Quotes about communication
page 19

“Reporter: The “Protocols” trial is on today. I’ve been assigned to report on it for my paper.
Reporter 2: What’s your hurry Carl? The Jewish community’s lawyer is trying to show the damage done by the “Protocols of Zion” book.
Lawyer: Your honor, we have demonstrated that the “Protocols” is ‘’’smut…’’’ I would conclude by exhibiting evidence of its influence on public opinion as a fraud.
Judge: You may proceed!
Lawyer: Since its first publication in Russia by Dr. Nilus in 1905, four printings have been distributed there!
In 1919, type script copies were distributed to delegated at the Versailles peace conference by white Russians.
In England Victor Marsden translated the “protocols” into English in 1922.
In 1920, the first polish language edition was brought into the United States and South America by Polish immigrants.
In 1921, the first Arabic and the first Italian copies appeared!
In 1921, “The Times” of London published its famous expose of this false document!
And because of his fame, Henry Ford’s work deserves recounting.
Lawyer: In 1920, Henry ford the American auto magnate, bought a small newspaper, the “Dearborn Independent.” He began a series, “The International Jew,” made up of borrowings from the “Protocols of the Elders on Zion.”
Later, in 1922, it was published in sxteen language for a world-wide distribution. It sold over a ‘’’half million’’’ copies in America alone!
Reporter: Actually, Ford recanted in 1926 when he was threatened with a libel suit.

Reporter 2: Really?
Reporter 3: What did he say?
Reporter: He said in part, “…To my great regret I learn that in the ‘Dearborn Independent’ there appeared articles which induced the Jews to regard me as their enemy promoting anti-Semitism!”
HE WENT ON TO SAY, “…I am…mortified that this Journal…is giving currency to ‘The Protocols of the wise men of Zion,’ which I learn to be gross forgeries…I deem it my duty…to make amends for the wrong done to the Jews as fellow men and brothers by asking their forgiveness.
HE GOES ON BY RECITING SOME OF THE MORE “evil ingredients” in the “Protocols” AND HE REFERS TO IT AS AN “infamous forgery.”
Reporter 3: DID HIS APOLOGY CHANGE ANYTHING?? HENRY FORD WAS FAMOUS the world over…his apology must have had influence!
Reporter: Not very much. In fact publication increased all over the globe.
Reporter 3: Look! Here I have two French translations of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” that were published in ‘’’France,’’’ dated 1934. Later they had many printings!
Judge: …I hope to see the day when nobody will be able to understand why otherwise sane and reasonable men should torment their brains for fourteen days over the authenticity or fabrication of the “Protocols of Zion”’’’…I regard the “protocols” as ridiculous nonsense!
Reporter: Good news! …judge Meyer found against the Nazis and imposed a fine on them…

Publisher: We will publish the judge’s decision!
Reporter: This should put an end to the “Protocols” at last!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 102-107

Men, Books, World, Peace

“We're here on this planet for a temporary time, we should be spending our time -- some of our time pursuing leisure and joy, all of our time in a spirit of love; we've ended up somehow in this mad planet where we work all the time, most of us doing jobs that we absolutely deplore, getting up to trudge through some meaningless ritual that doesn't relate to the survival of the planet, that doesn't benefit our community.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67_B8_y6B7w?t=7m5s
Trews (2015)

Love, Time, Joy, Madness

“The renaissance of Jew-hate in America has effectively split the Jewish community between an overwhelmingly liberal majority and the pro-Trump minority. There are now just two kinds of Jews in America. And one of them voted for Trump.”

Bradley Burston israeli journalist

Trump's Win, the Greatest Victory for anti-Semitism in America Since 1941 (2016)

Hate

“In some regions, under especially favorable conditions, the level of organization reaches that of enormously heavy organic substances, such as protein molecules and nucleic acids. Now the basic building blocks are given for the constitution of self-replicating units of still higher organizational level: cells. These systems maintain a constant flow of substances through their structures, imposing on it a steady-state with specific parameters. The inputs and outputs may achieve coordination with analogous units in the surrounding medium, and we are on our way toward multicellular phenomena. The resulting structures — organisms — are likewise steady-state patterns imposed steady-state patterns imposed on a continuous flow… The organic systems themselves, define the supra-organic (ecological or social) community. Ultimately the strands of communication straddle the space-time region within which the primary systems have come together, and those of its layers which provide conditions favorable to such structuration become organized as systems in their own right. We reach the level of the global (ecological, and on earth also sociocultural) system.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972), p. 83.

Way, Time

“Since space is continuous, it follows that there must be an immediate community of feeling between parts of mind infinitesimally close together. Without this, I believe it would have been impossible for any co-ordination to be established in the action of the nerve-matter of one brain.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The Law of Mind (1892)

Feeling, Parting

“The activity of rooting for baseball and other sports teams is one of the strongest expressions of community remaining in our society.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Source: Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992), Chapter 8, The Future, p. 186.

Sport

“Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude. This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Remarks on the death of Osama bin Laden, May 5, 2011, The Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2011 http://web.archive.org/web/20110505081437/http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-death-obama-george-w-bush.html, 2010s, 2011

Love, Women, Men, People

“For those who want to develop or use semantical methods, the decisive question is not the alleged ontological question of the existence of abstract entities but rather the question whether the rise of abstract linguistic forms or, in technical terms, the use of variables beyond those for things (or phenomenal data), is expedient and fruitful for the purposes for which semantical analyses are made, viz. the analysis, interpretation, clarification, or construction of languages of communication, especially languages of science.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Source: Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology (1950), Ch. 5. Conclusion

Question, Decision, Science

“Legitimation by a recognized religion has always been decisive for an alliance between politically and socially dominant classes and the priesthood. Integration into the Hindu community provided such religious legitimation for the ruling stratum. It not only endowed the ruling stratum of the barbarians with recognized rank in the cultural world of Hinduism, but, through their transformation into castes, secured their superiority over the subject classes with an efficiency unsurpassed by any other religion.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: Religion of India (1916), p. 16

World, Religion, Decision

“The increasing speed of technological advancement and economic integration in recent years has highlighted the importance of intellectual property and put great stress on the ability of established national and international systems that administer IP rights to effectively serve the global community.”

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh (1938) Jordanian businesspeople

August 11, 2003, at the Jordan IP Week Conference, Amman, Jordan.

Speed

“This behavior not only exacerbates tensions in its own right; it has the effect of stifling community confidence that’s absolutely vital for effective policing. And this, in turn, deepens the widespread distrust provoked by the department’s other unconstitutional exercises of police power – none of which is more harmful than its pattern of excessive force.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Behavior, Exercises, Confidence

“The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, (1963)

People, Freedom

“Interviewer: France has announced that it is planning to withdraw its troops from the Central African Republic at the end of the year. Is this good or bad news?
Catherine Samba-Panza: The international community, be it the United Nations, the European Union or friendly countries like France, has been helping us from the very first hours of the crisis. Regional organizations like the African Union have accompanied us throughout all our difficulties. However, this is very expensive. So all these countries and organizations need to consider up to which limit they are able to continue with their efforts. We took note of France's intention to start withdrawing their troops right at the end of the transitional period. We can all see that the French Sangaris mission is still of great help for the mission of the European Union as well as the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSCA. So I would say that it is a withdrawal, but not a total withdrawal”

Catherine Samba-Panza (1954) Central African politician

2010s, 2016

Effort, Help, Country

“Today, in the era of the complete triumph of the spectacle, what can be reaped from the heritage of Debord? It is clear that the spectacle is language, the very communicativity or linguistic being of humans. This means that a fuller Marxian analysis should deal with the fact that capitalism (or any other name one wants to give the process that today dominated world history) was directed not only toward the expropriation of productive activity, but also and principally toward the alienation of language itself, of the very linguistic and communicative nature of humans, of that logos which one of Heraclitus' fragments identified as the Common. The extreme form of this expropriation of the Common is the spectacle, that is, the politics we live in. But this also means that in the spectacle of our own linguistic nature comes back to us inverted. This is why (precisely because what is being expropriated is the very possibility of common good) the violence of the spectacle is so destructive; but for the same reason the spectacle remains something like a positive possibility that can be used against it.”

