Quotes about achievement (2962 quotes, page 28)

“Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, Why Socialism? (1949)

Pleasure , Personality , Life , Time

“The Jews as a group may be powerless, but the sum of the achievements of their individual members is everywhere considerable and telling, even though those achievements were made in the face of obstacles.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

affirmed on page 213 of The Ultimate Quotable Einstein
1930s, Why Do They Hate the Jews (1938)

“For a revolution, in order to be a true revolution, must be a world revolution. To achieve that world revolution, you the children of the Yankees must lend a hand. You must vomit forth your cynicism in the streets of your cities. You must mount an unrelenting attack on everything the bastards that rule your country hold dear. You must refuse to serve in their armies, you must reject the heroin offered in their universities, you must become clogs in their productive machines.”

Abbie Hoffman book Woodstock Nation

Che's Last Letter
Woodstock Nation (1969)

World , Children , Country , Universe

“Accustomed as we are by hereditary prejudices an absolutely unsound education and training to see Government, legislation and magistracy everywhere around, we have come to believe that man would tear his fellow man to pieces like a wild beast the day the police took his eye off him; that chaos would come about if authority were overthrown during a revolution. And with out eyes shut we pass by thousands and thousands of human groupings which form themselves freely, without any intervention of the law, and attain results infinitely superior to those achieved under government tutelage.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Ch 11 : Free Agreement
The Conquest of Bread (1892)

Training , Education , Tear , Law

“I tell the Prime Minister that this is an ill-thought-out enterprise and will not achieve the purposes to which it is put.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/07/falkland-islands#column_993 in the House of Commons (7 April 1982) on the Falklands War
1980s

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches. Use auto-suggestion, have faith, imagination and overcome fear and time is your opposite player as in checkerboard.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

As quoted in Self-Motivation Through Risk Taking! : Are You Leading Or Do You Wither with Problems? (2005) by M. Nadarajan Munisamy

Imagination , Fear , Time , Faith

“A rolling back of the frontiers of State surveillance is necessary. … I have come to the conclusion that this side of MI5 has become more trouble than it is worth. It falls over its own feet too often. It arouses more suspicion and complaint than is justified by the results its achieves. … On grounds of utility I would now close down the political side of its activities.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Letter to The Times (12 March 1985), p. 15
1980s

“The two main parties feared the SDP more than they feared each other. Their narrow dogmas had alienated more and more people and would never achieve a widening appeal across classes, regions and occupations. They had replied by trying to pretend that the SDP was all things to all men and women. It was not true. … It had no place for class warriors or for those who wanted to fight outdated ideological battles; no place for little Englanders; for those selfishly concerned with their own problems and not with those of their neighbours and the nation as a whole. The Labour Party went increasingly into its chauvinist bunker and the Conservative Party showed little or no concern for the problems of the developing and poor nations.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech in Kensington (14 February 1982), quoted in The Times (15 February 1982), p. 4
1980s

People , Problem , Fight , Fear

“We must restore some stability and be prepared, if necessary, to make some sacrifices, both of dogma and materialism, to achieve it. There is no point in pretending that we are not facing an economic crisis without precedent since the growth of post-war prosperity.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech to the Pembrokeshire Constituency Labour Party in Haverfordwest (26 July 1974), quoted in The Times (27 July 1974), p. 3
1970s

War , Making love

“Suez was a totally unsuccessful attempt to achieve unreasonable and undesirable objectives by methods which were at once reckless and immoral; and the consequences, as was well deserved, were humiliating and disastrous.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

The Labour Case (Penguin, 1959), p. 14
1950s

“The answer is to increase industrial efficiency, to build up our exports, and to substitute home production for imports wherever this can be achieved competitively and economically, to broaden the base of our economy with capital investment, through the training of skilled manpower and the encouragement to accept change, to enable us to expand without running into strains and stresses such as have revealed themselves in past periods of expansion.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton (12 December 1964), quoted in The Times (14 December 1964), p. 14
Prime Minister

Training , Home , Past , Change

“Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)

Peace , Justice , Understanding , Victory

“Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Three Ways of Meeting Oppression (1958)

Justice , Law , Understanding , Communication

“Newton… (after having remarked that geometry only requires two of the mechanical actions which it postulates, namely, to describe a straight line and a circle) says: geometry is proud of being able to achieve so much while taking so little from extraneous sources. One might say of metaphysics, on the other hand: it stands astonished, that with so much offered it by pure mathematics it can effect so little.”

Immanuel Kant book Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

In the meantime, this little is something which mathematics indispensably requires in its application to natural science, which, inasmuch as it must here necessarily borrow from metaphysics, need not be ashamed to allow itself to be seen in company with the latter.
Preface, Tr. Bax (1883) citing Isaac Newton's Principia
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786)

Mathematics

“We also visited one of our great partners in the Southern Cone: Argentina. With President Mauricio Macri and our partners from Uruguay and Paraguay, we pushed ideology away from Mercosur. We also have been able to achieve important victories in terms of international trade, by successfully finalizing negotiations that had been going on for decades without a conclusion.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Speech at the at the 74th UN General Assembly. Statement by Mr. Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil http://statements.unmeetings.org/GA74/BR_EN.pdf. United Nations PaperSmart (24 September 2019).

Victory

“The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

394
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Democracy , Men

“The outward limit of human achievement.”

Harold Bloom (1930–2019) American literary critic and scholar

Of William Shakespeare's plays.
As quoted in The Economist, October 26th 2019, page 85.

