Quotes about greatness (10000 quotes, page 88)

“We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes — and I will strive in good faith to heal them. Yet those divisions do not define America. We felt the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack, and our response came like a single hand over a single heart. And we can feel that same unity and pride whenever America acts for good, and the victims of disaster are given hope, and the unjust encounter justice, and the captives are set free.”

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

2000s, 2005, Second Inaugural Address (January 2005)

Faith , Justice , Hope , Feeling

“In an essay entitled ‘The Poet’, published in 1844, the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson lamented the narrow definition of beauty subscribed to by his peers, who tended to reserve the term exclusively for the bucolic landscapes and unspoilt pastoral scenes celebrated in the works of well-known artists and poets of the past. Emerson himself, however, writing at the dawn of the industrial age, observing with interest the proliferation of railways, warehouses, canals and factories, wished to make room for the possibility of alternative forms of beauty. He contrasted the nostalgic devotees of old-fashioned poetry with those whom he judged to be true contemporary poetic spirits, deserving of the title less by virtue of anything they had actually written than for their willingness to approach the world without prejudice or partiality. The former camp, he averred, ‘see the factory-village and the railway, and fancy that the beauty of the landscape is broken up by these, for they are not yet consecrated in their reading. But the true poet sees them fall within the great order of nature not less than the beehive or the spider’s geometrical web.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 216.

Age , World , Beauty , Fashion

“Increase in the wealth per capita fosters democracy; but the latter, at least according to what we have been able to observe up to now, entails great destruction of wealth and even eventually dries up the sources of it. Hence it is its own grave-digger, it destroys what gave it birth.”

Vilfredo Pareto book Manual of Political Economy

page 300.
Manual of Political Economy

Democracy , Birth , Wealth

“Steward (Spade): [sarcastically ushering passangers off of the plane] Buh-bye. Buh-bye. Buh-Bye [to a fat passanger]Buh-bye. You're very heavy.
Fat Passanger (Chris Farley): What did you say?
Steward: I said buh-bye! I just said buh-bye 40 times in a row why would I say anything else? It doesn't make sense! Did I just say something without knowing it? No! Go! Buh-bye!

Passenger (Adam Sandler): I'm gonna be waiting for you outside in the terminal.
Steward: Great, buh-bye.
Passenger: No, no, no, there's more. I'm gonna pound your face in.
Steward: Okay, Slick. Buh-bye!
Passenger: I'm gonna destroy you!
Steward: Buh-BYE!
Passenger: I am gonna KICK THE CRAP OUTTA YOU!
Steward: YEAH?! BUH-BYE!”

David Spade (1964) American stand-up comedian

Saturday Night Live

Sense , Time , Waiting

“Fifteen years ago, there was this country called the Soviet Union that had over 10,000 nuclear warheads pointed at us… they're not there anymore. That's a good thing. And when people talk about how the world is more dangerous now than it was because we had these terrorists running around, my reply is, you know, a terrorist is like a buzzing mosquito. About 15 years ago, there was a great, big vampire bat; that's several orders of magnitude different from a mosquito. So the world is much safer — a lot safer than it was. It's not perfectly safe, but it's a heck of a lot safer than it was.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, Larry King Live (2000)

People , World , Country

“The power of an idea to serve as the foundation of co-ordination is so great that one may observe many examples of co-ordination even in the absence of any single leader or of any framework of authority.”

Luther H. Gulick (1892–1993) American academic

Source: "Notes on the Theory of Organization," 1937, p. 38

Idea

“In all cases, wherein the mind feels itself in danger of being confounded by variety, it is sure to rest upon a few strong points, or perhaps upon a single instance. Amongst a multitude of proofs, it is one that does the business. If we observe in any argument, that hardly two minds fix upon the same instance, the diversity of choice shows the strength of the argument, because it shows the number and competition of the examples. There is no subject in which the tendency to dwell upon select or single topics is so usual, because there is no subject, of which, in its full extent, the latitude is so great, as that of natural history applied to the proof of an intelligent Creator.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 27 : Conclusion.

Feeling , History , Intelligence , Business

“Teaching and research are not to be confused with training for a profession. Their greatness and their misfortune is that they are a refuge or a mission.”

Claude Lévi-Strauss book Tristes Tropiques

Source: Tristes Tropiques (1955), Chapter 6 : The Making of an Anthropologist, p. 55

Training

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Marriage and Single Life
Essays (1625)

Men , Children

“You can be a doctor and I’ll still help you. You can be an engineer and I can help you. You can be a scientist and I’ll help you, whoever you are because I am not helping anything else. I am helping you! Peace on this Earth doesn’t begin by great ideas. Peace on Earth begins with you.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Kissimmee, Florida, November 10, 1978
1970s

Peace , Idea , Help

“When a man sets out upon any course of inquiry, the object of his search may be either light or fruit — either knowledge for its own sake or knowledge for the sake of good things to which it leads. In various fields of study these two ideals play parts of varying importance. In the appeal made to our interest by nearly all the great modern sciences some stress is laid both upon the light-bearing and upon the fruit-bearing quality, but the proportions of the blend are different in different sciences. At one end of the scale stands the most general science of all, metaphysics, the science of reality. Of the student of that science it is, indeed, true that "he yet may bring some worthy thing for waiting souls to see"; but it must be light alone, it can hardly be fruit that he brings. Most nearly akin to the metaphysician is the student of the ultimate problems of physics. The corpuscular theory of matter is, hitherto, a bearer of light alone. Here, however, the other aspect is present in promise; for speculations about the structure of the atom may lead one day to the discovery of practical means for dissociating matter and for rendering available to human use the overwhelming resources of intra-atomic energy.”

Arthur Cecil Pigou (1877–1959) British economist

Source: The Economics of Welfare (1920), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 1; First lines, p. 3

Soul , Search , Knowledge , Problem

“I hate to lose my connection with the great city of Calcutta.”

Mark Tully (1935) British journalist

On his application to obtain a copy of his birth certificate from the municipal authorities in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta at the age of 78. to be an "Overseas Citizen of India" (OCI)
It's Sir Mark Tully in UK honors list, 2001

Hate

“One great state says to others, as each in effect has been saying during the ten years of armament debate: "It is true that we ask for considerable power. Perhaps, all things considered, greater power than you. But it need not disturb you in the least, for we give you our most positive assurance that that power will be used purely for defense. And by defense we mean this: that when we get into a dispute with you as to our respective rights, when, that is, the question is whether you are right or we are right, what we mean by defense is that we shall always be in a position to be sole judge of the question. And so much stronger than you, that you will have to accept our verdict without any possibility of appeal. Could anything be fairer?"”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

Peace and the Public Mind (1935)

Question

“There is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism to which every sincere and believing Mahomedan belongs--that is, the theory of the spiritual brotherhood and unity of the children of the Prophet. It is a deep, perennial element in that Perso-Arabian culture, that great family of civilisation to which we gave the name Islamic in the first chapter. It connotes charity and goodwill towards fellow-believers everywhere…It means an abiding interest in the literature of Islam, in her beautiful arts, in her lovely architecture, in her entrancing poetry. It also means a true reformation -- a return to the early and pure simplicity of the faith, to its preaching by persuasion and argument, to the manifestation of a spiritual power in individual lives, to beneficent activity for mankind. This natural and worthy spiritual movement makes not only the Master and His teaching but also His children of all climes an object of affection to the Turk or the Afghan, to the Indian or the Egyptian. A famine or a desolating fire in the Moslem quarters of Kashgar or Sarajevo would immediately draw the sympathy and material assistance of the Mahomedan of Delhi or Cairo. The real spiritual and cultural unity of Islam must ever grow, for to the follower of the Prophet it is the foundation of the life of the soul.”

