Quotes about cause
page 39

“These guys calling for Sharia law and marching up the Edgware Road are going to cause havoc whatever happens. Syria is just an excuse for them. Those who use Assad to attack Shias in this country, you say to them, why not speak out against Saudi and Qatar? Saudi is the least democratic country on Earth.”

Ammar Nakshawani (1981) Islamic lecturer

On the the British Islamists, Huffington Post (29 June 2013) http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/27/shia-and-sunni_n_3510862.html

Law, Guy, Country

“This is the essential importance of the Alliance for Better Campaigns' efforts backed by Common Cause. It is our campaign to give free time to all legitimate candidates. … What our campaign asks is that the television industry yield just a tiny percentage of that windfall, less than 1 percent, to fund free airtime.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Effort, Time

“I fight, with myself in the ring of doubt and fear
The rain ain't gone, but I can still see clear
As a child, given religion with no answer to why
Just told believe in Jesus cause for me he did die
Curiosity killed the catechism
Understanding and wisdom became the rhythm that I played to
And became a slave to master self
A rich man is one with knowledge, happiness and his health
My mind had dealt with the books of Zen, Tao the lessons
of the Koran and Bible,
to me they all vital
And got truth within 'em, gotta read them boys
You just can't skim 'em, different branches of belief
But one root that stem 'em, but people of the venom try to trim 'em
And use religion as an emblem
When it should be a natural way of life
Who am I or they to say to whom you pray ain't right?
That's who got you doin' right and got you this far
Whether you say "in Jesus name" or "Al hum du'Allah"
Long as you know it's a being that's supreme to you
You let that show towards others in the things you do
Cause when the trumpets blowin', 24 elders surround the throne
Only 144,000 gon get home”

Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois

"G.O.D. (Gaining One's Definition)" (Track 7)
Albums, One Day It'll All Make Sense (1997)

Life, Wisdom, Happiness, People

“Good people can't out-think evil, 'cause evil think of things good folks can't think of. Can't enter your head what evil do.”

Orson Scott Card book Homebody

Homebody (1998)

People, Thinking, Evil

“I have written this work not to teach men what they do not know, but to remind them of what they already know and is very evident to them, for you will find in most of my words only things which most people know, and concerning which they entertain no doubts. But to the extent that they are well known and their truths revealed to all, so is forgetfulness in relation to them extremely prevalent. … It is possible that the reader will find that he has learned little after having read it that he did not know before. Its benefit is to be derived, rather, through review and persistent study, by which one is reminded of those things which, by nature, he is prone to forget and through which he is caused to take to heart the duty that he tends to overlook.”

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto book Mesillat Yesharim

Mesillat Yesharim (1738), Introduction

Men, People, Truth, Nature

“I'm a millionaire, I'm a multi-millionaire, I'm filthy rich. You know why I'm a multi-millionaire? 'Cause multi-millions like what I do. That's pretty good, isn't it? There's millions that believe in what I do. Pretty cool, huh?”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

Responding to criticism over his purchase of a million-dollar home, as quoted in the Arcata Eye (3 March 2002); and in "Moore Lies, Moore Fun at Stanford" by Joe Fairbanks in the Stanford Review (17 April 2002) http://www.stanfordreview.org/Archive/Volume_XXVIII/Issue_4/Opinion/opinion2.shtml 2002

“The attack on Bangladeshi Hindus is a crime against humanity. In and of itself, it is severe enough to spur our moral outrage and cause us to take action to stop it. But to make matters worse, it has been spreading across that open border into West Bengal, India. One would think these Hindu victims of Islamist terror would find a safe haven in the largest Hindu nation on earth, but they have not.”

Richard Benkin American journalist

Benkin, Richard L. (2012). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. New Delhi: Akshaya Prakashan. p.142.

Thinking

“The operations of commerce are not confined to the material ends; that there is no more powerful agent in consolidating and in knitting together the amity of nations; and that the great moral purpose of the repression of human passions, and those lusts and appetites which are the great cause of war, is in direct relation with the understanding and application of the science which you desire to propagate.”

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

Speech https://archive.org/details/revisedreportofp00poli to the Political Economy Club (31 May 1876) upon the centenary of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. 1870s

War, Understanding, Passion, Science

“Shall we then, I ask you, even for a moment, be hopeless of our great cause? I feel almost ashamed even to argue it to such a meeting as this. I call to mind where I am, and who are those whom I see before me. Am I not in the town of Birmingham—England's central capital; and do not these eyes look upon the sons of those who, not thirty years ago, shook the fabric of privilege to its base? Not a few of the strong men of that time are now white with age. They approach the confines of their mortal day. Its evening is cheered with the remembrance of that great contest, and they rejoice in the freedom they have won. Shall their sons be less noble than they? Shall the fire which they kindled be extinguished with you? I see your answer in every face. You are resolved that the legacy which they bequeathed to you, you will hand down in an accumulated wealth of freedom to your children. As for me, my voice is feeble. I feel now sensibly and painfully that I am not what I was. I speak with diminished fire; I act with a lessened force; but as I am, my countrymen and my constituents, I will, if you will let me, be found in your ranks in the impending struggle.”

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

Speech in Birmingham (27 October 1858) referring to the Reform Crisis, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 272-273.
1850s

Men, Children, Age, Feeling

“I'm gonna miss that smile, I'm gonna miss you my friend
Even though it hurts the way it ended up, I'd do it all again
So play it sweet in heaven 'cause that's right where you wanna be
I'm not cryin' 'cause I feel so sorry for you, I'm cryin' for me.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Cryin' for Me.
Song lyrics, American Ride (2009)

Smile, Way, Feeling, Hurt

“I know what it is. I know why my other relationships didn't work out, 'cause I'm unpredictable. Why are you afraid of it?”

Ruslana Koršunova (1987–2008) fashion model

"Model's Web rants pined for love" in Daily News (29 June 2009)

“Ziyauddin Barani voiced his opinion against the Hanafi school when he wrote as follows in his Fatwa-i-Jahandari: “If Mahmud… had gone to India once more, he would have brought under his sword all the Brahmans of Hind who, in that vast land, are the cause of the continuance of the laws of infidelity and of the strength of idolators; he would have cut off the heads of two or three hundred thousand Hindu chiefs. He would not have returned his Hindu-slaughtering sword to its scabbard until the whole of Hind had accepted Islam. For Mahmud was a Shafiite, and according to Imam Shafii the decree for Hindus is Islam or death, that is to say, they should either be put to death or accept Islam. It is not lawful to accept jiziya from Hindus who have neither a prophet nor a revealed book.””

