Quotes about reason
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Steve Jobs photo

“California has a sense of experimentation and a sense of openness—openness to new possibilities.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

interview in Playboy magazine (February 1985 http://www.playboy.co.uk/article/16311/playboy-interview-steven-jobs) <!-- alternate link : http://gizmodo.com/5694765/29+year+old-steve-jobs-extols-californias-virtues-to-playboy-magazine -->
1980s
Context: Woz and I very much liked Bob Dylan's poetry, and we spent a lot of time thinking about a lot of that stuff. This was California. You could get LSD fresh made from Stanford. You could sleep on the beach at night with your girlfriend. California has a sense of experimentation and a sense of openness—openness to new possibilities.

Karl Barth photo

“God in the highest, in the sense of the Christian Confession, means He who from on high has condescended to us, has come to us, has become ours.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

This is paraphrased in "Karl Barth's Conception of God" (1952) http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol2/520102BarthsConceptionOfGod.pdf by Martin Luther King, Jr.: God is the one who stands above our highest and deepest feelings, strivings and intuitions.
Dogmatics in Outline (1949)
Context: He is the One who stands above us and also above our highest and deepest feelings, strivings, intuitions, above the products, even the most sublime, of the human spirit. God in the highest means first of all … He who is in no way established in us, in no way corresponds to a human disposition and possibility, but who is in every sense established simply in Himself and is real in that way; and who is manifest and made manifest to us men, not because of our seeking and finding, feeling and thinking, but again and again, only through Himself. It is this God in the highest who has turned as such to man, given Himself to man, made Himself knowable to him … God in the highest, in the sense of the Christian Confession, means He who from on high has condescended to us, has come to us, has become ours.<!-- p. 37

Henri Barbusse photo

“They who say, "There will always be war," do not know what they are saying. They are preyed upon by the common internal malady of shortsight. They think themselves full of common-sense as they think themselves full of honesty. In reality, they are revealing the clumsy and limited mentality of the assassins themselves.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XVI - De Profundis Clamavi
Context: The spectacle of to-morrow is one of agony. Wise men make laughable efforts to determine what may be, in the ages to come, the cause of the inhabited world's end. Will it be a comet, the rarefaction of water, or the extinction of the sun, that will destroy mankind? They have forgotten the likeliest and nearest cause — Suicide.
They who say, "There will always be war," do not know what they are saying. They are preyed upon by the common internal malady of shortsight. They think themselves full of common-sense as they think themselves full of honesty. In reality, they are revealing the clumsy and limited mentality of the assassins themselves.
The shapeless struggle of the elements will begin again on the seared earth when men have slain themselves because they were slaves, because they believed the same things, because they were alike.

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“It must be remembered that there is no real reason to expect anything in particular from mankind; good and evil are local expedients—or their lack—and not in any sense cosmic truths or laws.”

"Nietzscheism and Realism" from The Rainbow, Vol. I, No. 1 (October 1921); reprinted in "To Quebec and the Stars", and also in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 70
Non-Fiction
Context: It must be remembered that there is no real reason to expect anything in particular from mankind; good and evil are local expedients—or their lack—and not in any sense cosmic truths or laws. We call a thing "good" because it promotes certain petty human conditions that we happen to like—whereas it is just as sensible to assume that all humanity is a noxious pest and should be eradicated like rats or gnats for the good of the planet or of the universe. There are no absolute values in the whole blind tragedy of mechanistic nature—nothing is good or bad except as judged from an absurdly limited point of view. The only cosmic reality is mindless, undeviating fate—automatic, unmoral, uncalculating inevitability. As human beings, our only sensible scale of values is one based on lessening the agony of existence. That plan is most deserving of praise which most ably fosters the creation of the objects and conditions best adapted to diminish the pain of living for those most sensitive to its depressing ravages. To expect perfect adjustment and happiness is absurdly unscientific and unphilosophical. We can seek only a more or less trivial mitigation of suffering. I believe in an aristocracy, because I deem it the only agency for the creation of those refinements which make life endurable for the human animal of high organisation.

