Quotes about being
page 94

“When you grow up in the Soviet society under the communists you heard about the one man who is especially dangerous, especially crazy, and absolutely mad, and which would destroy all the human beings and the economies and so on, and this man was called Milton Friedman.”

Mart Laar (1960) Estonian politician and historian

Interview with Stephen J. Dubner, for 'Freakonomics Radio' podcast (24 March 2010)

Madness

“Some theologians and religious practitioners tell me that dry spells happen and that perhaps I gave up on God too quickly, but years later I am surer than ever that I don’t believe in God, and struggle to recall why I did in the first place. To be honest, the question no longer intrigues me—I’m much too interested in the complexities of being human to spend much time thinking about anything beyond that.”

Chris Stedman (1987) American activist

Source: Faitheist (2012), Chapter 5, “Unholier Than Thou: Saying Goodbye to God” (p. 86)

God, Question, Thinking, Time

“Science that abdicates its cultural values risks being perceived as an extension of technology, an instrument in the hands of political or economic power. Humanity that disavows science risks falling into the hands of superstition.”

Nicola Cabibbo (1935–2010) Italian physicist

Address to the Holy Father, in The cultural values of science, The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Scripta Varia 105 (8-11 November 2002), page xiv http://www.vatican.edu/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdscien/archivio/s.v.105_cultural_values/part1.pdf

Science

“The essential of painting is that something, that 'ethereal glue', that intermediary product which the artist secretes with all his creative being and which he has to place, to encrust, to impregnate into the pictorial stuff of the painting.”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

Yves Klein, catalogue of exhibition in the Jewish Museum, New York 1967, p. 18
from posthumous publications

Secret, Painting

“One thing about being in the public eye is that you cannot let anybody intimidate you.”

Nader Nadernejad (1997) producer

Newsigned Books (June 2014) http://www.newsignedbooks.com/nader-nadernejad.html

“[N]ot only must we seek the measure of motions and actions by themselves, but much more in comparison; for this is of excellent use and very general application. Now we find that the flash of a gun is seen sooner than its report is heard… and this is owing it seems to the motion of light being more rapid than that of sound. We find to that visible images are received by the sight faster than they are dismissed; thus the strings of the violin, when struck by the finger, are to appearance doubled and tripled, because the new image is received before the old one is gone; which is also why the reason why rings being spun round look like globes, and a lighted torch, carried hastily at night, seems to have a tail. And it was upon this inequality of motions in point of velocity that Galileo built his theory of flux and reflux of the sea; supposing that the earth revolved faster than the water could follow; and that the water was therefore first gathered in a heap and then fell down, as we see in a basin of water moved quickly. But this he devised upon an assumption which cannot be allowed, viz. that the earth moves; and also without being well informed as to the sexhorary motion of the tide.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 46
Novum Organum (1620), Book II

Light, Water, Appearance, Sea

“Go to the center of your inner being. Radiate peace in every direction. A compassionate heart radiates rays of beauty that removes the clouds of million hearts.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

Source: Walking the Path of Compassion (2015)

Peace, Beauty, Heart

“These organizational processes result in our perceptions being structured into units corresponding to objects and properties of objects. It is these larger units that may be stored and later assembled into images that are experienced as quasi-pictorial, spatial entities resembling those evoked during perception itself…. It is erroneous to equate image representations with mental photographs, since this would overlook the fact that images are composed from highly processed perceptual encodings.”

Stephen Kosslyn (1948) American psychologist

Source: Image and Mind. 1980, p. 19

“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”

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

Si je me tue ce ne sera pas pour me détruire, mais pour me reconstituer, le suicide ne sera pour moi qu’un moyen de me reconquérir violemment, de faire brutalement irruption dans mon être, de devancer l’avance incertaine de Dieu. Par le suicide, je réintroduis mon dessin dans la nature, je donne pour la première fois aux choses la forme de ma volonté.
“On Suicide,” no. 1, Le Disque Vert (1925).

God, Nature, Suicide, Time

“The world needs new moral impulses which, I'm afraid, won't come from the churches, heavily compromised as they have been throughout the centuries. Perhaps those impulses must come from scientists in the tradition of Galileo, Kepler and Newton. In spite of failures and persecutions, these men devoted their lives to proving that the universe is a single entity, in which, I believe, a humanized God has no place. The genuine scientist is not moved by praise or blame, nor does he preach. He unveils the universe and people come eagerly, without being pushed, to behold a new revelation: the order, the harmony, the magnificence of creation! And as man becomes conscious of the stupendous laws that govern the universe in perfect harmony, he begins to realize how small he is. He sees the pettiness of human existence, with its ambitions and intrigues, its "I am better than thou" creed. This is the beginning of cosmic religion within him; fellowship and human service become his moral code. And without such moral foundations, we are hopelessly doomed.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 66

Men, God, People, World

“The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. I, Ch. 10
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

Business, Time

“Suppose you had to remember to beat your heart, contract in exact sequence the muscles you use for every step. … Conservatism comes out of the body, the sense of many things being done for us that any attempt to re-think, or even make conscious, would fatally disrupt.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#48
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Thinking, Sense, Heart

“We can not gaze into space and understand that space has no end. There is no brick wall at the end of space, because if there was, what would be behind the brick wall? It just goes on and on……never ending. The thought of infinity hurts my brain – I can not understand it. The Bible teaches us that God is eternal, without beginning and without end. We being finite, can not understand a world without time. Time is just a dimension that God has created and subjected man to Eternity and infinity are too much for our tiny brains to comprehend.”

