Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (July 15, 1892 – September 27, 1940) was a German Jewish literary critic and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and the Jewish mysticism of Gershom Scholem.

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@ There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. [Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940) VII]

@ This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

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http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin

Walter Brooke (1914-1986)

Walter Brooke (1914-1986)

Walter Brooke (October 23, 1914 – August 20, 1986) was an American actor. Brooke is best known for playing Mr. McGuire in The Graduate, where he said his famous line, "Plastics".

He is also remembered for playing district attorney Frank Scanlon in the television series The Green Hornet. Brooke appeared on stage in the 1957 production of Hide and Seek at the Shubert Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Brooke died from emphysema on August 20, 1986, aged 71.

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Quotes·Quotations by Walter Brooke


Walter Brooke as Mr. Mcguire from The Graduate (1967)

¶ Plastics.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Brooke

Wall Street

Wall Street

Wall Street is the financial district of New York City,[1] named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial sector (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or signifying New York-based financial interests.[2] It is the home of the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies.[3] Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including NASDAQ, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange. Anchored by Wall Street, New York City is one of the world's principal financial centers.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]

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Quotes·Quotations of Wall Street

Chance

¶ You always need a catalyst to make big things happen.

Crowd

¶ You cannot outperform the crowd when you are part of it.

Emotions

¶ Don’t get emotionally involved.

Finance

¶ It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked. [Warren Buffett]

Gambling

¶ Gambling begins where we risk what we can't afford to gain something we haven't earned.

Investment

¶ A man adapts himself to conditions so quickly that he loses the perspective.

¶ Don't try to be a jack of all investments.

¶ Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.

¶ If a company has dynamic growth prospects, do not sell it just because it looks temporarily too high.

¶ If you are a ten-share man, don't be ashamed of it.

¶ It's never too late not to invest in an unproven enterprise.

¶ Leave short selling to experienced professionals.

¶ Nothing could be more bullish than begrudging admiration from a rival.

¶ Stock investing merely attempts to anticipate the inevitabilities of future changing condition.

¶ The best possible time to invest is when the sky is black with clouds.

¶ The big money in booms is always made first by the public on paper, and it remains on paper.

¶ There are times when one should invest, and just as surely there are times when one should not.

¶ This time is never different.

¶ Where are the customers’ yachts?

Investor

¶ Investors are not rewarded for activity. They are rewarded for being right.

¶ It is the duty of shareholders to periodically suffer loss without complaint.

¶ Nobody can be successful by speculating every day or every week.

¶ Successful investor must not only observe accurately but remember what he has observed.

¶ There are really no more brilliant investors than brilliant lawyer or top-flight surgeons.

¶ When enough investors find themselves shorn, scapegoats will be sought.

Leverage

¶ Don’t speculate with another person’s money.

Money

¶ Little and often fills the purse.

News

¶ There is never any news on a bull market.

Panics

¶ Panics on Wall Street are notoriously periodic.

Patience

¶ One of the essential qualifications of the successful investor is patience.

Portfolio

¶ Don't shape your portfolio on what your barber advice.

Risk control

¶ Never make a bet you can’t afford to lose.

Risky asset

¶ The longer a risky asset is held, the less the chance of a loss.

Speculation

¶ The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascination game in the world.

Stock

¶ All stock-market mistakes wound you in two tender spots, your pocketbook and your vanity.

¶ Like the ocean, the stock market is never still.

¶ Stocks always look worst at the bottom of a bear market and always look best at the top of a bull market.

¶ The stock market merely registers, and does not cause, what takes place in the realm of business and profits.

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References

[1]^ Profile of Manhattan Community Board 1, retrieved July 17, 2007.
[2]^ Merriam-Webster Online, retrieved July 17, 2007.
[3]^ World-exchanges.org
[4]^ "UBS may move US investment bank to NYC". e-Eighteen.com Ltd. Retrieved 2011-10-16.
[5]^ "The World's Most Expensive Real Estate Markets". CNBC. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
[6]^ The Best 301 Business Schools 2010 by Princeton Review, Nedda Gilbert. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
[7]^ "New York Eclipses London as Financial C in Bloomberg Poll". Bloomberg News. October 29, 2009. Retrieved March 30, 2011.
[8]^ "The Tax Capital of the World". The Wall Street Journal. April 11, 2009. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
[9]^ "JustOneMinute – Editorializing From The Financial Capital Of The World". Retrieved May 31, 2010.
[10]^ "London may have the IPOs...". Marketwatch. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
[11]^ "Fondos – Londres versus Nueva York" (PDF). Cinco Dias. Retrieved May 31, 2010.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street

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Wallonia and Walloons

Wallonia and Walloons

Wallonia

Wallonia (French: Wallonie [wa.lɔ.ni], German: Wallonie(n), Dutch: Wallonië [wɐˈloːnɪə] or [βɐˈloːnɪə], Walloon: Walonreye) is the predominantly French-speaking southern region of Belgium. It is governed as the Walloon Region, which makes up 55% of the territory of Belgium but with only a third of its population. Contrary to the situation in Flanders, the Walloon Region was not merged with the French Community of Belgium, a political level responsible for matters related mainly to culture and education. The small German-speaking minority in the east forms the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which has its own government and parliament for culture-related issues. The demonym for Wallonia is Walloon.

