Quotes about exhaust
page 4

Sri Aurobindo photo

“Suffer yourself to be tempted within so that you may exhaust in the struggle your downward propensities.”

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

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Karma

Herbert Spencer photo
Michael Moorcock photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Montesquieu photo

“[The Ottoman Empire] whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.”

Montesquieu (1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker

No. 19. (Usbek writing to Rustan)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

Sri Aurobindo photo

“I do not care a button about having my name in any blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known and a 'leader'. Then, again, I don't believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom' and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their crest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere… or it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence. It is what has happened to the 'religions' and is the reason of their failure. If I tolerate a little writing about myself, it is only to have a sufficient counter-weight in that amorphous chaos, the public mind, to balance the hostility that is always aroused by the presence of a new dynamic Truth in this world of ignorance. But the utility ends there and too much advertisement would defeat that object. I am perfectly 'rational', I assure you, in my methods and I do not proceed merely on any personal dislike of fame. If and so far as publicity serves the Truth, I am quite ready to tolerate it; but I do not find publicity for its own sake desirable.”

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

October 2, 1934
India's Rebirth

Paul Blobel photo

“Our men taking part in the executions suffered more from nervous exhaustion than those who were to be shot.”

Paul Blobel (1894–1951) German SS officer and Holocaust perpetrator

Quoted in "Minister of death: the Adolf Eichmann story" - Page 131 - by Quentin James Reynolds, Zwy Aldouby - 1960.

Peter Greenaway photo

“Is this a book exhausted from too much reading? Or too little reading?”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

From the fourth book, "The Book of Impotence"
The Pillow Book

Richard Evelyn Byrd photo

“Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.”

Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888–1957) Medal of Honor recipient and United States Navy officer

Source: Alone (1938), CH. 7

David Wood photo

“The point is that philosophy is seen to have come full circle, and to have exhausted itself.”

David Wood (1946) British philosopher, born 1946

Source: Philosophy At The Limit (1990), Chapter 5, Nietzsche's Styles, p. 95

Leszek Kolakowski photo
Neil Kinnock photo

“We support the efforts to keep the pits open until exhausted.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

The Scotsman (12 March 1984).

Dennis Miller photo

“Hey folks, tonight I wanna talk about global warming. Now, The World is Hot and Flat Society is growing increasingly hysterical and that indeed is causing me to sweat a little. In the last month or so, I've heard suggestions that those skeptical of Al Gore's spiritual crisis are deniers and one good way to serve the planet would be to have one less kid and I've also read that mankind is 'a virus' and human beings are 'the AIDS of the earth.' Global warming is officially becoming creepy and I can't tell yet if it's facisitc or fetishistic but it's kinda like piercing or tattoos, I don't even wanna get one, because I see how hooked people are and it spooks me. I just find it odd that we've come to a point in history where if I don't concede that if Manhattan will be completely submerged in 2057 I'm thought to be a delusional contrarian by some of my more zealous fellow citizens. I'm sorry Angst Squad, but if we commissioned a public works project (let's call it 'The Manhattan Project') and tried our hardest to submerge Manhattan in the next 50 years, we couldn't pull it off, mainly because it wouldn't be environmentally sound and you guys would hang it up in the permitting process. Simply put, I can't worry about the earth right now because I'm too worried about the world. Why can't I take terrorism as seriously as Al Gore takes global warming? There are times that you think that liberals only fear car bombs if they have leaky exhaust systems. And why am I constantly beaten over the head with 'the delicate balance of nature'? Am I the only one who watches Animal Planet? Every time I turn it on, I see some demented harp seal chucking peguins down his gullet like they were maitre d'Tic-Tacs. To me, nature always appears more unbalanced than Gary Busey with a clogged eustachian tube. Listen, the weather is just like Hilary's explanation for her war vote: we just don't know, do we? We're here to miss our next Tuesday's weather much less the year 2057. Relax, we'll replace oil when we need to. American ingenuity will kick in and the next great fortune will be made. It's not pretty, but it is historically accurate. We need to run out of oil first. That's why I drive an SUV: so we run out of it more quickly. I consider myself at the vanguard of the environmental movement and I think the individuals who insist on driving hybrids are just prolonging our dillemma and I think that's just selfish. Come on, don't you care about our Mother Earth? Don'tcha?”