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

Cults, Sects and Questions (c. 1979)

God, World, Understanding, Time

“Rona Barrett: Would you like to be the President of the United States?
Donald Trump: I really don't believe I would, Rona. But I would like to see somebody as the president who could do the job, and there are very capable people in this country.
Barrett: Why wouldn't you dedicate yourself to public service?
Trump: Because I think it's a very mean life. I would love, and I would dedicate my life to this country but I see it as being a mean life, and I also see it in somebody with strong views, and somebody with the kind of views that are maybe a little bit unpopular, which may be right, but may be unpopular, wouldn't necessarily have a chance of getting elected against somebody with no great brain but a big smile.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

An interview https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/politics/trump-archive/docs/rona-barrett-1980-interview-of-donald-trump.pdf with Rona Barrett (1980) 1980s

Love, Life, People, Smile

“For if we may compare infinities, it would seem to require a greater infinity of power to cause the causes of effects, than to cause the effects themselves. This idea is analogous to the improving excellence observable in every part of the creation; such as in the progressive increase of the solid or habitable parts of the earth from water; and in the progressive increase of the wisdom and happiness of its inhabitants; and is consonant to the idea of our present situation being a state of probation, which by our exertion we may improve, and are consequently responsible for our actions.”

Erasmus Darwin book Zoonomia

Zoönomia, vol. 1 (1794).

Wisdom, Happiness, Idea, Water

“The Omarahs mostly consist of adventurers from different nations who entice one another to the court; and are generally persons of low descent, some having been originally slaves, and the majority being destitute of education. The Mogol raises them to dignities, or degrades them to obscurity; according to his own pleasure and caprice.”

François Bernier (1620–1688) French physician and traveller

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5
Travels in the Mogul Empire (1656-1668)

Pleasure, Education, Personality

“Life, as it exists on Earth in the form of men, animals and plants, is to be found, let us suppose in a high form in the solar and stellar regions. Rather than think that so many stars and parts of the heavens are uninhabited and that this earth of ours alone is peopled – and that with beings perhaps of an inferior type – we will suppose that in every region there are inhabitants, differing in nature by rank and all owing their origin to God, who is the center and circumference of all stellar regions”

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) German philosopher, theologian, jurist, and astronomer

De docta ignorantia http://www.challzine.net/29/29extraterr.html

Life, Men, God, People

“Did the protection we received annul our rights as men, and lay us under an obligation of being miserable? Who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would claim authority to make your child a slave because you had nourished him in infancy?
’Tis a strange species of generosity which requires a return infinitely more valuable than anything it could have bestowed; that demands as a reward for a defense of our property a surrender of those inestimable privileges, to the arbitrary will of vindictive tyrants, which alone give value to that very property.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Speech in Philadelphia (1776)

Men

“The control of an undertaking consists of seeing that everything is being carried out in accordance with the plan which has been adopted, the orders which have been given, and the principles which have been laid down. Its object is to point out mistakes in order that they may be rectified and prevented from recurring.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Henri Fayol (1916) cited in: Ralph Currier Davis (1951) The fundamentals of top management. p. 157. This quote was already cited in multiple sources in 1938.

“Science fiction writers thought it would be possible. H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and other authors found ways to get people to the moon. But none of those writers foresaw any possibility of the lunar explorers being able to communicate with Earth, transmit data, position information, or transmit moving pictures of what they saw back to Earth. The authors foresaw my part of the adventure, but your part was beyond their comprehension.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (2009)

People, Way, Communication, Science

“What are those lessons? Instead of building more single-family dwellings, we should build multigenerational, multifamily homes in vibrant eco-villages that share facilities, tools, labor and resources. Instead of designing cities for self-driving, single-person cars, design them for walking, biking, and public transportation with lots of places for people to meet and greet, mix and mingle. Instead of growing an economy dependent on global movements of money, people, and goods to maximize profit uncoupled from place, create economies that bring people together to maximize health and well-being in the place where they live.”

David Korten (1937) writer, sustainability advocate

How the Economy Affects Our Mental Health, September 18, 2018 https://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/when-profit-drives-us-community-suffers-20180918

Money, People, Health, Family

“.. these reproductions were in Zwemmer's bookshop [in the 1920's]. I can see them now. They were black. There was one on Negro sculpture, one on Mexican sculpture, one on an Egyptian sculpture, and so on. And all these I knew. And in one of them was this small reproduction of the Chac Mool [famous Toltec-Maya sculpture]. It was the pose that struck me – this idea of a figure being on its back and turned upwards to the sky instead of lying on its side, which is a different sort of idea from the Renaissance, or Greek reclining figure, which is usually on its side. And this gave me all sorts of chances of making variations on it.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Quote from The Donald Caroll interviews, Talmy Franklin, London 1973, p. 377
1970 and later

Lying, Idea, Chance

“Many Muslim women will not consider themselves as inferior but wear a veil because they feel as dignified human beings. Because they want to protect themselves against staring and judging by men. If women are so dignified, why is it the burden of women to cover up, in order to protect themselves from the stares of men? Why can't be accepted from men to control their own instincts or animal behaviour? This is a question that I have never heard a satisfactory answer from a Muslim women.”

Irshad Manji (1968) Feminist from Canada, author, journalist, activist

Muslims need critical thinking - Irshad Manji http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2004/0818verhofstadt.html August 18, 2004 (interview by Dirk Verhofstadt)

Women, Men, Feeling, Question

“Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then, as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.
…
I teach one thing and one only: suffering and the end of suffering.
…
Just as a mother would protect with her life her own son, her only son, so one should cultivate an unbounded mind towards all beings, and loving-kindness towards all the world. One should cultivate an unbounded mind, above and below and across, without obstruction, without enmity, without rivalry.
Standing, or going, or seated, or lying down, as long as one is free from drowsiness, one should practice this mindfulness. This, they say, is the holy state here.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Gautama Buddha, Sutta Nipata
Unclassified

Love, Life, Lie, World

“Is the very mechanism for the universe to come into being meaningless or unworkable or both unless the universe is guaranteed to produce life, consciousness and observership somewhere and for some little time in its history-to-be? The quantum principle shows that there is a sense in which what the observer will do in the future defines what happens in the past—even in a past so remote that life did not then exist, and shows even more, that 'observership' is a prerequisite for any useful version of 'reality.”

