Quotes about doe
page 84

Narada Maha Thera photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo

“Politics in this country are dominated by debates about our relationship with Europe and the Eurocentralism that goes with that. I am firmly an internationalist, so I am not necessarily opposed to Europe. However, I am opposed to a fortress Europe that basically creates wealth for itself at the expense of the world, creates an undemocratic control of government for the whole of Europe, and, in truth, works only for the good of multinational corporations and banking systems. It will cause further imbalances in world poverty and world trade arrangements. I view the free market of 1992 not as an opportunity, but as a disaster for very many people throughout the world. I believe that Europe will contribute to the economic problems of the world. I do not agree with the sort of racist nonsense that has been published in the Sun and other newspapers during the past few weeks. It is a disgusting way to report matters. However, I believe that the drive towards a market economy in Europe will create poverty on the rims of Europe and an inner-colonialism in which western Europe will act as a sort of colonial master for eastern Europe and much of the rest of the world. It is about time that we began to take an international and global view rather than shut ourselves into a Europe that does not act in a socially just and reasonable manner. I hope that the debate will now begin to turn on those matters.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/nov/07/first-day in the House of Commons (7 November 1990).
1990s

Klaus Kinski photo
Aaron Copland photo
Kate Bush photo

“He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity
3.14159 26535897932 3846 264 338 3279…”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)

Josip Broz Tito photo

“No country of people's democracy has so many nationalities as this country has. Only in Czechoslovakia do there exist two kindred nationalities, while in some of the other countries there are only minorities. Consequently in these countries of people's democracy there has been no need to settle such serious problems as we have had to settle here. With them the road to socialism is less complicated than is the case here. With them the basic factor is the class issue, with us it is both the nationalities and the class issue. The reason why we were able to settle the nationalities question so thoroughly is to be found in the fact that it had begun to be settled in a revolutionary way in the course of the Liberation War, in which all the nationalities in the country participated, in which every national group made its contribution to the general effort of liberation from the occupier according to its capabilities. Neither the Macedonians nor any other national group which until then had been oppressed obtained their national liberation by decree. They fought for their national liberation with rifle in hand. The role of the Communist Party lay in the first place in the fact that it led that struggle, which was a guarantee that after the war the national question would be settled decisively in the way the communists had conceived long before the war and during the war. The role of the Communist Party in this respect today, in the phase of building socialism, lies in making the positive national factors a stimulus to, not a brake on, the development of socialism in our country. The role of the Communist Party today lies in the necessity for keeping a sharp lookout to see that national chauvinism does not appear and develop among any of the nationalities. The Communist Party must always endeavour, and does endeavour, to ensure that all the negative phenomena of nationalism disappear and that people are educated in the spirit of internationalism. What are the phenomena of nationalism? Here are some of them: 1) National egoism, from which many other negative traits of nationalism are derived, as for example — a desire for foreign conquest, a desire to oppress other nations, a desire to impose economic exploitation upon other nations, and so on; 2) national-chauvinism which is also a source of many other negative traits of nationalism, as for example national hatred, the disparagement of other nations, the disparagement of their history, culture, and scientific activities and scientific achievements, and so on, the glorification of developments in their own history that were negative and which from our Marxist point of view are considered negative. And what are these negative things? Wars of conquest are negative, the subjugation and oppression of other nations is negative, economic exploitation is negative, colonial enslavement is negative, and so on. All these things are accounted negative by Marxism and condemned. All these phenomena of the past can, it is true, be explained, but from our point of view they can never be justified. In a socialist society such phenomena must and will disappear. In the old Yugoslavia national oppression by the great-Serb capitalist clique meant strengthening the economic exploitation of the oppressed peoples. This is the inevitable fate of all who suffer from national oppression. In the new, socialist Yugoslavia the existing equality of rights for all nationalities has made it impossible for one national group to impose economic exploitation upon another. That is because hegemony of one national group over another no longer exists in this country. Any such hegemony must inevitably bring with it, to some degree or other, in one form or another, economic exploitation; and that would be contrary to the principles upon which socialism rests. Only economic, political, cultural, and universal equality of rights can make it possible for us to grow in strength in these tremendous endeavours of our community.”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Concerning the National Question and Social Patriotism http://www.marxists.org/archive/tito/1948/11/26.htm Speech held at the Slovene Academy of Arts and Sciences, November 26, 1948, Ljubljana
Speeches