“With the exception of Yugoslavia, in numerous European countries—in the name of socialism—usurping bureaucracies that are cut off from the people (bureaucracies from which it is now proven that nothing can be expected) have achieved the pitiable wonder of transforming into a nightmare what humanity has for so long cherished as a dream: socialism.”

Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) Martiniquais politician

Letter to Maurice Thorez resigning from the French Communist Party, October 24, 1956

Dreams , People , Country

“It would be a great things, a brave thing, for the Hindus to achieve act of self-denial.”

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

Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 12 March 1931. Quoted from Hinduism and Judaism compilation https://web.archive.org/web/20060423090103/http://www.nhsf.org.uk/images/stories/HinduDharma/Interfaith/hinduzion.pdf
1930s

Self-confidence

“To anyone who has even a faint idea of what the powers at the command of an adept really are, it will be at once obvious that for him to work upon the astral plane would be a far greater waste of energy than for our leading physicians or scientists to spend their time in breaking stones upon the road. The work of the adept lies in higher regions… where he may direct his energies to the influencing of the true individuality of man, and not the mere personality which is all that can be reached in the astral or physical world. The strength which he puts forth in that more exalted realm produces results greater, more far-reaching and more lasting than any which can be attained by the expenditure of even ten times the force down here; and the work up there is such as he alone can fully accomplish, while that on lower planes may be at any rate to some extent achieved by whose feet are yet upon the earlier steps of the great stairway which will one day lead them to the position where he stands.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 4

World , Idea , Time , Personality

“That He has achieved the fullness of that divinity is His Glory, and well may we stand in reverence at this achievement. That this same achievement is rare indeed is also indisputably true. But the wonder of the Christ for men is that He was one of them. Naught there is, in the trials and sufferings of men, but He did know it. Each step of the path that men still tread has He painfully trodden. Nothing is there, in the whole panorama of human experience, that He has not shared. Thus truly is He the Son of Man.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

https://www.share-international.org/archives/M_mission/mm_sonoman.htm Full text online
Maitreya's Mission Vol. III (1997)

Christ , Suffering , Men

“It’s a mistake for Trump to think his friendship with Kim Jong-un is enough to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. US policy needs to change so leaders like Kim know they can rely on a US pledge not to overthrow their govt if they give up their nukes.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Twitter post https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard, (31 May 2019)
Twitter account, May 2019

Thinking , Friendship , Change

“We are a capitalist party. We believe in capitalism. When we look at the astonishing material achievements of the West, at our own high and rising physical standard of living, we see these things as the result, not of compulsion or government action or the superior wisdom of a few, but of that system of competition and free enterprise, rewarding success and penalising failure, which enables every individual to participate by his private decisions in shaping the future of his society.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in Bromsgrove (6 July 1963), quoted in A Nation Not Afraid. The Thinking of Enoch Powell (B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1965), p. 25
1960s

Success , Future , Failure , Decision

“You know, as I do, that we face two deep-seated problems, inflation and unemployment. Both of them are still too high. … I have to emphasize to you that if we fail to bring down inflation, we shall never succeed in overcoming unemployment. We cannot have a prosperous industry in this country if we are unable to sell our goods overseas. No one owes Britain a living, and may I say to you quite bluntly that despite the measures of the last 12 months, we are still not earning the standard of living we are enjoying. We are only keeping up our standards by borrowing, and this cannot go on indefinitely. There is no soft option. I do not promise you any real easement for some time to come. There can be no lasting improvement in your own living standards until we can achieve it without going deeper and deeper into debt as a nation.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

First television broadcast as Prime Minister (5 April 1976), quoted in The Times (6 April 1976), pp. 1–2
Prime Minister

Problem , Time , Country

“Regret is useless since it can achieve nothing.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 4, “Doomed Lord’s Passing,” Chapter 1 “When the Sun Stopped” (p. 577)
The Elric Cycle, Stormbringer (1965)

“This was Elric’s dream, more coherent now than it had ever been. This was his dream and it was why he traveled the world, why he refused the power which was his, why he risked his life, his mind, his love and everything else he valued, for he believed that there was no life worth living that was not risked in pursuit of knowledge and justice. And this was why his fellow countrymen feared him. Justice was not obtained, he believed, by administration but by experience. One must know what it was to suffer humiliation and powerlessness; at least to some degree, before one could entirely appreciate its effect. One must give up power if one was to achieve true justice. This was not the logic of Empire, but it was the logic of one who truly loved the world and desired to see an age dawn when all people would be free to pursue their ambitions in dignity and self-respect.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 1, Chapter 3 “On the Red Road” (p. 160)
The Elric Cycle, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)

Fear , Justice , Dreams , Suffering

“It is wonderful that certain people and circles still believe I have the aspiration to become Chancellor and receive nightmares from this thought. How often I have declared that I would have to be a fool if I wanted to strive for this really unenviable position! I have already achieved some time ago everything a soldier can achieve, I hold a post that involves little work and no agitation or anger, and I know the position of a Chancellor under Kaiser Wilhelm II only too well that I would have to be mad to desire it.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary c. December 1901

Time , Anger , People , Fools

“Who has won this war? Why should the white soldier, the warrior who has returned home after having achieved the greatest victory in history be penalized for political reasons?”

James Eastland (1904–1986) American politician

1940s

War , Home , Victory , History

“The grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world, alike for its precision of statement, and for its thorough analysis of the roots of the language and of the formative principles of words. By employing an algebraic terminology, it attains a sharp succinctness unrivalled in brevity, but at times enigmatical. It arranges, in logical harmony, the whole phenomena which the Sanskrit language presents, and stands forth as one of the most splendid achievements of human invention and industry. So elaborate is the structure, that doubts have arisen whether its complex rules of formation and phonetic change, its polysyllabic derivatives, its ten conjugations with their multiform aorists and long array of tenses, could ever have been the spoken language of a people.”

