Quotes about doing
page 11

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show (visiting fire brigade)

“Ibn 'Umar reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "A Muslim man must hear and obey both in respect of what he likes and dislikes, unless he is commanded to do a wrong action. If he is commanded to do a wrong action, he should not hear or obey."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 663
Sunni Hadith

Peace

“I always wanted to do music that influences and inspires each generation. Lets face it, who wants mortality?”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On how he creates memorable music
Ebony interview (2007)

Music

“Stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land got hold of it. They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers to provide them with title-deeds. In the case of the enclosure of the common lands, which was going on from about 1600 to 1850, the land-grabbers did not even have the excuse of being foreign conquerors; they were quite frankly taking the heritage of their own countrymen, upon no sort of pretext except that they had the power to do so.[http://alexpeak.com/twr/oateotc/]</sup”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

As I Please (1943–1947)

“Anyone can keep going in an easy situation, but do you have a philosophy which can enable you to meet the worst hardship?”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

The Way of God's Will Chapter 1-6. Suffering, Offering, and Obedience http://www.unification.org/ucbooks/WofGW/wogw1-06.htm Translated 1980.

“You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.

But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.”

Humbert Wolfe (1885–1940) English poet

"Over the Fire", from The Uncelestial City (London: Victor Gollancz, 1930) p. 30.

God, Hope

“My social conscience is fairly limited in a lot of ways; there's not much I'm angry about that doesn't affect me quite directly. But the prison system- not particularly capital punishment- but the penal system as it is, and the whole apparatus of judgement, people deciding on other people's fates… that does irritate, and upset me quite a lot. What angers me about the system goes beyond the unreliability of "proof"… it's that the way criminals are dealt with has nothing to do with rehabilitation and readjusting people who've stepped outside society's norms. The same goes for mental institutions and so forth. But it's also the very idea of someone being judged "criminal" or "insane" because they're unable to fit into what a corrupt society considers "social" or "sociable."”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Politics, society and humanity

Fate, People, Way, Idea

“I'm the interpreter. I'm the one who takes your words and brings them to life. I was trained to sing and dance and laugh, and that's what I want to do.”

Aaliyah (1979–2001) American singer, actress and model

Attributed

Life, Singing, Dance, Training

“Billie and I got chased through the traffic once in a car. You expect paparazzi to do that, but when it's normal people you start to think the world's gone a bit mad.”

David Tennant (1971) Scottish actor

Radio Times interview (April 2007) http://www.radiotimes.com/content/show-features/doctor-who/david-tennant-interview-2007/

People, World, Cars, Thinking

“What then is the place and role of the writer in this cruel, dynamic, split world on the brink of its ten destructions? After all we have nothing to do with letting off rockets, we do not even push the lowliest of hand-carts, we are quite scorned by those who respect only material power. Is it not natural for us too to step back, to lose faith in the steadfastness of goodness, in the indivisibility of truth, and to just impart to the world our bitter, detached observations: how mankind has become hopelessly corrupt, how men have degenerated, and how difficult it is for the few beautiful and refined souls to live amongst them?
But we have not even recourse to this flight. Anyone who has once taken up the WORD can never again evade it; a writer is not the detached judge of his compatriots and contemporaries, he is an accomplice to all the evil committed in his native land or by his countrymen.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Nobel lecture (1970)

Men, Truth, World, Faith

“If you try, everything you strive for will come close to you, and you will reap the benefit. May God give you that help, that grace, that wisdom, and His qualities. May He do what is good. If you believe in Him, He will never let go of you. If you intend Him, He will come looking for you. If you call Him, He will call you. If you love Him, He will love you. If you search for Him, He will search for you. Know this. Amin. Amin.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Love, Wisdom, God, Search

“I have had no regular disciples: but if anyone likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young or old, he may freely come. Nor do I converse with those who pay only, and not with those who do not pay; but anyone, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my words; and whether he turns out to be a bad man or a good one, that cannot be justly laid to my charge, as I never taught him anything. And if anyone says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all the world has not heard, I should like you to know that he is speaking an untruth.”

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

33a–b
Plato, Apology

World, Learning

“Do not rest in so profound a doubt except she tell it thee, who shall be a light between truth and intellect. I know not if thou understand: I speak of Beatrice.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto VI, lines 43–46 (tr. Carlyle-Wicksteed).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Truth, Understanding, Light

“We do have an organ for understanding and recognizing moral facts. It is called the brain.”

Paul Churchland (1942) Canadian philosopher

Paul Churchland. A Neurocomputational Perspective, 1989.

