Quotes about earth
page 30

“Some of you may doubt the truth of what I now say, and argue that the Lord could teach him. This is a mistake. The Lord could not have taught him in any other way than in the way in which He did teach him. You believe Adam was made of the dust of this earth. This I do not believe, though it is supposed that it is so written in the Bible; but it is not, to my understanding. You can write that information to the States, if you please-that I have publicly declared that I do not believe that portion of the Bible as the Christian world do. I never did, and I never want to. What is the reason I do not? Because I have come to understanding, and banished from my mind all the baby stories my mother taught me when I was a child. But suppose Adam was made and fashioned the same as we make adobies; if he had never drunk of the bitter cup; the Lord might have talked to him to this day, and he would have continued as he was to all eternity, never advancing one particle in the school of intelligence. This idea opens up a field of light to the intelligent mind. How can you know truth but by its opposite, or light but by its opposite? The absence of light is darkness. How can sweetness be known but by its opposite, bitter? It is by this means that we obtain all intelligence.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourse 2:6-7 (October 23, 1853)
1850s

Truth, World, School, Way

“As for your circumcisions, the chief modin can arrange all. Your wine must return to the earth, whence the grape came. Haram.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Napoleon Symphony (1974)

Wine

“Only let us love God, and then nature will compass us about like a cloud of Divine witnesses; and all influences from the earth, and things on the earth, will be ministers of God to do us good. Only let there be God within us, and then every thing outside us will become a godlike help.”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 430.

Love, God, Nature, Help

“The life of the Christian is not all smooth. He has stern conflicts to meet. Severe temptations assail him. ‘The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.’ The nearer we come to the close of this earth’s history, the more delusive and ensnaring will be the attacks of the enemy. His attacks will grow fiercer and more frequent. Those who resist light and truth will become more hardened and unimpressible, and more bitter against those who love God and keep His commandments (MS 33, 1911).”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1111.

Love, Life, God, Truth

“Many of you share the burden of this knowledge tonight with me. But there is a difference. For finally I must be the one to order our guns to fire, against all the most inward pulls of my desire. For we have children to teach, and we have sick to be cured, and we have men to be freed. There are poor to be lifted up, and there are cities to be built, and there is a world to be helped. Yet we do what we must. I am hopeful, and I will try as best I can, with everything I have got, to end this battle and to return our sons to their desires. Yet as long as others will challenge America's security and test the clearness of our beliefs with fire and steel, then we must stand or see the promise of two centuries tremble. I believe tonight that you do not want me to try that risk. And from that belief your President summons his strength for the trials that lie ahead in the days to come. The work must be our work now. Scarred by the weaknesses of man, with whatever guidance God may offer us, we must nevertheless and alone with our mortality, strive to ennoble the life of man on earth. Thank you, and goodnight.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life, Men, God, Children

“hold your head up high to face the past
stare it in the teeth
question everything you never ask
the earth shall drink the meek is there lighting in your veins
is there something that remains
nothings ever gonna change
so take yourself out in the rain
life is leadin while you wait
waitin for your judgement day”

Alicia Witt (1975) American actress

Judgement Day https://aliciawitt.bandcamp.com/track/judgement-day Lyrics, Live at Rockwood (2012)

Life, Drink, Question, Light

“Eons and unimaginable eons ago, before mankind existed on earth, only the waters existed. There was no land. And from the slime there sprang up a race of beings which dwelt in the sunken abysses of the ocean, inhuman creatures that worshipped Dagon, their god. When eventually the waters receded and great continents arose, these beings were driven down to the lowest depths. Their mighty kingdom, that had once stretched from pole to pole, was shrunken as the huge land masses lifted. Mankind came — but from whence I do not know — and civilizations arose. … These things hate man, for they feel that man has usurped their kingdom. Their greatest hope is to sink the continents again, so that the seas will roll over all the earth, and not a human being will survive. Their power will embrace the whole world, as it once did eons ago. They are not human, you see, and they worship Dagon. They want no other gods worshipped on Earth. Ishtar, dark Eblis, even Poseidon of the sunlit seas....”

Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) American author

Short fiction, The Spawn Of Dagon (1938)

God, Hate, World, Hope

“Norfolk: I'm not a scholar, as Master Cromwell never tires of pointing out, and frankly I don't know whether the marriage was lawful or not. But damn it, Thomas, look at those names… You know those men! Can't you do what I did, and come with us for friendship?
More: And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for friendship?
Cranmer: So those of us whose names are there are damned, Sir Thomas?
More: I don't know, Your Grace. I have no window to look into another man's conscience. I condemn no one.
Cranmer: Then the matter is capable of question?
More: Certainly.
Cranmer: But that you owe obedience to your King is not capable of question. So weigh a doubt against a certainty — and sign.
More: Some men think the Earth is round, others think it flat; it is a matter capable of question. But if it is flat, will the King's command make it round? And if it is round, will the King's command flatten it? No, I will not sign.”

Robert Bolt A Man for All Seasons

Act II
A Man for All Seasons (1960)

Men, God, Friendship, Marriage

“Since the Bible is a divine revelation, every single part of it is divine. Anything that comes from the divine could be no other way. Everything that comes from the divine goes down through the heavens all the way to people on earth. In heaven it is adapted to the wisdom of the angels there, and on earth it is adapted to the understanding of the people there. So the Bible has an inner, spiritual meaning for angels and an outer, material-level meaning for people on earth. That is why our connection to heaven happens through the Bible.”

