Quotes about first
page 15

“I advise you to fear Allah alone, with no partner of associate. I advise you to treat the first Muhâjireen well and acknowledge their seniority. I advise you to treat the Ansār well, and show approval of those among them who do well, and forgive those among them who make mistakes. I advise you to treat the people of the outlying regions well, for they are a shield against the enemy and conduits of fay; do not take anything from them except that which is surplus to their needs. I advise you to treat the people of the desert well, for they are the original Arabs and the protectors of Islam. Take from the surplus of their wealth and give it to their poor. I advise you to treat ahl adh-dhīmmah well, to defend them against their enemies and not burden them with more than they can bear if they fulfill their duties towards the believers or pay the Jizyāh with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. I advise you to fear Allah and fear His wrath, lest you do anything wrong. I advise you to fear Allah with regard to the people, but do not fear the people with regard to Allah. I advise you to treat the people justly, and to devote yourself to looking after them and protecting them against their enemies. Do not show any favour to the rich over the poor. That will be better for your spiritual well being and will help to reduce your burden of sin, and it will be better for your Hereafter, until you meet the One Who knows what is in your heart. I instruct you to be strict with regard to the commands of Allah, His sacred limits and disobedience with all people, both relatives and others. Do not show any mercy to anyone until you have settled the score with him according to his offence. Treat all people as equal, and do not worry about who is as fault or fear the blame of the blamers. Beware of showing favouritism among the believers with regard to the fay that Allah has put you in charge of, lest that lead to injustice. Keep away from that. You are in a position between this world and the Hereafter. If you conduct your affairs justly in this world and refrain from indulgence, that will earn you faith and divine pleasure. I advise you not to let yourself or anyone else do wrong to ahl al-dhimmah. I advise you sincerely to seek thereby the Countenance of Allah and the Hereafter. I have chosen advice for you that I would offer to myself or my son. If you do as I have advised you and follow my instructions, you will have gained a great deal. If you don not accept it or pay attention to it, and do not handle your affairs in the way that pleases Allah, that will be a shortcoming on your part and you will have failed to be sincere, because whims and desires are the same and the cause of sin is Iblīs, who calls man to everything that will lead to his doom. He misguided the generations who came before you and led them to Hell, what a terrible abode. What a bad deal it is for a man to take the enemy of Allah as his friend, who calls him to disobey Allah. Adhere to the truth, strive hard to reach it and admonish yourself. I urge you by Allah to show mercy to the Muslims, honour their elderly, show compassion to their young ones and respect the knowledgeable ones among them. Do not harm them or humiliate them, and do not keep the fay for yourself lest you anger them. Do not deprive them of their stipends when they become due, thus making them poor. Do not keep them away on campaigns for so long that they end up having no children. Do not allow wealth to circulate only among the rich. Do not close your door to the people or allow the strong to oppress the weak. This is my advice to you, as Allah is my witness, and I greet you with peace.”

Umar (585–644) Second Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate and a companion of Muhammad

Umar ibn al-Khattab, Vol. 2, p. 389-390, also quoted in At-Tabqaat ul-Kabir, Vol. 3, p. 339
Last Advise

Bad luck, Children, People, Pleasure

“In the distant past, this recognition already came to a few individuals. A man called Gautama Siddhartha, who lived 2,600 years ago in India, was perhaps the first who saw it with absolute clarity. Later the title Buddha was conferred upon him. Buddha means “the awakened one.””

Eckhart Tolle book A New Earth

A New Earth (2005)

Distant, Past

“Whether it will be contained or not, this outbreak is rapidly becoming the first true pandemic challenge that fits the disease X category.”

Marion Koopmans (1956) Dutch university teacher

On the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, as quoted in Coronavirus May Be ‘Disease X’ Health Experts Warned About https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-22/coronavirus-may-be-the-disease-x-health-agency-warned-about (February 21, 2020) by Jason Gale, Bloomberg News

Disease

“We are loyal to the Empire first and foremost because we are of the British race.”

