Quotes about friend (4942 quotes, page 46)

“I want to see all of my people and speak to them so that we may forever be friends.”

John J. Pershing (1860–1948) United States Army general in World War I

My Life Before the World War, 1860--1917: A Memoir, pp. 292-293 https://books.google.com/books?id=a74_JIbehzsC&pg=PA292
Context: I write you this letter because I am sorry to know that you and your people refuse to do what the government has ordered. You do not give up your arms. Soldiers were sent to Taglibi so that you could come into camp and turn in your guns. When the soldiers went to camp a Taglibi, your Moros fired into camp and tried to kill the soldiers. Then the soldiers had to shoot all Moros who fired upon them. When the soldiers marched through the country, the Moros again shot at them, so the soldiers had to kill several others. I am sorry the soldiers had to kill any Moros. All Moros are the same to me as my children and no father wants to kill his own children.... I want to see all of my people and speak to them so that we may forever be friends.

People

“Dealt with a best friend getting killed. It was [by] two 35-year-old black men. Wasn't no police officer involved, wasn't anybody else involved, and I didn't hear anybody shouting "black lives matter" then.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

As quoted in "Seattle Seahawks' Richard Sherman addresses 'Black Lives Matter' after post falsely attributed to him" http://blog.seattlepi.com/football/2015/09/16/seattle-seahawks-richard-sherman-addresses-black-lives-matter-after-post-falsely-attributed-to-him/ (16 September 2015), by Stephen Cohen, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Hearst Seattle Media
Press conference (16 September 2015)

Men

“The laurelled exiles, kneeling to kiss these sands.
Number there freedom's friends.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Exiles From Their Land, History Their Domicile"
The Still Centre (1939)
Context: The laurelled exiles, kneeling to kiss these sands.
Number there freedom's friends. One who
Within the element of endless summer,
Like leaf in amber, petrified by light,
Studied the root of action. One in a garret
Read books as though he broke up flints.

Kiss , Freedom

“The league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world persecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for truth and benefit, but there is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word, you cannot wipe out the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and substances of nature — water, snow, wind, gravitation — become penalties to the thief.
On the other hand, the law holds with equal sureness for all right action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has absolute good, which like fire turns every thing to its own nature, so that you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal armies sent against Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies became friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offence, poverty, prove benefactors: —
::"Winds blow and waters roll
Strength to the brave, and power and deity,
Yet in themselves are nothing."”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him.
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation

Love , Hostility , Truth , World

“God knows I am no friend of probability theory, I have hated it from the first moment when our dear friend Max Born gave it birth. For it could be seen how easy and simple it made everything, in principle, everything ironed and the true problems concealed. Everybody must jump on the bandwagon [Ausweg]. And actually not a year passed before it became an official credo, and it still is.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Letter to Albert Einstein (13 June 1946), as quoted by Walter Moore in Schrödinger: Life and Thought (1989) ISBN 0521437679

God , Hate , Birth , Problem

“You can’t become a saint by taking dope, stealing your friends’ typewriters, giving girls chancres, not supporting your wife and children, and then reading St. John of the Cross.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

Rothenberg and Antin interview (1958)
Context: You can’t become a saint by taking dope, stealing your friends’ typewriters, giving girls chancres, not supporting your wife and children, and then reading St. John of the Cross. All of that, when it’s happened before, has typified the collapse of civilization … and today the social fabric is falling apart so fast, it makes your head swim.

Children , Girl , Support , Reading

“The prejudices of patriotism, the pressures of our friends and fear of unpopularity and death should not hold us back any longer. It should be total war against the economic and political and social system which is dominant in this country.”

Dave Dellinger (1915–2004) American activist

Context: The way of life that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and is reported to have roasted alive a million people in Tokyo overnight is international and dominates every nation of the world, but we live in the United States, so our struggle is here. With this way of life, death would be more appropriate. There could be no truce or quarter. The prejudices of patriotism, the pressures of our friends and fear of unpopularity and death should not hold us back any longer. It should be total war against the economic and political and social system which is dominant in this country. The American system has been destroying human life in peace and in war, at home and abroad for decades. Now it has produced the growing infamy of atom bombing. Besides these brutal facts, the tidbits of democracy mean nothing. Henceforth, no decent citizen owes one scrap of allegiance (if he ever did) to American law, American custom or American institutions.

Death , War , Fear , Country

“A shot of cocaine and speed, and a shot of heroin. Stripped off all my clothes, leapt downstairs, and ran out on Park Avenue and two blocks down it before my friends caught me. Naked. Naked as a lima bean.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Tapes for the movie Ciao! Manhattan, on her first experiences with heavy drugs.
Edie : American Girl (1982)
Context: Dr. Roberts says, "Hello, girls... how are we today? Are you all ready? Okay. Hop up. Put all your weight on this leg. Okay? ready? My god, this rear end looks like a battlefield." You went to hear something I wrote about the horror of speed? Well, maybe you don't but the nearly incommunicable torments of speed, buzzerama, that arcylic high, horrorous, yodeling, repetitious echoes of an infinity of butally harrowing that words cannot capture the devastation nor the tone of such a vicious nightmare. Yes, I'm even getting paranoid, which is a trip for me. I don't really dig it, but there it is. It's hard to choose between the climactic ecstasies of speed and cocaine. They're similar. Oh, they are so fabulous. That fantabulous sexual exhilaration. Which is better, coke or speed? It's hard to choose. The purest speed, the purest coke, and sex is a deadlock. Speeding and booze. That gets funny. You get chattering at about fifty miles an hour over the downdraft, and booze kind of cools it. It can get very funny. Utterly ridiculous. It's a good combination for a party. Not for an orgy, though. Speedball! Speed and heroin. That was the first time I had a shot in each arm. Closed my eyes. Opened my arms. Closed my fists, and jab, jab. A shot of cocaine and speed, and a shot of heroin. Stripped off all my clothes, leapt downstairs, and ran out on Park Avenue and two blocks down it before my friends caught me. Naked. Naked as a lima bean. A speedball is from another world. It's a little bit dangerous. Pure coke, pure speed, and pure sex. Wow! The ultimate in climax. Once I went over to Dr. Roberts for a shot of cocaine. It was very strange because he wouldn't tell me what it was and I was playing it cool. It was my first intravenous shot, and I said, "Well, I don't feel it." And so he gave me another one, and all of a sudden I went blind. Just flipped out of my skull! I ended up wildly balling him. And flipping him out of his skull. He was probably shot up... he was always shooting up around the corner anyway.