John Archibald Wheeler (1911–2008) American physicist

As quoted by Paul Davies, Other Worlds (1980)

Life, History, Reality, Sense

“This book is not for the engineer content with hardware, nor for the biologist uneasy outside his specialty; for it depicts that miscegenation of Art and Science which begets inanimate objects that behave like living systems. They regulate themselves and survive: They adapt and they compute: They invent. They co-operate and they compete. Naturally they evolve rapidly.
Pure mathematics, being mere tautology, and pure physics, being mere fact, could not have engendered them; for creatures to live, must sense the useful and the good; and engines to run must have energy available as work : and both, to endure, must regulate themselves. So it is to Thermodynamics and to its brother Σp log p, called Information Theory, that we look for the distinctions between work and energy and between signal and noise.
For like cause we look to reflexology and its brother feedback, christened Multiple Closed Loop Servo Theory, for mechanical explanation of Entelechy in Homeostasis and in appetition. This is that governance, whether in living creatures and their societies or in our living artefacts, that is now called Cybernetics.”

Warren S. McCulloch (1898–1969) American neuroscientist

McCulloch (1961) in: Pask An approach to Cybernetics http://www.pangaro.com/pask/pask%20approach%20to%20cybernetics.pdf. Preface. p. 7

Books, Art, Mathematics, Nature

“Good deeds remain good, no matter whether we know how the world was made or not. Vile deeds are vile, no matter whether we know or do not know what, after death, will be the fate of the doer. We know, at least, what his fate is now, namely, to be wedded to the vileness.
The question for anyone to decide, who hesitates between good and evil, is whether he aspires to be a full-weight man, or merely the fragment, nay, the counterfeit of a man. Only he who ceaselessly aims at moral completeness is, in the true sense, a human being.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)

Death, Fate, World, Question

“The first time you watch it you'll probably cry a bit. The second time you watch it you will probably think - boy that would be bad having a head like that being picked on - the third time you are probably thinking, er, how does he get his jumper on, er, then dunno probably bored of it the fourth time. But, but it's well worth watching.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Xfm 07 December 2002
On The Elephant Man

Boy, Thinking, Time, Cry

“It seems like the right thing to do is tackle problems other people aren’t working on. Part of the challenge of being an entrepreneur, if you’re going for a really huge opportunity, is trying to find problems that aren’t quite on the radar yet and try to solve those.”

Sean Parker (1979) American internet technology entrepreneur

TechCrunch: <nowiki>"Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning Hint At The Future Of Airtime [TCTV https://techcrunch.com/2012/06/05/sean-parker-airtime-app-platform-cool/"</nowiki>] (5 June 2012)

People, Problem, Parting

“The scapegoat upon whom the sins of the people are periodically laid, may also be a human being.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 57, Public Scapegoats.

People

“In spite of being arrested, beaten up, threatened, the moment I discovered my voice, that I could actually stand up for what I really believed in, I'm no longer afraid. I used to be called softy, but I'm no longer softy, because I discovered who I really am, as in, that's what I want to do, and there's such beauty in doing that. There's nothing as powerful as that, knowing that I'm meant to do this, because you don't get scared, you just continue living your life.”

Boniface Mwangi (1983) Kenyan photojournalist

The day I stood up alone

Life, Beauty

“I am far from being such a Judge as shall lay any intolerable yoke upon any one's neck.”

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England

Philips v. Bury (1694), 2 T. R. 358.

“The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Economic Philosophy (1962), p. 45

“It (synthesizers and drum machines) has contributed greatly (to an 'antiseptic' sound). And the fact is, when I look back on the last few years I really can't remember that much of the music, such is its lasting effect. I think it's instantly forgettable and it horrifies me in many respects. It's so sterile and non-human. I don't understand why people play non-human music. It really mystifies me when we're human beings. It's strange. I hate it.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From a radio interview with David Jensen in 1983
In interviews etc., About pop culture

Hate, People, Music, Understanding

“The general form of the total conception of ideology is being used by the analyst when he has the courage to subject not just the adversary's point of view but all points of view, including his own, to the ideological analysis.
At the present stage of our understanding it is hardly possible to avoid this general formulation of the total conception of ideology, according to which the thought of all parties in all epochs is of an ideological character.”

Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) Hungarian sociologist

Ideology and Utopia (1929)

Courage, Understanding

“In a stroke of imaginative genius our understanding of consciousness was radically transformed, but in an entirely unexpected way. Critical clues came from diffuse nerve nets and, even more extraordinarily, plant neurobiology. Banished forever was the idea that the brain alone was the seat of consciousness. Rather, it is an 'antenna' embedded in a hyperdimensional matrix. The depths of reality are only now being uncovered, but now the springs of imagination, intuition, abstraction and even pre-cognition are revealed. What was once called the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics was simply a clue to a superbly structured universe where mind is an integral component, instantiated at the big bang or maybe even before? Future exploration offers dizzying prospects, but we are not the first to venture forth. Far in advance of the emergence of human consciousness, innumerable galactic civilisations had slipped into what we now call the Mortimer Manifold.”

