“I can be on guard against my enemies, but God deliver me from my friends!”
In response to George Henry Lewes (LL, II, v, 272); Miriam Farris Allott (1974), The Brontës, the critical heritage, page 160;
“I can be on guard against my enemies, but God deliver me from my friends!”
In response to George Henry Lewes (LL, II, v, 272); Miriam Farris Allott (1974), The Brontës, the critical heritage, page 160;
1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)
And I said, "Mr. Atto, you underestimated our God."
Web Archives: Homestead.co, "General Boykin Bio" http://web.archive.org/web/20040207103627/www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/generalboykin.html, Jan, 2003.
"The Biblical Text in the Making", p. 1
Recollections of Thomas R. Marshall: A Hoosier Salad (1925), Chapter XIV
During a 34 - 8 rout vs. the Patriots on November 17, 1996 CNN, SI.com - NFL - Shannon Sharpe career retrospective - Monday May 17, 2004 10:38PM http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/football/nfl/05/17/sharpe.retrospective/index.html,
2010s, 2015, Address to the United States Congress (March 2015)
Source: 2010s, Marked for Death (2012), Ch. 1: "The Axe Versus the Pen", pp. 4–5
(1838 2) (Vol 53) Subjects for Pictures - The Zegri Lady’s Vigil
The Monthly Magazine
“"Although," said he [Cato], "all the world has fallen under one man's sway, although Caesar's legions guard the land, his fleets the sea, and Caesar's troops beset the city gates, yet Cato has a way of escape; with one single hand he will open a wide path to freedom. This sword, unstained and blameless even in civil war, shall at last do good and noble service: the freedom which it could not give to his country it shall give to Cato!”
"Licet," inquit, "omnia in unius dicionem concesserint, custodiantur legionibus terrae, classibus maria, Caesarianus portas miles obsideat; Cato qua exeat habet; una manu latam libertati viam faciet. Ferrum istud, etiam civili bello purum et innoxium, bonas tandem ac nobiles edet operas: libertatem, quam patriae non potuit, Catoni dabit.
De Providentia (On Providence), 2.10; translation by John W. Basore
Moral Essays
Speech to the Women's National Liberal Association Conference, Memorial Hall, London (12 June 1901), quoted in The Times (13 June 1901), p. 12.
1900s
" Declaration of Emergency https://governor.maryland.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/EO01.01.2015.16.pdf" (27 April 2015).
Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 216 (1993)
Speech at Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris, 24 September 1936, "Thank God For the French Army"
Quoted in Never Give In!: Winston Churchill's Speeches https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bcKOAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA111&ots=Xh9ffWodWa&dq=churchill%20better%20men%20than%20we%20have%20not%20died%20on%20the%20scaffold%20or%20the%20battlefield&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q&f=false (2013), p. 111. ISBN 9781472520852
The 1930s
“It is a strong castle, and strongly guarded; but there is no impossibility to brave men.”
Quentin Durward (1823), Ch. 3.
1920s, Ordered Liberty and World Peace (1924)
24
Pythagorean Ethical Sentences
"Donkeys," said Nasrudin.
N. Hanif (ed.), Biographical Encyclopaedia of Sufis: Central Asia and Middle East (2002), ISBN 8176252662, p. 335
"Kanan Makiya speaks about Iraq 5 years later...", Washington Post (March 20, 2008)
Source: American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 (1978), p. 709
“Once I have forsaken the vow of guarding my mind, of what use are many vows to me?”
§ 5.18
Bodhicaryavatara, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life
And I'll tell you, straight in the eye:
D.I.Y., D.I.Y.
D.I.Y
Song lyrics, Peter Gabriel (II) (1978)
Memorandum from approximately the beginning of 1576.
Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London: Jonathan Cape, 1960), p. 166.
Lord Kiely and Major General Arthur Wellesley, p. 218
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)
Source: The Bhagavadgītā (1973), p. 75. (10.)