Pāṇini ancient Sanskrit grammarian

—Sir William Wilson Hunter, .Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

World , Time , People , Change

“There have been many legends invented about Charlemagne, but he was no legend. Out of the shattered ruins of the ancient world he built the modern world, and even now reflection on his feat quickens the pulse. It was an achievement as daring as any long transoceanic flight of our day, but it called also for endurance lasting not hours but decades, and for adventure of the mind as well as of the body; a vast new political trajectory was described as well as a military one.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

"The Necessity and Grandeur of the International Ideal," in Woman as Artist and Thinker, Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2005.

World

“Meister Eckhart, the German churchman and mystic of the fourteenth century; Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in the fifteenth; Jacob Boehme, a German, in the sixteenth and seventeenth; Emanuel Swedenborg in the seventeenth and eighteenth. We are spiritually free, they said, the stewards of our own evolution. Humankind has a choice. We can awaken to our true nature. Drawing fully from our inner resources we can achieve a new dimension of mind; we can see more.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Two, Premonitions of Transformation and Conspiracy

Drawing , Nature

“I am not prepared to serve a sectarian regime. If we can achieve a broad, clear mandate for national unity, where it doesnt matter if someone is Kurd or Arab, Sunni or Shiite, then I am ready to take any post.”

Ayad Allawi (1945) Iraqi politician

“I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world which will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Speech at Amherst College

Democracy , Business , Personality , Art

“Acting on our own, by ourselves, we cannot establish justice throughout the world; we cannot insure its domestic tranquility, or provide for its common defense, or promote its general welfare, or secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. But joined with other free nations, we can do all this and more. We can assist the developing nations to throw off the yoke of poverty. We can balance our worldwide trade and payments at the highest possible level of growth. We can mount a deterrent powerful enough to deter any aggression. And ultimately we can help to achieve a world of law and free choice, banishing the world of war and coercion.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address at Independence Hall

Justice , Law , War , Help

“If you want my opinion, some of the noise is generated by people who are not happy with the agenda that I have, over the last few weeks, tried to advance, of ensuring that we achieve a Brexit which is focused on protecting our economy, protecting our jobs and making sure that we can have continued rising living standards in the future.”

Philip Hammond (1955) British Conservative politician

Chancellor Philip Hammond hits back over public pay leaks https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40623343, BBC News, 16 July 2017
2017

Future , Making love , People , Happiness

“I am confident we can do a Brexit deal which puts jobs and prosperity first, that reassures employers that they will still be able to access the talent they need, that keeps our market for goods, services and capital open, achieves early agreement on transitional arrangements so trade can carry on flowing smoothly. The collective sigh of relief would be audible. The benefit to our economy would be huge.”

Philip Hammond (1955) British Conservative politician

Philip Hammond on Brexit: Prioritise jobs and living standards https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40339331, BBC News, 20 June 2017
2017

Self-confidence , Confidence

“The single market is our main economic public good. There will be no damaging it, no unravelling what we have achieved together with the UK.”

Michel Barnier (1951) French politician

Michel Barnier: 'Realistic' Brexit plan needed https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44737564 BBC News (6 July 2018)
2018

“I said consistently throughout that we need to get control of our borders and the only way to do that is to leave the European Union… Once we do that we are in a much stronger position to achieve that objective of bringing down migration to tens of thousands within this Parliament - I will stand by that.”

Iain Duncan Smith (1954) British politician

Brexit: New PM 'should come from Leave camp' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36633595 BBC News (26 June 2016)
2016

Way

“The last thing I would say is that you can achieve a lot of things in politics and get a lot of things done; in the end, public service and the national interest is what it is all about. Nothing is really impossible if you put your mind to it. After all, as I once said, I was the future once.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Last statement to the House of Commons as Prime Minister, ending by paraphrasing his 2005 comment to Tony Blair, "he was the future once" (July 13, 2016), see Hansard https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2016-07-13/debates/4A1B874C-54B5-4BEF-8D79-AFA264A78068/Engagements#contribution-E7A04179-9154-4077-87DF-1642C1BD3B4D
2010s, 2016

Future

“We must become so strong and must so ruthlessly weaken our opponents that no enemy will ever dare to attack us again. To achieve this a modification of frontiers in the west as in the east is essential.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Speech at a joint meeting of the National Liberal Party and the National Liberal Central Committee (15 July 1915), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 274
1910s

Strong

“Personal freedom is a magnificent thing; by it and by it alone can a nation achieve its true freedom. Man must respect and honor his freedom in himself no less than in his neighbor or in the people at large.”

Alexander Herzen (1812–1870) Russian author

Letter from Paris to His Friend in Moscow (March 1st, 1849), Imperial Russia, A Sourcebook 1700-1917