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Fatwa-i-Jahandari, quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231
Fatawa-i-Jahandari

Death, Books, School, Law

“In world history we have other examples of frightful destruction. There was Alexander the Great and all of the destruction he caused. Napoleon, too, would have destroyed all of Europe. But unfortunately, the Nazi government, the government of which I unfortunately partook, had no Talleyrand, but we had a Ribbentrop. Through Talleyrand's policy France was saved from a catastrophe that Ribbentrop would have brought about.”

Walther Funk (1890–1960) German economist and politician

To Leon Goldensohn, May 12, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

World, History

“We must recognise that we have a great treasure to guard; that the inheritance in our possession represents the prolonged achievement of the centuries; that there is not one of our simple uncounted rights today for which better men than we are have not died on the scaffold or the battlefield. We have not only a great treasure; we have a great cause. Are we taking every measure within our power to defend that cause?”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris, 24 September 1936, "Thank God For the French Army" Quoted in Never Give In!: Winston Churchill's Speeches https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bcKOAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA111&ots=Xh9ffWodWa&dq=churchill%20better%20men%20than%20we%20have%20not%20died%20on%20the%20scaffold%20or%20the%20battlefield&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q&f=false (2013), p. 111. ISBN 9781472520852 The 1930s

Men

“The marvelous is of necessity a lie, a distortion. At best it is a metaphor which leads to the truth. I think that I know what causes the World’s Pain, lady. Or at least I think I know what contributes to that Pain.”
“And what would that be, Ulrich von Bek?”
“By telling a single lie to oneself or to another, by denying a single fact of the world as it has been created, one adds to the World’s Pain. And pain, lady, creates pain. And one must not seek to become saint or sinner, God or Devil. One must seek to become human and to love the fact of one’s humanity.”
I became embarrassed. “That is all I have learned, lady.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

“It is all that Heaven demands,” she said.
Source: The von Bek family, The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 16 (p. 158)

Love, God, Pain, Truth

“No man could have done more to save the world from this war. Your efforts to secure peace gave to our cause a moral strength that can never be disregarded. For this all who have regard for Britain's honour must be profoundly grateful. You have saved us from a war at a moment when we were unready, and if others had been sincere and faithful to their pledges would have prevented hostilities in Europe perhaps for generations. You will surely receive the reward of those who are promised the blessing of peace-makers.”

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

Cardinal Hinsley to Chamberlain (5 October 1940), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 462.
About

Hostility, War, World, Peace

“In modern science, in fact, let alone modern systems theory, cause disappears wherever you have a very complex system of interrelated elements.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Walter F. Buckley (1970) in: Cry California. Vol 6. p. 28.

Science

“Be sure of the fact before you lose time in searching for a cause.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

Search, Time

“Love is the mystery of divine revelations!
Love is the effulgent manifestation!
Love is the spiritual fulfillment!
Love is the breath of the Holy Spirit inspired into the human spirit!
Love is the cause of the manifestation of the Truth (God) in the phenomenal world!
Love is the necessary tie proceeding from the realities of things through divine creation!
Love is the means of the most great happiness in both the material and spiritual worlds!
Love is a light of guidance in the dark night!
Love is the bond between the Creator and the creature in the inner world!
Love is the cause of development to every enlightened man!
Love is the greatest law in this vast universe of God!
Love is the one law which causeth and controleth order among the existing atoms!
Love is the universal magnetic power between the planets and stars shining in the loft firmament!
Love is the cause of unfoldment to a searching mind, of the secrets deposited in the universe by the Infinite!
Love is the spirit of life in the bountiful body of the world!
Love is the cause of the civilization of nations in this mortal world!
Love is the highest honor to every righteous nation!
The people who are confirmed therein are indeed glorified by the Supreme Concourse, the angels of heaven and the dwellers of the Kingdom of El-Abha! But if the hearts of the people become devoid of the Divine Grace — the Love of God — they wander in the desert of ignorance, descend to the depths of ruin and fall to the abyss of despair where there is no refuge! They are like insects living in the lowest plane.
O beloved of God! Be ye the manifestations of God and the lamps of guidance throughout all regions shining with the light of love and union!
How beautiful the effulgence of this light!”

`Abdu'l-Bahá (1844–1921) Son of Bahá'u'lláh and leader of the Bahá'í Faith

“O thou who art attracted by the Fragrances of God!…” in Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas (1909), p. 730 http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/TAB/tab-573.html

Love, Life, God, Happiness

“The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

Review of Lord Byron's Childe Harold in Yellow Dwarf (2 May 1818), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, ed. A.R. Waller and Arnold Glover (1902-1904)

“Therefore, in the light of the Truth that God is love, and that Jesus came to make his love manifest in the world, we cannot believe it is his will for men to eat meat, or to do anything else that would cause suffering to the innocent and helpless.”

Charles Fillmore (1854–1948) American mystic

Source: Vegetarianism, Unity Magazine, June 1915. Quoted in Will Tuttle, The World Peace Diet (2005), ch. 3.

Love, Men, God, Truth

“Psychiatrists look for twisted molecules and defective genes as the causes of schizophrenia, because schizophrenia is the name of a disease. If Christianity or Communism were called diseases, would they then look for the chemical and genetic “causes” of these “conditions?””

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Second Sin (1973), p. 102.

Disease, Communication

“Mostly, you write a script and someone’s gonna rewrite you. They get hundreds of— not hundred but they get ten writers to write something. If you have a big budget, you can go and get a lot of people to write on script…. I just actually heard that somebody said, 'Well, your screenplay got bought and now someone like Carrie Fisher will come in and rewrite you.' And I feel terrible, you know, because that’s not what I mean to do. My idea was never to raid something and trash it, you know. ‘Cause that – that’s more work for me!”

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) American actress, screenwriter and novelist

From the filmmaking documentary Dreams on Spec

People, Feeling, Idea

“I do not believe that people who go on strike in this country have a legitimate cause. Throughout the period of the Labour Government and this one, I have never supported any strikes in this country.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Prime Minister's Questions (22 June 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104972 First term as Prime Minister

People, Support, Country

“Against all the odds of inertia and ignorance and fear of state power, Clarence Earl Gideon insisted that he had a right to a lawyer and kept on insisting all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. His triumph there shows that even the poorest and least powerful of men — a convict with not even a friend to visit him in prison — can take his cause to the highest court in the land and bring about a fundamental change in the law.”