Barack Obama photo

“Tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2011, Remarks on death of Osama bin Laden (May 2011)
Context: Tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.
The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.
Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

Georgi Dimitrov photo

“What is the source of the influence of fascism over the masses? Fascism is able to attract the masses because it demagogically appeals to their most urgent needs and demands. Fascism not only inflames prejudices that are deeply ingrained in the masses, but also plays on the better sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions.”

Georgi Dimitrov (1882–1949) Bulgarian politician

Source: The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism, Ch. 1.
Context: What is the source of the influence of fascism over the masses? Fascism is able to attract the masses because it demagogically appeals to their most urgent needs and demands. Fascism not only inflames prejudices that are deeply ingrained in the masses, but also plays on the better sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions. Why do the German fascists, those lackeys of the bourgeoisie and mortal enemies of socialism, represent themselves to the masses as "Socialists," and depict their accession to power as a "revolution"? Because they try to exploit the faith in revolution and the urge towards socialism that lives in the hearts of the mass of working people in Germany.

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“The pride connected with knowing and sensing lies like a blinding fog over the eyes and senses of men, thus deceiving them concerning the value of existence.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: The pride connected with knowing and sensing lies like a blinding fog over the eyes and senses of men, thus deceiving them concerning the value of existence. For this pride contains within itself the most flattering estimation of the value of knowing. Deception is the most general effect of such pride, but even its most particular effects contain within themselves something of the same deceitful character.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“Our public life depends primarily not upon the men who occupy public positions for the moment, because they are but an infinitesimal fraction of the whole. Our public life depends upon men who take an active interest in that public life; who are bound to see public affairs honestly and competently managed; but who have the good sense to know what honesty and competency actually mean.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
Context: You often hear people speaking as if life was like striving upward toward a mountain peak. That is not so. Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other. It shall profit us nothing if our people are decent and ineffective. It shall profit us nothing if they are efficient and wicked. In every walk of life, in business, politics; if the need comes, in war; in literature, science, art, in everything, what we need is a sufficient number of men who can work well and who will work with a high ideal. The work can be done in a thousand different ways. Our public life depends primarily not upon the men who occupy public positions for the moment, because they are but an infinitesimal fraction of the whole. Our public life depends upon men who take an active interest in that public life; who are bound to see public affairs honestly and competently managed; but who have the good sense to know what honesty and competency actually mean. And any such man, if he is both sane and high-minded, can be a greater help and strength to any one in public life than you can easily imagine without having had yourselves the experience. It is an immense strength to a public man to know a certain number of people to whom he can appeal for advice and for backing; whose character is so high that baseness would shrink ashamed before them; and who have such good sense that any decent public servant is entirely willing to lay before them every detail of his actions, asking only that they know the facts before they pass final judgment.

Epictetus photo

“What wouldst thou be found doing when overtaken by Death? If I might choose, I would be found doing some deed of true humanity, of wide import, beneficent and noble. But if I may not be found engaged in aught so lofty, let me hope at least for this—what none may hinder, what is surely in my power—that I may be found raising up in myself that which had fallen; learning to deal more wisely with the things of sense; working out my own tranquillity, and thus rendering that which is its due to every relation of life”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: What wouldst thou be found doing when overtaken by Death? If I might choose, I would be found doing some deed of true humanity, of wide import, beneficent and noble. But if I may not be found engaged in aught so lofty, let me hope at least for this—what none may hinder, what is surely in my power—that I may be found raising up in myself that which had fallen; learning to deal more wisely with the things of sense; working out my own tranquillity, and thus rendering that which is its due to every relation of life…. If death surprise me thus employed, it is enough if I can stretch forth my hands to God and say, “The faculties which I received at Thy hands for apprehending this thine Administration, I have not neglected. As far as in me lay, I have done Thee no dishonour. Behold how I have used the senses, the primary conceptions which Thou gavest me. Have I ever laid anything to Thy charge? Have I ever murmured at aught that came to pass, or wished it otherwise? Have I in anything transgressed the relations of life? For that Thou didst beget me, I thank Thee for that Thou hast given: for the time during which I have used the things that were Thine, it suffices me. Take them back and place them wherever Thou wilt! They were all Thine, and Thou gavest them me.”—If a man depart thus minded, is it not enough? What life is fairer or more noble, what end happier than his? (189).

