Quotes about act (5183 quotes, page 49)

“If the Kuomintang has the opportunity to rule (Taiwan) again, then we would have met the conditions stipulated by the (Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area) law. Assuming talks between the two sides (Taiwan and Mainland China) are successful, a Kuomintang government would be within its rights to sign a cross-strait peace treaty.”

Wu Den-yih (1948) Taiwanese politician

Wu Den-yih (2019) cited in: " Wu Den-yih says KMT could sign peace treaty if it regains presidency next year http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2019/02/15/2003709751" in Taipei Times, 15 February 2019.

Peace , Law , Success , People

“The Revolution and Hanover succession had been objects of the highest veneration to the old Whigs. They thought them not only proofs of the sober and steady spirit of liberty which guided their ancestors; but of their wisdom and provident care of posterity.—The modern Whigs have quite other notions of these events and actions. They do not deny that Mr. Burke has given truly the words of the acts of parliament which secured the succession, and the just sense of them. They attack not him but the law.”

Edmund Burke book An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs

Source: An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), p. 436

Sense , Wisdom , Law , Success

“I hope there are none of you, corrupted with the doctrine taught by wicked men for the worst purposes, and received by the malignant credulity of envy and ignorance, which is, that the men who act upon the public stage are all alike; all equally corrupt; all influenced by no other views than the sordid lure of salary and pension. The thing, I know by experience to be false. Never expecting to find perfection in men, and not looking for divine attributes in created beings, in my commerce with my contemporaries, I have found much human virtue. I have seen not a little public spirit; a real subordination of interest to duty; and a decent and regulated sensibility to honest fame and reputation. The age unquestionably produces (whether in a greater or less number than former times, I know not) daring profligates and insidious hypocrites. What then? Am I not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the world, because of the mixture of evil that will always be in it? The smallness of the quantity in currency only heightens the value. They, who raise suspicions on the good on account of the behaviour of ill men, are of the party of the latter.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Time , Hope , Perfection , Falseness

“Our Government and our Laws are beset by two different Enemies, which are sapping its foundations, Indianism, and Jacobinism. In some Cases they act separately, in some they act in conjunction: But of this I am sure; that the first is the worst by far, and the hardest to deal with; and for this amongst other reasons, that it weakens discredits, and ruins that force, which ought to be employd with the greatest Credit and Energy against the other; and that it furnishes Jacobinism with its strongest arms against all formal Government.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Lord Chancellor Lord Loughborough (c. 17 March 1796), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VIII: September 1794–April 1796 (Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 432
1790s

Law

“You have performed wonders in the past. You are still capable of repeating the history. You are not lacking in the great qualities and virtues in comparison with the other nations. Only you have to be fully conscious of that fact and to act with courage, faith and unity.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Message on Pakistan Day, issued from Delhi (23 March 1943)

Courage , Faith , Past , History

“The real challenge for the Democratic Party, and its presidential candidates in particular, is to figure out how to reverse the Right’s stranglehold on our political vocabulary, without adopting the kind of lock-step dogmatic monolithism that empowered the likes of Gingrich. I don’t have a quick solution handy, but I’m pretty sure that if the Dems don’t act fast to reclaim our language, they risk losing the word battle before they realize they’re fighting it.”

Pete Buttigieg (1982) American politician

8 December 2003
The Struggle for Language
The Harvard Crimson
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/12/8/the-struggle-for-language-you-heard/
2003

Fight

“A great sense of mission guides us. A great sense of mission guides me. I act day and night in your name, on your behalf, on behalf of our country, on behalf of our people, on behalf of our land!”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

As quoted in, All 3 Major Israeli TV Channels Declare Netanyahu Victor In Election, April 9 2019, The Daily Wire
2010s, 2019

Sense , Night , People , Country

“It is necessary that each Marxist-Leninist understand that he can contribute to Marxism-Leninism with an atom of his experience, that every solution he finds, every experience he acquires, in the act of solving a problem, will be one more experience with which he enriches Marxism-Leninism, because Marxism-Leninism has been enriched so much precisely by the experience of millions and millions of Marxist-Leninists acting in the reality of life.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Speech (20 December 1961) http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1961/esp/f201261e.html

Problem , Life , Reality , Understanding

“Acts of sabotage are very important. It is necessary to distinguish clearly between sabotage, a revolutionary and highly effective method of warfare, and terrorism, a measure that is generally ineffective and in-discriminate in its results, since it often makes victims of innocent people and destroys a large number of lives that would be valuable to the revolution. Terrorism should be considered a valuable tactic when it is used to put to death some noted leader of the oppressing forces well known for his cruelty, his efficiency in repression, or other quality that makes his elimination useful. But the killing of persons of small importance is never advisable, since it brings on an increase of reprisals, including deaths.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Ch. I: 3. Guerrilla Tactics

Personality , Death , People , Making love

“Keeping Germany from acting too German (or at least too Prussian) is an important lesson of history.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

"Nationalism and Nationism" https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/nationalism-debate-nation-states/ (3 April 2019), National Review
2010s, 2019

History

“The U. S. has always insisted on its right to use force, whatever international law requires, and whatever international institutions decide.… The U. S., of course, is not alone in these practices. Other states commonly act in much the same way, if not constrained by external or internal forces.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

PBS, March 12, 1998 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/march98/intervention_3-12.html.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999

Way , Law

“We must not draw general conclusions from certain particular principles, though, in the main, true ones. We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will therefore always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in the pursuit of it. No. We are complicated machines: and though we have one main-spring, that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometimes stop that motion.”

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

19 December 1749
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

Passion , Animals , Drawing , Spring

“I have always defined myself halfway between an animal and a man, however in full respect of others. I am a pure instinct and I act as such. Thinking of an animal, I love monkeys …”

Rocco Siffredi (1964) Italian pornographic actor, director, producer and entrepreneur

Interview by Andrea Di Marcantonio

Animals , Love , Thinking , Making love

“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

“We are clear about what must be done--and we intend to do it. I want to talk frankly with you tonight about the first steps that we shall take. These actions will require sacrifice on the part of many of our citizens. More will be required in the future. They will require, from all of us, courage and perseverance in the years to come. But if we and our allies act out of strength and unity of purpose--with calm determination and steady nerves--using restraint in our words as well as our weapons--I am hopeful that both peace and freedom will be sustained.”

