Quotes about allowance
page 11

Brigham Young photo
Sher Shah Suri photo

“Sher Shah Sur’s name is associated in our textbooks with the Grand Trunk Road from Peshawar to Dacca, with caravanserais, and several other schemes of public welfare. It is true that he was not a habitual persecutor of Hindus before he became the emperor at Delhi. But he did not betray Islam when he became the supreme ruler. The test came at Raisen in 1543 AD. Shaykh Nurul Haq records in Zubdat-ul-Tawarikh as follows: “In the year 950 H., Puranmal held occupation of the fort of Raisen… He had 1000 women in his harem… and amongst them several Musulmanis whom he made to dance before him. Sher Khan with Musulman indignation resolved to conquer the fort. After he had been some time engaged in investing it, an accommodation was proposed and it was finally agreed that Puranmal with his family and children and 4000 Rajputs of note should be allowed to leave the fort unmolested. Several men learned in the law (of Islam) gave it as their opinion that they should all be slain, notwithstanding the solemn engagement which had been entered into. Consequently, the whole army, with the elephants, surrounded Puranmal’s encampment. The Rajputs fought with desperate bravery and after killing their women and children and burning them, they rushed to battle and were annihilated to a man.””

Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545) founder of Sur Empire in Northern India

Zubdat-ul-Tawarikh quoted in Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. Chapter 7 ISBN 9788185990231

Stephenie Meyer photo
Max Stirner photo
Muammar Gaddafi photo

“What's going on? … What you are doing is not allowed in Islamic law [halal]. What you are doing is forbidden in Islam [haraam]! … Do you know right from wrong?”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Remarks to captors minutes before death, quoted in msnbc.com (2011 October 21) "Even stashed in a meat locker, Gadhafi divides Libya" http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44986347/ns/today-today_news/t/battle-over-body-delays-gadhafis-burial/

Nile Kinnick photo
Chinua Achebe photo
Queen Rania of Jordan photo
Michael Badnarik photo
Rod Serling photo
Roy Jenkins photo

“In retrospect we might have been more cautious about allowing the creation in the 1950s of substantial Muslim communities here, although when one observes the, in some ways, greater problems which France and Germany have in this respect, it is an illusion to believe that in the integrated world of today any major country can remain exclusively indigenous.”

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

'On Race Relations and the Rushdie Affair', The Independent Magazine (4 March 1989), p. 16, quoted in Elham Manea, Women and Shari'a Law: The Impact of Legal Pluralism in the UK (I.B. Tauris, 2016), p. 256.
1980s

Stephen King photo
Sukarno photo
Czeslaw Milosz photo

“What is this enigmatic impulse that does not allow one to settle down in the achieved, the finished? I think it is a quest for reality.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

Nobel lecture (8 December 1980)

Joe Biden photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Your unforgivable sins do not allow you to see my splendor.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"The masked dyer Hakim of Merv" [El tintorero enmascarado Hakim de Merv] Universal History of Infamy (1935); also translated as "Hakim, Masked Dyer of Merv" ( review of "Hakim, Masked Dyer of Merv" http://www.elimae.com/reviews/borges/merv.html)

“Playing that music delivered me from the pressures of my life. I played with my eyes closed and found that my backaches ceased and my headaches would go. The response to that rhythm was "My God, this makes me feel good." I never really remembered having that much fun with it before or thought about jazz making me feel good. But, at 46, it suddenly dawned on me that my body had priorities that my mind didn't allow, and I decided to (play Latin/jazz)✱ for myself and started having a helluva fine time.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

As quoted in "He Arranges, Composes, Performs: Fischer: A Renaissance Man Of Music" http://articles.latimes.com/1987-05-14/entertainment/ca-8949_1_clare-fischer.
<center><sup>✱</sup> The parenthetical addition is Zan Stewart's; exactly what it's replacing – whether simply filling a space, or replacing an unintelligible word or two – is not revealed.</center>

Richard Nixon photo

“Giving ourselves permission to imagine allows us to access a huge resource of cognitive capacity that we often ignore.”

