Quotes about course

A collection of quotes on the topic of course, doing, people, other.

Quotes about course

“The Barbican - an element of medieval fortifications; a circular defensive structure with loop-holes, in front of the town walls. In Europe this kind of building has been preserved only at Carcassonne (southern France), Zgorzelec (Görlitz), and of course in Cracow. (…) It was at that time, that one of the largest European buildings of this kind came to to exist in Cracow, being nowadays the best preserved example of the medieval barbican.”

Marek Żukow-Karczewski (1961) Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist

The Barbican (Barbakan), "Kraków" Magazyn Kulturalny, Special Edition, 1991, p. 58-59. http://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/509488

Time

“But then of course everything always happens for a reason”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

Mockingbird
2000s, Encore (2004)

“Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist?
O'Brien: Of course he exists.
Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me?
O'Brien: You do not exist.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“Just as I was starting on my journey the idea came to me for a new symphony, this time with a program, but a program which will remain an enigma to all— let them guess it who can. It will be called "A Programmatic Symphony" (No. 6). During my trip, while composing in my mind, I frequently shed tears. When I got home I settled down to sketch it, and the work went so furiously that I had the first movement completely ready in less than four days and the remaining movements are already clearly outlined in my head. Half the third movement is already done. There will be much innovation of form in this symphony— and incidentally, the finale will not be a noisy allegro but, on the contrary, a long drawn-out adagio. You can't imagine what bliss I feel, being convinced that my time is not yet passed and I can still work. Perhaps, of course, I'm mistaken, but I don't think so.”

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) Russian composer

Letter to a nephew (late February 1893)

Feeling, Home, Imagination, Idea

“Our love affair ended in tears but a deep bond grew out of it, and that's something nobody can take away from us. It's unreachable … All my lovers ask me why they can't replace her, but it's simply impossible.
I don't feel jealous of her lovers because. of course, she has a life to lead, and so do I. Basically, I try to make sure she's happy with whoever she's with and she tries to do the same for me.
We look after each other and that's a wonderful form of love. I might have all the problems in the world, but I have Mary and that gets me through.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

On his relationship with Mary Austin, as quoted in "Rock On Freddie" (1985).

Happiness, Tear, Problem, Lovers

“Annabeth, you know Morse code?” “Of course.” “So does Leo.” Piper handed her the mirror. “He’ll be watching from the ship. Go to the ridge—” “And flash him!” Annabeth’s face reddened. “That came out wrong. But yeah, good idea.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Idea

“Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Life, Imagination, Star, Change

“In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech to the Reichstag, 30 January 1939, as quoted at The History Place http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/threat.htm. 1930s

Life, War, World, Problem

“In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favorable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slaveowners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that “they cannot be bothered with democracy,” “cannot be bothered with politics”; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life. The”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: The State and Revolution (1917), Ch. 5
Context: Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the "petty" – supposedly petty – details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for "paupers"!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., – we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.

Life, Peace, Democracy, Freedom

“Eragon looked back at him, confused. "I don't understand."
"Of course you don't," said Brom impatiently. "That's why I'm teaching you and not the other way around.”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Source: Eragon

Way, Understanding

“I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so entirely different from mine (and from that of all good people). But of course they must do as they please. I have no heart to travel with them, nor could I enjoy one pleasant hour, nor know what to talk about; for, in short, I have no great confidence in them. Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1

People, World, Religion, Travel

“And people say to me, they say Jesus wasn't Jewish. I say of course he was Jewish. 30 years old, single, lives with his parents. Come on! Work in his father's business, his mom thought he was God's gift! He's Jewish! Give it up!”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

God, People, Moms, Business

“(on the perceived need for cautious political development): "We are the High Chiefs of these islands. We are the leaders of the people. On us is the duty of pointing out to them the right course. Bear this in mind. We have to lead on two points- hold back those who advocate radical changes (for which we are not sufficiently educated) and enliven the laggards before their ignorance destroys us."”

Lala Sukuna (1888–1958) Chief of Lau and civil servant in Fiji

1936 speeches to the Great Council of Chiefs

People, Education, Change

“But if any other course, in any one's opinion, be better than this, let him, even though he be a private soldier, boldly give us his sentiments; for the safety, which we all seek, is a general concern.”

