Quotes about force
page 21

“The economic policies of Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany resembled the ‘state socialism’ which Lenin wanted to institute in Soviet Union upon coming to power, under which private enterprise would work for the government—an idea Lenin was force to abandon under the pressure of the ‘Left Communists’.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Property and Freedom (1999), p. 218

Idea

“Right now, at this very moment, on American highways, there are no less than 5,000 concentration camp trucks. Trucks that we have constructed. Inside these trucks, there are living, terrified innocent beings. Cows and pigs and chickens. These trucks are being driven to concentration camp's slaughterhouses that we carefully constructed all across America. When the trucks arrive, the animals are so frightened that they won't even get off the truck. They're not stupid, they know what's next. So people go on the trucks with electric prods and force them to walk down the chutes to their own deaths. Or if the animals are small enough to man handle, like chickens, we'll just grab them off the trucks and toss them inside. Inside, these innocent, living beings are hanged upside down, fully conscious. In other words, they go in alive, against their will, and come out chopped up, into hundreds of pieces.”

Gary Yourofsky (1970) animal rights activist

Part of the speech to the students of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Summer 2010)

Death, People, Stupidity, Animals

“I purchased a Chevrolet Impala. I shopped around and had 5 different auto dealers competing for my business. Because all 5 offered the same product, they were forced to compete for my business… Funny thing, they still made a fair profit — not an outrageous one.”

Steve Kagen (1949) American politician

Comparing price competition in the automobile market to having a prescription filled at a pharmacy
[13 July 2007, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/13/852/86199, "I Have Been Living the Movie 'Sicko' For the Last 30 Years", Daily Kos, 2007-07-21]
Healthcare

Business

“This reduction implies the release of funds for development and a shift of the labour force previously dedicated to military industries toward peaceful activities, protection of human rights, conservation of the environment, the eradication of illiteracy, promotion of education and scientific research together with enhanced efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals and implement the agenda for the post-2015 period.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

CELAC / Zone of Peace: “A key step to countering the globalization of militarism” – UN Expert http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14215&LangID=E. 2014

Education, Peace, Effort

“It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes… It is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express: it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it, out of eight or ten words equally common, equally intelligible, with nearly equal pretensions, it is a matter of some nicety and discrimination to pick out the very one the preferableness of which is scarcely perceptible, but decisive.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Familiar Style" (1821) Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

People, Intelligence, Decision

“To approach Chopin, you have to separate him completely from Schumann. Schumann admired Chopin very much and saw him as friend, but - what only few people know - Chopin himself had much less interest in and esteem for Schumann. In detail: Schumann’s works follow on from a transitional period determined by the successors of Viennese Classicism, particularly Beethoven. Just as the sons of Bach espoused the ‘galant,’ ornamented style of their generation, so the pupils of Mozart and Beethoven - Hummel, Ries, Czerny, Moscheles - took pains to compensate for a thinner musical substance with increased instrumental brilliance and thus prepared the ground for the golden age of the piano and the era of the Romantic virtuoso. Among the multitude of composers writing for the piano at that time, only two - Weber and Schubert - stand out as original creative forces.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings about Chopin and Schumann

Pain, People, Age, Music

“And we saw the seed,
The minuscule Sequoia seed
In the museum by the tremendous slab
Of the tree. And imagined the seed
In soil and the growth quickened
So that we saw the seed reach out, forcing
Earth thru itself into bark, wood, the green
Needles of a redwood until the tree
Stood in the room without soil—
How much of the earth's
Crust has lived
The seed’s violence!
The shock is metaphysical.”

George Oppen (1908–1984) American poet

"Return" st. 2, 1962; New Collected Poems, New Directions, 2002, ISBN 0-811-21488-5

Imagination, Tree

“Liberated, Iraq is the only Arab country, so far, to have changed governments three times through elections and also the only one where all political parties operate freely. Iraqis didn’t achieve what they hoped; they achieved what they could. The invasion was not about the United States setting up bases or stealing Iraq’s oil or using Iraq for an invasion of Iran, as Saddam’s apologists claimed. Nor was it about imposing democracy by force. It was about two things: stopping a time bomb that was ticking in the heart of the region and removing the impediment to democratization that was Saddam’s regime. More than a million Americans fought and worked in Iraq. They share part of the credit for the fact that Iraqis today are able to run their own lives without fear. They can be proud that, once again, American power was used to free a nation from tyranny.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"What Saddam’s ouster achieved" http://nypost.com/2013/03/19/what-saddams-ouster-achieved/, New York Post (March 19, 2013). New York Post

Fear, Hope, Democracy, Change

“A scorching blast of golden fire as it slowly leaves the ground
Tears away with a mighty force
The air is shattered by the awesome sound
-- Countdown (1982)”

Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author

Rush Lyrics

Tear

“Given the current financial crisis and the widespread belief that the 21st century will belong to China, is free trade really making global markets more efficient? Is it promoting our values and making America stronger? Or is it simply strengthening our adversaries and creating a world where countries who abuse the system - such as China - are on the road to economic and military dominance? If Mr. Trump’s potential campaign does nothing more than force a real debate on those questions, it will have done a service to both the Republican Party and the country.”

Robert Lighthizer (1947) US Trade Representative

LIGHTHIZER: Donald Trump is no liberal on trade http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/9/donald-trump-is-no-liberal-on-trade/ (May 9, 2011)

World, Question, Country

“Finally, there is a compelling moral argument against war in Iraq. Military force is justified only in self-defense; naked aggression is the province of dictators and rogue states. This is the danger of a new "preemptive first strike" doctrine. America is the most moral nation on earth, founded on moral principles, and we must apply moral principles when deciding to use military force.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

U.S. House of Representatives http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr090402.htm (September 4, 2002). 2000s, 2001-2005

War

“Yet the American forces are distinctly the forces of peace. They are the guaranties of that order and tranquility in this part of the world, which is alike beneficial to us and all the other nations. Everyone knows that we covet no territory, we entertain no imperialistic designs, we harbor no enmity toward any other people. We seek no revenge, we nurse no grievances, we have inflicted no injuries, and we fear no enemies. Our ways are the ways of peace.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

People, World, Fear, Peace

“Never wage war on religion, nor upon seemingly holy institutions, for this thing has too great a force upon the minds of fools.”

Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540) Italian writer, historian and politician

Non combattete mai con la religione, né con le cose che pare che dependono da Dio; perché questo obietto ha troppa forza nella mente degli sciocchi.
Number 253.
Counsels and Reflections (1857)

War, Religion, Fools

“As much as possible, the government should purchase brand new military hardware if it really wants to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which is widely regarded as one of the weakest military forces in Southeast Asia. If we are going to pour in billions of pesos to improve the AFP, we might as well give our soldiers the best modern and sophisticated equipment we can get.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Sun Star Manila http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2015/08/18/escudero-asks-govt-stop-buying-dilapidated-military-hardware-425294 2015

“Audiences and critics acknowledge that a play or concerto gains force in great rendition. A good play may overcome bad staging. A great concerto may survive a poor soloist. But it is naturally assumed that a more accomplished performance intensifies the impact of the work. The play's text or concerto's score does not change, but the right actors and musicians help realize its full potential. Among contemporary literary critics, however, one never encounters this notion in regard to books and printing. To recognize the sensual contributions of the physical elements of a book is somehow assumed to demean the spiritual purity of the text. To notice the book itself smacks of philistinism, and to make distinctions based on paper, binding, and typography brings accusations of elitism or decadence.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"Designing Literature: Creative Collaboration" http://www.danagioia.net/essays/ecreative.htm (1992) Essays

Books, Nature, Change, Help

“Human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity. As Truman said, “We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might”. That’s why this country has historically been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be maintained if America remains true to its principles, including in the struggle against terrorism. When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused.
— And States need to play by the rules towards each other, as well as towards their own citizens. That can sometimes be inconvenient, but ultimately what matters is not inconvenience. It is doing the right thing. No State can make its own actions legitimate in the eyes of others. When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose — for broadly shared aims –- in accordance with broadly accepted norms.
— No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little — and the international community is among them. This we must change.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Truman Library address (2006)

World, Law, Communication, Nature

“That a formal science like algebra, the creation of our abstract thought, should thus, in a sense, dictate the laws of its own being, is very remarkable. It has required the experience of centuries for us to realize the full force of this appeal.”

George Ballard Mathews (1861–1922) British mathematician

G.B. Mathews quoted in: F. Spencer. Chapters on Aims and Practice of Teaching, (London, 1899), p. 184. Reported in Moritz (1914).

Law, Sense, Science

“The loathing of mankind is a force that surprises and overwhelms one, fed by hundreds of springs concealed his subconsciousness. One only detects its presence after having long entertained it unawares.”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), pp. 113

Spring

“In social terms the identification of poet with teacher is now complete. The first question one poet now asks another upon being introduced is "Where do you teach?" The problem is not that poets teach. The campus is not a bad place for a poet to work. It's just a bad place for all poets to work. Society suffers by losing the imagination and vitality that poets brought to public culture. Poetry suffers when literary standards are forced to conform with institutional ones.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991)

Imagination, Question, Problem, Suffering

“Truly, night was made for sleep; since to its wakeful hours belongs an oppression unknown to the very dreariest hours of day. The stillness is so deep, the solitude so unbroken, the fever brought on by want of rest so weakens the nerves, that the imagination exercises despotic and unwholesome power, till, if the heart have a fear or a sorrow, up it arises in all the force and terror of gigantic exaggeration.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Fear, Exercises, Imagination, Solitude

“Just as liberalism is the main force that drives conservatism and maintains its popularity in some quarters, conservatism is the reason liberalism continues to enjoy the traction that it does in our poor civilization.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Revenge of the Cookie Monster".

“There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to 'social peace,' though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.”

A. J. Muste (1885–1967) Christian pacifist and civil rights activist

"Pacifism and Class War" in The Essays of A. J. Muste (1967) edited by p. 179-85; also quoted in American Power and the New Mandarins (2002) by Noam Chomsky, p. 160.

Life, Peace, Thinking, Evil

“Man’s rights can be violated only by the use of physical force. It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursuing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgment.”

Ayn Rand book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

Life

“I consider that Curie's Principle has two major consequences:
First: It shows that the class of processes which can be isolated for causal representation, not requiring the inference of external causes, is wider than the class of energetically closed systems. One-way processes in which the system loses energy can be isolable, in the sense that they can be given complete representation without taking their environment into account.
Second: It suggests the possibility of a geometrical physics treating 3D spatial relations, i. e., angles or lengths, as primary. Just as statistical mechanics, the theory of crystal symmetry, and Group theory in quantum mechanics, are useful without assumptions about forces, so Curie's principle, with an appropriate model, can determine the path of a one-way process without such assumptions…”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Pierre Curie's Principle of One Way-Process (1970)

Way, Sense

“It is to the director of workshops and factories that it is suitable to make, by means of geometry and applied mechanics, a special study of all the ways to economize the efforts of workers… For a man to be a director of others, manual work has only a secondary importance; it is his intellectual ability (force intellectuelle) that must put him in the top position, and it is in instruction such as that of the Conservatory of the Arts and Professions, that he must develop it.”

Charles Dupin (1784–1873) French mathematician

Charles Dupin (1826), Geometrie et Mechanique des Arts et Metiers et des Beaux Arts Paris: Bachelier; Cited and translated by John Hoaglund, "Management Before Frederick Taylor," p. 30.; and cited in Wren & Bedeian (2005, 74)

Art, Way, Effort, Study

“We can reckon the cost of misdirected emotions by the price which the past has paid for them. We know the full significance of that irresponsible sympathy which … admits no difference between attack and resistance, between a war of aggression and a war of defence; which confuses moral issues, ignores experience, and insults the intelligence of mankind. The reformer whose heart is in the right place, but whose head is elsewhere, represents a waste of force; and we can not afford any waste in the conservation of honour and goodness.”

