Quotes about benefit
page 10

“The service trade agreement is a pact that benefits related sectors across the Taiwan Strait and promotes the interests of the public on both sides. It will result in a win-win situation for both sides.”

Lin Join-sane (1944) Taiwanese politician

Lin Join-sane (2013) cited in " Cross-strait service trade pact signed http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2013/06/22/2003565371" on Taipei Times, 22 June 2013.

“Trust in and value the benefit of God’s compassion and identification.”

John Townsend (1952) Canadian clinical psychologist and author

Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)

God

“Each demand for security, whether of employment, income or social position, implied the exclusion from such benefits of those outside the particular privileged group - and would generate demands for countervailing privileges from the excluded groups. Eventually, in such a situation every will lose.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

The Path To Power (1995)

“By the end of World War II, the specter of an imminent working class uprising that had so haunted the ruling classes of Europe and North America for the previous century had largely disappeared. This was because class war was suspended by a tacit settlement. To put it crudely: the white working class of the North Atlantic countries, from the United States to West Germany, were offered a deal. If they agreed to set aside any fantasies of fundamentally changing the nature of the system, then they would be allowed to keep their unions, enjoy a wide variety of social benefits (pensions, vacations, health care …), and, perhaps most important, through generously funded and ever-expanding public educational institutions, know that their children had a reasonable chance of leaving the working class entirely. One key element in all this was a tacit guarantee that increases in workers' productivity would be met by increases in wages: a guarantee that held good until the late 1970s. Largely as a result, the period saw both rapidly rising productivity and rapidly rising incomes, laying the basis for the consumer economy of today.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Twelve, "1971–The Beginning…", p. 373

War, Children, Health, World

“Scripture urges and warns us that whatever favors we may have obtained from the Lord, we have received them as a trust on condition that they should be applied to the common benefit of the church.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 35.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“I have endeavour'd to make every thing so plain, that a very little Skill in Geometry may be sufficient to enable one to read this Book by himself. And upon this occasion I would advise all my Readers, who desire to make themselves Masters of this Subject, not to be contented with the Schemes they find here; but upon every Occasion to draw new ones of their own, in all the Variety of Circumstances they can think of. This will take up a little more Time at first; but in a little while they will find the vast Benefit of it, by the extensive Notions it will give them of the Nature of these Principles.”

Brook Taylor (1685–1731) English mathematician

New Principles of Linear Perspective (1715, 1749)

Books, Nature, Thinking, Time

“Concerning the utility of Rhetoric, it is to be observed that it divides itself into two; first, whether Oratorical skill be, on the whole, a public benefit, or evil; and secondly, whether any artificial system of Rules is conducive to the attainment of that skill.”

Richard Whately (1787–1863) English rhetorician, logician, economist, and theologian

Introduction, p. 13
Elements of Rhetoric (1828)

Evil

“I had to tell him quite plainly that the Belgians had lost only 16,000 men in the war, and that, when all was said, Belgium had not made greater sacrifices than Great Britain. The truth is that we are always called upon to foot the bill. When anything has to be done it is "Old England" that has to do it. If the Rumanians have to be supplied with food and credits have to be given, in the final result England has to stand the racket. It is time that we again told the world what we have done. These things tend to be forgotten. Our policy is quite clear but imperfectly understood. We mean that the French shall have coal in the Saar Valley and that the Poles shall have access to the sea through Danzig; but we don't want to create a condition of affairs that will be likely to lead to another war. We don't want to place millions of Germans under the domination of the French and the Poles. That would not be for their benefit, and what is the use of setting up a lot of Alsace-Lorraines?”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted in Lord Riddell's diary entry (31 March 1919), J. M. McEwen (ed.), The Riddell Diaries 1908-1923 (London: The Athlone Press, 1986), pp. 263-264
Prime Minister

Men, War, Truth, World

“Our government belongs to the people. Our property belongs to the people. It is distributed. They own it. The taxes are paid by the people. They bear the burden. The benefits of government must accrue to the people. Not to one class, but to all classes, to all the people. The functions, the power, the sovereignty of the government, must be kept where they have been placed by the Constitution and laws of the people. Not private will, but that public will, which speaks with a divine sanction, must prevail.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Law and Order (1920)

People, Law

“The paramount political benefit of membership on a large-sized intelligence committee is the capacity to leak information to favored reporters in order to elicit media good will.”

Bruce Fein (1947) American lawyer

A Tight Plug on Intelligence Leaks http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/10/opinion/a-tight-plug-on-intelligence-leaks.html, The New York Times (June 10, 1987)

Intelligence

“Americans who have lost their jobs need our help and I support extending unemployment benefits and direct assistance for health care coverage. Yet, American workers want more than unemployment checks — they want a steady paycheck. When America works, America prospers, so my economic security plan can be summed up in one word: jobs.”

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

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Health, Support, Help

“Important benefits often accrue to states that behave in an unexpected way.”

John Mearsheimer book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Source: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), Chapter 5, Strategies for Survival, p. 166

Way

“(Sylvia) Rita! Did you hear that! Tax cuts benefit the rich! Oh, the shock! Quick, get my medication! (Rita) Plain, or with peanuts?”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 88

“How, for example, did Obama get elected as a complete unknown? … There is a one word answer: slavery. America's national guilt over slavery continues to benefit Obama, who ironically is not himself descended from slaves.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, America: Imagine a World without Her (2014), Ch. 1

“When we were first told the extent of Ivan's disability I thought that we would suffer having to care for him but at least he would benefit from our care. Now as I look back I see that it was all the other way round. It was only him that ever really suffered and it was us — Sam, me, Nancy and Elwen — who gained more than I ever believed possible from having and loving such a wonderfully special and beautiful boy.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In a letter to activists after the death of his son http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-leader-david-camerons-moving-379874 (28 February 2009) 2000s, 2009

Love, Beauty, Way, Boy

“I'm fed up with this Scottish waving of nationalism when it suits them. Alright, they're devolved, but I think they did this just to show the rest of us oh, that we are independent, we make our own decisions, and it's been very embarrassing for the rest of us. And it started me thinking along these lines, if Scotland wants to be independent, OK, be my guest, go ahead, do what you want and [Applause] please take back with you all the Scottish politicians - there's so many of them - you know - starting with Blair and Brown and Campbell, take them all back, and off you go, and go off on your own, because actually, we're all subsidising them I think, by way of benefits and all sorts of reasons, and if they want to show how independent they are, OK, thank you and goodbye.”

