
“Society is not a disease, it is a disaster. What a stupid miracle that one can live in it.”
A Short History of Decay (1949)
The Shah's Address to Harvard University - Creation of the Universal Welfare Legion - June 13, 1968 http://members.cybertrails.com/~pahlavi/harvard.html
Speeches, 1968
“Society is not a disease, it is a disaster. What a stupid miracle that one can live in it.”
A Short History of Decay (1949)
" What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy? http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/12/17/what-is-living-and-what-is-dead-in-social-democrac/" (2009)
On Behalf of the Movement of Nonaligned Countries (1979)
Cooperation, Terrorism, UK & USA, President Trump, Resolving Conflict, Defense, Crimea, The Media, Nuclear Weapons Policy: 15th Plenary Session (18 October 2018)
XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
“Can we live in a world of brotherhood and peace without disease and fear and oppression?”
1974 speech, in Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, 1790-1995 by Deborah Gillan Straub
Source: Patriotism and Christianity http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism_and_Christianity (1896), Ch. 17
Context: One free man will say with truth what he thinks and feels amongst thousands of men who by their acts and words attest exactly the opposite. It would seem that he who sincerely expressed his thought must remain alone, whereas it generally happens that every one else, or the majority at least, have been thinking and feeling the same things but without expressing them.
And that which yesterday was the novel opinion of one man, to-day becomes the general opinion of the majority.
And as soon as this opinion is established, immediately by imperceptible degrees, but beyond power of frustration, the conduct of mankind begins to alter.
Whereas at present, every man, even, if free, asks himself, "What can I do alone against all this ocean of evil and deceit which overwhelms us? Why should I express my opinion? Why indeed possess one? It is better not to reflect on these misty and involved questions. Perhaps these contradictions are an inevitable condition of our existence. And why should I struggle alone with all the evil in the world? Is it not better to go with the stream which carries me along? If anything can be done, it must be done not alone but in company with others."
And leaving the most powerful of weapons — thought and its expression — which move the world, each man employs the weapon of social activity, not noticing that every social activity is based on the very foundations against which he is bound to fight, and that upon entering the social activity which exists in our world every man is obliged, if only in part, to deviate from the truth and to make concessions which destroy the force of the powerful weapon which should assist him in the struggle. It is as if a man, who was given a blade so marvelously keen that it would sever anything, should use its edge for driving in nails.
We all complain of the senseless order of life, which is at variance with our being, and yet we refuse to use the unique and powerful weapon within our hands — the consciousness of truth and its expression; but on the contrary, under the pretext of struggling with evil, we destroy the weapon, and sacrifice it to the exigencies of an imaginary conflict'.
Source: Drenai series, The Swords of Night and Day, Ch. 21
Context: "No golden age to discover now," he whispered. "No end to disease and starvation. No, bright sparkling cities reaching the clouds... All that I have lived for is gone now. I am so tired.""Then think on this, priest: You stopped the Eternal from finding greater weapons. Your actions here have led to her death. The world is free again.""Free? Of one tyrant perhaps. You think there will be no others?""No, I do not. But I know there will always be men to stand against them. You grieve because of a pure magic lost. That magic was corrupted by evil. This is how evil thrives. We find an herb that cures disease, and someone will make a poison from it. We forge iron to make a better plow, and someone will make a sharper sword. There can be no power that evil will not corrupt."