Quotes about act
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“I will propose a Highway Safety Act of 1966 to seek an end to this mounting tragedy. We must also act to prevent the deception of the American consumer—requiring all packages to state clearly and truthfully their contents—all interest and credit charges to be fully revealed—and keeping harmful drugs and cosmetics away from our stores. It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention. We must change to master change. I propose to take steps to modernize and streamline the executive branch, to modernize the relations between city and state and nation. A new Department of Transportation is needed to bring together our transportation activities. The present structure—35 government agencies, spending $5 billion yearly—makes it almost impossible to serve either the growing demands of this great nation or the needs of the industry, or the right of the taxpayer to full efficiency and real frugality. I will propose in addition a program to construct and to flight-test a new supersonic transport airplane that will fly three times the speed of sound—in excess of 2,000 miles per hour. I propose to examine our federal system-the relation between city, state, nation, and the citizens themselves. We need a commission of the most distinguished scholars and men of public affairs to do this job. I will ask them to move on to develop a creative federalism to best use the wonderful diversity of our institutions and our people to solve the problems and to fulfill the dreams of the American people. As the process of election becomes more complex and more costly, we must make it possible for those without personal wealth to enter public life without being obligated to a few large contributors. Therefore, I will submit legislation to revise the present unrealistic restriction on contributions—to prohibit the endless proliferation of committees, bringing local and state committees under the act—to attach strong teeth and severe penalties to the requirement of full disclosure of contributions—and to broaden the participation of the people, through added tax incentives, to stimulate small contributions to the party and to the candidate of their choice.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life, Men, People, Penalty

“Each time a country is freed, we say, it is a defeat for the world imperialist system, but we must agree that real liberation or breaking away from the imperialist system is not achieved by the mere act of proclaiming independence or winning an armed victory in a revolution. Freedom is achieved when imperialist economic domination over a people is brought to an end.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)

People, World, Freedom, Time

“And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment.
We're still the pawns in their game.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

War, Game

“It's been really difficult, honestly. I'm all shaken up right now. I had to do a lot of acting, basically, to get through the last 48 hours. It was shocking, and I think I'm still in shock, to an extent. I don't think I have fully, completely come to terms with it yet. I have waves and flashes. One moment, I feel fine and I'm myself. Then all of a sudden, it hits me, and I go, 'Wow, he's really gone.”

Corey Feldman (1971) American actor

It's very troubling. "From Michael Phelps to Eva Longoria: A look back at 2016's celebrity weddings" http://www.people.com/people/package/article/0,,20287787_20288168,00.html, by Nicholas White, People (June 28, 2009), retrieved July 12, 2012.

Feeling, Thinking

“The Sovereign can only act by advisers, and through the instrumentality of those who are neither infallible nor impeccable— answerable, indeed, for all that the irresponsible Sovereign may do, but liable to err through undue influence, and to be swayed by improper motives.”

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) English barrister, politician, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Brownlow v. Egerton (1854), 23 L. J. Rep. Part 5 (N. S.), Ch. 390; 8 St. Tr. (N. S.) 258.

Motivation

“BALTHAZAR: Subjects may stumble, when kings walk astray.
Thine acts shall be a new Apocrypha.”

Thomas Dekker The Noble Spanish Soldier

The Noble Spanish Soldier (1622)

“In this great problem which is facing the country in years to come, it may be from one side or the other that disaster may come, but surely it shows that the only progress that can be obtained in this country is by those two bodies of men—so similar in their strength and so similar in their weaknesses—learning to understand each other, and not to fight each other…we are moving forward rapidly from an old state of industry into a newer, and the question is: What is that newer going to be? No man, of course, can say what form evolution is taking. Of this, however, I am quite sure, that whatever form we may see…it has got to be a form of pretty close partnership, however that is going to be arrived at. And it will not be a partnership the terms of which will be laid down, at any rate not yet, in Acts of Parliament, or from this party or that. It has got to be a partnership of men who understand their own work, and it is little help that they can get really either from politicians or from intellectuals. There are few men fitted to judge, to settle and to arrange the problem that distracts the country to-day between employers and employed. There are few men qualified to intervene who have not themselves been right through the mill. I always want to see, at the head of these organisations on both sides, men who have been right through the mill, who themselves know exactly the points where the shoe pinches, who know exactly what can be conceded and what cannot, who can make their reasons plain; and I hope that we shall always find such men trying to steer their respective ships side by side, instead of making for head-on collisions.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1925/mar/06/industrial-peace in the House of Commons (6 March 1925). 1925

Men, Hope, Shoe, Understanding

“Let us look back on the events which fill up the ten years of the Sullan restoration. No one of the movements, external or internal, which occurred during this period - neither the insurrection of Lepidus, nor the enterprises of the Spanish emigrants, nor the wars in Thrace and Macedonia and in Asia Minor, nor the risings of the pirates and the slaves - constituted of itself a mighty danger necessarily affecting the vital sinews of the nation; and yet the state had in all these struggles well-night fought for its very existence. The reason was that the tasks were left everywhere unperformed, so long as they might still have been performed with ease; the neglect of the simplest precautionary measures produced the most dreadful mischiefs and misfortunes, and transformed dependent classes and impotent kings into antagonists on a footing of equality. The democracy and the servile insurrection were doubtless subdued; but such as the victories were, the victor was neither inwardly elevated nor outwardly strengthened by them. It was no credit to Rome, that the two most celebrated generals of the government party had during a struggle of eight years marked by more defeats than victories failed to master the insurgent chief Sertorius and his Spanish guerrillas, and that it was only the dagger of his friends that decided the Sertorian war in favour[sic] of the legitimate government. As to the slaves, it was far less an honour[sic] to have confronted them in equal strive for years. Little more than a century had elapsed since the Hannibalic war; it must have brought a blush to the cheek of the honourable[sic] Roman, when he reflected on the fearfully rapid decline of the nation since that great age. Then the (the Roman) Italian slaves stood like a wall against the veterans of Hannibal; now the Italian militia were scattered like chaff before the bludgeons of their runaway serfs. Then every plain captain acted in case of need as general, and fought often without success, but always with honour, not it was difficult to find among all the officers of rank a leader of even ordinary efficiency. Then the government preferred to take the last farmer from the plough rather than forgo the acquisition of Spain and Greece; now they were on the eve of again abandoning both regions long since acquired, merely that they might be able to defend themselves against the insurgent slaves at home. Spartacus too as well as Hannibal had traversed Italy with an army from the Po to the Sicilian Straights, beaten both consuls, and threatened Rome with a blockade; the enterprise which had needed the greatest general of antiquity to conduct it against the Rome of former days could be undertaken against the Rome of the present by a daring captain of banditti. Was there any wonder that no fresh life sprang out of such victories over insurgents and robber-chiefs?”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Pt. 1, Chapter 2. "Rule of the Sullan Restoration"
The Government of the Restoration as a Whole
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 1

Life, War, Age, Democracy

“Between bad ideas of gender neutrality and even worse ideas of the innocence of pornography, we reach the world so vividly described by so many dissatisfied women today, one where men act like stereotypical women, and retreat from real relationships into a fantasy life via pornography (rather than Harlequin novels), and where women conversely act like stereotypical men, taking the lead in leaving their marriages and firing angry charges on the way, out of frustration and withheld sex.”

