Quotes about extreme
page 16

“The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.... Certainly it would be difficult to imagine any committee of relatively young men, of thirty or thirty-five, showing the unbroken childishness, ignorance and lack of humor of the Supreme Court of the United States. The average age of the learned justices must be well beyond sixty, and all of them are supposed to be of finished and mellowed sagacity. Yet their knowledge of the most ordinary principles of justice often turns out to be extremely meager, and when they spread themselves grandly upon a great case their reasoning powers are usually found to be precisely equal to those of a respectable Pullman conductor.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"Advice to Young Men" in Prejudices: Third Series (1922).
1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922)

Imagination, Justice, Learning, Knowledge

“My literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in belief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Letter to George Müller (1923), Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, Mencken: The American Iconoclast, Oxford University Press, (2005) pp. 105-106, first published in Autobiographical Notes, 1941
1920s

Idea, Freedom

“The goals of our education, from nursery school through to adult education, are clear enough. They are to equip children to the best of their ability for a lively, constructive, place in society, and also to fit them to do a job of work. Not one or the other but both. … There is no virtue in producing socially well-adjusted members of society who are unemployed because they do not have the skills. Nor at the other extreme must they be technically efficient robots. Both of the basic purposes of education require the same essential tools. These are basic literacy, basic numeracy, the understanding of how to live and work together, respect for others, respect for the individual. This means requiring certain basic knowledge, and skills and reasoning ability. It means developing lively inquiring minds and an appetite for further knowledge that will last a lifetime. It means mitigating as far as possible the disadvantages that may be suffered through poor home conditions or physical or mental handicap. Are we aiming in the right direction in these matters?”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech https://www.theguardian.com/education/thegreatdebate/story/0,,574645,00.html to Ruskin College, Oxford University (18 October 1976) Prime Minister

School, Home, Understanding, Children

“He is a very weak man, without firm opinions and most unclear in his goals. Unfortunately he is biased in extreme liberal ideas and does not want to accept that in these times a sovereign with such principles quickly digs his own grave. What an upheaval would arise in such a circumstance.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee's impression of Crown Prince Frederick (the future Kaiser Frederick III) from his diary entry of 25 November 1883

Idea, Time

“We would find ourselves pulling out of the European Community straight into the arms of the wild men of the left. The whole country would be plagued with Foot and Benn disease. … The left are not really all that interested in the Common Market. What they want is for Britain to break her treaty obligations and pull out of the Community so that they could impose their own extreme socialist state in Britain.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech in Catterick, Yorkshire (29 May 1975), quoted in The Times (30 May 1975), p. 4
Post-Prime Ministerial

Communication, Country, Disease, Men

“Malaya had a special contribution to make to world peace. One of the difficult problems of the world was to secure peace, freedom, and democratic government in countries inhabited by more than one community. It could not be done by one community seeking to dominate the others, but only by fair dealing and mutual tolerance. He sometimes thought that those who adopted extreme nationalist ideas did so because they had no constructive ideas and because an appeal to race prejudice saved them from an intolerable burden of thought. In his view the variations in the make-up of a community increased its value, and he wished good luck to all the peoples of Malaya in building up a great multi-racial community.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast in Singapore (6 September 1954), quoted in The Times (7 September 1954), p. 7
Leader of the Opposition

Peace, Freedom, Country, Bad luck

“There are some of our own people who still think that the Communists are the left wing of the Socialist movement. They are not. The Socialist movement was a movement for freedom in its widest sense. From the point of view of freedom, Communists are on the extreme right—more reactionary than some of the old tyrannies which we knew in the past. What is the thing for which we fight, for which the men with whom we feel the stir of sympathy throughout the ages have fought? Freedom. But that fight changes from age to age and the freedom that some men fought for may turn out to be tyranny. Communists, concentrating solely on the economic aspects of freedom…have produced the ghastly travesty of Socialism in the lands behind the iron curtain.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Glasgow (10 April 1949), quoted in The Times (11 April 1949), p. 4
Prime Minister

Freedom, Past, People, Fight

“At the one end of the scale are the Communist countries: at the other end the United States of America stands for individual liberty in the political sphere and for the maintenance of human rights. But its economy is based on capitalism, with all the problems which it presents, and with the characteristic extreme inequality of wealth in its citizens. … Great Britain, like the other countries of western Europe, is placed geographically and from the point of view of economic and political theory between these two great continental States. … Our task is to work out a system of a new and challenging kind, which combines individual freedom with a planned economy, democracy with social justice.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast (3 January 1948), quoted in The Times (5 January 1948), p. 4
Prime Minister

Democracy, Justice, Country, Freedom

“I am well aware, that men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told of their duty.”

Edmund Burke book An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs

Source: An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), p. 441

Love, Making love, Men

“Civil freedom, gentlemen, is not, as many have endeavoured to persuade you, a thing that lies hid in the depth of abstruse science. It is a blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation; and all the just reasoning that can bo upon it, is of so coarse a texture, as perfectly to suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy, and of those who are to defend it. Far from any resemblance to those propositions in geometry and metaphysics, which admit no medium, but must be true or false in all their latitude; social and civil freedom, like all other things in common life, are variously mixed and modified, enjoyed in very different degrees, and shaped into an infinite diversity of forms, according to the temper and circumstances of every community. The extreme of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its real fault) obtains no where, nor ought to obtain any where. Because extremes, as we all know, in every point which relates either to our duties or satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. Liberty too must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of restraint it is impossible in any case to settle precisely. But it ought to be the constant aim of every wise public counsel, to find out by cautious experiments, and rational, cool endeavours, with how little, not how much of this restraint, the community can subsist. For liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened. It is not only a private blessing of the first order, but the vital spring and energy of the state itself, which has just so much life and vigour as there is liberty in it. But whether liberty be advantageous or not, (for I know it is a fashion to decry the very principle,) none will dispute that peace is a blessing; and peace must in the course of human affairs be frequently bought by some indulgence and toleration at least to liberty. For as the sabbath (though of divine institution) was made for man, not man for the sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or authority, in its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies of the time, and the temper and character of the people, with whom it is concerned; and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to their theories of subjection. The bulk of mankind on their part are not excessively curious concerning any theories, whilst they are really happy; and one sure symptom of an ill-conducted state, is the propensity of the people to resort to them.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Peace, Time, Freedom, People

“Leaders are thus trapped in a double bind. If they stay in the centre of power, they will have an extremely distorted vision of the world. If they venture to the margins, they will waste too much of their precious time. And the problem will only get worse. In the coming decades, the world will become even more complex than it is today. Individual humans – whether pawns or kings – will consequently know even less about the technological gadgets, the economic currents, and the political dynamics that shape the world. As Socrates observed more than 2,000 years ago, the best we can do under such conditions is to acknowledge our own individual ignorance.”

