Quotes about fairness
page 13

“Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen forehead of every traitor to his country and every maligner of his fair reputation.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Nominating speech for Blaine for President, at the Republican National Convention (15 June 1876).

Country

“The azure lake is argent now
Beneath the pale moonshine:
I seek a sign of hope in heaven:
Fair Polestar! thou are mine.
A thousand other beacons blaze;
I follow thee alone…”

Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–1897) English poet and critic

"Midnight At Geneva".

Hope

“I would rather quit public life at seventy, and quit it forever, than to retain public life at a sacrifice to my own self-respect. I will not vote for any law which will make fair for me and foul for another. The blacklist is the most cruel form of oppression ever devised by man for the infliction of suffering upon his weaker fellows.”

Joseph Gurney Cannon (1836–1926) American politician

Speech opposing the Pearre Injunction Bill (1906); reported in L. White Busby, Uncle Joe Cannon (1927), p. 278. Cannon noted that Samuel Gompers blacklisted him for opposing the legislation. Cannon expanded this passage in a speech in Lewiston, Maine (September 5, 1906), while successfully campaigning for Representative Charles Littlefield, to counter efforts of Gompers and his labor forces to defeat Littlefield, referring to "any law which will make fish of one and fowl of another," reported in Joseph G. Cannon papers, box 1, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, Illinois.

Life, Law, Suffering

“Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802, l. 1 (1802).

Lie, Beauty, Soul

“This province of Quebec is catholic and French and shall remain catholic and French. All the while asserting our friendship and our respect for the representatives of the other races and religions, all the while claiming our eagerness for giving them their fair share in every aspect […] we solemnly declare that we shall never renounce our rights that are garanteed by treatees, by law and by the constitution […] Let us cease our fratricidal struggles and let us unite!”

Honoré Mercier (1840–1894) Canadian politician

Cette province de Québec est catholique et française et restera catholique et française. Tout en affirmant notre amitié et notre respect pour les représentants des autres races et religions, tout en déclarant notre empressement de leur donner leur juste part en tout et partout (...) nous déclarons solennellement que nous ne renoncerons jamais aux droits qui nous sont garantis par les traités, par la loi et la constitution (...) Cessons nos luttes fratricides et unissons-nous!
Speech given of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day of 1889.

Friendship, Religion, Law

“She stood amid the morning dew,
And sang her earliest measure sweet,
Sang as the lark sings, speeding fair,
to touch and taste the purer air”

Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (1835–1905) writer

Coolidge tribute to fellow poet Jean Ingelow from Preface to Poems by Jean Ingelow, Volume II, Roberts Bros 1896 kindle ebook ASIN B0082C1UAI .

Singing, Speed

“Fair words never hurt the tongue.”

George Chapman Eastward Hoe

Act IV, scene i.
Eastward Hoe (1605)

Hurt

“Industrial Americanization is not, as we sometimes think, welfare work, or the introduction of a few makeshifts to keep men at work. It is the practical operation of the American spirit in management. The man who comes here expecting opportunity, fair remuneration for his day's work, fair working conditions, friendly personal relations, and that the utmost will be made of his abilities, cannot be met with limitations and discriminations and still become Americanized. He comes to escape the brutality of the military system, and he finds the brutality of the industrial system, ruthless in its destruction of life and property and morality.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Life, Men, Thinking, Personality

“Mariam: No, it is fair. I killed our husband, Laila. I deprived your son of a father. Even if we escape, I…I won't be able to look at him without shame. No, it's my fault. Take care, Laila jo.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

“For all that faire is, is by nature good;
That is a signe to know the gentle blood.”

Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) English poet

An Hymne in Honour of Beautie, line 139

Nature

“I have actually programmed a fair bit in Perl, like I have C++ code published with my name on it. Other things I have tried and have no intention to do again if I can at all avoid it include smoking, getting drunk enough to puke and waste the whole next day with hang-over, breaking a leg in a violent car crash, getting mugged in New York City, or travel with Aeroflot.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: How is perl braindamaged? (was Re: Is LISP dying?) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/37b0ddc2524a8214 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Perl

Cars, Travel

“Jon Stewart: And I made a special effort to come on the show today, because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows, mentioned this show as being bad.
Paul Begala: We have noticed.
Stewart: And I wanted to — I felt that that wasn't fair and I should come here and tell you that I don't — it's not so much that it's bad, as it's hurting America.
Tucker Carlson: But in its defense —
Stewart: But I wanted to come here today and say — Here's just what I wanted to tell you guys:
Carlson: Yes.
Stewart: Stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Guy, Effort, Hurt

“I consider the Fourth a patriotic holday more than a nationalist one. We are celebrating the signing of a text, the establishment of a set of laws and principles on the Fourth of July. The Fourth is about political liberty and national independence. It is, for all its pomp and circumstance, a fairly secular and rational holiday. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving plays upon the mystic chords of memory and is prior to and independent of many of things we celebrate on the Fourth. Anyway, I agree its a fair criticism and probably just highlights different perspectives. And, yes, the food on the Fourth of July is really, really good. I am all about hotdogs, beer and barbecue.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

November 2004 http://web.archive.org/web/20040421/www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_11_24_corner-archive.asp 2000s, 2004

Law, Food, Beer, Memory

“Feminism should be a fight for fairness. Instead the fight is only to control outcome. And when feminists don’t like outcome, they assume something’s unfair. Like fools. Most of the left is the same way.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Another Man Essay

Fools, Way, Fight

“Every fair-minded person should support government safety nets for people who need assistance through no fault of their own. But guys like McDermott don't make distinctions like that. For them, the baby Jesus wants us to "provide," no matter what the circumstance. But being a Christian, I know that while Jesus promoted charity at the highest level, he was not self-destructive.”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

2010-12-09
Keep Christ in Unemployment
BillOReilly.com
http://www.billoreilly.com/column;jsessionid=47EBD06AF914FD6B2945149104DA563F?pid=30748
2011-06-07
referring to Jim McDermott saying "This is Christmas time. We talk about good Samaritans, the poor, the little baby Jesus in the cradle and all this stuff. And then we say to the unemployed, we won't give you a check to feed your family. That's simply wrong."