Mary Eberstadt American writer

Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution https://books.google.it/books?id=7z-hDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 (Ignatius Press, 2012), ch. 2.

Life, Women, Men, Marriage

“The Communists have created the illusion in free men's minds that "the way to peace is through disarmament." We must not forget that this originated as a Communist slogan. Now free men have adopted it as their own and are even setting up special commissions to explore ways and means to carry it out. In this action we are deliberately closing our eyes to everything we promised ourselves at the close of World War II and again at the end of the Korean War. Experts tell us that to disarm in the face of an obvious and present danger is an immoral act. It is an act of self-destruction.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Men, War, World, Peace

“You pulled out a gun, and you shot the gun over FLOWERS! Are you a MORON?!! … You should be hiding under a rock, not acting as plaintiff in a lawsuit!”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1cYWq1bm_Q
Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Dismissing a statement or case

Flowers

“This time of adversity offers a unique moment of opportunity — a moment we must seize to change our culture. Through the gathering momentum of millions of acts of service and decency and kindness, I know we can overcome evil with greater good. And we have a great opportunity during this time of war to lead the world toward the values that will bring lasting peace.”

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

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

War, World, Peace, Evil

“It is at any rate evident, that a large and ample province remains for the exercise of Providence, without its being naturally perceptible by us; because obscurity, when applied to the interruption of laws, bears a necessary proportion to the imperfection of our knowledge when applied to the laws themselves, or rather to the effects which these laws, under their various and incalculable combinations, would of their own accord produce. And if it be said, that the doctrine of Divine Providence, by reason of the ambiguity under which its exertions present themselves, can be attended with no practical influenceupon our conduct; that, although we believe ever so firmly that there is a Providence, we must prepare, and provide, and act, as if there were none; I answer, that this is admitted: and that we further allege, that so to prepare, and so to provide, is consistent with the most perfect assurance of the reality of a Providence; and not only so, but that it is probably one advantage of the present state of our information, that our provisions and preparations are not disturbed by it. Or if it be still asked, Of what use at all then is the doctrine, if it neither alter our measures nor regulate our conduct? I answer again, that it is of the greatest use, but that it is a doctrine of sentiment and piety, not (immediately at least) of action or conduct; that it applies to the consolation of men's minds, to their devotions, to the excitement of gratitude, the support of patience, the keeping alive and the strengthening of every motive for endeavouring to please our Maker; and that these are great uses.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 26 : The Goodness of the Deity.

Men, Law, Exercises, Motivation

“Their lordships had some experience in that House two years ago, when restrictive laws were passed and when the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended…The effect of these measures was, in his opinion, the cause of a great portion of the discontent which now prevailed. After all the experience which they had had, there was no attempt at conciliation, no concession to the people; nothing was alluded to but a resort to coercion…The natural consequence of such a system, when once begun, was that it could not be stopped: discontents begot the necessity of force; the employment of force increased discontents: these would demand the exercise of new powers, till by degrees they would depart from all the principles of the constitution…Could government rest with confidence upon the sword for security? It was impossible that a government of such a nature could exist in England…without that spirit which the knowledge of the advantages they enjoyed under their constitution infused, all their energies would flag, and all their feelings by which their glory as a nation had been established, would be utterly dissipated.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Lords (23 November 1819). Parliamentary Debates, vol. xli, pp. 7-19, quoted in Alan Bullock and Maurice Shock (ed.), The Liberal Tradition from Fox to Keynes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), pp. 5-6.
1810s

People, Law, Feeling, Exercises

“In the presence of the total reality upon which our conduct is founded, our knowledge is characterized by peculiar limitations and aberrations. We cannot say in principle that "error is life and knowledge is death," because a being involved in persistent errors would continually act wide of the purpose, and would thus inevitably perish.”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

Source: The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies (1906), p. 444

Life, Death, Error, Knowledge

“Apart from selfish reasons, such as fear of punishments, fear of blame, of dishonour, etc, there remains only two motives that can stop (or prevent, "empâecher", Fr.) men from acting badly; the natural sense of commiseration (or "sympathy", - "commisération", Fr.) for one's fellow men - compassion, and the influence of education, by association of ideas ("par l'association d'idées", Fr.) - habit.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 57.

Men, Education, Fear, Motivation

“I know that I have been denounced as a traitor and I resent the accusation, as I conceive myself to have been guilty of no underhand or deceitful act against Britain, although I am also able to understand the resentment that my broadcasts have, in many quarters, aroused.”

William Joyce (1906–1946) British fascist and propaganda broadcaster

J.W. Hall (ed.), The Trial of William Joyce (Notable British Trials series, William Hodge & Co, 1946), p. 58
Statement given by Joyce under caution, 31 May 1945.

Understanding

“We have carried our quest for peace to many nations and peoples because we share this planet with others whose future, in large measure, is tied to our own action, and whose counsel is necessary to our own hopes. We have found understanding and support. And we know they wait with us tonight for some response that could lead to peace. I wish tonight that I could give you a blueprint for the course of this conflict over the coming months, but we just cannot know what the future may require. We may have to face long, hard combat or a long, hard conference, or even both at once. Until peace comes, or if it does not come, our course is clear. We will act as we must to help protect the independence of the valiant people of South Vietnam. We will strive to limit the conflict, for we wish neither increased destruction nor do we want to invite increased danger. But we will give our fighting men what they must have: every gun, and every dollar, and every decision—whatever the cost or whatever the challenge. And we will continue to help the people of South Vietnam care for those that are ravaged by battle, create progress in the villages, and carry forward the healing hopes of peace as best they can amidst the uncertain terrors of war. And let me be absolutely clear: The days may become months, and the months may become years, but we will stay as long as aggression commands us to battle. There may be some who do not want peace, whose ambitions stretch so far that war in Vietnam is but a welcome and convenient episode in an immense design to subdue history to their will. But for others it must now be clear—the choice is not between peace and victory, it lies between peace and the ravages of a conflict from which they can only lose.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Men, War, People, Peace

“Thus the world of minds, as the sole world of Ends presupposed in all moral responsibility, the world of ultimate and standard Objects, becomes at one and the same stroke the warranting foundation of knowledge and of good-will alike: to refuse good-will is to violate the primary principle of each mind's own existence, and is therefore to convict oneself, in one and the same act, of irrationality and folly as well as of indifference or of ill-will.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Preface to Second Edition, p.xxxvii

World, Knowledge, Indifference

“For all of us who have been fortunate enough to make capital, we can’t take it with us in any case, so let’s act responsibly with it. Let’s put something back in.”

