Quotes about force
page 17

Brooks D. Simpson photo
Jacoba van Heemskerck photo

“It is a terrible, but also tremendous time. Personally I find it moreover so important for my art to live now... These times force you to think over a lot and work very hard, in Nature now a strong creative force is working.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from German, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(original version, written by Jacoba in German:)Es ist eine schreckliche, doch auch eine gewaltige Zeit, ich persönlich empfinde es auch für meine Kunst so wichtig, jetzt zu leben.. .In dieser Zeit muss man viel denken und viel arbeiten, in der Natur ist jetzt eine so grosse Schaffenskraft.
In a letter of Jacoba, late 1914; as cited by A. Behne, in 'der Krieg und die künstlerische Produktion', in 'Die Umschau', Jan / März 1915
Jacoba is partly referring to World War 1. The Netherlands kept itself out of this war, but many Belgium refugees entered the country
1910's

William J. Brennan photo

“Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages.”

William J. Brennan (1906–1997) American judge

Writing for the court, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).

Salmon P. Chase photo

“For, what is slavery? It is the complete and absolute subjection of one person to the control and disposal of another person, by legalized force. We need not argue that no person can be, rightfully, compelled to submit to such control and disposal. All such subjection must originate in force; and, private force not being strong enough to accomplish the purpose, public force, in the form of law, must lend its aid. The Government comes to the help of the individual slaveholder, and punishes resistance to his will, and compels submission. THE GOVERNMENT, therefore, in the case of every individual slave, is THE REAL ENSLAVER, depriving each person enslaved of all liberty and all property, and all that makes life dear, without imputation of crime or any legal process whatsoever. This is precisely what the Government of the United States is forbidden to do by the Constitution. The Government of the United States, therefore, cannot create or continue the relation of master and slave. Nor can that relation be created or continued in any place, district, or territory, over which the jurisdiction of the National Government is exclusive; for slavery cannot subsist a moment after the support of the public force has been withdrawn.”

Salmon P. Chase (1808–1873) Chief Justice of the United States

"The Address of the Southern and Western Liberty Convention" http://alexpeak.com/twr/libertyparty/saw/, in Anti-slavery Addresses of 1844 and 1845 by Salmon Portland Chase and Charles Dexter Cleveland, ed. C. D. C. (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Martson, 1867), pp. 75–125.

Henry Adams photo
Alfred Nobel photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Maxwell D. Taylor photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Margaret Fuller photo

“It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Notes from Cambridge, Massachusetts (July 1842) published in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852), Vol. II, p. 64.

Gore Vidal photo
Philip Roth photo
George William Curtis photo

“A few years after the Constitution was adopted Alexander Hamilton said to Josiah Quincy that he thought the Union might endure for thirty years. He feared the centrifugal force of the system. The danger, he said, would proceed from the States, not from the national government. But Hamilton seems not to have considered that the vital necessity which had always united the colonies from the first New England league against the Indians, and which, in his own time, forced the people of the country from the sands of a confederacy to the rock of union, would become stronger every year and inevitably develop and confirm a nation. Whatever the intention of the fathers in 1787 might have been, whether a league or confederacy or treaty, the conclusion of the children in 1860 might have been predicted. Plant a homogeneous people along the coast of a virgin continent. Let them gradually overspread it to the farther sea, speaking the same language, virtually of the same religious faith, inter- marrying, and cherishing common heroic traditions. Suppose them sweeping from end to end of their vast domain without passports, the physical perils of their increasing extent constantly modified by science, steam, and the telegraph, making Maine and Oregon neighbors, their trade enormous, their prosperity a miracle, their commonwealth of unsurpassed importance in the world, and you may theorize as you will, but you have supposed an imperial nation, which may indeed be a power of evil as well as of good, but which can no more recede into its original elements and local sources than its own Mississippi, pouring broad and resistless into the Gulf, can turn backward to the petty forest springs and rills whence it flows. 'No, no', murmurs the mighty river, 'when you can take the blue out of the sky, when you can steal heat from fire, when you can strip splendor from the morning, then, and not before, may you reclaim your separate drops in me.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

'Yes, yes, my river,' answers the Union, 'you speak for me. I am no more a child, but a man; no longer a confederacy, but a nation. I am no more Virginia, New York, Carolina, or Massachusetts, but the United States of America'.
1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Jeremy Corbyn photo
Andrei Sakharov photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Kent Hovind photo
Uladzimir Nyaklyayew photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“What I liked about Greece was […] the impressive force of the language itself, unconfined by dictionaries, spoken in the streets, in cafés and in the country.”