Yuval Noah Harari book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

World, Problem, Time

“We stand against extremism and we condemn all acts of violence but at the same time you have to give people in our community that are concerned about the threat of Islam, which is a genuine threat, you have to give them an opportunity to have a voice. I share the same fact that Islam is a threat but we completely condemn any acts of violence against innocent people. What has happened over there (Norway) is horrific and will be remembered for the rest of eternity as a disgusting, deranged attack.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

Norway massacre: Police probe killer's links to UK https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14266140 BBC News (26 July 2011) 2011

Time, People, Communication

“In sharp contrast to these intimate references to typically Indian animals are the references to an animal which is restricted to the extreme northwest: the bactrian camel of Afghanistan and beyond. This camel, uSTra, is referred to only in the following verses: … The distribution of these references is restricted only to hymns belonging to the Late Period.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 4 : The Geography of the Rigveda

Animals

“All the trouble that had arisen in Europe had come from a flagrant breach of the undertaking to disarm by all the victors except one. … He knew that there had been horrible atrocities in Germany, and they all deplored and condemned them, but a country passing through a revolution was always liable to ghastly episodes owing to the administration of justice being seized here and there by an infuriated rebel. He was neither a Nazi nor a Fascist nor a Communist. If the Powers succeeded in overthrowing Nazism in Germany, what would follow? Not a Conservative, Socialist or Liberal régime, but extreme Communism. Surely that could not be their objective.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Barmouth (22 September 1933), quoted in The Times (23 September 1933), p. 7
Later life

Justice, Country, Communication

“Some were extremely irresponsible in what they did and said, but we have to recognise it was the largest participation of people in an electoral process ever in Britain and they chose to leave.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Jeremy Corbyn: We'll probably gain power next year https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42411689 BBC News (19 December 2017) 2010s, 2017

People

“A large portion of this country… want to see somebody who can beat Trump. I get that. And there is, you know, a feeling, I think, among certain people that Joe Biden can out-white-man Donald Trump…. I get that beating Donald Trump is extremely, externally important. I get that. But I just hope that that’s the floor and not the ceiling.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Joe Biden Shouldn’t Be President, Democracy Now (20 June 2019)

Country, Hope, People, Thinking

“The onset of the Civil War, the greatest preponderance, the greatest population per capita of millionaires and multimillionaires in this country was in the Mississippi River Valley. It wasn’t in Boston, wasn’t in Chicago, wasn’t in New York. The richest people in this country were slaveholders. Most of our earliest presidents were slaveholders. And the fact that they were presidents is not incidental to the fact that they—to their slaveholding. That was how they built their wealth. That was how Thomas Jefferson built his wealth. That was how George Washington built his wealth. Individual slaves were the equivalent of, say, owning a home today. They were people, but turned into objects of extreme wealth. So, just from the economic perspective, there’s that.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Reparations Are Not Just About Slavery But Also Centuries of Theft & Racial Terror, Democracy Now (20 June 2019)

Home, Country, War, Wealth

“I am very sorry that Andy Coulson has decided to resign as my Director of Communications, although I understand that the continuing pressures on him and his family mean that he feels compelled to do so. Andy has told me that the focus on him was impeding his ability to do his job and was starting to prove a distraction for the Government. During his time working for me, Andy has carried out his role with complete professionalism. He has been a brilliant member of my team and has thrown himself at the job with skill and dedication. He can be extremely proud of the role he has played, including for the last eight months in Government. I wish Andy all the very best for his future, which I am certain will be a successful one.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Resignation of Andy Coulson statement (21 January 2011) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8273786/Andy-Coulson-resignation-David-Camerons-statement.html 2010s, 2011

Family, Time, Understanding, Success

“The Prevent strategy will be targeted against those forms of terrorism which pose the greatest risk to our national security, currently al-Qaeda and those they inspire. But Prevent must also recognise and tackle the insidious impact of non-violent extremism, which can create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and can popularise views which terrorists exploit.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Updated anti-extremism strategy published https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13679360 BBC News (8 June 2011) 2010s, 2011

“The virtue of gratitude is extremely commendable and pleasing in the sight of God, as its opposite is a detestable vice before him. Of which subject, thus speaks St. Bernard: Learn to be thankful for every grace received. Consider diligently the favors heaped upon you, that no gift of God be defrauded of the due return of gratitude and thanksgiving you ought to make, whether the gift be great, middling, or little.”

Bonaventure (1221–1274) franciscan, bishop, cardinal, Doctor of the Church, catholic saint

Life of Christ

God, Gratitude, Making love, Learning

“The adherents of the German Nazi movement reflected a profoundly left-wing footprint not only as social revolutionaries, secularists of political theodicy, and diehard collectivists, but as brothers posturing and fighting for alpha-male dominance. As Nazism developed, it was heavily influenced by the early Utopian socialists, the neo-socialists, and various movements to reform Marxism, opposing any independent political or religious movement that might eclipse its own authority. Extremely hostile towards the aristocracy, Christianity, and capitalism, Nazis considered themselves revolutionaries—radicals determined to bring about a classless society of superior racial egalitarianism bathed in volk socialism. There was nothing traditionally conservative about their movement.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 411

Fight, Hostility

“The child’s desire to have distinctions made in his ideas grew stronger every day. Having learned that things had names, he wished to hear the name of every thing supposing that there could be nothing which his father did not know. He often teased him with his questions, and caused him to inquire concerning objects which, but for this, he would have passed without notice. Our innate tendency to pry into the origin and end of things was likewise soon developed in the boy. When he asked whence came the wind, and whither went the flame, his father for the first time truly felt the limitation of his own powers, and wished to understand how far man may venture with his thoughts, and what things he may hope ever to give account of to himself or others. The anger of the child, when he saw injustice done to any living thing, was extremely grateful to the father, as the symptom of a generous heart. Felix once struck fiercely at the cook for cutting up some pigeons. The fine impression this produced on Wilhelm was, indeed, erelong disturbed, when he found the boy unmercifully tearing sparrows in pieces and beating frogs to death. This trait reminded him of many men, who appear so scrupulously just when without passion, and witnessing the proceedings of other men. The pleasant feeling, that the boy was producing so fine and wholesome an influence on his being, was, in a short time, troubled for a moment, when our friend observed, that in truth the boy was educating him more than he the boy.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Book VIII – Chapter 1
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