Ruth Deech (1943) British academic, lawyer and bioethicist

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tdxpr BBC Radio 4, Any Questions?, 20 Aug 2010
Appearance on BBC Radio's Any Questions?

Way, Thinking, Decision

“It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's totally out of control. […] This idea that the government has services or goods that they can pass on is a complete farce. Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we ought to challenge that concept.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Television interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjH9PoDpATI (1987). 1980s

People, Idea, Fraud, Thinking

“I can no longer clothe myself, whether in good clothes or cheap, without the likelihood that my clothes are made under sweat-shop conditions. … If I send my students to pursue further study upon subjects to which I have introduced them, I must send them to receive the benefits of endowments from the hands of a besotted philanthropy, drunken and sated with the wine of life pressed from the crushed and exhausted millions who feed the modern industrial wine press.”

George D. Herron (1862–1925) American clergyman, writer and activist

Source: Between Caesar and Jesus (1899), pp. 23-24

Life, Study, Wine, Clothes

“I believe leadership everywhere must continuously work to ensure that pluralism, and all its benefits, become top global priorities. In this effort, civil society has a vital role. By its very nature, civil society is pluralist because it seeks to speak for the multiple interests not represented by the state. I refer, for example, to organisations which ensure best practices such as legal societies and associations of accountants, doctors and engineers. The meritocracy they represent is the very foundation of pluralism. And meritocracy is one of the principles of democracy itself.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

In a speech on Democratic Development, Pluralism and Civil Society delivered at the Nobel Institute, Oslo, Norway (7 April 2005). http://www.akdn.org/speech/nobel-institute-oslo

Democracy, Nature, Effort

“The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence. All initiation of force is a violation of someone else's rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals. Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Freedom Under Siege http://www.dailypaul.com/taxonomy/term/21 (1987). 1980s

“56,000 companies have already benefited from the schemes that we have brought in. If we have taken the advice of the Conservative Party, no money would have been used. As Barack Obama said only yesterday, doing nothing is not an option.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Prime Minister's Questions, 11 February 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjOmLXf-i88 Prime Minister

Money

“I believe that Brent, South is a shining example of integration at its best. Brent, South deserves a chance to prosper, a chance to benefit from opportunities and a chance for my constituents to live independently.”

Dawn Butler (1969) British politician

Maiden speech on 24 May 2005

Chance

“The Indian ocean is in need of a mutually benefiting security architecture established on a multilateral basis”

Ranil Wickremesinghe (1949) Former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka was wiling to take the lead in forming a multilateral forum with UN support to ensure the maritime security of the Indian Ocean, quoted on The Economic Times: India, "Sri Lanka willing to set up forum to secure Indian Ocean: PM Ranil Wickremesinghe" http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/sri-lanka-willing-to-set-up-forum-to-secure-indian-ocean-pm-ranil-wickremesinghe/articleshow/49898118.cms, November 23, 2015.

“This is I have to admit, one murky compartment of the female psyche which has yet to benefit from the oven-scourer of Reason.”

Julian Barnes book Talking It Over

Page 43.
Talking It Over (1991)

“But what is the benefit (you have done me)? That you did not kill me at Brundisium?”
Sed quo beneficio? quod me Brundisi non occideris?

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Philippica II
Philippicae – Philippics (44 BC)

“It needs to be acknowledged that the cause of democracy has been served by enlightened thinkers and leaders from various parts of the world, whose efforts resulted in definitive progress of enduring significance. Certain major events such as the Glorious Revolution which led to the presentation of the Bill of Rights of 1868 in Britain, the American War of Independence of 1778 which led to the declaration of Human Rights, and non-violent struggle of India’s Independence in 1947, may justifiably perceived as integrated events in world history. Today the democratic State should be seen as having an ideological framework resulting from the contributions of many. Every gain in the cause of democracy benefits all. Equally every injury to this cause affects all.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

Source: Umeshwar Prasad Varma "Law, Legislature, and Judiciary", p. 10-11.

War, World, Democracy, History

“On one side, lemons are selling for a shilling a dozen; on the other, oranges for sixpence. One man blows a horn in your ear, and offers you the Standard; another exerts his lungs, and shews you the Courier. Pencils are to be had for a penny; and penknives, with from three to six blades each, for eighteen pence a-dozen. A fellow with a trunk turns its corner on your temples; another deposits a box, with the grocery of a family —sugar, soap, candles, and all—on your toes. A gigantic gentleman nearly knocks you down in his hurry; and an elderly Jew slips past you so neatly, that you tumble over him before you are aware. Every body is always too late, and therefore every body is in a bustle. Two policemen keep the peace; and half-a-dozen individuals, whose notions on the law of property are at variance with established principles or prejudices, attend for the purpose of breaking it. Add to these some females with shawls and sharp elbows; and pattens, whose iron rings are for the benefit of foot-passengers. Such is the White Horse Cellar, and the pavement from Dover Street to Albemarle Street.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Family, Peace, Law, Past

“It is our duty to take care that persons in pursuing their own particular interests do not transgress those laws which were made for the benefit of the whole community.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

King v. Waddington (1800), 1 East, 158.

Law, Communication, Personality

“To deal with the much-discussed but still poorly understood complex of economic affairs known as globalization, we must examine its several forms from a Renewed Darwinian Theory point of view. Some can have positive effects for all parties while others inherently benefit the rich and strong at the expense of the poor and weak. Furthermore, some can be beneficial but also lend themselves to abuse, especially by people without a conscience, and therefore call for some kind of world-level impulse/check/balance control.”