Personality , People , Freedom

“I am still far from being the type of the positively new women who take their experience as females with a relative lightness and, one could say, with an enviable superficiality, whose feelings and mental energies are directed upon all other things in life but sentimental love feelings. After all I still belong to the generation of women who grew up at a turning point in history. Love with its many disappointments, with its tragedies and eternal demands for perfect happiness still played a very great role in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final analysis, utterly worthless. We, the women of the past generation, did not yet understand how to be free. The whole thing was an absolutely incredible squandering of our mental energy, a diminution of our labor power which was dissipated in barren emotional experiences. It is certainly true that we, myself as well as many other activists, militants and working women contemporaries, were able to understand that love was not the main goal of our life and that we knew how to place work at its center. Nevertheless we would have been able to create and achieve much more had our energies not been fragmentized in the eternal struggle with our egos and with our feelings for another. It was, in fact, an eternal defensive war against the intervention of the male into our ego, a struggle revolving around the problem-complex: work or marriage and love? We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are learning today, that work and the longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force. But over and over again things turned out differently, since the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes. Thus despite everything the inevitable inner rebellion ensued, over and over again since love became a fetter. We felt enslaved and tried to loosen the love-bond. And after the eternally recurring struggle with the beloved man, we finally tore ourselves away and rushed toward freedom. Thereupon we were again alone, unhappy, lonesome, but free–free to pursue our beloved, chosen ideal …work. Fortunately young people, the present generation, no longer have to go through this kind of struggle which is absolutely unnecessary to human society. Their abilities, their work-energy will be reserved for their creative activity. Thus the existence of barriers will become a spur.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Soul , History , Personality , Perfection

“Ibn Warraq is the pen-name of the author whose parents emigrated from India to Pakistan as a result of the Partition. He was brought up in Pakistan, which was supposed to be an Islamic Republic. His experience revealed to him that the Muslims of India had been cheated in the name of Islam and its projected principles of equality, free will and democracy. As he grew up, he noticed that Islam had become an effective tool of convenient morality and achieving political goals; a religious or secular leader could prove anything from the Koran and Hadith to suit his purpose, yet every faithful believes that there is no contradiction in the verses of the Koran!”

Ibn Warraq (1946) Pakistani writer

Anwar Shaikh quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy. https://web.archive.org/web/20171026023112/http://www.bharatvani.org:80/books/foe/index.htm

Democracy , Faith , Parent , Cheating

“The only real formula for real success is Work and Faith. All may achieve this sort of success for all may work and the only happiness, the only success, is in labor.”

Antonio Moreno (1887–1967) Spanish-American film actor and director

Other rewards do not count, comparatively. The joy of leisure is an illusion. The chief reason for my liking serials for as long as I did was because they kept me constantly at work, whereas feature pictures do permit of a week or more idleness in between.
The True Story of My Life http://www.public.asu.edu/~bruce/Taylor57.txt (November 8 - December 13, 1924)

Faith , Success , Happiness

“Mr Raghuram Rajan is an outstanding man who understands central banking. He is probably only one in the world among the crowds of professors at central banks that actually has a good grip on monetary policies and what you can or cannot achieve with them. He should get the Noble Prize in economics but the others are all money printers at heart, all of them.”

Raghuram G. Rajan (1963) Indian economist

Marc Faber, economist, as quoted in " Raghuram Rajan only central banker I trust, he should get Nobel in Economics: Marc Faber http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-08-12/news/65490521_1_marc-faber-rbi-governor-boom-doom-report", The Economic Times (12 August 2015)

Money , World , Understanding , Heart

“He was a one-person movement…we will strive to keep his Sadhana (legacy) alive. He has achieved eternal peace. He was open to everyone even till his last breath.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Geeta Iyengar, his eldest daughter.
Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar passes away at 95

Personality , Peace

“His was the variegated and distinguished career of the eminent jurist, scholar, educationist, author and linguist. During his life span of four score and seven years symbolised significant achievement at each important stage, bringing honour and glory not only to himself but also to the institutions which he served and to our country.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

Full Court Reference in Memory of The Late Justice Mohammad Hidayatullah

Life , Country

“Music, for Gangubai, was an expression of faith and the note had to be searched and discovered each time a phrase was attempted. …In her case, a penetrating search for the note was more important than ornamentation. She could never achieve the sweetness, smoothness or the delicate artistry of tones that the Kirana was noted for, but with inherited talent, scrupulous cultivation and years of struggle what she achieved was unbelievable.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

Deepa Ganesh, in "Gangubai's search for perfection"

Music , Faith , Time , Search

“As someone who has always aspired to build a company committed to its people and to the world, I admire her determination to achieve sustainability at an established company like Pepsi Co. And I believe that all socially responsible companies could learn from Indra Nooyi’s style of leadership.”

Indra Nooyi (1955) Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive

Herbart Schultz, President and CEO, Starbucks quoted in "Together with Business Studies XI" in page=135.

World , People , Learning

“What you have written after analyzing everything connected with my achievements and fame is altogether correct.”

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893–1972) Indian scientist

Tagore in "Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in Vigyanprasar".

“Saturday night’s programme at the Wembley Conference Centre combined traditional solo pieces in the pure Lucnowi style, of which Birju Maharaj is the truest representative by both birth and achievement, and genuinely innovative balletsing such as Roopmati-Baz Bahadur.”

Birju Maharaj (1938) Indian dancer

India's Kathak Dance, Past Present, Future

Birth , Night

“Rekha fashioned herself as an actress with a signature look very different from her early years as a struggling actress. This transformation was often referred to as as that of an ugly duckling. In interviews and film magazines Rekha claimed that she had achieved this by changing her lifestyle, healthy eating practices, and doing yoga. Soon she had inspired a whole fashion trend and had film magazines raving about her affair with Amitab Bachhan. Such publicity added to her image as a symbol of seduction and glamour. She was seen as a woman who could challenge patriarchal norms by remaining single and being famous.”

Rekha (1954) Indian film actress

Editor Manju Jain in [Jain, Manju, Narratives of Indian Cinema, http://books.google.com/books?id=ORE9TDOoU1IC&pg=PA187, 2009, Primus Books, 978-81-908918-4-4, 187–]

Fashion , Change

“I always said that the decision to retire would be his alone but now that decision has been taken I feel a sense of sadness. We have lived through some unforgettable times together, some good and some bad, achieving results that will be hard to equal.”

