Quotes about generation
page 29

“What's the point of a revolution
without general
copulation copulation copulation”

Chorus, act 2, scene 30 (p. 92)
Marat/Sade (1963)

“My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence our children will not be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies. They will surely bless their fathers and their fathers' God that the Union was preserved, that slavery was overthrown, and that both races were made equal before the law. We may hasten or we may retard, but we can not prevent, the final reconciliation.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Inaugural address (1881)

God, Children, Law, Past

“The backlash is not a conspiracy, with a council dispatching agents from some central control room, nor are the people who serve its ends often aware of their role; some even consider themselves feminists. For the most part, its workings are encoded and internalized, diffuse and chameleonic. Not all of the manifestations of the backlash are of equal weight or significance, either; some are mere ephemera, generated by a culture machine that is always scrounging for a “fresh” angle. Taken as a whole, however, these codes and cajolings, these whispers and threats and myths, move overwhelmingly in one direction: they try to push women back into their “acceptable” roles — whether as Daddy's girl or fluttery romantic, active nester or passive love object.”

Susan Faludi book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

Page 16.
Backlash (1992)

Love, Women, People, Girl

“The institutional settlement of post-war West Germany has endured because it generated value. They retained pre-modern artisan organisations and turned them into the foundation of their contemporary economic success. They entangled and constrained capital in a myriad form of national, sectoral and localised arrangements and they emerge from the crash, virtually alone, with a productive economy and a functioning democracy, with greater equality than us and more meaningful work.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Blue Labour, An Ancient Polity For A New Economy? http://www.bluelabour.org/2012/06/19/an-ancient-polity-for-a-new-economy/

War, Democracy, Success

“I observe, that of late Chymistry begins, as indeed it deserves, to be cultivated by Learned Men who before despis’d it; and to be pretended to by many who never cultivated it, that they may be thought not to ignore it: Whence it is come to passe, that divers Chymical Notions about Matters Philosophical are taken for granted and employ’d, and so adopted by very eminent Writers both Naturalists and Physitians. Now this I fear may prove somewhat prejudicial to the Advancement of solid Philosophy: For though I am a great Lover of Chymical Experiments, and though I have no mean esteem of divers Chymical Remedies, yet I distinguish these from their Notions about the causes of things, and their manner of Generation.”

Robert Boyle book The Sceptical Chymist

Source: The Sceptical Chymist (1661), Preface Introductory to the Following Treatise

Men, Fear, Lovers, Learning

“The hazards of the generalized prisoner's dilemma are removed by the match between the right and the good.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter IX, Section 86, p. 577

“I tend to choose a doctor in the forties age range, male or female, in general preference to an older one. … They understand the full implications of modern medical technology a great deal better than their elders, are more open to new ideas, and usually are keenly aware of today's medical controversies, including law and ethics.”

Derek Humphry book Final Exit

"Shopping for the Right Doctor", p. 12
Final Exit

Age, Law, Idea, Understanding

“Variable but forecastable renewables (wind and solar cells) are very reliable when integrated with each other, existing supplies and demand. For example, three German states were more than 30 percent wind-powered in 2007—and more than 100 percent in some months. Mostly renewable power generally needs less backup than utilities already bought to combat big coal and nuclear plants' intermittence.”

Amory B. Lovins (1947) American physicist

Missing the Market Meltdown http://www.newsweek.com/id/137501 (May 2008)

“As soon as we beat England we shall make an end of you Englishmen once and for all. Able-bodied men and women between the ages of 16 and 45 will be exported as slaves to the Continent. The old and weak will be exterminated. All men remaining in Britain as slaves will be sterilised; a million or two of the young women of the Nordic type will be segregated in a number of stud farms where, with the assistance of picked German sires, during a period of 10 or 12 years, they will produce annually a series of Nordic infants to be brought up in every way as Germans. These infants will form the future population of Britain. They will be partially educated in Germany and only those who fully satisfy the Nazi's requirements will be allowed to return to Britain and take up permanent residence. The rest will be sterilised and sent to join slave gangs in Germany. Thus, in a generation or two, the British will disappear.”

Richard Walther Darré (1895–1953) Nazi SS General

Alleged speech (1940), as reported in Life magazine. (No German source known; could be allied propaganda. Richard Walther Darré was also cited as having pro-English views, and attended King's College in Wimbledon as an exchange student in his younger years.) Quoted in "Women in Air Force Blue" - Page 213 - by Beryl E. Escott - History - 1989
Disputed

Women, Men, Age, Education

“It was not, however, a matter of interest to me only with respect to my divisions, since as a member of the Executive Committee, I was a kind of general executive and so had begun to think from the corporate viewpoint. The important thing was that no one knew how much was being contributed — plus or minus — by each division to the common good of the corporation. And since, therefore, no one knew, or could prove, where the efficiencies and inefficiencies lay, there was no objective basis for the allocation of new investment. This was one of the difficulties with the expansion program of that time. It was natural for the divisions to compete for investment funds, but it was irrational for the general officers of the corporation not to know where to place the money to best advantage. In the absence of objectivity it was not surprising that there was a lack of real agreement among the general officers. Furthermore, some of them had no broad outlook, and used their membership on the Executive Committee mainly to advance the interests of their respective divisions.
The important thing was that no one knew how much was being contributed—plus or minus—by each division to the common good of the corporation. And since, therefore, no one knew, or could prove, where the efficiencies and inefficiencies lay, there was no objective basis for the allocation of new investment.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: My Years with General Motors, 1963, p. 48-49

Money, Nature, Thinking, Time

“Art has nothing to do with taste, art is not there to be 'tasted'. Yet a certain mayor believes that art exists to be 'judged', and the most modern art to be 'judged from a business point of view'. That such an original thought could emerge from a mayor's brain! What the mayor wants is exactly what the critics of the large and small dailies actually do. They set out to judge art. That is a very pleasant occupation, because no matter how wrong a judgment may be, you never have to revise it. The art judges talk about 'ability' and complain that the 'younger generation' has lost this ability. Sometimes their complaints are even seriously intended. But, gentlemen, do you really know what that is — ability? No, you don't.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

As quoted in Max Ernst: Sculptures (1996) by Max Ernst, Jürgen Pech, and Ida Gianelli, p. 11
posthumous

Art, Business

“At the present we have no adequate scientific method for representing the psychological life span. In accord with the general methods of psychology, the study of environmental influences began with classification and statistics… they gave us excellent descriptions of the home environment. The method of representation is partly akin to that of the novelist i. e., one trying to make as lifelike picture of the situation as possible by choosing expressive words and bringing out significant traits with examples. In general, the descriptions that have been made valuable to science have not been those made by scientific methods. Where theoretical concepts have been introduced with the concrete description, they often stand out as something alien. In stead of scientific descriptions they are nothing more than speculative interpretation.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1930s, Principles of topological psychology, 1936, p. 12-13.

Life, Home, Study, Science

“I think that it must in every case depend upon the nature of the transaction, whether the fact not disclosed is such, that it is impliedly represented not to exist; and that must generally be a question of fact proper for a jury.”

Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn (1813–1896) British judge

Lee v. Jones (1864), 17 C. B. (N. S.) 506.

Question, Nature, Thinking, Dependency

“Despite these common properties, and the fundamental unity of life they reveal, it is difficult to make generalizations about living organisms.”

Albert L. Lehninger (1917–1986) American biochemist

Principles of Biochemistry, Ch. 1 : The Foundations of Biochemistry

Life

“Perhaps the dissenters believe that 'offense to others' ought to be the only reason for restricting nudity in public places generally.... The purpose of Indiana's nudity law would be violated, I think, if 60,000 fully consenting adults crowded into the Hoosierdome to display their genitals to one another, even if there were not an offended innocent in the crowd.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On decency laws: Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc. (1991) (concurring).
1990s

Law, Thinking

“Economism is the view that the economy is the most important part of society and that the other dimensions such as politics and education should serve it. Economism has become the ruling ideology, not because of claims of economists, but because of the decisions of political leaders, financiers, corporate leaders, and the general public.”

John B. Cobb (1925) American theologian

Spiritual Bankruptcy: A Prophetic Call to Action (2010)

Education, Decision, Parting

“.. that famous idea of 'beauty', which is, as everybody says, the goal of the arts. If it is their only goal, what becomes of the men like Rubens, Rembrandt, and all the northern natures generally, who prefer other qualities? Demand purity, In a word beauty... In general the men of the north tend less in that direction. The Italian prefers ornament.”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

Quote 1847, as cited in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 229
1831 - 1863

Men, Beauty, Art, Idea

“The approach to the study of economic history that dominates the presentation of the subject in this volume is that of the economist whose immediate and primary function is to study the production and distribution of wealth with the objective of learning how the nation's economic progress can be promoted and its standard of living advanced. It can be called the functional approach to economic history. Although the narrative should provide such knowledge of the general background of economic history as is needed for most purposes in the interpretation of political history, and has frequently been turned aside to indicate the reactions thus involved, this has been a secondary rather than a primary consideration in the selection and organization of the material. Some material has been included because it served certain of the other objectives mentioned in the introductory chapter, though for the most part these objectives are served also by the material primarily of significance in relation to the major objective.”

Chester W. Wright (1879–1966) American economic historian

Chester W. Wright (1941). Economic History of the United States, p. xi-xii " Wright (1941)

History, Knowledge, Study, Learning

“Before the 1940s the terms "system" and "systems thinking" had been used by several scientists, but it was Bertalanffy's concepts of an open system and a general systems theory that established systems thinking as a major scientific movement”

Fritjof Capra (1939) American physicist

Source: The Web of Life (1996), p. 46.

Thinking

“In general, corruption tends to exist whenever governments have favors to extend, or something to sell.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Source: 2000s, The Age of Turbulence (2008), Chapter Thirteen, "The Modes of Capitalism", p. 275.

““We’re in danger of losing the ship generation.”
“I’m aware of the problems,” she said. “‘You can’t tell the boys from the girls, they have no respect for their elders, their user interfaces are garish and unwieldy, everybody is writing a book, and their music is just noise.’ Found scratched on a potsherd in Sumer.””

Ken MacLeod book Learning the World

Source: Learning the World (2005), Chapter 15 “Hollow Spaces of the Forward Cone” (p. 248)

Books, Music, Girl, Boy

“Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Speech in New York City http://books.google.com/books?id=Bc7iAAAAMAAJ&q=&quot;Generally+young+men+are+regarded+as+radicals+This+is+a+popular+misconception+The+most+conservative+persons+I+ever+met+are+college+undergraduates&quot;+&quot;the+radicals&quot;+&quot;are+the+men+past+middle+life&quot;, (19 Nov 1905), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson 16:228 1900s

Life, Men, Past, Personality

“It is absolutely outrageous that a spin doctor for Labor's NBN Co is being paid $450,000 per annum by Australian taxpayers to promote a company that generates no revenue, has no customers and provides no services to anybody”

Nick Minchin (1953) Australian politician

Sydney Morning Herald http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/bligh-chief-to-nbn-co-to-be-paid-450k-20091118-imfb.html

“A society which is clamouring for choice, which is filled with many articulate groups, each urging its own brand of salvation, its own variety of economic philosophy, will give each new generation no peace until all have chosen or gone under, unable to bear the conditions of choice.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1920s, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), p. 131 (1973 edition)

Peace

“… Hence, Paul Morand's generalization to the effect that French writers are never younger, never more free from constraint, than when they have passed their sixtieth birthday. By that time they have broken free from the romantic agonies of youth and turned their backs on that pursuit of honors which, in a country where literature plays a social role, absorbs too much of their energies during the years of maturity.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

The Art of Writing

Youth, Literature, Birthday, Time

“[The 1964 General Election] was a decision that not only our industrial system but every aspect of our national life that has been corrupted by the doctrine of a self-perpetuating establishment should give way to an open society where knowing your job would mean more than knowing the right people. It was a decision that national purpose should override sectional interest, that earning money took precedence over making money. It was a decision for change: not change for its own sake, but change, radical and dynamic, for economic and social purpose. It was a decision, in short, that Britain should have a government and that the government should govern.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1965), quoted in The Times (29 September 1965), p. 5.
Prime Minister

Life, Money, People, Way

“…he thinks that peace is, of all things, the best, and that war is, of all things, the worst. Now, Sir, I happen to be of opinion that there are things for which peace may be advantageously sacrificed, and that there are calamities which a nation may endure which are far worse than war. This has been the opinion of men in all ages whose conduct has been admired by their contemporaries, and has obtained for them the approbation of posterity. The hon. Member, however, reduces everything to the question of pounds, shillings, and pence, and I verily believe that if this country were threatened with an immediate invasion likely to end in its conquest, the hon. Member would sit down, take a piece of paper, and would put on one side of the account the contributions which his Government would require from him for the defence of the liberty and independence of the country, and he would put on the other the probable contributions which the general of the invading army might levy upon Manchester, and if he found that, on balancing the account, it would be cheaper to be conquered than to be laid under contribution for defence, he would give his vote against going to war for the liberties and independence of the country, rather than bear his share in the expenditure which it would entail.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1854/mar/31/war-with-russia-the-queens-message in the House of Commons on the debate on war with Russia (31 March 1854). 1850s

Men, War, Age, Peace

“Barnes dismissed his own past criticism of the World War II unconditional surrender policy as valid but superficial; for he had learned from General Albert C. Wedemeyer’s book that the murder of Germans and Japanese was the overriding aim of World War II – virtually an Anglo-American scalping party.”