Simon Conway Morris (1951) British palaeontologist

"King of Sweden" presenting "Professor Mortimer" with the 2056 Nobel prize, in "Simon Conway Morris forecasts the future" at NewScientist.com (15 November 2006) http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/science-forecasts/dn10477-simon-conway-morris-forecasts-the-future.html.

Way, Imagination, Spring, Mathematics

“Working men in this hall…I…say to you, and through the Press to all the working men of this kingdom, that the accession to office of Lord Derby is a declaration of war against the working classes…They reckon nothing of the Constitution of their country—a Constitution which has not more regard to the Crown or to the aristocracy than it has to the people; a Constitution which regards the House of Commons fairly representing the nation as important a part of the Government system of the kingdom as the House of Lords or the Throne itself…Now, what is the Derby principle? It is the shutting out of much more than three-fourths, five-sixths, and even more than five-sixths, of the people from the exercise of constitutional rights…What is it that we are come to in this country that what is being rapidly conceded in all parts of the world is being persistently and obstinately refused here in England, the home of freedom, the mother of Parliaments…Stretch out your hand to your countrymen in every portion of the three kingdoms, and ask them to join in a great and righteous effort on behalf of that freedom which has so long been the boast of Englishmen, but which the majority of Englishmen have never yet possessed…Remember the great object for which we strive, care not for calumnies and for lies, our object is this—to restore the British Constitution and with all its freedom to the British people.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Birmingham (27 August 1866), quoted in The Times (28 August 1866), p. 4.
1860s

Men, War, People, World

“Knowledge about the process being modeled starts fairly low, then increases as understanding is obtained and tapers off to a high value at the end.”

Harold Chestnut (1917–2001) American engineer

Source: Systems Engineering Tools, (1965), p. 130 cited in: Melvin Silverman (1996) The Technical Manager's Handbook: A Survival Guide. p. 74

Understanding, Knowledge

“I have the disadvantage of not being sociable. Wall Street men are fond of company and sport. A man makes one hundred thousand dollars there and immediately buys a yacht, begins to race fast horses, and becomes a sport generally. My tastes lie in a different direction. When business hours are over I go home and spend the remainder of the day with my wife, my children, and books of my library. Every man has natural inclinations of his own. Mine are domestic. They are not calculated to make me particularly popular in Wall Street, and I cannot help that.”

Jay Gould (1836–1892) American businessman

Also quoted in The Life and Legend of Jay Gould (1986) by Maury Klein
Jay Gould : A Character Sketch (1893)

Men, Children, Lie, Books

“The heart in which love and compassion for all living beings resides, can have no room for seeking after personal pleasures. O friend, take care to do no harm to any living creature; to hurt his creation is to forget the Creator.”

Khwaja Abdullah Ansari (1006–1089) Persian writer

Quoted in Tales of the Mystic East: An Anthology of Mystic and Moral Tales Taken from the Teachings of the Saints (Radha Soami Satsang Beas, 1997), p. 208

Love, Pleasure, Heart, Hurt

“If speaking to nonscientific audiences is something that interests you or will likely be asked of you, keep in mind three overriding requirements: first, you must be a human being, an interesting one if at all possible; second, you must be accurate in what you say, that is, tell the truth (about what is known and what isn't; about issues, debates, controversies); and third, if your subject is scientific knowledge, you must remain a scientist and not slip into the role of advocate or activist.”

Scott L. Montgomery (1951) American geologist and writer

The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science, second edition, University of Chicago press, 2017, page 302 ISBN 978-0-226-14450-4.

Truth, Knowledge

“What struck me at the League was the prestige in which our Government and our Prime Minister are held. What has struck hon. Members who have listened to this Debate is the fact that public opinion in the dictator countries has conceived a profound admiration for our Prime Minister and our country. Our country, therefore, is the country which is in a priceless position for securing the future of peace…It seems to me that we have two choices either to settle our differences with Germany by consultation, or to face the inevitability of a clash between the two systems of democracy and dictatorship. In considering this, I must emphatically give my opinion as one of the younger generation. War settles nothing, and I see no alternative to the policy upon which the Prime Minister has so courageously set himself—the construction of peace, with the aid which I have described. There is no other country which can achieve this, and I ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite sincerely to believe that in our efforts to understand, to consult with and, if possible, to get friendship with Germany, we do not abandon by one jot or tittle the democratic beliefs which are the very core of our whole being and system. In conclusion, I must gratify the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield by quoting Shakespeare. The right hon. Gentleman will remember the little poem "Under the Greenwood Tree"—"Here shall he see" "No enemy," "But winter and rough weather."”

Rab Butler (1902–1982) British politician

We have the winter before us, and we have a great deal of political rough weather, but in that rough weather, do not let us forget the joint idea of peace which animates us all. Speech on the Munich Agreement http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government (5 October 1938).

Friendship, War, Peace, Quotes

“A mental image occurs when a representation of the type created during the initial phases of perception is present but the stimulus is not actually being perceived; such representations preserve the perceptible properties of the stimulus and ultimately give rise to the subjective experience of perception.”

Stephen Kosslyn (1948) American psychologist

Source: Image and Mind. 1980, p. 6

“The stem cell debate was an introduction to a phenomenon I witnessed throughout my presidency: highly personal criticism. Partisan opponents and commentators questioned my legitimacy, my intelligence, and my sincerity. They mocked my appearance, my accent, and my religious beliefs. I was labeled a Nazi, a war criminal, and Satan himself. That last one came from a foreign leader, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. One lawmaker called me both a loser and a liar. He became majority leader of the U. S. Senate. In some ways, I wasn't surprised. I had endured plenty of rough politics in Texas. I had seen Dad and Bill Clinton derided by their opponents and the media. Abraham Lincoln was compared to a baboon. Even George Washington became so unpopular that political cartoons showed the hero of the American revolution being marched to the guillotine. Yet the death spiral of decency during my time in office, exacerbated by the advent of twenty-four-hour cable news and hyper-partisan political blogs, was deeply disappointing. The toxic atmosphere in American politics discourages good people from running for office.”