Speed , Clothes

“Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by Abolitionists; he was assailed by slave-holders; he was assailed by the men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)
Context: Fellow citizens, whatever else in this world may be partial, unjust, and uncertain, time, time! is impartial, just, and certain in its action. In the realm of mind, as well as in the realm of matter, it is a great worker, and often works wonders. The honest and comprehensive statesman, clearly discerning the needs of his country, and earnestly endeavoring to do his whole duty, though covered and blistered with reproaches, may safely leave his course to the silent judgment of time. Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by Abolitionists; he was assailed by slave-holders; he was assailed by the men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war. But now behold the change. The judgment of the present hour is, that taking him for all in all, measuring the tremendous magnitude of the work before him, considering the necessary means to ends, and surveying the end from the beginning, infinite wisdom has seldom sent any man into the world better fitted for his mission than Abraham Lincoln. His birth, his training, and his natural endowments, both mental and physical, were strongly in his favor. Born and reared among the lowly, a stranger to wealth and luxury, compelled to grapple single-handed with the flintiest hardships of life, from tender youth to sturdy manhood, he grew strong in the manly and heroic qualities demanded by the great mission to which he was called by the votes of his countrymen. The hard condition of his early life, which would have depressed and broken down weaker men, only gave greater life, vigor, and buoyancy to the heroic spirit of Abraham Lincoln. He was ready for any kind and any quality of work. What other young men dreaded in the shape of toil, he took hold of with the utmost cheerfulness.

Men , War , Peace , Housing

“We endorse the idea of voluntarism, self-responsibility, family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

The Morton Downey Jr. Show, July 4, 1988 youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCxDrfs4GtM&t=854
1980s
Context: Question: Your solutions, on stopping drug trade, is, give up, give up to world drugs. I say zero tolerance, we use the military for aid, we stop it from getting into the country, we cut it off at the source. Why give up on that fight?
Ron Paul: What we give up on is a tyrannical approach to solving a social and medical problem, and We endorse the idea of voluntarism, self-responsibility, family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion, it never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person, it can't make you follow good habits. Why don't they put you on a diet; you're a little overweight, and i think you need government help!

Family , Idea , Problem , Personality

“If all things are in common among friends, the most precious is Wisdom.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

As quoted in Giordano Bruno : His Life and Thought (1950) by Dorothea Waley Singer http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/bruno03.htm#CH3
Context: If all things are in common among friends, the most precious is Wisdom. What can Juno give which thou canst not receive from Wisdom? What mayest thou admire in Venus which thou mayest not also contemplate in Wisdom? Her beauty is not small, for the lord of all things taketh delight in her. Her I have loved and diligently sought from my youth up.

Wisdom

“On another occasion, I decided to give Konev, who liked to hunt, a custom-built rifle, with a silver plate on the stock inscribed "To Marshal Konev, from his friend, General Clark." I wasn't sure he would get it if I simply delivered it to his headquarters, so I had an officer take it to him. I didn't even get an acknowledgement from Konev, although I saw him on several official occasions. Finally, about three weeks after I had sent the gun, I walked to lunch with him after the commissioners' meeting. Speaking through an interpreter, I asked if he had received the gun. "Yes". "Ask the marshal whether he liked it." "Yes". "I just wondered," I said. "I hadn't received any acknowledgement."”

Mark W. Clark (1896–1984) American general

"Well, you didn't send any ammunition."
Source: Calculated Risk (1950), p. 477

“What your friend told you of his seeing of the time wall is true, Henry said in Boone's mind. I know he saw it, although imperfectly.”

Clifford D. Simak Highway of Eternity

Highway of Eternity (1986)
Context: What your friend told you of his seeing of the time wall is true, Henry said in Boone's mind. I know he saw it, although imperfectly. Your friend is most unusual. So far as I know, no other human actually can see it; although there are ways of detecting time. I tried to show him a sniffler. There are a number of snifflers, trying to sniff out the bubble. They know there's something strange, but don't know what it is.

Time

“Oh yes, friend, I'm moonstruck through and through-”

Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909–1959) Nepali poet

Lunatic. 5
पागल (The Lunatic)
Context: I called the Navab's wine blood, the painted whore a corpse, and the king a pauper. I attacked Alexander with insults, and denounced the so-called great souls. The lowly I have raised on the bridge of praise to the seventh heaven. Your learned pandit is my great fool, your heaven my hell, your gold my iron, friend! Your piety my sin. Where you see yourself as brilliant I find you a dolt. Your rise, friend-my decline. That's the way our values are mixed up, friend! Your whole world is a hair to me. Oh yes, friend, I'm moonstruck through and through- moonstruck! That's just the way I am.

“We need each other. We need friends in the world, and they need us. The bell tolls for us, my friends, Humanity counts on us, and we ought to take measured pride in that. We have not been an island. We were ‘involved in mankind.‘”

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

2010s, 2018, The Restless Wave (2018)
Context: !-- I want to talk to my fellow Americans a little more, if I may: --> My fellow Americans. No association ever mattered more to me. We’re not always right. We’re impetuous and impatient, and rush into things without knowing what we’re really doing. We argue over little differences endlessly, and exaggerate them into lasting breaches. We can be selfish, and quick sometimes to shift the blame for our mistakes to others. But our country ‘tis of thee.‘ What great good we’ve done in the world, so much more good than harm. We served ourselves, of course, but we helped make others free, safe and prosperous because we weren’t threatened by other people’s liberty and success. We need each other. We need friends in the world, and they need us. The bell tolls for us, my friends, Humanity counts on us, and we ought to take measured pride in that. We have not been an island. We were ‘involved in mankind.‘
Before I leave, I’d like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations. I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different. We are citizens of a republic made of shared ideals forged in a new world to replace the tribal enmities that tormented the old one. Even in times of political turmoil such as these, we share that awesome heritage and the responsibility to embrace it. Whether we think each other right or wrong in our views on the issues of the day, we owe each other our respect, as long as our character merits respect, and as long as we share, for all our differences, for all the rancorous debates that enliven and sometimes demean our politics, a mutual devotion to the ideals our nation was conceived to uphold, that all are created equal, and liberty and equal justice are the natural rights of all. Those rights inhabit the human heart, and from there, though they may be assailed, they can never be wrenched. I want to urge Americans, for as long as I can, to remember that this shared devotion to human rights is our truest heritage and our most important loyalty.