Billy Hughes (1862–1952) Australian politician, seventh prime minister of Australia

Speech during the 1917 federal election campaign (c. March 1917), quoted in Neville Kingsley Meaney, Australia and World Crisis, 1914-1923: Volume 2 (2009), p. 202

“We are obviously heading for revolution—something I have never once doubted since 1850. The first act will include a by no means gratifying rehash of the stupidities of '48-'49. However, that's how world history runs its course, and one has to take it as one finds it.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann (28 December 1862), quoted in The Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Volume 41. Letters 1860–64 (2010), p. 437

Stupidity, World, History

“Mankind undervalues VISUALIZATION, because we have been lead to believe that thoughts are the cast off abstractions of the brain. But visualization is source's attribute of creation which is acting through the mind of mankind. As extensions of source, whenever we visualize, we bring forth the essence of what we visualize into visible, tangible, physical experience. No form ever came into existence without someone consciously holding a picture of that form first in his or her thoughts.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

“It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.”

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

Source: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006), Introduction, p. 6

Children, People, Way, Suffering

“If you attended (a study session) strictly adopt three attitudes; there is no fourth. First: You can lock yourself in the silence of ignorance. Second: If you do not behave as such, ask for the questions a man seeking to learn asks…. This man will ask only about what he does not know, not about what he knows. Asking about matters one knows is making proof of ineptitude; this is only ranting, waste of time for everyone…. If the person you are questioning does not give satisfactory answers, stop questioning… Third: You can answer like a scientist, refuting clearly the other’s arguments. If you are not capable of that, do not insist….””

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibid, 114-5

Making love, Question, Study, Silence

“The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now.... You'll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

Source: The Power of Now (1997)

Sense

“You should not first, give thanks for a pot of gold, but instead, because you’re healthy and others are not. Then give thanks for the food you eat because others are hungry. And then give thanks for the shelter you live within because others must sleep in the squalor of the alleys. And once you have given thanks for these necessities, seek out those without them and your soul will be at peace, and the pot of gold remains within your reach.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1980

Peace, Food, Soul, Sleep

“Growing might feel like breaking at first.”

Unknown author

“Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Vol. I, Part 4.

Men, Communication, Nature, Reality

“The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. The social structure and the state are continually evolving out of the life-process of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they appear in their own or other people's imagination, but as they really are; i.e. as they are effective, produce materially, and are active under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will.
The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of the politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics of a people. Men are the producers of their conception, ideas, etc.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.
Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846)

Life, Men, People, Religion

“It seems that the disenchantment of fate (though underestimated) was a milestone on the path of human development, the day we doubted ways of fate could only be compared to a Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. The first thought approach of modernity is the contradiction of destiny, with its sense of divine power ruling from the outer planes all phenomena and events happening in real world.”

Marcin Malek (1975) Polish writer

Source: We'll go asleep, poems and ballads, "An innocent twist of fate" pg. 46

Fate, World, Way, Sense

“What I want you to take seriously, is what we have to do for the youth. Because we're coming up in a totally different world. This is not the same world that you had this is not 6th Street its not. You grew up, we grew up B. C. Before crack. That's just saying it all. You understand? We did not grow up without parents. You had parents that told you this and that and told you what went on back in the day. You have young kids, fourteen, coming home and their mama is smoking out, going to their best friend to get the product. You understand what I'm saying? So that means it's not just about you taking care of "your" child. It's about you taking care of "these children". It hurts that I got to, it bothers me, not hurts, that I have to sidestep my youth to stand up and do some shit that somebody else is suppose to be doing. You understand what I'm saying? There's too many men out here for me to be doing this, because it ain't my turn yet. I'm supposed to be following behind him getting the knowledge. I don't even got a chance to get the fucking knowledge. I can't go to college. There's too much problems out here. I don't got the money. Nobody does. You understand what I'm saying? So what I'm saying is, it's not as easy as we're mapping it out to be. We've got to stay real. Before we can be new African we've gotta be black first. You understand? We've gotta get our brothers from the streets like Harriett Tubman did. Why can't we look at that and see exactly what she was doing? Like Malcolm did, the real Malcolm, before the Nation of Islam. You've got to remember, this was a pimp. You know what I'm saying, we forgot about all that. In our strive to be enlightened we forgot about all our brothers in the street, about all our dope dealers, our pushers and our pimps, and that's who's teaching the new generation, because y'all not doing it. I'm sorry. But, it's the pimps and pushers who's teaching us. So, if you got a problem with how we were raised, its because they was the only ones who could do it. They the only ones who did it, because everybody else wanted to go to college, and you know, yeah everything's changed, they were the ones telling you 'the white man ain't shit, there you go, check this out young blood, you take this product, you switch it, you get money and that's how you beat the white man, you get money, you get the hell up out of here.'”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Nobody else did that. So I don't wanna hear shit about nobody telling me who I can't love and respect until you start doing what they did. To me, this is Mecca. This is the black family. You know what I'm saying? But, what makes it that much sadder, what makes me wanna cry, is that when I leave this place, so does Mecca. You understand what I'm saying? We're going back to the real deal. Right out there, you're going see the same sisters and Brenda, they're right out there, and y'all are going to get in your cars and drive the fuck home.
1990s, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Atlanta (1992)

