Quotes about achievement (2962 quotes, page 23)

“If there were no limits to human rationality administrative theory would be barren. It would consist of the single precept: Always select that alternative, among those available, which will lead to the most complete achievement of your goals.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Simon (1945, p. 240); As cited in:
1940s-1950s

“The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level.”

Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958) Austrian physicist, Nobel prize winner

to Jagdish Mehra, in Berkeley, California (May 1958), as quoted in The Historical Development of Quantum Theory (2000) by Jagdish Mehra

Hope

“One of the nice things about our marriage, at least to my way of thinking, is that my wife and I no longer have to argue every thing through. We each know what the other will say, and so the saying becomes an unnecessary formality. No doubt some marriage counselor would explain to us that our problem is a failure to communicate, but to my way of thinking we've worked long and hard to achieve this silence, Lily's and mine, so fraught with mutual understanding.”

Richard Russo book Straight Man

Source: Straight Man (1997), Ch. 2.

Marriage , Way , Communication , Failure

“It’s astonishing to me how many places in America, not way, way far away from cities, but in cities and near cities that don’t have access to broadband. And that disadvantages kids who are asked to do homework using the internet. 5 million of them live in homes without access to the internet. So you talk about an achievement gap, it starts right there.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Warren, Michigan (August 11, 2016)

Way , Home

“It is truer today than when Alfred Nobel realized it a half-century ago, that peace cannot be achieved in a vacuum. Peace must be paced by human progress. Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity - a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life.”

Ralph Bunche (1904–1971) American diplomat

Some Reflections on Peace in Our Time (1950)

Life , Men , War , People

“The first lesson, for all Canadians, is that the closed door, top down approaches to constitution making do not provide the public input or debate necessary to achieve a constitutional consensus that will be supported by the people.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Thirteen, The Eventful Summer of 1990, p. 240

People , Support

“We must remember that machines do not, as in the capitalist system, compete with workers or enslave workers. Workers must view machines as the liberators of their force. Machines are placed at the service of workers as soon as the exploitation of man by man stops. And that is what we are striving for: we are trying to turn machines into liberating instruments of peasants, so they will have more time for leisure, so they will have more time to study, to develop in every sense, to achieve the most important thing we must achieve: individuals developed to the full, this is the aim we are all struggling for.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Speech at the National Sugar Plenary Meeting in Camagüey, February 9, 1963 Ernesto Che Guevera. Escritos y discursos. Op. cit., vol. 7.
On Automation (1963)

Sense , Study , Time

“It is one of the great achievements of our rule in India that, even if they do not entirely carry them out, educated Indians do accept British principles of justice and liberty. We are condemned by Indians not by the measures of Indian ethical conceptions but by our own, which we have taught them to accept. It is precisely this acceptance by politically conscious Indians of the principles of democracy and liberty which puts us in the position of being able to appeal to them to take part with us in the common struggle; but the success of this appeal and India's response does put upon us the obligation of seeing that we, as far as we may, make them sharers in the things for which we and they are fighting.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to the Cabinet (January 1942), quoted in Paul Addison, The Road to 1945 (London: Pimlico, 1994), pp. 202-203
1940s

Education , Justice , Democracy , Success

“I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence…I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then.”

Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893–1937) Marshal of the Soviet Union

1914. Quoted in "The Red Army" - Page 111 - by Michel Berchin, Eliahu Ben-Horin - 1942

Confidence , Self-confidence

“Democracy is a means of achieving a higher level of individual and collective gratification, welfare, peace, stability and prosperity. It is not an end in itself! Practitioners of democracy in the Pacific should therefore be pragmatic in their approach. An idealistic and a purist approach is, I believe, misplaced.”

Kaliopate Tavola (1946) Fijian politician

( Speech http://www.pacificforum.fiji.gov.fj/speeches/02.html delivered to the 33rd Pacific Pacific Islands Forum, 15 August 2002, Nadi, Fiji) - excerpts.

Peace , Democracy

“With the grace of Prophet Muhammed and Allah, almost all Hindus in Calicut are converted to Islam. Only a few are still not converted on the borders of Cochin State. I am determined to convert them also very soon. I consider this as Jehad to achieve that object.”

Tipu Sultan (1750–1799) Ruler of the Sultanate of Mysore

Tipu Sultan's Letter dated January 18, 1790, to Syed Abdul Dulai: cited in Bhasha Poshini of Chingam 10, 1099 (August, 1923), Article on Tipu Sultan by Sardar K.M. Panicker. Also quoted in Ravi Varma, " Tipu Sultan: As Known In Kerala" in Tipu Sultan: Villain or hero? : an anthology. (1993).
From Tipu Sultan's letters

“The backers of Hitler in Germany made the same mistake about the Nazi party that the workers and soldiers in Petrograd made about the Bolshevik party. Each group believed that this new brutal, rabid, monolithic fighting gang, on achieving power, would promote, as had been promised, its enlightened interests.”

Max Eastman (1883–1969) American activist

Source: Reflections on the Failure of Socialism (1955), p. 110

Fight

“The French symbolists had a special term to express their love for things that had lost their objective significance, namely, ‘spleen.’ The conscious, challenging arbitrariness in the choice of objects, its ‘absurdity’ and ‘perverseness,’ as if by a silent gesture discloses the irrationality of utilitarian logic, which it then slaps in the face in order to demonstrate its inadequacy with regard to human experience. And while making it conscious, by this shock, of the fact that it forgets the subject, the gesture simultaneously expresses the subject’s sorrow over his inability to achieve an objective order. Twentieth-century society is not troubled by such inconsistencies. For it, meaning can be achieved in only one way—service for a purpose.”

Max Horkheimer book Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 38.

Love , Way , Forgetting

“There is a notion that complete impartiality is the most fitting and indeed the normal disposition for true exegesis, because it guarantees complete absence of prejudice. For a short time, around 1910, this idea threatened to achieve almost a canonical status in Protestant theology. But now, we can quite calmly describe it as merely comical.”

Karl Barth book Church Dogmatics

1:2
Church Dogmatics (1932–1968)

Idea , Time

“Science… may be viewed as man's supreme effort to find himself in that perplexing pattern which he calls Nature. …Has he succeeded in achieving some measure of harmony with Nature? Or has he merely managed to transfer to Nature the irreconcilable duality within himself?”

Tobias Dantzig (1884–1956) American mathematician

Henri Poincaré, Critic of Crisis: Reflections on His Universe of Discourse (1954), Ch. 2. The Age of Innocence

Nature , Effort , Science

“The economy is doing fine—if you gauge it in traditional ways. The growth of GDP is 6.2%, which is good. […] But do we compare Russia to developed countries or to a country like China that has the GDP growth of 9%—or oil producers like Azerbaijan with 12%, or Kazakhstan with 19%. This way, we see that Russia's achievement is more than modest. Under oil windfall profits, Russia's GDP should have grown by 15% to 16% in 2005. Once you dismiss the windfall profits, you see a poor quality of the economic policy that has proven negative to the tune of losing some 9% to 10% of the GDP growth.”