World

“Friends were anxious to learn if I had had a near-death experience, and if so, what effect it had had on my longstanding public atheism.”

Daniel Dennett (1942) American philosopher

Thank Goodness! (2006)
Context: Friends were anxious to learn if I had had a near-death experience, and if so, what effect it had had on my longstanding public atheism. Had I had an epiphany? Was I going to follow in the footsteps of Ayer (who recovered his aplomb and insisted a few days later "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief"), or was my atheism still intact and unchanged?
Yes, I did have an epiphany. I saw with greater clarity than ever before in my life that when I say "Thank goodness!" this is not merely a euphemism for "Thank God!" (We atheists don't believe that there is any God to thank.) I really do mean thank goodness! There is a lot of goodness in this world, and more goodness every day, and this fantastic human-made fabric of excellence is genuinely responsible for the fact that I am alive today. It is a worthy recipient of the gratitude I feel today, and I want to celebrate that fact here and now.

Death , Learning

“Left to ourselves, mechanistic and autonomic, we hanker for friends.”

Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) American physician, poet and educator

"The Tucson Zoo", p. 9
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979)
Context: We are endowed with genes which code out our reaction to beavers and otters, maybe our reaction to each other as well. We are stamped with stereotyped, unalterable patterns of response, ready to be released. And the behavior released in us, by such confrontations, is, essentially, a surprised affection. It is compulsory behavior and we can avoid it only by straining with the full power of our conscious minds, making up conscious excuses all the way. Left to ourselves, mechanistic and autonomic, we hanker for friends.

“From Iran's different faiths, ethnic groups and social sectors, from the left to the right of the political spectrum, from my brave countrymen and women struggling for human dignity and freedom, this is the message I carry to you: As you face our oppressors, do not turn your back to us. We are your best friends in the struggle against a common enemy, the enemy of peace on earth.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

Statement by Reza Pahlavi of Iran - Democracy & Security Conference http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=108&page=4, Prague, Czech Republic, Jun. 5, 2007.
Speeches, 2007

Women , Peace , Faith , Freedom

“That is simple my friend: because politics is more difficult than physics. ”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

В ответ на вопрос, почему люди смогли создать атомное оружие, но не могут установить контроль над ним

“We become strong, I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look for moral guidance. ”

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

Feeling , Strong

“There are three faithful friends, an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Money , Faith , Dogs

“You don't lose when you lose fake friends.”

Joan Jett (1958) American rock musician, former member of The Runaways

“It's a sad thing not to have friends, but it is even sadder not to have enemies. ”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Sadness

“A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your success.”

Дуг Ларсон (1926)

Success , For Wife , Friendship , Powerful

“My mother never breast fed me, she told me she only liked me as a friend.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

“A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be.”

Дуглас Пейджест (1950)

Friendship , For Friend , For Bestfriend

“Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing. ”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Friendship , For Friend , For Bestfriend , Change

“We all just gave up on that and stayed friends.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

“A brother may not be a friend, but a friend will always be a brother.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

“It's ok to understand other people. But it's not enough. Advertence is necessary too. Because it's easy to understand abstract person if you're not a victim but outside observer. Imagine you say to friend who needs your help: «I understand the man who stole from you because he was starved». Or that: «I understand that scumbag who raped you because his wife ran out on him and he wanted to blow off steam». Only most hard-hearted person can say that.”

Брайанна Рид

People , Imagination , Understanding , Help

“When I was writing it, I was remembering how hard it was to be a 16-year-old in high school. I always wanted to be an artist, so I was this loner kid who just got drunk all the time. I only had one real friend. There was a girl I really liked, and she ended up taking really sleazy photographs with her boyfriend, and that really crushed me, I was just swimming in this pit of despair, jealousy and alcoholism.”

Джерард Артур Уэй (1977)

Alcohol , Jealousy , School , Girl

“If you want an accounting of your worth, count your friends. ”

Мэри Браун (1847–1935) Brown [née Solomon], Mary (1847–1935), social reformer

“If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?”

Daniele Luttazzi (1961) Italian comedian

“Over the years I’ve learnt to live with two persons in my heart. One is Edson, who has fun with his friends and family; the other is the football player Pele. I didn’t want the name. ‘Pele’ sounds like baby-talk in Portuguese.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player

Family , Baby , Personality , Heart

“A friend is part of your family.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player

Family , Parting

“Friendship is a precious gift that can't be bought or sold. It's value is greater than mountains made of gold. If you shall ask God for a gift be thankful if he sends not diamonds pearls or riches but the love and trust of friends. It is the friends you can call up at 4 a. m. that matter.”

Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992) German-American actress and singer

God , Friendship , Mountain , Love

“Commitment is a big part of what I am and what I believe. How committed are you to winning? How committed are you to being a good friend? To being trustworthy? To being successful? How committed are you to being a good father, a good teammate, a good role model? There's that moment every morning when you look in the mirror: Are you committed, or are you not?”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

Parting , Success

“You know, my family and friends have never been yes-men: 'Yes, you're doing the right thing, you're always right.' No, they tell me when I'm wrong, and that's why I've been able to stay who I am and stay humble.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

Family , Men

“You haven't any right to expect your friends to be larger than yourself, larger than life. Just take them as they are, cut down to average size, and be glad you have them. To drink with, laugh with, borrow money from, lend money to, stay away from their special girls as you want them to stay away from yours, and above all, never break your word to, once it's been given. And that is all the obligation you have, all you have the right to expect.”

Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968) American author and screenwriter

Money , Life , Drink , Girl

“Did you ever have a conversation with someone who misunderstood everything you had to say? It's exhausting, and the ironic part is that the more you try and explain yourself, the more mixed up things become. Your best friend knows when you're kidding, venting, and tired. He or she knows you and therefore doesn't read into the things you say.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author

Parting , Reading

“Bathe in your riches and friends, I'll stay here with my songbooks and pens.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

“Focus on yourself, your life, your career, your family, your true friends and most importantly… your happiness.”

Ralph Smart

Family , Life , Happiness

“I'm so happy I grew up in a time where we played hide and seek and played on the street with friends rather than playing on an iPad all day.”

Ralph Smart

Time , Happiness

“As we grow up, we realize it becomes less important to have a ton of friends, and more important to have real ones.”

Ralph Smart

For Friend , For Bestfriend

“I continue to find appealing the sentiment of a left-wing song that I learned in my childhood, which begins as follows: "If we should consider each other, a neighbor, a friend, or a brother, it could be a wonderful, wonderful world, it could be a wonderful world."”

Gerald Cohen (1941–2009) Canadian philosopher

III. Is the Ideal Desirable?
Why Not Socialism? (2009)

Childhood , World , Learning

“Today's reality
Fancy phone…. but afraid to connect
Big house…. small family
Expensive watch.…no time
Lot of friends on facebook…. no best friends
Great knowledge…. no wisdom
Lots of humans.…no humanity
Love animals…. eat animals
High IQ…. less emotions
Touched the moon…. neighbours unknown
Advanced medicine…. poor health
More degrees…. less common sense
Love sex…. fear intimacy”

Ralph Smart

facebook

Family , Time , Housing , Health

“Live your way, not the way that friends, partners, colleagues or your parents told you that you must.”

Ralph Smart

twitter

Way , Parent

“Valuing freedom of thought above all things as the only way of reaching at some future time that Wisdom, of which every Theosophist ought to be enamored, we recognize the right to the same freedom in our foes as in our friends.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book The Key to Theosophy

Source: The Key to Theosophy (1889)

Time , Freedom , Future , Way

“Part of this book is an homage to the way my friends and I live: lives without children, without marriage, lives you rarely see depicted in popular art, unless as a punch line or a tragedy, lives not considered by many to be full, legitimate adulthood. And yet when I was growing up, my parents always had a diversity of friends, some of whom lived different kinds of lives themselves…And they had many friends who had chosen this other path of adulthood, who weren’t married, who didn’t have children, whose lives didn’t resemble their own. So this sort of life never seemed like anything less-than to me. The loneliness of living the life I do comes from the fact that so many people do think it’s a lesser existence, a purgatory of true adulthood.”

Hanya Yanagihara (1974) American novelist and travel writer

On depicting adulthood in A Little Life in “An Interview with Hanya Yanagihara” https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-hanya-yanagihara/ in Believer Magazine (2017 Nov 20)

Marriage , Adulthood , Children , Loneliness

“Yet I would like to get acquainted with Japanese drawings or paintings.. ..especially as they appreciate birds so strongly and therefore already they are my friends.”

Jan Mankes (1889–1920) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek

(original Dutch: citaat van Jan Mankes, in het Nederlands:) Toch zou ik wel eens graag kennis maken met Japansche teekeningen of schilderijen.. ..vooral daar ze vogels zo hoog stellen en daardoor dus al mijn vrinden zijn.

In a letter of Jan Mankes to A.A.M. Pauwels, 2 Feb. 1911 – RKD in The Hague: Archive: Pauwels
1909 - 1914

Bird , Drawing , Painting

“The case of mere titles is so absurd that it would deserve to be treated only with ridicule were t not for the serious mischief they impose on mankind. The feudal system was a ferocious monster, devouring, where it came, all that the friend of humanity regards with attachment and love. The system of titles appears under a different form. The monster is at length destroyed, and they who followed in his train, and fattened upon the carcasses of those he slew, have stuffed his skin, and, b exhibiting it, hope still to terrify mankind into patient and pusillanimity.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

Book V, Chapter 13
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Hope , Appearance , Training , Love

“A deep analysis of events of the past makes me firmly believe that these people from other planets are our friends. I am convinced that their desire and their object is to help us and perhaps to protect us from even ourselves, as well as that they mean to ensure the safety and balance of the other planets in our system.”

George Adamski (1891–1965) American ufologist

Flying Saucers Have Landed

Past , People , Help , Making love

“It’s funny, when you use tiny sums of money, like when I started off, actually, it is equally as hard, because that money is someone’s money. It’s not a corporation, not a company, you have taken that money from friends or family, however you have raised it. It’s a funny thing coming up through filmmaking that way, it really makes you be responsible and to really appreciate the money that people are putting it.”

Johannes Roberts (1976) British film director

Interview – Johannes Roberts https://crypticrock.com/interview-johannes-roberts/ (March 7, 2018)

Money , Family , People , Way

“I...say to my working-men friends here, before you forsake your support and allegiance to the Liberal party, and before you go trying to found some separate organization of your own, let me venture to put before you two considerations. In the first place I would beg of you to remember that in English public life and in English history we have hitherto always had parties which did not represent, or which, at any rate, did not profess to represent, particular classes, but which looked at the interests of the community from the point of view of the community as a whole.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Hull (22 January 1895), quoted in The Times (23 January 1895), p. 6
Home Secretary

