Quotes about accomplishment (1214 quotes, page 7)

“The worst thing is not to commit crimes but, rather, not to accomplish the good that one could have done. It is the sin of omission, which is nothing other than to be unloving, and no one accuses himself of it.”

Léon Bloy (1846–1917) French writer, poet and essayist

Youcat English: Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, Ignatius Press, 2011 https://books.google.com/books?id=soVf9Q1h-esC&pg=PT26&dq=%22The+worst+thing+is+not+to+commit+crimes+but,+rather,+not+to+accomplish+the+good+that+one+could+have+done.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMI3_bSqOH6yAIVwvI-Ch3kOAGF#v=onepage&q=%22The%20worst%20thing%20is%20not%20to%20commit%20crimes%20but%2C%20rather%2C%20not%20to%20accomplish%20the%20good%20that%20one%20could%20have%20done.%22&f=false

“No Art can be grafted with success on another art. For though they all profess the same origin, and to proceed from the same stock, yet each has its own peculiar modes both of imitating nature, and of deviating from it, each for the accomplishment of its own particular purpose. These deviations, more especially, will not bear transplantation to another soil.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

Discourse no. 13, delivered on December 11, 1786; vol. 2, p. 134.
Discourses on Art

Art , Nature , Success

“And here I cannot help mentioning a very ridiculous show of a learned pig, which of late days attracted much of the public notice, and at the polite end of the town. This pig, which indeed was a large unwieldy hog, being taught to pick up letters written upon pieces of cards, and to arrange them at command, gave great satisfaction to all who saw him, and filled his tormenter's pocket with money. One would not have thought that a hog had been an animal capable of learning: the fact, however, is another proof of what may be accomplished by assiduity; for the showman assured a friend of mine, that he had lost three very promising brutes in the course of training, and that the phenomenon then exhibited had often given him reason to despair of success.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 248
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Public entertainment

Money , Learning , Success , Help

“I think about the personal accomplishment, but there's more of a sense of the grand achievement by all the people who could put this man on the moon.”

Alan Shepard (1923–1998) American astronaut

The Denver Post staff (September 29, 1992) "Shepard still shoots for moon", The Denver Post, p. 1D.

People , Thinking , Sense , Personality

“As Ralph Ellison wrote more than 35 years ago, 'Why is it so often true that when critics confront the American as Negro, they suddenly drop their advanced critical armament and revert with an air of confident superiority to quite primitive modes of analysis?' Those matters accomplished by whites are routinely subjected to sophisticated modes of analysis. But the when the selfsame matters are accomplished by blacks, the opaque racial prism of analysis precludes such sophistication, and all is seen in black and white. And some who would not venture onto the more sophisticated analytical turf are quite content to play in the minor leagues of primitive harping. The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Confidence , Change

“The soul seeks God by faith, not by the reasonings of the mind and labored efforts, but by the drawings of love; to which inclinations God responds, and instructs the soul, which co-operates actively. God then puts the soul in a passive state where He accomplishes all, causing great progress, first by way of enjoyment, then by privation, and finally by pure love.”

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) French mystic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 240.

Love , God , Faith , Way

“To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to succeed among men. To accomplish this less pure paths must be followed.”

Ernest Renan (1823–1892) French philosopher and writer

Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 5.

Men

“Among the fundamental values linked to women's actual lives is what has been called a 'capacity for the other.' Although a certain type of feminist rhetoric makes demands 'for ourselves,' women preserve the deep intuition of the goodness in their lives of those actions which elicit life, and contribute to the growth and protection of the other…. But, in the final analysis, every human being, man or woman, is destined to be 'for the other.'… Therefore, the promotion of women within society must be understood and desired as a humanization accomplished through those values, rediscovered thanks to women. Every outlook which presents itself as a conflict between the sexes is only an illusion and a danger; it would end in segregation and competition between men and women, and would promote a solipsism nourished by a false conception of freedom.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Doctrinal document On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World, July 31, 2004
2003

Life , Women , Men , Sex

“We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted to battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.”

Robert Ardrey book African Genesis

African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man (1961)

Peace , Dreams , Angels , Star

“Reengineering cannot be planned meticulously and accomplished in small and cautious steps. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition with an uncertain result.”

Michael Hammer (1948–2008) American academic

Source: "Reengineering work: don't automate, obliterate," 1990, p. 105

“What is missing to our civilisation, is the soul, the spiritual unity, the basis. That is why everything in it is pretence and contrivance ("façade et artifice", Fr.); why also, in spite of the progress and marvellous improvement they have accomplished in the external realm ("domaine extérieur", Fr.) men have, in general, become themselves neither better, nor happier. They have neglected too much the essential; their own perfecting”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

or improvement - "perfectionnement", Fr.
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 36 -First thought of the book, - the translator.

Men , Soul , Perfection

“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has a difficult job living with his civilian bosses, the Secretary of Defense and the President, striving to convince them in terms they can understand matters that he views as military necessity, and, in General Wheeler's case, within the concept of one thing at a time. One thing at a time was all he could hope to accomplish. Since Vietnam was the visible part of the iceberg, the part he knew was perturbing his civilian bosses, Vietnam rather than the strategic reserve was the context in which to present the request for additional troops. If he could gain authority to raise the troops, exactly what was to be done with them could be decided once the troops were actually available.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 357.