Ronald Cohen (1945) British businessman

Jewish Chronicle, 21 September 2007, p. 38

“[The atheist's] faith is much greater than mine. I could never for a moment believe that all these things happened by chance. Never in a million years. But the believing atheist does, and he amazingly looks down intellectually on those that maintain that all this incredible creation wasn't an act of an incredible creator.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

Faith, Chance

“It is terrible to see how a single unclear idea, a single formula without meaning, lurking in a young man’s head, will sometimes act like an obstruction … in an artery, hindering the nutrition of the brain, and condemning its victim to pine away in the fullness of his intellectual vigor and in the midst of intellectual plenty.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

"How to make our ideas clear,” Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 12 (January 1878)

Idea

“…[I]n three notable instances the Court has suffered severely from self-inflicted wounds. The first of these was the Dred Scott case. … There the Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott, a negro, not being a citizen could not sue in the United States Courts and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories. … [T]he grave injury that the Court sustained through its decision has been universally recognized. Its action was a public calamity. … [W]idespread and bitter attacks upon the judges who joined in the decision undermined confidence in the Court. … It was many years before the Court, even under new judges, was able to retrieve its reputation.…[The second instance was] the legal tender cases decided in 1870. … From the standpoint of the effect on public opinion there can be no doubt that the reopening of the case was a serious mistake and the overruling in such a short time, and by one vote, of the previous decision shook popular respect for the Court.… [The third instance happened] [t]wenty-five years later, when the Court had recovered its prestige, [and] its action in the income tax cases gave occasion for a bitter assault. … [After questions about the validity of the income tax] had been reserved owing to an equal division of the Court, a reargument was ordered and in the second decision the act was held to be unconstitutional by a majority of one. Justice Jackson was ill at the time of the first argument but took part in the final decision, voting in favor of the validity of the statute. It was evident that the result [holding the statute invalid] was brought about by a change in the vote of one of the judges who had participated in the first decision. … [T]he decision of such an important question by a majority of one after one judge had changed his vote aroused a criticism of the Court which has never been entirely stilled.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

"The Supreme Court of the United States: Its Foundation, Methods and Achievements," Columbia University Press, p. 50 (1928). ISBN 1-893122-85-9.

Justice, Confidence, Question, Decision

“The most important causes of political arrangements and acts are found in the nature and behavior of man.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter III, Some Implications Of The First Image, p. 42

Behavior, Nature

“There is no act more moral between men than that of rule and obedience. Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is! God's law is in that, I say, however the Parchment-laws may run: there is a Divine Right or else a Diabolic Wrong at the heart of every claim that one man makes upon another.”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King

Men, God, Law, Heart

“It will be seen that what I desire of a poem is a clear understanding of motive, and a just evaluation of feeling; the justice of the evaluation persisting even into the sound of the least important syllable. Such a poem is a perfect and complete act of the spirit; it calls upon the full life of the spirit; it is difficult of attainment, but I am aware of no good reason to be contented with less.”

Yvor Winters (1900–1968) American poet and literary critic

The Influence of Meter on Poetic Convention : Section III : The Scansion of Free Verse
Primitivism and Decadence : A Study of American Experimental Poetry (1937)

Life, Justice, Feeling, Motivation

“For a long time I was helpless before German influence, for, in Budapest and its vicinity, I lacked the means to check or thwart the joint action of the Germans and the Ministry for Home Affairs. As the defeat of Germany drew nearer, I regained, though slowly and imperfectly, a certain freedom of action. In the summer, I succeeded at last in having the possibility of freeing the Jews from the prohibitions and restrictions imposed on them by law. Of the innumerable requests that poured in, I rejected none. The deportations were supposed to be made to labour camps. Not before August did secret information reach me of the horrible truth about the extermination camps. It was Csatay, the Minister of War, who raised the matter at a Cabinet meeting and demanded that our government should insist on the Germans clarifying the situation. This demand was not met by the Cabinet. The Churches, I must here add, did what they could for those in distress by providing them with certificates of baptism. In this, they acted in accordance with the true wishes of our people.”

Miklós Horthy (1868–1957) Hungarian Admiral and Regent 1920-1944

Source: Memoirs, p. 268

War, People, Truth, Secret

“He wanted me to beat him up!
It was an open invitation!
Late at night he picked me up —
an act of open provocation!”

Attila the Stockbroker (1957) punk poet, folk punk musician and songwriter

"Contributory Negligence", from Cautionary Tales for Dead Commuters (1985)

Night

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

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

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

Men, War, Peace, Justice

“In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons […] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.”

Edward Bernays book Propaganda

Source: Propaganda (1928), p. 37–38

World, Way, Understanding, Business

“Moral courage … is always defined by the state as treason. … It is the courage to act and speak the truth. Thompson had it. Daniel Ellsburg had it. Malcolm X had it. Martin Luther King had it. What those in authority once said about them they say today about Snowden.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

27:43 “ Our Only Hope Will Come Through Rebellion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOlg_2qAbUA” (2014)

Truth, Courage

“We have a moral obligation to act and not accept that this [gun violence] is inevitable.”

Chris Murphy (1973) American politician

"Meet the Senator Who Filibustered for 15 Hours on Gun Control" http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/meet-the-senator-who-filibustered-for-15-hours-on-gun-control-20160620, RollingStone.com, 20 June 2016.

“There were a lot of people who were Reaganauts going in, as there are always people who are conservatives going in. But they don't act like conservatives after they get there. There is skill to maneuvering the bureaucracy. And I think one argument I could make would be, I've never run for office, I'm not a conventional politician, that's for sure, but I have been in government, and I know how it works. I have actually gotten things done in the government.”

John R. Bolton (1948) American lawyer and diplomat

"The Man with the Mustache"

People, Thinking

“Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) English poet, illustrator, painter and translator

The Choice
Context: Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die
Outstretch'd in the sun's warmth upon the shore,
Thou say'st: "Man's measur'd path is all gone o'er:
Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh,
Man clomb until he touch'd the truth; and I,
Even I, am he whom it was destin'd for."
How should this be? Art thou then so much more
Than they who sow'd, that thou shouldst reap thereby?