Aga Khan III (1877–1957) 48th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili community

p. 156; a variant of this begins "This is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism…", but is otherwise identical.
/ India in Transition (1918)

Family , Soul , Beauty , Children

“Wonderful, I like cars, too, I like all the great things you can buy in a department store. But when you have to buy them in order to stay unaware, comatose, then the price you pay is too high.”

Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977) German terrorist

Audiovisions: cinema and television as entr'actes in history By Siegfried Zielinski http://books.google.com/books?id=Rw5FzPcwaPkC&lpg=PA215&dq=gudrun%20ensslin&as_brr=1&pg=PA215#v=onepage&q=gudrun%20ensslin&f=false

Cars

“"When I was crazy." the radio explained, "I thought you were great."”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Adverbs (2006), Wrongly

“The composer is seldom a great theorist; the theorist is never a great composer. Each is equally fatal to and essential in the other.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Action and Study
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

“The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty (1859), Ch. 1: Introductory

World , Freedom

“From olden times it has been said: "Great and small go together." So do not unconditionally dislike extra-long swords. What I dislike is the inclination towards the long sword.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Wind Book
Context: It is difficult for these people to cut the enemy when at close quarters because of the length of the long sword. The blade path is large so the long sword is an encumbrance, and they are at a disadvantage compared to the man armed with a short companion sword.
From olden times it has been said: "Great and small go together." So do not unconditionally dislike extra-long swords. What I dislike is the inclination towards the long sword. If we consider large-scale strategy, we can think of large forces in terms of long swords, and small forces as short swords. Cannot few men give battle against many? There are many instances of few men overcoming many.

Time

“If we meet our great responsibility, I believe we can not only deter aggression and create an ever more secure and widening world of security — but we can also shape, step by step, a future of liberty and opportunity across the world.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, IPI speech (2000)

World , Future

“Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.”

Margot Fonteyn (1919–1991) English ballerina

Source: Margot Fonteyn : Autobiography‎ (1975), p. 81

Life , People , Art , Way

“This option the consumerit could. The present admirable constitution of the courts of justice in England was, perhaps, originally in a great measure, formed by this emulation, which anciently took place between their respective judges; each judge endeavouring to give, in his own court, the speediest and most effectual remedy, which the law would admit, for every sort of injustice. (The Wealth of Nations [New York: Modern Library, 1937]; originally 1776), p. 679--> retains of being able to buy security wherever he pleases brings about a constant emulation among all the producers, each producer striving to maintain or augment his clientele with the attraction of cheapness or of faster, more complete and better justice.If, on the contrary, the consumer is not free to buy security wherever he pleases, you forthwith see open up a large profession dedicated to arbitrariness and bad management. Justice becomes slow and costly, the police vexatious, individual liberty is no longer respected, the price of security is abusively inflated and inequitably apportioned, according to the power and influence of this or that class of consumers. The protectors engage in bitter struggles to wrest customers from one another. In a word, all the abuses inherent in monopoly or in communism crop up.”

Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912) Belgian political economist and classical liberal theorist

Source: The Production of Security (1849), p. 57-59

Justice , Law , Communication , Wealth

“Well, they're taking kids out of the country and sending them over there, National Guard kids and Army Reserve. They're sending kids who are barely prepared for this, and they're sending them over there to kill people, which is a serious thing. And to kill not terrorists, but to kill insurgents. I sort of find myself in agreement, uncomfortably, with Patrick Buchanan, who writes about this in his book, Where The Right Went Wrong. And writes that great powers, the way they skidded off the road, was getting involved in wars. That it's the role of great powers to stay out of wars.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Real Time with Bill Maher (15 October 2004)

War , People , Books , Way

“The Brahmans who were custodians of the idols and idol-houses, and “teachers of the infidels”, also received their share of attention from the soldiers of Allãh. Our citations contain only stray references to the Brahmans because they have been compiled primarily with reference to the destruction of temples. Even so, they provide the broad contours of another chapter in the history of medieval India, a chapter which has yet to be brought out in full. The Brahmans are referred to as magicians by some Islamic invaders and massacred straight away. Elsewhere, the Hindus who are not totally defeated and want to surrender on some terms, are made to sign a treaty saying that the Brahmans will be expelled from the temples. The holy cities of the Hindus were “the nests of the Brahmans” who had to be slaughtered before or after the destruction of temples, so that these places were “cleansed” completely of “kufr” and made fit as “abodes of Islam”. Amîr Khusrû describes with great glee how the heads of Brahmans “danced from their necks and fell to the ground at their feet”, along with those of the other “infidels” whom Malik Kãfûr had slaughtered during the sack of the temples at Chidambaram. Fîrûz Shãh Tughlaq got bags full of cow’s flesh tied round the necks of Brahmans and had them paraded through his army camp at Kangra. Muhmûd Shãh II Bahmanî bestowed on himself the honour of being a ghãzî, simply because he had killed in cold blood the helpless BrãhmaNa priests of the local temple after Hindu warriors had died fighting in defence of the fort at Kondapalli. The present-day progressives, leftists and dalits whose main plank is anti-Brahminism have no reason to feel innovative about their ideology. Anti-Brahminism in India is as old a the advent of Islam. Our present-day Brahmin-baiters are no more than ideological descendants of the Islamic invaders. Hindus will do well to remember Mahatma Gandhi’s deep reflection--“if Brahmanism does not revive, Hinduism must perish.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Feeling , History , Teachers , Dance

“The truly great writer does not want to write. He wants the world to be a place in which he can live the life of the imagination.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

Life , World , Imagination

“From the hour of the invention of printing, books, and not kings, were to rule the world. Weapons forged in the mind, keen-edged, and brighter than a sunbeam, were to supplant the sword and battle-axe. Books! lighthouses built on the sea of time! Books! by whose sorcery the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes. From their pages great souls look down in all their grandeur, undimmed by the faults and follies of earthly existence, consecrated by time.”

