Quotes about believer
page 49

“The link between Communism and traditional Christianity is so close that when Communists lose their faith, they usually and naturally flop over into Roman Catholicism. Whittaker Chambers was only the best known of the Marxists who, when disillusioned, reverted to an earlier form of his ruling superstition. Would-be atheists who do not become converted to the Marxist cult often retain in their minds the Christian residue that makes them susceptible to drivel about "all mankind," "One World," and the "humanitarian" sentimentality of do-gooders and similar pests--all of which find no confirmation in the facts of nature and the real world. There are even self-styled atheists who evidently think that the god in whom they do not believe stopped the biological evolution of anthropoids a hundred thousand years ago to make all talking species equal in some mysterious way that transcends the obvious and great difference between extant races in intelligence, character, and instincts, perhaps because the non-existing god equipped the several species with exactly equal souls.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"The Bear in the Bush", Liberty Bell (September 1990)
1990s

God, World, Faith, Way

“I learned to speak Bicolano too; I never spoke the dialect when I was in the country. My roomie in Georgetown was Che Carpio, a UP Law graduate from Naga and a former seminarian. He gave me a Bible in Bicolano, by the time I returned from the US I was speaking the dialect instead of speaking in English. My father couldn't believe that I was able to speak Bicolano when I returned to the country. It's easy to learn another language using the Bible, because you roughly know the stories and if you have any doubt with the secular translation all you have to do is get an English or Tagalog version and compare. It's a verbatim translation of what was written there”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

the Bible
Jude Morte, "Tell It like It is", Manifesto, 2008, p. 71, ISSN 1908-6229.
2008

Law, Learning, Time, Country

“Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes;
Her Aunt, who from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to Believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her.”

Hilaire Belloc book Cautionary Tales for Children

"Matilda, Who Told Lies, and Was Burned to Death"
Cautionary Tales for Children (1907)

Truth, Youth, Effort

“If I never make another film, I don't care as long as I'm true to what I believe in, which is being kind.”

Sienna Miller (1981) British-American actress

As reported by ALISON BOSHOFF Evening Standard, http://www.standard.co.uk/news/the-girl-who-wooed-jude-6973678.html

“Two important features in the modern development of economics are the application of mathematics to abstract economic reasoning… and the attempt at placing economics on a numerical and experimental basis by an intensive study of economic statistics.
Both these developments have a common characteristic: they emphasize the quantitative character of economics. This quantitative movement in our estimation is one of the most promising developments in modern economics. We also consider it important that the two aspects of the quantitative method referred to should be furthered, developed, and studied jointly as two integrating parts of economics.
We therefore venture to propose the establishment of an international periodical devoted to the advancement of the quantitative study of economic phenomena, and especially to the development of a closer relation between pure economics and economic statistics.
We believe that the scope of the new journal would be happily suggested if it is called "Oekonometrika."”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Accordingly, the quantitative study of economic phenomena here considered may be termed econometrics. Frisch (1927) as quoted in Divisia 1953, pp.24-25; Cited in: Bjerkholt, Olav. " Ragnar Frisch and the foundation of the Econometric Society and Econometrica http://www.ssb.no/a/histstat/doc/doc_199509.pdf." ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY MONOGRAPHS 31 (1998): 26-57. Lead paragraph of a memorandum on the importance of establishing the journal "Oekonometrika" 1920

Mathematics, Study, Parting

“I believe that the love of freedom and the hatred of oppression under-girds and vitalizes the whole republican movement. The principles of our fathers in regard to human liberty and equality still live in the hearts of their descendants, and will find appropriate expression and suitable exponents.”

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=PA158 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 158 1850s, Speech at the Joliet Convention in Illinois (June 1858)

Love, Freedom, Heart

“There is a regrettable interpretation of the cross that has, unfortunately, infected the minds of many Christians. This is the view that the bloody sacrifice of the Son on the cross was “satisfying” to the Father, and appeasement of a God infinitely angry at sinful humanity. In this reading, the crucified Jesus is like a child hurled into the fiery mouth of a pagan divinity in order to assuage its wrath. But what ultimately refutes this twisted theology is the well-known passage from John’s Gospel: “God so loved the world, that he sent his only Son, that all who believe in him might have eternal life.” John reveals that it is not out of anger or vengeance or in a desire for retribution that the Father sends the Son, but precisely out of love. God the Father is not some pathetic divinity whose bruised personal honor needs to be restored; rather God is a parent who burns with compassion for his children who have wandered into danger.”

Robert Barron (bishop) (1959) priest of the Roman Catholic Church, author, scholar and Catholic evangelist.

Polishing the Diamonds https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/blog/polishing-the-diamonds/5099/ (March 8, 2016)

Love, Life, God, Children

“Delighted customers are the only advertisement everyone believes.”

Ron Kaufman (1956) American author and consultant

Lift Me UP! Service With A Smile (2005)

“I was only allowed to wear a sock. But the only way to do the shot was to be naked. It's been my worst nightmare ever since the showers at school - I couldn't believe I was living it.”

Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director

On his role in Maybe Baby
Source: [2002-06-13, http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-920254-details/A+brighter+life+for+Hugh+Laurie/article.do;jsessionid=KnM3FNTSkpv0R3P22WrQBPZQ00jxPTkDtG2htfqq0LvwTtnLx4by!-81402767, A brighter life for Hugh Laurie, thisislondon.co.uk from the Evening Standard, 2006-08-21]

School, Way, Baby

“All the terms that we demanded have, since the war began, been substantially conceded…My hon. Friend…[said] that we must obtain a success in order that we may secure better terms; but that is not the public and popular sentiment; the popular feeling is, that as to terms there is no great matter at issue, but that what you want is more military success…It is not only indefensible—it is hideous, it is anti-Christian, it is immoral, it is inhuman; and you have no right to make war simply for what you call success. If, when you have obtained the objects of the war, you continue it in order to obtain military glory…I say you tempt the justice of Him in whose hands the fates of armies are as absolutely lodged as the fate of the infant slumbering in its cradle; you tempt Him to launch upon you His wrath; and if this be courage, I, for one, have no courage to enter upon such a course. I believe it to be alike guilty and unwise.”