Thinking

“I ain't no angel, I still got a few more dances with the devil.
I'm cleaning up my act little by little.
I'm getting there. I can finally stand the man in the mirror I see.
I ain't as good as I'm gonna get, but I'm better than I used to be.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Better Than I Used to Be
Song lyrics, Emotional Traffic (2012)

Angels, Dance

“This, if not an act of war, was certainly a warlike act by the Russian Federation…”

Tom Tugendhat (1973) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons, 12 March 2018, regarding the Salisbury Novichok poisonings

War

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

Parting

“Mathripala Sirisena: Let me explain the facts. First, let's look at my brother who is Chairman of the Telecom company. You have to differentiate between nepotism, and members of the family getting involved in governance. When you take the telecom institution, it's a mix of state and private sector. Importantly, it comes under a different ministry: it's an institution that comes under a different minister. My brother hasn't been involved in governance in any instance. On the other side, you mentioned my son-in-law, he has in no way been given a powerful position. He has only a minor position on my personal staff. Then you mention my son. Usually, we all know that when you go to the UN General Assembly, there are a certain number of seats allocated to each country's delegation. It's only in accordance with that allocation that government representatives from here attended. I must very clearly say: my son was not included in that number. I totally reject describing this as nepotism. Because in politics, we also need to look at people's understanding, our culture. So within these issues, we have to look at the way the government acted, before I came to power and how we act today. So I must clearly say no member of family has been involved in governance at any point.”

Maithripala Sirisena (1951) Sri Lankan politician, 7th President of Sri Lanka

Talk to Al Jazeera - Sri Lankan president: No allegations of war crimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udGmG-eqJ6o

People, Family, Law, Way

“Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Ai Weiwei, " interview for Unilever Series at the Tate Modern http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/ai-weiwei-conversation," at tate.org.uk, October 12, 2010. 2010-, 2010

World, Thinking

“The presence of the kings of Islam is a great blessing from Allah… You should know that the country of Hindustan is a large land. In olden days, the kings of Islam had struggled hard and for long in order to conquer this foreign country. They could do it only in several turns…
Every (Muslim) king got mosques erected in his territory, and created madrasas. Muslims of Arabia and Ajam (non-Arab Muslim lands) migrated from their own lands and arrived in these territories. They became agents for the publicity and spread of Islam here. Uptil now their descendants are firm in the ways of Islam…Among the non-Muslim communities, one is that of the Marhatah (Maratha). They have a chief. For some time past, this community has been raising its head, and has become influential all over Hindustan…
…It is easy to defeat the Marhatah community, provided the ghãzîs of Islam gird up their loins and show courage…
In the countryside between Delhi and Agra, the Jat community used to till the land. In the reign of Shahjahan, this community had been ordered not to ride on horses, or keep muskets with them, or build fortresses for themselves. The kings that came later became careless, and this community has used the opportunity for building many forts, and collecting muskets…
In the reign of Muhammad Shah, the impudence of this community crossed all limits. And Surajmal, the cousin of Churaman, became its leader. He took to rebellion. Therefore, the city of Bayana which was an ancient seat of Islam, and where the Ulama and the Sufis had lived for seven hundred years, has been occupied by force and terror, and Muslims have been turned out of it with humiliation and hurt…
…Whatever influence and prestige is left with the kingship at present, is wielded by the Hindus. For no one except them is there in the ranks of managers and officials. Their houses are full of wealth of all varieties. Muslims live in a state of utter poverty and deprivation. The story is long and cannot be summarised. What I mean to say is that the country of Hindustan has passed under the power of non-Muslims. In this age, except your majesty, there is no other king who is powerful and great, who can defeat the enemies, and who is farsighted and experienced in war. It is your majesty’s bounden duty (farz-i-ain) to invade Hindustan, to destroy the power of the Marhatahs, and to free the down-and-out Muslims from the clutches of non-Muslims. Allah forbid, if the power of the infidels remains in its present position, Muslims will renounce Islam and not even a brief period will pass before Muslims become such a community as will no more know how to distinguish between Islam and non-Islam. This will be a great tragedy. Due to the grace of Allah, no one except your majesty has the capacity for preventing this tragedy from taking place.
We who are the servants of Allah and who recognise the Prophet as our saviour, appeal to you in the name of Allah that you should turn your holy attention to this direction and face the enemies, so that a great merit is added to the roll of your deeds in the house of Allah, and your name is included in the list of mujãhidîn fi Sabîlallah (warriors in the service of Allah). May you acquire plunder beyond measure, and may the Muslims be freed from the stranglehold of the infidels. I seek refuge in Allah when I say that you should not act like Nadir Shah who oppressed and suppressed the Muslims, and went away leaving the Marhatahs and the Jats whole and prosperous.
The enemies have become more powerful after Nadir Shah, the army of Islam has disintegrated, and the empire of Delhi has become childrens’ play. Allah forbid, if the infidels continue as at present, and Muslims get (further) weakened, the very name of Islam will get wiped out.
…When your fearsome army reaches a place where Muslims and non-Muslims live together, your administrators must take particular care. They must be instructed that those weak Muslims who live in the countryside should be taken to towns and cities. Next, some such administrators should be appointed in towns and cities as would see to it that the properties of Muslims are not plundered, and the honour of no Muslim is compromised.”

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

Letter to Ahmad Shah Abdali, Ruler of Afghanistan. Translated from the Urdu version of K.A. Nizami, Shãh Walîullah Dehlvî ke Siyãsî Maktûbãt, Second Edition, Delhi, 1969, p.83 ff.
From his letters

War, Children, Age, Way

“Every death even the cruellest death
drowns in the total indifference of Nature
Nature herself would watch unmoved
if we destroyed the entire human race
I hate Nature
this passionless spectator this unbreakable iceberg-face
that can bear everything
this goads us to greater and greater acts”

Peter Weiss Marat/Sade

Sade, act 1, scene 12 (p. 24)
Marat/Sade (1963)

Death, Hate, Nature, Indifference

“We the Subscribers say, that the General Assembly of this Commonwealth have no such authority: And that no effort may be omitted on our part against so dangerous an usurpation, we oppose to it, this remonstrance; earnestly praying, as we are in duty bound, that the Supreme Lawgiver of the Universe, by illuminating those to whom it is addressed, may on the one hand, turn their Councils from every act which would affront his holy prerogative, or violate the trust committed to them: and on the other, guide them into every measure which may be worthy of his blessing, may redound to their own praise, and may establish more firmly the liberties, the prosperity and the happiness of the Commonwealth.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

§ 15
1780s, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785)

Happiness, Effort, Universe, Parting

“You must understand that terrorists, although they may ultimately derive their financial resources or other assets from a government or governments, are theoretically stateless themselves — they're rather like international corporations, in their way — because they reject the idea of a state, they don't wish to be controlled by a state, they have had their state taken away from them or destroyed, they have been denied a chance to create a state of their own, or they were created to provide some government somewhere with what's called 'credible deniability'.
When individuals not affiliated with a national government commit violent acts, they are — and ought to be dealt with as — criminals, nothing more and certainly nothing less. Rather than indiscriminately destroy entire nations full of innocent people in retaliation for the criminal behavior of a few, guilty individuals should be pursued and either killed, or captured, tried, and on conviction, appropriately punished.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Enquiring Minds and the Oil War," 11 July 2010.