People, Guy, Support, Baby

“We wove a web in childhood,
A web of sunny air;
We dug a spring in infancy
Of water pure and fair;

We sowed in youth a mustard seed,
We cut an almond rod;
We are now grown up to riper age—
Are they withered in the sod?”

Charlotte Brontë book Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), From Retrospection (1835)

Youth, Age, Spring, Water

“What did he want? A tournament? Who does he think we are? The knights of the round bloody table? I don't know what happens to some folk. They put a sir in front of their names and their brains get addled. Fighting fair! Whoever heard of anything so daft? Fight fair and you lose.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Will Skeat, p. 94
The Grail Quest, The Archer's Tale/Harlequin (2000)

Thinking, Fight

“The value of a mind is measured by the nature of the objects it habitually contemplates. They whose thoughts are of trifles are trifling: they who dwell with what is eternally true, good and fair, are like unto God.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 268

God, Nature

“I think that the philosopher must, for his own purposes, carry methodological strictness to an extreme when he is investigating and pursuing his truths, but when he is ready to enunciate them and give them out, he ought to avoid the cynical skill with which some scientists, like a Hercules at the fair, amuse themselves by displaying to the public the biceps of their technique.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

Source: What is Philosophy? (1964), pp. 19-20

Truth, Thinking

“Just at the time I got your letter Mr. Angus sent me the 'Scotsman' [magazine]. You say some critics have thought it fair to make it the basis of a personal attack, and it is very critic-like. Critic means knife, means dissection, means wisdom, means perfection. Art is stupid, art-less. That is a hard job for the critic to understand. I like your book because it is 'stupid', like Japanese; which means done for the love of it in itself; not for gain or success. You don't go to criticise a Japanese drawing and say it is out of shape, out of drawing, no perspective nor anatomy. This is only for the critic to show his knowledge by killing the things; those stupid fellows do harm, like Whistler says, with their learnings. They must have schools and applications of knowledge. Thackeray calls them scavengers - scavengers are at least necessary, those fellows are for no good..”

Matthijs Maris (1839–1917) Dutch painter

Quote of Matthijs Maris, in his letter to David Croal Thomson (Oct. 1890), as cited in: The Brothers Maris (James – Matthew – William), ed. Charles Holme; text: D.C. Thomson https://ia800204.us.archive.org/1/items/cu31924016812756/cu31924016812756.pdf; publishers, Offices of 'The Studio', London - Paris, 1907, p. BMxv p. BMxviii

Love, Wisdom, Books, Stupidity

“I was raised by parents who taught me to love and respect people regardless of their race or background, so I am saddened and frustrated by the divisive rhetoric and racial tensions that seem to be getting worse as of late. I know this country is better than that, and I can no longer stay silent. We need to find solutions that ensure people of color receive fair and equal treatment AND that police officers – who put their lives on the line every day to protect us all – are respected and supported.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Love, People, Color, Support

“So many young men of color become part of that officer’s life experience because so many minority families and communities are struggling, so many boys and young men grow up in environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment—they lack all sorts of opportunities that most of us take for granted. A tragedy of American life—one that most citizens are able to drive around because it doesn’t touch them—is that young people in “those neighborhoods” too often inherit a legacy of crime and prison. And with that inheritance, they become part of a police officer’s life, and shape the way that officer—whether white or black—sees the world. Changing that legacy is a challenge so enormous and so complicated that it is, unfortunately, easier to talk only about the cops. And that’s not fair.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Life, Men, People, World

“The non-violent resistors can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly and cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of non-violence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to the truth as we see it.”

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

1960s, The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)
Variant: The non-violent resistors can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly and cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of non-violence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to the truth as we see it.

Truth, Peace, Law, Communication

“As was rightly pointed out by Karl Polanyi in the 1940s, the 19th century laissez-faire regime can be thought of as one in which society is forced to conform to the needs of the market mechanism. "Instead of the economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system" in this laissez-faire regime. However, it was precisely because of this that the system gradually disintegrated from the early 20th century into economic and social chaos. "Since society was made to conform to the needs of the market mechanism, imperfections in the functioning of that mechanism created cumulative strains on the body social."”

Eisuke Sakakibara (1941) Japanese economist and critic

The End of Market Fundamentalism (1999)

“Sometimes because I'm sad I do bad things.
I can't tell you what they are.
They are too bad. And it's not fair on the cat.”

Michael Rosen (1946) British children's writer

Sad Book

Sadness, Cats

“It is often sadly remarked that the bad economists present their errors to the public better than the good economists present their truths. It is often complained that demagogues can be more plausible in putting forward economic nonsense from the platform than the honest men who try to show what is wrong with it. But the basic reason for this ought not to be mysterious. The reason is that the demagogues and bad economists are presenting half-truths. They are speaking only of the immediate effect of a proposed policy or its effect upon a single group. As far as they go they may often be right. In these cases the answer consists in showing that the proposed policy would also have longer and less desirable effects, or that it could benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The answer consists in supplementing and correcting the half-truth with the other half. But to consider all the chief effects of a proposed course on everybody often requires a long, complicated, and dull chain of reasoning. Most of the audience finds this chain of reasoning difficult to follow and soon becomes bored and inattentive. The bad economists rationalize this intellectual debility and laziness by assuring the audience that it need not even attempt to follow the reasoning or judge it on its merits because it is only “classicism” or “laissez-faire,” or “capitalist apologetics” or whatever other term of abuse may happen to strike them as effective.”