Giorgio Agamben (1942) Italian philosopher

Source: The Coming Community (1993), Ch. 18 : Shekinah

World, History, Nature

“So, many corporations will be “killed,” according to Adbusters’ excellent suggestion. Perhaps we should use the word “cull,” like people do when they want to kill something cute. “Are you killing that badger?” “No, sir, culling it.” “When you’ve finished ‘culling’ it, will it be dead?” “A bit, yes.” “So explain the difference between killing and culling?” “Well, it’s a ‘u’—and a sort of tuneful sense that the creature is being gently lulled to death rather than killed with a hammer.” “And what’s the hammer you’re holding for?” “Culling.” So maybe we should cull some corporations. Once we’ve culled them, their resources and materials can be returned to communities to run themselves. Outlined here is a suggestion for how a corporation could be structured more fairly.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Death, People, Sense, Dead

“Prediction of the fall of Russian communism: "Russia enveloped with communism—a new religious freedom must come. God will overrule it, for that people must hear the truth, and truth in simplicity. Truly there is much for the church to do in the coming century."”

David O. McKay (1873–1970) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

At Brigham Young University, reported in Church News, May 28, 1960.

God, People, Truth, Freedom

“In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character — on integrity and tolerance toward others and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.
That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran and the varied faiths of our people. Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before — ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today and forever.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2005, Second Inaugural Address (January 2005)

Life, People, Truth, Family

“No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own. This is not only conspicuous in children, who implicitly embrace every opinion propos’d to them; but also in men of the greatest judgment and understanding, who find it very difficult to follow their own reason or inclination, in opposition to that of their friends and daily companions. To this principle we ought to ascribe the great uniformity we may observe in the humours and turn of thinking of those of the same nation; and ’tis much more probable, that this resemblance arises from sympathy, than from any influence of the soil and climate, which, tho’ they continue invariably the same, are not able to preserve the character of a nation the same for a century together. A good-natur’d man finds himself in an instant of the same humour with his company; and even the proudest and most surly take a tincture from their countrymen and acquaintance. A chearful countenance infuses a sensible complacency and serenity into my mind; as an angry or sorrowful one throws a sudden dump upon me. Hatred, resentment, esteem, love, courage, mirth and melancholy; all these passions I feel more from communication than from my own natural temper and disposition. So remarkable a phaenomenon merits our attention, and must be trac’d up to its first principles.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 1, Section 11
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions

Love, Men, Children, Feeling

“… when the empire dissolved… the people of Britain suffered from a kind of vertigo: they could not believe that they were standing upright, and reached out for something to clutch. It seemed axiomatic that economically, as well as politically, they must be part of something bigger, though the deduction was as unfounded as the premise. So some cried: 'Revive the Commonwealth'. And others cried: 'Let's go in with America into a North Atlantic Free Trade Area'. Yet others again cried: 'We have to go into Europe: there's no real alternative'. In a sense they were right: there is no alternative grouping. In a more important sense they were wrong: there is no need for joining anything. A Britain which is ready to exchange goods, services and capital as freely as it can with the rest of the world is neither isolated nor isolationist. It is not, in the sneering phrases of Chamberlain's day, 'Little England'… The Community is not a free trade area, which is what Britain, with a correct instinct, tried vainly to convert it into, or combine it into, in 1957-60. For long afterwards indeed many Britons continued to cherish the delusion that it really was a glorified free trade area and would turn out to be nothing more. On the contrary the Community is, what its name declares, a prospective economic unit. But an economic unit is not defined by economics – there are no natural economic units – it is defined by politics. What we call an economic unit is really a political unit viewed in its economic aspect: the unit is political.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in Frankfurt (29 March 1971), from The Common Market: The Case Against (Elliot Right Way Books, 1971), pp. 76-77.
1970s

People, World, Nature, Sense

“As for the Internet, I tend to have profound doubts about the value of this communication advance to science. I wonder if, in an era of the Internet, we can have somebody like Eugene Wigner. Eugene Wigner's genius manifested itself in his ability to concentrate for a long time on a single idea. If you are constantly beset by outside ideas, can you really get to the true heart of the matter? It's a very different way of doing science.”

Alvin M. Weinberg (1915–2006) American nuclear physicist

Interview http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev28-1/text/wbgbar.htm by Bill Cabage and Carolyn Krause for the ORNL Review (April 1995).

Way, Idea, Science, Time

“There are three kinds of writing in economics: Greek-letter, up-and-down, and airport. Greek-letter writing formal, theoretical, mathematical is how professors communicate. Like any academic field, economics has its fair share of hacks and phonies, who use complicated language to hide the banality of their ideas; it also contains profound thinkers, who use the specialized language of the discipline as an efficient way to express deep insights. […] Up-and-down economics is what one encounters on the business pages of newspapers, or for that matter on TV. It is preoccupied with the latest news and the latest numbers, hence its name. […] Finally, airport economics is the language of economics bestsellers. These books are most prominently displayed at airport bookstores, where the delayed business traveler is likely to buy them. Most of these books predict disaster: a new great depression, the evisceration of our economy by Japanese multinationals, the collapse of our money. A minority have the opposite view, a boundless optimism: new technology or supply-side economics is about to lead us into an era of unprecedented economic progress. Whether pessimistic or optimistic, airport economics is usually fun, rarely well informed, and never serious.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Preface
The Age of Diminished Expectations (1990; 1994; 1997)

Money, Books, Way, Travel

“Feudalism, whatever may be said of it otherwise, was at least based on an personal relationship: capitalism, on the other hand, is a relationship of things. The difference in the two is vast; and the difference in the outlook engendered in the community is also vast.”

William Earsman (1884–1965) Australian left-wing activist

The Proletariat and Education: The Necessity for Labor Colleges

Personality

“During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, TV, air travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts. Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale…”

David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist

"On Dialogue"

World, Travel, Feeling, Past

“Serious debates are taking place about how law enforcement personnel relate to the communities they serve, about the appropriate use of force, and about real and perceived biases, both within and outside of law enforcement. These are important debates. Every American should feel free to express an informed opinion—to protest peacefully, to convey frustration and even anger in a constructive way. That’s what makes our democracy great. Those conversations—as bumpy and uncomfortable as they can be—help us understand different perspectives, and better serve our communities. Of course, these are only conversations in the true sense of that word if we are willing not only to talk, but to listen, too.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Law, Way, Feeling, Democracy

“The area of scientific interest is… the study of the objectives, functions, structure, properties, behaviour, performance and effects of informative communication processes and information systems. To this study the name "information science" can legitimately be attached.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Information Systems (1973), p. 330; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).