Donald J. Trump photo
Kage Baker photo
Ann Coulter photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
Sri Aurobindo photo

“I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,'yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam [Rig-Veda, 1.24.7]. The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above. The self-chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor, dark and limited; you must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing…. Wanton waste, careless spoiling of physical things in an incredibly short time, loose disorder, misuse of service and materials due either to vital grasping or to tamasic inertia are baneful to prosperity and tend to drive away or discourage the Wealth-Power. These things have long been rampant in the society and, if that continues, an increase in our means might well mean a proportionate increase in the wastage and disorder and neutralise the material advantage. This must be remedied if there is to be any sound progress…. Asceticism for its own sake is not the ideal of this yoga, but self-control in the vital and right order in the material are a very important part of it… and even an ascetic discipline is better for our purpose than a loose absence of true control. Mastery of the material does not mean having plenty and profusely throwing it out or spoiling it as fast as it comes or faster. Mastery implies in it the right and careful utilisation of things and also a self-control in their use…. There is a consciousness in [things], a life which is not the life and consciousness of man and animal which we know, but still secret and real. That is why we must have a respect for physical things and use them rightly, not misuse and waste, ill-treat or handle with a careless roughness. This feeling of all being consciousness or alive comes when our own physical consciousness'and not the mind only'awakes out of its obscurity and becomes aware of the One in all things, the Divine everywhere.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Undated
India's Rebirth

Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Kent Hovind photo
Fred Polak photo

“Truth does not hurt, rather, it is our resistance to its message that causes pain.”

Vernon Howard (1918–1992) American writer

40 Inspiring Guides to a New Life

Kent Hovind photo
Théodore Rousseau photo
Margrethe II of Denmark photo
Andrew Sega photo
Osbert Sitwell photo

“The British bourgeoisie
Is not born
And does not die,
But, if it is ill,
It has a frightened look in its eyes.”

Osbert Sitwell (1892–1969) British baronet

"At the House of Mrs. Kinfoot", line 49 (1919).

Bai Juyi photo
Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“Truth does not belong to an individual.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

10th Conversation with D. Bohm, Brockwood Park, UK and Gstaad, Switzerland (27 September 1975)
1970s

Isaac Asimov photo

“Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Asimov's Guide to Science (1972), p. 15
General sources

Morrissey photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Paul Watson photo

“V Stands for Verity, Virtue, Valor, Validity and Veganism. … Veganism is real conservation in action. It goes beyond talking about climate change and diminishment of biodiversity and actually does something to address the problems.”

Paul Watson (1950) Canadian environmental activist

"Commentary by Captain Paul Watson", from his website SeaShepherd.org (6 May 2014) http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-commentary/commentary/v.html

Joyce Brothers photo

“The world at large does not judge us by who we are and what we know; it judges us by what we have.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

As quoted in On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes (2004) by Paula Munier, p. 70

Macarius of Egypt photo
Warren Farrell photo

“The best way to use these lists to replace anger with love in real life is to nurture each other by doing for your partner what your partner normally does for you.”

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

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

Wernher von Braun photo
Gao Xingjian photo
George F. Kennan photo
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse photo

“Does scope for individual development, for example, consort with idea of equality?”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter VII, The State And The Individual, p. 74 .

Maimónides photo
Maimónides photo
Georg Simmel photo
E. W. Hobson photo

“A new point is determined in Euclidean Geometry exclusively in one of the three following ways:
Having given four points A, B, C, D, not all incident on the same straight line, then
(1) Whenever a point P exists which is incident both on (A, B) and on (C, D), that point is regarded as determinate.
(2) Whenever a point P exists which is incident both on the straight line (A, B) and on the circle C(D), that point is regarded as determinate.
(3) Whenever a point P exists which is incident on both the circles A(B), C(D), that point is regarded as determinate.
The cardinal points of any figure determined by a Euclidean construction are always found by means of a finite number of successive applications of some or all of these rules (1), (2) and (3). Whenever one of these rules is applied it must be shown that it does not fail to determine the point. Euclid's own treatment is sometimes defective as regards this requisite.
In order to make the practical constructions which correspond to these three Euclidean modes of determination, correponding to (1) the ruler is required, corresponding to (2) both ruler and compass, and corresponding to (3) the compass only.
…it is possible to develop Euclidean Geometry with a more restricted set of postulations. For example it can be shewn that all Euclidean constructions can be carried out by means of (3) alone…”

