociology, University of Notre Dame). We looked at a number of plans, but most were old and conventional, including the one [the Family Assistance Program] that was chosen by the majority. A plan to which the Commission did not give due consideration is that proposed as the Second Income Plan…. Anyone seriously interest in income maintenance programs must give the Second Income Plan thorough consideration. [Supplementary Statement to Poverty Amid Plenty: The American Paradox , Report of the President’s Commission on Income Maintenance Programs, November 12, 1969.]
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.
It is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age. Great minds do indeed react on the society which has made them what they are, but they only pay with interest what they have received.--_Macaulay._
Hinc usura vorax, avidumque in tempore f?nus, / Et concussa fides, et multis utile bellum=--Hence (from the ambition of C?sar) arise devouring usury, grasping interest, shaken credit, and war of advantage to many.
The Jesuits have wished to unite God and the world, and have gained only the scorn of God and the world. For, on the side of conscience this is plain, and on the side of the world they are not good partisans. They have power, as I have often said, but that is in regard to other religious. They will have interest enough to get a chapel built, and to have a jubilee station, not to make appointments to bishoprics and government offices. The position of a monk in the world is a most foolish one, and that they hold by their own declaration.--Father Brisacier, the Benedictines.--Yet ... you yield to those more powerful than yourselves, and oppress with all your little credit those who have less power for intrigue in the world than you.
They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors, concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods — in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. [Address to California Institute of Technology, 1931.]
What Art had Homer? what Art had Shakespeare? Patient, docile, valiant intelligence, conscious and unconscious, gathered from all winds, of these two things--their own faculty of utterance, and the audience they had to utter to; add only to which, as the soul of the whole, a blazing, radiant insight into the fact, blazing, burning interest about it, and we have the whole Art of Shakespeare and Homer.
Probity is as rarely in accord with interest as reason is with passion.
Learn to be good readers, which is perhaps a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all kinds of things which you have a real interest in--a real, not an imaginary--and which you find to be really fit for what you are engaged in.
Central bank functions and operations are widely misunderstood, not only by the public in general but also by many financial and economic professionals. The Federal Reserve system operates in such a way that it makes no contribution whatever to the spread of ownership of productive assets among the population. Indeed, its policies have tended to concentrate economic power by restricting credit to those with an existing asset base and by maintaining an interest rate structure designed to reward speculation and discourage productive entrepreneurship. [“Fed Should Share the Wealth,” The Journal of Commerce , May 15, 1989.] Bailey, Dr. Norman A. The problem with monetary economists is that they don’t understand money. [1988.]
Omnibus bonis expedit rempublicam esse salvam=--It is for the interest of every good man that the commonwealth shall be safe.
Ignotis errare locis, ignota videre / Flumina gaudebat, studio minuente laborem=--He delighted to wander over unknown regions, to visit unknown rivers, the interest lessening the fatigue.
Much of history is fragmentary and essentially anachronistic – condemning the past for not being more like the present. It has no real interest in the pastness of the past.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.
Such a museum, if residents who are interested in these sciences take proper pains, may be brought to a great degree of perfection and be unique of its kind. It will tell both natives and strangers exactly what they want to know, and possess great scientific interest and importance. Whereas the ordinary lumber-room of clubs from New Zealand, Hindoo idols, sharks' teeth, mangy monkeys, scorpions, and conch shells--who shall describe the weary inutility of it? It is really worse than nothing, because it leads the unwary to look for the objects of science elsewhere than under their noses. What they want to know is that their "America is here," as Wilhelm Meister has it.