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

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1855/may/24/prosecution-of-the-war in the House of Commons (24 May 1855) on the Crimean War. 1850s

Fate, War, Justice, Feeling

“We have to-day perhaps the most magnificent opportunity of service to our country that has ever been given to any party. You who have just been elected to the House of Commons are, by the testimony of your fellow-countrymen, their natural leaders for the next four or five years. It is your duty, your primary duty, to educate that great democracy of which we are all a part…Can there be anything that stands before us more clearly or poignantly than the groups of our fellow-countrymen who listened in faith to what we had to say, who trusted us and have given us their confidence, and who believe in their hearts that we have come to London to do what we can to right those things that are hard and difficult for them, and to help them in what is always the difficult struggle that they have in life? Don't ever lose touch with your constituency; don't ever mistake the voice of the clubman and the voice of the Pressman in London for the voice of the country. It is the country that has returned you; it is the country which will judge you.”

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

Speech at the Albert Hall (4 December 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 72-73.
1924

Life, Education, Faith, Democracy

“Donald Trump and I believe that Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero and his family, like all Gold Star families, should be cherished by every American. Captain Khan gave his life to defend our country in the global war on terror. Due to the disastrous decisions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a once stable Middle East has now been overrun by ISIS. This must not stand. By suspending immigration from countries that have been compromised by terrorism, rebuilding our military, defeating ISIS at its source and projecting strength on the global stage, we will reduce the likelihood that other American families will face the enduring heartbreak of the Khan family.”

Mike Pence (1959) 48th Vice President of the United States

About the statements of Donald Trump on the fallen Captain Humayun S. M. Khan's family — Facebook https://www.facebook.com/mikepence/posts/10153921668637862 (July 26, 2016) Trump/Pence 2016 Presidential Campaign

Life, War, Family, Star

“I would like to tell them, the graduates, all of this, and I know that if we thought they would not be embarrassed by hearing it, we would all be telling them about how proud we are of them and how much we believe in them and their future. But again maybe we don't have to tell them; maybe they know. Maybe they can tell just by seeing the love in our eyes today.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Address at Iona College (1984)

Love, Future

“In June of 1964 the research group and academic program moved to Penn bringing with it most of the faculty, students, and research projects. Our activities flourished in the very supportive environment that Penn and Wharton provided. The wide variety of faculty members that we were able to involve in our activities significantly enhanced our capabilities. By the mid-1960s I had become uncomfortable with the direction, or rather, the lack of direction, of professional Operations Research. I had four major complaints.
First, it had become addicted to its mathematical tools and had lost sight of the problems of management. As a result it was looking for problems to which to apply its tools rather than looking for tools that were suitable for solving the changing problems of management. Second, it failed to take into account the fact that problems are abstractions extracted from reality by analysis. Reality consists of systems of problems, problems that are strongly interactive, messes. I believed that we had to develop ways of dealing with these systems of problems as wholes. Third, Operations Research had become a discipline and had lost its commitment to interdisciplinarity. Most of it was being carried out by professionals who had been trained in the subject, its mathematical techniques. There was little interaction with the other sciences professions and humanities. Finally, Operations Research was ignoring the developments in systems thinking — the methodology, concepts, and theories being developed by systems thinkers.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Preface, cited in Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture http://booksite.elsevier.com/samplechapters/9780123859150/Front_Matter.pdf. Elsevier, 2011. p. xiii Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985

Way, Mathematics, Support, Problem

“Punk: Wow, everybody, it's John Cena. He comes out here every Monday night, he's excitable, he throws his hat at somebody, everybody loves it. I am so impressed at how you do that. You get all these people to believe you're that friendly, smiling, everyday man, when I know the truth. And the truth, John Cena, is you're thoughtless, you're heartless, and above all else, you are dishonest. I'm sure there's millions of people worldwide, including yourself, that would love to believe this is over a spilled diet soda, but John, this goes way beyond my spilled diet soda. Yeah. John, you were fired from the WWE. You were gone. You gave a very tear-inducing speech in the middle of the ring about how you finally get to see your mom and hang out with your little brother, and you said you were gonna go away. You were gonna be a man of your way, but what happened? You came back later that night, and then you came back the next week, and then you came back the next week, showing all of these people who aren't intelligent to see through your facade what I have known all along—that your word is absolutely worthless. And then there's TLC, you have the man beaten. Wade Barrett, a very tough individual, and you have him beat in a chairs match, but that's not good enough for you. You don't take the high ground, you can't walk off into the sunset with your victory; you drag the man off to the side of the stage and you drop fifteen steel chairs on him, and I wanna know exactly why you think that's acceptable behavior. I wanna know why you think it's okay to show up the next night on Raw and humiliate the poor guy…
Cena: That is balderdash! Fifteen steel chairs? That's insane. It was 23 steel chairs. And in case you forgot, Wade Barrett and the Nexus gave me about five thousand beat-downs, made me their personal slave, and ended my career.
Punk: You wanna talk about ended careers, you hypocrite? This is exactly what I'm talking about. You ended the career of my good friend Dave Batista. John! John, look at me when I'm talking to you. This is a reoccurring pattern with you. Once again, you have the man beaten—last man standing, he verbally submits, how humiliating, the match is won. But, no, you AA him off a car through the very steel ramp that I'm sitting on, which facilitated the end of his career. Now we'll talk about Vickie Guerrero. I'm surprised the lovely Vickie Guerrero doesn't up and quit based on all the abuse you heap on her. It's not just the physical things to the Wade Barretts and the Dave Batistas, but it's the name-calling, it's the mental abuse to somebody as gorgeous and beautiful as Vickie Guerrero.
Cena: "It's the this… it's the that." Okay, CM Punk is gonna play Mr. Fingerpointer. Well…1.—Dave Batista broke my neck; 2.—He showed up on Raw the next night and quit on his own terms. And C—I didn't just single out Vickie Guerrero. In case you haven't been watching for the past… eight years, I talk about everybody. Uh… Michael Cole. Michael Cole has an anonymous fetish with Justin Bieber and has the word "The Miz" man-scaped right below his belly button. Me! Look at me. I look like the crazy sex child of the Incredible Hulk and Grimace. And then there's you.
Punk: Yeah, and then there's me, who happens to not be laughing. I don't know if you noticed that. You're not funny.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

December 27, 2010
WWE Raw

Love, People, Truth, Smile

“I want people to see me as an honest person, a person who is actually willing to express what they believe. The way I look at it, if people don't like that, I'd rather not be in office. I don't want to be in office under false pretenses, just saying things people want to hear so I can get elected.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

As quoted in "Carson: I won't tell lies to get elected" http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/256687-carson-i-wont-be-silenced (2015), by Jonathan Easley, The Hill (October 12, 2015).

