Quotes about believer (10000 quotes, page 45)

“They say they can't believe it, it's a sacrilegious shame
Now, who would want to hurt such a hero of the game?
But you know I predicted it; I knew he had to fall
How did it happen? I hope his suffering was small.
Tell me every detail, I've got to know it all,
And do you have a picture of the pain?”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

"Crucifixion"
Pleasures of the Harbor (1967)

Pain , Hope , Game , Suffering

“Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 at the age of 23. Within a week he collided head on with racism. His immediate response was to flee the country that so degraded people of color, but then his inner resilience overpowered him with a sense of mission, and he stayed to redeem the dignity of the racially exploited, to pave the way for the liberation of the colonized the world over and to develop a blueprint for a new social order.
He left 21 years later, a near maha atma (great soul). There is no doubt in my mind that by the time he was violently removed from our world, he had transited into that state.
He was no ordinary leader. There are those who believe he was divinely inspired, and it is difficult not to believe with them. He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and the personal is at the heart of his philosophy. He seeks the simultaneous and interactive development of the moral person and the moral society.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)

People , Age , World , Color

“Far from there being a constant flow of resources and aid from northern countries to southern countries, the opposite is the case, and has been for most of the past 200 years. Colonialism was not about exporting civilisations; it was not about improving the lot of people in the poorest countries—it was driven by greed and avarice and a determination to control other people's lives. It was about ensuring that the work, the raw materials and the food of the poorer countries flowed out to the richest parts of the world. That is the legacy of colonialism and imperialism that we have to deal with today. I honestly believe that the role of the world's twin financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World bank, is essentially to reassert that old-world order so that once more a minority of northern, predominantly rich countries dominate the majority of southern, predominantly poor countries.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/dec/14/overseas-development in the House of Commons (14 December 1990).
1990s

People , World , Food , Past

“So many people these days, it seemed, believed that these things (personal fulfillment and self-esteem) could come only from work, not from parenting, and many people believed that having children had nothing to do with raising them.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Taylor McAden, Chapter 18, p. 200
2000s, The Rescue (2000)

Children , People , Parent , Personality

“Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

J 77
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook J (1789)

People , Truth

“Pietism and methodism reemphasized personal guilt, personal experience, and individual perfection. They were not intended to deviate from ecclesiastical conformity, but unavoidably they did deviate; subjective piety became the bridge of the victorious reappearance of autonomous reason. Pietism was the bridge to Enlightenment. But even Enlightenment did not consider itself individualistic. One believed not in a conformity which is based on biblical revelation but in one which should be based on the power of reason in every individual. The principles of practical and theoretical reason were supposed to be universal among men and able to create, with the help of research and education, a new conformity.”

Paul Tillich book The Courage to Be

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 114

Men , Education , Universe , Victory

“Andrew Jackson neatly resolved the issue by walking into congress and placing his hand on the Bible they kept there as a reminder of all the virtues they worked so hard to get the voters to believe they possessed.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 19.

“It has been said, "History is written by the victors." I take this to mean we can make ourselves victorious by writing, and then rewriting our own stories. In a country and culture so dominated by media, by the manipulation of words and stories, telling the tales of people whose stories historically have not been told is a radical act and I believe an act that can change the world and help rewrite history.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Speech at 4th Annual Power Up Premiere Gala, Los Angeles, California (7 November 2004) http://jennifer-beals.com/media/speeches/powerup.html.

People , World , History , Change

“It is a noteworthy fact that not one of the women to whom I have spoken so far believes in abortion as a practice; but it is principle for which they are standing. They also believe that the complete abolition of the abortion law will shortly do away with abortions, as nothing else will.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Birth Control Review, December 1920
Birth Control Review, 1918-32

Women , Law

“I started out my political life as a bedwetting liberal. Young, idealistic — and dumb. Then I started paying income taxes. Thankfully I realized sooner than most the difference between what I earn and my "take-home" pay. For a few years I guess you could have called me a conservative. I was troubled, though, by the penchant conservatives have for directing the social lives of people. That led me straight to the libertarian philosophy. Simply put, I believe in freedom. I believe the Constitution should be amended with a clause which states that neither the federal nor any state government shall make any activity that does not violate, through force or fraud, a persons right to life, liberty or property, a crime. I firmly believe that if liberty is to be preserved in America, it will be libertarian thought, if not the Libertarian Party, that saves it.”

Neal Boortz (1945) American author, journalist, and radio host

Life , People , Home , Fraud

“The neurotic believes that life has meaning, but that his life hasn't.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Neurotics and neurosis

Life

“I may be furious and sad about what happened with us, but that doesn't make me believe that what we had wasn't real. And it doesn't make me believe that I won't find something that real again.”

Mary Kay Andrews (1954) American writer(original name/Kathy Hogan Trocheck)

Summer Rental (2011).

Sadness

“And it’s important to understand the sequence of events, and the ideas that accompanied that sequence of events that led up to the Civil War. The subtitle of my new book is Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War, and I believe I’ve discussed the question of the nature of secession and the role of secession in that crisis, I believe, more thoroughly than I think it’s ever been discussed before.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The South was a Closed Society

War , Books , Idea , Understanding

“Citizens around the world have long declared a desire to be trusted with the formation of their own opinions, and that can only come when they have access to the facts. This is the essence of the information war. Do we trust citizens to communicate freely and come to their own conclusions, or do we believe those in authority have a right to restrict and manipulate what we know? Do we hold to Enlightenment ideals of reason and the pursuit of truth no matter where that takes us, or put our faith in authority to make certain an uncertain world?”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page x.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition

War , Truth , World , Faith

“All government rests upon consent, and consent is not to be had without taking counsel with the most eminent or influential or representative of the governed, and seeking their advice: the act of taking counsel cannot be separated from the act of exercising authority. All government rests also upon upon habit, upon being exercised in the same way or a similar way to that in which the governed remember or believe that it was exercised before. Brute force can break with habit; but as soon as brute force begins to turn into government, it does so by starting to observe habitual modes of behaviour. Habitual forms or institutions for counsel and consent are thus of the essence of government.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Introduction to his book The House of Lords in the Middle Ages (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968), p. xi
1960s

