Quotes about cause
page 19

Aurangzeb photo

“The infidels demolished a mosque that was under construction and wounded the artisans. When the news reached Shah Yasin, he came to Banaras from Mandyawa and collecting the Muslim weavers, demolished the big temple. A Sayyid who was an artisan by profession agreed with one Abdul Rasul to build a mosque at Banaras and accordingly the foundation was laid. Near the place there was a temple and many houses belonging to it were in the occupation of the Rajputs. The infidels decided that the construction of a mosque in the locality was not proper and that it should be razed to the ground. At night the walls of the mosque were found demolished. Next day the wall was rebuilt but it was again destroyed. This happened three or four times. At last the Sayyid hid himself in a corner. With the advent of night the infidels came to achieve their nefarious purpose. When Abdul Rasul gave the alarm, the infidels began to fight and the Sayyid was wounded by Rajputs. In the meantime, the Musalman resident of the neighbourhood arrived at the spot and the infidels took to their heels. The wounded Muslims were taken to Shah Yasin who determined to vindicate the cause of Islam. When he came to the mosque, people collected from the neighbourhood. The civil officers were outwardly inclined to side with the saint, but in reality they were afraid of the royal displeasure on account of the Raja, who was a courtier of the Emperor and had built the temple (near which the mosque was under construction). Shah Yasin, however, took up the sword and started for Jihad. The civil officers sent him a message that such a grave step should not be taken without the Emperor's permission. Shah Yasin, paying no heed, sallied forth till he reached Bazar Chau Khamba through a fusillade of stones' The, doors (of temples) were forced open and the idols thrown down. The weavers and other Musalmans demolished about 500 temples. They desired to destroy the temple of Beni Madho, but as lanes were barricaded, they desisted from going further.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) Ganj-i-Arshadi, cited in : Sharma, Sri Ram, Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors, Bombay, 1962. p. 144-45
Quotes from late medieval histories

Fiona Apple photo
William Shockley photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“In defeating terror, Israel’s cause is our cause.”

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

Hanukkah dinner speech at Yeshiva University (December 2005)
Senate years (2001 – January 19, 2007)

Dana Rohrabacher photo
Gustavo Gutiérrez photo
Alastair Reynolds photo
Thomas Aquinas photo
Cesar Chavez photo

“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.”

Epigrams on Programming, 1982

Nayef Al-Rodhan photo

“Globalization is a process that encompasses the causes, course, and consequences of transnational and transcultural integration of human and non-human activities.”

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

Pillars of Globalization, p. 13 (2006)

Bruce Springsteen photo
David Bohm photo
Brad Paisley photo
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi photo
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse photo

“Great changes are not caused by ideas alone; but they are not effected without ideas.”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter III, The Movement Of Theory, p. 30.

John Polanyi photo

“Even in the world of molecules the civilising influence of modest restraints is a cause for rejoicing.”

John Polanyi (1929) Hungarian-Canadian chemist

" Some Concepts In Reaction Dynamics http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1986/polanyi-lecture.pdf" (8 December 1986), as published in Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1986, p. 403.

Charles Darwin photo

“I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science. … I inferred that genera & Families with very few species (i. e. from Extinction) would be apt (not necessarily always) to have narrow ranges & disjoined ranges. You will not perceive, perhaps, what I am driving at & it is not worth enlarging on, — but I look at Extinction as common cause of small genera & disjoined ranges & therefore they ought, if they behaved properly & as nature does not lie to go together!”

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

The first sentence is often quoted in isolation http://www.conservapedia.com/Charles_Darwin, with the suggestion that Darwin is saying that his speculations concerning evolution "run quite beyond the bounds of true science." In fact, as the context makes clear, Darwin is referring to his speculations concerning the geographical ranges of genera with few species.
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements
Source: Letter http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-2109 to Asa Gray, 18 June 1857

James Boswell photo
Orson Scott Card photo

“Calvin, what kind of trouble are you planning to make?”
“No trouble at all,” said Calvin, annoyed. “Why do you think I want to cause trouble?”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

“Because you are awake.”
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 4.

Aimee Mann photo

“I can't do it, and as for you
Can you in good conscience even ask me to? 'Cause what do you care about the great divide
As long as you come down on the winner's side?”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"How Am I Different"
Song lyrics, Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo (2000)

Sheldon L. Glashow photo
Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“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

Edward Heath photo
Maulana Karenga photo
Derren Brown photo

“Fear needn’t be grounded in fact to cause problems.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 9 (p. 153)

Bell Hooks photo
David Eugene Smith photo
Logan Pearsall Smith photo

“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)