Xenophon book Anabasis

Bk. 3, ch. 2; p. 89.
Anabasis

“Do you think I wish to hang Taher? Well, I don’t. But the Law of the Land should carry its Course. And he (Colonel Abu Taher) did not send any Mercy Petition and so what is there for me to do?”

Ziaur Rahman (1936–1981) President of Bangladesh

During a conversation with Mir Shawkat Ali Khan on the night of Colonel Abu Taher's execution.

Law, Thinking

“The left believes in a hierarchy of victimhood, if you are L. G. B. T. Q., then we suggest that you are very top of the victimhood hierarchy. You have been most victimized in the United States and therefore your opinion must be taken with the most gravitas. … Black folks have been historically victimized in the United States, which of course, is true. But the idea that every black person now is being individually victimized by the United States is not true. … Way down at the bottom are white straight males. Those are people whose opinions do not matter at all. Because those are the people who are the beneficiaries of the system. They don’t get to talk about the system because they were the ones who built the system.”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

About reverse racism, as quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/ben-shapiro-conservative.html (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times. 2017

Way, Idea, People, Personality

“Of course you don't know it, it is called learning, if you already knew it, it would be called review.”

Ramon-Andres Quevedo

Learning

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Lysander, Act I, scene i.
Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

For Wife, Heartbreaking, Moving On, Love

“Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977) Nigerian writer

Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/15-quotes-from-chimamanda-adichie-that-have-change/

For women, Men

“To be a vegetarian is to disagree — to disagree with the course of things today. Starvation, world hunger, cruelty, waste, wars — we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it’s a strong one.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

Preface to Food for the Spirit: Vegetarianism and the World Religions by Steven Rosen (New York: Bala Books, 1987, )
Variant: To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.
Context: Vegetarianism is my religion. I became a consistent vegetarian some twenty-three years ago. Before that, I would try over and over again. But it was sporadic. Finally, in the mid-1960s, I made up my mind. And I've been a vegetarian ever since. When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give. … This is my protest against the conduct of the world. To be a vegetarian is to disagree — to disagree with the course of things today. Nuclear power, starvation, cruelty — we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.

Hunger, War, World, Thinking

“Our riches, being in our brains, die with us… Unless of course someone chops off our head, in which case, we won't need them anyway.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime…”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Change

“Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

“I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," said Ladyship coldly.

He appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

Thinking, Appearance

“Of course there are dangers in the present situation, and not only that of dogmatism, not only that of weakening the ties with the masses midway in the great task. There is also the danger of weaknesses. If a man thinks that dedicating his entire life to the revolution means, that in return he should not have such worries as that his son lacks certain things, or that his children's shoes are worn out, or that his family lacks some necessity, then he is entering into rationalisations which open his mind to infection by the seeds of future corruption.
In our case we have maintained that our children should have or should go without those things that the children of the average man have or go without, and that our families should understand this and strive to uphold this standard. The revolution is made through man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit day by day.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Life, Children, Family, Shoe

“Pushing people forward simply because of their colour, irrespective of merit, would be most unfortunate and would of course lead to disaster. It would mean that Rhodesia would then develop into a kind of banana republic where the country would in no time be bankrupt.”

Ian Smith (1919–2007) Prime Minister of Rhodesia

BBC News 'On this day' http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/1/newsid_2492000/2492915.stm, June 1. On the end of white minority rule in 1979.

People, Time, Country

“Of course, we all know that our own reality depends on the structure of our consciousness; we can objectify no more than a small part of our world. But even when we try to probe into the subjective realm, we cannot ignore the central order…In the final analysis, the central order, or 'the one' as it used to be called and with which we commune in the language of religion, must win out.”

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist

Werner Heisenberg as quoted in Quirks of the Quantum Mind, p. 175, ICRL Press, ISBN 1936033062

World, Religion, Communication, Reality

“I wasn't given the genetics for football. This is my gift right here. I was always well-built. You can't do certain sports without the genetics, and talent, too, of course.”

Ronnie Coleman (1964) American bodybuilder

Ellen Mazo (May 1, 1999) "Building the Image of a Role Model", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p. A-1.