E. W. Hobson (1856–1933) British mathematician

Source: Squaring the Circle (1913), pp. 7-8

John Bright photo
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin photo

“A breeze passes in the night. When did it spring up? Whence does it come? Whither is it going? No man knows.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

The Divine Milieu, p. 128
The Divine Milieu (1960)

James Madison photo
Kent Hovind photo

“Everyone wants to argue. Everyone does. Everyone needs to.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Getting Started, p. 5
How to Argue and Win Every Time (1995)

“A professional is a man who can do his job when he doesn't feel like it; an amateur is one who can't when he does feel like it.”

James Agate (1877–1947) British diarist and critic

Ego, p. 303, September 17, 1933.

Hans Freudenthal photo
Sayyid Qutb photo
José Guilherme Merquior photo

“[A] number of points are worth making at once [that challenge Foucault’s Madness and Civilization]: (1) There is ample evidence of medieval cruelty towards the insane; (2) In the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the mad were already confined, to cells, jails or even cages; (3) ‘dialogue’ or no ‘dialogue’, even madness during those times was frequently connected with sin -- even in the Ship of Fools mythology; and, to that extent, it was regarded in a far less benevolent light than suggested by Foucault (pre-modern minds accepted the reality of madness -- ‘madness as a part of truth’ -- just as they accepted the reality of sin; but this does not mean they valued madness, any more than sin; (4) as Martin Schrenk (himself a severe critic Foucault) has shown, early modern madhouses developed from medieval hospitals and monasteries rather than as reopened leprosaria; (5) the Great Confinement was primarily aimed not at deviance but at poverty -- criminal poverty, crazy poverty or just plain poverty; the notion that it heralded (in the name of the rising bourgeoise) a moral segregation does not bear close scrutiny; (6) at any rate, as stressed by Klaus Doerner, another of critic of Foucault (Madmen and the Bourgeoisie, 1969), that there was no uniform state-controlled confinement: the English and German patterns, for example, strayed greatly from the Louis Quatorzian Grand Renfermement; (7) Foucault’s periodization seems to me amiss. By the late eighteenths century, confinement of the poor was generally deemed a failure; but it is then that confinement of the mad really went ahead, as so conclusively shown in statistics concerning England, France, and the United States; (8) Tuke and Pinel did not ‘invent’ mental illness. Rather, they owe much to prior therapies and often relied also on their methods; (9) moreover, in nineetenth-century England moral treatment was not that central in the medicalization of madness. Far from it: as shown by Andrew Scull, physicians saw Tukean moral therapy as a lay threat to their art, and strove to avoid it or adapt it to their own practice. Once more, Foucault’s epochal monoliths crumble before the contradictory wealth of the historical evidence.”

Source: Foucault (1985), pp. 28-29

“The unsound convert takes Christ by halves. He is all for the salvation of Christ, but is not for sanctification. He is for the privileges, but does not appropriate the person of Christ.”

Joseph Alleine (1634–1668) Pastor, author

Source: An Alarm to the Unconverted aka A Sure Guide to Heaven (first published 1671), P. 45.

Ernest Hemingway photo
Emmanuel Levinas photo
Ellen Page photo

“Justice is closely connected to respect for rights. Modern writers discuss both subjects together with no suggestion that one might discuss one with the other. It was not always so. Greek political theory and Roman Law had sophisticated ideas about justice in its various aspects, but did not embrace our conception of individual rights. This may seem counter-intuitive. How could a society recognize someone as the owner of a piece of property without acknowledging an individual right? How does legitimate one-man­ rule, monarchy, differ from its illegitimate parody, tyranny, unless the lawful king has a right to the authority he exercises that the tyrant does not?
The answer is that property and authority were defined by law rather than our notion of individual rights. To own property was to be the person to whom the law accorded the privileges and immunities that locally defined ownership. To be a legitimate ruler was to be the person the law designated to rule. It is a commonplace that ancient notions of law accorded far more power over property to the family and other groups than modern notions of private property do. Even under the Roman Law, where ownership had an 'absolute' and sovereign character, property was not understood in the modern way; when the law told the judge to give a man his ius, this primarily meant that he should be treated as the law required. The 'subjective' understanding of rights, whereby the right-holder may stand on his rights or not as he chooses, was not a Roman notion.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