Men, Money, Children, Youth

“The first of these blessed charlatans to talk about God or religion will be condemned to being jeered at, scoffed at, covered with mud at all crossroads of the major French towns. If that scoundrel breaks that same law a second time, he will be locked away in an eternal prison. Let the most insulting blasphemies, the most atheistic writings be fully authorized, so that we may completely extirpate those horrifying toys of our childhoods from human hearts and memories. Let us hold a contest to find at last the text most capable of Enlightening Europeans about such a major subject; and let a substantial prize be established by the Nation as recompense for the man who, having said and proved everything about his theme, will leave his compatriots only a sickle to shatter all these phantoms and a straightforward heart to detest them.”

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom

Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

God, Religion, Law, Memory

“Let nobody doubt that religions are the cradles of despotism. The first of all despots was a priest; the first king and the first emperor of Rome, Numa and Augustus, both allied themselves with the priesthood; Constantine and Clovis were abbots rather than sovereigns; Heliopolis was the priest of the sun. In all times, in all centuries, despotism and religion have been so thoroughly interconnected that, as is easily demonstrated, in destroying one you undermine the other, for the profound reason that each will help the other to gain power.”

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom

Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Religion, Time, Sun, Help

“I feel that story, first. I know those people, first. When I put them down they've already lived.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

an archival video clip included in With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story, a 2010 documentary, beginning at 17:50

People, Feeling

“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Water, Time

“Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love.”

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

Love, Forgiveness

“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Wisdom, Happiness, Health, Family

“To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

Problem, Success

“There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

People, For Team

“I see without eyes, and I hear without ears. I feel without feeling and taste without tasting. I know neither form nor measure; for without seeing I yet behold an operation so divine that the words I first used, perfection, purity, and the like, seem to me now mere lies in the presence of truth. . . . Nor can I any longer say, “My God, my all.””

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Everything is mine, for all that is God’s seem to be wholly mine. I am mute and lost in God...God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God, and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued
Source: Life and Doctrine, p. 50

God, Truth, Feeling, Perfection

“First of all, we must cooperate with sincerity. When there are difficulties, that means we have done something others cannot and proves our value.”

Ren Zhengfei (1944) Chinese businessman

Speech at Huawei’s internal online forum (June 26, 2021)

Sincerity

“You don’t have much time. If you think too long or too much, sometimes that is wrong. If you have one idea and know it from the first minute, do it. Shoot. I had so little space in the box. Think too much, the defender comes to block you.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

Idea, Thinking, Time, Box

“Love for life is, first and foremost, a responsibility to enrich it with spirituality and humanism.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Love, Life

“The great nature philosophers, then, after meticulous study of nature determined that the first, the primal, the absolute and highest law is preservation of one's own kind.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Crossing the Rubicon
Focus Fourteen

Law, Nature, Study

“To conduct polemic — first and foremost is the ability to listen and ask logically clear questions.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Question

“How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.”

Yuval Noah Harari Sapiens

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

People, Democracy, Imagination

“Two of my Marshalls are racing to get under their orders the Italian troops; i leave it to Suchet who has better ambitions than Macdonald. The Italians will soon be recognized again as the first soldiers of Europe. I'm very proud of my brave Italian army.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Cited in De Laugier, Vicissitudes of the Italian people from 1801 to 1815, to. X, Firenze, 1836, p. 43 – Aless. Zanoli, About the Italian army, historical-statistical outline from 1796 to 1814, vol. II, Milano, 1845, p. 145.

“Even as an athlete, I am constantly inspired and awed by the stories of Olympians. I was honored to have been asked to exchange ideas in the first charrette.”

Kristi Yamaguchi (1971) American figure skater

"Kristi Yamaguchi Interview" in United States Olympic & Paralympic Museum https://usopm.org/kristi-yamaguchi-interview/

Idea

“It should be noted first and foremost that any nation, any people with the great goal of building a free and just life of a just society in its country, is going through a difficult, thorny and complex path of development.”