Edwin Percy Whipple (1819–1886) American writer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 386.

Books , World , Soul , History

“It is a great night. It is the end of Socialism.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

On hearing the results of the 1992 general election (9 April 1992), as reported in The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt: Volume Two (2000) by Woodrow Wyatt.
Post-Prime Ministerial

Night

“The further we move our main force to the westward, and still be within supporting distance of this garrison, the better, both for the preservation of the provision and forage of this State, as well as to les sen the general expense of transportation. And the greater stock of provision and forage we can leave in this State, and upon the communications, the less difficulty we shall find in giving support to this place, should the enemy approach it. I should re commend, therefore, to quarter the army as far wesir ward as Morristown or Baskingridge. The country is strong, secure from a surprise, happily situated to receive supplies of provisions and forage, and not very inconvenient for giving protection and cover to the inhabitants. It is true, it is considerably removed from this place. But were we to take a position at Suffern's or Pompton, the consumption of forage would be so great that it would destroy the possibility of keeping up a communication with the Western States, however pressing the necessity, before the grass sea son. Suppose the enemy should move up, early in the spring, and lay siege to West Point, and the supplies of this State prove unequal to our support, should we not be obliged to abandon it to its fate?”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (November 1779)

Fate , Spring , Communication , Support

“The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man - all belong to the same family. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors.”

Chief Seattle (1786–1866) Duwamish chief

Misattributed

Family , Flowers , Sister , Water

“Freemasons, n. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and Formless Void. The order was founded at different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucius, Thothmes, and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids — always by a Freemason.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Secret , Time , Success , Past

“O immortal gods! Men do not realize how great a revenue parsimony can be!”
O di immortales! non intellegunt homines, quam magnum vectigal sit parsimonia.

Marcus Tullius Cicero book Paradoxa Stoicorum

Paradoxa Stoicorum; Paradox VI, 49

Men , God

“Madison has inserted in his amendments the increase of representatives, each State having two at least. The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people. Freedom of the press too. There is a prodigious great dose for a medicine. But it will stimulate the stomach as little as hasty pudding. It is rather food for physic. An immense mass of sweet and other herbs and roots for diet drink.”

Fisher Ames (1758–1808) American politician

Letter to F.R. Minoe, June 12, 1789, reported in Life and Work of Fisher Ames, vol. I, 52-54.

People , Food , Drink , Freedom

“We have never said that the fight against the Iranian aggression and against the expansionist Persian tendencies (which have been demonstrated by various means under successive regimes in Iran) is the decisive battle for the Arabs. What we have said, and still say, is that the fight against Zionism is the main decisive battle for the Arabs. This is a great objective reality, which cannot be denied or underestimated except by someone who would not only harm the Arab nation and its main causes, but would also overlook the main danger.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

President Saddam Hussein's Speech on National Day (1981)

Reality , Decision , Success , Fight

“Captain Smith reached Virginia on April 26, 1607, with a number of English gentlemen and some people who were willing to work. Then they all held a meeting to discuss ways and means of civilizing everybody. They made a great many speeches and accused each other of various crimes and misdemeanors and arrested some of themselves as an object lesson, and American history was started at last.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Captain John Smith

People , Way , History

“And it was this that awed him — the weird combination of fixity and change, the terrible moment of immobility stamped with eternity in which, passing life at great speed, both the observer and the observed seem frozen in time.”

Thomas Wolfe book Look Homeward, Angel

Source: Look Homeward, Angel (1929), p. 157

Life , Change , Time , Speed

“There is a very great thrill to be had from the memories of the American Revolution, but the American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation, and the duty laid upon us by that beginning is the duty of bringing the things then begun to a noble triumph of completion.”

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

“On the Spirit of America” http://books.google.com/books?id=w0IOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA122, Address to Daughters of the American Revoltion (11 October 1915)
1910s

Memory

“What then is the moral of Churchill’s life? He was the twentieth century’s great man, but we must sharply circumscribe his greatness. Because he drew the sword from the stone in 1940, what he did before and after seems admirable. Through his steadfast stance, Churchill rallied the English to die with honor—therefore they deserved to win. Whoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whoever shall lose his life shall preserve it (Luke 17:33). Yet were it not for this one courageous triumph, we might now say of him: Never had one man done so little with so much.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Churchill’s Finest Hour (2009)

Life , Courage

“A visionary leader seeks to empower others. They continue to search for truth while maintaining their principle-centered focus. Visionary leaders have a good balance between right-brain and leftbrain thinking. The right brain is more feminine, nurturing, intuitive and creative; the left-brain is more masculine and “physical,” interested more in results. Visionary leaders often produce a host of solutions for social, economic and other types of problems.
If we want visionary leaders, we must, of course, learn to recognize them and support them. Visionary leaders have great qualities, which they develop through their interest in values, intuition and partnership with others. They can bring spiritual culture to our religious and political lives. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I must first be the change I want to see in my world.””

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

A visionary leader knows he must lead by example, and that his leadership will have a powerful impact on both present and future generations.
Ten Characteristics of a Servant-Leader
Books, Leadership for an Age of Higher Consciousness, Volume II: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times (Hari-Nama Press, 2001)

Truth , World , Search , Support

“That's always the hardest question. Lately I've been listening to Derek and the Dominos, the Bar-Kays. I really like the first Patti Smith. I'm just starting to discover the Cure. I keep trying to find things to open myself up to. I enjoy Soundgarden. The singer [Chris Cornell] just buries me. The guy sings so great. On the club circuit, I like Saigon Saloon a lot.”

Axl Rose (1962) American singer-songwriter and musician

Guy , Question , Singing

“We are not going to make America great again. It was never that great”

Andrew Cuomo (1957) 56th Governor of New York

"Cuomo Says America ‘Was Never That Great’ in Jab at Trump Slogan" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/nyregion/cuomo-maga-trump-.html, New York Times (15 August 2018)

“…the French are on the point of making a great effort in Portugal…which Lord Wellington…will find himself unable to resist. But even if such an effort could not take place or should not succeed, I am convinced the period when we shall be obliged to give up the contest from an absolute inability to support the expense, is fast approaching.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lord Grenville (1 September 1811), quoted in Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815 (Yale University Press, 1996), p. 157.
1810s

Support , Effort

“Pleasure's fun. It's great, but you can't keep it going forever; just accept the fact that it's here and it's gone, and maybe then again, it will come back, and you'll get to do it again. Joy lasts forever. Pleasure is purely self-centered. It's all about your pleasure: it's about you. It's a selfish, self-centered emotion, that is created by a self-centered motive of greed. Joy is compassion. Joy is giving yourself to somebody else, or something else. And it's a kind of thing that is, in its subtlety and lowness, much more powerful than pleasure. You get hung up on pleasure; you're doomed. If you pursue joy; you will find everlasting happiness.”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