1920s, The Genius of America (1924)
"Announcifications From Your Publicatorialist: Wikipedia, Missouri, and Ceres," http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle510-20090315-04.html
15 March 2009.
Address at Illinois College (1881)
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Ex-Irish Taoiseach Haughey dies http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3001775.stm (BBC News online)
In a television documentary in the 1980s.
Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), pp. 125-126
Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend
“I'll know his inmost aims and (doubt me not)
extract the guarded mysteries of his mind.”
Vantomi in lui scoprir gl'intimi sensi,
E i secreti pensier trargli del petto.
Canto XVIII, stanza 59 (tr. Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
“Under democracy individual liberty of opinion and action is jealously guarded.”
Young India (2 March 1922)
1920s
Lord Kiely, p. 89
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)
Jewish War
The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com/election-2013/2013/04/30/936727/chiz-visit-mindanao-visayas-kris-aquino
2013, Mid-Term Campaign Trail
“He that loves thee, He that keeps
And guards thee, never slumbers, never sleeps.”
Good Night (1632).
“beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be guarded.”
[Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, McClelland & Stewart, 2015, 078-0-7710-7052-5, 127]
There Will Be War (1983)
Assorted
"Livingstone isolated after refusal to back down in Nazi jibe row" by Hugh Muir in The Guardian (16 February 2005), p. 2.
The Ethics of Belief (1877), The Duty of Inquiry
Context: Belief, that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves but for humanity. It is rightly used on truths which have been established by long experience and waiting toil, and which have stood in the fierce light of free and fearless questioning. Then it helps to bind men together, and to strengthen and direct their common action. It is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements, for the solace and private pleasure of the believer; to add a tinsel splendour to the plain straight road of our life and display a bright mirage beyond it; or even to drown the common sorrows of our kind by a self-deception which allows them not only to cast down, but also to degrade us. Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his beliefs with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away.
It is not only the leader of men, statesmen, philosopher, or poet, that owes this bounden duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. Every hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit to her children beliefs which shall knit society together, or rend it in pieces. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.
It is true that this duty is a hard one, and the doubt which comes out of it is often a very bitter thing. It leaves us bare and powerless where we thought that we were safe and strong. To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances. We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, than when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn. And if we have supposed ourselves to know all about anything, and to be capable of doing what is fit in regard to it, we naturally do not like to find that we are really ignorant and powerless, that we have to begin again at the beginning, and try to learn what the thing is and how it is to be dealt with — if indeed anything can be learnt about it. It is the sense of power attached to a sense of knowledge that makes men desirous of believing, and afraid of doubting.
1950s, First Inaugural Address (1953)
Context: We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. We must acquire proficiency in defense and display stamina in purpose. We must be willing, individually and as a Nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. These basic precepts are not lofty abstractions, far removed from matters of daily living. They are laws of spiritual strength that generate and define our material strength. Patriotism means equipped forces and a prepared citizenry. Moral stamina means more energy and more productivity, on the farm and in the factory. Love of liberty means the guarding of every resource that makes freedom possible--from the sanctity of our families and the wealth of our soil to the genius of our scientists.
“Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.”
Thermopylae http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=69&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they are rich, and when they are poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.
“He sets a thief to guard his purse
Who trusts a dial with his hours”
The Golden Ass (1999)
Context: He sets a thief to guard his purse
Who trusts a dial with his hours
Or bids a sand-glass bleed away his nights,
His days, his loves, his pleasures and his powers.
The burthen of his years
Is Time's soft footfall, Time's soft
Falling
Through his joys and tears.
Letter to his son http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/01/03/robert-e-Lee-owned-slaves-and-defended-slavery/, G. W. Custis Lee (23 January 1861).
1860s
Context: I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It is intended for 'perpetual Union,' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession: anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and all the other patriots of the Revolution. … Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and, save in defense will draw my sword on none.
Book II, Ch. 12
My Antonia (1918)
Context: On starlight nights I used to pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little, sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered back porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly built of light wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by the turning-lathe. Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envy and unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went on in them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to save cooking, to save washing and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongue of gossip. This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark.