Way , Exercises

“We don't ideologically believe in the separation of spirit and matter, but in practice, we still tend to think that things that are too material, too real-life, are somehow not as spiritual. So a trance to Faery is perceived as "spiritual," whereas a trance to a Brazilian favela slum is not. We can argue about the reality of Faery, but the favela is undeniably real. If we truly believe that our spirituality is about deep interconnectedness, maybe it's more important for us to grapple internally with the reality of the favela than to dance with the faeries.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

Toward an Activist Spirituality (2003)

Life , Thinking , Reality , Dance

“Inferences and large dosages of imagination actually have allowed the construction of a far more adequate understanding of the cosmic and human past than earlier generations achieved. I believe that this is the central intellectual accomplishment of the twentieth century. Innumerable cosmologists, physicists, mathematicians, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, ecologists, ethologists, and other specialists have played their part; a few swashbuckling intellects led the way, and the outlines of an evolutionary worldview, uniting natural and human history, has begun to emerge. It may be convincing for generations to come—or again may not.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

The Pursuit of Truth: A Historian's Memoir (2005)

Way , Imagination , History , Understanding

“4087. Seeing's believing, but feeling's the truth.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Truth , Feeling

“Did the Doctor really imagine that everbody went around believing different things? One believed what one was told to believe, what it made sense to believe. Unless one was a foreigner, of course, or a philosopher.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Inversions (1998), Chapter 7 (pp. 125-126)

Imagination , Sense

“Knowledge about things beyond our immediate environment may be acquired through deduction, if the initial premises are believed to be correct.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Source: Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man (2009), p.108

Knowledge

“Forced in January 1973 by American pressure to to accept a cease-fire agreement that left well over 100,000 North Vietnamese troops inside South Vietnam and free access for tens of thousands more, South Vietnamese leaders surely had reason to believe that if their enemy seriously violated the agreement, the United States would interfere. Yet that was not to be. In the face of that grave psychological blow for the South Vietnamese, it required no military genius to assure South Vietnam's eventual military defeat.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 405-406.

“I am against change. It is overrated. It improves nothing,’ said Hor.
‘Come now, that is an absurd opinion, and goes against all sense. It is merely a sign of age, for as we get older, so we believe the world gets worse, manners decline, standards of ethics and knowledge are eroded—’ said Nakht.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

ibid
The Rahotep series, Book 2: Tutankhamun

Age , World , Knowledge , Sense

“I regret exceedingly the arrest of many gentlemen and persons in Kentucky, and still more that they should give causes of arrest. I cannot in person inquire into these matters, but must leave them to the officer who is commissioned and held responsible by Government for the peace and safety of Kentucky. It does appear to me when our national integrity is threatened and the very fundamental principles of all government endangered that minor issues should not be made by Judge Bullitt and others. We cannot all substitute our individual opinions, however honest, as the test of authority. As citizens and individuals we should waive and abate our private notions of right and policy to those of the duly appointed agents of the Government, certain that if they be in error the time will be short when the real principles will manifest themselves and be recognized. In your career how often have you not believed our Congress had adopted a wrong policy and how short the time now seems to you when the error rectified itself or you were willing to admit yourself wrong.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

1860s, 1864, Letter to James Guthrie (August 1864)

Peace , Error , Appearance , Time

“Marcia: It's lovely to see you stand so still and so metered, and sing so beautifully. I do believe in you very much Hayley, but I mean, I believe in everyone who has performed tonight. I fought for you, and I will always fight for you no matter what, because I think you're a very beautiful singer.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, First Round

Love , Beauty , Thinking , Singing

“I believe in God who made of one blood all races that dwell on earth. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Source: The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003), p. 132

Men , God , Soul , Time

“I hate the whole übermensch, superman temptation that pervades science fiction. I believe no protagonist should be so competent, so awe-inspiring, that a committee of 20 really hard-working, intelligent people couldn't do the same thing.”

David Brin (1950) novelist, short story writer

Interview http://www.locusmag.com/1997/Issues/03/Brin.html in Locus (March 1997)

Hate , People , Intelligence , Science

“As paint I use lightfast printing ink, usually pure, but also mixed. Mixing is not difficult at all, it but can happen in very different ways. Secret means are not applied, but I can not work on them, except in solitude (at sunshine). No one works in this way. I believe that no one else can obtain the same color effects, except after a lot of practice and experience. Sometimes one print goes up to 50 times under the printing-press. [I make] Never more than one piece per day.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands):Als verf gebruik ik lichtechte drukinkt, meestal puur, ook wel gemengd. Het mengen is wel geen kunst maar kan zeer verschillend gebeuren. Geheime middelen worden niet toegepast, maar ik kan er niet aan werken, dan alleen in eenzaamheid (bij zonneschijn). Door niemand wordt op deze wijze gewerkt., ik geloof dat ook niemand anders dezelfde kleureffecten zou kunnen krijgen dan na veel oefening en ervaring. Soms gaat één druk tot 50 maal onder de pers. Nooit meer dan één ex. Per dag.
Quote from Werkman's letter (6.) to August Henkels, 24 Jan. 1941; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 134
1940's

Secret , Color , Way , Solitude

“I believe in the premillenial, pre-tribulational coming of Christ for all of his church, and to summarize that, your first poll, do you believe Jesus coming the second time will be in the future, I would vote yes with the 59 percent and with Billy Graham and most evangelicals.
The second question, you asked, "Do you think he is coming in your lifetime?" I would vote neither yes nor no. I would vote I do not know, because Jesus said, "No man knows the day or the hour." So the bottom line is, I believe that we ought to be living every day as though this is the crowning day. But we should also be planning and working with the next generation in mind, because we do not know.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Paula Zahn Now (31 July 2006), as quoted in "CNN still fixated on Apocalypse predictors, still ignoring alleged invitation to White House, Capitol Hill" at Media Matters for America (1 August 2006) http://mediamatters.org/items/200608010007

Question , Thinking , Time , Future

“You believe in freedom of speech for communists because what they say is true. You do not believe in freedom of speech for fascists because what they say is a lie.”

John Howard Lawson (1894–1977) American politician

Speaking to the rest of the Hollywood Ten during their preparation for testimony, in answer to a hypothetical prosecution ploy, "Do you believe in free speech for fascists?" From Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten by Edward Dmytryk (1996, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, IL).

Lie , Freedom

“There are many people in the industry that know nothing about games. In particular, a large American company is trying to do engulf software houses with money, but I don't believe that will go well. It looks like they'll sell their game system next year, but we'll see the answer to that the following year.”