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

Source: 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010), p. 121

Death, War, People, Disappointment

“"Life" in this "society" being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of "society" being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. [1].

Life, Women, Money, Sex

“Aaron began to learn the Dakota language. Isaac, like a newly ordained Doctor of Philosophy, after years of being nagged into learning, rejoiced to be invited to stand up and look important and teach. He was astonished by his own erudition and by the fact that his class of one did not walk out.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright

The God-Seeker (1949), Ch. 31

Learning

“Then - being in two minds - in my father's courtyard, I counted the buttons of my coat: soldier or painter, soldier, painter, soldier, painter.... the last button told me: painter. So it was decided by chance that I would become a painter”

Johannes Warnardus Bilders (1811–1890) painter from the Northern Netherlands

c. 1831
version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders, in Nederlands): Toen telde ik, op de binnenplaats mijns vaders in tweestrijd, de knoopen van mijn jas: soldaat of schilder, soldaat, schilder, soldaat, schilder.. ..de laatste knoop zei schilder, en zoo besliste het toeval, dat ik schilder zou worden [c. 1831].
J.W. Bilders was fighting as a Dutch volunteer in the Belgium Independents War against The Netherlands. 1830
Source: 1880's, Johannes Warnardus Bilders' (1887/1900), p. 78

Chance

“Yet this Charteris speaks from a perished world, he babbles of a civilization as dead as Babylon's… [In 1918, for example, ] Woodrow Wilson was filling, accurately, the former station of William McKinley and of James K. Polk; and in many quarters was being taken quite as seriously as had been his predecessors during their own personally directed wars for moral principles so consistently elevated that they have never yet sunk into human comprehension.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

Beyond Life (1919; 1927 edition), Author's Note

War, World, Personality, Dead

“People, even poor people, were in general more contented before the 1914-18 war than they are now, although not nearly so well provided with comforts and luxuries. Incidentally they were also more often people of strong individuality, "characters" or "personalities" as we might say; not of course always either virtuous or agreeable, but qualitatively distinctive, not mere drops in an ocean of mediocrity. And they were more content with their lot than we are. What then is the true criterion of contentment? Can it be anything but the acceptance of one's lot, whatever it may be? Or in other words, knowing one's place and fulfilling faithfully whatever function may be associated with it, with a pride in the quality of the product as the principal incentive rather than any tangible reward; knowing, perhaps, that not to want is better than to have; and above all being intelligent enough not to place one's best hopes in nothing but the satisfactions which a short sojourn in this world can bring. All these things are criteria of contentment, and at the same time they are universal ethical constituents of every religion and tradition.”

Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne (1896–1982) British rower, agriculturalist and translater

Intellectual Freedom (1971)

War, People, World, Religion

“It has often been matter of regret in modern times that, in the construction of the Statute of Limitations, the decisions had not proceeded upon principles better adapted to carry into effect the real objects of the Statute; that instead of being viewed in an unfavourable light as an unjust and discreditable defence, it had not received such support as would have made it what it was intended to be, emphatically a Statute of repose. It is a wise and beneficial law, not designed merely to raise a presumption of payment of a just debt from lapse of time, but to afford security against stale demands after the true state of the transaction may be forgotten, or be incapable of explanation by reason of the death or removal of witnesses.”

Joseph Story (1779–1845) US Supreme Court justice

Bell v. Morrison, 1 Peters, Sup. C. Rep. (U. S.) 360 (1828).

Death, Law, Support, Decision

“To the West, it seems hardly imaginable that the relationship between man and man (which is morality) could be maintained without reference to a Supreme Being, while to the Chinese it is equally amazing that men should not, or could not, behave toward one another as decent beings without thinking of their indirect relationship through a third party.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

Source: My Country and My People (1935), p. 106

Men, Imagination, Thinking

“I’m going to put it to you straight. Never mind about being chief engineer of a planet; these days even a farmer needs the best education he can get. Without it he’s just a country bumpkin, a stumbling peasant, poking seeds into the ground and hoping a miracle will make them grow.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 20, “Home” (pp. 218-219)

Education, Hope, Country

“I always defended the Constitution, because it was for liberty. It was ordained by the people of the United States. Not by a superannuated old mummy of a judge, and a Jesuit at that, but by the people of the United States. To establish justice, secure the blessing of liberty for themselves and their posterity, and to secure the natural rights of every human being within its exclusive jurisdiction. Therefore, I love it. These men can perceive nothing in the Constitution but slavery.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838&ndash;64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA193&lpg=PA199 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 199 1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

Love, Men, People, Justice

“On the occasion of the International Women’s Day 2016, I call on all Filipino men, women and the LGBT community to be united as one powerful force in promoting and protecting the Filipino women’s physical and emotional health and overall well-being. As one collective group, we must all work to ensure that discrimination and violence against Filipino women, and all women all over the world, do not happen in any instance. Everyday, discrimination and violence against women in so many forms—visible and invisible, physical and verbal—take place. These acts have deep and lasting effects on the women’s health and well-being. On this day, let us also renew our resolve and commitment to uphold, advance and protect our achievements in making the Philippine society more sensitive to the issues affecting the lives of Filipino women. More work needs to be done to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment, factors seen by experts as associated with discrimination and violence. Let us do everything within our power and might to stop all forms of discrimination and violence against women, that their rights are protected and upheld, and that they optimally enjoy and achieve the possible maximum standard of physical and emotion health.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2016, March 8). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10153923936700610/ 2016, Facebook