Hope , Understanding , Time , Parting

“If perchance you should falter during the journey, a hand would be there to support you. If that should be wanting, God, who alone could take that hand from you, would Himself accomplish its work.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

Source: The Life of Pasteur (1902), p. 19

God , Support

“If there had been any unbelief in Mary, that could not prevent God from accomplishing his work in any other way which he might choose. But she is called blessed, because she received by faith the blessing offered to her, and opened up the way to God for its accomplishment.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Commentary on Luke 1:45 http://www.biblestudyguide.org/comment/calvin/comm_vol31/htm/ix.viii.htm.
Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke

God , Faith , Way

“If you work on something you can finish in a day or two, you can expect to have a nice feeling of accomplishment fairly soon. If the reward is indefinitely far in the future, it seems less real.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Good And Bad Procrastination", December 2005

Feeling , Future

“Childhood is that time in which we never question the fact that every adult act is not only an autonomous occurrence in the universe, but that it is also filled, packed, overflowing with meaning, whether that meaning works for ill or good, whether the ill or good is or is not comprehended.
Adulthood is that time in which we see that all human actions follow forms, whether well or badly, and it is the perseverance of the forms that is, whether for better or worse, their meaning.
Various cultures make the transition at various ages, which transition period lasts for varying lengths of time, one accomplishing it in a week with careful dances, ancient prayers, and isolate and specified rituals; another, letting it take its own course, offering no help for it, and allowing it to run on frequently for years. But at the center of the changeover there is a period—whether it be a moment’s vision or a year-long suspicion—where the maturing youth sees all adult behavior as merely formal and totally meaningless.”

Samuel R. Delany book Tales of Nevèrÿon

Section 3 (p. 114)
Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)

Youth , Age , Behavior , Question

“Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

8 May 1750
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

People , Knowledge

“In order to join vigorously in the moral work of the world I must believe that somehow the best I can accomplish will endure, will leave its trace on things, will aid the final consummation.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 4 : Moral Ideals
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)

World

“A severe morality holds that intercourse (and may hold this of eating, too) has something wrong about it if it is ever done except explicitly as being required for that preservation of human life which is what makes intercourse a good kind of action. But this involves thoroughly faulty moral psychology. God gave us our physical appetite, and its arousal without our calculation is part of the working of our sort of life. Given moderation and right circumstances, acts prompted by inclination can be taken in a general way to accomplish what makes them good in kind and there's no need for them to be individually necessary or useful for the end that makes them good kinds of action. Intercourse is a normal part of married life through the whole life of the partners in a marriage and is normally engaged in without any distinct purpose other than to have it, just as such a part of married life.”

G. E. M. Anscombe (1919–2001) British analytic philosopher

Contraception and Chastity (1975)

Life , God , Marriage , Way

“The basic principal of this government is the will of the people. A system was devised by its founders which seemed to insure the means of ascertaining that will and of enacting it into legislation and supporting it through the administration of the law. This was to be accomplished by electing men to make, and men to execute the laws, who, would represent in the laws so made and executed the will of the people. This was the establishment of a representative government, where every man had equal voice, equal rights, and equal responsibilities. Have we such a government today? Or is this country fast coming to be dominated by forces that threaten the true principle of representative government?”

Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1855–1925) American politician

“The Danger Threatening Representative Government” Speech (1897) http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/pdfs/lessons/EDU-SpeechTranscript-SpeechesLaFollette-DangerThreatening.pdf

Men , People , Law , Support

““[Thanksgiving is] my favorite holiday, I think. It's without a doubt my favorite American Holiday. I love Christmastime, Chanuka etc. But Thanksgiving is as close as we get to a nationalist holiday in America (a country where nationalism as a concept doesn't really fit). Thanksgiving's roots are pre-founding, which means its not a political holiday in any conventional sense. We are giving thanks for the soil, the land, for the gifts of providence which were bequeathed to us long before we figured out our political system. Moreover, because there are no gifts, the holiday isn't nearly so vulnerable to materialism and commercialism. It's about things -- primarily family and private accomplishments and blessings -- that don't overlap very much with politics of any kind. We are thankful for the truly important things: our children and their health, for our friends, for the things which make life rich and joyful. As for all the stuff about killing Indians and whatnot, I can certainly understand why Indians might have some ambivalence about the holiday (though I suspect many do not). The sad -- and fortunate -- truth is that the European conquest of North America was an unremarkable old world event (one tribe defeating another tribe and taking their land; happened all the time) which ushered in a gloriously hopeful new age for humanity. America remains the last best hope for mankind. Still, I think it would be silly to deny how America came to be, but the truth makes me no less grateful that America did come to be. Also, I really, really like the food.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

"Thanksgiving" http://web.archive.org/web/20041126231505/http://www.nationalreview.com:80/thecorner/04_11_24_corner-archive.asp (24 November 2004), The Corner, National Review
2000s, 2004

Love , Life , Children , Health

“Thus, in a crucial way, the Kansas hearings repeat the pattern set by the Scopes Trial, which has been repeated many times since, namely, evolutionists escaped critical scrutiny by not having to undergo cross-examination. In this case, they accomplished the feat by boycotting the hearings. I therefore await the day when the hearings are not voluntary but involve subpoenas that compel evolutionists to be deposed and interrogated at length on their views.”

William A. Dembski (1960) American intelligent design advocate

The Vise Strategy: Squeezing the Truth out of Darwinists
Uncommon Descent
2005-05-11
http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/the-vise-strategy-squeezing-the-truth-out-of-darwinists/
2011-10-23
2000s

Way , Time

“Centuries ago, when I first stood on that little boulevard stage in Paris — when I saw the happy faces, when I heard applause — I felt as if my body and soul had found their destiny; I felt as if every promise in my birth and childhood had begun its fulfillment at last.
Oh, there were other actors, worse and better; other singers; other clowns; there have been a million since and a million will come after this moment. But each of us shines with his own inimitable power; each of us comes alive in his own unique and dazzling moment; each of us has his chance to vanquish the others forever in the eye of the beholder, and that is the only kind of accomplishment I can really understand: the kind of accomplishment in which the self-this self, if you will — is utterly whole and triumphant.”