Dennis Miller (1953) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actor

6/17 The Half Hour News Hour
The Buck Starts Here

Barry Eichengreen photo
Bill Engvall photo
Octavia E. Butler photo
Adolf Eichmann photo

“The war with the Soviet Union began in June 1941, I think. And I believe it was two months later, or maybe three, that Heydrich sent for me. I reported. He said to me: "The Führer has ordered physical extermination." These were his words. And as though wanting to test their effect on me, he made a long pause, which was not at all his way. I can still remember that. In the first moment, I didn't grasp the implications, because he chose his words so carefully. But then I understood. I didn't say anything, what could I say? Because I'd never thought of a … of such a thing, of that sort of violent solution. … Anyway, Heydrich said: "Go and see Globocnik, the Führer has already given him instructions. Take a look and see how he's getting on with his program. I believe he's using Russian anti-tank trenches for exterminating the Jews." As ordered, I went to Lublin, located the headquarters of SS and Police Commander Globocnik, and reported to the Gruppenführer. I told him Heydrich had sent me, because the Führer had ordered the physical extermination of the Jews. … Globocnik sent for a certain Sturmbannführer Höfle, who must have been a member of his staff. We went from Lublin to, I don't remember what the place was called, I get them mixed up, I couldn't say if it was Treblinka or some other place. There were patches of woods, sort of, and the road passed through — a Polish highway. On the right side of the road there was an ordinary house, that's where the men who worked there lived. A captain of the Ordnungspolizei welcomed us. A few workmen were still there. The captain, which surprised me, had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, somehow he seemed to have joined in the work. They were building little wooden shacks, two, maybe three of them; they looked like two- or three-room cottages. Höfle told the police captain to explain the installation to me. And then he started in. He had a, well, let's say, a vulgar, uncultivated voice. Maybe he drank. He spoke some dialect from the southwestern corner of Germany, and he told me how he had made everything airtight. It seems they were going to hook up a Russian submarine engine and pipe the exhaust into the houses and the Jews inside would be poisoned.
I was horrified. My nerves aren't strong enough … I can't listen to such things… such things, without their affecting me. Even today, if I see someone with a deep cut, I have to look away. I could never have been a doctor. I still remember how I visualized the scene and began to tremble, as if I'd been through something, some terrible experience. The kind of thing that happens sometimes and afterwards you start to shake. Then I went to Berlin and reported to the head of the Security Police.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Source: Eichmann Interrogated (1983), p. 75 - 76.

Sri Aurobindo photo
Bill Thompson photo
Maximilien Robespierre photo
Mohammed Alkobaisi photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Octavia E. Butler photo

“There’s no narcotic like exhaustion.”

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 17 (p. 200)

“It would be foolhardy to swell the pages of this book with an exhaustive list of Greco-Hebrew differences. Everyone knows that Homer is very different from the Bible.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Introduction
The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962])

Michelle Obama photo

“And that brings me to the other big lesson that I want to share with you today. It’s a lesson about how to get through those struggles, and that is, instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed. Now, I know that many of you have already dealt with some serious losses in your lives. Maybe someone in your family lost a job or struggled with drugs or alcohol or an illness. Maybe you’ve lost someone you love […]. […] So, yes, maybe you’ve been tested a lot more and a lot earlier in life than many other young people. Maybe you have more scars than they do. Maybe you have days when you feel more tired than someone your age should ever really feel. But, graduates, tonight, I want you to understand that every scar that you have is a reminder not just that you got hurt, but that you survived. And as painful as they are, those holes we all have in our hearts are what truly connect us to each other. They are the spaces we can make for other people’s sorrow and pain, as well as their joy and their love so that eventually, instead of feeling empty, our hearts feel even bigger and fuller. So it’s okay to feel the sadness and the grief that comes with those losses. But instead of letting those feelings defeat you, let them motivate you. Let them serve as fuel for your journey.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Commencement speech for Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep graduates (2015)