Michael Schumacher (1969) German racing driver

Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari president, cited in: Planet-F1 (2006) "Todt and Montezemolo hail 'legend' Schumi". on Planet-F1. September 12, 2006 (no longer online)

Time , Bad luck , Decision , Sense

“Harvey was not especially introspective, but this didn’t mean he was stupid. He was moral, within his lights; he understood the value of subtlety even if he wasn’t much for it himself, and one of the reasons he could get away with being loud and obnoxious was that he was a fair stick at strategy and logistics. Give him a job and he’d do it, usually in the most entropy-producing way possible, yes, but also in a way that achieved exactly the aim it was supposed to. One of Harvey’s guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down. When asked about it, Harvey called it his Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.”

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 14 (p. 315)

Way , Stupidity , Light

“He has no serious interest whatsoever in politics. He was compelled to make some political statements, a while ago, to achieve a particular purpose. I would not like to specify more on this particular issue. Now that he has achieved that objective, he has no further interest in politics. We have advised him to steer clear of politics. If you want to help people, we advised him, please do it as an individual, not as a politician.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Ramachandra Rao, his friend
You can see God in him at times (22 December 1999)

Help , Making love , People

“The young audience of today defines Rajinikanth solely by his popular — and populist — roles, conveniently forgetting that, like his contemporary Amitabh Bachchan, it takes talent to make a formula work and something much more than mere talent to transcend it and achieve greatness.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Naman Ramachandran The Other Rajinikanth (5 January 2014) http://www.dailypioneer.com/sunday-edition/agenda/150th-anniversary-issue/the-other-rajinikanth.html

Forgetting , Making love

“He is a legend in every sense of the term. He is a writer, singer, director, lyricist and an actor par-excellence. We are extremely honoured to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Kamal Haasan.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

Shyam Benegal, after Kamala hasan was selected for the honour of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Mumbai Film Festival for 50 years in the Indian film industry, in Kamal Haasan to be Bestowed with Lifetime Achievement Award (15 September 2013) http://www.ibtimes.co.in/articles/506113/20130915/kamal-haasan-lifetime-achievement-award-film-festival.htm

Sense

“His highs are achieved without drugs - they are born of a serious lust for life.”

Pieter-Dirk Uys (1945) South African comedian

Jani Allan, "I'm just the dumb blonde with the jewellery", Sunday Times (1980), republished in Face Value by Jani Allan.

Life

“If you ask anyone why they are driven, it’s not just money, it’s not just a need to prove themselves, it’s a combination of things, and for us if we can get women to look at themselves in terms of shape, not size, if Suze and I achieve that as our little gravestone thing, then that would be a fucking big achievement.”

Trinny Woodall (1964) English fashion advisor and designer, television presenter and author

Retail therapists (2007)

Money , Women

“And the answer, said the judge. If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day. He loves games? Let him play for stakes. This you see here, these ruins wondered at by tribes of savages, do you not think that this will be again? Aye. And again. With other people, with other sons.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian (1985)

God , Night , Game , People

“He had detected a certain sensitivity, a capacity for imagination, in the the girl in New York. But the years and the roads, the bars and the cars and the beds and the bottles — they all have flinty edges, and they are the cruel upholstery in the dark tunnel down which the soul rolls and tumbles until no more abrasion is possible, until the ultimate hardness is achieved. So here she sat, having achieved the bland defensive heartiness of a ten-dollar whore.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Non-series books, Slam The Big Door (1960)

Soul , Imagination , Whore , Girl

“The death of John Barrymore made us think again for a minute of F. Scott Fitzgerald. They were very different men: a lot alike. Undoubtedly, they both worked hard, but there was the same sense of a difficult technique easily mastered (too easily perhaps); there was the same legend of great physical magnetism, working incessantly for its own destruction; there was the same need for public confession, either desperate or sardonic; and there was always a good deal of time wasted, usually accompanied by the sweet smell of grapes. We have seen Scott Fitzgerald when everything he said was a childish parody of his own talent, and the last time we saw John Barrymore he was busy with a sick and humiliating parody of his. The similarity probably ends there. Up to the day he died, we believe, Fitzgerald still kept his original and eager devotion to his profession, along, we like to think, with the strict confidence that he might still achieve the strict perfection that was so often almost his. Barrymore, on the other hand, had given up long ago.”

John Barrymore (1882–1942) American actor of stage, screen and radio

Wolcott Gibbs, Season in the Sun (1951)

Confidence , Time , Business , Perfection

“The God Delusion by the atheist writer Richard Dawkins, is remarkable in the first place for having achieved some sort of record by selling over a million copies. But what is much more remarkable than that economic achievement is that the contents – or rather lack of contents – of this book show Dawkins himself to have become what he and his fellow secularists typically believe to be an impossibility: namely, a secularist bigot.”

Antony Flew (1923–2010) British analytic and evidentialist philosopher

Helpfully, my copy of The Oxford Dictionary defines a bigot as ‘an obstinate or intolerant adherent of a point of view’
Flew's review of The God Delusion

God , Books

“You are not here merely to prepare to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.”

