Quotes about the world
page 100

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Clarence Darrow photo
Robert Olmstead photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Immanuel Kant photo

“Do what is right, though the world may perish.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

This is quoted as Kant in Building Academic Language: Essential Practices for Content Classrooms, Grades 5-12 (2007) by Jeff Zwiers, p. 202, but apparently derives from Kant's arguments in support of the far older Latin proverb Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus — "Do what is right though the world should perish." which was the subject of an essay: "Kant on the Maxim 'Do What Is Right Though the World Should Perish'" by Sissela Bok, in Argumentation 2 (February 1988). There was also a similar latin proverb Fiat iustitia ruat caelum — Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
Misattributed

Mary Antin photo
George Foreman photo

“I don't even think about a retirement program because I'm working for the Lord, for the Almighty. And even thought the Lord's pay isn't very high, his retirement program is, you might say, out of this world.”

George Foreman (1949) a retired American professional boxer, ordained Baptist minister, author and entrepreneur

George works for a higher power. http://www.yeartosuccess.com/public/Inspiration_from_George_Foreman.html

Ralph Abernathy photo

“Now all the week long we've gone through that period of preparation, gettin' ourselves ready, askin' God to get us ready, askin' Him to purge us with His discipline and burn us with his fire and cleanse us and make us holy and ready to stand. For when you go down to downtown, you are goin' down there amidst mean and cruel people. Your'e goin' down there 'midst the police force and you've got to have God on your side. So you need to get ready. Ask Him to prepare you as He did Shadrach, Meshach and ABednego. You know, when they went to the fiery furnance, they said to the king, "We will not bow" But God was on their side… Just like God went in the fiery furnace with the three Hebrew boys, God will go with us on whatever operation we decide on. Now, you can't win the battle at home. You got to go to the battlefield. Now when you go to the battlefield, ain't no need to go out there without expectin' to have some casualitites. Somebody will get hurt. I don't know who it will be. It may be me. If it is me, I can only rejoice in the Lord that I had a little part to play… Now nobody can enjoin God. I don't care what kind of injuction the city attorney seeks to get, he cannot enjoin God. This is God's movement. Nobody can enjoin God. There can be no injuction against God. Because Albany does not belong to the Democratic Party of the state of Georgia. Albany does not beong to the Republicans of the state of Georgia. Albany does not belong to Governor Vandiver. Albany does not belong to the white people of the state of Georgia. All-benny belongs to God, for the prophet said: "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulllnes thereof, the world and they that dwell therein."”

Ralph Abernathy (1926–1990) American Civil Rights Movement leader

And this is God's world, this is God's All-benny, and God tells us that out of one blood He created all nations that dwell upon the face of this earth."
In a sermon he gave on 15 December 1961, during the Albany Movement; as quoted in Watters, Pat. 2012. Down to Now: Reflections on the Southern Civil Rights Movement. University of Georgia Press. pp. 202-203.

David Starr Jordan photo

“The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.”

David Starr Jordan (1851–1931) American ichthyologist and educator

As quoted in B. C. Forbes, Keys to Success: Personal Efficiency (1918), p. 189
Variant: "The world stands aside for a man who knows where he is going."

Paulo Coelho photo
Samuel P. Huntington photo
John Updike photo
Bill Thompson photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Narendra Modi photo

“[The Many-worlds interpretation is the] only completely coherent approach to explaining both the contents of quantum mechanics and the appearance of the world.”

Hugh Everett (1930–1982) American physicist, author of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics

http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/everett/.

Karen Blixen photo
James Jeans photo
Elliott Smith photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“Corruption appears to be a universal phenomenon that lays its own imperious claims on the world, and therefore it is the duty of all nations to prepare themselves against its onslaught by taking proper precautions.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne (1911–1983) British lecturer, novelist, historian, poet and biographer

Introduction, p. viii
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

Cat Stevens photo

“Oh I can’t keep it in; I can’t keep it in,
I’ve gotta let it out
I’ve got to show the world; world’s got to see,
See all the love; love that’s in me”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

Can't Keep It In
Song lyrics, Catch Bull at Four (1972)

Anton Chekhov photo

“Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Ничто так не усыпляет и не опьяняет, как деньги; когда их много, то мир кажется лучше, чем он есть.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

Patrick Buchanan photo
Max Born photo
Noel Gallagher photo

“In a world where nobody understood the viewpoint of the victim, we would all be right to side with the victim. But we live in a world where almost nobody 'comes out' as a Pharisee or a hypocrite, and it seems to me that the way to moral learning proceeds in that direction.”

James Alison (1959) Christian theologian, priest

Source: Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001), " The man blind from birth and the Creator's subversion of sin http://girardianlectionary.net/res/fbr_ch-1_john9.htm", p. 19.

