Quotes about guard

A collection of quotes on the topic of guard, use, doing, people.

Quotes about guard

Ferdinand Foch photo
George Sand photo
Maurice Maeterlinck photo

“Each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand mediocre minds appointed to guard the past.”

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist

As quoted in Optimum Sports Nutrition (1993) by Michael Colgan, p. 144

“Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). so whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practices piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.
Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.
Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundness of knowledge, fairness of judgment and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to understand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever does this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.
Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgment.”

Nahj al-Balagha

Charles Bukowski photo

“we only asked for leopards to guard
our thinning dreams.”

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Marcus Aurelius photo

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly.”

Variant: The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
Source: Meditations

Charles Bukowski photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Ivo Andrič photo
Didymus the Blind photo
Sueton photo

“Caesar overtook his advanced guard at the river Rubicon, which formed the frontier between Gaul and Italy. Well aware how critical a decision confronted him, he turned to his staff, remarking: "We may still draw back but, once across that little bridge, we shall have to fight it out."”
Consecutusque cohortis ad Rubiconem flumen, qui provinciae eius finis erat, paulum constitit, ac reputans quantum moliretur, conversus ad proximos: "Etiam nunc," inquit, "regredi possumus; quod si ponticulum transierimus, omnia armis agenda erunt."

Source: The Twelve Caesars, Julius Caesar, Ch. 31

Martin Luther photo
Emperor Gaozu of Han photo

“A great wind came forth, the clouds rose on high.
Now that my might rules all within the seas, I have returned to my old village.
Where will I find brave men to guard the four corners of my land?”

Emperor Gaozu of Han (-256–-195 BC) founding emperor of the Han Dynasty (256 BC - 195 BC)

Translated by Burton Watson
大風歌 Song of the Great Wind

Isocrates photo
Oswald Mosley photo
Kurt Cobain photo

“She's just as bored as me
she caught me off my guard
it amazes me, the will of instinct”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Polly.
Song lyrics, Nevermind (1991)

Thomas Aquinas photo

“On the contrary, The demons are ever assailing us, according to 1 Peter 5:8: "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour." Much more therefore do the good angels ever guard us”

Summa Theologica (1265–1274)
Context: Whether the angel guardian ever forsakes a man?... It would seem that the angel guardian sometimes forsakes the man whom he is appointed to guard... On the contrary, The demons are ever assailing us, according to 1 Peter 5:8: "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour." Much more therefore do the good angels ever guard us... the guardianship of the angels is an effect of Divine providence in regard to man. Now it is evident that neither man, nor anything at all, is entirely withdrawn from the providence of God: for in as far as a thing participates being, so far is it subject to the providence that extends over all being.

I, q. 113, art. 6

Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Thomas Paine photo

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, First Principles of Government (1795)
Context: An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

Daniel Webster photo

“God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

Speech (3 June 1834); reported in Edward Everett, ed., The Works of Daniel Webster (1851), volume iv, page 47

Jasper Fforde photo
Graham Greene photo
Mark Twain photo

“Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

More Maxims of Mark (1927) edited by Merle Johnson

Bertrand Russell photo

“Whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

Henri Matisse photo
Bruce Lee photo

“It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.”

The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Source: Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Albert Schweitzer photo

“O heavenly Father,
protect and bless all things
that have breath: guard them
from all evil and let them sleep in peace.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Memoirs of Childhood and Youth (1924)
Context: One thing that specially saddened me was that the unfortunate animals had to suffer so much pain and misery. The sight of an old limping horse, tugged forward by one man while another kept beating it with a stick to get it to the knacker's yard at Colmar, haunted me for weeks. It was quite incomprehensible to me — this was before I began going to school — why in my evening prayers I should pray for human beings only. It was quite incomprehensible to me — this was before I began going to school — why in my evening prayers I should pray for human beings only. So when my mother had prayed with me and had kissed me good-night, I used to add silently a prayer that I had composed myself for all living creatures. It ran thus: "O, heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace."