Agnes Repplier (1855–1950) American essayist

in "The Cost of Modern Sentiment" (1916)

War, Intelligence, Past, Heart

“People like to do things. They like to do them well. People take the dangerous, hard jobs because they take pride in doing them, they can—egoize, we call it—show off?—to the weaker ones. Hey, look, little boys, see how strong I am! You know? A person likes to do what he is good at doing…. But really, it is the question of ends and means. After all, work is done for the work’s sake. It is the lasting pleasure of life. The private conscience knows that. And also the social conscience, the opinion of one’s neighbors. There is no other reward, on Anarres, no other law. One’s own pleasure, and the respect of one’s fellows. That is all. When that is so, then you see the opinion of the neighbors becomes a very mighty force.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 5 (p. 150)

Life, People, Pleasure, Law

“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, Prayer on D-Day (1944)

God, Faith, Religion, Strong

“The meaning of the word “feminist” has not really changed since it first appeared in a book review in the Athenaeum of April 27, 1895, describing a woman who “has in her the capacity of fighting her way back to independence.” It is the basic proposition that, as Nora put it in Ibsen's A Doll's House a century ago, “Before everything else I'm a human being.” It is the simply worded sign hoisted by a little girl in the 1970 Women's Strike for Equality: I AM NOT A BARBIE DOLL. Feminism asks the world to recognize at long last that women aren't decorative ornaments, worthy vessels, members of a “special-interest group”. They are half (in fact, now more than half) of the national population, and just as deserving of rights and opportunities, just as capable of participating in the world's events, as the other half. Feminism's agenda is basic It asks that women not be forced to “choose” between public justice and private happiness. It asks that women be free to define themselves — instead of having their identity defined for them, time and again, by their culture and their men.”

Susan Faludi book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

Backlash (1992)

Women, Men, Happiness, Books

“Doctor Doom: Bereft of my technology… mystic armor damaged… offensive and defensive capabilities minimal. Enemy forces… [a horde of demons closes in] substantial. It matters not. Even cornered, to my last breath I remain who and what I am. I will not hide, nor tremble, nor beg. Let them come and reckon with fury that is DOOM defiant. Here I stand, hell-horde! Unbowed! But understand: If it is my destiny that I should perish this day, I shall not go down easily… and I shall NOT go down ALONE.
Demons: RIP its SKIN. Wear it for HIDE. Its EYES for me. Tear its FLESH from its BONES.
Doctor Doom: Yes, come, and let us make an end of it — there is DOOM enough for ALL!”

J. Michael Straczynski (1954) American writer and television producer

June
2006
J. Michael Straczynski
The Hammer Falls (Part 2)
Fantastic Four
537

Hell, Understanding, Tear

“The twentieth century encounter between alphabetic and electronic forces of culture confers on the printed word a crucial role in staying the return to “the Africa within.””

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 51

“During the April battles the Armenian leadership was completely exposed because they suffered a heavy defeat and did not receive any political support. But, in fact, they relied on that support very much. And when they did not receive that support they, as usual, started to accuse different countries. At the end of the day, they were forced to admit their defeat in the April battles. First, they said that they did not lose the lands. Then they said that these lands are unimportant. Then they said that they will retake these territories. All this is totally untrue. The Armenian leadership has put itself in such a ridiculous situation that Armenia still feels grave consequences of this.”

Ilham Aliyev (1961) 4th President of Azerbaijan from 2003

While receiving a group of servicemen on the anniversary of the April victories of the Azerbaijani army (31 March 2017) http://en.apa.az/nagorno_karabakh/ilham-aliyev-nagorno-karabakh-conflict-is-azerbaijan-s-internal-affair.html Nagorno-Karabakh

Feeling, Support, Suffering, Country

“However social integration cannot be forced and not proceed at the pace that the community considers uncomfortable.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Opening address to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Nadi, 6 September 2005.

Communication

“[I] decided to force myself to cut this golden knot of ambition [to portray the nobility any longer] in order to recover my liberty. Realizing that a retirement of this sort must be made while one is rising and not falling; that one must leave Fortune while she is still favorable... I seized the occasion of a short, secret journey to throw myself at Her Highness's feet and beg, as the sole reward for so many efforts, exemption from such [diplomatic] assignments and permission to serve her in my own home. This favor I obtained with more difficulty than any other she ever granted me... Now by God's grace.... I am leading a quiet life with my wife and children and have no pretensions in the world than to live in peace.”

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) Flemish painter

Quote in a letter to his friend Peiresc, 18 Dec. 1634; as cited by Simon Schrama, in Rembrandt's eyes, Alfred A. Knopf - Borzoi Books, New York 1999, p. 402
1625 - 1640

Life, God, Children, Secret

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, Response to the attack on Pearl Harbor (1941)
Context: Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

“People who are given opiates after operations — sometimes for days — do not become addicts in the sense that I’m talking about. Moreover, it’s been shown that heroin addicts have to make considerable efforts — in other words to be determined — to become addicts, and addicted; and on average it takes them about a year or so. In other words, heroin does not hook them, they hook heroin. And this, I think should suggest, is a typical example of the way that when we think about social problems, or the way many of us think about social problems, we ascribe agency not to agents but to inanimate objects and substances, and forces.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

C-SPAN: Romancing Opiates https://www.c-span.org/video/?191384-1/romancing-opiates (May 30, 2006)

People, Way, Problem, Thinking

“I think in reviewing the doctrines connected with our Foreign policy which I have preached and defended during 40 years of my public life, you will not be surprised at the decision I am now compelled to take. I cannot accept any share of the responsibility for the acts of war which have taken place at Alexandria. I cannot see to what they may lead, and I know not to what greater wrong and mischief they may force the Government. I feel therefore compelled to withdraw from the Administration, and to ask you to place my resignation of the office I hold in the hands of the Queen. I bitterly lament the disappointment of many hopes as I separate myself from your Government. My feelings towards yourself are those of profound esteem and regard, and an overpowering sense of duty has alone forced me to the only course which seems now open to me. To add to your difficulties and to give you trouble is a cause of much unhappiness to me. I can only hope you will be able to judge me rightly and to forgive me.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Resignation letter to Gladstone (12 July 1882), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 433.
1880s

Life, War, Hope, Disappointment

“First of all, I can see that you love your daughter and you are a nice person who has a great future ahead of you and I hope your future is here…. This is not the focus…. And so, what we have to do is find a way to make sure that you can get right with the law and we've got to do this in a good way, so that the rug doesn't get pulled out from under you and your family gets separated…but if you're worried about, you know, some deportation force coming, knocking on your door this year, don't worry about that…. Secure the border and the people who are violent criminals, repeat offenders who keep coming back in, we've got to focus on that.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

CNN Town Hall Meeting, responding to DACA audience member about her concern that she could be deported by ICE, CNN "Transcripts" http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1701/12/se.01.html aired 12 January 2017.