Tim Hurson (1946) Creativity theorist, author and speaker

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

Clive Staples Lewis photo
Jane Roberts photo
John Wesley photo

“As to the word itself, it is generally allowed to be of Greek extraction. But whence the Greek word, enthousiasmos, is derived, none has yet been able to show. Some have endeavoured to derive it from en theoi, in God; because all enthusiasm has reference to him. … It is not improbable, that one reason why this uncouth word has been retained in so many languages was, because men were not better agreed concerning the meaning than concerning the derivation of it. They therefore adopted the Greek word, because they did not understand it: they did not translate it into their own tongues, because they knew not how to translate it; it having been always a word of a loose, uncertain sense, to which no determinate meaning was affixed.
It is not, therefore, at all surprising, that it is so variously taken at this day; different persons understanding it in different senses, quite inconsistent with each other. Some take it in a good sense, for a divine impulse or impression, superior to all the natural faculties, and suspending, for the time, either in whole or in part, both the reason and the outward senses. In this meaning of the word, both the Prophets of old, and the Apostles, were proper enthusiasts; being, at divers times, so filled with the Spirit, and so influenced by Him who dwelt in their hearts, that the exercise of their own reason, their senses, and all their natural faculties, being suspended, they were wholly actuated by the power of God, and “spake” only “as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Others take the word in an indifferent sense, such as is neither morally good nor evil: thus they speak of the enthusiasm of the poets; of Homer and Virgil in particular. And this a late eminent writer extends so far as to assert, there is no man excellent in his profession, whatsoever it be, who has not in his temper a strong tincture of enthusiasm. By enthusiasm these appear to understand, all uncommon vigour of thought, a peculiar fervour of spirit, a vivacity and strength not to be found in common men; elevating the soul to greater and higher things than cool reason could have attained.
But neither of these is the sense wherein the word “enthusiasm” is most usually understood. The generality of men, if no farther agreed, at least agree thus far concerning it, that it is something evil: and this is plainly the sentiment of all those who call the religion of the heart “enthusiasm.” Accordingly, I shall take it in the following pages, as an evil; a misfortune, if not a fault. As to the nature of enthusiasm, it is, undoubtedly a disorder of the mind; and such a disorder as greatly hinders the exercise of reason. Nay, sometimes it wholly sets it aside: it not only dims but shuts the eyes of the understanding. It may, therefore, well be accounted a species of madness; of madness rather than of folly: seeing a fool is properly one who draws wrong conclusions from right premisses; whereas a madman draws right conclusions, but from wrong premisses. And so does an enthusiast suppose his premisses true, and his conclusions would necessarily follow. But here lies his mistake: his premisses are false. He imagines himself to be what he is not: and therefore, setting out wrong, the farther he goes, the more he wanders out of the way.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Sermon 37 "The Nature of Enthusiasm"
Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)

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Gancho Tsenov photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
James D. Watson photo

“I suspect that in the beginning Maurice hoped that Rosy would calm down. Yet mere inspection suggested that she would not easily bend. By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that could save bright girls from marriages to dull men. But this was not the case. Her dedicated austere life could not be thus explained — she was the daughter of a solidly comfortable, erudite banking family.
Clearly Rosy had to go or be put in her place. The former was obviously preferable because, given her belligerent moods, it would be very difficult for Maurice to maintain a dominant position that would allow him to think unhindered about DNA. Not that at times he'd didn't see some reason for her complaints — King's had two combination rooms, one for men, the other for women, certainly a thing of the past. But he was not responsible, and it was no pleasure to bear the cross for the added barb that the women's combination room remained dingily pokey whereas money had been spent to make life agreeable for him and his friends when they had their morning coffee.
Unfortunately, Maurice could not see any decent way to give Rosy the boot. To start with, she had been given to think that she had a position for several years. Also there was no denying that she had a good brain. If she could keep her emotions under control, there was a good chance she could really help him. But merely wishing for relations to improve was taking something of a gamble, for Cal Tech's fabulous chemist Linus Pauling was not subject to the confines of British fair play. Sooner or later Linus, who had just turned fifty, was bound to try for the most important of all scientific prizes. There was no doubt he was interested. … The thought could not be avoided that the best home for a feminist was in another person's lab.”