Anthony Lewis movie Gideon's Trumpet

[218, Anthony, Lewis, w:Anthony Lewis, Vintage, 1989, 9780679723127, Gideon's Trumpet, http://books.google.com/books?id=IhDfidRb5wIC&pg=PA218&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false]

Men, Fear, Law, Way

“Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.”

James Russell Lowell The Present Crisis

St. 11
The Present Crisis (1844)

Truth, Faith

“I have from the beginning been adverse to distant expeditions for the purpose of expanding our colonial possessions. They are necessarily attended with a further division of our force, and with a diminution of our means of acting in Europe. Whilst we are acquiring colonies, the enemy is subjugating the Continent; and though I am by no means disposed to raise doubts of our ability to maintain the contest in this manner, I cannot help fearing the effect of any system which might enable the French, either completely to subdue the remaining Powers of the Continent, or to engage them in opinion against this country…In Europe the most formidable danger exists. It is there that every effort should be made to stop the career of the enemy. Our interest and our reputation are equally at stake. Our allies have a right to look to us for support, and our honour requires that we should not appear to be wanting to the common cause. With a view, therefore, to a continuance of the war on the Continent, I am strongly of opinion that we should immediately collect and prepare for embarkation the largest possible British force that can be made applicable to such a service.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Minute written whilst Foreign Secretary (autumn 1806) and docketed as 'objections intended to have been submitted to the King, if the plan for more extended operations in South America had been persevered in', quoted in Lieutenant-General Hon. C. Grey, Some Account of the Life and Opinions of Charles, Second Earl Grey (London: Richard Bentley, 1861), pp. 135-136.
1800s

War, Fear, Support, Effort

“The average person appreciates a value only “in the course of, and through comparison” with the possessions, condition, plight or quality of other persons. … The awareness that the acquisition and enjoyment of that value is beyond the person’s capacity … triggers two mutually opposite, but equally vigorous reactions: an overwhelming desire (all the more tormenting because of the suspicion that it might be impossible to fulfill); and ressentiment—a rancor caused by a desperate urge to ward off self-deprecation and self-contempt by demeaning, deriding and degrading the value in question, together with its possessors.”

Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) Polish philosopher and sociologist

Source: The Art of Life (2008), pp. 24-25 [Quote is from Max Scheler, “Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen”]

Question, Personality

“The current American diet is based on animal flesh and processed food: saturated fat, denatured animal protein, cholesterol, oils, refined sugars. This food is incredibly toxic to the blood vessels and the immune system, and it flows through our bloodstreams, and our children's, every four or five hours. The results are predictable. We're becoming grossly obese, arteries are clogging up. High blood pressure, diabetes, cancers. Autoimmune diseases have direct correlations with the meat and salt in animal products. The vast majority of diseases are created today by what people are eating in the West. Until that is recognized, we're just going to be treating symptoms. We're not getting to the root cause of disease, and that is the great transgression that the medical profession inadvertently perpetrates on the public.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

Interview in the book What the Health https://books.google.it/books?id=FIY8DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 by Eunice Wong (Xlibris, 2017), ch. 1.

Children, People, Disease, Food

“A woman saying yes to a date with a man is literally insane and ill-advised, and the whole species' existence counts on them doing it. I don't know how they…how do women still go out with guys, when you consider the fact that there is no greater threat to women than men? We're the number one threat to women. Globally and historically, we're the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women. We're the worst thing that ever happens to them. That's true! You know what our number one threat is? Heart disease.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

Oh My God

Women, Men, Disease, Guy

“Large-eyed and well endowed, as her name Pritha connotes, she is strikingly lovely, and Kuntibhoja exhorts her not to neglect any service out of pride in her beauty. Kunti’s relationship with Durvasa does not appear to have been easy. In the account she gives much later to Vyasa, she tells him that despite Durvasa’s conduct having been such as to provide abundant cause for anger, she had not given way to it. She further states that she was constrained at the sage’s insistence to accept his boon, whereby any god would be compelled to answer her summons, and that she obeyed out of fear of his curse. The interaction that she describes after this between her and the sun god, Surya, is exactly similar – the same insistence and the same fear.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Five Holy Virgins, Five Sacred MythsOf Kunti and Satyawati Sexually Assertive Women of the Mahabharata

Love, God, Fear, Beauty

“I can’t imagine,” said Dupre, “a better way to unnerve people than to tell them there’s no cause for alarm.”

Jack McDevitt book The Hercules Text

Source: The Hercules Text (1986), Chapter 9 (p. 132)

People, Way, Imagination

“In the practical sense the word principle may be applied to any underlying cause of more or less correlated facts in any particular field of investigation. The word principles, as applied to organization, is used by us strictly in the latter meaning.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 17

Sense

“The common root of modern science and Christian theology was Greek philosophy. The historical accident that caused the Christian religion to become heavily theological was the fact that Jesus was born in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire at the time when the prevailing culture was profoundly Greek.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

Religion, Science, Time, Parting

“An ad that pretends to be art is — at absolute best — like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair.”

David Foster Wallace book A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Essays

Smile, Art, Feeling, Perfection

“My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and 8 in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful work; for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required for his painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be had; and as the demand for them arose, I found it both delightful and profitable to make them; as well as sectional models of steam engines, which I introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both exterior and interior. With the results of the sale of such models I was enabled to pay the price of tickets of admission to the lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh. About the same time (1826) I was so happy as to be employed by Professor Leslie in making models and portions of apparatus required by him for his lectures and philosophical investigations, and I had also the inestimable good fortune to secure his friendship. His admirably clear manner of communicating a knowledge of the fundamental principles of mechanical science rendered my intercourse with him of the utmost importance to myself. A hearty, cheerful, earnest desire to toil in his service, caused him to take pleasure in instructing me by occasional explanations of what might otherwise have remained obscure.”