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

1961, Berlin Crisis speech

Courage , Peace , Freedom , Future

“Why then dost thou choose to act in the same way? and why dost thou not leave these agitations which are foreign to nature, to those who cause them and those who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the right way of making use of things which happen to thee?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

for then thou wilt use them well, and they will be material for thee. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be a good man in every act which thou doest; and remember...
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII, 58

Way , Nature , Making love , Art

“We stand against extremism and we condemn all acts of violence but at the same time you have to give people in our community that are concerned about the threat of Islam, which is a genuine threat, you have to give them an opportunity to have a voice. I share the same fact that Islam is a threat but we completely condemn any acts of violence against innocent people. What has happened over there (Norway) is horrific and will be remembered for the rest of eternity as a disgusting, deranged attack.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

Norway massacre: Police probe killer's links to UK https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14266140 BBC News (26 July 2011)
2011

Time , People , Communication

“Never mind what others may say, or think, or do. Stand erect in the majesty of your own manhood. Listen for just once to the throbbing of your own heart, and you will hear that it is beating quickstep marches to Camp Freedom. Stand erect! Lift your bowed form from the earth! The dust has long enough borne the impress of your knees. Stand up and see how long a shadow you cast in the sunlight! Hold up your head and avow your convictions, and then accept, as becomes a man, the consequences of your acts!”

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

"Industrial Unionism" (1905), Eugene Debs Speaks

Thinking , Heart , Freedom

“Danny? You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. There’s some things no six-year-old boy in the world should have to be told, but the way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. The world’s a hard place, Danny. It don’t care. It don’t hate you and me, but it don’t love us, either. Terrible things happen in the world, and they’re things no one can explain. Good people die in bad, painful ways and leave the folks that love them all alone. Sometimes it seems like it’s only the bad people who stay healthy and prosper. The world don’t love you, but your momma does and so do I. You’re a good boy. You grieve for your daddy, and when you feel you have to cry over what happened to him, you go into a closet or under your covers and cry until it’s all out of you again. That’s what a good son has to do. But see that you get on. That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on.”

Stephen King book The Shining

The Shining (1977)

Pain , Hate , Bad luck , People

“He was really successful, he had very many concerts in Paris. In music circles everyone knew him. I believe that in about five years he would have become a hugely famous singer, because he was getting more and more invitations as an artist. I never saw him in a bad mood, he radiated positive emotions even if things were not going best. Meanwhile, it was not always easy for him, there were various situations concerning his career or money. When we were working on concert programs, he acted very professionally. We had a great relationship as colleagues. We knew and sensed each other well. Also, sometimes we had very personal conversations.”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

2017
Nicolas Krauze, conductor, the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle Europe (France). “He loved Ukraine above all”. The Day. Кyiv.ua. - 2017. - 7 March. https://day.kyiv.ua/en/article/culture/he-loved-ukraine-above-all

Money , Success , Personality , Bad luck

“It Suicide is the deliberate or the hurried action of the man who is trying to get out of a trouble and escape from it. Yet he cannot escape from it…He is wide awake on the other side of death, exactly the same man he was a moment before… no more changed than if he had merely taken off his coat. The result of his losing the physical body is that his capacity for suffering is very much increased…. All the part of him that drove him to suicide is there… The result of that is that he has still in him everything which made him commit the act; the consequence of this is that he keeps on committing it, going through the whole of the trouble that drove him up to the final act.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Suicides and Compassion 1932, The Theosophist https://www.theosophyforward.com/index.php/theosophy/609-suicides-and-compassion.html (2012)

Suffering , Suicide , Death , Parting

“If I injure you, the injury persists even after I actually commit the act. If I stab you, you may suffer complications long after that initial actual stabbing. If I shoot you, you may suffer complications long after that initial shooting. That’s the case with African Americans. There are people well within the living memory of this country that are still suffering from the after-effects of that.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Reparations Are Not Just About Slavery But Also Centuries of Theft & Racial Terror, Democracy Now (20 June 2019)

Suffering , Memory , People , Country

“The act of treachery is an art, but the traitor himself is a piece of shit.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

As quoted in Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/boxing/3026999/Boxing-Tysons-complicated-world.html.
Miscellaneous

Art

“The vegan choice is revolutionary, it is an act of daily love for animals and people.”

Loredana Cannata (1975) Italian actress

La scelta vegana è rivoluzionaria, è un atto d’amore quotidiano verso animali e persone.
Interview "Loredana Cannata “La Scelta Vegana È Un Atto D’amore Quotidiano”" https://www.vegsicilia.it/blog/personaggi/loredana-cannata-scelta-vegana-atto-damore-quotidiano/, Veg Sicilia (October 8, 2018).

Animals , Love , Making love , People

“Let us not believe that it is enough to read without unction, to speculate without devotion, to investigate without wonder, to observe without joy, to act without godly zeal, to know without love, to understand without humility, to strive without divine grace, or to reflect as a mirror without divinely inspired wisdom.”

Bonaventure (1221–1274) franciscan, bishop, cardinal, Doctor of the Church, catholic saint