Women, Men, Health, World

“So, ungentle reader, (as you and I value what we should ashamed—after witnessing a few minor circus-marvels—to call our "lives,") let us never be fooled into taking seriously that perfectly superficial distinction which is vulgarly drawn between the circus-show and "art" or "the arts." Let us not forget that every authentic "work of art" is in and of itself alive and that, however "the arts" may differ among themselves, their common function is the expression of that supreme alive-ness which is known as "beauty." This being so, our three ring circus is art—for to contend that the spectacle in question is not an authentic manifestation of "beauty" is as childish, as to dismiss the circus on the ground that it is "childish," is idiotic.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

"The Adult, the Artist and the Circus." Vanity Fair (October 1925)

Beauty, Fools, Art, Question

“If now I…say "Stealing money is wrong," I produce a sentence which has no factual meaning — that is, expresses no proposition which can be either true or false. It is as if I had written "Stealing money!!" — where the shape and thickness of the exclamation marks show, by a suitable convention, that a special sort of moral disapproval is the feeling which is being expressed.”

Alfred Jules Ayer book Language, Truth, and Logic

Source: Language, Truth, and Logic (1936), p. 107.

Money, Feeling, Falseness

“Incompossible, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both — as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

God, World

“Rand always says, “Never pass up an opportunity to pass moral judgment.” Well I say: “Look for an opportunity to do something more useful instead.” Nobody was led to virtue by being told he was a scoundrel.”

Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014) Canadian–American psychotherapist and writer

Interview by Alec Mouhibian in The Free Radical (November 2004)

“The hopelessness of the Turkish Government should make me witness with delight its being swept out of the countries which it tortures. Next to the Ottoman Government nothing can be more deplorable and blameworthy than jealousies between Greek and Slav and plans by the States already existing for appropriating other territory. Why not Macedonia for the Macedonians as well as Bulgaria for the Bulgarians and Serbia for the Serbians?”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Letter quoted in Mr. Gladstone and The Balkan Confederation in The Times (6 February 1897)
1890s

Jealousy, Country

“Roger [Goodell] said he didn't want me in the scrip club. I was like, well, you know, I don't think there's nothing wrong with going to the scrip club. It ain't no sin to go to the scrip club, you know. I was just being rebellion.”

Adam Jones (American football)

Interview with Michael Irvin on The Michael Irvin Show on KESN radio, March 25, 2008 In this interview Jones pronounced "strip club" as "scrip club" and is often quoted as such. Pacman Jones on going to the "scrip" club http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HMA5YD0jsk, Youtube, Retrieved 2010-08-15.

Thinking

“Christianity possesses the great advantage over Judaism of being represented as coming from the mouth of the first Teacher not as a statutory but as a moral religion, and as thus entering into the closest relation with reason so that, through reason, it was able of itself, without historical learning, to be spread at all times and among all peoples with the greatest trustworthiness.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Book IV, Part 1, Section 1, “The Christian religion as a learned religion”
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793)

People, Religion, Learning, Teachers

“At the Bauhaus, Klee exuded a healthy, generative atmosphere – as a great artist and as a lucid, pure human being.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote of Kandinsky, from Bauhaus - Zeitschrift für Gestaltung, no. 3, 1931; as cited in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016 https://www.zpk.org/en/exhibitions/review_0/2015/klee-kandinsky-969.html 1930 - 1944

“The Prince himself has no distinction, either of garments, or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the high priest is also known by his being preceded by a person carrying a wax light.”

Thomas More book Utopia

Source: Utopia (1516), Ch. 7 : Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages

Light, Personality

“If your judgement is clouded, you must be carrying too many things which are being a burden to you.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

9 October 2009.
Twitter messages

“The amount of suffering and pain caused by the tyranny of human beings over other animals (particularly in food production) far exceeds that caused by sexism, racism, or any other existing form of discrimination, and for this reason, the animal liberation movement is the most important liberation movement on the face of the planet today.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 278

Pain, Food, Suffering, Animals

“Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organization from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Combat Liberalism (1937)

“Personally, I never met Knut Wicksell. I saw him once when he delivered a lecture in Oslo, but being an unassuming student at the time, I did not have the courage to talk to him. So my knowledge of his theory came only through his writings. That, however, was a very intense and absorbing form of making his acquaintance. Already from my early student days, I read his writings (in German and Swedish) avidly. And I continued to do so later.
When I started my study on Wicksell, I found that his works were not easy reading. Often it was only at the third or fourth reading that I grasped his ideas. Invariably, each new reading made me more and more enthusiastic. Sometimes it happened that I thought I had finally caught him in an inconsistency or in unclear thinking. Every time this happened, it turned out, however, that the error was mine.”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Frisch (1952) " Frish on Wicksell http://www.sv.uio.no/econ/om/tall-og-fakta/nobelprisvinnere/ragnar-frisch/published-scientific-work/Scan1.pdf" p. 654 1940-60s

Error, Idea, Courage, Knowledge

“If we would taste God, and feel in ourselves Eternal Life above all things, We must go forth into God with a faith that is far above our reason, And there dwell, simple, idle, without image, Lifted up by love into the Unwalled Bareness of our intelligence. For when we go out from ourselves in love, and die to all observances in ignorance and darkness, Then we are made complete, And transfigured by the Eternal Word, Image of the Father. And in this emptiness of spirit we receive the Incomprehensible Light, Which enfolds and penetrates us as air is penetrated by the light of the sun; And this Light is nought else but a fathomless gazing and seeing. What we are, that we gaze at; and what we gaze at, that we are. For our thought, our life, our being, are lifted up in simplicity, And united with the Truth, that is God. Therefore in this simple gazing we are one life and one spirit with God
—And this I call the seeing life.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)

Love, Life, God, Truth

“This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.”

