Quotes about homeland
page 15

Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Hovhannes Bagramyan photo
Hamid Karzai photo

“My problem is that I am perhaps too much of a democrat for this time of the country's life. If you need a dictator, then go to the Afghan people. Let them elect a dictator. I am not one of those.”

Hamid Karzai (1957) President of Afghanistan

Interview with Times magazine http://e-ariana.com/ariana/eariana.nsf/allDocs/cc7ab8451a21adbb872571ee0040fc07!OpenDocument&Click= (September 10, 2006)
2006

Manmohan Singh photo

“There is no doubt that our grievances against the British Empire had a sound basis for. As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6% in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3% at that time, to as low as 3.8% in 1952. Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th Century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income.”

Manmohan Singh (1932) 13th Prime Minister of India

On the effect of British colonialism on India's economy, as quoted in "Address by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh at Oxford University" https://web.archive.org/web/20070213050232/http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/nic/0046/pmspeech.htm, The Hindu (8 July 2005)
2001-2005

Jusuf Kalla photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“The extent of our country was so great, and its former division into distinct States so established, that we thought it better to confederate as to foreign affairs only. Every State retained its self-government in domestic matters, as better qualified to direct them to the good and satisfaction of their citizens, than a general government so distant from its remoter citizens, and so little familiar with the local peculiarities of the different parts. […] There are now twenty-four of these distinct States, none smaller perhaps than your Morea, several larger than all Greece. Each of these has a constitution framed by itself and for itself, but militating in nothing with the powers of the General Government in its appropriate department of war and foreign affairs. These constitutions being in print and in every hand, I shall only make brief observations on them, and on those provisions particularly which have not fulfilled expectations, or which, being varied in different States, leave a choice to be made of that which is best. You will find much good in all of them, and no one which would be approved in all its parts. Such indeed are the different circumstances, prejudices, and habits of different nations, that the constitution of no one would be reconcilable to any other in every point. A judicious selection of the parts of each suitable to any other, is all which prudence should attempt […].”

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

1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)

Garry Kasparov photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“We in this country, as in other Liberal and democratic countries, have a perfect right to exalt the principle of self-determination, but it comes ill out of the mouths of those in totalitarian States who deny even the smallest element of toleration to every section and creed within their bounds.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government#column_365 in the House of Commons (5 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement
The 1930s

Gao Xingjian photo
Mohamed Nasheed photo

“Even the figure of 40 is quite big for a country the size of the Maldives which has a population of just 3,50,000. Even one Maldivian becoming a terrorist and killing people is enough to shake our society.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

On the threat of ISIS in the Maldives, quoted on TheHindu, "India, Maldives to finalise pact to fight Islamic State" http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-maldives-to-finalise-pact-to-fight-islamic-state/article8353075.ece, March 15, 2016.

Calvin Coolidge photo
Rick Perry photo

“My policy will be to detain and deport every illegal alien who is apprehended in this country. And we'll do it with an expedited hearing process so that millions of illegal aliens are not released into the general population with some hearing date down the road.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

2011-11-29
Perry says will deport all detained illegal immigrants
Reuters
Jason
McLure
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/29/us-usa-campaign-perry-idUSTRE7AS2E620111129
2011

Rajnath Singh photo

“Secularism is the most misused word in the country. Its misuse should come to an end. Because of the rampant misuse of the word, there have been instances of tension in the society.”

Rajnath Singh (1951) Indian politician

On the word secularism as it is used in India, " Rajnath attacks Congress on secularism, says it’s the ‘most misused’ term http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/govt-attacks-congress-on-secularism-says-its-the-most-misused-term/" The Indian Express (26 November 2015)