Justice (1993)

George Marshall photo

“If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff, US Army (1 September 1945)

James Burke (science historian) photo
Robert Musil photo

“Questions and answers click into each other like cogs of a machine. Each person has nothing but quite definite tasks. The various professions are concentrated at definite places. One eats while in motion. Amusements are concentrated in other parts of the city. And elsewhere again are the towers to which one returns and finds wife, family, gramophone, and soul. Tension and relaxation, activity and love are meticulously kept separate in time and are weighed out according to formulae arrived at in extensive laboratory work. If during any of these activities one runs up against a difficulty, one simply drops the whole thing; for one will find another thing or perhaps, later on, a better way, or someone else will find the way that one has missed. It does not matter in the least, but nothing wastes so much communal energy as the presumption that one is called upon not to let go of a definite personal aim. In a community with energies constantly flowing through it, every road leads to a good goal, if one does not spend too much time hesitating and thinking it over. The targets are set up at a short distance, but life is short too, and in this way one gets a maximum of achievement out of it. And man needs no more for his happiness; for what one achieves is what moulds the spirit, whereas what one wants, without fulfillment, only warps it. So far as happiness is concerned it matters very little what one wants; the main thing is that one should get it. Besides, zoology makes it clear that a sum of reduced individuals may very well form a totality of genius.”

The Man Without Qualities (1930–1942)

J. R. D. Tata photo
Sayyid Qutb photo

“The right of disposal depends on being mature and being able to fulfill one's duties; when the possessor does not meet these requirements, then the natural fruits of ownership come to an end.”

Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) Egyptian author, educator, Islamic theorist, poet, and politician

Source: Social Justice in Islam (1953), p. 133

Guru Arjan photo
Arthur Jensen photo
Andrew Marvell photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Donald Barthelme photo
Kenneth Minogue photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Music, states of happiness, mythology, faces belabored by time, certain twilights and certain places try to tell us something, or have said something we should not have missed, or are about to say something; this imminence of a revelation which does not occur is, perhaps, the aesthetic phenomenon.”

"The Wall and the Books" ["La muralla y los libros"] (1950)
Variant translation: Music, feelings of happiness, mythology, faces worn by time, certain twilights and certain places, want to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have missed, or they are about to tell us something; this imminence of a revelation that is not produced is, perhaps, the esthetic event.
Other Inquisitions (1952)

Giovanni della Casa photo
Willem de Sitter photo

“How does it come about that we have been able to find satisfactory hypotheses to explain electricity and magnetism, light and heat, in short all other physical phenomena, but have been unsuccessful in the case of gravitation?”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932), Above is Beginning Quote of the Last Chapter: Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe -->

John McCain photo

“Vietnam vet: We haven't heard why you voted against your colleagues' proposals to increase health care funding in 2004, '05, '06, and '07, when we had troops coming back from two wars.
Madow: Instead of the answer the questioner is looking for, McCain now takes credit for the GI bill and takes a political shot at Jim Webb.
McCain: On the issue of the GI bill, I was disappointed that Senator Webb didn't support making it permanent. Senator Graham, other veterans and I will be looking to extend that to all veterans, not just 2001. I hope you'll urge Senator Webb to agree with that.
McCain: I received every award from every major veterans' organization in America. The reason is I have a perfect voting record from organizations like Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, and all the other veterans service organizations because of my support of them.
Vietnam vet: You do not have a perfect voting record by the DIV and the VFW. That's where these votes [of yours against increasing vet health care] are recorded. The votes were proposals by your colleagues in the Senate to increase health care funding of the VA in 2003, '04, '05, and '06 for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and you voted against those proposals. I can give you specific Senate votes, the numbers of those Senate votes right now.
McCain: I thank you, and I'll examine your version of what my voting record is, but again, I've been endorsed in every election by all of the veterans' organizations that do that. I've been supported by them, and I've received their highest rewards, from all of those organizations, so I guess they don't know something you know.
Rieckoff: [McCain's] voting record is not very strong. The Disabled American Veterans gave him a 20% rating out of 100. Our organization, the IAVA, gave him a D rating in the last voting session. He does not have a perfect voting record from the VFW. He's consistently voted against increased funding of the VA, and he's been a major opponent of the new GI bill.”