People, Way, Behavior, Idea

“People act like Nirvana invented grunge; they just took it and personified it.”

Billy Corgan (1967) American musician, songwriter, producer, and author

Smashing Pumpkins (1996)

People

“She snorted. My wife has three ways of showing disapproval. She harangues loud and long when she is not very sure of her position. Or she may be entirely silent when she is terribly sure. This is usually an act of kindness on her part, as though she were dealing with a dumb animal. Or, lastly, she may snort. This means, I have at last learned, that she disagrees, that she thinks I am a dumb animal, and by God, kindness can go just so far.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

On his wife's reaction to the notion (of showing up at the ball park without a ticket, for Game 1 of the World Series, and expecting to get in) that gave rise to this, his best known book, from A Day in the Bleachers https://books.google.com/books?id=iJqHg1sitk0C&pg=PA1&dq=%22contest.+i+felt+the+urge%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAWoVChMI587t3tnKxwIVAXE-Ch1XnQRG#v=onepage&q&f=false (1955), p. 1 Other Topics

God, Way, Thinking, Learning

“It is conventional to refer to the United Nations in hushed tones of respect and awe, as if it were the repository of justice and equity, speaking almost with the voice of God if not yet acting with the power of God. It is no such thing. Despite the fair-seeming terminology of its charter and its declarations, the reality both of the Assembly and of the Security Council is a concourse of self-seeking nations, obeying their own prejudices and pursuing their own interests. They have not changed their individual natures by being aggregated with others in a system of bogus democracy…Does anybody seriously suppose that the members of the United Nations, or of the Security Council, have been actuated in their decisions on the Argentine invasion of the Falklands by a pure desire to see right done and wrong reversed? That was the last thing on their minds. Everyone of them, from the United States to Peru, calculated its own interests and consulted its own ambitions. What moral authority can attach a summation of self-interest and prejudice? I am not saying that nations ought not to pursue their own interests; they ought and, in any case, they will. What I am saying is that those interests are not sanctified by being tumbled into a mixer and shaken up altogether. An assembly of national spokesmen is not magically transmuted into a glorious company of saints and martyrs. Its only redeeming feature is its impotence…The United Nations is a colossal coating of humbug poured, like icing over a birthday cake, over the naked ambitions and hostilities of the nations.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

'We have the will, we don't need the humbug', The Times (12 June 1982), p. 12
1980s

God, Hostility, Justice, Democracy

“I have continued to press for Security Council reform. But, reform involves two separate issues. One is that new members should be added, on a permanent or long-term basis, to give greater representation to parts of the world which have limited voice today. The other, perhaps even more important, is that all Council members, and especially the major powers who are permanent members, must accept the special responsibility that comes with their privilege. The Security Council is not just another stage on which to act out national interests. It is the management committee, if you will, of our fledgling collective security system.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Truman Library address (2006)

World, Parting

“Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. For that tiny fraction, the copyright creates incentives to produce and distribute the creative work. For that tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an "engine of free expression."
But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the commercial life ends.”

Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture

Free Culture (2004)

Life, Books, Music, Time

“Mozart's melodies, Beethoven's symphonies, Schubert's songs, acts two and three of Tristan are symbols in which are revealed the most profound spiritual truths. They are not "invented", but are "given in their dreams"to those privileged to receive them. Whence they come no one knows, not even their creator, the unconscious mouthpiece of the demiurge.”

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) German composer and orchestra director

Recollections and Reflections

Truth, Dreams

“A social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint; or again, every way of acting which is general throughout a given society, while at the same time existing in its own right independent of its individual manifestations.”

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

Source: Rules of Sociological Method, 1895, p. 10

Way, Exercises, Time

“Of course we are all aware that the recognition of brotherhood brings in the requirement of charity. But it is only on the basis of individual property that there can be any charity. Our very conception of the term means that we deny ourselves of what belongs to us, in order to give it to another. If that which we give is not really our own, but belongs to the person to whom we give it, such an act may rightfully be called justice, but it cannot be regarded as charity.”

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

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

Justice, Personality

“Hubert Humphrey, one of the chief authors and sponsors of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, had declared that under Title VII no discrimination on the basis of race or color was to be lawful. He explicitly said that this meant no discrimination of white against black, and no discrimination of black against white.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, The Party of Lincoln vs. The Party of Bureaucrats (1996)

Law, Color

“Process-chart notes and information should be collected and set down in sketch form by a highly intelligent man, preferably with an engineering training and experience, but who need not necessarily have been previously familiar with the actual details of the processes. In fact, the unbiased eye of an intelligent and experienced process-chart maker usually brings better results than does the study of a less keen man with more special information regarding present practices of the processes. The mere act of investigating sufficiently to make the notes in good enough condition for the draftsman to copy invariably results in many ideas and suggestions for improvement, and all of these suggestions, good and bad, should be retained and filed together with the description of the process chart. These suggestions and proposed improvements must be later explained to others, such as boards of directors, managers and foremen, and for best results also to certain workmen and clerks who have special craft or process knowledge. To overcome the obstacles due to habit, worship of tradition and prejudice, the more intelligence shown by the process-chart recorder, the sooner hearty cooperation of all concerned will be secured. Anyone can make this form of process chart with no previous experience in making such charts, but the more experience one has in making them, the more certain standard combinations of operations, inspection and transporting can be transferred bodily to advantage to the charts of proposed processes.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: Process charts (1921), p. 5-6.

Intelligence, Idea, Knowledge, Study

“Pressure can also make managers act out of character. Degrees of panic will cause a normally good manager to lose self-confidence and focus. Under stress, even a good plan can be abandoned.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Source: Crisis Management: A Model For Managers (1993), p. 16

Confidence, Self-confidence

“Van and Schenck put their songs over so skillfully that it isn’t until their act is all done that you realize what extremely indifferent songs they are. Now, when John Steel is singing, on the other hand, you are never fooled for a moment. p.153”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 3: 1920

Fools, Singing, Indifference

“The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 111

Wisdom, Law

“When I first saw it the first time, when I first saw him I felt… I felt upset. He's so good in the movie. He's incredible in it. It's so difficult to talk about. It's not an easy thing to sum up. I think he's great. Being around someone, acting with someone like that, is really inspiring and fun. It's very difficult to talk about. This isn't really the place where you open your heart up.”