James Nasmyth (1808–1890) Scottish mechanical engineer and inventor

James Nasmyth in: Industrial Biography: Iron-workers and Tool-makers https://books.google.nl/books?id=ZMJLAAAAMAAJ, Ticknor and Fields, 1864. p. 337

Friendship, Happiness, Pleasure, Communication

“Standing still as a statue in the October shadows, he looked, grotesquely, more like a patriot than anything usually seen on a baseball field. A trick of light perhaps. Yet what famous athlete last died for a cause bigger than himself? Clemente could sometimes seem like a pest, a nagging narcissist, with only his burningly serious play to deny it. Yet when that plane crashed carrying relief supplies to Nicaragua we saw what he had meant all along. It was like the old Clemente crashing into the right field wall in a losing game: the act of a totally serious man.
By chance I met Clemente once, in the humble role of autograph-seeker. He was doing wind sprints down at the Pirate training camp in Bradenton, Florida. And although I claimed I was getting an autograph for my son (true, for a change), he looked at me with a hidalgo’s contempt – at a grown man simpering over a blunt pencil; he turned his back abruptly and did another wind sprint, then slashed his name onto my scorecard and sauntered away. To hell with you, Clemente, I thought. But on the way out, I saw him funning with three old ladies from Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I have never seen sweeter courtesy.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

From the foreword to Clemente! (1973) by Kal Wagenheim

Way, Game, Hell, Light

“You might remember, it was 2003 when I made the statement that the idea that manmade gases, CO2, are causing catastrophic global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. I was hated at that time, but now people realize I was right. That, by the way, is the title of my book that's going to come out in January.”

James Inhofe (1934) American politician

Hate, People, Books, Way

“Whatever is, is in its causes just.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Act III, scene i.
Œdipus (1679)

“My stress on the truth in sexual stereotypes and on the biologic basis of sex differences is sure to cause controversy.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. xiii

Truth, Sex

“Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor

As quoted in He Came from Galilee (1974) by Parker B. Brown

Change

“In esoteric circles, there is much learned talk about the Law of Karma which is, after all, only the Eastern name for the great Law of Cause and Effect; the emphasis is ever upon evil karma and how to avoid it. Yet I would guarantee that… there is far more general good karma than evil; I say this in spite of the world war, the unutterable horror by which we have been and are still surrounded… The evil and the misery will pass but happiness will remain; above everything else will come the realisation that… ours is now the opportunity to build a new and better world.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Unfinished Autobiography (1951), Chapter I, Part 1

War, Happiness, World, Law

“But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's destroyers. If today we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood, like France, if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black system of human bondage, if the American name is no longer a by-word and a hissing to a mocking earth, if the star-spangled banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army who rest in these honored graves all around us.”

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

1870s, The Unknown Loyal Dead (1871)

Death, Justice, Star, Courage

“Man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. And man was not created for the cause of the woman, but the woman for the cause of man; and therefore ought the woman to have a power upon her head.”

Paul of Tarsus book First Epistle to the Corinthians

I Corinthians 11:8-10
First Epistle to the Corinthians

“We had then and still have to fight a two-front battle. Ranged against us on the one hand are those who denounce us for our alleged ‘departure from the principles of nationalism and socialism’, since we are championing ‘sectarian’ causes like those of oppressed castes and religious minorities. On the other hand are those who, in the name of defending the oppressed caste masses, in fact, isolate them from the mainstream of the united struggle of the working people irrespective of caste, communities and so on.”

E. M. S. Namboodiripad (1909–1998) Indian politician

On special role of caste in Indian society in page=12.
History, Society, and Land Relations: Selected Essays

People, Communication, Departure, Fight

“Lost in the barrage of images and self-serving analysis are the economic and social causes of the conflict.”

Michel Chossudovsky (1946) Canadian economist

Source: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order - Second Edition - (2003), Chapter 17, Dismantling Former Yugoslavia, p. 257

“And wherefore? Because we are thoroughly convinced that laws, education, and religion exercise a salutary influence on society, and that moral causes have their certain effects.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Context: From the examination of numbers, I believed myself justified in inferring, as a natural consequence, that, in given circumstances, and the influence of the same causes, we may reckon upon witnessing the repetition of the same effects, reproduction of the same crimes, and the same convictions. What has resulted from this exposition? Timorous persons have raised the cry of fatalism. If, however, some one said, "Man is born free; nothing force his free-will; he underlies the influence of external causes; cease to assimilate him to a machine, or to pretend to modify his actions. Therefore, ye legislators, repeal your laws; overturn your prisons; break your chains in pieces; your convictions penalties are of no avail; they are so many acts barbarous revenge. Ye philosophers and priests, speak no more of ameliorations, social or religious; you are materialists, because you assume to society like a piece of gross clay; you are fatalists, because you believe yourselves predestined to influence man in the exercise of his free-will, and to the course of his actions." If, I say, any one held such language to us, we should be disgusted with its excessive folly. And wherefore? Because we are thoroughly convinced that laws, education, and religion exercise a salutary influence on society, and that moral causes have their certain effects.

Education, Religion, Law, Exercises

“For fear of causing terror to living beings, Mahāmati, let the Bodhisattva who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh.”

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

Mahayana, Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, Chapter Eight. On Meat-eating

Fear

“The last decade has seen a great deal of research on the perception of causation and the consequences of such perception. Conducted primarily within social psychology, the focus has been the perceived causes of other persons' behavior. A parallel analysis has been made of the perceived causes of one's own behavior, and the liveliest recent topic has concerned differences between other-perception and self-perception. The study of perceived causation is identified by the term "attribution theory," attribution referring to the perception inference of cause. As we will see, there is not one but many attribution "theories" and the term refers to several different kinds of problem. The common ideas are that people interpret behavior in terms of its causes and that these interpretations play an important role in determining reactions to the behavior.”