Understanding

“It is a rather unpleasant sensation to feel yourself pulled by the strings and made to do things whether you want to or not — that is quite irrelevant — but to be compelled to act because something pulls you by the strings, something which you do not even see — that is exasperating. … I knew nobody who could help me and I did not have the chance that you have, someone who can tell you: "This is what you have to do!" There was nobody to tell me that. I had to find it out all by myself. And I found it. I started at five.”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

On developing her inner experiences, as narrated in later years to her disciples at Sri Aurobindo Ashram, in "Birth and Girlhood", also in The Mother On Herself http://www.miraura.org/bio/herself.html

Feeling, Chance, Help

“I was not intrigued with the accouterments of success and fame, the furs, jewels, expensive automobiles and mansions… I can assure you that these things were not on my mind when I sat spellbound in that Pozzuoli movie house. It was what these performers on the screen were doing, not what they received for doing it.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

As quoted in Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story (1979) by A. E. Hotchner, p. 63.

Success, Housing

“Successful people do things, and get over with it, and leave others to live their life off it. I DO them. And then I leave it to others to live their life off it.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

Life, People, Success

“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Statement in defense of his writings at the Diet of Worms (19 April 1521), as translated in The Nature of Protestantism (1963) by Karl Heim, p. 78 Luther is often said to have declared, "Here I stand, I can do no other," before concluding with "God help me. Amen." However, there is no indication in the transcripts of the Diet or in eyewitness accounts that he ever said this. See "Disputed" section below.

God, Quotes, Help

“To tell the story of how and why we chose to do what we did, no one can ignore the personalities and characteristics of those individuals engaged in making decisions. For military command is as much a practice of human relations as it is a science of tactics and a knowledge of logistics. Where there are people, there is pride and ambition, prejudice and conflict. In generals, as in all other men, capabilities cannot always obscure weaknesses, nor can talents hide faults.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. x.

Men, People, Knowledge, Decision

“Economists have uncovered the conditions necessary if Adam Smith’s results are to be achieved and where, in the real world, such conditions do not appear to be found, they have proposed changes which are designed to bring them about. It is what one finds in the textbooks. Harold Demsetz has said rightly that what this theory analyses is a system of extreme decentralisation. It has been a great intellectual achievement and it throws light on many aspects of the economic system. But it has not been by any means all gain.”

Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013) British economist and author

1990s and later, "The Institutional Structure of Production" (1992)

World, Light, Appearance, Change

“There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers.
And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting; nor that you don’t know which side to join, for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side; nor that you wish to remain neutral; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer; nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pronouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat. But do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified.”

Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) Spanish author, political theorist and diplomat

Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)

Men, God, War, Age

“i must not get angry, for if i do i will knock your teeth out”

Franz Schubert (1797–1828) Austrian composer

“They’re like leeches. I’m so tired of it. They start out the most popular person in the world, make a lot of money, big house, cars and everything. End up penniless. It is conspiracy. The Jews do it on purpose.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

November 2005 reported by report by NY Post https://nypost.com/2005/11/23/jerko-jackos-ugly-jabs-at-jews-calls-them-leeches-on-tape/

Money, World, Cars, Housing

“We do not hesitate to help and support the brother, the ill-fated friend or the needy wherever they are. This is our message to the world, and this is the United Arab Emirates.”

Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (1949) Emirati politician

Quotes on Philanthropy, http://www.sheikhmohammed.co.ae/vgn-ext-templating/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=99c18960a5a11310VgnVCM1000004d64a8c0RCRD&appInstanceName=default, sheikhmohammed.ae.

Fate, World, Support, Help

“It makes it easier to get happiness. I do believe in a material world to a certain extent. I think material happiness is quite an important step before you look for spiritual happiness. There are people who think the other way round. They might also be right. But in the kind of education and the world where I have grown up, and we all are growing up, a certain level of consumerism become a reality. (as an answer to the question: Do you think that money can buy happiness?)”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Rajeev Masand

Money, People, World, Education

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You' https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&q=bowlines#v=onepage&q=bowlines&f=false' by H. Jackson Brown. Misattributed

Courageous, Success, Life, Dreams

“Do I have to say the words?
Do I have to tell the truth?
Do I have to shout it out?
Do I have to say a prayer?
Must I prove to you how good we are together?
Do I have to say the words?”

Bryan Adams (1959) Canadian singer-songwriter

Do I Have to Say the Words?, written by Bryan Adams, Mutt Lange, and Jim Vallance
Song lyrics, Waking Up the Neighbours (1991)

Truth

“Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars, its feet for the swords; it continueth, though an army lay waste the pasture; it comforteth when there are no medicines; it hath the relish of manna; and by it do men live in the desert.”

