A Quote by Daniel Dennett
An inert historical fact is any fact about a perfectly ordinary arrangement of matter in the world at some point in the past that is no longer discernible, a fact that has left no footprints at all in the world today.
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In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret. Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity - and it was an atrocity.
My views have changed as much as the world, and more precisely, the world of art. You have to remember that all my criticisms of the institution were done directly from the world I was in and my analysis of it. Many things that I said about the omnipotence of the museums, for example, are today almost obsolete. In fact, the museum and the institution drastically lost their power by the pure fact that they disseminated by thousands around the world.
Research is about following the gleam into the dark. It's also about being sensitive enough to know which fact is "the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders," as opposed to the fact that deadens and kills a delicate new project.
Michael Jackson is timeless to me. The fact that he wanted to break the rules, that he was always talking about a new world, a global world - "Black or White," "They Don't Care About Us," "Heal the world. Make it a better place" - with this charisma, that always touched me. I'm obsessed with the fact that he went so political. He became a legend, and today I think he's still the King of Pop.
Everybody wants to talk about sectarian conflicts of the war in Iraq, but the fact of the matter is, Sunnis have lived with Shias in harmony more in the confines of Iraq, in that land, than they have been in conflict. That's an historical fact.
Any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not so important as our attitude toward that fact. How you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You may permit a fact to overwhelm you mentally before you deal with it actually. On the other hand, a confident and optimistic thought pattern can overcome or modify the fact altogether.
In fact, there are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history, with an estimated 27 million in bondage across the globe.
The fact that we can describe the motions of the world using Newtonian mechanics tell us nothing about the world. The fact that we do, does tell us something about the world.
I think the point of America, our planet, the reason we're all here, one of the best things that we can do is be concerned about something even when it doesn't concern us. That's the whole point. The fact that I've never had to use a Planned Parenthood, the fact that I've never been in need of medical services I couldn't afford or didn't have access to, doesn't mean I shouldn't be concerned about the fact that other women don't have that access.
If we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women.
Today, of course, the world's perception of India has changed tremendously. People understand its role in world affairs; they understand that India is not some backward nation. In fact, it is the fastest growing free-market democracy in the world today, and that says it all.
Despite the fact that he no longer dressed like the big dork he did then, despite the fact that he’d swapped the nerd wear for some much cooler clothes, despite the fact that he’d let his hair go all shaggy and loose to the point where it curved down into his face in that cool guy, slightly windswept, effortless way, despite the fact that every time I looked into his brilliant blue eyes I was totally reminded of the Zac Efron poster that used to hang on my old bedroom wall, it still didn’t make it okay for him to laugh at me the way he did.
Almost any biographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection. He can give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders.
Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.
One of the problems I have always discussed is the refusal to distinguish between comment and fact. The newspaper wraps every fact into a comment. It is impossible to give mere fact without establishing point of view.
About one month before he was killed, when asked by David Frost how his obituary should read: Something about the fact that I made some contribution to either my country, or those who were less well off. I think back to what Camus wrote about the fact that perhaps this world is a world in which children suffer, but we can lessen the number of suffering children, and if you do not do this, then who will do this? I'd like to feel that I'd done something to lessen that suffering.
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