Quotes about the truth (8068 quotes, page 26)

“Identification [with the other] is difficult but precious. It involves doing violence to yourself. Yet Scripture says that "heaven is taken by violence" to oneself [Luke 16:16]. To identify oneself with the other is to love him beyond words, a total giving of oneself in truth.”

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

"Living the Mandate", p. 36
Unfinished Pilgrimage (1995)

Love

“Our own time, and by this I mean the last two or three generations, including our own, can be summed up in a way that brings into unity an immense number of details by saying of it that it is a time in which the search for the supreme truth has been a search in reality or through reality or even a search for some supremely acceptable fiction.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Necessary Angel (1951), Imagination as Value

Way , Search , Reality , Time

“In my opinion the aim of the painter is similar with that of the poet, insofar that both want to affect the feelings of the viewer or reader. As soon as their scenes.... are lacking the mark of nature, of truth, than both will fail to realize it. The Dutch painter feels - as well as the Germans do - the influence of sublime nature, but the Dutch painter first wants to be acquainted with 'plain truth', to combine it afterwards with the poetic..”

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862) painter from the Northern Netherlands

(original Dutch, citaat van B.C. Koekkoek:) Het doel van den schilder is, naar mijn wijze van zien, in zoverre met dat des dichters gelijk, dat beiden op het gevoel van den beschouwer of den lezer willen werken. Dit kunnen zij onmogelijk doen, zodra hunne taferelen.. ..den stempel der natuur, de waarheid missen.. .De Nederlandschee schilder gevoelt even goed als de Duitsche den invloed der verhevenen natuur, maar de Nederlander wil eerst met het 'eenvoudige ware' bekend zijn, om hetzelve later met dichterlijke te vereenigen..
Source: Herinneringen aan en Mededeelingen van…' (1841), p. 29-30

Feeling , Nature

“Dialectics is the way of seeking for truth by talking with others from different points of view, through "Yes" and "No," until a "Yes" has been reached which is hardened in the fire of many "No's" and which unites the elements of truth promoted in the discussion. It is most unfortunate that in recent years the name "dialectical theology" has been applied to a theology that is strongly opposed to any kind of dialectics and mediation and that constantly repeats the "Yes" to its own and the "No" to any other position. This has made it difficult to use the term "dialectical" to denote theological movements of a really dialectical, that is a mediating, character; and it has resulted in the cheap and clumsy way of dividing all theologians into naturalists and supernaturalists, or into liberals and orthodox. The Protestant Era by Paul Tillich 1948 Introduction”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

The Protestant Era (1948)

Way

“Sultan Mahmud at first designed in his heart to go to Sijistan, but subsequently preferred engaging previously in a holy war against Hind, and he distributed arms prior to convening a council on the subject, in order to secure a blessing on his designs, of exalting the standard of religion, of widening the plain of right, of illuminating the words of truth, and of strengthening the power of justice. He departed towards the country of Hind, in full reliance on the aid of Allah, who guiding by his light and by his power, bestowed dignity upon him, and gave him victory in all expeditions. On his reaching Purshaur (Peshawar), he pitched his tent outside the city…”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

About the defeat of Jaipal. Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 24-25.
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi

War , Religion , Justice , Light

“Normally, anyone disreputable enough to flatly affirm such positive proclamations without adequate support would lose the respect of his peers and be accused of outright fraud; anyone but a religious advocate that is. When allegedly holy men do the exact same thing, then its not called fraud anymore. Its called “revealed truth” instead. That’s quite a double-standard, innit? Like when some minister gets on stage at one of those stadium-sized churches -to state as fact who God is and what God is, and what he wants, hates, needs, won’t tolerate, or will do -for whom, how, and under what conditions; they don’t have any data to show they’re correct about any of it, yet they speak so matter-of-factly. Even when they contradict each other they’re all still completely confident in their own empty assertions! So why do none of these tens of thousands of head-bobbing, mouth-breathing, glassy-eyed wanna-believers have the presence of mind to ask, “how do you know that?” Well, for all those who never asked the question, here’s the answer; they don’t know that! There’s no way anyone could know these things. They’re making it up as they go along. These sermons are the best possible example of blind speculation; asserted as though it were truth and sold for tithe. If anyone or everyone else would be called liars for claiming such things without any evidentiary basis then why make exceptions for evangelists? For these charlatans are obviously liars too! The clergy are in the same category of questionable credibility as are commissioned salesmen, politicians, and military recruiters.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"4th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80nhqGfN6t8, Youtube (December 25, 2007)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men , God , Hate , Way

“We can laugh at comedies like this for two reasons: Because we feel superior to the characters, or because we pity or like them. I do not much like laughing down at people, which is why the comedies of Adam Sandler make me squirmy (most people, I know, laugh because they like him). In the case of Napoleon Dynamite, I certainly don't like him, but then the movie makes no attempt to make him likable. Truth is, it doesn't even try to be a comedy. It tells his story and we are supposed to laugh because we find humor the movie pretends it doesn't know about.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/napoleon-dynamite-2004 of Napoleon Dynamite (18 June 2004)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

People , Feeling

“Among the friends and patrons of the society at York who paid kind and hospitable attention to those whom the love of science had brought to the meeting, the clergy must not be passed over in silence. They had been the zealous promoters of the meeting; had done much towards facilitating the preliminary arrangements; and exerted themselves by their influence and example to secure to the association that respect and general attention which it deserved, and which at York it amply received. To the church, therefore, the British Association is deeply indebted; and convinced, as I am, that true religion and true science ever lead to the same great end, manifesting and exalting the glory and goodness of the great object of our common worship, I trust that the firmer the association is established, and the more influential it becomes, the more willing and the more efficient an ally it will prove in the cause of religion. While in former times science was said to lead to infidelity, because then it was less profoundly studied, or with less zeal for truth, it is one of the happy characters of the science of this day that it renders men more devout; and it is a pleasing evidence that such is the received opinion, when discerning and educated men — the friends and teachers of religion — of all ranks, step forward not only to patronize science, but to enlist themselves among its cultivators, and to distinguish those who have most successfully advanced it.”