Academy of Achievement Address, published by Corporate Valley (12 August 2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54xWQPq0fuk
2010s

Pleasure , Motivation , Joy , Selfishness

“And here I hold that a liberal and brotherly welcome to all who are likely to come to the United States is the only wise policy which this nation can adopt. It has been thoughtfully observed that every nation, owing to its peculiar character and composition, has a definite mission in the world. What that mission is, and what policy is best adapted to assist in its fulfillment, is the business of its people and its statesmen to know, and knowing, to make a noble use of this knowledge. I need not stop here to name or describe the missions of other or more ancient nationalities. Our seems plain and unmistakable. Our geographical position, our relation to the outside world, our fundamental principles of government, world-embracing in their scope and character, our vast resources, requiring all manner of labor to develop them, and our already existing composite population, all conspire to one grand end, and that is, to make us the perfect national illustration of the unity and dignity of the human family that the world has ever seen. In whatever else other nations may have been great and grand, our greatness and grandeur will be found in the faithful application of the principle of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and of all creeds. We are not only bound to this position by our organic structure and by our revolutionary antecedents, but by the genius of our people. Gathered here from all quarters of the globe, by a common aspiration for national liberty as against caste, divine right govern and privileged classes, it would be unwise to be found fighting against ourselves and among ourselves, it would be unadvised to attempt to set up any one race above another, or one religion above another, or prescribe any on account of race, color or creed.”

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

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

People , World , Family , Faith

“There was great uncertainty about how well we would be able to walk in our cumbersome pressurized suit.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

Letter to Robert Krulwich (2010)

“If present dangers were to be averted there must be loyal aid from the whole masses of the people; there must be voluntary and spontaneous comradeship; and there must even be a measure of self-imposed discipline. … was it not time that the free nations, great or small, here or across the Atlantic Ocean, should take measures necessary to place themselves in a state of security and in a state of adequate defence, not only for their own safety but also that they might hold aloft the beacon-lights of freedom which would carry their rays of encouragement to the thinker and toiler in every land?”

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

Speech at the Albert Hall, London (3 December 1936) at a cross-party meeting organised by the League of Nations Union "in defence of freedom and peace", quoted in The Times (4 December 1936), p. 18
The 1930s

People , Freedom , Light , Time

“I had no idea how much music and singing really means to people, and in my own tiny way to be a part of that is very humbling and very sweet, and and I feel very honored. … I have a great appreciation for this, in every ways and a new understanding, and I'm just as amazed as anyone else.”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

Response to a question on whether her increasing fame has changed her in any way. "ysabellabravetalk #1" (9 March 2007)

People , Music , Way , Feeling

“I think I deserve this (honorary) law degree just because I have been sued so much... For those of you heading out into the world -- don't be scared, getting sued is the first sign of success. As long as you didn't do anything wrong -- don't worry about it. It's just part of this great country.”

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

speech after award of honorary law degree from Barry University (Miami, Florida) (22 May 2002)
2007, 2008

World , Law , Thinking , Success

“In fact, in the plantation areas conditions amounting to slavery were re‑established by the planters with the acquiescence of the Government. Some idea of the misery to which the population of these areas was reduced by this system of merciless exploitation in the interests of British capital may be gained from the Bengal Indigo Commission's Report and from some of the literature of the period. Nil Darpan or the Mirror of Indigo, a Bengali drama, created a sensation by throwing a little light on this dark corner of Britain's action in India, and the reaction in official circles was so great that a European missionary, Mr Long, who translated and published it in English, was fined and imprisoned. During the whole of this period, in fact till the rise of nationalism after the Great War, conditions in plantations were of a kind which showed the worst features of European relations with Asia.”

K. M. Panikkar (1895–1963) Indian diplomat, academic and historian

Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945

War , Literature , Idea , Light

“To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Pilgrim's Way (1940), p. 26
Memory Hold-The-Door (1940)

Education , Time

“In exercising our sovereignty over these waters, we are not only fulfilling our duty to the people who called this northern frontier home, and to the generations that will follow; we are also being faithful to all who came before us, who through great hardship and sacrifice made a quest for knowledge of the North.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

Announcement of the John G. Diefenbaker icebreaker project, August 28, 2008.
2008

People , Faith , Exercises , Home

“My fellow Americans, this day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country. At 9:00 a. m. this morning, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with our Space Shuttle Columbia. A short time later, debris was seen falling from the skies above Texas. The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.”

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

2000s, 2003, Remarks after Columbia space shuttle disaster (February 2003)

Sadness , Time , Country

“The secret virtues which lie hid in salt confirm the same. For salt whiteneth all thinges, it hardeneth all thinges, it preserveth all thinges, it giveth favour to all thinges, it is that masticke which gleweth all thinges together, it gathereth and knitteth all minerall matters, and of manie thousand peeces it maketh one masse. This salt giveth sounde to all thinges, and without the sounde no metall will wring in his shirle voyce. Salt maketh men merrie, it whiteneth the flesh, and it giveth beautie to all reasonable creatures, it entertayneth that love and amitie which is betwixt the male and female, through the great vigour and stirring uppe which it provoketh in the engendering members; it helpeth to procreation, it giveth unto creatures their voyce, as also unto metalles. * * * * * And it is salt that maketh all seedes to flourish and growe, and although the number of men is verie small, which can give any true reason whie dungue shoulde doe anie good in arable groundes, but are ledde thereto more by custome than anie philosophicall reason, nevertheless it is apparaunt that no dungue, which is layde uppon barraine groundes, could anie way enrich the same, if it were not for the salt which the straw and hay left behinde them by their putrifaction.”

Hugh Plat (1552–1608) writer

As cited in: Robert Kemp Philp (1859, p. 73)
The Jewell House of Art and Nature, 1594

Love , Men , Lie , Secret

“Equally striking is the fact that racial anti-Semitism was not taken seriously even by the great majority of Nazis. ‘It is just a catchword to attract voters’ was a standing phrase which everybody repeated and believed, and that I took it seriously was more than once regarded as definite proof of my stupidity and gullibility.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The End of Economic Man (1939), p. 17

Stupidity

“"Mean?" I said. "My dear girl, I am equally fond of man and beast alike. There is not the slightest drop of enmity in my system. After all, you can't be mean and still be a great writer."”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Girl

“Returning home on leave following my second year at West Point, I called on a great-uncle who had joined the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen and had fought in a number of major Civil War battles, including Gettysburg, and had been with Robert E. Lee at Appamatox. My Uncle White was the younger brother of my grandfather. He hated Yankees and Republicans, not necessarily in that order, and talked derisively about both. When I visited, he was seated in a wheel chair, in grudging acquiescence to the infirmities of age. Tobacco juice decorated his shirt and stains around a spittoon on the floor testified to the inaccuracy of his aim. Flies buzzed through screenless windows. "What are you doing with yourself, son?" Uncle White asked. I answered the old veteran with trepidation. "I'm going to that same school that Grant and Sherman went to, the Military Academy at West Point, New York."”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Uncle White was silent for what seemed like a long time. "That's all right, son," he said at last. "Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson went there too."
Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 12.