Source: Into the Wild (1996), Ch. 14.
Context: Early on a difficult climb, especially a difficult solo climb, you constantly feel the abyss pulling at your back. To resist takes a tremendous conscious effort; you don't dare let your guard down for an instant. The siren song of the void puts you on edge; it makes your movements tentative, clumsy, herky-jerky. But as the climb goes on, you grow accustomed to the exposure, you get used to rubbing shoulders with doom, you come to believe in the reliability of your hands and feet and head. You learn to trust your self-control. By and by your attention becomes so intensely focused that you no longer notice the raw knuckles, the cramping thighs, the strain of maintaining nonstop concentration. A trancelike state settles over your efforts; the climb becomes a clear-eyed dream. Hours slide by like minutes. The accumulated clutter of day-to-day existence — the lapses of conscience, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the inescapable prison of your genes — all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose and by the seriousness of the task at hand. At such moments something resembling happiness actually stirs in your chest, but it isn't the sort of emotion you want to lean on very hard. In solo climbing the whole enterprise is held together with little more than chutzpah, not the most reliable adhesive.
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 108.
Context: There are two ways of defending a castle; one by shutting yourself up in it, and guarding every loop-hole; the other by making it an open centre of operations from which all the surrounding country may be subdued. Is not the last the truest safety? Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness. There never was such an open life as His; and yet the force with which His character and love flowed out upon the world kept back, more strongly than any granite wall of prudent caution could have done, the world from pressing in on Him. His life was like an open stream which keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea. He was so anxious that the world should be saved that therein was His salvation from the world. He labored so to make the world pure that He never even had to try to be pure Himself.
Leaves Of Morya's Garden (1924 - 1925), Book I : The Call (1924)
Context: By holiness in life, guard the precious Gem of Gems.
Aum Tat Sat Aum!
I am thou, thou art I — parts of the Divine Self.
My Warriors! Life thunders — be watchful.
Danger! The soul hearkens to its warning!
The world is in turmoil — strive for salvation.
I invoke blessings unto you.
Salvation will be yours!
Life nourishes the soul.
Strive for the life glorified,
and for the realization of purity.
Put aside all prejudices — think freely.
Be not downcast but full of hope.
Flee not from life, but walk the path of salvation.
Preface
The Right to Be Happy (1927)
Context: It has taken us centuries of thought and mockery to shake the medieval system; thought and mockery here and now are required to prevent the mechanists from building another. Without falling into a mystical vitalism that reverences organic nature as sacred, we can at least try rather to serve than to subdue the prancing seas of life. With this in view I have taken as impulses, instincts, or needs certain driving forces in the human species as we know it at present, and argued for such social and economic changes as will give them new, free, and varied expression. To take even this first step towards a happy society is a herculean task. After it has been accomplished, generations to come will see what the creature will do next. We none of us know; and we should be thoroughly on our guard against all those who pretend that they do.
Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: It has always been fatal when somebody finds out too much too suddenly. If John Huss had cackled more like a hen, he might have survived Michaelmas, and been esteemed for his eggs. The last fifty years have laid the axe of analysis to the root of every axiom; they are triflers who content themselves with lopping the blossoming twigs of our beliefs, or the boughs of our intellectual instruments. We can no longer assert any single proposition, unless we guard ourselves by enumerating countless conditions which must be assumed.
"Love and Its Loveless Counterfeits"
Strictly Personal (1953)
Context: The principal difference between love and hate is that love is an irradiation, and hate is a concentration. Love makes everything lovely; hate concentrates itself on the object of its hatred. All the fearful counterfeits of love — possessiveness, lust, vanity, jealousy — are closer to hate: they concentrate on the object, guard it, suck it dry.
"Childhood".
Silex Scintillans (1655)
Context: Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span
Where weeping Virtue parts with man;
Where love without lust dwells, and bends
What way we please without self-ends. An age of mysteries! which he
Must live that would God's face see
Which angels guard, and with it play,
Angels! which foul men drive away.