Gilbert Parker (1862–1932) Canadian novelist and British politician

"The White Omen"

Love, Men, Star

“I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

First On The Moon : A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin E Aldrin, Jr. (1970) edited by Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, p. 113, states of this: "Like many a quote which gets printed once and therefore enshrined in the libraries of all newspapers and magazines, this particular one was erroneous. Neil recalled having heard the quote, and he even recalled having repeated it once. He did not subscribe to its thesis, however, and he only quoted it so that he could disagree with it."
Misattributed

Exercises

“Everyone always did miss everyone else in this war, whenever it was humanly possible to do so.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

War

“The main thing missing from cartoons is today that old cartoons were cartoony. They did things you can't do in any other medium. Today's cartoons are very conservative and are more like live action. The characters look the same in every frame of the damn cartoon. The old cartoons squashed, stretched, and did crazy expressions. They were imaginative and crazy. A lot of cartoons aren't imaginative, they just say things. It might as well be radio. There is no point in having anything to look at in modern cartoons. But you can't say that about every cartoon. Genndy Tartakovsky's cartoons are beautiful. The closest thing now to what I'm saying is SpongeBob but even that doesn't go very far. It's like a conservative version of Ren & Stimpy.”

John Kricfalusi (1955) Canadian animator

Daniel Robert Epstein (Oct 12, 2004), " John Kricfalusi, interview http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/John%20Kricfalusi/", SuicideGirls, retrieved 2011-03-01

Beauty, Imagination

“It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda-tours.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

War, Fight

“But whether it be dream or truth, to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth's sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken.”

Pedro Calderón de la Barca Life is a Dream

Mas, sea verdad o sueño,
obrar bien es lo que importa.
Si fuere verdad, por serlo;
si no, por ganar amigos
para cuando despertemos.
Segismundo, Act III, l. 236.
La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream)

Truth, Dreams, Time

“Some people say, "How can you live without knowing?" I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know.”

Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All

lecture I: "The Uncertainty of Science"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

People

“The Word of God can take care of itself, and will do so if we preach it, and cease defending it. See you that lion. They have caged him for his preservation; shut him up behind iron bars to secure him from his foes! See how a band of armed men have gathered together to protect the lion. What a clatter they make with their swords and spears! These mighty men are intent upon defending a lion. O fools, and slow of heart! Open that door! Let the lord of the forest come forth free. Who will dare to encounter him? What does he want with your guardian care? Let the pure gospel go forth in all its lion-like majesty, and it will soon clear its own way and ease itself of its adversaries.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

The Lover of God's Law Filled with Peace (January 1888) http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols34-36/chs2004.pdf

Men, God, Fools, Way

“Misattributed: [Israel] must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no — it must — invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge…”

Moshe Dayan (1915–1981) Israeli military leader and politician

This has been reported to be a direct quotation of Dayan in the diaries of Moshe Sharett, but is actually derived from an interpretive commentary by Livia Rokach in "Israel's Sacred Terrorism" (1980) upon statements of Dayan reported in Sharett's diaries, from accounts provided to him by Ya'acob Herzog and Gideon Raphael — in other words, it is a third-hand interpretation of Dayan's meaning, based on a second hand report of his arguments. Sharett's summation of Dayan's statements of 26 May 1955 read: We do not need a security pact with the U.S.: such a pact will only constitute an obstacle for us. We face no danger at all of an Arab advantage of force for the next 8-10 years. Even if they receive massive military aid from the West, we shall maintain our military superiority thanks to our infinitely greater capacity to assimilate new armaments. The security pact will only handcuff us and deny us the freedom of action which we need in the coming years. Reprisal actions which we couldn't carry out if we were tied to a security pact are our vital lymph ... they make it possible for us to maintain a high level of tension among our population and in the army. Without these actions we would have ceased to be a combative people and without the discipline of a combative people we are lost. We have to cry out that the Negev is in danger, so that young men will go there.... Rokach's interpretive assessment of this diary entry by Sharett produces: The conclusions from Dayan's words are clear: This State has no international obligations, no economic problems, the question of peace is nonexistent... It must calculate its steps narrow-mindedly and live on its sword. It must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no — it must — invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge.. . . And above all — let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries, so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space.
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Moshe Dayan / Misattributed
The Iron Wall (1999)

Revenge

“And most of all, I want to emphasize to you, Mr. President-elect, that we now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.”

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

2016, Presidential transition of Donald Trump (November 2016)

Help, 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

“I cannot emphasize enough that I do not start with a plan or agenda and mechanically manipulate characters and events to carry it out. I set characters in motion, and let them teach me what the book is.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

"Women’s Hero Journey : An Interview With Lois McMaster Bujold on Paladin of Souls by Alan Oak at WomenWriters.net (June 2009)

Books

“Even if at times I can still experience outwardly some little sadness and joy, nonetheless there is in my soul a chamber in which no joy, sadness, or enjoyment from any virtue, or delight over anything that can be named, enters. This is where the All Good, which is not any particular good, resides, and it is so much the All Good that there is no other good. Although I blaspheme by speaking about it -- and I speak about it so badly because I cannot find words to express it -- I nonetheless affirm that in this manifestation of God I discover the complete truth. In it, I understand and possess the complete truth that is in heaven and in hell, in the entire world, in every place, in all things, in every enjoyment in heaven and in every creature. And I see all this is so truly and certainly that no one could convince me otherwise. Even if the whole world were to tell me otherwise, I would laugh it to scorn. Furthermore, I saw the One who is and how he is the being of all creatures. I also saw how he made me capable of understanding those realities I have just spoken about better than when I saw them in that darkness which used to delight me so. Moreover, in that state I see myself as alone with God, totally cleansed, totally sanctified, totally true, totally upright, totally certain, totally celestial in him. And when I am in that state, I do not remember anything else…”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, pp. 214-216

God, Truth, World, Sadness

“Forget the takes. Takes are cheap shots. Anyone can do a goddamn take. […] You don't have to be a genius to draw a take. It's emotions— the full range of emotions— that works in Clampett's cartoons.”