The Journey of the Mind to God

Reading , Understanding , Joy , Love

“Let the Nuns therefore tarry still in their convents and cloisters, and in their brothel houses of Satan: yea I put the case they were not whores as they are, yea and worse than that, vile and shameful Sodomites, committing such heinous and abominable acts, that it is horrible to think of, I put the case I say, there were none of all these villainies, yet all the chastity they pretend is nothing before God, in comparison of that that he hath appointed, that is to say, that albeit it seem but a vile thing, and a matter of none account, for a woman to take pains about housewifery, to make clean her children when they be arrayed, to kill fleas, and other such like, although this be a thing despised, yea and such, that many will not vouchsafe to look upon it, yet are they sacrifices which GOD accepteth & receiveth, as if they were things of great price and honourable.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Que donc les nonnains demeurent en leurs convents et en leurs cloistres, et en leurs bourdeaux de Satan: ie di mesmes encores qu’elles ne fussent point putains comme elles sont, comme il y a encores pis de ces abominations de Sodome, faisans des choses si enormes et si abominables que c’est une horreur: encores, di-ie, que toutes ces vilenies-là n'y fussent point, si est-ce que toute la chasteté qu'elles pretendent, n'est rien envers Dieu, au prix de ce qu'il a ordonné, c'est asçavoir que combien que ce soyent choses contemptibles, et qui semblent estre de nulle valeur, qu'une femme ait peine d'adresser son mesnage, de nettoyer les ordures de ses enfans, de tuer les poux et autres choses semblables, que tout cela sera mesprisé, qu’on ne le daignera pas mesmes regarder, ce sont toutesfois sacrifices que Dieu reçoit et qu'il accepte, comme si c'estoyent choses precieuses et honorables.
A Sermon of Master John Caluine, vpon the first Epistle of Paul, to Timothie..., London: G. Bishop and T. Woodcoke, 1579 http://www.truecovenanter.com/calvin/calvin_19_on_Timothy.html (ch. 2:13-15).
Sermons of M. John Calvin, on the Epistles of S. Paule to Timothie and Titus, Laurence Tomson, trans., Printed for G. Bishop and T. Woodcoke, 1579, p. 231. http://books.google.com/books?id=g2WDtwAACAAJ&dq=Sermons+of+M.+John+Calvin+on+the+Epistles+of+S.+Paule+to+Timothie+and+Titus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XY8oUZXGJoq68wS494D4Dg&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAQ (Facsimile reprint in Jean Calvin, Sermons on Timothy and Titus (16th-17th century facsimile editions), Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1983. ISBN 0851513743 ISBN 9780851513744, p. 231. "Let the Nunnes therefore..." http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%22let+the+nunnes%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbm=bks&source=og&sa=N&tab=wp&ei=CYsoUcvQNoak8AS86oCoCQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42768644,d.eWU&fp=2dddfa4c5c79d088&biw=1086&bih=740
Sermons Sur la Premiere Epitre a Timothee (Sermons on the First Epistle to Timothy), Sermon 19 ("Dixneuvieme Sermon") in the Corpus Reformatorum, 1895, vol. 81 (Opera 31) p. 228. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&hs=PBY&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=%22Que%20donc%20les%20nonnains%20demeurent%20en%20leurs%20convents%20et%20en%20leurs%20cloistres%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=bks:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=wp http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=bks:1&source=og&q=%22comme%20il%20y%20a%20encores%20pis%20de%20ces%20abominations%20de%20Sodome%22&sa=N&tab=wp http://books.google.com/books?ei=Ts4vTMDbF4WBlAeG3fieCQ&ct=result&id=EcU8AAAAYAAJ&dq=%22volumen+lxxxi%22+reformatorum&q=convents#search_anchor.

God , Pain , Housing , Whore

“Funk succeeded me and he could not act individually as I could and did. The Reichsbank could give or deny credit under the rules at its own discretion while I was president of it. The very day I left the Reichsbank, Hitler issued a law which obliged the Reichsbank to give any credit he would ask for. It was under that law that Funk took office. Perhaps in that sense Funk was not responsible, but in another sense, of course, he was responsible because he was a willing tool. If he went so far as to take the post, he was willing to obey.”

Walther Funk (1890–1960) German economist and politician

Hjalmar Schacht, to Leon Goldensohn, March 10, 1946

Sense , Law

“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie — a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days — but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

The New York Review of Books interview with the French writer Roger Errera (1978)

History , Dependency , People , Nature

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation. The boy stands astonished, his impressions guide him: he learns sportfully, seriousness comes on him by surprise. Imitation is born with us: what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not: with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught: the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always wrong: who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force : the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar: their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction which the true artist gives us opens the mind; for, where words fail him, deeds speak. The true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and more to being a master.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Book VII Chapter IX
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

Learning , Boy , Art , Thinking

“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.”

Miguel de Unamuno book The Tragic Sense of Life

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VIII : From God to God

Hunger , God , Faith , Beauty

“What! You would convict me from my own words, and bring against me what I had said or written elsewhere. You may act in that manner with those who dispute by established rules. We live from hand to mouth, and say anything that strikes our mind with probability, so that we are the only people who are really at liberty.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book 5 Section 11
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)

People

“Conservatives used to believe in the overwhelming benefits of immigration. Most nationalists want to restrict even legal immigration. Conservatives used to believe that America should always speak and sometimes act in defense of freedom-seekers everywhere. Nationalists strike the bargain that America will mind its own business if others mind theirs. Conservatives used to oppose identity politics for being hostile to individual freedom. Nationalism is the superimposition of one form of identity politics over various others.”

Bret Stephens (1973) far-right American

The New Conservative Pyrite (2019)

Business , Hostility , Freedom

“That was how I instructed you. Why did you not act as I ordered you? You were not empowered to kill anyone, to blind people or to destroy cities; but I gave you authority to do so.”

Shu-Sin Sumerian king

To his general Sharrum-bani, Letter from Shu-Suen to Sharrum-bani about digging a trench http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section3/tr3116.htm, Correspondence of the Kings of Ur, Old Babylonian period, ca. 1800-1600 BCE, at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature; their original date of composition and their historical accuracy are debated.

People

“This is like winning an Oscar!… As if I would know! Speaking of acting, one of my movies was called True Lies.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

And that’s what the Democrats should have called their convention.
2000s, Speech at the Republican National Convention (31 August 2004)

“What is the use of all knowledge, if one does not act in accordance with it? This remark implies that knowledge is regarded as a means to action, and the latter as the real end. One could put the question the other way round and ask: How can we possibly act well without knowing what the Good is? This way of expressing it would regard knowledge as conditioning action. But both expressions are one-sided, and the truth is that both, knowledge as well as action, are in the same way inseparable elements of rational life.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book Address to the German Nation

Consequences of the Difference p. 75
Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation) 1808, Fifth Address

Question , Knowledge , Truth , Way

“I believe it to be this; that my will, absolutely of itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its effect, shall act in a sphere perfectly congenial — reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit; in a sphere to which it does not give the laws of life, of activity, of progress, but which has them in itself, therefore, upon self-active reason. But spontaneous, self-active reason is will. The law of the transcendental world must, therefore, be a Will.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.110
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

World , Self-confidence , Life , Law

“The voice in my soul in which I will have faith, and for the sake of which I have faith in all else, does not merely command me generally to act, but in every particular situation it declares what I shall do and what leave undone; it accompanies me through every event of my life, and it is impossible for me to contend against it. To listen to it and obey it honestly and impartially, without fear or equivocation, is the business of my existence. My life is no longer an empty I play without truth or significance. It is appointed that what I conscience ordains me shall be done, and for this purpose am I here. I have understanding to know, and power to execute it. By conscience alone comes truth and reality into my representations.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 77
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

Life , Soul , Faith , Understanding

“An act of the mind of which we are conscious, as such, is called freedom. An act without consciousness of action is called spontaneity. I by no means assume as necessary any immediate consciousness of the act, but merely, that on subsequent reflection thou shouldst perceive it to be an act. The higher question of what it is that prevents any such state of indecision, or any consciousness of the act, we may perhaps subsequently be able to solve. This act of the mind is called thought and it is said that thought is a spontaneous act, to distinguish it from sensation, in which the mind is merely receptive and passive.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 44
The Vocation of Man (1800), Knowledge