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

1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)

Love, Wisdom, Men, Hate

“The real question is, Did God use evolution as His plan? If it could be shown that man, instead of being made in the image of God, is a development of beasts we would have to accept it, regardless of its effort, for truth is truth and must prevail. But when there is no proof we have a right to consider the effect of the acceptance of an unsupported hypothesis.”

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) United States Secretary of State

God and Evolution (1922)

God, Truth, Question, Effort

“A couple alleged males attempted to sucker punch a 100-pound woman and missed. And they ended up with their faces smashed in and spending the night in the Pima County Jail, where I'm sure — being good liberals — their views on gay marriage will serve them well.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

On two protestors who threw pies at her during a speech, on The Sean Hannity Show (22 October 2004).
2004

Marriage, Night

“The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

As quoted in Grace at the Table : Ending Hunger in God's World (1999) by David M. Beckmann abd Arthur R. Simon, p. 156

“It is only through the discovery of History — more precisely by the awakening of the historical consciousness in Judaeo-Christianity and its propagation by Hegel and his successors — it is only through the radical assimilation of the new mode of being represented by human existence in the world that myth could be left behind. But we hesitate to say that mythical thought has been abolished. As we shall soon see, it managed to survive, though radically changed (if not perfectly camouflaged). And the astonishing fact is that, more than anywhere else it survives in historiography!”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Source: Images and Symbols (1952), p. 113.

World, History, Change

“At one stage, Venkataraman had agreed to become prime minister but he never told me this directly…. Once the news of his being in touch with the dissidents was leaked out, he was offered the presidency and that was the end of it.”

Zail Singh (1916–1994) Indian politician and former President of India

On being asked if R. Venkataraman showed any interest in becoming prime minister. In: K.R. Sundar Rajan "Presidential Years:Zail Singh's posthumous defence of his controversial tenure".

“The conclusion seems to be irresistible that such laws of nature as the principle of conservation of energy, the principle of conservation of momentum and the law of gravitation are necessary consequences of our modes of measurement. They are, in fact, elaborately disguised identities which could have been predicted a priori by a being of sufficiently powerful analytical insight who fully understood all that is implied in the way we measure space-time intervals.”

Ernest Barnes (1874–1953) English mathematician and clergyman

As quoted by Gerald James Whitrow, The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

Law, Way, Nature, Time

“How much of our literature, our political life, our friendships and love affairs, depend on being able to talk peacefully in a bar!”

John Wain (1925–1994) British writer

As given in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988) p. 301

Love, Life, Friendship, Literature

“If being hit on the head by a falling flower tub could be worth cash to the victim, what price a child’s life under civil law?”

Lindsey Davis book The Ides of April

The Ides of April

Life, Law, Flowers

“[The poll tax] was a classic case of a good idea being entrusted to Chris Patten and becoming a terrible failure.”

Norman Tebbit (1931) English politician

On the BBC (16 November, 2000). http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1025000/audio/_1026366_tebbit.ram

Idea, Failure

“I'm basically tired of doing what I have been doing for the last 10 years. My interest level was dipping. I was doing a fairly good job, when compared to others. The standards I have set for myself are higher. When I watched the Broadway show Miss Saigon, I was ashamed of being called an actress. The leading lady's performance was outstanding. I was ashamed that I am in the same profession but could not touch those heights.”

Manisha Koirala (1970) Nepalese actress, UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador and social activist

Manisha Koirala on FILMBUG http://www.filmbug.com/db/30781

“The Scriptural doctrine in regard to repentance is not, that a man must repent in order to his being qualified to go to Christ; it is rather, that he must go to Christ in order to his being able to repent. From Him comes the grace of contrition as well as the cleansing of expiation.”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 506.

Christ

“Is it therefore so illogical to recognise the Will of Nature in the rapid increase in the number of human beings? Surely several hundred million more people are needed, who with their energy and strength can help restore this ravished lump of excrement, the Earth, to its former glory!”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Callum Coats: The Fertile Earth

People, Nature, Help

“Marcia: You look great, you're beautiful and this song suits you. You were being yourself and you did great.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 4

Beauty

“But it is human beings collectively, not a small number of elites working in secret, who can decide what kind of world we want to live in. Promoting the human capacity to reason and make decisions: that is the purpose of whistle-blowing, of activism, of political journalism. And that’s what is happening now, thanks to the revelations brought about by Edward Snowden.”

Glenn Greenwald book No Place to Hide

Penguin Books 2015 edition, page 253.
No Place to Hide (2014)

Secret, World, Decision

“The world and Christianity have completely opposite conceptions. The world says of the apostles, of the Apostle Peter as their spokesman, "He is drunk,"-and the Apostle Peter admonishes, "Become sober." Consequently the secular mentality considers Christianity to be drunkenness, and Christianity considers the secular mentality to be drunkenness. "Do become reasonable, come to your senses, try to become sober"-thus does the secular mentality taunt the Christian. And the Christian says to the secular mentality, "Do become reasonable, come to your senses, become sober." The difference between secularity and Christianity is not that one has one view and the other another-no, the difference is always that they have the very opposite views, that what one calls good the other calls evil, what the one calls love the other calls selfishness, what the one calls piety the other calls impiety, What the one calls being drunk the other calls being sober. it is precisely the drunken man, the apostle, who finds it necessary to bring home to the sober (I assume) world the admonition: "Become sober!"”