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

Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans for America and author of Chasing Ghosts, on Countdown, discussing a town hall exchange between McCain and another Vietnam vet; 9 July 2008; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnyEMLXvgV8
IAVA ratings: McCain: D; Obama: B+ http://www.iava.org/full-ratings-list; DAV: McCain: 20%; Obama: 80%; the AL and VFW don't perform such voting record ratings http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_mccain_have_a_perfect_voting_record.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnyEMLXvgV8
2000s, 2008

Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Larry Niven photo

“There’s always another problem behind the one you just solved. Does that mean that you should stop solving problems?”

Flash Crowd, section 7, in Three Trips in Time and Space (1973), edited by Robert Silverberg, p. 65

Gaio Valerio Catullo photo

“What he himself is, whether he is or is not, he does not know so much as this.”
Ipse qui sit, utrum sit an non sit, id quoque nescit.

XVII, line 22
Carmina

“The statement is made with certainty: a festival that does not get its life from worship, even though the connection in human consciousness be ever so small, is not to be found. To be sure, since the French Revolution, people have tried over and over to create artificial festivals without any connection with religious worship, or even against such worship, such as the "Brutus Festival" or "Labor Day," but they all demonstrate, through the forced and narrow character of their festivity, what religious worship provides to a festival. […] Clearer than the light of day is the difference between the living, rooted trees of genuine cultic festival and our artificial festivals that resemble those "maypoles," cut at the roots, and carted here and there, to be planted for some definite purpose. Of course we may have to prepare ourselves for the possibility that we are only at the dawn of an age of artificial festivals. Were we [in Germany] prepared for the possibility that the official forces, and especially the bearers of political power, would artificially create the appearance of the festive with so huge an expense in external arrangements? And that this seductive, scarcely delectable appearance of artificial "holidays" would be so totally lacking in the essential quality, that true and ultimate harmony with the world? And that such holidays would in fact depend on the suppression of that harmony and derive their dangerous seduction from that very fact?”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

In the three rhetorical questions that end this quote, Pieper alludes to the Nazis' elaborately stage-managed "festivals", in particular the Nuremberg Rally, the subject of Leni Riefenstahl's classic propaganda documentary, Triumph of the Will.
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), Leisure, the Basis of Culture, pp. 51–52

Will Cuppy photo

“If the church … does not make God's liberation of the oppressed central in its mission and proclamation, how can it rest easy with a condemned criminal as the dominant symbol of its message?”

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: Speaking the Truth: Ecumenism, Liberation, and Black Theology (1986), p. 6

Ethan Hawke photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
George Washington Bethune photo
Swami Vivekananda photo

“Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“Jesus does not give us a discourse on the nature of the universe, he gives us a set of active verbs. And yet what better discourse on the real nature of the universe could there be?”

John R. Platt (1918–1992) American physicist

Cited in: Rex Robert Dolan (1967). The big change: the challenge to radical change in the Church.
Source: The step to man, 1966, p.178.

Dylan Moran photo

“Does she know all the people she says she knows?”
“She knows everybody.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s getting old.”

Ross Thomas (1926–1995) 1926-1995 American writer

Cast a Yellow Shadow (1967)

Laurie Penny photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo
David Packard photo
Michael Moorcock photo
Alex Salmond photo
Amartya Sen photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Brandon Boyd photo
John Ruskin photo
Aldo Capitini photo

“Nonviolence does good to those who practice it and receive it: it makes each other better, lifts them up, unites them.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

Larry Wall photo

“I know it's weird, but it does make it easier to write poetry in perl.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[7865@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Thomas More photo

“This vice [Pride] does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the miseries of others.”
Haec non suis commodis prosperitatem, sed ex alienis metitur incommodis.

Haec non suis commodis prosperitatem, sed ex alienis metitur incommodis.
http://books.google.com/books?id=6REuAAAAMAAJ&q=%22haec+non+suis+commodis+prosperitatem+sed+ex+alienis+metitur+incommodis%22&pg=PA306#v=onepage
Alternate translation: [Pride] measures her prosperity not by her own goods but by others' wants.
Source: Utopia (1516), Ch. 9 : Of the Religions of the Utopians