Study, Science

“His formidable originality within the picture-book convention may not have been altogether apparent to Keeping himself, which is both a strength and a weakness: the strength that he could communicate with unrivalled emotional intensity — but possibly only with one child in twenty; the concomitant weakness is that there was not a lot he could do to broaden this minority appeal and ensure that his books remained in print over longer periods. ~ Douglas Martin in Charles Keeping: an illustrator's life (1993) he is a good auther”

Charles Keeping (1924–1988) British illustrator and children's writer

Life, Books

“Words are sublime, and in books we may commune with the dead. Beyond this there is nothing true, no voices we can hear.”

Sofia Samatar book A Stranger in Olondria

Source: A Stranger in Olondria (2013), Chapter 8, “The Tower of Myrrh” (p. 92)

Books, Dead

“My deepest regret from my years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt these crimes.”

Madeleine K. Albright (1937–2022) Former U.S. Secretary of State

Comment on the Rwandan Genocide in Madam Secretary (2003), p. 147.
2000s

Failure

“The new community which the capitalists are now constructing will be a very complete and absolute community; and one which will tolerate nothing really independent of itself.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Source: Utopia of Usurers (1917), pp. 33-34

“Let us look facts straight in the eye. World imperialism headed by its aggressive detachment, U. S. imperialism, is directing the course of its economy towards preparations for war. It is arming itself to the teeth. U. S. imperialism is rearming Bonn's Germany, Japan, and all its allies and satellites with all kinds of weapons. It has set up and perfected aggressive military organizations, it has established and continues to establish military bases all around the socialist camp. It is accumulating stocks of nuclear weapons and refuses to disarm, to stop testing nuclear weapons, and is feverishly engaged in inventing new means of mass extermination. Why is it doing all this? To go to a wedding party? No, to go to war against us, to do away with socialism and communism, to put the peoples under bondage.”

Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of L…

Speeches, Moscow Address

War, People, World, Wedding

“It is the thesis of this book that society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine, are destined to play an ever-increasing part”

Norbert Wiener book The Human Use of Human Beings

Source: The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), p. 16

Books, Study, Future, Parting

“Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth has developed so far that a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world, the idea of a cosmopolitan right is not fantastical, high-flown or exaggerated notion. It is a complement to the unwritten code of the civil and international law, necessary for the public rights of mankind in general and thus for the realization of perpetual peace.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (1795)

People, World, Peace, Law

“We fought to show that aggression does not pay and that the robber cannot be allowed to get away with his swag. We fought with the support of so many throughout the world: the Security Council, the Commonwealth, the European Community, and the United States. Yet we also fought alone – for we fought for our own sovereign territory.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Rally at Cheltenham (3 July 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104989, regarding the Falkland Islands War. First term as Prime Minister

World, Support

“The consolidation of State capitalism in Russia itself was the determining basis for the character of the Communist Party. Whilst in its foreign propaganda it continued to speak of communism and world revolution, decried capitalism, called upon the workers to join in the fight for freedom, the workers in Russia were a subjected and exploited class, living mostly in miserable working conditions, under a strong and oppressive dictatorial rule, without freedom of speech, of press, of association, more strongly enslaved than their brethren under Western capitalism. Thus an inherent falsehood must pervade politics and teachings of that party. … The doctrine it taught under the name of Marxism was not the theory of the overthrow of highly developed capitalism by a highly developed working class, but its caricature. … The Communist Party did not intend to make the workers independent fighters capable by their force of insight themselves to build their new world, but to make them obedient followers ready to put the party into power.”

Antonie Pannekoek (1873–1960) Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist

Workers Councils (1947), Section 2.5

World, Freedom, Strong, Fight

“This world materialist, hedonist and exhibitionist it doesn't even thrill me; and, considering that he reads me, you/he/she should know him/it. But I would want to know the system that you have in mind, and don't have the courage or the ability to propose. A Franciscan world? Beautiful: but looked around you, and tell me if you see a saio. A revised and correct communism? It would make the end of the other, even if he/she won't succeed in repeating its disasters. Believe me G.: the only acceptable social and economic system today, in West, it is that based on the market: a checked capitalism and moderate, to intend us. It is desirable that it may also correct: and not this always happens, it is true. The trouble is that the capitalism is served as the capitalists - and those, must admit, they are often difficult to be digested. You don't try to confuse me the ideas, therefore. You won't succeed us. I probably have three times his/her years, and I have seen where they conduct these generic pulls against "the multinationals": sooner or later, someone will depose the bar and he/she will take the gun. I forgot: I sign my opinions, she throws the stone and it hides the hand. All brave ones so, you boys of Seattle?”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Corriere della Sera, 9 June 2001.
2000s - 2010s

World, Beauty, Boy, Idea

“To some extent we are all the prisoners of stereotypes; we see each other in terms of distorted and oversimplified images. Better communication in the realm of ideas, of the arts, and of science can help refashion these false images. And by seeing more clearly we may act more wisely.”

Chester Bowles (1901–1986) American politician

Page 255
The Conscience of a Liberal, 1962

Art, Idea, Science, Help

“While in improvisation there is a sense of craft within one's own instrument and in being able to interact with other musicians, in noise this disappears to the extent of anti-virtuosity becoming a virtue. A nihilist approach to improvisation in which the interaction is not based upon developing common denominators for some communication to happen among the players, but rather a matter of developing the freedom of individual expression.”

Mattin (1977) Spanish musician

Page 173.
"Anti-Copyright: Why Improvisation and Noise Run Against the Idea of Intellectual Property" (October 2008)

Sense, Freedom

“Community cannot feed for long on itself; it can only flourish where always the boundaries are giving way to the coming of others from beyond them — unknown and undiscovered brothers.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

The Search For Common Ground : An Inquiry Into The Basis Of Man's Experience Of Community (1971), p. 104

Way

“We are safer when communities respect the police and police respect communities.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Source: Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Orlando, Florida (September 21, 2016)

“The fourth phase which commenced with the coming of independence proved a boon for Christianity. The Christian right to convert Hindus was incorporated in the Constitution. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who dominated the scene for 17 long years, promoted every anti-Hindu ideology and movement behind the smokescreen of a counterfeit secularism. The regimes that followed continued to raise the spectre of ‘Hindu communalism’ as the most frightening phenomenon. Christian missionaries could now denounce as a Hindu communalist and chauvinist, even as a Hindu Nazi, any one who raised the slightest objection to their means and methods. All sorts of ‘secularists’ came forward to join the chorus. New theologies of Fulfilment, Indigenisation, Liberation, and Dialogue were evolved and put into action. The missionary apparatus multiplied fast and became pervasive. Christianity had never had it so good in the whole of its history in India. It now stood recognized as ‘an ancient Indian religion’ with every right to extend its field of operation and expand its flock. The only rift in the lute was K. M. Panikkar’s book, Asia and Western Dominance, published from London in 1953, the Niyogi Committee Report published by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1956, and Om Prakash Tyagi’s Bill on Freedom of Religion introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 1978.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Vindicated by Time: The Niyogi Committee Report (1998)

Books, Religion, History, Freedom

“It is impossible to build Europe on only deregulation…1992 is much more than the creation of an internal market abolishing barriers to the free movement of goods services and investment…The internal market should be desgined to benefit each and every citizen of the Community. It is therefore necessary to improve workers' living and working conditions, and to provide better protection for their health and safety at work…Europe needs you.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Speech to the British Trades Union Congress (8 September 1988), quoted in The Independent (9 September 1988).