Description of Rosalind Franklin, whose data and research were actually key factors in determining the structure of DNA, but who died in 1958 of ovarian cancer, before the importance of her work could be widely recognized and acknowledged. In response to these remarks her mother stated "I would rather she were forgotten than remembered in this way." As quoted in "Rosalind Franklin" at Strange Science : The Rocky Road to Modern Paleontology and Biology by Michon Scott http://www.strangescience.net/rfranklin.htm
The Double Helix (1968)

“The physical structures of organisms play only a minor and secondary role… The only requirement which physical structure must fulfill is that it allow the characteristic behaviors themselves to be manifested. Indeed, if this were not so, it would be impossible to understand how a class of systems as utterly diverse in physical structure as that which comprises biological organisms could be recognised as a unity at all.”

Robert Rosen (1934–1998) American theoretical biologist

Robert Rosen. "Anticipatory systems in retrospect and prospect," in: General Systems, Vol. 24 (1979), p. 12; AS cited in: Nadin, Mihai. " Anticipation and dynamics: Rosen's anticipation in the perspective of time http://www.nadin.ws/archives/966." International journal of general systems. 39.1 (2010): 3-33.

Francis Escudero photo
George Carlin photo

“I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, Napalm and Silly Putty (2001)

Warren Farrell photo
Pat Condell photo
Roy Jenkins photo

“Undoubtedly, looking back, we nearly all allowed ourselves, for decades, to be frozen into rates of personal taxation which were ludicrously high… That frozen framework has been decisively cracked, not only by the prescripts of Chancellors but in the expectations of the people. It is one of the things for which the Government deserve credit… However, even beneficial revolutions have a strong tendency to breed their own excesses. There is now a real danger of the conventional wisdom about taxation, public expenditure and the duty of the state in relation to the distribution of rewards, swinging much too far in the opposite direction… I put in a strong reservation against the view, gaining ground a little dangerously I think, that the supreme duty of statesmanship is to reduce taxation. There is certainly no virtue in taxation for its own sake… We have been building up, not dissipating, overseas assets. The question is whether, while so doing, we have been neglecting our investment at home and particularly that in the public services. There is no doubt, in my mind at any rate, about the ability of a low taxation market-oriented economy to produce consumer goods, even if an awful lot of them are imported, far better than any planned economy that ever was or probably ever can be invented. However, I am not convinced that such a society and economy, particularly if it is not infused with the civic optimism which was in many ways the true epitome of Victorian values, is equally good at protecting the environment or safeguarding health, schools, universities or Britain's scientific future. And if we are asked which is under greater threat in Britain today—the supply of consumer goods or the nexus of civilised public services—it would be difficult not to answer that it was the latter.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1988/feb/24/opportunity-and-income-social-disparities in the House of Lords (24 February 1988).

Georges Bataille photo

“Man's secret horror of his foot is one of the explanations for the tendency to conceal its length and form as much as possible. Heels of greater or lesser height, depending on the sex, distract from the foot's low and flat character. Besides the uneasiness is often confused with a sexual uneasiness; this is especially striking among the Chinese who, after having atrophied the feet of women, situate them at the most excessive point of deviance. The husband himself must not see the nude feet of his wife, and it is incorrect and immoral in general to look at the feet of women. Catholic confessors, adapting themselves to this aberration, ask their Chinese penitents "if they have not looked at women's feet.
The same aberration is found among the Turks (Volga Turks, Turks of Central Asia), who consider it immortal to show their nude feet and whoe ven go to bed in stockings.
Nothing similar can be cited from classical antiquity (apart from the use of very high soles in tragedies). The most prudish Roman matrons constantly allowed their nude toes to be seen. On the other hand, modesty concerning feet developed excessively in the modern ea and only started to disappear in the nineteenth century. M. Salomon Reinarch has studied this development in detail in the article entitled Pieds pudiques [Modest Feet], insisting on the role of Spain, where women's feet have been the object of most dreaded anxiety and thus were the cause of crimes. The simple fact of allowing the shod foot to be seen, jutting up from under a skirt, was regarded as indecent. Under no circumstances was it possible to touch the foot of a woman.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, p.21-22