Paul R. Lawrence (1922–2011) American business theorist

Excerpt from: " The Drive to Acquire’s Impact on Globalization http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/the-drive-to-acquires-impact-on-globalization," at hbswk.hbs.edu, 23 august 2010. Driven to Lead: Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership, 2010

People, World, Strong

“At his heart President-elect Trump will see the benefits and I think the oil industry will also be advising him accordingly that blocking trade in any product is not healthy.”

Khalid A. Al-Falih (1960) CEO of Saudi Aramco

Interview with Financial Times (18 November 2016)

Thinking, Heart

“Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book III, On Consumption, Chapter VI, Section II, p. 431

Appearance, Sea

“I had hoped for something much better… [T]he poor in this country have not benefited at all from the ANC. This government spends "like a drunken sailor". Instead of investing in projects to give people jobs, they spend millions buying weapons and private jets, and sending gifts to Haiti.”

Helen Suzman (1917–2009) South African politician

As quoted in "Democracy? It was better under apartheid, says Helen Suzman" https://web.archive.org/web/20120901223952/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1462042/Democracy-It-was-better-under-apartheid-says-Helen-Suzman.html (15 May 2004), by Jane Flanagan, The Telegraph 2000s

People, Hope, Country

“What did trust, cooperation, progressive taxation and the interventionist state bequeath to western societies in the decades following 1945? The short answer is, in varying degrees, security, prosperity, social services and greater equality. We have grown accustomed in recent years to the assertion that the price paid for these benefits—in economic inefficiency, insufficient innovation, stifled entrepreneurship, public debt and a loss of private initiative—was too high. Most of these criticisms are demonstrably false.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Ill Fares the Land (2010), Ch. 2 : The World We Have Lost

Loss, Falseness

“The Lamb is, indeed, the emblem of love; but what so terrible as the wrath of the Lamb? The depth of the mercy despised is the measure of the punishment of him that despiseth. No more fearful words than those of the Saviour. The threat- enings of the law were temporal, those of the gospel are eternal. It is Christ who reveals the never-dying worm, the unquenchable fire, and He who contrasts with the eternal joys of the redeemed the everlasting woes of the lost. His loving arms would enfold the whole human race, but not while impenitent or unbelieving; the benefits of His redemption are conditional.”

Edward Thomson (1810–1870) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 311.

Love, Fear, Law, Joy

“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq. [The events] swung American public opinion in our favor.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

"Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel" (16 April 2008) http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-netanyahu-says-9-11-terror-attacks-good-for-israel-1.244044 2000s, 2008

“One of the few benefits of the fall of civilization as we know it,” he says, “is that there are private cellars with fine vintages everywhere one digs. It is not theft. It is archaeology.”

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 33 (p. 674)

“Whether we had a (good) moral intuition more developed, we would be as much morally disgusted by the rapacity of those who try to benefit from, and monopolize (or secure or corner), having no consideration (regardless or irrespective of) for others ("autrui", Fr.), than we physically are by a sickening (or nauseating) smell.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 43.

“Globalisation was an unstoppable natural process; free-market economics simply the natural state of things. But when the country that designed globalisation, imposed it and benefited from it most votes against it, you have to consider the possibility that it is going to end, and suddenly. If so, you also have to consider a possibility that – if you are a liberal, humanist democrat – may be even more shocking: that oligarchic nationalism is the default form of failing economies.”

Paul Mason (journalist) (1960) British journalist

The Soviet Union collapsed overnight. Don’t assume western democracy will last forever https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/05/soviet-union-collapsed-overnight-western-democracy-liberal-order-ussr-russia, The Guardian (5 December 2016)

Nature, Country

“[Attlee] reminded the delegates that it was vital to reduce costs by greater efficiency, which meant that both employers and employed had to seek in every way to attain it. He did not believe in lowering wages as a means of reducing costs, but equally it was necessary to realize that increases of wages that were not matched by increases of production would gravely impair their chances of getting rapidly over their difficulties. Increased demands for money payments, when there was no increase of goods to meet them led straight away to inflation. There was a danger that when a justifiable advance in wages for an under-paid section of the workers had been granted it resulted in demands from those who had enjoyed higher wages to maintain the same differential. This was bad economics and bad social morality. He had been disturbed at the evidence that some people were abusing the social services in such matters as sickness benefit. They could not have them sabotaged by misuse.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Trades Union Congress at Bridlington (7 September 1949), quoted 'Chronology, 18 August 1949 - 7 September 1949', Chronology of International Events and Documents, Vol. 5, No. 17 (18 August-7 September 1949), p. 583
1940s

Money, People, Way, Chance

“It's natural for a man to defend what’s dear to him: his own life, his home, his family. But in order to make him fight on behalf of his rulers, the rich and powerful who are too cunning to fight their own battles—in short to defend not himself but people whom he’s never met and moreover would not care to be in the same room with him—you have to condition him into loving violence not for the benefits it bestows on him but for its own sake. Result: the society has to defend itself from its defenders, because what’s admirable in wartime is termed psychopathic in peace. It’s easier to wreck a man than to repair him. Ask any psychotherapist. And take a look at the crime figures among veterans.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Love, Life, People, Family

“On all the matters that touch upon the critical moral issues, Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the evil side. This is a fact. A mere list of the positions he supports is enough to make this plain: abortion as a "right," cloning of human beings, governmental classification of citizens by race, public benefits for sexual partners outside of marriage, disrespect for property rights against environmental extremism, repudiation of the right to bear arms — no more need be said to show that this candidate is wrong where human decency, human rights and human responsibility bear directly on political issues. Last week, we saw Schwarzenegger does not deny habitual crude offenses against young women. Rather, he theatrically, vaguely and impersonally apologizes for them, before a roaring crowd of adoring fans, admitting neither any connection between action and character, nor any need for genuine penance or reformation. The Republicans who vote for Schwarzenegger will owe Bill Clinton an apology for having given the nation the impression that they sincerely believed character to be an issue for those claiming high office.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

" Arnold's corruption of Republican Party http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/columns/03_10_06wnd.htm", WorldNetDaily, October 6, 2003. Miscellaneous

Women, Marriage, Support, Evil

“There is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more.”