Question , Indecision , Freedom

“I posit myself as individual, in opposition to another individual, by ascribing to myself a sphere for my freedom, from which I exclude the other, and by ascribing to him a sphere, from which I exclude myself — of course, only in the thinking of a fact and by virtue of this fact. Hence, I have posited myself as free a side of him without danger to the possibility of his freedom. Through this positing of my freedom I have determined myself; to be free constitutes my essential character. But what does to be free mean? Evidently to be able to carry out the conceptions of acts I may entertain. But the carrying out always follows the conception, and the perception of the desired product of my causality is always — in relation to its first conception — a matter of the future. Freedom is therefore always posited in the future; and if it is to constitute the character of a being, it is posited for all the future of the individual; is posited in the future as far as the individual himself is posited in the future.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 77

Future , Thinking , Relation ships , Freedom

“I posit myself as rational, that is, as free. In doing so I have the representation of freedom. In the same undivided act I posit other free beings. Hence, I describe through my power of imagination a sphere of freedom, which these many separate beings divide amongst themselves. I do not ascribe to myself all the freedom which I have posited, because I must also posit other free beings, and must ascribe part of it to them. Thus, in appropriating freedom to myself, I at the same time restrict myself, by leaving freedom to others.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 7-8

Imagination , Time , Parting , Freedom

“And then India; let me tell you my relationship with India. Because of cricket, which is followed with great passion in the subcontinent, I have great friends in India. I’ve always loved going to India. So my first move was to reach out to Modi and I said let’s work our differences, leave our past behind and our main priority should be our people as we have similar problems; poverty and climate change. Highest number of people reside in subcontinent. On zero response from India; we thought we should wait till the Indian elections since BJP is a nationalist party. Meanwhile, a Kashmiri boy radicalized by Indian forces blew himself up on an Indian convoy. Immediately India blamed Pakistan. I told India to give us any proof and we’d act. We had actual proofs of Indian intervention in some terrorist attacks in our Balochistan province. We even caught their spy Kulbhushan Yadav who admitted to crimes. Instead of sharing proofs of any Pakistani’s alleged involvement in Pulwama attack, they tried to bomb us. We retaliated. We captured their pilot; but returned him the next day because we did not want the situation to escalate.”

Imran Khan (1952) Prime Minister of Pakistan

Speech at the United Nations General Assembly, 2019

Waiting , Past , People , Boy

“Had Mephistopheles conferred no other service on Faust than easing him for a while of his cloak of learning, the doctor would have had little cause for despair. But the act of awaking is regulated by different principles from those which govern the act of going to sleep. In the former case, the hand of force is often necessary. Life points out with an iron staff the path which each individual should follow. Happy is the man who sees this staff, and follows the path; instead of tarrying by the way until weary, and, incapable of further exertion, he sinks bleeding to the ground. A high degree of mental culture, or a delicate tact, possessed by few, are required to distinguish the necessity of earnestness, or even of pain, in the midst of enjoyment.”

Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben (1806–1849) Austrian psychiatrist, poet and philosopher

Source: The Dietetics of the Soul; Or, True Mental Discipline (1838), P. 112

Despair , Sleep , Pain , Learning

“Until we attain a clear idea of our inclinations, the best line of conduct we can pursue is to act uprightly; and establish for ourselves certain rules, adapting them to the various conditions of our existence, so as to penetrate and purify our whole life. Among these rules, I would include the conviction that hatred may be subdued by love; and to impress this axiom more strongly on the mind, we should remember the blessings conferred by love on the human race.”

Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben (1806–1849) Austrian psychiatrist, poet and philosopher

Source: The Dietetics of the Soul; Or, True Mental Discipline (1838), p. 104 1852 tr

Idea , Love , Life , Making love

“And so Butler made a decision, the consequences of which would haunt his dreams and waking hours for years to come. As a professional bodyguard, he knew the futility of second-guessing his own actions, but in the nights ahead he would often sit by the fire, with his head in his hands, and replay the moment in his mind, wishing that he had acted differently. Whatever way he played it out, the results were tragic, but at least they would not have been tragic for Artemis.”

Eoin Colfer book Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony

Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (2006)

Way , Dreams , Night , Decision

“Objectivity is the methodological stance of which objectification is the social process. Sexual objectification is the primary process of the subjection of women. It unites act with word, construction with expression, perception with enforcement, myth with reality. Man fucks woman; subject verb object.”

Catharine A. MacKinnon book Toward a Feminist Theory of the State

Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1991)

Reality , Women

“Humans are currently the dominant species on earth and exercise a great deal of power and control over nature. But very few believe might makes right, so the fact that we have greater power cannot enter into a justification of our use and treatment of animals. Rather, where other beings are under our power, we should feel obligated to show self-restraint and to act out of mercy and compassion. We cannot avoid causing harm to other beings in the process of living our own lives. Nor does morality consist in trying to be perfect and pure. But we can adopt an orientation toward minimizing the amount of harm we cause and taking full responsibility for it, seeing it for what it is. To justify animal experimentation is to start at one end of a continuum. Much of what we do will be morally acceptable (in our eyes), and we will chip away at the extremity where what we do shades into cruelty. I no longer believe that a general moral justification of animal experimentation can be given.”

Michael Allen Fox (1940)

" Animal Experimentation: A Philosopher's Changing Views https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1609&context=bts" (1987), in Between the Species, vol. 3, iss. 2, p. 59.

Nature , Animals , Self-confidence , Perfection

“I will probably end my life fighting. … I just hope that if it does happen, it will be in an honest and fair competition. My body is fucked but my mind is still here. I’ve still got my senses about me and I know what’s right and wrong, which is the main thing. … I feel proud that I got here without cheating. Proud that I got here without taking any shortcuts and by doing it the proper way. My way. … I’d be champ already if it wasn’t for the cheaters. … We need the Ali Act put in place. Fighters want to know what they’re worth. … These guys don’t get paid jack shit.”

Mark Hunt (1974) New Zealand kickboxer and mixed martial artist

"If I die fighting, that’s fine", in Players Voice (4 July 2017) https://www.playersvoice.com.au/mark-hunt-if-i-die-fighting-thats-fine/#0A07ZKS7jbAZhme6.97.