Sport, Football

“At the turn of the [20th] century, of course, the Armenian people were subject to extremely heavy oppression by the Ottoman sultan. Entertaining tragically misguided hopes of being aided by the European powers, some inexperienced and naive Armenian leaders embraced a very regrettable strategy—one which even more regrettably has not been abandoned to this day: they attempted to enlist the imperialist powers to intervene on behalf of the w:Armenians… In an almost pathetic attempt to establish such a common ground, some Armenian intellectuals pulled religion and linguistics out of their hat… Well, subsequent events—and one and one-half million martyrs—show how convincing this line of argument was for our "Indo-European brothers."”

Monte Melkonian (1957–1993) National Hero of Armenia

Source: The Right to Struggle (1993), P. 6.

People, Religion, Hope

“Having discovered the existence of a new kind of rays, I of course began to investigate what they would do. … It soon appeared from tests that the rays had penetrative power to a degree hitherto unknown.”

Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923) German physicist

The New Marvel in Photography (1896)
Context: Having discovered the existence of a new kind of rays, I of course began to investigate what they would do. … It soon appeared from tests that the rays had penetrative power to a degree hitherto unknown. They penetrated paper, wood, and cloth with ease; and the thickness of the substance made no perceptible difference, within reasonable limits. … The rays passed through all the metals tested, with a facility varying, roughly speaking, with the density of the metal. These phenomena I have discussed carefully in my report to the Würzburg society, and you will find all the technical results therein stated.

Appearance

“Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

Lionel Giles translation
Source: The Art of War, Chapter VI · Weaknesses and Strengths

Nature, Water, Victory

“Well you know, I don’t think I have never really seen a film of this genre, where the female characters' sex appeal sort of came second. I mean of course they’re sexy characters.”

Scarlett Johansson (1984) American actress, model, and singer

Of her role as Black Widow in Iron Man 2, in Teen Hollywood (3 May 2010) http://www.teenhollywood.com/2010/05/03/interview-gwyneth-and-scarlett-iron-mans-ladies Context: Well you know, I don’t think I have never really seen a film of this genre, where the female characters' sex appeal sort of came second. I mean of course they’re sexy characters. When you have a sexy secretary, or a girl swinging around by her ankles in a cat suit, you know that’s innately sexy, but the fact is that these characters are intelligent. They’re ambitious. They’re motivated and calculated to some degree.

Sex, Thinking

“Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.”

Arthur Rubinstein (1887–1982) Polish-American classical pianist

Success, Life

“It's of course a very very big deal to do something like this, it is unprecedented for English Wikipedia.”

Jimmy Wales (1966) Wikipedia co-founder and American Internet entrepreneur

“There's no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course.”

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Way

“It looks rather ordinary," said the Snork. "Unless you consider that a top hat is always somewhat extraordinary, of course.”

Tove Jansson book Finn Family Moomintroll

Source: Finn Family Moomintroll

“If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe. The forces thus released in the people can never be held in check, but run their devouring course, destroying the very foundations which it was imagined they would save.

But we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country--to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world--and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told. Our failure to trust one another deeply enough to be able to talk to one another has become so great that people with these questions in their hearts do not speak them; our opulence is so pervasive that people who are afraid to lose whatever they think they have persuade themselves of the truth of a lie, and help disseminate it; and God help the innocent here, that man or womn who simply wants to love, and be loved. Unless this would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed. This is no place for love. I know that I am now expected to make a bow in the direction of those millions of unremarked, happy marriages all over America, but I am unable honestly to do so because I find nothing whatever in our moral and social climate--and I am now thinking particularly of the state of our children--to bear witness to their existence. I suspect that when we refer to these happy and so marvelously invisible people, we are simply being nostalgic concerning the happy, simple, God-fearing life which we imagine ourselves once to have lived. In any case, wherever love is found, it unfailingly makes itself felt in the individual, the personal authority of the individual. Judged by this standard, we are a loveless nation. The best that can be said is that some of us are struggling. And what we are struggling against is that death in the heart which leads not only to the shedding of blood, but which reduces human beings to corpses while they live.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Source: nothing personal

Love, Life, Death, God

“I suppose nowadays it's all a question of surgery, isn't it? Of course the notion is beautiful, the idea of staying a boy and a child forever, and I think you can. I have known plenty of people who, in their later years, had the energy of children and the kind of curiosity and fascination with things like little children. I think we can keep that, and I think it's important to keep that part of staying young. But I also think it's great fun growing old.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Children, People, Beauty, Boy

“There is love of course. And then there's life, its enemy.”

