Attribution Quotes

The clarification of visual forms and their organization in integrated patterns as well as the attribution of such forms to suitable objects is one of the most effective training grounds of the young mind. (Rudolf Arnheim)

We safeguard the right to attribution very strongly. After all, what we are fighting for is the intent of copyright as it is described in the US constitution: the promotion of culture. Many artists are using recognition as their primary driving force to create culture.

Rickard Falkvinge

But I would like to think for a moment about a man who in the morning teaches his students that a false attribution of a Watteau drawing or an inaccurate transcription of a fourteenth-century epigraph is a sin against the spirit and in the afternoon or evening transmits to the agents of Soviet intelligence classified, perhaps vital information given to him in sworn trust by his countrymen and intimate colleagues. What are the sources of such scission? How does the spirit mask itself?

George Steiner

I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works - I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff.

Esther Dyson

Excuse me,” she said hesitantly, "but what effect do these minor planets have on our behavior and fortunes? I mean, you know, astrological influence?” He looked at her. "None.” "None at all.” "No.” "But if the planets affect our fortunes-” She stumbled to a stop at the dispassionately scornful look on the pale man's face, the slow way he shook his head. "Surely you'll agree that the planets order and control our destinies?” "They do not.” "Not at all?” "Then what does? Control our destinies, I mean.” "The only external forces that have any influence on us are those we can see every day: the smile, the frown, the fist, the brick wall. What you call ‘destiny' is merely a semantic fallacy, the attribution of purpose to blind causality. Insofar as any of us are compelled to resist the flow of random events, we are driven solely by internal drives and forces.

Michael Swanwick

Faced with unmeasurables, people steer their way by magic. Before the invention of navigational instruments, a lady was carved on the prow of the boat to help sailors cross the ocean; and architects, grappling with the intangibles of design, select a guru whose work gives them personal help in areas where there are few rules to follow. The guru, as architectural father figure, is subject to intense hate and love; either way, the relationship is personal, it can only be a one-to-one affair. This accounts for the intensely ad hominem stance of some of ‘Venturi's' critics. If the attribution were correct the tone would be more even, as one cannot easily wax emotional over several people. I suspect, too, that for male architects the guru must be male. There can be no Mom and Pop gurus in architecture. The architectural prima donnas are all male.

Denise Scott Brown

In the basic case, where the person is concerned with the dispositional properties of his surrounding environment, the choice is between external attribution and internal (self) attribution.

Fritz Heider

Music has its existence on the borderline between meaning and nonsense. That is why most attempts to attribute a specific meaning to a piece of music seem to be beside the point-even when the attribution is authoritative, even when it is made by the composer himself.

Charles Rosen

You will find in politics that you are much exposed to the attribution of false motive. Never complain and never explain.

Stanley Baldwin

We must first rid ourselves of the illusion that penality is above all (if not exclusively) a means of reducing crime and that, in this role, according to the social forms, the political systems or beliefs, it may be severe or lenient, tend towards expiation of obtaining redress, towards the pursuit of individuals or the attribution of collective responsibility.

Michel Foucault

The characteristic paranoias of youth - the attribution of intention and duplicity to almost all human behavior. The young suffer terribly from the belief that the people they encounter are most of them up to something and that something has some relation to themselves. Actually, of course, most people just bobble along like apples in a stream. Usually it takes many years of experience to realize this. (Kenneth Rexroth)

Variants quoted as an anonymous proverb: Better a herd of sheep led by a lion than a herd of lions led by a sheep. A flock of sheep led by a lion was more powerful than a flock of lions led by a sheep. An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep. It were better to have an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep. An army of sheep led by a lion, will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep. An army of sheep led by a lion would be superior to an army of lions led by a sheep. Unsourced attribution to Alexander: I would not fear a pack of lions led by a sheep, but I would always fear a flock of sheep led by a lion.

Alexander the Great