Quotes about force (5553 quotes, page 28)

“The ideal revolutionary command should effectively direct all planning and implementation. It must not allow the growth of any other rival center of power. There must be one command pooling and directing the subsequent governmental departments, including the armed forces.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

Baghdad Domestic Service, March 20, 1971, quoted in Saddam Hussein: a political biography (2002) by Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi.

“What has here been remarked in general of the prophets as the champions of religious progress is also true in particular of him who as the most perfect blossom of the religious development of Israel constituted also the essential force of the new Christian religion—Jesus of Nazareth. Against this logical conclusion of the evolutionary view of history the representatives of the new faith present the most obstinate resistance.”

Otto Pfleiderer (1839–1908) German Protestant theologian

Source: Evolution and Theology (1900), p. 12.

Faith , Religion , History , Perfection

“In the whole of recorded modern history, this was, I believe, the one occasion when one man, with one soaring imagination, with one fire burning in him, and with one unrivalled capacity for conveying it to others, won a crucial victory not only for the forces (for there were many heroes in those days) but for the very spirit of human freedom. And so, on this great day, we thank him, and we thank God for him.”

Robert Menzies (1894–1978) Australian politician, 12th Prime Minister of Australia

Second Term as Prime Minister (1949-1966)

God , Imagination , History , Freedom

“My hon. Friend must be aware of the words used by the Chancellor on Tuesday, when he said that, this year, the Government expect to make a surplus of £14 billion—part of which will be used to pay off the national debt. In those circumstances, would it not be more appropriate and beneficial to the rest of the world if more money were given for overseas aid and to assist the very poor countries in the usary levels of debt repayments that they are forced into at present?”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1989/mar/17/overseas-development in the House of Commons (17 March 1989).
1980s

Money , World , Parting , Country

“Schumann is the most representative musical figure of central European Romanticism as much because of his limitations as because of his genius: in his finest works, indeed, he exploited these limitations in such a way that they gave a force to his genius that no other contemporary could attain.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 12 : Schumann: Triumph and Failure of the Romantic Ideal

Music , Way

“Pharisaism, obtuseness and tyranny reign not only in the homes of merchants and in jails; I see it in science, in literature, and among youth. I consider any emblem or label a prejudice…. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intellect, talent, inspiration, love and the most absolute of freedoms, the freedom from force and falsity in whatever forms they might appear.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to Alexei Pleshcheev (October 4, 1888)
Letters

Love , Health , Youth , Home

“If Enron had been forced to pay cash dividends, it could never have pulled that caper off!”

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

Quotes from Crash Proof (2006)

“It is almost enough to make one's jaw drop to think that officials at the World Bank and the IMF would suggest that they have poverty alleviation in mind when they force governments to withdraw subsidies that enable poor people to get clean water to drink. If this is a policy aimed at helping the world's poor, it's interesting to imagine what a policy aimed at hurting the world's poor would look like.”

Linda McQuaig (1951) journalist and author

All You Can Eat: Greed, Lust and the New Capitalism (2001)

People , World , Imagination , Drink

“Bush's war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They were not trained for occupation duties.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Speech at the National Press Club (2004)

War , Training

“Ram and Kirshan whom Hindus worship are insignificant creatures, and have been begotten by their parents… Ram could not protect his wife whom Ravan took away by force. How can he (Ram) help others?… It is thousands of times shameful that some people should think of Ram and Kirshan as rulers of all the worlds… To think that Ram and Rahman are the same, is extremely foolish. The creator and the creature can never be one… The controller of the Cosmos was never called Ram and Kirshan before the latter were born. What has happened after their birth that they have come to be equated with Allah, and the worship of Ram and Kirshan is described as the worship of Allah? May Allah save us!
Our prophets who number one lakh and twenty-four thousand have encouraged the created ones to worship the Creator… The gods of the Hindus (on the other hand) have encouraged the people to worship them (the gods) instead… They are themselves misguided, and are leading others astray… See, how the (two) ways are different!”

Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624) Indian philosopher

Maktubat-i-Imam Rabbani translated into Urdu by Maulana Muhammad Sa’id Ahmad Naqshbandi, Deoband, 1988, Volume I, 396 Letter was written to Hirday Ram Hindu who had “expressed affinity” with Sirhindi’s school of thought.
From his letters

God , People , World , Way

“We absolutely love women, we are passionate about what we do and we get great results. Women see that our rules are manageable and make a real difference. I don't think we are being bossy, no one is forced to follow the rules.”

Trinny Woodall (1964) English fashion advisor and designer, television presenter and author

As quoted in "Mistresses of the makeover" by Cathrin Schaer in New Zealand Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=182&objectid=10493332&pnum=2 (25 February 2008)

Love , Women , Thinking , Passion

“Traitors to Marxism-Leninism, agents of imperialism and intriguers like Josif Broz Tito, try in a thousand ways, by hatching up diabolic schemes like the creation of a third force, to mislead these people and the newly-set up states [in Africa and Asia], to detach them from their natural allies, to hitch them up to U. S. imperialism. We should exert all our efforts to defeat the schemes of these lackeys of imperialism.”

Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of L…

Speeches, Moscow Address

People , Way , Nature , Effort

“When imperialism feels weak, it resorts to brute force. The attacks on Venezuela are a sign of weakness, ideological weakness. Nowadays almost nobody defends neoliberalism. Up until three years ago, just Fidel [Castro] and I raised those criticisms at Presidential meetings. We felt lonely, as if we infiltrated those meetings.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Hugo Chávez during his closing speech at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. January 31, 2005. http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1486
2005

Feeling

“Hannan and Freeman examine the ecology of organizations by exploring the competition for resources and by trying to account for rates of entry and exit and for the diversity of organizational forms. They show that the destinies of organizations are determined more by impersonal forces than by the intervention of individuals by the intervention of individuals.”

Michael T. Hannan (1943) US-American sociologist of Stanford University

Michael T. Hannan and John H. Freeman. Organizational ecology. Harvard University Press, 1993; Abstract.

“Any man or woman - given real interest and prompted by the incentive to serve - who thinks, and loves, can be a healer, and it is time that people grasped that fact. The entire process of healing is thought- directed; it concerns the direction of energy currents or their abstraction, and this is another way of speaking about radiation and magnetism. Every initiate is a healer, and the more advanced the initiate the less is he occupied with the intricacies of centres and forces, energies and their direction. He heals automatically, as was the case with the initiate, Peter; of him we read that "the shadow of Peter passing by, healed everyone of them."”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Esoteric Healing (1953), p. 601

Love , People , Way , Thinking

“Capitalism uses force but it also educates the people to its system. Direct propaganda is carried out by those entrusted with explaining the inevitability of class society, either through some theory of divine origin or through a mechanical theory of natural law.
This lulls the masses since they see themselves as being oppressed by an evil against which it is impossible to struggle. Immediately following comes the hope of improvement — and in this, capitalism differed from the preceding caste systems, which offered no possibilities for advancement.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

People , Education , Law , Hope

“The atrocities perpetrated by the police and the military on the innocent Hindus, especially the Scheduled Castes of Habibgarh in the District of Sylhet deserve description. Innocent men and women were brutally tortured, some women ravished, their houses raided and properties looted by the police and the local Muslims. Military pickets were posted in the area. The military not only oppressed these people and took away stuff forcibly from Hindu houses, but also forced Hindus to send their women-folk at night to the camp to satisfy the carnal desires of the military. This fact also I brought to your notice. You assured me of a report on the matter, but unfortunately no report was forthcoming.”

Jogendra Nath Mandal (1904–1968) Pakistani politician

Excerpted from the resignation letter of J. N. Mandal, Minister for Law and Labour, Government of Pakistan, October 8, 1950. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Resignation_letter_of_Jogendra_Nath_Mandal https://biblio.wiki/wiki/Resignation_letter_of_Jogendra_Nath_Mandal

Women , Men , People , Housing

“The organizer who creates roles, who creates the holes that will force the pegs to their shape, is a prime creator of personality itself. When we ask of a man, "What is he?" the answer is usually given in terms of his major role, job, or position in society; he is the place that he fills, a painter, a priest, a politician, a criminal.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, The Organizational Revolution: A study in the ethics of economic organization, 1953, p. 80, quoted in: Paul S. Adler eds. (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies: Classical Foundations. p. 552

Personality

“The Pact of Munich is signed. Czechoslovakia as a power is out. The genius of the Führer and his determination not to shun even a world war have again won victory without the use of force. The hope remains that the incredulous, the weak and the doubters have been converted and will remain that way.”

Alfred Jodl (1890–1946) German general

Munich Conference, September 29, 1938. Quoted in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany" - Page 422 - by William Lawrence Shirer - Germany - 1990.

War , World , Hope , Way

“There is an intensification of negative force at work in the apostate. He resembles a man who works swiftly and surely to erect a wall in order to make the Lord's image, which he knows exactly, disappear and become unrecognizable behind it.”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Source: The Passion from Within (1981), p. 81

“… It was (in part) Gross’s excessive enthusiasm for string theory in the mid-80s that drove me (as an impressionable grad student at Princeton) away from theoretical physics (and into astronomy). String theory may have been a beautiful idea, but it made no predictions that could be tested experimentally in the then-foreseeable future. That’s not science.  A quarter century later and the theoretical physics community has yet to wake up and realize that there is new physics right under their noses – just not the new physics they’ve been expecting (GUTs, strings, membranes, etc.). Galaxy dynamics are consistent with a single, universal force law, but this unexpected behavior has largely been ignored because it doesn’t fit with particle theorists’ dreams of super symmetric dark matter particles. That we do not understand the observed behavior makes it more interesting than the “expected” (but unobserved) new physics: who ordered this?”

Stacy McGaugh (1964) American astronomer

Law , Beauty , Dreams , Behavior

“A war minister is able to force the adoption of any measure desired by the Camp or to block any measure that meets his disapproval.”

Sadao Araki (1877–1966) Japanese general

Quoted in "Shakai kagaku tokyu" - Page 883 - by Waseda Daigaku Shakai Kagaku Kenkyujo, Waseda Daigaku Ajia Taiheiyo Kenkyu Senta - Social sciences - 1992

War

““Nothing is sacred to you, Mr. Munro. You base your beliefs on the products of human thought, so it could hardly be otherwise. You might believe in certain things, but you do not have faith. That comes with submission to the force of divine revelation.”
“So, because I don’t have what I think of as superstitions, because I believe we just happen to exist, and believe in… science, evolution, whatever; I’m not as… worthy as somebody who has faith in an ancient book and a cruel, desert God?””