Anne Rice The Vampire Chronicles

Lestat
Tale of the Body Thief (1992)

Soul , Birth , Understanding , Chance

“And we want a fight, and I will fight, but we will be respectful. I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments, I will respect him and I want— [crowd boos] No, no, I want everyone to be respectful, and let's make sure we are, because that's the way politics should be conducted in America.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008

Way , Fight

“I seek through comprehensive anticipatory design science and its reductions to physical practices to reform the environment instead of trying to reform humans, being intent thereby to accomplish prototyped capabilities of doing more with less…”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

1947
Earth, Inc. (1973) ISBN 0-385-01825-8 This is just part of a very long sentence that covers the whole first page, but in this part of the quote, the intention of the entire book is stated.
1970s

Science

“For Space, when the position of points is expressed by rectilinear co-ordinates, ds = \sqrt{ \sum (dx)^2 }; Space is therefore included in this simplest case. The next case in simplicity includes those manifoldnesses in which the line-element may be expressed as the fourth root of a quartic differential expression…. I restrict myself… to those manifoldnesses in which the line element is expressed as the square root of a quadric differential expression…. Manifoldnesses in which, as in the Plane and in Space, the line-element may be reduced to the form \sqrt{ \sum (dx)^2 }, are… only a particular case of the manifoldnesses to be here investigated; they require a special name, and therefore these manifoldnesses… I will call flat. In order now to review the true varieties of all the continua which may be represented in the assumed form, it is necessary to get rid of difficulties arising from the mode of representation, which is accomplished by choosing the variables in accordance with a certain principle.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

On the Hypotheses which lie at the Bases of Geometry (1873)

“I don't give a damn what the President of the United States wants to do or what anybody else wants to do. We will not waterboard; we will not torture… We will not torture people… It doesn't work, my friends. It doesn't work. If you inflict enough pain on somebody long enough, they're going to tell you whatever they think you want to hear to have it stopped… There are accomplished interrogators who can gain the confidence of the suspect and gain all the information that they could possibly want… My God, what does it say about America if we're going to inflict torture on people? It makes it hard for us to make the argument about the moral superiority of our way of our government and our way of life.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Regarding U.S. president-elect Donald J. Trump's intention to reintroduce the usage of torture by U.S. authorities, as quoted in "John McCain attacks Donald Trump's torture stance" https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/10154266695396939/ (21 November 2016), Channel 4 News
2010s, 2016

Life , God , Pain , People

“Not the external and physical alone is now managed by machinery, but the internal and spiritual also. Here too nothing follows its spontaneous course, nothing is left to be accomplished by old natural methods. Everything has its cunningly devised implements, its preestablished apparatus; it is not done by hand, but by machinery.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Nature

“But when it comes to a relaxing of the religious ban in the loosest sense of the word, in which the justification of restricted women from certain religious responsibilities and actions, were quite fitting and earn the highest respect – however, today, where woman is clearly present in public life and accomplishes practical tasks in cooperation with men, contact has become casual.”

Regina Jonas (1902–1944) rabbi

Can a Woman Be a Rabbi According to Halachic Sources?

Life , Women , Men , Sense

“I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed… I'm telling you there is a reason these dictatorial people take the guns first.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

As quoted in "Ben Carson explains Holocaust comments" http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/08/politics/ben-carson-gun-control-2016-election/, CNN, (October 9, 2015)

People , Thinking

“The 'dominion of capital' is an accomplished teleological catastrophe, robot rebellion, or shoggothic insurgency, through which intensively escalating instrumentality has inverted all natural purposes into a monstrous reign of the tool.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

"Teleoplexy: Notes on Acceleration" (2014), in #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader, p. 513

Nature

“The dissatisfaction with life and the world, felt more or less in the present state of society and intellect by every discerning and highly conscientious mind, gave in his case a rather melancholy tinge to the character, very natural to those whose passive moral susceptibilities are more than proportioned to their active energies. For it must be said, that the strength of will of which his manner seemed to give such strong assurance, expended itself principally in manner. With great zeal for human improvement, a strong sense of duty and capacities and acquirements the extent of which is proved by the writings he has left, he hardly ever completed any intellectual task of magnitude. He had so high a standard of what ought to be done, so exaggerated a sense of deficiencies in his own performances, and was so unable to content himself with the amount of elaboration sufficient for the occasion and the purpose, that he not only spoilt much of his work for ordinary use by over-labouring it, but spent so much time and exertion in superfluous study and thought, that when his task ought to have been completed, he had generally worked himself into an illness, without having half finished what he undertook. From this mental infirmity (of which he is not the sole example among the accomplished and able men whom I have known), combined with liability to frequent attacks of disabling though not dangerous ill-health, he accomplished, through life, little in comparison with what he seemed capable of;”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/74/mode/1up pp. 74-75

Men , Nature , Study , Health

“I read the book of Job over and over. Poor Job. He was afflicted. According to the Bible, he was a just man. But Satan said, “You put your finger on him, and injure him, and he won’t be such a just, devout man.”
So God said to Satan, “Do anything you want with him, but spare his life.” And so he was afflicted. His children deserted him — he lost everything. He was reduced to sackcloth and ashes. Even his wife said, “Curse God and die.” But he didn’t. But he did rebuke God. He said, “I’ve lived a devout life. Worshipped You. I was just to my fellow man. Accomplished all I could in Your name. Look what’s happened.”
And God answered him, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? Where were you when I created the galaxies and the universes? Answer as a man! Gird up your loins and answer as a man!””

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

That’s the subject of my next book.
1970s-, The Captains, the Kings, and Taylor Caldwell (1978)

Life , God , Children , Books

“Somehow forgiveness, with love and tolerance, accomplishes miracles that can happen in no other way.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Forgiveness, Liahona, Nov 2005, 81–84.

Love , Way , Forgiveness

“The person of faith, (Henri Nouwen) says, is able to see in that moment the faithful presence of God, the one who has never left us, who keeps his word. He comes and picks up those bricks from the crumbling wall and begins to fashion something new, not a wall but a concave space, where we are invited to a deeper intimacy with the ones we love and with God. It is in that greater sharing, that greater intimacy that we begin to realize that the real stability in life is not the wall of our accomplishments but the faithfulness of the ones we love and the faithfulness of God, because both reveal how rich life is in keeping a promise, in keeping one's word. There is nothing to compare with having someone keep their word to us.”

