The Pathway of Peace (1923)
Context: There is no path to peace except as the will of peoples may open to it. The way of peace is through agreement, not through force. The question then is not of any ambitious scheme to prevent war, but simply of the constant effort, which is the highest task of statesmanship in relation to every possible cause of strife, to diminish a people's disposition to resort to force and to find a just and reasonable basis for accord. If the energy, ability, and sagacity equal to that now devoted to preparation for war could be concentrated upon such efforts aided by the urgent demands of an intelligent public opinion, addressed not to impossibilities but to the removal or adjustment of actual differences, we should make a sure approach to our goal.
Quotes about agreement
page 5
Grassé, Pierre Paul (1977); Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation. Academic Press, p. 7
Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation (1977)
Context: For those who would still doubt the relevance of our criticisms, another quote from a paper written by two American biologists, King and Jukes (1969), is presented:. These biologists are convinced that the Darwinian credo is correct, and they accept it. They are quite sincere but they are not critical enough. Biochemists and biologists who adhere blindly to the Darwinism theory search for results that will be in agreement with their theories and consequently orient their research in a given direction, whether it be in the field of ecology, ethology, sociology, demography (dynamics of populations), genetics (so-called evolutionary genetics), or paleontology. This intrusion of theories has unfortunate results: it deprives observations and experiments of their objectivity, makes them biased, and, moreover, creates false problems. Heedful of genetics and demography, Darwinians have seldom taken fossils* into consideration, or, and this is more serious, they have applied the laws of genetics to them without making a critical analysis; considering our ignorance of the relationships between fossils, which in most cases are found very far apart and in distinct beds, this approach can only be arbitrary.
A Brief History of Everything (1996)
Context: Gaia's main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, overpopulation, or resource depletion. Gaia's main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement in the noosphere about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot rein in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons. And we reach the worldcentric moral perspective through a difficult and laborious process of interior growth and transcendence.
Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)
Context: Oh, the beautiful utopia, the lovely Christmas dream we can make as soon as we admit that those who govern represent a superior caste, and have hardly any or no knowledge of simple mortals' weaknesses! It would then suffice to make them control one another in hierarchical fashion, to let them exchange fifty papers, at most, among different administrators, when the wind blows down a tree on the national road. Or, if need be, they would have only to be valued at their proper worth, during elections, by those same masses of mortals which are supposed to be endowed with all stupidity in their mutual relations but become wisdom itself when they have to elect their masters.
All the science of government, imagined by those who govern, is imbibed with these utopias. But we know men too well to dream such dreams. We have not two measures for the virtues of the governed and those of the governors; we know that we ourselves are not without faults and that the best of us would soon be corrupted by the exercise of power. We take men for what they are worth — and that is why we hate the government of man by man, and that we work with all our might — perhaps not strong enough — to put an end to it.
But it is not enough to destroy. We must also know how to build, and it is owing to not having thought about it that the masses have always been led astray in all their revolutions. After having demolished they abandoned the care of reconstruction to the middle class people, who possessed a more or less precise conception of what they wished to realize, and who consequently reconstituted authority to their own advantage.
That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement — at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist. Only, instead of demanding that those social customs should be maintained through the authority of a few, it demands it from the continued action of all.
Dr. Wallis's Account of some Passages of his own Life (1696)
Context: About the year 1645 while, I lived in London (at a time, when, by our Civil Wars, Academical Studies were much interrupted in both our Universities:) beside the Conversation of divers eminent Divines, as to matters Theological; I had the opportunity of being acquainted with divers worthy Persons, inquisitive into Natural Philosophy, and other parts of Humane Learning; And particularly of what hath been called the New Philosophy or Experimental Philosophy. We did by agreement, divers of us, meet weekly in London on a certain day, to treat and discourse of such affairs.... Some of which were then but New Discoveries, and others not so generally known and imbraced, as now they are, with other things appertaining to what hath been called The New Philosophy; which, from the times of Galileo at Florence, and Sr. Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated in Italy, France, Germany, and other Parts abroad, as well as with us in England. About the year 1648, 1649, some of our company being removed to Oxford (first Dr. Wilkins, then I, and soon after Dr. Goddard) our company divided. Those in London continued to meet there as before... Those meetings in London continued, and (after the King's Return in 1660) were increased with the accession of divers worthy and Honorable Persons; and were afterwards incorporated by the name of the Royal Society, &c. and so continue to this day.