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) Swedish 18th century scientist and theologian

The New Jerusalem #252

Wisdom, People, Angels, Way

“So that while we speak of the fallen man as the natural man, as against the supernatural man, who is a redeemed man in a very real sense we should say that sin is unnatural. With man, who was created into perfect knowledge, and his destiny is hell or salvation. Moreover man was created to exercise dominion and to rule the earth. This is man’s calling and it is basic to man’s nature.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Creationism and Psychology (n. d.)

Exercises, Hell, Nature, Knowledge

“Every day is a Sabbath to me. All pure water is holy water, and this earth is a celestial abode.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Source: Accepting the Universe (1920), p.263

Water

“"CHRIST the LORD is ris'n To-day,"
Sons of Men and Angels say,
Raise your Joys and Triumphs high,
Sing ye Heav'ns, and Earth reply.”

Charles Wesley (1707–1788) English Methodist and hymn writer

Wesley J and Wesley C (1743), "Hymns and Sacred Poems", 4th edition, page 144, at archive.org. https://archive.org/details/hymnsandsacredpo00wesliala Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739)

Men, Angels, Singing, Joy

“And the fifth angel blew his trumpet. And I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to the earth, and the key of the pit of the abyss was given him. And he opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke ascended out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun was darkened, also the air, by the smoke of the pit. And out of the smoke locusts came forth upon the earth; and authority was given them, the same authority as the scorpions of the earth have. And they were told to harm no vegetation of the earth nor any green thing nor any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

9:1-4, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Revelation

Men, God, Angels, Star

“I stared down at the cemetery and the sight felt rich, rewarding, physically so, in the actual eyes. The very eyeball itself felt good. I became the most recent person on earth to see that everyone in every single or double plot had known life in all its extremes. They had all known extreme pain and stress; all been overjoyed. All had been enchanted; and they'd all known extreme grief so bad they thought it must be meant for another species.”

Robert Newman (1964) British comedian, born 1964

Dependence Day (1994).

Life, Pain, Personality

“Today summoned painfully to earth by a short fat English magician with a dangerous stammer*.
*Dangerous because any verbal hiccup while giving me my orders would break my bonds and uncage my savage wrath. Ooh, gave myself a bit of a shiver writing that. That's literary talent.”

Jonathan Stroud (1970) British writer of fantasy fiction

The Bartimaeus Trilogy Official Website, Bart's Journal

“I've fought with men and gods, I've weighed them well and found
the sea more firm than earth, the air more firm than sea,
and man's impalpable soul still yet more firm than air!”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

Odysseus, Book XI, line 846
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)

Men, God, Soul, Sea

“He called out for the others, but they were nowhere near. He tried to run, without knowing which way to go, but his legs were sluggish and the earth stood on end; in the next instant he found himself lying horizontal, his cheek in the dirt, without having felt himself fall. Then the earth tilted away from him again. He tried to walk steadily, but the earth continued to surge. Finally he sat down beneath a house-gable, leaned his back against the wall, and waited until the earth settled back in its place. He drooped his head and mumbled about his forefathers... In the end all he could do was start to sing the sad passion-hymns and death-prayers his mother had taught him in his youth.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Death, Youth, Sadness, Way

“It is, in a great measure, by raising up and endowing great minds that God secures the advance of human affairs, and the accomplishment of His own plans on earth.”

Albert Barnes (1798–1870) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 293.

God

“But he did want to see to it that loyal slave owners were not expropriated by his emancipation policy. But he couldn't get the Congress to adopt it. He couldn't get any Representatives, and people from Kentucky, or Missouri, or the border states to vote for it, and so he failed. This is the message to Congress which ended with those wonderful words, “Gentlemen of the Congress, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of Earth.””

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

Well, it failed.
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A

People, Hope, History, Light

“Calendar Reform is the final act of history, and the first step toward Earth Regeneration in the cradle of galactic culture.”

José Argüelles (1939–2011) American author and artist

Quoted on Calendar Reform and the Future of Civilization, Preparatory Reflections for the World Summit on Peace and Time University for Peace http://www.lawoftime.org/timeshipearth/articlesbyvv/calendarreform.html%20Full%20Text, Costa Rica, June 22, 1999 - June 27, 1999).

History

“To thee of All Being /A te, de l’essere
The First Cause immense /Principio immenso,
Of matter and spirit, /Materia e spirito,
Of reason and sense /Ragione e senso;

Whilst in the full goblet /Mentre ne’ calici
Shall sparkle the wine, /Il vin scintilla
So bright the pupil /Si’come l’anima
The souls of men shine, /Ne la pupilla

Whilst earth still is smiling, /Mentre sorridono
And the sun smiles above, /La terra e il sole
And men are exchanging /E si ricambiano
Their sweet words of love, /D’amor parole

Thrills mystic of Hymen /E corre un fremito
Through high mountains course, /D’imene arcano
And broad plains are heaving /Da’ monti e palpita
With life's fertile force, /Fecondo il piano;

On thee in verse daring, /A te disfrenasi
From tight rein released, /Il verso ardito,
On thee I call, Satan, /Te invoco, o Satana
The King of the feast. /Re del convito”

Giosuè Carducci (1835–1907) Italian poet and teacher

-lines 1-20 (as Printed by the Nobel Prize Library)
Hymn to Satan (1865), Inno a Satana

Love, Life, Men, Smile

“Let us remember that this scene [the Nativity] represents so much more than just a touching story or a nostalgic holiday fairytale. It is, in fact, a reminder of the most amazing reality: That God came, and God spoke. Peace on earth, God is with us. And the God who spoke still speaks. And the God who came still comes. This is the true Miracle of Christmas – that as we stand here tonight in our real world with our real lives full of problems and questions, past hurts and future hopes, God is with us.”