Health

“I believe that any form of writing exercise is good for you. I also believe that any form of tuition which helps develop your awareness of the different properties, styles, and effects of writing is good for you. It helps you become a better reader, more sensitive to nuance, and a better writer, more sensitive to audience. Texting language is no different from other innovative forms of written expression that have emerged in the past. It is a type of language whose communicative strengths and weaknesses need to be appreciated.”

David Crystal (1941) British linguist and writer

David Crystal, Txtng: The Gr8 Db8, OUP Oxford, 2009. p. 128

Exercises, Past, Help

“Unfortunately, in places like Ferguson and New York City, and in some communities across this nation, there is a disconnect between police agencies and many citizens—predominantly in communities of color.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Color

“These burdens and frustrations are accepted by most Americans with maturity and understanding. They may long for the days when war meant charging up San Juan Hill-or when our isolation was guarded by two oceans — or when the atomic bomb was ours alone — or when much of the industrialized world depended upon our resources and our aid. But they now know that those days are gone — and that gone with them are the old policies and the old complacency's. And they know, too, that we must make the best of our new problems and our new opportunities, whatever the risk and the cost.
But there are others who cannot bear the burden of a long twilight struggle. They lack confidence in our long-run capacity to survive and succeed. Hating communism, yet they see communism in the long run, perhaps, as the wave of the future. And they want some quick and easy and final and cheap solution — now.
There are two groups of these frustrated citizens, far apart in their views yet very much alike in their approach. On the one hand are those who urge upon us what I regard to be the pathway of surrender-appeasing our enemies, compromising our commitments, purchasing peace at any price, disavowing our arms, our friends, our obligations. If their view had prevailed, the world of free choice would be smaller today.
On the other hand are those who urge upon us what I regard to be the pathway of war: equating negotiations with appeasement and substituting rigidity for firmness. If their view had prevailed, we would be at war today, and in more than one place.
It is a curious fact that each of these extreme opposites resembles the other. Each believes that we have only two choices: appeasement or war, suicide or surrender, humiliation or holocaust, to be either Red or dead. Each side sees only "hard" and "soft" nations, hard and soft policies, hard and soft men. Each believes that any departure from its own course inevitably leads to the other: one group believes that any peaceful solution means appeasement; the other believes that any arms build-up means war. One group regards everyone else as warmongers, the other regards everyone else as appeasers. Neither side admits that its path will lead to disaster — but neither can tell us how or where to draw the line once we descend the slippery slopes of appeasement or constant intervention.
In short, while both extremes profess to be the true realists of our time, neither could be more unrealistic. While both claim to be doing the nation a service, they could do it no greater disservice. This kind of talk and easy solutions to difficult problems, if believed, could inspire a lack of confidence among our people when they must all — above all else — be united in recognizing the long and difficult days that lie ahead. It could inspire uncertainty among our allies when above all else they must be confident in us. And even more dangerously, it could, if believed, inspire doubt among our adversaries when they must above all be convinced that we will defend our vital interests.
The essential fact that both of these groups fail to grasp is that diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fail. A willingness to resist force, unaccompanied by a willingness to talk, could provoke belligerence — while a willingness to talk, unaccompanied by a willingness to resist force, could invite disaster.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Address at the University of Washington

Men, Hate, War, People

“Loving does not necessarily mean liking. But it still is loving, yes — totally, completely, utterly. Take the key of wisdom and unlock your own heart. Then let people in one by one. Listen to them, with full attention, with all your mind, heart, body and soul, unto exhaustion. And look! — the exhaustion will be lifted, and you will be able to listen still more. Yes, love must be communicated person to person; otherwise it will not be effective.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Molchanie (1982)

Love, Wisdom, People, Soul

“I thank the Foreign Secretary for giving way. I assure him that at least 60 Labour Members voted against the Bill on Second Reading and I am sure that they will vote against the Maastricht treaty again tonight, primarily because it takes away from national Parliaments the power to set economic policy and hands it over to an unelected set of bankers who will impose the economic policies of price stability, deflation and high unemployment throughout the European Community.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1993/may/20/european-communities-amendment-bill in the House of Commons (20 May 1993). 1990s

Way, Reading

“All around the world people are saying that we want to struggle to continue as global communities, to create a world free of xenophonbia and racism, a world from which poverty has been expunged, and the availability of food is not subject to the demands of capitalist profit. I would say a world where a corporation like Monsanto would be deemed criminal. Where homophobia and transphobia can truly be called historical relics along with the punishment of incarceration and institutions of confinement for disabled people; and where everyone learns how to respect the environment and all of the creatures, human and non-human alike, with whom we cohabit our worlds.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities (2013)

People, World, Food, Learning

“Our magical tools and insights, our awareness of energies and allies on many planes, can deepen and inform our activism. And our activism can deepen our magic, by encouraging us to create ritual that speaks to the real challenges we face in the world, offers the healing and renewal we need to continue working, and a community that understands that spirit and action are one.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

Toward an Activist Spirituality (2003)

World, Understanding

“This dialectical structure must be understood in terms of a dynamic process of communication.”

Roger Haight (1936) American theologian

Source: Dynamics Of Theology, Chapter Nine, The Structure of Interpretation, p. 178

“Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration… This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat or exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (August 2, 1939, delivered October 11, 1939); reported in Einstein on Peace, ed. Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden (1960, reprinted 1981), pp. 294–95
1930s

Future, Parting

“How far our position is a minority one will differ from person to person here. If we are against factory farms, we are morally condemning widespread and perfectly legal practices involving perhaps the majority of the human community. If we are vegetarians, we hold a position which is very much a minority one. If we are pretty radical anti-vivisectionists, we also hold what seems to be a minority position, involving as it does a radical criticism of the law and the establishment of this country.”

Timothy Sprigge (1932–2007) British philosopher

Source: The Animal Welfare Movement and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 87

Law, Personality, Country

“Since whatever we do has to be part of a team, part of a community, we have to attempt to bring together those who have the same conviction, see the same things. Then it becomes a matter of time, when one or the other will prevail. Fortunately, there is all this diversity, and if not for that, problems would not be solved.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

Problem, Time, Parting

“Writing seems to rob me of my being: it is a second hand mode of communication, a pallid, mechanical transcript of speech, and so always at one remove from my consciousness.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

Source: 1980s, Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), Chapter 4, p. 113 (See also: Julian Jaynes)

“Nevertheless it is evident — if only from the Greek example just cited — that proto-nationalism, where it existed, made the task of nationalism easier, however great the differences between the two, insofar as existing symbols and sentiments of proto-national community could he mobilized behind a modern cause or a modern state. But this is far from saying that the two were the same, or even that one must logically or inevitably lead into the other. For it is evident that proto-nationalism alone is clearly not enough to form nationalities, nations, let alone states.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Source: Nations and nationalism since 1780 programme, myth, reality (1992), pp. 76–77.

“If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act.”