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey photo

“The noble lord who moved the address had, in the course of his speech, warned the House not to let an anxiety for liberty lead to a compromise of the safety of the state. He, for his part, could not separate those things. The safety of the state could only be found in the protection of the liberties of the people. Whatever was destructive of the latter also destroyed the former…The discontent existing in the country had been insisted on as a ground for the adoption of some measures…But there was another axiom no less true—that there never was an extensive discontent without great misgovernment…When no attention was paid to the calls of the people for relief, when their petitions were rejected and their sufferings aggravated, was it wonderful that at last public discontents should assume a formidable aspect?”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Lords (23 November 1819). The Speech from the Throne at the opening of the session of 1819-20 called for strong measures against the seditious spirit shown in the manufacturing districts. Grey moved an amendment in the Lords, calling for an enquiry into the Peterloo Massacre of 16 August, in order to maintain ‘that confidence in the public institutions of the country, which constitutes the best safeguard of all law and government.’ His amendment was defeated by 159 votes to 34. Parliamentary Debates, vol. xli, pp. 7-19, quoted in Alan Bullock and Maurice Shock (ed.), The Liberal Tradition from Fox to Keynes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), pp. 5-6.
1810s

Anthony Trollope photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“I start off every time I talk about the birthers, I start off by saying, and it's very interesting, I was a great student at the best college in the country. You know? I want to let people know. I'm a smart guy. Because what they do to the birthers, and I don't even like the term, the birthers. I think it's unfair to them. These are people that want to see a birth certificate. They want to know that the president was born here!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

About Barack Obama's birth certificate. * Fox & Friends
Television
Fox News
2011-03-28
About Barack Obama's birth certificate. * Fox Goes Birther: Trump Tells Unquestioning Co-hosts, "I'm Starting To Wonder...Whether Or Not <nowiki>[Obama]</nowiki> Was Born In This Country"
Media Matters for America
2011-03-28
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201103280006
2011-03-30
2010s, 2011

Gracie Allen photo
Mao Zedong photo

“The minority nationalities in our country number more than thirty million. Although they constitute only 6 per cent of the total population, they inhabit extensive regions which comprise 50 to 60 per cent of China's total area. It is thus imperative to foster good relation between the Han people and the minority nationalities. The key to this question lies in overcoming Han chauvinism. At the same time, efforts should also be made to overcome local-nationality chauvinism, wherever it exists among the minority nationalities. Both Han chauvinism and local-nationality chauvinism are harmful to the unity of the nationalities; they represent one kind of contradiction among the people which should be resolved.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

" VI. THE QUESTION OF THE MINORITY NATIONALITIES "
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 我国少数民族有三千多万人,虽然只占全国总人口的百分之六,但是居住地区广大,约占全国总面积的百分之五十至六十。所以汉族和少数民族的关系一定要搞好。这个问题的关键是克服大汉族主义。在存在有地方民族主义的少数民族中间,则应当同时克服地方民族主义。无论是大汉族主义或者地方民族主义,都不利于各族人民的团结,这是应当克服的一种人民内部的矛盾。

Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Muhammad bin Tughluq photo

“Muhammad ibn Tughlaq “led forth his army to ravage Hindostan. He laid the country waste from Kanauj to Dalmau [on the Ganges, in the Rai Baréli District, Oudh], and every person that fell into his hands he slew. Many of the inhabitants fled and took refuge in the jungles, but the Sultan had the jungles surrounded, and every individual that was captured was killed.””

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Vincent Arthur Smith, The Oxford History of India: From the Earliest Times to the End of 1911 (Clarendon Press, 1920), 241-2. as quoted in Spencer, Robert (2018). The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.

Vladimir Putin photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

BBC (1979); reported in John Blundell, Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady (2008), page 193.
First term as Prime Minister

Jane Fonda photo
Bobby Fischer photo

“Economists can take a good deal of credit for the stabilization policies which have been followed in most Western countries since 1945 with considerable success. It is easy to generate a euphoric and self-congratulatory mood when one compares the twenty years after the first World War, 1919-39, with the twenty years after the second, 1945-65. The first twenty years were a total failure; the second twenty years, at least as far as economic policy is concerned, have been a modest success. We have not had any great depression; we have not had any serious financial collapse; and on the whole we have had much higher rates of development in most parts of the world than we had in the 1920’s and 1930’s, even though there are some conspicuous failures. Whether the unprecedented rates of economic growth of the last twenty years, for instance in Japan and Western Europe, can be attributed to economics, or whether they represent a combination of good luck in political decision making with the expanding impact of the natural and biological sciences on the economy, is something we might argue. I am inclined to attribute a good deal to good luck and non-economic forces, but not all of it, and even if economics only contributed 10 percent, this would amount to a very handsome rate of return indeed, considering the very small amount of resources we have really put into economics.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1960s, The economics of knowledge and the knowledge of economics, 1966, p. 9

John Bright photo
Colm Tóibín photo

“A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.”