James Finlay Weir Johnston (1796–1855) Scottish agricultural chemist

Report of the First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at York in September 1831. By James F. W. Johnston, A. M. &c. &c. As found in David Brewster's The Edinburgh Journal Of Science. Vol. 8 https://archive.org/stream/edinburghjourna09brewgoog#page/n29/mode/2up, p. 29.

Love , Men , Education , Religion

“There are ghosts and there is love,
And both are present here,
To those who listen, this tale will tell
The truth of love and if it's near.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Miss Harkins, Chapter 13, p. 139
2000s, A Bend in the Road (2001)

Love

“Here are two opposite ideas, one containing truth, the other the lie. Truth-of which there can be but one-is sought. The question is put to a vote. One idea polls 10,000 votes, the other 10,050. Is it possible that 50 votes more or less determine or deny truth? Truth depends neither on majority nor minority; it has its own laws and it succeeds, as has been seen, against all majorities, even though they be crushing.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Lie , Law , Idea , Question

“In the history of madness, two events signal this change with singular clarity: in 1657, the founding of the Hôpital Général, and the Great Confinement of the poor; and in 1794, the liberation of the mad in chains at Bicêtre. Between these two singular and symmetrical events, something happened, whose ambiguity has perplexed historians of medicine: blind repression in an absolutist regime, according to some, and, according to others, the progressive discovery, by science and philanthropy, of madness in its positive truth. In fact, beneath these reversible meanings, a structure was taking shape, which did not undo that ambiguity but was decisive for it. This structure explains the passage from the medieval and humanist experience of madness to the experience that is our own, which confines madness in mental illness.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Preface to 1961 edition
History of Madness (1961)

History , Decision , Science , Change

“If you just want to say, "Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along," that's fine. If you’re interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is. … Let’s be realistic, who came up with "File/Edit/View/Help"? Do you want to go back to the original Mac and think about where those interface concepts came from?”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Interview with Steven Levy in Newsweek (31 January 2007) "Finally, Vista Makes Its Debut. Now What?" http://archive.is/20130105003445/www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/01/31/finally-vista-makes-its-debut-now-what.html
2000s

World , Education , Thinking , Help

“The embarrassing truth — the brontosaurus in the broom closet that nobody wants to talk about — is that the Republican Party was never the party of freedom. That Goldwater business in the 1960s was a fluke, immediately snuffed out by "older, wiser heads" in the GOP like those of Nelson Rockefeller, Weeping Willy Scranton, Henry Cabot Lodge, and George Romney. The Republican Party was created in the 1850s by northeastern mercantilists just like them, to crush the hopes of poor southerners for individual liberty and independence, and keep them bound in serfdom, paying 80 percent of all taxes collected in America.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"The Brontosaurus in the Broom Closet" http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle541-20091018-05.html 18 October 2009.

Hope , Business , Freedom

““I gather you were all too busy killing each other.”
“That’s a fairly reductive summary of our history, but I don’t suppose it’s too far from the truth.””

Alastair Reynolds book Chasm City

Source: Chasm City (2001), Chapter 21 (p. 359).

History , Business

“Progress, in the sense of acquisition, is something; but progress in the sense of being, is a great deal more. To grow higher, deeper, wider, as the years go on; to conquer difficulties, and acquire more and more power; to feel all one's faculties unfolding, and truth descending into the soul, — this makes life worth living.”

James Freeman Clarke (1810–1888) American theologian and writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 565.

Life , Feeling , Soul , Sense

“At my arrival [in Paris], Fauvism. Cubism, and Futurism were in full swing. There was in the air the glamour of a battle, the holy battle raging for the assertion of a new truth. My youth plunged full in it.”

Joseph Stella (1877–1946) American artist

Joseph Stella (1911); Quoted in: Judith Zilczer (1983) Joseph Stella: : The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection, p. 10

Youth , Rage , Future

“I speak not with a feeling of anger or hatred towards those who are responsible for the immense suffering of our people and the destruction of our land, homes and culture. They too are human beings who struggle to find happiness and deserve our compassion. I speak to inform you of the sad situation in my country today and of the aspirations of my people, because in our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Nobel lecture (1989)

People , Sadness , Feeling , Home

“And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific reverse shock: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers around the racks invent, refine, discuss.People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind — it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it.”

Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) Martiniquais politician

Source: Discourse on Colonialism (1955), p. 36

People , Hope , Business , Waiting

“Though departing from the Truth as it is in Jesus, through introducing Ways of Life attended with unnecessary Expences, many Wants have arisen, the Minds of People have been employ'd in studying to get Wealth, and in this Pursuit, some departing from Equity, have retain'd a Profession of Religion; others have look'd at their Example, and thereby been stengthen'd to proceed further in the same Way: Thus many having encourag'd the Trade of taking Men from Africa and selling them as Slaves.”

