Quotes about agreement (468 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Evil , Past , Future

“The agreement of this law with nature will be better seen by the repetition of experiments than by a long explanation.”

Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851) Danish physicist and chemist

Relating his discovery of the magnetic effect of an electric current, in "Experiments on the Effect of a Current of Electricity on the Magnetic Needle", Annals of Philosophy 1820, vol. 16, pp. 273-277.

Law , Nature

“Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

God , Truth , Idea

“You know, schizoid behavior is a pretty common thing in children. It’s accepted, because all we adults have this unspoken agreement that children are lunatics.”

Stephen King book The Shining

The Shining (1977)

Children , Behavior

“Our institutions are no good any more: on that there is universal agreement. However, it is not their fault but ours. Once we have lost all the instincts out of which institutions grow, we lose institutions altogether because we are no longer good for them.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

Twilight of the Idols (1888)

Universe

“In science we must all submit not to what seems to us attractive from one point of view or another, but to what represents an agreement between theory and experiment.”

Dmitri Mendeleev (1834–1907) Russian chemist and inventor

Faraday Lecture, the Royal Institution, London (1889) as quoted by Leon Gray, The Basics of the Periodic Table (2013)

Science

“To begin with, things [after Independence in 1980] went well because [Robert] Mugabe was no fool. He realised [that] it was important to maintain the economy and keep the country expanding. And in any case he was committed to do that by the Lancaster House Agreement which said that there could be no change in [the existing status] for at least seven years unless [he] could get 100% support [from] all the people. In no ways would he have been able to get the support of the white members of Parliament, and also the Matabeles. So we were satisfied that what we were doing was in keeping with the traditions and culture and what was expected of us, and Mugabe used to thank me for coming to see him, [giving] him the benefit of my advice and [telling] him what the white people were thinking. But he only did this for a while because he inherited the best economy in Africa. It was viable. And after two years he quickly changed his mind because he had a lot of money available. He had his [own] commanders in control because he had removed the white commanders who would have taken action against him if he had defied the Lancaster House Agreement before the seven-year [period]. He removed our commanders and put his commanders in so that he knew that he could defy this. And so he breached the Lancaster House Agreement.”

Ian Smith (1919–2007) Prime Minister of Rhodesia

Ian Smith - A Bit Of A Rebel, Ian Smith

Money , People , Fools , Way

“If there is no complete agreement between the results of one's work and the experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

"The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature," Scientific American (May, 1963)

“Everything I undertake is directed against Russia. If the West is too stupid and blind to grasp this, then I shall be compelled to come to an agreement with Russia, beat the West and then after their defeat turn against the Soviet Union with all my forces.”

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

Discussion with Jacob Burckhardt, League of Nation commissioner. Quoted in Norman Rich, Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion pg. 126 https://books.google.com/books?id=1nPPbpXUZA0C&pg=PA126&dq=hitler+is+against+russia+the+west&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR3PP6n5bXAhVC6CYKHTKJB3EQ6AEISjAG#v=onepage&q=hitler%20is%20against%20russia%20the%20west&f=false
1930s

Stupidity

“Let us be under no illusion. The Jewish spirit, which was responsible for the alliance of large-scale capital with Marxism and was the driving force behind so many anti-Spanish revolutionary agreements, will not be got rid of in a day.”

Francisco Franco (1892–1975) Spanish general and dictator

Victory speech in Madrid (19 May 1939)

“You, Knights of Columbus, are particularly fitted to play a great part in the movement for national solidarity, without which there can be no real efficiency in either peace or war. During the last year and a quarter it has been brought home to us in startling fashion that many of the elements of our nation are not yet properly fused. It ought to be a literally appalling fact that members of two of the foreign embassies in this country have been discovered to be implicated in inciting their fellow-countrymen, whether naturalized American citizens or not, to the destruction of property and the crippling of American industries that are operating in accordance with internal law and international agreement. The malign activity of one of these embassies has been brought home directly to the ambassador in such shape that his recall has been forced. The activities of the other have been set forth in detail by the publication in the press of its letters in such fashion as to make it perfectly clear that they were of the same general character. Of course, the two embassies were merely carrying out the instructions of their home governments.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)

War , Peace , Law , Home

“The dictatorship is necessary because it is a case, not of partial changes, but of the very existence of the bourgeoisie. No agreement is possible on this ground. Only force can be the deciding factor.”

Leon Trotsky book Terrorism and Communism

Source: Terrorism and Communism (1920), Ch. 2

Change

“You could no more make an agreement with them than you could nail currant jelly to a wall - and the failure to nail current jelly to a wall is not due to the nail; it is due to the currant jelly.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Letter to William Roscoe Thayer (2 July 1915)
1910s

Failure

“If everybody would agree that their current reality is a reality, and that what we essentially share is our capacity for constructing a reality, then perhaps we could all agree on a meta-agreement for computing a reality that would mean survival and dignity for everyone on the planet, rather than each group being sold on a particular way of doing things.”