2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)
Context: Multilateral organizations must respond by taking an unequivocable moral stand against terrorism. No cause can justify the deliberate taking of innocent human life, and the international community is nearing universal agreement on this truth. The vast majority of nations in this assembly now agree that tactics like suicide bombing, hostage-taking, and hijacking are never legitimate. This Security Council has passed resolutions declaring terror unlawful and requiring all nations to crack down on terrorist financing. And earlier this month, the Secretary-General held a conference to highlight victims of terror, where he stated that terrorism can never be justified.
Remarks on the Republican platform (1860)
Context: Whatever might have been the motive, few acts have ever been so barren of good, and so fruitful of evil. The contest has exasperated the public mind. North and South, and engendered feelings of distrust, and I may say hate, that I fear it will take years to wear away. The lamentable tragedy at Harper's Ferry is clearly traceable to this unfortunate controversy about slavery in Kansas.; and while the chief actor in this invasion has exhibited some traits of character which challenge our admiration, yet his fanatical zeal seems to have blinded his moral perceptions, and hurried him into an unlawful attack upon the lives of a peaceful and unoffending community in a sister State, with the evident intention of raising a servile insurrection, which no one can contemplate without horror; and few, I believe very few, can be found so indifferent to the consequences of his acts, or so blinded by fanatical zeal, as not to believe that he justly suffered the penalty of the law which he had violated.
The Whig party North and South having been completely broken up by the perpetration of this great wrong, and the subsequent attempt of the slave power, backed up by the President of the United States, to force slavery upon an unwilling people in Kansas, and by fraud and violence to make Kansas a slave State, a new phase was given to public affairs and to the parties in the country. The Democratic party became greatly divided and distracted by this outrage, and would also have been entirely demolished, if Southern States had not rallied to the support of that party. All the Southern States, with the exception of Maryland, having gone over to the support of the Democratic party, and the aggressions of the Southern propagandists of slavery in their attempt to send slavery everywhere, the Democratic party became essentially a Southern sectional party, inasmuch as very few public men South, of either party, could be sustained by their constituents in opposing these outrageous measures in Congress, and the frauds and rascalities committed in Kansas. All the compacts, resolutions, and agreements, to keep the peace, so recently made, having been broken, confidence was greatly impaired, indeed I may say entirely destroyed, in the Democratic party, and in this state of things a new party was formed, called the Repuulican Party, to resist the Democratic party in its new and alarming attitude of pro-slavery aggression.
Interview by V. K. Ramachandran in Frontline, November 11, 2001 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20011115.htm.
Quotes 2000s, 2001
Context: Right after September 11, the U. S. Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick, said the first thing that had to be done to combat terrorism was to pass fast-track. Now that should really make Osama bin Laden tremble in his boots - that the President has Kremlin-style authority to sign economic agreements.
Autobiography (1873)
Context: Moreover, if the character is formed, and the mind made up, on the few cardinal points of human opinion, agreement of conviction and feeling on these, has been felt in all times to be an essential requisite of anything worthy the name of friendship, in a really earnest mind. All these circumstances united, made the number very small of those whose society, and still more whose intimacy, I now voluntarily sought.
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.
There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.
Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita (1944)
Context: I have tried to show that the Perennial Philosophy and its ethical corollaries constitute a Highest Common Factor, present in all the major religions of the world. To affirm this truth has never been more imperatively necessary than at the present time. There will never be enduring peace unless and until human beings come to accept a philosophy of life more adequate to the cosmic and psychological facts than the insane idolatries of nationalism and the advertising man’s apocalyptic faith in Progress towards a mechanized New Jerusalem. All the elements of this philosophy are present, as we have seen, in the traditional religions. But in existing circumstances there is not the slightest chance that any of the traditional religions will obtain universal acceptance. Europeans and Americans will see no reason for being converted to Hinduism, say, or Buddhism. And the people of Asia can hardly be expected to renounce their own traditions for the Christianity professed, often sincerely, by the imperialists who, for four hundred years and more, have been systematically attacking, exploiting, and oppressing, and are now trying to finish off the work of destruction by “educating” them. But happily there is the Highest Common Factor of all religions, the Perennial Philosophy which has always and everywhere been the metaphysical system of prophets, saints and sages. It is perfectly possible for people to remain good Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or Moslems and yet to be united in full agreement on the basic doctrines of the Perennial Philosophy.
1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Context: It would seem that common sense and reason ought to find a way to reach agreement in every conflict of honest interests. I myself think it our bounden duty to believe in such international rationality as possible. But, as things stand, I see how desperately hard it is to bring the peace-party and the war-party together, and I believe that the difficulty is due to certain deficiencies in the program of pacifism which set the military imagination strongly, and to a certain extent justifiably, against it. In the whole discussion both sides are on imaginative and sentimental ground. It is but one utopia against another, and everything one says must be abstract and hypothetical.
