“When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)
Context: Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence.
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
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Jiddu Krishnamurti 233
Indian spiritual philosopher 1895–1986Related quotes
and it has no right even to call itself a religion. Without the shield of religion to hide behind, Islam would be banned in the civilized world as a political ideology of hate — and we have no obligation to make allowances for it, any more than we do for Nazism. It's a bigger threat to our freedom than Nazism ever was. Yes, both are totalitarian, and both divide the world unnecessarily into us-and-them, the pure and the impure, and both make no secret of their desire to exterminate the Jews. But we were all more or less on the same side against the Nazis, whereas the Islamonazis have got plenty of friends among people in the West who ought to know better.
"No mosque at Ground Zero" (4 June 2010) http://youtube.com/watch?v=vjS0Novt3X4
2010
Lee Jye (2007) cited in " KMT expels Lee Jye for obeying DPP http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/03/10/2003351657" on Taipei Times, 10 March 2007.
“… you realize that you don't understand yourself any better than you understand anyone else.”
Source: This is Where I Leave You
BBC (1979); reported in John Blundell, Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady (2008), page 193.
First term as Prime Minister
Address to the Convention (4 June 1788) http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/archive/resources/documents/ch07_04.htm
Addresses to the Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788)
Context: Does any man suppose that one general national government can exist in so extensive a country as this? I hope that a government may be framed which may suit us, by drawing a line between the general and state governments, and prevent that dangerous clashing of interest and power, which must, as it now stands, terminate in the destruction of one or the other. When we come to the judiciary, we shall be more convinced that this government will terminate in the annihilation of the state governments: the question then will be, whether a consolidated government can preserve the freedom and secure the rights of the people.
If such amendments be introduced as shall exclude danger, I shall most gladly put my hand to it. When such amendments as shall, from the best information, secure the great essential rights of the people, shall be agreed to by gentlemen, I shall most heartily make the greatest concessions, and concur in any reasonable measure to obtain the desirable end of conciliation and unanimity…
Debates leading up to the passage of the 14th amendment https://books.google.com/books?id=ccNqUnrhdskC&pg=PA1088