Maggie Gyllenhaal (1977) American actress

On The Dark Knight, 2008-07-15, Scotsman

Thinking, Time, Heart

“We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations, as with individuals, our interests, soundly calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties; and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is taken on its word, when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1800s, Second Inaugural Address (1805)

War, History

“Politicians do nothing but ask of us, during every expiration of a legal statute, "a gesture of trust." But here trust is not enough; what's needed is an act of faith.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Controcorrente, 1974-1986.
1950s - 1990s

Faith

“To believe in God is to yearn for His existence and, furthermore, it is to act as if He did exist.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), V : The Rationalist Dissolution
Context: To believe in God is to long for His existence and, further, it is to act as if he existed; it is to live by this longing and to make it the inner spring of our action.
Context: To believe in God is to long for His existence and, further, it is to act as if he existed; it is to live by this longing and to make it the inner spring of our action. This longing or hunger for divinity begets hope, hope begets faith, and faith and hope beget charity. Of this divine longing is born our sense of beauty, of finality, of goodness.

God

“In primitive society the rules of ceremonial purity observed by divine kings, chiefs, and priests agree in many respects with the rules observed by homicides, mourners, women in childbed, girls at puberty, hunters and fishermen, and so on. To us these various classes of persons appear to differ totally in character and condition; some of them we should call holy, others we might pronounce unclean and polluted. But the savage makes no such moral distinction between them; the conceptions of holiness and pollution are not yet differentiated in his mind. To him the common feature of all these persons is that they are dangerous and in danger, and the danger in which they stand and to which they expose others is what we should call spiritual or ghostly, and therefore imaginary. The danger, however, is not less real because it is imaginary; imagination acts upon man as really does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly as a dose of prussic acid.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 21, Tabooed Things, § I : The Meaning of Taboo.

Women, Imagination, Girl, Appearance

“At the same time, we will not continue to pour taxpayers' money into schools that do not teach and will not change. My plan will give every failing school a fair chance to improve, but there will be a deadline, a moment of truth when parents are given better options and their children are given a way out. There are some honest differences of opinion in Congress about what form these options should take. I have my own plan which would help children in persistently failing schools to go to another public, private or charter school. Others suggest different approaches, and I am willing to listen. But all reform must be based on a principle: Children and parents, who have had only bad choices need better choices. And it is my duty as President to help them. In sending my plan to Congress, I ask that we act before this summer, when schools begin planning for the next school year. I hope to have the support of Republicans and Democrats alike, and I hope to have your support, as well. Thank you for listening.”

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

2000s, 2001, Radio Address to the Nation (January 2001)

Money, Children, Truth, School

“I have left Act I, for involution
And Act II. There, mired in complexity
I cannot write Act III.”

Eugene McCarthy (1916–2005) American politician

Poems

“I would not be standing here if it weren't for two very important men in my life, so… two that I haven't spoken with in awhile, but I had the pleasure of just the other evening. Mr. Rawley Farnsworth, who was my high school drama teacher, who taught me to act well the part, there all the glory lies. And one of my classmates under Mr. Farnsworth, Mr. John Gilkerson. I mention their names because they are two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men that I had the good fortune to be associated with, to fall under their inspiration at such a young age. I wish my babies could have the same sort of teacher, the same sort of friends.”

Tom Hanks (1956) American actor

66th Academy Award Speech (1994)

Life, Men, Pleasure, Age

“The power of a book lies in its power to turn a solitary act into a shared vision. As long as we have books, we are not alone.”

Laura Bush (1946) First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009

As quoted in Bringing Out the Best in Everyone You Coach : Use the Enneagram System for Exceptional Results (2009) by Ginger Lapid-Bogda, p. 123

Books

“Master, we can start now; I have killed them all.'
'I am very sorry to hear it,' said Tripitaka. 'One has no right to kill robbers, however violent and wicked they may be. The most one may do is to bring them before a magistrate. It would have been quite enough in this case if you had driven them away. Why kill them? You have behaved with a cruelty that ill becomes one of your sacred calling.'
'If I had not killed them,' said Monkey, 'they would have killed you.'
'A priest,' said Tripitaka, 'should be ready to die rather than commit acts of violence.”

Arthur Waley (1889–1966) British academic

Source: Translations, Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942), Ch. 14 (p. 132)

“In the social sciences there has been a serious gap, except where administration is involved, between the theorist and the man who must act. As a result our social science theory continues to be detached from reality. There is great need for a new social science, namely, the Science of Administration, where social theory and action must meet. Administration as conceived in this paper is, therefore, a social science with its own techniques, its own abstractions clustering around the concept of action through human organizations, and its own problems of theory. It is vitally concerned in integrating other sciences, physical, biological, psychological, and social, at the point where action is involved. Its social importance is great. Indeed if our civilization breaks down, it will be mainly a breakdown of administration, both private and public.”

Wallace Brett Donham (1877–1954) American academic

Source: "The Theory and Practice of Administration", 1936, p. 409; as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 662-3

Problem, Reality, Science

“There are only two answers for the handling of people from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale, neither one of which has anything to do with reasoning with them or listening to their justification of their acts. The first is to raise them on the Tone Scale by un-enturbulating some of their theta by any one of the three valid processes. The other is to dispose of them quietly and without sorrow.”

L. Ron Hubbard book Science of Survival

Source: Science of Survival (1951), p. 170.

People

“We reckoned now that we were at the Pole. Of course, every one of us knew that we were not standing on the absolute spot; it would be an impossibility with the time and the instruments at our disposal to ascertain the exact spot. But we were so near it that the few miles which possibly separated us from it could not be of the slightest importance. It was our intention to make a circle around this camp, with a radius of twelve and a half miles (20 kilometers), and to be satisfied with that. After we had halted we collected and congratulated each other. … we proceeded to the greatest and most solemn act of the whole journey - the planting of our flag.”

Roald Amundsen (1872–1928) Norwegian polar researcher, who was the first to reach the South Pole

Upon reaching the vicinity of 89° 58' 30" S, 60° E, named camp Polheim, about 1½ mile from the geographical Pole. Several forays were made from here, one southwards and beyond the pole.
Sydpolen (The South Pole) (1912)

Time

“Soumitra Chattopadhyay is the only person in Tollywood who has the equivalent stature as of Amitabh Bachchan. So, why does Soumitra always have to be a father or uncle or grandfather, or just have work in serious roles or portray depressing characters? What is wrong if Soumitra acts in a role that is different from the usual roles he plays? If Bollywood can do experiments, then what is wrong in experimenting things in Tollywood?”