Colm Tóibín (1955) Irish novelist and writer

Colm Tóibín, novelist – portrait of the artist http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/19/colm-toibin-novelist-portrait-artist, The Guardian (19 February 2013)

Vladimir Lenin photo
John Stuart Mill photo

“I am thus one of the very few examples, in this country, of one who has, not thrown off religious belief, but never had it.”

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/43/mode/1up p. 43

Joni Madraiwiwi photo
Eleftherios Venizelos photo

“I do not wish to depreciate his great gifts and attainments in a country which unfortunately, if I may say so without offense, is suffering from a temporary lack of leading men.”

Eleftherios Venizelos (1864–1936) Greek politician

Source: Victory of Venizelos, 1920, p. 165; In discussing the responsibility of Zaimes, Venizelos himself remarked in the Greek Chamber.

Viktor Orbán photo

“Naturally, when considering the whole issue of who will live in Europe, one could argue that this problem will be solved by successful integration. The reality, however, is that we’re not aware of any examples of successful integration… In countering arguments for successful integration, we must also point out that if people with diverging goals find themselves in the same system or country, it won’t lead to integration, but to chaos. It’s obvious that the culture of migrants contrasts dramatically with European culture. Opposing ideologies and values cannot be simultaneously upheld, as they are mutually exclusive. To give you the most obvious example, the European people think it desirable for men and women to be equal, while for the Muslim community this idea is unacceptable, as in their culture the relationship between men and women is seen in terms of a hierarchical order. These two concepts cannot be upheld at the same time. It’s only a question of time before one or the other prevails. Of course one could also argue that communities coming to us from different cultures can be re-educated. But we must see – and Bishop Tőkés also spoke about this – that now the Muslim communities coming to Europe see their own culture, their own faith, their own lifestyles and their own principles as stronger and more valuable than ours. So, whether we like it or not, in terms of respect for life, optimism, commitment, the subordination of individual interests and ideals, today Muslim communities are stronger than Christian communities. Why would anyone want to adopt a culture that appears to be weaker than their own strong culture? They won’t, and they never will! Therefore re-education and integration based on re-education cannot succeed.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz
African Spir photo
Bernard Cornwell photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Charles Churchill (satirist) photo

“Be England what she will,
With all her faults she is my country still.”

Charles Churchill (satirist) (1731–1764) British poet

The Farewell (1764), line 27; comparable with: "England, with all thy faults I love thee still, My country!", William Cowper, The Task, book ii. The Timepiece, line 206

Enver Hoxha photo

“It didn't take long till the Titoites displayed dominating tendencies, expansionism and hegemonism in their relations with the newly founded states of people's democracy, especially in their relations with our country. As we know they sought to impose their anti-Marxist political, ideological, organisational and state views on us. They went so far as to make despicable attempts to transform Albania into a republic of Yugoslavia. In this unsuccessful and disgraceful undertaking the Titoites encountered our determined opposition. At first, our resistance was uncrystallised because we did not suspect that the Yugoslav leadership had set out on the capitalist and revisionist road. But after some years, when its hegemonic and expansionist tendencies were clearly displayed, we opposed them sternly and unreservedly.”

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…

Enver Hoxha, Yugoslav "Self-Administration" - Capitalist Theory and Practice http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1978/yugoslavia/index.htm (Against the anti-socialist views of E. Kardelj) in the book “Directions of the Development of the Political System of Socialist Self-Administration”), Institute of Marxist-Leninist studies of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania, Tirana, 1978.
Writings, Yugoslav "Self-Administration" - Capitalist Theory and Practice

Fred Astaire photo
Stephen Harper photo
Bernard Cornwell photo
Gordon B. Hinckley photo
Anthony Burgess photo

