Noah Quotes (0-)

“Listen, an eye's just an eye. A few more days, and he'll be something not even a raven would eat. Over to the ants...”

“Teaching Econ 101 students theory after theory after theory leaves them with the impression that they could have just been fed a line of bull. And in fact, they're right -- they could have. Instead, teach them to be skeptical, look at the evidence, and think for themselves.”

“The link between colonialism and science-fiction is every bit as old as the link between science-fiction and the future. John Rieder in his eye-opening book Colonialism and the Emergence of Science-Fiction notes that most scholars believe that science fiction coalesced "in the period of the most fervid imperialist expansion in the late nineteenth century." Sci-fi "comes into visibility," he argues, "first in those countries most heavily involved in imperialist projects—France and England" and then gradually gains a foothold in Germany and the U.S. as those countries too move to obtain colonies and gain imperial conquests. He adds, "Most important, no informed reader can doubt that allusions to colonial history and situations are ubiquitous features of early science fiction motifs and plots."”

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.”

“Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language.”

“This stuff could be dangerous. … I showed the green glass thing to mom. She thought it was a paper-weight. Maybe other people don't see what we see.”

“Might his last glance behold the glorious ensign of the Republic still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in all their original lustre.”

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.”

“Could Sanders be more than a harbinger, though, and achieve something like Ronald Reagan's breakthrough? There are tempting parallels. Reagan challenged the incumbent Gerald Ford for the nomination in 1976 and nearly took the nomination from him, much as Sanders gave Hillary Clinton a far tougher run for her money than anyone could have imagined. And like Reagan, Sanders has demonstrated the ability to be far more pragmatic in government than he is often given credit for, working within the system and demonstrating an admirable institutional conservatism with his support for the filibuster and opposition to court packing. His historic support for gun rights even has a parallel in Reagan's support for abortion rights as California governor.”

“Graeber and the rest of the long parade of intellectuals lining up to denounce economics seem to have little in the way of credible alternatives. Heaping scorn upon the discredited theories of the past is fine, but it offers little practical guide to the future. There are plenty of good and constructive criticisms to be made of economics, and especially of business cycle theory, but caricaturing what economists do and believe is not helpful.”

“For Frederick Douglass, the bombardment of Fort Sumter launched a campaign of violence aimed squarely at the heart of the slave-owning Confederacy. "The cry now is for war, vigorous war, war to the bitter end," he told readers of the Douglass Monthly in May 1861. Douglass, himself an escaped slave, was one of the most prominent and eloquent figures in the U.S. abolitionist movement. "From the first," he would write later in his autobiographical Life and Times, "I, for one, saw in this war the end of slavery; and truth requires me to say that my interest in the success of the North was largely due to this belief." While openly advocating for the enlistment of blacks in the military, Douglass acknowledged that any Africans Americans in uniform would be assailed on two sides- by the Confederacy and its slave owners before them and by the pervasive racism of the North behind. As U.S. citizens flocked to the colors after Fort Sumter, Douglass proclaimed a key precondition for black participation: "Nothing," he said, "short of an open recognition of the Negro's manhood, his rights as such to have a country equally with others, would induce me to join the army in any capacity." Douglass' admonitions went unheard, however, amid the pounding drums and blaring trumpets of war. Hundreds of Northern free blacks joined the rush to defend the Union, giving no thought to any possible political agenda.”

“Discipline is a symbol of caring to a child. Discipline is guidance. If there is love, there is no such thing as being too tough with a child.”

“"We are going so slow," Noah said, craning his neck to observe the inevitable queue behind them. "I think I just saw a tricycle pass us." "Rude."”

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”

“Which of Hayek's ideas are now widely accepted? I can't think of any. … Hayek's big idea - basically, that efficient market outcomes are emergent - is absent from most econ (though supported by lab experiments).”

“"...she would fall in love with me again, just like she had a long time ago. And that's the most wonderful feeling in the world. How many people are ever given that chance? To have someone you love fall in love with you over and over?"”

“The film depicts one of the darkest periods in American history and during that time she put the grief of the entire country on her shoulders and she helped carry us through it. It was nothing short of heroic the way she conducted herself that week.”