Kennedy's "focus on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution of human institutions." was quoted by Barack Obama in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
1963, American University speech
Context: I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal. Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace — based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace — no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process — a way of solving problems.
"Trinity" article in The Encyclopedia of Religion (1987) Vol 15, Subsection : "Development of Trinitarian Doctrine".
Context: Exegetes and theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity, even though it was customary in past dogmatic tracts on the Trinity to cite texts like Genesis 1:26, "Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness" (see also Gn. 3:22, 11:7; Is. 6:23) as proof of plurality in God. Although the Hebrew Bible depicts God as the father of Israel and employs personifications of God such as Word (davar), Spirit (ruah), Wisdom (hokhmah), and Presence (shekhinah), it would go beyond the intention and spirit of the Old Testament to correlate these notions with later trinitarian doctrine. Further, exegetes and theologians agree that the New Testament also does not contain an explicit doctrine of the Trinity. God the Father is source of all that is (Pantokrator) and also the father of Jesus Christ; "Father" is not a title for the first person of the Trinity but a synonym for God. Early liturgical and creedal formulas speak of God as "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"; praise is to be rendered to God through Christ (see opening greetings in Paul and deutero-Paul).
1940s, Science and Religion (1941)
Context: It would not be difficult to come to an agreement as to what we understand by science. Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thoroughgoing an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization. But when asking myself what religion is I cannot think of the answer so easily. And even after finding an answer which may satisfy me at this particular moment, I still remain convinced that I can never under any circumstances bring together, even to a slight extent, the thoughts of all those who have given this question serious consideration.
The Day the Universe Changed (1985), 1 - The Way We Are
Context: The oldest answers to the most basic questions about how to operate are common to virtually every culture on the planet, because at the simplest level, every culture needs to keep order -- especially this kind: (James Burke displays a wedding ring.) This is one of those things in life we protect most against being changed when knowledge changes us. We protect it by turning it into a ritual. When we get married, or buried, get christened, or anything else too important to play by ear, the event is turned into a kind of play where everybody gets a role they act out. It's a kind of public agreement to stick to the general rules about whatever it is. The people doing it are effectively saying, "No matter what else may change, we won't rock the boat! We're not maverick. You can trust us." Expressions of approval follow. Most of these ritual ways of answering a social need that we got from the past look like it. They include something from an ancient rite -- in this case, the old symbol of fertility: the ring. And then, it's all done in the presence of a supernatural being: a God. So, the agreement is also made under what was once a real threat of heavenly retribution if you broke your promise later on. Some things, this ritual says, must be permanent.
The Relation of the State to the Invididual (1890)
Context: What relations should exist between the State and the Individual? The general method of determining these is to apply some theory of ethics involving a basis of moral obligation. In this method the Anarchists have no confidence. The idea of moral obligation, of inherent rights and duties, they totally discard. They look upon all obligations, not as moral, but as social, and even then not really as obligations except as these have been consciously and voluntarily assumed. If a man makes an agreement with men, the latter may combine to hold him to his agreement; but, in the absence of such agreement, no man, so far as the Anarchists are aware, has made any agreement with God or with any other power of any order whatsoever. The Anarchists are not only utilitarians, but egoists in the farthest and fullest sense. So far as inherent right is concerned, might is its only measure.
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)
Context: I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.
“Responsibility rests upon recognition, and recognition is a form of agreement.”
Prologue.
Invisible Man (1952)
Context: I am one of the most irresponsible beings that ever lived. Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you face it, it is a denial. But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me? And wait until I reveal how truly irresponsible I am. Responsibility rests upon recognition, and recognition is a form of agreement.
1930s, Quarantine Speech (1937)
Context: If civilization is to survive, the principles of the Prince of Peace must be restored. Shattered trust between nations must be revived. Most important of all, the will for peace on the part of peace-loving nations must express itself to the end that nations that may be tempted to violate their agreements and the rights of others will desist from such a cause. There must be positive endeavors to preserve peace. America hates war. America hopes for peace. Therefore, America actively engages in the search for peace.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8306779-human-believe-what-they-want-to-believe-and-individual-could
Greta Thunberg's FB page https://www.facebook.com/732846497083173/posts/853561781678310?s=723487177&sfns=mo, (15 June 2019)
2019
Speech at Heston Airport after his return from Munich (30 September 1938), quoted in The Times (1 October 1938) Oxford Book of Modern Quotes http://hudsoncress.org/html/library/dictionaries/The%20Oxford%20Dictionary%20of%20Modern%20Quotations.pdf(pdf)
Prime Minister
Source: A Way to Be Free: The Autobiography of Robert LeFevre, Volume I, (1999), pp. 18-19
Selected works, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics (1991)
Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/ambedkar_partition/307a.html#part_2
“Intellectual property does not really belong in a trade agreement.”