Hate , War , Age , School

“It's a great game to try to look at the past, at an unscientific era, look at something there, and say have we got the same thing now, and where is it? So I would like to amuse myself with this game. First, we take witch doctors. The witch doctor says he knows how to cure. There are spirits inside which are trying to get out. … Put a snakeskin on and take quinine from the bark of a tree. The quinine works. He doesn't know he's got the wrong theory of what happens. If I'm in the tribe and I'm sick, I go to the witch doctor. He knows more about it than anyone else. But I keep trying to tell him he doesn't know what he's doing and that someday when people investigate the thing freely and get free of all his complicated ideas they'll learn much better ways of doing it. Who are the witch doctors? Psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, of course.”

Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All

lecture III: "This Unscientific Age"
David Goodstein reports http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/feynmaniacs-should-read-this-review-skip-lecture-collection-save-22-simoleons that the entire psychology department walked out in a huff at this point.
The Meaning of It All (1999)

People , Way , Game , Idea

“This Spring of 1911 Marianne von Werefkin [his former study-mate in Russia and in fact his life-comapnion for many years, but never married] Andrei, Helene and I went to Prerow on the Baltic [coast]. For me that summer meant a great step forward in my art. I painted my finest landscapes there as well as large figure paintings in powerful, glowing colours and not at all naturalistic or objective. I used a great deal of red, blue, orange, cadmium yellow and chromium-oxide green. My forms were very strongly contoured in Prussian blue, and came with tremendous power from an inner ecstasy. 'Der Buckel', 'Violetter Turban', 'Selbstporträt'.... were created in this way. It was a turning-point in my art. It was in these years, up to 1914, just before the war [World War 1. ], that I painted my most powerful works, referred to as the pré-war works.”

Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941) Russian painter

Quote c. 1911; in 'Lebenserinnerungen', 1938; as cited in Alexej von Jawlensky, Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen, Rotterdam; exhibition catalog 25/9 – 27/11-1994 (a. o. his life quotes from ['Life Memories'] he dictated late in his life, in 1938)
1900 - 1935

Life , War , World , Art

“The foolishness of the great and the wealthy is an excellent source of revenue for the humble.”

Antoine François Prévost (1697–1763) French novelist

C'est un fonds excellent de revenu pour les petits, que la sottise des riches et des grands.
Part 1, p. 83; translation p. 38.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)

“If one fourth of the capital of a country were suddenly destroyed, or entirely transferred to a different part of the world, without any other cause occurring of a diminished demand for commodities, this scantiness of capital would certainly occasion great inconvenience to consumers, and great distress among the working classes; but it would be attended with great advantages to the remaining capitalists.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section X, p. 414 (See also: Karl Marx, Capital Volume I, Chapter 25, Section 4(e), p. 742
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

World , Parting , Country

“I was supposed to wear this really great costume [on Il Brigante], beautiful white flannel trousers, a captain's cap, it looked marvellous, but right before shooting they had it changed and they told me to wear my own stuff instead. I felt rotten because it looked so cheap.”

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

Beauty , Change

“Women, he held, had never been treated with elementary justice. To worship them was no less unfair than to hold them in contempt. The honest man, in our day, should regard a woman without the least bias of sexual prejudice; should view her simply as a fellow-being, who, according to circumstances, might or not be on his own plane. Away with all empty show and form, those relics of barbarism known as chivalry! He wished to discontinue even the habit of hat-doffing in female presence. Was not civility preserved between man and man without such idle form? Why not, then, between man and woman? Unable, as yet, to go the entire length of his principles in every-day life, he endeavoured, at all events, to cultivate in his intercourse with women a frankness of speech, a directness of bearing, beyond the usual. He shook hands as with one of his own sex, spine uncrooked; he greeted them with level voice, not as one who addresses a thing afraid of sound. To a girl or matron whom he liked, he said, in tone if not in phrase, "Let us be comrades." In his opinion this tended notably to the purifying of the social atmosphere. It was the introduction of simple honesty into relations commonly marked — and corrupted — by every form of disingenuousness. Moreover, it was the great first step to that reconstruction of society at large which every thinker saw to be imperative and imminent.
But Constance Bride knew nothing of this, and in her ignorance could not but misinterpret the young man's demeanor. She felt it to be brusque; she imagined it to imply a purposed oblivion of things in the past.”

George Gissing (1857–1903) English novelist

Source: Our Friend the Charlatan (1901), Ch. II

Life , Women , Justice , Sex

“There is only one inborn erroneous notion … that we exist in order to be happy … So long as we persist in this inborn error … the world seems to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of maintaining a happy existence … hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of … disappointment.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book The World as Will and Representation

Vol II "On the Road to Salvation"
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

Life , World , Disappointment , Error

“Take myself as a good-will ambassador. I'm great — I'm taking myself as a character — for the intellectuals and the man on the street. I'm great where Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. leaves off. I'm not so good with high society, in either North or South America, because I'm highly unconventional. Perhaps I bewilder people by being at once the esthete, the intellectual and the vulgarian.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Quoted by Chan Norris, "Orson Welles on Latin America". PM, September 13, 1942, page 17.

People

“In the writings of such "pagan" philosophers as Plutarch and Porphyry we find a humanitarian ethic of the most exalted kind, which, after undergoing a long repression during medieval churchdom, reappeared, albeit but weakly and fitfully at first, in the literature of the Renaissance, to be traced more definitely in the eighteenth century school of "sensibility." But it was not until after the age of Rousseau, from which must be dated the great humanitarian movement of the past century, that Vegetarianism began to assert itself as a system, a reasoned plea for the disuse of flesh-food.”

Henry Stephens Salt (1851–1939) British activist

The Humanities of Diet

Age , School , Food , Literature

“Dinner at the "Continental" to commemorate the great reform [the abolition of the serfdom in 1861]. Tedious and incongruous. To dine, drink champagne, make a racket, and deliver speeches about national consciousness, the conscience of the people, freedom, and such things, while slaves in tail-coats are running round your tables, veritable serfs, and your coachmen wait outside in the street, in the bitter cold—that is lying to the Holy Ghost.”

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

Diary, 9 February 1897
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

People , Lying , Drink , Freedom

“I think that because I am rich, handsome and a great player people are envious of me. I don’t have any other explanation.”

Cristiano Ronaldo (1985) Portuguese association football player

[Reuters Staff, Reuters, People envy my cash and looks - Ronaldo, 15 September 2011, 16 February 2018, https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-champions-real-ronaldo/people-envy-my-cash-and-looks-ronaldo-idUKTRE78E1TP20110915]
After being asked asked about the behaviour of the Dinamo Zagreb supporters, who chanted the name of his perceived rival Lionel Messi.