Viktor Schauberger photo
André Maurois photo
Jane Roberts photo
Ralph Vary Chamberlin photo
Regina E. Dugan photo

“The DARPA model has three elements:
Ambitious goals. The agency’s projects are designed to harness science and engineering advances to solve real-world problems or create new opportunities. At Defense, GPS was an example of the former and stealth technology of the latter. The problems must be sufficiently challenging that they cannot be solved without pushing or catalyzing the science. The presence of an urgent need for an application creates focus and inspires greater genius.
Temporary project teams. DARPA brings together world-class experts from industry and academia to work on projects of relatively short duration. Team members are organized and led by fixed-term technical managers, who themselves are accomplished in their fields and possess exceptional leadership skills. These projects are not open-ended research programs. Their intensity, sharp focus, and finite time frame make them attractive to the highest-caliber talent, and the nature of the challenge inspires unusual levels of collaboration. In other words, the projects get great people to tackle great problems with other great people.
Independence. By charter, DARPA has autonomy in selecting and running projects. Such independence allows the organization to move fast and take bold risks and helps it persuade the best and brightest to join.”

Regina E. Dugan (1963) American businesswoman, inventor, and technology developer

“Special Forces” Innovation: How DARPA Attacks Problems (2013)

Taslima Nasrin photo
Herbert Marcuse photo

“Who is, in the classical conception, the subject that comprehends the ontological condition of truth and untruth? It is the master of pure contemplation (theoria), and the master of a practice guided by theoria, i. e., the philosopher-statesman. To be sure, the truth which he knows and expounds is potentially accessible to everyone. Led by the philosopher, the slave in Plato’s Meno is capable of grasping the truth of a geometrical axiom, i. e., a truth beyond change and corruption. But since truth is a state of Being as well as of thought, and since the latter is the expression and manifestation of the former, access to truth remains mere potentiality as long as it is not living in and with the truth. And this mode of existence is closed to the slave — and to anyone who has to spend his life procuring the necessities of life. Consequently, if men no longer had to spend their lives in the realm of necessity, truth and a true human existence would be in a strict and real sense universal. Philosophy envisages the equality of man but, at the same time, it submits to the factual denial of equality. For in the given reality, procurement of the necessities is the life-long job of the majority, and the necessities have to be procured and served so that truth (which is freedom from material necessities) can be. Here, the historical barrier arrests and distorts the quest for truth; the societal division of labor obtains the dignity of an ontological condition. If truth presupposes freedom from toil, and if this freedom is, in the social reality, the prerogative of a minority, then the reality allows such a truth only in approximation and for a privileged group. This state of affairs contradicts the universal character of truth, which defines and “prescribes” not only a theoretical goal, but the best life of man qua man, with respect to the essence of man. For philosophy, the contradiction is insoluble, or else it does not appear as a contradiction because it is the structure of the slave or serf society which this philosophy does not transcend. Thus it leaves history behind, unmastered, and elevates truth safely above the historical reality. There, truth is reserved intact, not as an achievement of heaven or in heaven, but as an achievement of thought — intact because its very notion expresses the insight that those who devote their lives to earning a living are incapable of living a human existence.”