Andrey Illarionov (1961) Russian politician

About the real picture in the Russian economy around 2005.
"Q&A: Putin's Critical Adviser," 2005

Way , Gauge , Country

“The worldview that underlay the New Testament was so different from that of the Greeks and the Romans as to be almost its opposite. It was a worldview that stressed not excellence of public achievement but the adventure of a personal journey with God… by imitating God's justice and mercy.”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.VII The Way They Went: Greco-Roman Meets Judeo-Christian

God , Justice , Personality

“We will not achieve the understanding we need, however, unless we are willing to think clearly about our problems and to follow those thoughts wherever they lead. Some people say that our economic problems are structural, with no quick cure available; but I believe that the only important structural obstacles to world prosperity are the obsolete doctrines that clutter the minds of men.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Source: The Return of Depression Economics and The Crisis of 2008 (2009), Chapter 10. The Return of Depression Economics

Men , People , World , Understanding

“Scott London: How did you begin to explore the connection between management and science?
Meg Wheatley: I didn't have an interest in the new science. I had a realization that in my profession — which was vaguely labeled "organizational change," "organizational development," or "management consulting" in general — none of us knew how organizations change. When I talked to other consultants, I noticed that if we had an organizational change effort that was successful, it felt like a miracle to us.
I realized with a great start one day that we weren't even geared up for success. It didn't matter that we didn't know how to change organizations. We were all professionals who didn't hope to achieve what we were selling or suggesting to clients. The field was really moribund.
At the same time — and this is the serendipity of life — I had a friend and educator whom I had worked with for many years who said casually one day "Meg, if you're interested in systems thinking, you should be reading quantum physics." He didn't know where I was in my despair over my professional failings. But I said, "Okay, give me a book list."”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

He gave me ten titles. I read eight of those and I was off. I always credit him with that casual, helpful comment that changed my life.
Scott London (2008) " The New Science of Leadership: An Interview with Margaret Wheatley http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/wheatley.html" in Quantum21. management journal, Spring 2008.

Life , Books , Education , Hope

“You who are apprentices in the field of public administration share with me who am older the task of trying to understand the new conditions in our field. Within a single generation, two world wars and a major depression have engulfed mankind. Within the past few months, the successful trial of the atomic bomb has opened the minds of the thoughtful to new possibilities, threats and coercions, and the defeat of Germany and Japan has abruptly presented the problems of peacemaking and reconstruction to war- weary masses of people. They seek release from their tragedies, deprivations and tensions, often in ways that defeat efforts to understand and attack the problems that confront them. To make progress in such a time, we must recruit widely and work as a guild, young and old together, to achieve a co-operative and cumulative effort whether in academic or governmental posts.”

John M. Gaus (1894–1969) American political scientist

Source: Reflections on public administration, 1947, p. 1; Lead paragraph

War , People , World , Way

“The other thing that's different about the real world [compared to high school] is that it's much larger. In a large enough pool, even the smallest minorities can achieve a critical mass if they clump together.”

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

"Why Nerds are Unpopular," February 2003

World , School

“One man I know, and one only, who can be praised for his achievements in this science. Of discourses and battles of words he takes no heed: he follows the works of wisdom, and in these finds rest. What others strive to see dimly and blindly, like bats in twilight, he gazes at in the full light of day, because he is a master of experiment. Through experiment he gains knowledge of natural things, medical, chemical, indeed of everything in the heavens or earth. He is ashamed that things should be known to laymen, old women, soldiers, ploughmen, of which he is ignorant. Therefore he has looked closely into the doings of those who work in metals and minerals of all kinds; he knows everything relating to the art of war, the making of weapons, and the chase; he has looked closely into agriculture, mensuration, and farming work; he has even taken note of the remedies, lot casting, and charms used by old women and by wizards and magicians, and of the deceptions and devices of conjurors, so that nothing which deserves inquiry should escape him, and that he may be able to expose the falsehoods of magicians. If philosophy is to be carried to its perfection and is to be handled with utility and certainty, his aid is indispensable. As for reward, he neither receives nor seeks it. If he frequented kings and princes, he would easily find those who would bestow on him honours and wealth. Or, if in Paris he would display the results of his researches, the whole world would follow him. But since either of these courses would hinder him from pursuing the great experiments in which he delights, he puts honour and wealth aside, knowing well that his wisdom would secure him wealth whenever he chose. For the last three years he has been working at the production of a mirror that shall produce combustion at a fixed distance; a problem which the Latins have neither solved nor attempted, though books have been written upon the subject.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Tertium

Bridges assumes that Bacon refers here to Peter Peregrinus of Maricourt.
Source: Opus Tertium, c. 1267, Ch. 13 as quoted in J. H. Bridges, The 'Opus Majus' of Roger Bacon (1900) Vol.1 http://books.google.com/books?id=6F0XAQAAMAAJ Preface p.xxv

Wisdom , Women , War , Books

“There is no "scientific worldview" just as there is no uniform enterprise "science"- except in the minds of metaphysicians, school masters, and scientists blinded by the achievements of their own particular niche… There is no objective principle that could direct us away from the supermarket "religion" or the supermarket "art" toward the more modern, and much more expensive supermarket "science." Besides, the search for such guidance would be in conflict with the idea of individual responsibility which allegedly is an important ingredient of a "rational" or scientific age.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

Pg 159.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

Age , School , Religion , Art

“Torture is not tolerated by this country on the battlefield or off. Anyone who tortures or abuses a detainee tarnishes the service of every honorable student and soldier in this room today. The President has said this, and I will say it again: those who commit torture in the name of the United States government will be prosecuted. In any discussion of Guantanamo, detainees and military commissions, I think that one final fact helps put things in perspective — and that is the fact that members of al Qaeda are not merely common criminals. Some critics around the world have argued that they are “just” criminals, that their crimes somehow do not amount to war crimes. But here are the facts: al Qaeda seeks to employ weapons of mass slaughter as a means of achieving political goals against both the civilian and military capacity of the United States, Europe, and our allies throughout the world. Its members continue to fight our Armed Forces on battlefields around the world, and they will continue to do so until we stop them. Al Qaeda has committed acts on a scale that transcends mere crime, as recognized by NATO immediately after the attacks of September 11th. Their crimes are therefore nothing less than war crimes. Given the magnitude of the atrocities al Qaeda has committed, there can be no comparison between the crimes of its members and that of common civilian criminals.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech regarding Civil Liberties and the War on Terrorism (November 20, 2006)

War , World , Thinking , Help

“A filmed play like this doesn't offer the sensual enjoyment that movies can offer, but you don't go to it for that; you go for O'Neill's crude, prosaic virtuosity, which is also pure American poetry, and for the kind of cast that rarely gathers for a stage production. […] Larry, a self-hating alcoholic, is a weak man and a windbag, but Ryan brings so much understanding to Larry's weakness that the play achieves new dimensions. Ryan becomes O'Neill for us; he has O'Neill's famous "tragic handsomeness" and at the end, when Larry is permanently "iced" — that is, stripped of illusion — we can see that this is the author's fantasy of himself […] Fredric March interprets Harry Hope with so much quiet tenderness that when Harry regains his illusions and we see March's muscles tone up, we don't know whether to smile for the character or the actor.”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

"The Iceman Cometh," pp. 353-354
5001 Nights at the Movies (1982)

Hate , Alcohol , Smile , Hope

“I abhor vivisection. It should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil.”