“Evidently, there is a political element in the attack on The Satanic Verses which has killed and injured good if obstreperous Muslims in Islamabad, though it may be dangerously blasphemous to suggest it. The Ayatollah Khomeini is probably within his self-elected rights in calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, or of anyone else for that matter, on his own holy ground. To order outraged sons of the Prophet to kill him, and the directors of Penguin Books, on British soil is tantamount to a jihad. It is a declaration of war on citizens of a free country, and as such it is a political act. It has to be countered by an equally forthright, if less murderous, declaration of defiance…. I do not think that even our British Muslims will be eager to read that great vindication of free speech, which is John Milton’s Areopagitica. Oliver Cromwell’s Republic proposed muzzling the press, and Milton replied by saying, in effect, that the truth must declare itself by battling with falsehood in the dust and heat…. I gain the impression that few of the protesting Muslims in Britain know directly what they are protesting against. Their Imams have told them that Mr Rushdie has published a blasphemous book and must be punished. They respond with sheeplike docility and wolflike aggression. They forgot what Nazis did to books … they shame a free country by denying free expression through the vindictive agency of bonfires…. If they do not like secular society, they must fly to the arms of the Ayatollah or some other self-righteous guardian of strict Islamic morality.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

'Islam's Gangster Tactics', in the London Independent newspaper , 1989
Writing

George S. Patton IV photo
Sigitas Tamkevičius photo
Nâzım Hikmet photo

“My country or the stars
Or my youth, what's farthest?”

Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963) Turkish poet

From In the Snowy Night Woods (10 March 1956)

Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo

“Forcible marriages, euphemistically called matrimonial alliances, were common throughout the medieval period. Only some of them find mention in Muslim chronicles with their bitter details. Here is one example given by Shams Siraj Afif (fourteenth century). The translation from the original in Persian may be summarised as follows. Firoz Shah was born in the year 709 H. (1309 C. E.). His father was named Sipahsalar Rajjab, who was a brother of Sultan Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq Ghazi. The three brothers, Tughlaq, Rajjab, and Abu Bakr, came from Khurasan to Delhi in the reign of Alauddin (Khalji), and that monarch took all the three in the service of the Court. The Sultan conferred upon Tughlaq the country of Dipalpur. Tughlaq was desirous that his brother Sipahsalar Rajjab should obtain in marriage the daughter of one of the Rais of Dipalpur. He was informed that the daughters of Ranamall Bhatti were very beautiful and accomplished. Tughlaq sent to Ranamall a proposal of marriage. Ranamall refused. Upon this Tughlaq proceeded to the villages (talwandi) belonging to Ranamall and demanded payment of the whole year’s revenue in a lump sum. The Muqaddams and Chaudharis were subjected to coercion. Ranamall’s people were helpless and could do nothing, for those were the days of Alauddin, and no one dared to make an outcry. One damsel was brought to Dipalpur. Before her marriage she was called Bibi Naila. On entering the house of Sipahsalar Rajjab she was styled Sultan Bibi Kadbanu. After the lapse of a few years she gave birth to Firoz shah. If this could be accomplished by force by a regional officer, there was nothing to stop the king.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Shams Siraj Afif cited in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 12

Calvin Coolidge photo
Russ Feingold photo

“I would urge you to be as restrained as you can be as the next steps occur. I don’t know exactly what they’re going to be, this could be one of the most challenging times in the history of our country.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

Concession speech to supporters after losing his 2016 bid for the Senate, in [Rivera, Adrian, An Interview with Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, http://thepolitic.org/an-interview-with-democratic-wisconsin-senator-russ-feingold/, 20 August 2018, The Politic, January 10, 2018]
2016

Jakaya Kikwete photo
Jimmy Carter photo
Ela Bhatt photo

“I grew up in the time around India’s independence, in the aura of a country fighting for its freedom. It was a heady and idealistic time, and we were all infected with a spirit of optimism, and the spirit of Gandhiji.”

Ela Bhatt (1933) founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA)

Discussion with Ela Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)

Eric Garcetti photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“We all know why the Democrats had him there, it’s to obscure the fact that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have failed at keeping this country safe.”

About Khizr Khan’s speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/us/politics/boris-epshteyn-trump.html?_r=0 (October 13, 2016)

Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury photo
Robin Williams photo

“One of the fundamental things is in a jihad. That sounds like a country western term like, "Jiii-had!"”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

“True patriots all; for be it understood
We left our country for our country’s good.”

Prologue written for the Opening of the Play-house at New South Wales, Jan. 16, 1796. Compare: "'T was for the good of my country that I should be abroad", George Farquhar, The Beaux’ Stratagem, Act iii, scene 2.