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 128-130

Michael Friendly photo

“Many schools are now introducing computers into the educational curriculum. Within 10 years it is predicted that computers will play a significant role in every classroom in North America. The question is, how will they be used? Many educators have been focusing on the use of computers for drill and programmed instruction—to provide individualized practice and instruction in the usual curriculum areas. There is another use for computers in education which some educators, myself included, find more exciting. These involve using the computer:
• to provide an environment in which learning can be intrinsically motivating and fun.
• to allow children to discover, explore and create knowledge.
• to help develop skills of thinking and problem solving.
• to make some of the most powerful ideas of the burgeoning computer culture accessible and tangible to children at an early age.
If you have ever watched a child playing good video games or if you play them yourself, then you know the powerful motivation that graphics displays can create. As I’ve watched children play these games, every bit of their attention focused on the screen, I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be to harness this motivation and channel it toward intellectual growth and learning…”

Michael Friendly (1945) American psychologist

Michael Friendly. Advanced Logo: A Language for Learning. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 1988. Preface

Nyanaponika Thera photo
Abul A'la Maududi photo

“In our domain we neither allow any Muslim to change his religion nor allow any other religion to propagate its faith.”

Abul A'la Maududi (1903–1979) Indian theologian, politician and philosopher

1981, Murtad ki Saza Islami Qanun Mein, Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi, page 32, Lahore Islamic Publications Ltd, 8th edition.
After 1970s

Aron Ra photo

“There are basically two types of creationists; the professional or political creationists; these are the activists who lead the movement and who will regularly deliberately lie to promote their propaganda; and the second type which are the innocently-deceived followers commonly known as “sheep”. I know lots of intellectual Christians, but I can’t get any of them to actually watch the televangelists, because they either already know how phony they are, or they don’t want to find out. But that only allows a radical fringe to claim support from they masses they now also claim to represent. So there’s nothing to stop them. Professional creationists are making money hand over fist with faith-healing scams or bilking little old ladies out of prayer donations, or selling books and videos at their circus-like seminars where they have undeserved respect as powerful leaders. All of them feign knowledge they can’t really possess, and some of them claim degrees they’ve never actually earned… Were it not for this con, they’d have to go back to selling used cars, wonder drugs, and multi-level marketing schemes. They will never change their minds no matter what it costs anyone else.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"1st Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJX68ELbAY, Youtube (November 11, 2007)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Rex Tillerson photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Aisha photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Newton Lee photo
John Hagee photo

“God says in Jeremiah 16 — "Behold I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave unto their fathers" — that would be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - "Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them" — that will be the Jews — "from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks." If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust — you can't see that. So think about this — I will send fishers and I will send hunters. A fisher is someone who entices you with a bait. How many of you know who Theodore Herzl was? How many of you don't have a clue who he was? Woo, sweet God! Theodore Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew that at the turn of the 19th century said, "this land is our land, God wants us to live there". So he went to the Jews of Europe and said, "I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel". So few went, Herzl went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the Holocaust. Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says — Jeremiah righty? — "they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks", meaning: there's no place to hide. And that will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended: I didn't write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, "my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel". Today Israel is back in the land and they are at Ezekiel 37 and 8. They are physically alive but they're not spiritually alive. Now how is God going to cause the Jewish people to come spiritually alive and say, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is God"?”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

late 2005 sermon at Cornerstone Church, quoted in

James Nachtwey photo
Cesare Borgia photo
André Breton photo

“A bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn't allow it to spoil your lunch.”

Kingsley Amis (1922–1995) English novelist, poet, critic, teacher

Attributed in Aren't We Due a Royalty Statement? (1993) by Giles Gordon, and The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999) by Elizabeth M. Knowles, p. 14

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan photo

“I consider abortion to be murder. No-one should have the right to allow this to happen.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

As quoted in "Turkey PM Erdogan sparks row over abortion" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18297760, BBC (June 1, 2012)

“When Hitler was fighting for power, he published a program of his Nazi Party. There, in the article 24, it was declared: "We are all for ‘positive Christianity’." Many genuine Christians got hooked for it. But when Hitler finally had acquired the full power in the country, it was suddenly disclosed what many had overlooked: The Positive Christianity was just disguised Nazism. At the same time, the fight against the Bible triggered its ramp. Especially the Old Testament was taken under the heavy attack. Everywhere you could hear and read: Well, the New Testament can be allowed to circulate for some time, because the teaching there in is about the God of love. Just one thing, the letters of Jew Paul must be eliminated from there, they smack too much of the Spirit of the Old Testament. As for the Old Testament itself - oh, that’s a terrible book, a dirty book, a horrifying book! There in, a voice of the Judeo-Syrian God of desert and revenge can be heard!”

