Quotes about closing
page 32

Ernst Röhm photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Baruch Spinoza photo

“Since I always like Zhuangzi and I am close to Tagore, I am greatly affected by the thought of pantheism. Hence, my works are close to works of the great philosopher of Europe Spinoza and poetry of German poet Goethe.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Guo Moruo, 1983. As quoted in Yuan Li (2016), Study of Comparative Poetic Thought of Guo Moruo's Goddess [original in Chinese]
G - L

Baruch Spinoza photo

“To sum it up in a word: Marx was close to Hegel in his insistence on rejecting every philosophy of the Origin and of the Subject, whether rationalist, empiricist or transcendental; in his critique of the cogito, of the sensualist-empiricist subject and of the transcendental subject, thus in his critique of the idea of a theory of knowledge. Marx was close to Hegel in his critique of the legal subject and of the social contract, in his critique of the moral subject, in short of every philosophical ideology of the Subject, which whatever the variation involved gave classical bourgeois philosophy the means of guaranteeing its ideas, practices and goals by not simply reproducing but philosophically elaborating the notions of the dominant legal ideology. And if you consider the grouping of these critical themes, you have to admit that Marx was close to Hegel just in respect to those features which Hegel had openly borrowed from Spinoza, because all this can be found in the Ethics and the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

These deep-rooted affinities are normally passed over in pious silence; they nevertheless constitute, from Epicurus to Spinoza and Hegel, the premises of Marx's materialism. They are hardly ever mentioned, for the simple reason that Marx himself did not mention them, and so the whole of the Marx-Hegel relationship is made to hang on the dialectic, because this Marx did talk about!

Louis Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism (1976), "Is it Simple to be a Marxist in Philosophy?"
A - F, Louis Althusser

“It wasn’t a death wish. It was a see-how-close-you-can-get-and-live wish.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Ramal Extraction (2012), Chapter 12

Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Edward Bellamy photo
Edward Bellamy photo
Harriet Beecher Stowe photo
Yehudi Menuhin photo

“Menuhin felt a close kinship with Stern, who also was born of Russian immigrants.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Violinist and Visionary Yehudi Menuhin Dies at 82

Jeet Thayil photo
Jeet Thayil photo
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy photo
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed photo

“As a student in England he had befriended Jawaharlal Nehru whose progressive ideas had influenced him, and who became his close friend and mentor.”

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905–1977) the fifth President of India and a politician

Source: First among equals President of India, P.50

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed photo
Zakir Hussain (politician) photo
V. V. Giri photo
Charan Singh photo
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis photo
Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV photo
Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV photo

“Paul Cilliers was a remarkable Renaissance man and one of the most important academics and Afrikaner intellectuals that this country has produced. I had the privilege of knowing him for close on thirty years as friend, colleague and soul mate with a shared love of ideas, music, food, social interaction and a burning interest in complexity and complex systems.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Jannie Hofmeyr cited in: Stellenbosch University mourns passing of top academic http://blogs.sun.ac.za/news/2011/08/01/stellenbosch-university-mourns-passing-of-top-academic/ at blogs.sun.ac.za, 2011/08/01

Rajinikanth photo

“If one analyses his career graph closely, one can understand that the arrow always pointed upwards. There were no major jumps, no deep plummeting…”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Dr Gayathri Sreekanth, in her well researched biography of the actor titled, The Name is Rajinikanth. “
Decoding Rajinikanth

Dominicus Corea photo
Sadegh Hedayat photo
Paul Scholes photo
Paul Scholes photo
Slash (musician) photo

“See also The Closing of the American Mind.”

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

“Doesn’t it scare you, having your death close by all the time?”

said Lyra.
“Why ever would it? If he’s there, you can keep an eye on him. I'd be a lot more nervous not knowing where he was.”
Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 19 : Lyra and her Death

Steven Gerrard photo
Rani Mukerji photo

“Still got your eyes closed, Rach?”

she called. 'You should have stayed in Brisbane where it's safe!'
Page 346.
Hungry Ghosts (1996)

David Mamet photo
Angelina Jolie photo
Nick Cave photo
George MacDonald photo

“Attendants, will you please close and lock the doors?”

George Antheil (1900–1959) American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor
William S. Burroughs photo
Margaret Cho photo
Edward Bulwer-Lytton photo
Jan Assmann photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Teal Swan photo
Teal Swan photo
Thurgood Marshall photo
Julio Iglesias photo

“The feeling is the same. You close your eyes and you are on the stage and you feel that warmth from the people.”