Cheating , Hope , Fight , Sense

“Walking has been one of the constellations in the starry sky of human culture, a constellation whose three stars are the body, the imagination, and the wide-open world, and though all three exist independently, it is the lines drawn between them—drawn by the act of walking for cultural purposes—that makes them a constellation. Constellations are not natural phenomena but cultural impositions; the lines drawn between stars are like paths worn by the imagination of those who have gone before. This constellation called walking has a history, the history trod out by all those poets and philosophers and insurrectionaries, by jaywalkers, streetwalkers, pilgrims, tourists, hikers, mountaineers, but whether it has a future depends on whether those connecting paths are traveled still.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

Wanderlust: A History of Walking (2001)

Imagination , History , Dependency , Mountain

“Her special knowledge of significant acts of prayer, ablution, and cleanliness performed by the Prophet Muhammad made her an especially valued source of ritually significant information for the Sunni Muslim community, who in all matters looked to the Prophet’s human example in the performance of their daily life.”

Aisha (605–678) Muhammad's wife

[Denise A. Spellberg, Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr, 1994, New York: Columbia University Press, 37]
About

Knowledge , Life , Communication

“The so-called Muslim women’s movement is predicated on the idea that Muslim men, not Islam, have been responsible for the suppression of women’s rights. For this reason, Muslim feminists throughout the world are advocating a return to the society Muhammad originally envisioned for his followers. Despite differences in culture, nationalities, and beliefs, these women believe that the lesson to be learned from Muhammad in Medina is that Islam is above all an egalitarian religion. Their Medina is a society in which Muhammad designated women like Umm Waraqa as spiritual guides for the Ummah; in which the Prophet himself was sometimes publicly rebuked by his wives; in which women prayed and fought alongside the men; in which women like Aisha and Umm Salamah acted not only as religious but also as political—and on at least one occasion military—leaders; and in which the call to gather for prayer, bellowed from the rooftop of Muhammad’s house, brought men and women together to kneel side by side and be blessed as a single undivided community.”

Aisha (605–678) Muhammad's wife

Reza Aslan as quoted in Joseph, Suad, ed. (2007). Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures: Volume 5 Practices, Interpretations and Representations. Brill Online. p. 227
About

Religion , Housing , Learning , Communication

“If you talk to quite a lot of people around the world, whether it’s in an Internally Displaced Person camp or in an emergency disaster they often say the UK is a UN Security Council member, a leading member of the European Union, a leading member of NATO, you can make a massive difference and they want us to act.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

‘I’ve been in some horrific situations’ - MP http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/i-ve-been-in-some-horrific-situations-mp-1-7642788, The Yorkshire Post (26 December 2015)

World , Personality , Making love , People

“Bobby Seale is going through all types of physical and mental torture. But that’s alright, because we said even before this happened, and we’re going to say it after this and after I’m locked up and after everybody’s locked up, that you can jail revolutionaries, but you can’t jail the revolution. You might run a liberator like Eldridge Cleaver out of the country, but you can’t run liberation out of the country. You might murder a freedom fighter like Bobby Hutton, but you can’t murder freedom fighting, and if you do, you’ll come up with answers that don’t answer, explanations that don’t explain, you’ll come up with conclusions that don’t conclude, and you’ll come up with people that you thought should be acting like pigs that’s acting like people and moving on pigs. And that’s what we’ve got to do. So we’re going to see about Bobby regardless of what these people think we should do, because school is not important and work is not important. Nothing’s more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.”

Fred Hampton (1948–1969) African-American activist

Excerpt from Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/12/4/watch_the_assassination_of_fred_hampton.

School , Country , Freedom , People

“As Acting President and Vice President, he walked with Kings, Presidents and Prime Ministers, but never lost the common touch. He was always approachable and was kindliness to all. He brought to his chamber work, in his Opinions and in arbitrations, an understanding and humanity, and gave satisfaction to all.”

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

By I.M Chagla
Speech By Mr. S. G. Page, Government Pleader, High Court, Bombay, Made OnMonday, 28 September, 1992

Understanding

“He was one of the earliest South Indian Classical w:MusiciansMusicians to perform abroad. He has acted in films, sung for films and even scored the music for films. Apart from his own compositions numbering more than two hundred, he has breathed life into compositions of other composers whose original tunes were lost in the sands of time like w:Narayana TeerthaNarayana Theertha, Annammaachaarya, Purandara Daasa, Kaiwara Amara Nareyana, Kaiwara Amara Nareyana, Sadasiva Brahmendra, Bhadraachala Raamadaas and Maharajah Sri Swathi Thirunal.”

M. Balamuralikrishna (1930–2016) Carnatic vocalist, instrumentalist and playback singer

Prince Rama Varma in: "Murali And Me: A tribute by Prince Rama Varma".

Music , Life , Time

“We might perhaps be more tolerant of rulers turning preachers if they were moral giants. But what citizen looks at the government today thinking how wise and virtuous it is? Public respect for politicians has long been declining, even as the population at large has been seduced into responding to each new problem by demanding that the government should act. That we should be constantly demanding that an institution we rather despise should solve large problems argues a notable lack of logic in the demos.”

Kenneth Minogue (1930–2013) Australian political theorist

The statesmen of times past have been replaced by a set of barely competent social workers eager to help 'ordinary people' solve daily problems in their lives. This strange aspiration is a very large change in public life. The electorates of earlier times would have responded with derision to politicians seeking power in order to solve our problems. Today, the demos votes for them.
Introduction, p. 3
The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life

Problem , Thinking

“Modern Hypnotism owes it name and its appearance in the realm of science to the investigations made by Braid…He is its true creator; he made it what it is; and above all, he gave emphasis to the experimental truth by means of which he proved that, when hypnotic phenomena are called into play, they are wholly independent of any supposed influence of the hypnotist upon the hypnotised, and that the hypnotised person simply reacts upon himself by reason of latent capacities in him which are artificially developed…Braid demonstrated that … hypnotism, acting upon a human subject as upon a fallow field, merely set in motion a string of silent faculties which only needed its assistance to reach their development.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

Jules Bernard Luys, in Pamphlets on hypnotism (1892) http://books.google.co.in/books?ei=-2xvU7rZLIXc8AW9i4CwAQ, pp.898-99.

Truth , Science , Appearance , Personality

“Tulsidas wrote 12 books, but, by far, the most important is the Ramacharitamanas (the holy Lakes of the Acts of Ram), a Ramayana written in old Hindi (Avadhi) couplets. The book was written under the direction of Hanuman himself. It is read all over North India, and particularly during the time of the Ramlila. It is sung aloud in large groups for devotional purposes.”