Blase J. Cupich (1949) Catholic bishop

"Homily for the Marriage Jubilee Mass", at Holy Name Cathedral, August 30, 2015, reprinted in the online edition of The Catholic New World, the Chicago archdiocesan newspaper, in the Archbishop's Column (September 20 - October 3, 2015)

Love , Life , God , Faith

“The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.”

John Stapp (1910–1999) American academic

Known as Stapp's Law
Technology bites back, Graeme Philipson, Sydney Morning Herald, April 9, 2005, 2012-01-05 http://www.smh.com.au/news/Icon/Technology-bites-back/2005/04/06/1112489536595.html,

Universe

“According to Goldschmidt, all that evolution by the usual mutations—dubbed "micromutations"—can accomplish is to bring about "diversification strictly within species, usually, if not exclusively, for the sake of adaptation of the species to specific conditions within the area which it is able to occupy." New species, genera, and higher groups arise at once, by cataclysmic saltations—termed macromutations or systematic mutations—which bring about in one step a basic reconstruction of the whole organism. The role of natural selection in this process becomes "reduced to the simple alternative: immediate acceptance or rejection." A new form of life having been thus catapulted into being, the details of its structures and functions are subsequently adjusted by micromutation and selection. It is unnecessary to stress here that this theory virtually rejects evolution as this term is usually understood (to evolve means to unfold or to develop gradually), and that the systematic mutations it postulates have never been observed. It is possible to imagine a mutation so drastic that its product becomes a monster hurling itself beyond the confines of species, genus, family, or class. But in what Goldschmidt has called the "hopeful monster" the harmonious system, which any organism must necessarily possess, must be transformed at once into a radically different, but still sufficiently coherent, system to enable the monster to survive. The assumption that such a prodigy may, however rarely, walk the earth overtaxes one's credulity, even though it may be right that the existence of life in the cosmos is in itself an extremely improbable event.”

Theodosius Dobzhansky book Genetics and the Origin of Species

Genetics and the Origin of Species (1941) 2nd revised edition

Life , Family , Hope , Imagination

“I think we’re always going to have to operate as part of a multinational force. To do so, we have to understand the history and the culture of each of these conflicts and of the microconflicts in each subregion. Obviously, our multinational partners are invaluable for their perspectives, but we also need strong partnerships with indigenous leaders. As in business, we need negotiation competencies and the ability to map stakeholder interests in particular. When we’re partnering with somebody we need to understand several things: their interests, how they align with our interests, how to build relationships based on mutual trust and common purpose, and how to use those relationships to work together to accomplish the mission.”

H. R. McMaster (1962) 26th United States National Security Advisor

How militaries learn and adapt: An interview with Major General H. R. McMaster http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/how-militaries-learn-and-adapt (April 2013)

History , Understanding , Business , Thinking

“British Liberalism is not going to repeat the errors of Continental Liberalism. The fate of Continental Liberalism should warn them of that danger. It has been swept on one side before it had well begun its work, because it refused to adapt itself to new conditions. The Liberalism of the Continent concerned itself exclusively with mending and perfecting the machinery which was to grind corn for the people. It forgot that the people had to live whilst the process was going on, and people saw their lives pass away without anything being accomplished. But British Liberalism has been better advised. It has not abandoned the traditional ambition of the Liberal party to establish freedom and equality; but side by side with this effort it promotes measures for ameliorating the conditions of life for the multitude.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Swansea (1 October 1908), quoted in Better Times: Speeches by the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), p. 51.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Life , Fate , People , Error

“An old oriental saying tells us, ‘when our willpower is concentrated upon a stone, it can pass through it. When our willpower is focused and in harmony with the universe, it can command the wind, rain and thunder’. But from where does our willpower come? Those who understand and answer this question are those who accomplish important tasks. When we coordinate mind and body by stilling the waves of our mind to imperceptible, infinitely decreasing ripples, we can send forth our great willpower that moves the universe.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

19 : Willpower
Ki Sayings (2003)

Understanding , Question , Universe

“Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.”

Haim Ginott (1922–1973) psychologist

Ginott, H. G. (1972). Teacher and child. New York: Macmillan.

Teachers , Time

“I am sure every Englishman who has a heart in his breast and a feeling of justice in his mind, sympathizes with those unfortunate Danes (cheers), and wishes that this country could have been able to draw the sword successfully in their defence (continued cheers); but I am satisfied that those who reflect on the season of the year when that war broke out, on the means which this country could have applied for deciding in one sense that issue, I am satisfied that those who make these reflections will think that we acted wisely in not embarking in that dispute. (Cheers.) To have sent a fleet in midwinter to the Baltic every sailor would tell you was an impossibility, but if it could have gone it would have been attended by no effectual result. Ships sailing on the sea cannot stop armies on land, and to have attempted to stop the progress of an army by sending a fleet to the Baltic would have been attempting to do that which it was not possible to accomplish. (Hear, hear.) If England could have sent an army, and although we all know how admirable that army is on the peace establishment, we must acknowledge that we have no means of sending out a force at all equal to cope with the 300,000 or 400,000 men whom the 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 of Germany could have pitted against us, and that such an attempt would only have insured a disgraceful discomfiture—not to the army, indeed, but to the Government which sent out an inferior force and expected it to cope successfully with a force so vastly superior. (Cheers.) … we did not think that the Danish cause would be considered as sufficiently British, and as sufficiently bearing on the interests and the security and the honour of England, as to make it justifiable to ask the country to make those exertions which such a war would render necessary.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech at Tiverton (23 August 1864) on the Second Schleswig War, quoted in ‘Lord Palmerston At Tiverton’, The Times (24 August 1864), p. 9.
1860s

Men , War , Peace , Justice

“Marriage is not something that can be accomplished all at once; it has to be constantly reaccomplished. A couple must never indulge in idle tranquility with the remark: "The game is won; let's relax." The game is never won. The chances of life are such that anything is possible. Remember what the dangers are for both sexes in middle age. A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Marriage