Henry Hazlitt book Economics in One Lesson

Economics in One Lesson (1946), The Lesson (ch. 1)

Men, Truth, Error

“Make an eternal spring;
Give life to this dark world which lieth dead.
Spread forth thy golden hair
In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
And emperor-like decore
With diadem of pearl thy temples fair.”

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) British writer

"Phoebus Arise".
Poems (1616)

Life, World, Spring, Dead

“There are a lot of grown ups who, should be sent up to their rooms, and told they must stay there, until they learn they can play fair.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Hi Neigbour, Salam Neighbour"
For Whom The Troubadour Sings (2010)

Learning

“To love God is to have good health, good looks, good sense, experience, a kindly nature and a fair balance of cash in hand.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

God and Man
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

Love, God, Health, Nature

“172. A good Reputation is a fair Estate.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

“It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness and chivalry “masculine” when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them, to describe a man's sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as “feminine.””

Clive Staples Lewis book A Grief Observed

A Grief Observed (1961)

“It was a' for our rightfu' King
We left fair Scotland's strand.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

It Was A' for Our Rightfu' King, st. 1
Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1796)

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

(p. 267)
The Ape that Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2013)

Women, Men, Sex

“So if you're travelin' in the north country fair,
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline,
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.”

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

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Girl from the North Country

Love, Country

“No star from above
nor flower in the field
seems to me as fair
as the one I love.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Nem no campo flores,
Nem no céu estrelas
Me parecem belas
Como os meus amores.
"Aquela cativa" (trans. Richard Zenith)
Lyric poetry, Songs (redondilhas)

Love, Star, Flowers

“The funny thing was, you see, that Mike Fink didn't think of himself as a murderer. He thought of life as a contest, and dying was what happened to those who came out second best, but it wasn't the same as murder, it was a fair fight.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 14.

Life, Thinking, Fight

“It was sweet, my love, a while
To live our life beneath the grove of birch,
More sweet was it fondly to embrace
Together hid in our woodland retreat,
Together to be wandering on the ocean's shore,
Together lingering by the forest's edge,
Together to plant birches – task of joy –
Together weave fair plumage of the trees,
Together talk of love with my slim girl,
Together gaze on solitary fields.”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Digrif fu, fun, un ennyd
Dwyn dan un bedwlwyn ein byd.
Cydlwynach , difyrrach fu,
Coed olochwyd, cydlechu,
Cydfyhwman marian môr,
Cydaros mewn coed oror,
Cydblannu bedw, gwaith dedwydd,
Cydblethu gweddeiddblu gwŷdd.
Cydadrodd serch â'r ferch fain,
Cydedrych caeau didrain.
"Y Serch Lledrad" (Love Kept Secret), line 23; translation from Dafydd ap Gwilym (ed. and trans. Rachel Bromwich) A Selection of Poems (Harmondsworth, Penguin, [1982] 1985) p. 34.

Love, Life, Girl, Tree

“Justice as fairness provides what we want.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter III, Section 30, pg. 190

Justice

“Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. This is real religion. This is real worship.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

What Is Religion? (1899) is Ingersoll's last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899. Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Dresden Memorial Edition Volume IV, pages 477-508, edited by Cliff Walker. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/ingwhatrel.htm

Life, God, World, Fear

“It is not fair to criticise every line and letter of a summing-up which has been delivered by a Judge in trying a case, especially when there is a somewhat imperfect record of it.”

William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley (1801–1881) Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Prudential Assurance Co. v. Edmonds (1877), L. R. 2 App. Ca. 494.

“I pretty much use sketchbooks to note down great ideas of somebody else I've just had. A good sketchbook means you don't actually need to bother with having a memory yourself. You can get away with a fair bit of substance abuse if you always carry a notepad and a sharp pencil around with you.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

from "Street Sketchbook" by Tristan Manco
Other sources

Idea, Memory

“One of the most remarkable changes was the extent to which indifference had come to prevail in matters of religious opinion. With regard to freedom of action, there would have been a stronger objection then than there was now in allowing the great majority of persons engaged in any particular trade to coerce the minority into their wishes. On the question of non-interference, he pointed out that the difficulties of laissez faire were now far more generally recognized than they were 40 or 50 years ago. For one reason or another there was now far less disposition to accept the doctrines of laissez faire than there was then, and they played a much smaller part in the ideal we formed of what was good for a nation.”

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician

Speech to the Economic Students' Union at the School of Economics and Political Science, London (14 December 1900), quoted in The Times (17 December 1900), p. 13.
1900s

Question, Freedom, Change, Parting

“Free speech. Freedom of association. These values are repulsive to the radical Islamic terrorist. They fear them and suppress them whenever and wherever they can. Yet through those very means, we as a society are protective of that terrorist’s rights. This is ironic, but good. Because, as you well know, America has a unique responsibility to set the global standard for liberty and fair conduct. The world looks to us to set high standards for freedom, and we take that leadership role very seriously. Our commitment to leading by example – on issues from human rights to free speech – is strong. Indeed, other countries strike a different balance between security and freedom, both in the activities they punish as crimes, and in the procedures with which they do so. In some instances, our allies have adopted or utilized some counterterrorism tools that we have not adopted in the United States because doing so would abridge the civil liberties protected by our constitution.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech regarding Civil Liberties and the War on Terrorism (November 20, 2006)

World, Fear, Freedom, Strong

“As the visit of one we love makes the whole day pleasant, so is it illumined and made fair by a brave and beautiful thought.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 21

Love, Beauty

“The vegan lifestyle is a compassionate way to live that supports life, supports fairness and equality, and promotes freedom.”

