Famous quotes containing the words arbitrary, precision and/or arithmetic:
“You can’t be arbitrary about imposing your will when these people’s lives are at stake. Don’t you realize that? You speak as calmly as if you were saying “Pass the salt.” Aren’t you human? Are you made of ice?”
—Kurt Neumann (1906–1958)
“Women on trains
have a life
that is exactly livable
the precision of days flashing past”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)
“Under the dominion of an idea, which possesses the minds of multitudes, as civil freedom, or the religious sentiment, the power of persons are no longer subjects of calculation. A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom, or conquest, can easily confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions, out of all proportion to their means; as, the Greeks, the Saracens, the Swiss, the Americans, and the French have done.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)