Love, People, Family, Law

“That war in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstitution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent – or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought – destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position – leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that – like Chomsky – looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"In enemy territory? An interview with Christopher Hitchens." http://www.johannhari.com/2004/09/23/in-enemy-territory-an-interview-with-christopher-hitchens, Interview with Johann Hari (2004-09-23): On the Bosnian War 2000s, 2004

War, People, Support, Change

“Compulsion means force; there must be a policeman to see that the individual does not follow his own inclinations. But policemen must live. Since they do not produce a thing by which they can live, others must support them. Hence, the planners must have the means of getting at the production of the very people who are to be improved by the policeman. That means taxes, and the more taxes the greater the number of enforcement agents, and therefore the more comprehensive the plan. No plan can be bigger than its bureaucracy. The income tax is the ideal instrument for the planner.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: The Income Tax: Root of All Evil (1954), p. 54

People, Support

“Whenever human beings don't know what to do, they call in the soldiers. Force ends everything, yes? That's what they did with Christ, Mr. Sharpe, they called in the soldiers. They didn't know what to do with him so they called on men like you and I don't suppose they thought twice about what they were doing, they just banged in the nails. You'd have done that, wouldn't you?”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Reverend Doctor Patrick Curtis, p. 223
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Men, Christ

“[W]hat a terrible wrong inflict those nations that force their reign on minorities, depriving them of freedom without allowing them to live their lives by the tendencies they have inherited from their ancestors (…) For we can see how all the nations that ever fell, throughout the generations, came to it only due to their oppression of minorities and individuals, which had therefore rebelled against them and ruined them. Hence, it is clear to all that peace cannot exist in the world if we do not take into consideration the freedom of the individual. Without it, peace will not be sustainable and ruin shall prevail.”

Yehuda Ashlag (1886–1954) Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Kabbalist

Assorted Themes, On Freedom

World, Peace, Freedom

“The opening plenary of this Forum will be presenting an overview of the global forces affecting the quality of life of the human community and the challenges they pose for the global community as a whole and for women in particular as we approach the twenty-first century. However, with true womanly understanding, the Convener of this Forum suggested that among these global forces and challenges, I might wish to concentrate on those matters which occupy all my waking thoughts these days: peace, security, human rights and democracy. I would like to discuss these issues particularly in the context of the participation of women in politics and governance.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)

Life, Women, Peace, Democracy

“Who are we? We are the life force power of the universe.”

Jill Bolte Taylor (1959) American neuroscientist

Ted Talks http://www.byronkatie.com/newsletter_april_08.html

Life, Universe

“We promised the Europeans freedom. It would be worse than dishonorable not to see that they have it. This might mean war with the Russians, but what of it? They have no air force, and their gasoline and ammunition supplies are low. I've seen their miserable supply trains; mostly wagons drawn by beaten up old horses or oxen. I'll say this; the Third Army alone and with damned few casualties, could lick what is left of the Russians in six weeks. You mark my words. Don't ever forget them. Someday we will have to fight them and it will take six years and cost us six million lives.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

As quoted in The Unknown Patton (1983) by Charles M. Province, p. 100

War, Freedom, Horse, Fight

“American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in force against the criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

State of the Union address (1810) https://books.google.com/books?id=PsFnB7FA11YC&pg=PA200&dq=%22Rendered+impossible+by+the+prejudices+of+the+whites%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAWoVChMI8uuN6dbUxwIVBD0-Ch1EqwFq#v=onepage&q=%22Rendered%20impossible%20by%20the%20prejudices%20of%20the%20whites%22&f=false 1810s

Law, Motivation, Evil, Country

“The fact is that we have realized that in labour disputes the use of violence plays into the hands of the ruling classes justifying the reaction of the military and discrediting the forces from below. Besides the refusal to use violence achieves the possibility of establishing even international solidarities of a very wide range.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

“Heathrow the next morning looked like one of those bad science fiction movies "set in the near future" after the security forces have taken over the state. Two armored personnel carriers were parked outside the terminal. A dozen men with Rambo machine guns and bad haircuts patrolled outside. Vast lines of passengers queued to be frisked and X-rayed, carrying their shoes in one hand and their pathetic tolietries in a clear plastic bag in the other. Travel is sold as freedom, but we were free as lab rats. This is how they'll manage the next holocaust, I thought, as I shuffled forward in my stockinged feet: they'll simply issue us with air tickets and we'll do whatever we're told.”

Robert Harris book The Ghost

Source: The Ghost (2007), Ch. 3.

Men, Shoe, Travel, Freedom

“ People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness. ”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), What Animals Shall We Imitate?, p. 8

Life, People, Law, Nature

“Why, since people must outnumber the minority that comprises the State and its oppressive forces, have they submitted so meekly to it?”

Albert Meltzer (1920–1996) British anarchist

The Floodgates of Anarchy p. 15.

People

“Granting this premise, the anarchist position appeared logical to me, as it did to Prince Kropotkin and Bakunin. Putting it roughly, if all men are human, if all bipeds classifiable as homo sapiens are human beings, social harmony and a general progress in civilization will be far better brought about by methods of free agreement and voluntary association than by constraint, whether directly under force, or under the menace of force which is always implicit in obedience to law.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

A Little Conserva-tive (1936)

Men, Law, Appearance

“By 1939 the national debt had reached 37.4 billion marks. The reemployment of millions of jobless and the rearmament of German military forces had been financed by borrowing gigantic sums of money. Even Goebbels, who otherwise mocked the government’s financial experts as narrow-minded misers, expressed concern in his diary about the exploding deficit.”

Götz Aly (1947) German journalist, historian and social scientist

Source: Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007), p. 39

Money

“During the tenth and eleventh centuries the rule of the Church prohibiting the clergy from marrying appears to have been widely and publicly neglected in Italy, Germany, France, and England. To the stricter critics of the time this appeared a terrible degradation of the clergy, who, they felt, should be unencumbered by family cares and wholly devoted to the service of God. The question, too, had another side. It was obvious that the property of the Church would soon be dispersed if the clergy were allowed to marry, since they would wish to provide for their children. Just as the feudal tenures had become hereditary, so the church lands would become hereditary unless the clergy were forced to remain unmarried.”