Robert Cheeke (1980) American bodybuilder

Source: Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness (2010), Ch. 1.

Life, Way, Support, Freedom

“Nothing is more fatal to success at the Parliamentary Bar than to attempt to suppress or misrepresent any point, for if the Committees lose confidence in a counsel's fairness the Parliamentary agents will soon desert him.”

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), In London, p. 60

Confidence, Success

“Soun is noght but air ybroken,
And every speche that is spoken,
Loud or privee, foul or fair,
In his substaunce is but air;
For as flaumbe is but lighted smoke,
Right so soun is air ybroke.”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The House of Fame

The House of Fame, bk. 2, l. 257-62

Light

“Economists tell us that the 'price' of an object and its 'value' have very little or nothing to do with one another. 'Value' is entirely subjective — economic value, anyway — while 'price' reflects whatever a buyer is willing to give up to get the object in question, and whatever the seller is willing to accept to give it up. Both are governed by the Law of Marginal Utility, which is actually a law of psychology, rather than economics. For government to attempt to dictate a 'fair price' betrays complete misunderstanding of the entire process.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

Ceres, Chapter Eighteen http://www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/?page_id=235, 2009.

Law, Question

“Greenock was one of the great centres of the sugar trade…Then came foreign competition, aided by bounties; and your trade declines so seriously that only the very best, the very richest, the most enterprising, the most inventive can possibly retain their hold upon it. If there had been no bounties and no unfair competition of this kind what would have happened? In the last 20 or 30 years the consumption of sugar throughout the world has increased enormously. The consumption in this country has increased enormously; and you would have had your share…if normal conditions and equal fairness had prevailed; and at this moment in Greenock, quite independently of the other industries you may have found to occupy you, there would have been in sugar alone ten times as many men employed as there were in the most palmy days of the trade. But normal conditions have not obtained. You have been the sufferers; and, as I have said, a great number of your refineries have been closed, have disappeared altogether. The capital invested in them has been lost, and the workmen who work in them—what has become of them?”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech in Greenock (7 October 1903), quoted in The Times (8 October 1903), p. 8.
1900s

Men, World, Suffering, Time

“My policy has always been the same. We're fighting ISIS and Assad is fighting ISIS, but we're backing rebels to fight Assad. You can't fight everybody, you have to pick who you want to fight. And now you've got Turkey, who like ISIS more than they like others, no one really knows because we don't have people that know what they're doing. So in my opinion, you go along, and Russia does not like ISIS, and people are starting to find out. I mean in all fairness lost an airplane, got blew out of the air. So Russia is not a fan of ISIS. Russia is bombing the hell out of them, starting to bomb them. I say isis is our number one threat. We can't be fighting everybody at the same time. ISIS is our number one threat. I would bomb the hell out of them -- I like to do one thing at a time. I would knock the hell out of ISIS. I would hit them … so hard like they've never been hit before.”

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

In an interview with Fox & Friends. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/trump-kill-isil-families-216343 (December 2, 2015) 2010s, 2015

People, Hell, Time, Fight

“I know a maiden fair to see,
Take care!
She can both false and friendly be,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

From the German (In Hyperion).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Fools, Falseness

“The establishment and maintenance of sound and fair social conditions; so that there should be no oppression nor injustice, but a square deal for everybody; so that the strong should not be permitted to prey upon the weak; so that the law of helpfulness should prevail, instead of the law of ravine … such sound and fair social conditions would bring to the community in which they were established and maintained, unexampled, and marvelous prosperity; and this prosperity and peace and happiness would promptly advertise themselves and set up an irresistible attraction. Such a society as this would be a magnet that would draw to itself, all the children of men. They would all want to be in it.”

Washington Gladden (1836–1918) American pastor

Source: The Nation and the Kingdom (1909), pp. 4-5

Men, Happiness, Children, Peace

“Heigh, ho, fair Rosalynde!”

Thomas Lodge (1558–1625) English dramatist and writer

Poem, Rosalynde

“It is no more than fair that England, now that she has attained the culminating point of her industrial growth and progress, should restore again to the nations of Continental Europe a portion of those productive forces which she originally derived from them.”

Friedrich List (1789–1846) German economist with dual American citizenship

Source: The National System of Political Economy (1841), p. 56

“A good talker, even more than a good orator, implies a good audience. Modern society is too vast and too restless to give a conversationalist a fair chance.”

Leslie Stephen (1832–1904) British author, literary critic, and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography

Samuel Johnson (1878), repr. In John Morley (ed.) English Men of Letters (New York: Harper, 1894) vol. 6, p. 60

Chance

“A fool there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you and I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair
We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Even as you and I! The Vampire http://www.readprint.com/work-973/The-Vampire-Rudyard-Kipling, Stanza 1. Departmental Ditties and other Verses (1886)

Fools

“There is today hardly any country in the world outside the communist bloc which does not have a mixed economy. In fact, even countries which call themselves socialist would object to theirs not being described as a mixed economy, for it would imply that it was a totalitarian one, while countries like Germany or Japan, usually thought of as having typically free enterprise economies, would do the same; for, otherwise, it would imply that theirs was a nineteenth century laissez-faire economy.”