Time, Cooking, Anger, Understanding

“The anti‐Semite understands nothing about modern society. He would be incapable of conceiving of a constructive plan; his action cannot reach the level of the methodical; it remains on the ground of passion. To a long‐term enterprise he prefers an explosion of rage analogous to the running amuck of the Malays. His intellectual activity is confined to interpretation; he seeks in historical events the signs of the presence of an evil power. Out of this spring those childish and elaborate fabrications which give him his resemblance to the extreme paranoiacs. In addition, anti‐Semitism channels evolutionary drives toward the destruction of certain men, not of institutions. An anti‐Semitic mob will consider it has done enough when it has massacred some Jews and burned a few synagogues. It represents, therefore, a safety valve for the owning classes, who encourage it and thus substitute for a dangerous hate against their regime a beneficent hate against particular people. Above all this naive dualism is eminently reassuring to he anti‐Semite himself. If all he has to do is to remove Evil, that means that the Good is already given.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Anti-Semite and Jew

He has no need to seek it in anguish, to invent it, to scrutinize it patiently when he has found it, to prove it in action, to verify it by its consequences, or, finally, to shoulder he responsibilities of the moral choice be has made. It is not by chance that the great outbursts of anti‐Semitic rage conceal a basic optimism. The anti‐Semite as cast his lot for Evil so as not to have to cast his lot for Good. The more one is absorbed in fighting Evil, the less one is tempted to place the Good in question. One does not need to talk about it, yet it is always understood in the discourse of the anti‐Semite and it remains understood in his thought. When he has fulfilled his mission as holy destroyer, the Lost Paradise will reconstitute itself. For the moment so many tasks confront the anti‐Semite that he does not have time to think about it. He is in the breach, fighting, and each of his outbursts of rage is a pretext to avoid the anguished search for the Good.
Pages 31-32
Anti-Semite and Jew (1945)

Hate, Understanding, People, Spring

“The first attempt of a democracy which includes the previously disfranchised poor is to redistribute wealth and income, and this is exactly what the black South attempted. The theory is that the wealth and the current income of the wealthy ruling class does not belong to them entirely, but is the product of the work and striving of the great millions; and that, therefore, these millions ought to have a voice in its more equitable distribution; and if this is true in modern countries, like France and England and Germany, how much more true was it in the South after the war where the poorest class represented the most extreme case of theft of labor that the world can conceive; namely, chattel slavery?”

W.E.B. Du Bois book Black Reconstruction

Source: Black Reconstruction in America (1935), p. 604

Democracy, Country, War, Wealth

“I met Jurek many years ago when he was only little older than his beloved grandson now. And he was just as nice and at the same time extremely handsome!”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Kika Szaszkiewiczowa, an artist and Kraków cabaret circles personality, in an entry on her blog http://www.szaszkiewiczowa.eu/sto-lat-sto-lat/.

Time

“He was an extremely direct man, spontaneous in dealing with other people, he did not care about keeping distance between him as the boss and co-workers. At the very beginning he informed me that he was on first name terms with everyone, proposing the same to me as well. Of course, I willingly (and proudly) accepted this situation.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Irena Nalepa, a psychopharmacologist and long-time collaborator of Jerzy Vetulani. Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017). O mentorze, przyjacielu i niepokornym wirtuozie naukowej narracji http://kosmos.icm.edu.pl/PDF/2018/233.pdf (in Polish), Kosmos, 67 (2), s. 233–244, 2018.

People

“Humans are currently the dominant species on earth and exercise a great deal of power and control over nature. But very few believe might makes right, so the fact that we have greater power cannot enter into a justification of our use and treatment of animals. Rather, where other beings are under our power, we should feel obligated to show self-restraint and to act out of mercy and compassion. We cannot avoid causing harm to other beings in the process of living our own lives. Nor does morality consist in trying to be perfect and pure. But we can adopt an orientation toward minimizing the amount of harm we cause and taking full responsibility for it, seeing it for what it is. To justify animal experimentation is to start at one end of a continuum. Much of what we do will be morally acceptable (in our eyes), and we will chip away at the extremity where what we do shades into cruelty. I no longer believe that a general moral justification of animal experimentation can be given.”

Michael Allen Fox (1940)

" Animal Experimentation: A Philosopher's Changing Views https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1609&context=bts" (1987), in Between the Species, vol. 3, iss. 2, p. 59.

Nature, Animals, Self-confidence, Perfection

“He had been an extremely thorough and patient Judge with unremitting industry and keen sense to discover truth and do justice. Law, liberty and justice were upheld with consummate ability and independence by His Lordship. On public controversies, some of his judgments are thought provoking. He disputed the correctness of any attempt to whittle down fundamental rights while making it clear that the right to property was not forever sacrosanct. The distinction between the law and order and the public order, has been brought out succinctly in his reported judgments.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

By S.G.Page
Speech By Mr. S. G. Page, Government Pleader, High Court, Bombay, Made OnMonday, 28 September, 1992

Justice, Law, Truth, Sense

“It is extremely gratifying that you remained steadfast on the course charted by the Father of the Nation when the fury of tempest of chauvinism had either uprooted or shaken many a stalwart. We have established a secular polity in our country in which no distinction based on religion will have a place. By your words and actions you have fortified this secular ideal. Now in the form of Vice President and also as an incumbent of our Democratic Republic we will get your guidance.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Atal Bihari Vajpayee in: p. iv.
About Zakir Hussain, Quest for Truth (1999)

Religion, Country

“The natural leaning of our minds is in favour of prisoners; and in the mild manner in which the laws of this country are executed, it has rather been a subject of complaint by some that the Judges have given way too easily to mere formal objections on behalf of prisoners, and have been too ready on slight grounds to make favourable representations of their cases. Lord Hale himself, one of the greatest and best men who ever sat in judgment, considered this extreme facility as a great blemish, owing to which more offenders escaped than by the manifestation of their innocence.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

We must, however, take care not to carry this disposition too far, lest we loosen the bands of society, which is kept together by the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment. It has been always considered, that the Judges in our foreign possessions abroad were not bound by the rules of proceeding in our Courts here. Their laws are often altogether distinct from our own. Such is the case in India and other places. On appeals to the Privy Council from our colonies, no formal objections are attended to, if the substance of the matter or the corpus delicti sufficiently appear to enable them to get at the truth and justice of the case.
King v. Suddis (1800), 1 East, 314. Lord Kenyon is later reported to have written, "I once before had occasion to refer to the opinion of a most eminent Judge, who was a great Crown lawyer, upon the subject, I mean Lord Hale; who even in his time lamented the too great strictness which had been required in indictments, and which had grown to be a blemish and inconvenience in the law; and observed that more offenders escaped by the over easy ear given to exceptions in indictments than by their own innocence". King v. Airey (c. 1800), 2 East, 34.