Peter Levi (1931–2000) writer, archaeologist, sometime Jesuit priest

Peter Levi. The Hill of Kronos. 1980.

Michael Badnarik photo
Mark Twain photo

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

“Industrial age companies created sharp distinctions between two groups of employees. The intellectual elite—managers and engineers—used their analytical skills to design products and processes, select and manage customers, and supervise day-to-day operations. The second group was composed of the people who actually produced the products and delivered the services. This direct labor work force was a principal factor of production for industrial age companies, but used only their physical capabilities, not their minds. They performed tasks and processes under direct supervision of white-collar engineers and managers. At the end of the twentieth century, automation and productivity have reduced the percentage of people in the organization who perform traditional work functions, while competitive demands have increased the number of people performing analytic functions: engineering, marketing, management, and administration. Even individuals still involved in direct production and service delivery are valued for their suggestions on how to improve quality, reduce costs, and decrease cycle times…
Now all employees must contribute value by what they know and by the information they can provide. Investing in, managing, and exploiting the knowledge of every employee have become critical to the success of information age companies”

David P. Norton (1941) American business theorist, business executive and management consultant

Source: The Balanced Scorecard, 1996, p. 5-6

Margaret Thatcher photo
John Hospers photo
Scott Shaw photo
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo
Merrill McPeak photo
Harry Truman photo
Nicholas Murray Butler photo

“The moral ideal has disappeared in all that has to do with international relations. The gain-seeking impulse supported by brute force has taken its place, and so far as the surface of things is concerned human civilization has gone back a full thousand years. Inconceivable though it be, we are brought face to face in this twentieth century with governments of peoples once great and highly civilized, whose word now means absolutely nothing. A pledge is something not to be kept, but to be broken. Cruelty and national lust have displaced human feeling and friendly international co-operation. Human life has no value, and the savings of generations are wasted month by month and almost day by day in mad attempts to dominate the whole world in pursuit of gain.
How has all this been possible? What has happened to the teachings and inspiring leadership of the great prophets and apostles of the mind, who for nearly three thousand years have been holding before mankind a vision of the moral ideal supported by intellectual power? What has become of the influence and guidance of the great religions Christian, Moslem, Hebrew, Buddhist with their counsels of peace and good-will, or of those of Plato and of Aristotle, of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas Aquinas, and of the outstanding captains of the mind Spanish, Italian, French, English, German who have for hundreds of years occupied the highest place in the citadel of human fame? The answer to these questions is not easy. Indeed, it sometimes seems impossible.
Are we, then, of this twentieth century and of this still free and independent land to lose heart and to yield to the despair which is becoming so widespread in countries other than ours? Not for one moment will we yield our faith or our courage! We may well repeat once more the words of Abraham Lincoln: "Most governments have been based on the denial of the equal rights of men, ours began by affirming those rights. We made the experiment, and the fruit is before us. Look at it think of it!"
However dark the skies may seem now, however violent and apparently irresistible are the savage attacks being made with barbarous brutality upon innocent women and children and non-combatant men, upon hospitals and institutions for the care of the aged and dependent, upon cathedrals and churches, upon libraries and galleries of the world s art, upon classic monuments which record the architectural achievements of centuries we must not despair. Our spirit of faith in the ultimate rule of the moral ideal and in the permanent establishment of liberty of thought, of speech, of worship and of government will not, and must not, be permitted to weaken or to lose control of our mind and our action.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Liberty-Equality-Fraternity (1942)

George Marshall photo

“We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, Our Flag will be recognized throughout the World as a symbol of Freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Statement (29 May 1942); The Papers of George Catlett Marshall Vol 3 (1991) by the George C. Marshall Foundation

Burton K. Wheeler photo
Larry Wall photo

“The only disadvantage I see is that it would force everyone to get Perl. Horrors.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[8854@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Margaret Atwood photo
Koxinga photo

“You Hollanders are conceited and senseless people; you will make yourselves unworthy of the mercy which I now offer; you will subject yourselves to the highest punishment by proudly opposing the great force I have brought with the mere handful of men which I am told you have in your Castle; you will obstinately persevere in this. Do you not wish to be wiser? Let your losses at least teach you, that your power here cannot be compared to a thousandth part of mine.”