Charles Horace Mayo (1865–1939) American physician

Heard, personally, in 1921 or 1922 by the interviewer William H. Hendrix, staff writer for the New York Daily News, and later reported by Hendrix in New York Daily News, 13 March 1961; see "Animal Experiments", in Los Angeles Times, 26 October 1991 http://articles.latimes.com/1991-10-26/entertainment/ca-318_1_ecumenical-patriarch-dimitrios. Quoted in Hans Ruesch, Slaughter of the Innocent, Bantam Books, 1978, p. 235.

Evil

“You must awake others and make them arise and be alert. If you are always alert, this will be of great benefit to you. You will achieve happiness and you will be saved from the calamities, which are coming very soon.”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

27 March 1983.
The Teachings of Babaji

Happiness

“Happiness is possible only in a relationship with a partner. Imagine that some fellow who has lived his life as a singer goes to an uninhabited island and sings as loudly as possible. If there is no one there to hear him, he will not be happy. To realize that we exist for the sake of others is the great achievement that changes our lives. When we realize that our life is not ours alone but is meant to be for the sake of the other, we begin to follow a path different from the one we were on. Just as singing to yourself will not make you happy, there is no joy without a partner. Even the smallest and most trivial thing can bring you happiness when you do it for another.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

2009, As a Peace-loving Global Citizen http://www.euro-tongil.org/TFbiography.pdf, Page 139.

Life , Imagination , Change , Singing

“As a country, we have not started to see how much we can achieve as a nation and we will not have any idea of our strength if we continue to deny ourselves the opportunity to come together as one people. We have not been able to pool the resources and talent of our people and exploit them for our common good. It will continue to evade us if we continue to stress our ethnicity and group differences.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Guest speech to the conference of the Fiji Labour Party, Lautoka, 30 July 2005

People , Idea , Country

“The sources of authority in America are the final interpreters of Americanism. These are the legislature and the court. Every other Americanization achievement stands or falls finally according to the way equity is maintained among men. The administration of justice is the determining factor in men's lives, whether they turn to or from America. It is for the court to make clear the difference between liberty and license, and at the same time assure to each man alike the right to free speech. Let inequalities appear and Americanization is defeated. It is for the court to impose duties while it makes clear the opportunities, and to see that duties and privileges are alike the heritage of all free men. Free education is placed at the disposal of all people in America, but it is the duty of all to maintain and extend its benefits. It is well to set the immigrant in the pursuit of liberty and happiness when he lands here, but without safeguards against exploitation he can scarcely be blamed if he concludes that such liberty is a delusion of American minds.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Men , People , Education , Justice

“Hard systems thinking is also accused of conservatism. It privileges the values and interests of its clients and customers, and lends its apparent expertise to their realization. It thus gives the facade of objectivity to changes that help to secure the status quo. In general terms, despite its many strengths and achievements, hard systems thinking is today thought of as having a limited domain of application.”

Mike Jackson (1951) systems scientist

Michael C. Jackson (2007) Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers. p. 62

Thinking , Change , Help

“Newton's laws of motion and gravitation achieved their original success when applied to the solar system. The first definite evidence that they were applicable on a larger scale came from the study of binary stars towards the eighteenth century. In recent times the limitations of Newton's theory have become apparent. Even on the scale of the solar system, it has been challenged by Einstein's.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

"Newton and the Stars" (10 Oct 1957)

Law , Star , Study , Time

“Father thinks about the three races, yellow, black, and white. Orientals can contribute in the spiritual aspect, white people can contribute in the analytical, scientific area, while black people can contribute in the physical area-physical educational development of physical fitness, the area of health. That's one of the reasons Glenda Moody's project with black young people is very fantastic. From now on, two thirds of the athletes may come from black people. Even basketball teams have a dominant population of black people. The talented area of black people is in this physical aspect. So, the short cut for black peoples' achievement in this world is the physical area. So, Father has a special concern in this area.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

Master Speaks: Address To Prayer And Fast Participants, Part 1, (1974-07-29 http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/sunmyungmoon74/SM740729.htm)

People , Health , World , Education

“A personality will not choose unfavorable circumstances of rebirth until he himself sees that necessary discipline can be achieved in no other manner. Therefore extremely hot and extremely cold countries go largely undeveloped.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 32, Page 247
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 1

Personality , Country

“Corruption is the enemy of development. It must be got rid of. Both the government and the people at large must come together to achieve this national objective. You have always shown an ability to understand events happening around you; expressed your views and I am sure you will not fail in building a strong, progressive, cohesive and corruption-free India. These are totally unacceptable and must be opposed by one and all. The government, social organizations, NGOs and other voluntary bodies all have to work collectively. Therefore, their issues received my constant attention during my Presidency. Women have talent and intelligence but due to social constraints and prejudices, it is still a long distance away from the goal of gender equality. A paradigm shift, where, in addition to, physical inputs for farming, a focused emphasis placed on knowledge inputs, can be a promising way forward. This knowledge-based approach will bring immense returns particularly in rainfed and dryland farming areas. I believe economic growth should translate into the happiness and progress of all. Alongwith it, there should be development of art and culture, literature and education, science and technology. We have to see how to harness the many resources of India for achieving common good and for inclusive growth.”

Pratibha Patil (1934) 12th President of India

Patil's goodbye wish: A 'corruption-free India' https://in.news.yahoo.com/patils-goodbye-wish-corruption-free-india-143318154.html in: IANS India Private Limited By Indo Asian News Service, 24 July 2012.
Goodybe Wish

Women , People , Education , Art

“In the history of thought… objectivity was sometimes on the side of one man against the rest of humankind. For example, in Copernicus' time the objective astronomical reality existed only for him, while hundreds of millions of people were mistaken in this regard… Copernicus alone embraced the accumulated astronomical experience up to that time in its entirety and was able to organize it harmoniously with the methods which corresponded to the level achieved by the collective efforts of humankind; other people possessed only parts and fragments of this experience, so that it remained unorganized in all its fullness.”

Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928) Physician, philosopher, writer

Alexander Bogdanov, cited in: Kenneth M. Stokes. Paradigm Lost: A Cultural and Systems Theoretical Critique of Political Economy. p. 1995

People , History , Reality , Effort

“Marxist Man could not have come upon the earth at a more illogical time. In an age when technological advances have finally made it feasible to adequately feed, clothe and house the entire human race, Marxist Man stands as a military threat to this peaceful achievement. His sense of insecurity drives him to demand exclusive control of human affairs in a day when nearly all other peoples would like to create a genuine United Nations dedicated to world peace and world-wide prosperity. Although man can travel faster than sound and potentially provide frequent, intimate contacts between all cultures and all peoples, Marxist Man insists on creating iron barriers behind which he can secretly work.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

People , Age , World , Peace

“The source of totalitarianism is a dogmatic attachment to the official word: the lack of laughter, of ironic detachment. An excessive commitment to Good may in itself become the greatest Evil: real Evil is any kind of fanatical dogmatism, especially exerted in the name of supreme Good… Consider only Mozart's Don Giovanni at the end of the opera, when he is confronted with the following choice: if he confesses his sins, he can still achieve salvation; if he persists, he will be damned forever. From this viewpoint of the pleasure principle, the proper thing to do would be to renounce his past, but he does not, he persists in his Evil, although he knows that by persisting he will be damned forever. Paradoxically, with his final choice of Evil, he acquires the status of an ethical hero - that is, of someone who is guided by fundamental principles beyond the pleasure principle and not just by the search for pleasure or material gain.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

23
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Pleasure , Search , Laughter , Evil

“Capitalism is the greatest benefactor man has ever had. It is time for the thinking men and women of every nation to recognize that fact and to fully embrace the system of the mind and of individual rights. Men and women of all countries unite - in your support of capitalism. You have a world of joyous achievement to win.”

Andrew Bernstein (1949) American philosopher

The Bernstein Declaration (Liberty Magazine - December 2002).

Women , Men , World , Support

“And the high mandate of his sire.
Led by the Lord who rules the sky,
The Gods and heavenly saints drew nigh,
And honoured him with worthy meed,
Rejoicing in each glorious deed.
His task achieved, his foe removed,
He triumphed, by the Gods approved.
By grace of Heaven he raised to life
The chieftains slain in mortal strife;
Then in the magic chariot through
The clouds to Nandigráma flew.
Met by his faithful brothers there,
He loosed his votive coil of hair:
Thence fair Ayodhyá's town he gained,
And o'er his father's kingdom reigned.
Disease or famine ne'er oppressed
His happy people, richly blest.”

Vālmīki Legendary Indian poet, author of the Ramayana

Source: King of Siam Rama I "The-Ramayana", p. 28.

Life , God , People , Disease

“To evaluate the greatness of the late director of the Philippine Library and Museum is utterly impossible. An accomplished musician, the foremost scholar in the land, a collector of the first rank, at home among the great masters of foreign tongues, Epifanio de los Santos leaves behind him a record of service and achievement that would be difficult to equal.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

R. McCulloch Dick ( Editor, The Philippine Free Press).
BALIW

Home

“It is a simple fact that all of us use the techniques of acting to achieve whatever ends we seek.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Introduction to The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler (1988)

“If you want to achieve your greatest self, be your own biggest fan.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 152

“Mr Mayor and gentlemen - I have great pleasure in associating myself in how ever humble and transitory manner with this great and splendid undertaking. I am glad to be associated with an enterprise which I hope will carry still further the prosperity and power of Liverpool, and which will carry down the name of Liverpool to posterity as the place where a great mechanical undertaking first found its home. Sir William Forwood has alluded to the share which this city took in the original establishment of railways. My memory does not quite carry me back to the melancholy event by which that opening was signalised, but I can remember that which presents to my mind a strange contrast with the present state of things. Almost the earliest thing I can recollect is being brought down here to my mother's house which is close in the neighbourhood, and we took two days on the road, and had to sleep half way. Comparing that with my journey yesterday I feel what an enormous distance has been traversed in the interval, and perhaps a still larger distance and a still more magnificent rate of progress will be achieved before a similar distance of time has elapsed from the present day. I will not detain you in a room where it is perhaps difficult to hear. Of all my oratorical efforts, the one which I find most difficult to achieve is that of competing with a steam engine. Occasionally you are invited to do it at railway stations, and I know distinguished statesmen who do it with effect, but I think I have never ventured to compete in that line. I will therefore, though with some fear and trembling, fulfil the injunctions of Sir William Forwood, and proceed to handle the electric machinery which is to set this line in motion. I only hope the result will be no different from what he anticipates.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

At the opening of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, 4 February 1893. Quoted in the Liverpool Echo of the same day, p. 3
1890s

Pleasure , Fear , Hope , Way

“Our whole strength will be put into this war of emancipation, -- emancipation from the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of autocratic rulers, -- whatever the difficulties and present partial delays. We are indomitable in our power of independent action and can in no circumstances consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We believe that our own desire for a new international order under which reason and justice and the common interests of mankind shall prevail is the desire of enlightened men everywhere. Without that new order the world will be without peace and human life will lack tolerable conditions of existence and development. Having set our hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

1910s, Address to Congress: Analyzing German and Austrian Peace Utterances (1918)

Life , Men , War , World

“A fixed mindset, creates a tendency to avoid challenges, to ignore useful negative feedback and leads such people to plateau early and not achieve their full potential.”

N. R. Narayana Murthy (1946) Indian businessman

Life lessons from Narayana Murthy (2013)

People

“To be a progressive, then, means being a partisan—at least for now. The only way a progressive agenda can be enacted is if Democrats have both the presidency and a large enough majority in Congress to overcome Republican opposition. And achieving that kind of political preponderance will require leadership that makes opponents of the progressive agenda pay a political price for their obstructionism—leadership that, like FDR, welcomes the hatred of the interest groups trying to prevent us from making our society better.”

Paul Krugman book The Conscience of a Liberal

Source: The Conscience of a Liberal (2007), Ch. 13. The Conscience of a Liberal

Way

“Christianity is a universalist and monotheist religion of salvation. Its long consolidation and explosive spread, achieved through a long period of discussion and zealous ferment, released vast human forces which have largely shaped the western world as we know it. An evolutionary and humanist religion of fulfilment could be more truly universal and could release even vaster human forces, which could in large measure shape the development of the entire world…”

Julian Huxley (1887–1975) English biologist, philosopher, author

The New Divinity (1964)

World , Religion , Universe

“Strong political commitment, professionalism, honesty and integrity of prosecutors, the existing atmosphere of fight against serious corruption – these factors, I am sure, will help us achieve our goals. Azerbaijan should be at the forefront of the fight against corruption. I am sure that this will be the case. In the coming years, I want to say again, we should apply the experience of developed countries to Azerbaijan, not just to study it, as we have already studied it, but to apply it to each area. Transparency, honesty and integrity must become a way of life. I am sure that this will be the case.”