Shavkat Mirziyoyev (1957) President of Uzbekistan (2016-present)

Interview with the Editor-in-Chief of the «Yangi Uzbekiston» https://thediplomaticinsight.com/interview-president-of-the-republic-of-uzbekistan-shavkat-mirziyoyev/ (19 August 2021)

Life, People, Country

“First of all, love will approach, caress and then embrace you. Afterwards, it will start pulling itself out slowly. Leaving you with its opposite feelings; which is hate.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love, Hate, Feeling

“The first step of knowing yourself is being fearless to make mistakes.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“At first we are all strangers, until you decide to approach. Only effective communication can break this barrier and build the bridge of friendship.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Friendship, Communication

“If Joseph was amongst the first born children of Jacob, chances are he would have turned out just as his elders were described in the scriptures.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Children, Chance

“Our first and final task will be to meditate upon the truest name of God.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God

“The fallen angels took full responsibility. I don't think anyone tempted the devil to rebel in the first place. He just made up his own mind.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Angels, Thinking

“There are two ways to live a celibate life. The first is to leave everything as it is and the second is to explore everything, without neglecting anything. Those who experiment a lot have little taste in things.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life, Way

“To fear God is first of all to see, on the level of action, consequences in causes, sanction in sin, suffering in error; to love God is first to choose God, that is to say, to prefer what brings one nearer Him over what estranges from Him.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2005, Stations of Wisdom, World Wisdom, 102, 978-0-94153218-1]
God, Reverential fear and love

Love, God, Fear, Error

“Accessibility on the part of rulers ends by inspiring love rather than respect, and love evaporates at first sign of trouble.”

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838) French diplomat

Reported in, Bernard, J. F., Talleyrand: A Biography. (1973), p. 592

Love, Parting

“A French first name shows that you really want to belong. The family name refers to the civilization of the country of origin that is left behind. The French first name refers to the future.”

Éric Zemmour (1958) French essayist

Will Eric Zemmour become France's Trump? https://www.wyniasweek.nl/wordt-eric-zemmour-de-franse-trump/

Family, Future, Country

“He went on to speak of the manner in which slavery was treated by the Constitution. The word 'slave' is no where used; the supply of slaves was to be prohibited after 1808; they stopped the spread of it in the territories; seven of the states abolished it. He argued very conclusively that it was then regarded as an evil which would eventually be got rid of, and that they desired, once rid of it, to have nothing in the constitution to remind them of it. The Republicans go back to first principles and deal with it as a wrong. Mason, of Va., said openly that the framers of our government were anti-slavery. Hammond of S.C., said 'Washington set this evil example'. Bully Brooks said: 'At the time the Constitution was formed, no one supposed slavery would last till now.'”

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

We stick to the policy of our fathers.
1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Evil, Time

“Another illustration. When for the first time I met Mister Clay, the other day in the cars, in front of us sat an old gentleman with an enormous wen upon his neck. Everybody would say the wen was a great evil, and would cause the man's death after a while. But you couldn't cut it out, for he'd bleed to death in a minute. But would you engraft the seeds of that wen on the necks of sound and healthy men? He must endure and be patient, hoping for possible relief. The wen represents slavery on the neck of this country. This only applies to those who think slavery is wrong. Those who think it right would consider the snake a jewel, and the wen an ornament.”

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

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Death, Men, Hope, Cars

“If the Republicans, who think slavery is wrong, get possession of the general government, we may not root out the evil at once, but may at least prevent its extension. If I find a venomous snake lying on the open praire, I seize the first stick and kill him at once. But if that snake is in bed with my children, I must be more cautious. I shall, in striking the snake, also strike the children, or arouse the reptile to bite the children. Slavery is the venomous snake in bed with the children. But if the question is whether to kill it on the prairie or put it in bed with other children, I think we'd kill it!”

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

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Children, Lying, Question, Thinking

“Meeting you for the first time felt like my search was over and you became a part of my life's journey despite being a stranger and time passed and you slowly became my destination.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Life, Search, Time, Parting

“We are strangers. Our forefathers came to live in India from abroad. For us, Arab descent and the Arabic language are cause of pride, because these two bring us nearer to the Lord of First and the Last, the noblest of the Prophets and Apostles.”