Life , Marriage , Age , Sex

“Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work the least, for they are thinking out inventions and forming in their minds the perfect idea that they subsequently express with their hands”

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) Italian painter, architect, writer and historian

Often attributed to Giorgio Vasari, while in the text Vasari attributes these words to Leonardo da Vinci in: Giorgio Vasari. Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects as translated by Mrs. Jonathan Foster (1852), Vol. 2;
Misattributed

Men , Idea , Thinking , Perfection

“And let us make no mistake as to what Tone sought to do, what it remains to us to do. We need to restate our programme: Tone has stated it for us:
"To break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country—these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissentions, and to substitute the common name of Irishmen in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter—these were my means."
I find here implicit all the philosophy of Irish nationalism, all the teaching of the Gaelic League and the later prophets. Ireland one and Ireland free—is not this the definition of Ireland a Nation? To that definition and to that programme we declare our adhesion anew; pledging ourselves as Tone pledged himself—and in this sacred place, by this graveside, let us not pledge ourselves unless we mean to keep our pledge—we pledge ourselves to follow in the steps of Tone, never to rest either by day or night until his work be accomplished, deeming it the proudest of all privileges to fight for freedom, to fight not in despondency but in great joy hoping for the victory in our day, but fighting on whether victory seem near or far, never lowering our ideal, never bartering one jot or tittle of our birthright, holding faith to the memory and the inspiration of Tone, and accounting ourselves base as long as we endure the evil thing against which he testified with his blood.”

Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) Irish revolutionary, shot by the British Army in 1916

Address delivered at the Grave of Wolfe Tone in Bodenstown Churchyard, Co. Kildare, 22 June 1913

People , Faith , Hope , Freedom

“I have [drawings of] about twelve figures of diggers and men who are working in a potato field, and I wonder if I could not make something of it, you have still a few, for instance, a man who fills a bag with potatoes. Well, I do not know for sure, but sooner or later I shall accomplish that, for I looked at it so attentively this summer, and here in the dunes I could make a good study of the earth and the sky, and then boldly put in the figures.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in letter 169, from The Hague, January, 1882; as cited in Vincent van Gogh, Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, catalog-page: Dutch Period: - 4. Potato Diggers
1880s, 1882

Men , Study , Summer , Drawing

“Before, the wire studies were subjective, portraits, caricatures, stylized representations of beasts and humans. But these recent things have been viewed from a more objective angle and although their present size is diminutive, I feel that there is no limitation to the scale to which they can be enlarged... One of the canons of the futuristic painters, as propounded by Modigliani, was that objects behind other objects should not be lost to view, but should be shown through the others by making the latter transparent. The wire sculpture accomplishes this in a most decided manner.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

1920s, Statement on Wire Sculpture' (1929)

Feeling , Study

“What typically emerges from looking at kids, gifted and ordinary, is that, from the kids’ point of view, accomplishment, that is, the private sense of mastery, the hard thing suddenly made easy, counts for far more in their inner lives than does the achievement—the competition won, the reward secured.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

How to Raise a Prodigy, The New Yorker (2018)

Sense

“The incorporation of every indidual in a collective mechanism of production, would mean the renunciation (or surrender) for man himself of its independance and his dignity as a rational (or thinking, or reasonable) being. The results (or consequences) of such a state of things would be: regression (or retrogression) and deterioration in every fields (or domain) of life. For the true progress consist in the accomplishment of higher ends, et these would be directly (or right off) made impossible in a coercive social mechanism. Let us think to the fate that, in these conditions, new truths would have in store”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

"Qu'on songe au sort qui, dans ces conditions, serait réservé à des vérités nouvelles", Fr.
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 47.

Life , Fate , Truth , Thinking

“My life is an unfinished product, but instead of just saying, 'How do I top what I've accomplished,' I decided I wanted to move forward, express my growth and take a big step into the next chapter.”

Josh Groban (1981) American musician and actor

Florida International Magazine, January 2004

Life

“We read events by what goes before and after. We think of Bunker Hill as the first real battle for independence, the prelude to the Revolution. Yet these were both after thoughts. Independence Day was still more than a year away and then eight years from accomplishment. The Revolution cannot be said to have become established until the adoption of the Federal Constitution. No, on this June day, these were not the conscious objects sought. They were contending for the liberties of the country, they were not yet bent on establishing a new nation nor on recognizing that relationship between men which the modern world calls democracy. They were maintaining well their traditions, these sons of Londonderry, lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray, and these sons of the Puritans, whom Macaulay tells us humbly abased themselves in the dust before the Lord, but hesitated not to set foot upon the neck of their king.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

From a speech https://coolidgefoundation.org/resources/early-speeches-1890-1918-17/ delivered on Bunker Hill Day (17 June 1918).
1910s, Speech on Bunker Hill Day (17 June 1918)

Men , World , Democracy , Lovers

“The setting up of a new, invisible and all powerful government in this country, within the last twenty years, in open violation of fundamental and statutory law, could not have been accomplished under the steady fire of a free and independent press.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1855–1925) American politician

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

Law , Country

“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.”

Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) British historian, author of A Study of History

Statement of 1964, as quoted in Mindfulness edited by Ellen J. Langer, p. 133; also in Social Creativity Vol. 2 (1999) edited by Alfonso Montuori and Ronald E. Purser.

“Men can usefully undertake and properly accomplish a common task only when one of them continually directs the activities of all towards the same end. This is self-evident when actions which must follow a rhythm are involved. It would be useless for a gang of men laying rails or a rowing-crew to exert themselves if a foreman or coxswain did not control their movements. Every non-directed collective action turns rapidly into confusion and disorder. All who have fought in a battle know how necessary it is that someone should be in command; and what is true of the army is true of the dockyard, the factory, the newspaper office, the whole country. Whenever men are required to act together, there must be a chief.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

Men , Country

“Mother, an accomplished musician, taught me to play the piano as a very small girl.”

