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Barack Obama1158

44th President of the United States of America 1961

Oscar Wilde812

Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

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“But there have been those who did not want to work, but wanted to rest on their laurels. They were our enemies. We angered them through our prosperous development, our industry and science, our art and popular education, social legislation, etc. That raised our nation to a high place, and then came envy. Envy caused our opponents to fight, and so the war came over us who had no idea of it.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Address to Officials and Workers at Krupp's (11 September 1918), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 114
1910s

“Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

"Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage" (1796)
Variant translation:
Never allow yourselves to forget that it is for their own sakes and not for yours that all those wise lawgivers have forced you into your present unnatural and rigid molds. And as evidence of this, I need only produce all our political, civil, and religious institutions. Examine them thoroughly, and either I am very much mistaken or you will find that mankind has been forced to bow, century after century, beneath a mere handful of scoundrels has conspired, in ever age, to impose upon it. Beware of the man who wants to set things in order. Setting things in order always involves acquiring mastery over others — by tying them hand and foot.
As translated by Derek Coleman, in Diderot's Selected Writings (1966)
Context: As for our celebrated lawgivers, who have cast us in our present awkward mold, you may be sure that they have acted to serve their interests and not ours. Witness all our political, civil, and religious institutions — examine them thoroughly: unless I am very much mistaken, you will see how, through the ages, the human race has been broken to the halter that a handful of rascals were itching to impose. Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.

“People cry, not because they are weak. It is because they've been strong for too long.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Variant: I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.

“Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and those bastards always talk about the purity of race.”

Umberto Eco book The Prague Cemetery

Source: The Prague Cemetery

“Remember that you are a Black Swan.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“Colonialism. The enforced spread of the rule of reason. But who is going to spread it among the colonizers?”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

“My dear friends, now and forever, I renounce, have renounced and will go on renouncing copyrights. My only wish is that these books be sold at low price, affordable to the poor, affordable to all the children of God. I wish that even the poorest, most destitute citizen be able to obtain these books with the few pennies he carries in his pocket. In fact, I do not have any income; I do not demand anything in exchange for my works. Whosoever wants to publish them, let him publish for the benefit of deiseased mankind.”

Samael Aun Weor (1917–1977) Colombian writer

The 1976 Gnostic Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico

“Surely you can change your world if you work at it. (…) a world of which you are the only source and ground is fully within your power to change. What is created can always be dissolved and re-created. All will happen as you want it, provided you really want it. (…)”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Change
Source: "I am That." P.42

“The most important person you can ever talk to is yourself, so be careful what you say.
The most important person that you will evaluate is yourself, so be careful what you think.
The most important person you will love is yourself, so be careful what you do.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn

“We are no longer securing just computers - we are securing the society.”

Mikko Hyppönen (1969) Finnish computer security expert

Source: A talk at Slush 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV9gnLKw8P0 November 2015

“Creativity thinks up new things. Innovation does new things. The difference speaks for itself. Yet the fluent advisers to business seldom make the distinction. They tend to rate ideas more by their novelty than by their practicability.”

Theodore Levitt (1925–2006) American economist and professor at Harvard Business School

Theodore Levitt (1974). Marketing for business growth, p. 71

“You borrow my brain for 5 seconds, and just be like "Dude, can't handle it, unplug this bastard", because it fires in a way that is, I don't know, maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm.”

Charlie Sheen (1965) American film and television actor

On Good Morning America February 28, 2011

“The Bible gives me a deep, comforting sense that "things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal."”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life (1903), Ch. 21

“The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

“Happiness does not come from without, it comes from within”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

“We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

“People don’t like to think, if one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Helen Keller: Her Socialist Years (1967)
Context: Some people do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions; and conclusions are not always pleasant. They are a thorn in the spirit. But I consider it a priceless gift and a deep responsibility to think.

“Tolerance is the first principle of community; it is the spirit which conserves the best that all men think.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)
Context: The highest result of education is tolerance. Long ago men fought and died for their faith; but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage, — the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren and their rights of conscience. Tolerance is the first principle of community; it is the spirit which conserves the best that all men think.

“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Misquoted in Forbes (6 October 1986), actually attributed to humorist Professor Irwin Corey (1953) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/11/03/kind-gun/ <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Variant: You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.