Ilham Aliyev (1961) 4th President of Azerbaijan from 2003

During the opening of opening of a new office building of the Anti-Corruption Department under the Prosecutor-General of the Republic of Azerbaijan (30 September 2013) http://en.president.az/articles/9445
Anti-corruption policy

Life , Way , Study , Strong

“To create a harmonious inner existence is a positive act with far-reaching effects, and not an act of isolation. To desire peace strongly is to help achieve it.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 337, Page 16
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 8

Peace , Help

“My whole concept of economics is based on the idea that we have to explain how prices operate as signals, telling people what they ought to do in particular circumstances. The approach to this problem has been blocked by a cost or labor theory of value, which assumes that prices are determined by the technical conditions of production only. The important question is to explain how the interaction of a great number of people, each possessing only limited knowledge, will bring about an order that could only be achieved by deliberate direction taken by somebody who has the combined knowledge of all these individuals. However, central planning cannot take direct account of particular circumstances of time and place. Additionally, every individual has important bits of information which cannot possibly be conveyed to a central authority in statistical form. In a system in which the knowledge of relevant data is dispersed among millions of agents, prices can act to coordinate the separate actions of different individuals.
Given this context, it is intellectually not satisfactory to attempt to establish causal relations between aggregates or averages in the manner in which the discipline of macroeconomics has attempted to do. Individuals do not make decisions on the basis of partial knowledge of magnitudes such as the total amount of production, or the total quantity of money. Aggregative theorizing leads nowhere.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1960s–1970s, A Conversation with Professor Friedrich A. Hayek (1979)

Money , People , Idea , Question

“A careful examination of the facts will decide the problem of government more and more in favor of liberty, just as it does all other economic problems. We are convinced, so far as we are concerned, that one day societies will be established to agitate for the freedom of government, as they have already been established on behalf of the freedom of commerce.And we do not hesitate to add that after this reform has been achieved, and all artificial obstacles to the free action of the natural laws that govern the economic world have disappeared, the situation of the various members of society will become the best possible.”

Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912) Belgian political economist and classical liberal theorist

Source: The Production of Security (1849), p. 60-61

World , Law , Nature , Problem

“The genuinely innovatory, the truly 'experiential' poetry is always firmly rooted in the achievement of the past.”

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet

A Proper Gentleman, 1977

Past

“In any democracy, there is always a tug-of-war between policies to achieve equality and policies to promote excellence. I am certain that Canada can achieve both equality and excellence.”

John Turner (1929) 17th Prime Minister of Canada

1968 Liberal Party Leadership convention speech, April 5, 1968. ( http://ms.radio-canada.ca/archives_new/2006/en/wmv/turner19680405et1.wmv)

War , Democracy

“True reconciliation must incorporate the righteous elements of forgiveness and justice. Therefore, real meaningful forgiveness will only arise when firstly, we have to identify the aggrieved party and the wrongdoer must then ask for forgiveness for a specific wrong done. Once forgiveness is achieved, then the process of justice must take place and punishment given according to law. Only then, will true reconciliation begin.”

Koila Nailatikau (1953) Fijian politician

On her boycott of the "Fiji Week" reconciliation ceremonies, Senate Speech, 22 October 2004 (excerpts) http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID266&viewtypefull

Justice , Law , Forgiveness

“"What is good in Korzybski's work," they say, "is not new, and what is new is not good." On the other hand, many "Korzybski-ites" proclaim that Korzybski's work has "nothing to do" with semantics. They go so far as to say that the very term "general semantics" was an unfortunate choice; that had Korzybski known what confusion would arise between semantics and general semantics he would not have used it at all. Korzybski himself has maintained that while semantics belongs to the philosophy of language and perhaps to the theory of knowledge, general semantics belongs to empirical science: that it is the foundation of a science of man, the basis of the first "non-aristotelian system," which has had no predecessor and which no academic semanticist has ever achieved.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

(1951, p. 14)
1950s, "What is Semantics?", 1950

Knowledge , Science

“In any potential collectivity, members have different interests, capabilities, preferences, and so forth. They want to accomplish different things. However, to achieve some of these diverse ends, concerted, interdependent actions are required.”

Karl E. Weick (1936) Organisational psychologist

Karl E. Weick. "Group Processes, Family Processes, and Problem Solving," in J. Aldous, T. Condon, R. Hill, M. Straus, and I. Tallman, eds., Farnily Problem Solving: A Synzposizim on Theoretical, Methodological, and Substantive Concerns. Hinsdale, Ill.: Dryden Press, 1971, p. 26
1970s

“In thinking of history in this [progressive & eschatological] way Islam shares common ground with Christianity and with the secular creeds of the modern West. It is misleading to represent Islam and ‘the West’ as forming civilisations that have nothing in common. Christianity and Islam are integral parts of western monotheism, and as such they share a view of history that marks them off from the rest of the world. Both are militant faiths that seek to convert all humankind. Other religions have been implicated in twentieth-century violence—the state cult of Shintō in Japan during the militarist period and Hindu nationalism in contemporary India, for example. But only Christianity and Islam have engendered movements that are committed to the systematic use of force to achieve universal goals.”

John Gray book Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia

Enlightenment and Terror in the Twentieth Century: Terror and the Western Tradition
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007)

World , Faith , Religion , Way

“Not only must weapons be bought and paid for out of surpluses of capital and labour, but they must also be put to use. For this is the only means that capitalism has at its disposal to achieve the level of devaluation now required. The idea is dreadful in its implications. What better reason could there be to declare that it is time for capitalism to be gone, to give way to some saner mode of production?”

David Harvey (1935) British anthropologist

Source: The Limits To Capital (2006 VERSO Edition), Chapter 13, Crisis In The Space Economy Of Capitalism, p. 445

Way , Idea , Time

“The meaning of socialism is that life is dominated not by the contrast of rich and poor but by rank as determined by achievement and ability. That is our kind of freedom: freedom from the economic capriciousness of the individual.”

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) German historian and philosopher

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)

Life , Freedom

“We must all believe in ourselves and together raise our national banner high as a symbol of freedom so that it can fly sovereignly and definitively over our great fatherland. This will not prevent us from persisting in our tradition as a peace-loving nation and from respecting all world nations, nor will it prevent us from resuming with dignity, through friendly gestures stemming from our natural generosity, diplomatic negotiations which may give an institutional basis to the situation which we have achieved, clearly safeguard- ing those legitimate interests we have always respected. Our arms will always be extended to conclude noble commitments and to forget past offences for the sake of building a peaceful future for the civilized world. Glory to the great Argentine people”

Leopoldo Galtieri (1926–2003) Argentine military dictator

President Galtieri’s address to the nation https://teachwar.wordpress.com/resources/war-justifications-archive/falklandsmalvinas-war-1982/#arg1, 2 April 1982

Love , People , World , Peace

“Good jobs begin with good schools, and here we've made a fine start. Republicans and Democrats worked together to achieve historic education reform so that no child is left behind. I was proud to work with members of both parties: Chairman John Boehner and Congressman George Miller. Senator Judd Gregg. And I was so proud of our work, I even had nice things to say about my friend, Ted Kennedy. I know the folks at the Crawford coffee shop couldn't believe I'd say such a thing, but our work on this bill shows what is possible if we set aside posturing and focus on results.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Education , School , Coffee

“Feminists often tried to be men: they cut their hair, did not use makeup, walked like men, hid their breasts, used men's clothing… they became men and we thought that was a dangerous path for feminism. … We are not ashamed of our bodies. We are proud that we are women, that we are different from men. This is the greatest thing we have achieved with Femen, we have put the woman in the centre of feminism.”