People, Way, Personality, Falseness

“From a Darwinian point of view, human beliefs are adaptations to our part of the world. No doubt much of what we believe must be roughly accurate, or else we would not have survived. But the beliefs we have evolved might latch on to the world only enough to help us stumble our way through it, and then only for the time being. Human belief-systems could be useful illusions, appearing and disappearing as they prove to be more or less advantageous in the random walk of natural selection. Might not evolution be one of these illusions? Scientific naturalism is the theory that human beliefs are evolutionary adaptations whose survival has nothing to do with their truth. But in that case scientific naturalism is self-defeating, since on its own premises scientific theories cannot be known to be true.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Cross-correspondences (p. 69)
The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death (2011)

Truth, World, Way, Nature

“Although believers will not receive their resurrection bodies until the rapture, it is apparent that believers will have bodies in the intermediate state in heaven.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 22

“Asjadi composed the following qaSida in honour of this expedition: When the King of kings marched to Somnat, He made his own deeds the standard of miracles' 'Once more he led his army against Somnat, which is a large city on the coast of the ocean, a place of worship of the Brahmans who worship a large idol. There are many golden idols there. Although certain historians have called this idol Manat, and say that it is the identical idol which Arab idolaters brought to the coast of Hindustan in the time of the Lord of the Missive (may the blessings and peace of God be upon him), this story has no foundation because the Brahmans of India firmly believe that this idol has been in that place since the time of Kishan, that is to say four thousand years and a fraction' The reason for this mistake must surely be the resemblance in name, and nothing else' The fort was taken and Mahmud broke the idol in fragments and sent it to Ghaznin, where it was placed at the door of the Jama' Masjid and trodden under foot.'….'In the year AH 402 (AD 1011) he set out for Thanesar and Jaipal, the son of the former Jaipal, offered him a present of fifty elephants and much treasure. The Sultan, however, was not to be deterred from his purpose; so he refused to accept his present, and seeing Thanesar empty he sacked it and destroyed its idol temples, and took away to Ghaznin, the idol known as Chakarsum on account of which the Hindus had been ruined; and having placed it in his court, caused it to be trampled under foot by the people… From thence he went to Mathra (Mathura) which is a place of worship of the infidels and the birthplace of Kishan, the son of Basudev, whom the Hindus Worship as a divinity - where there are idol temples without number, and took it without any contest and razed it to the ground. Great wealth and booty fell into the hands of the Muslims, among the rest they broke up by the orders of the Sultan, a golden idol.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Muntakhabut-Tawarikh, translated into English by George S.A. Ranking, Patna Reprint 1973, Vol. I, p. 17-28
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

God, People, Peace, Time

“If you're involved with imagination and the creative process, it's not such a difficult thing to believe in a God. But I'm not involved in any religions, and I've never intended to make religious records or records that preach some kind of point of view.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

"Interview with Nick Cave" http://www.musicomh.com/music/features/nick-cave_0308.htm, musicOMH (March, 2008) God and religion

God, Religion, Imagination

“Our people say "Death to America," and this is like saying "I seek God's refuge from the accursed Satan," which is recited before any chapter of the Koran, even before "In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful." Why is this? So the believer will never forget, even for a moment, the presence of Satan. So he will never forget, even for a moment, that Satan is ready to attack him and to destroy his spiritual shield and is faith… The saying "Death to America" is for this purpose.”

Ali Khamenei (1939) Iranian Shiite faqih, Marja' and official independent islamic leader

March 14, 2005 speech http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/606.htm 2005

Death, God, People, Faith

“Somehow, you expect places you’ve left to freeze, like your memories of them have. It’s egotistical, but no one really wants to believe the world goes on without them.”

Sarah Zettel (1966) American writer

Source: Bitter Angels (2009), Chapter 4 (p. 40)

World, Memory

“Where the forms of civil, religious and political liberty still exist, they must be strengthened and given new power over the hearts as well as over the minds of men. Faith must not be lost, and courage must not be lacking. The call is for every civilized human being who believes in justice, in liberty and in public morals. The bell is ringing!”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Address The bell is ringing
Liberty-Equality-Fraternity (1942)

Men, Faith, Justice, Courage

“The Greeks used to put a lot of bodily functions in their plays, and a lot of graphic sexual material, because they believed, that in performing that way it released the demons of shame from the audience, which is what I believe. Cuz I think we’re all pretty much the same, and we all have grown up with that shame-based thing that America deals with, right? And to sit there and hear someone talk about their love of having sex, whatever, makes you feel like you’re not alone, with what you think maybe are dark, twisted thoughts, cuz they’re not. We all share these thoughts. So that’s why I talk like I do, or did, before I retired tonight.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Relentless (1992)

Love, Sex, Way, Feeling

“Hamilcar also told Hannibal about elephants and how you must always have plenty of these animals to scare the enemy. He attributed much of his own success to elephants and believed they would have won the First Punic War for him if things hadn't gone slightly haywire; for the war had turned into a naval affair. But even when the fighting was on land, the Romans did not scare nearly so well as expected. The Romans had learned about elephants while fighting Pyrrhus, whose elephants defeated him in 275 B. C., and even before that, in Alexander's time, King Porus had been undone by his own elephants. Thus, if history had taught any one thing up to that time, it was never to use elephants in war.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

War, History, Learning, Time

“Of course people who don't believe in masturbation are all for circumcision, because it's very difficult to masturbate if you're circumcised. Whereas if you're uncircumcised you can slide that skin up & down the penis & it makes it feel almost like it's inside of a woman in your fist!”

David Berg (1919–1994) Children of God founder

Uncircumcision! To be, or not to be?