Francisco Varela (1946–2001) Chilean biologist

Varela (1975) in: Anne Waldman eds. (1975) The Coevolution quarterly. Nr. 8-12, p. 31

Way , Reality

“These people who have fled inward for their freedom also have to live outwardly, become visible, let themselves be seen; they are united with mankind through countless ties of blood, residence, education, fatherland, chance, the importunity of others; they are likewise presupposed to harbour countless opinions simply because these are the ruling opinions of the time; every gesture which is not clearly a denial counts as agreement.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

trans. Hollingdale, “Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.3, p. 139
Untimely Meditations (1876)

People , Education , Freedom , Chance

“Farabi followed Plato not merely as regards the manner in which he presented the philosophic teaching in his most important books. He held the view that Plato’s philosophy was the true philosophy. To reconcile his Platonism with his adherence to Aristotle, he could take three more or less different ways. First, he could try to show that the explicit teachings of both philosophers can be reconciled with each other. He devoted to this attempt his Concordance of the opinions of Plato and Aristotle. The argument of that work is partly based on the so-called Theology of Aristotle: by accepting this piece of neo-platonic origin as a genuine work of Aristotle, he could easily succeed in proving the substantial agreement of the explicit teachings of both philosophers concerning the crucial subjects. It is however very doubtful whether Farabi considered his Concordance as more than an exoteric treatise, and thus whether it would be wise of us to attach great importance to its explicit argument. Secondly, he could show that the esoteric teachings of both philosophers are identical. Thirdly, he could show that “the aim” of both philosophers is identical.”

Al-Farabi (872–951) Philosopher in 10th century Central Asia

Leo Strauss, Farabi's Plato http://contemporarythinkers.org/leo-strauss/essay/farabis-plato/, Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945. Reprinted, revised and abbreviated, in Persecution and the Art of Writing.

Books , Way

“What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group's conclusion is 'no'. The rich countries won't do it. They won't change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?”

Maurice Strong (1929–2015) Canadian businessman

Maurice Strong, Interview 1992, concerning the plot of a book he would like to write

World , Hope , Change , Country

“Reaching and understanding is the process of bringing about an agreement on the presupposed basis of validity claims that are mutually recognized.”

Jürgen Habermas (1929) German sociologist and philosopher

Source: On the Pragmatics of Communication, 1998, p. 23

Understanding

“I think it's fair to say that maybe some point down the line, there might be a UK-U. S. trade agreement, but it's not going to happen anytime soon, because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done, and the UK is going to be in the back of the queue.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron in Joint Press Conference https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/22/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-cameron-joint-press (22 April 2016). "Barack Obama: Brexit would put UK 'back of the queue' for trade talks" http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/22/barack-obama-brexit-uk-back-of-queue-for-trade-talks, The Guardian.
2016

Thinking

“When I gave a lecture in Japan, I was asked not to mention the possible re-collapse of the universe, because it might affect the stock market. However, I can re-assure anyone who is nervous about their investments that it is a bit early to sell: even if the universe does come to an end, it won't be for at least twenty billion years. By that time, maybe the GATT trade agreement will have come into effect.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

The Beginning of Time (1996)

Universe , Time

“For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence. If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality. It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention – in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being.”

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russian composer, pianist and conductor

Igor Stravinsky (1936). An Autobiography, p. 53-54.
1930s

Music , Feeling , Mood , Nature

“Democrats and Republicans are far apart on a lot of issues. And I recognize there are folks on the other side who think that my policies are misguided. That's putting it mildly. That's OK. That's democracy. That's how it works. We can debate those differences vigorously, passionately, in good faith, through the normal democratic process. And sometimes we'll be just too far apart to forge an agreement. But that should not hold back our efforts in areas where we do agree. We shouldn't fail to act on areas that we do agree or could agree just because we don't think it's good politics, just because the extremes in our party don't like the word "compromise." I will look for willing partners wherever I can to get important work done. And there's no good reason why we can't govern responsibly, despite our differences, without lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013

Faith , Democracy , Thinking , Effort

“We’ll continue to help India deal with the impacts of climate change -- because you shouldn’t have to bear that burden alone. As we keep working for a strong global agreement on climate change, it's young people like you who have to speak up, so we can protect this planet for your generation. I'll be gone when the worst effects happen. It's your generation and your children that are going to be impacted.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Address to the People of India (January 2015)

Children , People , Strong , Change

“A great deal of work is sedentary, and most manual work exercises only a few specialized muscles. When crowds assemble in Trafalgar Square to cheer to the echo an announcement that the government has decided to have them killed, they would not do so if they had all walked twenty-five miles that day. This cure for bellicosity is, however, impracticable, and if the human race is to survive – a thing which is, perhaps, undesirable – other means must be found for securing an innocent outlet for the unused physical energy that produces love of excitement. This is a matter which has been too little considered, both by moralists and by social reformers. The social reformers are of the opinion that they have more serious things to consider. The moralists, on the other hand, are immensely impressed with the seriousness of all the permitted outlets of the love of excitement; the seriousness, however, in their minds, is that of Sin. Dance halls, cinemas, this age of jazz, are all, if we may believe our ears, gateways to Hell, and we should be better employed sitting at home contemplating our sins. I find myself unable to be in entire agreement with the grave men who utter these warnings. The devil has many forms, some designed to deceive the young, some designed to deceive the old and serious. If it is the devil that tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, perhaps, the same personage that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment? And is not condemnation perhaps merely a form of excitement appropriate to old age? And is it not, perhaps, a drug which – like opium – has to be taken in continually stronger doses to produce the desired effect? Is it not to be feared that, beginning with the wickedness of the cinema, we should be led step by step to condemn the opposite political party, dagoes, wops, Asiatics, and, in short, everybody except the fellow members of our club? And it is from just such condemnations, when widespread, that wars proceed. I have never heard of a war that proceeded from dance halls.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