W.B. Yeats photo

“I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

An Irish Airman Forsees His Death http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1441/
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
Context: I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My county is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Neal Shusterman photo
Guy Gavriel Kay photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Terry Pratchett photo
George Washington photo

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Terry Pratchett photo
W.B. Yeats photo

“God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw photo

“The refusal to allow a multiply-disadvantaged class to represent others who may be singularly-disadvantaged defeats efforts to restructure the distribution of opportunity and limits remedial relief to minor adjustments within an established hierarchy. Consequently, “bottom-up” approaches, those which combine all discriminatees in order to challenge an entire employment system, are foreclosed by the limited view of the wrong and the narrow scope of the available remedy. If such “bottom-up” intersectional representation were routinely permitted, employees might accept the possibility that there is more to gain by collectively challenging the hierarchy rather than by each discriminatee individually seeking to protect her source of privilege within the hierarchy. But as long as antidiscrimination doctrine proceeds from the premise that employment systems need only minor adjustments, opportunities for advancement by disadvantaged employees will be limited. Relatively privileged employ- ees probably are better off guarding their advantage while jockeying against others to gain more. As a result, Black women — the class of employees which, because of its intersectionality, is best able to challenge all forms of discrimination — are essentially isolated and often required to fend for themselves.”

Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex (1989)

“Productive people guard their time more heavily than the gold in Fort Knox.”

Robert W. Bly (1957) American writer

101 Ways to Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress (1999)

Barack Obama photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“To build up a community, not upon Liberal opinions, which any man may fashion to his fancy, but upon popular principles, which assert equal rights, civil and religious; to uphold the institutions of the country because they are the embodiment of the wants and wishes of the nation, and protect us alike from individual tyranny and popular outrage; equally to resist democracy and oligarchy; and favour that principle of free aristocracy which is the only basis and security for constitutional government; to be vigilant to guard and prompt to vindicate the honour of the country, but to hold aloof from that turbulent diplomacy which only distracts the mind of a people from internal improvement; to lighten taxation; frugally but wisely to administer the public treasure; to favour popular education, because it is the best guarantee for public order; to defend local government; and to be as jealous of the rights of the working man as of the prerogatives of the Crown and the privileges of the Senate—these were once the principles which regulated Tory statesmen, and I for one have no wish that the Tory party should ever be in power unless they practise them.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1862/aug/01/the-administration-of-viscount in the House of Commons (1 August 1862).

Pope Paul VI photo
Nathan Bedford Forrest photo

“Boys, do you hear that musketry and that artillery? It means that our friends are falling by the hundreds at the hands of the enemy, and here we are guarding a damned creek! Let's go and help them. What do you say?”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

Said to his men at Shiloh, 1862. As quoted in May I Quote You, General Forrest? by Randall Bedwell.
1860s

Barack Obama photo

“For decades, this vision stood in sharp contrast to life on the other side of an Iron Curtain. For decades, a contest was waged, and ultimately that contest was won -- not by tanks or missiles, but because our ideals stirred the hearts of Hungarians who sparked a revolution; Poles in their shipyards who stood in Solidarity; Czechs who waged a Velvet Revolution without firing a shot; and East Berliners who marched past the guards and finally tore down that wall. Today, what would have seemed impossible in the trenches of Flanders, the rubble of Berlin, or a dissident’s prison cell -- that reality is taken for granted. A Germany unified. The nations of Central and Eastern Europe welcomed into the family of democracies. Here in this country, once the battleground of Europe, we meet in the hub of a Union that brings together age-old adversaries in peace and cooperation. The people of Europe, hundreds of millions of citizens -- east, west, north, south -- are more secure and more prosperous because we stood together for the ideals we share. And this story of human progress was by no means limited to Europe. Indeed, the ideals that came to define our alliance also inspired movements across the globe among those very people, ironically, who had too often been denied their full rights by Western powers. After the Second World War, people from Africa to India threw off the yoke of colonialism to secure their independence. In the United States, citizens took freedom rides and endured beatings to put an end to segregation and to secure their civil rights. As the Iron Curtain fell here in Europe, the iron fist of apartheid was unclenched, and Nelson Mandela emerged upright, proud, from prison to lead a multiracial democracy. Latin American nations rejected dictatorship and built new democracies, and Asian nations showed that development and democracy could go hand in hand.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)

Joseph Stalin photo
Hastings Ismay photo

“On NATO "I am convinced that the present solution is only a partial one, aimed at guarding the heart. It must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella."”

Hastings Ismay (1887–1965) Army officer

As Secretary General of NATO (1952 - 1957). See Smith, Robert. The NATO International Staff/Secretariat, 1952-1957. London: Oxford University Press, 1967, p. 65

Thomas the Apostle photo

“I have cast fire upon the world — and behold, I guard it until it is ablaze.”