People, Feeling

“We condemn those who affirm that a man once justified cannot sin. … As to the special privilege of the Virgin Mary, when they produce the celestial diploma we shall believe what they say.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

John Calvin, Antidote to the Canons of the Council of Trent, Canon 23. (1547)

“It has ever been held the highest wisdom for a man not merely to submit to Necessity,—Necessity will make him submit,—but to know and believe well that the stern thing which Necessity had ordered was the wisest, the best, the thing wanted there. To cease his frantic pretension of scanning this great God's-World in his small fraction of a brain; to know that it had verily, though deep beyond his soundings, a Just Law, that the soul of it was Good;—that his part in it was to conform to the Law of the Whole, and in devout silence follow that; not questioning it, obeying it as unquestionable.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Wisdom, God, World, Law

“But there are many unsophisticated Christians out there … who take the Bible very seriously indeed as a literal and accurate record of history and hence as evidence supporting the religious beliefs. Do these people never open the book that they believe is the literal truth? Why don't they notice the glaring contradictions?”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion (2006), p. 120

People, Truth, Books, History

“When I was first elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 2002, I was part of a group of lawmakers who brought common-sense, conservative principals back to Missouri. As I reflect on my time in the State Capitol, I am proud of the legislation my fellow lawmakers and I have passed. I firmly believe our efforts positively impacted the lives of all Missourians. From day one in the State Capitol, my goal has been job creation. I firmly believe a good job empowers all Missourians to reach their full potential.”

Ron Richard (1947) American politician

2018: An Opportunity to Finish What I Started http://ronrichard.com/2018/01/08/2018-opportunity-finish-started-1818/ (January 8, 2018)

Sense, Effort, Time, Parting

“If in your own experience you haven't yet learned the truth of the deception of feelings, then you just have to go on believing and thinking, having faith in the past and hope in the future, being happy today and unhappy tomorrow, but never being in command of your own life for long.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Love is not a feeling ~ The Article (1995)

Life, Happiness, Truth, Faith

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other, and how we treat the family.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Morning Joe
Television
MSNBC
2008-01-15, quoted in * David
Edwards
Muriel
Kane
Huckabee: Amend Constitution to be in 'God's standards'
2008-01-15
Raw Story
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Huckabee_Amend_Constitution_to_meet_Gods_0115.html
2011-03-01
Mike Huckabee: Amend the Constitution to God's Standards
2008-01-15
YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D08Dq_iNMRk
2011-03-01

God, Family, Change

“Our No. 1 enemy is ignorance. And I believe that is the No. 1 enemy for everyone — it's not understanding what actually is going on in the world.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

[Newton, Lee, Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), Springer Science+Business Media, 2014]

World, Understanding

“I have fought against the people of the North because I believed they were seeking to wrest from the South its dearest rights. But I have never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and have never seen the day when I did not pray for them.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

As quoted in The American Soul: An Appreciation of the Four Greatest Americans and their Lessons for Present Americans (1920) by Charles Sherwood Farriss, p. 63

People, Feeling

“The past was great no doubt, but I sincerely believe that the future will be more glorious still.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Past, Future, Sincerity

“Communists have always viewed the national question through the prism of the class struggle, believing that its solution has to be subordinated to the interests of the Revolution, to the interests of socialism. That is why Communists and all fighters for socialism believe that the main aspect of the national question is unification of the working people, regardless of their national origin, in the common struggle against every type of oppression, and for a new social system which rules out exploitation of the working people.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Cited in Nations and Internationalism http://leninist.biz/en/1979/NI302/0-Introduction.005

People, Question

“The disconcerting fact may first be pointed out that if you write badly about good writing, however profound may be your convictions or emphatic your expression of them, your style has a tiresome trick (as a wit once pointed out) of whispering: ‘Don’t listen!’ in your readers’ ears. And it is possible also to suggest that the promulgation of new-fangled aesthetic dogmas in unwieldy sentences may be accounted for—not perhaps unspitefully—by a certain deficiency in aesthetic sensibility; as being due to a lack of that delicate, unreasoned, prompt delight in all the varied and subtle manifestations in which beauty may enchant us.
Or, if the controversy is to be carried further; and if, to place it on a more modern basis, we adopt the materialistic method of interpreting aesthetic phenomena now in fashion, may we not find reason to believe that the antagonism between journalist critics and the fine writers they disapprove of is due in its ultimate analysis to what we may designate as economic causes? Are not the authors who earn their livings by their pens, and those who, by what some regard as a social injustice, have been more or less freed from this necessity—are not these two classes of authors in a sort of natural opposition to each other? He who writes at his leisure, with the desire to master his difficult art, can hardly help envying the profits of money-making authors.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

criticizing the Cambridge School of criticism, e.g. John Middleton Murry and Herbert Read, “Fine Writing,” pp. 306-307
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Money, Beauty, Art, Fashion

“The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Shakespeare over the Port (1960)

Love, Spring, Learning

“But just because I believe that religion is a cynical perversion of the human spirit that exists purely for the benefit of the parasites we know as clergy, doesn't mean I'm not looking for answers to the big questions just like everybody else — you know, the questions that religion pretends it has answers to, because it knows that for some people, anyone answer is better than no answer at all. Questions like, Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going?…Is there an afterlife, and if so, is it fully licensed for alcoholic drinks? That last bit may seem like a trivial concern to you, but not to me, because I live in a society where many people enjoy a social drink from time to time — not a huge amount, just enough to kill a horse. And in these enlightened days of the twenty-first century, when everyone's human rights and cultural identity are so very important, I don't see why I should have to abandon my culture, just because I'm dead. It's only the afterlife, not Saudi Arabia. Let's keep things in perspective. Of course in reality, we know that there will be beer in heaven, and lots of it, otherwise it wouldn't be heaven, would it? It's almost not even worth pointing that out, but I thought I would anyway, just in case someone wants to take the opportunity to be offended.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"God is not enough" (23 May 2008) http://youtube.com/watch?v=1czXvHSjDac&feature=related) 2008

People, Alcohol, Religion, Drink

“If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

The New York Times (12 November 2005).

Truth, Search, Understanding, Reality

“We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion both suffer by all such interference.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Speech, Marion, Ohio (31 July 1875)

Religion, Suffering

“If eating meat why not eat the most highly organised form of meat, which is not beef or mutton, but human flesh? If you still believe in the eating of flesh, then you must admit that at least as far as the fitness of food is concerned the cannibal has the best of the argument.”

Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish (1844–1936) German religious movement founder

Source: Mazdaznan Dietetics and Cookery Book (1913), p. 199

Food

“I believe that the United States as a government, if it is going to be true to its own founding documents, does have the job of working toward that time when there is no discrimination made on such inconsequential reason as race, color, or religion.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Presidential news conference http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/all_about_ike/quotes.html (13 May 1959) 1950s

Religion, Color, Time

“Monotheism came to this country for the first time as the war-cry of Islamic invaders who marched in with the Quran in one hand and the sword in the other. It proclaimed that there was no God but Allah and that Muhammad was the Prophet of Allah. It claimed that Allah had completed his Revelation in the Quran and that Muslims who possessed that Book were the Chosen People. It invoked a theology which called upon the believers to convert or kill the infidels, particularly the idolaters, capture their women and children and sell them into slavery and concubinage all over the world, slaughter their sages and saints and priests, break or at least desecrate their idols, destroy or convert into mosques their places of worship, plunder their properties, occupy their lands, and heap humiliations on such of them as cannot be converted or killed either due to their capacity for fighting back or the need of the conquerors for slave labour. The enormities which the votaries of Islamic Monotheism practised on a vast scale and for a long time vis-a-vis Hindu religion, culture and society, were unheard of by Hindus in the whole of their hoary history. Muslim theologians, sufis and historians who witnessed or read or heard of these doings hailed the doers as soldiers of Allah and heroes of Islam. They thanked Allah and the Prophet who had declared a permanent war on the infidels and bestowed their progeny and properties on the believers. They quoted chapter and verse from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet in order to prove that what was being done to Hindus was fully in keeping with the highest teachings of Islam.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Women, God, War, Children

“I have a great respect for religion, and the subject has always fascinated me […]. Much of this fascination lies in the stunning historical paradox that organized religion has fostered, throughout Western history, both the most unspeakable horrors and the most heartrending examples of human goodness in the face of personal danger. (The evil, I believe, lies in an occasional confluence of religion with secular power. The Catholic Church has sponsored its share of horrors, from Inquisitions to liquidations—but only because this institution held great secular power during much of Western history. When my folks held such sway, more briefly and in Old Testament times, we committed similar atrocities with the same rationales.)”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"Non-Overlapping Magisteria", p. 281
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Religion, History, Evil, Time

“I believe that in our period it is definitely necessary that, as far as possible, the paint is applied in pure colours, set next to each other in a pointillist or diffuse manner. This is stated strongly, and yet it relates to the idea which is the basis of meaningful expression in form, as I see it. It seems to me that the clarity of ideas should be accompanied by a clarity of technique.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote in Mondrian's letter to Israel Querido, Summer of 1909; published in the weekly magazine 'De Controleur' 23 Oct, 1909; as cited in English translation, in Two Mondrian sketchbooks 1912 - 1914, ed. Robert P. Welsh & J. M. Joosten, Amsterdam 1969 p. 10
1900's

Idea, Painting

“Faith is the grip that clergy have over you. It's the invisible rope around your neck that pulls you along the road they want you to travel, for their benefit, not yours. It's a dead-end word. It's a word of bondage. It's a word that lets you believe what you've been told to believe, without feeling that you've been told what to believe, but you have, and you can stop pretending any time you like. It's not a virtue, that's the last thing it is. It's an abdication from reality. It's a dumb act of self-hypnosis. It's a cowardly cop-out. It's gullibility with a halo, and hiding behind it is like pretending to be an invalid.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Your faith is a joke" (16 December 2010)
2010

Faith, Travel, Feeling, Reality

“Who can still believe in the opacity of bodies since our sharpened and modified sensitivity has already penetrated the obscure manifestations of the medium? Why should we forget in our creations the double power of our sight, capable of giving results analogous to those of X-rays?”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 154.
1910, Manifesto of Futurist Painters,' April 1910

Forgetting

“He picked the rock back up. “Do you believe that it floated?”
“No!” I sulked, rubbing my temples.
“Good. It didn’t. Never fool yourself into perceiving things that don’t exist.””

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 10, “Alar and Several Stones” (p. 78)

Fools

“Know that the difficulties which lead to confusion in the question what is the purpose of the Universe or of any of its parts, arise from two causes: first, man has an erroneous idea of himself, and believes that the whole world exists only for his sake; secondly, he is ignorant both about the nature of the sublunary world, and about the Creator's intention to give existence to all beings whose existence is possible, because existence is undoubtedly good.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.25

World, Idea, Question, Nature

“There is a correlation between crude yuppies buying Porsches in the City and the number of people sleeping on the street. The tax rip-offs that are used to buy second homes, swimming pools and extended holidays mean an increase in the number of people sleeping on the street because there is insufficient public expenditure to provide housing for them. The Tories have always supported the creed which blames poverty on the poor. We believe that the poor are the victims of the society created by the Conservatives and the Government whom they so avidly support…There would indeed be no need for anyone to be homeless if a large number of previously privately rented houses were not deliberately kept empty by property speculators as a result of Government policies. It is sheer hypocrisy for Tory Members to blame the poor unfortunate people who have to sleep in cardboard boxes when they themselves put those people on the street, splash them every night as they drive past in their Porsches and kick dirt in the faces of the poor. They are the people to blame for the situation faced by so many people in London, and it is a matter of grave concern.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1988/jun/24/policing-london in the House of Commons (24 June 1988). 1980s

People, Home, Support, Sleep

“If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on, believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would livin' do me
God only knows what I'd be without you…”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

God Only Knows (co-written with Tony Asher)
Pet Sounds (1966)

Life, God, World

“I don’t believe we’re in for a crash now. It's much more likely that government will just conceal the continuation of inflation by price controls. But if anything is worse than an open inflation, it’s a repressed inflation. What you’re likely to get is not a violent deflation but increasing stagnation of productivity.”