James Harvey Robinson (1863–1936) American historian

Source: An Introduction to the History of Western Europe (1902), Ch. 12 : Germany and Italy in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries, p. 157

God, Children, Family, Question

“Byron, a man who gave the world a better heart and a new pulse…The man who finds new pulses in the world is the man who will enjoy immortality. Byron was, if anything, a sower of new seed that had a great germinal force…Byron found the eyes of the people sealed, and opened them, and for that reason the gratitude of the nation should be given to him.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Byron centenary luncheon (29 April 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 123-124.
1924

People, World, Heart, Gratitude

“They had left him for dead in the middle of a pool of blood in his own bedroom, his belly slit open like gaping barn doors, the hilt of the knife wedged against his sternum. But the only trouble was that he had stayed alive somehow, his life pumping out, managing to knock the telephone off the little table and dial me. Now he was looking up at me with seconds left and all he could do was force out the words, "Mike …there was no reason."”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Survival...Zero! (1970)

Life, Dead

“Nature may certainly produce whatever can arise from habit: Nay, habit is nothing but one of the principles of nature, and derives all its force from that origin.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 3, Section 16
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding

Nature

“… Following these examples every responsible government should strive to remove those obstacles that hinder the progress of civilisation and should stimulate the growth of those economic forces that a nation carries in its bosom.”

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

Source: The Natural System of Political Economy (1837), pp. 42–43

“A first proposition, therefore, in Americanization is to find a way to satisfy the creative instinct in men and their sense of home, by giving them and their native-born sons the widest possible knowledge of America, including a pictorial geography, a simple history of the United States, the stories of successful Americans including those of foreign-born origin; a knowledge of American literature, of our political ideals and institutions, and of oiy: free educational opportunities. A systematic effort should be made to give them a land interest and a home stake and to get them close to the soil, not alone in the day's work but also in their cultural life. The men most likely to desert America at the close of the war will be workers with job stakes and wage rates, and not those with a home stake and investments. I would carry this campaign of information into every foreign language publication, every newspaper, every shop, and every racial center in America. The land interpreter of the future will be the government, and Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, has foreseen this in his appeal for the use of the land for the rehabilitation of men returning from the front. It is the land that will make the life of the maimed livable and will connect the past with the future. This will not be achieved by forced "back-to-the-land movements" and colonization. Each individual American who interprets the beauty of America and its meaning, and who, wherever he can, personally puts the foreign-born in touch with the soil and helps him to a plot of ground which he can call his own, is doing effective Americanization. Loyalty and efficiency are inherent in this land sense, and they are the strength of a nation.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Life, Men, War, Education

“A man forced to spend his life without ever having the right, without ever finding the time, to shut himself up all alone, no matter where, to think, to reflect, to work, to dream? Ah! my dear boy, a key, the key of a door which one can lock — this is happiness, mark you, the only happiness!”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

"The Question of Latin"

Life, Happiness, Dreams, Boy

“When the late king, Ibrahim Kootb Shah, had settled the countries of the Hindoos on his southern frontier, and despatched his commander, Ameer Shah Meer, to oppose the armies of his Mahomedan neighbours, he vested the management of the affairs of his government in the hands of one Moorhary Row, a Marratta bramin, to whom was attached a body of ten thousand infantry, under the command of Mahomedan officers of rank, with permission to beat the nobut. Moorhary Row was in every respect the second person in the state, not even excepting the princes of the blood-royal. In the latter end of the late king’s reign, this unprincipled infidel proceeded with a force towards a famous temple near Adony, where he attacked the inhabitants, laid waste the country, and sacked it of its idols, made of gold and silver, and studded with rubies. He levied also four lacks of hoons (160,000l.) from the inhabitants. At sight of the idols the King was taken seriously ill, and never recovered. He died on Thursday the 21st of Rubbeeoos-Sany, AH 988 (AD June 2, 1580) AD…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Ibrãhîm Qutb Shãh of Golconda (AD 1550-1580) Adoni (Karnataka)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Personality, Country

“I am convinced, based on more than three decades of studying NRMs through participant-observation and through interviews with both members and ex-members, that these movements have unleashed social and psychological forces of truly awesome power. These forces have wreaked havoc in many lives - in both adults and in children. It is these social and psychological influence processes that the social scientist has both the right and the duty to try to understand, regardless of whether such understanding will ultimately prove helpful or harmful to the cause of religious liberty. … the real sociological issue ought not to be whether brainwashing ever occurs but rather whether it occurs frequently enough to be considered an important social problem.”

Benjamin Zablocki (1941) American sociologist

Benjamin Zablocki (1997) The Blacklisting of a Concept: The Strange History of the Brainwashing Conjecture in the Sociology of Religion. ( online http://www.apologeticsindex.org/z03.html)

Children, Understanding, Problem, Study

“We don't know what the future will bring, but that's because we are ever in the process of creating it, not because it is an alien force to which we have to submit.”

Mark Kingwell (1963) Canadian philosopher

Source: The World We Want (2000), Chapter 5, The World We Want, p. 222.

Future

“Time may restore us in his course
Goethe’s sage mind and Byron’s force;
But where will Europe’s latter hour
Again find Wordsworth’s healing power?”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

St. 6
Memorial Verses (1852)

Time

“Is it not plain that the law of good will has a universal application? There is no event, no act, no word, no supreme crisis of life in which man may let the good will go, and turn on the forces of ill will, egotism, and selfishness. Letting the good will go out of him, he lapses straightway into the child or the savage. Keeping the flow of the serene good will in his soul, he walks the earth, fearless, erect, with God’s sunshine on his face. To live thus is the essence of civilization; the individual and the social welfare are thus secured and harmonized. To live thus is practical religion; the more thoroughly we try, test, and experience it, the more completely it will be found to grow out of, and to illustrate, a Theology, that is, a divine plan of the universe. This Theology matches the needs of civilized men in a civilized world.”

Charles Fletcher Dole (1845–1927) Unitarian minister, speaker, and writer

The Theology of Civilization (May 1899)

Life, Men, God, World

““I wake up in the morning and sometimes I just want to wear a T-shirt and blue jeans and now I have to force myself to do that, because I can’t care what people think, you know?...”