John Woolman (1720–1772) American Quaker preacher

Source: The Journal of John Woolman (1774), p. 292; cited in: On The Slave Trade by John Woolman http://www.qhpress.org/texts/oldqwhp/wool-496.htm on qhpress.org, 2013

Life , Men , People , Religion

“[On her fallout with Abhishek Bachchan] The truth is if someone chooses not to invite you to their wedding you realize where you stand with that person. You may be deluded and think you are friends but maybe that friendship was only extended as co-stars on the sets. It doesn't matter. It became very clear to me that we were only co-stars not friends.”

Rani Mukerji (1978) Indian film actress

citation needed
Famous Quotes

Friendship , Star , Thinking , Wedding

“Some other Course therefore must be taken to promote the Search of Knowledge. Some other kind of Art for Inquiry than what hath been hitherto made use of, must be discovered; the Intellect is not to he suffer'd to act without its Helps, but is continually to be assisted by some Method or Engine, which shall be as a Guide to regulate its Actions, so as that it shall not be able to act amiss: Of this Engine, no Man except the incomparable Verulam hath had any Thoughts, and he indeed hath promoted it to a very good pitch; but there is yet somewhat more to be added, which he seem'd to want time to compleat. By this, as by that Art of Algebra in Geometry, 'twill be very easy to proceed in any Natural Inquiry, regularly and certainly: And indeed it may not improperly be call'd a Philosophical Algebra, or an Art of directing the Mind in the search after Philosophical Truths, for as 'tis very hard for the most acute Wit to find out any difficult Problem in Geometry. without the help of Algebra to direct and regulate the Acts of the Reason in the Process from the question to the quœsitum, and altogether as easy for the meanest Capacity acting by that Method to compleat and perfect it, so will it be in the inquiry after Natural Knowledge.”

Robert Hooke (1635–1703) English natural philosopher, architect and polymath

"The Present State of Natural Philosophy, and wherein it is deficient," The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke https://books.google.com/books?id=6xVTAAAAcAAJ (1705) ed., Richard Waller, pp. 6-7.

Art , Search , Question , Nature

“3710. Old Custom, without Truth, is but an old Errour.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Variant: Custom without Reason, is but an ancient Error.
Context: 1226. Custom without Reason, is but an ancient Error.

“To know oneself as well as one can; to avoid self-deception and foster no illusions; to learn what one can about the plain natural truth of things, and make one's valuations accordingly; to waste no time in speculating upon vain subtleties, upon "things which are not and work not"; — this perhaps is hardly the aim of an academic philosophy, but it is what a practical philosophy keeps steadily in view. Because the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius so consistently does keep just this in view, it still remains, and for those who can take it will probably always remain, the best of handbooks to the art of living.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

Source: Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943), p. 304-305

Art , Nature , Learning , Time

“Students of administration, writes J. M. Gaus, have become "more uncertain in recent years as to the ends, aims and methods which they should advocate/' It is difficult to view in their entirety and in perspective the writings on public administration that now pour from the presses. But this is hardly necessary to confirm the truth of Gaus' statement.”

Dwight Waldo (1913–2000) American political scientist

Source: The Administrative State, 1948, p. 206

“First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew
'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there”

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) English novelist and poet

I Am the Only Being (1836)

Youth , Hope , Thinking

“The convention by which the great events in biblical or secular history could be enacted only by magnificent physical specimens, handsome and well-groomed, went on for a long time — till the middle of the nineteenth century. Only a very few artists — perhaps only Rembrandt and Caravaggio in the first rank — were independent enough to stand against it. And I think that this convention, which was an element in the so-called grand manner, became a deadening influence on the European mind. It deadened our sense of truth, even our sense of moral responsibility.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: Civilisation (1969), Ch. 5: The Hero as Artist

History , Thinking , Sense , Time

“When I asked Bhutto what he thought of Assad, he described the Syrian leader as “The Levanter.” Knowing that, like himself, I was a keen reader of thrillers, the Pakistani Prime Minister knew that I would get the message. However, it was only months later when, having read Eric Ambler’s 1972 novel The Levanter that I understood Bhutto’s one-word pen portrayal of Hafez Al-Assad. In The Levanter the hero, or anti-hero if you prefer, is a British businessman who, having lived in Syria for years, has almost “gone native” and become a man of uncertain identity. He is a bit of this and a bit of that, and a bit of everything else, in a region that is a mosaic of minorities. He doesn’t believe in anything and is loyal to no one. He could be your friend in the morning but betray you in the evening. He has only two goals in life: to survive and to make money… Today, Bashar Al-Assad is playing the role of the son of the Levanter, offering his services to any would-be buyer through interviews with whoever passes through the corner of Damascus where he is hiding. At first glance, the Levanter may appear attractive to those engaged in sordid games. In the end, however, the Levanter must betray his existing paymaster in order to begin serving a new one. Four years ago, Bashar switched to the Tehran-Moscow axis and is now trying to switch back to the Tel-Aviv-Washington one that he and his father served for decades. However, if the story has one lesson to teach, it is that the Levanter is always the source of the problem, rather than part of the solution. ISIS is there because almost half a century of repression by the Assads produced the conditions for its emergence. What is needed is a policy based on the truth of the situation in which both Assad and ISIS are parts of the same problem.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: Like Father, Like Son http://www.aawsat.net/2015/02/article55341622/opinion-like-father-like-son, Ashraq Al-Awsat (February 20, 2015).