Buenaventura Durruti photo

“I believe, as I always have, in freedom. The freedom which rests on the sense of responsibility. I consider discipline indispensable, but it must be inner discipline, motivated by a common purpose and a strong feeling of comradeship.”

Buenaventura Durruti (1896–1936) Spanish anarchist

On his military leadership against fascist troops in Spain, as quoted in "Durruti Is Dead, Yet Living" (1936) http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Essays/durruti.html, by Emma Goldman
Context: I have been an Anarchist all my life. I hope I have remained one. I should consider it very sad indeed, had I to turn into a general and rule the men with a military rod. They have come to me voluntarily, they are ready to stake their lives in our antifascist fight. I believe, as I always have, in freedom. The freedom which rests on the sense of responsibility. I consider discipline indispensable, but it must be inner discipline, motivated by a common purpose and a strong feeling of comradeship.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Foreword http://www.bartleby.com/55/100.html
1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)
Context: Facing the immense complexity of modern social and industrial conditions, there is need to use freely and unhesitatingly the collective power of all of us; and yet no exercise of collective power will ever avail if the average individual does not keep his or her sense of personal duty, initiative, and responsibility. There is need to develop all the virtues that have the state for their sphere of action; but these virtues are as dust in a windy street unless back of them lie the strong and tender virtues of a family life based on the love of the one man for the one woman and on their joyous and fearless acceptance of their common obligation to the children that are theirs. There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life.

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“The true function of phantasy is to give the imagination a ground for limitless expansion, and to satisfy aesthetically the sincere and burning curiosity and sense of awe which a sensitive minority of mankind feel toward the alluring and provocative abysses of unplumbed space and unguessed entity which press in upon the known world from unknown infinities and in unknown relationships of time, space, matter, force, dimensionality, and consciousness.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Clark Ashton Smith (17 October 1930), quoted in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters edited by S.T. Joshi, p. 213
Non-Fiction, Letters
Context: My conception of phantasy, as a genuine art-form, is an extension rather than a negation of reality. Ordinary tales about a castle ghost or old-fashioned werewolf are merely so much junk. The true function of phantasy is to give the imagination a ground for limitless expansion, and to satisfy aesthetically the sincere and burning curiosity and sense of awe which a sensitive minority of mankind feel toward the alluring and provocative abysses of unplumbed space and unguessed entity which press in upon the known world from unknown infinities and in unknown relationships of time, space, matter, force, dimensionality, and consciousness. This curiosity and sense of awe, I believe, are quite basic among the sensitive minority in question; and I see no reason to think that they will decline in the future—for as you point out, the frontier of the unknown can never do more than scratch the surface of eternally unknowable infinity. But the truly sensitive will never be more than a minority, because most persons—even those of the keenest possible intellect and aesthetic ability—simply have not the psychological equipment or adjustment to feel that way. I have taken pains to sound various persons as to their capacity to feel profoundly regarding the cosmos and the disturbing and fascinating quality of the extra-terrestrial and perpetually unknown; and my results reveal a surprisingly small quota. In literature we can easily see the cosmic quality in Poe, Maturin, Dunsany, de la Mare, and Blackwood, but I profoundly suspect the cosmicism of Bierce, James, and even Machen. It is not every macabre writer who feels poignantly and almost intolerably the pressure of cryptic and unbounded outer space.