History , Support , Communication , Life

“No Continental country has ever been able to understand the temper of the British people, but, while I give them a note of warning of our foreign critics, let me say what is more to the point to my own friends, that unless they bestir themselves Great Britain will be in a position of peril which it has not known in the memory of their fathers, their grandfathers, their great grandfathers, and if that position of peril should issue in some great catastrophe...this country will not again easily arise. (Hear, hear.) I do not believe there is going to be war between this country and any great foreign Power. (Hear, hear.) Heaven knows I do not desire it, but I do not believe it. Please remember the absolutely only way in which you can secure the peace which you all desire is that you shall be sure of victory if war takes place.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Cheers.
Speech in Hanley (4 January 1910), quoted in The Times (5 January 1910), p. 7
Leader of the Opposition

Peace , Understanding , Country , War

“When I think of those four terrible years and I think of the 7,000,000 of young men who were cut off in their prime, the 13,000,000 who were maimed and mutilated, the misery and the suffering of the mothers and the fathers, the sons and the daughters, and the relatives and the friends of those who were killed, and the wounded, then I am bound to say again what I have said before, and what I say now, not only to you but to all the world—in war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers. It is those thoughts which have made me feel that it was my prime duty to strain every nerve to avoid a repetition of the Great War in Europe.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Kettering (2 July 1938), quoted in The Times (4 July 1938), p. 21
Prime Minister

War , Suffering , Daughters , Thinking

“We can write a life of Julius Caesar or of Cicero, because we have in the first line letters, commentaries, and other authentic documents written by them and their friends; in the second, lives written by Plutarch and others who had in their hands monuments of them, now lost; and in the third, masses of contemporary coins and inscriptions. Contrast with this wealth of sources the scanty material which remains, after the examination of the preceding chapters, for a portrait of Jesus of Nazareth. So slender is it, indeed, that it seems not absurd to some critics to-day to deny that he ever lived.”

Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare (1856–1924) British orientalist

p. 139 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015005727337;view=1up;seq=163
Myth, Magic, and Morals (1909)

Wealth , Life

“How long will men dare to call anything expedient that is not right? Can odium and infamy be of service to any empire, which ought to be supported by glory and by the good-will of its allies? I was often at variance even with my friend Cato. He seemed to me to guard the treasury and the revenues too obstinately, to refuse everything to the farmers of the revenue, and many things to our allies; while we ought to be generous to our allies, and to deal with the farmers of the revenue as leniently as we individually do with our own tenants, especially as the union of orders to which such a course would conduce is for the well-being of the state.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book III, Sect. 22, as translated by Andrew P. Peabody
De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC)

Support , Men

“I have attempted to write of my long association with George Patton as fairly and as honestly as I could. General Patton was one of my staunchest friends and the most unhesitatingly loyal of my commanders. He was a magnificent soldier, one whom the American people can admire not only as a great commander but as a unique and remarkable man. In recollecting our experiences together, I may offend those who prefer to remember Patton not as a human being but as a heroic-size statue in a public park. I prefer to remember Patton as a man, as a man with all the frailties and faults of a human being, as a man whose greatness is therefore all the more of a triumph.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. xii

People

“The film itself is sort of an indictment of Hollywood. With black people, why is everything that we do wrapped in Christian dogma? Why do we only have to be the sassy black friend? It was incredible to be able to talk about the frustration that I’d had in this industry, in a film. And then it did so well. So that became my North Star.”

Tessa Thompson (1983) American actresse

On her role in the film Dear White People in “Tessa Thompson interview: ‘Men should have the responsibility to deal with their toxicity’” https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/tessa-thompson-interview-creed-ii-2-sexuality-men-bisexual-acting-michael-b-jordan-metoo-a8658881.html in Independent (2018 Nov 30)

Star , People

“Forgiveness is not just a selfish pursuit of personal satisfaction or righteousness. It actually alleviates the amount of suffering in the world. As each one of us frees ourselves from clinging to resentments that cause suffering, we relieve our friends, family, and community of the burden of our unhappiness. This is not a philosophical proposal; it is a verifiable and practical truth. Through our suffering and lack of forgiveness, we tend to do all kinds of unskillful things that hurt others. We close ourselves off from love, for example, out of fear of further pains or betrayals. This alone—a lack of openness to the love shown to us—is a way that we cause harm to our loved ones. The closed heart lets no one in or out.”

Noah Levine (1971) American Buddhist teacher

The Heart of the Revolution (2011)

Forgiveness , Family , Betrayal , Selfishness

“My Friends! Happiness lies in serving the salvation of Humanity. Put aside all prejudices and, summoning your spiritual forces, aid mankind. Direct the unsightly towards the path of beauty. As the tree renews its leaves, so shall humanity flourish on the path of righteousness.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

94
Leaves of Morya’s Garden: Book One (The Call) (1924)

Beauty , Tree , Happiness

“Those who have found this middle point are true and wonderworking adepts of science and reason. They are masters of the wealth of worlds, confidants and friends of the princes of heaven itself, and Nature obeys them because they will what is willed by the law which is the motive power of Nature. It is this which the Saviour of the world spoke of as the Kingdom of Heaven; this also is the Sanctum Regnum of the Holy Kabalah. It is the Crown and Ring of Solomon ; it is the Sceptre of Joseph which the stars obeyed in heaven and the harvests on earth.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Source: The History Of Magic (1860), p.501

Confidence , Law , Wealth , Star

“Therefore, you should be revulsed by such a body. You should despair of it and should arouse your admiration for the body of the Tathagata. Friends, the body of a Tathagata is the body of Dharma, born of gnosis. The body of a Tathagata is born of the stores of merit and wisdom. It is born of morality, of meditation, of wisdom, of the liberations, and of the knowledge and vision of liberation. It is born of love, compassion, joy, and impartiality. It is born of charity, discipline, and self-control. It is born of the path of ten virtues. It is born of patience and gentleness. It is born of the roots of virtue planted by solid efforts. It is born of the concentrations, the liberations, the meditations, and the absorptions. It is born of learning, wisdom, and liberative technique. It is born of the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment. It is born of mental quiescence and transcendental analysis. It is born of the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, and the eighteen special qualities. It is born of all the transcendences. It is born from sciences and superknowledges. It is born of the abandonment of all evil qualities, and of the collection of all good qualities. It is born of truth. It is born of reality. It is born of conscious awareness. Friends, the body of a Tathagata is born of innumerable good works. Toward such a body you should turn your aspirations, and, in order to eliminate the sicknesses of the passions of all living beings, you should conceive the spirit of unexcelled, perfect enlightenment.”

Vimalakirti

Chapter 2 http://www.fodian.net/world/0475_02.html
Vimalakirti Sutra, Robert Thurman's translation, 1991

Despair , Making love , Learning , Perfection

“Friends, this body is so impermanent, fragile, unworthy of confidence, and feeble. It is so insubstantial, perishable, short-lived, painful, filled with diseases, and subject to changes. Thus, my friends, as this body is only a vessel of many sicknesses, wise men do not rely on it. This body is like a ball of foam, unable to bear any pressure. It is like a water bubble, not remaining very long. It is like a mirage, born from the appetites of the passions. It is like the trunk of the plantain tree, having no core. Alas! This body is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons. It is like a magical illusion, consisting of falsifications. It is like a dream, being an unreal vision. It is like a reflection, being the image of former actions. It is like an echo, being dependent on conditioning. It is like a cloud, being characterized by turbulence and dissolution. It is like a flash of lightning, being unstable, and decaying every moment. The body is ownerless, being the product of a variety of conditions.”

Vimalakirti

Chapter 2 http://www.fodian.net/world/0475_02.html
Vimalakirti Sutra, Robert Thurman's translation, 1991

Tree , Confidence , Pain , Dependency

“Now there’s a real competition going on up here... My good friend Joe (Biden)... he’s received contributions from 44 billionaires. Pete (Buttigieg) on the other hand, is trailing, you only got 39 billionaires contributing.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2010s, 2019, December 2019

“Right from his childhood, Vinayak found the caste system that plagued Hindu society reprehensible. In his own little way he broke these barriers. Despite being an upper-caste Brahmin, and a landlord at that, all his childhood friends were from poor backgrounds and belonged to the supposed lower castes.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past

Childhood , Way

“I don’t think sexism is worse than racism, it’s impossible even to compare…It’s that I feel lonely in my fight against sexism, in a way that I don’t feel in my fight against racism. My friends, my family, they get racism, they get it. The people I’m close to who are not black get it. But I find that with sexism you are constantly having to explain, justify, convince, make a case for.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977) Nigerian writer

On why sexism is at times a more difficult argument for her than racism in “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ‘This could be the beginning of a revolution’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/28/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-feminism-racism-sexism-gender-metoo in The Guardian (2018 Apr 28)

Family , People , Thinking , Way

“Citizens, did you want a revolution without a revolution? What is this spirit of persecution that has come to revise, so to speak, the one that broke our chains? But what sure judgement can one make of the effects that can follow these great commotions? Who can mark, after the event, the exact point at which the waves of popular insurrection should break? At that price, what people could ever have shaken off the yoke of despotism? For while it is true that a great nation cannot rise in a simultaneous movement, and that tyranny can only be hit by the portion of citizens that is closest to it, how would these ever dare to attack it if, after the victory, delegates from remote parts could hold them responsible for the duration or violence of the political torment that had saved the homeland? They ought to be regarded as justified by tacit proxy for the whole of society. The French, friends of liberty, meeting in Paris last August, acted in that role, in the name of all the departments. They should either be approved or repudiated entirely. To make them criminally responsible for a few apparent or real disorders, inseparable from so great a shock, would be to punish them for their devotion.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Citoyens, vouliez-vous une révolution sans révolution?
"Answer to Louvet's Accusation" (5 November 1792) Réponse à J.- B. Louvet http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/discours/robespierre_reponse_louvet.htm, a speech to the National Convention (5 November 1792)

Victory , People , Parting , Making love

“Anti-Zionism is not criticism of Israel. It is a hatred of Israel — a hatred greater than that of any other country and a delegitimization of Zionism, the movement to reestablish the Jewish national home. Imagine someone who argued that the establishment of the Italian state — Italy — was illegitimate and who hated Italy more than any other country in the world yet claimed that he was in no way anti-Italian, as he had Italian friends and loved Italian culture. No one would believe such an absurdity.”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

2010s, Why Most Jews Aren't Bothered By The Times' Anti-Semitic Cartoon (2019)

Home , Imagination , Hate , Country

“Some writers write every morning, or every day. I don´t tend to do that. I am of the Wendy Wasserstein mind. Going to the movies is research. Walking down Central Park and seeing cute boys in tank tops is research. Going to the Museum of Modern Art is research. Having dinner with my best friends is research. Because research, when it comes to being a playwright, most importantly means living. It means experiencing and engaging with the world…”

Christopher Oscar Peña

On his research process in “"a cautionary tale" part II: Interview with Playwright Christopher Oscar Peña” http://www.theaterspeak.org/2013/07/part-ii-of-cautionary-tale-at-flea.html (Theaterspeak; 2013 Jul 15)

World , Boy , Art

“When I left South Texas, I realized that I became the other. I was the token of the room. Most of my friends were white so when I went to a party or a wedding or a work function, I would scan the room and only see my face in the people who were serving the drinks or passing around the appetizers. I realized I was the hanging fruit in the room, the living and breathing statue in the room, the object in the middle of the photograph, surrounded by white eyes.”