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

“Ideals of College” http://books.google.com/books?id=_VYEIml1cAkC&pg=PA15&dq=%22You+are+not+here+merely%22, Swarthmore (25 October 1913)
1910s

World , Forgetting , Making love , Hope

“Historically our own culture has relied for the creation of rich and contrasting values upon many artificial distinctions, the most striking of which is sex. It will not be by the mere abolition of these distinctions that society will develop patterns in which individual gifts are given place instead of being forced into an ill-fitting mould. If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1930s, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. 322

Sex

“As Mayor of the City of Los Angeles and on behalf of its residents, I commend you for your tireless, lifelong efforts to bring to people in the Los Angeles area and around the world a message of hope, and for providing them inspiration and guidance to find peace within and live fulfilling lives. I am pleased to join with members of the community in recognizing your remarkable achievements and accomplishments throughout the years. With best wishes in all your future endeavors.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

James K. Hahn, Mayor of Los Angeles, California, United States of America, January 12, 2005
About, 2000s

Peace , Future , People , Hope

“The Governor of the State of New Mexico, having learned of the outstanding achievement and exceptional accomplishments of Maharaji, does hereby extend congratulations and acknowledgement and further does herein direct that this official expression of pride be forthwith sent on behalf of the people of the State of New Mexico.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Bill Richardson, Governor of the State of New Mexico, United States of America, January 10, 2005
About, 2000s

People , Learning

“Statistically, it would seem improbable that any mathematician or scientist, at the age of 66, would be able through continued research efforts, to add much to his or her previous achievements. However I am still making the effort and it is conceivable that with the gap period of about 25 years of partially deluded thinking providing a sort of vacation my situation may be atypical. Thus I have hopes of being able to achieve something of value through my current studies or with any new ideas that come in the future.”

John Nash (1928–2015) American mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate

Autobiographical essay (1994)

Study , Future , Hope , Thinking

“To combat pragmatism and the horrible tendency to achieve useful purposes, my elder cousin proposes the procedure of pulling out a nice hair from the head, knotting it in the middle and droping it gently down the hole in the sink. If the hair gets caught in the grid that usually fills in these holes, it will just take to open the tap a little to lose sight of it.”

Julio Cortázar book Historias de cronopios y de famas

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

“But rising income inequality explains, at best, half of the increase in the rich-poor academic achievement gap. It’s not just that the rich have more money than they used to, it’s that they are using it differently. This is where things get really interesting. High-income families are increasingly focusing their resources — their money, time and knowledge of what it takes to be successful in school — on their children’s cognitive development and educational success. They are doing this because educational success is much more important than it used to be, even for the rich.”

Sean Reardon American sociologist

No Rich Child Left Behind, 2013

Money , Family , School , Time

“Once you grasp the staggering differences between black and white neighborhoods, it becomes much easier to explain a whole realm of phenomena. Take the achievement gap between middle-class black students and their white peers. It’s easy to look at this and jump to cultural explanations—that this is a function of black culture and not income or wealth. But, when we say middle-class black kids are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods, what we’re also saying is that they’re less likely to have social networks with professionals, and more likely to be exposed to violence and crime. This can have serious consequences. Youthful experimentation for a white teenager in a suburb might be smoking a joint in a friend’s attic. Youthful experimentation for a black teenager might be hanging out with gang members.”

Jamelle Bouie (1987) American columnist and political correspondent

Down and Out, 2014

Wealth , Youth

“I know that there are those that are saying to the individuals who are involved in the freedom struggle, slow up for a while; you’re pushing things too fast. Or they may say, adopt a policy of moderation. Well, if moderation means moving on toward the goal of justice, with wise restraint and calm reasonableness, then moderation is a great virtue, which all men of good will must seek to achieve during this tense period of transition. But if moderation means slowing up in the move for freedom, capitulating to the undemocratic practices of the guardians of a deadening status quo, then moderation is a tragic vice which all men of good will must condemn. The fact is, we can’t afford to slow up. We have our self-respect to maintain, but even more than that, because of our love for democracy and because of our love for America, we can’t afford to slow up.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Democracy , Justice , Freedom , Self-confidence

“We humans have a deep need to think highly of ourselves. If that opinion of our goodness, greatness, and brilliance diverges enough from reality, we become grandiose. We imagine our superiority. Often a small measure of success will elevate our natural grandiosity to even more dangerous levels. Our high self-opinion has now been confirmed by events. We forget the role that luck may have played in the success, or the contributions of others. We imagine we have the golden touch. Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last. Look for the signs of elevated grandiosity in yourself and in others—overbearing certainty in the positive outcome of your plans; excessive touchiness if criticized; a disdain for any form of authority. Counteract the pull of grandiosity by maintaining a realistic assessment of yourself and your limits. Tie any feelings of greatness to your work, your achievements, and your contributions to society.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 11 : Know Your Limits
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Imagination , Success , Forgetting , Bad luck

“Simply put, anger feels better than powerlessness. That is why it benefits people to get angry. And independence feels better than powerless victimhood. That is why it benefits people to get independent. But if our progression stops there, we will never achieve true happiness and our civilization will never achieve true alignment.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Anger , Happiness , People , Feeling

“All that our country has achieved are the accomplishments of our parents – not ours. Our work lies ahead of us – what we have to do has not been done before... People say that Bhutan is a small country. Yes, its true, but our size is our greatest strength... Some say we are a country landlocked between two giant neighbours – yes we all know that being landlocked has its disadvantages but in building a strong economy our geopolitical location is going to be our biggest advantage. Within a few decades India and China are expected to dominate the world economy. So, in the context of opportunities we are definitely not landlocked – I think we have the world at our doorstep!”