Thomas the Apostle Apostle of Jesus Christ

10; as quoted in Studies in the Gospel of Thomas (1960) by Robert McLachlan Wilson http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/gospelthomas10.html
Variant translations:
I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am watching over it until it blazes.
As translated by Bentley Layton
Gospel of Thomas (c. 50? — c. 140?)

Napoleon I of France photo
Barack Obama photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
John Locke photo
Juvenal photo

“But who will guard the guardians themselves?”
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

VI, line 347
Variant translations:
But who is to guard the guards themselves?
Translated by Lewis Evans, in The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius (1861), p. 51
Who watches the watchmen?
Famous variant used in the graphic novel, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
The original context is that a husband might lock his wife in the house to prevent her adulteries, but she is cunning and will start with the guards; hence, who guards the guards? The phrase has come to be applied broadly to people or organisations acting against dishonesty or corruption, esp. in public life. See Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? at Wikipedia.
Satires, Satire VI

Barack Obama photo
Solón photo

“If through your vices you afflicted are,
Lay not the blame of your distress on God;
You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards,
So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Diogenes Laërtius (trans. C. D. Yonge) The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (1853), "Solon", sect. 5, p. 25.

Barack Obama photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Shaquille O'Neal photo

“And if the big dog ain't me, then the house won't get guarded—period.”

Shaquille O'Neal (1972) American basketball player

[Wise, Mike, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/11/sports/pro-basketball-tension-between-o-neal-and-bryant-is-rising-every-day.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm, PRO BASKETBALL; Tension Between O'Neal and Bryant Is Rising Every Day, January 11, 2001, The News York Times]
O'Neal implying his level of defensive play would drop if he were not the team's featured option on offense.

Barack Obama photo

“That’s what we must pray for, each of us: a new heart. Not a heart of stone, but a heart open to the fears and hopes and challenges of our fellow citizens. […] Because with an open heart, we can learn to stand in each other’s shoes and look at the world through each other’s eyes, so that maybe the police officer sees his own son in that teenager with a hoodie who's kind of goofing off but not dangerous and the teenager -- maybe the teenager will see in the police officer the same words and values and authority of his parents. With an open heart, we can abandon the overheated rhetoric and the oversimplification that reduces whole categories of our fellow Americans not just to opponents, but to enemies. With an open heart, those protesting for change will guard against reckless language going forward, look at the model set by the five officers we mourn today, acknowledge the progress brought about by the sincere efforts of police departments like this one in Dallas, and embark on the hard but necessary work of negotiation, the pursuit of reconciliation. With an open heart, police departments will acknowledge that, just like the rest of us, they are not perfect; that insisting we do better to root out racial bias is not an attack on cops, but an effort to live up to our highest ideals. […] With an open heart, we can worry less about which side has been wronged, and worry more about joining sides to do right. […] We can decide to come together and make our country reflect the good inside us, the hopes and simple dreams we share.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)

Barack Obama photo

“Lord — Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Note slipped into the Western Wall in Jerusalem (24 July 2008) http://www.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_9994539
2008

Barack Obama photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Thomas Campbell photo

“Ye mariners of England,
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Stanza 1
Ye Mariners of England http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Campbell/ye%20mariners_of_england.htm (1800)

Isaac Barrow photo
Oliver Goldsmith photo

“That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.”

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 5.

