OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Orrin H. Pilkey

Orrin H. Pilkey (September 14, 1934 – December 13, 2024) was Emeritus Professor of Geology and Director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines (PSDS) within the Division of Earth and Ocean Science at Duke University.

## Quotes
### Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future (2007)

* The objectivity of the IPCC documents is laudable. But the fact that the group recognizes its model weaknesses and is trying to improve them doesn't make its conclusions stronger or more believable. (page 83).
* If a model itself is “a poor representation of reality,” they write, “determining the sensitivity of an individual parameter in the model is a meaningless pursuit.”
** Cornelia Dean, "The Problems in Modeling Nature, With Its Unruly Natural Tendencies", The New York Times (February 20, 2007).
* For more than twenty-five years we have monitored beach nourishment projects around the United States. In order to secure federal funding and justify the enormous costs of these projects, anyone undertaking one must make a prediction of how long the sand will last on the replenished beach. The predictions are based on mathematical models that are said to be sophisticated and state of the art, and yet are consistently, dramatically wrong—always in an optimistic direction. In the rare instances when communities questioned the models after the predictions of a long healthy replenished beach clearly failed, the answer typically was that an unusual and unexpected storm caused the error. Well, the occurrence of storms at any beach is neither unusual nor unexpected. Eventually we became interested in how models were used in other fields. When you start looking into it, you find that a lot of global and local decisions are made based on modeling the environment. There are some fascinating (and discouraging) stories of model misuse and misplaced trust in models in the book.
** Interview with Orrin Pilkey & Linda Jarvis-Pilkey.
* The problem is not the math itself, but the blind acceptance and even idolatry we have applied to the quantitative models. These predictive models leave citizens befuddled and unable to defend or criticize model-based decisions. We argue that we should accept the fact that we live in a qualitative world when it comes to natural processes. We must rely on qualitative models that predict only direction, trends, or magnitudes of natural phenomena, and accept the possibility of being imprecise or wrong to some degree. We should demand that when models are used, the assumptions and model simplifications are clearly stated. A better method in many cases will be adaptive management, where a flexible approach is used, where we admit there are uncertainties down the road and we watch and adapt as nature rolls on.
** Interview with Orrin Pilkey & Linda Jarvis-Pilkey.
# Godwin Anyigor Awoke

Godwin Anyigor Awoke (16 December 1966) is a Nigerian Anglican who serves as the bishop of the Diocese of Ngbo.

## Quotes

* The primary purpose of existence is that God wants you to achieve something for him.
** Bishop of Ngbo Diocese Rt. Rev. Godwin Awoke interviewed by Diocesan Media Crew at the burial of Late Ven. Victor C. Ibah (31 July 2021) Diocese of Ngbo - Anglican Communion
# Amitābha Buddha

Amitābha Buddha (Sanskrit: अमिताभ बुद्ध) is a major figure in Mahāyāna Buddhism. He is the principal buddha in Pure Land Buddhism, a branch of East Asian Buddhism.