Oksana Shachko (1987–2018) Ukrainian artist and activist with FEMEN

Interview with Luxemburger Wort (2015)

Women , Men , Clothes

“A debt-ridden farmer contemplating suicide in Maharashtra and a mother who abandons her children in Karachi because she can't feed them: this is what we have achieved in our mutual desire to teach each other a lesson.”

Mohammed Hanif (1964) Pakistani journalist

Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday_TOI/Ten_myths_about_Pakistan/articleshow/3932145.cms (4 January 2009)

Children , Suicide

“We are part of nature and it is part of us. Everything about our species, from the shape of our teeth to the size of our brains, has been fashioned over millennia by our interaction with the plants and animals around us. What’s more, our sense of beauty and our greatest artistic achievements have been crafted in response to nature. Our yearning for wilderness is a hankering after the place we have come from, and from which we have become alienated in the headlong march of so-called progress.”

Justin D. Fox (1967) South African author, photojournalist, lecturer and editor

The Impossible Five (2015)

Beauty , Fashion , Nature , Sense

“There was much idle talk at the Conference of Paris about the disappearance of four mighty empires, German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Turkish. But the cynical Clemenceau, at the head of the French delegation knew that the strongest of them remained -- even though it had reluctantly become a Republic. His task at the peace parleys, as he saw it, was to see that Germany was permanently weakened, or, if this could not be achieved, confronted for at least a generation with an Allied coalition which, having won the war, would keep the peace by guarding France's northeastern border to make sure that any future invasion from across the Rhine would be met with overwhelming force.”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

War , Peace , Future

“Its importance is that if R[egulator] is fixed in its channel capacity, the law places an absolute limit to the amount of regulation (or control) that can be achieved by R, no matter how R is re-arranged internally, or how great the opportunity in T. Thus the ecologist, if his capacity as a channel is unchangeable, may be able at best only to achieve a fraction of what he would like to do. This fraction may be disposed in various ways —he may decide to control outbreaks rather than extensions, or virus infections rather than bacillary — but the quantity of control that he can exert is still bounded. So too the economist may have to decide to what aspect he shall devote his powers, and the psychotherapist may have to decide what symptoms shall be neglected and what controlled.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Source: An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956), Part 3: Regulation and control, p. 245: Regarding the law of requisite variety

Law , Way

“The realist, then, would seek in behalf of philosophy the same renunciation the same rigour of procedure, that has been achieved in science. This does not mean that he would reduce philosophy to natural or physical science. He recognizes that the philosopher has undertaken certain peculiar problems, and that he must apply himself to these, with whatever method he may find it necessary to employ. It remains the business of the philosopher to attempt a wide synoptic survey of the world, to raise underlying and ulterior questions, and in particular to examine the cognitive and moral processes. And it is quite true that for the present no technique at all comparable with that of the exact sciences is to be expected. But where such technique is attainable, as for example in symbolic logic, the realist welcomes it. And for the rest he limits himself to a more modest aspiration. He hopes that philosophers may come like scientists to speak a common language, to formulate common problems and to appeal to a common realm of fact for their resolution. Above all he desires to get rid of the philosophical monologue, and of the lyric and impressionistic mode of philosophizing. And in all this he is prompted not by the will to destroy but by the hope that philosophy is a kind of knowledge, and neither a song nor a prayer nor a dream. He proposes, therefore, to rely less on inspiration and more on observation and analysis. He conceives his function to be in the last analysis the same as that of the scientist. There is a world out yonder more or less shrouded in darkness, and it is important, if possible, to light it up. But instead of, like the scientist, focussing the mind's rays and throwing this or that portion of the world into brilliant relief, he attempts to bring to light the outlines and contour of the whole, realizing too well that in diffusing so widely what little light he has, he will provide only a very dim illumination.”

Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) American philosopher

Chap XXV.
The Present Conflict of Ideals: A Study of the Philosophical Background of the World War (1918)

World , Dreams , Hope , Question

“Art' is a Renaissance invention which has been carried to a state of extreme refinement in the present day. This is the so-called 'abstract art'. The production of good works of art was achieved only at the cost of an enormous concentration upon certain matters. This concentration could be achieved only through neglecting 'life', through the very loss of life- just as religion had experienced before. 'Today this situation is no longer tolerable'. Today life is paramount. Modern life in general rejects all tendencies towards isolation and ivory tower-like exclusiveness. It is absolute un-modern to concentrate upon just one thing (as did the middle Ages!) Modern life is based upon the construction, which is to say, upon a system of tensions or the neutralization of the system of carry and support. In agreement with this concept we too must distribute our vitality over the whole range of life taken in the broadest possible sense. All other attitudes towards life produce tragedy.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote in 'The end of Art', in De Stijl; Theo van Doesburg – series XII, 1924-5, pp. 135–136
1920 – 1926

Life , Age , Religion , Art

“Our lives are more like fragmentary dreams than the enactments of conscious selves. We control very little of what we most care about; many of our most fateful decisions are made unbeknownst to ourselves. Yet we insist that mankind can achieve what we cannot: conscious mastery of its existence. This is the creed of those who have given up an irrational belief in God for an irrational faith in mankind.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Deception: At the Masked Ball (p. 38)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

God , Fate , Faith , Dreams

“Politicians often like to believe that we exist to make law - and that only through constantly changing the law we achieve our policy objectives. That view of political leadership is mistaken.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Principles and Priorities : Programme for Government (September 5, 2007)

Law , Change

“I’m clearly a small-minded person, with my own petty grievances. Hopefully, my work transcends my own petty grievances and small-minded nature. It’s best for me to remain small-minded on an emotional level and broad-minded on a conceptual level. It doesn’t matter whatever it is that makes me do my work. Neurosis, obsession, wanting people to like me, wanting my parents to feel bad for underrating me, making a lot of money, power, social status, wanting girls to like me or just to meet one girl on a job. All of this doesn’t matter as long as the work that I do to achieve these small-minded needs is a lot more interesting than me and my reasons for making it”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

SOMA Interview

Money , People , Feeling , Girl

“The media, the galleries, the collectors – it's all very chaotic actually. The artworld doesn't have this defined corporate structure that people imagine. Of course there's a system of sorts. This person will talk to that person and somebody else will pass it on to somebody else… you can trace a line of power of some kind. But its nothing like as clear and set as people think. And this chaos leads to a lot of insecurity. It's only after an artist has achieved some independence from it that he MODERN PAINTERS can really stand up to the collectors and the dealers and do his art.”