During the industrial revolution, Wallonia was second only to the United Kingdom in industrialization, capitalizing on its extensive deposits of coal and iron. This brought the region wealth, and, from the beginning of the 19th to the middle of the 20th centuries, Wallonia was the more prosperous half of Belgium. Since World War II the importance of heavy industry has greatly declined, and the Flemish Region surpassed Wallonia in wealth as Wallonia economically declined. Wallonia now suffers from high unemployment and has a significantly lower GDP per capita than Flanders. The economic inequalities and linguistic divide between the two are major sources of political conflict in Belgium.

The capital of Wallonia is Namur, and its largest metropolitan area is Liège, while its most populous municipality proper is Charleroi. Most of Wallonia's major cities and two-thirds of its population lie along the Sambre and Meuse valley, the former industrial backbone of Belgium. To the north lies the Central Belgian Plateau, which, like Flanders, is relatively flat and agriculturally fertile. In the southeast lie the Ardennes; the area is sparsely populated and mountainous. Wallonia borders Flanders and the Netherlands in the north, France to the south and west, and Germany and Luxembourg to the east.

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Walloons

Walloons (/wɑːˈluːnz/; French: Wallons, IPA: [walɔ̃]; Walloon: Walons) are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium.[1] Important historical and anthropological criteria (religion, language, traditions, folklore) bind Walloons to the French people.[2][3] More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon Region. They speak regional languages such as Walloon (with Picard in the West and Lorrain in the South).

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Walloon proverb

@ Pus n-y-a-t-i d' cohun divins n'couhenne, pus male est l'sope.
Idiomatic translation: ”A public hall is never swept.”

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Footnotes

[1]^ Ethnic Groups Worldwide, a ready reference Handbook, David Levinson, ORYX Press, (ISBN 1-57356-019-7), p. 13 : « Walloons are identified through their residence in Wallonia and by speaking dialects of French. They, too, are descended from the original Celtic inhabitants of the region and Romans and Franks who arrived later. Walloons are mainly Roman catholic. »
[2]^ Ethnic Groups Worldwide, a ready reference Handbook, David Levinson, ORYX Press, ISBN 1-57356-019-7, p.13 : "Walloon culture was heavely influenced by the French"

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walloon_Region
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walloons
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walloon_proverbs

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and he spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.

Some of his best-known poems include "Valley Candle", "Anecdote of the Jar", "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock", "The Emperor of Ice-Cream", "The Idea of Order at Key West", "Sunday Morning", "The Snow Man", and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

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Quotes·Quotations by Wallace Stevens

Summer

¶ The summer night is like a perfection of thought.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Stevens

Wales and Welsh people

Wales and Welsh people

Wales

Wales i/ˈweɪlz/ (Welsh: Cymru; Welsh pronunciation: [ˈkəm.rɨ]) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain,[2] bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It had a population in 2011 of 3,064,000, and has a total area of 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi). Wales has over 1,200 km (750 mi) of coastline, and is largely mountainous, with its highest peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), its highest summit. The country lies within the north temperate zone, and has a changeable, maritime climate.

Welsh national identity emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, and Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of England's conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to what was to become modern Wales, in the early 15th century. The whole of Wales was annexed by England, and incorporated within the English legal system, under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism and the Labour Party. Welsh national feeling grew over the century; Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and the Welsh Language Society in 1962. Established under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the National Assembly for Wales holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters.

At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, development of the mining and metallurgical industries transformed the country from an agricultural society into an industrial nation; the south Wales coalfield's exploitation causing a rapid expansion of Wales' population. Two-thirds of the population now live in south Wales, mainly in and around Cardiff (the capital), Swansea and Newport, and in the nearby valleys. Today, with the country's traditional extractive and heavy industries either gone or in decline, Wales' economy depends on the public sector, light and service industries, and tourism. Wales' 2010 Gross Value Added (GVA) was £45.5 billion (£15,145 per head); 74.0 per cent of the average for the UK total, the lowest GVA per head in Britain.

Although Wales shares a close political and social history with the rest of Great Britain, and almost everyone speaks English, the country has retained a distinct cultural identity and is officially bilingual. Over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, where it is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west. From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the "land of song", attributable in part to the eisteddfod tradition. At international sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup and the Commonwealth Games, Wales is represented by national teams, though at the Olympic Games, Welsh athletes compete as part of a Great Britain team. Rugby union is seen as a symbol of Welsh identity and an expression of national consciousness.