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian political theorist, and historian

1968 https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/murray-n-rothbard/cold-war-myths/

War, Books, World, Learning

“Generations of the past have been responsible for certain iniquitous practises, but it remained for the present century to shut the little ones up in factories, stunting physical and mental growth. Because of child labor today the future generation of men and women will suffer. Their career will bear the stamp of human brutality.”

Gertrude Breslau Hunt (1869–1952)

Woman's Voice: An Anthology (1918)

Women, Men, Suffering, Past

“We found a round figure of three million Jews in Poland, and then immediately after that came the Russian campaign and we found another five million Jews in Russia. How on Earth could we manage to emigrate this eight million by using long and tiresome official methods if we could not, as was planned somehow or other after the war organise a general and mass-protected and organised emigration to Madagascar? We had conquered France, after all, and we could have compensated France adequately from our other colonial possessions so we could have used Madagascar — the island was big enough to accommodate such a number of Jews — but in the war we were cut off. We had no other choice.”

Karl Wolff (1900–1984) SS general

Quoted in "Holocaust and the Moving Image" - Page 143 - by Toby Haggith, Joanna Newman - 2005

War

“Like other systems in decay, the Roman Empire continued to function for several generations after its vitality was sapped. For nearly a hundred years our Island was one of the scenes of conflict between a dying civilisation and lusty, famishing barbarism.”

Winston S. Churchill book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)

“I ask you not to expect all answers to all problems from me, even though you expect me to lead the way. I ask you not to expect me to solve all your problems, even though you voted for me to do that. I only ask you to join hands with me to be the best we can be, and together lay foundation for a future that is more secure and certain for our children and generations to come.”

Bukola Saraki (1962) Nigerian politician

Inaugural Address (2003)

Children, Way, Problem, Future

“Since so little is known about the early Macedonians, it is hardly strange that in both ancient and modern times there has been much disagreement on their ethnic identity. The Greeks in general and Demosthenes in particular looked upon them as barbarians, that is, not Greek. Modern scholarship, after many generations of argument, now almost unanimously recognises them as Greeks, a branch of the Dorians and ‘NorthWest Greeks’ who, after long residence in the north Pindus region, migrated eastwards. The Macedonian language has not survived in any written text, but the names of individuals, places, gods, months, and the like suggest strongly that the language was a Greek dialect. Macedonian institutions, both secular and religious, had marked Hellenic characteristics and legends identify or link the people with the Dorians. During their sojourn in the Pindus complex and the long struggle to found a kingdom, however, the Macedonians fought and mingled constantly with Illyrians, Thracians, Paeonians, and probably various Greek tribes. Their language naturally acquired many Illyrian and Thracian loanwords, and some of their customs were surely influenced by their neighbours[…] To the civilised Greek of the fifth and fourth centuries, the Macedonian way of life must have seemed crude and primitive. This backwardness in culture was mainly the result of geographical factors. The Greeks, who had proceeded south in the second millennium, were affected by the many civilising influences of the Mediterranean world, and ultimately they developed that very civilising institution, the polis. The Macedonians, on the other hand, remained in the north and living for centuries in mountainous areas, fighting with Illyrians, Thracians, and amongst themselves as tribe fought tribe, developed a society that may be termed Homeric. The amenities of city-state life were unknown until they began to take root in Lower Macedonia from the end of the fifth century onwards.”

John V.A. Fine (1903–1987) American historian

"The Ancient Greeks: A Critical History", Harvard University Press, 1983, pgs 605-608

Life, God, People, World

“C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Message to gmane.comp.version-control.git mailing list, 2007-09-06, Torvalds, Linus, 2007-09-22 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/57918, 2000s, 2007

“He is a noble gentleman; withal
Happy in his endeavours: the general voice
Sounds him for courtesy, behaviour, language,
And every fair demeanour, an example:
Titles of honour add not to his worth;
Who is himself an honour to his title.”

John Ford (dramatist) (1586–1639) dramatist

Act I, sc. iii.
The Lady's Trial (1638)

Happiness

“Ah, beloved, have not you need to improve your time, who have much work to do in a short time: your souls to save, a God to honour, a Christ to exalt, a hell to escape, a race to run, a crown to win, temptations to withstand, corruptions to conquer, afflictions to bear, mercies to improve, and your generation to serve.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

The Hypocrite Detected, Anatomized

God, Soul, Hell, Affliction

“Our government has the weirdest bias against cannabis. There's no reason for everybody to be so afraid of it. It's not the antichrist the DEA makes it out to be. Industrial hemp is a very useful plant. I challenged the attorney general to get rid of the criminal stigma associated with hemp so we can look at it in terms of how it might be useful. And government has no business telling us what we can and can't use for pain relief.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

Pain, Business

“The general method involved may be very simply stated. In cases where the equilibrium values of our variables can be regarded as the solutions of an extremum (maximum or minimum) problem, it is often possible regardless of the number of variables involved to determine unambiguously the qualitative behavior of our solution values in respect to changes of parameters.”

Paul A. Samuelson book Foundations of Economic Analysis

Source: 1940s, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947, Ch. 2 : The Theory of Maximizing Behavior

Behavior, Problem, Change

“[T]he effects of general change [in literature] are most tellingly recorded not in alteration of the best products, but in the transformation of the most ordinary workaday books; for when potboilers adopt the new style, then the revolution is complete.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"Good Sports & Bad", p. 335; originally published in The New York Review of Books (1995-03-02)
Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003)

Books, Literature, Change

“I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened.”

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

Source: My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), Chapter 5 (The Fourth Hussars).

“The Senate general provision also states that savings may result from non-commencement of the P/A/P or the inability of the agency to obligate its released allotment and implement it within the period when the appropriation is valid, whereas the House version qualifies that savings also result from non-commencement of a P/A/P, meaning the inability of the agency to obligate an allotment only within the first semester of the year. In the same manner, the Senate provision demands more fiscal responsibility from agencies by adding the proviso in Sec. 68 that “Programmed appropriations which have not been released or allotments not obligated due to the fault of the agency concerned shall not be considered as savings and shall revert to the General Fund.””

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

Housing

“But though there’ll be an additional resolution on Syrian human rights violations on Tuesday, we regret that the General Assembly continues to overlook a host of other pressing human rights situations, not least in China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.”

Hillel Neuer Canadian activist

UN Watch quotes for human rights votes today on Iran, Burma, North Korea https://www.unwatch.org/un-watch-quotes-human-rights-votes-today-iran-burma-north-korea/, Jewish Press, November 21, 2011

“Vereker’s secret, my dear man — the general intention of his books: the string the pearls were strung on, the buried treasure, the figure in the carpet.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

The Figure in the Carpet http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/fgcpt10h.htm (1896).

Secret, Books

“You know, it used to be that American culture in general understood that we’re sinful, but not anymore. Which is why teaching the gospel, starting in Genesis, is important. Sin entered into the world through Adam, as described in Genesis. The problem is that we have Christian leaders compromising God’s clear Word in Genesis with evolution, millions of years, or both. If we cannot trust what God says in Genesis, we cannot trust the gospel. Sadly, years of such compromise has greatly weakened the church to now allow for increasing open attacks on those who teach the gospel. Those attacking the gospel are intent on imposing their religion of atheism on this generation of kids.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"Children's Ministry accused of Psychologically Damaging Children" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/07/16/childrens-ministry-accused-of-psychologically-damaging-children/, Around the World with Ken Ham (July 16, 2014) Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

God, World, Religion, Problem

“Management is not a matter of pressing a button, pulling a lever, issuing orders, scanning profit and loss statements, promulgating rules and regulations. Rather, management is the power to determine what shall happen to the personalities and to the happiness of entire peoples, the power to shape the destiny of a nation and of all the nations which make up the world. Executive work, therefore, is statesmanship and the techniques which the executive employs are only incidental to the forces which he sets in motion and helps to direct. It is no exaggeration, therefore, to say that the management of the nation's large institutions, both in business and in government, determines the fate of millions of individual lives as well as the lives of generations unborn.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: The Executive in Action, 1945, p. 3-4, as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 419

Fate, People, World, Business

“Fascism was part of the absolute evil. (…) We have to denounce the ashaming pages in the history of our past. (…) There included all the pages related to the discrimination and the persecution of jews and, more in general, of minoritires. And therefore that one [The Italian Social Republic of Salò] is also included.”

Gianfranco Fini (1952) Italian politician

During his trip to Israel Fini in Israele "Il fascismo fu parte del male assoluto" http://www.repubblica.it/2003/k/sezioni/politica/finisr/leggi/leggi.html, 24 November 2003.

History, Evil, Past, Parting

“John Clellon Holmes … and I were sitting around trying to think up the meaning of the Lost Generation and the subsequent Existentialism and I said, 'You know, this is really a beat generation' and he leapt up and said 'That's it, that's right!”

Jack Kerouac book Beat Generation

"The Origins of the Beat Generation" in Playboy (June 1959), explaining the origins of the term the "Beat Generation".

Thinking

“Amongst the half-human progenitors of man, and amongst savages, there have been struggles between the males during many generations for the possession of the females. But mere bodily strength and size would do little for victory, unless associated with courage, perseverance, and determined energy. With social animals, the young males have to pass through many a contest before they win a female, and the older males have to retain their females by renewed battles. They have, also, in the case of mankind, to defend their females, as well as their young, from enemies of all kinds, and to hunt for their joint subsistence. But to avoid enemies or to attack them with success, to capture wild animals, and to fashion weapons, requires the aid of the higher mental faculties, namely, observation, reason, invention, or imagination. These various faculties will thus have been continually put to the test and selected during manhood; they will, moreover, have been strengthened by use during this same period of life. Consequently, in accordance with the principle often alluded to, we might expect that they would at least tend to be transmitted chiefly to the male offspring at the corresponding period of manhood.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

second edition (1874), chapter XIX: "Secondary Sexual Characters of Man", page 564 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=587&itemID=F944&viewtype=image The Descent of Man (1871)

Life, Imagination, Fashion, Courage

“The fact was that he suffered from an incurable malady which, it seemed, attacked only Homo sapiens among all the intelligent races of the universe. That disease was religious mania.
Throughout the earlier part of its history, the human race had brought forth an endless succession of prophets, seers, messiahs, and evangelists who convinced themselves and their followers that to them alone were the secrets of the universe revealed. Some of them succeeded in establishing religions which survived for many generations and influenced billions of men; others were forgotten even before their deaths.
The rise of science, which with monotonous regularity refuted the cosmologies of the prophets and produced miracles which they could never match, eventually destroyed all these faiths. It did not destroy the awe, not the reverence and humility, which all intelligent beings felt as they contemplated the stupendous universe in which they found themselves. What it did weaken, and finally obliterate, were the countless religions, each of which claimed with unbelievable arrogance, that it was the sole repository of the truth and that its millions of rivals and predecessors were all mistaken.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 13 (p. 99)

Death, Men, Truth, Secret

“I tried. I tried so hard to empathize with all of your weaknesses. I implored every single one of you to just say "no," and all my empathy got was for you to love Jeff Hardy that much more than you already did. But this will not deter me. I will stay the course; I still believe in teaching you people the difference between right and wrong. (Audience chants "Hardy!") Oh, obviously it's gonna be challenging, listening to you people, and by the looks of some of you, it's gonna be a big challenge. But just like any other challenge that's come down the pipe in my lifetime, I'm gonna meet that challenge head on like a man, just like I did last week. Let's take a look. (Recap of Punk's assault on Hardy) See, now I know why you people love Jeff Hardy so much. It's because you are all just like him; and, in turn, Jeff Hardy is just like all of you. The reality is, none of you have the strength to be straight-edge. (Audience resumes chant) You gravitate towards Jeff because it's the easy way out: it's easier to weak like Jeff, because you sure can't be strong like me. Oh, you can boo all you want. I know why you boo, you know why you boo. It's because I tell the truth. And the truth sometimes hurts, doesn't it? For instance, what does it say on your prescription bottle of pills? "Take one every four hours"? Well, don't tell me you people don't gobble four, six, eight at a time like they were Pez. That is drug abuse—I don't do that. I also don't smoke, and those who do are stupid. You gotta be stupid to not listen to the Surgeon General, especially when he prints the warning label on the package of smokes. You gotta be a fool. And we can talk about those funny cigarettes, and you obviously know what I'm talking about because you cheer, and that's utterly sad. That's pathetic. I…I can't even wrap my head around you people cheering, 'cause when you smoke those funny cigarettes, not only is that hazardous to your health, it's also illegal. So those who have taken a puff, not only are you poisoning yourself, you're also breaking the law, so the vast majority of everybody here in this arena is a criminal. I am not a criminal—I never have been, and I never will be. Now let's talk about alcohol. I've saved the best poison for last, see because this is a gateway drug. Don't tell me not a single one of you here has ever said, "I'm gonna go out for one drink," and one leads to two, and two drinks leads to three, and then it's a double of this, and a shot of that, and then your head winds up in the toilet, night in and night out. Congratulations, that is alcoholism. And in my book, if you even take one drink, you're an alcoholic. So I understand why you people love Jeff Hardy so much, I understand why Jeff loves you—it's because you're all weak. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, you deserve better. This entire world deserves better. What you need is a leader. You need a strong leader who's gonna stand up in the face of adversity and just say "no."”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

You need a strong leader that's gonna carry the banner of the World Heavyweight Championship with honor, with pride, respect, dignity, integrity, and class. What you people need is a straight-edge World Heavyweight Champion. You need CM Punk.
August 7, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Love, People, Health, Alcohol

“Some people feel concerned about the commercialism of the press. They note that great newspapers are great business enterprises earning large profits and controlled by men of wealth. So they fear that in such control the press may tend to support the private interests of those who own the papers, rather than the general interest of the whole people. It seems to me, however, that the real test is not whether the newspapers are controlled by men of wealth, but whether they are sincerely trying to serve the public interests. There will be little occasion for worry about who owns a newspaper, so long as its attitudes on public questions are such as to promote the general welfare. A press which is actuated by the purpose of genuine usefulness to the public interest can never be too strong financially, so long as its strength is used for the support of popular government.”

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

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

Men, People, Fear, Feeling

“It is tragic that the Fuehrer should have the whole nation behind him with the single exception of the Army generals. In my opinion it is only by action that they can now atone for their faults of lack of character and discipline.”

Alfred Jodl (1890–1946) German general

August 10, 1938. Quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 347 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997.

“There was no mistaking, even in the uncertain light, the hand, half crabbed, half generous, and wholly drunken, of the Consul himself, the Greek e’s, the flying buttresses of d’s, the t’s like lonely wayside crosses save where they crucified an entire word.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. I (p. 35)

Light, Flying

“I ask to be able to participate directly in all the social decisions that may affect my existence, or the general course of the world in which I live. I do not accept the fact that my lot is decided, day after day, by people whose projects are hostile to me or simply unknown to me, and for whom we, that is I and everyone else, are only numbers in a general plan or pawns on a chessboard, and that, ultimately, my life and death are in the hands of people whom I know to be, necessarily, blind.”

Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) Greek-French philosopher

Je désire pouvoir, avec tous les autres, savoir ce qui se passe dans la société, contrôler l’étendue et la qualité de l’information qui m’est donnée. Je demande de pouvoir participer directement à toutes les décisions sociales qui peuvent affecter mon existence, ou le cours général du monde où je vis. Je n’accepte pas que mon sort soit décidé, jour après jour, par des gens dont les projets me sont hostiles ou simplement inconnus, et pour qui nous sommes, moi et tous les autres, que des chiffres, dans un plan ou des pions sur un échiquier et qu’à la limite, ma vie et ma mort soient entre les mains de gens dont je sais qu’ils sont nécessairement aveugles.
Source: The Imaginary Institution of Society (1975), p. 92.

Life, Death, Hostility, People

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Illustrated London News (16 July 1910)

Funny, Love, People

“He wanted to win so badly it killed him. But before it killed him, it elevated the game of baseball, at the Polo Grounds, to a grim spectacle of play-war. The analogy fits McGraw. He reminds you more of a battlefield general than he does a sportsman, and if he reminds you of a general, it would be a man who combined the fury of a Patton and the spectacular, yet knowledgeable, flair of MacArthur. Perhaps this desire to win occasionally overflowed its normal limits and became an obsession; perhaps the grimness darkened the sport at times. This was his weakness, for McGraw was not infallible; McGraw was not perfect. Perfection is lifeless, mechanical, uncaring. McGraw was never uncaring. If he was anything, he was a man who cared.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

Hano. Greatest Giants of Them All. p. 250.
Sports-related

War, Game, Knowledge, Sport

“.. a demand which will never be fulfilled as long as artists use individualistic means. 'Unity can only result from disciplining the means, for it is this discipline which produces more generalized means'. The objectification of the means will lead towards elementary, monumental plastic expression. It would be ridiculous to maintain that none of this relates to creative activity. If that were true, art would not be subject to logical discipline.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote from Van Doesburg's text 'Towards elementary plastic expression', as cited in Material zur elementaren Gestaltung, G-1, July 1923; as quoted in 'Theo van Doesburg', Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 141
1920 – 1926

Art

“Such people as can be prevailed upon to believe, that their reason is depraved, may easily be led by the nose, and duped into superstition at the pleasure of those in whom they confide, and there remain from generation to generation: for when they throw by the law of reason the only one which God gave them to direct them in their speculations and duty, they are exposed to ignorant or insidious teachers, and also to their own irregular passions, and to the folly and enthusiasm of those about them, which nothing but reason can prevent or restrain…”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. IV Section I - Speculation on the Doctrine of the Depravity of Human Reason

God, People, Pleasure, Law

“As always, when the opportunity arose, Joe took a long, astute look at the girl whom, if he could have managed it, he would have had as his mistress, or, even better, his wife. It did not seem possible that Wendy Wright had been born out of blood and internal organs like other people. In proximity to her he felt himself to be a squat, oily, sweating, uneducated nurt whose stomach rattled and whose breath wheezed. Near her he became aware of the physical mechanisms which kept him alive; within him machinery, pipes and valves and gas-compressors and fan belts had to chug away at a losing task, a labor ultimately doomed. Seeing her face, he discovered that his own consisted of a garish mask; noticing her body made him feel like a low-class windup toy. All her colors possessed a subtle quality, indirectly lit. Her eyes, those green and tumbled stones, looked impassively at everything; he had never seen fear in them, or aversion, or contempt. What she saw she accepted. Generally she seemed calm. But more than that she struck him as being durable, untroubled and cool, not subject to wear, or to fatigue, or to physical illness and decline. Probably she was twenty-five or -six, but he could not imagine her looking younger, and certainly she would never look older. She had too much control over herself and outside reality for that.”

Philip K. Dick book Ubik

Source: Ubik (1969), Chapter 5 (pp. 58-59)

People, Fear, Color, Feeling

“The legend of King Midas has been generally misunderstood. Most people think the curse that turned everything the old miser touched into gold, leaving him unable to eat or drink, was a lesson in the perils of avarice. But Midas’s true sin was his failure to understand monetary economics. What the gods were really telling him is that gold is just a metal. If it sometimes seems to be more, that is only because society has found it convenient to use gold as a medium of exchange—a bridge between other, truly desirable, objects. There are other possible mediums of exchange, and it is silly to imagine that this pretty, but only moderately useful, substance has some irreplaceable significance.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"The Gold Bug Variations", Originally published in Slate (Nov. 23, 1996)
The Accidental Theorist: And Other Dispatches From The Dismal Science (1998)

God, People, Imagination, Failure

“When people are afraid of the truth they've got nowhere to turn. All they have at their disposal is censorship and denial. And Swedish politicians are so deep in denial you can only feel pity for them, because you know that in some dark chamber of their subconscious these wretched people know what a terrible thing they're doing, and they know that history is going to revile them and their entire generation for it. But they just can't face up to it. Psychologically, they are simply not big enough as people to acknowledge, let alone confront, the enormity of their mistake. They've backed themselves into an ideological corner where their only option now is to double down on the insanity and brazen it out until the bitter end, while criminalising anyone who draws attention to it. Whatever social upheaval it may cause, and whatever the cost to Sweden's women, mass Islamic immigration must continue. Any restriction would be an admission that there's a problem, and that would fatally undermine everything they're so desperately pretending to believe in… If you say there's a problem, you'll be treated as a criminal – which means that there are now two problems. One: the Swedish people have an aggressive social cancer growing in their midst; and two: they're not allowed to talk about it.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Sweden Goes Insane" (19 May 2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_znVnOizU8 2014

Women, People, Truth, Feeling

“There is no over-arching theory of complexity that allows us to ignore the contingent aspects of complex systems. If something really is complex, it cannot by adequately described by means of a simple theory. Engaging with complexity entails engaging with specific complex systems. Despite this we can, at a very basic level, make general remarks concerning the conditions for complex behaviour and the dynamics of complex systems. Furthermore, I suggest that complex systems can be modelled.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. ix

“Ever since the last great conflict the world has been putting a renewed emphasis, not on preparation to succeed in war, but on an attempt by preventing war to succeed in peace. This movement has the full and complete approbation of the American Government and the American people. While we have been unwilling to interfere in the political relationship of other countries and have consistently refrained from intervening except when our help has been sought and we have felt that it could be effectively given, we have signified our willingness to become associated with other nations in a practical plan for promoting international justice through the World Court. Such a tribunal furnishes a method of the adjustment of international differences in accordance with our treaty rights and under the generally accepted rules of international law. When questions arise which all parties agree ought to be adjudicated but which do not yield to the ordinary methods of diplomacy, here is a forum to which the parties may voluntarily repair in the consciousness that their dignity suffers no diminution and that their cause will be determined impartially, according to the law and the evidence. That is a sensible, direct, efficient, and practical method of adjusting differences which can not fail to appeal to the intelligence of the American people.”

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

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

War, People, World, Peace

“For an induction, despite its formal generality, is always in its own value a particular judgment, always comes short of full universality; whereas, to establish the apriority of an element, we must show it to be strictly universal, or, in other words, necessary.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Later German Philosophy, p.176

Universe

“Suppose you want to teach the "cat" concept to a very young child. Do you explain that a cat is a relatively small, primarily carnivorous mammal with retractible claws, a distinctive sonic output, etc.? I'll bet not. You probably show the kid a lot of different cats, saying "kitty" each time, until it gets the idea. To put it more generally, generalizations are best made by abstraction from experience. They should come one at a time; too many at once overload the circuits.”

Ralph P. Boas Jr. (1912–1992) American mathematician

[Can We Make Mathematics Intelligible?, The American Mathematical Monthly, 88, 10, 1981, 727–731, 10.2307/2321471]

Cats, Idea, Time

“I wanted work that didn't involve incredible assumptions about everything. I couldn't begin to think about the order of the universe or, the nature of American society. I didn't want work that was general or universal in the usual sense. I didn't want it to claim too much. Obviously the means and the structure couldn't be separate and couldn't even be thought of as two things joined. Neither word meant anything. A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself. It shouldn't be concealed as part of a fairly different whole. The shapes and materials shouldn't be altered by their context.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Donald Judd (1967), in: Perspecta 11 (1967), p. 44; Quoted in: James Fitzsimmons (1979) Art International. Vol 23. p. 69
1960s

Color, Nature, Thinking, Sense

“Muslims in India have often sought shelter under Sections 153A and 295A of the Indian Penal Code (I. P. C.) for preventing every public discussion of their creed in general and of their prophet in particular.1 Quite a few publications which examine critically the sayings and doings of the Prophet or other idolized personalities of Islam, have been proscribed under Section 95 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr. P. C.) as a result of pressure exerted by vociferous, very often violent Muslim protests. Little did they suspect that the same provisions of the law could be invoked for seeking a ban on their holy book, the Quran. The credit for this turning of tables goes to Chandmal Chopra of Calcutta.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Calcutta Quran Petition

The Calcutta Quran Petition (1986)

Books, Law, Personality

“As a general rule, you can predict what the secularist position on any issue will be once you know what the militant Islamist position is. From justifying terrorism to misrepresenting the Ayodhya evidence, the two are rarely very different.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Source: 2000s, Ayodhya, the Finale (2003)

“If the States may tax one instrument, employed by the Government in the execution of its powers, they may tax any and every other instrument. They may tax the mail; they may tax the mint; they may tax patent rights; they may tax the papers of the custom house; they may tax judicial process; they may tax all the means employed by the Government to an excess which would defeat all the ends of Government. This was not intended by the American people. They did not design to make their Government dependent on the States. […] If the controlling power of the States be established, if their supremacy as to taxation be acknowledged, what is to restrain their exercising control in any shape they may please to give it? Their sovereignty is not confined to taxation; that is not the only mode in which it might be displayed. The question is, in truth, a question of supremacy, and if the right of the States to tax the means employed by the General Government be conceded, the declaration that the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land is empty and unmeaning declamation.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

17 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 432-433
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

People, Truth, Law, Exercises

“I am ready to concede that the rule of adherence to precedent, though it ought not to be abandoned, ought to be in some degree relaxed. I think that when a rule, after it has been duly tested by experience, has been found to be inconsistent with the sense of justice or with the social welfare, there should be less hesitation in frank avowal and full abandonment. … That court best serves the law which recognizes that the rules of law which grew up in a remote generation may, in the fullness of experience, be found to serve another generation badly, and which discards the old rule when it finds that another rule of law represents what should be according to the established and settled judgment of society.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Pages 150-51
Other writings, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)

Justice, Law, Thinking, Sense

“I have heard of that idea [i. e., of Haile Selassie being the reincarnation of Jesus Christ]. I also met certain Rastafarians. I told them clearly that I am a man, that I am mortal, and that I would be replaced by the oncoming generation, and that they should never make a mistake in assuming or pretending that the human being is emanated from a deity.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Interview with Bill McNeil, as quoted in Transform Your World Through the Powers of Your Mind (2009) by Jawara D. King, p. 295

Idea, Christ

“Matthew's response: To me the conception of this law of Nature came intuitively as a self-evident fact, almost without an effort of concentrated thought. Mr Darwin here seems to have more merit in the discovery than I have had; to me it did not appear a discovery. He seems to have worked it out by inductive reason, slowly and with due caution to have made his way synthetically from fact to fact onwards; while with me it was by a general glance at the scheme of Nature that I estimated this select production of species as an a priori recognisable fact – an axiom requiring only to be pointed out to be admitted by unprejudiced minds of sufficient grasp.”

Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) British scientist

Gardeners' Chronicle

Law, Way, Nature, Effort

“He tries by a peculiar speech to speak The peculiar potency of the general”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change

“To countless generations of religious thinkers, the fundamental maxim of Christian social ethics had seemed to be expressed in the words of St. Paul to Timothy: "Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. For the love of money is the root of all evil." Now, while, as always, the world battered at the gate, a new standard was raised within the citadel by its own defenders. The garrison had discovered that the invading host of economic appetites was, not an enemy, but an ally. Not sufficiency to the needs of daily life, but limitless increase and expansion, became the goal of the Christian's efforts.”

R. H. Tawney (1880–1962) English philosopher

Part IV, Ch. 4
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)

Love, Life, Money, World

“Generals and Majors ah ah
They're never too far
away from men who made the grade
out in a world of their own
They'll never come down
until the battle's lost or made”

Colin Moulding (1955) English bassist, songwriter and vocalist

"Generals And Majors"
Black Sea (1980)

Men, World

“Our sense of free will results from a failure to appreciate this: We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, Free Will (2012), p. 13

People, Way, Failure, Understanding

“This law (regarding the theoretical efficiency of heat engines by Mr. Joule), and the law of the maximum efficiency of heat engines, are particular cases of a general law which regulates all transformation of energy, and is the basis of the Science of Energetics.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

Manual of Applied Mechanics, (1858) London and Glasgow : Richard Griffin and Company, p. 630

Law, Science

“Love stories—yeah, there’s something about them. I cry when somebody does something good for somebody, not something horrible. I avoid all the horrible stuff. But to me, when a human being is sincerely generous, or kind or overly helpful to another human being, that’s when I tear up. I just love the idea of love.”

Tom Savini (1946) American actor, stuntman, director and makeup artist

Interview: Tom Savini https://diaboliquemagazine.com/interview-tom-savini/ (August 13, 2013)

Love, Idea, Tear, Help

“I am never in a hurry to reach details. First and above all I am interested in the large masses and the general character of a picture; when these are well established, then I try for subtleties of form and color. I rework the painting constantly and freely, and without any systematic method.”

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875) French landscape painter and printmaker in etching

Quote from Corot's 'Notebooks', ca. 1850, as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, pp. 240-241
1850s

Color, Painting

“The sentiments of men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general discourse is the same … In all matters of opinion and science, the case is opposite: The difference among men is there oftener found to lie in generals than in particulars; and to be less in reality than in appearance.”

David Hume book Four Dissertations

Four Dissertations (1757)

Men, Lie, Beauty, Reality

“My current situation is, I always want to find a new possibility. China is in a changing stage, and that puts me in a very difficult situation, because anytime a new condition is announced there is a lot of struggle between the new and the old. So the establishment really becomes extremely nervous because they are refusing to meet very basic human rights or values. I don’t know how long I can still struggle in China, but I will try my best. Because this is a land I am very familiar with, and we have been in the same kind of struggle for generations. I think it’s a time for change.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Ai Weiwei, “In China, Is Censorship the Mother of Creativity?” Interview on The Stream, Aljazeera, April 16, 2012.
2010-, 2012

Thinking, Change, Time

“They have their belief, these poor Thibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds! This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here.”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

People, Truth, Error

“Religion was the pole-star for my father. Rude and uncultivated as he otherwise was, it made him and kept him "in all points a man." Oh! when I think that all the area in boundless space he had seen was limited to a circle of some fifty miles' diameter (he never in his life was farther or elsewhere so far from home as at Craigenputtoch), and all his knowledge of the boundless time was derived from his Bible and what the oral memories of old men could give him, and his own could gather; and yet, that he was such, I could take shame to myself. I feel to my father — so great though so neglected, so generous also towards me — a strange tenderness, and mingled pity and reverence peculiar to the case, infinitely soft and near my heart. Was he not a sacrifice to me? Had I stood in his place, could he not have stood in mine, and more? Thou good father! well may I forever honor thy memory. Surely that act was not without its reward. And was not nature great, out of such materials to make such a man?”

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

1880s, Reminiscences (1881)

Life, Men, Religion, Feeling

“It seems that everyone in the pre-flood time matured MUCH more slowly. They would be a kid for fifty years and then a teen for another forty. They generally didn’t even start looking for a wife until they were nearly a hundred years of age!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 58

Age, Time

“Meantime I say to both sides of industry, 'Please don't support us with general expressions of good will and kind words, and then undermine us through unjustified wage increases or price increases. Either back us or sack us.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton (5 October 1977), quoted in Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1977, p. 217
Prime Minister

Support

“An intelligent man said that the world felt Napoleon as a weight, and that when he died it would give a great oof of relief. This is just as true of Byron, or of such Byrons of their days as Kipling and Hemingway: after a generation or two the world is tired of being their pedestal, shakes them of with an oof, and then—hoisting onto its back a new world-figure—feels the penetrating satisfaction of having made a mistake all its own.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“On Preparing to Read Kipling”, pp. 116–117
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

World, Feeling, Intelligence

“Mohammed Ghori had the Hindu temples of Ajmer demolished and ordered the construction of mosques and Quran schools on their ruins…He plundered Kanauj and Kashi and destroyed their temples… [While his generals] destroyed in passing the remaining Buddhist communities of Bihar and destroyed the universities of Nalanda…. Bakhtiar Khilji “established a Muslim capital in Lakhanauti (Gaur) on the Ganga and destroyed, in 1197, its basalt temples. In Odantpuri, in 1202, he massacred two thousand Buddhist monks…. [Meanwhile, back in Delhi:] “This Quwwat-ul-Islam (Might of Islam) was built in a hurry using the debris, chiefly sculpted pillars, of twenty-seven dismantled Hindu temples.” Thirty years later, “Iltutmish did not forget that he was a Muslim conqueror. He showed himself to be very pious, never forgetting to do his five devotional daily…. He likewise showed himself totally intolerant vis-à-vis the Hindus who refused to convert, destroying their temples and annihilating Brahmin communities.””