Julio Iglesias (1943) Spanish recording artist; singer-songwriter

On performing before a live audience in "Julio Iglesias says 50-year singing career is 'a miracle'" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-julio-iglesias/julio-iglesias-says-50-year-singing-career-is-a-miracle-idUSKCN1T60WU in Reuters (2019 Jun 5)

André Aciman photo
Eva Hart photo
James P. Gray photo
Thomas Kuhn photo

“A scientific theory is usually felt to be better than its predecessors not only in the sense that it is a better instrument for discovering and solving puzzles but also because it is somehow a better representation of what nature is really like. One often hears that successive theories grow ever closer to, or approximate more and more closely to, the truth. Apparently generalizations like that refer not to the puzzle-solutions and the concrete predictions derived from a theory but rather to its ontology, to the match, that is, between the entities with which the theory populates nature and what is “really there.””

Perhaps there is some other way of salvaging the notion of ‘truth’ for application to whole theories, but this one will not do. There is, I think, no theory-independent way to reconstruct phrases like ‘really there’; the notion of a match between the ontology of a theory and its “real” counterpart in nature now seems to me illusive in principle. Besides, as a historian, I am impressed with the implausability of the view. I do not doubt, for example, that Newton’s mechanics improves on Aristotle’s and that Einstein’s improves on Newton’s as instruments for puzzle-solving. But I can see in their succession no coherent direction of ontological development. On the contrary, in some important respects, though by no means in all, Einstein’s general theory of relativity is closer to Aristotle’s than either of them is to Newton’s.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Postscript (1969)

“This is rural America. We’re rich in self-sustaining nature and neighbors helping neighbors but we don’t have resources, I’ve got a car full of toys we’re taking to a school where 60 kids weren’t going to have Christmas. [...] Now they’re closing the coal-fired plants, and those tradesmen and -women are being thrown out of those highly skilled jobs, and it’s having a terrible impact.”

Robin L. Webb (1960) American politician

About the poverty increase in Carter County, as quoted in Poverty Grew in One-Third of Counties Despite Strong National Economy https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2019/12/19/poverty-grew-in-one-third-of-counties-despite-strong-national-economy (December 19, 2019) by Tim Henderson, The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Lawrence Kudlow photo

“We have contained this. I won't say airtight but pretty close to airtight.”

Lawrence Kudlow (1947) American economist

regarding coronavirus
, quoted in * 2020-03-05
‘Doomed from the Start.’ Experts Say the Trump Administration’s Coronavirus Response Was Never Going to Work
Time Magazine
Vera Bergengruen and W.J. Hennigan
https://time.com/5797636/trump-botched-coronavirus-response/

Donald J. Trump photo

“And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done.”

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

Regarding known coronavirus cases.
White House press conference, , quoted in * 2020-03-11
Coronavirus: US passes 1,000 cases – two weeks after Trump said number would soon be 'close to zero'
Chris Riotta
The Independent
UK
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-cases-us-map-trump-how-many-infected-a9393061.html
2020s, 2020, February

Waleed Al-Husseini photo
Lynn Compton photo
Townes Van Zandt photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“Dear ruins! Many a year has been closed, many a month, holy and unhallowed, has elapsed, since I exchanged tender vows with their fair inhabitants!”

Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 41 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
Couplets

“DESOLATE are the mansions of the fair, the stations in Minia, where they rested, and those where they fixed their abodes! Wild are the hills of Goul, and deserted is the summit of Rijaam.
The canals of Rayaan are destroyed: the remains of them are laid bare and smoothed by the floods, like characters engraved on the solid rocks.
Dear ruins! Many a year has been closed, many a month, holy and unhallowed, has elapsed, since I exchanged tender vows with their fair inhabitants!
The rainy constellations of spring have made their hills green and luxuriant: the drops from the thunder-clouds have drenched them with profuse as well as with gentle showers:
Showers, from every nightly cloud, from every cloud veiling the horizon at day-break, and from every evening cloud, responsive with hoarse murmurs.
Here the wild eringo-plants raise their tops: here the antelopes bring forth their young, by the sides of the valley: and here the ostriches drop their eggs.
The large-eyed wild-cows lie suckling their young, a few days old—their young, who will soon become a herd on the plain.
The torrents have cleared the rubbish, and disclosed the traces of habitations, as the reeds of a writer restore effaced letters in a book;
Or as the black dust, sprinkled over the varied marks on a fair hand, brings to view with a brighter tint the blue stains of woad.
I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants; but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 41-42. First Stanza, lines 1-10 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
The Poem of Labīd (translated by C. J. Lyall in 1881)

Donald J. Trump photo

“They're trying to scare everybody, from meetings, cancel the meetings, close the schools—you know, destroy the country. And that's okay, as long as we can win the election.”