## Quotes about Amitābha Buddha

* “Now what do you think, Śāriputra, why is that tathāgata called ‘Amitāyus’ (Immeasurable Life)? Śāriputra, the lifespan of Tathāgata Amitāyus is immeasurable. For this reason, he is called ‘Tathāgata Amitāyus.’ Furthermore, Śāriputra, why is that tathāgata called ‘Amitābha’ (Immeasurable Light)? Śāriputra, the light of Tathāgata Amitābha shines unimpeded throughout all buddha realms. For this reason, he is called ‘Tathāgata Amitābha.’ The Bhagavān Tathāgata Amitābha fully awakened to unsurpassable, completely perfect enlightenment ten eons ago."
** Sukhāvatī­vyūha Sūtra
* “O children of the Victorious One, the extent of an eon in this Sahā world, the buddhafield of the blessed Thus-Gone One Śākyamuni, is but a single day in Sukhāvatī, the buddhafield of the Thus-Gone One Amitāyus.
** Subhashita Translation Group (tr.). The Chapter on the Scale of Life (ཚེའི་ཚད་ཀྱི་ལེའུ།, Toh 44-37). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2023: https://read.84000.co/translation/toh44-37.html?part=acknowledgment
* “Śāriputra, any son or daughter of noble family who in the future has faith in and wholeheartedly rejoices in the extolled virtues of Amitābha, and wholeheartedly delights in that thus-gone one, will be born in that buddhafield. Those residing there will have all their wishes fulfilled and approach awakening, exactly as taught. They will see the assembly of thus-gone ones, and they will see the beings born in that buddhafield. Those who distrust, disparage, and forsake the extolled qualities of that thus-gone one will incur the karma for dwelling in the hells for five eons.
** Dharmachakra Translation Committee (tr.). Bouquet of Flowers (Kusumasañcaya, Toh 266). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2024: https://read.84000.co/translation/toh266.html?part=introduction
* Whoever writes or causes to be written this Aparimitāyur­jñāna Sūtra will be reborn in the world of Sukhāvatī, the buddha realm of the tathāgata Amitābha.
** Peter Alan Roberts and team (tr.). The Aparimitāyurjñāna Sūtra (1) (Aparimitāyur­jñāna­sūtra, Toh 674). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2024: https://read.84000.co/translation/toh674.html
* With help from Amitabha, we do not have to rely solely on ourselves to attain enlightenment as we would with other methods. In Pure Land Buddhism, we rely on the compassionate Buddhas and bodhisattvas to help us. Thus, reliance on self and on another are combined as we request by way of our mindful chanting that Amitabha Buddha, through the strength of his vows, help us to be reborn in the Pure Land as we breathe our last breath in our present body.
** Pure Land Buddhism: Support for the Dying by the Pure Land Learning College Association

## External links

* eLibrary ー Amitabha Gallery
* The Display of the Pure Land of Sukhāvatī
# Ippen

Ippen (一遍上人) (1234–1289), also known as Zuien, was a Japanese Buddhist itinerant preacher (hijiri) who founded the Ji (時宗 time sect) branch of Pure Land Buddhism.

## Quotes
### No Abode: The Record of Ippen (1997)

ed. Dennis Hirota. (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1997)
* From far, far in the distant past, Down to this day, this very instant, Those things we have longed for most Have not been attained, and we sorrow.
** "Hymn of Amida's Vow" (Chapter 1, p. 3).
* Once our false thinking has completely ceased There is neither start nor conclusion, beginning nor end In the oneness of Buddha and sentient beings Say Namu-amida-butsu.
** "Hymn of Amida's Vow" (Chapter 1, p. 4).
* To reach the borders of the uncreated, Just let go! This is genuine gratitude.
** "A Gist in Empty Words" (Chapter 2, p. 9).
* In this brief span this body exists, Clothing and food are of course indispensable; But knowing them to be fruits of former lives, I make no effort at all to obtain them.
** "A Gist in Empty Words" (Chapter 2, p. 11).
* With aversion for sect superiors and their pomp, I have no wish for monk disciples; Not in search of lay supporters, I court the favor of no one.
** "Verse of Aspiration" (Chapter 3, p. 16).
* In the Buddha’s teaching, unless you cast away body and life, there can be no realization of benefit.
** "Words Handed Down by Disciples" (Chapter 9, p. 105).
* To become solitary and simple in utter aloneness -- living wholly unconcerned about the multitude of worldly affairs, and abandoning and disentangling yourself from all things -- is to die. We are born alone; we die alone.
** "Words Handed Down by Disciples" (Chapter 9).
* Food, clothing, and shelter are the three evil paths. To desire and make a display of clothing is karma for the path of beasts. To greedily crave food is karma for the path of famished ghosts. To set up a shelter is karma for the path of hell. Hence, if you aspire to part from the three evil paths, you must free yourself from food, clothing, and shelter.
** "Words Handed Down by Disciples" (Chapter 9).

## See also

* Buddhism
* Nagarjuna
* Gautama Buddha
* Dōgen Zenji
* Ikkyu

## External links

* A brief overview of the Ji sect of Pure Land Buddhism.
# Alfred Bloom (Buddhist)

Alfred Bloom (November 9, 1926 – August 25, 2017) was an American Shin Buddhism scholar, who pioneered Jōdo Shinshū studies in the English-speaking world.