Irene Dunne (1898–1990) American actress

Hats, Hunches And Happiness (1945)

Girl

“Thought-economy is most highly developed in mathematics, that science which has reached the highest formal development, and on which natural science so frequently calls for assistance. Strange as it may seem, the strength of mathematics lies in the avoidance of all unnecessary thoughts, in the utmost economy of thought-operations. The symbols of order, which we call numbers, form already a system of wonderful simplicity and economy. When in the multiplication of a number with several digits we employ the multiplication table and thus make use of previously accomplished results rather than to repeat them each time, when by the use of tables of logarithms we avoid new numerical calculations by replacing them by others long since performed, when we employ determinants instead of carrying through from the beginning the solution of a system of equations, when we decompose new integral expressions into others that are familiar,—we see in all this but a faint reflection of the intellectual activity of a Lagrange or Cauchy, who with the keen discernment of a military commander marshalls a whole troop of completed operations in the execution of a new one.”

Ernst Mach (1838–1916) Austrian physicist and university educator

Source: 20th century, "Populär-wissenschafliche Vorlesungen" (1908), pp. 224-225: On thought-economy in m., 203.

Mathematics , Nature , Science , Time

“We consider a prisoner unfortunate. He is unfortunate in two ways — because he has done something wrong and because he is deprived of his liberty. Therefore we should treat him kindly, because of his misfortune, for otherwise he would become hard and bitter and would not be sorry he had done wrong. Ozma thinks that one who has committed a fault did so because he was not strong and brave; therefore she puts him in prison to make him strong and brave. When that is accomplished he is no longer a prisoner, but a good and loyal citizen and everyone is glad that he is now strong enough to resist doing wrong. You see, it is kindness that makes one strong and brave; and so we are kind to our prisoners.”

L. Frank Baum book The Patchwork Girl of Oz

The Patchwork Girl of Oz
Later Oz novels

Way , Thinking , Strong

“Revolution was and is in each step and breath of those who dare follow this man called Jesus. Revolution comes about only when there is at least one person willing to take a stand for God and say "the present system" is wrong and thus will not accomplish the purposes of God. All of God's purposes center on His glory and meeting the needs of people. Jesus was the ultimate revolutionary.”

Kip McKean (1954) minister

http://www.kipmckean.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/Revolution_through_Restoration_1_2_3.pdf, Revoultion Through Restoration, 1992.
Revolution Through Restoration (1992-2002)

God , People , Personality

“A Satanist knows there is nothing wrong with being greedy, as it only means that he wants more than he already has. Envy means to look with favor upon the possessions of others, and to be desirous of obtaining similar things for oneself. Envy and greed are the motivating forces of ambition - and without ambition, very little of any importance would be accomplished.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Motivation , Envy

“Revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society, and without them it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power.”

Mao Zedong book On Contradiction

On Contradiction (1937)

War , People

“The more we rest on this fact, – that we do not know the way we are going, but that we have a GUIDE who does know; that we do not know how to accomplish our service, but that He never leaves us to devise our own service; – the more restful does our life become.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(J. Hudson Taylor. A Ribband of Blue and Other Bible Studies. London: China Inland Mission, n.d., 102).

Life , Way

“The university cannot be an ivory tower, far away from the society, removed from the practical accomplishments of the Revolution. If such an attitude is maintained, the university will continue giving our society lawyers that we do not need.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Speech to University students (1959)

Universe

“The purest evil that human efforts could attain, in other words, was probably achieved by those men who made their wills the same and who made their eyes see the world in the same way, men who went against the pattern of life's diversity, men whose spirits shattered the natural wall of the individual body, making nothing of this barrier, set up to guard against mutual corrosion, men whose spirit accomplished what flesh could never accomplish.”

Yukio Mishima book Runaway Horses

Runaway Horses (1969), as translated by Michael Gallagher (1973).

Life , Men , World , Way

“The intrinsic decorative urge should not be eradicated. It is one of humankind's deep-rooted, primordial urges. Primitive people decorated their implements and cult objects with a desire to beautify and enhance.... it is a sense emanating from the urge for perfection and creative accomplishment.”

Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) Swiss artist

Quote of 1927, on The Artstory: 'Sophie Taeuber-Arp http://www.theartstory.org/artist-taeuber-arp-sophie.htm, Swiss Multi-media, applied arts, performance artist, and textile designer'

People , Sense , Perfection

“As to what I would like to be. It is difficult to say. An Artist of some kind. If nothing else I shall always study the Arts. People have always frightened and bored me, consequently I have been within my own shell and have not accomplished anything materially.”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

Quote in Pollock's letter, Los Angeles 22 October, 1929 to Charles and Frank in New York; published in: Jackson Pollock (2011) American Letters: 1927-1947. p. 16
1925 - 1940

People , Art , Study

“We live among particulars, but we always want and see something more than any particular can give or reveal—thus our restlessness, our boredom, our suffering. We are certain to die, although we find in ourselves tokens of undying spirit—thus our sense of living under the pressure of an intolerable contradiction between our experience of selfhood and our recognition of the unyielding limits nature imposes on our existence. We can see only dimly beyond the boundaries of the social world that we ourselves make—thus our confusion, our inability to place our undeniable suffering and our apparent accomplishment within a context of all contexts that would keep them safe from doubt and denigration.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger book The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound

Source: The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound (2007), p. 24

World , Nature , Sense , Suffering

“Because we are denied knowledge of our history, we are deprived of standing upon each other's shoulders and building upon each other's hard earned accomplishments. Instead we are condemned to repeat what others have done before us and thus we continually reinvent the wheel. The goal of The Dinner Party is to break this cycle.”