Harold Kelley (1921–2003) American psychologist & academic

Source: "Attribution theory and research." 1980, p. 458; Lead paragraph

People, Behavior, Idea, Problem

“If you ask adults how many teachers — out of the scores in elementary, middle school, high school, college and graduate school — made a singular impression on who and what they are, it's never more than three or four teachers. Everybody else is a distant second to this set.When we finally create a cloning machine, we should clone those teachers. Maybe that's 100 years from now, but that's at the top of my list. Until that happens, the educational system has not fully understood the causes and effects of achievement and success in life. There remains a culture that equates high grades with success in school and correlates success in school with success in life. That mentality is so deep within us that it may be inextricable from our behavior.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Global Ideas from Pluto's Challenger (May 21, 2009)

Life, Education, School, Behavior

“[Fox] exhibited two pictures of this country; the one representing her at the end of the last glorious war, the other at the present moment. At the end of the last war this country was raised to a most dazzling height of splendour and respect. The French marine was in a manner annihilated, the Spanish rendered contemptible; the French were driven from America; new sources of commerce were opened, the old enlarged; our influence extended to a predominance in Europe, our empire of the ocean established and acknowledged, and our trade filling the ports and harbours of the wondering and admiring world. Now mark the degradation and the change, We have lost thirteen provinces of America; we have lost several of our Islands, and the rest are in danger; we have lost the empire of the sea; we have lost our respect abroad and our unanimity at home; the nations have forsaken us, they see us distracted and obstinate, and they leave us to our fate. Country! …This was your situation, when you were governed by Whig ministers and by Whig measures, when you were warmed and instigated by a just and a laudable cause, when you were united and impelled by the confidence which you had in your ministers, and when they were again strengthened and emboldened by your ardour and enthusiasm. This is your situation, when you are under the conduct of Tory ministers and a Tory system, when you are disunited, disheartened, and have neither confidence in your ministers nor union among yourselves; when your cause is unjust and your conductors are either impotent or treacherous.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (27 November 1781), reprinted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume I (1815), p. 429.
1780s

Fate, War, World, Home

“Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it.
I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it.
After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own,
Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone.But you keep my old scarf from that very first week,
'Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me.
You can't get rid of it 'cause you remember it all too well, yeah.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

All Too Well, written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose.
Song lyrics, Red (2012)

Home, Time, Flying, Night

“Magic is the science and the art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.”

Peter J. Carroll (1953) British occultist

Source: Liber Null & Psychonaut (1987), p. 15; this is a slight paraphrase of the definition of Aleister Crowley in Magick in Theory and Practice: Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.

Art, Science, Change

“Evil does not approach us as pride any more, but on the contrary as slumber, lassitude, concealment of the "I." … It may make us so quickly contented, that any definitive fire will die down. The venomous, breathtaking frigid mist seems able … to harden hearts and fill them with envy, obduracy and resentment, with bloody scorn for the divine image and light, with all the causes of the only true original sin, which is not wanting to be like God.”

Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) German philosopher

Source: Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (1959), p. 62

God, Light, Evil, Heart

“You spend months and months listening to the music, absorbing, practicing, working with real musicians who worked with them and getting as much of that as you can. And then the day you start shooting, you have to throw it all away. Because, they had no self-consciousness. They were natural performers and at that time, it wasn't about how you could synthesize a voice and make it appealing, it was about the natural little hiccups and the way you related a story or wrote the soul in the words you wrote. And 90% of your popularity was your performance and your interpretation of your own song. So, once we learned it all you just have to just kind of hope it all sunk in somewhere and just let it all go, cause they just had incredible confidence.”

Reese Witherspoon (1976) American film actress and producer

On making Walk the Line IGN Interview with Reese Witherspoon http://movies.ign.com/articles/666/666865p1.html (November 15, 2005).

Hope, Music, Way, Soul

“In one word, one should desire of God desirelessness. For desire alone is at the root of all suffering. It is the cause of repeated births and deaths. It is the obstacle in the way of liberation.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Tapasyananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations, 369]

Death, God, Way, Birth

“You may choose, if you wish, to parrot the line that Watergate was a "long national nightmare," but some of us found it rather exhilarating to see a criminal President successfully investigated and exposed and discredited. And we do not think it in the least bit nightmarish that the Constitution says that such a man is not above the law. Ford's ignominious pardon of this felonious thug meant, first, that only the lesser fry had to go to jail. It meant, second, that we still do not even know why the burglars were originally sent into the offices of the Democratic National Committee. In this respect, the famous pardon is not unlike the Warren Commission: another establishment exercise in damage control and pseudo-reassurance (of which Ford was also a member) that actually raised more questions than it answered. The fact is that serious trials and fearless investigations often are the cause of great division, and rightly so.”

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

2006-12-29
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/12/our_short_national_nightmare.html
Our Short National Nightmare
Slate
1091-2339
referencing a quote by Gerald Ford
2000s, 2006

Law, Exercises, Question, Thinking

“A harmonious relationship between religion and public life is all the more important at a time when some people have come to consider religion a cause of division rather than a force for unity. In a world threatened by sinister and indiscriminate forms of violence, the unified voice of religious people urges nations and communities to resolve conflicts through peaceful means and with full regard for human dignity.”

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

2008, Inter-religious Meeting (17 July 2008)

Life, People, World, Peace

“Protocols
Number 20, paras. 26-32
The budgets of income and expenditure will be carried out side by side that they may not be obscured by distance one to another.
…The first irregularity, as we shall point out, consists in their beginning with drawing up a single budget which year after year grows owing to the following cause: this budget is dragged out to half the year, ten they demand a
Graves: Clearly, the “Protocols” author adapts the text of “Dialogues” so carelessly in his hasty attempt to Prove a Jewish conspiracy!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.83

Drawing

“He would, when engaged in an animated conversation with a friend, talk quickly and well for a few minutes, and then suddenly and without any very apparent cause would begin to stutter so much, that it was often difficult to understand him.”

Isa Bowman (1874–1958) British actress

Page 11.
The Story of Lewis Carroll (1899)

Understanding, Animals

“By My life! But for the obligation to acknowledge the Cause of Him Who is the Testimony of God … I would not have announced this unto thee… All the keys of heaven God hath chosen to place on My right hand, and all the keys of hell on My left…”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Epistle to Muhammad Sháh

Life, God, Hell

“War, as Rousseau pointed out long before Tolstoy took up the theme, only makes manifest events already determined by moral causes (Emile, Bk. IV). For this reason our main energies must be directed against the moral causes of war. Those moral causes lie within ourselves — and pacifists should not suppose for a moment that they are pure in heart in this respect.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

The Redempton of the Robot (1969)
Other Quotes

War, Lie, Heart

“It is not facts, but rumors that cause emotions among the people. What is believed creates everything.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

People

“May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my Country and for the benefit of Europe in general a great and glorious victory; and may no misconduct in anyone tarnish it; and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature of the British fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may His blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

Dispatches and Letters of Horatio Nelson : a diary entry on the eve of the battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar (1805)

Life, God, Light, Victory

“Draw Dyrnwyn, only thou of noble worth, to rule with justice, to strike down evil. Who wields it in good cause shall slay even the Lord of Death.”

