“It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful.”

Anton LaVey (1930–1997) Founder of the Church of Satan, author of the Satanic Bible

The Nine Satanic Sins (1987)

Bidhan Chandra Roy photo

“No Gandhiji…. I could not treat all patients free. I came to Bombay not to treat Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi but to treat ‘him’, who, to me represents the four hundred million people of my country.”

Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882–1962) Former Chief Minister of West Bengal, India

This was in reply to to Gandhiji’s refusal to take medicine as it was not made in India in page=94
Remembering Our Leaders: Mahadeo Govind Ranade by Pravina Bhim Sain

Charles Bukowski quote: “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
Charles Bukowski photo

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

Thomas Jefferson photo

“No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Benjamin Banneker (30 August 1791) http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj060149))
1790s
Context: No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.

Teal Swan photo
Thomas Aquinas photo

“The highest perfection of human life consists in the mind of man being detached from care, for the sake of God.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Summa Contra Gentiles, III,130,3

Rosa Parks photo

“Thank you very much. I honor my late husband Raymond Parks, other Freedom Fighters, men of goodwill who could not be here. I'm also honored by young men who respect me and have invited me as an elder. Raymond, or Parks as I called him, was an activist in the Scottsboro Boys case, voter registration, and a role model for youth. As a self-taught businessman, he provided for his family, and he loved and respected me. Parks would have stood proud and tall to see so many of our men uniting for our common man and committing their lives to a better future for themselves, their families, and this country. Although criticism and controversy has been focused on in the media instead of benefits for the one million men assembling peacefully for spiritual food and direction, it is a success. I pray that my multiracial and international friends will view this [some audio unclear] gathering as an opportunity for all men but primarily men of African heritage to make changes in their lives for the better. I am proud of all groups of people who feel connected with me in any way, and I will always work for human rights for all people. However, as an African American woman, I am proud, applaud, and support our men in this assembly. I would a lot like to have male students of the Pathways to Freedom to join me here and wave their hands, but I don't think they're here right now. But thank you all young men of the Pathways to Freedom. Thank you and God bless you all. Thank you.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Rosa Park speech to social activists assembled in Washington, D.C. ( 1995) http://www.sweetspeeches.com/s/2316-rosa-parks-speech-at-the-million-man-march)

Rosa Parks photo

“I'd see the bus pass every day… But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Quoted in 2008-07-01, The Story Behind the Bus, Rosa Parks Bus, The Henry Ford http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/rosaparks/story.asp, (2002)

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo

“Our life here is truly hellish. Fortunately, my soldiers are very brave and tougher than the enemy.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

Letter to Corinne Lütfü, from the Gallipoli peninsula (20 July 1915) as translated in Atatürk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey (2002) by Andrew Mango.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo

“Know that whatever conforms to reason, logic, and the advantages and needs of our people conforms equally to Islam.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in Kemalizm, Laiklik ve Demokrasi [Kemalism, Laicism and Democracy] (1994) by Ahmet Taner Kışlalı
Context: Religion is an important institution. A nation without religion cannot survive. Yet it is also very important to note that religion is a link between Allah and the individual believer. The brokerage of the pious cannot be permitted. Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable. We are against such a situation and will not allow it. Those who use religion in such a manner have fooled our people; it is against just such people that we have fought and will continue to fight. Know that whatever conforms to reason, logic, and the advantages and needs of our people conforms equally to Islam. If our religion did not conform to reason and logic, it would not be the perfect religion, the final religion.

Jerome David Salinger photo

“I'm a kind of a paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955), p. 76

Jerome David Salinger photo
Brandon Sanderson photo

“Don’t worry that you aren’t giving people what they want. Give them who you are, and let that be enough.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Mistborn Trilogy

Kim Jong-un photo

“It is the party’s steadfast determination to ensure that the people will never have to tighten their belt again.”

Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea

April 15th 2012 speech in Kim Il-Sung Square, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/world/asia/kim-jong-un-north-korean-leader-talks-of-military-superiority-in-first-public-speech.html

Kim Jong-un photo
Kim Jong-un photo

“Yesterday, we were a weak and small country trampled upon by big powers. Today, our geopolitical location remains the same, but we are transformed into a proud political and military power and an independent people that no one can dare provoke. The days are gone forever when our enemies could blackmail us with nuclear bombs.”

Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea

April 15th 2012 speech in Kim Il-Sung Square, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/world/asia/kim-jong-un-north-korean-leader-talks-of-military-superiority-in-first-public-speech.html

Mikhail Lermontov photo

“My whole past life I live again in memory, and, involuntarily, I ask myself: 'why have I lived - for what purpose was I born?'… A purpose there must have been, and, surely, mine was an exalted destiny, because I feel that within my soul are powers immeasurable… But I was not able to discover that destiny, I allowed myself to be carried away by the allurements of passions, inane and ignoble. From their crucible I issued hard and cold as iron, but gone for ever was the glow of noble aspirations - the fairest flower of life. And, from that time forth, how often have I not played the part of an axe in the hands of fate! Like an implement of punishment, I have fallen upon the head of doomed victims, often without malice, always without pity… To none has my love brought happiness, because I have never sacrificed anything for the sake of those I have loved: for myself alone I have loved - for my own pleasure. I have only satisfied the strange craving of my heart, greedily draining their feelings, their tenderness, their joys, their sufferings - and I have never been able to sate myself. I am like one who, spent with hunger, falls asleep in exhaustion and sees before him sumptuous viands and sparkling wines; he devours with rapture the aerial gifts of the imagination, and his pains seem somewhat assuaged. Let him but awake: the vision vanishes - twofold hunger and despair remain!
And tomorrow, it may be, I shall die!… And there will not be left on earth one being who has understood me completely. Some will consider me worse, others, better, than I have been in reality… Some will say: 'he was a good fellow'; others: 'a villain.”

And both epithets will be false. After all this, is life worth the trouble? And yet we live - out of curiosity! We expect something new... How absurd, and yet how vexatious!
A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)

Mikhail Lermontov photo