John Kricfalusi (1955) Canadian animator

Wheeler W. Dixon (2001), "Creating Ren and Stimpy (1992)", Collected Interviews: Voices from Twentieth-Century Cinema (SIU Press): 89

Drawing, Forgetting

“I still don't know why they banned me" she says. "I said to them, 'What did I do? I never killed anybody. I was never arrested for anything bad, so why can't I go home?.”

Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist

Interview with Robin Denselow (May 2008)
Source: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2280144,00.html, Robin Denselow talks to African superstar and activist Miriam Makeba, The Guardian, 15, London, 16 May 2008, 18 November 2010

Home

“Let everything you do be done for God, both deeds and words; and refer all that is yours to Christ; and constantly turn your soul to God; and lean your thought on the power of Christ. … Let Christ be to you continual and unceasing joy.”

Clement of Alexandria (150–215) Christian theologian

Source: To the Newly Baptized, pp. 373-374.

God, Soul, Joy, Christ

“If I'm ever asked to do something in the national interest, do a project of national relevance, it's not as if I will not charge for it, but I will ensure that what I give back is not just worth that money, but is a little more than that.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

Money

“But then I ask myself, I have never truly known the man whose flank I have led one difficult and ascetic life for. Perhaps he has played with my idealism, taking advantage for dark scopes that he has held hidden within himself. How can I expect to know a man who has never opened his heart to me? Till now, I do not know what he really thought, knew or wanted. I was alone with my thoughts and my suspicions. And now, the veil that covered this statue has fallen to the ground and instead of an art work, a monster has revealed itself. Now we leave to the historians of the future the task of discussing if that statue was therefore a sin from the beginning, or was changed because of the circumstances. I continue to make the same error: I try to think back to his humble origins. But then I remember how many sons of these people have sealed their history with his name.”

Alfred Jodl (1890–1946) German general

About Hitler, Nuremberg Trial, March 10, 1946. Quoted in "Hitler: The Man and the Military Leader" by Percy Ernst Schramm.

Life, People, Art, Error

“Parents always live a less pure life than their children, because they condone everything they do. The ability to condone everything in oneself but practically nothing in one's children is the boon that "experience" bestows on humanity. What parents call experience is really nothing but attempts, successful to the point of sheer cynicism, to belie everything which they found pure, true and right when they were young. They themselves don't notice the awful cynicism behind this incessant talk of "experience" being the highest aim in life: they only notice "inexperience" in their children, that is, the form of inexperience called purity and integrity, and then they get annoyed.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 135

Life, Children, Parent, Success

“After all, why should ordinary people want to contemplate the End, especially when we see the condition of those who do?”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

People

“You have to work from one point to go to another. So I admire work ethic, I think it should be re-inforced through out our neigbourhoods, that everybody should work hard, practice makes perfect, you have to be diligent with what you want, you have to apply your self, you have to motivate your self. You have to do for-self by your self, and then you can do things for other people. But that's what I had to do, I had to do for-self.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, MTV interview (1994)

People, Motivation, Thinking, Perfection

“Do you notice this human body? Today it is and tomorrow it is not. And the world is full of misery and pain. Why should one be eager to have another birth? The body is never free from its attendant troubles.”

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

[Swami Nikhilananda, Holy Mother, 204]

Pain, World, Birth

“Don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Variant: What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
Source: The Analects, Other chapters, Chapter XVː23

“God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. Those who plot impossible upheavals among us, are either young and do not know our people, or are hard-hearted men who do not care a straw either about their own lives or those of others.”

Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837) Russian poet

Found in Pushkin's. The Captain's Daughter and Other Stories. English edition by Random House LLC. 2013. p. 139
As quoted by Joseph Frank in Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time (2009). Princeton University Press, p. 203.

Men, God, People, Heart

“WOKING (vb.) To enter the kitchen with the precise determination to perform something only to forget what it is just before you do it.”

Douglas Adams book The Meaning of Liff

The Meaning of Liff (1983)

Forgetting

“From what I have already seen of the workings of the Soviet Government, I can only say that anybody who lifts his hand against it ought to be shot! It is the government's duty to put down any opposition to this really free society with a firm hand, and I hope they will always do it, for I already regard myself at home here. This is home to me. I feel more kinship to the Russian people under their new society than I ever felt anywhere else. It is obvious that there is no terror here, that all the masses of every race are contented and support their government.”