Judy Chicago (1939) American artist

Reported in Louise Bernikow, The American Women's Almanac: An Inspiring and Irreverent Women's History (1997), p. 185.
Attributed

History , Knowledge

“Psychohistory, like psychoanalysis, is a science in which the researcher's feelings are as much or even more a part of his research equipment than his eyes or his hands. […] Weighing of complex motives can only be accomplished by identification with human actors, the usual suppression of all feeling preached and followed by most "science" simply cripples a psychohistorian as badly as it would cripple a biologist to be forbidden the use of a microscope. The emotional development of a psychohistorian is therefore as much a topic for discussion as his or her intellectual development.”

Lloyd deMause (1931) American thinker

Source: Foundations of Psychohistory (1982), Ch. 2, p. 100.

Feeling , Motivation , Science , Parting

“Our missionaries are going forth to different nations, and in Germany, Palestine, New Holland, the East Indies, and other places, the standard of truth has been erected: no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 4:540 (1 March 1842)
1840s

God , Truth , Rage , Country

“My accomplishments as Secretary of State? Well, I'm glad you asked. My proudest accomplishment in which I take the most pride, mostly because of the opposition it faced early on, you know. The remnants of prior situations and mindsets that were too narrowly focused in a manner whereby they may have overlooked the bigger picture and we didn't do that. Very proud. I would say that's a major accomplishment.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Claimed to be from a speech in letter to the editor by Scott Boyer. " Hillary Clinton: A killer public speaker http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/hillary-clinton-a-killer-public-speaker/article_c8a22488-10e7-11e4-8550-001a4bcf887a.html", Missoulian (). There is no record of Hillary Clinton having engaged in a public appearance on this date, nor any news account or transcript recording such a quote, according to snopes.com ( "Stating the Oblivious" http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/achievements.asp).
Misattributed

“THE prejudice which is commonly entertained against metaphysical speculations seems to arise chiefly from two causes: First, from an apprehension that the subjects about which they are employed, are placed beyond the reach of the human faculties; and, secondly, from a belief that these subjects have no relation to the business of life.
The frivolous and absurd discussions which abound in the writings of most metaphysical authors, afford but too many arguments in justification of these opinions; and if such discussions were to be admitted as a fair specimen of what the human mind is able to accomplish in this department of science, the contempt, into which it has fallen of late, might with justice be regarded, as no inconsiderable evidence of the progress, which true philosophy has made in the present age.”

Dugald Stewart (1753–1828) Scottish philosopher and mathematician

Source: Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, 1792, p. 9; Lead paragraph (I)

Life , Age , Justice , Business

“Administration has to do with getting things done; with the accomplishment of defined objectives. The science of administration is thus the system of knowledge whereby men may understand relationships, predict results, and influence outcomes in any situation where men are organized at work together for a common purpose.”

Luther H. Gulick (1892–1993) American academic

Source: "Science, values and public administration," 1937, p. 189; cited in: Marshall W. Meyer (1985), Limits to Bureaucratic Growth, p. 18

Men , Understanding , Knowledge , Science

“I busied myself to think of a story, — a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart. If I did not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be unworthy of its name.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer

Introduction http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/frankenstein/1831v1/intro.html to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein

Fear , Business , Nature , Thinking

“Alpinism is the art of climbing mountains by confronting the greatest dangers with the greatest prudence. Art is used here to mean the accomplishment of knowledge in action.”

René Daumal book Mount Analogue

Mount Analogue (1952)

Art , Mountain , Knowledge

“Accomplishment, the feeling of absorption in the flow, of mastery for its own sake, of knowing how to do this thing, is what keeps all of us doing what we do, if we like what we do at all.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

How to Raise a Prodigy, The New Yorker (2018)

Feeling

“We who have inherited this Empire are proud of it, and it is right that we should be proud. With our pride there should mingle gratitude to those who have gone before us, by whose efforts this Empire has grown. In a world still suffering from the shock of war, the British Empire stands firm as a great force for good…It stands in the sweep of every wind, by the wash of every sea, a witness to that which the spirit of confidence and brotherhood can accomplish in the world.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast from 10 Downing Street, London (24 May 1927), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), p. 63.
1927

War , World , Confidence , Effort

“The cognitive behavior of Western intellectuals faced with the accomplishments of their own society, on the one hand, and with the socialist ideal and then the socialist reality, on the other, takes one's breath away. In the midst of unparalleled social mobility in the West, they cry "caste." In a society of munificent goods and services, they cry either "poverty" or "consumerism." In a society of ever richer, more varied, more productive, more self-defined, and more satisfying lives, they cry "alienation." In a society that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians to an extent that no one could have dreamed possible just fifty years ago, they cry "oppression." In a society of boundless private charity, they cry "avarice." In a society in which hundreds of millions have been free riders upon the risk, knowledge, and capital of others, they decry the "exploitation" of the free riders. In a society that broke, on behalf of merit, the seemingly eternal chains of station by birth, they cry "injustice." In the names of fantasy worlds and mystical perfections, they have closed themselves to the Western, liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit, and human satisfaction. Like Marx, they put words like "liberty" in quotation marks when these refer to the West.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2000s, Can There Be an "After Socialism"? (2003)

Women , World , Dreams , Behavior

“Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

2000s, The Powell Principles (2003)

Leadership , Art , Science

“We seek to move from the self of separation to the self of relationship that knows that everything outside is also inside. Then we are not alone. This is not something we can accomplish in the normal sense of the word. It cannot be another achievement of the separate self. Rather, it is a gift we can receive—and it is a gift we can pass on.”