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

Source: Wasiyat Nama, in Prasad B Pathways to Indias partition. 2001: 74). quoted in Jain, M. (2010). Parallel pathways: Essays on Hindu-Muslim relations, 1707-1857.

“He that knows anything, knows this, in the first place, that he need not seek long for instances of his ignorance."”

John Locke book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Book IV, Ch. 3, sec. 22

“Don't believe the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Often attributed to Twain, but sourced to Robert J. Burdette, Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/06/world-owes/

World

“There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to 'mean' horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Chapter II The Vigor of Life http://www.bartleby.com/55/2.html <br class="br">1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)

Horse

“I would be ready to take over tomorrow. But first of all, all fat and lazy members of the troupe would have to be thrown out.”

Rudolf Nureyev (1938–1993) Soviet ballet dancer and choreographer

Source: "Rudolf Nurejew" in Der Spiegel https://www.spiegel.de/politik/rudolf-nurejew-a-30ce3698-0002-0001-0000-000014322047?context=issue (19 October 1980)

“The stipulation that a community must first be as self-supporting as possible in regard to food will do away with large scale cultivation of any one article, such as sugar, by a population who, living in a small area, must therefore depend upon obtaining much of their food from abroad.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter VII The Council for Economics

Food, Communication, Support, Dependency

“No two cases are the same. Some patients have to be tied down on a bed. They spit. They vomit. At first the demon will try to demoralise the exorcist, then he will try to terrify him, saying, 'Tonight I'm going to put a serpent between your sheets. Tomorrow I'm going to eat your heart.'”

Gabriele Amorth (1925–2016) Italian Roman Catholic priest and exorcist

Source: "An Interview With Fr Gabriele Amorth - The Church's Leading Exorcist" (2001)

Heart

“It is always necessary to call men back to history, which is the first master in politics, or more exactly the only master.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

"Of Monarchy," p. 120
Against Rousseau (1795)

Men, History

“I speak a language full and intelligible. I deal not in hints and intimations. [...] First, that I may be clearly understood. Secondly, that it may be seen I am in earnest; and, thirdly, because it is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with complaisance.”

Thomas Paine book The Age of Reason

1790s, The Age of Reason, Part III (1807)

Truth, Intelligence

“Nothing worse than a hypocrite
Change, he ain't really different
He ain't even try to get permission
Ask for advice and they dissed him
Said I'm finna do a gospel album
What have you been hearing from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Hands On
Lyrics, Jesus Is King (2019)

Love, Feeling, Change

“We recognise two varieties of spirit, one of which is called the soul (ψυχή), but the other is greater than the soul, an image and likeness of God: both existed in the first men, that in one sense they might be material (ὑλικοί), and in another superior to matter.”

Tatian Address to the Greeks

Chap. xii.—The two kinds of spirits.
Address to the Greeks

Men, God, Soul, Sense

“If a man knows what it is right to do, he does not require a formal reason. And a person that has been thus trained, either possesses these first principles already, or can easily acquire them.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Bk I, Ch II
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

Personality, Training

“How to Visit for the First Time the Street You Always Lived on?”

Joshua Leavitt

Time

“" I first picture the ending part, before the starting point. " -Engr. Abah Sule”

Engr.Abah Sule

Parting

“I like the word fuck. Fucking deal with it and move on to the first fucking question you have.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Interview. Citation needed.

Question

“The heart is the bridge between the mind and the soul. First get out of your mind and into your heart space. From there it is a quick jump into your soul.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Soul, Heart

“When we have a willingness to ask that first question, Who Am I?, and then to create the answer, it is immensely powerful to not simply respond to the question intellectually, as an intellectual excursion, but to create a response that makes sense to our Soul. A response that announces Who We Choose To Be, as opposed to who we imagine ourselves to be. Who I choose to be is an Individuation of Divinity, a wave on the Ocean of God.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

God, Soul, Imagination, Question

“The heart is the bridge between the mind and the soul. First get out of your mind and into your heart space. From there it is a quick jump into your soul. When you are in your heart space with another, that is when you can have a real soul talk. When you are in your heart space with yourself, that is when you can experience connecting with your soul at a very deep level. That is when you can experience communion with God.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

God, Soul, Heart

“Some of you are drowning, trying to catch every “next BIG wave”… When had you stayed faithful to the first idea you committed to, you'd be walking on water by now.”

Joshua King Madrid (1998)

Source: JetSet Instagram Caption: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqJWWZAvoY2/

Faith, Idea, Water

“If he speaks again without me knowing who he is, I will throw him out of the window. And I won't open it first.”