Tulsidas (1532–1623) Hindu poet-saint

Constance Jones & James D. Ryan in "Encyclopedia of Hinduism", p. 457
On Tulsidas’s epic Ramacharritamanas

Reading , Books , Time

“And no one would interfere with me because of the loaded gun in my hand. Also, a part of me didn’t give a shit anymore if I was caught or not. I could now see that my objective wasn’t just to kill Moses and all these other teachers who had abused us, but for everyone in all the whole world to know why. This wasn’t going to be a surprise attack. This had to be a cold, premeditated act, completely well planned, just as it had been premeditated and well thought out to torture and beat us Mexican kids, starting in kindergarten, so we’d be a people, a gente, with our heads bowed down to authority forever, thinking we were inferior and worthless. I now realized that this was how you enslaved a people. You didn’t just bring them over in chains from Africa. No, you convinced them that they were inferior, not evolved, subhuman, and then when you took off their shackles, so they could go to work, you’d still have them enslaved and shackled inside of their minds for hundreds of years. And this system of teaching was fine with most Anglo teachers, because in the act of convincing us, los Mexicanos and the Blacks, we were subhuman, they’d also convinced themselves that they were superior!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

People , Teachers , Thinking , World

“Rekha, a photogenic girl with seductive eyes, languished in insubstantial roles. The audience was floored when there was a swift change in her screen personality, as well as her style of acting. She paid painstaking attention to her make-up and acting technique. She improved her dress sense and recorded albums to promote physical fitness. What Jane Fonda did for aerobics in America, Rekha did for yoga in India.”

Rekha (1954) Indian film actress

Quoted in Love, anger, the works!, 7 December 2013, Filmfare http://downloads.movies.indiatimes.com/site/june2002/flashback.html,

Girl , Personality , Sense , Making love

“Because the purity of the eye of the soul is obscured and weighed down by the corrupt body, all the powers of this rational soul born in man are laid hold of by the mass of the body and cannot act and so in a way are asleep.”

Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253) English bishop and philosopher

Accordingly, when in the process of time the senses act through many interactions of sense with sensible things, the reasoning is awakened mixed with these very sensible things and is borne along in the senses to the sensible things as in a ship. But the functioning reason begins to divide and separately consider what in sense were confused. ...But the reasoning does not know this to be actually universal except after it has made this abstraction from many singulars, and has reached one and the same universal by its judgement taken from many singulars.
Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Libros (c. 1217-1220)

Way , Soul

“A good part — and definitely the most fun part — of being a feminist is about frightening men. American and Australian feminists have always known this, and absorbed it cheerfully into their act; one thinks of Shere Hite julienning men on phone- in shows, or Dale Spender telling us that a good feminist is rude to a man at least three times a day on principle.”

Julie Burchill (1959) British writer

Of course, there's a lot more to feminism... but scaring the shit out of scumbags is an amusing and necessary part because, sadly, a good many men still respect nothing but strength,
Burchill (1990) The Sunday Times; as cited in: Christopher W. Tindale (1999) Acts of arguing: a rhetorical model of argument. p. 58

Thinking , Time , Parting , Men

“Any act often repeated soon forms a habit : and habit allowed, steadily gains in strength.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

At first it may be but as the spider’s web, easily broken through, but if not resisted it soon binds us with chains of steel.
Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 212.

“The first evil choice or act is linked to the second; and each one to the one that follows, both by the tendency of our evil nature and by the power of habit, which holds us as by a destiny.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

As Lessing says, 'Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his forever.'
Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 152.

Evil , Nature

“Il Capello Parlante, Act III, Sc. I. — (Lancourt).”

Camillo Federici (1749–1802) Italian actor and playwright (1749-1802)

Le apparenze spesse volte convincono ed ingannano.
Translation: Appearances are very often both convincing and deceiving.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 351.

“But after having worked with Manikda, working in Bombay was confusing. I was too normal and realistic in front of the camera — the way Manikda had always taught me. But the Bombay directors wanted more energetic and louder acting. But today, most actors act that way.”

Satyajit Ray (1921–1992) Indian author, poet, composer, lyricist, filmmaker

After working with Satyajit Ray, working in Bombay was confusing: Sharmila Tagore

Way

“Act I, scene II. — (Polinico).”

Bernardo Dovizi book La calandria

Un padrone, quanti ha più servi, tanti più ha inimici.
Translation: The more servants a master has, the more enemies he has.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 432.
La Calandria (c. 1507)

“Act I, scene II. — (Fesserio).”

Bernardo Dovizi book La calandria

Non può il vitello, e vuol che porti il hue.
Translation: He cannot manage the calf, and wants to carry the ox.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 377.
La Calandria (c. 1507)

“How do I describe the Rajinikanth I know? I would say he is, at the bottom of it all, human. That is the best adjective I have. It is this quality of humanness that stands out. He acts in front of the camera… never behind it. In the sense, he is a natural, unaffected person in real life. He is open, frank, very forthright, very loyal to his friends and family. A great human being.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Rajini acts in front of the camera, never behind it' (22 December 1999)

Family , Personality , Nature , Sense

“Esteemed chairman of the court, today we have to pass a verdict on the defendants Nicolae Ceaușescu and Elena Ceaușescu who have committed the following offenses: Crimes against the people. They carried out acts that are incompatible with human dignity and social thinking; they acted in a despotic and criminal way; they destroyed the people whose leaders they claimed to be. Because of the crimes they committed against the people, I plead, on behalf of the victims of these two tyrants, for the death sentence for the two defendants.”

Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989) General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party

Chief prosecutor Dan Voinea at the Ceaușescus' trial http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Transcript_of_the_closed_trial_of_Nicolae_and_Elena_Ceau%C5%9Fescu (25 December 1989)
About Ceaușescu

Way , Thinking , Death , People

“If you act like a servant, you will die like a dog.”

Paolo Bacigalupi book The Windup Girl

Source: The Windup Girl (2009), p. 159

Dogs

“Governor Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree. We acted to stop that crime spree.”

Rod Blagojevich (1956) Former Governor of Illinois

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, news conference announcing the governor's arrest

“I have been taking stock of my 50 years since I left Wichita. How I have existed fills me with horror for I failed in everything. Spelling, arithmetic, writing, swimming, tennis, golf, dancing, singing, acting, wife, mistress, whore, friend, even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of not trying. I tried with all my heart.”

Louise Brooks (1906–1985) American dancer and actress

Looking for Lulu (1998)

Singing , Whore , Heart , Dance

“You think I am crazy. You will try to give me morphine. Get out of here; you are sacked. Get that medical uniform off. Go home and act as if you had never had anything to do with me.”

Theodor Morell (1886–1948) Personal physician to Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler, to Morell, in the final days of the war.