David Foster Wallace photo
Miss Shangay Lily photo
St. Vincent (musician) photo

“I like the material, which makes it easy to sort of delve into it, and then also I was too tired to be nervous. I was just happy. The anxiety, the anxious energy was not there, because I was too exhausted.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

On the first public performances of some of the music from her album Actor in an interview for Billboard magazine (20 March 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w53ut9dzhI

Ralph Bunche photo
Honoré de Balzac photo

“To those who have exhausted statecraft, nothing remains but the realm of pure thought.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

A ceux qui ont épuisé la politique, il ne reste plus que la pensée pure.
Source: About Catherine de' Medici (1842), Part II: The Ruggieri's Secret, Ch. V: The Alchemists.

Walter Bagehot photo
Šantidéva photo

“The Spirit of Awakening … is the tree of rest for beings exhausted from wandering on the pathways of mundane existence.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

§ 3.29
Bodhicaryavatara, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life

“Very well, the starting point would be that claim of Professor Quarrey’s, which had been in the news at the beginning of the year, that the country’s greatest export was noxious gas. And who would like to stir up the fuss again? Obviously, the Canadians, cramped into a narrow band to the north of their more powerful neighbors, growing daily angrier about the dirt that drifted to them on the wind, spoiling crops, causing chest diseases and soiling laundry hung out to dry. So she’d called the magazine Hemisphere in Toronto, and the editor had immediately offered ten thousand dollars for three articles.
Very conscious that all calls out of the country were apt to be monitored, she’d put the proposition to him in highly general terms: the risk of the Baltic going the same way as the Mediterranean, the danger of further dust-bowl like the Mekong Desert, the effects of bringing about climactic change. That was back in the news—the Russians had revised their plan to reverse the Yenisei and Ob. Moreover, there was the Danube problem, worse than the Rhine had ever been, and Welsh nationalists were sabotaging pipelines meant to carry “their” water into England, and the border war in West Pakistan had been dragging on so long most people seemed to have forgotten that it concerned a river.
And so on.
Almost as soon as she started digging, though, she thought she might never be able to stop. It was out of the question to cover the entire planet. Her pledged total of twelve thousand words would be exhausted by North American material alone.”

June “A PLACE TO STAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Piero Manzoni photo

“But on her side the Colchian ceases not to foam with hellish poisons and to sprinkle all the silences of Lethe's bough: exerting her spells she constrains his reluctant eyes, exhausting all her Stygian power of hand and tongue.”
Contra Tartareis Colchis spumare venenis cunctaque Lethaei quassare silentia rami perstat et adverso luctantia lumina cantu obruit atque omnem linguaque manuque fatigat vim Stygiam.

Source: Argonautica, Book VIII, Lines 83–87

Agatha Christie photo
Enoch Powell photo
Homér photo

“When a Man's exhausted, wine will build his strength.”

VI. 261 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Thomas Kuhn photo
Cal Ripken, Jr. photo

“I don't know how everyone else feels, but I'm exhausted.”

Cal Ripken, Jr. (1960) American baseball player

Quoted September 05, 1995, on playing in his 2,130th consecutive game equaling Lou Gehrig's record; The Baseball Timeline, Burt Solomon, p. 1018

“We think the more detailed and exhaustive our plans, the more likely the future will actually mirror our vision. But it rarely even comes close.”