Jean Anouilh (1910–1987) French playwright

Love, Life

“Does Big Brother exist?"
"Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party."
"Does he exist in the same way as I exist?"
"You do not exist.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Way

“SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE IN FATE, OTHERS DON’T. I DO, and I don’t. It may seem at times as if invisible fingers move us about like puppets on strings. But for sure, we are not born to be dragged along. We can grab the strings ourselves and adjust our course at every crossroad, or take off at any little trail into the unknown.”

Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002) Norwegian anthropologist and adventurer

Source: Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft

Fate, People, Time

“We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”

Oscar Wilde book The Canterville Ghost

Source: The Canterville Ghost http://www.oscarwildecollection.com/savile/canterville.c1.html (1887). For history and analysis of the quote see Common Language http://oscarwildeinamerica.org/quotations/common-language.html.

“The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change

Education, Teachers

“The problem, of course, was that turning into a monster was the brighter of my two choices. Choice Number 1: I turn into a vampyre, which equals a monster in just about any human’s mind. Choice Number 2: My body rejects the Change and I die. Forever.

So the good news is that I wouldn’t have to take the geometry test tomorrow.”

Kristin Cast book Marked

Source: Marked

Problem, Change

“Harvard's motto is "Veritas." Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. But I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary but from a friend.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Harvard University address (1978)

Truth

“It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes. It may even lie on the surface; but we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions — especially selfish ones.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

"Peace and Violence" (1973).

Truth, Lie, Selfishness

“Sometimes, of course, art creates the suffering in the first place.”

Elfriede Jelinek book The Piano Teacher

P 23
The Piano Teacher (1988)

Art, Suffering

“Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another; for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VII, 47
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII

Life, Star, Change

“The sport is more important than anything. More important than any of the people in it. Of course I say what I think. I always have, even if it upsets people like Ecclestone and Balestre. Why should I be afraid of them? The fans aren't here to see politicians and manipulators. They're here to see me. I am very secure in my feelings about racing. I make a lot of money from it, but one thing I can tell you for sure: if the money disappeared overnight, I would still be in racing, because I love it. The entrepreneurs would be gone.”

Gilles Villeneuve (1950–1982) Canadian racecar driver

Interview during the driver's strike at the 1982 South African Grand Prix, Donaldson, pg. 297

Love, Money, People, Feeling

“The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. He attacks the law, parliamentary government, the educational system and so forth, without ever clearly suggesting what he would put in their places. Of course it is not necessarily the business of a novelist, or a satirist, to make constructive suggestions, but the point is that Dickens's attitude is at bottom not even destructive. There is no clear sign that he wants the existing order to be overthrown, or that he believes it would make very much difference if it were overthrown. For in reality his target is not so much society as ‘human nature’. It would be difficult to point anywhere in his books to a passage suggesting that the economic system is wrong as a system.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Charles Dickens" (1939)
Charles Dickens (1939)

Truth, Books, Education, Law

“Of course, no government, no nation, can meet this challenge alone. Everybody has a responsibility. Every nation can take action. Modern anti-trafficking laws must be passed and enforced and justice systems must be strengthened. Victims must be cared for. […] And more broadly, as nations, let’s recommit to addressing the underlying forces that push so many into bondage in the first place. With development and economic growth that creates legitimate jobs, there’s less likelihood of indentured servitude around the globe. A sense of justice that says no child should ever be exploited, that has to be burned into the cultures of every country.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012, Remarks at Clinton Global Initiative (September 2012)

Justice, Law, Sense, Country

“The first time I went into the place I was horrified to see little girls seven and eight years old on their knees scrubbing the cold stones of the long corridors … bronchitis was epidemic among them most of the time … I found that there were pregnant women in that workhouse, scrubbing floors, doing the hardest kind of work, almost until their babies came into the world … Of course the babies are very badly protected … These poor, unprotected mothers and their babies I am sure were potent factors in my education as a militant.”

Emmeline Pankhurst book My Own Story

My Own Story (1914), pp. 25–28.