Law, Country, Nature, Way

“He has the quickness, he has the ability on the ball. Thiago Silva is an incredible player and extremely intelligent.”

Thiago Silva (1984) Brazilian footballer

José Mourinho (Chelsea), 2014 http://www.sambafoot.com/fr/informations/58637_jose_mourinho_est_fan_de_thiago_silva.html From coaches and club directors

Intelligence

“He was an extremely humane and approachable officer and was the epitome of a gentleman.”

Sam Manekshaw (1914–2008) First Field marshal of the Indian Army

Comment by Major General Shubi D Sood in “A soldier's general” in Mumbai Mirror.

“Physics by its very nature requires extreme specialization on the part of its students. Its conclusions, which must eventually predict numbers for the results of actual measurements, are best expressed in mathematical formulae. This has the disadvantage of making the subject well-nigh unintelligible to the layman. There are unfortunately few teachers who are able to surmount this handicap. Professor Raman has written a book which avoids this pitfall and thus should give the lay reader an opportunity of penetrating at least part of the way into the mysteries of this interesting and important science.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Francis Low, a distinguished theoretical physicist then working at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, wrote in the introduction to this book quoted in Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman:A Legend of Modern Indian Science, 22 November 2013, Official Government of India's website Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm,

Nature, Teachers, Books, Mathematics

“We are still on yeno lai and baaro nanna magane (Kannada terms for extreme familiarity) terms with him: if we ever forget and address him as Saar (Sir) since he is a rich superstar and we are all poor, ordinary men, he gets most hurt and offended.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

S H Prakash, his friend
You can see God in him at times (22 December 1999)

Forgetting, Hurt, Men

“He is a legend in every sense of the term. He is a writer, singer, director, lyricist and an actor par-excellence. We are extremely honoured to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Kamal Haasan.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

Shyam Benegal, after Kamala hasan was selected for the honour of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Mumbai Film Festival for 50 years in the Indian film industry, in Kamal Haasan to be Bestowed with Lifetime Achievement Award (15 September 2013) http://www.ibtimes.co.in/articles/506113/20130915/kamal-haasan-lifetime-achievement-award-film-festival.htm

Sense

“Many consider that Shostakovich is the greatest 20th-century composer. In his 15 symphonies, 15 quartets, and in other works he demonstrated mastery of the largest and most challenging forms with music of great emotional power and technical invention…All his works are marked by emotional extremes – tragic intensity, grotesque and bizarre wit, humour, parody, and savage sarcasm.”

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Russian composer and pianist

Michael Kennedy The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (1980) p. 593.

Music

“He was never interested in conventional beauty. Sober, pinched, reflective, lined and melancholy, his portraits remind us of that. But how many American artists said more about the sense of being in the world? Eakins was that extreme rarity, an artist who refused to tell a lie even in the service of his own imagination.”

Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) American painter

Robert Hughes, "Thomas Eakins," Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists (1990).

Imagination, Beauty, Lie, Sense

“Under what circumstances is continuing to live like this the best option? Only if you have no belief that any alternative is possible. Only then. The celebrities feel better for taking part. The callers feel better for donating. The Haitians get a bit of aid that they should rightly have been given under the covenant of brotherhood that exists between us all, and we all just smile and pretend there’s no alternative. There is another way. There is the way. To live in accordance with truth, to accept we are on a planet that has resources and people on it. We have to respect the planet so we can use the resources to nourish the people. Somehow this simple equation has been allowed to become extremely confusing.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Smile, People, Truth, Way

“Heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life but few had the pleasure of truly knowing him. He was a down to earth, generous, kind-hearted, life-loving, unselfish individual who was extremely inspirational to many.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

Kim Ledger, father of Heath Ledger, in an on-camera public statement after learning of his son's death, in Perth, on January 23, BBC News, Entertainment|publisher=bbc.co.uk (BBC)|date=January 23, 2008|accessdate=2008-08-23}}
[Kareen Wynter, Actor Heath Ledger Dead at 28, http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/22/heath.ledger.dead/index.html#cnnSTCText, CNN, Web, cnn.com (Time Warner), January 22, 2008, Entertainment, 2008-08-22]

People, Heart, Pleasure, Love

“Anti-feminism is also operating whenever any political group is ready to sacrifice one group of women, one faction, some women, some kinds of women, to any element of sex-class oppression: to pornography, to rape, to battery, to economic exploitation, to reproductive exploitation, to prostitution. There are women all along the male-defined political spectrum, including both extreme ends of it, ready to sacrifice some women, usually not themselves, to the brothels or the farms. The sacrifice is profoundly anti-feminist; it is also profoundly immoral…”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

"Anti-feminism," Right Wing Women (1983), pp. 230-231.

Sex, Women

“But Watson had one towering advantage over all of them: in addition to being extremely clever he had something important to be clever about.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

This is an advantage which scientists enjoy over most other people engaged in intellectual pursuits, and they enjoy it at all levels of capability. To be a first-rate scientist it is not necessary (and certainly not sufficient) to be extremely clever, anyhow in a pyrotechnic sense. One of the great social revolutions brought about by scientific research has been the democratization of learning. Anyone who combines strong common sense with an ordinary degree of imaginativeness can become a creative scientist, and a happy one besides, in so far as happiness depends upon being able to develop to the limit of one's abilities.
1960s, Lucky Jim, 1968

“Men always made crude jokes about people pissing their pants with fear, but in Sokolov’s experience, shitting the pants was more common if it was a straightforward matter of extreme emotional stress. Pants pissing was completely unproductive and suggested a total breakdown of elemental control. Pants shitting, on the other hand, voided the bowels and thereby made blood available to the brain and the large muscle groups that otherwise would have gone to the lower-priority activity of digestion. Sokolov could have forgiven Peter for shitting his pants, but if he had pissed his pants, then it really would have been necessary to get rid of him.”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Day 2
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons

Fear, People, Men

“Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is, apparently, a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader’s mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly trivial. Always the stress is laid upon character. How, we are made to wonder, will Emma behave when Lord Osborne and Tom Musgrave make their call at five minutes before three, just as Mary is bringing in the tray and the knife-case? It is an extremely awkward situation. The young men are accustomed to much greater refinement. Emma may prove herself ill-bred, vulgar, a nonentity. The turns and twists of the dialogue keep us on the tenterhooks of suspense. Our attention is half upon the present moment, half upon the future. And when, in the end, Emma behaves in such a way as to vindicate our highest hopes of her, we are moved as if we had been made witnesses of a matter of the highest importance. Here, indeed, in this unfinished and in the main inferior story, are all the elements of Jane Austen’s greatness. It has the permanent quality of literature. Think away the surface animation, the likeness to life, and there remains, to provide a deeper pleasure, an exquisite discrimination of human values.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader (1925)

Future, Hope, Pleasure, Animals

“But now if the gifted soul be not of taciturn nature, be of vivid, impatient, rapidly productive nature, and aspire much to give itself sensible utterance,—I find that, in this case, the field it has in England is narrow to an extreme; is perhaps narrower than ever offered itself, for the like object, in this world before. Parliament, Church, Law: let the young vivid soul turn whither he will for a career, he finds among variable conditions one condition invariable, and extremely surprising, That the proof of excellence is to be done by the tongue. For heroism that will not speak, but only act, there is no account kept.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

World, Soul, Law, Nature

“I consequently remained long, and in a less degree have always remained, inexpert in anything requiring manual dexterity; my mind as well as my hands, did its work very lamely when it was applied, or ought to have been applied, to the practical details which, as they are the chief interest of life to the majority of men, are also the things in which whatever mental capacity they have, chiefly shows itself: I was constantly meriting reproof by inattention, inobservance, and general slackness of mind in matters of daily life. My father was the extreme opposite in these particulars: his senses and mental faculties were always on the alert; he carried decision and energy of character in his whole manner and into every action of life: and this, as much as his talents, contributed to the strong impression which he always made upon those with whom he came into personal contact. But the children of energetic parents, frequently grow up unenergetic, because they lean on their parents, and the parents are energetic for them.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/36/mode/1up pp. 36–37

Personality, Men, Children, Parent

“My state of mind was not humility, but neither was it arrogance. I never thought of saying to myself, I am, or I can do, so and so. I neither estimated myself highly nor lowly. I did not estimate myself at all. If I thought anything about myself, it was that I was rather backward in my studies, since I always found myself so, in comparison with what my father expected from me. I assert this with confidence, though it was not the impression of various persons who saw me in my childhood. They, as I have since found, thought me greatly and disagreeably self-conceited; probably because I was disputatious, and did not scruple to give direct contradictions to things which I heard said. I suppose I acquired this bad habit from having been encouraged in an unusual degree to talk on matters beyond my age, and with grown persons, while I never had inculcated in me the usual respect for them. My father did not correct this ill-breeding and impertinence, probably from not being aware of it, for I was always too much in awe of him to be otherwise than extremely subdued and quiet in his presence.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/33/mode/1up pp. 33–34

Personality, Age, Study, Self-confidence

“If I had been by nature extremely quick of apprehension, or had possessed a very accurate and retentive memory or were of a remarkably active and energetic character, the trial would not be conclusive; but in all these natural gifts I am rather below than above par; what I could do, could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution: and if I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advantage of a quarter of a century over my contemporaries.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/30/mode/1up pp. 30–31

Nature, Training, Girl, Memory

“There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not. Both classes are extremely unpleasant to meet socially, leaving practically no one in the world whom one cares very much to know.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

Vanity Fair (February 1920)
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/07/two-classes/

World, People

“It is interesting to notice that the extreme pessimist and the extreme optimist agree on at least one point. They both feel that we must sit down and do nothing in the area of race relations. The extreme optimist says do nothing because integration is inevitable. The extreme pessimist says do nothing because integration is impossible. But there is a third attitude that can be taken, namely the realistic position. The realist in this area seeks to combine the truths of two opposites, while avoiding the extremes of both, and so the realist would agree with the optimist that we have come a long, long way in grappling with this problem, but he would balance that by agreeing with the pessimist that we have a long, long way to go before the problem is solved in the United States. And it is this realistic position that I would like to use as a basis for our thinking together as we think of progress and as we think of the future of integration.”

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

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Future, Truth, Problem, Thinking

“Yet the majestic philosophy-science-religion of the ages teaches us that there are beings so much greater and higher than man is, and beings so much smaller and less than he, that in reality he himself in turn stands in his world and cosmos as the one or the other of these extremes to such greater or smaller entities.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Ch 2
Man in Evolution (1941)

Religion, Reality, Age, World

“Stalinism, as we have seen, contains all of the evils of Nazism and Fascism, most of them in extremer form.”

Max Eastman (1883–1969) American activist

Source: Stalin's Russia and the Crisis in Socialism (1940), p. 149

Evil

“It's very beneficial to Mexico that these workers [come to the U. S.]. It relieves a lot of social tension. It empties out the countryside of the poor and the needy. It stops revolution from happening. And it's sending back a tidal wave of money. The remittance money from the United States is the second or third largest source of income in Mexico now. I guess you could argue that we have an extremely generous foreign policy…”

Luis Alberto Urrea (1955) Mexican-American poet

On how migrant workers benefit Mexico in some way in “INTERVIEWS: Luis Alberto Urrea” https://bookpage.com/interviews/8248-luis-alberto-urrea-nonfiction#.XcMKh7lKjcs in BookPage (April 2004)

Money

“It's extremely dangerous trying to resolve political problems outside the framework of the law — first the ‘Rose Revolution', then they'll think up something like blue.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

word play here: "rose" having the colloquial sense of "lesbian" in modern Russian, and "blue" meaning "gay" On the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine and the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia, News conference http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/russia/article405454.ece, (23 December 2004). 2000 - 2005

Problem, Thinking, Law

“In general, any differences between two groups will always be greatly accentuated at the extremes.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 2, “Local, Social, and Business Issues” Chapter 11, “Company Charged with Ethnic Bias in Hiring” (p. 60)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

“I am extremely uncomfortable with routine.”

Scarlet Jei Saoirse (1984) American singer and actress

“In reality, artists are no more courageous or noble or single-minded than the farmers who go to extreme lengths, in extreme weather, to protect their herd. Or a restaurateur who—having waved goodbye to her last customer at midnight—hauls herself out of bed at 4 A.M. the following morning to make sure she’s at the market in time to buy the best produce. Or, for that matter, a master bricklayer who has calloused fingers and an aching back from days spent building a house.”