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (1980) King of Bhutan

His Majesty speaks on Bhutan’s future, Kuensel Online http://kuenselonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8317, (11 April 2007)

Country , Strong , People , Thinking

“I know how unfashionable it is now to acknowledge in life or history any genius loftier than ourselves. Our democratic dogma has leveled not only all voters but all leaders; we delight to show that living geniuses are only mediocrities, and that dead ones are myths. … Since it is contrary to good manners to exalt ourselves, we achieve the same result by slyly indicating how inferior are the great men of the earth. In some of us, perhaps, it is a noble and merciless asceticism, which would root out of our hearts the last vestige of worship and adoration, lest the old gods should return and terrify us again. For my part, I cling to this final religion, and discover in it a content and stimulus more lasting than came from the devotional ecstasies of youth.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time (2002) edited by John Little, Ch. 1 : The Shameless Worship of Heroes

God , Religion , History , Dead

“What we are witnessing below, these thousands upon thousands and ten thousands upon ten thousands of people, who, in a frenzied delirium of exultation and enthusiasm, are acclaiming the new leadership of the state -- this is truly the fulfillment of our dearest wish, the crowning achievement of our work. We are fully justified in saying Germany is awakening!”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Wolfgang Benz, A Concise History of the Third Reich, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press (2006) p. 20. Quote from January 30, 1933
1930s

People

“History is a powerful subject which can be used to create a true historical consciousness. Unfortunately, it can also he misused and we often sec how politician distort it to whip up the emotion of people in older to achieve their political agenda. As they have a large following their version of history becomes popular among their followers. If not corrected the falsification of history is accepted as the absolute truth. This reaise the question whether historians should challenge the popular emotions of the people and correct historical facts or keep silent and let the falsification go on unchecked.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

What History Tells Us, Chapter: Task of the Historian, p. 25
History, What History Tells Us

Truth , People , History , Question

“People in Hong Kong still believe in democracy – the big question after the Umbrella Movement is how we can achieve it.”

Benny Tai (1964) Hong Kong activist and writer

"There will be darker times ahead for Hong Kong but the sun will rise again" (April 19, 2019)

Democracy , People , Question

“Things may be achieved by means of authority that cannot be achieved by means of the Quran.”

Uthman (574–656) Companion of Muhammad and third Rashidun Caliph

Al-Kamil fi'l Lughat wa'-Arab, Vol. 1, p. 257

“Synthesizing as it does the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries, this book appears as the final achievement of ancient philosophy.”

John Scotus Eriugena (810–877) Irish theologian

George Bosworth Burch Early Medieval Philosophy (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1951) p. 5.

Of De Divisione Naturae.
Criticism

Appearance , Books

“Anthropology is an intellectually challenging, theoretically ambitious subject which tries to achieve an understanding of culture, society and humanity through detailed studies of local life, made sense of through comparison and contextualisation. But it is also a form of storytelling about the lives that you and I could have led, but didn’t because we were busy living our own lives.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 1 : Why Anthropology?

Study , Understanding , Business , Sense

“The mind is always asking you to do something over again, something you have already done so many times before. And every time you see that by doing it nothing is achieved. What else can madness be?”

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

Misattributed

Time , Madness

“We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.”

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist

As quoted in B. F. Skinner : The Man and His Ideas (1968) by Richard Isadore Evans, p. 73

Reading , Literature , Books , Love

“As we shall see, there have always been two "bodies" of the American dream. One, the dream of tangibles, focuses on material well-being and practical, everyday freedoms. The other, like an etheric body extending from the material dream, seeks psychological liberation—a goal at once more essential and more elusive. The proponents of the latter dream have nearly always come from the comfortable social classes. Having achieved the first measure of freedom, they hunger for the second.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Five, The American Matrix for Transformation

Hunger , Dreams , Freedom

“For the first time the personality is deliberately cultivated as such; and from that time [the European Renaissance] until today it has not been possible to separate the achievements of a civilization from the achievements of the individuals composing it. I have not the slightest doubt that this form of individuation represents a higher stage in the evolution of mankind. The future unit is the individual, a world in himself, self-contained and self-creative, freely giving and freely receiving, but essentially a free spirit.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

Source: The Philosophy of Anarchism (1940), P. 11-12

Time , Personality , Future , Self-confidence

“The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil. The "reasonable" people's failure is obvious. With the best intentions and a naive lack of realism, they think that with a little reason they can bend back into position the framework that has got out of joint. In their lack of vision they want to do justice to all sides, and so the conflicting forces wear them down with nothing achieved. Disappointed by the world's unreasonableness, they see themselves condemned to ineffectiveness; they step aside in resignation or collapse before the stronger party.
Still more pathetic is the total collapse of moral fanaticism. Fanatics think that their single-minded principles qualify them to do battle with the powers of evil; but like a bull they rush at the red cloak instead of the person who is holding it; they exhaust themselves and are beaten. They get entangled in non-essentials and fall into the trap set by cleverer people.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Who Stands Fast?, p. 4

Justice , Light , Personality , People

“The relation between the social sciences and the natural sciences has long been fraught with difficulties. A minority of social scientists (including some anthropologists) regard their activity as an extension, or a branch, of biological research. Others argue that the social sciences ought to be sciences of the same kind as the natural sciences; that they should strive after the same kind of precision and the same kind of parsimonious clarity that can be achieved for instance in chemistry.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 7 : Nature

Science , Relation ships , Nature

“Women have been allowed to achieve individuality only though their appearance.”

Shulamith Firestone book The Dialectic of Sex

The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

Appearance , Women

“I think that all dreams should evolve. I think its ok to dream small or to dream realistically. But, as you achieve those small goals and achieve those dreams, that they should grow, as your ideas and creativity and you yourself as a creative and an artist and a human being should grow.”