J. R. D. Tata (1904–1993) Indian businessman

Address on 'Why a Mixed Economy?' to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, New Delhi, April 4, 1975.
Keynote: Excerpts from his speeches and chairman's statements to shareholders

World, Country

“Few things infuriate the ordinary citizen more than liberal attitudes to crime and criminals. And not only infuriate, but offend against justice, common sense, and fair play. The ordinary citizen is neither a brute nor a sadist; he is humane (as most liberals are not), he is compassionate when it is called for, leans over backwards to be fair, and is ready to give a second chance. But he knows the difference between right and wrong, and has an instinctive sense of the difference between right and mere legality. He believes that wrongdoing should be punished with appropriate degrees of severity; deep in his understanding lies a feeling that eye for eye and tooth for tooth is not without merit, and that the punishment should fit the crime.”

George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008) English-born author of Scottish descent

Crime and Punishment. p. 142.
The Light's On At Signpost (2002)

Justice, Feeling, Understanding, Sense

“Such is the aspect of this shore;
'T is Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.”

George Gordon Byron The Giaour

Source: The Giaour (1813), Line 90.

Soul

“I've seen the argument saying, 'Well, these are private companies, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and whatever. They have the right to ban whoever they want, they can set their own rules they should just make up rules to get rid of Alex Jones.' It seems pretty fair, right? Their playground, their rules. I also, kind of disagree. I think that social media has grown so big that it's become an extension of your voice, that if you are not on social media, and you are taken off of social media in a way that isn't really specified why, then it can be seen as a way of censorship.”

PewDiePie (1989) Swedish YouTuber and video game commentator

NINJA RESPECTS ALL WOMANS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv8UnA_1Os8 (15 August 2018) 2018, NINJA RESPECTS ALL WOMANS

Way, Thinking

“The Budget…is introduced not merely for the purpose of raising barren taxes, but taxes that are fertile, taxes that will bring forth fruit—the security of the country which is paramount in the minds of all. The provision for the aged and deserving poor—was it not time something was done? It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours—probably the richest in the world, if not the richest the world has ever seen—should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and possibly starvation. It is rather hard that an old workman should have to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore, through the brambles and thorns of poverty. We cut a new path for him—an easier one, a pleasanter one, through fields of waving corn. We are raising money to pay for the new road—aye, and to widen it, so that 200,000 paupers shall be able to join in the march. There are so many in the country blessed by Providence with great wealth, and if there are amongst them men who grudge out of their riches a fair contribution towards the less fortunate of their fellow-countrymen they are very shabby rich men.”

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

Speech in Limehouse, East London (30 July 1909), quoted in Better Times: Speeches by the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), p. 145.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Men, Money, Age, World

“Since I see all the birds are flown, I do expect from you that you will send them unto me as soon as they return hither. But, I assure you on the word of a king, I never did intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way, for I never meant any other.”

Charles I of England (1600–1649) monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland

Statement in the House of Commons after failing to arrest five members (4 January 1642), from the journal of Sir Simonds d'Ewes

Way, Bird

“Big business in America today and for some years has been openly at war with competition and, thus, at war with laissez-faire capitalism. … The left's attack on corporate capitalism is, when examined, an attack on economic forms possible only in collusion between authoritarian government and bureaucratized, nonentrepreneurial business. It is unfortunate that many New Leftists are so uncritical as to accept this premise as indicating that all forms of capitalism are bad…”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

"The Death of Politics", Playboy magazine (March 1969)

War, Business

“Oh! hush these suspicions," Fair Imogine said,
"Offensive to Love and to me!
For if ye be living, or if ye be dead,
I swear by the Virgin, that none in your stead
Shall Husband of Imogine be.”

Matthew Lewis (writer) book The Monk

Page 313; "Alonzo the Brave, and Fair Imogine", line 11.
The Monk (1796)

Love, Dead

“Our public interest depends on private character, on civic duty and family bonds and basic fairness, on uncounted, unhonored acts of decency which give direction to our freedom. Sometimes in life we are called to do great things. But as a saint of our times has said, every day we are called to do small things with great love. The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone. I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility and try to live it as well. In all these ways, I will bring the values of our history to the care of our times.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, First inaugural address (January 2001)

Love, Life, Family, Justice

“"What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower
Is the day breaking? comes the wish'd-for hour?
Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand
If the bright morning dawns upon the land.""The stars are clear above me, scarcely one
Has dimm'd its rays in reverence to the sun;
But yet I see, on the horizon's verge,
Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would surge."”

Charles Mackay (1814–1889) British writer

The Watcher On The Tower
Voices from the Crowd, and Town Lyrics (1857)

Star, Light, Sun

““Pop, do we have heaven?” he’d asked on the day he discovered the (dead) cat. “You want to know a Jew’s idea of heaven?” his father had replied, looking up from his Maimonides. “It’s an endless succession of long winter nights on which we get paid a fair wage to sit in a warm room and read all the books ever written… Not just the famous ones, no, every book, the stuff nobody gets around to reading, forgotten plays, novels by people you never heard of. However, I profoundly doubt such a place exists.””

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 1 (p. 13)

People, Books, Cats, Idea

“You strip from me the laurel and the rose!
Take all! Despite you there is yet one thing
I hold against you all, and when, tonight,
I enter Christ's fair courts, and, lowly bowed,
Sweep with doffed casque the heavens' threshold blue,
One thing is left, that, void of stain or smutch,
I bear away despite you …
My panache.”

Edmond Rostand (1868–1918) French writer

Cyrano, Act 5, Sc. 6
Variant translation: I bear away despite you …
My plume!
Cyrano de Bergerac (1897)

Christ

“Appeals to justice or fairness are almost always stories that hide or protect unacknowledged hurts or pains.”