Iain Banks (1954–2013) Scottish writer

“Piece” (p. 73)
Short fiction, The State of the Art (1991)

God , Books , Faith , Thinking

“However convergent it be, evolution cannot attain to fulfilment on earth except through a point of dissociation. With this we are introduced to a fantastic and inevitable event which now begins to take shape in our perspective, the event which comes nearer with every day that passes: the end of all life on our globe, the death of the planet, the ultimate phase of the phenomenon of man. …
Now when sufficient elements have sufficiently agglomerated, this essentially convergent movement will attain such intensity and such quality that mankind, taken as a whole, will be obliged—as happened to the individual forces of instinct—to reflect upon itself at a single point; that is to say, in this case, to abandon its organo-planetary foothold so as to shift its centre on to the transcendent centre of its increasing concentration. This will be the end and the fulfilment of the spirit of the earth.
The end of the world: the wholesale internal introversion upon itself of the noosphere, which has simultaneously reached the uttermost limit of its complexity and its centrality.
The end of the world: the overthrow of equilibrium, detaching the mind, fulfilled at last, from its material matrix, so that it will henceforth rest with all its weight on God-Omega. …
Are we to foresee man seeking to fulfil himself collectively upon himself, or personally on a greater than himself? Refusal or acceptance of Omega? … Universal love would only vivify and detach finally a fraction of the noosphere so as to consummate it—the part which decided to "cross the threshold", to get outside itself into the other. …
The death of the materially exhausted planet; the split of the noosphere, divided on the form to be given to its unity; and simultaneously (endowing the event with all its significance and with all its value) the liberation of that percentage of the universe which, across time, space and evil, will have succeeded in laboriously synthesising itself to the very end. Not an indefinite progress, which is an hypothesis contradicted by the convergent nature of noogenesis, but an ecstasy transcending the dimensions and the framework of the visible universe.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin book The Phenomenon of Man

pp. 273, 287–289 https://archive.org/stream/ThePhenomenonOfMan/phenomenon-of-man-pierre-teilhard-de-chardin#page/n137/mode/1up/,
The Phenomenon of Man (1955)

Love , Life , Death , God

“The Congress decisively rejects terrorism, i. e., the system of individual political assassinations, as being a method of political struggle which is most inexpedient at the present time, diverting the best forces from the urgent and imperatively necessary work of organisation and agitation, destroying contact between the revolutionaries and the masses of the revolutionary classes of the population, and spreading both among the revolutionaries themselves and the population in general utterly distorted ideas of the aims and methods of struggle against the autocracy.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1903/2ndcong/5.htm
Second Congress of the RSDLP: Drafts of Minor Resolutions
July–August
1903
Collected Works
6
yes
Lenin
Vladimir Ilich
Marxists.
1900s

Idea , Decision , Time

“We have only one real shot at "liberation," and that is to emancipate ourselves from within. It is the thesis of this book that personal, psychological dependency—the deep wish to be taken care of by others—is the chief force holding women down today. I call this "The Cinderella Complex"—a network of largely repressed attitudes and fears that keeps women in a kind of half-light, retreating from the full use of their minds and creativity. Like Cinderella, women today are still waiting for something external to "transform their lives."”

Colette Dowling (1938)

Source: The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence (1981), p. 31

Women , Books , Fear , Light

“Vladimir Voevodsky and his collaborators have provided us with a very interesting candidate-category of motives: a category (of sheaves relative to an extraordinarily fine Grothendieck-style topology on the category of schemes) which in some intuitive sense “softens algebraic geometry” so as to allow for a good notion of homotopy in an algebro-geometric setup and is sufficiently directly connected to concrete algebraic geometry to have already yielded some extraordinary applications. The quest for a full theory of motives is a potent driving force in complex analysis, algebraic geometry, automorphic representation theory, the study of L functions, and arithmetic. It will continue to be so throughout the current century.”

Barry Mazur (1937) American mathematician

"WHAT IS...a Motive?" 2004

Motivation , Sense , Study

“Consider the great elements of human enjoyment, the attainments and possessions that exalt man's life to its present height, and see what part of these he owes to institutions, to Mechanism of any kind; and what to the instinctive, unbounded force, which Nature herself lent him.”

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

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Life , Nature , Parting

“Twenty-one years old! I never doubted my vital force. But how is it to fare with my chosen art? The recognition that at bottom I am a poet, after all, should be no hindrance in the plastic arts! And should I really have to be a poet, Lord knows what else I should desire. Certainly, a sea swells within me, for I feel. It is a hopeless state, to feel in such a way that the storm rages on all sides at once and that nowhere is a lord who commands the chaos.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1900), # 121, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1895 - 1902

Art , Way , Feeling , Rage

“I'll be frank and say that we were deluded when we signed the contract [with the U. S. ]. We should have sought to buy other jet fighters like British, French and Russian to secure the air cover for our forces; if we had air cover we would have averted what had happened.”

Nouri al-Maliki (1950) Prime Minister of Iraq

On his country's order of F-16 fighter aircraft (June 2014), as quoted in BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28042302.

“Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

21 August 1893
New Lamps for Old (1893)

Cry , Selfishness

“The welfare state is the outcome of diverse forces over nearly four centuries of developing social policy.”

Nicholas Barr (1943) British economist

Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 15, Conclusion, p. 349

“Tis strange with how much power and pride
The softness is of love allied;
How much of power to force the breast
To be in outward show at rest,—
How much of pride that never eye
May look upon its agony!
Ah! little will the lip reveal
Of all the burning heart can feel.”