Steven Curtis Chapman (1962) American Christian music singer-songwriter, record producer, actor, author, and social activist

Playing Pastor Michael Curtis in the Lifetime movie "Christmas Child," 2003 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346750/

God, World, Peace, Hope

“Among all creatures that breathe on earth and crawl on it
there is not anywhere a thing more dismal than man is.”

Homér Iliad

XVII. 446–447 (tr. R. Lattimore); Zeus.
Robert Fagles's translation:
: There is nothing alive more agonized than man
of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“The mad road, lonely, leading around the bend into the openings of space towards the horizon Wasatch snows promised us in the vision of the West, spine heights at the world's end, coast of blue Pacific starry night — nobone halfbanana moons sloping in the tangled night sky, the torments of great formations in mist, the huddled invisible insect in the car racing onwards, illuminate. — The raw cut, the drag, the butte, the star, the draw, the sunflower in the grass — orangebutted west lands of Arcadia, forlorn sands of the isolate earth, dewy exposures to infinity in black space, home of the rattlesnake and the gopher the level of the world, low and flat: the charging restless mute unvoiced road keening in a seizure of tarpaulin power into the route.”

Jack Kerouac book Visions of Cody

Visions of Cody (1960)

World, Cars, Home, Star

“America, the freest nation on Earth, is also the most virtuous nation on Earth. This point seems counter-intuitive, given the amount of conspicuous vulgarity, vice and immorality in America. Some Islamic fundamentalists argue that their regimes are morally superior to the United States because they seek to foster virtue among the citizens. Virtue, these fundamentalists argue, is a higher principle than liberty. Indeed it is. And let us admit that in a free society, freedom will frequently be used badly. Freedom, by definition, includes the freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives desire our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option. Even amid the temptations of a rich and free society, they have remained on the straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is freely chosen. By contrast, the societies that many Islamic fundamentalists seek would eliminate the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in a free society like America, it is almost nonexistent in an unfree society like Iran's. The reason is that coerced virtues are not virtues at all. Consider the woman who is required to wear a veil. There is no modesty in this, because she is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue, it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue. Thus a free society like America's is not merely more prosperous, more varied, more peaceful, and more tolerant; it is also morally superior to the theocratic and authoritarian regimes that America's enemies advocate.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Articles, 10 Things to Celebrate: Why I'm an Anti-Anti-American (June 2003)

People, Peace, Freedom, Evil

“And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.”

Ayn Rand book Anthem

Anthem (1937)

Men, God, Peace, Joy

“O sweet clean earth, from whom the green blade cometh!
When we are dead, my best belovèd and I,
Close well above us, that we may rest forever,
Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

Source: Discordants (1916), IV

Grass, Dead

“It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth, with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun. The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution.”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

" Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/8/local/ed-board.pdf", BioScience volume 31 (1981), p. 559; Reprinted in J. Peter Zetterberg, editor, Evolution versus Creationism, Oryx Press, Phoenix, Arizona, 1983.

Life, Lie, World, Understanding

“There is not a Musselman alive who would not imagine that he was performing an action pleasing to God and his Holy Prophet by exterminating every Christian on earth, while the Christians are scarcely more tolerant on their side.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Conversations with a Christian Lady (1774)

God, Imagination

“There is no power on earth, that can neutralize the influence of a high, pure, simple and useful life.”

Booker T. Washington book Character Building

"The Virtue of Simplicity," from Character Building: Being Addresses Delivered on Sunday Evenings to the Students of Tuskegee Institute (1902), p. 41 http://books.google.com/books?vid=0xSIrRTbnYkF0PDougzpPqX&id=DYYMAAAAIAAJ&pg=PP9&lpg=PP9&dq=%22Character+Building:+Being+Addresses+Delivered%22#PPA41,M1

Life

“We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth.”

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

President Trump's inaugural address https://www.whitehouse.gov/inaugural-address (20 January 2017) 2010s, 2017, January

World

“The grand old Book of God still stands; and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the Sacred word.”

James Dwight Dana (1813–1895) American mineralogist

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 35.

God, Books

“My ambition is much higher than independence. Through the deliverance of India, I seek to deliver the so-called weaker races of the Earth from the crushing heels of Western exploitation in which England is the greatest partner.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Young India (12 January 1928). Quoted in The Essential Writings of Gandhi, edited by Judith Brown. Oxford University Press, 2008, (p. 153).
1920s

“Merciful God, thou dost not answer me!
I made my choice on earth, and now my heart
Has no asylum. Ye decide for me,
And such a destiny is best.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Last Song of Corinne
Translations, From the French

God, Heart

“The truth was that he died from solitude, the enemy known but to few on this Earth, and whom only the simplest of us are fit to withstand. The brilliant Costaguanaro of the boulevards had died from solitude and want of faith in himself and others.”

