Building a Better Business (2005)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 388.
2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: In today's wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred.
I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
“lay down. lay down like an animal and wait.”
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
“The world cannot utterly ignore men who lay down their lives for any cause.”
Source: Violence and the Labor Movement (1914), p. 90
Context: The world cannot utterly ignore men who lay down their lives for any cause. Men may write and agitate, they may scream never so shrilly about the wrongs of the world, but when they go forth to fight single-handed and to die for what they preach, they have at least earned the right to demand of society an inquiry.
Speech in Newcastle (9 October 1909), quoted in Better Times: Speeches by the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), p. 160.
Chancellor of the Exchequer
“AMANDA: I think very few people are completely normal really, deep down in their private lives.”
Source: Private Lives an Intimate Comedy in Three Acts
Source: Eating Animals (2009)
Context: People care about animals. I believe that. They just don't want to know or to pay. A fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It's wrong. They're packed body to body, and can't escape their waste, and never see the sun. Their nails grow around the bars of their cages. It's wrong. They feel their slaughters. It's wrong, and people know it's wrong. They don't have to be convinced. They just have to act differently. I'm not better than anyone, and I'm not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what's right. I'm trying to convince them to live by their own.
“Reason does not scream. Reason convinces.”
La razón no grita, la razón convence.
Attribution inscribed on the memorial statue in the Puerto Rican Capitol (see right).
Attributed
“Thoughts convince thinkers; for this reason, thoughts convince seldom.”
Denken überzeugt Denkende; darum überzeugt Denken selten.
Nur Lebendiges schwimmt gegen den Strom, Aphorismen. 1985.
Homily of Bishop Kevin Doran for Day for Life Sunday 2017 – ‘Promotion of a culture which protects life and respects women’ https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2017/10/02/homily-of-bishop-kevin-doran-for-day-for-life-sunday-2017-promotion-of-a-culture-which-protects-life-and-respects-women/ (2 October 2017)