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

Canto IV
The Troubadour (1825)

Love , Feeling , Heart

“Equilibrium requires that the whole of the structure, the form of its elements, and the means of interconnection be so combined that at the supports there will automatically be produced passive forces or reactions that are able to balance the forces acting upon the structures, including the force of its own weight.”

Eduardo Torroja (1899–1961) Spanish architect

p, 125
Philosophy of Structures (1958)

Support

“The nearer we come to the full military suppression of the bourgeoisie, the more dangerous becomes to us the high flood of petty-bourgeois Anarchism. And the struggle against these elements cannot be waged with propaganda and agitation alone. … The struggle must also be waged by applying force and compulsion.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

The Guillotine At Work : Twenty Years of Terror In Russia (1940) by Grigoriĭ Petrovich Maksimov, p. 38.
Attributions

“From individual independence he proceeded to association. If it was inconsistent with the dignity of human nature to say that men were gregarious animals, like wild horses and wild geese, it surely could offend no delicacy to say they were social animals by nature, that there were mutual sympathies, and, above all, the sweet attraction of the sexes, which must soon draw them together in little groups, and by degrees in larger congregations, for mutual assistance and defence. And this must have happened before any formal covenant, by express words or signs, was concluded. When general counsels and deliberations commenced, the objects could be no other than the mutual defence and security of every individual for his life, his liberty, and his property. To suppose them to have surrendered these in any other way than by equal rules and general consent was to suppose them idiots or madmen, whose acts were never binding. To suppose them surprised by fraud, or compelled by force, into any other compact, such fraud and such force could confer no obligation. Every man had a right to trample it under foot whenever he pleased. In short, he asserted these rights to be derived only from nature and the author of nature; that they were inherent, inalienable, and indefeasible by any laws, pacts, contracts, covenants, or stipulations, which man could devise.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1810s, Letter to William Tudor (1818)

Life , Men , Law , Sex

“As we do all of this work to counter the Islamist extremist ideology, let’s also recognise that we will have to enter some pretty uncomfortable debates – especially cultural ones. Too often we have lacked the confidence to enforce our values, for fear of causing offence. The failure in the past to confront the horrors of forced marriage I view as a case in point. So is the utter brutality of Female Genital Mutilation”

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

FGM
2010s, 2015, Speech on extremism (20 July 2015)

Marriage , Fear , Confidence , Failure

“Equally unfounded is the complaint that the study of science and the technical application of the forces of nature gives to mankind a thoroughly material direction, makes them proud of their knowledge and power, and alienates ideal endeavours. The deeper we penetrate into the harmonious action of natural forces regulated by eternal unalterable laws, and yet so thickly veiled from our complete comprehension, the more we feel on the contrary moved to humble modesty, the smaller appears to us the extent of our knowledge, the more active is our endeavour to draw more from the inexhaustible fountain of knowledge, and understanding, and the higher rises our admiration of the endless wisdom which ordains and penetrates the whole creation.”

Werner von Siemens (1816–1892) German inventor and industrialist

Bonnier Corporation. Popular Science https://books.google.com/books?id=tyoDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Apr 1887,Vol. 30, No. 46. [0161-7370]. pp. 814-820\
Werner von Siemens (1895). Scientific & technical papers of Werner von Siemens. J. Murray. p. 518

Wisdom , Law , Feeling , Understanding

“I say to you, today, there is another way that combines the best points of both of these and avoids the evil points of both, and that is what we call nonviolent resistance. For here you have discovered a way of struggle which combines the militant and the moderate; a wayof struggle that combines the realistic and the idealistic; a way of struggle that combines the calm and courageous. You need not now bow to hate, you need not now bow to violence, for you have now discovered another way and another approach. It comes to us from the long Christian tradition, Jesus of Nazareth himself, coming down through Mahatma Gandhi of India, who took the love ethic of Jesus Christ and made it effective as a sociopolitical force and brought about the transformation of a great nation and achieved freedom for his people.”

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

"Keep Moving from this Mountain" http://www5.spelman.edu/about_us/news/pdf/70622_messenger.pdf – Founders Day Address at the Sisters Chapel, Spelman College (11 April 1960)
1960s

Love , Hate , People , Way

“It is well known that I have not always seen eye to eye with Nigel, but I salute his very significant achievements. UKIP has a massive continuing role to play in British politics and, under a new leader, we will reach out to an even wider constituency. Nigel Farage deserves the thanks of every Brexiteer. There would have been no referendum without him. He is a controversial figure but, like him or loathe him, he is a dynamic force and one of the great figures in British politics today. He clearly has much still to offer in the continuing campaign for an independent Britain. He should be given a peerage.”

Neil Hamilton (politician)

Statement on the resignation of Nigel Farage http://www.neilhamiltonukip.com/blog/statement-on-the-resignation-of-nigel-farage (July 4, 2016)

“Examine the man who lives in misery because he does not shine above other men; who goes about producing himself, pruriently anxious about his gifts and claims; struggling to force everybody, as it were begging everybody for God's sake, to acknowledge him a great man, and set him over the heads of men! Such a creature is among the wretchedest sights seen under this sun. A great man? A poor morbid prurient empty man; fitter for the ward of a hospital, than for a throne among men. I advise you to keep out of his way. He cannot walk on quiet paths; unless you will look at him, wonder at him, write paragraphs about him, he cannot live. It is the emptiness of the man, not his greatness. Because there is nothing in himself, he hungers and thirsts that you would find something in him. In good truth, I believe no great man, not so much as a genuine man who had health and real substance in him of whatever magnitude, was ever much tormented in this way.”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King

Men , Hunger , God , Health

“Faced with events of such magnitude [as the First World War], we share the same sense of helplessness, with the impression that things are imposed on us by fate or an external force. Yet it is Man who writes history.”