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

1980s and later, Interview in Silver & Gold Report (1980)

“The whole history of negotiation with the Soviet Union teaches us that if you do something they want without insisting on something in return, the Soviets do not regard it as a kindness to be reciprocated, but as a weakness to be exploited. There is a lot of fashionable nonsense talked about how we misunderstand Communism, misrepresent Communism, see Communists under every bed. An attempt is being made, it seems, to create an atmosphere where truth and commonsense on these matters is actively discouraged. I believe the people of this country understand better the truth of the matter than those who try to mislead them. We must work for a real relaxation of tension, but in our negotiations with the Eastern bloc we must not accept words or gestures as a substitute for genuine detente. No flood of words emanating from a summit conference will mean anything unless it is accompanied by some positive action by which the Soviet leaders show that their ingrained attitudes are really beginning to change.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Chelsea Conservative Association (26 July 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102750 Leader of the Opposition

People, Truth, History, Communication

“I believe that into the weakest, saddest heart that opens to receive this Divine Guest, the Father and the Son will come and abide; and the exalted joy that abiding brings, what words can express! The Divine dwelling in the human, the Infinite in the finite, how marvelous! how glorious! This must be the real foretaste of heavenly joy — the truest heaven we can know on earth.”

Arthur Kenney (1776–1855) Irish dean

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 278.

Heart, Joy

“Without-it ministries can be filled with very sincere Bible-believing Christians; unfortunately, they're simply more concerned about themselves than the lost.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

Sincerity

“Don't let anyone tell you that our country is weak. We're not. Don't let anyone tell you we don't have what it takes. We do. And most of all, don't believe anyone who says: “I alone can fix it.””

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), (July 28, 2016)

Country

“Meaning of Jihad is “to exert in the Path of God :” “Islamic theology, therefore, tells the true believer that his highest duly is to make exertion (jihad) in the path of God by waging war against infidel lands (dar-ul-harb) till they become a part of the realm of Islam (dar-ul-Islam). After conquest, the entire infidel population becomes theoretically reduced to the status of slaves of the conquering army (Muslims). The men taken with arms are to be slain or sold into slavery and their wives and children induced to servitude. As for the non-combatants among the vanquished, they are not massacred out right, as the Canon lawyer Shafi declared to the Quranic injunction, it is only to give them a respite till they are so wisely guided as to accept the true taith.”

Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958) Indian historian

The History of Aurangazeb. Vol. 3, pp. 163-164 by Sir Jadunath Sarkar; published by Orient Longman 1972

Men, God, War, Children

“The standard Christian conscience does not permit the believer to look upon the self and find beauty, goodness, natural kindness, strength. Self-knowledge is tainted with self-hatred. The rules of the game of the Christian conscience are such that, when I look within, I must take the blame for all evil, all hardness of the heart that I find, but give God all the credit for any evidence of love. … It is not surprising that the practice of meditation … has remained under a cloud in the West, and that we have, consequently, created a culture of extroverts.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 162

Love, God, Beauty, Game

“He was guided by what he saw rather than by what he wanted to believe.”

Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep (1st edition)

Source: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), Chapter 11 (p. 109).

“The battle raged with great fury: victory was long doubtful, till two Indian princes, Brahman Dew and Dabishleem, with other reinforcements, joined their countrymen during the action, and inspired them with fresh courage. Mahmood at this moment perceiving his troops to waver, leaped from his horse, and, prostrating himself before God implored his assistance' At the same time he cheered his troops with such energy, that, ashamed to abandon their king, with whom they had so often fought and bled, they, with one accord, gave a loud shout and rushed forwards. In this charge the Moslems broke through the enemy's line, and laid 5,000 Hindus dead at their feet' On approaching the temple, he saw a superb edifice built of hewn stone. Its lofty roof was supported by fifty-six pillars curiously carved and set with precious stones. In the centre of the hall was Somnat, a stone idol five yards in height, two of which were sunk in the ground. The King, approaching the image, raised his mace and struck off its nose. He ordered two pieces of the idol to be broken off and sent to Ghizny, that one might be thrown at the threshold of the public mosque, and the other at the court door of his own palace. These identical fragments are to this day (now 600 years ago) to be seen at Ghizny. Two more fragments were reserved to be sent to Mecca and Medina. It is a well authenticated fact, that when Mahmood was thus employed in destroying this idol, a crowd of Brahmins petitioned his attendants and offered a quantity of gold if the King would desist from further mutilation. His officers endeavoured to persuade him to accept of the money; for they said that breaking one idol would not do away with idolatry altogether; that, therefore, it could serve no purpose to destroy the image entirely; but that such a sum of money given in charity among true believers would be a meritorious act. The King acknowledged that there might be reason in what they said, but replied, that if he should consent to such a measure, his name would be handed down to posterity as 'Mahmood the idol-seller', whereas he was desirous of being known as 'Mahmood the destroyer': he therefore directed the troops to proceed in their work'…'The Caliph of Bagdad, being informed of the expedition of the King of Ghizny, wrote him a congratulatory letter, in which he styled him 'The Guardian of the State, and of the Faith'; to his son, the Prince Ameer Musaood, he gave the title of 'The Lustre of Empire, and the Ornament of Religion'; and to his second son, the Ameer Yoosoof, the appellation of 'The Strength of the Arm of Fortune, and Establisher of Empires.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

He at the same time assured Mahmood, that to whomsoever he should bequeath the throne at his death, he himself would confirm and support the same.'
Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 38-49 (Alternative translation: "but the champion of Islam replied with disdain that he did not want his name to go down to posterity as Mahmud the idol-seller (but farosh) instead of Mahmud the breaker-of-idols (but shikan)." in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3)
Sack of Somnath (1025 CE)

Death, Money, God, Faith

“As an experimental psychologist, I have been trained not to believe anything unless it can be demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or sophomores.”

Steven Pinker book Words and Rules

Source: Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (Basic Books, 1999), p. 84

Training

“Go ahead and believe in God, if you like, but don't imagine that you have been given any grounds for such a belief by science.”

Daniel Dennett (1942) American philosopher

New York Times, letter to the editor (26 August 2009)

God, Imagination, Science

“Ann Curry: You know the American people are suffering watching --
Mrs. Bush: Believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this, and certainly the commander in chief, who has asked our military to go into harm's way.”