Tim Hurson (1946) Creativity theorist, author and speaker

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

Rutherford B. Hayes photo

“Personally I do not resort to force — not even the force of law — to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example — of fashion. Until these resources are exhausted I would not think of force.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

On attempts at an alcohol prohibition amendment, in his Diary (9 October 1883)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“I have devoted exhaustive study to the Protocols of Zion. In the past objection was always made that they were not suited to present day propaganda. In reading them now I find that we can use them very well. The Protocols of Zion are as modern today as they were when published the first time! At noon I mentioned this to the Führer. He believed the protocols to be absolutely genuine!”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

As quoted in The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by Will Eisner, (10/2/2005), p.110; and in Survivors Victims and Perpetrators:, Essays on the Nazi Holocaust https://books.google.com/books/about/Survivors_Victims_and_Perpetrators.html?id=Hyg98sfH3CAC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false by Joel E. Dimsdale, p.311.
Diary excerpts

Willa Cather photo
Franz Kafka photo

“"It cannot be said that we are lacking in faith. Even the simple fact of our life is of a faith-value that can never be exhausted.” “You suggest there is some faith-value in this? One cannot not-live, after all.” “It is precisely in this ‘Cannot, after all’ that the mad strength of faith lies; it is in this negation that it takes on form.”
There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can’t do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you.”

109
Variant translations:
It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

Jean Paul Sartre photo
Anaïs Nin photo
Charles Edward Merriam photo

“This volume is an analysis of the American party system, an account of the structure, processes and significance of the political party, designed to show as clearly as possible within compact limits what the function of the political party is in the community. My purpose is to make this, as far as possible, an objective study of the organization and behavior of our political parties. It is hoped that this volume may serve as an introduction to students and others who wish to find a concise account of the party system; and also that it may serve to stimulate more intensive study of the important features and processes of the party. From time to time in the course of this discussion significant fields of inquiry have been indicated where it is believed that research would bear rich fruit. In the light of broader statistical information than we now have and with the aid of a thorough-going social and political psychology than we now have, it will be possible in the future to make much more exhaustive and conclusive studies of political parties than we are able to do at present. The objective, detailed study of political behavior will unquestionably enlarge our knowledge of the system of social and political control under which we now operate. But such inquiries will call for funds and personnel not now available to me.”

Charles Edward Merriam (1874–1953) American political scientist

Source: The American Party System, 1922, p. v; Preface lead paragraph

Abba Eban photo

“History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”

Abba Eban (1915–2002) Israeli diplomat and politician

Speech in London (16 December 1970); as quoted in The Times [London] (17 December 1970) and in Great Jewish Quotations (1996) by Alfred J. Kolatch, p. 115.

Henry Liddon photo
Michel Foucault photo
Taylor Caldwell photo
George Soros photo

“The bureaucratic method of building an integrated Europe has exhausted its potential.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

"Can Europe Work? A Plan to Rescue the Union" in Foreign Affairs (September/October 1996)

George Bernard Shaw photo
Marino Marini photo
Henri Matisse photo

“I know that Seurat is completely the opposite of a romantic, which I am, but with a good portion of the scientific, of the rationalist, which creates the struggle from which I sometimes emerge the victor, but exhausted.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

In a letter to Camoin, Autumn 1914; as quoted in Matisse on Art, Jack Flam, University of California Press 1995 p. 275, note 5
1910s

George D. Herron photo
Nostradamus photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
George D. Herron photo
Nicolas Chamfort photo

“There is something is common between literary, and above all theatrical, reputations and the fortunes which used of old to be made in the West Indies. In the early days it was almost sufficient to reach those islands to return with incalculable riches; but the very vastness of the fortunes thus obtained was prejudicial to those of the following generation, since the exhausted earth could yield no more.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Il en est un peu des réputations littéraires, et surtout des réputations de théâtre, comme des fortunes qu'on faisait autrefois dans les Iles. Il suffisait presque autrefois d'y passer, pour parvenir à une grande richesse, mais ces grandes fortunes mêmes ont nui à celles de la génération suivante: les terres épuisées n'ont plus rendu si abondamment.
Maximes et Pensées (Van Bever, Paris :1923), #442
Maxims and Considerations, #442

Seneca the Younger photo
Thomas Little Heath photo
Nagarjuna photo

“Although you may spend your life killing,
You will not exhaust all your foes.
But if you quell your own anger,
your real enemy will be slain.”