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

Fundraiser, Mar-a-Lago, quoted in * 2020-03-15

Trump says media 'scare' coverage of coronavirus response OK 'as long as we can win the election': Report

Daniel Chaitin

Washington Examiner

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-says-media-scare-coverage-of-coronavirus-response-okay-as-long-as-we-can-win-the-election-report
2020s, 2020, March

T.S. Eliot photo

“When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city ?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?"”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

What will you answer? "We all dwell together
To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"?
Choruses from The Rock (1934)

John Allen Paulos photo

“Appreciating humor—even recognizing it—requires human skills of the highest order; no computer comes close to having them.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Source: Mathematics and Humor: A Study of the Logic of Humor (1980), Chapter 3, “Self-Reference and Paradox” (p. 50)

Robert B. Reich photo

“I have 5,000 books in my home, 1,000 of which I feel are close to my heart. They have always shown me the way. Books are my great passion; I could not live without them.”

Brunello Cucinelli (1953) Italian entrepreneur and philanthropist

Source: A Day In the Life of Brunello Cucinelli https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/designers/a17874/brunello-cucinelli-profile/ Harper's Bazaar, Lauren McCarthy, 15 September 2016

Otto von Bismarck photo

“I ask you what right had I to close the way to the throne against these people? The kings of Prussia have never been by preference kings of the rich. Frederick the Great said when Crown Prince: “Quand je serai rot, je serai tin vrai rot des gueux.””

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

He undertook to be the protector of the poor, and this principle has been followed by our later kings. At their throne suffering has always found a refuge and a hearing. ... Our kings have secured the emancipation of the serfs, they have created a thriving peasantry, and they may possibly be successful—the earnest endeavour exists, at any rate—in improving the condition of the working classes somewhat. To have refused access to the throne to the complaints of these operatives would not have been the right course to pursue, and it was, moreover, not my business to do it. The question would afterwards have been asked: “How rich must a deputation be in order to its reception by the King?”

Speech to the Prussian United Diet in answer to the petition of Wüstegiersdorf weavers (1865), quoted in W. H. Dawson, Bismarck and State Socialism: An Exposition of the Social and Economic Legislation of Germany since 1870 (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1891), p. 31
1860s

Ernesto Che Guevara photo

“I don't think you and I are very closely related, however, if you are capable of trembling with indignation each time that an injustice is committed anywhere in the world, we are comrades, and that is more important.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Letter to María Rosario Guevara, 20 February 1964. Quoted in Guerrillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution (1971) by K. S. Karol

Spanish: No creo que seamos parientes muy cercanos, pero si Ud. es capaz de temblar de indignación cada vez que se comete una injusticia en el mundo, somos compañeros, que es más importante.

David Hilbert photo

“It (COVID-19) is a close relative to SARS and MERS but not genetically identical.”

Paul Kellam (1965) British virologist

Paul Kellam (2020) cited in " Coronavirus: Virologist reveals the science behind fight to find vaccine for global outbreak https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-virologist-reveals-the-science-behind-fight-to-find-vaccine-for-global-outbreak-11922559" on Sky News, 31 January 2020.

Ho Iat Seng photo

“It was a hard decision (to close casinos in Macau for two weeks after a hotel worker was infected by COVID-19), but we (Government of Macau) must make it for the health of Macau residents. Macau can still withstand economic losses.”

Ho Iat Seng (1957) Chief Executive of Macau

Ho Iat Seng (2020) cited in " Coronavirus: casinos to close in Macau for at least two weeks after hotel worker infected https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3048904/coronavirus-casinos-close-macau-least-two-weeks" on South China Morning Post, 4 February 2020.