Love , Men , War , Age

“The people were merely to acknowledge the authority of the Führer, or, let us say, to declare themselves in agreement with the Führer. If they gave the Führer their confidence then it was their concern to exercise the other functions. Thus, not the individual persons were to be selected according to the will of the people, but solely the leadership itself.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

Statement (18 March 1946) Cross Examination of Hermann Goering "Eighty-Fourth Day, Monday, 3/18/1946, Part 16" http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/Goering1.html in Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal Vol. IX. Proceedings: 3/8/1946-3/23/1946 (1947)

People , Exercises , Confidence , Personality

“[D]emocracy is not something that is static; it’s something that we constantly have to work on. […]democracy is a little messier than alternative systems of government, but that’s because democracy allows everybody to have a voice. And that system of government lasts, and it’s legitimate, and when agreements are finally struck, you know that nobody is being left out of the conversation. And that’s the reason for our stability and our prosperity.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Joint news conference with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at Government House, Bangkok, Thailand on November 18, 2012 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/18/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-shinawatra-joint-press-confer
2012

Democracy

“But the current convulsions arising out of the Arab Spring remind us that a just and lasting peace cannot be measured only by agreements between nations. It must also be measured by our ability to resolve conflict and promote justice within nations.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly (24 September 2013) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/24/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly
2013

Peace , Justice , Spring

“Men keep their agreements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them; and I shall so frame my laws that it will be evident to the Athenians that it will be for their interest to observe them.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Reported in George Shelley Hughs, Ancient Civilizations (1896), p. 596.

Men , Law

“Here you should be guided by the words of St. Paul, I Corinthians 7 [:4–5], “The husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does; likewise the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does. Do not deprive each other, except by agreement,” etc. Notice that St. Paul forbids either party to deprive the other, for by the marriage vow each submits his body to the other in conjugal duty. When one resists the other and refuses the conjugal duty she is robbing the other of the body she had bestowed upon him. This is really contrary to marriage, and dissolves the marriage. For this reason the civil government must compel the wife, or put her to death. If the government fails to act, the husband must reason that his wife has been stolen away and slain by robbers; he must seek another. We would certainly have to accept it if someone’s life were taken from him. Why then should we not also accept it if a wife steals herself away from her husband, or is stolen away by others?”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

The Estate of Marriage, 1522, translated by Walther I. Brandt, from Luther's Works, Vol. 45, pp. 32-34); as quoted in Martin Luther: Execute Adulterers, Witches, Frigid Wives, & Prostitutes, Pagadian Diocese http://www.pagadiandiocese.org/2017/10/30/martin-luther-execute-adulterers-witches-frigid-wives-prostitutes/, October 26, 2017, Dave Armstrong

Life , Death , Marriage

“A party should not contain utterly incongruous elements, radically divided on the real issues, and acting together only on false and dead issues insincerely painted as real and vital. It should not in the several States as well as in the Nation be prostituted to the service of the baser type of political boss. It should be so composed that there should be a reasonable agreement in the actions taken by it both in the Nation and in the several States.
Judged by these standards, both of the old parties break down.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

"Platform Insincerity" in The Outlook, Vol. 101, No. 13 (27 July 1912), p. 660
1910s

Painting , Falseness , Dead

“Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Speech at AIPAC Policy Conference (4 June 2008) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91150432&ft=1&f=1102
2008

People

“The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all. It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language. It is the religion whose book - the Quran - will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2002, Letter to the American people (2002)

Love , God , People , Books

“Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for human rights. Investments in development. All these are vital ingredients in bringing about the evolution that President Kennedy spoke about. And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more — and that's the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there's something irreducible that we all share.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)

Imagination , Support , Strong

“I don't like criticizing Milton Friedman not only because he is an old friend but because, outside of monetary theory, we are in complete agreement. Our general views on what is desired and what is not are almost identical until we get on to money. But if I told him what I said before, that I very much doubt whether monetary policy has ever done anything good, he would disagree. He personally is convinced that a good monetary policy is a foundation for everything.”

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

Exclusive Interview with F.A. Hayek by James U. Blanchard III, in Cato Policy Report (May/June 1984)
1980s and later

Money , Personality

“Those animals which are incapable of making binding agreements with one another not to inflict nor suffer harm are without either justice or injustice; and likewise for those peoples who either could not or would not form binding agreements not to inflict nor suffer harm.”

Epicurus (-341–-269 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

32
Sovereign Maxims

People , Justice , Suffering , Animals

“It is impossible for a man who secretly violates the terms of the agreement not to harm or be harmed to feel confident that he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand times; for until his death he is never sure that he will not be detected.”

Epicurus (-341–-269 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

35
Sovereign Maxims

Death , Feeling , Confidence , Time

“Fragment 3. The harmony is generally the result of contraries; for it is the unity of multiplicity, and the agreement of discordances.”

Philolaus (-470–-390 BC) ancient greek philosopher

Nicom.Arith.2:509
The Life of Pythagoras (1919)

“Peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We must embrace international cooperation or international disintegration”

Bernard Baruch (1870–1965) American businessman

Address to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (14 June 1946)
Context: Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race. Peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We must embrace international cooperation or international disintegration. Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human dignity. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.