Dan Abnett (1965) British comic book writer, novelist

Source: Xenos

“I even move out onto the front porch and see my own limited view of the world. I want to take that world, and for the first time ever, I feel like I can do it. I’ve survived everything I’ve had to so far. I’m still standing here.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

World, Feeling, Time

“The truth shall make you free, but first it will make you miserable.”

Douglas Preston book Gideon's Sword

Source: Gideon's Sword

Truth

“I was aware now, as ever, that between all people there were First Times You See Them and Last Times you See Them.”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

People, Time

“Before I can face the future, I must first deal with the past.”

D.J. MacHale The Soldiers of Halla

Source: The Soldiers of Halla

Past, Future

“Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

“There are two essential kinds of loneliness: that of not having found someone to love, and that of having been deprived of the one you did love. The first kind is worse. Nothing can compare to the loneliness of the soul in adolescence.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Levels of Life

Love, Soul, Loneliness

“First of all, I'm not narcissistic." When she opened her lips to argue, he said, "I know Narkissos of Thespiae -- while we might share traits, I came first, so he's Lothairistic, not the other way around.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: First of all, I'm not narcissistic."..."I know Narkissos of Thespiae--while we might share traits, I came first, so he's Lothairistic, not the other way around"-- Lothaire

Way

“Roza." His voice had that same wonderful lowness, the same accent… it
was all just colder. "You forgot my first lesson: Don’t hesitate.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

“He was the first, the only love her life, and in a nature like hers such passions take deep root and die-hard.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

Source: A Long Fatal Love Chase

Love, Life, Nature, Passion

“We’re taught that in life, we should try to look on the bright side, to be optimistic. Not in this case. In this case, look on the dark side. Assume rejection first. Assume you’re the rule, not the exception.”

Liz Tuccillo book He's Just Not That into You

Source: He's Just Not That Into You

Life

“For the first time since her return, she felt pain, a violent pain, but it made her feel alive, because it was worth feeling.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Pain, Feeling, Time

“You are entering a phase of your life in which many different things will occur… bad things that seem good at first and good things that seem bad at first.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Life

“The first thing we pulled out was a lump of white gunk.
“Wax,” Carter pronounced.
“Fascinating.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself. In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg. Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer

Introduction http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/frankenstein/1831v1/intro.html to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein

Imagination, Idea, Fashion

“People are like moths. First they are ugly and awkward, until they break out of their shell and become a beautiful butterfly.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

People, Beauty

“Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)
Context: I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

Way

“You don't have to get it perfect, you just have to get it going. Babies don't walk the first time they try, but eventually they get it right”

Jack Canfield (1944) American writer

Time, Baby, Perfection

“Not for the first time, I reflected that intimacy and romance are not synonymous.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Time

“I will kill him.”

“Erra’s eyebrows rose. “You’d have to go through me first.”

I shrugged. “I have to do something for a warm-up.”

She laughed softly. “That’s the spirit. I do think you might be my favorite niece.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Thinking

“Infatuation. First Love. Lust.
My passion can be explained away. But this is sure: Whatever she touches, she reveals.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

Source: The Passion

Love, Passion

“That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Learning, Passion, Back To Work

“I do love the beginning of the summer hols,' said Julian. They always seem to stretch out ahead for ages and ages.'
'They go so nice and slowly at first,' said Anne, his little sister. 'Then they start to gallop.”

Enid Blyton book Five Go Off in a Caravan

Source: Five Go Off in a Caravan

Love, Age, Sister, Summer

“I could not remember my first kiss, but I could have told you Charlotte would be my last.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Kiss

“Do it first and feel about it afterwards.' - Dagny Taggart”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Feeling

“What does he do, Clarice? What is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing? He covets. How do we begin to covet? We begin by coveting what we see every day.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

“First paycheck I get, I thought, I'm going to get myself a room near the downtown L. A. Public Library.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“I couldn't remember ordinary moments, only the ones that had made an impression. Ordinary moments were the ones that fell away first.”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

“First one's free.”

Lilith Saintcrow book Strange Angels

Source: Strange Angels

“All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"The Crow and the Scarecrow", The New Yorker (date unknown); Further Fables for Our Time (1956). This is derived from Oscar Wilde's statement "All men kill the thing they love..."
From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time

Men, Hate