Paul Robeson (1898–1976) American singer and actor

" 'I Am at Home' Says Robeson at Reception in Soviet Union http://www.mltranslations.org/Miscellaneous/RobesonSU.htm", Daily Worker (15 January 1935)

People, Hope, Feeling, Home

“Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do appoint the last Thursday in September next, as a day of humiliation, prayer and fasting for all the people of the nation. And I do earnestly recommend to all the People, and especially to all ministers and teachers of religion of all denominations, and to all heads of families, to observe and keep that day according to their several creeds and modes of worship, in all humility and with all religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down plentiful blessings upon our Country.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Abraham Lincoln: Proclamation of a Day of Fasting (12 August 1861) http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/proc-3.htm 1860s

People, Family, Religion, Teachers

“The search for truth is never over and the survival of truth is never assured. We have to choose - do we stand with those who wish to suppress the truth or stand with those who seek it.”

Morgan Freeman (1937) American actor, film director, and narrator

Source: [Jarvey, Natalie, December 4, 2017, Morgan Freeman, Kerry Washington Celebrate "Oscars of Science'" at Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/morgan-freeman-kerry-washington-celebrate-oscars-science-at-breakthrough-prize-ceremony-1064160, The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles, December 4, 2017]

Truth, Search

“Dancing in Tijuana when I was 13 — that was my "summer camp." How else do you think I could keep up with Fred Astaire when I was 19?”

Rita Hayworth (1918–1987) American actress, dancer and director

As quoted in New York Times (25 October 1970)

Thinking, Dance, Summer

“When you examine your conscience (attention to what I am going to tell you) do not go too far; look at it as we look at the seashore from the top of the Alps or the Pyrenees, lightly, without going into details. If you do not see anything clearly and certainly wrong, go ahead and be at peace with your God. Mind this, I repeat, and do tell me how you are faring, because the devil could trick you and do you serious hard with his false doctrine and suggestions. This union produces peace of mind; then search for peace. Let nothing disturb you, be it good or bad.”

Francisco Palau (1811–1872) Beatified Spanish Discalced Carmelite friar and priest

Letter to Juana Gratia (1857)

God, Peace, Search, Falseness

“How do you feel about Hitler sharing yours?”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Alleged response by Ali to a reporter who asked how he felt about sharing the Islamic faith with the suspects of the World Trade Center terrorist attack, as debunked at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/rumors/ali.htm. Misattributed

Feeling

“I walked into the range, rented a handgun from the ugly old redneck cashier, and started to practice shooting at paper targets. As I fired my first few rounds, I felt so sick to the stomach. I questioned my whole life, and I looked at the gun in front of me and asked myself “What am I doing here? How could things have led to this?” I couldn’t believe my life was actually turning out this way. There I was, practicing shooting with real guns because I had a plan to carry out a massacre. Why did things have to be this way, I silently questioned myself as I looked at the handgun I was holding in front of me. I paid my fee and left the range within minutes, feeling as if I was going to be sick.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence

Life, Way, Feeling, Question

“It has been my personal experience that the true flavour, the real fun, the continuous excitement of work lie in the process of doing it rather than in having it over and done with.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 135.

Lie, Personality

“The person who does not control his territory does not control his existence. If someone is not conscious, he is taken over, not only outwardly but also with the thoughts that assault him. He is very vulnerable to desires and feelings. For example, you live calmly with your wife, and then—catastrophe! Suddenly you lose control because you have fallen in love with another. You don't have to fall victim to that reality; what you have to do is navigate in it, overcome the winds and sandstorms. Amid the storms at sea and the signs, you must move forward calmly and look toward the port you're heading for. In New York, when I was filming The Holy Mountain, I had problems of all sorts. I soaked six or seven T-Shirts a night with my sweat. I went to see a Chinese sage that someone had recommended. He was a poet, a great master of tai chi, and a doctor. When he first saw me, he said, "What is your purpose in life?" I was disconcerted and did not answer. He continued, "If you do not tell me what is your purpose in life, I cannot heal you."”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

So I understood that if a ship crosses the sea without a purpose, it will arrive at no port. What prevents life from devouring us is having a purpose. The higher it is, the further it will carry us...
Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

Love, Life, Feeling, Mountain

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”

Frédéric Bastiat book The Law

The Law (1850)

People, Nature

“Just promise me, whatever we say
Or do to each other,
From now, we make a vow to just
Keep it in the closet.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

In the Closet
Dangerous (1991)

“The vast power of money, mighty when you have it and even mightier when you don't, with its divine gift of freedom and the demonic fury it unleashes on those forced to do without it — they felt this as never before and were filled with bitter rage when, in the dark of the early morning, they saw the brightly lit windows and knew that those glowing gold curtains gave shelter and freedom to hundreds of thousands of people, men with women they desired, while they themselves were homeless, plodding blindly through the streets, through the rain; it was cruel as only the sea could be cruel — the sea in which a person can die of thirst.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