Will Gompertz (1965) British journalist

Think Like an Artist (2015)

Courage, Time, Housing, Reality

“There was a nation among the nations, which was a sort of elder brother in this family of the oppressed, a prophet in the human tribe. This nation took the initiative of the whole human movement. It went on, saying, "Come!" and the rest followed. As a complement to the fraternity of men, in the Gospel, it taught the fraternity of nations. It spoke by the voice of its writers, of its poets, of its philosophers, of its orators, as by a single mouth, and its words flew to the extremities of the earth, to rest, like tongues of fire, upon the brow of all nations. It presided over the communion of intellects.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Napoleon the Little (1852), Conclusion, Part Second, I
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Family, Men

“The theory of the nature of mathematics is extremely reactionary. We do not subscribe to the fairly recent notion that mathematics is an abstract language based, say, on set theory. In many ways, it is unfortunate that philosophers and mathematicians like Russell and Hilbert were able to tell such a convincing story about the meaning-free formalism of mathematics. In Greek, mathematics simply meant learning, and we have adapted this... to define the term as "learing to decide."”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Mathematics is a way of preparing for decisions through thinking. Sets and classes provide one way to subdivide a problem for decision preparation; a set derives its meaning from decision making, and not vice versa.

C. West Churchman, Leonard Auerbach, Simcha Sadan, Thinking for Decisions: Deductive Quantitative Methods (1975) Preface.
1960s - 1970s

Way, Mathematics, Learning, Nature

“Non-violent resistance activities cannot succeed against an enemy that is able freely to use violence. That's pretty obvious. You can't have non-violent resistance against the Nazis in a concentration camp, to take an extreme case...”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Chronicles of Dissent, December 13, 1989 https://web.archive.org/web/20000829081348/http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/db-8912.html Quotes 1960s–1980s, 1980s

“The idea that Nazism is a more extreme form of conservatism has insinuated its way into popular culture.”

Daniel Hannan (1971) British politician

2010s, Nazism (2014)

Way, Idea

“The desperate policies of panic-driven governments involve throwing huge amounts of money at the economies collapsed in response to the coronavirus threat. Monetary authorities create money and lend it at extremely low interest rates to the major corporations and especially big banks "to get them through the crisis." Government treasuries borrow vast sums to get the collapsed economy back into what they imagine is "the normal, pre-virus economy."”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

Capitalism's leaders are rushing into policy failures because of their ideological blinders.
COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

Money, Imagination

“We (China) are still at a very critical stage in fighting the (2019-nCoV) Coronavirus. International solidarity is extremely important and for that purpose all countries should behave in a responsible manner.”

Zhang Jun (1960) Chinese ambassador

Zhang Jun (2020) cited in " China virus death toll rises to at least 212 as WHO declares global emergency https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/01/31/china-virus-death-toll-rises-to-at-least-212-as-who-declares-global-emergency" on The Star Online, 31 January 2020.

Fight, Country

“It is quite true that, to the best of my judgment, the argumentation which applies to brutes holds equally good of men; and, therefore, that all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of the organism. If these positions are well based, it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which takes place automatically in the organism; and that, to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause of that act.”

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

1870s, On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and Its History (1874)

Men, Feeling, Change

“Is it not apparent that the policy of sanctions involves, I do not say war, but a risk of war? Is it not apparent that that risk must increase in proportion to the effectiveness of the sanctions and also by reason of the incompleteness of the League? Is it not also apparent from what has happened that in the presence of such a risk nations cannot be relied upon to proceed to the last extremity of war unless their vital interests are threatened?”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the 1900 Club at Grosvenor House, London (10 June 1936) on the Italo-Abyssinian War, quoted in The Times (11 June 1936), p. 10
Chancellor of the Exchequer

War

“I take flying saucers extremely seriously; but I deplore pedantry and, like the ancient Toltecs, I find the serious things of life a cause for joy and pleasure rather than for pompous gloom.”

George Adamski (1891–1965) American ufologist

Flying Saucers Have Landed

Pleasure, Joy, Life, Flying

“What we've come to realise is those two extremes - far-right fascism and Islamist extremism - have a symbiotic relationship, where they mutually reinforce the other's very generalised view of the other, and they feed off each other's propaganda.”

Maajid Nawaz (1977) British activist

Extremists and gangsters - good meeting for bad company https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13939227 BBC News (28 June 2011) 2011

“The use of science in the practice of virtue, is considerable: the man who knows the beauty of virtue will follow it, however possible. Knowing the evil of wrong, he will avoid it, however possible. He listens to worthy praise, and keeps his distance from unworthy praise. From this is derived that science has a part in every virtue, and that ignorance has one in every vice. Man who is illiterate and who still practices virtue must be extremely pure, a virtuous being. This is the state of Prophets (PBUH) because God had conveyed goodness to them without they acquiring it from men.”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibid

God, Beauty, Evil, Science

“It could have been extremely boring to write musical scores for only westerns of horror films. It was really exciting for me to work in all these various genres.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

Music

“I have been impressed time and again by the schizophrenic character of many businessmen. They are capable of being extremely far‐sighted and clear‐headed in matters that are internal to their businesses. They are incredibly short sighted and muddle‐headed in mat ters [sic!] that are outside their businesses but affect the possible survival of business in general. This short sightedness is strikingly exemplified in the calls from many businessmen for wage and price guidelines or controls or incomes policies. There is nothing that could do more in a brief period to destroy a market system and replace it by a centrally controlled system than effective governmental control of prices and wages. The short‐sightedness is also exemplified in speeches by business men on social responsibility. This may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the ptirsuit [sic!] of profits is wicked and im moral [sic!] and must be curbed and controlled by external forces. Once this view is adopted, the external forces that curb the market will not be the social consciences, however highly developed, of the pontificating executives; it will be the iron fist of Government bureaucrats. Here, as with price and wage controls, business men seem to me to reveal a suicidal impulse.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

Time, Business, Help, Suicide

“The cloud controls the light.[...]It is the cloud that, holding the sun's rays in a sheaf as a giant holds a handful of spears, strikes the horizon, touches the extreme edge with a delicate revelation of light, or suddenly puts it out and makes the foreground shine.”

Alice Meynell (1847–1922) English publisher, editor, writer, poet, activist

"Cloud", pp. 16–17
The Colour of Life and Other Essays (1896)

Sun, Making love, Light

“A key measure of emotional intelligence is knowing that every virtue taken to its extreme becomes a vice.”

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

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 89

Intelligence

“Trump’s legacy includes an extremist Republican Party that tries to hold on to power by flagrantly undemocratic means, and an opposition pushed toward its own version of extremism.”

