
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet
Morning Star, 1980
1980s
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet
“Our people have opinions and creeds and prejudices and ideas but as yet no philosophy.”
Source: My Several Worlds (1954), p. 244
Context: Chinese were born, it seemed to me, with an accumulated wisdom, a natural sophistication, an intelligent naiveté, and unless they were transplanted too young, these qualities ripened in them. To talk even with a farmer and his family, none of whom could read or write, was often to hear a philosophy at once sane and humorous. If ever I am homesick for China, now that I am home in my own country, it is when I discover here no philosophy. Our people have opinions and creeds and prejudices and ideas but as yet no philosophy.
“loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.”
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Speech in the House of Commons (18 November, 1783). Compare: "And with necessity, / The tyrant's plea, / excus'd his devilish deeds", John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book iv, line 393.
“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”
Speech at Harvard University, September 6, 1943 ( full text https://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1941-1945-war-leader/the-price-of-greatness-is-responsibility, audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESiuSi8Qp9U).
The Second World War (1939–1945)