"Psychoanalyse und Soziologie" (1929); published as "Psychoanalysis and Sociology" as translated by Mark Ritter, in Critical Theory and Society : A Reader (1989) edited by S. E. Bronner and D. M. Kellner
Context: The application of psychoanalysis to sociology must definitely guard against the mistake of wanting to give psychoanalytic answers where economic, technical, or political facts provide the real and sufficient explanation of sociological questions. On the other hand, the psychoanalyst must emphasize that the subject of sociology, society, in reality consists of individuals, and that it is these human beings, rather than abstract society as such, whose actions, thoughts, and feelings are the object of sociological research.
Introduction
Your Movie Sucks (2007)
Context: Some of these reviews were written in joyous zeal. Others with glee. Some in sorrow, some in anger, and a precious few with venom, of which I have a closely guarded supply. When I am asked, all too frequently, if I really sit all the way through these movies, my answer is inevitably: Yes, because I want to write the review.
I would guess that I have not mentioned my Pulitzer Prize in a review except once or twice since 1975, but at the moment I read Rob Schneider's extremely unwise open letter to Patrick Goldstein, I knew I was receiving a home-run pitch, right over the plate. Other reviews were written in various spirits, some of them almost benevolently, but of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, all I can say is that it is a movie made to inspire the title of a book like this.
Verse 17.
To Demonicus
Context: Guard yourself against accusations, even if they are false; for the multitude are ignorant of the truth and look only to reputation. In all things resolve to act as though the whole world would see what you do; for even if you conceal your deeds for the moment, later you will be found out. But most of all will you have the respect of men, if you are seen to avoid doing things which you would blame others for doing.
The Ides of March http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=86&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
“If on your guards your lingering hopes repose,
Your guards are men, and men you've made your foes”
The Conspiracy of Kings (1792)
Context: Once draw the sword; its burning point shall bring
To thy quick nerves a never-ending sting;
The blood they shed thy weight of wo shall swell,
And their grim ghosts for ever with thee dwell. Learn hence, ye tyrants, ere ye learn too late,
Of all your craft th' inevitable fate.
The hour is come, the world's unclosing eyes
Discern with rapture where its wisdom lies;
From western heav'ns th' inverted Orient springs,
The morn of man, the dreadful night of kings.
Dim, like the day-struck owl, ye grope in light,
No arm for combat, no resource in sight;
If on your guards your lingering hopes repose,
Your guards are men, and men you've made your foes;
If to your rocky ramparts ye repair,
De Launay's fate can tell your fortune there.
No turn, no shift, no courtly arts avail,
Each mask is broken, all illusions fail;
Driv'n to your last retreat of shame and fear,
One counsel waits you, one relief is near :
By worth internal, rise to self-wrought fame,
Your equal rank, your human kindred claim;
'Tis Reason's choice, 'tis Wisdom's final plan,
To drop the monarch and assume the man.
Boston Massacre Oration (1774)
Context: A well-disciplined militia is a safe, an honorable guard to a community like this, whose inhabitants are by nature brave, and are laudably tenacious of that freedom in which they were born. From a well-regulated militia we have nothing to fear; their interest is the same with that of the State. When a country is invaded, the militia are ready to appear in its defense; they march into the field with that fortitude which a consciousness of the justice of their cause inspires; they do not jeopard their lives for a master who considers them only as the instruments of his ambition, and whom they regard only as the daily dispenser of the scanty pittance of bread and water. No; they fight for their houses, their lands, for their wives, their children; for all who claim the tenderest names, and are held dearest in their hearts; they fight pro aris et focis, for their liberty, and for themselves, and for their God.