Henri of Luxembourg (1955) Grand Duke (head of state) of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

Christmas message http://www.monarchie.lu/fr/actualites/discours/2014/12/discours-noel-lu/index.html (25 December 2015)
Society

Fate , War , World , History

“As to War I can only say that my opinion is clearly that it will not be. I can tell you my reasons for this opinion in two sentences. 1st. I am sure that Bonaparte will do everything that he can to avoid it. 2nd. that, low as my opinion is of our Ministry, I cannot believe them quite so foolish as to force him to it, without one motive either of ambition or interest to incite them.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to Lord Lauderdale (18 November 1802), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 177.
1800s

War , Motivation

“Imperialist war arises not merely because of bitter economic competition among industrialists and financiers of various nations, but because of the dominance of government by powerful vested interests who use the armed forces of the nation to increase their private gains in other lands. To the degree that the power of these groups is broken by socialization and equalization of economic privilege, the likelihood of war is thereby reduced.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Property (1935)

War

“Martel still did not want to believe in it, but brute experience of it forced him to, whatever his preferences.”

James Blish (1921–1975) American author

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 9 (p. 63)

“When reading, writing and translating, it is important to have a way of keeping track of what you have absorbed and learned, so that you can build on it and acquire richer resources for the future. When reading, read actively and critically. Jot down interesting expressions, forceful adjectives, little turns of phrase, that strike you as effective, as things you might one day be able to use yourself—in both languages.”

John Minford (1946) New Zealand sinologist

Public Lecture (2018)

Way , Learning , Reading , Future

“Detente sounds a fine word. And, to the extent that there really has been a relaxation in international tension, it is a fine thing. But the fact remains that throughout this decade of detente, the armed forces of the Soviet Union have increased, are increasing, and show no signs of diminishing.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Chelsea Conservative Association (26 July 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102750
Leader of the Opposition

“We cannot predict the new forces, powers, and discoveries that will be disclosed to us when we reach the other planets and set up new laboratories in space. They are as much beyond our vision today as fire or electricity would be beyond the imagination of a fish.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Space and the Spirit of Man (1965)

Imagination , Fish

“The most constructive of the anarchists were, socially speaking, individualists, peaceful and harmless. The least constructive, socially speaking, were dedicated to the overthrow of force by counter force. But without exception, in the realm of economics every anarchist comes unglued.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

Anarchy (1959)

Peace

“The universe does not care whether man unlocks its secrets or leaves them closed. Water does not care whether man bathes in it or drowns in it; whether it waters his fields or washes them away. If man masters its laws and utilizes his knowledge, water becomes a force in his favor. But enemy or servant, water does not care.”

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 48.

Secret , Law , Knowledge , Universe

“By themselves, brontosaur gizzards don't indicate how much or what these dinosaurs ate each day; other lines of evidence must be employed to explore these questions. But brontosaur gizzards and teeth together indicate what brontosaurs did not eat. They didn't eat soft, mushy vegetation. Birds that subsist entirely on soft fruits don't possess muscular gizzards and don't use hard pebbles for their gizzard linings. Soft, watery food requires only a short, simply constructed gut - with just enough contractile force to squeeze out all the juices.
Brontosaur teeth, moreover, confirm the heretical idea that they ate a tough vegetable diet. If the brontosaurs dined only on soft water plants, then very little wear would be found on their teeth. But in fact the teeth of Camarasaurus, Brachiosaurus, and their kin manifest very severe wear, which could only have been produced by tough or gritty food.”

Robert T. Bakker book The Dinosaur Heresies

The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 136-137
The Dinosaur Heresies (1986)

Food , Idea , Question , Bird

“I would like to address the peoples of the world, especially the Arab peoples and the US people. Their silence over the violations against the oppressed Iraqi people who suffered greatly cannot be accepted by any fair-minded and zealous person. Therefore, all must take these violations seriously and express themselves even through peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins and protests. I urge those people to distance themselves from their rulers who support the West and the occupation forces.”

Muqtada Sadr (1973) Iraqi politician

Source: BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3623603.stm

People , World , Peace , Support

“She thought of an article she had once seen on mind control. Apparently if there was a person fiendish enough to set about interfering with your life, the only thing you could do was to concentrate hard on someone they were unlikely ever to have heard of called Martin Amis. The particular blankness of this image was guaranteed to protect from any subtle force, but Gloria realised with a sinking heart that it was too late now.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Page 22.
See also Martin Amis himself.
Boating For Beginners (1985)

Life , Heart , Personality

“The battle of Kursk… the forcing of the Dnieper… and the liberation of Kiev, left Hitlerite Germany facing catastrophe.”