Women, Men, Money, People

“On the fifth day the Governor of the town called all the tribal chieftains to an audience in the market square, to hear their grievances. He didn't always do anything about them, but at least they got heard, and he nodded a lot, and everyone felt better about it at least until they got home. This is politics.”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

Home

“Perhaps the male in human society is useless. I am frank to admit that I don't know. If women are beginning to feel this way about it--and there is striking evidence at hand that they do--then we are entering upon the cruelest period of the world's history.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Mr. Tesla Explains Why He Will Never Marry (1924)

Women, World, Way, Feeling

“I would rather die having spoken in my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet in law ought any man use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death, if a man is willing to say or do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs deeper than death.”

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

38e–39a
Plato, Apology

Death, War, Law, Way

“Now, since on God's own testimony, men are 'flesh', they can savour of nothing but the flesh; therefore 'free-will can avail only to sin. And if, while the Spirit of God is calling and teaching among them, they go from bad to worse, what could they do when left to themselves, without the Spirit of God? Your [Erasmus] observation that Moses is speaking of the men of that age is not to the point at all. The same is true of all men, for all are 'flesh'; as Christ says, 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh' (John 3:6) How grave a defect this is, He Himself there teaches, when he says: 'Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (v. 5)…I call a man ungodly if he is without the Spirit of God; for Scripture says that the Spirit is given to justify the ungodly. As Christ distinguished the Spirit from the flesh, saying: "that which is born of the flesh is flesh', and adds that which is born of the flesh cannot enter the kingdom of God', it obviously follows that whatever is flesh is ungodly, under God's wrath, and a stranger to His kingdom. And if it is a stranger to God's kingdom and Spirit, it follows of necessity that it is under the kingdom and spirit of Satan. For there is no middle kingdom between the kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan, which are ever at war with each other.”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 241, 253

Men, God, War, Age

“I am going the way of my fathers, as the Scripture says, for I see myself called by the Lord. Be you wary and undo not your long service of God, but be earnest to keep your strong purpose, as though you were but now beginning. You know the demons who plot against you, you know how savage they are and how powerless; therefore, fear them not. Let Christ be as the breath you breathe; in Him put your trust. Live as dying daily, heeding yourselves and remembering the counsels you have heard from me. … So do you also be earnest always to be in union first with the Lord and then with the Saints, that after death, they also may receive you into everlasting tabernacles as known friends. Ponder these things, and mean them. … And now God save you, children, for Antony departs and is with you no more.”

Anthony the Great (251–357) Christian saint, monk, and hermit

Book IV, Chapter 20 (his last words), St. Athanasius. Trans. Dom J.B. McLaughlin, O.S.B. St. Antony of the Desert. Rockford: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc, 1995.
From St. Athanasius' Life of St. Antony

Death, God, Children, Fear

“People do not care whether or not they succeed; they care about whether or not they fail.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Personality Lectures

People

“Let all the 'free-will' in the world do all it can with all its strength; it will never give rise to a single instance of ability to avoid being hardened if God does not give the Spirit, or of meriting mercy if it is left to its own strength.”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 202

God, World

“When it comes to consideration of how to do well in running the city, which must proceed entirely through justice and soundness of mind.”

Protagoras (-486–-411 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

As quoted in Protagoras by Plato

Justice

“The intolerant can be viewed as free-riders, as persons who seek the advantages of just institutions while not doing their share to uphold them.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter VI, Section 59, pg. 388

Personality

“I maintain that attitudes do really precede propositions, feelings come before facts.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

K-Linesː A Theory of Memory (1980)

Feeling

“The thing is to be happy,' he said. 'No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, and you're just there, going along easy in the world.”

Alice Munro (1931) Canadian novelist

Dear Life (2012)

World, Happiness

“When you looked into my eyes,
I stood there like I was hyp-notized.
You sent a feeling to my spine,
A feeling warm and smooth and fine.
But all I could do were stand there paralyzed.
When we kissed, ooh what a thrill,
You took my hand and, ooh baby, what a chill.
I felt like grabbin' you real tight,
Squeeze and squeeze with all my might.
But all I could do were stand there paralyzed.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Paralyzed, written by Otis Blackwell and Elvis Presley (1956)
Song lyrics

Feeling, Kiss, Baby

“You know that episode where I said I'd stopped drinking? Well, I lied. Ted is so militant in his views. I lived with him for 12 days and it's hard to imagine ever doing anything that would truly look good in his eyes. Also he said some stuff online about Dimebag which I thought was really not cool. I'm not going to repeat it but you can check it out online.”

Sebastian Bach (1968) Canadian singer

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=60702 Blabbermouth.net (October 21, 2006)

Imagination, Drink

“1. Small particles called atoms exist and compose all matter; 2. They are indivisible and indestructible; 3. Atoms of the same chemical element have the same chemical properties and do not transmute or change into different elements.”