Peace , Understanding

“But how can we in good conscience justify war before we’ve tested a diplomatic agreement that achieves our objectives; that has been agreed to by Iran; that is supported by the rest of the world; and that preserves our options if the deal falls short? How could we justify that to our troops? How could we justify that to the world or to future generations? In the end, that should be a lesson that we’ve learned from over a decade of war. On the front end, ask tough questions. Subject our own assumptions to evidence and analysis. Resist the conventional wisdom and the drumbeat of war. Worry less about being labeled weak; worry more about getting it right.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President on the Iran Nuclear Deal at American University in Washington, D.C. (August 05, 2015) https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/08/05/remarks-president-iran-nuclear-deal
2015

Question , War , Support , Future

“As a social bond, now one does not find even a faith of the warrior kind, that is, relationships of loyalty and honour. The social bond assumes a utilitarian and economic character; it is an agreement based on convenience and material interest — a type only a merchant would accept.”

Julius Evola (1898–1974) Italian philosopher and esotericist

Gli Uomini e le Rovine (1953), p. 34

Loyalty , Faith

“In fact the opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1910s, Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), p. 21

“As regards the security of a country against foreign invasion, it is interesting to note that it depends only on the relative, and not the absolute, number of the individuals or magnitude of the forces, and that, if every country should reduce the war-force in the same ratio, the security would remain unaltered. An international agreement with the object of reducing to a minimum the war-force which, in view of the present still imperfect education of the masses, is absolutely indispensable, would, therefore, seem to be the first rational step to take toward diminishing the force retarding human movement.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Education , War , Dependency , Country

“The sweet spot is acknowledging that we have pressure on our infrastructure. And I think, actually, that is common ground between all parties that will form this government because there is undoubtedly strain based on the fact that we have had a government that’s entire growth agenda has been based on population growth rather than focusing on making sure that we move to a productive economy. Our view is that it is about the settings. It is about making sure that we are meeting the skills gaps that we have – and we do have them in New Zealand – meeting those skills gaps by making sure that we are undertaking those work tests, by making sure that our export education industry isn’t exploiting people, and by making sure that people on temporary work visas aren’t exploited either. That’s the area we’re focused on, and there’s agreement there.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

On her immigration policy.
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

Education , Thinking , Making love , People

“But if we discard this definition of a people, and, assuming another, say that a people is an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love, then, in order to discover the character of any people, we have only to observe what they love. Yet whatever it loves, if only it is an assemblage of reasonable beings and not of beasts, and is bound together by an agreement as to the objects of love, it is reasonably called a people; and it will be a superior people in proportion as it is bound together by higher interests, inferior in proportion as it is bound together by lower.”

Aurelius Augustinus book The City of God

XIX, 24
The City of God (early 400s)

Love , Making love , People

“Love this job," Sanya murmured. "Just love it."
"I need to challenge more people to duels," Thomas said in agreement.
"Men are pigs," Murphy said.
"Amen," said Molly.
Lea gave me a prim look and said, "I've not sacrificed a holy virgin in ages.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

Love , Men , People , Age

“Sanity - a trick of agreement”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

“You’re going to have to learn to ride a horse on your own, Phaedra', he said. 'It will make the journey faster.'

'The mule and I have an agreement.'

'The mule and you have similar traits.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Quintana of Charyn

Learning , Horse

“Hardly anyone still reads nowadays. People make use of the writer only in order to work off their own excess energy on him in a perverse manner, in the form of agreement or disagreement.”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

Source: The Man Without Qualities

People , Reading

“It seems to me that in the orbit of our world you are the North Pole, I the South--so much in balance, in agreement--and yet… the whole world lies between.”

Thomas Wolfe book You Can't Go Home Again

Source: You Can't Go Home Again

World

“She smiled smugly. “We came to an agreement, the duck and I.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Smile

“Was that Will?" she said finally.
Henry arched one ginger eyebrow. "Perhaps he's been kidnapped and replaced by an automaton," he suggested. "It seems possible…"
For once Charlotte could only find herself in agreement.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“Maybe one day it will be just you and me, my little blueberry," Magnus said conversationally. "But not for a long, long time. We'll take care of him, you and I. Won't we?"
Max Lightwood made a happy burbling sound that Magnus took as agreement.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Born to Endless Night

Time , Happiness

“Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had an agreement not to lie to each other.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Lie

“I had a standing agreement with god. I'd agree to believe in him, barely, so long as he let me sleep in on Sundays.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Variant: I had a standing arrangement with God: I'd agree to believe in him—barely—so long as he let me sleep in on Sundays.
Source: Vampire Academy

God , Sleep

“Eye contact was a delicate matter. A quarter second of a shared glance was a violation of agreements that made the city operational.”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

“I have some extra costumes-"
"No!" Ephialtes snapped, and for once Percy was in agreement.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“THERE is widespread agreement among economists that abuse of credit constitutes one of the chief unwholesome elements in business booms and is mainly responsible for the ensuing crash and depression.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Part III, Chapter XIII, The Reservoir Plan and Credit Control, p. 153
Storage and Stability (1937)

Business

“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Pleasure , World , Peace , Law

“I wish to assure you that there can never be any return to the state of armed conflict which existed before our commitment to peace and the democratic process of election under the Lancaster House agreement.”

Robert Mugabe (1924–2019) former President of Zimbabwe

Address to the nation by the Prime Minister-elect http://web.archive.org/web/20040312141228/http://www.gta.gov.zw/Presidential+Speeches/1980_Nat_Add.html
Broadcast speech on Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Television, 4 March 1980, on winning the election.
1980s

Peace , Housing

“I agree with him that we are going to work together for having this strategic agreement between United States and Iraq, and also to continue our cooperation in our struggle against terrorism and for promotion of democracy in Iraq and in Middle East.”