Charles Eisenstein (1967) American writer

Charles Eisenstein, The Longing for Belonging http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-eisenstein/indigeneity-and-belonging_b_8011302.html, Huffington Post, 20 August 2015

Sense

“The international disputes which united and divided Luxemburg, Lenin, Lukács, Gramsci, Bordiga or Trotsky on these issues represent the last great strategic debate in the European workers’ movement. Since then, there has been little significant theoretical development of the political problems of revolutionary strategy in metropolitan capitalism that has had any direct contact with the masses. The structural divorce between original Marxist theory and the main organizations of the working class in Europe has yet to be historically resolved. The May-June revolt in France, the upheaval in Portugal, the approaching dénouement in Spain, presage the end of this long divorce, but have not accomplished it. The classical debates, therefore, still remain in many respects the most advanced limit of reference we possess today. It is thus not mere archaism to recall the strategic confrontations which occurred four or five decades ago. To reappropriate them, on the contrary, is a step towards a Marxist discussion that has the—necessarily modest—hope of assuming an ‘initial shape’ of correct theory today. Régis Debray has spoken, in a famous paragraph, of the constant difficulty of being contemporary with our present. In Europe at least, we have yet to be sufficiently contemporary with our past.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

"The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci", New Left Review (1976)

Hope , Problem , Past

“The Human Behavior School: This approach to the analysis of management is based on the central thesis that, since managing involves getting things done with and through people, the study of management must be centered on interpersonal relations. Variously called the "human relations," "leadership," or "behavioral sciences" approach… This school concentrates on the "people" part of management and rests on the principle that, where people work together as groups in order to accomplish objectives, "people should understand people."”

Harold Koontz (1909–1984)

Source: "The Management Theory Jungle," 1961, p. 178

People , School , Behavior , Understanding

“I'm not very different from anyone else who has ever tried to accomplish something with his life. My motivation comes from my personal life, from watching what my mother and father went through when I was growing up, from what we experienced as migrant workers in California. That dream, that vision grew from my own experience with racism, with hope, with a desire to be treated fairly, and to see my people treated as human beings and not as chattel. It grew from anger and rage, emotions I felt 40 years ago when people of my color were denied the right to see a movie or eat at a restaurant in many parts of California. It grew from the frustration and humiliation I felt as a boy who couldn't understand how the growers could abuse and exploit farm workers when there were so many of us and so few of them.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

What the Future Holds (1984)

Life , People , Dreams , Hope

“If heretics no longer horrify us today, as they once did our forefathers, is it certain that it is because there is more charity in our hearts? Or would it not too often be, perhaps, without our daring to say so, because the bone of contention, that is to say, the very substance of our faith, no longer interests us? Men of too familiar and too passive a faith, perhaps for us dogmas are no longer the Mystery on which we live, the Mystery which is to be accomplished in us. Consequently then, heresy no longer shocks us; at least, it no longer convulses us like something trying to tear the soul of our souls away from us…. And that is why we have no trouble in being kind to heretics, and no repugnance in rubbing shoulders with them.

In reality, bias against ‘heretics’ is felt today just as it used to be. Many give way to it as much as their forefathers used to do. Only, they have turned it against political adversaries. Those are the only ones with whom they refuse to mix. Sectarianism has only changed its object and taken other forms, because the vital interest has shifted. Should we dare to say that this shifting is progress?

It is not always charity, alas, which has grown greater, or which has become more enlightened: it is often faith, the taste for the things of eternity, which has grown less. Injustice and violence are still reigning; but they are now in the service of degraded passions.”

Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) Jesuit theologian and cardinal

Henri de Lubac, Paradoxes of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), pp. 226-227

Men , Faith , Way , Soul

“The author of the history of Mahmood Shah relates, that in the year AH 872 (AD 1468), the King saw the holy Prophet (Mahomed) in a dream, who presented before him a magnificent banquet of the most delicate viands. This dream was interpreted by the wise men as a sign that he would soon accomplish a conquest by which he would obtain great treasures, which prediction was soon after verified in the capture of Girnal….“In the year AH 873 (AD 1469), Mahmood Shah marched towards the country of Girnal, the capital of which bears the same name…“…The victorious army, without attacking the fort of Girnal, destroyed all the temples in the vicinity; and the King sending out foraging parties procured abundance of provisions for the camp…“The King, being desirous that the tenets of Islam should be propagated throughout the country of Girnal, caused a city to be built, which he called Moostufabad, for the purpose of establishing an honourable residence for the venerable personages of the Mahomedan religion, deputed to disseminate its principles; Mahmood Shah also took up his residence in that city…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Mahmûd BegDhã of Gujarat (AD 1458-1511)Girnar (Gujarat)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Men , Religion , Dreams , History

“Humayun Khan did exactly that — and he did it for all the right reasons. This accomplished young man was not driven to service as a United States Army officer because he was compelled to by any material need. He was inspired as a young man by his reading of Thomas Jefferson — and he wanted to give back to the country that had taken him and his parents in as immigrants when he was only two years old.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2010s, 2016, Statement regarding the Khan family (1 August 2016)

Parent , Reading , Country

“It is in Man’s nature to dislike those who are unlike him - all the more so when they, as a group, have accomplished what he has not.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“ Why Hatred Of Whites Is Here To Stay, http://dailycaller.com/2017/11/09/why-hatred-of-whites-is-here-to-stay/” The Daily Caller, November 9, 2017
2010s, 2017

Nature

“Someone sits in a mountain vale
A robe of clouds, rainbows for tassels
The fragrant forest is the place to live
The road has been long and difficult
With a heart full of doubt and regret
A life has passed and nothing has been accomplished
Others call it failure
I stand alone devoted to this Cold Mountain life”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

Life , Mountain , Failure , Heart

“It may be true that I had dancing in my blood… I was a toddler when I danced deliriously with that street beggar. All called him a madman when he brought the house down with his frenetic dancing. Was he really mad? His unerring jatis (danced to rhythmic patterns) reverberate in my mind. Who knows which siddhapurusha (literally: “with all accomplishments”) he was? I can still see the gleam in his eye. If I am dance-mad now how could it be otherwise?… My first guru was a madman.”

Balasaraswati (1918–1984) Indian dancer

[Knight, Douglas M., Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life, http://books.google.com/books?id=Q3EsA2NooW4C, 15 June 2010, Wesleyan University Press, 978-0-8195-6906-6, 17-18]
Quote

Dance , Housing , Madness