John F. Kerry (1943) politician from the United States

New York Times op-ed, September 6, 2002 http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=5596

“It is improper, to expressly pursue the Urlinie in performance and to single out its tones… for the purpose of communicating the Urlinie to the listener." Rather, "for the performer, the Urlinie provides, first of all, a sense of direction. It serves a somewhat equivalent function to that which a road map serves for a mountain climber.”

Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935) Austrian music theorist

Das Meisterwerk I, p. 196. Translated by Kalib, vol. 2, p. 147. Quoted in Burkhart, Charles (1983). "Schenker's Theory of Levels and Musical Performance", Aspects of Schenkerian Theory, Beach David, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Mountain, Sense

“The coordination of information technology management presents a challenge to firms with dispersed IT practices. Decentralization may bring flexibility and fast response to changing business needs, as well as other benefits, but decentralization also makes systems integration difficult, presents a barrier to standardization, and acts as a disincentive toward achieving economies of scale. As a result, there is a need to balance the decentralization of IT management to business units with some centralized planning for technology, data, and human resources.
Here we explore three major mechanisms for facilitating inter-unit coordination of IT management: structural design approaches, functional coordination modes, and computer-based communication systems. We define these various mechanisms and their interrelationships, and we discuss the relative costs and benefits associated with alternative coordination approaches.
To illustrate the cost-benefit tradeoffs of coordination approaches, we present a case study in which computer-based communication systems were used to support team-based coordination of IT management across dispersed business units. Our analysis reveals possibilities for future approaches to IT coordination in large, dispersed organizations.”

Gerardine DeSanctis (1954–2005) American organizational theorist

Gerardine DeSanctis and Brad M. Jackson (1994) "Coordination of information technology management: Team-based structures and computer-based communication systems." Journal of Management Information Systems Vol 10 (4). p. 85-110. Abstract

Business, Support, Study, Change

“Jewish people in Canada, Israel and around the world will begin celebrating Purim. I would like to extend my best wishes to the community as you celebrate with some of the happiest traditions of the holiday. Chag Purim Sameach!
Happy Purim! Chag Sameach! This evening, Jewish people in Canada, Israel and around the world will begin celebrating Purim. This delightful holiday tells the story of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai, who saved the Jewish community of ancient Persia from their persecutor, Haman. Purim celebrates their heroism and bravery, which led to the survival and victory of the Jewish people. For all Canadians, the story of Purim is a reminder of the freedoms we enjoy and our duty to stand against religious intolerance.
I would like to extend my best wishes to Canada’s Jewish community as you celebrate with some of the happiest traditions of the holiday: the reading of the Book of Esther (Megillat Esther); the exchange of special gift baskets with family and friends (Mishloach Manot); and, of course, eating delicious Hamentashen pastries. Have a fun and festive celebration! Happy Purim! Freilichen Purim!”

Andrew Scheer (1979) 35th Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons and MP for Regina—Qu'Appelle

28 February 2018 tweet https://twitter.com/andrewscheer/status/968965231987830786?lang=en referencing Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/notes/andrew-scheer/happy-purim/1939533102747099/

People, Books, World, Family

“Good communication is not just data transfer. You need to show people something that addresses their anxieties, that accepts their anger, that is credible in a very gut-level sense, and that evokes faith in the vision.”

John P. Kotter (1947) author of The heart of Change

Step 4, p. 84
The Heart of Change, (2002)

People, Faith, Sense, Anger

“The soil would have soon fallen into the hands of United States capitalists. The products are so valuable in commerce that emigration there would have been encouraged; the emancipated race of the South would have found there a congenial home, where their civil rights would not be disputed and where their labor would be so much sought after that the poorest among them could have found the means to go. Thus in cases of great oppression and cruelty, such as has been practiced upon them in many places within the last eleven years, whole communities would have sought refuge in Santo Domingo. I do not suppose the whole race would have gone, nor is it desirable that they should go. Their labor is desirable—indispensable almost—where they now are. But the possession of this territory would have left the negro 'master of the situation', by enabling him to demand his rights at home on pain of finding them elsewhere.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Eighth State of the Union Address (1876)

Pain, Home

Ali Shariati (1933–1977) Iranian academic and activist

Source: Where Shall We Begin, 1997-2013, p. 1.

God, Soul

“Either communistic production is superior to free production, or it is not.If it is, then it must be for all things, not just for security.If not, progress requires that it be replaced by free production.Complete communism or complete liberty: that is the alternative!”

Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912) Belgian political economist and classical liberal theorist

Source: The Production of Security (1849), p. 40

“Had they ever thought of the parallel in the origins of Mohammedanism and Bolshevism—both springing out of Christianity, one proclaiming brotherhood and the other communism, but both proclaiming death and damnation upon all unbelievers. Within a century of the death of the prophet the Mohammedans had spread from Arabia to the Pyrenees by means of the sword and were stopped by Charles Martel at Tours. Russia throws up few great men but imagine what might happen if a Bolsehvik Peter the Great appeared on the scene.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Conversation with Thomas Jones (3 July 1932), quoted in Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters. 1931-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 43.
1932

Death, Men, Imagination, Spring

“I am accountable to the composer, but I am also there to communicate something to the listener. I am not delivering a soliloquy, but am somewhere in the middle.”

Alfred Brendel (1931) Austrian pianist, poet, and author

As cited in: Nicky Losseff, ‎Jennifer Ruth Doctor (2007), Silence, Music, Silent Music, p. 170

“I will dispense for now from discussion of the moral character of the president's Charlottesville statements. Whether he intended to or not, what he communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn. His apologists strain to explain that he didn't mean what we heard. But what we heard is now the reality, and unless it is addressed by the president as such, with unprecedented candor and strength, there may commence an unraveling of our national fabric.The leaders of our branches of military service have spoken immediately and forcefully, repudiating the implications of the president's words. Why? In part because the morale and commitment of our forces-made up and sustained by men and women of all races--could be in the balance. Our allies around the world are stunned and our enemies celebrate; America's ability to help secure a peaceful and prosperous world is diminished. And who would want to come to the aid of a country they perceive as racist if ever the need were to arise, as it did after 9/11?In homes across the nation, children are asking their parents what this means. Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims are as much a part of America as whites and Protestants. But today they wonder. Where might this lead? To bitterness and tears, or perhaps to anger and violence?The potential consequences are severe in the extreme. Accordingly, the president must take remedial action in the extreme. He should address the American people, acknowledge that he was wrong, apologize. State forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville. Testify that there is no conceivable comparison or moral equivalency between the Nazis--who brutally murdered millions of Jews and who hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat--and the counter-protestors who were outraged to see fools parading the Nazi flag, Nazi armband and Nazi salute. And once and for all, he must definitively repudiate the support of David Duke and his ilk and call for every American to banish racists and haters from any and every association.This is a defining moment for President Trump. But much more than that, it is a moment that will define America in the hearts of our children. They are watching, our soldiers are watching, the world is watching. Mr. President, act now for the good of the country.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Facebook statement https://www.facebook.com/mittromney/posts/10154652303536121 (18 August 2017) 2017

Women, Men, Children, People

“One of our primary tasks is to foster in people a desire to attain lofty social goals, to foster in them ideological conviction and a truly creative attitude to work. This is a very important area of struggle for communism, and the economic as well as the socio-political development of the country will be increasingly dependent on our successes in this area.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Cited in Triumph of Lenin's Ideas http://leninist.biz/en/1978/TOLI198/01-Opening.Remarks

People, Success, Dependency, Country

“Biological communities are systems of interacting components and thus display characteristic properties of systems, such as mutual interdependence, self-regulation, adaptation to disturbances, approach to states of equilibrium, etc.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

As cited in: Debora Hammond (2005). "Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Systems Thinking", in: tripleC 3(2): pp. 20–27.
1950s, Problems of Life (1952, 1960)

“In the American Jewish community, there is little willingness to face the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have suffered a monstrous historical injustice, whatever one may think of the competing claims. Until this is recognized, discussion of the Middle East crisis cannot even begin.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood http://books.google.nl/books?id=gtNtAAAAMAAJ, 1974, p. 54. Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1970s

Thinking, Suffering

“Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Persians, Chinese and Japanese could be cited as examples of ethnic continuity, since, despite massive cultural changes over the centuries, certain key identifying components—name, language, customs, religious community and territorial association—were broadly maintained and reproduced for millennia.”