Koxinga (1624–1662) Chinese military leader

Formosa under the Dutch: described from contemporary records, with explanatory notes and a bibliography of the island, 1903, William Campbell, Kegan Paul, 423, Dec. 20 2011 http://books.google.com/books?id=OpdMq-YJoeoC&pg=PA423&dq=koxinga+formosa+always+belonged+to+china&hl=en&ei=vsjiTergDM3TgAekqbzKBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=koxinga%20formosa%20always%20belonged%20to%20china&f=false, Original from the University of Michigan(LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LTD DRYDEN HOUSE, 43 GERRARD STREET, SOHO MDCCCCIII Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty)

Louis Riel photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Johannes Kepler photo
Jason Blum photo

“I’m a big believer in creating parameters for creativity. I think parameters make people more creative. So that starts with my budgets. I only do low budget movies, and I think that makes the movies better. I think that the movies that we do are better because our budgets are lower, and it forces people to think within a box.”

Jason Blum (1969) American film producer

Exclusive Interview: Jason Blum on Insidious 2 and Blumhouse TV http://www.craveonline.com/site/621501-exclusive-interview-jason-blum-on-insidious-2-and-blumhouse-tv (December 21, 2013)

Parker Palmer photo
W. Brian Arthur photo
E.M. Forster photo

“Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

"Tolerance"
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Ali Khamenei photo
Michele Bachmann photo

“A country cannot be defeated politically unless it is defeated culturally. Our alien rulers knew that they could not conquer India without conquering Hinduism - cultural India's name at its deepest and highest, and the principle of its identity, continuity and reawakening. Therefore Hinduism became an object of their special attack. Physical attack was supplemented by ideological attack. They began to interpret for us our history, our religion, our culture and ourselves. We learnt to look at us through their eyes…. The long period created an atmosphere of mental slavery and imitation. It created a class of people Hindu in their names and by birth but anti-Hindu in orientation, sympathy and loyalty. They knew all the bad things and nothing good about Hinduism. Hindu dharma is now being subverted from within. Anti-Hindu Hindus are very important today; they rule the roost; they write our histories, they define our nation; they control the media, the academia, the politics, the higher administration and higher courts. They are now working as clients of those forces who are planning to revive their old Imperialism… During this period our minds became soft. We became escapists; we wanted to avoid conflict at any cost, even conflict and controversy of ideas, even when this controversy was necessary. We developed an escape-route. We called it "synthesis". We said all religions, all scriptures, all prophets preach the same things. It was intellectual surrender, and our enemies saw it that way; they concluded that we are amenable to anything, that we would clutch at any false hope or idea to avoid a struggle, and that we would do nothing to defend ourselves. Therefore, they have become even more aggressive. It also shows that we have lost spiritual discrimination (viveka), and would entertain any falsehood; this is prajñâ-dosha, drishti-dosha, and it cannot be good for our survival in the long run. People first fall into delusion before they fall into misfortune.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

On Hinduism (2000)

Camille Paglia photo
David Boaz photo
Patrick Nielsen Hayden photo
Charles Taze Russell photo
Simone Weil photo

“The soul was not made to dwell in a thing; and when forced to it, there is no part of that soul but suffers violence.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Une âme ... n'est pas faite pour habiter une chose ; quand elle y est contrainte, il n’est plus rien en elle qui ne souffre violence.
in The Simone Weil Reader, p. 155
Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Iliad or The Poem of Force (1940-1941)

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Plutarch photo

“Why does pouring oil on the sea make it clear and calm? Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force, nor cause any waves?”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Symposiacs, book viii. Question IX
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Thomas Love Peacock photo

“The mountain sheep are sweeter
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a host, and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it...