## Quotes

* I found Buddhism to be more existential in character and not as concerned with doctrines to the extent I had encountered in my Christian experience. Buddhism understands the symbolic and provisional nature of human thought. The principle of not being attached to views and the understanding of egoism and delusion all gave me a different perspective on religious phenomena and experience.
** [Buddhist-Christian Studies vol. 10] Alfred Bloom - A Spiritual Odyssey_ My Encounter with Pure Land Buddhism (1990) Source: Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 10 (1990), pp. 173-175

## External links

Modern Buddhist writers 19th century to date :
| Theravada / Vipassana movement | B. R. Ambedkar • Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu • Ajahn Chah • Anagarika Dharmapala • Joseph Goldstein • Henepola Gunaratana • Noah Levine • Nyanaponika Thera |
| Mahayana | Daisaku Ikeda • Yin Shun • Alfred Bloom |
| Vajrayana | Pema Chödrön • Kelsang Gyatso • Tenzin Gyatso • Matthieu Ricard • Robert Thurman • Chögyam Trungpa |
| Zen | Taisen Deshimaru • Thích Nhất Hạnh • Philip Kapleau • D. T. Suzuki • Han Yong-un • Hsing Yun • Sheng Yen |
| Other and Secular Buddhism | Stephen Batchelor • Robert Wright |
| Scholars | Lokesh Chandra • Walter Evans-Wentz • Richard Gombrich • Thomas Rhys Davids |
| Non-Buddhists influenced by Buddhism | Edwin Arnold • Helena Blavatsky • Fritjof Capra • Leonard Cohen • Alexandra David-Néel • Hermann Hesse • Carl Jung • Jon Kabat-Zinn • Friedrich Nietzsche • Henry Steel Olcott • Rajneesh • Helena Roerich • J. D. Salinger • Arthur Schopenhauer • Gary Snyder • Alan Watts • Alfred North Whitehead |
# Deborah Ajakaiye

Deborah Enilo Ajakaiye (born in 1940 in Plateau State in Northern Nigeria) is a Nigerian geophysicist. She is the first female physics professor in Africa and her work in geophysics has played an important role in mining in Nigeria.

## Quotes

* The Chinese have found 500 million barrels reserves in Chad itself and a pipeline is being laid to Segigi Field, where a refinery is being built, which is going to serve the whole of Chad. Also, another 500 million barrels were found in the Tannit in Niger, and we have similar soil structure and similar basin, which makes sense to intensify surveys in our own Chad Basin.
* a comprehensive and simultaneous survey acquisition of gravity for electro-magnetic study of the basins for 2D seismic and 3D seismic in the areas found to be very prolific.
* Now we don’t have enough data to attract investors, but after the studies companies can now begin to explore for oil based on the findings.
* Every country has strategic policy regarding its natural resources in order to preserve them. So we can’t rule out the possibility that we might have strategic reserve areas and the Department of Petroleum resources, DPR, will demarcate the areas.
** Deborah Ajakaiye on why Nigeria is intensifying surveys in river basins
* With regard to the concentration of survey in the Chad Basin, I explained that this is because a lot of finds have been made in other neighbouring countries along the rift zone.
* The Basin (Chad) lies along the West and Central African Rift System. All the basins along the rift zone like Doba, Salamar, Bongo and the Chad Tannit in Niger, there have been a lot of finds and oil exploration.
* The NNPC had done an integrated study of the Chad Basin with 10 international companies, during which 23 oil wells were drilled and areas with oil and gas potential were determined.
* Previous works in the Anambra basin had yielded little results, as of the eight wells drilled in the region, seven of them had gas with only found with oil, “so more work is needed to be done in this area to quantify the studies… in Bida, Sokoto and Benue basins, we have not drilled any wells.
* All these are part of the work being done for frontier exploration in the country, while explaining that for now, government is saddled with all the responsibility of doing the surveys to prove the prospectivity of the basins, as the International Oil Companies, IOCs will only come in thereafter.
* The IOCs operating in the country has cooperated with government with regard to the geological surveys by supplying data where demanded. “Now we don’t have enough data to attract investors, but after the studies companies can now begin to explore for oil based on the findings.
# Azizah Y. al-Hibri

Azizah Y. al-Hibri (born 1943) is an American philosopher and legal scholar who specializes in Islam and law.