Jalal Talabani (1933–2017) Iraqi politician

Statement made at a meeting with President George W. Bush — reported in Olivier Knox (June 25, 2008) "Bush, Talabani work on US-Iraq security pact", Agence France-Presse.

Democracy

“Thus it was that Sherman, after his interview with the President on board the River Queen, became impressed with the latter's desire to terminate hostilities without further bloodshed, and that the most liberal terms should be conceded to his opponents. Why it was that such a howl was sent up at the North when General Sherman entered into an agreement with General Johnston I don't know, especially as that agreement was to be submitted to the Government for confirmation. There are points in those terms of capitulation which, it seems to me, should only have been decided upon by the Government itself, which, it will be perceived, is what General Sherman intended in the agreement drawn up between him and General Johnston. He had been so impressed with the President's views of concluding a peace that he desired only to carry out after his death what he supposed to be his policy, and which, if living, he felt certain Mr. Lincoln would have approved. At least he would have considered it, and would not have 'rejected it with the disdain' exhibited by the new President, Andrew Johnson, through his Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 317

Death , Hostility , War , Peace

“In pre-war correspondence, Lee castigated the abolitionists for their political activity, and he never showed any qualms about the social order that he would later defend with arms. He also had a few slaves that he inherited as part of a will agreement, with provisions to emancipate those slaves. But in fact, he dragged his heels in complying with the terms of that will. And he never gave a second thought to the fact that his beloved Arlington mansion was run by slave labor.”

Brooks D. Simpson (1957) American historian

2000s, Intelligence Report: Rebels With A Cause (2000)

War , Parting

“Two years before the war the then Government of Lord Oxford was confronted with an epidemic of strikes. The quarrel of one trade became the quarrel of all. This was the sympathetic strike…In the hands of one set of leaders, it perhaps meant no more than obtaining influence to put pressure on employers to better the conditions of the men. But in the hands of others it became an engine to wage what was beginning to be called class warfare, and the general strike which first began to be talked about was to be the supreme instrument by which the whole community could be either starved or terrified into submission to the will of its promoters. There was a double attitude at work in the same movement: the old constitutional attitude…of negotiations, keeping promises made collectively, employing strikes where negotiations failed; and on the other hand the attempt to transform the whole of this great trade union organization into a machine for destroying the system of private enterprise, of substituting for it a system of universal State employment…What was to happen afterwards was never very clear. The only thing clear was the first necessity to smash up the existing system. This was a profound breach with the past, and in its origin it was from a foreign source, and, like all those foreign revolutionary instances, it has been very largely secretive and subterranean. This attitude towards agreements and contracts has been a departure from the British tradition of open and straight dealing. The propaganda is a propaganda of hatred and envy.”

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

Speech in Chippenham (12 June 1926), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), pp. 164-165.
1926

Men , War , Secret , Communication

“Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true; everything that is not puts us in a rage.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

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

Rage , Personality

“These 100 books do not agree on everything – and that's OK too. You don't need total agreement when you're an open-hearted, decentralist, experimentalist New Ager. After the Prison and its institutions lose their hold over us, you won't even want such agreement. Within the parameters of certain life-affirming values, you'll want a hundred flowers to bloom. Synergy is all; cooperation and coordination is all.”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Page 180. The phrase "100 books" refers to Satin's list of 100 great New Age political books published since 1976. The term "Prison" refers to the Prison of consciousness, the basal concept in Satin's book.
New Age Politics: Our Only Real Alternative (2015)

Life , Books , Flowers , Heart

“The main lesson for Europe and the world is clear: as a matter of urgency, globalization must be fundamentally re-oriented. The main challenges of our times are the rise in inequality and global warming. We must therefore implement international treaties enabling us to respond to these challenges and to promote a model for fair and sustainable development. Agreements of a new type can, if necessary, include measures aimed at facilitating these exchanges. But the question of liberalizing trade should no longer be the main focus. Trade must once again become a means in the service of higher ends. It never should have become anything other than that.”

Thomas Piketty (1971) French economist

We must rethink globalization, or Trumpism will prevail (16 November 2016)

World , Question , Time

“Once standards of procedures and the allocation of tasks and authority become the subject of normative agreements, the cost of change greatly increased. Normative agreements constrain adaptation in at least two ways. First, they provide a justification and an organizing principle for those elements that wish to resist reorganization (i. e. they can resist in terms of a shared principle). Second, normative agreements preclude the serious consideration of many alternative responses.”

Michael T. Hannan (1943) US-American sociologist of Stanford University

Source: "The Population Ecology of Organizations," 1977, p. 931

Way , Change

“In regard to man’s final end, all the higher religions are in complete agreement. The purpose of human life is the discovery of Truth, the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. The degree to which this unitive knowledge is achieved here on earth determines the degree to which it will be enjoyed in the posthumous state. Contemplation of truth is the end, action the means.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita (1944)

Life , Truth , Religion , Knowledge

“[I]f a politician won't trust you, why should you trust him? If he's a man — and you're not — what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If "he" happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she's eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn't want you to have?
On the other hand — or the other party — should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?
Makes voting simpler, doesn't it? You don't have to study every issue — health care, international trade — all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Why Did it Have to be ... Guns?" (3 August 1999).

Women , Hate , Health , Feeling

“Institutionalism purportedly represents a distinctive approach to the study of social, economic, and political phenomena; yet it is often easier to gain agreement about what it is not than about what it is.”