Anthony D. Smith (1939–2016) British academic

Source: Nationalism and Modernism (1998), p. 191.

Change

“Here is the basis of the modern critical biblical science, which treats the documents of Christianity and Judaism according to the same principles of historical investigation which are valid in all other historical domains, particularly in that of the history of the ethnic religions.
The attempt has been crowned with brilliant success. Everywhere, where formerly miracles and oracles, the activity of supernatural persons, and the appearance on the scene of supernatural beings were thought to be discerned, there shows itself now a constant succession of events that are natural, i. e. in accord with the universal laws of human experience. The prophets appear no longer as media of supernatural oracles, but as men whose works and words are perfectly explicable from the character regarded in connection with the conditions of their age and environment. They stand, indeed, in a certain respect above their contemporaries, so far as they contest the modes of thought and action of the latter, and hold before them higher ideals of purer piety and morality; yet these ideals were not communicated to them from without by supernatural revelation, but sprang from their own spirit as products of an especially powerful and happy religious-moral nature, which, under the influence of historical relations, had been so developed that they saw clearly what was perverted in the mode of thought of others, and gave to the better a potent expression.”

Otto Pfleiderer (1839–1908) German Protestant theologian

Source: Evolution and Theology (1900), pp. 10-11.

Men, Age, Religion, Law

“Trägårdh and his collaborator—a well-known Swedish historian and journalist named Henrik Berggre—put together their observations on individualism and formulated something they called “the Swedish theory of love.” The core idea is that authentic love and friendship are possible only between individuals who are independent and equal. This notion represents exactly the values that I grew up with and that I feel are most dear to Finns as well as people from the other Nordic nations, not just Swedes, so I like to call it “the Nordic theory of love.” For the citizens of the Nordic countries, the most important values in life are individual self-sufficiency and independence in relation to other members of the community.”

Anu Partanen (1975) journalist

Prologue
The Nordic Theory of Everything

Love, Life, Friendship, People

“Apart from the greatness of Bizos for his role in the dismantling of apartheid, defending Mandela etc, he also manifested a genius in his role as a leading member of the conservative South African Greek community, by drawing historical parallels between the 400 years of slavery that Greece had suffered under the Ottoman Turks and the 300 years or so of repression and cruelty suffered by the Southern African black tribes and mixed race people under the British and then under the Nationalist Afrikaner rule. By using this strategy Bizos was able to balance his fight for justice in South Africa, and synchronously lead the very conservative Greek community in a more progressive direction.”

Angelique Rockas South African actress and founder of Internationalist Theatre, London

On George Bizos
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

People, Justice, Suffering, Fight

“A second part of criticisms [of our concept, Multitude], which relate closely to the first, focus on the economic conception of the multitude. … "You are really against the workers!" … Industrial labor has been displaced from its hegemonic position over other forms of labor by immaterial labor, which now tends to transform all sectors of production and society itself in line with its qualities. Industrial workers remain important, then, but within the context of this new paradigm. Here arises, then, but within the second criticism of this pair, that our argument of hegemony of immaterial labor replaces the old vanguard of industrial workers with a new vanguard of immaterial workers - Microsoft programmers leading us on the shining path. "You are just postmodern Leninist in sheep's clothing!" they cry. No, the hegemonic position of a form of production in the economy should not imply any political hegemony. Our argument about the hegemony of immaterial labor and the becoming common of all forms of labor is aimed instead at establishing that contemporary conditions tending to form a general communication and collaboration of labor that can be the basis of the multitude.”

Antonio Negri book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

(223)
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

Parting, Cry, Clothes

“In the silence
that is his chosen medium
of communication and telling
others about it
in words. Is there no way
not to be the sport
of reason?”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"The New Mariner", p. 99
Between Here and Now (1981)

Way, Sport, Silence

“These Thoughts, my dear Friend, are many of them crude and hasty, and if I were merely ambitious of acquiring some Reputation in Philosophy, I ought to keep them by me, ’till corrected and improved by Time and farther Experience. But since even short Hints, and imperfect Experiments in any new Branch of Science, being communicated, have oftentimes a good Effect, in exciting the attention of the Ingenious to the Subject, and so becoming the Occasion of more exact disquisitions (as I before observed) and more compleat Discoveries, you are at Liberty to communicate this Paper to whom you please; it being of more Importance that Knowledge should increase, than that your Friend should be thought an accurate Philosopher.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, September 1753.
1750s

Knowledge, Science, Time

“Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation and the end of our democratically elected Parliament as the supreme law making body in the United Kingdom.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Letter to Bristol constituents (29 December 1974), reprinted in Tony Benn, 'The Common Market: Loss of Self-Government', in M. Holmes (ed.), The Eurosceptical Reader (Springer, 2016), p. 38
1970s

Law

“I must say that when my Southern Christian Leadership Conference began its work in Birmingham, we encountered numerous Negro church reactions that had to be overcome. Negro ministers were among other Negro leaders who felt they were being pulled into something that they had not helped to organize. This is almost always a problem. Negro community unity was the first requisite if our goals were to be realized. I talked with many groups, including one group of 200 ministers, my theme to them being that a minister cannot preach the glories of heaven while ignoring social conditions in his own community that cause men an earthly hell. I stressed that the Negro minister had particular freedom and independence to provide strong, firm leadership, and I asked how the Negro would ever gain freedom without his minister's guidance, support and inspiration. These ministers finally decided to entrust our movement with their support, and as a result, the role of the Negro church today, by and large, is a glorious example in the history of Christendom. For never in Christian history, within a Christian country, have Christian churches been on the receiving end of such naked brutality and violence as we are witnessing here in America today. Not since the days of the Christians in the catacombs has God's house, as a symbol, weathered such attack as the Negro churches.
I shall never forget the grief and bitterness I felt on that terrible September morning when a bomb blew out the lives of those four little, innocent girls sitting in their Sunday-school class in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. I think of how a woman cried out, crunching through broken glass, "My God, we're not even safe in church!" I think of how that explosion blew the face of Jesus Christ from a stained-glass window. It was symbolic of how sin and evil had blotted out the life of Christ. I can remember thinking that if men were this bestial, was it all worth it? Was there any hope? Was there any way out?… time has healed the wounds -- and buoyed me with the inspiration of another moment which I shall never forget: when I saw with my own eyes over 3000 young Negro boys and girls, totally unarmed, leave Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church to march to a prayer meeting -- ready to pit nothing but the power of their bodies and souls against Bull Connor's police dogs, clubs and fire hoses. When they refused Connor's bellowed order to turn back, he whirled and shouted to his men to turn on the hoses. It was one of the most fantastic events of the Birmingham story that these Negroes, many of them on their knees, stared, unafraid and unmoving, at Connor's men with the hose nozzles in their hands. Then, slowly the Negroes stood up and advanced, and Connor's men fell back as though hypnotized, as the Negroes marched on past to hold their prayer meeting. I saw there, I felt there, for the first time, the pride and the power of nonviolence.
Another time I will never forget was one Saturday night, late, when my brother telephoned me in Atlanta from Birmingham -- that city which some call "Bombingham" -- which I had just left. He told me that a bomb had wrecked his home, and that another bomb, positioned to exert its maximum force upon the motel room in which I had been staying, had injured several people. My brother described the terror in the streets as Negroes, furious at the bombings, fought whites. Then, behind his voice, I heard a rising chorus of beautiful singing: "We shall overcome."”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Tears came into my eyes that at such a tragic moment, my race still could sing its hope and faith. Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html 1960s