Hayley Williams (1988) American singer-songwriter and musician

About the pressure of being famous, and a role model. http://everythingintime.com/tag/hayley-williams

People, Thinking

“I do not say what I do not mean. Neither can anyone force me to say what I don't wish to say.”

Anson Chan (1940) Hong Kong politician

Source:Anson Chan to Newsweek magazine in 1997.

“The Orient that appears in Orientalism, then, is a system of representations framed by a whole set of forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and later, Western empire. … The Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear the figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe.”

Edward Said book Orientalism

Orientalism (1978)

World, Learning, Appearance

“The armed forces have acted today solely from the patriotic inspiration of saving the country from the tremendous chaos into which it was being plunged by the Marxist government of Salvador Allende.… The Junta will maintain judicial power and consultantship of the Comptroller. The Chambers will remain in recess until further orders. That is all.”

Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Former dictator of the republic of Chile

Press conference (11 September 1973) Youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hbhb0ozRuM 1970s

Country

“Nehru's great passion was to change our society — the congealed society which we inherited from our own past, and from the static past of the British period. And, social change he connected with economic change. We could not change our society without changing our economic system and economic relations in society. His whole dream was that, his whole effort was in that direction. But the march of society, of social change has not been fast enough, nor fundamental enough so far. And, our inherited caste system remains with us, but it has been very badly battered. And, the conceptions behind the caste system have also been very badly damaged by policies, by the march of technology and economics, all these things. To some extent while this progressive movement was taking place, there was also, concurrently, some sort of counter-revolution, resisting it. But the overwhelming force of the progressive movement has been winning by and large. But now we have to specifically deal with many of the social ills and backwardness.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Shri K. R. Narayanan President of India in Conversation with N. Ram on Doordarshan and All India Radio

Dreams, Effort, Passion, Change

“You should not be subjected to the pressures, the intimidation, whether by Government or by the private sector, which would force you into self-censorship.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

UN expert on democracy highlights importance of free expression, information http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=46355&Cr=information&Cr1=#.Um9rdr_3DjA. 2013

“Right wing (definition): As with the left wing, half the propulsive force of a flightless bird.”

Richard Summerbell (1956) Canadian mycologist

Abnormally Happy: A Gay Dictionary (1985)

Bird

“So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service, we have sustained our forward progress, and we have made our labor movement something to be respected and accorded a place in the councils of the Republic. Where we have blundered into trying to force a policy or decision, even though wise and right, we have impeded if not interrupted the realization of our own aims.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

[AF of L Convention Proceedings, 1924, http://books.google.com/books?id=OvQtIfC_MBIC&pg=PA29, 5–6, American Federation of Labor]

Decision

“Besides, it's good to force C programmers to use the toolbox occasionally.”

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

[1991May31.181659.28817@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“From a Buddhist point of view, this is standing the truth on its head by considering goods as more important than people and consumption as more important than creative activity. It means shifting the emphasis from the worker to the product of work, that is, from the human to the sub-human, surrender to the forces of evil.”

E. F. Schumacher book A Guide for the Perplexed

A Guide for the Perplexed

People, Truth, Evil

“The Buddha Dhamma is not based on the fear of the unknown, but is founded on the bedrock of facts which can be tested by ourselves and verified by experience. Buddhism is, therefore rational and intensely practical.Such a rational and practical system cannot contain mysteries or esoteric doctrines. Blind faith, therefore, is foreign to Buddhism. Where there is no blind faith there cannot be any coercion or persecution or fanaticism. To the unique credit of Buddhism it must be said that throughout its peaceful march of 2500 years no drop of blood was shed in the name of the Buddha, no mighty monarch wielded his powerful sword to propagate the Dhamma, and no conversion was made either by force or by repulsive methods. Yet, the Buddha was the first and the greatest missionary that lived on earth.”

Narada Maha Thera (1898–1983) Sri Lankan monk and missionary

Buddhism in a Nutshell

Fear, Peace, Faith

“The reason that economic textbooks now begin with imaginary villages is because it has been impossible to talk about real ones. Even some economists have been forced to admit that Smith's Land of Barter doesn't really exist.

The question is why the myth is perpetuated anyway.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Three, "Primordial Debts", p. 43

Question

“Both of these alternatives would have the disadvantage of depriving Congress of responsible military advice needed to discharge its constitutional responsibilities toward the armed forces. Each year the matters of national security are becoming increasingly complicated and technical, yet the members of Congress must legislate wisely with respect to them. To whom can they turn other than to the Chiefs of Staff, who are responsible for our national defense? To deprive them of access to the views of the Chiefs of Staff would inevitably force them to seek irresponsible sources of advice, to the probable detriment of their legislative actions.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: The Uncertain Trumpet (1960), p. 113-114

“Neoconservatives are still in the business of creating their own parallel reality and forcing ordinary Americans, Europeans and Middle-Easterners to inhabit the ruins.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Donald, Don’t Let Fox News Roger America… Again,” https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/09/ilana-mercer/finally-a-just-war/ LewRockwell.com, September 25, 2015. 2010s, 2015

Business, Reality

“America is the greatest force for good in the history of the world.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Second Presidential Debate http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=19990 (8 October 2008) 2000s, 2008

World, History

“Peace has an economic foundation to which too little attention has been given. No student can doubt that it was to a large extent the economic condition of Europe that drove those overburdened countries headlong into the World War. They were engaged in maintaining competitive armaments. If one country laid the keel of one warship, some other country considered it necessary to lay the keel of two warships. If one country enrolled a regiment, some other country enrolled three regiments. Whole peoples were armed and drilled and trained to the detriment of their industrial life, and charged and taxed and assessed until the burden could no longer be borne. Nations cracked under the load and sought relief from the intolerable pressure by pillaging each other. It was to avoid a repetition of such a catastrophe that our Government proposed and brought to a successful conclusion the Washing- ton Conference for the Limitation of Naval Armaments. We have been altogether desirous of an extension of this principle and for that purpose have sent our delegates to a preliminary conference of nations now sitting at Geneva. Out of that conference we expect some practical results. We believe that other nations ought to join with us in laying aside their suspicions and hatreds sufficiently to agree among themselves upon methods of mutual relief from the necessity of the maintenance of great land and sea forces. This can not be done if we constantly have in mind the resort to war for the redress of wrongs and the enforcement of rights. Europe has the League of Nations. That ought to be able to provide those countries with certain political guaranties which our country does not require. Besides this there is the World Court, which can certainly be used for the determination of all justifiable disputes. We should not underestimate the difficulties of European nations, nor fail to extend to them the highest degree of patience and the most sympathetic consideration. But we can not fail to assert our conviction that they are in great need of further limitation of armaments and our determination to lend them every assistance in the solution of their problems. We have entered the conference with the utmost good faith on our part and in the sincere belief that it represents the utmost good faith on their part. We want to see the problems that are there presented stripped of all technicalities and met and solved in a way that will secure practical results. We stand ready to give our support to every effort that is made in that direction.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