Paul DiMaggio (1951) American sociologist

Source: Introduction to The New Institutionalism and Organizational Analysis, 1991, p. 1

Study

“We are in agreement with him in his conviction that the laborer must be protected 'against the burdens of the good-for-nothing'. We want no such additions to our population as those who prey upon our institutions or our property. America has, in the popular mind, been an asylum for those who have been driven from their homes in foreign countries because of various forms of political and religious oppression. But America can not afford to remain an asylum after such people have passed the portals and begun to share the privileges of our institutions.”

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

1920s, Whose Country Is This? (1921)

People , Home , Country

“As I consider a future political and economic agreement with Great Russia to be the immutable aim of our foreign policy, we must attempt at least not to make an enemy of Russia…I refuse to support Poland, even if that means that Poland will be eaten up. On the contrary, I reckon with this, and if at the moment we cannot help Russia to regain her old Imperial frontiers, we should at least not hinder her from doing so…The same applies to Lithuania and Latvia.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Letter to General von Massow (31 January 1920), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 67-68.

Support , Future , Help

“Does the hon. Gentleman accept that some of us oppose the agreement for reasons other than those that he has given? We believe that the agreement strengthens rather than weakens the border between the six and the 26 counties, and those of us who wish to see a United Ireland oppose the agreement for that reason.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/nov/27/anglo-irish-agreement in the House of Commons (27 November 1985) on the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
1980s

“under reward power, communications are likely to consist of promises and exchanges of information regarding the positive outcomes each side has in store for the other, thus increasing the likelihood of a mutually satisfactory agreement.”

Arie W. Kruglanski (1939) American psychologist

Source: "Conflict and power." 1970, p. 91

Communication

“I think the word of the United States has been as good as gold in its international dealings and its agreements.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

News conference in Ottawa, Canada http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/26/113322/93, October 26, 2005.

Thinking

“Not only must philosophy be in agreement with our empirical knowledge of Nature, but the origin and formation of the Philosophy of Nature presupposes and is conditioned by empirical physics. However, the course of a science's origin and the preliminaries of its construction are one thing, while the science itself is another. In the latter, the former can no longer appear as the foundation of the science; here, the foundation must be the necessity of the Concept.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1816)

Nature , Knowledge , Appearance , Science

“At the first stages of negotiations, we will not release prisoners with blood on their hands. However, as part of a final agreement, I do not rule out this option. Offering hope for a better future is more important than grieving the past.”

Amir Peretz (1952) Israeli politician

Source: TV interview by Menashe Raz, Oded Shachar and Maya Bengal, on Channel 1, October 16, 2005.

Hope , Past , Future , Parting

“It so coincided that Marcos had money. After the Bretton Woods agreement he started buying gold from Fort Knox. Three thousand tons, then 4,000 tons. I have documents for these: 7,000 tons. Marcos was so smart. He had it all. It's funny; America didn't understand him.”

Imelda Marcos (1929) Former First Lady of the Philippines

Quoted in " Queen of the Quirky, Imelda Marcos Holds Court http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07EED81E39F937A35750C0A960958260" at the New York Times (4 March 1996).

Money , Understanding

“Truth be told, I'm not an easy man. I can be an entertaining one, though it's been my experience that most people don't want to be entertained. They want to be comforted. And, of course, my idea of entertaining might not be yours. I'm in complete agreement with all those people who say, regarding movies, "I just want to be entertained." This populist position is much derided by my academic colleagues as simpleminded and unsophisticated, evidence of questionable analytical and critical acuity. But I agree with the premise, and I too just want to be entertained. That I am almost never entertained by what entertains other people who just want to be entertained doesn't make us philosophically incompatible. It just means we shouldn't go to movies together.”

Richard Russo book Straight Man

Prologue.
Straight Man (1997)

People , Truth , Idea , Question

“Corporate globalization and the economic agreements designed to entrench it have little to do with trade — and all but the most ignorant neo-liberal pundits surely know this too.”

David McNally (1953) Canadian political scientist

Source: Another World Is Possible : Globalization and Anti-capitalism (2002), Chapter 2, Globalization - It's Not About Free Trade, p. 30

“There is no place for concern that it would change the structure and operation of the EU in a radical way. 90% of the constitution agreement is already in the current agreements. The innovations in the draft will clarify the structure of the EU and make its activity more efficient, as well as strengthen citizens’ rights.”

