Quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“England’s genius filled all measure
Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure,
Gave to the mind its emperor,
And life was larger than before:
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare’s wit.
The men who lived with him became
Poets, for the air was fame.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Solution http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=l&p=c&a=p&ID=20586&c=323, l. 35-42
1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

Jean Paul Sartre photo
Henry Adams photo
Honoré de Balzac photo

“Love in the abstract is not enough for a great man in poverty; he has need of its utmost devotion… She who is really a wife, one in heart, flesh, and bone, must follow wherever he leads, in whom her life, her strength, her pride, and happiness are centered.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

L'amour abstrait ne suffit pas à un homme pauvre et grand, il en veut tous les dévouements... La véritable épouse en cœur, en chair et en os, se laisse traîner là où va celui en qui réside sa vie, sa force, sa gloire, son bonheur.
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part II: A Woman Without a Heart

Louis Hémon photo
C. A. R. Hoare photo
Thucydides photo
Camille Paglia photo
Virginia Woolf photo

“Life for both sexes — and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement — is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle.”

Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 2, p. 35
Context: Life for both sexes — and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement — is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to one self. By feeling that one has some innate superiority — it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney — for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination — over other people.

Peter Kropotkin photo

“All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth.
All things are for all.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

The Conquest of Bread (1907), p. 14 http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/kropotkin/conquest/toc.html
Variant: All things for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men worked to produce them in the measure of their strength, and since it is not possible to evaluate everyone's part in the production of the world's wealth... All is for all!
This variant was probably produced by a combination of accidental as well as deliberate omission, rather than a separate translation.
Context: The means of production being the collective work of humanity, the product should be the collective property of the race. Individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth.
All things are for all. Here is an immense stock of tools and implements; here are all those iron slaves which we call machines, which saw and plane, spin and weave for us, unmaking and remaking, working up raw matter to produce the marvels of our time. But nobody has the right to seize a single one of these machines and say, "This is mine; if you want to use it you must pay me a tax on each of your products," any more than the feudal lord of medieval times had the right to say to the peasant, "This hill, this meadow belong to me, and you must pay me a tax on every sheaf of corn you reap, on every rick you build."
All is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of work, they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being. No more of such vague formulas as "The Right to work," or "To each the whole result of his labour." What we proclaim is The Right to Well-Being: Well-Being for All!

Karl Popper photo

“I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact — that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed — which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
Context: I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behaviour: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and in Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact — that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed — which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.

Burkard Schliessmann photo
Vitruvius photo
Thomas C. Schelling photo
Vyacheslav Molotov photo

“Germany, which has lately united 80 million Germans, has submitted certain neighboring countries to her supremacy and gained military strength in many aspects, and thus has become, as clearly can be seen, a dangerous rival to principal imperialistic powers in Europe — England and France.”

Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986) Soviet politician and diplomat

Molotov's report on (29 March 1940), after the Polish defeat, as quoted in the weekly Soviet newspaper Moscow News, published by Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga (1 April 1940)
Context: Germany, which has lately united 80 million Germans, has submitted certain neighboring countries to her supremacy and gained military strength in many aspects, and thus has become, as clearly can be seen, a dangerous rival to principal imperialistic powers in Europe — England and France. That is why they declared war on Germany on a pretext of fulfilling the obligations given to Poland. It is now clearer than ever, how remote the real aims of the cabinets in these countries were from the interests of defending the now disintegrated Poland or Czechoslovakia.

Maimónides photo
Vera Stanley Alder photo
Yuzuru Hanyu photo

“Well, I’m being portrayed as the challenger, but I’m always chasing after other skaters’ strengths, and I’m always seeking to challenge other skaters. So, I always see myself as a challenger, and nothing really has changed between this season’s World Championships and last season’s.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Annotation: Hanyu's being asked what difference it makes for him to go into the 2020 World Championships as a challenger after being the considered favorite for the title in recent years.
CBC interview with Scott Russell
Original: (ja) えっと、まあ、チャレンジャーっていうことを言われますけど、でもいつも他のスケーターの良いところを追いかけてるし、他のスケーターに対してチャレンジしたいなって思ってるし、だからいつも自分はチャレンジャーだと思っていて、だから今シーズンの世界選手権でも先シーズンの世界選手権でも何も変わらないかなって思います。

Stephen Vincent Benét photo