## Quotes

* The northern Arabs of Jahiliyyah practised femal [sic] infanticide. It was prompted by one of two reasons: poverty or fear of shame (Mahmasāni; pp. 54-56). In the first case, some Arabs like Sa'sa'a Bin Najiah and Zeid Ibn Amrou Bin Nufayl, used to offer to buy these female infants from their fathers to save their lives. Sometimes, male infants were eliminated for this reason also, although only after there were no daughters left.
** Women and Islam (1982)
# Nancy Charton

Nancy Charton Ph.D (1920 – 2015) was the first female ordained priest in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

## Quotes

If we are working for the Kingdom we must always be open to new insights.
* homosexuality, climate change and economic justice.
* the battle against apartheid was not won with politics, but with prayer.
* One of the answers lies in the country’s history of colonisation by two contending settler classes.
* Today it works as a glue that holds the identity together at the intersections of specific versions of gender, sexuality, class and race.
# Aminata Diaw

Aminata Diaw Cissé (24 May 1959 – 14 April 2017) was a Senegalese lecturer and political philosopher who taught at the Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD). Influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and her academia background, she wrote about citizenship, civil society, democracy, development, ethnicity, gender, globalisation, human rights, identity, nationality and the state in an African and Senegalese context by using a political insight. Diaw worked for the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Bellagio Study and Conference Center of the Rockfeller Foundation, National UNESCO Sub-Commission on Social Sciences and Humanities, West African Research Association, the National UNESCO Sub-Commission on Social Sciences and Humanities and the Philosophical and Epistemological Research Center of the Doctoral School Studies.

## Quotes

* It operates as one of the political idioms at the very moment when democracy is becoming essential as a universal, unavoidable reference.
* The crucial questions, when thinking about emergent humanisms, have to do with the exegesis of the political, and at its heart democracy, citizenship and the management of violence, which obstinately appears as a constant in the political experience in Africa.
* What is being challenged is the sovereignty of the state, which means that the symbolic construction of a people transforming the state into a nation state is no longer possible
* The African state seems unable any longer to guarantee its citizens’ security. The human body is becoming an integral part of the territories where conflict is occurring.
* So how can we imagine a space for interaction where collective issues are put up for discussion? The case of Côte d’Ivoire, the reform of the Family Code in Senegal, and the tragedy in Rwanda are examined.
# Emna Belhadj Yahia

Emna Belhadj Yahia (Arabic: آمنة بلحاج يحي) was born on September 30, 1945, in Tunis. She is a Tunisian teacher, philosopher and writer in French.

## Quotes

* If France wanted to use francophonie to impose anything on me, an ideology or a way of life or whatever, the French language that I have learned and that I use would allow me to fight against such arrogance.
* The France of fraternity, equality, liberty belongs to me as much as to you'
* For me, it is an instrument to fight against any form of hegemony, whether political or cultural, and whether it comes from France, America or Russia.
* Our society has failed in its desire to rebuild its freedom, democracy and dignity. The social link between Tunisians themselves has deteriorated.
* It's upsetting when I see these young people who can speak neither Arabic nor French, and who can't read. How can you be a citizen of a free country when you don't have access to culture?
* How can we trust each other when we no longer trust ourselves, when we have lost our self-esteem? When we will finally make progress on the path of self-realization, this feeling of rejecting France – and others in general – will automatically recede.
# Soumaya Mestiri

Soumaya Mestiri (born 1976) is a Tunisian philosopher.After her studies, she was a lecturer at the University Paris.

## Quotes

* My point is rather that we have to deal with a very complex configuration in which local interpretations of decoloniality should match our understanding of ourselves.
* This is not to say that all the difficulties one can face in this task are related to this specific anchorage as if it were something preventing us from adopting this particular scheme
* This means that decoloniality has not to be adopted and applied only because it IS decoloniality, but instead it has to be carefully read, subverted, and if needed, dismissed.
# Rachida Triki

Rachida Triki (born 24 March 1949) is a Tunisian philosopher, art historian, art critic, and art curator. She is a full professor of philosophy at Tunis University, specialized in Aesthetics.

