Les vrais alarmistes

"Les scientifiques ont été accusés pendant des années d'être des alarmistes. Mais les vrais alarmistes, ce sont ceux qui disent que l'on ne peut engager une action pour le climat car cela ralentirait la croissance économique".

Ban Ki-moon, secrétaire général de l'ONU, 3e Conférence de l'ONU sur le climat, jeudi 3 septembre 2009 (rapporté par Le Monde).

Karma

"The best I can tell you about karma is:
if you are pure spirit, you are not matter!...
You are that eternal spirit...
If each of us is that very old being...
and not this young body, or this body that is going through this life...
Why don't we remember?
Why don't we remember it all??
Why can't we read the entire Akashic record??

• Because of our attachments to the physical plane or reality...
  
• Because of the power of our identification with our own body-senses and thoughts."
  

Ram Dass, Remember: Be Here Now, brown pages.

Inner fire

"If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will [be] no inner struggle, in him, no "friction", no fire. But if, for the sake of attaining a definite aim, he struggles with the desires that hinder him - he will then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole."

Ouspensky, quoted by Ram Dass, Remember: Be Here Now, brown pages.

Being a dynamic incompetent

"Young man," the Austrian said gravely, "a disaster happens to many, many of our best scientists. They become administrators. And the day they do that, they're lost to science. So you never want to become an administrator. You have to guard against that."
"But Dr. Suess," piped Broecker, "how do I do that?"
"Be a dynamic incompetent! Do at least three outrageous acts a year. Then no one will want you to be an administrator."

Wallace Broecker and Robert Kunzig, "CO2 - Fixing Climate", chapter "Carbon dioxide and the Keeling curve".

I'll have to remember that one for the rest of my career!...

Naked

"As they say in the Sikh religion - once you realize God knows everything, you're free. I had been through many years of psychoanalysis and still I had managed to keep private places in my head - I wouldn't say they were big, labeled categories, but they were certain attitudes or feelings that were still very private. And suddenly I realized that he knew everything that was going on in my head, all the time, and that he still loved me. Because who we are is behind all that."

Ram Dass, Remember: Be Here Now, chapter "Ashtanga Yoga".

Good private property and bad private property

"As regards private property, the first and most basic distinction is between (a) property that is an aid to creative work and (b) property that is an alternative to it. There is something natural and healthy about the former - the private property of the working proprietor; and there is something unnatural and unhealthy about the latter - the private property of the passive owner who lives parasitically on the work of others."

E. F. Schumacher, Small is beautiful.

Choix de carriere

"La décision de rechercher ce à quoi on est appelé, sa vocation la plus haute, au lieu de rechercher son avantage immédiat (...) constitue un choix de carrière."

Rajmohan Gandhi, président d'Initiatives & Changement international (et petit-fils de Mohandas Gandhi), discours aux Etudiants d'Oxford, 2005.
Cité par Antoine Jaulmes dans Changer International, 337, Mai-Juin 2009.

The deepest joy of science

"Broecker likes figuring things out. He likes, above all else, putting a new piece in the puzzle. That is the best fun, the deepest joy.
Science is a system, a way of thinking and acting, and a community that allows you to taste that joy, on your luckiest days. It is the belief that if we observe the world carefully, test our ideas skeptically, and communicate honestly, we can figure things out."

Wallace Broecker and Robert Kunzig, "CO2 - Fixing Climate", chapter "Finding Science".

This reminds me of my mother telling me I loved and was very good at puzzles at an early age. This is undoubtedly what I like most in my job, having to figure out how the ocean works from observations I collect about it.

The future

I think this one is originally from somebody else, but I read it again in this book anyway:

"The future cannot be forecast, but it can be explored."

E. F. Schumacher, Small is beautiful.

See also this related and much more developed post from my friend François.

When stupidity becomes more intelligent than cleverness

I used to like and look for optimality when I was younger, but since then I have learned the following bit of wisdom:

"I think the stupid man who says "something is better than nothing" is much more intelligent than the clever chap who will not touch anything unless it is optimal."

E. F. Schumacher, Small is beautiful.