Hiroshi Yamauchi (1927–2013) Japanese businessman

In reference to Microsoft, prior to the release of the Xbox "Top 10 Tuesday: Wildest Statements Made by Industry Veterans" ign.com http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/03/14/top-10-tuesday-wildest-statements-made-by-industry-veterans

Money , People , Game , Housing

“… back when nearly everyone in the Western World was ruled by religions touting these Commandments, it was a period of unparalleled tyranny and cruelty known as the Dark Ages. It was a time of thought police, when one could be killed simply for not believing what they were told. The first half [of the Ten Commandments] only serves to promote religion, with no benefit to humanity at all. Education, enlightenment and free inquiry are the key, not the forced conformity by those claiming authority from an imaginary being.”

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

Youtube, Other, The Damn Commandments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u3z69YpLx0 (January 7, 2015)

Age , World , Education , Religion

“I believe that the supreme duty of the historian is to write history, that is to say, to attempt to record in one sweeping sequence the greater events and movements that have swayed the destinies of man.”

Steven Runciman book A History of the Crusades

A History of the Crusades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1951-54] 1957) vol. 3 p. xiii.Steven Runciman delivered a lecture in the University of the Punjab Lahore (Pakistan) on Monday, Feb 24, 1964 at 11.00 A. M in the University of Senate Hall. The topic was " Personal Contacts between Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages". Professor Hamid Ahmad Khan VC presided the lecture. Allama Muhammad Yousuf Gabriel attended this lecture and gave a letter to Sir S.Runciman to deliever it to Sir Bertrand Russel. Sir Steven delievered t his letter to Bertrand Russel and he sent a reply to Allama Muhammad Yousuf Gabriel but address was not Pakistan but India. The letter was returned from India to Pakistan and was handed over to Yousuf Gabriel. Sir Bertrand Russel wrote : " Since Adam and Eve ate the apple man has never abstained any folly what ever he could do and the end is atomic hell".

History

“We agree with the statement contained in the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, written by Pope Leo XIII, that "anything which dominates the life of the community should be owned by the community." That is the basis upon which we believe there should be government ownership of monopolistic enterprises.”

Tommy Douglas (1904–1986) Scottish-born Canadian politician

Budget Debate, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario, March 22, 1943.

Life , Communication

“Long long ago, before the days of Islam, Sikander e Aazem came to India. The Two Horned one whom you British people call Alexander the Great. He conquered the world, and was a very great man, brave and dauntless and generous to his followers. When he left to go back to Greece, some of his men did not wish to go back with him but preferred to stay here. Their leader was a general called Shalakash (Seleucus). With some of his officers and men, he came to these valleys and they settled here and took local women, and here they stayed. We, the Kalash, the Black Kafir of the Hindu Kush, are the descendants of their children. Still some of our words are the same as theirs, our music and our dances, too; we worship the same gods. This is why we believe the Greeks are our first ancestors…”

Michael Wood (1948) English historian and broadcaster

Statement made by a Kalash named Kazi Khushnawaz, "Footsteps of Alexander the Great p. 8
i.e.: Seleucus was one of the Generals of Alexander the Great. He was born in 358 or 354 BC in the town of Europos, Macedonia and died in August/September 281 BC near Lysimathia, Thrace.

Women , Men , God , Children

“We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. … You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

World , Sense , Fight

“Darwin seems to lose out with the public primarily when his supporters force him into a mano-a-mano Thunderdome death match against the Almighty. Most people seem willing to accept Darwinism as long as they don't have to believe in nothing but Darwinism. Thus, the strident tub-thumping for absolute atheism by evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins, whom the new issue of Discover Magazine rightly criticizes as "Darwin's Rottweiler," is self-defeating.”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

The Left Doesn’t Like Darwin Either https://archive.is/20130630132900/www.vdare.com/sailer/050807_darwin.htm, VDARE, August 7, 2005

Death , People , Support

“I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them.
Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill. But the mystery and the beauty of the world is overwhelmingly amazing, and there's no scientific explanation of how it came about. To say that it was generated by random numbers, that does seem, you know, sort of an uncharitable view. I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don't know.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Response when he was asked whether he believed in God, at his interview with the Rolling Stone Magazine http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/bill-gates-the-rolling-stone-interview-20140313#ixzz367A061i0. March 27, 2014.
The Rolling Stone Interview (2014)

Life , God , People , World

“I’ve never found anything in occult literature that seemed to have a bearing. You know, the occult—very much like stories of supernatural horror—is a sort of game. Most religions, too. Believe in the game and accept its rules—or the premises of the story—and you can have the thrills or whatever it is you’re after. Accept the spirit world and you can see ghosts and talk to the dear departed. Accept Heaven and you can have the hope of eternal life and the reassurance of an all-powerful god working on your side. Accept Hell and you can have devils and demons, if that’s what you want. Accept—if only for story purposes—witchcraft, druidism, shamanism, magic or some modern variant and you can have werewolves, vampires, elementals. Or believe in the influence and power of a grave, an ancient house or monument, a dead religion, or an old stone with an inscription on it—and you can have inner things of the same general sort. But I’m thinking of the kind of horror—and wonder too, perhaps—that lies beyond any game, that’s bigger than any game, that’s fettered by no rules, conforms to no man-made theology, bows to no charms or protective rituals, that strides the world unseen and strikes without warning where it will, much the same as (though it’s of a different order of existence than all of these) lightning or the plague or the enemy atom bomb. The sort of horror that the whole fabric of civilization was designed to protect us from and make us forget. The horror about which all man’s learning tells us nothing.”

Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction

“A Bit of the Dark World” (pp. 261-262); originally published in Fantastic, February 1962
Short Fiction, Night's Black Agents (1947)

Life , God , World , Religion

“When we are reminded that modern men find it difficult to believe in the divinity of Jesus, we urge a search for realities that are far greater than words. If Jesus gives us our clearest vision of the nature of God; if he reveals the godlike qualities in man; if he secures penitence, restitution, joyous allegiance, and heroic sacrifice; if he leads to deliverance for individuals and groups—he becomes a symbol for all that is noblest in the universe, whatever may be the title by which he is characterized.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

The Personality of Jesus (1932)

Men , God , Search , Nature

“The thing that worries me about the computer age is the fact that people know so much about you. It's an incredible invasion of privacy. And no matter where you are in the world people can monitor you if you're using your credit card. I heard this weird rumor on the Internet about how the military is funding this great big research project and basically, they believe that in the future, the balance of power won't be determined by who has the most nuclear weapons, but by who has all the information. I'm not afraid of being taken over by computers though, because the thing is, computers cannot resist. You can always smash 'em up, and they're totally defenseless. All we need are more people with hammers.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

source http://radiohead1.tripod.com/band/thomquotes.htm

People , Age , World , Future

“Believe not each accusing tongue,
As most weak persons do;
But still believe that story wrong,
Which ought not to be true!”