Life , Money , Game , Problem

“The precept to worship God 'in spirit and in truth' recommand to worship him as an inward and moral force, without physical attributes and with no relation to fears and egoist wishes.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 40 The quotation is from the Gospel of John, VII, 24.

God , Fear

“I suppose I ought to think up some dramatic, quotable phrase for Public Information and the history books, but I'm damned if any of them come to mind. Besides, admitting the truth wouldn't sound too good (…) The truth, Russell, is that now the moment's here, I'm scared shitless. Somehow I don't think even Public Information could turn that into good copy.”

David Weber (1952) author

quote from Havenite Admiral Amos Parnell, after ordering his fleet to depart for the opening attack of the Haven-Manticore War.
"Honorverse", The Short Victorious War (1994)

Books , History , Thinking

“The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean Algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, and Balanchine ballets don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Partisan Review (Winter 1967), p. 57

Women , World , History

“Fear ye God that ye may not identify yourselves with aught but the truth, inasmuch as ye have been exalted in the Bayán for being recognized as the bearers of the name of Him Who is the eternal Truth.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

XVII, 4
The Kitáb-I-Asmá

God , Fear

“The strong, calm man is always loved and revered. He is like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land, or a sheltering rock in a storm. "Who does not love a tranquil heart, a sweet-tempered, balanced life? It does not matter whether it rains or shines, or what changes come to those possessing these blessings, for they are always sweet, serene, and calm. That exquisite poise of character, which we call serenity is the last lesson of culture, the fruitage of the soul. It is precious as wisdom, more to be desired than gold — yea, than even fine gold. How insignificant mere money seeking looks in comparison with a serene life — a life that dwells in the ocean of Truth, beneath the waves, beyond the reach of tempests, in the Eternal Calm!”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Serenity

Love , Life , Wisdom , Money

“The oldest definition of Analysis as opposed to Synthesis is that appended to Euclid XIII. 5. It was possibly framed by Eudoxus. It states that "Analysis is the obtaining of the thing sought by assuming it and so reasoning up to an admitted truth: synthesis is the obtaining of the thing sought by reasoning up to the inference and proof of it." In other words, the synthetic proof proceeds by shewing that certain admitted truths involve the proposed new truth: the analytic proof proceeds by shewing that the proposed new truth involves certain admitted truths.”

James Gow (scholar) (1854–1923) scholar

A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884)

“Professor Richard N. Current fusses, not irrelevantly, about the propriety of fictionalising actual political figures. I also fuss about this. But he has fallen prey to the scholar-squirrel's delusion that there is a final Truth revealed only to the tenured few in their footnote maze; in this he is simply naïve.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

“An aphorism can never be the whole truth; it is either a half-truth or a truth-and-a-half.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Die Fackel no. 270/71 (19 January 1909)
Die Fackel

“The truth is that history constantly presents new problems in the guise of old.”

William Pfaff (1928–2015) American journalist

Source: Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends (1989), Chapter 5, Nationalism, p. 155.

History , Problem

“As long as scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems.”

Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) American electrical engineer and science administrator

As quoted by George H. W. Bush in remarks while presenting National Medals of Science and Technology http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/papers/1990/90111300.html (13 November 1990). This might be a paraphrase of statements from his introduction to "Science The Endless Frontier" (1945), rather than a direct quote. (see below)

Knowledge , Problem

“There remains the problem of Goebbels' reputation. He wore the title of Big Liar (bestowed by Anglo-Saxon propaganda) and yet he never stopped battling for propaganda to be as accurate as possible. He preferred being cynical and brutal to being caught in a lie. He used to say: "Everybody must know what the situation is." He was always the first to announce disastrous events or difficult situations, without hiding anything. The result was a general belief between 1939 and 1942 that German communiqués not only were more concise, clearer and less cluttered, but were more truthful than Allied communiqués (American and neutral opinion) — and, furthermore, that the Germans published all the news two or three days before the Allies. All this is so true that pinning the title of Big Liar on Goebbels must be considered quite a propaganda success.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

"The Characteristics of Propaganda" in Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion : New and Classic Essays (2006) edited by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, p. 48, note 47

Lie , Problem , Success

“I talked to Paul McCartney over the years ranging from 1967 to 2004. … At the landmine show he did "God Only Knows" with me and I did "Let It Be" with him. And then I called him about four months ago asking him if he could come out and do — sing a song called "A Friend Like You," which I wrote for him, me and my collaborator wrote for him. And he said he'd love to come out. And he came to the studio and that was one of the bigger thrills of my life to tell you the truth, to produce Paul McCartney. And that was a thrill for me. That was a thrill.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

CNN interview (2004)

Love , Life , God , Singing

“To follow and demonstrate the path of Truth, Simplicity and Love is man’s supreme duty and the highest Yoga. Diligent work is a quality of this path, for laziness is death on earth. Only by work can one claim victory over karma. All must strive to do their duty in the best way possible and not wander from that duty. Service to humanity is the first duty.”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