Wilhelm Busch (pastor) (1897–1966) German pastor and writer

Testimony By Verdun, p. 100
Wilhelm Busch erzählt: Als Hitler um die Macht kämpfte, veröffentlichte er ein Parteiprogramm. In dem stand als Punkt 24: “Wir sind für positives Christentum.” Viele treue Christen sind darauf hereingefallen. Als aber Hitler an der Macht war, erfuhr man, was viele vorausgesehen hatten: Positives Christentum ist dasselbe wie Nationalsozialismus. Zu gleicher Zeit begann der Kampf gegen die Bibel. Namentlich das Alte Testament wurde unter Trommelfeuer genommen. Überall konnte man hören und lesen: Nun ja, das Neue Testament könne man noch einige Zeit gelten lassen; denn da werde der Gott der Liebe gelehrt. Nur die Briefe des Juden Paulus müsse man ausmerzen. In denen sei der Geist des Alten Testaments zu spüren. Das Alte Testament aber – oh, das sei ein fürchterliches Buch, ein schmutziges Buch, ein grauenvolles Buch! Da rede der jüdisch-syrische Wüsten-Rache-Gott. (German)
Testimony By Verdun

Jeremy Rifkin photo
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Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Ben Klassen photo

“People have success with this method and it gets them excited. It gets them hooked. You can put layers of thick paint on thin paint and that allows you to complete a painting in one sitting.”

Bob Ross (1942–1995) American painter, art instructor, and television host

Source: Mike Flannagan (October 1, 1992) "TV Artist Bob Ross Watches Paint Dry, Turns It Into a Successful Career", The Knoxville News-Sentinel, p. B1.

Jack McDevitt photo
Bernice King photo
Rudolf Pannwitz photo

“Translations [into the German language], even the best ones, proceed from a mistaken premise. They want to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German instead of turning German into Hindi, Greek, English. … The basic error of the translator is that he preserves the state in which his own language happens to be instead of allowing his language to be powerfully affected by the foreign tongue.”

Rudolf Pannwitz (1881–1969) German writer and philosopher

Unsere übertragungen, auch die besten, gehen von einem falschen grundsatz aus, sie wollen das indische, griechische, englische verdeutschen, anstatt das deutsche zu verindischen, vergriechischen, verenglischen. ... Der grundsätzliche irrtum des übertragenden ist, daß er den zufälligen stand der eigenen sprache festhält, anstatt sie durch die fremde gewaltig bewegen zu lassen.
Die Krisis der europäischen Kultur (1917), as translated in Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings: Volume 1, 1913-1926 (1996), pp. 261-262

E. W. Hobson photo

“A great department of thought must have its own inner life, however transcendent may be the importance of its relations to the outside. No department of science, least of all one requiring so high a degree of mental concentration as Mathematics, can be developed entirely, or even mainly, with a view to applications outside its own range. The increased complexity and specialisation of all branches of knowledge makes it true in the present, however it may have been in former times, that important advances in such a department as Mathematics can be expected only from men who are interested in the subject for its own sake, and who, whilst keeping an open mind for suggestions from outside, allow their thought to range freely in those lines of advance which are indicated by the present state of their subject, untrammelled by any preoccupation as to applications to other departments of science. Even with a view to applications, if Mathematics is to be adequately equipped for the purpose of coping with the intricate problems which will be presented to it in the future by Physics, Chemistry and other branches of physical science, many of these problems probably of a character which we cannot at present forecast, it is essential that Mathematics should be allowed to develop freely on its own lines.”