Louis Frédéric (1923–1996) French scholar

Louis Frederic, L'Inde de l'Islam, p. 42-49, (quoted from: Decolonizing the Hindu Mind - By Koenraad Elst p. 328)

School, Communication, Universe, Forgetting

“At the 9th Division headquarters at El Guettar, Tunisia, enemy planes bombed and strafed incessantly, so that the security normally associated with a headquarters in the rear was missing. Although officers and men alike dug deep, even in foxholes they could get little sleep. One day a small convoy of vehicles arrived, sirens alive, Patton standing in the lead vehicle. While the division commander, Major General Manton Eddy, rushed to greet him, the staff pondered what fault Patton would find this time. "Manton, Goddamn it," Patton shouted in his high-pitched voice, "I want you to get these staff officers out front and get them shot at!" Having been bombarded day and night by enemy planes, having had no sleep for days, a young personnel officer went berserk and had to be evacuated for medical treatment.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 21.

Men, Sleep, Time, Night

“I have always had a special regard for the General Assembly and its members. This is the place - and you are the people - that do so much to give expression to the heart of Scotland.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Scotland in the World Forum (February 4, 2008), Church of Scotland (May 25, 2009)

People, Heart

“A judge who is a 'strict constructionist' in constitutional matters will generally not be favorably inclined toward claims of either criminal defendants or civil rights plaintiffs—the latter two groups having been the principal beneficiaries of the Supreme Court's 'broad constructionist' reading of the Constitution.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

As quoted in The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment That Redefined the Supreme Court (2001) by John Dean; quoted in an article http://slate.msn.com/id/117140/ at Slate. Books, articles, and speeches

Reading

“Now, with the general decay of religious faith, it is the scientists who must speak ex cathedra, whether they wish to or not.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“Ultimate Terms in Contemporary Rhetoric,” p. 93.
Language is Sermonic (1970)

Faith

“in general, the hegemony of immaterial labor tends to transform the organization of production from the linear relationships of assembly line to the innumerable and indeterminate relationships of distributed networks.”

Antonio Negri book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

113
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

“The charge that Luther adapted the translation to his theological opinions has become traditional in the Roman Church, and is repeated again and again by her controversialists and historians.
In both cases, the charge has some foundation, but no more than the counter-charge which may be brought against Roman Catholic Versions.
The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther's version is the famous interpolation of the word alone in Rom. 3:28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness. But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art").
He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outcry against it. His defense is very characteristic. "If your papist," he says,
The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther's New Testament is undeniable in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation. It is still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (Rev. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17). The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries.
There is, however, a gradual progress in translation, which goes hand in hand with the progress of the understanding of the Bible. Jerome's Vulgate is an advance upon the Itala, both in accuracy and Latinity; the Protestant Versions of the sixteenth century are an advance upon the Vulgate, in spirit and in idiomatic reproduction; the revisions of the nineteenth century are an advance upon the versions of the sixteenth, in philological and historical accuracy and consistency. A future generation will make a still nearer approach to the original text in its purity and integrity. If the Holy Spirit of God shall raise the Church to a higher plane of faith and love, and melt the antagonisms of human creeds into the one creed of Christ, then, and not before then, may we expect perfect versions of the oracles of God.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

How Luther's theology may have influenced his translating

Love, God, Books, Faith

“Afterwards Nadir Shah himself, with the Emperor of Hindustan, entered the fort of Delhi. It is said that he appointed a place on one side in the fort for the residence of Muhammad Shah and his dependents, and on the other side he chose the Diwan-i Khas, or, as some say, the Garden of Hayat Bakhsh, for his own accommodation. He sent to the Emperor of Hindustan, as to a prisoner, some food and wine from his own table. One Friday his own name was read in the khutba, but on the next he ordered Muhammad Shah's name to be read. It is related that one day a rumour spread in the city that Nadir Shah had been slain in the fort. This produced a general confusion, and the people of the city destroyed five thousand1 men of his camp. On hearing of this, Nadir Shah came of the fort, sat in the golden masjid which was built by Rashanu-d daula, and gave orders for a general massacre. For nine hours an indiscriminate slaughter of all and of every degree was committed. It is said that the number of those who were slain amounted to one hundred thousand. The losses and calamities of the people of Delhi were exceedingly great….
After this violence and cruelty, Nadir Shah collected immense riches, which he began to send to his country laden on elephants and camels.”

Nader Shah (1688–1747) ruled as Shah of Iran

Tarikh-i Hindi by Rustam ‘Ali. In The History of India as Told by its own Historians. The Posthumous Papers of the Late Sir H. M. Elliot. John Dowson, ed. 1st ed. 1867. 2nd ed., Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1956, vol. 22, pp. 37-67. https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_es/h_es_tarikh-i5_frameset.htm

Men, People, Food, Wine

“The only company to have made a profit is the one in the tax haven, but because it’s in a tax haven, it doesn’t pay tax. This is how a company is able to generate revenue without having to pay tax anywhere. In tax havens, boundaries between what’s legal and illegal become very blurred. The recent leak on the Panama Papers revealed how international leaders, celebrities and businessmen from all over the world were using offshore companies to avoid making their assets public and, in some cases, potentially to dodge tax or hide illegal activities. Panama is where criminal capitalism and legal capitalism become one. … Today in the heart of Panama you can still find the money of Mexican Narcos and major European businessmen. Different origin, same advantages.”

Roberto Saviano (1979) Italian journalist, writer and essayist

Dirty Money in London event (2016)

Money, World, Heart

“So how are you going to recognise God if He comes on earth? Are you going to ask to see His identity card or passport? See if it says, 'Name … God; Occupation … Generator, Operator, Destroyer'? That's foolish! Or are you going to recognise Him only if He fits your mental picture of Him -- what you have picked up from scriptures and other impressions, what you imagine Jesus or Krishna looked like? But even two Christians will have different impressions of what Jesus will look like. So what will be recognised by one will not be recognised by the other. But the test of the Perfect Master is that which is undeniable to everybody and that is the experience of Himself, which He can give, and that is the True Knowledge.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

from "The Sayings of Guru Maharaj Ji" - Published by Shri Hans Publications, 148-150 Lordship Lane, London SE22, Copyright Divine Light Mission 1974.
1970s

God, Imagination, Knowledge, Perfection

“If it makes sense to transfer income from rich to poor people within a generation, why shouldn't we transfer income from rich to poor generations?”

Harvey S. Rosen (1949) American economist

Source: Public Finance - International Edition - Sixth Edition, Chapter 18, Deficit Finance, p. 435

People, Sense