Joseph Conrad book Nostromo

Part Third: The Lighthouse, Ch. 10
Nostromo (1904)

Truth, Faith, Solitude

“In the big factory of perfecting human souls, the Earth was a kind of tumbler. The same as the kind people use to polish rocks. All souls come here to rub the sharp edges off each other. All of us, we're meant to be worn smooth by conflict and pain of every kind. To be polished. There was nothing bad about this. This wasn't suffering. It was erosion. It was just another, a basic, an important step in the refining process.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 6

Pain, People, Soul, Suffering

“Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord there is not on this earth any nation that is superior to any other. Should it happen that a strong Government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Address to the League of Nations (1936)

God, People, History, Freedom

“God grant me these: the strength to do
Some needed service here;
The wisdom to be brave and true;
The gift of vision clear,
That in each task that comes to me
Some purpose I may plainly see.God teach me to believe that I
Am stationed at a post,
Although the humblest 'neath the sky,
Where I am needed most.
And that, at last, if I do well
My humble services will tell.God grant me faith to stand on guard,
Uncheered, unspoke, alone,
And see behind such duty hard
My service to the throne.
Whate'er my task, be this my creed:
I am on earth to fill a need.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: A Plea, The Path to Home, p. 17 (1919).

Wisdom, God, Faith

“He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth — they, and they only.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 563.

Life, Men, Peace, Heart

“Yet there is no gainsaying but that it must have been somewhat sweeter in that dewy morning of creation, when it was young and fresh, when the feet of the tramping millions had not trodden its grass to dust, nor the din of the myriad cities chased the silence forever away. Life must have been noble and solemn to those free-footed, loose-robed fathers of the human race, walking hand in hand with God under the great sky. They lived in sunkissed tents amid the lowing herds. They took their simple wants from the loving hand of Nature. They toiled and talked and thought; and the great earth rolled around in stillness, not yet laden with trouble and wrong. Those days are past now. The quiet childhood of Humanity, spent in the far-off forest glades and by the murmuring rivers, is gone forever; and human life is deepening down to manhood amid tumult, doubt, and hope. Its age of restful peace is past. It has its work to finish and must hasten on. What that work may be—what this world's share is in the great design—we know not, though our unconscious hands are helping to accomplish it. Like the tiny coral insect working deep under the dark waters, we strive and struggle each for our own little ends, nor dream of the vast fabric we are building up for God.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Love, Life, God, Age

“The prognosis is grim. Between 2000 and 2050, world population will grow by more than three billion to over nine billion people, but this 50 percent increase in global population will come entirely in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as one hundred million people of European stock vanish from the earth.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2000s, The Death of the West (2002)

People, World

“During the attack, the catapults were busily plied on both sides… ‘Praise be to God for his exaltation of the religion of Muhammad. It is not to be doubted that stones are worshipped by Gabrs,74 but as the stones did no service to them, they only bore to heaven the futility of that worship, and at the same time prostrated their devotees upon earth’…”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

About Sultan ‘Alau’d-Din Khalji (AD 1296-1316) and his generals conquests in Warangal (Andhra Pradesh) Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians,Vol. III, p. 81-85
Khazainu’l-Futuh

God, Religion, Time

“Something you want badly enough can always be gained. No matter how fierce the enemy, how remote the beautiful lady, or how carefully guarded the treasure, there is always a means to the goal for the earnest seeker. The unseen help of the guardian gods of heaven and earth assure fulfillment.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

III, 14
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

God, Beauty, Help

“God created man for fellowship… The fall of man ruined that and Paradise—that is, the garden of Eden—was lost, but on the new earth paradise will be regained and God will again fellowship with mankind in a unique sense.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 88

God, Sense

“Since Jesus came to the earth the first time 2,000 years ago as a Jewish male, many evangelicals believe the Antichrist will, by necessity, be a Jewish male. This belief is 2,000 years old and has no anti-Semitic roots. This is simply historic and prophetic orthodox Christian doctrine that many theologians, Christian and non-Christian, have understood for two millennia.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Quoted in "Religion, Politics a Potent Mix for Jerry Falwell" by Steve Inskeep in Morning Edition on NPR (30 June 2006)

Time

“Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So a man sometimes covers up the entire disk of eternity with a dollar, and quenches transcendent glories with a little shining dust.”

Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–1880) American priest

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 20.

Star

“We are in an emergency situation in the Anthropocene epoch in which the disruption of the Earth system, particularly the climate, is threatening the planet as a place of human habitation. However, our political-economic system, capitalism, is geared primarily to the accumulation of capital, which prevents us from addressing this enormous challenge and accelerates the destruction. answer to the dire ecological problems we face, because when looking at the human effect on the planet there is nothing gradual about it; it is a Great Acceleration and a rift in the Earth system. The problem is rising exponentially, while worsening even faster than that would suggest, because we are in the process of crossing all sorts critical thresholds and facing a bewildering number of tipping points.”

John Bellamy Foster (1953) Sociology professor and Marxist writer

Interview with Left Voice (2017)

Problem

“Man thinks 'cause he rules the earth, he can do with it as he please. And if things don't change soon, he will.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Infidels (1983), License to Kill

Thinking, Change

“Ussher’s intense and obsessive project seems very odd to the eyes of a modern scientist. After all he had deduced the age of the Earth without looking at a scrap of physical evidence—not a single rock.”

