
“When your house is burning down, you don't worry about the remodeling.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, unspecified episode
Jitterbug Perfume (1984)
“When your house is burning down, you don't worry about the remodeling.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, unspecified episode
The Bijak of Kabir (1983;2002) as translated by Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh.
Bijak
“We must not burn down the house to kill the rats.”
Voicing opposition to the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950
Context: The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. The history of Soviet Russia is a modern example of this ancient practice. I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our rights as free men. We must not burn down the house to kill the rats.
“I'm not senile," I snapped. "If I burn the house down it will be on purpose.”
Source: The Blind Assassin
Imagine, they have violated President Zelaya's’s rights. They have invented accusations of crimes against him, when they never presented any order of arrest. They took him out, tied up, transferred him to another country, and now they sit him down to negotiate with the criminals.
Quoted in “A Moment of Hope”: Xiomara Castro’s Likely Win in Honduran Election Ends Years of Right-Wing Rule After Coup https://www.democracynow.org/2021/11/30/xiomara_castro_first_woman_president_honduras, Democracy Now!, November 30, 2021 (Speaking in 2009 on the Honduran-Nicaraguan border after the coup against Manuel Zelaya)