Laura Bush (1946) First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009

On seeing television reports of US troops in action in Iraq, in an interview on the Today show (NBC), as reported by left-wing website The Raw Story http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Laura_Bush_No_one_suffers_more_0425.html (25 April 2007)

People, Way, Suffering

“The essential difference between est and Scientology is two-fold. The first has to do with Scientology’s emphasis on survival and its idea that the purpose of life is survival. est sees the purpose of life as wholeness or completion – truth – not survival…The other main difference between est and Scientology lies in the treatment of knowing. Ron Hubbard seems to have no difficulty in codifying the truth and in urging people to believe it. But I suspect all codifications, particularly my own. In presenting my own ideas, I emphasize their epistemological context. I hold them as pointers to the truth, not as the truth itself. I don’t think anyone ought to believe the ideas that we use in est. The est philosophy is not a belief system and most certainly ought not to be believed. In any case, even the truth, when believed, is a lie. You must experience the truth, not believe it.”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

Interview with William Warren Bartley, cited in — [Bartley, William Warren, w:William Warren Bartley, Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1978, New York, 157, 0-517-53502-5]

Life, People, Truth, Lie

“As a matter of general principle, I believe there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government … too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think that it will give some comfort to the enemy to know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.”

Robert A. Taft (1889–1953) politician from the United States, son of 27th US President William Howard Taft

Speech at the Executive Club of Chicago, December 19, 1941

War, People, Feeling, Thinking

“Light suddenly caught the steel of his helmet and made it burn like the face of some mighty fallen angel. It could have been the face of Lucifer himself. I felt then that he was perfectly capable of destroying the whole world without a shred of remorse if he believed that he could not, himself, go on living. Such creatures, I remember thinking, have always dwelt among us. They would reduce the multiverse to ash, if they could. Why, I agonized, can we not recognize them and stop them before they achieve so much power? A tiny part of the human race was responsible for the misery of the majority.
I thought again of the injustices which we ourselves casually perpetrated and I wondered how we should ever set anything to rights while we continued to allow such vast discrepancy, so much at odds with the religious and political principles we claim as our daily guides.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 386)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

World, Angels, Thinking, Light

“But make no mistake. My counterpart is capable of a great deal of ruthlessness in pursuit of a just cause. He believes he has right on his side. And men who think they have right on their side are always the most dangerous sort.”

Alastair Reynolds book Redemption Ark

Source: Redemption Ark (2002), Chapter 32 (p. 600)

Men, Thinking

“More: I am faint when I think of the worst that they may do to me. But worse than that would be to go without you not understanding why I go.
Alice: I don't!
More: Alice, if you can tell me that you understand, I think I can make a good death, if I have to.
Alice: Your death's no "good" to me!
More: Alice, you must tell me that you understand!
Alice: I don't! I don't believe this had to happen.
More: If you say that, Alice, I don't know how I'm to face it.
Alice: It's the truth!
More: You're an honest woman.
Alice: Much good it may do me! I'll tell you what I'm afraid of: that when you're gone, I shall hate you for it.”

Robert Bolt A Man for All Seasons

Act II
A Man for All Seasons (1960)

Death, Hate, Truth, Understanding

“It is apparently very congenial for some people who are professionally concerned with fictional texts to be told that all texts are really fictional anyway, and that claims that fiction differs significantly from science and philosophy can be deconstructed as a logocentric prejudice, and it seems positively exhilarating to be told that what we call "reality" is just more textuality. Furthermore, the lives of such people are made much easier than they had previously supposed, because now they don't have to worry about an author's intentions, about precisely what a text means, or about distinctions within a text between the metaphorical and the literal, or about the distinction between texts and the world because everything is just a free play of signifiers. The upper limit, and I believe the reductio ad absurdum, of this "sense of mastery" conveyed by deconstruction, is in Geoffrey Hartman's claim that the prime creative task has now passed from the literary artist to the critic.”

John Rogers Searle (1932) American philosopher

"The Word Turned Upside Down", The New York Review of Books, Volume 30, Number 16, October 27, 1983.

People, World, Reality, Sense

“A man in health questions whether there is a God, and he also doubts whether it be a sin to have intercourse with a woman, who is at liberty to refuse; but when he falls ill, or when his mistress is with child, she is discarded, and he believes in God.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of Freethinkers (6)
Les Caractères (1688)

God, Health, Question

“My dear Aysel. First I want you to strongly believe and to be sure that I love you with all my heart. You should not doubt this. I love you and I will always love you into eternity; My life, My love, My dear.”

Ziad Jarrah (1975–2001) September 11th hijacker

Letter to Aysel Şengün (2001)

Love, Life, Heart

“To recognize that some of the things our culture believes are not true imposes on us the duty of finding out which are true and which are not.”

Allan Bloom (1930–1992) American philosopher, classicist, and academician

“Western Civ,” p. 22.
Giants and Dwarfs (1990)

“The prescriptions and proscriptions held by members of a role set are designated as role expectations. … The role expectations held for a certain person by some member of his or her role set will reflect that member's conception of the person's office and his or her abilities. The content of these expectations may include preferences with respect to specific acts and personal characteristics or styles; they may deal with what the person should do, what kind of person he should be, what he should think, or believe, and how he should relate to others.”

Robert L. Kahn (1918–2019) American psychologist

Source: Organizational stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity, 1964, p. 14

Thinking, Personality

“Yet they, believe me, who await
No gifts from Chance, have conquer’d Fate.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Source: Resignation (1849), l. 248-249

Fate, Chance

“Today we live in a chaos of straight lines, in a jungle of straight lines. If you do not believe this, take the trouble to count the straight lines which surround you. Then you will understand, for you will never finish counting.”

Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000) Austrian artist

Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture (1958)

Understanding

“The American dream is under attack because our government has been hijacked by the liberals in Washington, D. C. … They want you to believe that they're going to drag out enough prisoners and dead people to win the election. Well, let me tell you a little secret. Conservatives that are alive outnumber the dead people and prisoners. … I have a message for the political elites in Washington, D. C.: The United States of America is not going to become the United States of Europe, not on our watch.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

[Tea Party speaker: 'Stupid people' running country, Dayton Daily News, 2010-10-15, Lynn, Hulsey, http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/tea-party-speaker-stupid-people-running-country-977298.html, 2011-10-08]

People, Secret, Dreams, Dead

“Aristides de Sousa Mendes was neither a superhero endowed with supernatural powers nor a saint capable of working miracles, but rather a man who loved others and who believed in humanity above all else. He was a man who was truly alone during one of the darkest moments in history.”

Aristides de Sousa Mendes (1885–1954) Portuguese diplomat

Louis-Philippe Mendes, Huffington Post, 18 April 2012 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louisphilippe-mendes/holocaust-remembrance-day_b_1434733.html About

Love, History

“Not in vain oaths should prudent men believe,
But put their trust in actions.”