Robert Nozick (1938–2002) American political philosopher

Source: (1974), Ch. 3 : Moral Constraints and the State; Why Side Constraints?, p. 32

People

“We here have… an architectural discovery which may prove of inestimable value to future art. …Like fire, it is a good servant but a bad master. The danger is that it may lead to a cramped and mechanical design. One may easily become a slave to the module, and do things because of it which his taste or reason would not otherwise commend. …How can the danger be avoided and the benefits secured?”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

Art, Future

“Dads in the family are even more important than women in the workplace: The workplace benefits from women, but the family needs dads.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 114.

Women, Family

“In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art, Nazi art is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a "spiritual" force, for the benefit of the community.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

"Fascinating Fascism" (1974), published in The New York Review of Books (6 February 1975) and reprinted in Sontag's Under the Sign of Saturn (1980), p. 93

Art, Communication, Joy, Perfection

“When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book III, On Consumption, Chapter VI, Section II, p. 429

War

“If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?”

Elbert Hubbard book A Message to Garcia

A Message to Garcia (1899)

Men, Effort

“The point of Darwin's statement is clear: in competitions among groups, those whose members have learned how to cooperate—that is, not to compete with one another—often win. Think of team sports. Darwin spoke of tribes as groups that would benefit from having a preponderance of cooperative members. The same reasoning applies to firms, neighborhoods, ethnic groups, and nations.”

Samuel Bowles (1939) American economist

Source: Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change, 2005, p. 50

Thinking, Sport, Learning

“Wherever democracy has prevailed, the power of the State has been used in some form or other to plunder the well-to-do classes for the benefit of the poor.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Quarterly Review, 107, 1860, p. 524
1860s

Democracy

“How is technology changing the hierarchical nature of our world? History reveals an overall trend toward ever more coordination over ever-larger distances, which is easy to understand: new transportation technology makes coordination more valuable (by enabling mutual benefit from moving materials and life forms over larger distances) and new communication technology makes coordination easier. When cells learned to signal to neighbors, small multicellular organisms became possible, adding a new hierarchical level. When evolution invented circulatory systems and nervous systems for transportation and communication, large animals became possible. Further improving communication by inventing language allowed humans to coordinate well enough to form further hierarchical levels such as villages, and additional breakthroughs in communication, transportation and other technology enabled the empires of antiquity. Globalization is merely the latest example of this multi-billion-year trend of hierarchical growth.”

Max Tegmark (1967) Swedish-American cosmologist

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2017)

Life, World, History, Communication

“I believe that we face incredible obstacles in our attempts to see the world. Everything in our nature tries to deny the world around us; to refabricate it in our own image; to reinvent it for our own benefit. And so, it becomes something of a challenge, a task, to recover (or at least attempt to recover) the real world despite all the impediments to that end.”

Errol Morris (1948) American filmmaker and writer

Source: The Museum of Modern Art with Ron Rosenbaum http://www.errolmorris.com/content/interview/moma1999.html

World, Nature

“After such a close brush with mortality I feel that I have an obligation to destiny and want to do something with my life that will benefit mankind. I am not a writer but think the best thing I can do is try to report on and understand what is happening in the world.”

Virgil John Tangborn (1920–1944)

October 1, 1938

Life, World, Feeling, Understanding

“When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans. Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Deficits Make You Poorer http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul238.html (March 15, 2005). 2000s, 2001-2005

Money, Future

“All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. All Praise is due to Allah. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2004, 2004 Video Broadcast on Al-Jazeera October 29

Suffering, Loss, Clothes

“I’m a big meditator… I do it every day, twice a day. You turn off your phone, you can put an eye mask on, shut down and you will do much benefit to your body and your mind.”

Bob Harper (personal trainer) (1965) American personal trainer

"'Biggest Loser' host Bob Harper's 5 steps to a healthier new year" https://www.today.com/health/biggest-loser-host-bob-harper-s-health-tips-new-year-t106445, interview with Today (December 27, 2016).

“Patience will benefit you in every hour, every time and every opportunity. It helps you to overcome your opponent, howsoever strong he may be. It will help you in times of distress and hardships, in battles and in war and peace.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

The historical extempore speech at the Reserve Officers' College (1959)

War, Peace, Strong, Time

“The Soviet Union, true to the Leninist principles of respect for the rights and national independence of all peoples great or small, has always been and is guided in its relations with other countries by the principles of mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-intervention in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefits, peaceful coexistence and economic cooperation.”

Kliment Voroshilov (1881–1969) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "The Nineteen Days: A Broadcaster's Account of the Hungarian Revolution" - by George R. Urban - 1957

People, Peace, Country

“By a State I mean, a complete body of free persons united together for their common benefit, to enjoy peaceably what is their own, and to do justice to others.”

James Wilson (1742–1798) one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independe…

Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dallas) 419 (1793), at 455.

Justice, Personality

“And we think the world would benefit from a much more feminine approach to the problems we are facing in the world today. Yes. The world needs to be nurtured and loved and rocked and caressed -- it needs some softness to balance out. And, I think, little by little we'll be able to give it that -- besides strength, because, you know, we have the babies for a reason. Yes, indeed.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

address to LULAC (July 1, 2005)
2007, 2008

Love, World, Problem, Thinking

“But let the working man be on his guard against another danger. We live at a time when there is a disposition to think that the Government ought to do this and that and that the Government ought to do everything. There are things which the Government ought to do, I have no doubt. In former periods the Government have neglected much, and possibly even now they neglect something; but there is a danger on the other side. If the Government takes into its hands that which the man ought to do for himself it will inflict upon him greater mischiefs than all the benefits he will have received or all the advantages that would accrue from them. The essence of the whole thing is that the spirit of self-reliance, the spirit of true and genuine manly independence, should be preserved in the minds of the people, in the minds of the masses of the people, in the mind of every member of the class. If he loses his self-denial, if he learns to live in a craven dependence upon wealthier people rather than upon himself, you may depend upon it he incurs mischief for which no compensation can be made.”