Calvin Coolidge photo
Stephen Decatur photo

“Our country – In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, and always successful, right or wrong.”

Stephen Decatur (1779–1820) United States Navy officer

Toast at a dinner in Norfolk, Virginia (April 1816) reported in Niles' Weekly Register (Baltimore, Maryland) 20 April 1816; as cited in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (2010), Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, p. 70
Variant: Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.
[emphasis added] This widely quoted version is attributed in Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, Life of Stephen Decatur: A Commodore in the Navy of the United States (1846), C. C. Little and J. Brown, p. 443.
This statement produced the famous slogan "My country, right or wrong!" which itself produced famous responses by:
Carl Schurz "...if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."
Schurz, Carl, remarks in the Senate, February 29, 1872, The Congressional Globe, vol. 45, p. 1287. See Wikisource for the complete speech.
G. K. Chesterton "'My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober'." -- A Defence of Patriotism
Variant: Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!

Jeremy Corbyn photo
Rahul Dravid photo

“I would like to announce my retirement from international and domestic first-class cricket. It is 16 years since I played my first Test match for India and today I feel it is an time to move on. Once I was like every other boy in India, with a dream of playing for my country. Yet I could never have imagined a journey so long and so fulfilling.”

Rahul Dravid (1973) Indian cricketer

In press conference announcing retirement from Test cricket, quoted in " After 16 yrs, Rahul Wall Dravid retires from intl cricket "in Indian Express (Indianexpress.com) http://www.indianexpress.com/news/after-16-yrs-rahul-wall-dravid-retires-from-intl-cricket/921750/0

Alfred von Waldersee photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Michael Foot photo
Rick Santorum photo

“Well, yes, absolutely, to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

asked why he "almost threw up" at John F. Kennedy's speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association
2012-02-26
This Week with George Stephanopoulos
ABC
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-rick-santorum/story?id=15785514&page=5

Rick Perry photo
Ron Paul photo
John Gray photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“Take clean energy. Some country is going to be the clean- energy superpower of the 21st century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Maggie Gyllenhaal photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Warren G. Harding photo
Michael Savage photo

“There is a dance of death in the West and actual death in the Middle East, courtesy of the Islamofascists. … The radical Muslims are on the warpath and they are against everyone else. They are against Muslims who are not as fanatical. They are against the members of all other religions. They think they are going to take us back to some pristine religious period in human history that never actually occurred. It's all complete rubbish. These "faith warriors" live lower than the pigs they despise. They kidnap and rape 8-year-old girls and say the Quran authorizes it. They're not purists. They're killers. They're Nazis in head scarfs. They aren't leading a religious revival. They're trying to take us back to a state of barbarism that has been extinct for 1,200 years. This is a barbaric revolution… Why would any government bring in unvetted Muslim immigrants at a time like this? It would seem that only an insane prince would do this to his country. But Obama is not insane. He's stoned. He's stoned on the orthodoxy of the progressive left. Obama and his supporters are drunk on their ideology. They think they're going to create a progressive utopia by continuing their attack on all Western values. This is precisely how great civilizations of the past declined and eventually fell. They rejected the values that made them great and degenerated into narcissism and selfishness. They kept on partying until they were too weak to defend themselves. Then, the unthinkable happened. They fell.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

A dance of death in the West http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/a-dance-of-death-in-the-west/, excerpt from Government Zero.
Government Zero: No Borders, No Language, No Culture (2015)

