Kenneth E. Boulding Quotes

human ecology

Finding a name for something is a way of conjuring its existence, of making it possible for people to see a pattern where they didn't see anything before.

When you don't take into account the way ecological systems work, then you do damage.

Everything is substance plus name and form. Name and form come and go, but substance remains ever the same.

God, as I use the word, is another name for what is. I always know God's intention: It's exactly what is in every moment.

Trans people deserve something vital. They deserve your respect... If you want to call me names, make jokes, doubt my intentions, go ahead, because the reality is I can take it. But for the thousands of kids out there who are coming to terms with being true to who they are, they shouldn't have to take it.

No, Mary had no illusions about romance. Falling in love was a pretty name for it, that was all.

Numeracy: 1. The art of putting numbers to things, that is, assigning amounts to variables in order that practical decisions may be reach. 2. That aspect of education (beyond mere literacy) which takes account of quantitative aspects of reality.

Helen Keller became deaf, dumb, and blind shortly after birth. Despite her greatest misfortune, she has written her name indelibly in the pages of the history of the great. Her entire life has served as evidence that no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality.

We are already well down the road toward a managed-trade regime. It would be far better to acknowledge that reality, and seek a set of reasonable rules, than to pretend that Ricardian trade is the norm and allow mercantilist states to overwhelm U.S. industry and ratchet down wages, in the name of free trade.

A Universal Good should reflect the reality of the individual benefits that are collected under its name, not the other way around.

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.

It was a dance of masks and every mask was perfect because every mask was a real face and every face was a real mask so there was no mask and there was no face for there was but one dance in which there was but one mask but one true face which was the same and which was a thing without a name which changed and changed into itself over and over.

I am afraid! It is not starving I fear, or talking to people, or even being alone. But I cannot bear to be useless and ineffectual. There must be some meaning to me, if not to my life; there must surely be some purpose that has my name written on it. If this is not so, if I am deceiving myself about this too, then why should I want to become real? What reason have I to live anywhere?

Disconnected from my feminine soul, I had also unknowingly forfeited my power to name sacred reality. I had simply accepted what men had named. Neither had I noticed that when women give this power away, it is rarely used to liberate and restore value to women. More often it is used to shore up and enhance the privileged position of men.

Both art and science are bent on the understanding of the forces that shape existence, and both call for a dedication to what is. Neither of them can tolerate capricious subjectivity because both are subject to their criteria of truth. Both require precision, order, and discipline because no comprehensible statement can be made without these. Both accept the sensory world as what the Middle Ages called signatura regrum, the signature of things, but in quite different ways.

Only the right name gives beings and things their reality. A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do.

Natural history is not equivalent to biology. Biology is the study of life. Natural history is the study of animals and plants-of organisms. Biology thus includes natural history, and much else besides.

I'm still James Johnson. Rick James is a stage name. James Johnson keeps Rick James on the ground... Kind of sort of.

The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.

Only our concept of time makes it possible for us to speak of the Day of Judgment by that name in reality it is a summary court in perpetual session.

Averages don't always reveal the most telling realities. You know, Shaquille O'Neal and I have an average height of 6 feet.

Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

There is an old saying: In history nothing is true but the names and dates. In fiction everything is true but the names and dates. The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.