Home , Thinking

“Haaj Imad Mughniyah was martyred brutally and now they are launching a campaign against him. Nowadays they are publishing thousands of article in Western and Arab World media in which this great man is accused of having committed a long list of terrorist acts and other deeds, while he is no longer alive to defend himself.”

Imad Mughniyah (1962–2008) Lebanese militant, head of security for Hezbollah

Ayatollah Rafsanjani, Happiness expressed on Mughniyah's assassination blot on arrogance's reputation - Rafsanjani, Islamic Republic News Agency, 15 February 2008 http://www2.irna.com/en/news/view/line-17/0802151221160447.htm,

World

“Most Americans, in their sweet innocence, think that class has to do with money. But a glance at Donald Trump and Leona Helmsley will indicate that it has very little to do with money. It has to do with taste and style, and it has to do with the development of those features by acts of character. That was one of my points: to try to separate class from mercantilism or commercialism.”

Leona Helmsley (1920–2007) American hotel owner

Paul Fussell, Humanities Interview, 1996

Money , Thinking

“Artaud sought to remove aesthetic distance, bringing the audience into direct contact with the dangers of life. By turning theatre into a place where the spectator is exposed rather than protected, Artaud was committing an act of cruelty upon them.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Lee Jamieson, Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice, Greenwich Exchange, 2007, p. 23.

Life

“We express our solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico and their great leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, who, in another act of hypocrisy, has been set free at the age of seventy-two, almost unable to speak, paralyzed, after spending a lifetime in jail. Albizu Campos is a symbol of the as yet unfree but indomitable Latin America. Years and years of prison, almost unbearable pressures in jail, mental torture, solitude, total isolation from his people and his family, the insolence of the conqueror and its lackeys in the land of his birth--nothing broke his will. The delegation of Cuba, on behalf of its people, pays a tribute of admiration and gratitude to a patriot who confers honor upon our America.”

Pedro Albizu Campos (1891–1965) Puerto Rican politician and independence advocate

Che Guevara, in a speech given to the 19th General Assembly of the United Nations on December 11, 1964. http://www.thechestore.com/Che-Guevara-United-Nations.php http://www.che-lives.com/home/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=5 http://cheguevaralies.blogspot.com/2006/11/che-guevaras-marxist-speach-at-united.html

Family , Gratitude , People , Age

“But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn’t it?”

Alexander McCall Smith (1948) British writer

and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.
Love Over Scotland, chapter 96.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Time , Wisdom , Making love

“The spectator experiences the phenomenon of transmutation; through the change from inert matter into a work of art, an actual transubstantiation has taken place... All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work into contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Quote from The Writings of Marcel Duchamp (Marchand du Sel) e.d. Michel Sanouille and Elmer Peterson, New York 1973, pp. 139-140
posthumous

World , Change , Art

“Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity; to all appearances the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

1951 - 1968, The Creative Act', 1957

Way , Appearance , Time , Art

“Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous men within the city. Will you, then, sweep them away and not pardon the place for the sake of the 50 righteous who are inside it? It is unthinkable that you would act in this manner by putting the righteous man to death with the wicked one so that the outcome for the righteous man and the wicked is the same! It is unthinkable of you. Will the Judge of all the earth not do what is right?”

Abraham (-1813–-1638 BC) Biblical patriarch

Genesis 18: 23-25 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/genesis/18/, NWT
Bible

Death , Men

“I have twice seen Macready act; once in Macbeth and once in Othello.”

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) English novelist and poet

I astounded a dinner-party by honestly saying I did not like him. It is the fashion to rave about his splendid acting; anything more false and artificial, less genuinely impressive than his whole style, I could scarcely have imagined. The fact is, the stage-system altogether is hollow nonsense. They act farces well enough; the actors comprehend their parts and do them justice. They comprehend nothing about tragedy or Shakespeare, and it is a failure. I said so, and by so saying produced a blank silence, a mute consternation.
Charlotte Brontë, on William Macready. Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle, (by Clement King Shorter) (1896)

“Lieutenant General Vlasov had looked and acted like a son of a bitch the last time Bokov and Shteinberg called on him. He seemed even less friendly now. For twenty kopeks, his expression said, both of the other NKVD men could find out how they liked chopping down spruces in the middle of Siberian winter.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Source: The Man With the Iron Heart (2008), p. 412

Bitch , Time , Winter , Men

“I am in the profession of acting and so to suit the character I sometimes have to indulge in kissing and provocative scenes. I have never felt comfortable shooting for kissing sequences. Although, kissing scenes like the ones in Yuva with Abhishek Bachchan and in Hum Tum with Saif were shot in an aesthetic manner. I am still pretty much uncomfortable performing such scenes.”

Rani Mukerji (1978) Indian film actress

citation needed
The Actress' Take On Films

Kiss

“Intercourse is commonly written about and comprehended as a form of possession or an act of possession in which, during which, because of which, a man inhabits a woman, physically covering her and overwhelming her and at the same time penetrating her; and this physical relational - over her and inside her 0 is his possession oh her. He has her, or when is is done, he has had her. By thrusting into her, he takes her over. His thrusting into her is taken to be her capitulation to him as a conqueror; it is a physical surrender of herself to him; he occupies and rules her, expresses his elemental dominance over her, by his possession of her in the fuck.”

Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter Five, "Possession"

Time , Relation ships

“It does not say much about the credibility of the Prime Minister for him to be saying publicly that the Christian churches support the bill after these deliberate acts of deception.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

In response to Mataca's claim that Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase had misled a delegation of church leaders as to the true contents of the government's Reconciliation and Unity Bill, which Mataca and Ganilau both oppose
Reaction to comments from Archbishop Petero Mataca, 23 June 2005

Support

“The essence of happiness consists in an act of the intellect.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

(Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica) … What is implicit in this sentence? This is implicit: the fulfillment of existence takes place in the manner in which we become aware of reality; the whole energy of our being is ultimately directed toward attainment of insight. The perfectly happy person, the one whose thirst has been finally quenched, who has attained beatitude—this person is the one who sees. The happiness, the quenching, the perfection, consists in this seeing.
Source: Happiness and Contemplation (1958), p. 58

Happiness

“This damnable sex, boys - ah, you do well to writhe in your beds at the very mention of the word. All the evil of our modern times springs from unholy lust, the act of the dog and the bitch on the bouncing bed, limbs going like traction engines, the divine gift of articulate speech diminished to squeals and groans and pantings. It is terrible, terrible, an abomination before God and His Holy Mother. Lust is the fount of all other of the deadly sins, leading to pride of the flesh, covetousness of the flesh, anger in the thwarting of desire, gluttony to feed the spent body to be at it again, envy of the sexual prowess and sexual success of others, sloth to admit enervating day-dreams of lust. Only in the married state, by God’s holy grace, is it sanctified, for then it becomes the means of begetting fresh souls for the peopling of the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Tremor of Intent (1966)

God , Soul , Time , Anger

“Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.”