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Welsh people

The Welsh people (Welsh: Cymry) are an ethnic group and nation native to Wales and associated with the Welsh language. The Welsh language was once the predominant language spoken throughout Wales. Indeed, Old Welsh was historically also spoken throughout most of the British mainland. Whilst Welsh remains as the predominant language in parts of Wales, most notably in the northern and western regions, in recent years the English has become the most widely-spoken language in Wales.

John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain,[11] although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have been spoken in Wales far longer. The term Welsh people applies to people from Wales and people of Welsh ancestry perceiving themselves or being perceived as sharing a cultural heritage and shared ancestral origins.[12] Today Wales is a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of people living in Wales are British citizens.

An analysis of the geography of Welsh surnames commissioned by the Welsh Government found that 718,000 people, or nearly 35% of the Welsh population, have a family name of Welsh origin, compared with 5.3% in the rest of the United Kingdom, 4.7% in New Zealand, 4.1% in Australia, and 3.8% in the United States, with an estimated 16.3 million people in the countries studied having Welsh ancestry.[13]

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Welsh Proverb

Friend

@ Adar o'r unlliw, ehedant i'r unlle.
Translation: Birds of the same colour fly to the same place.

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Notes

[1]^ Also .eu, as part of the European Union. ISO 3166-1 is GB, but .gb is unused.
[2]^ The earliest instance of Lloegyr occurs in the early 10th century prophetic poem Armes Prydein. It seems comparatively late as a place name, the nominative plural Lloegrwys, "men of Lloegr", being earlier and more common. The English were sometimes referred to as an entity in early poetry (Saeson, as today) but just as often as Eingl (Angles), Iwys (Wessex-men), etc. Lloegr and Sacson became the norm later when England emerged as a kingdom. As for its origins, some scholars have suggested that it originally referred only to Mercia – at that time a powerful kingdom and for centuries the main foe of the Welsh. It was then applied to the new kingdom of England as a whole (see for instance Rachel Bromwich (ed.), Trioedd Ynys Prydein, University of Wales Press, 1987). "The lost land" and other fanciful meanings, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's monarch Locrinus, have no etymological basis. (See also Discussion, article 40)

[11]^ Davies, John (1994) A History of Wales. Penguin: p.54; ISBN 0-14-014581-8.
[12]^ The Welsh people: chapters on their origin, history and laws by Sir John Rhys, Sir David Brynmor Jones. 1969
[13]^ "The Welsh diaspora: Analysis of the geography of Welsh names". Retrieved 17 October 2009.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_people
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Welsh_proverbs

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (November 17 [O.S. November 5] 1896 – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet psychologist and the founder of cultural-historical psychology.

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Quotes·Quotations by ***

Self

@ Through others, we become ourselves.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The genesis of higher mental functions. In R. Reiber (Ed.), The history of the development of higher mental functions (Vol. 4, pp. 97-120). New York: Plennum.

***

¶

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http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky

Vladimir Bukovsky (1942- )

Vladimir Bukovsky

Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (Russian: Влади́мир Константи́нович Буко́вский; born December 30, 1942) is a leading member of the dissident movement of the 1960s and 1970s, writer, neurophysiologist, and political activist known for his struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bukovsky

Brittany and Breton

Brittany and Breton

Brittany
Coordinates: 48°00′N 3°00′W

Brittany (/ˈbrɪtənɪ/; French: Bretagne [bʁə.taɲ]; Breton: Breizh, pronounced [bʁɛjs] or [bʁɛχ]; Gallo: Bertaèyn, pronounced [bəʁ.taɛɲ]) is a cultural region in the north-west of France. Covering the western part of Armorica, as it was known during the period of Roman occupation, Brittany subsequently became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as if it were a separate nation under the crown. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain). It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Bay of Biscay to the south. Its land area is 34,023 km² (13,136 sq mi).

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Breton language

Breton /ˈbrɛtən/ (Brezhoneg IPA: [bʁe.ˈzõː.nɛk]) is a severely endangered Celtic language spoken in Brittany (Breton: Breizh; French: Bretagne), France.

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Breton proverbs

¶ Merh he mamm eo Katell.
Jeannete is just the daughter of her mother.

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References

Brittany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany

Breton language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_language

Jamie Cullum (1979- )

Author:
Tom Beetz

Wikimedia
Commons
/ CC-BY-2.0

Jamie Cullum (1979- )

Jamie Cullum (born 20 August 1979) is an English jazz-pop singer-songwriter. Though he is primarily a vocalist/pianist he also accompanies himself on other instruments including guitar and drums. Since April 2010, he has been presenting a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on Tuesdays from 19:00.

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Quotes·Quotations by Jamie Cullum

Nature

¶ What a difference a day made. Twenty-four little hours brought the sun and the flowers where there used to be rain. What a difference a day makes. There’s a rainbow before me. Skies above can’t be stormy since that moment of bliss, that thrilling kiss.
[What A Difference A Day Made]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Cullum