Lloyd Alexander The Chronicles of Prydain

The runic inscription upon the scabbard of Dyrnwyn, correctly read by the bard Taliesin, in Chapter 19
The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book V : The High King (1968)

Death, Justice, Evil, Drawing

“The major cause [of the software crisis] is that the machines have become several orders of magnitude more powerful! To put it quite bluntly: as long as there were no machines, programming was no problem at all; when we had a few weak computers, programming became a mild problem, and now we have gigantic computers, programming has become an equally gigantic problem. In this sense the electronic industry has not solved a single problem, it has only created them, it has created the problem of using its products.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

1970s, The Humble Programmer (1972)

Problem, Sense

“An humble soul knows that little sins, if I may so call any, cost Christ his blood, and that they make way for greater; and that little sins multiplied become great, as a little sum multiplied is great; that they cloud the face of God, wound conscience, grieve the Spirit, rejoice Satan, and make work for repentance, &c. An humble soul knows that little sins, suppose them so, are very dangerous; a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, a little staff may kill one; a little poison may poison one, a little leak in a ship sinks it; a little fly in the box of ointment spoils it; a little flaw in a good cause mars it; so a little sin may at once bar the door of heaven and open the gates of hell; and therefore an humble soul smites and strikes itself for the least as well as the greatest.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

God, Way, Soul, Hell

“The Negro cannot stand the present reactionary tendencies and unreasoning drawing of the color line indefinitely without discouragement and retrogression. And the condition of the Negro is ever the cause for further discrimination.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Souls of Black Folk

Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. IX: Of the Sons of Master and Man

Color, Drawing

“I proposed that it be called the "Phoenix National Literary Society" – the word Phoenix signifying that the Irish cause was again to rise from the ashes of our martyred nationality.”

Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa (1831–1915) Irish Republican Brotherhood member

Shane MacThomais, "90th Anniversary Commemoration Booklet 1831-1915" (Parnell Publications, Parnell Sq, Dublin), p. 2

“I'm here to validate all the millions of people who are opposed to the Obama healthcare. We're witnessing a slow and steady takeover of our true freedoms. We're becoming a socialist nation, and Obama is causing civil unrest in this country… The stimulus didn't work…. We're being told what cars we can drive, how much we can make…. Obama has made this [healthcare] a personal crusade now…. As we can see it really is about him. He is arrogant and he's adamant that he's going to get this passed…. He's trying everything, even the so-called God card. If you love God, he tells us, then it's your duty to vote this healthcare bill in…. They're taking away God's first gift to man. Our free will.”

Jon Voight (1938) American actor

Criticizing President Obama's healthcare proposal on the August 30, 2009 edition of Fox News Sunday with Mike Huckabee http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/31/jon-voight-on-huckabee-ob_n_272571.html

Love, God, People, Cars

“Well, if you want to sing out, sing out,
And if you want to be free, be free.
'Cause there's a million things to be,
You know that there are.”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out, originally recorded for the 1971 film Harold and Maude
Song lyrics, Footsteps in the Dark: Greatest Hits (1984)

Singing

“The cause why He suffereth is for He will of His goodness make us the higher with Him in His bliss; and for this little pain that we suffer here, we shall have an high endless knowing in God which we could never have without that.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Eighth Revelation, Chapter 21

God, Pain, Suffering

“We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes -- and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers. You know, the Lord can cause the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike.”

Bill Sali (1954) American politician

http://www.onenewsnow.com/2007/08/idaho_congressman_disturbed_by.php

Change, Housing

“One of the factors that caused Spencer's ideas to lose popularity was social Darwinism… Social evolution is different from biological evolution: it's faster, it's Lamarckian, and it makes even heavier use of altruism and cooperation than biological evolution does. None of this was well understood at the time.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995)

Idea, Time

“The Queen of England has more cause to procure the preservation of the Low Countries in their ancient estate in the obedience of the house of Burgundy than any other place hath…Now if the Low Countries should either be subdued to the Spaniards or possessed by the French, England cannot continue this manner of league. For if the Spaniard shall possess this country by conquest, as otherwise they cannot, then must they also govern it as conquers—that is build in every country and special towns, forts and castles which must be kept and guarded with Spaniards…To maintain these the King must continue great taxes…and there will be no reason to stop him but he will set what tax he listeth upon the commodities of England and so shall England wax poor to make him rich. And then England will have no remedy.”

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1520–1598) English statesman

Memorandum from approximately the beginning of 1576.
Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London: Jonathan Cape, 1960), p. 166.

Housing, Country

“We assume…that the banking system must be prepared to expand (or contract) the total supply of money to the extent necessary to prevent any scarcity (or plenty) of funds in the capital market which may be induced by any other disturbing factor, from causing a rise (or fall) in interest rates”

James Meade (1907–1995) British economist

James Meade (1951), The theory of international economic policy, Vol. 1, p. 48; as cited in: Jacques Jacobus Polak (2001) The Two Monetary Approaches to the Balance of Payments, p. 13

Money

“Your Excellency, I went without delay to the well of which Y. E. had written, and made a sketch of it, from which Y. E. will see how the matter stands; but I wish that sketch not to go alone, so send another with it of a well after the fashion of this country. Should these drawings appear to have been done in a manner not agreeable to the greatness of your illustrious Signorina, or in accordance with my humble desire to serve Y. E., I hope to be excused; and that Y. E. will ascribe, the cause to an earnest longing that the work should be done rapidly. I am entirely at command should the drawings be considered unsatisfactory, and am ready to furnish others..”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

Quote from Titian's letter to the Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, From Venice, Feb. 19, 1517; from the original in Marquis Campori's Tiziano e gli Estensi, p. 5; as quoted by J.A.Y. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle in Titian his life and times - With some account ..., publisher John Murray, London, 1877, p. 178-79
1510-1540

Hope, Fashion, Appearance, Drawing

“We have been discussing here that Turkey would take responsibility and the other European countries would make our own contributions to the cause. This way we can extend help near to the crisis, which would make it easier for the migrants to return to their homes once the situation has calmed down.”

Timo Soini (1962) Finnish politician

Finland’s Prime Minister Juha Sipilä says one way to resolve the Syrian refugee crisis would be through the use of EU quotas. Foreign Minister Timo Soini rejects the idea, saying Turkey should take the main responsibility for stopping the migrants with the EU countries' financial help, quoted on Yle.Fi, "PM willing to raise refugee quota, FM says Turkey should take the lead" http://yle.fi/uutiset/pm_willing_to_raise_refugee_quota_fm_says_turkey_should_take_the_lead/8655373, January 7, 2016.