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

Speech at the opening of the Reading and Recreation Rooms erected by the Saltney Literary Institute at Saltney in Chesire (26 October 1889), as quoted in "Mr. Gladstone On The Working Classes" in The Times (28 October 1889), p. 8
1880s

People, Thinking, Learning, Time

“The interviewer Stina Dabrowski said to Thatcher: "So when people criticise you and say what it led to the period when you were prime minister was that the rich became richer and the poor and the became poorer." Thatcher replied "That is not correct. The poor also became less poor, because the benefits at the bottom for those who are genuinely poor do go up. Money spend on education goes up and on the Health Service goes up so that is not true. What happens you might get a bigger gap but you might start here creates a small gap particularly if you're paying top tax today - 83% on earnings and income and 98% on savings. Your gap goes up, it does go up, but the whole thing moves up the gap, you must give people incentive!”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Quoted from an interview with Stina Dabrowski. Margaret Thatcher on rising to power, and resigning from it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_gnhy7eT1s (1995) Post-Prime Ministerial

Money, People, Health, Education

“I have such eagerness of hope
To benefit my kind;
And feel as if immortal power
Were given to my mind.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Source: The Venetian Bracelet (1829), Lines of Life

Hope, Feeling

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”

Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747–1813) Scottish advocate, judge, writer and historian

The earliest known attribution of this quote was December 9, 1951, in what appears to be an op-ed piece in The Daily Oklahoman under the byline Elmer T. Peterson, [This is the Hard Core of Freedom, Elmer T. Peterson, Daily Oklahoman, 9 December 1951, 12A]. The quote has not been found in Tytler's work. It has also been attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville. There are many variants circulating with various permutations of majority, voters, citizens, or public. Ronald Reagan is known to have used this in speeches, as reported in Loren Collins, "The Truth About Tytler http://lorencollins.net/tytler.html": Other variants: The American Republic will endure until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. Attributed

Democracy

“Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually, we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief, and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate, for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him, but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever. Fellow citizens, I end, as I began, with congratulations. We have done a good work for our race today. In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us. We have been fastening ourselves to a name and fame imperishable and immortal; we have also been defending ourselves from a blighting scandal. When now it shall be said that the colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of benefits or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood, we may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.”

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

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Death, Hate, Age, Color

“The great question for our time is, how to make sure that the continuing scientific revolution brings benefits to everybody rather than widening the gap between rich and poor. To lift up poor countries, and poor people in rich countries, from poverty, to give them a chance of a decent life, technology is not enough. Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Progress In Religion (2000)

Life, People, Question, Chance

“[A] revenue-neutral carbon tax would benefit all Americans by eliminating the need for costly energy subsidies while promoting a level playing field for energy producers.”

Gary S. Becker (1930–2014) American economist

Why We Support a Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax: Coupled with the elimination of costly energy subsidies, it would encourage competition. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323611604578396401965799658 "Commentary" article in the Wall Street Journal, co-authored with George P. Shultz, dated April 7, 2013.

“Google will make us more informed. The smartest person in the world could well be behind a plow in China or India. Providing universal access to information will allow such people to realize their full potential, providing benefits to the entire world.”

Hal Varian (1947) American economist

The structure of the Internet http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Future-of-the-Internet-IV/Part-4Architecture.aspx?r=1, a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2010. "Part 1: A review of responses to a tension pair about whether Google will make people stupid."

People, World, Universe, Personality

“I would say that, whenever religion has rule over law, that madness will reign, with automatic violations of human rights, but maybe I'm being alarmist. What do they say? How can we know what sort of society they envision?.. We know that they are nearly all republicans, and that that party has been virtually assimilated by them, and we know they will speak more freely when they feel the safety of numbers. So let's look at the Republican Party platform of one of the red states, a very red state… Of course, they want to make pornography illegal (no surprises there), they also want to be able to filibuster the US senate again… Regarding the environment, they strongly support the immediate repeal and abolishment of the Endangered Species Act. Remember that these people don't believe in evolution, so they don't understand the importance of biodiversity and they don't care about the rights of animals either. They want to dominate and subdue the earth, just like their abominable doctrine demands, so they strongly oppose all efforts of environmental groups that stymie business interests, especially those of the oil and gas industry… Texas republicans not only want marriage to be restricted to one man and one woman (despite what the Bible says), but they insist it must be a natural man and a natural woman… So transgender people would be completely ostracized under the law should they get their way. There's no civil union options for gay couples either, because the platform also opposes the creation, recognition or benefits of partnerships outside marriage that are provided by some political subdivisions. As if that weren't enough, they also want to define the word "family" such that it excludes homosexual couples. They say they deplore sensitivity training (think about that for a moment), and they state very clearly that they want homosexuality condemned as unacceptable. They mean that very strongly too, so strongly in fact that they oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality as a reaction of religious faith. In fact, they go so far as to urge the immediate repeal of the hate crimes law specifically where that relates to sexual orientation… If you're uncertain whether that includes acts of violence, there at least two members of the current State Board of Education who implied that it should, and we know of a few Tea Partiers who insist that homosexuals should be executed, murdered by the state. I am alarmed at how popular this abominable sentiment is… Under the heading "supporting motherhood", they strongly support women who "choose" to devote their lives to their families and raising their children, but they implicitly object to women choosing other options such as college, careers, or not having children at all. A woman's ambition beyond the confines of the kitchen and obeisance to her husband is decried by conservatives as a deplorable assault on the family which, of course, they blame on liberals. Regarding the right to life, they say that all innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from fertilization to natural death. Notice a few subtle caveats here: the qualifier of protecting only innocent life is how Texas republicans justify having executed more prisoners than any other state in the union, nearly five times as many as the next deadliest state in fact. Says something about Christian forgiveness, doesn't it!”

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

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Life, Death, Women, Hate

“He who takes himself to account gets benefitted, and the one who gets negligent and careless about himself bears loss. The one who fears (Allah) becomes peaceful, and the one who takes lesson becomes most clear sighted and discerning. He who becomes most clear sighted, understands; and he who understands and comprehends becomes knowledgeable and informed.”