People , Thinking

“This is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying, 'You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you; and I like you just the way you are.' And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003) American television personality

Testimony before U.S. Senate committee, May 1, 1969. Featured in Fred Rogers: America's Favorite Neighbor (television documentary), 2003.

Health , World , Way , Feeling

“The most successful behaviour-liars are those who, instead of consciously concentrating on modifying specific signals, think themselves into the basic mood they wish to convey and then let the small details take care of themselves. This method is frequently used with great success by professional liars, such as actors and actresses. Their entire working lives are spent performing behavioural lies, a process which can sometimes be extremely damaging to their private lives. Politicians and diplomats are also required to perform an undue amount of behavioural lying, but unlike the actors they are not socially 'licensed to lie', and the resultant guilt feelings tend to interfere with their performances. Also, unlike the actors, they do not undergo prolonged training courses.”

Desmond Morris book The Naked Ape

(2000), p. 116
The Naked Ape (1967)

Lie , Feeling , Lying , Mood

“It is an erroneous assumption of limited minds that great ones such as Jesus, Krishna, and other divine incarnations are gone from the earth when they are no longer visible to human sight. This is not so… Jesus Christ is very much alive and active today. In Spirit and occasionally taking on a flesh-and-blood form, he is working unseen by the masses for the regeneration of the world. With his all-embracing love, Jesus is not content merely to enjoy his blissful consciousness in Heaven. He is deeply concerned for mankind and wishes to give his followers the means to attain the divine freedom of entry into God's Infinite Kingdom….”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, (2004) by Yogananda

Love , God , World , Freedom

“Contemporary with Vitellio and Peccam was… Roger Bacon, a man of almost universal genius, and who wrote on almost every branch of science. He frequently quotes Alhazen on the subject of optics, and seems to have carefully studied his writings, as well as those of other Arabians, which were the fountains of natural knowledge in those days, and which had been introduced into Europe by means of the Moors in Spain. Notwithstanding the pains this great man took with the subject of opticks, it does not appear that, with respect to theory, he made any considerable advance upon what Alhazen had done before him.”

Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) English theologian, chemist, educator, and political theorist

Period I To the Revival of Letters in Erope
The History and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, Light, and Colours (1772)

Pain , Quotes , Nature , Knowledge

“The significant point to be noted about the Syrian Christians, however, is their sudden change of colour as soon as the Portuguese arrived on the scene. They immediately rallied round the Portuguese and against their Hindu neighbours, and when the Portuguese started pressurizing the Hindu Rajas for extraterritorial rights so that their co-religionists could be “protected”, the Syrian Christians evinced great enthusiasm everywhere.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Change

“They took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000, and children of both sexes, 'more than the pen can enumerate'… In short, the Muhammadan army brought the country to utter ruin, and destroyed the lives of the inhabitants, and plundered the cities, and captured their offspring, so that many temples were deserted and the idols were broken and trodden under foot, the largest of which was one called Somnat, fixed upon stone, polished like a mirror of charming shape and admirable workmanship' Its head was adorned with a crown set with gold and rubies and pearls and other precious stones' and a necklace of large shining pearls, like the belt of Orion, depended from the shoulder towards the side of the body….
'The Muhammadan soldiers plundered all these jewels and rapidly set themselves to demolish the idol. The surviving infidels were deeply affected with grief, and they engaged 'to pay a thousand pieces of gold' as ransom for the idol, but they were indignantly rejected, and the idol was destroyed, and 'its limbs, which were anointed with ambergris and perfumed, were cut off. The fragments were conveyed to Delhi, and the entrance of the Jami' Masjid was paved with them, that people might remember and talk of this brilliant victory.' Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds. Amen! After some time, among the ruins of the temples, a most beautiful jasper-coloured stone was discovered, on which one of the merchants had designed some beautiful figures of fighting men and other ornamental figures of globes, lamps, etc., and on the margin of it were sculptured verses from the Kurdn. This stone was sent as an offering to the shrine of the pole of saints… At that time they were building a lofty octagonal dome to the tomb. The stone was placed at the right of the entrance. "At this time, that is, in the year 707 h. (1307 a. d.), 'Alau-d din is the acknowledged Sultan of this country. On all its borders there are infidels, whom it is his duty to attack in the prosecution of a holy war, and return laden with countless booty."”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Somnath. Abdu’llah ibn Fazlu’llah of Shiraz (Wassaf) : Tarikh-i-Wassaf (Tazjiyatu’l Amsar Wa Tajriyatu’l Ãsar), in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 43-44. Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

Men , God , War , Children

“The truth is, no study is possible on the battle-field; one does there simply what one can in order to apply what one knows. Therefore, in order to do even a little, one has already to know a great deal and to know it well.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 175

Truth , Study

“As the peculiar faculty of the eye is to see form and colour, and of the ear to hear sweet tones and voices, so is aspiration peculiar to the soul. To relax from ceaseless aspiration is sin. This energy of aspiration directed to and grasping God, as far as is possible for the creature, is called Hope, which is also a divine virtue. Through this faculty the soul acquires such great confidence that she deems nothing in the Divine Nature beyond her reach.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Sermon VII : Outward and Inward Morality
Meister Eckhart’s Sermons (1909)

God , Hope , Soul , Confidence

“A thoughtful historian tells us that, between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, Italy produced three great men. As the first of these, he names Machiavelli, who he says, "taught the world to understand political despotism and to hate it"; as the second, he names Sarpi, who "taught the world after what manner the Holy Spirit guides the Councils of the Church"; and as the third, Galileo, who "taught the world what dogmatic theology is worth when it can be tested by science."”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 3

Men , Hate , Age , World

“It were doubtless to be wished, that the power of prohibiting the importation of slaves had not been postponed until the year 1808, or rather that it had been suffered to have immediate operation. But it is not difficult to account, either for this restriction on the general government, or for the manner in which the whole clause is expressed. It ought to be considered as a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate forever, within these States, a traffic which has so long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy; that within that period, it will receive a considerable discouragement from the federal government, and may be totally abolished, by a concurrence of the few States which continue the unnatural traffic, in the prohibitory example which has been given by so great a majority of the Union. Happy would it be for the unfortunate Africans, if an equal prospect lay before them of being redeemed from the oppressions of their European brethren!”

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

Federalist No. 42 http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/quotes/slavery.html
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

Suffering , Happiness

“The wind came steadily, like the rushing of a great cataract heard at a great distance, but the noises of the sea were continually changing, rising and falling, with the stupendous modulations of an orchestra played by giants.”

Liam O'Flaherty (1896–1984) Irish writer

"The Landing", from Spring Sowing (1924; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926) p. 70

Change , Sea

“If you have a great passion it seems that the logical thing is to see the fruit of it, and the fruit are children.”