Alexis (-372–-270 BC) Athenian poet of Middle Comedy

Olynthia, Fragment 4.

Men

“I believe in individuality, but individuals are, to the mass, like waves to the ocean. The highest order of genius is as dependent as is the lowest.”

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

1870s, Self-Made Men (1872)

Dependency

“But to-day, mankind believes itself able to do without Art. It does not wish to meditate, to contemplate, to dream; it wishes to enjoy physically. The heights and the depths of truth are indifferent to it; it is content to satisfy its bodily appetites. Mankind to-day is brutish — it is not the stuff of which artists are made.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Art, 1912, Preface, p. 8

Truth, Dreams, Art, Indifference

“There is a new mood in America. We have been shaken by a tragic war abroad and by scandals and broken promises at home. Our people are searching for new voices and new ideas and new leaders.
Although government has its limits and cannot solve all our problems, we Americans reject the view that we must be reconciled to failures and mediocrity, or to an inferior quality of life. For I believe that we can come through this time of trouble stronger than ever. Like troops who have been in combat, we have been tempered in the fire; we have been disciplined, and we have been educated.
Guided by lasting and simple moral values, we have emerged idealists without illusions, realists who still know the old dreams of justice and liberty, of country and of community.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Pre-Presidency, First Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech (1976)

Life, War, People, Education

“Enya is more than just me. It's also Nicky, who arranges my melodies, and his wife Roma, who writes the lyrics. They believed in my music from day one”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

You interview (2006)

Music

“My friend Bonner has just set off to Charlotte Street to pack your picture (an old painting) and forward it; it is a beautiful representation of a summer's evening; calm, warm and delicious; the colour on the man's face is perfect sunshine. The liquid pencil of this school is replete with a beauty peculiar to itself. Nevertheless, I don't believe they had any 'nostrums,' but plain linseed oil; 'honest linseed' as old Wilson called it. But it is always right to remember that the ordinary painters of that day used, as now, the same vehicle as their betters, and also that their works have all received the hardening and enamelling effects of time, so that we must not judge of originality by these signs always.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from John Constable's letter to Rev. John Fisher (20 December 1833), as quoted in Richard Friedenthal, Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock (Thames and Hudson, London, 1963), pp. 45-46
1830s

School, Beauty, Time, Summer

“To disgust men with their work is a serious blunder on the part of human society; what could be more natural than their liking for what they do? Work keeps off boredom, vice, and poverty. It is the remedy for all imagined evils. "The souls' joy lies in doing," said Shelly. Active work saves man from himself; indolence make shim a prey to useless regrets, dangerous reveries, enviousness, and hate. Also the first rule of the art of governing is, at all costs, to keep a nation at work. A bored nation is impossible to govern, but a nation occupied by work which it believes to be useful and accomplishes on its own initiative is already a happy one.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

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

Men, Hate, Happiness, Art

“If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable.”

John Shelby Spong (1931) American bishop

Source: Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (1994), p. 238

Truth, Dependency

“When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it will be a great place.”

Philip Roth (1933–2018) American novelist

Interview on CBS, 03 October 2010 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNv_a1CbX30, Philip Roth on Fame, Sex, and God http://www.cbsnews.com/news/philip-roth-on-fame-sex-and-god/ (3 October 2010)

God, World

“The question is: can they now be prevented from taking back into their own hands the decision about their identity and their form of government which truly was theirs all along? I do not believe they can be prevented: for they are now, at a general election, provided with a clear, definite and practicable alternative, namely, a fundamental renegotiation directed to regain free access to world food markets and recover or retain the powers of Parliament, a renegotiation to be followed in any event by a specific submission of the outcome to the electorate, a renegotiation protected by an immediate moratorium or stop on all further integration of the UK into the Community. This alternative is offered, as such an alternative must be in our parliamentary democracy, by a political party capable of securing a majority in the House of Commons and sustaining a Government.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in Birmingham advising people to vote Labour (23 February 1974), quoted in Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), p. 458
1970s

World, Food, Democracy, Communication

“I am a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect, and I believe it should be presented in schools alongside the theories of evolution.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

2010-09-11
2010 The Vote: K-12 Education
San Angelo Times
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2010/sep/11/this-series-examines-important-issues-to-texans/
2010

School, Faith, Intelligence

“My father had served with great honor and courage in the Second World War. He fought for a country that was not only great, but good. It had its flaws and had some imperfections. It was the original sin of slavery which you know which we hadn't completed extirpated because we still had racial injustice in the 50s and 60s and 70s. We had only recently abolished, formally abolished segregation. So I was aware that uh, America had its flaws and defects in its history. But I also believed in the country and believed in its principles. That's the way I was brought up and so I was shocked when I found people who were just openly, vociferously anti-American, condemning not only America's sins but America itself, condemning its principles and pointing in some cases to communist regimes like Cuba as being superior.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

2016, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

War, People, World, Way

“There are hundreds of millions who believe the Messiah has come. If he did, then it is unfortunately the case that his heroic sacrifice and death have had no effect whatsoever on the very problem his coming might have been expected to address, for history demonstrates, beyond question, that we Christians have been just as dangerous, singly and en masse, as non-Christians.”

Steve Allen (1921–2000) American comedian, actor, musician and writer

Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality (1990)

Death, History, Question, Problem

“I really, really do believe it. I just want you to know, I think this is obvious, but I'm not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing, I'm not a hippy, I do not have flowers in my hair, I come from punk rock, The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn't.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

PENN Address (2004)

Feeling, Flowers, Thinking

“well well boss there is
something to be said
for the lyric and imperial
attitude
believe that everything is for
you until you discover
that you are for it
sing your faith in what you
get to eat right up to the
minute you are eaten
for you are going
to be eaten”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

the robin and the worm

Faith, Singing

“Q4 May one believe only in God alone, or not?”

Peter Abelard Sic et Non

Sic et Non (1120)

God

“I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them, too.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

[Kate, Zernike, Katherine Q., Seelye, Obama Defeats Clinton in 3-State Sweep, 2008-02-09, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/us/politics/09cnd-campaign.html]

“Satan, who I believe exists as much as I believe Jesus exists, wants us to believe meaningless things for meaningless reasons.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)