Quotes

Joseph Joubert photo
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo

“That is the notorious danger of modern democracy. That is also its purpose and its strength.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Review of Democracy in Europe (1878)
Context: The manifest, the avowed difficulty is that democracy, no less than monarchy or aristocracy, sacrifices everything to maintain itself, and strives, with an energy and a plausibility that kings and nobles cannot attain, to override representation, to annul all the forces of resistance and deviation, and to secure, by Plebiscite, Referendum, or Caucus, free play for the will of the majority. The true democratic principle, that none shall have power over the people, is taken to mean that none shall be able to restrain or to elude its power. The true democratic principle, that the people shall not be made to do what it does not like, is taken to mean that it shall never be required to tolerate what it does not like. The true democratic principle, that every man‘s free will shall be as unfettered as possible, is taken to mean that the free will of the collective people shall be fettered in nothing. Religious toleration, judicial independence, dread of centralisation, jealousy of State interference, become obstacles to freedom instead of safeguards, when the centralised force of the State is wielded by the hands of the people. Democracy claims to be not only supreme, without authority above, but absolute, without independence below; to be its own master, not a trustee. The old sovereigns of the world are exchanged for a new one, who may be flattered and deceived, but whom it is impossible to corrupt or to resist, and to whom must be rendered the things that are Caesar's and also the things that are God’s. The enemy to be overcome is no longer the absolutism of the State, but the liberty of the subject. Nothing is more significant than the relish with which Ferrari, the most powerful democratic writer since Rousseau, enumerates the merits of tyrants, and prefers devils to saints in the interest of the community.
For the old notions of civil liberty and of social order did not benefit the masses of the people. Wealth increased, without relieving their wants. The progress of knowledge left them in abject ignorance. Religion flourished, but failed to reach them. Society, whose laws were made by the upper class alone, announced that the best thing for the poor is not to be born, and the next best to die in childhood, and suffered them to live in misery and crime and pain. As surely as the long reign of the rich has been employed in promoting the accumulation of wealth, the advent of the poor to power will be followed by schemes for diffusing it. Seeing how little was done by the wisdom of former times for education and public health, for insurance, association, and savings, for the protection of labour against the law of self-interest, and how much has been accomplished in this generation, there is reason in the fixed belief that a great change was needed, and that democracy has not striven in vain. Liberty, for the mass, is not happiness; and institutions are not an end but a means. The thing they seek is a force sufficient to sweep away scruples and the obstacle of rival interests, and, in some degree, to better their condition. They mean that the strong hand that heretofore has formed great States, protected religions, and defended the independence of nations, shall help them by preserving life, and endowing it for them with some, at least, of the things men live for. That is the notorious danger of modern democracy. That is also its purpose and its strength. And against this threatening power the weapons that struck down other despots do not avail. The greatest happiness principle positively confirms it. The principle of equality, besides being as easily applied to property as to power, opposes the existence of persons or groups of persons exempt from the common law, and independent of the common will; and the principle, that authority is a matter of contract, may hold good against kings, but not against the sovereign people, because a contract implies two parties.

Benjamin Franklin photo

“But our great security lies, I think, in our growing strength”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Letter to Thomas Cushing (1773) http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/franklin-the-works-of-benjamin-franklin-vol-vi-letters-and-misc-writings-1772-1775#lf1438-06_head_007. <br class="br">Context: But our great security lies, I think, in our growing strength, both in numbers and wealth; … unless, by a neglect of military discipline, we should lose all martial spirit …; for there is much truth in the Italian saying, Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you.

Kanō Jigorō photo

“Judo is the way to the most effective use of both physical and spiritual strength.”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

As quoted in Dynamic Judo (1967) by Kazuzo Kudo; also in Chasing Dragons : An Introduction to the Martial Arts Film (2006) by David West, p. 10
Context: Judo is the way to the most effective use of both physical and spiritual strength. By training you in attacks and defenses it refines your body and your soul and helps you make the spiritual essence of Judo a part of your very being. In this way you are able to perfect yourself and contribute something of value to the world. This is the final goal of Judo discipline.