George Packer (1960) American journalist and writer

A Political Obituary for Donald Trump (2020)

“In our secret depths, wherever we do our unspoken wishing, either we want life to be tidy, clear, fully understood, contained within definite limits, or we long for it to seem larger, wilder, stranger. Faced with some odd incident, either we wish to cut it down or to build it up.
On this level, below that of philosophies and rational opinions, either we reject or ignore the unknown, the apparently inexplicable, the marvellous and miraculous, or we welcome every sign of them. At one extreme is a narrow intolerant bigotry, snarling at anything outside the accepted world-picture, and at the other is an idiotic credulity, the prey of any glib charlatan. At one end the world becomes a prison, at the other a madhouse.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 8, p. 183

World, Life, Secret

“...my extreme anxiety about the Object of our common sollicitude and my clear and decided conviction, that there is one part of the War, which instead of being postponed and considered in a secondary light, ought to have priority over every other, and requires our most early and our most careful attention; I mean La Vendée. ... This is a War directly against Jacobinism and its principles. It strikes at the Enemy in his weakest and most vulnerable part. At La Vendée with infinitely less Charge, we may make an impression likely to be decisive. This goes to the heart of the Business.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Home Secretary Henry Dundas (8 October 1793), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VII: January 1792–August 1794 (1968), p. 445
1790s

Business, War, Light, Heart

“Radicals and Conservatives are not at all unlike, temperamentally. They want order, organization, efficiency, perfection. The Conservative or Reactionary thinks these can be best obtained by putting and keeping the power in the hands of a small class. He is afraid that an extension of democracy will destroy form and tradition, which he believes are essential to holding any society together. The Radical is so obsessed by the obvious faults of society that he wants to pull everything up by the roots and start all over again, and build a perfect society according to a blueprint. It is interesting that when the extreme Radicals triumph—in a revolution, for instance, as in Russia—they immediately become rigidly conservative, and punish all deviation rigorously. The worst fundamentalists in the world today are the Russian communists.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938), p. 86

Perfection, Thinking, World, Democracy

“One of the most dangerous words is 'extremist'. A person who commits acts of violence is not an 'extremist'; he is a criminal. If he commits those acts of violence with the object of detaching part of the territory of the United Kingdom and attaching it to a foreign country, he is an enemy under arms. There is the world of difference between a citizen who commits a crime, in the belief, however mistaken, that he is thereby helping to preserve the integrity of his country and his right to remain a subject of his sovereign, and a person, be he citizen or alien, who commits a crime with the intention of destroying that integrity and rendering impossible that allegiance. The former breaches the peace; the latter is executing an act of war. The use of the word 'extremist' of either or both conveys a dangerous untruth: it implies that both hold acceptable opinions and seek permissible ends, only that they carry them to 'extremes'. Not so: the one is a lawbreaker; the other is an enemy.The same purpose, that of rendering friend and foe indistinguishable, is achieved by references to the 'impartiality' of the British troops and to their function as 'keeping the peace.'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.
Source: Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (1991), pp. 487-488

Peace, Country, War, Personality

“For the unbroken life of the English nation over a thousand years and more is a phenomenon unique in history. ... Institutions which elsewhere are recent and artificial creations, appear in England almost as works of nature, spontaneous and unquestioned. The deepest instinct of the Englishman—how the word “instinct” keeps forcing itself in again and again!—is for continuity; he never acts more freely nor innovates more boldly than when he most is conscious of conserving or even of reacting. From this continuous life of a united people in its island home spring, as from the soil of England, all that is peculiar in the gifts and the achievements of the English nation, its laws, its literature, its freedom, its self-discipline. ... And this continuous and continuing life of England is symbolised and expressed, as by nothing else, by the English kingship. English it is, for all the leeks and thistles and shamrocks, the Stuarts and the Hanoverians, for all the titles grafted upon it here and elsewhere, “her other realms and territories”, Headships of Commonwealths, and what not. The stock that received all these grafts is English, the sap that rises through it to the extremities rises from roots in English earth, the earth of England's history.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the Royal Society of St George (22 April 1961), quoted in A Nation Not Afraid. The Thinking of Enoch Powell (1965), pp. 145–146

Home, Law, History, Freedom

“This is something that the novel does better than any other art form: reproducing the inner life and the inner experience of another person, particularly extreme forms of consciousness like grief, dreams, drunkenness, spiritual revelations, even insanity. Unlike movies, where we’re always onlookers, in novels we have the experience of being someone else: knowing another person’s soul from the inside. No other art form does that. And I like dealing with particularly intense inner experiences because I think that in many ways, this is what the novel does best.”

Donna Tartt (1963) American writer

On what novels convey to Tartt in “Interview with Donna Tartt” https://medium.com/@Powells/interview-with-donna-tartt-8d86a2438b41 in Medium (2015 Jul 13)

Soul, Personality, Dreams, Art

“Yet another of these useless, pestilential little creatures! All his life the author has suffered from his susceptibility to this kind of female. The commentator has suffered all his life too from the same weakness. Other people derive pleasure from encountering such characters in their reading, but I, because of the harm they have done me in real life, derive only pain. The susceptible author is extremely grateful for the comment!”

Zhiyanzhai

Comment on a scene involving Baoyu with the maid Number Four in chapter 21, as reported and quoted by John Minford in Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography, ed. Kerry Brown, Vol. III (Berkshire Publishing Group, 2017), p. 1109

Pain, Reading, People, Suffering

“No physicist could tolerate religious dogma or extremism, but I have found that Christianity provides answers to the deeper questions about life and purpose which are beyond the range of science to answer.”

Antony Hewish (1924–2021) English physicist and radio astronomer

Antony Hewish Interview https://www.countercurrents.org/ziabari171012.htm (17 October, 2012)

Science, Life, Question

“And sometimes when you're on
You're really fucking on
And your friends they sing along
And they love you
But the lows are so extreme
That the good seems fucking cheap
And it teases you for weeks in its absence”

Jenny Lewis (1976) American actor, singer-songwriter

A Better Son/Daughter
Song lyrics, The Execution of All Things (2003)

Singing, Love

Jenny Lewis (1976) American actor, singer-songwriter

A Better Son/Daughter
Song lyrics, The Execution of All Things (2003)

Singing, Love

“All of this extremely important has already been given to you: it's called life. Make good use.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Tutto ciò di estremamente importante ti è stato già donato: si chiama vita. Fanne buon uso. Source: From the radio show Memories http://www.m2o.it/special/memories-reloaded/ conducted by Prevale

Life

“Strong personality, ingenuity and extreme beauty intrigue the mind, seduce the soul, the senses and dominate your essence.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Forte personalità, creatività ed estrema bellezza intrigano la mente, seducono l'anima, i sensi e dominano la tua essenza.
Source: prevale.net

Soul, Strong, Beauty, Personality

“Extreme beauty, seduces the soul.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'estrema bellezza, seduce l'anima.
Source: prevale.net

Soul, Beauty

“The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous trauma for the human race. It is likely to entail political turbulence every bit as extreme as the economic conditions that prompt it.”