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-British politician, playwright and writer

Reported in Nicholas Harris Nicolas, The Carcanet: a Literary Album, Containing Select Passages from the Most Distinguished English Writers (1828), p. 132.

Personality

“[According to the Qur’an] God will punish me for not believing even though it is his fault that I don’t believe. God doesn’t need to seal my heart and my ears or cover my eyes. How about providing something that I could see or hear that would actually indicate a god? Why does God demand faith in lieu of evidence? I think it’s not just that there is no evidence, but that the reason there isn’t is because there is no god either.”

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

Patheos, The Cow http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/01/22/the-cow/ (January 22, 2016)

God , Faith , Thinking , Heart

“I believe that one day, the people of China will become the masters of their own nation, just like their Taiwanese counterparts have done.”

Joseph Wu (1954) Taiwanese politician

Joseph Wu (2018) cited in " Allies remain a priority: minister http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2018/05/26/2003693748" on Taipei Times, 26 May 2018.

People

“No, they said they do not believe in evolution, then they said the biggest threat to America: religious radicals living in the Dark Ages.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Speaking of Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo at the 3 May Republican Presidential debate
Monologue, 4 May 2007
The Tonight Show

Age

“It is impossible to answer your question briefly; and I am not sure that I could do so, even if I wrote at some length. But I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came, and how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of suffering through the world. I am, also, induced to defer to a certain extent to the judgment of the many able men who have fully believed in God; but here again I see how poor an argument this is. The safest conclusion seems to me that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect; but man can do his duty.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

volume I, chapter VIII: "Religion", pages 306-307 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=324&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image; letter http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-8837 to Dutch student N.D. Doedes (2 April 1873)
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)

Men , God , World , Question

“The recognition of human wretchedness is difficult for whoever is rich and powerful because he is almost invincibly led to believe that he is something. It is equally difficult for the man in miserable circumstances because he is almost invincibly led to believe that the rich and powerful man is something.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Attention and Will (1947), p. 216

“The ancient Greeks, as Plato reports, believed that we discover truth through "reminiscence," that is by "remembering," by intuitively searching into our own experience.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: Man’s Search for Himself (1953), p. 214

Truth , Search

“I am sure that some day the Czechs will see that what we did was to save them for a happier future. And I sincerely believe that what we have at last opened the way to that general appeasement which alone can save the world from chaos.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (2 October 1938), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 375.
Prime Minister

World , Way , Future , Sincerity

“Scientific men get an awkward habit — no, I won't call it that, for it is a valuable habit — of believing nothing unless there is evidence for it; and they have a way of looking upon belief which is not based upon evidence, not only as illogical, but as immoral.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

Thomas Henry Huxley. "Lectures on Evolution Title: This is Essay# 3 from" Science and Hebrew Tradition." (1882); as cited in: William Trufant Foster, (1908) Argumentation and debating, p. 55
1880s

Men , Way

“Reporter: President Jiang, do you think it’ll be good for Mr. Tung to serve another consecutive term?
Jiang: That’ll be good!
Reporter: Does Central Government support him too?
Jiang: Of course yes!
Reporter: Recently European Union has published a report saying that Beijing will affect and influence the nomocracy of Hong Kong in some ways. What's your response to that?
Jiang: Never heard before.
Reporter: It’s Chris Patten who said that.
Jiang: You the media should always remember that Seeing is believing. You should judge by yourself after you have received the news, got it? In case you say these things out of thin air for him, you may share the responsibility in some way.
Reporter: Now in such an early time, you said that you supported Mr. Tung, will that give people the impression that there is already an internal decision or imperial appointment on Mr. Tung?
Jiang: There's no such implication whatsoever. Everything should be done in accordance with Hong Kong Basic Law and the election laws.
Reporter: But…
Jiang: Replying what you've just asked me, I could have said "No comment." But you guys wouldn't be happy. So what should I do?
Reporter: Then Mr. Tung…
Jiang: I did not say that imperially appointing him to serve the next term. You asked me whether I support him or not, I support him. I can tell you explicitly.
Reporter: President Jiang…
Jiang: You all… My feeling is that you the media need to learn more. You are very familiar with the Western set of value, but after all you are too young. Do you understand what I mean? Let me tell you, I've been through hundreds of battles. I've seen a lot. Which country in the West have I not been to? Every time… You should know Mike Wallace in the US. He's way above you all. He and I talked cheerfully and humorously, which is why the media need to raise your intellectual level. Got it or not?
Reporter: President Jiang…
Jiang: I'm anxious for you all truly. You really… I… You guys are good at one thing. Wherever you go to all over the world, you always run faster than Western journalists. But the questions you keep asking - are too simple, sometimes naive. Understand or not? Got it or not?
Reporter: But could you say why you support Tung Chee-hwa?
Jiang: I'm very sorry. Today I am speaking to you as an elder, not as a journalist. I am not a journalist. But I've seen too much. I have this necessity to tell you a bit of my life experience.
Jiang: I just wanted to… Every time… In Chinese we have saying, "Make a fortune quietly." If I had said nothing, that would have been the best. But I thought I've seen all of you so enthusiastic. If I said nothing, that wouldn't be good. So, a moment ago you just insisted… In spreading the news, if your reports are inaccurate, you must be responsible. I did not say giving an imperial appointment. No such meaning. But you insisted on asking me whether I supported Mr. Tung or not. He is still the current Chief Executive. How could we not support the Chief Executive?
Reporter: But if we talk about his serving another term…
Jiang: To serve another term, you must follow the law of Hong Kong. Of course, our right to make the decision is also very important, since the Hong Kong SAR belongs to the Central Government of the People's Republic of China. When it gets to the right time, we'll let you know our decision. Understand what I say? You all. Don't provoke an uproar. Don't make it a flash-news saying that "It has already been imperially appointed" and criticize me. You all! Naive! I'm angry! I just offend you today! Your behavior like this is annoying!”