30 September 1982.
The Teachings of Babaji

Love , Death , Way , Victory

“The Roman god, Lucifer, was the bearer of light, the spirit of the air, the personification of enlightenment. […] It has been said "the truth will make men free". The truth alone has never set anyone free. It is only DOUBT which will bring mental emancipation. Without the wonderful element of doubt, the doorway through which truth passes would be tightly shut, impervious to the most strenuous poundings of a thousand Lucifers.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Men , God , Light

“It would be different if there were some great widespread public indigonation and demand: "Away with the prescriptive upper house of Parliament". There is not. There was recently carried out by Mr. McKenzie and a colleague of his a survey of working-class political attitudes called Angels in Marble. They found that "only one-third of the entire working class sample, and only a slightly higher proportion of Labour voters, favoured abolishing the Lords or altering it in any way…About a third of the whole sample" of working-class voters in the country "see the Lords as an intrinsic part of the national tradition or of the government of the country." As so often, the ordinary rank and file of the electorate have seen a truth, an important fact, which has escaped so many more clever people—the underlying value of that which is traditional, of that which is prescriptive.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1968/nov/19/house-of-lords-reform#S5CV0773P0_19681119_HOC_305 (19 November 1968) regarding proposals for reforming the House of Lords.
1960s

People , Angels , Way , Parting

“No Dilettantism in this Mahomet; it is a business of Reprobation and Salvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in deadly earnest about it! Dilettantism, hypothesis, speculation, a kind of amateur-search for Truth, toying and coquetting with Truth: this is the sorest sin. The root of all other imaginable sins. It consists in the heart and soul of the man never having been open to Truth; — "living in a vain show." Such a man not only utters and produces falsehoods, but is himself a falsehood. The rational moral principle, spark of the Divinity, is sunk deep in him, in quiet paralysis of life-death.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Life , Death , Soul , Imagination

“Wine is a great danger, especially because it doesn't bring truth to the surface. Anything but the truth, indeed: it reveals especially the past and forgotten history of the individual rather than his present wish; it capriciously flings into the light also all the half-baked ideas with which in a more or less recent period one has toyed and then forgotten.”

Italo Svevo book Zeno's Conscience

Il vino è un grande pericolo specie perché non porta a galla la verità. Tutt'altro che la verità anzi: rivela dell'individuo specialmente la storia passata e dimenticata e non la sua attuale volontà; getta capricciosamente alla luce anche tutte le ideucce con le quali in epoca più o meno recente ci si baloccò e che si è dimenticate.
Source: La coscienza di Zeno (1923), P. 194; p. 232.

History , Idea , Light , Wine

“Psychoanalysis does not distort the truth by accident. It does so by necessity. It is an effective system for the suppression of the truth about childhood, a truth feared by our entire society. Not surprisingly, it enjoys great esteem among intellectuals… Fear of the truth about child abuse is a leitmotif of nearly all forms of therapy known to me.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

Fear , Childhood

“…for the truth is, I am gone something further in hate to the English Government than perhaps you and the rest of my friends are, and certainly further than can with prudence be avowed. The triumph of the French Government over the English does in fact afford me a degree of pleasure which it is very difficult to disguise.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to Lord Grey (22 October 1801), quoted in E. A. Smith, Lord Grey. 1764-1845 (Alan Sutton, 1996), p. 86.
1800s

Hate , Pleasure

“This is an epistle from the letter ‘Thá’ unto Him Who will be made manifest through the power of Truth — He Who is the All-Glorious, the Best Beloved — to affirm that all created things as well as myself bear witness for all time that there is none other God but Thee, the Omnipotent, the Self-Subsisting; that Thou art God, there is no God besides Thee and that all men shall be raised up to life through Thee.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Tablet to ‘Him Who Will Be Made Manifest’

Life , Men , God , Art

“The horrors of [Vivisection] have supplanted the solemnity, the thrilling fascination, of the old unetherized operation upon the human sufferer. Their recorded phenomena, stored away by the physiological inquisitor on dusty shelves, are mostly of as little present use to man as the knowledge of a new comet or of a tungstate of zirconium: perhaps to be confuted the next year, perhaps to remain as fixed truth of immediate value, — contemptibly small compared with the price paid for it in agony and torture.”

Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818–1890) American surgeon

Source: Surgical Anaesthesia (1894), p. 309

Knowledge , Suffering

“In that Renaissance (Cellini, Tintoretto, Titian..) there was an explosion of unique truthfulness, a love of painting and form... Then come the Jesuits and everything is formal; everything has to be taught and learned. It required a revolution for nature to be rediscovered; for Delacroix to paint his beach at Etratat, Corot his roman rubble, Gustave Courbet his forest scenes and his waves. And how miserable slow that revolution was, how many stages it had to go through!... These artists had not yet discovered that nature has more to do with depth than with surfaces. I can tell you, you can do things to the surface.... but by going deep you automatically go to the truth. You feel a healthy need to be truthful. You'd rather strip your canvas right down than invent or imagine a detail. You want to know.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), pp. 156-157, in: 'What he told me – I. The motif'

Love , Feeling , Imagination , Nature

“A gift of truth is the gift of love”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

ibid.
Variant: A gift of truth is the gift of love.