John Dalton (1766–1844) English chemist, meteorologist and physicist

A New System of Chemical Philosophy, Part I http://books.google.com/books?id=Wp7QAAAAMAAJ (1808) as quoted by Richard Reeves, A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2008)

Change

“It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which the mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming.”

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

Plato, Phaedo

Way, Feeling, Parting

“Walters: How do you feel when people call you..”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Televised Interview with Barbara Walters(1998)

People, Feeling

“You’re in total isolation. And you don’t know how long you’re going to be there, but you truly believe they can do anything to you. There’s no way to even question it. You’re not protected by anything. Why am I here? Your mind is very uncertain of time. You become like mad. It’s very hard for anyone. Even for people who have strong beliefs.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, The City: Beijing, 2011

People, Way, Question, Strong

“I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages.”

Quentin Tarantino (1963) American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor

Empire magazine interview, 1994.

People

“You know I really do hate to say it,
The government don't wanna see,
But if Roosevelt was livin'
He wouldn't let this be, no, no.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book I (1995)

Hate

“As sheep come issuing forth from out the fold
By ones and twos and threes, and the others stand
Timidly, holding down their eyes and nostrils,
And what the foremost does the others do,
Huddling themselves against her, if she stop,
Simple and quiet and the wherefore know not.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto III, lines 79–84 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

“The true measure of all our actions is how long the good in them lasts…everything we do, we do for the young.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

Speech during the commemorations of D-Day, 06/06/2014. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10883074/D-Day-anniversary-Queen-stirred-by-commemorations.html

“I am among Ahlul Bayt, whom God has made obligatory on all Muslims to love. He, the Blessed and Most High, has said: "I do not ask of you any reward for it except love for (my) kin; and whoever earns good, We will give him more of good" [Qur'an, 42:23]. Therefore, earning good is showing love for us, Ahlul Bayt.”

Hasan ibn Ali (624–669) Shia Imam

Shia source: al-Fadhl ibn al-Hasan al-Tabrisi, Majma‘ al-Bayān, vol.9, p. 29
Sunni sources: Ibn Hajar Al-Haythami, Al-Sawā'iq al-Muhriqah, p. 101 ; Ali ibn Abu Bakr al-Haythami, Majma‘ al-Zawa'id, vol.9, p. 146 ; al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak ‘alā al-Sahihain, vol.3, p. 172
Religious-based Quotes

Love, God

“Father, forgive them,' said Jesus, 'for they know not what they do' -- People of good sense whoever you may be, I will add, do not listen to them, for they know not what they say.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Book Two: The Royal Mystery or the Art of Subduing the Powers, Chapter XII: The Terrible Secret
The Great Secret: or Occultism Unveiled

People, Forgiveness, Sense

“You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Earliest published version found on Google Books with this phrasing is in the 1993 book The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking by Tracy L. LaQuey and Jeanne C. Ryer, p. 25 http://books.google.com/books?id=sP5SAAAAMAAJ&q=meowing#search_anchor. However, the quote seems to have been circulating on the internet earlier than this, appearing for example in this post from 1987 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/msg/cc89abb5e065d23f?hl=en and this one from 1985 http://groups.google.com/group/net.sources.games/browse_thread/thread/846af15b5a38c35/3d6d5a639c24bba3. No reference has been found that cites a source in Einstein's original writings, and the quote appears to be a variation of an old joke that dates at least as far back as 1866, as discussed in this entry from the "Quote Investigator" blog http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/02/24/telegraph-cat/#more-3387. A variant was told by Thomas Edison, appearing in The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (1948), p. 216 http://books.google.com/books?id=NXtEAAAAIAAJ&q=edinburgh#search_anchor: "When I was a little boy, persistently trying to find out how the telegraph worked and why, the best explanation I ever got was from an old Scotch line repairer who said that if you had a dog like a dachshund long enough to reach from Edinburgh to London, if you pulled his tail in Edinburgh he would bark in London. I could understand that. But it was hard to get at what it was that went through the dog or over the wire." A variant of Edison's comment can be found in the 1910 book Edison, His Life and Inventions, Volume 1 by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin, p. 53 http://books.google.com/books?id=qN83AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q&f=false. The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat. Variant, earliest known published version is How to Think Like Einstein by Scott Thorpe (2000), p. 61 http://books.google.com/books?id=9yrYQxBgIYEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q&f=false. Appeared on the internet before that, as in this archived page from 12 October 1999 http://web.archive.org/web/19991012152820/http://stripe.colorado.edu/%7Ejudy/einstein/advice.html Misattributed

Angels, Way, Cats, Understanding

“All pleasure is a vice, for seeking pleasure is what everybody does in life, and the only dark vice is doing what everybody does.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 265
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Todo o prazer é um vício, porque buscar o prazer é o que todos fazem na vida, e o único vício negro é fazer o que toda a gente faz.