## Quotes

* I am particularly motivated to promote the work of Tunisian and North African contemporary artists who live in their countries, and don’t have enough international visibility.
* In an Arabo-Islamic country, it is important that artists remind and highlight the importance of the body in the private, social, and cultural life.
* This recent spectacular growth on the number of art students has certainly boosted the interest for art-related events but not necessarily produced more quality artists on the national and international scene yet
* That is why today, an intercultural event around the concept of the limits and excesses of the body can give food for thought on our present.
# Rim Lahmandi-Ayed

Rim Lahmandi-Ayed (born 1969) is a Tunisian economist, and a professor of economics at Carthage University in Tunisia, where she heads the research group on economic and statistic modeling and analysis. Topics in her research have included product differentiation and targeted advertising.

## Quotes

* In this paper, we theoretically and empirically analyze the impact of competition on poverty. We consider a general equilibrium framework with vertical preferences and compare poverty in a Monopoly setting versus a Duopoly setting considering explicitly the ownership structure
* Poverty is measured by the size of the population living below an absolute poverty line. Theoretical results show that the impact of competition on poverty is contingent to the ownership structure, the poverty line and the relative dispersion of the individuals with respect to their intensity of preference for quality and sensitivity to effort:
* competition can improve or worsen poverty depending on the model's parameters. Empirical findings for the three existing poverty lines (1.9, 3.2, and $5.5) are consistent to a large extent with our theoretical results.
# Juliette Bessis

Juliette Bessis (Arabic: جولييت بسيس) was born in 1925 in Gabès, Tunisia, and died 2017 in Paris, France. She was a contemporary Tunisian scholar and historian specializing in the Maghreb region of northern Africa.

## Quotes

* In committing politically, taking up important roles, and expressing their views, these militants were hardly representative of colonial Tunisia’s mostly illiterate and poor Muslim population. But they did break out of the positions generally attributed to women.
* These women’s commitment would nonetheless shape their lives in an enduring way — and leave a mark on Tunisia’s own history. As inspiring figures who had fought for women’s autonomy, they helped prepare the ground for the blooming of Tunisian feminism in the 1980s
# Sophie Bessis

Sophie Bessis (Arabic: صوفي بسيس , 1947) is a Tunisian-born French historian, journalist, researcher, and feminist author. She has written numerous works in French, Spanish, and English on development in the Maghreb and the Arab world, as well as the situation of women denouncing the identity imprisonment to which they are subjected.

## Quotes

* As I see it, the universal is besieged by the hegemony of the commodity and that of the religious. Two faces of globalisation that have nothing to do with the universal, that is anti-universal, which is a thesis I worked on in my book La Double Impasse, in which there are extensive sections on the culturalist and the essentialist.
* How do I introduce myself? Every work, academic or research-based, rests one way or another on a personal make-up. If I wasn’t who I am, or I didn’t receive the make-up that I did, perhaps I wouldn’t have written what I wrote.”
* I believe that in Tunisia, and perhaps in all the Arab countries, the communist parties — for all their many mistakes and shortcomings — were the only place in which ethno-religious affiliations were overcome, which is an element that can’t be overlooked in my personal make-up. My childhood was not at all marked by that kind of segregation.
* Then history took its course, and the lives and fates of individuals were tied to the collective history, as is always the case in our countries, and the Jewish minority left the country, for numerous reasons.
* The Arab world doesn’t want to know it, and this comes out clearly today, when we see what’s happening in Libya with the return of the slave trade. This is the dark part of Arab history. Africans know it and remember it perfectly well.
# Asma Mhalla

Asma Mhalla is a French-Tunisian political scientist. She is an associate researcher with the Laboratory of political anthropology, a joint project of the CNRS and the EHESS.She is a lecturer at Sciences Po and École Polytechnique.

## Quotes

* Total technology is the idea that technology carries a political and ideological project through its will to power and limitless control. It’s impossible to grasp the ramifications of this from one single angle
* This binary choice is self-manipulation! For years, we’ve been formulating the problem in exactly the same way on matters of technological surveillance
* It’s too easy to treat these people like eccentrics. When we can’t take something seriously, it tends to swallow us up! Elon Musk is nothing of a clown, no matter what some people say: through the highly strategic companies he manages, he de facto occupies a geopolitical position. We have to accept the reality
* Both Musk and Sam Altman have a rare relationship with risk: they’re always taking gambles’
* The difference is that all of a sudden, since it’s private, cost is reduced and a horizon of profitability appears. And privatisation means that what is therapeutic or for leisure today can become a weapon of war tomorrow