1960s, Farewell address (1961)
Context: Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
The Evolution of A Revolt (1920)
Context: It seemed that rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it: such a base as we had in the Red Sea Parts, the desert, or in the minds of the men we converted to our creed. It must have a sophisticated alien enemy, in the form of a disciplined army of occupation too small to fulfill the doctrine of acreage: too few to adjust number to space, in order to dominate the whole area effectively from fortified posts. It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy. Rebellions can be made by 2 per cent. active in a striking force, and 98 per cent. passively sympathetic. The few active rebels must have the qualities of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply. They must have the technical equipment to destroy or paralyze the enemy’s organized communications, for irregular war is fairly Willisen’s definition of strategy, “the study of communication” in its extreme degree, of attack where the enemy is not.
Source: Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche (1994), The Self, p. 324 - 325
Independence Day speech (1828)
Context: Is there a thought can fill the human mind
More pure, more vast, more generous, more refined
Than that which guides the enlightened patriot's toll:
Not he, whose view is bounded by his soil;
Not he, whose narrow heart can only shrine
The land — the people that he calleth mine;
Not he, who to set up that land on high,
Will make whole nations bleed, whole nations die;
Not he, who, calling that land's rights his pride
Trampleth the rights of all the earth beside;
No: — He it is, the just, the generous soul!
Who owneth brotherhood with either pole,
Stretches from realm to realm his spacious mind,
And guards the weal of all the human kind,
Holds freedom's banner o'er the earth unfurl'd
And stands the guardian patriot of a world!
The Guardian [UK] (23 May 1992)
Context: We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. If you're looking for personal security, far better to move to the suburbs than to pay taxes in New York.
Concurring in New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971).
Context: The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security ….
The Gentle Falcon (1957)
Context: I was a lonely child though there were children in plenty on our land. But my nurse forbade me to play with them. She guarded my dignity; more than my mother, indeed, who being so great a lady took dignity for granted.
But in any case there was little time for them to play. There was work for even the smallest upon our land; some of our peasants had run away, tempted by ever-rising wages. Wages fixed by law were certainly low; but, like many another ruined in the French wars, we had no money to pay a penny more than the law laid down. All over the country men were running away from their masters and the land lost as many laborers as by the Black Death itself. <!-- p. 14
Spiritual Freedom http://www.americanunitarian.org/spiritualfreedom.htm (1830)
Context: I call that mind free, which masters the senses, which protects itself against animal appetites, which contemns pleasure and pain in comparison to its own energy, which penetrates beneath the body and recognises its own reality and greatness, which passes life, not in asking what it shall eat or drink, but in hungering, thirsting, and seeking after righteousness.
I call that mind free, which escapes the bondage of matter, which, instead of stopping at the material universe and making it a prison wall, passes beyond it to its Author, and finds in the radiant signatures which everywhere bears of the Infinite Spirit, helps to its own spiritual enlightenment.
I call that mind free, which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven.
I call that mind free, which sets no bounds to its love, which is not imprisoned in itself or in a sect, which recognises in all human beings the image of God and the rights of his children, which delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering wherever they are seen, which conquers pride, anger, and sloth, and offers itself up a willing victim to the cause of mankind.
State of the Union Address (12 January 1977) http://www.ford.utexas.edu/library/speeches/761057.htm
1970s
Context: The exclusive right to declare war, the duty to advise and consent on the part of the Senate, the power of the purse on the part of the House are ample authority for the legislative branch and should be jealously guarded. But because we may have been too careless of these powers in the past does not justify congressional intrusion into, or obstruction of, the proper exercise of Presidential responsibilities now or in the future. There can be only one Commander in Chief. In these times crises cannot be managed and wars cannot be waged by committee, nor can peace be pursued solely by parliamentary debate. To the ears of the world, the President speaks for the Nation. While he is, of course, ultimately accountable to the Congress, the courts, and the people, he and his emissaries must not be handicapped in advance in their relations with foreign governments as has sometimes happened in the past.
Written statement (September 1937), p. 70
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Context: Our time is distinguished by wonderful achievements in the fields of scientific understanding and the technical application of those insights. Who would not be cheered by this? But let us not forget that human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind.
What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy in living.