“Yael Dayan was an activist who rejected her father’s fate and life’s choice and sought peace. She spent her life making the country a better place for women, queer folks, refugees, Palestinians, everyone. Yael Dayan’s life describes a country growing more alive, with the passing of decades and generations, to human rights.”

“It's impossible to ignore the conspicuous regularity with which Donald Trump issues intentionally provocative, news-cycle-dominating comments. It's equally difficult to look past their timing, which tends to often coincide with scandalous revelations that reflect poorly on Democratic politicians... This is far from an isolated event; it's a pattern. First, a Democrat becomes embroiled in a controversy or an external event reflects negatively on the party. Donald Trump then makes an outrageous comment calculated for maximum political impact. Like clockwork, the press abandons their critical examination of Democratic policies, and Republicans are back at each other's throats. This is a measurable phenomenon. In just the last six months, there are almost too many examples to count.”

“Together, Maxwell and Epstein compiled a glitzy Rolodex, from Prince Andrew to Bill Clinton to Donald Trump. They popped up at fundraisers and galas, becoming two darlings of high society. Those would largely stop after Epstein was convicted in 2008 of procuring a girl below age 18 for prostitution—a lenient and deeply suspicious plea agreement. But she would maintain her own stops on the society circuit until as recently as 2014. Then investigators and journalists started probing the dark underbelly of Epstein and Maxwell's world. As the reports rained down, they were isolated and renounced. Epstein was the primary target, but when he died, the focus shifted to Maxwell. Multiple Epstein accusers have named her in civil suits for the role they say she played in Epstein's alleged sex-trafficking operation.”

“If you grew up in the 80s you probably remember Voltron. Although the show often had convoluted plotlines, it would somehow always end with Voltron (a super-powerful robot formed from five mechanical lions) facing off against a monster called a "Robeast". Voltron had plenty of weapons, but he would invariably strike the killing blow with his "Blazing Sword". Eventually the show became kind of routine, but to a four-year-old, it was pure gold. In the econ blogosphere, a similar dynamic has played out over the last few years. Each week a Robeast will show up, bellowing predictions of inflation and/or soaring interest rates. And each week, Paul Krugman...I mean, KrugTron, Defender of the Blogoverse, will strike down the monster with a successful prediction of...low inflation and continued low interest rates. Goldbugs, "Austrians", New Classical economists, and harrumphing conservatives of all stripes have eagerly gone head-to-head with KrugTron in the prediction wars, and have been summarily cloven in twain.”

“Moreover, Trump bears some comparisons to Jimmy Carter. His personal popularity is poor, and he has proven largely unable to transform his party in policy terms. Moreover, like Carter he leads what is arguably a demographically declining coalition of older voters in shrinking states. And if you think Trump is a failed "disjunctive president" at a moment when the winds of populism are blowing, then Sanders is the obvious successor. He would be able to steal Trump's populist thunder, waving the White House's Medicare-cutting budget like a bloody shirt, much as Reagan was able to accelerate Carter's deregulatory reformism and military buildup. But Trump-Carter comparisons are limited by two facts. First, Carter not only was unable to transform his party ideologically (as Trump largely has); he was also unable to establish control of it institutionally. That is emphatically not the case with Trump, who continues to purge his administration of disloyal elements and has struck fear in the heart of nearly every Republican senator not named Mitt Romney. Trump has faced primary challengers in 2020, but nothing remotely on the scale of Ted Kennedy's challenge to Carter. The Republican Party in 2020 will be absolutely unified behind Trump.”

“Recent scholarship has immensely enriched our knowledge of medieval European stereotypes of the supposedly black-skinned serfs and peasants (who were darkened by dirt and by abor in the sun); of early Arab stereotypes of black African slaves (millions of whom were transported from East Africa to the Near East); and of the story of the biblical Noah, whose curse subjected all the descendants of Canaan, the son of Noah’s own misbehaving son Ham, to the lowliest form of eternal bondage. This confusing biblical passage became for many centuries a major justification for black slavery. But my discussion of antiblack prejudice also considers the very ambivalent messages conveyed by European art and sculpture and culminates with the “modern” forms of antiblack racism that appear in the writings of such figures of the Enlightenment as David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, and Immanuel Kant and then reach a symbolic climax in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.”