Jeff Koons (1955) American artist

Jeff Koons in: Modern Painters. Vol. 2 (1989), p. 63
1980s

People , Art , Imagination , Thinking

“Making reality real is art's responsibility. It is a practical assignment, then, a self-assignment: to achieve, by a cultivated sensitivity for observing life, a capacity for receiving impressions, a lonely, unremitting, unaided, unaidable vision, and transferring this vision without distortion to it onto the pages of a novel, where, if the reader is so persuaded, it will turn into the reader's illusion.”

Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American author

On Writing (2002)

Life , Art , Reality

“Official goals are the general purposes of the organization as put forth in the charter, annual reports, public statements… Official goals are purposely vague and general and do not indicate two major factors which influence organizational behavior: the host of decisions that must be made among alternative ways of achieving official goals, and the priority of multiple goals and the many unofficial goals pursued by groups within the organization.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1960s, "The analysis of goals in complex organizations", 1961, p. 855

Way , Behavior , Decision

“Now, over the last few decades, as the various global crises have been accumulating — climate change, the threat of nuclear war as well as the dangers of nuclear energy, the uncontrollability of the global financial system, and so on — we now hear people saying things like: “Look at what humanity has done.” Now suddenly the subject is “humanity,” whereas originally, Euro-Americans had claimed: “Look at the stunning achievements of the West.””

Talal Asad (1932) Aanthropologist at the CUNY Graduate Center

Interview by Hasan Azad, The Islamic Monthly, October 21, 2015 http://theislamicmonthly.com/being-human-an-interview-with-talal-asad/

War , People , Change

“"I'm not sure I ever 'got it' when it comes to how to live my life in a way that was original and free," reflected Steven Salt, a retired businessman. "Of course, like most men, I always believed I had the answers and that I was not going to live my life the stupid way other men do. I was going to be unique and avoid their mistakes, but instead I'm just another male stereotype. I started off thinking that being an achiever and a 'winner' would be the key to real freedom. So all my energy went that way and I faked everything else when it came to caring about other people. Then I thought I'd marry the 'perfect' woman and be the 'perfect' dad and husband, not like the other married men. I'd be different. But no matter how I tried I was forcing it and probably fooling no one but myself. My wife finally left and I barely know who my kids really are. When we talk it's mainly 'business.' I fell into all the traps. Now that I'm in my seventies, I'm becoming just like all those guys I felt sorry for when I was younger— guys with no real friends and with no patience for anyone else's ideas or opinions. I can barely stand to talk to anyone and yet I'm still looking to fulfill myself by meeting the 'perfect' woman. I've become a macho cliché. It's taken me this long to realize that even if she existed I really wouldn't know how to be with her and make it feel good anyway."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

The Personal Journey of Masculinity: From Externalization to Disconnection to Oblivion, p. 9
What Men Still Don't Know About Women, Relationships, and Love (2007)

Life , Men , People , Stupidity

“The blacksmith, by main force, unclosed the infant's hand, and found within the palm a small heap of glittering fragments, whence the mystery of beauty had fled forever. …Owen Warland …looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life's labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly than this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

"The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844)

Life , Beauty , Reality , Sense

“The citizen of today in every developed country is typically an employee. He works for one of the institutions. He looks to them for his livelihood. He looks to them for his opportunities. He looks to them for access to status and function in society, as well as for personal fulfillment and achievement.
The citizen of 1900 if employed worked for a small family-type operation; the small pop-and-mom store employing a helper or two; the family household; and so on. And of course, the great majority of people in those days, except in the most highly industrialized countries—such as Britain or Belgium—worked on the farm.
Our society has become an employee society. In the early 1900s people asked, “What do you do?””

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Today they tend to ask, “Whom do you work for?”
Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), p. 4

People , Family , Moms , Personality

“I take a much more pragmatic view than many people on the Left about working with Neil Kinnock. Kinnock represents the best vehicle possible for achieving socialism now.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Ham and High (21 February, 1986)

People

“Our achievement…has been to show that you can build far greater, and far more lasting, prosperity by letting people co-operate in the freedom of the market place than by making them submit to the coercion of Government regulations and state bureaucracy. If you look around the world today, East and West, even in Soviet Russia and Communist China, you will see that lesson being taken to heart…The truth is that a prosperous world based on free and open markets is a world of co-operation and interdependence between the people of all nations. By contrast, a world of closed, State controlled economies is a world disposed towards confrontation and conflict.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Speech to the Conservative Party Conference (13 October, 1988).

People , Truth , World , Freedom

“What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, — nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good and bad.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

The Dilemma of Determinism (1884)
1880s

Way , Feeling , Understanding , Nature

“Our days, our deeds, all we achieve or are,
Lay folded in our infancy; the things
Of good or ill we choose while yet unborn.”

John Townsend Trowbridge (1827–1916) American author

Sonnet. Nativity.

“As a human rights defender, like millions of Iranians, I hate the death penalty; I despise discrimination and injustice against women; I protest against the imprisonment and torture of political and civil rights activists in solitary confinement; and I will not be silent in the face of human rights violations. In order to institutionalize human rights and achieve peace between the people and the state, I shall endure my deprivation of freedom and rights, even though separation from my children is nothing less than death for me. I am a woman and a mother, and with all my feminine and maternal sensibilities, I seek a world free from violence and injustice, even if I have suffered injustice and violence tens of times.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

Letter Accepting 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prizefrom (2018)

Death , Women , Hate , Children

“We have spoken on many occasions of the need to achieve high economic growth as an absolute priority for our country. The annual address for 2003 set for the first time the goal of doubling gross domestic product within a decade.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

2006- 2010
Source: Annual Address to the Federal Assembly http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2006/05/10/1823_type70029type82912_105566.shtml, (May 2006)

Time , Country

“[S]cientists are not robotic inducing machines that infer structures of explanation only from regularities observed in natural phenomena (assuming, as I doubt, that such a style of reasoning could ever achieve success in principle). Scientists are human beings, immersed in culture, and struggling with all the curious tools of inference that mind permits […]. Culture can potentiate as well as constrain—as Darwin's translation of Adam Smith's laissez-faire economic models into biology as the theory of natural selection. In any case, objective minds do not exist outside culture, so we must make the best of our ineluctable embedding.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle

Source: Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle (1987), pp. 6–7

Nature , Success

“I have heard it asserted that the inadequate sanctions already applied have not achieved their object. At no time, and under no circumstances could sanctions that were intentionally inadequate, intentionally badly applied, stop an aggressor. This is not a case of the impossibility of stopping an aggressor but of the refusal to stop an aggressor.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Address to the League of Nations (1936)

Time

“Ever since [ Copernicus], writers eager to drive the lesson home have urged us […] to abandon all sentimental egoism, and to see ourselves objectively in the true perspective of time and space. What precisely does this mean? In a full 'main feature' film, recapitulating faithfully the complete history of the universe, the rise of human beings from the first beginnings of man to the achievements of the twentieth century would flash by in a single second. Alternatively, if we decided to examine the universe objectively in the sense of paying equal attention to portions of equal mass, this would result in a lifelong preoccupation with interstellar dust, relieved only at brief intervals by a survey of incandescent masses of hydrogen — not in a thousand million lifetimes would the turn come to give man even a second's notice. It goes without saying that no one — scientists included — looks at the universe in this way, whatever lip-service is given to 'objectivity.”

Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) Hungarian-British polymath

Source: Personal Knowledge (1958), p. 3

Way , Home , History , Sense

“And today I stand by this same view. Fate, or Providence, will give the victory to those who most deserve it… And when now, after 10 years, I again survey this period, I can say that upon no people has Providence ever bestowed more successes than upon us. The miracles we have achieved in the last three years in the face of a whole world of enemies are unique in history, especially the crises we very naturally often had in these years.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech on the 19th Anniversary of the “Beer Hall Putsch” http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/adolf-hitler-speech-on-the-19th-anniversary-of-the-ldquo-beer-hall-putsch-rdquo-november-1942 (November 8, 1942)
1940s

Fate , People , World , History

“Economics is that way of understanding behavior that starts from the assumption that people have objectives and tend to choose the correct way to achieve them.”

David D. Friedman (1945) American economist, physicist, legal scholar, and libertarian theorist

Price Theory: An Intermediate Text, 1986

People , Way , Behavior , Understanding

“Before Khamenei, many failed poets who achieved political power tried to dictate to poets, among them the Qajar Nassereddin Shah and the Chinese despot Mao Zedong. They failed because poetry has a magic genius that defies attempts at definition let alone dictation. Poetry is like love, Rilke wrote to his imaginary young poet, everyone knows what it is but no one can agree on a definition. Khamenei, aged 77, no longer fits the image of Rilke’s young poet. Nevertheless, maybe for his next birthday someone could give him a copy of Rilke’s magical essay.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Two excellent Persian translations are available.
When the Ayatollah Dictates Poetry http://www.aawsat.net/2015/07/article55344336/when-the-ayatollah-dictates-poetry, Ashraq Al-Awsat (Jul 11, 2015).

Love , Age , Birthday

“The hardest strokes of heaven fall in history upon those who imagine that they can control things in a sovereign manner, as though they were kings of the earth, playing Providence not only for themselves but for the far future—reaching out into the future with the wrong kind of far-sightedness, and gambling on a lot of risky calculations in which there must never be a single mistake. And it is a defect in such enthusiasts that they seem unwilling to leave anything to Providence, unwilling even to leave the future flexible, as one must do; and they forget that in any case, for all we know, our successors may decide to switch ideals and look for a different utopia before any of our long shots have reached their objective, or any of our long-range projects have had fulfillment. It is agreeable to all the processes of history, therefore, that each of us should rather do the good that is straight under our noses. Those people work more wisely who seek to achieve good in their own small corner of the world and then leave the leaven to leaven the whole lump, than those who are for ever thinking that life is vain unless one can act through the central government, carry legislation, achieve political power and do big things.”

Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) British historian

Christianity and History (1949), p. 104.

Life , People , World , Imagination

“Peaceful surrender of power by the bourgeoisie is possible, if it is convinced that resistance is hopeless and if it prefers to save its skin. It is much more likely, of course, that even in small states socialism will not be achieved without civil war, and for that reason the only programme of international Social-Democracy must be recognition of civil war, though violence is, of course, alien to our ideals.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

"A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism" (August - October 1916) http://search.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/carimarx/6.htm Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 28-76 http://www.jstor.org/pss/3516954
1910s

War , Peace , Democracy

“I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm. A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict. And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Invasion of Iraq (March 2003)

World , Effort , Help , Country

“Is there any need for further floods of agony? Is the only lesson of history to be that mankind is unteachable? Let there be justice, mercy and freedom. The people have only to will it, and all will achieve their hearts' desire.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Zurich University (September 19, 1946) ( partial text http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/astonish.html) ( http://www.peshawar.ch/varia/winston.htm).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

People , Justice , History , Freedom

“The sound education of the workers and their thorough organization, both economic and political, on the bassis of the class struggle, must precede their emancipation. Without such education and organization they can mke no substantial progress, and they will be robbed of the fruits of any temporary victory they may achieve, as they have been through all the centuries of the past.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

Sound Socialist Tactics (1912)

Education , Past , Victory

“This extreme air of abstraction, of empty and bland removedness, was almost terrifying. It was that kind of unconcern that humbled the ardent, the passionate of nature, and made them wonder why they were expending so much energy of body and spirit when every day but led them to the worms. Deadyawn, by temperament or lack of it, achieved unwittingly what wise men crave: equipoise.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 11 (p. 441)

Men , Nature , Passion

“For Nature is a cunning nurse. She gives us lollipops all the way, and when the lollipop of hope and the lollipop of achievement are done, she gently inserts in our toothless gums the lollipop of remembrance. And with that pleasant vanity we are soothed to sleep.”

Alfred George Gardiner (1865–1946) British journalist and writer

From "The Vanity of Old Age", Windfalls (1920)

Hope , Way , Nature , Sleep

“Over the past two years of my presidency, we have made significant achievements concerning our foreign policy. And yes we are prepared to consider targeted action against individuals if further progress isn't made. Former President Nasheed has been imprisoned without due process. And that is an injustice that must be addressed soon.”

Abdulla Yameen (1959) Maldivian politician, 6th president of the Maldives

Abdulla Yameen, the 6th pesident and current president of the Maldives, Haveeru (February 4, 2016), "Maldives pres pledges closer global ties, insists no place for interference" http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/66150?e=en_ht

Past

“One of the most dangerous words is 'extremist'. A person who commits acts of violence is not an 'extremist'; he is a criminal. If he commits those acts of violence with the object of detaching part of the territory of the United Kingdom and attaching it to a foreign country, he is an enemy under arms. There is the world of difference between a citizen who commits a crime, in the belief, however mistaken, that he is thereby helping to preserve the integrity of his country and his right to remain a subject of his sovereign, and a person, be he citizen or alien, who commits a crime with the intention of destroying that integrity and rendering impossible that allegiance. The former breaches the peace; the latter is executing an act of war. The use of the word 'extremist' of either or both conveys a dangerous untruth: it implies that both hold acceptable opinions and seek permissible ends, only that they carry them to 'extremes'. Not so: the one is a lawbreaker; the other is an enemy.

The same purpose, that of rendering friend and foe indistinguishable, is achieved by references to the 'impartiality' of the British troops and to their function as 'keeping the peace'. The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.

Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), pp. 487-488.
1970s

War , World , Peace , Law

Quotes about achievement page 23

Quotes about achievement
page 23