André Maurois photo
Arthur Ponsonby photo
Bill Clinton photo

““…Mas‘ud hunted through the country around Bahraich, and whenever he passed by the idol temple of Suraj-kund, he was wont to say that he wanted that piece of ground for a dwelling-place. This Suraj-kund was a sacred shrine of all the unbelievers of India. They had carved an image of the sun in stone on the banks of the tank there. This image they called Balarukh, and through its fame Bahraich had attained its flourishing condition. When there was an eclipse of the sun, the unbelievers would come from east and west to worship it, and every Sunday the heathen of Bahraich and its environs, male and female, used to assemble in thousands to rub their heads under that stone, and do it reverence as an object of peculiar sanctity. Mas‘ud was distressed at this idolatry, and often said that, with God’s will and assistance, he would destroy that mine of unbelief, and set up a chamber for the worship of the Nourisher of the Universe in its place, rooting out unbelief from those parts…
“Meanwhile, the Rai Sahar Deo and Har Deo, with several other chiefs, who had kept their troops in reserve, seeing that the army of Islam was reduced to nothing, unitedly attacked the body-guard of the Prince. The few forces that remained to that loved one of the Lord of the Universe were ranged round him in the garden. The unbelievers, surrounding them in dense numbers, showered arrows upon them. It was then, on Sunday, the 14th of the month Rajab, in the aforesaid year 424 (14th June, 1033) as the time of evening prayer came on, that a chance arrow pierced the main artery in the arm of the Prince of the Faithful…”

Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud (1014) semi-legendary Muslim figure from India

Awadh (Uttar Pradesh), Mir‘at-i-Mas‘udi in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. II. p. 524-547

John McCain photo
Hastings Banda photo

“Douglas Brown: Dr Banda, what is the purpose of your visit?
Hastings Banda: Well, I've been asked by the Secretary of State to come here.
Brown: Have you come here to ask the Secretary of State a firm date for Nyasaland's independence?
Banda: I won't tell you that.
Brown: When do you hope to get independence?
Banda: I won't tell you that.
Brown: Dr Banda, when you get independence, are you as determined as ever to break away from the Central African Federation?
Banda: Need you ask me that question at this stage?
Brown: Well, this stage is as good as any other stage. Why do you ask me why I shouldn't ask you this question at this stage?
Banda: Haven't I said that enough for everybody to be convinced that I mean just that?
Brown: Dr Banda, if you break with the Central African Federation, how will you make out economically? After all, your country isn't really a rich country.
Banda: Don't ask me that, leave that to me.
Brown: In which way is your mind working?
Banda: Which way? I won't tell you that.
Brown: Where do you hope to get economic aid from?
Banda: I won't tell you that.
Brown: Are you going to tell me anything?
Banda: Nothing.
Brown: Are you going to tell me why you've been to Portugal?
Banda: That's my business.
Brown: In fact you're going to tell me nothing at all.
Banda: Nothing at all.
Brown: So it's a singularly fruitless interview?
Banda: Well, it's up to you.
Brown: Thank you very much.”

Hastings Banda (1898–1997) First president of Malawi

BBC Training "Interviews from hell" http://www.bbctraining.com/modules/2604/hell2.html. BBC INFAX http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/programme/SX+28015_9
BBC Interview, 21 June 1962

Ilana Mercer photo

“Ours was never a country conceived as a democracy. To arrive at a democracy, we Americans destroyed a republic.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

" Whodunit? Who Meddled With Out Democracy? https://townhall.com/columnists/ilanamercer/2018/02/10/whodunit-who-meddled-with-our-democracy-n2446787" February 10, 2018, Townhall.com
2010s, 2018

Ma Zhanshan photo
Ron Paul photo

“Question: You wanna gut that safety net…
Ron Paul: But the safety net doesn't work.
Question: Tell me why it doesn't work.
Ron Paul: It does work for some people, but overall it ultimately fails, because you spend more money than you have, and then you borrow to the hilt. Now we have to borrow $800 billion a year just to keep the safety net going. It's going to collapse when the dollar collapses, you can't even fight the war without this borrowing. And when the dollar collapses, you can't take care of the elderly of today. They're losing ground. Their cost of living is going up about 10%, even though the government denies it, we give them a 2% cost of living increase.
Question: So do you think the gold standard would fix that?
Ron Paul: The gold standard would keep you from printing money and destroying the middle class. Every country where you have runaway inflation, there's no middle class. Mexico, there's no middle class, you have a huge poor class, and a lot of wealthy people. Today we have a growing poor class, and we have more billionaires than ever before. So we're moving into third world status…
Question: Who is the safety net that you're speaking of, who does benefit from all those programs and all those agencies?
Ron Paul: Everybody on a short term benefits for a time. If you build a tenement house by the government, for about 15 or 20 years somebody might live there, but you don't measure who paid for it: somebody lost their job down the road, somebody had inflation, somebody else suffered. But then the tenement house falls down after about 20 years because it's not privately owned, so everybody eventually suffers. But the immediate victims aren't identifiable, because you don't know who lost the job, and who had the inflation, the victims are invisible. The few people who benefit, who get some help from government, everyone sees, "oh! look what we did!", but they never say instead of what, what did we lose. And unless you ask that question, we'll go into bankruptcy, we're in the early stages of it, the dollar is going down, our standard of living is going down, and we're hurting the very people that so many people wanna help, especially the liberals…”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview by Mac McKoy on KWQW, December 17, 2007 http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=x3lxo9WIR6w
2000s, 2006-2009

