“But no matter what they say,
You can make it all right
You can do it alone now
Do it your way
Yeah”
Dhani Harrison (1978) English musician
Yomp
Lyrics, You Are Here (2008)
Source: The Fire Next Time
“But no matter what they say,
You can make it all right
You can do it alone now
Do it your way
Yeah”
Dhani Harrison (1978) English musician
Yomp
Lyrics, You Are Here (2008)
Zhiar Ali (1999) Kurdish human rights activist and artist
Ali on freedom to choose one's religion and lifestyle, via Twitter.
Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist
Sex Slavery (1890)
Context: Now for the remedy. It is in one word, the only word that ever brought equity anywhere — LIBERTY! Centuries upon centuries of liberty is the only thing that will cause the disintegration and decay of these pestiferous ideas. Liberty was all that calmed the bloodwaves of religious persecution! You cannot cure serfhood by any other substitution. Not for you to say "in this way shall the race love." Let the race alone.
Will there not be atrocious crimes? Certainly. He is a fool who says there will not be. But you can't stop them by committing the arch-crime and setting a block between the spokes of Progress-wheels. You will never get right until you start right.
As for the final outcome, it matters not one iota. I have my ideal, and it is very pure, and very sacred to me. But yours, equally sacred, may be different and we may both be wrong. But certain am I that with free contract, that form of sexual association will survive which is best adapted to time and place, thus producing the highest evolution of the type. Whether that shall be monogamy, variety, or promiscuity matters naught to us; it is the business of the future, to which we dare not dictate.
Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist
"Gzowski on FM".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: There is a constitution higher than any statute. There is a law higher than any constitution. It is the law of the human conscience, and no man who is a man will defile and pollute his conscience at the bidding of any legislature. Above all things, one should maintain his self-respect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal.
Arthur Helps (1813–1875) British writer
‘Truth’, Chapter I.
Friends in Council (First Series), (1847),
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)
“Let no one persuade you by word or deed to do or say whatever is not best for you.”
Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher
As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook. (1999)
The Golden Verses
Context: Many words befall men, mean and noble alike; do not be astonished by them, nor allow yourself to be constrained.
If a lie is told, bear with it gently.
But whatever I tell you, let it be done completely.
Let no one persuade you by word or deed to do or say whatever is not best for you.
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author
Source: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
“Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war.”
Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) English poet, diarist and memoirist
As quoted by Robert Nichols in his introduction to The Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)
Context: Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said; for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages.