Quotes about harm (1003 quotes, page 10)

“There is one great God and power that has made the world and all things therein, to whom you and I and all people owe their being and well-being, and to whom you and I must one day give an account for all that we do in this world. This great God has written his law in our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to love and help and do good to one another, and not to do harm and mischief one unto another.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

Letter to the Lenape Nation (18 October 1681); as published in William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania 1680 - 1684: A Documentary History, (1983) edited by Jean R. Soderlund, University of Pennsylvania Press
Context: There is one great God and power that has made the world and all things therein, to whom you and I and all people owe their being and well-being, and to whom you and I must one day give an account for all that we do in this world. This great God has written his law in our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to love and help and do good to one another, and not to do harm and mischief one unto another. Now this great God has been pleased to make me concerned in your parts of the world, and the king of the country where I live has given unto me a great province therein, but I desire to enjoy it with your friends, else what would the great God say to us, who has made us not to devour and destroy one another, but live soberly and kindly together in the world.
Now I would have you well observe, that I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice that has been too much exercised towards you by the people of these parts of the world, who have sought themselves, and to make great advantages by you, rather than be examples of justice and goodness unto you; which I hear has been matter of trouble to you and caused great grudgings and animosities, sometimes to the shedding of blood, which has made the great god angry. But I am not such man as is well known in my own country. I have great love and regard toward you, and I desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind just, and peaceable life; and the people I send are of the same mind, and shall in all things behave themselves accordingly.

Love , God , People , World

“For most Americans, ethical matters are usually discussed either in utilitarian terms of weighing competing goods or balancing benefits and harms, looking to the greatest good for the greatest number, or in moralist terms of rules, rights and duties, "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots." Our public ethical discourse is largely negative and "other-directed": We focus on condemning and avoiding misconduct by, or on correcting and preventing injustice to, other people, not on elevating or improving ourselves. How liberating and encouraging, then, to encounter an ethics focused on the question, "How to live?"”

Leon R. Kass (1939) American academic

and that situates what we call the moral life in the larger context of human flourishing. How eye-opening are arguments that suggest that happiness is not a state of passive feeling but a life of fulfilling activity, and especially of the unimpeded and excellent activity of our specifically human powers—of acting and making, of thinking and learning, of loving and befriending. How illuminating it is to see the ethical life discussed not in terms of benefits and harms or rules of right and wrong, but in terms of character, and to understand that good character, formed through habituation, is more than holding right opinions or having "good values," but is a binding up of heart and mind that both frees us from enslaving passions and frees us for fine and beautiful deeds. How encouraging it is to read an account of human life—the only such account in our philosophical tradition—that speaks at length and profoundly about friendship, culminating in the claim that the most fulfilling form of friendship is the sharing of speeches and thoughts.
Looking for an Honest Man (2009)

People

“The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

America's Drug Forum interview (1991)
Context: The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.
The case for is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it's in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they'll do you harm, why isn't it all right to say you must not eat too much because you'll do harm? Why isn't it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you're likely to die? Why isn't it all right to say, "Oh, skiing, that's no good, that's a very dangerous sport, you'll hurt yourself"? Where do you draw the line?

People

“It is impious to suppose that the divine is affected for good or ill by human things. The Gods are always good and always do good and never harm, being always in the same state and like themselves. The truth simply is that, when we are good, we are joined to the Gods by our likeness to live according to virtue we cling to the Gods, and when we become evil we make the Gods our enemies — not because they are angered against us, but because our sins prevent the light of the Gods from shining upon us, and put us in communion with spirits of punishment.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

XIV. In what sense, though the Gods never change, they are said to be made angry and appeased.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: If any one thinks the doctrine of the unchangeableness of the Gods is reasonable and true, and then wonders how it is that they rejoice in the good and reject the bad, are angry with sinners and become propitious when appeased, the answer is as follows: God does not rejoice — for that which rejoices also grieves; nor is he angered — for to be angered is a passion; nor is he appeased by gifts — if he were, he would be conquered by pleasure.
It is impious to suppose that the divine is affected for good or ill by human things. The Gods are always good and always do good and never harm, being always in the same state and like themselves. The truth simply is that, when we are good, we are joined to the Gods by our likeness to live according to virtue we cling to the Gods, and when we become evil we make the Gods our enemies — not because they are angered against us, but because our sins prevent the light of the Gods from shining upon us, and put us in communion with spirits of punishment. And if by prayers and sacrifices we find forgiveness of sins, we do not appease or change the Gods, but by what we do and by our turning toward the divine we heal our own badness and so enjoy again the goodness of the Gods. To say that God turns away from the evil is like saying that the sun hides himself from the blind.