Immanuel Kant photo
Richard D. Wolff photo

“A worker-coop based economy—where workers democratically run enterprises, deciding what, how and where to produce, and what to do with any profits—could, and likely would, put social needs and goals (like proper preparation for pandemics) ahead of profits. Workers are the majority in all capitalist societies; their interests are those of the majority. Employers are always a small minority; theirs are the "special interests" of that minority. Capitalism gives that minority the position, profits and power to determine how the society as a whole lives or dies. That's why all employees now wonder and worry about how long our jobs, incomes, homes and bank accounts will last—if we still have them. A minority (employers) decides all those questions and excludes the majority (employees) from making those decisions, even though that majority must live with their results. Of course, the top priority now is to put public health and safety first. To that end, employees across the country are now thinking about refusing to obey orders to work in unsafe job conditions. U.S. capitalism has thus placed a general strike on today's social agenda. A close second priority is to learn from capitalism's failure in the face of the pandemic. We must not suffer such a dangerous and unnecessary social breakdown again. Thus system change is now also moving onto today's social agenda.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

Koenraad Elst photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be "me."”

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

Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.

II
2010s, 2011, Mortality (2012)

Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee photo

“‘It closes the Gate of Interpretation. It lays down that legists and jurisconsults are to be divided into certain categories and no freedom of thought is allowed.’”

Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee (1899–1981) Indian educator, jurist, author, diplomat, and Islamic scholar

Arun Shourie - The World of Fatwas Or The Sharia in Action (2012, Harper Collins)

William Bartram photo

“Should I say, that the river (in this place) from shore to shore, and perhaps near half a mile above and below me, appeared to be one solid bank of fish, of various kinds, pushing through this narrow pass of San Juan's into the little lake, on their return down the river, and that the alligators were in such incredible numbers, and so close from shore to shore, that it would have easy to have walked across on their heads, had the animals been harmless? What expressions can sufficiently declare the shocking scene that for some minutes continued, whilst this mighty army of fish were forcing the pass? During this attempt, thousands, I may say hundreds of thousands, of them were caught and swallowed by the devouring alligators. I have seen an alligator take up out of the water several great fish at a time, and just squeeze them betwixt his jaws, while the tails of the great trout flapped about his eyes and lips, ere he had swallowed them. The horrid noise of their closing jaws, their plunging amidst the broken banks of fish, and rising with their prey some feet upright above the water, the floods of water and blood rushing out of their mouths, and the clouds of vapor issuing from their wide nostrils, were truly frightful.”

William Bartram (1739–1823) American naturalist

[Van Doren, Mark, The travels of William Bartram, An American Bookshelf, volume 3, 118–119, 1928, New York, Macy-Masius, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b281934&view=1up&seq=124]
Travels of William Bartram (1791)

Alice A. Bailey photo

“May I therefore close with these simple words: Please give us your aid, my brothers.”

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

Source: The Externalization of the Hierarchy (1957), p. 26

Robert Graves photo
Jackson Browne photo

“In the morning when I closed my eyesYou were sleeping in paradiseAnd while the room was growing lightI was holding still with all my might”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

Call it a Loan (Browne, David Perry Lindley) Hold Out (1980)

Derek Parfit photo
Prince photo
Pope John Paul II photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Just finished a very good conversation with President Xi of China. Discussed in great detail the CoronaVirus that is ravaging large parts of our Planet. China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!”

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

Quoted in * 2020-03-27

Trump claims Asian Americans are angry at 'what China has done' to U.S.

Kimmy Yam

Yahoo News / NBC News

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-claims-asian-americans-angry-190959445.html
2020s, 2020, March

Francis Bacon photo

“The principal duty of a judge, is to suppress force and fraud; whereof force is the more pernicious, when it is open, and fraud, when it is close and disguised. Add thereto contentious suits, which ought to be spewed out, as the surfeit of courts.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Judicature

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Aurangzeb photo

“The temple of Chintaman, situated close to Sarash-pur, and built by Sitadas jeweller, was converted into a mosque named Quu)at~ul-islam by order of the Prince Aurangzib, in 1645.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

(Mirat-i-Ahmadi, 232.) The Bombay Gazetteer, vol. I. pt, I. p. 280, adds that he slaughtered a cow in the temple, but Shah Jahan ordered the building to be restored to the Hindus.
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1660s
Source: Sarkar, Jadunath (1972). History of Aurangzib: Volume III. App. V.

“Waft, gentle gale, oh waft to Samercand,
When next thou visitest that blissful land,
The plaint of Khorassania plung'd in woe:
Bear to Turania's King our piteous scroll,
Whose opening breathes forth all the anguish'd soul,
And close denotes whate'er the tortur'd know.”

Anvari (1126–1190) Persian poet

Ghazal, The Tears of Khorassan
Source: The Tears of Khorassan, translated by William Kirkpatrick, quoted in A Literary History of Persia, 1908

Omar Khayyám photo