Ken McLeod (1948) Canadian lama

Fairness and Justice http://musingsbyken.blogspot.com/2009/06/fairness-and-justice.html. Musings Blog http://musingsbyken.blogspot.com. (2009-06-29). (Topic: Life)

Pain, Justice, Hurt

“Today, I would like to provide the American people with an update on the White House transition and our policy plans for the first 100 days. Our transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. Truly great and talented men and women, patriots indeed are being brought in and many will soon be a part of our government, helping us to Make America Great Again. My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America First. Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America – creating wealth and jobs for American workers. As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs. It's about time. These include the following: On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores. On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy – including shale energy and clean coal – creating many millions of high-paying jobs. That's what we want, that's what we've been waiting for. On regulation, I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated, it's so important. On national security, I will ask the Department of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks, and all other form of attacks. On immigration, I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker. On ethics reform, as part of our plan to Drain the Swamp, we will impose a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the Administration – and a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. These are just a few of the steps we will take to reform Washington and rebuild our middle class. I will provide more updates in the coming days, as we work together to Make America Great Again for everyone.”

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

A Message from President-Elect Donald J. Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xX_KaStFT8 (21 November 2016) 2010s, 2016, November

Women, Men, People, Disease

“Turkmens claim that they have the lowest life expectancy in Iran and that they are denied fair access to higher education. Those who manage to apply for university places are often turned away because they fail religious tests based on Shiism; their inadequate mastery of Persian reduces their chances further. Tehran authorities blame the Turkmen revolt on “secessionists” and “counterrevolutionaries,” allegedly supported by the United States. In fact, the revolt highlights the failure of a narrowly based ideological regime to understand the pluralist nature of Iranian society and the legitimate aspirations of its diverse component parts for dignity, equal opportunity and a fair share in decision-making.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Iran's latest ethnic revolt" http://nypost.com/2008/01/14/irans-latest-ethnic-revolt/, New York Post (January 14, 2008). New York Post

Life, Education, Failure, Understanding

“It is better to be destroyed than to triumph in slaying the spirit. Such as it is, the spirit that we have achieved is fair; and it is indestructibly woven into the tissue of the cosmos. We die praising the universe in which at least such an achievement as ours can be.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter IX: The Community of Worlds; 3. A Crisis in Galactic History (p. 117)

Universe

“A fair body of scholarship has come to challenge the view that elected officials reign supreme.”

John W. Kingdon (1940) American political scientist

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 2, Participants on the Inside of Government, p. 43

“I often was asked questions by my British friends which caught me flat footed. Trying to justify the North Korean system when, deep down, I knew their concerns were fair and legitimate.”

Thae Yong-ho (1961) former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea

Remarks to the U.S. Congress (November 2017)

Question

“Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist

Mutation. A Sonnet

“None without hope e'er lov'd the brightest fair,
But love can hope where reason would despair.”

George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton (1709–1773) British politician

Epigram; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Hope, Despair

“We need to have strong growth, fair growth, sustained growth. We also have to look at how we help families balance the responsibilities at home and the responsibilities at business.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Family, Home, Business, Strong

“You don't have the stupidest family in the world, you don't have the goofiest family in the world. And if you ever need to verify that, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Five minutes at a fair, you'll be going, "You know what? We're all right. We're dang near royalty!"”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

Games Rednecks Play (1995)

World, Family

“These friendly words awhile consoled the fair;
For grief imparted oft alleviates care.”

John Hoole (1727–1803) British translator

Book XLII, line 202
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)

“Around 16 or 17 years old, I started finding out about some of the animal cruelty things, and ethically it just didn't make sense to me to keep eating meat, so eventually I stopped. … I was watching an HBO special about eating habits and different cultures, and they actually showed in China how people eat cats, and I'm really fond of cats, and I just happened to be sitting on the couch with my cat, and once I saw that, it just put everything in perspective. If I wouldn't eat my cat what's the difference between eating a cat or a cow? If certain animals are considered lesser than, so are certain people and that's not really fair. And the root of that is to consider life on equal terms across the board.”

Ben Kenney (1977) American musician

“ Ben Kenney—Exclusive Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRVPQc6UmdI,” ad for PETA (10 July 2008).

Life, People, Cats, Sense

“We want all the Palestinians back in their homeland, and then there can be a fair referendum for people to choose the form of state they want. Whoever gets the majority can rule.”

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1934–2017) Iranian politician, Shi'a cleric and Writer

Excerpts at Friday prayers http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801959.html (October 29, 2005) 2005

People

““A book,” says Vandos of Ur-Amakir, “is a fortress, a place of weeping, the key to a desert, a river that has no bridge, a garden of spears.” Fanlewas the Wise, the great theologian of Avalei, writes that Kuidva, the God of Words, is “a taskmaster with a lead whip.” Tala of Yenith is said to have kept her books in an iron chest that could not be opened in her presence, else she would lie on the floor, shrieking. She wrote: “Within the pages there are fires, which can rise up, singe the hair, and make the eyelids sting.” Ravhathos called the life of the poet “the fair and fatal road, of which even the dust and stones are dear to my heart,” and cautioned that those who spend long hours engaged in reading or writing should not be spoken to for seven hours afterward. “For they have gone into the Pit, into which they descend on Slopes of Fire, but when they rise they climb on a Ladder of Stone.” Hothra of Ur-Brome said that his books were “dearer than father or mother,” a sentiment echoed by thousands of other Olondrians through the ages, such as Elathuid the Voyager, who explored the Nissian coast and wrote: “I sat down in the wilderness with my books, and wept for joy.” And the mystic Leiya Tevorova, that brave and unfathomable soul, years before she met her tragic death by water, wrote: “When they put me into the Cold, above the white Lake, in the Loathsome Tower, and when Winter came with its cruel, hard, fierce, dark, sharp and horrible Spirit, my only solace was in my Books, wherein I walked like a Child, or shone in the Dark like a Moth which has its back to a sparkling Fire.””