Paul Valéry photo

“You have neither the patience that weaves long lines nor a feeling for the irregular, nor a sense of the fittest place for a thing … For you intelligence is not one thing among many.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Writing at the Yalu River (1895) quoted in Of Time, Passion, and Knowledge: Reflections on the Strategy of Existence (1990) by Julius Thomas Fraser, Part 2, Images in Heaven and on the Earth, Ch. IV, The Roots of Time in the Physical World. Sect. 3 The Living Symmetries of Physics
Context: You have neither the patience that weaves long lines nor a feeling for the irregular, nor a sense of the fittest place for a thing … For you intelligence is not one thing among many. You … worship it as if it were an omnipotent beast … a man intoxicated on it believes his own thoughts are legal decision, or facts themselves born of the crowd and time. He confuses his quick changes of heart with the imperceptible variation of real forms and enduring Beings.... You are in love with intelligence, until it frightens you. For your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time.

“Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.”

Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921) British poet

"The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.</p

Barack Obama photo

“In the aftermath of darkest tragedy, we have seen the American spirit at its brightest. We’ve seen the petty divisions of color, class, and creed replaced by a united urge to help. We’ve seen courage and compassion, a sense of civic duty, and a recognition that we are not a collection of strangers; we are bound to one another by a set of ideals, and laws, and commitments, and a deep devotion to this country we love. 
That’s what citizenship is. It’s the idea at the heart of our founding – that as Americans, we are blessed with God-given and inalienable rights, but with those rights come responsibilities – to ourselves, to one another, and to future generations.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)
Context: In the aftermath of darkest tragedy, we have seen the American spirit at its brightest. We’ve seen the petty divisions of color, class, and creed replaced by a united urge to help. We’ve seen courage and compassion, a sense of civic duty, and a recognition that we are not a collection of strangers; we are bound to one another by a set of ideals, and laws, and commitments, and a deep devotion to this country we love. 
That’s what citizenship is. It’s the idea at the heart of our founding – that as Americans, we are blessed with God-given and inalienable rights, but with those rights come responsibilities – to ourselves, to one another, and to future generations. 
But if we’re being honest, as you’ve studied and worked and served to become good citizens, the institutions that give structure to our society have, at times, betrayed your trust. In the run-up to the financial crisis, too many on Wall Street forgot that their obligations don’t end with their shareholders. In entertainment and in the media, ratings and shock value often trumped news and storytelling. And in Washington – well, this is a joyous occasion, so let me put this charitably: I think it’s fair to say our democracy isn’t working as well as we know it can. It could do better. And those of us fortunate enough to serve in these institutions owe it to you to do better, every single day.

Barack Obama photo

“For all the turmoil; for all the times you have been let down, or frustrated at the hand you’ve been dealt; what I have seen from your generation are perennial and quintessentially American values. Altruism. Empathy. Tolerance. Community. And a deep sense of service that makes me optimistic for our future.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)
Context: You were born as freedom forced its way through a wall in Berlin, and tore down an Iron Curtain across Europe. You were educated in an era of instant information that put the world’s accumulated knowledge at your fingertips. And you came of age as terror touched our shores; an historic recession spread across the nation; and a new generation signed up to go to war. 
You have been tested and tempered by events that your parents and I never imagined we’d see when we sat where you sit. And yet, despite all this, or more likely because of it, yours has become a generation possessed with that most American of ideas – that people who love their country can change it. For all the turmoil; for all the times you have been let down, or frustrated at the hand you’ve been dealt; what I have seen from your generation are perennial and quintessentially American values. Altruism. Empathy. Tolerance. Community. And a deep sense of service that makes me optimistic for our future.

Wilhelm Reich photo

“In this strictly Marxist sense, the capitalistic system continues to exist in Russia. And it will continue to exist as long as the masses of people continue to lack responsibility and to crave authority.”

