Calculation Quotes

“Then, in an unusual moment, she grew emotional, which left little doubt about the level of profound respect and admiration Merkel had for her American colleague:
‘So eight years are coming to a close.  This is the last visit of (President) Barack Obama to our country…I am very glad that he chose Germany as one of the stopovers on this trip…Thank you for the reliable friendship and partnership you demonstrated in very difficult hours of our relationship. So let me again pay tribute to what we’ve been able to achieve, to what we discussed, to what we were able to bring about in difficult hours.”
― Claudia Clark, Dear Barack: The Extraordinary Partnership of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel

“Obama’s next words captured the attention of the world and the amusement of those present. As he wagged his finger at the crowd, he scolded, ‘So stop it, all of you. I know you have to find something to report on, but we have more than enough problems out there without manufacturing problems.”
― Claudia Clark, Dear Barack: The Extraordinary Partnership of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel

“Eleanor was an orphan at the age of 10. She went to live with her maternal Grandma Hall, a bitter and biblically strict woman who nonetheless struggled to control her children. Eleanor had to endure some uncles who drank to excess and possibly abused her. For protection, her grandmother or an aunt installed three heavy locks on Eleanor’s bedroom door. A girlfriend who slept over asked Eleanor about the locks. She said they were “to keep my uncles out.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“The people at the center of these stories of power couples mostly choose to see their own motives as selfless. In Elizabeth Edwards’ autobiography Resilience, she wrote of her marriage to John, U.S. senator from North Carolina, ‘We were lovers, life companions, crusaders, side by side, for a vision of what the country could be.’ When she found out he was cheating on her, the crusading together became ‘the glue’ that kept them together. ‘I grabbed hold of it. I needed to,’ Edwards wrote. ‘Although I no longer knew what I could trust between the two of us, I knew I could trust in our work together.’ She wanted ‘an intact family fighting for causes more important than any one of us.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“What we witness playing out in the relationships of our public figures we risk finding acceptable in our private lives. Feminists have connected women’s sexual subordination to their unequal status in society, and have strived to transform women’s expectations in their private lives. Private dignity at home equates to dignity in the workplace and the public sphere.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“To leave the marriage behind is to step out of the spotlight. It means fading into normalcy, returning to ordinary life, perhaps an impossible admission for women who have built their egos on being one member of a powerful team. To divorce might be to admit defeat for women who have come to see themselves as extraordinary and who circulate with other famous and history-making figures.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“When people grow up in a home where extramarital sex is condoned, they’re much less likely to regard it as a deal-breaker. Jacqueline Bouvier’s father, ‘Black Jack,’ confided in her about his female conquests, even going so far as to play a game with Jackie when he visited her at boarding school. She would point to a classmate’s mother, and Jack would respond, ‘Yes’ or ‘Not yet’ — answering the silent question, had he slept with that one?”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“The Trump marriage veered furthest away from my concept of the union — and surprised me most as a student of American politics. Donald and Melania seem to inhabit separate realms and to come together when necessary, when one could not move forward without the other. The presidency was one instance in which they were forced into a joint undertaking. If my choice of language sounds businesslike, that’s because that’s how I’ve come to view the Trumps. Having learned more about each partner’s history, I believe they are two highly ambitious individuals who benefit from their partnership. It’s a transaction: he gains a beautiful woman on his arm, a solid-seeming marriage, a son, and a savvy adviser. She gains wealth and international cachet.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“Eleanor stayed with Franklin after his repeated infidelities, and yet toward the end of her life, she regretted it, and advised her children to choose differently. ‘Never for a minute would I advocate that people who no longer love each other should live together because it does not bring the right atmosphere into a home,’ she wrote. She added that it was sad when a couple was unable to make a success of marriage, ‘but I feel it is equally unwise for people to bring up children in homes where love no longer exists.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“It wasn’t always that way for the wives of powerful men. Prior to the 1960s, the press generally kept mum about the sex lives of politicians. When Eleanor Roosevelt discovered her husband’s affair by reading a love letter, she kept it to herself — and used it to gain the upper hand in her marriage, which had the additional benefit of setting her free to pursue writing and social activism.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“For each of these women, the fear of the unknown — of leaving a marriage and casting off alone — may have bound them to a marriage where there is insensitivity, neglect, or even outright abuse. People learn intimacy at home, and when those early standards are set too low, a wife may second-guess her judgment about when and whether she should leave.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“Patriarchy’s influence often lives in the minds of women who were raised in a certain way and who aspire to a certain type of greatness — as one half of a powerful, leading couple. They act from behind the scenes, from behind a husband, because their goals and dreams, their stature in the world, is achieved most effectively through the influence of men — or so they believe. Without their husbands, they seem to doubt that they can fully express themselves. The motives of women in power political couples may be foreign to women in private life, but we should consider that the women who hold or aspire to great power have unique pressures and uncompromising standards. Does that compromise make sense when the couple can do so much good in the world, accomplish their political and policy goals, and build a platform and legacy for their children and grandchildren? Political women struggle with these questions.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives

“By the end of the four-year term, Americans hold a bifurcated view of Mrs. Trump. Many Republicans, especially women, revere her as elegant, graceful, beautiful and wronged by the press. A pastor in Missouri held up Melania as a wifely model to which other women should aspire — or risk losing their men. At the same time some southern preachers referred to then-Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris as Jezebel, the Bible’s most nefarious woman and archetype of female cunning. There could be no surer sign that the life stories of prominent women affect the lives of private women than when pastors hold them up as positive or negative role models.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“If he [Thomas Edison] had a needle to find in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where it was most likely to be, but would proceed at once with the feverish diligence of a bee, to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. … Just a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor.”
― Nikola Tesla

“[S]he stood for some moments gazing at the sisters, with affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other.”
― Charles Dickens , Martin Chuzzlewit

“Now that science has helped us to overcome the awe of the unknown in nature, we are the slaves of social pressures of our own making. When called upon to act independently, we cry for patterns, systems, and authorities. If by enlightenment and intellectual progress we mean the freeing of man from superstitious belief in evil forces, in demons and fairies, in blind fate--in short, the emancipation from fear--then denunciation of what is currently called reason is the greatest service reason can render.”
― Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason

“What music is to the heart, mathematics is to the mind.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Be in control. Know what to do. Calculate…”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“The movements of the stars have become clearer; but to the mass of the people the movements of their masters are still incalculable.

[Scene fourteen. Translation by Desmond Vesey, 1960. ‘The present version is a translation of the complete text of the latest German edition, not a stage adaptation.’]”
― Bertolt Brecht, Galileo

“The mechanism of the heavens was clearer, the mechanism of their courts was still murky.

[Scene fourteen. English version by Charles Laughton.]”
― Bertolt Brecht, Galileo

“Learn to calculate every step you make, every word you say, and every action you take.”
― Utibe Samuel Mbom, The Event Usher’s Handbook

“My heart has defined size, which means its volume can be calculated. Despite this, the amount of love for you it can hold is without limit.”
― Jarod Kintz, Powdered Saxophone Music

“Once you accept mathematics as reality, you immediately see that everything has a sufficient reason, an explanation and answer, and you are part of the cosmic machinery of providing all of these answers. You yourself are an essential node of the calculation.”
― Thomas Stark, What Is Mathematics?: The Greatest Detective Story Never Told

“Life without numbers is inconceivable for us. How else would we count objects, tell time, calculate prices, and so on? Our scientifically and technically advanced culture simply would not exist without numbers.”
― Andreas Nieder, A Brain for Numbers: The Biology of the Number Instinct

“Without a theory, a plan,
the mere mechanical manipulation
of the numbers in a problem
does not necessarily make sense
just because you are
using Arithmetic!”
― Lillian R. Lieber, The Education of T.C. Mits: What modern mathematics means to you

“A person who does not think even one step ahead in life will never share the same fate with a person who thinks at least ten steps ahead! The same goes for countries!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“If you do not know how to calculate exactly, your visions are worth nothing; if you arrive at them through calculation alone, I disbelieve them.”
― Malba Tahan, The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures

“[People] in general are good calculators.... the soldier on campaign who estimates distance in a single glance... the poet who counts syllables and verifies the cadence of his verses... the musician who applies in his compositions the laws of perfect harmony... the painter who draws with the unvarying proportions of perspective in his mind... the humble rug maker who arranges one by one the threads of his labor... All of these, O King, are fine and accomplished calculators.”
― Malba Tahan, The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures

“What is this?" I asked him. "Are you sad? Do you feel a longing for your own country, or are you simply planning new calculations? Is it mathematics or nostalgia?"

"My friend..." he replied, "nostalgia and calculations are not unrelated.”
― Malba Tahan, The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures

“The Dark Cloud
Is the memory bank you have which time does not seem to heal
Is the speed with which you block men who lie that they care about how you feel
Is the questioning of where society is going and whether our icy coldness will lead us to complete destruction
Is the stock market obsession some of us have and how we crave calculated instruction”
― Aida Mandic, The Dark Cloud