Women, World, Education, Girl

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.
Political and intellectual functionaries exhibit this depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and in their statements, and even more so in their self-serving rationales as to how realistic, reasonable, and intellectually and even morally justified it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And the decline in courage, at times attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood, is ironically emphasized by occasional outbursts and inflexibility on the part of those same functionaries when dealing with weak governments and with countries that lack support, or with doomed currents which clearly cannot offer resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Variant translation: A loss of courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days...
Harvard University address (1978)

Life, World, Courage, Support

“The idea that an advanced civilization need not rest on slavery is a relatively new idea, for instance; it is a good deal younger than the Christian religion. But even if Chesterton's dictum were true, it would only be true in the sense that a statue is contained in every block of stone. Ideas may not change, but emphasis shifts constantly. It could be claimed, for example, that the most important part of Marx's theory is contained in the saying: ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ But before Marx developed it, what force had that saying had? Who had paid any attention to it? Who had inferred from it — what it certainly implies — that laws, religions and moral codes are all a superstructure built over existing property relations? It was Christ, according to the Gospel, who uttered the text, but it was Marx who brought it to life. And ever since he did so the motives of politicians, priests, judges, moralists and millionaires have been under the deepest suspicion — which, of course, is why they hate him so much.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

As I Please (25 February 1944) http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/eaip_01 "As I Please" (1943–1947)

Life, Hate, Religion, Law

“The trouble with you and me, Ned, is that we want everyone in the world to personally love us, and of course that's impossible; you just don't meet everyone in the world.”

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist

Ned Rorem, Paris Diary (1966)

Love, World, Personality

“Government spending cannot create additional jobs. If the government provides the funds required by taxing the citizens or by borrowing from the public, it abolishes on the one hand as many jobs as it creates on the other. If government spending is financed by borrowing from the commercial banks, it means credit expansion and inflation. If in the course of such an inflation the rise in commodity prices exceeds the rise in nominal wage rates, unemployment will drop. But what makes unemployment shrink is precisely the fact that real wage rates are falling.”

Ludwig von Mises book Socialism

Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)

“No man who aims at making his life an harmonious whole, pure, complete, and harmless to others, can endure to gratify an appetite at the cost of the daily suffering and bloodshed of his inferiors in degree, and of the moral degradation of his own kind. I know not which strikes me most forcibly in the ethics of this question the injustice, the cruelty, or the nastiness of flesh-eating. The injustice is to the butchers, the cruelty is to the animals, the nastiness concerns the consumer. With regard to this last in particular, I greatly wonder what persons of refinement—aye, even of decency—do not feel insulted on being offered, as a matter of course, portions of corpses as food! Such comestibles might possibly be tolerated during sieges, or times of other privation of proper viands in exceptional circumstances, but in the midst of a civilised community able to command a profusion of sound and delicious foods, it ought to be deemed an affront to set dead flesh before a guest.”

Anna Kingsford (1846–1888) English physician, activist and feminist

Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism (1912); quoted in Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb by Rod Preece (Routledge, 2002), p. 344 https://books.google.it/books?id=Mf6TAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA344.

Life, Food, Feeling, Communication

“I absolutely insist on protecting private property. It is natural and salutary that the individual should be inspired by the wish to devote a part of the income from his work to building up and expanding a family estate. Suppose the estate consists of a factory. I regard it as axiomatic, in the ordinary way, that this factory will be better run by one of the members of the family that it would be by a State functionary—providing, of course, that the family remains healthy. In this sense, we must encourage private initiative.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

A private statement made on March 24, 1942.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

Family, Way, Nature, Sense

“There is no conflict between the ideal of religion and the ideal of science, but science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without. Owing to the similarity of our construction and the sameness of our environment, we respond in like manner to similar stimuli, and from the concordance of our reactions, understanding is born. In the course of ages, mechanisms of infinite complexity are developed, but what we call "soul " or "spirit," is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the "soul" or the "spirit" ceases likewise.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Machine to End War (1937)

Age, Religion, Soul, Understanding

“Having a child changes every aspect of your life — for the better, of course. The sacrifices are large, but what you get in return is even bigger than the sacrifices you make. I feel, in a sense, ready to die because you are living on in your child. Not literally, not ready to die — but you know, that sort of feeling in a profound way.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

November 2007 interview remarks quoted by Susan Chenery, "Who Is That Man?" http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23097733-15803,00.html, In Touch Weekly, January 23, 2008.