James Howard Kunstler book The Long Emergency

Source: The Long Emergency (2005), Chapter 1, p. 20.

“We now prefer the fantasy…We find comfort in the lies. I was the victim of that for so long. I imbibed everything. It led to a place where I became extremely unhappy. And now I question everything. I believe it’s a responsibility to do it.”

Gabriel Byrne (1950) Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator

On how people forgo truthful living for lies in “Gabriel Byrne: 'There’s a shame about men speaking out. A sense that if you were abused, it was your fault'” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/08/gabriel-byrne-its-an-obscenity-to-tell-innocent-children-theyre-going-to-hell in The Guardian (2020 Nov 8)

Question

“The Industrial Revolution was merely the beginning of a revolution as extreme and radical as ever inflamed the minds of sectarians, but the new creed was utterly materialistic and believed that all human problems could be resolved given an unlimited amount of material commodities.”

Karl Polanyi book The Great Transformation

Source: The Great Transformation (1944), Ch. 3 : "Habitation versus Improvement"

Problem

“I'm extremely gratified that people have heard and are taking ownership of Black Lives Matter. People now know that in their respective industries and countries, they have the responsibility to ensure that Black people are respected, protected and affirmed.”

Opal Tometi (1984) Nigerian–American writer, strategist and community organizer

Source: Black Lives Matter Was Always Designed to Be a Global Movement, Vice] (7 July 2020)

Country, People

“I call on the U.S.A. to be with us. It’s very important when a regime is destroying everything in Belarus, destroying mass media, destroying all the organizations, it’s extremely important to support all those people.”

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (1982) Belarusian politician and educator

"Belarusian Opposition Leader Hopes to Spur Action During Washington Visit" in Voice of America https://www.voanews.com/a/europe_belarusian-opposition-leader-hopes-spur-action-during-washington-visit/6208416.html (19 July 2021)

Support, People

“Preventing and fighting corruption and waste is an important, urgent and long-term task of extreme difficulty and complexity. To enhance the efficiency of the work, timely detection, investigation and handling of offences plays a decisive role.”

Trần Đại Quang (1956–2018) 8th President of Vietnam

"Re-elected President Tran Dai Quang gives media interview" in Nhân Dân https://en.nhandan.vn/politics/domestic/item/4492502-re-elected-president-tran-dai-quang-gives-media-interview.html (26 July 2016)

Time, Decision, Fight

“We are a society of apostolic life, so there’s going to be a common life … there must be fraternal life. If there’s no fraternal life, priests become extremely susceptible to the wiles and snares of the devil.”

Antony Sumich (1964) New Zealand rugby union footballer and coach

Traditionalist order sees chance to come to NZ https://nzcatholic.org.nz/2016/05/12/traditionalist-order-sees-chance-come-nz/ (May 12, 2016)

Life

“You and I, we are fighting each other but we are not really enemies. By doing so we are dividing our strength, and we shall never reach our goal. Maybe the final extremity will bring us together. Maybe.”

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

1920s
Source: Nationalsozialismus oder Bolschewismus? (National Socialism or Bolshevism), open letter to “My Friends on the Left,” Nationalsozialistische Briefe (National Socialist Letters), (Oct. 15, 1925); Joseph Gobbles, Quoted in The Devil’s Disciples, Anthony Read, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005, p. 142

Fight

“Divine way is extremely difficult to tread, but you should not despair. If you have courage, true aspiration, and ardency of love, then come to this path, otherwise be silent.”

Bu Ali Shah Qalandar (1209–1324) Indian Sufi saint

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 271

Despair, Courage, Way, Love

“Arab regimes need to come together far more than they have done if they are to convince their populations that the extremism carried out by IS in the name of Sunni Islam is destroying the traditional, tolerant Islam that most Arabs have always believed in.”

Ahmed Rashid (1948) Pakistani writer

Source: Is IS on an inevitable path to destruction? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30409764 BBC News (11 December 2014)

“I am wholly decided and resolved to go in person to help my brother because his need is so great and the perils so extreme that it does not merely threaten him but places all Christendom at risk. I cannot and must not abandon him because of the office I hold and because of the obligations of fraternal friendship and also because he is such a good brother to me.”

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) Holy Roman Emperor

Friendship, Personality, Help

“Technology is nature without the human being. It is abstract nature, reduced to itself, delivered over to itself, exalting and expressing itself on its own. It develops in such a way that all the virtualities and potentialities within it must be actualized, for them and for what they are, for their own sake, so that everything is done that can be done, that is to say, everything that nature can become. It is a matter of making gold, going to the moon, building self-guiding and self-monitoring missiles that can decide on the moment to self-destruction – and destroy us. Technology is alchemy; it is the self-fulfillment of nature in place of the self-fulfillment of the life that we are. It is barbarism, the new barbarism of our time, in place of culture. Inasmuch as it puts the prescriptions and regulations of life out of play, it is not simply barbarism in its most extreme and inhumane form that has ever been known – it is sheer madness.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, Barbarism, Continuum, 2012, p. 52
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Barbarism (1987)

Madness, Nature, Life, Time

“My physics has been extremely mainstream, ... It's not true that I'm some sort of a [radical thinker], not at all.”

Leonard Susskind (1940) American physicist

Source: During an interview with Y Combinator - Published on Dec 6, 2018.

“During these moments of extreme difficulty we will all have to adapt in some way, because there are already many who live in hardship.”

Eduardo Horacio García (1956) Catholic bishop

Source: Covid 19: "the word of God is carried out by concrete gestures of solidarity", underlines Mgr. Garcia http://www.fides.org/en/news/67736-AMERICA_ARGENTINA_Covid_19_the_word_of_God_is_carried_out_by_concrete_gestures_of_solidarity_underlines_Mgr_Garcia (14 April 2020coronavirus)

Way

“From extreme old age, sanity is requested. It is like asking for strength from weakness.”

Daniel Salamanca (1863–1935) President of Bolivia (1863-1935)

Age

Quotes about extreme page 16

Quotes about extreme
page 16