Jiang Zemin (1926) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

As quoted in "Former president Jiang Zemin unleashes a long tirade after a Hong Kong reporter asks him if Beijing had issued an "imperial order" to support Tung Chee-hwa in his bid to seek a second term as Chief Executive" https://www.facebook.com/shanghaiist/videos/10152728897091030 (October 2014), Facebook.
2000s, Hong Kong reporters make Jiang see red

Life , People , World , Law

“[remembering the day he got his draft notice] It was a summer afternoon, maybe June of '68. And I remember taking that envelope into the house and putting it on the kitchen table where my mom and dad were having lunch. They just looked at it and knew what it was. The silence of that lunch. I didn't speak, my mom didn't speak, my dad didn't speak. It was just that piece of paper lying at the center of the table. It was enough to make me cry to this day, not for myself, but for my mom and dad, both of whom had been in the Navy during World War Two, and had believed in service to one's country and all those values. (from the companion book, p. 318)”

Tim O'Brien (1946) American novelist

From The Vietnam War (2017)

War , Books , World , Lying

“The biggest sin is unbelief. God wants us to believe Him. But we rebel against God when we refuse to trust Him.”

Jack T. Chick (1924–2016) Christian comics writer

Chick tracts, " And It Was Good! http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1089/1089_01.asp" (2015)

God

“First of all, paleontologists don't believe one another on their own discoveries—how can I believe in people who don't even believe in it themselves? And biblically, there's no mention of dinosaurs. According to the word of the Bible, Adam had dominion over all animals; according to man, dinosaurs ruled the Earth. So either God's a liar, or…well, I don't believe that God's a liar.”

Carl Everett (1971) American baseball player

[Maxim Magazine, Mouth of the South Side, July 2005]

God , People , Animals

“WE BELIEVE that RAHOWA (RAcial HOly WAr), under the victorious flag of the one and only, true and revolutionary White Racial Religion — Creativity —, is the only road to the resurrection and redemption of the White Race.”

Ben Klassen (1918–1993) American engineer, author and politician

The Essence of a Creator, essence 18
The Little White Book (1991)

War , Religion , Victory

“I can't believe I'm 29. Where did the years go? Why did the years go?”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From Who Put The 'M' In Manchester? (2004)
In Concert

“The icing on the cake is where I had to take second fiddle to Yaxeni Oriquen Garcia 2005 Ms Olympia that was a big stab in the back at the time we were instructed to reduce 20% in the muscularity round.. I normally compete at 160-162 that year being the embassador of the sport I must lead by example, which I did. I competed at 155lbs still same conditioning, shape etc…. Lord behold second fiddle to Yaxeni.. It looked as if Yaxeni had did the opposite of what the current ruling stated and she was being rewarded.. Come on we have two different body types! I have a small tapered waist line, fine detail flowing through out my body, nice harmony and she's displaying nothing but BIG. When someone refers to Yaxeni body they say she's a big girl.. She has great confidence about herself on stage, which is an EXCELLENT tool and having that can always gain you a few points, but to flat out win is RIDICULOUS and not possible… Anyhow, Yaxeni was more surprised then I when hearing her name announced victoriously. And believe it or not annoucing the winner that year was Lenda Murray, so she was probably soaking up every second of me losing as a mild way of payback. I was always told when going after the champ you have to completely knock the champ "OUT."”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

Anything close should not cause you a win.
2012-02-05
An Exclusive Interview With the Ms. Olympia Champion Iris Kyle
RX Muscle
Internet
http://www.rxmuscle.com/rx-girl-articles/female-bodybuilding/4986-an-exclusive-interview-with-the-ms-olympia-champion-iris-kyle.html
Sourced quotes, 2012

Way , Confidence , Girl , Sport

“It is raining but I do not believe that it is.”

G. E. Moore Moore's paradox

One of the statements presenting what has become known as "Moore's paradox, from a famous lecture concerning logical inconsistency in 1942, as quoted in Reason in Theory and Practice (1969) by Roy Edgley, p. 71; in which he also stated "It is not raining, but I believe that it is." These sentences are not logically contradictory, and yet it seems that no one could make a true assertion by sincerely speaking them. It is reported that Ludwig Wittgenstein, on hearing of Moore's lecture, went to Moore's house in the middle of the night to ask him to repeat it, and considered the problems presented by it Moore's greatest contributions to philosophy.
Variants:
It is raining but I don't believe that it is.
As quoted in Directives and Norms (1968) by Alf Ross, Brian Loar, p. 27.
It is raining but I don't believe that it is raining.
As quoted in Foundations of Illocutionary Logic(1985) by John R. Searle and Daniel Vanderveken, p. 19.

“He didn't believe in psychiatrists, he said. But actually he did believe in them, so much that he was afraid of them.”

John Steinbeck book The Wayward Bus

Source: The Wayward Bus (1947), Ch. 13. "He" is Elliot Pritchard.

“If there isn't light when no one sees
Than how can I know what you might believe?…”

Ronnie James Dio (1942–2010) American singer

"The Sign of the Southern Cross" on Mob Rules (1981)
Lyrics

Light

“The interest I have in believing in something is not a proof that the something exists.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 29 (quoting Voltaire)

“We resist hegemonic dominance of feminist thought by insisting that it is a theory in the making, that we must necessarily criticize, question, re-examine, and explore new possibilities. My persistent critique has been informed by my status as a member of an oppressed group, experience of sexist exploitation and discrimination, and the sense that prevailing feminist analysis has not been the force shaping my feminist consciousness. This is true for many women. There are white women who had never considered resisting male dominance until the feminist movement created an awareness that they could and should. My awareness of feminist struggle was stimulated by social circumstance. Growing up in a Southern, black, father-dominated, working class household, I experienced (as did my mother, my sisters, and my brother) varying degrees of patriarchal tyranny and it made me angry-it made us all angry. Anger led me to question the politics of male dominance and enabled me to resist sexist socialization. Frequently, white feminists act as if black women did not know sexist oppression existed until they voiced feminist sentiment. They believe they are providing black women with "the" analysis and "the" program for liberation. They do not understand, cannot even imagine, that black women, as well as other groups of women who live daily in oppressive situations, often acquire an awareness of patriarchal politics from their lived experience, just as they develop strategies of resistance (even though they may not resist on a sustained or organized basis). These black women observed white feminist focus on male tyranny and women's oppression as if it were a "new" revelation and felt such a focus had little impact on their lives. To them it was just another indication of the privileged living conditions of middle and upper class white women that they would need a theory to inform them that they were "oppressed." The implication being that people who are truly oppressed know it even though they may not be engaged in organized resistance or are unable to articulate in written form the nature of their oppression. These black women saw nothing liberatory in party line analyses of women's oppression. Neither the fact that black women have not organized collectively in huge numbers around the issues of "feminism" (many of us do not know or use the term) nor the fact that we have not had access to the machinery of power that would allow us to share our analyses or theories about gender with the American public negate its presence in our lives or place us in a position of dependency in relationship to those white and non-white feminists who address a larger audience.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, p. 10.