Life, Way, Feeling, Sense

“I am of course confident that I will fulfil my tasks as a writer in all circumstances — from my grave even more successfully and more irrefutably than in my lifetime. No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I am prepared to accept even death. But may it be that repeated lessons will finally teach us not to stop the writer’s pen during his lifetime? At no time has this ennobled our history.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Open letter to the Fourth Soviet Writers’ Congress (16 May 1967); as translated in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1970) edited by Leopold Labedz (1970).

Death, Truth, Confidence, History

“We shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and a migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the site of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now, if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O friends and judges, can be greater than this? …Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. …What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they would not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

40c–41c
Plato, Apology

Life, Death, Men, World

“After being alive, the next hardest work is having sex. Of course, for some people it isn't work because they need the exercise and they've got the energy for the sex and the sex gives them even more energy. Some people get energy from sex and some people lose energy from sex. I have found that it's too much work. But if you have the time for it, and if you need that exercise—then you should do it. But you could really save yourself a lot of trouble either way by first figuring out whether you're an energy-getter or an energy-loser. As I said, I'm an energy-loser. But I can understand it when I see people running around trying to get some.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 6: Work

People, Sex, Way, Exercises

“I enjoy challenging a person's ideas. No one loves a good and passionately fought argument more than I do. This isn't about being tough-minded and straightforward. That's the job. But so is sensing when to hug and when to kick. Of course, arrogant people who refuse to learn from their mistakes have to go. If we're managing good people who are clearly eating themselves up over an error, our job is to help them through it. That doesn't mean you have to take it easy on your top performers.”

Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO

Source: Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001), Ch. 3.

Love, People, Error, Idea

“It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-ﬁghting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (24 March 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/wif/ As I Please (1943–1947)

Women, Youth, Dogs

“Opinion in all parts of the world would agree that Rachmaninoff is the most complete of living masters of the instrument; his technique is comprehensive, and he is, of course, musical to his bone's marrow. Most important of all, he is a composer, and for this reason he is able to approach a work as none of his pianist contemporaries can approach one – that is, from the inside, as an organic and felt creative process.”

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Russian composer, pianist, and conductor

Neville Cardus The Delights of Music (London: Victor Gollancz, 1966) p. 90.
Criticism

World, Music, Parting

“I had a bad PCP [angel dust] experience when I was 14 and I got panic disorder. And of course, I wasn’t telling anyone the truth. It’s not like you go to your dad or your doctor and say, “Yeah, I smoked PCP and I’m having a bad time.” So I became more or less agoraphobic because I’d have flashbacks. From 14 to 16, I didn’t have any friends. I stayed home most of the time. Up till then life was pretty great. The world was big and I felt I could do anything I wanted. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t do anything. But in the isolation, my imagination really had time to run. I never did any drugs until my late 20s. Unfortunately, being a child of two alcoholics, I started drinking a lot, and that’s what eventually got me back into drugs. You often hear that pot leads to harder drugs. But I think alcohol is what leads you to everything, because it takes away the fear. The worst drug experimentation I ever did was because I was drunk and didn’t care.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Talking about drugs, quoted in **
Audioslave Era

Life, Alcohol, Truth, World

“I eagerly await tomorrow's mail to have news of Russia and Poland. For now, I have to content myself with a few vague rumors which float around. I have heard about new, bloody skirmishes in Poland between the people and troops; I was told that, even in Russia, there was a conspiracy against the czar and the whole royal family.
I am equally passionate about the struggle between the North and the Southern American states. Of course, my heart goes out to the North. But alas! It is the South who acted with the most force, wisdom, and solidarity, which makes them worthy of the triumph they have received in every encounter so far. It is true that the South has been preparing for war for three years now, while the North has been forced to improvise. The surprising success of the ventures of the American people, for the most part happy; the banality of the material well being, where the heart is absent; and the national vanity, altogether infantile and sustained with very little cost; all seem to have helped deprave these people, and perhaps this stubborn struggle will be beneficial to them in so much as it helps the nation regain its lost soul. This is my first impression; but it could very well be that I will change my mind upon seeing things up close. The only thing is, I will not have enough time to examine really closely.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Letter http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/letters/toherzenandogareff.html to Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen and Ogareff from San Francisco (3 October 1861); published in Correspondance de Michel Bakounine (1896) edited by Michel Dragmanov