Life, Pleasure

“I'm not the greatest; I'm the double greatest. Not only do I knock 'em out, I pick the round”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

As quoted in "Ali's Quotes" at BBC Sport : Boxing (17 January 2007)

“When it becomes necessary to do anything, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Soul, Heart

“The blame rests with the government. Why do they not put adulterers to death? Then I would not need to give such advice. Between two evils one is always the lesser, in this case allowing the adulterer to remarry in a distant land in order to avoid fornication...”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Death, Distant, Evil

“Those who make revolutions by halves do nothing but dig their own tombs.”

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) military and political leader

(January 1793) [Source: Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Just, vol. 1 (2 vols., Paris, 1908), p. 414]

“If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Swan Song (1928) Pt. II, Ch. 6

Thinking, Future

“The Fascist State directs and controls the entrepreneurs, whether it be in our fisheries or in our heavy industry in the Val d'Aosta. There the State actually owns the mines and carries on transport, for the railways are state property. So are many of the factories… We term it state intervention… If anything fails to work properly, the State intervenes. The capitalists will go on doing what they are told, down to the very end. They have no option and cannot put up any fight. Capital is not God; it is only a means to an end.”

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

As quoted in Talks with Mussolini, Emil Ludwig, Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933), pp. 153-154, Interview took place between March 23 and April 4, 1932
1930s

God, Fight

“You will have seen that my brother died suddenly in Marseilles. I inherit from him a title, but not a penny of money, as he was bankrupt. A title is a great nuisance to me, and I am at a loss what to do, but at any rate I do not wish it employed in connection with any of my literary work. There is, so far as I know, only one method of getting rid of it, which is to be attainted of high treason, and this would involve my head being cut off on Tower Hill. This method seems to me perhaps somewhat extreme…”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to W. W. Norton, 11 March, 1931
1930s

Money, Loss

“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

“It is important to do everything with passion, it embellishes life enormously.”

Lev Landau (1908–1968) Soviet physicist

Главное, делайте всё с увлечением, это страшно украшает жизнь.
in a letter to his niece Maya Bessarab, as quoted by her in [Lev Landau, biography, Moscovskiy Rabochiy (Moscow Worker), 1971]

Life, Passion

“So, in the end, have we learned anything from this look at why the world turned out the way it is, that's of any use to us in our future? Something, I think. That the key to why things change is the key to everything. How easy is it for knowledge to spread? And that, in the past, the people who made change happen, were the people who had that knowledge, whether they were craftsmen, or kings. Today, the people who make things change, the people who have that knowledge, are the scientists and the technologists, who are the true driving force of humanity. And before you say what about the Beethovens and the Michelangelos? Let me suggest something with which you may disagree violently: that at best, the products of human emotion, art, philosophy, politics, music, literature, are interpretations of the world, that tell you more about the guy who's talking, than about the world he's talking about. Second hand views of the world, made third hand by your interpretation of them. Things like that [art book] as opposed to this [transparency of some filaments]. Know what it is? It's a bunch of amino acids, the stuff that goes to build up a worm, or a geranium, or you. This stuff [art book] is easier to take, isn't it? Understandable. Got people in it. This, [transparency] scientific knowledge is hard to take, because it removes the reassuring crutches of opinion, ideology, and leaves only what is demonstrably true about the world. And the reason why so many people may be thinking about throwing away those crutches is because thanks to science and technology they have begun to know that they don't know so much. And that, if they are to have more say in what happens to their lives, more freedom to develop their abilities to the full, they have to be helped towards that knowledge, that they know exists, and that they don't possess. And by helped towards that knowledge I don't mean give everybody a computer and say: help yourself. Where would you even start? No, I mean trying to find ways to translate the knowledge. To teach us to ask the right questions. See, we're on the edge of a revolution in communications technology that is going to make that more possible than ever before. Or, if that’s not done, to cause an explosion of knowledge that will leave those of us who don't have access to it, as powerless as if we were deaf, dumb and blind. And I don't think most people want that. So, what do we do about it? I don't know. But maybe a good start would be to recognize within yourself the ability to understand anything. Because that ability is there, as long as it is explained clearly enough. And then go and ask for explanations. And if you're thinking, right now, what do I ask for? Ask yourself, if there is anything in your life that you want changed. That's where to start.”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You

Life, People, Books, World

“I compare my situation to a person on board a ship. When there is a shipwreck the passenger then falls in the ocean and has no choice but to keep swimming. What happened in our society was that the laws overturned every right that women had. I had no choice. I could not get tired, I could not lose hope. I cannot afford to do that.”

Shirin Ebadi (1947) Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

From 2006 interview with Ebadi by Harry Kreisler (translator, Banafsheh Keynoush) about her newly released book, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope. From May 10 2006 interview with Ebadi at Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people6/Ebadi/ebadi-con3.html (retrieved Oct. 15, 2008)

Women, Law, Hope, Personality

Quotes about doing page 11

Quotes about doing
page 11