Women , People , Imagination , Understanding

“We conceive the function of Tribune to be the expression in popular form, and to as large a public as possible, of the views of the Left and Marxist wing of social democracy in this country. Its policy must be that of those who believe that the present leadership of the Labour Party is not sufficiently Socialist.”

Anthony Crosland (1918–1977) British politician

Letter published in Tribune (1976).

Democracy , Country

“Our ancestors in the ages that are gone really believed that by force you could convince a man. You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by force, but I will tell you what you can do by force, and what you have done by force. You can make hypocrites by the million.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

[www.gutenberg.org/files/8389/8389-h/8389-h.htm#liberty] Ingersoll's Lecture on Liberty of Man, Woman and Child

Age , Change

“My mother was convinced, and on this head I have retained her firm belief, that to kill animals for the purpose of feeding on their flesh is one of the most deplorable and shameful infirmities of the human state; that it is one of those curses cast upon man either by his fall, or by the obduracy of his own perversity. She believed, and I am of the same belief, that these habits of hard-heartedness towards the gentlest animals, our companions, our auxiliaries, our brethren in toil and even in affection here below; that these immolations, these sanguinary appetites, this sight of palpitating flesh, are calculated to brutalize the instincts of the heart and make them ferocious. She believed, and I am of the same belief, that this nurture, which is seemingly much more succulent and much more energetic, contains in itself active causes of irritation and putridity, which sour the blood and shorten the days of mankind. In support of these ideas of abstinence, she quoted the innumerable gentle and pious tribes of India who deny themselves all that has had life; and the strong and healthy races of the shepherds and even of the laboring classes of our fields.”

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French writer, poet, and politician

Book IV, Note VIII, p. 60
Les confidences (1849)

Life , Quotes , Idea , Support

“Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God. This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query, especially the great philosophical question: where does everything come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man?”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

remarks http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2007/july/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070724_clero-cadore_en.html at Auronzo di Cadore (24 July 2007)
2007

Life , God , Question , Support

“These Prophets of Righteousness … believed in the victory of absolute Righteousness, yet the fact that they turn their gaze time after time to "the end of days "proves that they knew—as by a whisper from the "spirit of holiness" within them—how great and how arduous was the work that mankind must do before that consummation could be reached. They knew, also, that such work as this could not be done by scattered individuals, approaching it sporadically, each man for himself, at different times and in different places; but that it needed a whole community, which should be continuously, throughout all generations, the standard-bearer of the force of Righteousness against all the other forces that rule the world: which should assume of its own freewill the yoke of eternal obedience to the absolute dominion of a single Idea, and for the sake of that Idea should wage incessant war against the way of the world.”

Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and thinker

Source: Selected Essays (1904), "Priest and Prophet" (1893), pp. 134-135

War , World , Way , Communication

“Education, journalism, technology, entertainment and business may also find better methods for their purpose than books and writing. But this does not mean that tapes and films have made books obsolescent—the contention is almost too ludicrous to be taken seriously. Books are certainly old fashioned, but only people with a very limited perception are silly enough to condemn ideas because of their age. It is, of course, equally silly to condemn the new fangled simply because it is strange, and I am full of admiration for the technologists who have developed all sorts of gadgets for the purpose of improving communications. However, I believe that all these fascinating machines are complementary to, and not substitutes for, books and the printed word.”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II

Do Books Matter? (ed. Brian Baumfield), ISBN 0705700143, p. 15 (1973)
1970s

People , Books , Age , Education

“All freedoms provided by democracy are for those who believe in it. Can the rights and freedoms of millions of virtuous people who believe in democracy be safeguarded if those who seek to destroy it abuse rights and freedoms to achieve their goals?”

Kenan Evren (1917–2015) Turkish general

An Uneasy Honeymoon, Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952783-2,00.html (Sep. 29, 1980)
Said Evren in defense of the decision to take power after the 1980 military coup.

People , Democracy , Freedom

“I am only able to do what stirs me. I want to perceive with my senses things which at the moment are not generally perceived. I do not share, as yet, Beuys' consciousness or hope that all people are moving to a certain point where they all become artists. I am of the opinion that there are artists and non-artists. I think that this is the way it always was and always will be. I do not believe that we are in the center of the world. It is possible that there are gods who do not relate to human. As an artist, I believe that it is possible to depict these forces. I know it sounds absurd when I say that man can perceive some things and adumbrate powers, which do not relate to him. But perhaps the artist, unlike the non-artist, is able to do just that.”

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

(1986) n.p.
Structures are no longer valid', in "Ein Gespräch..."

God , People , World , Hope

“You cannot imagine how taxation has increased. Yet everyone is afraid to complain about it. The new State loans are nothing but confiscation of private property, because no one believes that the Government will ever make repayment, not even pay interest after the first few years.”

Günter Reimann (1904–2005) German economist

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 7 (letter from a German businessman)

Imagination

“Man's carnivorous nature is not taken for granted, or praised in the fundamental teachings of Judaism. The rabbis of the 111:32). The implication is clear, that Judaism was engaged in weaning men from such practices. Judaism as a religion offers the option of eating animal flesh, and most Jews do, but in our own country there has been a movement towards vegetarianism among very pious Jews. A whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual teachers including several past and present Chief Rabbis of the Holy Land, have been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching. They have been proclaiming the autonomy of all living creatures as the value which our religious tradition must now teach to all of its believers.”

Arthur Hertzberg (1921–2006) American rabbi and historian

“The Jewish Declaration on Nature,” from “ The Assisi Declarations http://www.arcworld.org/downloads/THE%20ASSISI%20DECLARATIONS.pdf” in for WWF's 25th anniversary (29 September 1986).

Men , Religion , Nature , Teachers

“Do not think for one second that what you do is not important. Do not believe one second that individual can't change the course of human events, because individual can and does and will change the course of human events.”