Wisdom, War, People, Family

“Some years ago Professor Bixler reminded us of the danger of overstressing the well-adjusted life. Everybody passionately seeks to be well-adjusted. We must, of course, be well-adjusted to avoid neurotic schizophrenic personalities, but there are some things in our world to which men of goodwill must be maladjusted. I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive men of work and food, and the to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 2 : Transformed nonconformist

Life, Men, World, Food

“Only two suppositions seem to be open to us — Either each species of crocodile has been specially created, or it has arisen out of some pre-existing form by the operation of natural causes.
Choose your hypothesis; I have chosen mine. I can find no warranty for believing in the distinct creation of a score of successive species of crocodiles in the course of countless ages of time.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1860s, On a Piece of Chalk (1868)

Age, Nature, Time, Success

“There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Letter (September 1944)

Evil, Victory

“I think Marilyn is bound to make an almost overwhelming impression on the people who meet her for the first time. It is not that she is pretty, although she is of course almost incredibly pretty, but she radiates, at the same time, unbounded vitality and a kind of unbelievable innocence. I have met the same in a lion-cub, which my native servants in Africa brought me. I would not keep her, since I felt that it would in some way be wrong…I shall never forget the almost overpowering feeling of unconquerable strength and sweetness which she conveyed. I had all the wild nature of Africa amicably gazing at me with mighty playfulness.”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

Written of her experience with actress Marilyn Monroe in a letter to the American author, Fleur Cowles Meyer, in 1961. As quoted in Fragments, by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment (2010)

People, Way, Feeling, Nature

“Part of how we come to take command of our world, to take command of our environment, to make these tools by which we're able to do this, is we ask ourselves questions about it the whole time. So this man starts to ask himself questions. "This world," he says, "so who made it?" Now, of course he thinks that, because he makes things himself. So he's looking for someone who would have made this world. He says, "Well, so who would have made this world? Well, it must be something a little like me. Obviously much much bigger. And necessarily invisible. But he would have made it. Now why did he make it?" Now we always ask ourselves "why?" because we look for intention around us; because we always intend– we do something with intention. We boil an egg in order to eat it. So we look at the rocks, and we look at the trees, and we wonder what intention is here even though it doesn't have intention.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Parrots, the Universe and Everything (2001)

World, Question, Thinking, Tree

“Judo teaches us to look for the best possible course of action, whatever the individual circumstances, and helps us to understand that worry is a waste of energy.”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

Source: Kodokan Judo (1882), p. 23
Context: Judo teaches us to look for the best possible course of action, whatever the individual circumstances, and helps us to understand that worry is a waste of energy. Paradoxically, the man who has failed and one who is at the peak of success are in exactly the same position. Each must decide what he will do next, choose the course that will lead him to the future. The teachings of judo give each the same potential for success, in the former instance guiding a man out of lethargy and disappointment to a state of vigorous activity.

Understanding, Help

“It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course — but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 31
Context: Beggars do not work, it is said; but then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, bronchitis etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course — but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout-in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering.

“Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent, but the tests that have to be applied to them are not, of course, the same in all cases.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Reflections on Gandhi" (1949)
Context: Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent, but the tests that have to be applied to them are not, of course, the same in all cases. In Gandhi's case the questions one feels inclined to ask are: to what extent was Gandhi moved by vanity — by the consciousness of himself as a humble, naked old man, sitting on a praying mat and shaking empires by sheer spiritual power — and to what extent did he compromise his own principles by entering politics, which of their nature are inseparable from coercion and fraud? To give a definite answer one would have to study Gandhi's acts and writings in immense detail, for his whole life was a sort of pilgrimage in which every act was significant.

“I have lived
and journeyed through the course assigned by fortune.
And now my Shade will pass, illustrious,
beneath the earth.”
Vixi, et, quem dederat cursum Fortuna, peregi; Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit Imago.

Virgil book Aeneid

Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book IV, Lines 653–654 (tr. Allen Mandelbaum)

“Why, of course, the people don't want war.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

In an interview with Gilbert in Göring's jail cell during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (18 April 1946) http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp Nuremberg Diary (1947) Context: p> Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.</p

War, People

“Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

Source: On War (1832), Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 3, Paragraph 1.
Context: Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst.