Roman Polanski (1933) Polish-French film director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist

The Independent (12 May 1991)

Children , Passion

“Now take a person in this congregation who has knowledge with regard to being saved in the kingdom of our God and our Father and being exalted, one who knows and understands the principles of eternal life, and sees the beauty and excellency of the eternities before him compared with the vain and foolish things of the world, and suppose that he is taken in a gross fault, that he has committed a sin he knows will deprive him of the exaltation he desires, and that he cannot attain to it without the shedding of his blood, and also knows that by having his blood shed he will atone for that sin, and be saved and exalted with the Gods, is there a man or woman in this house but would say, 'shed my blood that I might be saved and exalted with the Gods?' All mankind love themselves, and let these principles be known by an individual and he would be glad to have his blood shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation. Will you love your brothers or sisters likewise, when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood?… I have known a great many men who have left this Church for whom there is no chance whatever for exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would have been better for them. The wickedness and ignorance of the nations forbid this principle's being in full force, but the time will come when the law of God will be in full force.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses, 4:219 (February. 8, 1857)
Brigham Young describes the doctrine of Blood Atonement
1850s

Love , Life , Men , God

“[Velociraptors] are among my very favourite dinosaurs. Their long upcurved skulls, slender yet compact proportions, and great sickle claws make these elegant, attractive, yet demonic animals. There is nothing else like them. Pound for pound, these are among the most powerful of known predators; certainly no other theropod had such a combination of foot, hand, and head weaponry… Among theropods only Tyrannosaurus, with its extreme skull strength, equalled Velociraptor in total power relative to weight.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Gregory S. Paul (1988) Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, Simon and Schuster, p. 362-363
Predatory Dinosaurs of the World

Animals

“It is said that great leaders are born, not made. The saying is true to this degree, that no man can persuade people to do what he wants them to do, unless he genuinely likes people, and believes that what he wants them to do is to their own advantage.”

Bruce Fairchild Barton book The Man Nobody Knows

Source: The Man Nobody Knows (1924), Ch. 4 : His Method

People

“Real greatness has nothing to do with a man’s sphere. It does not lie in the magnitude of his outward agency, in the extent of the effects which he produces. The greatest men may do comparatively little.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Self-Culture (1838)

Men , Lie

“At first we got along very well. Esipova even boasted outside the class that she had pupils who wrote sonatas (I completed Sonata, Op. 1, and played it to Esipova, who took it home and inserted pedaling). But before long trouble began. Esipova’s method of teaching was to try to fit everyone into a standard pattern. True, it was a very elaborate pattern, and if the pupil’s temperament coincided with her own, the results were admirable. But if the pupil happened to be of an independent cast of mind Esipova would do her best to suppress his individuality instead of helping to develop it. Moreover, I had great difficulty in ridding myself of careless playing, and the Mozart, Schubert and Chopin which she insisted on were somehow not in my line. At that period I was too preoccupied with the search for a new harmonic idiom to understand how anyone could care for the simple harmonies of Mozart.”

Anna Yesipova (1851–1914) Russian pianist

Sergei Prokofiev, Autobiography

Home , Search , Understanding , Help

“One of the important functions of prayer, I believe, is to act as a stimulus to creative ideas. Within the mind are all the resources required for successful living. Ideas are present in the consciousness, which when released and given scope to grow and take shape, can lead to successful events. God, our Creator, has stored within our minds and personalities, great potential strength and ability. Prayer helps to tap and develop these powers.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 32.

God , Idea , Success , Help

“We would have fulfilled our duty to our blood and our people and to the freedom of the peoples, if we had exterminated the most cunning intellect of all the human intellects alive today. For that is what I said to Streicher, what I have always preached: we are fighting an enemy who, through many many thousands of years of schooling, is intellectually superior to us. Was it yesterday or the day before, or a year ago, I don't know, I heard or read: even before the Romans had their state, before Rome had even been founded, the Jews there were able to write. This is an understatement. They should have said, aeons before the Romans erected their state, aeons before the very founding of Rome itself, they were able to write. Look at the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Look at a race that today has recourse to, may I just say, six thousand years of written history, a race that has been making laws for let us say five thousand years or six thousand years - and I am not wrong, I believe, when I estimate a seventh millennium. The fact that the Christian church today makes use of this lawmaking is very depressing for me. But it tells me that this must be a race of the first order of magnitude, since lawmakers have always been great. And because of these realizations I fought against this enemy.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

People , School , Law , History

“And at once I saw with great clarity that human beings possess two bodies. One is the physical body, the other -- just as real, just as self-contained -- is the emotional body. Like the physical body, the emotional body reaches a certain level of growth, and then stops. But it stops rather sooner than the physical body. So most of us possess the emotional body of a retarded adolescent.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Access to Inner Worlds (1990), p. 23

“It has been said, that the people had already surrendered all their powers to the State sovereignties, and had nothing more to give. But, surely, the question whether they may resume and modify the powers granted to government does not remain to be settled in this country. Much more might the legitimacy of the general government be doubted, had it been created by the States. The powers delegated to the State sovereignties were to be exercised by themselves, not by a distinct and independent sovereignty, created by themselves. To the formation of a league, such as was the confederation, the State sovereignties were certainly competent. But when, "in order to form a more perfect union," it was deemed necessary to change this alliance into an effective government, possessing great and sovereign powers, and acting directly on the people, the necessity of 'referring it to the people, and of deriving its powers directly from them, was felt and acknowledged by all.”

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

17 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 405
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

People , Exercises , Question , Change

“Minor things can become moments of great revelation when encountered for the very first time.”

Margot Fonteyn (1919–1991) English ballerina

Source: Margot Fonteyn : Autobiography‎ (1975), p. 9

Time

“It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart-the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour.”

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

Winston Churchill, Speech to House of Commons on 12th November 1940, 3 days after his death.
About

Love , World , Peace , Faith

“Some, in their curiosity, will say, "But you Mormons have another Bible! Do you believe in the Old and New Testaments?" I answer we do believe in the Old and New Testaments, and we have also another book, called the Book of Mormon. What are the doctrines of the Book of Mormon? The same as those of the Bible…"What good does it do you, Latter-day Saints?" It proves that the Bible is true. What do the infidel world say about the Bible? They say that the Bible is nothing better than last year's almanack; it is nothing but a fable and priestcraft, and it is good for nothing. The Book of Mormon, however, declares that the Bible is true, and it proves it; and the two prove each other true. The Old and New Testaments are the stick of Judah. You recollect that the tribe of Judah tarried in Jerusalem and the Lord blessed Judah, and the result was the writings of the Old and New Testaments. But where is the stick of Joseph? Can you tell where it is? Yes. It was the children of Joseph who came across the waters to this continent, and this land was filled with people, and the Book of Mormon or the stick of Joseph contains their writings, and they are in the hands of Ephraim. Where are the Ephraimites? They are mixed through all the nations of the earth. God is calling upon them to gather out, and He is uniting them, and they are giving the Gospel to the whole world. Is there any harm or any false doctrine in that? A great many say there is. If there is, it is all in the Bible.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 13:174-175 (May 29, 1870)
1870s

God , Children , People , Books

“We've always known Jimmy's had a great deal of raw talent. It's exciting watching him use that talent to become such a dynamic and gifted late night host. The sky is the limit for Jimmy and this show.”