Pamela Geller (1958) blogger, author, political activist, and commentator

"Pamela Geller speaks to the Sugar Land Tea Party in Sugar Land, Texas" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLzlQ7WrvfQ&t=0h28m21s, Sugar Land, Texas

Thinking , Change

“Faith is belief in what I do not know now, so I can come soon enough for what I believe in.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

In The Art of Man-making: Talks on the Bhagavad Geeta http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ssyfCDBzOrYC&pg=PA187, p. 187

Faith

“Why should I not expect from the sign of the dream more than I expect from a degree of consciousness which is daily more acute? Can’t the dream also be used in solving the fundamental questions of life? Are these questions the same in one case as in the other and, in the dream, do these questions already exist? Is the dream any less restrictive or punitive than the rest? I am growing old and, more than that reality to which I believe I subject myself, it is perhaps the dream, the difference with which I treat the dream, which makes me grow old.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

Life , Dreams , Question , Reality

“von Humboldt (seeing a newspaper containing slanderous falsehoods against Jefferson on the President's desk) : Why do you not have the fellow hung who dares to write these abominable lies?
Jefferson : What! hang the guardians of the public morals? No, sir, — rather would I protect the spirit of freedom which dictates even that degree of abuse. Put that paper into your pocket, my good friend, carry it with you to Europe, and when you hear any one doubt the reality of American freedom, show them that paper, and tell them where you found it.
Humboldt : But is it not shocking that virtuous characters should be defamed?
Jefferson : Let their actions refute such libels. Believe me, virtue is not long darkened by the clouds of calumny; and the temporary pain which it causes is infinitely overweighed by the safety it insures against degeneracy in the principles and conduct of public functionaries. When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.”

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer

Conversation reported in B.L. Rayner, Life of Jefferson (1834), p. 356. The exact date is not known, but the conversation took place in one of several meetings with the President during Humboldt's visit to Washington, D.C., from June 1 to June 27, 1804.

Pain , Reality , Freedom

“Anybody visiting the Middle East in the last decade has had the experience: meeting the hoarse and aggressive person who first denies that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center and then proceeds to describe the attack as a justified vengeance for decades of American imperialism… professor Noam Chomsky decides to leave that central question open. We have no more reason to credit Osama Bin Laden's claim of responsibility, he states, than we would have to believe Chomsky's own claim to have won the Boston Marathon… Nothing serious," as Chomsky puts it, "has been provided since.".. So is one to assume that he [Chomsky] has pored through the completed findings of the 9/11 Commission? Viewed any of the videos in which the 9/11 hijackers are seen in the company of Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri? Read the transcripts of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker"? Followed the journalistic investigations of Lawrence Wright, Peter Bergen, or John Burns, to name only some of the more salient? Acquainted himself with the proceedings of associated and ancillary investigations into the bombing of the USS Cole or indeed the first attempt to bring down the Twin Towers in the 1990s?”

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

2010s, 2011

World , Question , Reading , Personality

“Blood: A red substance believed to be capable of supporting life but which in a theatrical drama invariably indicates death.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Rosa: The Death of a Composer

Life , Death , Support

“Between the one who counts the facts, grouped according to their resemblance, in order to know what to believe regarding the value of therapeutic agents and him who does not count but always says "more or less frequent," there is the difference between truth and error, between something that is clear and truly scientific and something that is vague and without value—for what place is there in Science for that which is vague?”

Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (1787–1872) French physician

Recherches sur les effets de la saignée dans quelques maladies inflammatoires, et sur l'action de l'émétique et des vésicatoires dans la pneumonie (1835) as quoted by William Coleman, Death is a Social Disease: Public Health and Political Economy in Early Industrial France (1982)

Truth , Error , Science

“Since becoming a journalist I had often heard the advice to "believe nothing until it has been officially denied."”

Claud Cockburn (1904–1981) Irish journalist

Page 190
A Discord of Trumpets (1956)

“Meat is a cultural construct made to seem natural and inevitable. By the time the argument from analogy with carnivorous animals is made, the individual making such an argument has probably consumed animals since before the time she or he could talk. Rationalizations for consuming animals were probably offered when this individual at age four or five was discomforted upon discovering that meat came from dead animals. The taste of dead flesh preceded the rationalizations, and offered a strong foundation for believing the rationalizations to be true.”

Carol J. Adams (1951) author, animal rights activist

“Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals”, in Ecological Feminist Philosophies, edited by Karen J. Warren (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 124.

Age , Nature , Strong , Time

“The Koran on the table before you, is a handbook for terrorists. Blood drips from its pages. It calls for perpetual war against non-believers. That Koran before you is the hunting permit for millions of Muslims. A license to kill.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech by Geert Wilders during parliamentary debate in the Netherlands (4 September 2014) http://gatesofvienna.net/2014/09/the-netherlands-has-become-the-victim-of-islam/ ( video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7mfCYbGGuI)
2010s

War

“The Comtists are right when they say that men's moral ideas are not fixed. The attitude of public opinion towards slavery was completely changed in twenty or thirty years. Still I am obliged to believe that such a moral revolution as the Comtists hope for is not possible within a reasonable space of time.”

Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) British economic historian

Source: Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884), p. 150

Men , Hope , Idea , Change

“I have played some of the great men in history and I believe in the great man who does heroic deeds, even in these egalitarian times.”

Charlton Heston (1923–2008) American actor

Sunday Times interview (1990)

Men , History , Time

“Now THERE'S a hollow state to be in, isn't it — to believe in God and get no sign that He's there.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

God

“By your grace, I will not despair. I believe that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

James MacDonald (1960) American pastor

Source: Always True (Moody, 2011), p. 91

Despair

“He was a fairly competent chairman of Housing [on Lambeth Council]. Every time he gets up now I keep thinking, "What on earth is Councillor Major doing?" I can't believe he's here and sometimes I think he can't either.”

Tony Banks (1942–2006) British politician

The Right Hon wag http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1682818,00.html, The Guardian, 10 January 2006.
on seeing John Major in the House of Commons as Prime Minister.

Thinking , Time , Housing

“Who would have believed it probable or possible, before these discoveries were made, that beneath the heap of earth and rubbish which marked the site of Nineveh, there would be found the history of the wars between Hezekiah and Sennacherib, written at the very time when they took place by Sennacherib himself, and confirming even in minute details the Biblical record?”

Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894) British politician (1817–1894)

Nineveh and Babylon by Sir Austen Henry Layard, (1882) pp. 51-2

War , History , Time

“When age hath made me what I am not now,
And every wrinkle tells me where the plow
Of time hath furrowed; when an ice shall flow
Through every vein, and all my head wear snow;
When death displays his coldness in my cheek,
And I myself in my own picture seek,
Not finding what I am, but what I was,
In doubt which to believe, this, or my glass;
Yet though I alter, this remains the same
As it was drawn, retains the primitive frame
And first complexion; here will still be seen
Blood on the cheek and down upon the chin:
Here the smooth brow will stay, the lively eye,
The ruddy lip, and hair of youthful dye.
Behold what frailty we in man may see,
Whose shadow is less given to change than he.”

Thomas Randolph (poet) (1605–1635) English poet and dramatist

"Upon his Picture"
Poems (pub. 1638)

Death , Youth , Age , Change

“We may lose the vote today, and the result may deal this party a grave blow. It may not be possible to prevent it, but there are some of us, I think many of us, who will not accept that this blow need be mortal: who will not believe that such an end is inevitable. There are some of us who will fight, and fight, and fight again, to save the party we love. We will fight, and fight, and fight again, to bring back sanity and honesty and dignity, so that our party – with its great past – may retain its glory and its greatness.”

Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) British politician

Speech at the Labour Party conference (5 October 1960) in opposition to a motion endorsing unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Love , Thinking , Past , Fight

“Hillary said that guns don't keep you safe. If she really believes that she should demand that her heavily armed bodyguards quickly disarm!”

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

Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/10156490246225725
2010s, 2016, January

“I believe the term ‘serial killer’ is highly misleading, in that it implicitly suggests to the general public that murder is the paramount object or motivating urge in the mind of the killer … They naturally attribute this motivation partly because they value human life above all else, and partly because, as their endless fascination with the subject suggests, they have a vague conception of murder as being somehow mystical, highly dramatic, or even a nebulously romantic experience, replete with unimaginable connotations of eroticism. And guilt for it must be paid for in full.”

Ian Brady (1938–2017) British serial killer, perpetrator of the Moors murders

As quoted by Anthony Metvier (2009) The Gates of Janus: Serial Killing and its Analysis by Ian Brady, Feral House, 2001 http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Book%20Review%20-%20Gates%20of%20Janus.pdf, Internet Journal of Criminology

Life , Motivation , Nature

“The cages are ready in case any of the enemies are captured.”
“You mean us?”
“Yes. Enemies.” Muller’s eyes glittered with sudden paranoid fury; it was alarming how easily he slipped from rational discourse to that cold blaze. “Homo sapiens. The most dangerous, the most ruthless, the most despicable beast in the universe!”
“You say it as if you believe it.”

Robert Silverberg book The Man in the Maze

“I do.”
Source: The Man in the Maze (1969), Chapter 8 (p. 118)

Universe

“I am lonely without measure; that is to say, I am alone with my doubles, phantasms in whom I realize specific dreams, ideas, inclinations, and so on. I rip three other people out of my inner life, give them names, and believe in them myself. Gradually three clearly defined types have emerged: *1: Grosz. *2: Count Ehrenfried, the nonchalant aristocrat with the well-manicured fingernails, concerned only with cultivating himself; in a word, the detached, aristocratic individualist. *3: The physician. Dr. William King Thomas, the more American, practical counterweight to Grosz the mother figure.”

George Grosz (1893–1959) German artist

Letter, September 1915, to Robert Bell; in Grosz, Briefe, p. 30 ff; as cited in 'Portfolios', Alexander Dückers; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 112 - note 61

Life , People , Dreams , Idea

“Where is my daddy? asked the emerald. My da?
Moll dropped a glass, which shattered.
Your father.
Yes, said the emerald, amn’t I supposed to have one?
He’s not here.
Noticed that, said the emerald.
I’m never sure what you know and what you don’t know.
I ask in true perplexity.
He was Deus Lunus. The moon god. Sometimes thought of as the man in the moon.
Bosh! said the emerald. I don’t believe it.
Do you believe I’m your mother?
I do.
Do you believe you’re an emerald?
I am an emerald.
Used to be, said Moll, women wouldn’t drink from a glass into which the moon had shone. For fear of getting knocked up.
Surely this is a superstition?
Hoo, hoo, said Moll. I like superstition.
I thought the moon was female.
Don’t be culture-bound. It’s been female in some cultures at some times, and in others, not.
What did it feel like? The experience.
Not a proper subject for discussion with a child.
The emerald sulking. Green looks here and there.
Well it wasn’t the worst. Wasn’t the worst. I had an orgasm that lasted three hours. I judge that not the worst.”

Donald Barthelme book Sixty Stories

“The Emerald”.
Sixty Stories (1981)

Women , God , Fear , Feeling

“No doubt, there are those who believe that judges-and particularly dissenting judges-write to hear themselves say, as it were, I I I. And no doubt, there are also those who believe that judges are, like Joan Didion, primarily engaged in the writing of fiction. I cannot agree with either of those propositions.”

William J. Brennan (1906–1997) American judge

In Defense of Dissents, 37 Hastings L. J. 427, 428 (1985-1986).

“One of the first applications of the simplex algorithm was to the determination of an adequate diet that was of least cost. In the fall of 1947, Jack Laderman of the Mathematical Tables Project of the National Bureau of Standards undertook, as a test of the newly proposed simplex method, the first large-scale computation in this field. It was a system with nine equations in seventy-seven unknowns. Using hand-operated desk calculators, approximately 120 man-days were required to obtain a solution. … The particular problem solved was one which had been studied earlier by George Stigler (who later became a Nobel Laureate) who proposed a solution based on the substitution of certain foods by others which gave more nutrition per dollar. He then examined a "handful" of the possible 510 ways to combine the selected foods. He did not claim the solution to be the cheapest but gave his reasons for believing that the cost per annum could not be reduced by more than a few dollars. Indeed, it turned out that Stigler's solution (expressed in 1945 dollars) was only 24 cents higher than the true minimum per year $39.69.”

George Dantzig (1914–2005) American mathematician

cited in: John J. O'Connor & Edmund F.; Robertson (2003) " George Dantzig http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Dantzig_George.html". in: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
Linear programming and extensions (1963)

Food , Way , Mathematics , Problem