Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1960s, American Power and the New Mandarins, 1969
Context: No less insidious is the cry for 'revolution,' at a time when not even the germs of new institutions exist, let alone the moral and political consciousness that could lead to a basic modification of social life. If there will be a 'revolution' in America today, it will no doubt be a move towards some variety of fascism. We must guard against the kind of revolutionary rhetoric that would have had Karl Marx burn down the British Museum because it was merely part of a repressive society. It would be criminal to overlook the serious flaws and inadequacies in our institutions, or to fail to utilize the substantial degree of freedom that most of us enjoy, within the framework of these flawed institutions, to modify them or even replace them by a better social order. One who pays some attention to history will not be surprised if those who cry most loudly that we must smash and destroy are later found among the administrators of some new system of repression.
Source: "Black Women's Manifesto; Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female" (1969)
“Don’t pay attention to those who offer too much.”
“Benefactors,” p. 110
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Is It Possible to Write a Poem”
Referring to Napoleon III, in "Mistaken Lessons from the Past", The Listener (6 June 1963)
Context: If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant, I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of the Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw the corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human a life... again I should point to India.
India, What Can It Teach Us (1882) Lecture IV <!-- p. 118. -->
Talking about Busted Flush the Wild Cards novel, Interview on Pat's Fantasy Hotlist http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2008/12/interview-with-george-r-r-martin-and.html (December 2008)
Context: With great power comes great responsibility, Stan Lee once wrote. Spidey's credo articulates the basic premise of every superhero universe, including ours. But Lord Acton wrote that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The tension between those two truths is where the drama comes in. My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results... but it is the effort that's heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.
[Ashley, Montagu, An Introduction to Physical Anthropology – Third Edition, 1977/2011, 456]
Source: "Hot Docs 2017 Interview: Nanfu Wang on “I Am Another You”" in Roger Ebert https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hot-docs-2017-interview-nanfu-wang-on-i-am-another-you (3 May 2017)
Muhammad
Source: About Muhammad, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, p.3
Ch. 4, p. 11 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ma3RAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+a+sort+of+man+who+pays+no+attention+to+his+good+actions+but+is+tormented+by+his+bad+ones+this+is+the+type+that+most+often+writes+about+himself%22&pg=PA11#v=onepage
The Summing Up (1938)
Source: The Emotional Life of Nations (2002), Ch. 5, pp. 108-109.