Egils Levits (1955) Latvian judge, jurist and politician

Egils Levits (Latvian ECJ Judge), Quoted in “Latvijas avize”, 21 June 2004

Way , Change

“Months later, Roger Cohen would write in The New York Time that preventing an attack on Banja Luka was "an acto of consummate Realpolitik" on our part, since letting the Federation [of Bosnia-Herzegovina] take the city would have "derailed" the peace process. Cohen, one of the most knowledgeable journalists to cover the was, misunderstood our motives in opposing an attack on Banja Luka. A true practitioner of Realpolitik would have encouraged the attack regardless of its human consequences. In fact, humanitarian concerns decided the case for me. Given the harsh behavior of Federation troops during the offensive, it seemed certain that the fall of Banja Luka would lead to forced evictions and random murders. I did not think the United States should contribute to the creation of new refugees and more human suffering in order to take a city that would have to be returned later. Revenge might be a central part of the ethos of the Balkans, but American policy could not be party of it. Our responsibility was to implement the American national interest, as best as we could determine it. But I am no longer certain we were right to oppose an attack on Banja Luka. Had we known then that the Bosnian Serbs would have been able to defy or ignore so many of the key political provisions of the peace agreement in 1996 and 1997, the negotiating team might not have opposed such an attack. However, even with American encouragement, it is by no means certain that an attack would have taken palce - or, if it had, that it would have been successful. Tuđman would have had to carry the burden of the attack, and the Serb lines were already stiffening. The Croatian Army had just taken heavy casualties on the Sarva. Furthermore, if it fell, Banja Luka would either have gone to the Muslims or been returned later to the Serbs, thus making it of dubious value to Tuđman. There was another intriguing factor in the equation - one of the few things that Milošević and Izetbegović had agreed on. Banja Luka, they both said, was the center of moderate, anti-Pale sentiment within the Bosnian Serb community, and should be built up in importance as a center of opposition to Pale. Izetbegovic himself was ambivalent about taking the city, and feared that if it fell, it would only add to Croat-Bosnian tensions.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 166-167

Fear , Peace , Behavior , Communication

“SPAN ID=The_process_by>The process by means of which human beings can arbitrarily make certan things stand for other things may be called the symbolic process. Whenever two or more human beings can communicate with each other, they can, by agreement, make anything stand for anything. For example, here are two symbols:
X Y
We can agree to let X stand for buttons and Y for bows; then we can freely change our agreement and let X stand for […] North Korea, and Y for South Korea. We are, as human beings, uniquely free to manufacture and manipulate and assign values to our symbols as we please. Indeed, we can go further by making symbols that stand for symbols. […] This freedom to create symbols of any assigned value and to create symbols that stand for symbols is essential to what we call the symbolic process. </SPAN”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Symbolic Process, p. 24

Communication , Freedom , Change

“I voted against NAFTA, GATT, and Permanent Most Favored Nation status for China, in great part because I felt they were bad deals for Wisconsin businesses and Wisconsin workers. At the time I voted against those agreements, I thought they would result in lost jobs for my state. But, Mr. President, even as an opponent of those trade agreements, I had no idea just how bad things would be.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

[Senator Russ Feingold Statement on CAFTA (press release), http://feingold.senate.gov:80/~feingold/statements/05/06/2005630A45.html, feingold.senate.gov, 20 August 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20080412072326/http://feingold.senate.gov:80/~feingold/statements/05/06/2005630A45.html, April 12, 2008, June 30, 2005]
2005

Idea , Business , Time , Parting

“Never mind what you were doing, Olaf said. You're fired!
You can't fire me! Esme growled. I quit!
Well, you can leave by mutual agreement, Olaf grumbled and then with another succinct Ha! he lifted the harpoon gun and pointed it at Dewey Denouement.”

Daniel Handler book The Penultimate Peril

The Penultimate Peril (2005)

“As all the aims of the religious Emperor were directed to the spreading of the law of Islam and the overthrow of the practices of the infidels, he issued orders to the high diwani officers that from Wednesday, the 2nd April 1679 / 1st Rabi I, in obedience to the Quranic injunction, “till they pay commutation money (Jizyah) out of their hand and they be humbled”, and in agreement with the canonical tradition, Jizyah should be collected from the infidels (zimmis) of the capital and the provinces. Many of the honest scholars of the time were appointed to discharge the work (of collecting Jizyah). May God actuate him (Emperor Aurangzeb) to do that which He loves and is pleased with, and make his future life better than the present.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

2nd April 1679 (Maasir-i-‘Alamgiri, p. 175, Tr. J.N. Sarkar), quoted in Shourie, Arun (2014). Eminent historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India : HarperCollins Publishers.
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1670s

Love , Life , Money , God

“under reward power, communications are likely to consist of promises and exchanges of information regarding the positive outcomes each side has in store for the other, thus increasing the likelihood of a mutually satisfactory agreement.”

Bertram Raven (1926) American psychologist

Source: "Conflict and power." 1970, p. 91

Communication

“Ranil Wickremesinghe: We recognize the People's Republic of China, as it was established. We signed one of the first trade agreements with China. With a further development by successful governments, whatever political hue. So we'd like to continue that close relationship with China. Of course, from time to time, there can be issues that arise, but I'm sure we could… we're confident that dispute those issues, the relationship will not be altered in a significant way. In addition to the fact that there's a government [2x] relationship, the main political party also have their individual relationship with the Communist Party of China.”

Ranil Wickremesinghe (1949) Former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka

Wickremesighe's response on relations with China and foreign investments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rnxr-5fDco

People , Way , Confidence , Time

“Since it's not considered polite, and surely not politically-correct to come out and actually say that greed gets wonderful things done, let me go through a few of the millions of examples of the benefits of people trying to get more for themselves. There's probably widespread agreement that it's a wonderful thing that most of us own cars. Is there anyone who believes that the reason we have cars is because Detroit assembly line workers care about us? It's also wonderful that Texas cattle ranchers make the sacrifices of time and effort caring for steer so that New Yorkers can have beef on their supermarket shelves. It is also wonderful that Idaho potato growers arise early to do back-breaking work in the hot sun to ensure that New Yorkers also have potatoes on their supermarket shelves. Again, is there anyone who believes that ranchers and potato growers, who make these sacrifices, do so because they care about New Yorkers? They might hate New Yorkers. New Yorkers have beef and potatoes because Texas cattle ranchers and Idaho potato growers care about themselves and they want more for themselves. How much steak and potatoes would New Yorkers have if it all depended on human love and kindness? I would feel sorry for New Yorkers. Thinking this way bothers some people because they are more concerned with the motives behind a set of actions rather than the results. This is what Adam Smith, the father of economics, meant in The Wealth of Nations when he said, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interests."”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, Markets, Governments, and the Common Good

Love , Hate , People , Cars

“The schedule is a moral contract or agreement with the men as to a particular machine operation, rate of wages and time. Any change in men [etc. ] calls for a new schedule.”