Nikos Kazantzakis photo

“Gather your strength and listen; the whole heart of man is a single outcry.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: Gather your strength and listen; the whole heart of man is a single outcry. Lean against your breast to hear it; someone is struggling and shouting within you.
It is your duty every moment, day and night, in joy or in sorrow, amid all daily necessities, to discern this Cry with vehemence or restraint, according to your nature, with laughter or with weeping, in action or in thought, striving to find out who is imperiled and cries out.
And how we may all be mobilized together to free him.

Umar photo

“I will be harsh and stern against the aggressor, but I will be a pillar of strength for the weak.”

Umar (585–644) Second Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate and a companion of Muhammad

As quoted in Al Farooq, Umar (1944) by Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Ch. 5, p. 124
Context: I will be harsh and stern against the aggressor, but I will be a pillar of strength for the weak.
I will not calm down until I will put one cheek of a tyrant on the ground and the other under my feet, and for the poor and weak, I will put my cheek on the ground.

G. I. Gurdjieff photo

“Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feelings is slavery
Hope of body is disease.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

All and Everything: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson (1950)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“That tower of strength
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

St. IV
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington (1852)

Robert Williams Buchanan photo

“Yet only thro’ the strength of Death
A god shall fall or rise —”

Robert Williams Buchanan (1841–1901) Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist

Balder the Beautiful (1877)
Context: “O Balder, he who fashion’d us,
And bade us live and move,
Shall weave for Death’s sad heavenly hair
Immortal flowers of love.
“Ah! never fail’d my servant Death,
Whene’er I named his name,—
But at my bidding he hath flown
As swift as frost or flame.
“Yea, as a sleuth-hound tracks a man,
And finds his form, and springs,
So hath he hunted down the gods
As well as human things!
“Yet only thro’ the strength of Death
A god shall fall or rise —
A thousand lie on the cold snows,
Stone still, with marble eyes.
“But whosoe’er shall conquer Death,
Tho’ mortal man he be,
Shall in his season rise again,
And live, with thee, and me!
“And whosoe’er loves mortals most
Shall conquer Death the best,
Yea, whosoe’er grows beautiful
Shall grow divinely blest.”
The white Christ raised his shining face
To that still bright’ning sky.
“Only the beautiful shall abide,
Only the base shall die!”

Propertius photo

“I am climbing a difficult road; but the glory gives me strength.”
Magnum iter ascendo; sed dat mihi gloria vires

Propertius (-47–-16 BC) Latin elegiac poet

IV. 10. 3
Elegies

Ho Chi Minh photo

“Remember that the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

As quoted in From Colonialism to Communism : A Case History of North Vietnam (1964) by Văn Chí Hoàng, p. 37

“Ah! would but Jupiter restore
The strength I had in days of yore!”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VIII, p. 294

“A man's strength is ultimately born of his knowledge of his own weakness …”

David Gemmell book Legend

Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 7

Samuel Smiles photo

“Good actions give strength to ourselves, and inspire good actions in others.”

Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) Scottish author

Duty: With Illustrations of Courage, Patience, and Endurance (1880), Ch. 2, p. 49

Prevale photo

“Those who find the strength to break the mold go beyond the border.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Chi trova la forza di rompere gli schemi va oltre il confine.
Source: prevale.net

Etty Hillesum photo
Prevale photo

“One of the real strengths is facing and overcoming your most hidden fears.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Uno dei veri punti di forza è affrontare e superare le tue paure più nascoste.
Source: prevale.net

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo

“The yeoman farmers of the United States have always been the strength of the republic.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

The North British Review (April 1870), p. 268, quoted in G. E. Fasnacht, Acton's Political Philosophy. An Analysis (1952), p. 217

Francis de Sales photo

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.”

Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French bishop, saint, writer and Doctor of the Church j

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India