Love

“To tell the absolute truth, I’ve always been slightly embarrassed by Walter’s company. Whenever I’m with him, I feel the stretch of the old tightrope, the necessity of living up to the friendship of friendships, of cultivating an intimacy beyond words. The fact is that we have little to say to each other. There is only this thick sympathetic silence between us. We are comrades, true, but somewhat embarrassed comrades. It is probably my fault. For years now I have had no friends. I spend my entire time working, making money, going to movies and seeking the company of women.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

The Moviegoer (1961)

Women , Money , Friendship , Feeling

“In the twenty-four years since its birth in 1921, the Communist Party of China has gone through three great struggles--the Northern Expedition, the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the War of Resistance Against Japan which is still going on. From its very beginning our Party has based itself on the theory of Marxism-Leninism, for Marxism-Leninism is the crystallization of the most correct and most revolutionary scientific thought of the world proletariat. When the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism began to be integrated with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution, the Chinese revolution took on an entirely new complexion and the entire historical stage of New Democracy emerged. Armed with Marxist-Leninist theory, the Communist Party of China has brought a new style of work to the Chinese people, a style of work which essentially entails integrating theory with practice, forging close links with the masses and practicing self-criticism.”

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

On Coalition Government (1945)

War , People , World , Democracy

“In China, there is a long history of the government not revealing information, so it’s difficult for the Chinese people to ever know the truth. It is vital that we try to bring that truth to life.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, An Artist’s Ordeal. 2009

Life , People , History

“In a milieu of resignation, where the young men think of society as a closed room in which there are no values but the rejected rat race, … it is extremely hard to aim at objective truth or world culture. One’s own products are likely to be personal or parochial.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 179.

Men , World , Thinking , Personality

“There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts. She, like we, saw the horrifying conditions of ghetto life. Like we, she knew that all of society is poisoned by cancerous slums. Like we, she was a direct actionist — a nonviolent resister. She was willing to accept scorn and abuse until the truth she saw was revealed to the millions. At the turn of the century she went into the slums and set up a birth control clinic, and for this deed she went to jail because she was violating an unjust law. Yet the years have justified her actions. She launched a movement which is obeying a higher law to preserve human life under humane conditions. Margaret Sanger had to commit what was then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage and vision; for without them there would have been no beginning. Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her. Negroes have no mere academic nor ordinary interest in family planning. They have a special and urgent concern.”

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

1960s, Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern (1966)

Life , People , Family , Law

“History will be much kinder to Richard Nixon than his contemporaries have been. Truths will come to light that will reveal him to be a more honorable man than some who have come to that office after him.”

Helen Reddy (1941) Australian actress

On the legacy of then-American president Richard Nixon and his successors, pg. 217
The Woman I Am: A Memoir (2006)

History , Light

“All the measurements in the world do not balance one theorem by which the science of eternal truths is actually advanced.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

March 14, 1824. As quoted in Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (1955) by Guy Waldo Dunnington. p. 360

World , Science

“This work deals with a very obvious truth: just as the oppressor, in order to oppress, needs a theory of oppressive action, so the oppressed, in order to become free, also need a theory of action.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

“I just want to go back to rockin', but I'm uncertain as to what to actually do … The truth is, I never stopped thinking about rock 'n' roll for a second that I'm on holiday.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

Strummer on Man, God, Law and the Clash (31 January 1988)

Thinking , Holiday

“Never more than to-day were needed the men of calm and resolute faith. Brothers, to your knees and to your ranks! To your knees in humblest supplication; to your ranks in steadfast bravery which no foe can cause to quail. Stand forth in courage and in gentleness for the truth which you believe to be allied to Freedom and Progress and God. Be so strong that you are not afraid to be just. Cherish a tender humanity and a catholic heart. Then take your stand, calm and moveless as the stars.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 222.

Men , God , Faith , Star

“I know nothing of that directly; I only know what I have been told by other young ones who couldn’t have known directly either. I want to find out the truth about them and the wanting has grown until there is more of curiosity in me than fear.”

Isaac Asimov book The Gods Themselves

Section 2, Chapter 2b, p. 104
The Gods Themselves (1972)

Fear

“Come on, readers, give me one example of a question that religion has answered to everyone’s satisfaction—one example of a “truth” found in religion’s quest for truth.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" Do both science and faith produce truth? http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/do-both-science-and-faith-produce-truth/" August 11, 2012

Religion , Question

“The child who defines a lie as being a "naughty word" knows perfectly well that lying consists in not speaking the truth. He is not, therefore, mistaking one thing for another, he is simply identifying them one with another by what seems to us a quaint extension of the word "lie."”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism

Lie , Lying

“It is better that there should be a republic, and the elected leader should at least be a person of perfection, devoted to his religion and his nation, as was the case among you with Gambetta, the president of the republic. Everyone spoke in praise of him. Whenever such a universally popular person is in power, naturally the people and the state will be as one essence. Or, if he should have ministers around him, naturally he will be better than others. When such a person is selected by God, he is, of course, the temporal [pishva] leader and spiritual guide [Imam] of the people. If he derives his power from the people alone, then he is their chief, but he is not in truth a spiritual leader [Imam] of any people over which he rules.”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

Treatise on Kingship

God , People , Religion , Nature

“In French the truth of passion stood up coldly and cruelly to the scrutiny of human experience. In his own curious phrase he [Pursewarden] had always qualified it as 'an unsniggerable language.”

Lawrence Durrell The Alexandria Quartet

Source: The Alexandria Quartet (1957–1960), Mountolive (1958), VIII

Passion

“Let the Bible itself dwell in you — Christ's own word in Christ's own tone — the truth as it was in Jesus — truth dissolved in love, and redolent of sanctity.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 91.