Harrington Emerson (1853–1931) American efficiency engineer and business theorist

Harrington Emerson, as cited in: Horace Bookwalter Drury (1918) Scientific Management: A History and Criticism http://archive.org/stream/scientificmanag00druruoft#page/140/mode/2up. p. 142

Men , Change , Time

“We all feel a separateness; we wish that a drop of water would soften our ego; the world needs a common conscience: agreement.... we must concentrate outside ourselves.”

Mark Tobey (1890–1976) American abstract expressionist painter

Quote from Tobey's Bahai lecture, 1951; as quoted in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, pp. 66/67
1950's

World , Feeling , Water

“Unless disputants understand the meaning attached by each other to the terms of a controversy, they may worry along indefinitely without making an inch of progress. The contending parties may think they agree on the proposition, when, as a matter of fact, their apparent agreement is due to ambiguity in the use of the terms. On the other hand, the contending parties may work themselves into a quarrel over imaginary disagreements concerning ideas, when in fact they are merely confused as to the meaning of words. Disputes which seem interminable are sometimes ended abruptly and happily upon the accidental discovery that the parties in dispute agreed all the time as to the real questions at issue, while neither side understood what the other side meant.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 24 ; as cited in: Branham (2013, p. 38)

Idea , Understanding , Question , Thinking

“All ideological differences set apart, I cannot help having a sincere admiration for Mr Brezhnev. He is to all appearances an outstanding diplomat. He abides by the policy of peaceful co-existence as laid down by the Helsinki agreement. And he has succeeded in making his country as powerful as it is today: the first nuclear power in the world, soon to be he first maritime power; as for the land and air forces, their superiority is so great that it bears no comparison.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Page 142
Publications, The Shah's Story (1980), On world leaders and statesmen

World , Peace , Appearance , Help

“We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed. Yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide. We need to work with allied democratic governments to reach international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning. And we need to do everything we can at home to reduce the risks of extremism online.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech after the London Bridge attack (4 June 2017)

Home

“Either the State for ever, crushing individual and local life, taking over in all fields of human activity, bringing with it its wars and its domestic struggles for power, its palace revolutions which only replace one tyrant by another, and inevitably at the end of this development there is … death!
Or the destruction of States, and new life starting again in thousands of centers on the principle of the lively initiative of the individual and groups and that of free agreement.
The choice lies with you!”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

X, Closing lines
The State — Its Historic Role (1897)

Life , Death , War

“Harmony is pure love, for love is complete agreement.”

Lope De Vega Fuenteovejuna

Armonía es puro amor, porque el amor es concierto.
Fuenteovejuna (1613), Barrildo, Act I.

Love

“Opinion considers the opposition of what is true and false quite rigid, and, confronted with a philosophical system, it expects agreement or contradiction. And in an explanation of such a system, opinion still expects to find one or the other.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book The Phenomenology of Spirit

Preface, § 2
The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)

Falseness

“Progress in these policies can only be brought about if a considerable degree of consensus exists within our country. I have heard some doubt expressed as to what consensus means…Consensus means deliberately setting out to achieve the widest possible measure of agreement about our national policies, in this particular case about our economic activities, in the pursuit of a better standard of living for our people and a happier and more prosperous country. If there be any doubt about the desirability of working towards such a consensus let us recognize that every successful industrialized country in the modern world has been working on such a basis.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech to the Federation of Conservative Students in Manchester (6 October 1981), quoted in The Times (7 October 1981), p. 6. Margaret Thatcher had read Heath's advance text and responded http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104712 by saying that "To me consensus seems to be—the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects".
Post-Prime Ministerial

People , World , Success , Country

“But, yet acquired qualities should always have a certain agreement and a certain union with our own natural qualities, which they imperceptibly extend and increase.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), VII. On Air and Manner

Nature

“All, then, are agreed on the pressing nature of this problem, all are bent on its solution, and though it would doubtless be quite Utopian to expect a similar agreement as to the value of any remedy that may be proposed, it is at least of immense importance that, on a subject thus universally regarded as of supreme importance, we have such a consensus of opinion at the outset. This will be the more remarkable and the more hopeful sign when it is shown, as I believe will be conclusively shown in this work, that the answer to this, one of the most pressing questions of the day, makes of comparatively easy solution many other problems which have hitherto taxed the ingenuity of the greatest thinkers and reformers of our time. Yes, the key to the problem how to restore the people to the land — that beautiful land of ours, with its canopy of sky, the air that blows upon it, the sun that warms it, the rain and dew that moisten it — the very embodiment of Divine love for man — is indeed a Master-Key, for it is the key to a portal through which, even when scarce ajar, will be seen to pour a flood of light on the problems of intemperance, of excessive toil, of restless anxiety, of grinding poverty — the true limits of Governmental interference, ay, and even the relations of man to the Supreme Power.”

Ebenezer Howard (1850–1928) British writer, founder of the garden city movement

Introduction.
Garden Cities of To-morrow (1898)

Love , People , Beauty , Hope