Barack Obama photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo

“Now the trickiest catch in the negro problem is the fact that it is really twofold. The black is vastly inferior. There can be no question of this among contemporary and unsentimental biologists—eminent Europeans for whom the prejudice-problem does not exist. But, it is also a fact that there would be a very grave and very legitimate problem even if the negro were the white man's equal. For the simple fact is, that two widely dissimilar races, whether equal or not, cannot peaceably coexist in the same territory until they are either uniformly mongrelised or cast in folkways of permanent and traditional personal aloofness. No normal being feels at ease amidst a population having vast elements radically different from himself in physical aspect and emotional responses. A normal Yankee feels like a fish out of water in a crowd of cultivated Japanese, even though they may be his mental and aesthetic superiors; and the normal Jap feels the same way in a crowd of Yankees. This, of course, implies permanent association. We can all visit exotic scenes and like it—and when we are young and unsophisticated we usually think we might continue to like it as a regular thing. But as years pass, the need of old things and usual influences—home faces and home voices—grows stronger and stronger; and we come to see that mongrelism won't work. We require the environing influence of a set of ways and physical types like our own, and will sacrifice anything to get them. Nothing means anything, in the end, except with reference to that continuous immediate fabric of appearances and experiences of which one was originally part; and if we find ourselves ingulphed by alien and clashing influences, we instinctively fight against them in pursuit of the dominant freeman's average quota of legitimate contentment.... All that any living man normally wants—and all that any man worth calling such will stand for—is as stable and pure a perpetuation as possible of the set of forms and appearances to which his value-perceptions are, from the circumstances of moulding, instinctively attuned. That is all there is to life—the preservation of a framework which will render the experience of the individual apparently relevant and significant, and therefore reasonably satisfying. Here we have the normal phenomenon of race-prejudice in a nutshell—the legitimate fight of every virile personality to live in a world where life shall seem to mean something.... Just how the black and his tan penumbra can ultimately be adjusted to the American fabric, yet remains to be seen. It is possible that the economic dictatorship of the future can work out a diplomatic plan of separate allocation whereby the blacks may follow a self-contained life of their own, avoiding the keenest hardships of inferiority through a reduced number of points of contact with the whites... No one wishes them any intrinsic harm, and all would rejoice if a way were found to ameliorate such difficulties as they have without imperilling the structure of the dominant fabric. It is a fact, however, that sentimentalists exaggerate the woes of the average negro. Millions of them would be perfectly content with servile status if good physical treatment and amusement could be assured them, and they may yet form a well-managed agricultural peasantry. The real problem is the quadroon and octoroon—and still lighter shades. Theirs is a sorry tragedy, but they will have to find a special place. What we can do is to discourage the increase of their numbers by placing the highest possible penalties on miscegenation, and arousing as much public sentiment as possible against lax customs and attitudes—especially in the inland South—at present favouring the melancholy and disgusting phenomenon. All told, I think the modern American is pretty well on his guard, at last, against racial and cultural mongrelism. There will be much deterioration, but the Nordic has a fighting chance of coming out on top in the end.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to James F. Morton (January 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 253
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.

Leonard Cohen photo

“They're lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle-class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"You Want It Darker"
You Want It Darker (2016)

Barack Obama photo

“We also know that centuries of racial discrimination -- of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow -- they didn’t simply vanish with the end of lawful segregation. They didn’t just stop when Dr. King made a speech, or the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were signed. Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress. But we know -- but, America, we know that bias remains. We know it. Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. […] Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And so when African Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be unequal treatment; when study after study shows that whites and people of color experience the criminal justice system differently, so that if you’re black you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested, more likely to get longer sentences, more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime; when mothers and fathers raise their kids right and have “the talk” about how to respond if stopped by a police officer -- “yes, sir,” “no, sir” -- but still fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door, still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in tragedy -- when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid. We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members again and again and again -- it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)

George S. Patton photo
Stefan Zweig photo
Aeschylus photo
Sappho photo

“A handsome man guards his image a while;
a good man will one day take on beauty.”

Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet

Fragment 50 Voigt
The Willis Barnstone translations, Exhortation to Learning

Thomas Mann photo

“Hold fast the time! Guard it, watch over it, every hour, every minute!”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

Source: The Beloved Returns (1939), Ch. 7
Context: Hold fast the time! Guard it, watch over it, every hour, every minute! Unregarded it slips away, like a lizard, smooth, slippery, faithless, a pixy wife. Hold every moment sacred. Give each clarity and meaning, each the weight of thine awareness, each its true and due fulfillment.

Bertrand Russell photo

“It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Idea of Righteousness"
1930s, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)
Context: With our present industrial technique we can, if we choose, provide a tolerable subsistence for everybody. We could also secure that the world's population should be stationary if we were not prevented by the political influence of churches which prefer war, pestilence, and famine to contraception. The knowledge exists by which universal happiness can be secured; the chief obstacle to its utilization for that purpose is the teaching of religion. Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific co-operation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

George Washington photo

“But, if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

This has sometimes been misquoted as: Guard against the postures of pretended patriotism.
1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Context: In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course, which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“The national government belongs to the whole American people, and where the whole American people are interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the national government.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Context: I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what concerns our people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests are as broad as the continent. I speak to you here in Kansas exactly as I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital problems are those which affect us all alike. The national government belongs to the whole American people, and where the whole American people are interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the national government. The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, I believe, mainly through the national government.