Arin Paul (1980) Indian film director

Interview on Calcuttatube http://calcuttatube.com/arin-paul-exclusive-interview/1608/ (2009)

Personality

“The creative process must be explored not as the product of sickness, but as representing the highest degree of emotional health, as the expression of the normal people in the act of actualizing themselves.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 1 : The Courage to Create, p. 40

People, Health

“Paresis, as it is generally called in preference to the old GPI or general paralysis of the insane, is characterized by symptoms of bewildering variety, confirming the description of syphilis as the Great Imitator or, because of this very wealth of its ultimate manifestations, the Aristocrat of Diseases. Paresis involves a meningoencephalitis which marks its onset by personality changes, mild at first but growing steadily worse. There is irritability, failure of memory and judgement, insomnia, slovenliness, aggression, confusion, delusion, manic depression, epileptiform convulsion, slurred speech, incontinence, emaciation, sensational psychosis, finally death. The act of careless bohemian love, anonymous, quick and uncondomized, is proved not to have been worth the trouble or money…..”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)

Love, Death, Money, Disease

“No Member State, even the most passionately pro-European, is always fully in agreement with all the policies of the EU. And all make their voice heard on the issues that affect them most. This is how Europe should work. It is how an independent Scotland would act.”

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

Vision for Scotland in the European Union (December 12, 2007)

Passion

“Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness;”

George Eliot book Romola

Volume I, Chapter XVI
Romola (1863)

Life, Children

“To seek to exclude any of these because of age or association with some particular elements of our national being would almost be an act of treason. In the rich history of our country nothing is good or bad because it is new or old…Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian or Parsi.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

On the past inheritance of India, p. 26.
Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997)

Age, History, Country

“That as the admission of States by Congress under the constitution was an act of legislation, and in the nature of a contract or compact between the States admitted and the others admitting, why should not this contract or compact be regarded as of like character with all other civil contracts liable to be rescinded by mutual agreement of both parties? The seceding States have rescinded it on their part, they have resumed their sovereignty. Why cannot the whole question be settled, if the north desire peace, simply by the Congress, in both branches, with the concurrence of the President, giving their consent to the separation, and a recognition of our independence?”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

Peace, Question, Nature, Parting

“I believe that our very survival depends upon us becoming better systems thinkers. How can we learn to see the systems we're participating in? How can we act intelligently when things remain fuzzy?”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

It's An Interconnected World (2002)

Intelligence, Learning, Dependency

“The spark within is akin to the Divine Ground. By identifying ourselves with the first we can come to unitive knowledge of the second. These empirical facts of the spiritual life have been variously rationalized in terms of the theologies of the various religions. The Hindus categorically affirm that Thou art That — that the indwelling Atman is the same as Brahman. For orthodox Christianity there is not an identity between the spark and God. Union of the human spirit with God takes place — union so complete that the word deification is applied to it; but it is not the union of identical substances. According to Christian theology, the saint is “deified,” not because Atman is Brahman, but because God has assimilated the purified human spirit in to the divine substance by an act of grace. Islamic theology seems to make a similar distinction. The Sufi, Mansur, was executed for giving to the words “union” and “deification” the literal meaning which they bear in the Hindu tradition. For our present purposes, however, the significant fact is that these words are actually used by Christians and Mohammedans to describe the empirical facts of metaphysical realization by means of direct, super-rational intuition.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita (1944)

Life, God, Religion, Art

“In the year 1871, Mr. Gladstone's Government introduced and passed the first Trade Union Act, by far the most important victory, up to that time achieved by the champions of labour organizations.”

Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar

Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter XVII, Contract And Tort In Modern Law, p. 322

Time, Victory

“Attention is focused mental engagement on a particular item of information. Items come into our awareness, we attend to a particular item, and then we decide whether to act.”

Thomas H. Davenport (1954) American academic

Thomas H. Davenport and J.C. Beck (2001). The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business. Harvard Business School Press. p. 20

“After this the disciple turned again in all seriousness to eternal Truth and asked for the power to discern by outward appearance a person who was truly detached. He asked thus. Eternal Truth, how do such people act in relation to various things?
Answer: They withdraw from themselves, and all things withdraw along with this.
Question: How do they conduct themselves with respect to time?
Answer: They exist in an ever-present now, They exist in an ever-present now, free of selfish intentions free of selfish intentions, and they seek to act perfectly in the smallest thing as in the greatest.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

The Exemplar, The Little Book of Truth

People, Truth, Question, Appearance

“It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness—calling their denial knowledge.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

Women, Men, Knowledge, Joy

“My words like eyes that flinch from light, refuse
And shut upon obscurity; my acts
Cast to their opposites by impatient violence
Break up the sequent path; they fly
On a circumference to avoid the centre.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Darkness And Light"
The Still Centre (1939)

Light, Flying

“Now, just think about this for a moment: For generations, in many parts of this country, it was illegal for black people to get an education. Slaves caught reading or writing could be beaten to within an inch of their lives. Anyone — black or white — who dared to teach them could be fined or thrown into jail. And yet, just two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, this school was founded not just to educate African Americans, but to teach them how to educate others. It was in many ways an act of defiance, an eloquent rebuttal to the idea that black people couldn’t or shouldn’t be educated. And since then, generations of students from all backgrounds have come to this school to be challenged, inspired and empowered. And they have gone on to become leaders here in Maryland and across this country, running businesses, educating young people, leading the high-tech industries that will power our economy for decades to come.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

Remarks at Bowie State University ceremony (17 May 2013) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/17/remarks-first-lady-bowie-state-university-commencement-ceremony 2010s

People, Education, School, Way

“Nothing can help us unless we rely on ourselves. Only when we realize this will we be on the right track. The Buddha attained all of the truths he taught before he put them into words. … He was like the scientists who experiment and get results before writing textbooks. … If we cling merely to the concepts of the Dhamma, simply memorizing them, we're no more than consumers. Only if we make ourselves into producers, so that others can consume, will we be acting properly.”

Ajahn Lee (1907–1961)

Words of Ajaan Lee (2011)

Truth, Help

“Never did any Soul do good, but it came readier to do the same again, with more Enjoyment. Never was Love, or Gratitude, or Bounty practis'd but with increasing Joy, which made the Practiser still more in love with the fair Act.”