E. W. Hobson (1856–1933) British mathematician

Source: Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A (1910), p. 286; Cited in: Moritz (1914, 106): Modern mathematics.

H.L. Mencken photo

“Nietzsche, an infinitely harder and more courageous intellect, was incapable of any such confusion of ideas; he seldom allowed sentimentality to turn him from the glaring fact.”

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

1940s–present, Introduction to Nietzsche's The Antichrist

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Frederick Douglass photo

“But are there not reasons against all this? Is there not such a law or principle as that of self-preservation? Does not every race owe something to itself? Should it not attend to the dictates of common sense? Should not a superior race protect itself from contact with inferior ones? Are not the white people the owners of this continent? Have they not the right to say what kind of people shall be allowed to come here and settle? Is there not such a thing as being more generous than wise? In the effort to promote civilization may we not corrupt and destroy what we have? Is it best to take on board more passengers than the ship will carry? To all this and more I have one among many answers, altogether satisfactory to me, though I cannot promise it will be entirely so to you. I submit that this question of Chinese immigration should be settled upon higher principles than those of a cold and selfish expediency. There are such things in the world as human rights. They rest upon no conventional foundation, but are eternal, universal and indestructible. Among these is the right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right which belongs to no particular race, but belongs alike to all and to all alike. It is the right you assert by staying here, and your fathers asserted by coming here. It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and the Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with yourselves, now and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go the side of humanity. I have great respect for the blue-eyed and light-haired races of America. They are a mighty people. In any struggle for the good things of this world, they need have no fear, they have no need to doubt that they will get their full share. But I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they would limit migratory rights, or any other essential human rights, to themselves, and which would make them the owners of this great continent to the exclusion of all other races of men. I want a home here not only for the negro, the mulatto and the Latin races, but I want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Mark Hertling photo
Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Rush Limbaugh photo

“Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

35 Undeniable Truths of Life Sacramento Union 1988, also quoted in * The "Truth" according to Limbaugh: Feminism established "to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society" Media Matters for America 2005-08-16 http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200508160001, [The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, New Press, 1995-05-01, 56, 156584260X, 31782620], [Rush Limbaugh now has a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Here are just 20 of the outrageous things he's said, Jason, Silverstein, February 6, 2020, CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rush-limbaugh-presidential-medal-of-freedom-state-of-the-union-outrageous-quotes/], and [Rush Limbaugh’s most outrageous moments in 25 years on the radio, August 1, 2013, Morgan, Whitaker, MSNBC, http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/rush-limbaughs-most-outrageous-moments-25]

/ 1990s

Joanna MacGregor photo
Benito Mussolini photo

“Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil and Augustus.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Speech at the 5th Levantine Fair (6 September 1934) in reference to German Nordicism; quoted in Hitler's Ten-year War on the Jews http://books.google.com/books?id=vCA4AAAAIAAJ&q=%22Thirty+centuries+of+history+allow+us+to+look+with+supreme+pity%22&dq=%22Thirty+centuries+of+history+allow+us+to+look+with+supreme+pity%22&pgis=1 (1946) by the Institute of Jewish Affairs
1930s

Henry David Thoreau photo

“The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Wednesday

Warren Farrell photo
Columella photo

“He allows very readily, that the eyes and footsteps of the master are things most salutary to the land.”
Oculos et vestigia domini, res agro saluberrimas, facilius admittit.

Columella (4–70) Roman writer on agriculture

De Re Rustica, IV. 18: Quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), Lemma "Agriculture" p. 18-19.

Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough photo
William H. McNeill photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Indro Montanelli photo
Tony Blair photo

“For the moment, let me say this: Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Hansard http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo020410/debtext/20410-04.htm, House of Commons 6th series, vol. 383, col. 23.
House of Commons statement on discussions with President Bush over the Middle East, 10 April 2002.
2000s