Life, Men, God, People

“If an environmental trace is in close connection with the Ego system it will not only be in communication with the particular time structure of that system with which it communicated at the time of its formation; but because of the coherence of the whole temporal Ego system it will be in communication with later strata also.”

Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) German psychologist

Source: Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935, p. 522

Time

“We will work to prevent and repair damage by Saddam Hussein's regime to the natural resources of Iraq and pledge to protect them as a national asset of and for the Iraqi people. All Iraqis should share the wealth generated by their national economy. We will seek a swift end to international sanctions, and support an international reconstruction program to help Iraq achieve real prosperity and reintegrate into the global community.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, A Vision for Iraq and the Iraqi people (March 2003)

People, Support, Nature, Help

“Democracy for the cast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i. e., exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the people - this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to Communism.”

Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution

Marxism: Essential Writings, "The State and Revolution"
The State and Revolution (1917)

People, Democracy, Change

“I'll tell you what harms the vast majority of Muslims that love freedom and hate terror: Muslim theocracy does. Muslim intolerance does. Wahabism does. Salafism does. Islamism does. Jihadism does. Sharia law does. The mere conservatism of traditional Islam does. We're not talking about only jihadists hating homosexuals and thinking they should die, we're talking about conservative Muslims. The percentage of British Muslims polled who said that homosexuality was morally acceptable was zero. Do you realize what it takes to say something so controversial in a poll that not even 1% of those polled would agree with it? There's almost no question that extreme that you will ever see in a poll that gets a zero, but ask British Muslims whether homosexuality is morally acceptable, and that's what you get. And the result is more or less the same in dozens of other countries. It's zero in Cameroon, zero in Ethiopia. 1% in Nigeria, 1% in Tanzania, 1% in Mali, 2% in Kenya, 2% in Chad. 1% in Lebanon, 1% in Egypt, 1% in the Palestinian territories, 1% in Iraq, 2% in Jordan, 2% in Tunisia, 1% in Pakistan. But 10% in Bangladesh. Bangladesh: that bright spot in the Muslim world where they are regularly hunting down and butchering secular writers with machetes. The people who suffer under this belief system are Muslims themselves. The next generation of human beings born into a Muslim community who could otherwise have been liberal, tolerant, well-educated, cosmopolitan productive people are to one or another degree being taught to aspire to live in the Middle Ages, or to ruin this world on route to some fictional paradise after death. That's the thing we have to get our heads around. And yes, some of what I just said applies with varying modifications to other religions and other cults. But there is nothing like Islam at this moment for generating this kind of intolerance and chaos. And if only a right wing demagogue will speak honestly about it, then we will elect right wing demagogues in the West more and more in response to it. And that will be the price of political correctness: that's when this check will finally get cashed. That will be the consequence of this persistent failure we see among liberals to speak and think and act with real moral clarity and courage on this issue. The root of this problem is that liberals consistently fail to defend liberal values as universal human values. Their political correctness, their multiculturalism, their moral relativism has led them to rush to the defense of theocrats and to abandon the victims of theocracy and to vilify anyone who calls out this hypocrisy for what it is as a bigot. And to be clear, and this is what liberals can't seem to get, is that speaking honestly about the ideas that inspire Islamism and jihadism, beliefs about martyrdom, and apostasy and blasphemy and paradise and honour and women, is not an expression of hatred for Muslims. It is in fact the only way to support the embattled people in the Muslim community: The reformers and the liberals and the seculars and the free thinkers and the gays and the Shiia in Sunni-majority context and Sufis and Ahmadiyyas, and as Maajid Nawaz said, the minorities within the minority, who are living under the shadow, and sword rather often, under theocracy. […] If you think that speaking honestly about the need for reform within Islam will alienate your allies in the Muslim community, then you don't know who your allies are.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "Waking Up with Sam Harris Podcast #38 — The End of Faith Sessions 2" (15 June 2016) https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-end-of-faith-sessions-2 2010s

Love, Death, Women, Hate

“Here in this country, although our political divisions were deep, in time of need we were able to transcend them in the interests of the whole community. Throughout the British Commonwealth and Empire there were immense diversities of race, colour, creed, and degrees of civilization, yet the links that united all together, though often intangible, proved strong as steel in the day of trial. This was because, despite many shortcomings and failures to implement fully the ideals which we held, the British Commonwealth and Empire had stood for freedom and justice, and because we had learnt through long centuries the lesson of how to live together without attempting to exact regimented uniformity.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Carmarthen, Wales (3 September 1943), quoted in The Times (4 September 1943), p. 2.
1940s

Justice, Failure, Freedom, Strong

“I often wonder if all the people in this country realise the inevitable changes that are coming over the industrial system in England…owing to the peculiar circumstances of my own life, I have seen a great deal of this evolution taking place before my own eyes. I worked for many years in an industrial business, and had under me a large number, or what was then a large number, of men…I was probably working under a system that was already passing. I doubt if its like could have been found in any of the big modern industrial towns of this country, even at that time. It was a place where I knew, and had known from childhood, every man on the ground, a place where I was able to talk with the men not only about the troubles in the works, but troubles at home where strikes and lock-outs were unknown. It was a place where the fathers and grandfathers of the men then working there had worked, and where their sons went automatically into the business. It was also a place where nobody ever "got the sack," and where we had a natural sympathy for those who were less concerned in efficiency than is this generation, and where a number of old gentlemen used to spend their days sitting on the handle of a wheelbarrow, smoking their pipes. Oddly enough, it was not an inefficient community. It was the last survivor of that type of works, and ultimately became swallowed up in one of those great combinations towards which the industries of to-day are tending.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1925/mar/06/industrial-peace in the House of Commons (6 March 1925). 1925

Life, Men, People, Home

“Multiculturalism in Europe is dead in the water, as every recent election has shown. Even the politicians are admitting it now. Some people cling to the illusion of it still, the way the Soviets clung to the illusion of Communism, but it's over, and these show trials and violent street attacks are symptoms of its death throes. They're the desperate acts of desperate people who've totally lost their way. Criminalizing opinion is an open admission that lawmakers have lost control, and created a situation they can't handle. But that's what happens when the people are never asked for their opinion, and, when they give it, it's ignored.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Free speech in Europe" (10 November 2010) http://youtube.com/watch?v=bWw7H4m389o 2010