Love , Christ

“The study of law is valuable as a mental discipline, but the practice of pleading tends to make one petty, formal, and insincere. To be driven to look to legality rather than to equity blurs the view of truth and justice.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 78

Justice , Law , Study

“To be a materialist is to acknowledge objective truth, which is revealed to us by our sense organs.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), p. 130

Sense

“A society that has no ideals, that discards the principles of humanitarianism, that abandons the fundamental rights and dignity of humanity, can only survive by denying truth, fairness and justice.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Our Duty Is to Remember Sichuan, 2009

Justice

“A man cannot write a poem or a story that will transform the whole nature of man, his reality and his truth, making them greater and nobler.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)

Nature , Reality

“To begin with myself, then, the utterances of men concerning me will differ widely, since in passing judgment almost every one is influenced not so much by truth as by preference, and good and evil report alike know no bounds.”

Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) Italian scholar and poet

Epistola ad Posteros [Letter to Posterity] in Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898) edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 59

Men , Evil

“In all debates let truth be thy aim; not victory or an unjust interest; and endeavor to gain rather than to expose thy antagonist.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

133
Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part I

Victory

“I am not a Muslim in the usual sense, though I hope I am a “Muslim” as “one surrendered to God”; but I believe that embedded in the Qur’an and other expressions of the Islamic vision are vast stores of divine truth from which I and other occidentals have still much to learn.”

William Montgomery Watt (1909–2006) Scottish historian

Islam and Christianity Today: A Contribution to Dialogue https://books.google.com/books?id=4YlTAQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, Routledge Library Editions, 1983, p. IX.

God , Hope , Sense , Learning

“… Nothing is so simple as the subject matter of his works. The two greatest of his creations, the character of Satan and the character of Eve, are two of the simplest—the latter probably the very simplest—in the whole field of literature. On this side, Milton's art is classical. On the other hand, in no writer is the imagery more profuse, the illustrations more various, the dress altogether more splendid; and in this respect the style of his art seems romantic and modern. In real truth, however, it is only ancient art in a modern disguise: the dress is a mere dress, and can be stripped off when we will.—we all of us do perhaps in memory strip it off for ourselves.”

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British journalist, businessman, and essayist

[ART. VII—John Milton, National Review, July 1859, 9, 150–186, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015027193559;view=1up;seq=184] (quote from p. 174)
John Milton (1859)

Art , Literature , Memory

“The circle of day and night is the law of the classical world: the most restricted but most demanding of the necessities of the world, the most inevitable but the simplest of the legislations of nature.
This was a law that excluded all dialectics and all reconciliation, consequently laying the foundations for the smooth unity of knowledge as well as the uncompromising division of tragic existence. It reigns on a world without darkness, which knows neither effusiveness nor the gentle charms of lyricism. All is waking or dreams, truth or error, the light of being or the nothingness of shadow.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Part Two: 2. The Transcendence of Delirium
History of Madness (1961)

World , Law , Dreams , Error

“When I approached God at that time, I hardly had a living faith in Him. The agnostic was in me, the atheist was in me, the sceptic was in me and I was not absolutely sure that there was a God at all. I did not feel His presence. Yet something drew me to the truth of the Vedas, the truth of the Gita, the truth of the Hindu religion. I felt there must be a mighty truth somewhere in this Yoga, a mighty truth in this religion based on the Vedanta.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

The Uttarpara Address (1909)

God , Faith , Religion , Feeling

“True Love in this differs from gold and clay,
That to divide is not to take away.
Love is like understanding, that grows bright,
Gazing on many truths; 'tis like thy light,
Imagination! which from earth and sky,
And from the depths of human phantasy,
As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills
The Universe with glorious beams, and kills
Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow
Of its reverberated lightning.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Epipsychidion

Epipsychidion (1821)

Love , Error , Imagination , Understanding

“Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie them, and cast your moorings. When you are no longer attached to anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for you. (…) By the same power that brought you so far, that prompted your heart to desire truth and your mind to seek it. It is the same power that keeps you alive. You may call it Life or the Supreme.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Meditation
Source: "I am That." P.54.

Life , Help , Heart

“We never have a full demonstration, although there is always an underlying reason for the truth, even if it is only perfectly understood by God, who alone penetrated the infinite series in one stroke of the mind.”

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

The Shorter Leibniz Texts (2006) http://books.google.com/books?id=oFoCY3xJ8nkC&dq edited by Lloyd H. Strickland, p. 111

God

“Great contest follows, and much learned dust
Involves the combatants; each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 161.