God , Truth , Light , Evil

“Those who belong to the establishment need to know that no harm would come to them if they walk away. Otherwise, we end up with a Syria-like reality where those in power hold on for dear life.”

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

As quoted in Cnaan Liphshiz. Obama ‘chickened out’ of confronting mullahs http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=272989. The Jerusalem Post. July 6, 2012.
Interviews, 2012

Life , Reality

“The ruling clerics have repeatedly accused those of us striving for a secular alternative of leading a campaign against religion. This is, of course, not true. On the contrary, I would argue that it is in fact in the interest of religion and the clergy itself to have a separation of religion from government. Many of our high-ranking, non-governmental clergymen have attested to this fact for many years. Since the advent of Islam in Iran, the biggest harm done, not only to people, but to the faith itself, has been under this so-called Islamic regime – which I frankly prefer to call the anti-Islamic regime!”

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

“The Challenge Of Implementing Democracy And Human Rights In Iran” http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=437&page=1, The International Society Of Human Rights - Bonn, Germany, March 27, 2010.
Speeches, 2010

People , Faith , Religion

“Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.”

Ralph Smart

“Freedom is a God-given right. This means maximising liberty while minimising harm to others. Owning an AR-15 does no harm to others. Using it to kill people does. So murder is not a right. But property ownership — especially for defense — is.”

Raheem Kassam (1986) British journalist and politician

Twitter, 12:00 AM · Sep 2, 2019 https://mobile.twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1168161822014238720

God , People , Freedom

“Until this century, most of mankind lived in small communities. What each did could affect only a few others. But conditions have now changed. Each of us can now, in countless ways, affect countless other people. We can have real though small effects on thousands or millions of people. When these effects are widely dispersed, they may be either trivial, or imperceptible. It now makes a great difference whether we continue to believe that we cannot have greatly harmed r benefited others unless there are people with obvious grounds for resentment or gratitude.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 86

Gratitude , People , Communication , Way

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

Noah Levine (1971) American Buddhist teacher

The Heart of the Revolution (2011)

Forgiveness , Family , Betrayal , Selfishness

“It really was harmful because it makes it feel for women, for LGBTQ folks, for even white men too, that there are only these tokens and that’s not the case. What it does is reinforce white supremacy, it reinforces patriarchy. It’s harmful to everyone, not just the people who are being erased.”

Blair Imani (1993) American activist

On how only certain historical figures are highlighted during celebratory months in “A Conversation with Blair Imani” https://www.readitforward.com/author-interview/a-conversation-with-blair-imani/ in Read It Forward

People , Making love , Feeling , Women

“It is with considerable disappointment you cannot give the explanation of these aircraft as I felt certain they belonged to our government. They have apparently meant no harm, but used as an instrument of destruction in combination with our atomic bomb the effects could destroy life on our planet. ... We have not taken this lightly. It is to us of very serious concern, as we are as interested in the welfare of our country as you are.”

Kenneth Arnold (1915–1984) American aviator and businessman

In a telegram https://rr0.org/time/1/9/4/7/07/12/Arnold_Telegram/index.html to the Commanding General of Wright Field in Ohio, who requested information on his sighting of June 24, 1947.

Disappointment , Life , Country

“It is crystal clear that once victorious, socialism can never tolerate the personality cult and its harmful consequences. The energetic measures taken by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to do away with the personality cult, and its consequence, set a brilliant example of unprecedented political boldness.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

"Development of Ideological Unity Among Marxist Leninist Parties" (August 3, 1956)
1950's

Personality , Victory

“To have a good crop we must weed the field, otherwise the rice will grow badly in spite of careful ploughing and abundant manuring. To be successful in increasing production and practicing thrift, we must also weed the field, that is root out embezzlement, waste and bureaucracy. Otherwise they will harm our work.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

"To Practice Thrift and Oppose Embezzlement (1952)
1950's

Success

“I am not a person of color; I am not a citizen of a tribe; and I have apologized for confusion I’ve caused on tribal citizenship, tribal sovereignty, and for any harm that I’ve caused.”