Nagarjuna (150–250) Indian philosopher

Nagarjuna & Sakya Pandita. (1977). Elegant sayings. Cazadero, California: Dharma Publishing.

“Total actions are a further development of the happening and combine the elements of all art forms, painting music, literature, film, theatre, which have been so infected by the progressive process of cretinisation in our society that any examination of reality has become impossible using these means alone. Total actions are the unprejudiced examination of all the materials that make up reality. Total actions take place in a consciously delineated area of reality with deliberately selected materials. They are partial, dynamic occurrences in which the most varied materials and elements of reality are linked, swapped over, turn on their heads and destroyed. This procedure creates the occurrence. The actual nature of the occurrence depends on the composition of the material and actors′ unconscious tendencies. Anything may constitute the material: people, animals, plants, food, space, movement, noise, smells, light, fire, coldness, warmth, wind, dust, steam, gas, events, sport, all art forms and all art products. All the possibilities of the material are ruthlessly exhausted. As a result of the incalculable possibilities for choices that the material presents to the actor, he plunges into a concentrated whirl of action finds himself suddenly in a reality without barriers, performs actions resembling those of a madman, and avails himself of a fool′s privileges, which is probably not without significance for sensible people. Old art forms seek to reconstruct reality, total actions unfold within reality itself. Total actions are direct occurrences(direct art), not the repetition of an occurrence, a direct encounter between unconscious elements and reality(material). The actor performs and himself becomes material: stuttering, stammering, burbling, groaning, choking, shouting, screeching, laughing, spitting, biting, creeping, rolling about in the material.”

Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist

Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 166 (1966/1972)

Roger Ebert photo
Dana Gioia photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“The no-longer-silent majority is exhausted, sick-and-tired of being racially ramrodded. They've had enough of the pigment burden.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Trump nation tired of racial sadomasochism," http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/trump-nation-tired-of-racial-sadomasochism/ WorldNetDaily.com, March 3, 2016.
2010s, 2016

Samuel Hahnemann photo
Robert Anton Wilson photo

“Every national border in Europe," El Eswad added ironically, "marks the place where two gangs of bandits got too exhausted to kill each other anymore and signed a treaty. Patriotism is the delusion that one of these gangs of bandits is better than all the others.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

The Earth Will Shake: The History of the Early Illuminati (The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles Vol. 1) (1982), p. 100

“[The Taoist priest] said to Chia Jui, "This mirror was made by the Goddess of Disillusionment and is designed to cure diseases resulting from impure thoughts and self-destructive habits. It is intended for youths such as you. But do not look into the right side. Use only the reverse side of the mirror. I shall be back for it in three days and congratulate you on your recovery." He went away, refusing to accept any money.
Chia Jui took the mirror and looked into the reverse side as the Taoist had directed. He threw it down in horror, for he saw a gruesome skeleton staring at him through its hollow eyes. He cursed the Taoist for playing such a crude joke upon him. Then he thought he would see what was on the right side. When he did so, he saw Phoenix standing there and beckoning to him. Chia Jui felt himself wafted into a mirror world, wherein he fulfilled his desire. He woke up from his trance and found the mirror lying wrong side up, revealing the horrible skeleton. He felt exhausted from the experience that the more deceptive side of the mirror gave him, but it was so delicious that he could not resist the temptation of looking into the right side again. Again he saw Phoenix beckoning to him and again he yielded to the temptation. This happened three or four times. When he was about to leave the mirror on his last visit, he was seized by two men and put in chains.
"Just a moment, officers," Chia Jui pleaded. "Let me take my mirror with me."”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