Francis Parkman photo
Samuel Rogers photo
Ron Paul photo

“Liberty once again must become more important to us than the desire for security and material comfort. Personal safety and economic prosperity can only come as the consequence of liberty. They cannot be provided by an authoritarian government… The foundation for a police state has been put in place, and it's urgent we mobilize resistance before it's too late… Central planning is intellectually bankrupt – and it has bankrupted our country and undermined our moral principles. Respect for individual liberty and dignity is the only answer to government force, force that serves the politically and economically powerful. Our planners and rulers are not geniuses, but rather demagogues and would-be dictators -- always performing their tasks with a cover of humanitarian rhetoric… The collapse of the Soviet system came swiftly and dramatically, without a bloody conflict… It came as no surprise, however, to the devotees of freedom who have understood for decades that socialism was doomed to fail… And so too will the welfare/warfare state fail… A free society is based on the key principle that the government, the president, the Congress, the courts, and the bureaucrats are incapable of knowing what is best for each and every one of us… A government as a referee is proper, but a government that uses arbitrary force to direct every aspect of society threatens freedom… The time has come for a modern approach to achieving those values that all civilized societies seek. Only in a free society do individuals have the best chance to seek virtue, strive for excellence, improve their economic well-being, and achieve personal happiness… The worthy goals of civilization can only be achieved by freedom loving individuals. When government uses force, liberty is sacrificed and the goals are lost. It is freedom that is the source of all creative energy. If I am to be your president, these are the goals I would seek. I reject the notion that we need a president to run our lives, plan the economy, or police the world… It is much more important to protect individual liberty and privacy than to make government even more secretive and powerful.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Video Address Announcing 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee, February 19, 2007 http://blog.4president.org/2008/2007/02/ron_paul_video_.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPlPT4bncq8
2000s, 2006-2009

Mircea Eliade photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo
Joseph Smith, Jr. photo

“Element had an existence from the time he [God] had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end.... [T]he mind of man — the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so: the very idea lessens man in my estimation. I do not believe the doctrine; I know better. Hear it, all ye ends of the world; for God has told me so... We say that God himself is a self-existent being. Who told you so? It is correct enough; but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Man does exist upon the same principles. God made a tabernacle and put a spirit into it, and it became a living soul.... The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is [co-eternal] with God himself. I know that my testimony is true... Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are [co-eternal] with our Father in heaven.... I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man—the immortal part, because it has no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man. As the Lord liveth, if it had a beginning, it will have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that the spirit of man had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the house-tops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.”

History of the Church, 6:308-309 (7 April 1844)
1840s, King Follett discourse (1844)

Frances Kellor photo
Jerry Coyne photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
Sarada Devi photo

“This world is moving around like a wheel. That indeed is the last birth in which one gets completely rid of all desires.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Tapasyananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations, 297]

Richard Rohr photo
C. D. Broad photo
Hafsat Abiola photo

“We can accept any and all events in our existence if we believe our mothers love us. For, as I say, she was, and still is, all the world to us.”

John Diamond (doctor) (1934) Australian doctor

Source: The Veneration of Life: Through the Disease to the Soul (1999), p. 54

Amber Benson photo

“It doesn't matter who you sleep with, it's how you treat other people in this world.”

Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States

Amber Benson - Interview at Madame Tussaud's - 10 December, 2003 http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/interviews/benson2003/printpage.html

Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Henry Fairfield Osborn photo
Natan Sharansky photo
John Yau photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
W. S. Gilbert photo
Nigel Cumberland photo

“The working world needs more empathic leaders, staff and colleagues. A person’s high level of empathy will make up for a wide array of other skills and attributes.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Source: Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Managing Teams in a Week (2013) https://books.google.ae/books?idqZjO9_ov74EC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIIDAB#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Secrets of Success at Work – 50 techniques to excel (2014) https://books.google.ae/books?id4S7vAgAAQBAJ&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIJjAC#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, p.37

Attar of Nishapur photo

“He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.”

Attar of Nishapur (1145–1230) Persian Sufi poet

"Intoxicated by the Wine of Love" as translated by Margaret Smith from "The Jawhar Al-Dhat"

Macy Gray photo

“I try to say goodbye and I choke
Try to walk away and I stumble
Though I try to hide it, it's clear
My world crumbles when you are not here”

Macy Gray (1967) American singer-songwriter and actress

"I Try" (co-written with Jeremy Ruzumna, Jinsoo Lim and David Wilder) - YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsTk2xp0nvY
On How Life Is (1999)

Erik Naggum photo
Carl I. Hagen photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
M. C. Escher photo

“At moments of great enthusiasm it seems to me that no one in the world has ever made something this beautiful and important.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

undated quotes, M.C. Escher Foundation

Max Tegmark photo
John Mearsheimer photo

“In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi.”