War, People, Art, Way

“Of course, one cannot declare that only my faith is correct and all other faiths are not. Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Interview with Joseph Pearce, Sr. (2003)
Context: Of course, one cannot declare that only my faith is correct and all other faiths are not. Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God. One must not have any negative attitude to any religion but nonetheless the depth of understanding God and the depth of applying God's commandments is different in different religions. In this sense we have to admit that Protestantism has brought everything down only to faith.
Calvinism says that nothing depends on man, that faith is already predetermined. Also in its sharp protest against Catholicism, Protestantism rushed to discard together with ritual all the mysterious, the mythical and mystical aspects of the Faith. In that sense it has impoverished religion.

God, Faith, Religion

“Of course you’re there. Death is always there. So why was I afraid? Your leap is swift. Your claws are sharp and merciful. What can you take from me which is not already yours?... Everything I have done until now has been fruitless. It has led to nothing. There was no other path except that it led to nothing — and before me now there is only one real fact — Death. The truth I have been seeking — this truth is Death. Yet Death is also a seeker. Forever seeking me. So — we have met at last. And I am prepared. I am at peace. Because I will conquer death with death.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: The Warrior Within : The Philosophies of Bruce Lee (1996), p. 77, spoken by Cord, the protagonist of the unproduced film The Silent Flute

Truth, Peace, Death

“Had this act not been done by me, of course it would have been better for me. But circumstances were beyond my control.”

Nathuram Godse (1910–1949) Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi

Nathuram Godse: Why I Assassinated Gandhi (1993)

“In less than a hundred years the Germans organised themselves into six very different systems: the Hohenzollern Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the German Democratic Republic (aka communist East Germany), the Federal Republic of Germany (aka West Germany), and finally democratic reunited Germany. Of course the Germans kept their language and their love of beer and bratwurst. But is there some unique German essence that distinguishes them from all other nations, and that has remained unchanged from Wilhelm II to Angela Merkel?”

Yuval Noah Harari book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Love, Making love, Beer

“I have already indicated that I believe antisemitism to be essentially a neurosis, but of course it has its rationalisations, which are sincerely believed in and are partly true. The rationalisation put forward by the common man is that the Jew is an exploiter.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: Antisemitism in Britain (1945)

Sincerity

“One changes their beliefs numerous times over the course of a lifetime; even those they defended and supported for years.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2007

Support, Time, Change

“Some people will enter your journey and alter a future destination. Deliberative decision-making is essential when changing course; either temporarily or permanently. Always maintain the focus on your vision.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2007

Future, People, Decision, Making love

“When you look deeply into yourself you may be able to see that there is, in this moment, a quality of aliveness that is animating you that is not philosophical and is not abstract. It's independent of what you think about it, what you believe about it and what you feel about it. It's always there! it is animating your breath, It is coursing the spirit, it is what makes it possible for you to think and speak and see and hear.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: The self-criticism of science

“Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: "Can Socialists Be Happy?" https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/can-socialists-be-happy/, Tribune (20 December 1943). Published under the name ‘John Freeman’.

Imagination, Business, Happiness, Perfection

“[T]here are some who challenge the expediency of the Imperial character of this realm. Having attempted, and failed, to enfeeble our colonies by their policy of decomposition, they may, perhaps, now recognize in the disintegration of the United Kingdom a mode which will not only accomplish, but precipitate their purpose. The immediate dissolution of Parliament will afford an opportunity to the nation to decide upon a course which will materially influence its fortunes and shape its destiny. Rarely in this century has there been an occasion more critical. The power of England and the peace of Europe will largely depend on the verdict of the country.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Election address; letter to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Marlborough (8 March 1880), quoted in The Times (9 March 1880), p. 8

Peace, Dependency, Country

“Verona is full of pictures which have never been painted. Every step excites emotion and gives rise to unaffected reflection. In the course of a short stroll, you may pass by a Roman amphitheatre, still used, then the castle of some petty prince of the Middle Ages, and while you are contrasting the sublime elevation of antiquity with the heterogeneous palace of a Scaliger your eyes light on a gate of Oriental appearance and fantastic ornament... The illusion is perfect, the eye rests with pain on the passing citizens in their modern costumes; you look for black velvets and gold chains, white feathers and red stockings.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Letter to Isaac Disraeli (September 1826), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 107

Painting, Perfection, Pain, Light