These were his last words.
Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), pp. 89–90

Henry David Thoreau photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Ramanuja photo
Kathy Griffin photo
Bolesław Prus photo
Robert E. Howard photo

“Beware! By Allah the son of Abu Quhafah (Abu Bakr) dressed himself with it (the caliphate) and he certainly knew that my position in relation to it was the same as the position of the axis in relation to the hand-mill. The flood water flows down from me and the bird cannot fly upto me. I put a curtain against the caliphate and kept myself detached from it.
Then I began to think whether I should assault or endure calmly the blinding darkness of tribulations wherein the grown up are made feeble and the young grow old and the true believer acts under strain till he meets Allah (on his death). I found that endurance thereon was wiser. So I adopted patience although there was pricking in the eye and suffocation (of mortification) in the throat. I watched the plundering of my inheritance till the first one went his way but handed over the Caliphate to Ibn al-Khattab after himself.
(Then he quoted al-A`sha's verse):
My days are now passed on the camel's back (in difficulty) while there were days (of ease) when I enjoyed the company of Jabir's brother Hayyan.
It is strange that during his lifetime he wished to be released from the caliphate but he confirmed it for the other one after his death. No doubt these two shared its udders strictly among themselves. This one put the Caliphate in a tough enclosure where the utterance was haughty and the touch was rough. Mistakes were in plenty and so also the excuses therefore. One in contact with it was like the rider of an unruly camel. If he pulled up its rein the very nostril would be slit, but if he let it loose he would be thrown. Consequently, by Allah people got involved in recklessness, wickedness, unsteadiness and deviation.
Nevertheless, I remained patient despite length of period and stiffness of trial, till when he went his way (of death) he put the matter (of Caliphate) in a group and regarded me to be one of them. But good Heavens! what had I to do with this "consultation"? Where was any doubt about me with regard to the first of them that I was now considered akin to these ones? But I remained low when they were low and flew high when they flew high. One of them turned against me because of his hatred and the other got inclined the other way due to his in-law relationship and this thing and that thing, till the third man of these people stood up with heaving breasts between his dung and fodder. With him his children of his grand-father, (Umayyah) also stood up swallowing up Allah's wealth like a camel devouring the foliage of spring, till his rope broke down, his actions finished him and his gluttony brought him down prostrate.
At that moment, nothing took me by surprise, but the crowd of people rushing to me. It advanced towards me from every side like the mane of the hyena so much so that Hasan and Husayn were getting crushed and both the ends of my shoulder garment were torn. They collected around me like the herd of sheep and goats. When I took up the reins of government one party broke away and another turned disobedient while the rest began acting wrongfully as if they had not heard the word of Allah saying:
That abode in the hereafter, We assign it for those who intend not to exult themselves in the earth, nor (to make) mischief (therein); and the end is (best) for the pious ones. (Qur'an, 28:83)
Yes, by Allah, they had heard it and understood it but the world appeared glittering in their eyes and its embellishments seduced them. Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument and if there had been no pledge of Allah with the learned to the effect that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders, and would have given the last one the same treatment as to the first one. Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is no better than the sneezing of a goat.”

Known as the Sermon of ash-Shiqshiqiyyah (roar of the camel), It is said that when Amir al-mu'minin reached here in his sermon a man of Iraq stood up and handed him over a writing. Amir al-mu'minin began looking at it, when Ibn `Abbas said, "O' Amir al-mu'minin, I wish you resumed your Sermon from where you broke it." Thereupon he replied, "O' Ibn `Abbas it was like the foam of a Camel which gushed out but subsided." Ibn `Abbas says that he never grieved over any utterance as he did over this one because Amir al-mu'minin could not finish it as he wished to.
Nahj al-Balagha

Cormac McCarthy photo
Guy De Maupassant photo