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl

Vol. 2, p. 30; "The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

Love, Soul, Joy, Gratitude

“The same ‘ practical’ viewpoint is dominant in Marx’ s conception of the cognitive functions of the mind and its role in the historical process; ‘ practical’ is always regarded as implying ‘ social’, and ‘ social life is practical by its very essence’. So is the task of philosophy as defined in the eleventh Thesis, in what are perhaps Marx’ s most-quoted words: ‘ The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.’ It would be a caricature of Marx’ s thought to read this as meaning that it was not important to observe or analyse society and that only direct revolutionary action mattered. The whole context shows that it is a formula expressing in a nutshell the viewpoint of ‘ practical philosophy’ as opposed to the ‘ contemplative’ attitude of Hegel or Feuerbach – the viewpoint which Hess, and through him Cieszkowski, suggested to Marx and which became the philosophical nucleus of Marxism. To understand the world does not mean considering it from outside, judging it morally or explaining it scientifically; it means society understanding itself, an act in which the subject changes the object by the very fact of understanding it.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume I, The Founders, pp. 143-4

Life, World, Way, Quotes

“It is the bareness of drawing that I like. The act of drawing is what locates, suggests, discovers. At times it seems enough to draw, without the distractions of color and mass. Yet it is an old ambition to make drawing and painting one. Usually I draw in relation to my painting, what I am working on at the time. On a lucky day a surprising balance of forms and spaces will appear and I feel the drawing making itself, the image taking hold. This in turn moves me towards painting -anxious to get to the same place, with the actuality of paint and light.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

Source: 1961 - 1980, transcript of a public forum at Boston university', conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966, pp. 73-75

Color, Feeling, Light, Appearance

“Isn’t this illegal? In the case of the cameras accessed using default passwords, of course. Attorney Jay Leiderman told Motherboard that Insecam “is a stunningly clear violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) [I made it clear that the CFAA was an American law, and that this may or may not be illegal in other countries],” even if it is intended as a PSA. “You put a password on a computer to keep it private, even if that password is just ‘1.’ It’s entry into a protected computer.”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As stated in, Jay Leiderman Quoted on the CFAA: This terrifying website lets you spy on people through 73,000 Private Security Cameras. http://jayleiderman.com/blog/jay-leiderman-quoted-this-terrifying-website-lets-you-spy-on-people-through-73000-private-security-cameras/

Law, Fraud, Country

“We know what goes on in the act of love, and those of us who are writers despair of ever finding verbal equivalents for the pain and pleasure of excitation fulfilled in what Rabelais’s translator Urquhart called ‘venerean ecstasy’. A mechanical description of the act tells us nothing, any more than a scientifically accurate account of mastication will convey the flavour of roast duck.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, Flame Into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence (1985)

Love, Pain, Pleasure, Despair

“Equilibrium requires that the whole of the structure, the form of its elements, and the means of interconnection be so combined that at the supports there will automatically be produced passive forces or reactions that are able to balance the forces acting upon the structures, including the force of its own weight.”

Eduardo Torroja (1899–1961) Spanish architect

p, 125
Philosophy of Structures (1958)

Support

“IV. Thesis. Freedom is very well compatible with sound lawfulness of the course of nature. But the concept of a timeless God is then untenable. But the restriction which omnipotence and omniscience suffer through freedom of the creature in the sense above determined, must be eliminated by the assumption of a temporally acting God, of a ruler of the hearts and destinies of men; the concept of Providence must be supplemented and in part replaced by the notion of government of the world.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

No Antithesis indicated.
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Men, God, World, Law

“From individual independence he proceeded to association. If it was inconsistent with the dignity of human nature to say that men were gregarious animals, like wild horses and wild geese, it surely could offend no delicacy to say they were social animals by nature, that there were mutual sympathies, and, above all, the sweet attraction of the sexes, which must soon draw them together in little groups, and by degrees in larger congregations, for mutual assistance and defence. And this must have happened before any formal covenant, by express words or signs, was concluded. When general counsels and deliberations commenced, the objects could be no other than the mutual defence and security of every individual for his life, his liberty, and his property. To suppose them to have surrendered these in any other way than by equal rules and general consent was to suppose them idiots or madmen, whose acts were never binding. To suppose them surprised by fraud, or compelled by force, into any other compact, such fraud and such force could confer no obligation. Every man had a right to trample it under foot whenever he pleased. In short, he asserted these rights to be derived only from nature and the author of nature; that they were inherent, inalienable, and indefeasible by any laws, pacts, contracts, covenants, or stipulations, which man could devise.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1810s, Letter to William Tudor (1818)

Life, Men, Law, Sex

“The conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to insure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gasses. A similar treatment could be advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts.”

Alexis Carrel (1873–1944) French surgeon and biologist

Source: (1935), p. 391

Children

“I expect eternal life, not as a reward of merit, but a pure act of bounty. Detesting myself in every view I can take, I fly to the righteousness and atonement of my great Redeemer for pardon and salvation; this is my only consolation and hope. "Enter not into judgment, O Lord, with Thy servant; for in Thy sight shall no flesh be justified."”

Elizabeth Rowe (1674–1737) poet and writer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 231.

Life, Hope, Flying

“I mean that the things I felt and that I enjoyed about certain painters of the past that I liked, that inspired me, like Cézanne and Manet, that thing I enjoyed in their work, that complete losing of oneself in the work to such an extent that the work itself, even though it was a picture of a woman in front of a mirror or some dead fish on the table, the pictures of those men were no pictures to me. They felt as if a living organism was posited there on the canvas, on this surface. That's truly to me the act of creation.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

Source: 1961 - 1980, transcript of a public forum at Boston university', conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966, p. 66

Men, Fish, Past, Dead

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

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

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

Men, Country

“You have come out of the big prison which you had been put in and you have taken me out with the same act from the small prison which I had been put in.”

Samir Geagea (1952) Lebanese politician and war lord

Upon being released from Yarze prison, as quoted in an Associate Press report "Ex-Christian Warlord Released in Lebanon" by Zeina Karam (26 July 2005) Variant translation: Now that you (Lebanese people) have come out of the great prison to which you were confined, you have released me from the small prison in which I was put. Full text of speech made on his release from prison (26 July 2005) http://www.lebanonwire.com/0705/05072701LW.asp

“We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.”

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

Lecture III, "The Reality of the Unseen"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Life, God, Feeling, Nature

“Only through blind Instinct, in which the only possible guidance of the Imperative is awanting, does the Power in Intuition remain undetermined; where it is schematised as absolute it becomes infinite; and where it is presented in a determinate form, as a principle, it becomes at least manifold. By the above-mentioned act of Intelligising, the Power liberates itself from Instinct, to direct itself towards Unity.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

XI.
Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge (1810)

Quotes about act page 28

Quotes about act
page 28