Sofia Samatar book A Stranger in Olondria

Source: A Stranger in Olondria (2013), Chapter 3, “Doorways” (p. 19; the first sentence is echoed on p. 273)

Life, Death, God, Lie

“Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care
'Cause another's rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flow'ry meads in May,
If she think not well of me,
What care I how fair she be?”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

George Wither, "The Lover's Resolution" http://www.bartleby.com/101/237.html. Misattributed

Thinking, Despair

“We are responsible for these things in his race. It is not fair to visit our faults upon him, let him alone.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

As quoted in letter to Henry Ward Beecher, by Mark Twain.

“Copyright and intellectual property are the most important issues now. If you don't have something that assures fair use, then you don't have a free society. If all ideas have to be bought, then you have an intellectually regressive system that will assure you have a highly knowledgeable elite and an ignorant mass.”

John Perry Barlow (1947–2018) American poet and essayist

John Perry Barlow 2.0 (2004)

Idea, Knowledge

“To-day we can affirm that the capitalistic method of production is out of date. So is the doctrine of laissez-faire, the theoretical basis of capitalism… To-day we are taking a new and decisive step in the path of revolution. A revolution, in order to be great, must be a social revolution.”

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

Speech on November 14, 1933 as quoted in Under the Axe of Fascism, Gaetano Salvemini, London, UK, Victor Gollancz Ltd. (1936) p. 131
1930s

Decision

“After this I saw, beholding, the body plenteously bleeding in seeming of the Scourging, as thus: — The fair skin was broken full deep into the tender flesh with sharp smiting all about the sweet body. So plenteously the hot blood ran out that there was neither seen skin nor wound, but as it were all blood. And when it came where it should have fallen down, then it vanished.
Notwithstanding, the bleeding continued awhile: till it might be seen and considered.”

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

The Fourth Revelation, Chapter 12

“How can Life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull grey ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul's dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the restless day,
And count it fair.”

Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) American aviation pioneer and author

Poetry written around the time of breaking of her "tenuous engagement" to Samuel Chapman (c. 1928), published in Amelia, My Courageous Sister : Biography of Amelia Earhart (1987) by Muriel Earhart Morrissey and Carol L. Osborne, p. 74; also in Amelia: A Life of the Aviation Legend (1999) by Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, p. 38

Life, Hate, Soul, Courage

“I share in their outrage and the outrage is that we don’t have a system that has a level playing field. That the government picks winners and losers and in the case of Wall Street what absolutely outrages me is the fact that these people that made such incredibly bad decisions, and I’m believing that these decisions were not necessarily criminal or I think they would have been prosecuted, but that they were just horrible decisions. That they should have been rewarded with failure. Meaning they should have lost all of their money. But they didn’t loose all of their money did they? We bailed them out at the tune of a trillion bucks. You and I. You and I bailed them out. They continue to receive their bonuses and that is … that is the outrage and I share in that outrage… Government should be a level playing field where all of us have the same advantages and the same threats if you will. Implementing the Fair Tax for example throws out the entire Federal tax system. No income tax, no IRS, no business tax, no corporate tax and isn’t the fact that some people pay tax and others don’t isn’t it it the fact that some corporations pay tax and others don’t that has us outraged. It’s just not fair. Let’s implement something that totally fair and in fact is a system where you make the more you consume the more Fair Tax you’ll pay. In a Fair Tax environment you’ll be incentivised to save money.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
Economic Policy

Money, People, Failure, Business

“The competent specialist who has supplemented natural gifts and good judgment by analysis and synthesis can perceive attitudes and proclivities even in the very young, much more readily in those semi-matured, and can with almost infallible certainty point out, not only what work can be undertaken with fair hope of success, but also what slight modification or addition and diminution will more than double the personal power.”

Harrington Emerson (1853–1931) American efficiency engineer and business theorist

Source: The twelve principles of efficiency (1912), p. 177; ; cited in Münsterberg (113; 53)

Hope, Nature, Success, Personality

“England’s sun was slowly setting o’er the hill-tops far away,
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day;
And its last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,—
He with footsteps slow and weary; she with sunny, floating hair;
He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful; she with lips so cold and white,
Struggled to keep back the murmur, “Curfew must not ring to-night.””

Rose Hartwick Thorpe (1850–1939) American poet

Curfew must not ring To-night (published 1870).

Sadness, Beauty, Kiss, Sun

“My dear John Russell, Till lately I had strong confidence in the fair intentions of Napoleon towards England, but of late I have begun to feel great distrust and to suspect that his formerly declared intention of avenging Waterloo has only lain dormant and has not died away. He seems to have thought that he ought to lay his foundation by beating with our aid or with our concurrence, or our neutrality first Russia and then Austria: and by dealing with them generously to make them his friends and in any subsequent quarrel with us.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to Lord John Russell (4 November 1859), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London: Constable, 1970), p. 534.
1850s

Feeling, Confidence, Strong

“To look upon you was to rejoice that so fair a thing could be; to think of you is still to be young.”

J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish writer

Source: The Little Minister (1891), Ch. 1 : The Love-Light
Context: The gladness of living was in your step, your voice was melody, and he was wondering what love might be.
You were the daughter of a summer night, born where all the birds are free, and the moon christened you with her soft light to dazzle the eyes of man. Not our little minister alone was stricken by you into his second childhood. To look upon you was to rejoice that so fair a thing could be; to think of you is still to be young.