Paulo Freire book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 4, Organization

People , Decision

“Miss Austen was surely a great novelist. What she did, she did perfectly. Her work, as far as it goes, is faultless. She wrote of the times in which she lived, of the class of people with which she associated, and in the language which was usual to her as an educated lady. Of romance, -- what we generally mean when we speak of romance -- she had no tinge. Heroes and heroines with wonderful adventures there are none in her novels. Of great criminals and hidden crimes she tells us nothing. But she places us in a circle of gentlemen and ladies, and charms us while she tells us with an unconscious accuracy how men should act to women, and women act to men. It is not that her people are all good; -- and, certainly, they are not all wise. The faults of some are the anvils on which the virtues of others are hammered till they are bright as steel. In the comedy of folly I know no novelist who has beaten her. The letters of Mr. Collins, a clergyman in Pride and Prejudice, would move laughter in a low-church archbishop.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Anthony Trollope, Lecture (1870)

Time , People , Women , Education

“But now if the gifted soul be not of taciturn nature, be of vivid, impatient, rapidly productive nature, and aspire much to give itself sensible utterance,—I find that, in this case, the field it has in England is narrow to an extreme; is perhaps narrower than ever offered itself, for the like object, in this world before. Parliament, Church, Law: let the young vivid soul turn whither he will for a career, he finds among variable conditions one condition invariable, and extremely surprising, That the proof of excellence is to be done by the tongue. For heroism that will not speak, but only act, there is no account kept.”

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

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

World , Soul , Law , Nature

“Spiritual bypassing is the cancer of the spiritual world. It is a disease that has run rampant in both religious and non-religious circles. Spiritual bypassing (or whitewashing) is the act of using spiritual beliefs to avoid facing or healing one's painful feelings, unresolved wounds and unmet needs. It is a state of avoidance. Because it is a state of avoidance, it is a state of resistance.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

World , Pain , Feeling , Disease

“What I have found to be unanimous about people is that they guard and act like they don’t want you to touch the places inside them that they are the most desperate for you to touch.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

People

“We like to tell the lie that when we love someone else, we are doing it for them. We aren't. Love is selfish. It is the most selfish act in the world. It is selfish because it is the most beneficial thing in the world to YOU. Because of this, it should not wait. Do not wait for someone to give you love, for you to love them. Be selfish and love people without reservation. Love makes you whole. Love fulfills you. Love will strike fear from the record of your soul. What a gift to allow yourself to become whole, fulfilled and fearless.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Selfishness , Soul , Waiting , People

“If integration is to be a reality, the Negro must struggle for it. And so the Negro must continue to work through legislation; he must continue to work to double the number of registered voters, so that he political climate can be changed; he must continue to work through the courts, and get the law clarified and the Constitution clear on this issue. Then even after working in these areas, he must understand that a court order can only declare rights; it can never thoroughly deliver them. And only when people themselves begin to act, are rights which are on thin paper given life blood. And so the Negro must supplement all that is done through legislation, through voting, and through the courts with non-violent direct action.”

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

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Understanding , Law , People , Reality

“I do not pretend to sustain the order. At the time of its publication I was insensed by a reprimand received from Washington for permitting acts which the Jews, within my lines, were engaged in.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1860s, Letter to Isaac N. Morris (1868)

Time

“With a soldier the flag is paramount. I know the struggle with my conscience during the Mexican War. I have never altogether forgiven myself for going into that. I had very strong opinions on the subject. I do not think there was ever a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico. I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, only I had not moral courage enough to resign. I had taken an oath to serve eight years, unless sooner discharged, and I considered my supreme duty was to my flag. I had a horror of the Mexican War, and I have always believed that it was on our part most unjust. The wickedness was not in the way our soldiers conducted it, but in the conduct of our government in declaring war. The troops behaved well in Mexico, and the government acted handsomely about the peace. We had no claim on Mexico. Texas had no claim beyond the Nueces River, and yet we pushed on to the Rio Grande and crossed it. I am always ashamed of my country when I think of that invasion. Once in Mexico, however, and the people, those who had property, were our friends. We could have held Mexico, and made it a permanent section of the Union with the consent of all classes whose consent was worth having. Overtures were made to Scott and Worth to remain in the country with their armies.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

On the Mexican–American War, p. 448 https://archive.org/details/aroundworldgrant02younuoft/page/n4
1870s, Around the World with General Grant (1879)

Courage , Peace , Time , Country

“It is altogether reasonable to conclude that the heavenly bodies, alias worlds, which move or are situate within the circle of our knowledge, as well all others throughout immensity, are each and every one of them possessed or inhabited by some intelligent agents or other, however different their sensations or manners of receiving or communicating their ideas may be from ours, or however different from each other. For why would it not have been as wise or as consistent with the perfections which we adore in God, to have neglected giving being to intelligence in this world as in those other worlds, interspersed with another of various qualities in his immense creation? And inasmuch as this world is thus replenished, we may, with the highest rational certainty infer, that as God has given us to rejoice, and adore him for our being, he has acted consistent with his goodness, in the display of his providence throughout the university of worlds.”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. II Section III - Of The Eternity and Infinitude of Divine Providence

God , Intelligence , Communication , Knowledge

“A Roman emperor sitting at the table surrounded by his bodyguard is a magnificent sight, but when the reason is fear, the magnificence pales. So also when the individual does not dare stand taciturnly by his word, does not stand freely and confidently on the pedestal of a conscious act, but is surrounded by a host of deliberations before and after that render him incapable of getting his eye on the action.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review. By Soren Kierkegaard, 1846 edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong 1978 Princeton University Press P. 68
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

Self-confidence , Fear , Confidence

“Your task as a student of human nature is twofold: First, you must understand and accept the theatrical quality of life. You do not moralize and rail against the role-playing and the wearing of masks so essential to smooth social functioning. In fact, your goal is to play your part on the stage of life with consummate skill, attracting attention, dominating the limelight, and making yourself into a sympathetic hero or heroine. Second, you must not be naive and mistake people’s appearances for reality. You are not blinded by people’s acting skills. You transform yourself into a master decoder of their true feelings, working on your observation skills and practicing them as much as you can in daily life.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Understanding , People , Nature , Reality

Quotes about act page 49

Quotes about act
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