Mando Alvarado actor

On one of the inspirations behind his play Living Sculpture in “SIN MUROS: INTERVIEW WITH “LIVING SCULPTURE” PLAYWRIGHT MANDO ALVARADO” https://thetheatretimes.com/sin-muros-interview-living-sculpture-playwright-mando-alvarado/ in The Theatre Times

Drink , Wedding , People

“Discrimination isn’t always gender, race or colour-based. The most damaging discrimination is of the mind and ideology. I was discriminated against by almost all my Bollywood friends, whom I used to hang around with because, like them, I also believed in a certain ideology but found it fake and alienated from reality, and elitist.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

Reality

“Reliance’s Big cinema had backed out as sponsors of MAMI as it was going through a massive financial crunch and there were rumours that it might shut down. ... From down-to-earth, genuine filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, the festival now was in the hands of corporates, critics, powerful people’s wives and their admirers. This was the year when MAMI officially transformed from a cinema lovers’ festival to a corporate club festival. I learnt this when I reached Chandan cinema with Pallavi for the closing award ceremony. We were official nominees, yet we were asked to sit in a corner seat in the tenth or twelfth row whereas the front rows were all occupied by commercial stars, star wives, their friends and people who are inconsequential to indie cinema. I was officially nominated; my wife Pallavi, besides being a senior actor is a national award winner and has been on the jury of the national awards, but nobody was ready to recognize those who did not make great press.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

Star , Making love , People , Lovers

“Next, the Emperor Nuruddin Jahangir for 22 years spread his gracious shade on the head of the world and its dwellers, gave his heart to his friends and his hand to his work, and gained his desires. The Emperor Shah Jahan for 32 years cast his blessed shade on the head of the world and gathered the fruit of eternal life,—...”

Shivaji (1627–1680) founder of Maratha Empire

....
Letter to Aurangzeb

World , Life , Heart

“During a lecture the Oxford linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin made the claim that although a double negative in English implies a positive meaning, there is no language in which a double positive implies a negative. To which he decided to just go ahead and keep striving to figure it out HE MY FRIENDS WAS A DETERMINED HONEST SUPERIOR WEALTHY TRY HARDISH SWEATY PERSON WHO NEEDS TO DO I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT!”

Sidney Morgenbesser (1921–2004) American philosopher

Personality

“Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things — old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

No. 97
Apophthegms (1624)

Drink , Reading , Appearance , Age

“To all of our friends and partners: Our cherished alliance was forged in the heat of battle, tested in the trials of war, and proven in the blessings of peace. Our bond is unbreakable.”

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

2010s, 2019, June, Remarks on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day in Colleville-sur-Mer, France

War , Peace

“Do you want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours?”

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

Addressing an African-American reporter and referring to the Congressional Black Caucus
Comments made during a news conference at the White House https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/us/politics/donald-trump-press-conference-transcript.html?_r=0 (16 February 2017)
2010s, 2017, February

“Going through something difficult in your life, music for me is always a friend and something that helps you to figure things out.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

http://www.nme.com/news/music/coldplay-129-1241495 source

Music , Life , Help

“I don’t really have drunk friends. My friends are kind of adult; they have a drink. But they hold their liquor. I think it’s incredibly embarrassing when people are drunk. It just looks so ridiculous. I find it very degrading.”

Gwyneth Paltrow (1972) American actress, singer, and food writer

Thinking , Drink , People

“I like to meet as many fans as possible. A number of them have become personal friends. Without the convention I would never see them. I owe a lot to my fans, many of whom have bought my books and remained faithful to me over the years. So I like to put on an enjoyable day for all and I plan to continue with it for as long as possible.”

Guy N. Smith (1939–2020) British writer

DLS Reviews Interview https://www.dlsreviews.com/guy-n-smith-interview-001-march-2015.php (March 20, 2015)

Personality , Faith , Books

“The hardest thing about being a black writer in this town is having to pitch your black story to white execs…Also, most of the time when we go into rooms to pitch, there’s one token black executive that sometimes can be a friend and sometimes can be a foe. I wonder if they think it makes me more comfortable, if that makes me think that they’re a woke network or studio because they’ve got that one black exec. It feels patronizing. I’m not against a black exec. I want there to be more of them.”

Lena Waithe (1984) American actress, producer, and screenwriter

On the still existing obstacles to pitching ideas in “Lena Waithe Is Changing the Game” https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/03/lena-waithe-cover-story in Vanity Fair (April 2018)

Thinking , Time , Feeling , Making love

“Weighing the sacrifices of the last war, we want to be true friends of a peace which will at last heal the wounds from which all have suffered.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech in Potsdam (21 March 1933), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 9
1930s

War , Peace , Suffering

“Could she sing? (Was it nice to hear when she did?) Was she pretty? Was she a good friend? Could she have been a loving mother? A faithful wife? Have I got a sister and does she favor me? If my mother knew me would she like me?”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Beloved (1987)

Singing , Faith , Making love , Love

“To me, they’re the greatest generation. My parents and their friends, to me, have qualities that I don’t have, my children don’t have. They’re very imaginative, hardworking people. They created so much. My mother could teach all day, and then she could come home and cook a perfect dinner, and her house always looked perfect. They had qualities, I think, that are just so admirable.”

Adrienne Kennedy (1931) African-American playwright

On her parents in “Unraveling the Landscape: A Conversation With Adrienne Kennedy” https://www.americantheatre.org/2019/09/04/unraveling-the-landscape-a-conversation-with-adrienne-kennedy/ in American Theatre (September 2019)

Home , Imagination , Housing , Children

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction; there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

Address http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/26/international/middleeast/full-text-in-cheneys-words.html at the Opening Session of the 103rd National Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (August 26, 2002)
2000s, 2002

“Anything radical was dangerous to me, as it was to the average American. Nobody knew where a thing like that would lead and we were always afraid of chaos. So communism became the doorway to chaos, and the doorway to chaos was the doorway to evil. Your family might be hurt. Your friends might be hurt. You didn’t want to see a thing like that.”

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

TCJ Archive, "Jack Kirby Interview" http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/5/, The Comics Journal, (February 1990, posted May 23, 2011).

Family , Hurt , Evil , Communication

“I am devastated at the loss of one of my very dearest friends. Adam and I had a special friendship for more than 50 years. We shared some of the most fun times of our lives together; our families have deep love and respect for each other. This is a terribly unexpected loss of my lifelong friend, I will forever miss him. There are several fine actors who have portrayed Batman in films, in my eyes there was only one real Batman and that is and always will be Adam West; He was truly the Bright Knight.”