Stephen Baxter (1957) author

Source: Ages in Chaos (2003), Chapter 2, “The first day of the creation is deduced” (p. 17)

Age

“If, in pursuing this object, we employ our skill in research, not in forming vain conjectures; and if data are to be found, on which Science may form just conclusions, we should not long remain in ignorance with respect to the natural history of this Earth, a subject on which hitherto opinion only, and not evidence, has decided. For in no subject is there naturally less defect of evidence, although philosophers, led by prejudice, or misguided by false theory, have neglected to employ that light by which they should have seen the system of the world.”

Stephen Baxter (1957) author

Source: Ages in Chaos (2003), Chapter 14, “We have now got to the end of our reasoning” (p. 130)

World, History, Nature, Light

“Herr Reich Chancellor, present-day science is following a wrong and dangerous path. First and foremost it concerns the treatment of water - the principal agent of life. The existing methods of water control, power stations and forestry are ruining water - the earth's blood. It becomes diseased, and so affects all its surroundings. Instead of progress, the future promises catastrophe. With your four-year plan, and the technological methods employed, you are demolishing Germany, instead of building her up. In this way, Germany will sink within ten years..”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Living Water

Life, Disease, Way, Water

“May the day come soon, when the people of the world will rouse themselves, and together effectively stamp out any threat to peace in whatever quarter of the world it may be found. When that day comes, there shall be "peace on earth and goodwill amongst men", as was announced by the Angels when that great messenger of peace, Our Lord came to earth.”

Albert Lutuli (1898–1967) South African politician

Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1961)

Men, People, World, Peace

“I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley The Cloud

St. 7
The Cloud (1820)

Water, Change, Daughters

“[I]n the system of Copernicus there are found many and great inconveniences; for both the loading of the earth with triple motion is very incommodious, and the separation of the sun from the company of the planets, with which it has so many passions in common, is likewise a difficulty, and the introduction of so much immobility into nature, by representing the sun and stars as immovable, especially being of all bodies the highest and most radiant, and making the moon revolve about the earth in an epicycle, and some other assumptions of his, are the speculations of one who cares not what fictions he introduces into nature, provided his calculations answer. But if it be granted that the earth moves, it would seem more natural to suppose that there is no system at all, but scattered globes… than to constitute a system of which the sun is the centre. And this the consent of ages and of antiquity has rather embraced and approved. For the opinion concerning the motion of the earth is not new, but revived from the ancients… whereas the opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable is altogether new… and was first introduced by Copernicus. …But if the earth moves, the stars may either be stationary, as Copernicus thought or, as it is far more probable, and has been suggested by Gilbert, they may revolve each round its own centre in its own place, without any motion of its centre, as the earth itself does… But either way, there is no reason why there should not be stars above stars til they go beyond our sight.”

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

Descriptio Globi Intellectualis (1653, written ca. 1612) Ch. 6, as quoted in "Description of the Intellectual Globe," The Works of Francis Bacon (1889) pp. 517-518, https://books.google.com/books?id=lsILAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA517 Vol. 4, ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, Douglas Denon Heath.

Age, World, Way, Star

“Also God shewed that sin shall be no shame to man, but worship. For right as to every sin is answering a pain by truth, right so for every sin, to the same soul is given a bliss by love: right as diverse sins are punished with diverse pains according as they be grievous, right so shall they be rewarded with diverse joys in Heaven according as they have been painful and sorrowful to the soul in earth. For the soul that shall come to Heaven is precious to God, and the place so worshipful that the goodness of God suffereth never that soul to sin that shall come there without that the which sin shall be rewarded; and it is made known without end, and blissfully restored by overpassing worship.”

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

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 38

Love, God, Pain, Truth

“The management science approach to organizational decision making is the analog to the rational approach by individual managers. Management science came into being during World War II. At that time, mathematical and statistical techniques were applied to urgent, large-scale military problems that were beyond the ability of individual decision makers. Mathematicians, physicists, and operations researchers used systems analysis to develop artillery trajectories, antisubmarine strategies, and bombing strategies such as salvoing (discharging multiple shells simultaneously). Consider the problem of a battleship trying to sink an enemy ship several miles away. The calculation for aiming the battleship's guns should consider distance, wind speed, shell size, speed and direction of both ships, pitch and roll of the firing ship, and curvature of the earth. Methods for performing such calculations using trial and error and intuition are not accurate, take far too long, and may never achieve success.
This is where management science came in. Analysts were able to identify the relevant variables involved in aiming a ship's guns and could model them with the use of mathematical equations. Distance, speed, pitch, roll, shell size, and so on could be calculated and entered into the equations. The answer was immediate, and the guns could begin firing. Factors such as pitch and roll were soon measured mechanically and fed directly into the targeting mechanism. Today, the human element is completely removed from the targeting process. Radar picks up the target, and the entire sequence is computed automatically.”