Learning

“Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Douglass' chosen motto for his weekly publication The North Star. It appeared on the first issue. As quoted in Maurice S. Lee (2009), The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass. Cambridge University Press, p. 50; Thomson, Conyers & Dawson (2009). The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 149; & Connie A. Miller. Frederick Douglass American Hero: And International Icon of the Nineteenth Century. Xlibris Corporation. p. 144

God , Sex , Color

“Since the light of God’s truth beamed upon my mind, I have become a friend of that religion which teaches us to pray for our enemies — which, instead of shooting balls into their hearts, loves them. I would not hurt a hair of a slaveholder’s head. I will tell you what else I would not do. I would not stand around the slave with my bayonet pointed at his breast, in order to keep him in the power of the slaveholder.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country (October 22, 1847), Delivered at Market Hall, New York City, New York.
1840s, Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country (1847)

Love , God , Religion , Light

“Goodness was more difficult than evil. Evil men knew that more than good men. That's why they became evil. That's why it stuck with them. Evil was for those who could never reach the truth. It was a mask for stupidity and lack of love. even of people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, he said, it had to be fought for.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book One: A Fear of Love

Love , Men , People , Stupidity

“"You are like the Spanish, Captain Sharpe, confused. Cadiz is filled with politicians and lawyers and the encourage confusion. They argue. Should we be a Republic? Or perhaps a monarchy? Do we want a Cortes? And if so, should it have one chamber or two? Some want a parliament like Britain's. Others insist that Spain is best ruled by God and by a king. They squabble about these like children, but in truth there is only one real argument." "The argument, is whether Spain fights France or not?" "Exactly." "And you, believe Spain should fight against France?" "You know what the French have done to our country? The women raped, the children killed, the churches desecrated? Yes, I believe we should fight."”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Captain Fernando Galiana and Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 202
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Fury (2006)

Women , God , Children , Fight

“We may not feel as confident as once we did that the way to truth lies all open before us the moment we have brought our vague questionings to a form that "leaves the rest to experiment."”

Edgar A. Singer, Jr. (1873–1954) American philosopher

Source: Mind As Behavior And Studies In Empirical Idealism, (1924), p. v: Preface

Way , Feeling , Confidence , Question

“The destiny of the spiritual World, and, — since this is the substantial World, while the physical remains subordinate to it, or, in the language of speculation, has no truth as against the spiritual, — the final cause of the World at large, we allege to be the consciousness of its own freedom on the part of Spirit, and ipso facto, the reality of that freedom.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

World , Reality , Freedom , Parting

“A: "Your objection to the self-evident has no validity. There is no such thing as disagreement. People agree about everything."
B: "That’s absurd; people disagree constantly, and about all kinds of things."
A: "How can they? There’s nothing to disagree about; no subject matter. After all, nothing exists."
B: "Nonsense. All kinds of things exist, you know that as well as I do."
A: "That’s one. You must accept the existence axiom, even to utter the term “disagreement.” But to continue, I still maintain that disagreement is unreal. How can people disagree when they are unconscious beings who are unable to hold any ideas at all?"
B: "Of course people hold ideas. They are conscious beings. You know that."
A: "There’s another axiom, but even so, why is disagreement about axioms a problem? Why should it suggest that one or more of the parties is mistaken? Perhaps all of the people who disagree about the very same point are equally, objectively right."
B: "That’s impossible. If two ideas contradict each other, they can’t both be right. Contradictions can’t exist in reality. After all, A is A."
Existence, consciousness, identity are presupposed by every statement and by every concept, including that of "disagreement." … In the act of voicing his objection, therefore, the objector has conceded the case. In any act of challenging or denying the three axioms, a man reaffirms them, no matter what the particular content of this challenge. The axioms are invulnerable.
The opponents of these axioms pose as defenders of truth, but it is only a pose. Their attack on the self-evident amounts to the charge. "Your belief in an idea doesn't necessarily make it true; you must prove it, because facts are what they are independent of your beliefs." Every element of this charge relies on the very axioms that these people are questioning and supposedly setting aside.”

Leonard Peikoff (1933) Canadian-American philosopher

Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1991) ; Dialogue used to show that existence, conciousness, identity, and non-contradiction are axioms, using A as a defender of the axioms, and B as an opponent of the axioms,
1990s

People , Idea , Question , Problem

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Encyclical Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998
Source: www.vatican.va http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

Love , Women , Men , God

“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

War , Books , Thinking , Reading

“We as Muslims, We have to be honest. Islam has talked about trustiness, Are we known as truthful? Islam has talked about perfecting the work, are we known with that? Islam talked about tolerance, are we known as tolerants?”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi during celebrating the night of El-Kadr on 25 July 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6d_ln9MQHk.
2014

Perfection

“When a society has doubts about its future, it tends to produce spokesmen whose main appeal is to the emotions, who argue from intuitions, and whose claim to be truth-bearers rests solely on intense personal feeling.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

Review of After the Fall, by Arthur Miller, at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre, New York; Blues for Mister Charlie, by James Baldwin at the ANTA Theatre, New York (1962), p. 143
Tynan Right and Left (1967)

Feeling , Future , Personality

“Dear Brethern! Let us remove hatred and jealousy from our hearts…. The doors of penance of your return to the fold of your former real faith are wide open to let you in. Shed the burden put on your necks by force and under compulsion. Befriend the truth and help us in spreading the truth, because God helps those who help themselves.”

Pandit Lekh Ram (1858–1897) Hindu leader

Risala-i-Jihad, Treatise on Holy War, or the basis of the Mohammedan religion, 1892, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.108-9

God , Jealousy , Faith , Help

“There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God's bounty…. Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction…. In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward…. But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

1918 (The Hour of God)
India's Rebirth

Men , God , Fear , Soul

“The way of truth is along the path of intellectual sincerity.”

Henry Smith Pritchett (1857–1939) American astronomer

Address to students, quoted in Abraham Flexner, Henry S. Pritchett: A Biography (Columbia University Press, 1943; University of Virginia digitization, May 2, 2008, 211 pages), p. 192

Way , Sincerity