Speech to Pilgrims of the United States (16 September 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102462 regarding the Soviet Union
Leader of the Opposition
Context: I am all for the spirit behind this, for easier contacts and the freer movement of people. I am for détente—who is not? I am also for attente, for wanting to see results; for not letting down our guard; for keeping our powder dry. Let them show us that they will practise what they preach, about reducing the threat of war, about non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.
Speaking on right-to-work laws in 1961, as quoted in Now Is the Time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Labor in the South: The Case for a Coalition (January 1986)
1960s
Context: In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right to work.' It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. It is supported by Southern segregationists who are trying to keep us from achieving our civil rights and our right of equal job opportunity. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.
Introduction : The Reason for the Examination
A Perplexed Philosopher (1892)
Context: The respect for authority, the presumption in favor of those who have won intellectual reputation, is within reasonable limits, both prudent and becoming. But it should not be carried too far, and there are some things especially as to which it behooves us all to use our own judgment and to maintain free minds. For not only does the history of the world show that undue deference to authority has been the potent agency through which errors have been enthroned and superstitions perpetuated, but there are regions of thought in which the largest powers and the greatest acquirements cannot guard against aberrations or assure deeper insight. One may stand on a box and look over the heads of his fellows, but he no better sees the stars. The telescope and the microscope reveal depths which to the unassisted vision are closed. Yet not merely do they bring us no nearer to the cause of suns and animal-cula, but in looking through them the observer must shut his eyes to what lies about him. That intension is at the expense of extension is seen in the mental as in the physical sphere. A man of special learning may be a fool as to common relations. And that he who passes for an intellectual prince may be a moral pauper there are examples enough to show.
Dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1928). The last sentence is one of many quotations inscribed on Cox Corridor II, a first floor House corridor, U.S. Capitol.
Judicial opinions
Context: The defendants' objections to the evidence obtained by wire-tapping must, in my opinion, be sustained. It is, of course, immaterial where the physical connection with the telephone wires leading into the defendants' premises was made. And it is also immaterial that the intrusion was in aid of law enforcement. Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
Nicodemus The Poet, The Youngest Of The Elders In The Sanhedrim: On Fools And Jugglers
Jesus, The Son of Man (1928)
Context: Am I less man because I believe in a greater man?
The barriers of flesh and bone fell down when the Poet of Galilee spoke to me; and I was held by a spirit, and was lifted to the heights, and in midair my wings gathered the song of passion.
And when I dismounted from the wind and in the Sanhedrim my pinions were shorn, even then my ribs, my featherless wings, kept and guarded the song. And all the poverties of the lowlands cannot rob me of my treasure.
I have said enough. Let the deaf bury the humming of life in their dead ears. I am content with the sound of His lyre, which He held and struck while the hands of His body were nailed and bleeding.
Address to the United Nations (1964)
Context: We speak out to put the world on guard against what is happening in South Africa. The brutal policy of apartheid is applied before the eyes of the nations of the world. The peoples of Africa are compelled to endure the fact that on the African continent the superiority of one race over another remains official policy, and that in the name of this racial superiority murder is committed with impunity. Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?
Ch. 18 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s17.html
1780s, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)
Context: The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many. Let it be the study, therefore, of lawgivers and philosophers, to enlighten the people's understandings and improve their morals, by good and general education; to enable them to comprehend the scheme of government, and to know upon what points their liberties depend; to dissipate those vulgar prejudices and popular superstitions that oppose themselves to good government; and to teach them that obedience to the laws is as indispensable in them as in lords and kings.
As quoted by Mark Pitzke, 'Iran Is My True and Only Home' http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/iran-s-crown-prince-reza-pahlavi-iran-is-my-true-and-only-home-a-641984-2.html, August 12, 2009.
Interviews, 2009
Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), p. 112
Book III, Sect. 22, as translated by Andrew P. Peabody
De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC)
On how he’s nostalgic about Cuba in “Andy Garcia Interview - Up Close And Personal” https://www.lasplash.com/publish/Celebrity_Talk_102/Andy_Garcia_Interview_-_Up_Close_And_Personal.php in Splash Magazines