As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;
And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.”

Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company

"The War-Song of Dinas Vawr", stanzas 1 and 3, from The Misfortunes of Elphin, chapter XI (1829). In the same chapter this is described as "the quintessence of all the war-songs that ever were written, and the sum and substance of all the appetencies, tendencies, and consequences of military glory".

Walt Whitman photo

“Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force, fascination!
Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination?”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Youth, Day, Old Age and Night
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Simone de Beauvoir photo

“No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

“A Dialogue with Simone de Beauvoir,” in Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women’s Movement, (New York: Random House, 1976), p. 397 https://books.google.com/books?id=iv4-Qy82BJ0C&pg=PA397&lpg=PA397.
General sources

Christopher Hitchens photo
Phyllis Chesler photo

“Women … do not have to forsake the "wisdom of the heart" and become men. They need only transfer the primary force of their supportiveness to themselves and to each other—but never to the point of self-sacrifice.”

Phyllis Chesler (1940) Psychotherapist, college professor, and author

Women and Madness (2005), p. 348, and see Women and Madness (1972), p. 301 (similar text).
Women and Madness (1972, 2005)

John Dickinson photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be lawful, even cannibalism.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

Book II, ch. 6 (trans. Constance Garnett)
Pyotr Miusov, summarizing an argument made by Ivan at a social gathering
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Parker Palmer photo
Subramanian Swamy photo

“I feel that only those who have been oppressed by the society and have been forced to live a backward life should given reservations. If Muslims want to study, then should be given scholarships, good schools, But Muslims and Christians can't have reservation as they have ruled our country.”

Subramanian Swamy (1939) Indian politician

On giving reservations to Muslims and Christians, as quoted in "Muslims and Christians shouldn't ask for reservation, says Subramanian Swamy" http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-muslims-and-christians-shouldn-t-ask-for-reservation-says-subramanian-swamy-1995886, DNA India (16 June 2014)
2011-2014

Roy A. Childs, Jr. photo
George William Curtis photo
Osama bin Laden photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“There can be no forced inspiration.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Bright Moments http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21377/Bright_Moments
From the poems written in English

Paul Ryan photo

“Working together, America's military, Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi people have won a major battle in the war on terrorism.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

[2006-06-08, Ryan Statement on Death of Terrorist al-Zarqawi, paulryan.house.gov, http://paulryan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=246756, 2012-09-30]
in reaction to the killing of militant Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Rex Tillerson photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
René Préval photo

“The drug trade does not function well with a strong state, or a healthy state. It tries to corrupt the police force, it tries to corrupt the judiciary, and the executive. And drug trafficking thrives in a weak state.”

René Préval (1943–2017) President of Haiti

President Bush Welcomes President Preval of Haiti to the White House http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070508-5.html#

Ron Paul photo
Karen Armstrong photo
Andrei Grechko photo

“The Communist Party and the Soviet Government display constant concern to strengthen the country's defensive might and raise the combat readiness of the Armed Forces.”

Andrei Grechko (1903–1976) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "Soviet Civil Defense" - Page 5 - by Leon Gouré - 1971

Benjamin N. Cardozo photo
Dave Barry photo
Joni Madraiwiwi photo
John Hagee photo

“God says in Jeremiah 16 — "Behold I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave unto their fathers" — that would be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - "Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them" — that will be the Jews — "from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks." If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust — you can't see that. So think about this — I will send fishers and I will send hunters. A fisher is someone who entices you with a bait. How many of you know who Theodore Herzl was? How many of you don't have a clue who he was? Woo, sweet God! Theodore Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew that at the turn of the 19th century said, "this land is our land, God wants us to live there". So he went to the Jews of Europe and said, "I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel". So few went, Herzl went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the Holocaust. Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says — Jeremiah righty? — "they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks", meaning: there's no place to hide. And that will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended: I didn't write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, "my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel". Today Israel is back in the land and they are at Ezekiel 37 and 8. They are physically alive but they're not spiritually alive. Now how is God going to cause the Jewish people to come spiritually alive and say, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is God"?”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

late 2005 sermon at Cornerstone Church, quoted in

Émile Durkheim photo