John Scalzi photo

“This is are to be protected in Israel’s basic laws, it should be no surprise when the country embodies those values. This bill and the government that supported it are a danger to Israel’s future.”

Daniel Sokatch (1968) CEO of the New Israel Fund

About the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, NIF CEO: Israel’s “Nation-State Bill” Is Tribalism At Its Worst; Completely Incompatible with Human Dignity and Equality https://www.nif.org/news-media/press-releases/nif-ceo-israels-nation-state-bill-is-tribalism-at-its-worst-completely-incompatible-with-human-dignity-and-equality/ (10 July 2018), '.

Sinclair Lewis photo
Chittaranjan Das photo
Mahmud of Ghazni photo
Johannes Grenzfurthner photo

“Contemporary art -- the field we are usually working in because there's money -- is mostly concerned with systems or systematic concepts. In the context of their work, artists adapt models of individual art-specific or economic or political systems like in a laboratory, to reveal the true nature of these systems by deconstructing them. So would it be fair to say that by their chameleon-like adaptation they are attempting to generate a similar system? Well… the corporate change in the art market has aged somewhat in the meantime and looks almost as old as the 'New Economy'. Now even the last snotty brat has realized that all the hogwash about the creative industries, sponsoring, fund-raising, the whole load of bullshit about the beautiful new art enterprises, was not much more than the awful veneer on the stupid, crass fanfare of neo-liberal liberation teleology. What is the truth behind the shifting spheres of activity between computer graphics, web design and the rest of all those frequency-orientated nerd pursuits? A lonely business with other lonely people at their terminals. And in the meantime the other part of the corporate identity has incidentally wasted whole countries like Argentina or Iceland. That's the real truth of the matter.”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

Interview on Furtherfield http://www.furtherfield.org/interviews/interview-johannes-grenzfurthner-monochrom-part-1

Karl Popper photo
Friedrich Kellner photo
Maneka Gandhi photo

“For many years, the country has believed these pesticides are vital to keeping away starvation, to advance the green revolution. The main concern was food production and disease control - not public health safety. Some of us believe this must change, but it... will take some time.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

Commenting on a pesticide-poisoning incident, "Where Toxic Pesticides Seep Into Everyday Life" http://articles.philly.com/1990-09-23/news/25879516_1_hazardous-pesticides-pesticide-action-network-indian-village, The Philadelphia Inquirer (23 September 1990)
1981-1990

Calvin Coolidge photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Well I just want to say that we are, you know, very honored by the victory that we had, 306 electoral college votes, we were not supposed to crack 220, you [turning to the Israeli PM] know that right? There was no way to 221, but then they said there's no way to 270 [Netanyahu tries to respond, but Trump continues, so then mouths "I thought he was talking to me"] and there's tremendous enthusiasm out there. I will say that, um, we are going to have peace, in this country, we are going to stop crime, in this country, we are going to do everything within our power to stop long-simmering racism, and every other thing that's going on, because a lot of bad things have been taking place over a long period of time. I think one of the reasons I won the election is we have a very, very divided nation, very divided, and hopefully I'll be able to do something about that, and I, you know, it's something that was very important to me. As far as people, Jewish people, so many friends, a daughter who happens to be here right now, a son-in-law, and three beautiful grandchildren, I think that you're going to see a lot different United States of America over the next three, four, or eight years, er, I think a lot of good things are happening, and you're going to see a lot of love, you're going to see a lot of love.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump responding to a reporter's question about rising anti-Semitic incidents and a perception of xenophobia in his administration, during a joint press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmfseeZt5fA (15 February 2017)
2010s, 2017, February