Abstract Data

Famous quotes containing the words abstract and/or data:

    “What persuades men and women to mistake each other from time to time for gods or vermin is ideology. One can understand well enough how human beings may struggle and murder for good material reasons—reasons connected, for instance, with their physical survival. It is much harder to grasp how they may come to do so in the name of something as apparently abstract as ideas. Yet ideas are what men and women live by, and will occasionally die for.”
    —Terry Eagleton (b. 1943)

    “Mental health data from the 1950’s on middle-aged women showed them to be a particularly distressed group, vulnerable to depression and feelings of uselessness. This isn’t surprising. If society tells you that your main role is to be attractive to men and you are getting crow’s feet, and to be a mother to children and yours are leaving home, no wonder you are distressed.”
    —Grace Baruch (20th century)