Richard L. Daft (1964) American sociologist

Source: Organization Theory and Design, 2007-2010, p. 500

War, World, Error, Mathematics

“All these flat earth guys!… Here's the Hovind theory on the flat earth… I suspect, I do not know this, I just have a sneaking suspicion that some atheists someplace have got in a club together to say "Hey, let's start pushing this idea that the earth is flat, and let's see if the Christians fall for it." They've done that several times before over the last hundred years, spread some stupid idea and sometimes a lot of Christians do fall for it… And then they'll use that to sit around and laugh and say "Wow, look at how stupid these Bible-believers are!"”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

I think this whole flat earth thing is another one of those. Dr. Kent Hovind Q/A - Atheism/Evolution Questions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiftK13Qwl0, Youtube (July 26, 2015)

Stupidity, Guy, Idea, Thinking

“Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 1. Why Are People?

Sun

“You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.”

John Buchan book The Power-House

Source: The Power-House (1916), Ch. 3 "Tells of a Midsummer Night"

Thinking

“Imagine the joy of living in a world without fear! No animals would harm you. Even the mosquitoes would not bite. All the animals would desire your company and come to you as you walk in the garden. I imagine that Cain and Abel had pet dinosaurs to ride around outside the Garden. One day God will restore the earth to the pre-Flood Garden of Eden conditions and let His faithful servants rule and reign with Him for a thousand years!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 48-49

God, World, Fear, Faith

“The idea that we can just keep growing forever on a finite planet is totally imbecilic…. Julian Simon, a professor of junkmail marketing, and his kind, think technology will solve everything…. We can use up the Earth then we can just jump into spaceships and fly somewhere else…. Technology does nothing to solve problems of biodiversity or living space or arable cropland…. Fresh water and arable cropland are finite resources…. We are already far beyond what we can support sustainably…. The provincial view you get from someone living in some wealthy American East Coast city is wildly different from reality. Most of the world is tropical, hungry and poor. Visit the developing world and southern hemisphere and you get a very different view of reality.”

Paul R. Ehrlich (1932) American scientist and environmentalist

Paul Ehrlich and the population bomb

World, Idea, Support, Problem

“Her green plastic watering can
For a fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

Fake Plastic Trees
Lyrics, The Bends (1995)

Water

“Men left their strange hobbies on Earth and Venus and projected themselves into the pattern. Their entire personalities were merged with the texture of space itself. Through science, they reached immortality.
It was a one-way passage.
They did not return. Each Involute carried thousands or even millions of people. There they were, not dead, not living. How they exulted or wept in their transubstantiation, no one left could say. Only this could be said: man had gone, and a great emptiness was fallen over Earth.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

“Old Hundredth” p. 162
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Men, People, Way, Science

“The rational soul in a certain manner possesses the excellence of infinity and eternity. If this were not the case, it would never characteristically incline toward the infinite. Undoubtedly this is the reason that there are none among men who live contentedly on earth and are satisfied with merely temporal possessions.”

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) Italian philosopher

Source: Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495), p. 202

Men, Soul

“Once and for all
the idea of glorious victories
won by the glorious army
must be wiped out
Neither side is glorious
On either side they're just frightened men messing their pants
and they all want the same thing
Not to lie under the earth
but to walk upon it
without crutches”

Peter Weiss Marat/Sade

Roux, act 1, scene 19 (p. 45)
Marat/Sade (1963)

Men, Lie, Idea, Victory

“I have been overcome by the beauty and richness of our life together, those early mornings setting out, those evenings gleaming with rivers and lakes below us, still holding the last light. … Those fields of daisies we landed on, and dusty fields and desert stretches. Memories of many skies and earths beneath us — many days, many nights of stars.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

War Within and Without (1980)

Life, Beauty, Star, Light

“There is no difference whether a person stand at the centre of the earth or at the highest point of the ninth sphere… he is no further away from God in the one case, or nearer to Him in the other; those only approach Him who obtain a knowledge of Him; while those who remain ignorant of Him recede from Him. …I shall further elucidate… what constitutes the difference in our perception of God.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part I

God, Knowledge, Personality

“We have looked first at man with his vanities and greed and his problems of a day or a year; and then only, and from this biased point of view, we have looked outward at the earth he has inhabited so briefly and at the universe in which our earth is so minute a part. Yet these are the great realities, and against them we see our human problems in a different perspective. Perhaps if we reversed the telescope and looked at man down these long vistas, we should find less time and inclination to plan for our own destruction.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91

Problem, Reality, Universe, Time

“We visited Meudon [c.1938] to see Hans Arp and though, to our disappointment, he was not there and his wife, Sofie Täuber showed us his studio. It was very quiet in the room so that one was aware of the movement in the forms... I thought of the poetic idea in [Hans] Arp's sculptures. I had never had any first-hand knowledge of the Dadaist movement, so that seeing his work for the first time freed me of many inhibitions and this helped me to see the figure in landscape with new eyes... Perhaps in freeing himself from material demands his idea transcended all possible limitations. I began to imagine the earth rising and becoming human.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Source: 1961 - 1975, Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography', 1970, p. 283

Disappointment, Imagination, Idea, Knowledge

“The cold north wind which bows to earth
The lightness of the willow's birth
Bends not the mountain cedar trees;
Folding their branches from the breeze,
They stand as if they could defy
The utmost rage of storm and sky.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Canto I
The Troubadour (1825)

Mountain, Birth, Tree, Light

“Settle it therefore in your minds, as a maxim never to be effaced or forgotten, that atheism is an inhuman, bloody, ferocious system, equally hostile to every useful restraint and to every virtuous affection; that, leaving nothing above us to excite awe, nor round us to awaken tenderness, it wages war with heaven and with earth: its first object is to dethrone God, its next to destroy man.”