John Mearsheimer (1947) American political scientist

"China's Unpeaceful Rise", Current History (2006) vol. 105 (690) p. 162

Edward Hopper photo

“The only quality that endures in art is a personal vision of the world. Methods are transient: personality is enduring.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

1941 - 1967
Source: 'statement by the Chairman of the Jury', Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. 1951, p. 7

“Globalization need not work this way. Its benefits can be steered to all nations and to all levels in each nation in a more equitable manner. But a free-market, laissez-faire process will not do this automatically. It will require governmental regulatory action with guidelines and incentives that can best be established at the world level.”

Paul R. Lawrence (1922–2011) American business theorist

Excerpt from: " The Drive to Acquire’s Impact on Globalization http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/the-drive-to-acquires-impact-on-globalization," at hbswk.hbs.edu, 23 august 2010.
Driven to Lead: Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership, 2010

Andrea Dworkin photo
Han-shan photo
Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan photo
James O'Keefe photo
Harry Turtledove photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Vladimir Lenin photo

“I don't care what becomes of Russia. To hell with it … All this is only the road to a World Revolution.”

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

Statement after the October Revolution of 1917, as quoted in "Communists: The Battle over the Tomb" in TIME (24 April 1964).
Attributions

“The grammar of Panini is one of the most remarkable literary works that the world has ever seen, and no other country can produce any grammatical system at all comparable to it, either for originality of plan or analytical subtlety.”

Pāṇini ancient Sanskrit grammarian

Sir Monier Monier-Williams in: Indian Wisdom https://books.google.co.in/books?id=CgBAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA172, W. H. Allen & Company, 1876, p. 172.

Shimon Peres photo
Alan Rusbridger photo
William Winwood Reade photo
Prem Rawat photo
Joseph Chamberlain photo
William Wordsworth photo

“The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side,—a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

The Italian Itinerant.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Giorgio Morandi photo
Denis Healey photo
Helen Keller photo
K. R. Narayanan photo
William James photo

“The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 4

Robert Oppenheimer photo
Osama bin Laden photo

“A man's ingress into the world is naked and bare,
His progress through the world is trouble and care;
And lastly, his egress out of the world, is nobody knows where.
If we do well here, we shall do well there:
I can tell you no more if I preach a whole year.”

John Edwin (1749–1790) English actor

The Eccentricities of John Edwin (second edition, 1791), vol. i. p. 74. These lines Edwin offers as heads of a "sermon". Longfellow places them in the mouth of "The Cobbler of Hagenau," as a "familiar tune". See "The Wayside Inn, part ii. The Student's Tale".

Aleksis Kivi photo

“Grove of Tuoni, grove of night!
There thy bed of sand is light.
Thither my baby I lead.
Mirth and joy each long hour yields
In the Prince of Tuoni's fields
Tending the Tuonela cattle.
Mirth and joy my babe will know,
Lulled to sleep at evening glow
By the pale Tuonela maiden.
Surely joy hours will hold,
Lying in thy cot of gold,
Hearing the nightjar singing.
Grove of Tuoni, grove of peace!
There all strife and passion cease.
Distant the treacherous world.”

Aleksis Kivi (1834–1872) Finnish writer

"Tuonen lehto, öinen lehto! / Siell' on hieno hietakehto, / Sinnepä lapseni saatan. // Siell' on lapsen lysti olla, / Tuonen herran vainiolla / Kaitsea Tuonelan karjaa. // Siell' on lapsen lysti olla, / Illan tullen tuuditella / Helmassa Tuonelan immen. // Onpa kullan lysti olla, / Kultakehdoss' kellahdella, / Kuullella kehräjälintuu. // Tuonen viita, rauhan viita! / Kaukana on vaino, riita, / Kaukana kavala maailma." (Äiti Aleksis Kiven kuvaamana, koonnut Ukko Kivistö, Turussa, kustannusosakeyhtiö Aura 1948)

Rupert Murdoch photo

“The greatest thing to come out of this [the war in Iraq] for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country.”

Rupert Murdoch (1931) Australian-American media mogul

Source: Murdoch praises Blair's 'courage' http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/feb/12/uk.iraqandthemedia

Hunter S. Thompson photo
James Thomson (poet) photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Anand Gandhi photo

“We now remain, at least on paper, one of the last few countries in the world, where if you don’t die successfully, you’ll go to jail for attempting.”

Anand Gandhi (1980) Indian film director

"Landscape of the individual" in Indian Express (14 September 2015) http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/landscape-of-the-individual/

Francisco De Goya photo

“One to the other / Unos á otros' - Thus goes the world. We mock at and deceive each other. He who, yesterday, was the ball, is to-day the horseman in the ring. Fortune directs the feast, and distributes the parts according to the inconstancy of its caprice.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

title of Capricho no. 77 and Goya's inscription on this plate; from Paul Lefort, in Francisco Goya: etude biographique et critique, suivi de l'essai d'un catalogue raisonne de son oeuvre grave et lithographe; published in the 'Gazette des Beaux-Arts', February, 1867; April, 1867; February, 1868; April, 1868; August, 1868
1790s

Newton Lee photo