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

This very admonition may, as intended, most severely wound the callous secular mentality, which as a rule cannot be wounded very easily or disconcerted.
Judge for Yourself, p. 96-97 1851
1850s, Judge For Yourselves! 1851 (1876)

Love, World, Home, Sense

“[The workmethods had] evolved from the experience of successive generations… Each other, often being members of the same family; supervision was internal, having the quality of 'responsible autonomy.”

Eric Trist (1909–1993) British scientist

Source: "Some Social and Psychological Consequences of the Long Wall Method of Coal-Getting", 1951, p. 6

Family, Success

“The ascent of man into heaven is not the key, but rather his ascent here into the spirit and the descent also of the Spirit into his normal humanity and the transformation of this earthly nature. For that and not some post mortem salvation is the real new birth for which humanity waits as the crowning movement of its long obscure and painful course…. Therefore the individuals who will most help the future of humanity in the new age will be those who will recognise a spiritual evolution as the destiny and therefore the great need of the human being…. They will especially not make the mistake of thinking that this change can be effected by machinery and outward institutions; they will know and never forget that it has to be lived out by each man inwardly or it can never be made a reality for the kind…. Failures must be originally numerous in everything great and difficult, but the time comes when the experience of past failures can be profitably used and the gate that so long resisted opens. In this as in all great human aspirations and endeavours, an a priori declaration of impossibility is a sign of ignorance and weakness, and the motto of the aspirant's endeavour must be the solvitur ambulando of the discoverer. For by the doing the difficulty will be solved. A true beginning has to be made; the rest is a work for Time in its sudden achievements or its long patient labour….”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

July, 1918
India's Rebirth

Pain, Age, Birth, Failure

“We can be as sure as we could probably need be that neither this enormous explosion that set the universe in motion, which is still moving away from us at a great rate, nor this amazingly complex billion year period of evolution, we can be pretty certain it was not designed so that you and I could be meeting in this room. We are not the objects of either of these plans. These plans don’t know we’re here. I’m sorry to say, wouldn’t know or care if we stopped being here. We have to face this alone with the equipment, intellectual and moral, that we’ve been given, or that we've acquired, or that is innate to us.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Authors@Google, August 16, 2007, YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD0B-X9LJjs. 2000s, 2007

Universe

“Those who have not learnt from Gasteiz will be responsible for their own acts. Those who want to fight, will be fought. With all of its consequences. Stop being fool.”

Manuel Fraga Iribarne (1922–2012) Spanish politician

Mor al llit, impunement, Manuel Fraga, icona del franquisme i responsable dels assassinats de Gasteiz, 16th January 2012, Setmanari La Directa, 16th January 2012, catalan http://www.setmanaridirecta.info/noticia/noticia-fraga, Gasteiz Facts

Fools, Fight

“It wasn’t hard for people to see the Titanic as a metaphor for Western civilization’s obsessions with speed, wealth, and conquest at the expense of contemplation, sharing and the well-being of one’s neighbor.”

Steve Turner (1949) British writer

Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), pp. 188-189

People, Speed, Wealth

“The fate of farm animals is not an ethical side issue. It concerns the majority of Earth's large creatures: tens of billions of sentient beings, each with a complex world of sensations and emotions, but who live and die as cogs in an industrial production line.”

Yuval Noah Harari (1976) Israeli historian

Introduction to Animal Liberation

Fate, World, Animals

“From the director to the international cast, all of them are from deaf families for generations, while the film industry usually entrusts these roles to audacious interpreters that end up being bad imitators of the Sign language: as if an Italian actor was asked to act in Japanese by cracking down the tongue.”

Emilio Insolera (1979) Actor and film producer

As quoted in Cinema. Quando il super eroe è sordo https://www.avvenire.it/agora/pagine/sordo(September 10, 2017), Avvenire)

Family

“Echoing the Christian faith in free will, humanists hold that human beings are – or may someday become – free to choose their lives. They forget that the self that does the choosing has not itself been chosen.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Beyond the Last Thought: Freud's cigars and the long way round to Nirvana (p. 86)
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths (2013)

Faith, Forgetting

“Please take my name off the candidate list. I’ve decided to stay in politics for good. Between the two choices of being the next king and being a politician, I will surely choose to involve myself in politics to lead Funcinpec ahead. I have decided to take to politics more than the throne. Prince Sihamoni has always supported my candidacy for the throne. I thank him for his support. But I have decided I am not a candidate. I like to be in politics.”

Norodom Ranariddh (1944) Cambodian politician

[LOR CHANDARA, https://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/prince-opts-for-politics-not-throne-27260/, Prince Opts For Politics, Not Throne, The Cambodia Daily, 14 November 2001, 15 February 2015]</ref>

Support

“…Novello should be extremely grateful that his innubile daughter was being taken off his hands by a Tasca.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Devil of a State (1961)

Daughters

“When somebody enrolls, consider he or she has joined up for the duration of the universe — never permit an "open-minded" approach… If they enrolled, they're aboard, and if they're aboard they're here on the same terms as the rest of us — win or die in the attempt. Never let them be half minded about being Scientologists. … When Mrs. Pattycake comes to us to be taught, turn that wandering doubt in her eye into a fixed, dedicated glare. … The proper instruction attitude is, "We'd rather have you dead than incapable."”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Scientology Policy Letters

Universe, Dead

“Labour has always been a coalition between workerist and progressive elements, liberals and conservatives, mediated by socialism. It was held together by the belief that we are social beings who resist the domination of capital through democracy; and by the refusal to accept that human beings are a commodity or that our inheritance is exclusively monetary.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

New Statesman article, 3 November 2016 http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2016/11/things-dont-only-get-better-why-working-class-fell-out-love-labour

Democracy