Citizenship Papers (2003), The Failure of War
Context: We are disposed, somewhat by culture and somewhat by nature, to solve our problems by violence, and even to enjoy doing so. And yet by now all of us must at least have suspected that our right to live, to be free, and to be at peace is not guaranteed by any act of violence. It can be guaranteed only by our willingness that all other persons should live, be free, and be at peace — and by our willingness to use or give our own lives to make that possible.
Source: Robert Browning's Poetry
Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 15, Conclusion, p. 354
“The writer is a “somewhat mystical” — or do I mean “mythical?””
person.
Joyce Carol Oates interviews herself (2013)
Quote of Berthe 1864-65 in a letter to her sister Edma Morisot; as cited in Berthe Morisot, the first lady of Impressionism, Margaret Sehnan; Sutton Publishing (ISBN 0 7509 2339 3) 1996, p. 50
1860 - 1870
King's words after a bomb was thrown into his house in Alabama, on 30 January 1956, in Stride Toward Freedom (1958)
1950s
Context: If you have weapons, take them home; if you do not have them, please do not seek to get them. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence. Remember the words of Jesus: "He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword." We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us. We must make them know that we love them. Jesus still cries out in words that echo across the centuries: "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that despitefully use you." This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love. Remember, if I am stopped, this movement will not stop, because God is with the movement. Go home with this glowing faith and this radiant assurance.
“Fortune have somewhat the nature of a woman; if she be too much wooed, she is the farther off.”
Source: As quoted in The Advancement of Learning (1605), Book II, by Francis Bacon
Responding to a TV reporter's question about the murder rate http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/08/nagin_calls_nos_dangerous_imag.html (August 2007)
2007
“Faith and God belong together somewhat as sense experience and physical reality do.”
Source: Radical Monotheism and Western Culture (1960), p. 13
Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html
1960s
Context: I met Malcolm X once in Washington, but circumstances didn't enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. He is very articulate … but I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views — at least insofar as I understand where he now stands. I don't want to seem to sound self-righteous, or absolutist, or that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. I don't know how he feels now, but I know that I have often wished that he would talk less of violence, because violence is not going to solve our problem. And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.
"When Schools Fail Children: An English Teacher Educates His Kids at Home", Harper's Magazine (November 1990)