“So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died. Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japeth.”

“The deluge in the time of Noah was by no means the only flood with which this earth was visited. The first flood did its work of destruction as far as Jaffé, and the one of Noah's days extended to Barbary.”

“Rabbi Zadok said: For twelve months all the creatures were in the ark; and Noah stood and prayed before the Holy One, blessed be He, saying before Him: Sovereign of all worlds ! Bring me forth from this prison, for my soul is faint, because of the stench of lions. Through me will all the righteous crown Thee with a crown of sovereignty, because Thou hast brought me forth from this prison, as it is said, "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks unto thy name: for the righteous shall crown me, when thou wilt have dealt bountifully with me" (Ps. 142:7).”

“Yet for all this reverence, the Bible is one long celebration of violence. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God took one of Adam’s ribs, and made he a woman. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. With a world population of exactly four, that works out to a homicide rate of 25 percent, which is about a thousand times higher than the equivalent rates in Western countries today. No sooner do men and women begin to multiply than God decides they are sinful and that the suitable punishment is genocide. (In Bill Cosby’s comedy sketch, a neighbor begs Noah for a hint as to why he is building an ark. Noah replies, “How long can you tread water?”) When the flood recedes, God instructs Noah in its moral lesson, namely the code of vendetta: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.””

“And, indeed, [in times long past] We sent forth Noah unto his people, and he dwelt among them a thousand years bar fifty; and then the floods overwhelmed them while they were still lost in evildoing.”

“And the sentence of Noah was also sealed; he was going to die with the rest of the generation of the flood, as it is stated: Nor shall there be No’aḥ for them. The Gemara interprets the term spelled nun, heh, in the aforementioned verse, as if it were spelled nun, ḥet. The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: The sentence of Noah was also decided; but he was spared through the kindness of God due to the fact that he found favor in the eyes of God, as it is stated: “For I regret that I have made them. And Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:7–8). The juxtaposition of the term “and Noah” to the phrase “for I regret that I have made them” indicates that Noah should have been killed as well.”

“With regard to the verse: “These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a righteous man, and wholehearted in his generations” (Genesis 6:9), Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Relative to the other people of his generation he was righteous and wholehearted, but not relative to those of other generations. And Reish Lakish says: In his generation he was righteous and wholehearted despite being surrounded by bad influences; all the more so would he have been considered righteous and wholehearted in other generations.”

“With regard to the lion, a fever sustained it, since when it suffered from a fever, it did not need to eat; as Rav said: For no fewer than six days and no more than twelve days, fever sustains a person; he need not eat and is sustained from his own fats. Shem continued: With regard to the phoenix [avarshina], my father found it lying in its compartment on the side of the ark. He said to the bird: Do you not want food? The bird said to him: I saw that you were busy, and I said I would not trouble you by requesting food. Noah said to the bird: May it be God’s will that you shall not die, and through that bird the verse was fulfilled, as it is stated: “And I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the phoenix” (Job 29:18).”

“"Noah, seeing a he-goat eat sour grapes and become intoxicated so that it began to frisk, took the root of that vine-branch and, after having washed it with the blood of a lion, a hog, a sheep, and an ape, planted it and it bore sweet grapes.”

“More and more, as the organic world was observed, the vast multitude of petty animals, winged creatures, and "creeping things" was felt to be a strain upon the sacred narrative. More and more it became difficult to reconcile the dignity of the Almighty with his work in bringing each of these creatures before Adam to be named; or to reconcile the human limitations of Adam with his work in naming "every living creature"; or to reconcile the dimensions of Noah's ark with the space required for preserving all of them, and the food of all sorts necessary for their sustenance. ...Origen had dealt with it by suggesting that the cubit was six times greater than had been supposed. Bede explained Noah's ability to complete so large a vessel by supposing that he worked upon it during a hundred years.”