Preface to the Third Edition (August 1942)
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
Context: In the strictly Marxist sense, there is not even in Soviet Russia a state socialism but a state capitalism. According to Marx, the social condition "capitalism" does not consist in the existence of individual capitalists, but in the existence of the specific "capitalist mode of production", that is, in the production of exchange values instead of use values, in wage work of the masses and in the production of surplus value, which is appropriated by the state or the private owners, and not by the society of working people. In this strictly Marxist sense, the capitalistic system continues to exist in Russia. And it will continue to exist as long as the masses of people continue to lack responsibility and to crave authority.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,
Unboding critic-pen,
Or that eternal want of pence,
Which vexes public men”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

" Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/T/TennysonAlfred/verse/englishidyls/willwaterproof.html", st. 6 (1842)
Context: I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,
Unboding critic-pen,
Or that eternal want of pence,
Which vexes public men,
Who hold their hands to all, and cry
For that which all deny them —
Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry,
And all the world go by them.

Barack Obama photo

“If people think in terms of ethnic identity before national identity, then I think over time the country will start breaking apart and democracy will not work. So there has to be a sense of common purpose. But that's not an excuse then for majority groups to say, don’t complain, to ethnic minorities -- because the ethnic minorities may have some real complaints. And part of what is important for the majority groups to do -- if, in fact, you have a national identity, that means that you've got to be concerned with a minority also because it reflects badly on your country if somebody from a minority group is not being treated fairly.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)
Context: But what I said to the civil society groups is, yes, it is important to protect specific ethnic groups from discrimination. And it is natural in a democracy that ethnic groups organize among themselves to be heard in the halls of power. So in the United States, for example, as its democracy developed, the Irish in big cities, they came together and they built organizations, and they were able to promote the interests of Irish Americans. And African Americans, when they were seeking their freedom, you had organizations like the NAACP that promoted the interests of African Americans. So there's nothing wrong with groups organizing around ethnic identity, or around economic interests, or around regional concerns. That's how a democracy naturally works. You get with people who agree with you or who are like you to make sure that your concerns are heard. But what I said is that it is important for a democracy that people's identities are also a national identity. If you walk down the streets of New York City, you will see people looking more different than this group right here. You'll see blue-eyed, blonde people. You'll see dark-skinned, black people. You'll see Asians. You'll see Muslims. You'll see -- but if you ask any of those people, “What are you?” -- I'm American. Now I may be an African American or an Asian American or an Irish American, but the first thing I'll say is, I'm an American. And if you don't have that sense of national unity, then it's very hard for a country to succeed -- particularly a small country like Myanmar. If people think in terms of ethnic identity before national identity, then I think over time the country will start breaking apart and democracy will not work. So there has to be a sense of common purpose. But that's not an excuse then for majority groups to say, don’t complain, to ethnic minorities -- because the ethnic minorities may have some real complaints. And part of what is important for the majority groups to do -- if, in fact, you have a national identity, that means that you've got to be concerned with a minority also because it reflects badly on your country if somebody from a minority group is not being treated fairly. America could not live up to its potential until it treated its black citizens fairly. That's just a fact, that that was a stain on America when an entire group of people couldn't vote, or didn't have legal protections. Because it made all [[United States Declarations of Independence|the Declarations of Independence and Constitution and rule of law, it made that seem like an illusion. And so when the Civil Rights Movement happened in the United States, that wasn't just a victory for African Americans, that was a victory for America because what it showed was that the whole country was going to be concerned about everybody, not just about some people. And it was a victory for America's national identity that it was treating minorities fairly. And that's I think how every country in ASEAN, including Myanmar, needs to think about these problems. You need to respect people's differences. You need to be attentive to the grievances of minorities that may be discriminated against. But both the majority and the minority, the powerful and the powerless, also have to have a sense of national identity in order to be successful.

Jean De La Fontaine photo

“There's nothing useless to a man of sense.”

Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.

Il n'est rien d'inutile aux personnes de sens.
Book V (1668), fable 19.
Fables (1668–1679)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the whole of the universe”

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), IV
Context: They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the whole of the universe; they had no creed, but they had a certain knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits of earthly nature, then there would come for them, for the living and for the dead, a still greater fullness of contact with the whole of the universe. They looked forward to that moment with joy, but without haste, not pining for it, but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts, of which they talked to one another.