Life, War, People, World

“By Christianity I do not mean charity, mercy, kindness, forgiveness. I mean no natural virtue, because all the natural virtues existed and had been practiced by hundreds and thousands of millions before Christ was born. There certainly were some good men even in the days of Christ in Jerusalem, before his death. By Christianity I mean the ideas of redemption, atonement, a good man dying for a bad man, and the bad man getting a receipt in full. By Christianity I mean that system that insists that in the next world a few will be forever happy, while the many will be eternally miserable. Christianity, as I have explained it, must be protected, guarded, and sustained by law. It was founded by the sword that is to say, by physical force,—and must be preserved by like means.”

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

Interview with the Chicago Times, Feb. 14, 1881.

Death, Men, Happiness, World

“The family ties between hundreds of thousands of German families and their American relatives led many to think that America would never join a second war against Germany. Now that that has happened, many Germans still believe that America will never allow Bolshevism to conquer and destroy Germany. Recent events have proven how false and dangerous this idea is. One has to be foolish or irredeemably stupid to believe that anything good can come to Europe from the land of presumed opportunity. That that did not happen after the First World War, and will not happen after the second. The Jews have made America what it is today: a nation raped by the Jews, a nation whose 130,000,000 people of many colors and races have been forced into helping the Jews achieve world domination! The descendants of European immigrants do not govern the United States of America today. The foreign and domestic policies of the country are made by the Jews and their lackeys. The American people wanted peace, but were maneuvered into war by Delano Roosevelt, a tool of World Jewry who himself has Jewish blood in his veins. It was the same in World War I, when Woodrow Wilson, also a tool of the Jews, maneuvered it into the war.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

Der Stürmer, 1944

War, People, Stupidity, World

“The defence of internal peace and order constitutes the sacred mission of a nation's armed forces and that is what we have carried out.”

Francisco Franco (1892–1975) Spanish general and dictator

As quoted in The Tyrants : 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption (2006) by Clive Foss, p. 143, ISBN 1905204965

Peace

“The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers - Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices. You're going to challenge. You're going to say, "Why not?". You're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here's the deal: These are your choices, they are no one else's. In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, "How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all of the odds against you?" And Mao Zedong said, you know, "You fight your war, and I'll fight mine." And think about that for a second. You don't have to accept the definition of how to do things and you don't have to follow other peoples choices and paths. Ok? It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war, you lay out your own path, you figure out what's right for you. You don't let external definition define how good you are internally, you fight your war, you let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path.”

Anita Dunn (1958) American political strategist

Speech at the Washington National Cathedral for St. Andrews Episcopal High School's (of Bethesda Maryland) graduation on June 5, 2009. It was broadcast on the Glenn Beck Show, Oct 15, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi1zg2NOCn8 http://www.saes.org/academics/lower_school/newsletter.aspx?StartDate=6/2/2009

War, People, Thinking, Fight

“Every philosophy is complete in itself and, like a genuine work of art, contains the totality. Just as the works of Apelles and Sophocles, if Raphael and Shakespeare had known them, should not have appeared to them as mere preliminary exercises for their own work, but rather as a kindred force of the spirit, so, too reason cannot find in its own earlier forms mere useful preliminary exercises for itself.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

Difference of the Fichtean and Schellingean System of Philosophy, cited in W. Kaufmann, Hegel (1966), p. 49

Art, Exercises, Appearance

“Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, revisionists and opportunists reflect the pressure of nonproletarian, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois strata, the pressure that results from the force of habit, from the views and vestiges of the past, particularly those that are nationalistic.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Cited in Socialist Internationalism: Theory and Practice of International Relations of A New Type http://leninist.biz/en/1982/SI507/4.2-Nationalism.in.the.Socialist.Countries

Past

“Most religions, and certainly the Abrahamic ones, have three features that are foreign to science. The most important is religion’s linkage to moral codes that define and enforce proper behavior, behavior supposedly reflecting God’s will. The second is the widespread belief in eternal reward and punishment: the notion that after death not just your fate but everyone else’s depends on adherence to conduct mandated by your religion. And the third is the notion of absolute truth: that the nature of your god, and what it wants, is unchanging. While some believers see their ability to fathom God’s nature as limited, and don’t accept the notion of a heaven or hell, the certainty of religious dogma is ar more absolute and far less provisional than the pronouncements of science.
This combination of certainty, morality, and universal punishment is toxic. It is what leads many believers not only to accept unenlightened views, like the disenfranchisement of women and gays, opposition to birth control, and intrusions into people’s private sex lives, but also to force those views on others, including their own children and society at large, and sometimes even to kill those who disagree.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), pp. 219-220

Death, Women, God, Fate

“I am a long-time admirer (and think myself a friend) of Israel. In the early 1970s, I played a key role in getting advanced weaponry released to the Israeli Air Force - capabilities it later put to active use. During that period, I made many official visits to Israel and established close relationships there. These contacts turned out to be useful during Operation Desert Storm, when, as chief of staff of the U. S. Air Force, I worked with my Israeli counterparts to help defend Israel from Iraqi Scud missile attacks.”

Merrill McPeak (1936) United States Air Force general

How to Secure Israel: Demilitarized land for peace is the key to a settlement (April 2008)

Thinking, Time, Help

“Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Article http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1121/p09s01-coop.html for The Christian Science Monitor (21 November 2006).

Religion, History

“Invention is the root of innovation. Innovation is the major force for change in the future.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

Comments made in the Q and A part of a speech at the Silicon Valley computer museum in 2005 regarding the energy spent in Silicon Valley at managing perception as opposed to creating new technology. In response to a question about the power of venture capital and consumer marketing and how it is determining the future of technology.