Way, Home, Help, Country

“Repressive rivals, along with skeptics here at home, misunderstand something important. It is the great advantage of free societies that we creatively adapt to challenges, without the direction of some central authority. Self-correction is the secret strength of freedom. We are a nation with a history of resilience and a genius for renewal. Right now, one of our worst national problems is a deficit of confidence. But the cause of freedom justifies all our faith and effort. It still inspires men and women in the darkest corners of the world, and it will inspire a rising generation. The American spirit does not say, “We shall manage,” or “We shall make the best of it.” It says, “We shall overcome.””

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

And that is exactly what we will do, with the help of God and one another.
2010s, 2017, Speech at "Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In the World" event (2017)

Women, Men, God, Secret

“"Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them to the end." Often had they been faithless; and now, while addressing them, He knows that they will all in a few hours forsake Him. Yet He trusts them; He commits His cause to their keeping. And we must love as He loved.”

Richard Fuller (minister) (1804–1876) United States Baptist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 71.

Love, World

“I am now further convinced that there is something to be said in general for studying the history of a lost cause. Perhaps our education would be more humane in result if everyone were required to gain an intimate acquaintance with some coherent ideal that failed in the effort to maintain itself. It need not be a cause which was settled by war; there are causes in the social, political, and ecclesiastical worlds which would serve very well. But it is good for everyone to ally himself at one time with the defeated and to look at the “progress” of history through the eyes of those who were left behind. I cannot think of a better way to counteract the stultifying “Whig” theory of history, with its bland assumption that every cause which has won has deserved to win, a kind of pragmatic debasement of the older providential theory. The study and appreciation of a lost cause have some effect of turning history into philosophy. In sufficient number of cases to make us humble, we discover good points in the cause which time has erased, just as one often learns more from the slain hero of a tragedy than from some brassy Fortinbras who comes in at the end to announce the victory and proclaim the future disposition of affairs. It would be perverse to say that this is so of every historical defeat, but there is enough analogy to make it a sober consideration. Not only Oxford, therefore, but every university ought to be to some extent“the home of lost causes and impossible loyalties.””

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

It ought to preserve the memory of these with a certain discriminating measure of honor, trying to keep alive what was good in them and opposing the pragmatic verdict of the world.
"Up from Liberalism” Modern Age Vol. 3, No. 1 (Winter 1958-1959), p. 25, cols. 1-2.

War, World, Education, Way

“The outbreak of a socialist revolution in one country will cause the others to imitate it or so to strengthen the proletariat as to prevent its national bourgeoisie from attempting any armed intervention.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution: The Origins of Ideological Polarization in the 20th Century, Jacob Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 487
Undated

Country

“I think that – you know – we just encountered – America encountered – a brilliant man, and in terms of being a noble cause, it wasn't that many centuries ago that killing in the name of God, or waging war in the name of God, was a major thing in Christianity.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

Al-Jazeera TV on September 11 and 12, 2005
2000s

God, War, Thinking

“I feel the conflict still exists in me – but not causing me any difficulty in working, as it did immediately after returning from Italy [in 1925]. In fact I ask myself is this [the] conflict what makes things happen? For it seems to me now that this conflict between the excitement & great impression I got from Mexican sculpture & the love & sympathy I felt for Italian art, represents two opposing sides in me, the 'tough' & the 'tender', & that many other artists have had the same two conflicting sides in their natures.... and really I see no difficulty in appreciating both sides & finding them in the same artist. Perhaps an obvious & continuous synthesis will eventually derive in my own work – I can’t say – I can only work as I feel & believe at the time I do the work.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

in 'Undated notes' 1950; as quoted in The Art of Henry Moore, Will Grohmann, Thames and Hudson, London 1960, n.p.
1940 - 1955

Love, Art, Feeling, Nature

“For Bréal, semantics was the science the subject matter of which was study of the cause and structure of the processes of changes in meanings of words: expansion and contraction of meanings, transfer of meanings, elevation and degradation of their value, etc.
Such a delineation of semantics as a branch of linguistics is maintained to this day, for all the differences between the various schools in linguistics. Such degree of uniformity is not confined to the definition of semantics alone. Not all authors give such a definition; some of them approach the issue from a different point of view as regards general classification… but all schools of linguistics engage in the study of the meanings of words and their changes. Thus all of them, in one way or another, engage in semantics as understood by Breal.”

Adam Schaff (1913–2006) Polish Marxist philosopher and theorist

Source: Introduction to semantics, 1962, p. 4

School, Way, Study, Science

“Seldom can philosophic genius be more usefully employed than in thus rescuing admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Aids to Reflection (1873), Aphorism 1

Truth, Universe

“I, for my part, do not conceive an act as having causes, and I consider myself satisfied when I have found in it not its ‘factors’ but the general themes which it organizes: for our decisions gather into new syntheses and on new occasions the leitmotif that governs our life”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

P 461
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

Life, Decision, Parting

“For me, as I later came to say, cybernetics is the art of creating equilibrium in a world of possibilities and constraints. This is not just a romantic description, it portrays the new way of thinking quite accurately. Cybernetics differs from the traditional scientific procedure, because it does not try to explain phenomena by searching for their causes, but rather by specifying the constraints that determine the direction of their development.”

Ernst von Glasersfeld (1917–2010) German philosopher

Source: Partial Memories: Sketches from an Improbable Life, 2010, p. 136

World, Art, Way, Search

“I know I've caused you trouble,
I know I've caused you pain.
But I must do the right thing;
I must do myself a favour
And get real, get right with the Lord.”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Get Real Get Right"
Lyrics, The Age of Adz (2010)

Pain

“Should anyone bring against me an accusation of sensuality he would be wrong, for all the fierceness of my senses never caused me to neglect any of my duties.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)

Sense

“If the aim of life is to escape from life, the watchword of life must be Control. For if the wandering senses are allowed to dwell unchecked on objects of sense, attachment to those objects will arise and cause continual rebirth. The evil must be checked at its source; mind and sense must be restrained. Control, or balance of character, is called Yoga.”