Barack Obama photo

“For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.
For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.

Novalis photo

“Long, unwearied intercourse, free and wise Contemplation, attention to faint tokens and indications; an inward poet-life, practised senses, a simple and devout spirit: these are the essential requisites of a true Friend of Nature; without these no one can attain his wish.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Pupils at Sais (1799)
Context: No one, of a surety, wanders farther from the mark than he who fancies to himself that he already understands this marvellous Kingdom, and can, in few words, fathom its constitution, and everywhere find the right path. To no one, who has broken off, and made himself an Island, will insight rise of itself, nor even without toilsome effort. Only to children, or childlike men, who know not what they do, can this happen. Long, unwearied intercourse, free and wise Contemplation, attention to faint tokens and indications; an inward poet-life, practised senses, a simple and devout spirit: these are the essential requisites of a true Friend of Nature; without these no one can attain his wish.

Arthur Miller photo

“I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing — his sense of personal dignity.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

Tragedy and the Common Man (1949)
Context: I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing — his sense of personal dignity. From Orestes to Hamlet, Medea to Macbeth, the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his "rightful" position in his society.
Sometimes he is one who has been displaced from it, sometimes one who seeks to attain it for the first time, but the fateful wound from which the inevitable events spiral is the wound of indignity and its dominant force is indignation. Tragedy, then, is the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly.

Rollo May photo

“The human imagination leaps to form the whole, to complete the scene in order to make sense of it.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 7 : Passion for Form, p. 131
Context: The human imagination leaps to form the whole, to complete the scene in order to make sense of it. The instantaneous way this is done shows how we are driven to construct the remainder of the scene. To fill the gaps is essential if the scene is to have meaning. That we may do this in misleading ways — at times in neurotic or paranoid ways — does not gainsay the central point. Our passion for form expresses our yearning to make the world adequate to our needs and desires, and, more important, to experience ourselves as having significance.

Niels Bohr photo

“In that sense, religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927)
Context: In mathematics we can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as we choose. Religion, on the other hand, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our actions and thus, at least indirectly, our very existence. We cannot just look at them impassively from the outside. Moreover, our attitude to religious questions cannot be separated from our attitude to society. Even if religion arose as the spiritual structure of a particular human society, it is arguable whether it has remained the strongest social molding force through history, or whether society, once formed, develops new spiritual structures and adapts them to its particular level of knowledge. Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are beginning to become more fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously. For he, too, must be able to speak of life and death and the human condition to other members of the society in which he's chosen to live; he must educate his children according to the norms of that society, fit into its life. Epistemological sophistries cannot possibly help him attain these ends. Here, too, the relationship between critical thought about the spiritual content of a given religion and action based on the deliberate acceptance of that content is complementary. And such acceptance, if consciously arrived at, fills the individual with strength of purpose, helps him to overcome doubts and, if he has to suffer, provides him with the kind of solace that only a sense of being sheltered under an all-embracing roof can grant. In that sense, religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set.