Change, Future

“Muslims respect the pacifist message of Jesus (even though the Qu'ran points out that Christians can be very belligerent but they accept that force is sometimes necessary. If tyrants and loathsome regimes were not opposed militarily, evil would have swamped the whole world.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001), Chapter 7, Holy War

World, Evil

“It is the first time in my life that I have not been able to do anything. I am in a bad state of mind and I am demoralized, and that influences me. I have only [made] seven canvases. I am sorry. I wanted to leave Cagnes, this landscape that I cannot endure. I even went for a few days to Cap Martin, where I thought of settling down. It displeased me. I had to rub out the canvases I started... I am in Cagnes again, against my will, where, instead of landscapes, I shall be forced to do some miserable still lifes. You will understand in what a state of indecision I am. Can't you suggest some place for me? Because, several times I have had the intention of returning to Paris.”

Chaim Soutine (1893–1943) painter

quote in 1929
In a letter to his Paris art-dealer w:Léopold Zborowski, 1923; as quoted in Soutine, Monrou Wheeler, Museum of modern art, New York, 1950; p. 61

Life, Quotes, Understanding, Time

“The one name which Muslims hate and fear most is that of Chengiz Khan. He is a spectre which has haunted Muslim historians for centuries. He swept like a tornado over the then most powerful and extensive Islamic empire of Khwarazm. In a short span of five years (1219-1224 CE), he slaughtered millions of Muslims, forced many others including women and children into slavery, and razed to the ground quite a few of the most populous and prosperous cities of the Muslim world at that time.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Calcutta Quran Petition

The Calcutta Quran Petition (1986)

Women, Hate, Children, World

“One reason for the primacy of the market in shaping the modern world is that it forces a reorganization of society in order to make the market work properly. When a market comes into existence, as Marx fully appreciated, it becomes a potent force driving social change.”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

Source: The Political Economy of International Relations (1987), Chapter One, Nature of Political Economy, p. 19

World, Change

“I am a thing not new, I am as old
As human nature. I am that which lurks,
Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed;
The ancient trait which fights incessantly
Against restraint, balks at the upward climb;
The weight forever seeking to obey
The law of downward pull;—and I am more:
The bitter fruit am I of planted seed;
The resultant, the inevitable end
Of evil forces and the powers of wrong.”

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist

Brothers, st. 3.
Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)

Law, Spring, Nature, Evil

“When I had my own company on Traffic and Coonskin, all metaphors were able to get to the screen clearly. In Cool World, with the producer and Paramount watching me carefully to make sure I was in good taste, I instinctively poured stuff into the picture that I wanted to talk about. But when you force stuff, it's not really very clear. But, I have a great love for Max Fleischer, especially some of his Black & White Betty Boops with their strange Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong black folk tale jazz hipness that part of Cool World was a homage in style to those films and that style of cartooning. The Grim Reaper is right out of a Max Fleischer cartoon or old Terrytoons, which is why I hired and love Milton Knight the artist. He understands totally the Uncle Remus fable like qualities behind Fleischer and Terrytoons. Milton Knight is probably the purest artist of that style in the business. He has a hard time because studios think he is old fashioned…but that's the point.”

Ralph Bakshi (1938) Animator, filmmaker

[c. 17 September 2004, http://www.wild-things.com/bray/documents/ralphb.doc, Questions for Ralph Bakshi, DOC, Ralph Bakshi Forum, 2007-11-27]

Love, World, Fashion, Understanding

“If it is possible to walk twenty feet, it’s possible to walk twenty miles. So creationists insist there must be some “definite boundary” blocking the evolution of new “kinds”. But they won’t say where or what that boundary is. Creationists habitually misdefine their terms –if they can be forced to use definitions at all, because they will not be accountable. They can’t be, because they’ve decided in advance never to change their minds even if they’re proven wrong. If they were to find out that macroevolution was ever actually seen and proven to have happened for certain, their cultish faith would still forbid them to admit it. Instead they’d have to redefine their terms, to “move the goalposts” to some higher taxonomic level –but not so high as to have to admit where humans belong in the families of apes.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"11th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm277H3ot6Y, Youtube (June 26, 2008) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Family, Faith, Change

“The council uh, forced me to leave the, the country. That was officially, but, in fact, you know, it's 'n…uh…there are many books writing of that, that, that uh incident and the American official in Saigon are very pleased at that time to see me uh out of the country.”

Nguyen Khanh (1927–2013) South Vietnamese soldier

American escalation and forcing out of Nguyen Khanh
1980s, Interview with Nguyen Khanh (1981)

Books, Time, Country

“We, therefore, having directed our inquiry toward a cause that is manifest, sensible, and comprehended by all men, do know that the earth rotates on its own poles, proved by many magnetical demonstrations to exist. For not in virtue only of its stability and its fixed permanent position does the earth posses poles and verticity; it might have had another direction, as eastward or westward, or toward any other quarter. By the wonderful wisdom of the Creator, therefore, forces were implanted in the earth, forces primarily animate, to the end the globe might, with steadfastness, take direction, and that the poles might be opposite, so that on them, as at the extremities of an axis, the movement of diurnal rotation might be performed.”

William Gilbert (astronomer) book De Magnete

As quoted in Gilbert, William. 2013 ed. De Magnete https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=QsLDAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Courier Corporation, pp. 328-329. De Magnete (1600)

Wisdom, Men, Animals

“In a word, CLEANTHES, a man who follows your hypothesis is able perhaps to assert, or conjecture, that the universe, sometime, arose from something like design: but beyond that position he cannot ascertain one single circumstance; and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology by the utmost license of fancy and hypothesis. This world, for aught he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance: it is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity; and is the object of derision to his superiors: it is the production of old age and dotage in some superannuated deity; and ever since his death, has run on at adventures, from the first impulse and active force which it received from him. You justly give signs of horror, DEMEA, at these strange suppositions; but these, and a thousand more of the same kind, are CLEANTHES’s suppositions, not mine. From the moment the attributes of the Deity are supposed finite, all these have place. And I cannot, for my part, think that so wild and unsettled a system of theology is, in any respect, preferable to none at all.”

David Hume book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Philo to Demea, Part V
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)

Death, Age, World, Thinking

Quotes about force page 21

Quotes about force
page 21