Mattie Do (1981) Laotian film director

IDE2018 Symposium - Mattie Do - 13 Jun 2018, at 11 Min 32 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAj9_vsIzXg
From IDE Symposium Presentation

Idea , Thinking , Dreams

“We have developed an effective treatment plan (to patients contracting COVID-19) based on our experience of dealing with SARS, by employing various life support methods to (achieve) a higher rate of recovery.”

Zhong Nanshan (1936) Chinese pulmonologist

Zhong Nanshan (2020) cited in " China starts clinical trials for new antiviral drug to treat coronavirus https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3048732/china-starts-clinical-trials-new-antiviral-drug-treat" on South China Morning Post, 3 February 2020.

Support , Life

“It’s easy to dream hard to believe and hardest to achieve but never impossible.”

Albara Almerf (2000)

Dreams

“The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist of three leading maxims: 1) Think for yourself; 2) (in communication with other people) Put yourself in the place of the other person; 3) Always think by remaining faithful to your own self.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 95
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Faith , Personality , People , Communication

“[U]nlike positive utilitarianism or so-called preference utilitarianism - neither of which can ever be wholly fulfilled - [negative utilitarianism] seems achievable in full.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

" The Pinprick Argument https://www.utilitarianism.com/pinprick-argument.html", BLTC Research, 2005

“At the very point when a privileged fraction of the working class seems to be in a position to acquire multiple skills, to achieve workplace autonomy and continually widen their capacities for action - all of which are things that were ideals of the worker self-management currents within the labour movement - the meaning of this ideal is thus radically altered by the conditions in which it seems destined to be fulfilled. It is not the working class which is achieving these possibilities of self-organization and increasing technological power; it is a small core of privileged workers who are integrated into new-style enterprises at the expense of a mass of people who are marginalized and whose job security is destroyed -people shunted from one form of occasional, unrewarding and uninteresting employment to another, who are often reduced to competing for the privilege of selling personal services (including shoe-shining and house-cleaning) to those who retain a secure income.”

André Gorz (1923–2007) austrian philosopher

pp, 70-71 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA70
Critique of Economic Reason, 1988

Housing , Personality , People , Self-confidence

“The image of the enterprise as a place where employees can achieve personal fulfilment is therefore an essentially ideological invention. It conceals the real transformations that have taken place, namely that enterprises are replacing labour by machines, producing more and better with a decreasing percentage of the workforce previously employed, and offering privileges to a chosen elite of workers, which are accompanied by unemployment, precarious employment, de-skilling and lack of job security for the majority. The advance of technology has thus resulted in the segmentation and disintegration of the working class. An elite has been won over to collaboration with capital in the name of work ethic; the great mass of workers have become marginalized or lost their job security and serve as a reserve army for industry which wishes to be able to adjust its workforce rapidly according to fluctuations in demand.”

André Gorz (1923–2007) austrian philosopher

p. 66 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA66
Critique of Economic Reason, 1988

Personality

“Review by Noam Chomsky: That the Obama phenomenon is of considerable significance in American social and political history should hardly be in doubt. But what exactly is it, and where might it lead? This lucid and penetrating book situates it firmly within the ‘corporate-dominated and militaristic U.S. elections system and political culture,’ explores in depth its substantive content and its limits, and draws valuable lessons about how these might be transcended in the unending struggle to achieve a more just and free society and a peaceful world. It is a very welcome contribution in complex and troubled times.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

"Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics", October 2008, ISBN: 978-1-59451-631-3. In "Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics" by Paul Street https://web.archive.org/web/20110522032935/http://www.paradigmpublishers.com/books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=186987, 2008.
Quotes 2000s, 2007–09

Peace , Drawing , Time , History

“Government violence is not the result of violent revolutions, but the product of government itself. Any movement that leaves the State intact will fail in ending the oppressions we are fighting against. A nonviolent movement that replaces one government with another—and this is the greatest victory a nonviolent movement has ever achieved in the history of the world—ends up betraying itself, allowing Power to change its masks without addressing the fundamental problems of society. Nonviolence as an analytical tool has no means of understanding this kind of defeat—the kind that looks like victory.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 2. Recuperation is How We Lose

Understanding , History , Victory , Problem

“Nor is there any embarrassment in the fact that we're ridiculous, isn't it true? For it's actually so, we are ridiculous, light-minded, with bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look, how to understand, we're all like that, all, you, and I, and they! Now, you're not offended when I tell you to your face that you're ridiculous? And if so, aren't you material? You know, in my opinion it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous, if not better: we can the sooner forgive each other, the sooner humble ourselves; we can't understand everything at once, we can't start right out with perfection! To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well. This I tell you, you, who have already been able to understand. .. and not understand … so much. I'm not afraid for you now;”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Idiot

The Idiot (1868–9)

Forgiveness , Understanding , Light , Bad luck

“Against the new leviathan, whether in the guise of universal suffrage, democracy, or of an equally fraudulent triumphant proletariat, [Kierkegaard] pitted the individual human soul made in the image of a God who was concerned about the fate of every living creature. In contrast with the notion of salvation through power, he held out the hope of salvation through suffering. The Cross against the ballot box or the clenched fist; the solitary pilgrim against the slogan-shouting mob; the crucified Christ against the demagogue-dictators promising a kingdom of heaven on earth, whether achieved through endlessly expanding wealth and material well-being, or through the ever greater concentration of power and its ever more ruthless exercise.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

The Oddest Prophet – Søren Kierkegaard by Malcolm Muggeridge

Democracy , Soul , God , Fate

Quotes about achievement page 28

Quotes about achievement
page 28