Vasily Chuikov (1900–1982) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "The fall of Berlin" - by Vasiliĭ Ivanovich Chuĭkov - 1968

“We have a lot of goodness in this country. And we should promote it, but never through the barrel of a gun. We should do it by setting good standards, motivating people and have them want to emulate us. But you can't enforce our goodness, like the neocons preach, with an armed force. It doesn't work.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Republican Presidential Debate, Manchester, New Hampshire, June 5, 2007 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/05/se.01.html
2000s, 2006-2009

People , Motivation , Country

“At length a force of three million S. A. men was pushing on behind him [Röhm], and God knew whither they were pushing. There were large numbers of Communists and Social Democrats among them; many of the storm troopers were called ‘beefsteaks—brown and red within. Jest were retailed such as the following: one S. A. man says to another: ‘In our storm troop there are three Nazis, but we shall soon have spewed them out.”

Konrad Heiden (1901–1966) German journalist and historian

Source: Hitler: A Biography (1936), p. 390

Men , God

“When mining… and other death professions are discussed in feminist publications, they are portrayed as examples of the male power system, as male-only clubs. However, when Ms. Magazine profiled female miners, the emphasis was on how the woman was ‘forced’ to take a job in the mines because it paid the best, and how taking such a job was the only way she could support her family.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 116.

Death , Family , Way , Support

“India fell mainly because her people were at the critical hour divided and disorganised. Her influence waned when the forces of disintegration, political and social, were at work. If we left our neighbours alone, we revelled in internal strife which ceased for a time when great kings like Asoka and Akbar ruled over the destinies of India – mighty men, who sought to unite the teeming millions of this vast sub-continent by the bond of a common aspiration and a passionate longing for the eternal code of righteous conduct, charity and understanding. A strong and united India fearing no one and loving all, brought messages of peace and goodwill to distracted world. But as soon as the sceptre dropped from their hands, when the grip over the country was loosened through weak and short-sighted successors, when narrow selfishness and mutual jealousy and distrust overpowered our souls, when local feuds and religious strife raised their ugly heads giving rise to social exclusiveness and moral decadence, unity was lost; freedom, man’s priceless treasure, disappeared; the country broke into fragments and relapsed into a state of conflict and struggle.”

Syama Prasad Mookerjee (1901–1953) Indian politician

Speech delivered at Patna University Convocation on 27th November 1937.

Love , Men , People , World

“In an unenlightened society some people are forced to play degrading social roles; in an enlightened society, everyone is.”

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

The Decline and Fall of Science (1976)

People

“Mahmud, as soon as his eyes fell on this idol, lifted up his battle-axe with much anger, and struck it with such force that the idol broke into pieces. The fragments of it were ordered to be taken to Ghaznin, and were cast down at the threshold of the Jami Masjid where they are lying to this day.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Somnath (Gujarat) . Tarikh-i-Alfi in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 471
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

Lying , Anger

“A Satanist knows there is nothing wrong with being greedy, as it only means that he wants more than he already has. Envy means to look with favor upon the possessions of others, and to be desirous of obtaining similar things for oneself. Envy and greed are the motivating forces of ambition - and without ambition, very little of any importance would be accomplished.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Motivation , Envy

“No one forced me to focus on technology. I just did it because I had a passion for it. When I started, there weren’t a lot of women role models. It was Carol Bartz, Judy Estrin. I think there’s been a lot of progress since then, and I think that if women have a passion and really want to succeed, they can. On a relative basis, the male-female ratio is certainly skewed to men, but on an absolute basis, there are a lot of very successful women in technology.”

Mary Meeker (1959) American venture capitalist and securities analyst

Interview with Wired: "The Indomitable Mary Meeker" https://www.wired.com/2012/09/mf-mary-meeker/ (21 September 2012)

Women , Men , Thinking , Passion

“In so far as the soul is a force residing in the body; it has therefore been said that the properties of the soul depend of the condition of the body.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12

Soul , Dependency

“Christ does not control his subjects by force, but is King of a willing people. They are, through His grace, freely devoted to His service.”

Joseph Alleine (1634–1668) Pastor, author

Source: An Alarm to the Unconverted aka A Sure Guide to Heaven (first published 1671), P. 48.

People , Christ

“There is a paradox. In retaining this integrity, the writer sometimes must risk both the state's indictment of treason, and the liberation forces' complaint of lack of blind commitment.”

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South african Nobel-winning writer

Writing and Being (1991)

“The evidence introduced for political pessimism; the criminal, the lunatic, and the asocial individual, in a word, the second-rate citizen —these are not by nature as one finds them now but have been made so by society. It is said that they have never had a chance to be as they would be according to their nature, but were forced into the situation in which they find themselves through poverty, coercion, and ignorance. They are victims of society.
This defense against political pessimism regarding human nature is at first convincing. It possesses the superiority of dialectical thinking over positivistic thinking. It transforms moral states and qualities into processes. Brutal people do not “exist,” only their brutalization; criminality does not “exist,” only criminalization; stupidity does not “exist,” only stupefaction; self-seeking does not “exist,” only training in egoism; there are no second-rate citizens, only victims of patronization. What political positivism takes to be nature is in reality falsified nature: the suppression of opportunity for human beings. Rousseau knew of two aids who could illustrate his point of view, two classes of human beings who lived before civilization and, consequently, before perversion: the noble savage and the child. Enlightenment literature develops two of its most intimate passions around these two figures: ethnology and pedagogy.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

(describing Rousseau’s philosophy) p. 55
Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983)

People , Stupidity , Literature , Nature

“It is the shortcomings of game theory (as originally formulated) which force the consideration of the role of ethics, of the dynamics of social structure, and of social structure and of individual psychology in situations of conflict.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

p, vii (1974)
1960s, Fights, games, and debates, (1960)

Game

“I am not a nationalist, I am a Wolfe Tone Republican. In pursuit of that ideal I have been forced to continually shift positions, much like a man in a cinema who keeps changing his seat, but only so he can get a clean view of the same film. And the title of the film, of which I never tire, is The Future Irish Republic.”