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“The other gods! The other gods! The gods of the outer hells that guard the feeble gods of earth!… Look away… Go back… Do not see! Do not see!”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Other Gods (1921)
Context: The other gods! The other gods! The gods of the outer hells that guard the feeble gods of earth!... Look away... Go back... Do not see! Do not see! The vengeance of the infinite abysses... That cursed, that damnable pit... Merciful gods of earth, I am falling into the sky!

Muhammad Ali Jinnah photo

“You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of democracy, social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Address to the officers and men of the 5th Heavy Ack Ack and 6th Light Ack Ack Regiments in Malir, Karachi (21 February 1948)
Context: You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of democracy, social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil. With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“We can not tolerate anything approaching a monopoly, especially in the necessaries of life, except on terms of such thoroughgoing governmental control as will absolutely safe guard every right of the public.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
Context: The greatest evils in our industrial system to-day are those which rise from the abuses of aggregated wealth; and our great problem is to overcome these evils and cut out these abuses. No one man can deal with this matter. It is the affair of the people as a whole. When aggregated wealth demands what is unfair, its immense power can be met only by the still greater power of the people as a whole, exerted in the only way it can be exerted, through the Government; and we must be resolutely prepared to use the power of the Government to any needed extent, even though it be necessary to tread paths which are yet untrod. The complete change in economic conditions means that governmental methods never yet resorted to may have to be employed in order to deal with them. We can not tolerate anything approaching a monopoly, especially in the necessaries of life, except on terms of such thoroughgoing governmental control as will absolutely safe guard every right of the public. Moreover, one of the most sinister manifestations of great corporate wealth during recent years has been its tendency to interfere and dominate in politics.

Barack Obama photo

“Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2011, Tucson Memorial Address (January 2011)
Context: Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, "when I looked for light, then came darkness." Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.

Napoleon I of France photo

“Bonaparte robs a nation of its independence: deposed as emperor, he is sent into exile, where the world’s anxiety still does not think him safely enough imprisoned, guarded by the Ocean.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

François-René de Chateaubriand, in Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848 – 1850), Book VI, Ch. 8 : Comparison of Washington and Bonaparte
About
Context: Bonaparte robs a nation of its independence: deposed as emperor, he is sent into exile, where the world’s anxiety still does not think him safely enough imprisoned, guarded by the Ocean. He dies: the news proclaimed on the door of the palace in front of which the conqueror had announced so many funerals, neither detains nor astonishes the passer-by: what have the citizens to mourn?
Washington's Republic lives on; Bonaparte’s empire is destroyed. Washington and Bonaparte emerged from the womb of democracy: both of them born to liberty, the former remained faithful to her, the latter betrayed her.

Pope Francis photo

“The Christian sees the Church as the Body of Christ, as the vessel that guards with absolute integrity the deposit of faith, as the faithful Spouse who communicates without addition or subtraction all that Christ entrusted.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Source: Catechesis http://www.arzbaires.org.ar/inicio/homilias/homilias2008.htm#49%BACongresoEucar%EDsticoInternacional given by Bergoglio at the 49th International Eucharistic Congress, in Quebec (18 July 2008)
Context: The Christian sees the Church as the Body of Christ, as the vessel that guards with absolute integrity the deposit of faith, as the faithful Spouse who communicates without addition or subtraction all that Christ entrusted. … The Church as a fully “sanctified” reality and capable of receiving and of communicating – without error or defect, from its own poverty and even with its own sins — the full sanctity of God, is not a “complement” or an “institutional addition” to Jesus Christ, but a full participation of his Incarnation, of His Life, of His Passion, death and Resurrection. … In defending its purity, its indefectibility, its sanctity as the bride, the Church is defending the “place” through which the gift of the life of God passes on to the world and the gift of the life of the world to God. This gift – the fullest expression of which is the Eucharist – is not another gift among ourselves but the supreme gift of the most intimate life of the Trinity that poured forth for the life of the world and the life of the world assumed by the Son that is offered to the Father.