Alexander H. Stephens photo

“Again, the subject of internal improvements, under the power of Congress to regulate commerce, is put at rest under our system. The power, claimed by construction under the old constitution, was at least a doubtful one; it rested solely upon construction. We of the South, generally apart from considerations of constitutional principles, opposed its exercise upon grounds of its inexpediency and injustice. Notwithstanding this opposition, millions of money, from the common treasury had been drawn for such purposes. Our opposition sprang from no hostility to commerce, or to all necessary aids for facilitating it. With us it was simply a question upon whom the burden should fall. In Georgia, for instance, we have done as much for the cause of internal improvements as any other portion of the country, according to population and means. We have stretched out lines of railroads from the seaboard to the mountains; dug down the hills, and filled up the valleys at a cost of not less than $25,000,000. All this was done to open an outlet for our products of the interior, and those to the west of us, to reach the marts of the world. No State was in greater need of such facilities than Georgia, but we did not ask that these works should be made by appropriations out of the common treasury. The cost of the grading, the superstructure, and the equipment of our roads was borne by those who had entered into the enterprise. Nay, more not only the cost of the iron no small item in the aggregate cost was borne in the same way, but we were compelled to pay into the common treasury several millions of dollars for the privilege of importing the iron, after the price was paid for it abroad. What justice was there in taking this money, which our people paid into the common treasury on the importation of our iron, and applying it to the improvement of rivers and harbors elsewhere? The true principle is to subject the commerce of every locality, to whatever burdens may be necessary to facilitate it. If Charleston harbor needs improvement, let the commerce of Charleston bear the burden. If the mouth of the Savannah river has to be cleared out, let the sea-going navigation which is benefited by it, bear the burden. So with the mouths of the Alabama and Mississippi river. Just as the products of the interior, our cotton, wheat, corn, and other articles, have to bear the necessary rates of freight over our railroads to reach the seas. This is again the broad principle of perfect equality and justice, and it is especially set forth and established in our new constitution.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

Rutherford B. Hayes photo
Adam Smith photo
Henry Adams photo
Charles Dickens photo

“If the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be…. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected.
All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof, the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night…. The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars.”

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) English writer and social critic and a Journalist

"Administrative Reform" (June 27, 1855) Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Speeches Literary and Social by Charles Dickens https://books.google.com/books?id=bT5WAAAAcAAJ (1870) pp. 133-134

F. W. de Klerk photo

“We are struggling with racism, but racism is also alive and well in many other countries. And what we must overcome is racism being the cause of conflict. And what we need to recognize human beings as human beings; to award merit.”

F. W. de Klerk (1936) South African politician

On The Washington Journal of C-SPAN https://www.c-span.org/video/?124979-1/the-trek-beginning (11 June 1999)
1990s, 1999

Al-Biruni photo
Maimónides photo
Ted Kennedy photo

“For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) United States Senator

Concession speech in his campaign for nomination as the Democratic Presidential candidate against incumbent Jimmy Carter at the Democratic Convention in New York City (12 August 1980).
This has sometimes been misquoted as "The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die."

Huldrych Zwingli photo
Marc Jacobs photo

“I find that maybe, perhaps the Marc collection is the most sexy ’cause it’s the most youthful, and what I find sexy is youth.”

Marc Jacobs (1963) American fashion designer

Jonkers, Gert (2003). "Friendly homosexual fashion designer likes dogs but finds fashionable men terribly unsexy" http://www.buttmagazine.com/Issues/7_Jacobs.html buttmagazine.com (accessed April 19, 2007)
On which of his three collections is sexiest

Mac Danzig photo
William Herschel photo
Fiona Apple photo

“If you don't have a date
Celebrate
Go out and sit on the lawn
And do nothing
'Cause it's just what you must do
Nobody does it anymore.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Waltz (Better Than Fine)
Song lyrics, Extraordinary Machine (2005)

Chris Rea photo
Zygmunt Bauman photo
Barbara W. Tuchman photo
Alastair Reynolds photo

“If you have dentures, don't use artificial sweetener, cause you'll get a fake cavity.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Do You Believe in Gosh?

Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Cesar Chavez photo
Sharon Gannon photo
Walter Rauschenbusch photo

“Christianity has been one of the most powerful causes of democracy, but the conscious influence of the Church has more widely been exerted against democracy than for it.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.4 Why Has Christianity Never Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?, p. 150

John Bright photo
Stephen King photo
Henry Rollins photo

“Someone who would go across a desert that can kill you, to get to another country? You want to be an American *that* bad? 'Cause I've never had to lift my damn finger to be an American. I'm honored to share a country with you.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Interview with Pharrel Williams for the Reserve Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTekl1AFNm4&t=41s at youtube.com

Charles James Fox photo

“[Napoleon has now] surpassed…Alexander & Caesar, not to mention the great advantage he has over them in the Cause he fights in.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to Denis O'Bryen (16 July 1800), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 167.
1800s

George W. Bush photo
George Holmes Howison photo
Nelson Mandela photo

“I had no specific belief except that our cause was just, was very strong and it was winning more and more support.”

