Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)
Don Quixote, 1986. As quoted in Tactical Readings: Feminist Postmodernism in the Novels of Kathy Acker and Angela Carter, p. 91, by Nicola Pitchford. Editor Bucknell University Press, 2002. ISBN 0838754872.
Context: In the total devastation of the heart which is the world, the lands-lords rule. There is no way we can defeat the landslords. But under their reins and their watchful eyes.
I sail as the winds of lusts and emotions bare me. Everywhere and anywhere. I who will never own, whatever and whenever I want, I take.
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)
“To devastate by language, to blow up the word and with it the world.”
Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia
History and Utopia (1960)
Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)
2021, September 2021
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States
1930s, Address at Chautauqua, New York (1936)
Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War
Letter to his wife on Christmas Day, two weeks after the Battle of Fredericksburg (25 December 1862).
1860s
Context: What a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world! I pray that, on this day when only peace and good-will are preached to mankind, better thoughts may fill the hearts of our enemies and turn them to peace. … My heart bleeds at the death of every one of our gallant men.
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
“A totally unmystical world would be a world totally blind and insane.”
Aldous Huxley book Grey Eminence
Grey Eminence (1940)
Annie Dillard (1945) American writer
" Total Eclipse https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/annie-dillards-total-eclipse/536148/", Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982)
Leo Damrosch (1941) American academic
Source: Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius (2005), Ch. 18 : Rousseau the Controversialist: Émile and The Social Contract.