Ali al-Rida (770–818) eighth of the Twelve Imams

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 352.
Religious Wisdom

Fear, Peace, Understanding, Knowledge

“Punishment of cadets had been artfully crafted. In the early nineteenth century, West Point officials deemed manual labor an inappropriate punishment for a cadet: It would have been an ungentlemanly task for a future officer. But they could make him do something that was tiring, embarrassing, and, most excruciating, accomplished nothing. So cadets ever since have been awarded "Area tours," each representing an hour- two hours on Friday afternoon, and then three on Saturday- walking in our dress gray uniforms with rifles across the Area. As my bemused father explained to me, the Area does not make you smarter, braver, or more expert; even trench digging would offer some tangible benefit. At the academy, where we hoarded free minutes, walking the yard meant wasted hours.”

Stanley A. McChrystal (1954) American general

Source: My Share Of The Task (2013), p. 14-15

Future

“It may be true that one can reach more microcomputer users with advertising. If this is really so, a business which advertises the service of copying and mailing GNU for a fee ought to be successful enough to pay for its advertising and more. This way, only the users who benefit from the advertising pay for it.
On the other hand, if many people get GNU from their friends, and such companies don't succeed, this will show that advertising was not really necessary to spread GNU. Why is it that free market advocates don't want to let the free market decide this?”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

People, Way, Business, Success

“You must awake others and make them arise and be alert. If you are always alert, this will be of great benefit to you. You will achieve happiness and you will be saved from the calamities, which are coming very soon.”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

27 March 1983.
The Teachings of Babaji

Happiness

“The sources of authority in America are the final interpreters of Americanism. These are the legislature and the court. Every other Americanization achievement stands or falls finally according to the way equity is maintained among men. The administration of justice is the determining factor in men's lives, whether they turn to or from America. It is for the court to make clear the difference between liberty and license, and at the same time assure to each man alike the right to free speech. Let inequalities appear and Americanization is defeated. It is for the court to impose duties while it makes clear the opportunities, and to see that duties and privileges are alike the heritage of all free men. Free education is placed at the disposal of all people in America, but it is the duty of all to maintain and extend its benefits. It is well to set the immigrant in the pursuit of liberty and happiness when he lands here, but without safeguards against exploitation he can scarcely be blamed if he concludes that such liberty is a delusion of American minds.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Men, Happiness, People, Education

“When passing on a spiritual tradition, therefore, we must be wary of the scholastic approach, sometimes misnamed ‘scientific’ or wissenschaftlisches, which, when employed in matters pertaining to the Spirit, is no more than one’s self-diffidence boosted by the authority of secondary sources. What matters is not my knowledge of what they say about mindfulness, but the fruit, which my own humble struggle to practice it, produces in me for my benefit and for the benefit of others.”

Aloysius Pieris (1934) Sri Lankan Jesuit priest

Source: "Spirituality as Mindfulness: Biblical and Buddhist Approaches", p. 38

Knowledge

“I believe that the intelligence of the people in Scotland is superior to the intelligence of the people in England. I take it from these facts. Before going to the meetings, we often asked the committee or the people with whom we came in contact, "Are there any fallacies which the working people hold on this question? Have they any crotchets about machinery, or wages, or anything else?" And the universal reply was, "No; you may make a speech about what you like; they understand the question thoroughly; and it is no use confining yourself to machinery or wages, for there are few men, probably no man here, who would be taken in by such raw jests as those." …I told them that they were the people who should have repeal of the Union; for that, if they are separate from England, they might have a government wholly popular and intelligent, to a degree which I believe does not exist in any other country on the face of the earth. However, I believe they will be disposed to press us on, and make us become more and more intelligent; and we may receive benefits from our contact with them, even though, for some ages to come, our connexion with them may be productive of evil to themselves.”

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

Speech in Manchester (January 1843), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 84-85.
1840s

Men, People, Age, Intelligence

“Those incentives have made the legacy of this Courts public purpose test an unhappy one. In the 1950s, no doubt emboldened in part by the expansive understanding of public use this Court adopted in Berman, cities rushed to draw plans for downtown development. Of all the families displaced by urban renewal from 1949 through 1963, 63 percent of those whose race was known were nonwhite, and of these families, 56 percent of nonwhites and 38 percent of whites had incomes low enough to qualify for public housing, which, however, was seldom available to them. Public works projects in the 1950s and 1960s destroyed predominantly minority communities in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Baltimore, Maryland. In 1981, urban planners in Detroit, Michigan, uprooted the largely lower-income and elderly Poletown neighborhood for the benefit of the General Motors Corporation. Urban renewal projects have long been associated with the displacement of blacks; [i]n cities across the country, urban renewal came to be known as Negro removal. Over 97 percent of the individuals forcibly removed from their homes by the slum-clearance project upheld by this Court in Berman were black. Regrettably, the predictable consequence of the Court’s decision will be to exacerbate these effects.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Dissenting Kelo v. New London http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=04-108. 2000s, Kelo v. New London (2005)

Family, Home, Communication, Understanding

“As a Texas loyalist who followed Bush to Washington with great hope and personal affection and as a proud member of his administration, I was all too ready to give him and his highly experienced foreign policy advisers the benefit of the doubt on Iraq. Unfortunately, subsequent events have showed that our willingness to trust the judgment of Bush and his team was misplaced.”

Scott McClellan (1968) Former White House press secretary

Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, What Happened http://web.archive.org/web/20080529050110/http://www.ajc.com/meetro/content/news/stories/2008/05/27/mcclellanbook_0527.html

Hope, Personality

“No State will consent to a treaty when negative consequences are likely to outweigh potential benefits.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G16/151/19/PDF/G1615119.pdf?OpenElement. 2016, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

“Perhaps we could benefit by selectively adopting some of those traditional practices. Some of us already do so, with demonstrated benefits to our health and happiness. In some respects we moderns are misfits; our bodies and our practices now face conditions different from those under which they evolved, and to which they became adapted. But we should also not go to the opposite extreme of romanticizing the past and longing for simpler times. Many traditional practices are ones that we can consider ourselves blessed to have discarded — such as infanticide, abandoning or killing elderly people, facing periodic risk of starvation, being at heightened risk from environmental dangers and infectious diseases, often seeing one’s children die, and living in constant fear of being attacked. Traditional societies may not only suggest to us some better living practices, but may also help us appreciate some advantages of our own society that we take for granted.”

Jared Diamond book The World Until Yesterday

Prologue, section "Why study traditional societies?"
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? (2012)

Happiness, Children, People, Health

“Unless the fundamental categories of economics such as ‘property’ were to be redefined in a radically personal way the liberal rationalist curse which had established economics as a scientific discipline cut off from human interests would proliferate. Economic models … have failed to incorporate any meaningful index of individual benefit other than the original utilitarian one, … the index of increasing income or an increasing flow of commodities.”

John Carroll (1944) Australian professor and author

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 145

Way, Personality

“We cannot simply rely on a program of pollution abatement in country A [the polluting country] for this would impose costs on A with no offsetting benefits to the polluting country. The OECD’s Polluter-Pays-Principle is thus inconsistent with our insistence on a Pareto improvement. Mutual gains to the countries necessarily require the victim country B to make some payments to A.”

William J. Baumol (1922–2017) American economist

Source: The theory of environmental policy, 1988, pp. 280–281; as cited in Vatn & Bromley (1997)

Country

“I am pleased to know that other countries benefit from our experience. However, they do not refer to the “ASAN service” in some cases. On the other hand, we aim Azerbaijani citizens to benefit from the service. The number of appeals that submitted to the service outreaches 7 million. It is possible to note that 100% of the Azerbaijani people endorse the activities of the service. In fact, public services indicate the revolution in the field of anti-corruption.”

Ilham Aliyev (1961) 4th President of Azerbaijan from 2003

During the meeting of Cabinet of Ministers dedicated to the results of socio-economic development in 2015 and objectives for the future http://en.azvision.az/news.php?id=27512 Anti-corruption policy

People, Country

“On this score, I will briefly address the re-entry of Biafra as a talking drum in our recent polity. A minister of state (Mrs. Dupe Adelaja) had the recklessness to say that Biafran soldiers cannot enjoy retirement benefits, not minding, for instance, the reality that some of them were Nigerian soldiers before the emergence of Biafra and that pardon has been granted to all ex-Biafran soldiers.”

Chuba Okadigbo (1941–2003) Nigerian politician

Address to the December 2001 debates concerning Biafra, USAfrica Online http://www.usafricaonline.com/okadigbo.biafra2001.html

Reality

“It's like going out and saying, "That tree is a car." Well, the tree's not a car. A tree's a tree. Marriage is marriage. You can say that tree is something other than it is. It can redefine it. But it doesn't change the essential nature of what marriage is. Marriage is a union between a man and a woman for the purposes of the benefit of both the man and the woman, a natural unitive according to nature, unitive, that is for the purposes of having and rearing children and for the benefit of both the man and the woman involved in that relationship. And for the benefit of society because we need to have stable families of men and woman bonded together to raise children. That's what marriage is.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Men, Marriage, Children, Family

“With this recognition of the finality of death, no one should willingly withhold acts that would bring benefits, joy or happiness to others.”

Joseph Lewis (1889–1968) American activist

An Atheist Manifesto

Death, Happiness, Joy

“A useful role exists for the economist is making calculations of the prospective costs and/or benefits of alternative policies. This role is precisely the one Keynes had in mind, I assume, when he expressed the hope that we would become useful after the fashion of dentists.”

George Stigler (1911–1991) American economist

"The Effect of Government on Economic Efficiency." 1988

Hope, Fashion

“Clearly, we have compiled a record of serious failures in recent technological encounters with the environment. In each case, the new technology was brought into use before the ultimate hazards were known. We have been quick to reap the benefits and slow to comprehend the costs.”

Barry Commoner (1917–2012) American biologist, college professor and eco-socialist

Quoted from "Frail Reeds in a Harsh World". New York: The American Museum of Natural History. Natural History. Journal of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. LXXVIII No. 2, February, 1969, p. 44.

Failure

“Remember, [in the Bible] it's adultery only if the woman is already married. It doesn't matter if the man is married. If he is, she may just become another one of his wives, and a man can have sex with other women who aren't his wives, and that's not cheating either, as long as they live with him, because a man is also allowed to have concubines, and a concubine is a sort of sexual servant who serves no other purpose and has no claim to your estate. Your wife may not have a claim to your estate either, because when you die your wife may become your brother's sexual property. That's how the Bible defines marriage! The Bible does not prohibit multiple wives or incest either. In fact, both are promoted. However, when your father dies, your mother does not become your wife, and you can't inherit any of his other wives either, and the reason that the Bible gives for that is because that would be like looking up your father's skirt… So, a man can have multiple wives and a collection of personal harlots, but he can also have sex with his slaves, and that's not cheating either. You've heard of friends with benefits? You can call this your property rights. That's the only way that makes sense, because according to the Bible all women are property, and property doesn't have rights. Now, some people equate having sex with slaves to rape, because the slave doesn't have any choice. But, according to the Bible, women don't have any choice anyway, and rape can be a prelude to matrimony; if you're a Bronze Age Israelite and you see some young cutie walking unescorted, if you like her, you want her, you can have her, even if she doesn't want you. Now, if you rape a married woman, that's a death sentence for both of you (because the Bible is stupid like that). But if she's not promised to someone else, and you rape her and you get caught, you have to pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she's yours. He may not want her back after that, even his own child, because an unmarried woman who wasn't a virgin was considered damaged goods back then, so they had this rule that "if you pop it, you buy it." So your victim becomes your bride and you're stuck together forever, and can never get divorced (so be careful who you rape). There's actually a cheaper [and] easier way to get a bride; if a man takes a wife and decides he doesn't like her, if he can prove she wasn't a virgin (or if he can convince other people that was probably not a virgin), she she will be murdered on her father's doorstep because, according to the god of infinite mercy, that's the moral thing to do. But if she can prove that she was a virgin, then she must remain married forever to the man who hates her, because that's divine wisdom too. That unpleasant arrangement for both of you will also cost you a hundred shekels, whereas you can marry your rape victim for half the price. So, if you're a complete loser, and you can't get any woman who appeals to you by the normal way, just rape whoever you like and she's yours forever.”

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

Youtube, Other, Biblical Family Values https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bldw8X5apnY (July 11, 2015)

Death, Wisdom, Women, God

“The opinion which you give us the contribution which can be derived from women is sensible and judicious. We will benefit. We all know the influence which this interesting sex can possess, which cannot bear more indifferently than we the yoke of tyranny. And which is endowed with less courage, when it is a question of contriving to break it.”

François-Noël Babeuf (1760–1797) French political agitator and journalist of the French Revolutionary period

L'avis que tu nous donnes sur la partie qu'on peut en tirer des femmes est sensé et judicieux; nous en profiterons. Nous connaissons toutes l'influences que peut avoir ce sexe intéressant qui ne supporte pas plus indifféremment que nous le joug de la tyrannie; et qui n'est doué d'un moindre courage, lorsqu'il s'agit de concourir à le briser.
[in Gracchus Babeuf avec les Egaux, Jean-Marc Shiappa, Les éditions ouvrières, 1991, 44, 27082 2892-7]
On women

Women, Sex, Courage, Question

“Aside from the wisdom of going to war as Bush wants, I am troubled by who pays for his capricious adventure into world domination. The administration admits to a cost of around $200 billion! Now, wealthy individuals won't pay. They've got big tax cuts already. Corporations won't pay. They'll cook the books and move overseas and then send their contributions to the Republicans. Rich kids won't pay. Their daddies will get them deferments as Big George did for George W. Well then, who will pay? School kids will pay. There'll be no money to keep them from being left behind -- way behind. Seniors will pay. They'll pay big time as the Republicans privatize Social Security and rob the Trust Fund to pay for the capricious war. Medicare will be curtailed and drugs will be more unaffordable. And there won't be any money for a drug benefit because Bush will spend it all on the war. Working folks will pay through loss of job security and bargaining rights. Our grandchildren will pay through the degradation of our air and water quality. And the entire nation will pay as Bush continues to destroy civil rights, women's rights and religious freedom in a rush to phony patriotism and to courting the messianic Pharisees of the religious right.”

Pete Stark (1931–2020) American politician

Statement on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, October 8, 2002, in opposition to the resolution authorizing military force against Iraq

Wisdom, Women, Money, War

“Human rights are not just cultural or legal constructions, as fashionable western relativists are fond of claiming. They are universal values. To deny the benefits of the new regime of rights to other cultures is to patronise them in a way that is reminiscent of the colonial era. If the new regime on torture is good enough for the US, who can say that it is not good for everyone?”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

A Modest Proposal (2003)

Way, Fashion, Universe

“The more gifted by nature is a man, the more is deplorable the abuse that he does by using them to shameful ends. A swindler (or crook) of higher condition is more blameworthy than a vulgar scoundrel; an intelligent eveil-doer, having benefited from a higher education, represent a more saddening phenomenon ("phénomène", Fr.) than an unfortune illiterate fellow having commited an offence.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 48.

Education, Intelligence, Nature

“Sir, please do not write anything about me. I am an insignificant person. If you wish to write anything, then write about Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. That will benefit humanity.”

Swami Adbhutananda Disciple

When Sharat Chandra Chakrabarty, a disciple fo Vivekananda asked Adbhutananda for permission to write his biography.
Source: God Lived with Them, p.395

Personality

“He doubly benefits the needy who gives quickly.”
Inopi beneficium bis dat, qui dat celeriter.

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 6
Sentences

“Whoever is fortunate enough to be an American citizen came into the greatest inheritance man has ever enjoyed. He has had the benefit of every heroic and intellectual effort men have made for many thousands of years, realized at last. If Americans should now turn back, submit again to slavery, it would be a betrayal so base the human race might better perish.”

Isabel Paterson (1886–1961) author and editor

Source: The God of the Machine (1943), p. 292

Men, Effort, Betrayal

“O man, no matter what you have studied or how much you have studied, do not follow the ways of your mind with conceit in your learning. Ask a man of wisdom who is on the path and follow his directions. If you do not meet a man of wisdom, lay your heart open and ask even a tree or a wall. The power of God within your heart called conscience will caution you and guide you. It will say, "Go," or "Don't go," "Right," or "Wrong." If your heart is open, your conscience will provide useful fruit which will benefit your journey through life.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Life, Wisdom, God, Way

“Countries as well as families benefit from the ability to trade with one another. Trade allows countries to specialize in what they do best and to enjoy a greater variety of goods and services. The Japanese, as well as the French and the Egyptians and the Brazilians, are as much our partners in the world economy as they are our competitors.”

N. Gregory Mankiw (1958) American economist

Source: Principles of Economics (1998-), Ch. 1. Ten Principles of Economics; p. 10

World, Family, Country

“There are more idealized definitions of capitalism, but I refer to the real capitalism—the kind we are living with. This capitalism is grounded in an elitist ideology of individualism supported by an institutional system devoted to the concentration and abuse of wealth for the exclusive benefit of a private ruling oligarchy. It is the capitalism that claims to champion democracy and markets even as it destroys them. The capitalism that claims to bring universal prosperity even wile denying it to all but its most favored servants. The capitalism that destroys life to make money and organizes as a suicide economy that destroys the foundations of its own existence—and ours.”

David Korten book When Corporations Rule the World

Source: When Corporations Rule the World (1995,2015), pp. 20-21

Life, Money, Democracy, Support

“I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn't like hearing people claim I had lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was a racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low. I told Laura at the time that it was the worst moment of my presidency. I feel the same way today.”

George W. Bush book Decision Points

pp. 325, Chapter 10: Katrina https://books.google.com/books?id=iUJTvsUGWOcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=decision+points&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMImu6s8_WEyAIVjNkeCh1oFgyY#v=onepage&q=kanye&f=false 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010)

People, Way, Feeling, Time

“For Islam divides as inexorably as it binds. Islam is a close corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is the brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is fraternity but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Source: Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946), pp. 330-331

Universe

Quotes about benefit page 10

Quotes about benefit
page 10