Thinking

“At length I saw a lady within call,
Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there;
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,
And most divinely fair.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

"A Dream of Fair Women", st. 22

God, Daughters

“I want to say that if there is anything I like in the world it is fairness. And one reason I like it so well is that I have had so little of it.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)
Context: As soon as I had said these things, various gentlemen felt called upon to answer me. I want to say that if there is anything I like in the world it is fairness. And one reason I like it so well is that I have had so little of it.

World

“I begin to look about me to listen to what had to be said on many sides of the question, and try, as far as I could, to give it all fair hearing.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: It was brought home to me that two men may be as sincere, as earnest, as faithful, as uncompromising, and yet hold opinions far asunder as the poles. I have before said that I think the moment of this conviction is the most perilous crisis of our lives; for myself, it threw me at once on my own responsibility, and obliged me to look for myself at what men said, instead of simply accepting all because they said it. I begin to look about me to listen to what had to be said on many sides of the question, and try, as far as I could, to give it all fair hearing.

Question

“I feel some guilt about my lack of enthusiasm for acting, like it’s a bit ungrateful. Like I’ve let my teenage self down. Mind you, he let himself down a fair bit, the dirty little pervert. The dreams of my adolescent self were entangled with silvery screens and limousines, and I still feel that I need to offer up superficial sacrifices to his misguided altar. The fact is, though, I find filmmaking a boring process and its ends dubious. This could, of course, be due to the quality of the stuff I’ve done so far, as opposed to an essential rejection of an art form. Maybe if I’d been “R. P. McMurphy” or “The Elephant Man” or “Brian,” I’d feel different. It just wasn’t what I thought it would be. It’s not just the entertainment industry that has seemed like a mirage on arrival. What about clubs and parties? When I’m there I think, “Is this it? Is this all there is? Is this what all the fuss is about?” This feeling of disillusionment perhaps climaxed around the time of my divorce and the making of this subsequent film.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)
Context: Diablo and I fashioned my beard together in my trailer, together, as cautiously as you’d sculpt a peace treaty between two nations that prefer war to peace. The reality was that my identity outside of filmmaking had become more important to me. I was doing hours of yoga and meditation each day, I was going through a divorce, and the result was a kind of hirsute intransigence. I looked like the cliché of a terrorist and I behaved like one. Except the beard wasn’t the symbol, it was the cause. I feel some guilt about my lack of enthusiasm for acting, like it’s a bit ungrateful. Like I’ve let my teenage self down. Mind you, he let himself down a fair bit, the dirty little pervert. The dreams of my adolescent self were entangled with silvery screens and limousines, and I still feel that I need to offer up superficial sacrifices to his misguided altar. The fact is, though, I find filmmaking a boring process and its ends dubious. This could, of course, be due to the quality of the stuff I’ve done so far, as opposed to an essential rejection of an art form. Maybe if I’d been “R. P. McMurphy” or “The Elephant Man” or “Brian,” I’d feel different. It just wasn’t what I thought it would be. It’s not just the entertainment industry that has seemed like a mirage on arrival. What about clubs and parties? When I’m there I think, “Is this it? Is this all there is? Is this what all the fuss is about?” This feeling of disillusionment perhaps climaxed around the time of my divorce and the making of this subsequent film.

Dreams, Art, Feeling, Thinking

“Regarding the idea that the women’s movement is white and middle class — a fair share of the country is white and middle class.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

The Humanist interview (2012)
Context: Regarding the idea that the women’s movement is white and middle class — a fair share of the country is white and middle class. And certainly, there are racist white women. Certainly, there are sexist black men. All those things are true. But the other thing that’s never said is that black women are much more likely to support feminist issues than white women. It makes sense because they’re much more likely to be on the paid labor force than white women. And if you’ve experienced discrimination for one reason, you’re probably more likely to recognize it for another reason.

Women, Idea, Country

“Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit… The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers.”

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

Diary (3 January 1892)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
Context: Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit... The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to — no chance to reply to them.... The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion.

Truth

“This fair lovely word Mother, it is so sweet and so close in Nature of itself that it may not verily be said of none but of Him; and to her that is very Mother of Him and of all.”

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

Summations, Chapter 60
Context: This fair lovely word Mother, it is so sweet and so close in Nature of itself that it may not verily be said of none but of Him; and to her that is very Mother of Him and of all. To the property of Motherhood belongeth natural love, wisdom, and knowing; and it is good: for though it be so that our bodily forthbringing be but little, low, and simple in regard of our spiritual forthbringing, yet it is He that doeth it in the creatures by whom that it is done. The Kindly, loving Mother that witteth and knoweth the need of her child, she keepeth it full tenderly, as the nature and condition of Motherhood will. And as it waxeth in age, she changeth her working, but not her love. And when it is waxen of more age, she suffereth that it be beaten in breaking down of vices, to make the child receive virtues and graces. This working, with all that be fair and good, our Lord doeth it in them by whom it is done: thus He is our Mother in Nature by the working of Grace in the lower part for love of the higher part. And He willeth that we know this: for He will have all our love fastened to Him. And in this I saw that all our duty that we owe, by God’s bidding, to Fatherhood and Motherhood, for God’s Fatherhood and Motherhood is fulfilled in true loving of God; which blessed love Christ worketh in us. And this was shewed in all and especially in the high plenteous words where He saith: It is I that thou lovest.

Love, Nature

Quotes about fairness page 13

Quotes about fairness
page 13