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“That God, though, worships human beings, it's enough to frighten hearers out of their wits, because people are not in the habit of saying that God worships human beings — in that special sense —but that human beings worship God.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Sermon 87:2 ( Sermon 37:2 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160337.htm) on Matthew 20. Preached in the autumn after 424. Latin http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/augustine/serm87.shtml
The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Sermons 51-94), John E. Rotelle, Edmund Hill, eds. & trans., New City Press, 1990 pp. 407- 408. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=bks:1&source=og&q=%22So%20there%20you%20are%3B%20listen%3B%20as%20I%20said%2C%20God%20worships%20us%20in%20the%20sense%20of%20tending%20our%20worth%22&sa=N&tab=wp
Sermons
Context: So there you are; listen; as I said, God "worships" us in the sense of tending our worth. That we worship God, of course, doesn't need proving to you. It's on everybody's lips, after all, that human beings worship God. That God, though, worships human beings, it's enough to frighten hearers out of their wits, because people are not in the habit of saying that God worships human beings — in that special sense —but that human beings worship God.
So I've got to prove to you that God too does "worship" human beings, or you will consider, perhaps, that I have used the word very carelessly, and begin arguing against me in your thoughts, and finding fault with me because you don't in fact grasp what I have been saying. So it's agreed that this is what has to be demonstrated to you: that God also "worships" us; but in the sense I have already mentioned, that he tends our worth as his field, to make improvements in us. The Lord says in the gospel: I am the vine, you are the branches; my Father is the farm worker (Jn 15:5,1). What does a farm worker do? I'm asking you, those of you who are farm workers and farmers. What does a farm worker do? I presume he works his farm, that is, tends its worth, that is, "worships" it, in a sense. So if God the Father is a farmer or farm worker, it means he has a farm, and he works or "worships" his farm, and expects a crop from it.

Tenzin Gyatso photo

“Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Nobel lecture (1989)
Context: Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility. In that state of mind you can deal with situations with calmness and reason, while keeping your inner happiness. That is very important. Without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed or unhappy because of circumstances.

Arthur Miller photo

“Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

Why I Wrote 'The Crucible in The New Yorker (21 October 1996) https://archive.is/20130630000741/www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?020422fr_archive02
Context: Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.

Thucydides photo
Vince Lombardi photo
Al Capone photo
Steven Weinberg photo
Mohammad Ali Jauhar photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo

“I really agree that Yog-Sothoth is a basically immature conception, & unfitted for really serious literature. The fact is, I have never approached serious literature yet. But I consider the use of actual folk-myths as even more childish than the use of new artificial myths, since in the former one is forced to retain many blatant peurilities & contradictions of experienced which could be subtilised or smoothed over if the supernaturalism were modelled to order for the given case. The only permanently artistic use of Yog-Sothothery, I think, is in symbolic or associative phantasy of the frankly poetic type; in which fixed dream-patterns of the natural organism are given an embodiment & crystallisation... But there is another phase of cosmic phantasy (which may or may not include frank Yog-Sothothery) whose foundations appear to me as better grounded than those of ordinary oneiroscopy; personal limitations regarding the sense of outsideness. I refer to the aesthetic crystallisation of that burning & inextinguishable feeling of mixed wonder & oppression which the sensitive imagination experiences upon scaling itself & its restrictions against the vast & provocative abyss of the unknown. This has always been the chief emotion in my psychology; & whilst it obviously figures less in the psychology of the majority, it is clearly a well-defined & permanent factor from which very few sensitive persons are wholly free.... Reason as we may, we cannot destroy a normal perception of the highly limited & fragmentary nature of our visible world of perception & experience as scaled against the outside abyss of unthinkable galaxies & unplumbed dimensions—an abyss wherein our solar system is the merest dot... The time has come when the normal revolt against time, space, & matter must assume a form not overtly incompatible with what is known of reality—when it must be gratified by images forming supplements rather than contradictions of the visible & measurable universe. And what, if not a form of non-supernatural cosmic art, is to pacify this sense of revolt—as well as gratify the cognate sense of curiosity?”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 293
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Joseph Stalin photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo

“Some of you may be aware our gun laws in the United States don’t make much sense. Anybody can buy any weapon any time — without much if any regulation, they can buy it over the Internet, they can buy machine gun.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Comments at VTEX Day digital convention in Sao Paulo, Brazil (30 May 2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shx-sXngQUI&t=2182s; also quoted in "Obama tells Brazil: In America ‘anybody can buy any weapon any time", Washington Examiner (31 May 2019)
2019

Abraham Lincoln photo

“It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants. They well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit aggression upon them. They knew-they were expressly notified-that the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which would on that occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so much, should provoke more.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