W. Douglas P. Hill (1884–1962) British Indologist

Source: The Bhagavadgītā (1973), p. 52. (27. Yoga)

Life, Sense, Evil

“Starting with the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, this flattering of Muslims by praising Islam culminated in Mahatma Gandhi’s sarva-dharma-samabhava - the opiate which lulled the Hindus into a deep slumber such as they had never known vis-à-vis Muslim aggression…. Anyone who questioned the pious proposition that the Quran was as good as the Vedas and the Puranas, ran the risk of being nailed down as an “enemy of communal harmony”….. That part of the “Muslim minority” which had voted for Pakistan but had chosen to stay in India, restarted the old game when India was proclaimed a secular state pledged to freedom of propagation for all religions. It revived its tried and tested trick of masquerading as a “poor and persecuted minority”. It cooked up any number of Pirpur Reports. The wail went up that the “lives, liberties and honour of the Muslims were not safe” in India, in spite of India’s “secular pretensions”. At the same time, street riots were staged on every possible pretext. The “communal situation” started becoming critical once again. …. And once again, the political leadership came out with a make-belief. The big-wigs from all political parties were collected in a “National Integration Council”. It was pointed out by the leftist professors that the major cause of “communal trouble” was the “bad habit” of living in the past on the part of “our people”. Most of the politicians knew no history and no religion for that matter. They all agreed with one voice that Indian history, particularly that of the “medieval Muslim period”, should be re-written. That, they pleaded, was the royal road to “national integration.””

Sita Ram Goel book The Calcutta Quran Petition

The Calcutta Quran Petition (1986)

People, Religion, History, Game

“The earliest achievement of this (of equality and the restriction on the powers of the constitutionally mandated magistrates), the most ancient opposition in Rome, consisted in the abolition of the life-tenure of the presidency of the community; in other words, in the abolition of the monarchy… Not only in Rome (but all over the Italian peninsula) … we find the rulers for life of an earlier epoch superseded in after times by annual magistrates. In this light the reasons which led to the substitution of the consuls for kings in Rome need no explanation. The organism of the ancient Greek and Italian polity through its own action and by a sort of natural necessity produced the limitation of the life-presidency to a shortened, and for the most part an annual, term… Simple, however, as was the cause of the change, it might be brought about in various ways, resolution (of the community),.. or the rule might voluntarily abdicate; or the people might rise in rebellion against a tyrannical ruler, and expel him. It was in this latter way that the monarchy was terminated in Rome. For however much the history of the expulsion of the last Tarquinius, "the proud", may have been interwoven with anecdotes and spun out into a romance, it is not in its leading outlines to be called in question. Tradition credibly enough indicates as the causes of the revolt, that the king neglected to consult the senate and to complete its numbers; that he pronounced sentences of capital punishment and confiscation without advising with his counsellors(sic); that he accumulated immense stores of grain in his granaries, and exacted from the burgesses military labours and task-work beyond what was due… we are (in light of the ignorance of historical facts around the abolition of the monarchy) fortunately in possession of a clearer light as to the nature of the change which was made in the constitution (after the expulsion of the monarchy). The royal power was by no means abolished, as is shown by the fact that, when a vacancy occurred, a "temporary king" (Interrex) was nominated as before. The one life-king was simply replaced by two [one year] kings, who called themselves generals (praetores), or judges…, or merely colleagues (Consuls) [literally, "Those who leap or dance together"]. The collegiate principle, from which this last - and subsequently most current - name of the annual kings was derived, assumed in their case an altogether peculiar form. The supreme power was not entrusted to the two magistrates conjointly, but each consul possessed and exercised it for himself as fully and wholly as it had been possessed and exercised by the king; and, although a partition of functions doubtless took place from the first - the one consul for instance undertaking the command of the army, and the other the administration of justice - that partition was by no means binding, and each of the colleagues was legally at liberty to interfere at any time in the province of the other.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 1, Book II , Chapter 1. "Change of the Constitution" Translated by W.P. Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 1

Life, People, Justice, Way

“You have to understand the Tea-bagger mindset; they have this nostalgia for this America that they think was stolen from them, that used to be, that was better – it's really the 1950s, okay? That's what they think was Shangri-La, and, y'know what they really don't get is that it's kind of insulting to a lot of Americans to pine for this era, cause it wasn't that good for a lot of people. It was good if you were a white man. It wasn't that good if you were Mexican, or black, or Jewish, or disabled, or gay, or a woman.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

But I'm Not Wrong (2010)

People, Understanding, Thinking, Nostalgia

“By following entirely the guidance of lust, in the manner of fools, man loses his intellectual energy, injures his body, and perishes before his natural time; sighs and cares multiply; there is an increase of envy, hatred, and warfare, for the purpose of taking what another possesses. The cause of all this is the circumstance that the ignorant considers physical enjoyment as an object to be sought for its own sake. God in His wisdom has therefore given us such commandments as would counteract that object, and prevent us altogether from directing our attention to it, and has debarred us from everything that leads only to excessive desire and to lust. This is an important thing included in the objects of our Law.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.33

Wisdom, God, Law, Fools

“I saw the cause of Christ's government, and of the bishops' antichristian dealing, to be hidden. The most part of men could not be gotten to read anything written in the defence of the one and against the other. I bethought me therefore of a way whereby men might be drawn to do both, perceiving the humors of men in these times (especially of those that are in any place) to be given to mirth. I took that course.”

Martin Marprelate (1588–1589)

"Hay any Work for Cooper" (March 1589), p. 115.

Men, Way, Time, Reading

“To see the heaven in your eyes is not so far,
'Cause I'm not afraid to try and go it,
To know the love and beauty never known before,
I'll leave it up to you to show it.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Golden Lady
Song lyrics, Innervisions (1973)

Love, Beauty

“Organisms are self-causing agencies. Every self is a tautology: self-evident, self-referential, self-centered, and self-created.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

“Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier, because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008, (2008)

Life, Happiness, Country

“Under such lights as these, which are shed from what the vast majority of thinking men agree is the profoundest and best that is in us, all such systems as we have described display their final moral incompetency. Let us turn now to the new view, the view that abandons both monism and monarchotheism, that abandons creationism in both its forms, takes resort to Final Cause as the primary and only explanatory principle, and holds to an Eternal Pluralism of causal minds, each self-active, though all recognisant of all others, and thus all in their central essence possessed of moral autonomy, the very soul of all really moral being.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix B: The System in its Ethical Necessity and its Practical Bearings, p.399

Men, Soul, Thinking, Light

Quotes about cause page 39

Quotes about cause
page 39