Thomas Mann photo

“Irony, forsooth! Guard yourself, Engineer, from the sort of irony that thrives up here”

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 5
Context: Irony, forsooth! Guard yourself, Engineer, from the sort of irony that thrives up here; guard yourself altogether from taking on their mental attitude! Where irony is not a direct and classic device of oratory, not for a moment equivocal to a healthy mind, it makes for depravity, it becomes a drawback to civilization, an unclean traffic with the forces of reaction, vice and materialism.

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“May the merciful gods, if indeed there be such, guard those hours when no power of the will, or drug that the cunning of man devises, can keep me from the chasm of sleep. Death is merciful, for there is no return therefrom, but with him who has come back out of the nethermost chambers of night, haggard and knowing, peace rests nevermore.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, Hypnos (1922)
Context: May the merciful gods, if indeed there be such, guard those hours when no power of the will, or drug that the cunning of man devises, can keep me from the chasm of sleep. Death is merciful, for there is no return therefrom, but with him who has come back out of the nethermost chambers of night, haggard and knowing, peace rests nevermore. Fool that I was to plunge with such unsanctioned frensy into mysteries no man was meant to penetrate; fool or god that he was — my only friend, who led me and went before me, and who in the end passed into terrors which may yet be mine!

Barack Obama photo

“The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts. And it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe, and rejoice in the beauty of every soul. […] Do we act with compassion and empathy. […] we have to guard against any efforts to divide ourselves along sectarian lines or any other lines.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Address to the People of India (January 2015)
Context: The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts. And it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe, and rejoice in the beauty of every soul. [... ] Do we act with compassion and empathy. [... ] we have to guard against any efforts to divide ourselves along sectarian lines or any other lines.

Barack Obama photo

“Maybe we now realize the way racial bias can infect us even when we don't realize it, so that we're guarding against not just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: But I don't think God wants us to stop there. For too long, we’ve been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the present. Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career. Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate. Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal justice system and leads us to make sure that that system is not infected with bias; that we embrace changes in how we train and equip our police so that the bonds of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve make us all safer and more secure. Maybe we now realize the way racial bias can infect us even when we don't realize it, so that we're guarding against not just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal. So that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote. By recognizing our common humanity by treating every child as important, regardless of the color of their skin or the station into which they were born, and to do what’s necessary to make opportunity real for every American -- by doing that, we express God’s grace.

Jan van Riebeeck photo

“And as we are making our position stronger every day, it is to be hoped that they (Khoisan) will feel less inclined to disturb us, provided, however, that a strict watch be kept on everything and we remain on our guard in every direction, continuing with diligence at the fences and other defensive forts...”

Jan van Riebeeck (1619–1677) Dutch colonial governor

Precis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope, January 1659 - May 1662, Riebeeck's Journal, H. C. V. Leibrandt, Cape Town 1897, p. 86
On the 3rd of May 1658 Jan van Riebeeck gave further instructions to the men on Robben Island.

Helena Roerich photo

“To all these insanities will be added the most shameful—the intensified competition between male and female. We insist upon equal and full rights for women, but the servants of darkness will expel them from many fields of activity, even where they bring the most benefit. We have spoken about the many maladies in the world, but the renewed struggle between the male and female principles will be the most tragic. It is hard to imagine how disastrous this will be, for it is a struggle against evolution itself! What a high price humanity pays for every such opposition to evolution! In these convulsions the young generations are corrupted. Plato spoke about beautiful thinking, but what kind of beauty is possible when there is hostility between man and woman? Now is the time to think about equal and full rights, but darkness invades the tensed realms. However, all the dark attacks will serve a certain good purpose, for those who have been humiliated in Kali Yuga will be glorified in Satya Yuga. ...Let us remember that these years of Armageddon are the most intense, and one’s health should be especially guarded because the cosmic currents will increase many diseases. You must understand that this time is unique... It is near-sighted to think that if war is prevented all problems will be solved! There are those who think so and imagine that they can cheat evolution, not realizing that the worst war is in their own homes. However, there do exist places on Earth where evolution develops normally, and We are always there.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

286
Armageddon

Leon Trotsky photo
Jesus photo

“I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes.”

Jesus (-7–30 BC) Jewish preacher and religious leader, central figure of Christianity

10
Gnostic Gospels, Gospel of Thomas (c. 2nd century AD manuscript)

Abraham Lincoln photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.”

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

Victor Hugo photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Arturo Pérez-Reverte photo