§4.2 TRIPs, p. 116
Making globalization work (2006)
Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-03-26/debates/C8342F96-62B1-40CC-AB4A-03AFBC46ACBB/UKPassportContract#contribution-8F9BEBCD-C76E-4950-A915-40D5123A853E in the House of Commons (26 March 2018) on the awarding of the contract for the production of new UK passports to Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto
2018
Foreword (1984) to The Market for Liberty (1970)
Vladimir Putin’s news conference, Transcript, Kremlin.ru, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/60857 (29 June 2019)
2019
Vladimir Putin’s news conference, Transcript, Kremlin.ru, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/60857 (29 June 2019)
2019
Speech in Berlin (24 October 1933), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 9
1930s
Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Multinational Firm's Lithium Deal https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/11/bolivian-coup-comes-less-week-after-morales-stopped-multinational-firms-lithium-deal, Common Dreams, Eoin Higgins, (11 November 2019)
About
"Round Table, with the Damsel Parcenet"
Birds of America (1971)
Speech to the National Labour conference at Caxton Hall, London (28 October 1935), quoted in The Times (29 October 1935), p. 9
1930s
Brexit: No deal 'only acceptable' way to leave EU, says Nigel Farage https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49482032 BBC News (27 August 2019)
2019
Twitter, https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/ (4 March 2019)
Twitter account, March 2019
Twitter, https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1146052528997588992 (2 July 2019)
Twitter Quotes (2019), July 2019
Chen Chien-jen (2019) cited in " Holy See values relations with Taiwan: Vice President Chen http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201910120004.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 12 October 2019.
Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa (2019) cited in: " Bahrain foreign minister: Palestinians made a mistake by boycotting peace conference https://www.axios.com/bahrain-peace-conference-foreign-minister-israel-palestine-8e6f5901-9053-4da8-9690-208a132b7de1.html" in Axios, 27 June 2019.
Philip Hammond will 'not exclude' backing no confidence vote to stop no-deal Brexit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49044966 BBC News (19 July 2019)
2019
Philip Hammond on Brexit: Prioritise jobs and living standards https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40339331, BBC News, 20 June 2017
2017
Speech to the annual dinner of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (29 June 1939), quoted in The Times (30 June 1939), p. 9
Foreign Secretary
Newsreel interview (spring 1931), quoted in John Ramsden, A History of the Conservative Party: The Age of Balfour and Baldwin, 1902–1940 (1978), p. 320
1931
Original in German: Ich übe mich an Spinoza, ich lese und lese ihn wieder, und erwarte mit Verlangen biß der Streit über seinen Leichnam losbrechen wird. Ich enthalte mich alles Urtheils doch bekenne ich, daß ich mit Herdern in diesen Materien sehr einverstanden bin.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in one of his letters to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, 1785
G - L, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A slip of the tongue for Zapatero at a joint press conference with Dmitri Medvedev, saying 'follar', to fuck, instead of 'apoyar', to help.
As President, 2008
Source: 20 Minutos: El lapsus de Zapatero: "Un acuerdo para estimular, para favorecer, 'para follar'..." http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/454254/0/lapsus/zapatero/follar/
Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 2 : Key Concepts
Letter to Abd al-Rahman bin Nu'aym, also quoted in History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 24, p. 101
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017
Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), p. 9
A Republic of Innocent Dead Cannot Live https://nationalparty.ie/a-republic-of-innocent-dead-cannot-live/ (June 4, 2018)
Turkish Wikipedia
https://quotestats.com/topic/attila-hun-quotes/
2014 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176036
Source: Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002), p. 34
“An unsatisfactory agreement is less harmful than a successful lawsuit.”
Pt. II, Lib. II, Ch. II.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)
Source: Isaac Herzog (2021) cited in " Iran must be stopped from obtaining a nuclear bomb, with or without deal - Herzog https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-689474" on The Jerusalem Post, 22 December 2021.
“The appeal of any agreement depends on its terms.”
Source: Written testimony before European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, March 17, 2014.
Source: Josip Mrzljak Appointed as the New Bishop of Varaždin https://ika.hkm.hr/english/josip-mrzljak-appointed-as-the-new-bishop-of-varazdin/ (2007)
Source: Bentz discusses wildfires, housing and uniting the country with Chieftain https://www.wallowa.com/news/local/bentz-discusses-wildfires-housing-and-uniting-the-country-with-chieftain/article_16f55588-1889-11eb-9dc1-dfde60328f0c.html (27 October 2020)