Jimmy Kimmel (1967) American talk show host and comedian

ABC Chairman Lloyd Braun — reported in ZAP2IT.COM (December 10, 2003) "'Jimmy Kimmel' back for a second season", Chicago Tribune RedEye Edition, Chicago Tribune, p. 46.
About

Night

“I've never known justice to be used for anything other than the taking of poor men's lives. That's why I'm begging you, since you know how to speak to great men, to protect Jón Hreggviðson from justice.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Jón talking to Snæfríður
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Justice , Men

“The fundamental tenet of the Védántí school, to which in a more modern age the incomparable Sancara was a firm and illustrious adherent, consisted, not in denying the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but, in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending, that it has no essence independent of mental perception, that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms, that external appearances and sensations are illusory, and would vanish into nothing if the divine energy, which alone sustains them, were suspended but for a moment; an opinion which Epicharmus and Plato seem to have adopted, and which has been maintained in the present century with great elegance, but with little publick applause; partly because it has been misunderstood, and partly because it has been misapplied by the false reasoning of some unpopular writers, who are said to have disbelieved in the moral attributes of God, whose omnipresence, wisdom, and goodness are the basis of the Indian philosophy… [N]othing can be farther removed from impiety than a system wholly built on the purest devotion; and the inexpressible difficulty, which any man, who shall make the attempt, will assuredly find in giving a satisfactory definition of material substance, must induce us to deliberate with coolness, before we censure the learned and pious restorer of the ancient Véda; though we cannot but admit, that, if the common opinions of mankind be the criterion of philosophical truth, we must adhere to the system of Gotama, which the Bráhmens of this province almost universally follow.”

William Jones (1746–1794) Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India

II. pp. 238-239
"On the Philosophy of the Asiatics" (1794)

Wisdom , God , Truth , Age

“As power becomes great, concupiscence grows less.”

As-Saffah (722–754) First Abbasid caliph

History of the Caliphs, p. 263

“Independent Slovakia came into being one year ago. […] More has been gained than the late, great leader of the Slovak nation, Father Hlinka would have dared to dream. The Slovak people have accomplished more than they ever hoped in their long struggle to free themselves from the Czech yoke.”

János Esterházy (1901–1957) Czechoslovak member of Czechoslovak national parliament, russian nation politician and hungary nation polit…

About establishment of the First Slovak Republic (1939-1945), 1940.
Relationship to Czechoslovakia
Source: Gábor Szent-Ivány: Count János Esterházy, Danubian Press, 1989

People , Dreams , Hope

“Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad's of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

No. 1.
Seventy Resolutions (1722-1723)

God , Pleasure , Age , Thinking

“I've made use of the beautiful weather to sketch and paint outside. I had been staying away from color for such a long time that it had become something quite foreign to me. Working in color was always a great joy to me. And now it is a great joy again. Still, I have to battle with it, wrestle with it, with all my strength. And one must be victorious. But if it weren't for the fight, all the beauty of it wouldn't exist at all, would it? I'm writing this mostly for Mother who, I believe, thinks my whole life is one constant act of egoistic ecstasy. But devotion to art also involves something unselfish.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

In a letter to her parents, from Worpswede, 10 September 1899; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 199
1899

Life , Beauty , Art , Color

“But you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”

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

2015-07-21
Speech in Sun City, South Carolina
Slate
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2015/07/31/donald_trump_this_run_on_sentence_from_a_speech_in_sun_city_south_carolina.html
2010s, 2015

Women , Men

“Algebra in the Renaissance period received its first serious consideration in Pacioli's Sūma (1494)… which characterized in a careless way the knowledge… thus far accumulated. By the aid of the crude symbolism then in use it gave a considerable amount of work in equations.
The noteworthy work… and the first to be devoted entirely to the subject, was Rudolff's Coss (1525). This work made no decided advance in the theory, but it improved the symbolism for radicals and made the science better known in Germany. Stiffel's edition of this work (1553-1554) gave the subject still more prominence.
The first epoch-making algebra to appear in print was the Ars Magna of Cardan (1545). The next great work… to appear in print was the General Trattato of Tartaglia…”

David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) American mathematician

Source: History of Mathematics (1925) Vol.2, p. 384; Ch. 6: Algebra

Way , Knowledge , Appearance , Science

“Trains, planes, cars, rockets, telescopes, tires, telephones, radios, television, electricity, atomic energy, computers, and fax machines. All miracles made possible by the minds and spirits of men with names like Ampere, Bell, Caselli, Edison, Ohm, Faraday, Einstein, Cohen, Teller, Shockley, Hertz, Marconi, Morse, Popov, Ford, Volta, Michelin, Dunlop, Watt, Diesel, Galileo, and other "dead white males." … The great majority of advancements past and present have been brought about by the genius and inventiveness of that most "despicable" of colors and genders, the dreaded white male, or, to be exact, by specific, individual white males. This is not to discredit the many contributions coming from nonwhites, but fact is fact. Our most important and consequential inventions have come almost exclusively from white males. … If you eliminate, suppress, or debase the while male, you kill the goose that laid the golden egg. If you ace him out with "affirmative" action, exile him from the family, teach him that he's a blight on mankind, then bon voyage to our society. We will devolve into a Third World cesspool. Where has there ever before in history been a group of human beings who have brought about the likes of the Magna Carta, the U. S. Constitution, and the countless life-saving and life-improving inventions that we now enjoy? … Does this mean we should sit back and let ourselves be governed by someone just because he's a white male? Of course, it doesn't. It means simply that we shouldn't suppress anyone, including white males. Let our God-given gifts run free in a free and just society, free from the oppression and tyranny of social engineers. If anyone has gifts beyond our own—be he a white male or other—be grateful. Maybe we have gifts that in some small way can contribute something of value as well. One way or another, we're all in the same boat. Few of us have truly outstanding gifts. And most of us have to humbly accept that there are others around who are more gifted than we are. In a Democratic society, it's not for Big Brother to decide who shall thrive and who shall struggle in the hive.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

Source: The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture (2003), pp. 136–138; "White Male Inventions" http://www.dadi.org/ms_dwm.htm (December 15, 1999)

Life , Men , God , World

Quotes about greatness page 88

Quotes about greatness
page 88