They knew that this Government desired to keep the garrison in the fort, not to assail them, but merely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and immediate dissolution, trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, discussion, and the ballot box for final adjustment; and they assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object — to drive out the visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolution. That this was their object the Executive well understood; and having said to them in the inaugural address, "You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors," he took pains not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep the case so free from the power of ingenious sophistry as that the world should not be able to misunderstand it. By the affair at Fort Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point was reached. Then and thereby the assailants of the Government began the conflict of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return their fire, save only the few in the fort, sent to that harbor years before for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding all else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue, "Immediate dissolution or blood."
1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

George Washington photo
George Washington photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Richard Adams photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Yuval Noah Harari photo
Mark Twain photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Erich von Manstein photo
Carl Schmitt photo
Simon Wiesenthal photo

“Survivors should be like seismographs… They should sense danger before others do, identify its outlines and reveal them. They are not entitled to be wrong a second time or regard as harmless something that might lead to catastrophe.”

Simon Wiesenthal (1908–2005) Austrian Holocaust survivor noted for his work as a Nazi hunter

York Times Obituary, 9/20/2005 https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/international/europe/simon-wiesenthal-nazi-hunter-dies-at-96.htmlNew

Galileo Galilei photo
Wilhelm Reich photo
Eileen Chang photo
Premchand photo
Lil Wayne photo
Jeremy Bentham photo
Fannie Lou Hamer photo
Richard Wagner photo

“A moment of weakness comes, for everyone, but then he feels stupid, and listens to his good sense.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Original: (de) "Die schwache Stunde kommt für jeden, da wird er dumm und lässt mit sich reden."
Source: Quotes from his operas, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Hans Sachs, Act 3 Scene 3

Eckhart Tolle photo
Thomas Paine photo
Karl Marx photo
Alexandra David-Néel photo
Rebecca Walker photo

“Part of what I wanted to do with Baby Love was to suggest that not only are you giving birth to a baby, but also you can use the experience to give birth to a new sense of yourself.”

Rebecca Walker (1969) American writer

On her book Baby Love in “'Can I survive having a baby? Will I lose myself ... ?'” https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/may/26/familyandrelationships.family2 in The Guardian (2007 May 26)

Marcin Malek photo
Marquis de Sade photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Trevor Noah photo
Barack Obama photo

“Citizenship demands a sense of common purpose; participation in the hard work of self-government; an obligation to serve to our communities.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Sixth State of the Union Address (January 2014)

Carl Oglesby photo

“In a strong sense, the Old Right and the New Left are morally and politically coordinate.”

Carl Oglesby (1935–2011) American political activist

Containment and Change (1967)

Plato photo
Tadeusz Mazowiecki photo

“We, as a people, must surmount the sense of hopelessness and confront the challenge of the moment - namely, the tasks of extricating ourselves from economic disaster and reconstructing our state.”

Tadeusz Mazowiecki (1927–2013) Polish politician and prime minister

"Inaugural address of Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki" https://polishfreedom.pl/en/document/statement-inaugural-address-of-the-prime-minister-tadeusz-mazowiecki-delivered-at-the-seym-session-on-12th-september-1989 (12 September 1989)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all precedent. Mankind are faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense. A great deal of new political thinking will be necessary if utter disaster is to be averted.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1940s, The Bomb and Civilization http://personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/bombCivilization.htm (1945)

Richard Aldington photo

“Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill.”

Richard Aldington (1892–1962) English writer and poet

The Colonel’s Daughter (1931) pt. 1, ch. 6

Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Gong Yoo photo

“I tend to pick projects that give me a sense of freshness. So my filmography, especially after hitting my 30s, has become a lot more diverse.”

Gong Yoo (1979) South Korean actor

Source: "Gong Yoo on becoming South Korea’s leading man" in CNN https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/28/asia/gong-yoo-talk-asia/index.html (30 August 2017)

Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Plato photo