Death, People, Way, Water

“A superpower is a cold war term. When people today say that Russia aspires to have this status, I interpret it in the following way: they want to undermine trust in Russia, to portray Russia as frightening, and create some kind of image of an enemy. … Russia is in favor of a multipolar world, a democratic world order, strengthening the system of international law, and for developing a legal system in which any small country, even a very small country, can feel itself secure, as if behind a stone wall. … Russia is ready to become part of this multipolar world and guarantee that the international community observes these rules. And not as a superpower with special rights, but rather as an equal among equals.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2007/01/18/0726_type82914type82916_117126.shtml 2006- 2010

War, People, World, Law

“A community`s art is its spiritual vision.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), p. 206

Art

“To misperceive the DPRK as a communist state – either of the Stalinist or indigenized kind – is therefore to misunderstand and miscalculate its behavior. I often encounter resistance to this point when lecturing to American audiences. Conservatives do not want communism let off the hook for creating this state, and liberals do not want Washington let off the hook for bullying it. Politically correct college students object to the attribution of racism to non-whites.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, North Korea's State Loyalty Advantage (December 2011)

Behavior

“This book is intended as an exploratory sketch of a revolutionary scientific perspective and conceptual framework as it might be applied to sociocultural systems. This point of view and still developing framework, as interpreted here, stems from the General Systems Research movement and the now closely allied fields of Cybernetics and information or communication theory.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. vii.

Books

“As you open up spiritually, your subtle body has a particular effulgence which attracts entities from both the divine and negative natures. You become more sensitive and aware of everything. You become more intuitive and have more experiences in the dream state. If there are messages you should receive, the impressions will always be there, even when you are asleep, and you will act on them without consciously being aware of it. If a communication is really meant for your growth, even though you may forget it or may not be able to understand its significance, it will still have an effect on your consciousness. Ultimately, both the positive and negative experiences are “quality tests” to assess your level of sincerity.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 1: Dreams: A State of Reality, p. 21

Dreams, Understanding, Nature, Sincerity

“Scientology, the word means study of life, study of knowledge, and that's where it is. It takes up all areas of life itself, things that are integral and maxims that are related to life and very existence. Let me give you an example. It's better if I take that, because it is such a broad-ranging subject covering so many different areas, the subject of communication. This is something that major breakthroughs exist in Scientology, being able to communicate in the world around you. And I think everybody would agree that this is an important subject. Well, there's an actual formula for communication which can be understood.”

David Miscavige (1960) leader of the Church of Scientology

Scientology Leader Gave ABC First-Ever Interview: David Miscavige, Scientology Leader and Best Man at Tom Cruise's Wedding, Spoke to ABC News' 'Nightline' in 1992, ABC News, November 18, 2006, 2010-07-03 http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2664713,.

Life, World, Knowledge, Thinking

“The Croatian parliament elected me to be the Croatian member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. I went to Belgrade, where first, for several months, I was not allowed to take up my duties because the Federal Assembly was unable to meet. After that, the Serbian bloc boycotted my election as president under… Finally, under pressure from the international community, I was elected president. Croatia adopted a decision on its independence. Croatia, in agreement with the international community, postponed its secession from Yugoslavia by three months. This time period had elapsed. Yugoslavia no longer existed. The federal institutions were no longer functioning. I returned to Zagreb, and that's precisely what I said. Because I [had not gone] to Belgrade to open up a house-painting business. I went there as a member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. Since Yugoslavia no longer existed and the Presidency no longer existed, I had performed the tasks entrusted to me by the Croatian parliament and was reporting back, ready to take up a different office. What was I to do in Belgrade when the Presidency no longer existed?… The accused is a lawyer. He understands very well what I'm talking about. My 'task' was to represent Croatia in the Federal Presidency.”

Stjepan Mesić (1934) Former Croatian and Yugoslav president

ICTY Transcript, Page 10636 - Mesić's cross-examination by Slobodan Milošević at the ICTY on 2 October 2002, 8 April 2012 http://www.icty.org/x/cases/slobodan_milosevic/trans/en/021002IT.htm, Responding to an earlier quote in which he stated My task has come to an end. There is no more Yugoslavia. ("Moj posao je završen - Jugoslavije više nema") 5 December 1991 in the Croatian parliament having left the presidency of the Yugoslav presidency.

Understanding, Business, Decision, Time

“You know, joining a gang is like having a family. It's feeling like you're part of something bigger than yourself. So we're either going to have gangs that murder and rob and do the things that are so destructive to the gang members and to the community. Or, we're going to have positive gangs. We're going to have positive alternatives for young people.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Clinton: We Need Positive Gangs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVD0pvWL6R4; as quoted in * 2016-04-21 Clinton: We Could Have Positive Gangs Chandler Gill Free Beacon http://freebeacon.com/culture/clinton-need-positive-gangs/. Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

People, Family, Feeling, Parting

“If they take the time to do that, what they will see are officers who are human, who are overwhelmingly doing the right thing for the right reasons, and who are too often operating in communities—and facing challenges—most of us choose to drive around.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Time

“In this book I am concerned with certain kinds of communication: communication between parents and children, between associates of the same status, between members of different societies and, through the mediation of various kinds of coding—tools, art, script, formulas, film—between cultures distant from each other in time and place. I shall be concerned to show that we must deal not only with evolutionary sequences, in which our ability to articulate and codify parts of the culture enormously increases our ability to intervene in the cultural process, but also with the coexistence at any period of history of earlier forms of communication side by side with later ones.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1960s, Continuities in Cultural Evolution (1964), p. xxxi

Children, Books, Art, History

“.. the nineteenth-century Empire undeniably pioneered free trade, free capital movements and, with the abolition of slavery, free labour. It invested immense sums in developing a global network of modern communications. It spread and enforced the rule of law over vast areas. Though it fought many small wars, the Empire maintained a global peace unmatched before or since. In the twentieth century too it more than justified its own existence, for the alternatives to British rule represented by the German and Japanese empires were clearly far worse. And without its Empire, it is inconceivable that Britain could have withstood them.”

Niall Ferguson (1964) British historian

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)

War, Peace, Law

“The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff. Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision. It’s just a means to an end. We’re talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that’s not going to happen with people blogging on the internet. I mean, get out there, communicate. Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet. Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging. I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span. There’s too much technology available. I’m sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting than it is today.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Elton John, blaming the internet for destroying good music http://www.gigwise.com/news/35721/elton-john-wants-to-tear-down-the-internet (2 August 2007)

People, World, Art, Music

“If, on the other hand, the Conservative party invites the electorate to link national independence in its mind with Bennery and all things 'left' and to discern in membership of the Community a bulwark against the dangers of socialism, the implications are still more disreputable; for this is nothing other than saying that one would rather live under the tutelage of foreigners than incur the risk of one's fellow countrymen being free to make up their own minds. That would be to stamp the Conservative party as a class party with a vengeance, a slur the more damaging because there were in fact, at the time of the original debates, Conservatives inside and outside Parliament who did advocate membership on precisely that ground—blood brothers, no doubt, of those who in an earlier generation viewed the rise of Hitler with equanimity or approval as a safeguard against Communism.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the Conservative Party conference at Blackpool (14 October 1981), from Enoch Powell on 1992 (Anaya, 1989), p. 127
1980s

Time