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

Nelson Mandela on ideology, Robben Island, Cape Town, South Africa (11 February 1994). Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes
1990s

Alan Guth photo
Báb photo
Joseph Campbell photo

“Nehru’s daughter, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, carried her father’s game much farther. In her fight for a monopoly of power, she split the Congress Party, and made a common cause with the Communists. Well-known Communists and fellow-travellers were given positions of power in the ruling Congress Party, in the Government at the Centre as well in the States, and in prestigious institutions all over the country. The Muslim-Marxist combine of “historians” had already captured the Indian History Congress during the days of Pandit Nehru, and many honest historians had been hounded out of it. Now this combine was placed in control of the Indian Council of Historical Research and entrusted with extensive patronage. The combine took over the National Council of Educational Research and Training also, and laid down the guidelines for producing school textbooks on various subjects. The Jawaharlal Nehru University was created and financed on a fabulous scale in order to collect Communist professors from all over the country, and form them into a frontline brigade for launching all sorts of anti-Hindu campaigns. The smokescreen for this Stalinist operation was provided by the slogan of Secularism which nobody was supposed to question, or examine as to what it had come to mean. Its meaning had to be accepted ex-cathedra, and as laid down by the Muslim-Marxist combine. In the new political parlance that emerged, Hinduism and the nationalism it inspired, became blackned as “Communalism.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Small wonder that the word “Hindu” started becoming a dirty word in the academia as well as the media.
Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Dave Attell photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“In my opinion the Government can do more to remedy the economic ills of the people by a system of rigid economy in public expenditure than can be accomplished through any other action. The costs of our national and local governments combined now stand at a sum close to $100 for each inhabitant of the land. A little less than one-third of this is represented by national expenditure, and a little more than two-thirds by local expenditure. It is an ominous fact that only the National Government is reducing its debt. Others are increasing theirs at about $1,000,000,000 each year. The depression that overtook business, the disaster experienced in agriculture, the lack of employment and the terrific shrinkage in all values which our country experienced in a most acute form in 1920, resulted in no small measure from the prohibitive taxes which were then levied on all productive effort. The establishment of a system of drastic economy in public expenditure, which has enabled us to pay off about one-fifth of the national debt since 1919, and almost cut in two the national tax burden since 1921, has been one of the main causes in reestablishing a prosperity which has come to include within its benefits almost every one of our inhabitants. Economy reaches everywhere. It carries a blessing to everybody.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor and retrieves still older figures – it causes floods of antiques or nostalgic art forms and stimulates the search for museum pieces.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1970s, The argument: causality in the electric world (1973)

Johann Hari photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Jesse Ventura photo
Benjamin Graham photo
Murray N. Rothbard photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine - it was as the burning sun to my taper light - mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him.”

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

Regarding John Brown, address at the 14th anniversary of Storer College http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/bbspr05-0032.html (30 May 1881)
1880s, Address at the Anniversary of Storer College (1881)

Anthony Trollope photo
Enoch Powell photo
Peter Gabriel photo

“Don't give up.
You know it's never been easy.
Don't give up.
'Cause I believe there's a place,
There's a place where we belong.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Don't Give Up
Song lyrics, So (1986)

T. H. White photo
Juan Cole photo

“Now this structure of hope (among other things) is also what distinguishes philosophy from the special sciences. There is a relationship with the object that is different in principle in the two cases. The question of the special sciences is in principle ultimately answerable, or, at least, it is not un-answerable. It can be said, in a final way (or some day, one will be able to say in a final way) what is the cause, say, of this particular infectious disease. It is in principle possible that one day someone will say, "It is now scientifically proven that such and such is the case, and no otherwise." But […] a philosophical question can never be finally, conclusively answered. […] The object of philosophy is given to the philosopher on the basis of a hope. This is where Dilthey's words make sense: "The demands on the philosophizing person cannot be satisfied. A physicist is an agreeable entity, useful for himself and others; a philosopher, like the saint, only exists as an ideal." It is in the nature of the special sciences to emerge from a state of wonder to the extent that they reach "results." But the philosopher does not emerge from wonder.
Here is at once the limit and the measure of science, as well as the great value, and great doubtfulness, of philosophy. Certainly, in itself it is a "greater" thing to dwell "under the stars."”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

But man is not made to live "out there" permanently! Certainly, it is a more valuable question, as such, to ask about the whole world and the ultimate nature of things. But the answer is not as easily forthcoming as for the special sciences!
The Dilthey quote is from Briefwechsel zwischen Wilhelm Dilthey und dem Grafen Paul Yorck v. Wartenberg, 1877–1897 (Hall/Salle, 1923), p. 39.
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, pp. 109–111

Yusuf Qaradawi photo
Jerome David Salinger photo
Samuel R. Delany photo
Aron Ra photo