“It would be the greatest disaster which could befall our House if any untoward accident befall you, which may God avert! Do not hesitate to open letters addressed to me. Your love for me and the absolute confidence between us make me feel that I cannot have any secrets from you.”
William talking to his brother John, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison p. 54
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William the Silent33
stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, leader of the … 1533–1584Related quotes
“Monotheism is easily the greatest disaster to befall the human race.”
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer
Appendix
1980s, At Home (1988)
Context: I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — good people, yes, but any religion based on a single... well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system that has worked pretty well for twenty-five hundred years. So you see I am ecumenical in my dislike for the Book. But like it or not, the Book is there; and because of it people die; and the world is in danger.
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist
Chapter 1, Jesus Rediscovered (1969)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Letter to Lord Russell of Liverpool, February 18, 1959
1950s
William the Silent (1533–1584) stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, leader of the Dutch Revolt
To his first wife while she was dying (1558), as quoted William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 28
James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)
1810s, Letter to Robert J. Evans (1819)
James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician
Samuel Johnson, letter to James Macpherson (20 January 1775), quoted in James Boswell Life of Johnson, Vol. I (1791), p. 449.
Criticism
Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib
Prophet Muhammad
Replied to Al-Hurr ibn Yazid Al-Tamimi, History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 19, p. 97
Regarding the Advent of Karbalā
Kage Baker book The Machine's Child
Source: The Machine's Child (2006), Chapter 5, “Another Morning in 2302 AD” (p. 48)