Eoghan Harris (1943) Irish journalist

Contrary to opinion, I am politically consistent, Eoghan Harris, Irish Independent http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/contrary-to-opinion-i-am-politically-consistent-1056982.html,

Wolf , Change , Future

“[Carl] Rogers’s Encounter Groups … is copy for the campaign of self-manipulation in an age of mass manipulation. … The notion here is simple: the real person is locked within the artificial, the role, and needs a little encouragement to step out into the fresh air. As with the neo-Freudians, society is conceived as an external factor, an outside force acting on the individual, but not decisively casting the individual from without and from within. The mechanical conception, severing within and without, and presupposing that only the outside is prey to social forces, is assumed or stated throughout the post-Freudian writings.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), pp. 67-68

Age , Decision , Personality

“The Hanoverian knew the cavalry was no danger. It was the infantry, the unstoppable red-jacketed infantry, that was going to beat him […] He stared at the 78th and he reckoned that no force on earth could stop such men. "The best damn infantry on earth. Watch them! You'll not see better fighting men while you live!"”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Sergeant Anthony Pohlmann, p. 271
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Triumph (1997)

Men , Fight

“Virginia's Ring is a triumph and a tour de force. Lynn Seldon has written one of the best books about a military college ever written. With the publication of Virginia's Ring, he joins the distinguished ranks of our military academy graduates who have written about the life changing, fire tested tribe. It reminded me of James Webb's A Sense of Honor about the Naval Academy and Lucian Truscott's Dress Gray about West Point. But Mr. Seldon makes Virginia Military Institute a great test of the human spirit and one of the best places on earth to earn a college degree.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Conroy's advance praise for the novel Virginia's Ring (2014), written and published by Virginia Military Institute, Class of 1983 graduate Lynn Seldon, printed on the first page in the book.

Life , Books , Sense , Change

“Land has lost its original strategic value; military forces are no longer employed primarily to conquer land, but to ensure stable economic, energy and information flows, which constitute the true resources, along with the natural resources. Alongside military hard power, international organization are increasing attempts to use soft power, at regional level, to solve environmental problems that do not pose short-term problems, but which can generate conflicts in the medium-to-long term, such as water-related problems or desertification.”

Corrado Maria Daclon (1963) Italian journalist and scientist

From Geopolitics of Environment, A Wider Approach to the Global Challenges, La Comunità Internazionale, no. 4, (2007)

Nature , Problem , Water

“He was reluctantly forced to conclude that his sanity was unshaken.”

Lin Carter (1930–1988) American fantasy writer, editor, critic

Source: Time War (1974), Chapter 2, “The Lady Lis” (p. 27)

“…the people of Britain and the Dominions were not much given to self-glorification. We were indeed inclined to a certain self-depreciation which was not always understood outside our own family of nations; but this was an occasion when they might take a proper pride in themselves. The world knew that in the critical time after Hitler's victories in 1940 it was the British Commonwealth and Empire that stood alone in defence of freedom for a whole year. It was British steadfastness that held the line while the forces of freedom were gathering.”

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

Speech to the conference of representatives of the British and Dominion Labour parties, Westminster, London (12 September 1944), quoted in The Times (13 September 1944), p. 8.
War Cabinet

People , World , Family , Freedom

“Civilization no longer represents the conscience of the individuals who must find therein their work. The facts and forces which now organize industry and so-called justice, violate the best instincts of mankind.”

George D. Herron (1862–1925) American clergyman, writer and activist

Source: Between Caesar and Jesus (1899), p. 19

Justice

“Assad appears to have decided to purge his government of anyone remotely suspected of sympathizing with the pro-democracy uprising — with his first priority being to reassert control of the armed forces. To hammer that home, he’s appearing on state TV in military uniforms in his role as commander-in-chief — his chest often covered with Syria’s highest military decorations for bravery, although he’s never done military service.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"The lonely dictator" http://nypost.com/2011/08/12/the-lonely-dictator/, New York Post (August 12, 2011).
New York Post

Democracy , Home , Appearance

“.. an entirely original painter [ Francois Millet ], high-minded and genuinely rustic in nature, who has expressed things about the country and its inhabitants, about their toil, their melancholy, and the nobleness of their labour. He has represented them in a somewhat barbaric fashion, in a manner to which his ideas gave a more expressive force than his hand possessed. The world has been grateful for his intentions; it has recognised in his methods something of the sensibility of a Burns who was a little awkward in expression.... He stands out as a deep thinker.”

Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876) French painter

Quote from Maitres d'Autrefois; Belgique – Hollande, Eugène Fromentin; Librairie Plon-Nourrit et Cie, Paris, 1877; as quoted by Arthur Hoebert, in The Barbizon Painters – being the story of the Men of thirty – associate of the National Academy of Design; publishers, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York 1915, p. 73-74

World , Idea , Fashion , Nature

“I think the Services can be rightly very upset at the continuous series of defence reviews which the Government has been forced by economic circumstances—and maybe economic mistakes too—to carry out…”

Denis Healey (1917–2015) British Labour Party politician and Life peer

On BBC Television's Panorama programme (22 January, 1968).
1960s

Thinking

“Depp: I would never be disrespectful to my country, to the people, especially the kids who are over there serving in the armed forces. My uncle was wounded in Vietnam, paralyzed from the neck down. I would never say those things the way they claim I said them.
Interviewer: What exactly did you say?
Depp: I essentially said the United States is a very young country compared with Europe. We're still growing. That's it. I wouldn't say anything anti-American. I'm an American, and I love my country.
Interviewer: What's your view of President Bush?
Depp: What can I say? He's somebody's kid. He's somebody's father. God bless him. Good luck. You know what I mean? I don't agree with his politics, and I'm not going to pretend to, but I don't agree with a lot of people's politics.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in Bernard Weintraub, "Playboy Interview: Johnny Depp," Playboy (May 2004)

Love , God , People , Way

“It is the American practice to present others as guilty wherever they are defeated. Is it not funny that those with 160,000 forces in Iraq accuse us of interference?”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

2008-03-03 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7274149.stm
2008

“Let us delve a little deeper into the matter of Income Tax. The long-suffering Public are blamed and where discovered heavily penalised for submitting wrong returns. No doubt there are many black sheep, as in all other walks of life, who deliberately do so, but, however, it is true that most of those who adopt this unsavory practice have been forced to do so. Let us consider what happens.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), On Income Tax

Life , Suffering

“In the early days the Cubists' method of grasping an object was to go round and round it; the futurists declared that one had to get inside it. In my opinion the two views can be reconciled in a poetic cognition of the world. But to the very fact that they appealed to the creative depths in the painter by awakening in him hidden forces which were intuitive and vitalizing, the Futurist theories did more than the Cubist principles to open up unexplored and boundless horizons.”

Gino Severini (1883–1966) Italian painter

Source: The Life of a Painter - autobiography', 1946, Letters of the great artists', 1963, p. 248

World

“We who know personal religion by experience know that there is nothing on earth to compare with the moral force exerted by it. It has demonstrated its social efficiency in our own lives.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianizing the Social Order (1912), p. 103 http://books.google.com/books?id=f8z9hCMTGOwC&pg=PA103

Religion , Personality

“I am trying to marshal all the forces I can to prevent this coming war, and to strengthen Britain.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Guy Fleetwood Wilson (13 November 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 800
The 1930s

War

“A curious paradox: people have only the narrowest private interest in mind when they act, yet they are at the same time more than ever determined in their behavior by the instincts of the mass. … The diversity of individual goals is immaterial in face of the identity of the determining forces.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: One Way Street (1928), p. 451

People , Behavior , Time

“I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced — forced at gunpoint no less — to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it'd happen.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

United in Purpose's " Rediscover God In America http://rediscovergodinamerica.com/" conference, March 2011
Mike Huckabee Wants People To Be Forced to Listen To David Barton At Gunpoint
2011-03-24
0:56
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mwGYr0OWzw
2011-04-02

Thinking , Country

“The most powerful force in the world is not a weapon or a nation but a truth: that we are spiritual beings, and that freedom is "the soul's right to breathe."”

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

1990s, A Distinctly American Internationalism (November 1999)

Truth , World , Soul , Freedom

“The U. S. alleges it wants to democratize [the Middle East] whilst it seeks to reverse election results not legally or through polls, but by force, fostering chaos and supporting, financing and arming the corrupt.”

Khaled Mashal (1956) Palestinian terrorist

Al Jazeera Talk to Jazeera - Khaled Meshaal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8TTjb54GzM March 5, 2008.
2008

Support

“The only difference [between promoting a book and a CD] is when I do the readings. My fans are out there in full force, but it's nice to have all the kids there as well. I really love this evolution of writing. Writing is my core, and writing the book was like writing a really long love song. I have 31 pages to elaborate instead of three minutes. And my target audience, although it is children, I don't talk down to them. I want the parents to find it interesting. [Children] sit in my lap. I love it. I've always tried to turn an arena into an intimate setting. So, if I'm already in an intimate setting... You get to talk to a few hundred people, and you get to really bring them in, to have an exchange with them that often doesn't occur on the stage.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Reuters (November 17, 2006)
2007, 2008

Love , Children , People , Books

“I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated, and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In other words, it forbids wholesome doubt. […]
This false certainty comes out in Professor Haldane's article. […] It is breaking Aristotle's canon—to demand in every enquiry that the degree of certainty which the subject matter allows. And not on your life to pretend that you see further than you do.
Being a democrat, I am opposed to all very drastic and sudden changes of society (in whatever direction) because they never in fact take place except by a particular technique. That technique involves the seizure of power by a small, highly disciplined group of people; the terror and the secret police follow, it would seem, automatically. I do not think any group good enough to have such power. They are men of like passions with ourselves. The secrecy and discipline of their organisation will have already inflamed in them that passion for the inner ring which I think at least as corrupting as avarice; and their high ideological pretensions will have lent all their passions the dangerous prestige of the Cause. Hence, in whatever direction the change is made, it is for me damned by its modus operandi.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The worst of all public dangers is the committee of public safety.
"A Reply to Professor Haldane" (1946), published posthumously in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966)
Some of these ideas were included in the essay "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" (1949) (see below).

Life , Men , People , Truth