Adam West (1928–2017) American actor

Burt Ward, Hollywood Reacts to Adam West's Death http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/hollywood-reacts-adam-wests-death-a-sweet-nutty-guy-1012217 (June 10, 2017)

Family , Loss , Time , Friendship

“I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. It places the governors indeed more at their ease at the expense of the people. The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given much more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen States in the course of eleven years is but one for each State in a century and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of the government prevent insurrections. In England, where the hand of power is heavier than with us, there are seldom half a dozen years without an insurrection. In France, where it is still heavier but less despotic, as Montesquieu supposes, than in some other countries and where there are always two or three hundred thousand men ready to crush insurrections, there have been three in the course of the three years I have been here, in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to James Madison, Paris, (20 December 1787), The Political Writings Of Thomas Jefferson, Dumbauld, Edit. (1955) pp. 67-68
1780s

Country , Thinking , People , Men

“I wanted to be Arcade in a fourth X-Men movie but the prequels ruined the franchise so I became Dr. Eggman in a Sonic movie where James Marsden, the actor who played Cyclops, is the best friend of the protagonist who is a fast little animal like Wolverine.”

Jim Carrey (1962) Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer

In Living Color

Animals , Men

“The forces fomenting antisemitism are the forces arrayed against oppressed people around the world, including Palestinians; the struggle against antisemitism is also the struggle for Palestinian freedom. I stand in solidarity with my friends in Israel, in Palestine, and around the world who are trying to resolve conflict, diminish hatred, and promote dialogue, cooperation, and understanding.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

"How to Fight Antisemitism," https://jewishcurrents.org/how-to-fight-antisemitism/ in Jewish Currents.
2010s, 2019, November 2019

World , People , Understanding , Freedom

“The chief activities of beings, both human and non-human, are put forth, directly or indirectly, for the purpose of procuring food. The suppression, entire or partial, of one being by another for nutritive purposes is, therefore, the form of the most frequent and excessive egoism. The lowly forms of life—the worms, echinoderms, mollusks, and the like—are, for the most part, vegetarians. So, also, are prevalently the insects, birds, rodents, and ungulates. These creatures are not, as a rule, aggressively harmful to each other, chiefly indifferent. But upon these inoffensive races feed with remorseless maw the reptilia, the insectivora, and the carnivora. These being-eaters cause to the earth-world its bloodiest experiences. It is their nature (established organically by long selection, or, as in the case of man, acquired tentatively) to subsist, not on the kingdom of the plant, the natural and primal storehouse of animal energy, but on the skeletons and sensibilities of their neighbors and friends. The serpent dines on the sparrow and the sparrow ingulfs the gnat; the tiger slays the jungle-fowl and the coyote plunders the lamb; the seal subsists on fish and the ursus maritimus subsists on seal; the ant enslaves the aphidae and man eats and enslaves what can not get away from him. Life riots on life—tooth and talon, beak and paw. It is a sickening contemplation, But life everywhere, in its aspect of activity, is largely made up of the struggle by one being against another for existence—of the effort by one being to circumvent, subjugate, or destroy another, and of the counter effort to reciprocate or escape.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Preponderance of Egoism, pp. 123–125

Food , Indifference , Nature , Animals

“During Navy Seal training the students are all broken down into boat crews. Each crew is seven students — three on each side of a small rubber boat and one coxswain to help guide the dingy. Every day your boat crew forms up on the beach and is instructed to get through the surf zone and paddle several miles down the coast. In the winter, the surf off San Diego can get to be 8 to 10 feet high and it is exceedingly difficult to paddle through the plunging surf unless everyone digs in. Every paddle must be synchronized to the stroke count of the coxswain. Everyone must exert equal effort or the boat will turn against the wave and be unceremoniously dumped back on the beach. For the boat to make it to its destination, everyone must paddle. You can’t change the world alone — you will need some help — and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the goodwill of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide you. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle.”

William H. McRaven (1955) United States admiral

Strong , Help , World , Training

“Your old friend Congressman Hartley of the Taft Hartley team … has written a book … The title of this book is Our New National Labor Policy, the Taft-Hartley Act and the Next Steps.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Get that: "The Next Steps" … They're going even further! … The Republicans favor a minimum wage — the smaller the minimum the better.
Harry Truman at Akron (11 October 1948), Good Old Harry

Books

“At this stage of my life with the permission of my family I came up with a sort of square rules of what I want to do from here onwards, the rules are very simple I said that I have to look after myself, I have to look after my family, I have to look after my friends and I have to do my charities in this order.”

Nasser Khalili (1945) British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist

Interview on The Art Of Collecting by Sky Arts - Professor Nasser David Khalili episode (February 21, 2018) https://vimeo.com/256957904

Family , Life

“There can be no greater friend of Israel in this House than I am. I say that quite sincerely. I have pressed that Israel should have arms in the present situation. I believe that if ever there was a case for it, it is today, with the massive supply of Russian war materials now going into Egypt, and that Israel should have more arms at once.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1956/sep/13/suez-canal#column_228 in the House of Commons (13 September 1956)
1950s

War , Sincerity , Housing

“Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came the human beings, they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate – for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself.”

Albert Camus book The Fall

The Fall (1956)

Reading , Books , Reality , Love

“If we cannot make voluntary and conscious steps in the admirable science of universals, let us see the parts wisely, and infer the genius of nature from the best particulars with a becoming charity. What is best in each kind is an index of what should be the average of that thing. Love shows me the opulence of nature, by disclosing to me in my friend a hidden wealth, and I infer an equal depth of good in every other direction. It is commonly said by farmers that a good pear or apple costs no more time or pains to rear than a poor one; so I would have no work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Science , Pain , Time , Wealth

“We exist to change society. We are not likely to be very successful if we are horrified at any suggestion of changing ourselves. One of the things from which we are suffering is a misplaced national complacency: a belief that we do things better than anyone else. Do not let us be too afraid, as a Labour Party, of learning from some of our friends abroad. Parties all over the world have been modernizing themselves. There are only two unreconstructed socialist parties in the world—the French and the Australian. Do not let us be too conservative, complacent, and insular.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Scarborough (6 October 1960) in favour of revising Clause IV, quoted in The Times (7 October 1960), p. 20
1960s

Success , Suffering , Learning , World

Quotes about friend page 46

Quotes about friend
page 46