Robert Hall (1764–1831) British Baptist pastor

Rev. Robert Hall, sermon to Baptist meeting, Cambridge, quoted in [1843, The Baptist Library: a republication of standard Baptist works, 2, Charles George Sommers, William R. Williams, Levi L. Hill, 108, http://books.google.com/books?id=CgxMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA108]

God, Hostility, War

“Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and sinner! When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken-He is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non-professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later. They came here, organized the raw material, and arranged in their order the herbs of the field, the trees, the apple, the peach, the plum, the pear, and every other fruit that is desirable and good for man; the seed was brought from another sphere, and planted in this earth. The thistle, the thorn, the brier, and the obnoxious weed did not appear until after the earth was cursed. When Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, their bodies became mortal from its effects, and therefore their offspring were mortal…It is true that the earth was organized by three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael, these three forming a quorum, as in all heavenly bodies, and in organizing element, perfectly represented in the Deity, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 1:50-51 (April 9, 1852)
This concept is commonly referred to as the "Adam–God theory."
1850s

Men, God, World, Tree

“At the core of the Perennial Philosophy we find four fundamental doctrines.
First: the phenomenal world of matter and of individualized consciousness — the world of things and animals and men and even gods — is the manifestation of a Divine Ground within which all partial realities have their being, and apart from which they would be non-existent.
Second: human beings are capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground by inference; they can also realize its existence by a direct intuition, superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate knowledge unites the knower with that which is known.
Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit.
Fourth: man’s life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify himself with his eternal Self and so to come to unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita (1944)

Life, Men, God, World

“Not that the earth doth yield
In hill or dale, in forest or in field,
A rarer plant.”

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544–1590) French writer

First Week, Third Day. Compare: "Come live with me, and be my love; And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dales and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields", Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)

“Whether we speak of the cedar, the oak, the lichens, or the grasses, all equally derive their support from the elements afforded by the mineral world, which, in its widest sense, includes not only the solid earth, but its waters, and all its fiuids—its atmosphere, and all its gases.”

Gideon Mantell (1790–1852) British scientist and obstetrician

Vol. 1
The Wonders of Geology (1839)

World, Support, Sense, Grass

“I was invited to come here to speak about my idea of art, which is to enlarge the effectivity of art beyond the idea of art as coming out of art history — an art idea which contains the well-known disciplines like sculpture, architecture, painting, music, dancing, poetry and so on. I would like to declare why I feel that it's now necessary to establish a new kind of art, able to show the problems of the whole society, of every living being — and how this new discipline — which I call social sculpture — can realize the future of humankind. It could be a guarantee for the evolution of the earth as a planet, establish conditions for other planetarians too, and you can control it with your own thinking.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Source: 1970's, Joseph Beuys... Public Dialogue' 1974, p. 5; Lead paragraph of article

Feeling, Thinking, Idea, Problem

“If an apple is magnified to the size of the earth, then the atoms in the apple are approximately the size of the original apple.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

volume I; lecture 1, "Atoms in Motion"; section 1-2, "Matter is made of atoms"; p. 1-3
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

“The interior of the earth is extremely hot - several million degrees.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

From interview he gave to Conan O'Brien in The Tonight Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns_4pzfOSTc on 11th November 2009. The real temperature in the inner core is about 9032 - 10832 ºF (5000-6000 ºC). Quotes from Interviews

“Then there are those proverbial “bird brains” of the barnyard, chickens, surely the most maligned and abused animal on the face of the earth, and—just as surely—among the brightest, most social birds we'll find anywhere. … Chickens not only are capable of learning, they are also capable of teaching one another. It turns out that chickens are not as dumb as popular mythology makes them out to be.”

Tom Regan book Empty Cages

Source: Empty Cages (2004), Ch. 6

Bird, Learning, Animals

“So listen to them, heed them: Who never touch the earth, can never be in heaven.”

Adam Mickiewicz book Dziady

Bo słuchajcie i zważcie na siebie: Kto nie dotknął ziemi ni razu, ten nigdy nie może być w niebie. Part two. Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) http://www.ap.krakow.pl/nkja/literature/polpoet/mic_fore.htm

“The creation mandate was precisely the requirement that man subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it. There is not one word of Scripture to indicate or imply that this mandate ever was revoked. There is every word of Scripture to declare that this mandate must and shall be fulfilled. Those who attempt to break it shall themselves be broken.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 14

Exercises

“Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way. The visuals are grubby and drab. The characters are unkempt and have rotten teeth. Breathing tubes hang from their noses like ropes of snot. The soundtrack sounds like the boom mike is being slammed against the inside of a 55-gallon drum. The plot. … Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in The Fugitive. I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/battlefield-earth-2000 of Battlefield Earth (12 May 2000) Reviews, Half-star reviews

Hostility, Way, Time, Training

“And sun and moon and starry fires and earth and air and sea
Are creatures from the deep let loose who pause in ecstasy,
Or wing their wild and heavenly way until again they find
The ancient deep and fade therein, enraptured, bright and blind.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

Way, Sun, Sea

“Some people seem to think that if the animals were not eaten they would multiply so rapidly as to overrun the earth. Is it not true that the more beef there is consumed the more there is raised? These people do not understand that there are men in the business who have made an effort to increase their stock by forced means.”

Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish (1844–1936) German religious movement founder

Source: Mazdaznan Dietetics and Cookery Book (1913), p. 197

Men, People, Understanding, Business

“The closed economy of the future might similarly be called the 'spaceman' economy, in which the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything, either for extraction or for pollution, and in which, therefore, man must find his place in a cyclical ecological system”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1960s, The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth, 1966, p. 8

Future

“I want to defend fracking under the right circumstances… I want to defend this stuff. And you know, I'm already at odds with the most organized and wildest [of the environmental movement]. They come to my rallies and they yell at me and, you know, all the rest of it. They say, 'Will you promise never to take any fossil fuels out of the earth ever again?”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

No. I won't promise that. Get a life, you know. Private meeting with the Building Trades Union (9 September 2015), WikiLeaks. Quoted in "Clinton to environmentalists: 'Get a life'" http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-to-environmentalists-get-a-life/article/2604626 by John Siciliano, Washington Examiner (15 October 2016). Attributed

Life

“The comparison here implied between the actions of one of the higher animals and of one so low in the scale as an earth-worm, may appear far-fetched; for we thus attribute to the worm attention and some mental power, nevertheless I can see no reason to doubt the justice of the comparison.”

Charles Darwin book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms

Source: The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881), Chapter 1: Habits of Worms, pp. 24-25. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=39&itemID=F1357&viewtype=image

Justice, Appearance, Animals

“Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations.”

Steve Allen (1921–2000) American comedian, actor, musician and writer

Funny People (1981)

Life, Thinking, Laughter

“Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.”

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

Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 77–83.

“It’s an old story, perhaps the oldest on earth,” Joan said. “The sky rumbles, the clouds congeal, the sun spasms. Is that a saint I see on high? An angel? The Lord God Jehovah himself? Now a holy voice booms down, instructing the poor prophet to grab a sword and thrust it into a fellow human, or perhaps a hundred fellow humans, or even a million if the cause is sufficiently sacred. The prophet never talks back. The tradition existed before me. It flourishes to this day. The sword, the blood, the freshly created corpses littering the battlefield, exuding the stink of epiphany.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 10 (p. 243)

God, Angels, Sun

“As a young man, Bill Clinton was one of thousands of leftist students who benefited from KGB funds, earning one of those trips to the USSR which were the preferred means for the recruitment of Soviet agents in the universities of the West. In the 60s, that would be deterrent enough for any application for town mayor of the interior. In the 90s, after three decades of Gramscian cultural revolution, the dangerous links did not prevent Clinton from being elected US president with the support of the American Communist Party. Thanks to a well-calculated "politically correct" speech, the new ruler became an idol of the left, which moved heaven and earth to keep him in office despite a range of charges, including sexual frivolities, financial imbroglios and a multitude of small Watergates, including something perfectly serious and terrifying: the suspicion of favoring Chinese nuclear espionage. The well-thinking press resisted any investigation of the matter.”

Olavo de Carvalho (1947) Brazilian journalist, essayist and professor of philosophy

Censored article, originally to República Magazine - Clinton, a guerra e a China http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/textos/clinton.htm (2 May 1999)

Support, Thinking, Universe

“I think there are too damn many institutions on the face of the earth as it is. Robert Graves said: 'As soon as women organize themselves in the male way with societies, memberships and rules, everything goes wrong.' I think that applies to artists, too. The artist stands for everything against institutions.. [Rosalyn Drexler reacted: 'Institutions and clear thought are opposites. You can't have one with the other']. Right! Institution to me means authority, coercion, mindlessness, bureaucracy; it means the Pentagon, the CIA, the army, organized denominational religion, prisons, mental hospitals.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

n.p.
1950 - 1971, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists' - Rosalyn Drexler with Elaine de Kooning (1971)

Women, Religion, Way, Thinking

“I heard them hymn his name--his power,--
I heard them, and I smiled;
How could they say the earth was ruled
By but a sleeping child?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

L’Amore Dominatore from Literary Souvenir, 1826
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Smile, Sleep

“Lift thyself up, look. around, and see something higher and brighter than earth, earthworms, and earthly darkness.”

Jean Paul (1763–1825) German novelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 620.

“You are invited to come to see the Earth turn, tomorrow, from three to five, at Meridian Hall of the Paris Observatory.”

Léon Foucault (1819–1868) French physicist

Invitation cards which he sent out to the scientists of Paris, to witness his famous pendulum experiment on 3 February 1851, as quoted in Pendulum : Léon Foucault and the Triumph of Science (2003) by Amir D. Aczel

“Today I got this desire, and tomorrow I will get that one; all these riches are mine, and soon I will have even more. Already I have killed these enemies, and soon I will kill the rest. I am the lord, the enjoyer, successful, happy, and strong, noble, and rich, and famous. Who on earth is my equal?”

Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

Sources, Veda Vyasa Maharshi

Strong, Success, Happiness

“Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness, as you confess those invaded by the Stamp Act to be. We claim them from a higher source—from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.”

John Dickinson (1732–1808) American politician

From An Address to the Committee of Correspondence in Barbados (1766), ‘Of the Right to Freedom: and of Traitors’, as contained in A Library of American Literature: Literature of the revolutionary period, 1765-1787, ed. Edmund Clarence Stedman, C. L. Webster (1888), p. 176

Law, Nature, Happiness