Elizabeth Warren (1949) 28th United States Senator from Massachusetts

Quoted in Warren Faces Ancestry Question At Town Hall: ‘I Shouldn’t Have Done It. I Am Not A Person Of Color’ https://www.dailywire.com/news/warren-faces-ancestry-question-at-town-hall-i-shouldnt-have-done-it-i-am-not-a-person-of-color (December 8, 2019)
2019

Personality , Color

“But the blot on the encyclopedia’s fair name is not just in the wrongness of the statement, but in its partisan and non-encyclopedic nature…. If Wikipedia wants to live up to its promise of being a reliable encyclopedic source, it will strike this and all sentences resembling it from its article on me. At most, it can use me as an example of how it was fooled by some of its all-too-partisan collaborators. Speaking of whom: the history page accompanying my page proves forever that some Wikipedia collaborators wanted to inflict on me the maximum harm possible, an attitude incompatible with work for an encyclopedia. Shouldn’t Wikipedia fire them and wipe out everything they wrote? Of course they can still contribute blogs and columns, by preference under their own full names, but they have proven themselves not to be encyclopedic authorities. …”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2012/04/meera-nanda-against-hinduism-and-its.html
2010s, The argumentative Hindu (2012)

History , Fools , Nature

“It is with considerable disappointment you cannot give the explanation of these aircraft as I felt certain they belonged to our government. They have apparently meant no harm, but used as an instrument of destruction in combination with our atomic bomb the effects could destroy life on our planet. … We have not taken this lightly. It is to us of very serious concern, as we are as interested in the welfare of our country as you are.”

Kenneth Arnold (1915–1984) American aviator and businessman

Kenneth Arnold in a telegram https://rr0.org/time/1/9/4/7/07/12/Arnold_Telegram/index.html to the Commanding General of Wright Field in Ohio, who requested information on his sighting of June 24, 1947.

Disappointment , Life , Country

“Last night was a great night for the United States and for the World. A brutal killer, one who has caused so much hardship and death, was violently eliminated – he will never again harm another innocent man, woman or child. He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a much safer place.”

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

2010s, 2019, October, Statement on the Death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

World , Dogs , Death , Night

“We want the kind of world in which greedy people can do the least harm to their fellow men. That’s the kind of world in which power is widely dispersed and each of us has as many alternatives as possible.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“Interview with Milton Friedman”, Playboy magazine (Feb. 1973)

World , People , Men

“What kind of society isn’t structured on greed?… So the problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm. It seems to me that the great virtue of capitalism is that it’s that kind of system. Because under capitalism, the power of any one individual over his fellow man is relatively small.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“Interview with Milton Friedman”, Playboy magazine (Feb. 1973)

Problem

“The old saw is that the Quakers went to the New World to do good and ended up doing well. Today, well-meaning reformers go to Washington to do good and end up doing harm.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Source: An Economist's Protest: Columns in Political Economy (1966), p. 155

World

“The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Introduction, p. 3
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

“What harm have the trees done them?”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

he said. “Must they punish the grass for their own faults? Men are savages, who would set a land afire because they have a quarrel with other men.”
Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 9, "Orm Embar" (Arren)

Tree

“If man acted unkindly toward non-human beings only when he had to do so in order to avoid harm to himself—if he were as economical in his injuries to others as he would be if he had to endure them himself—the violence which to-day marks his dominion of the planet would be reduced to a mere vestige of what it is.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, p. 155

“I have seen a mother mouse in a moment of peril flee from her home among the falling pieces of a cord-wood pile, and disappear under the roots of a neighbouring oak. I have seen her a little later, recovered from her initial dismay, making her way back again, clambering along among the tangled timbers, stopping now and then to look and listen, her eyes wild and anxious, and her whole little body quaking with excitement. I have seen her go among the ruins of her dwelling, take a poor little squeaking young one in her mouth, and hurry away with it to the gloomy refuge in the roots of the oak. I have watched her return again and again, each time taking in her careful teeth the tiny body of a babe, until five mouthfuls of precious pink were safely lodged within the fortress of the oak. And I could as soon believe that woman, when she saves her children from some fearful harm, is a soulless machine as think that that brave little woodmother, out there alone under the trees, snatching her darlings from the jaws of death, was a heroine without sense or feeling.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"The Common-Sense View", pp. 184–185
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Psychical Kinship

Home , Tree , Time , Making love

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

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

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

Food , Indifference , Nature , Animals

“The great harm done by bourgeois society, as we have already mentioned, is not only that capitalists seize a large share of the profits of each industrial and commercial enterprise, thus enabling them to live without working, but that all reduction has taken a wrong direction, as it is not carried on with a view to securing well-being to all. For this reason we condemn it.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 8 : Ways and Means

“One of my greatest fears was the Witches, for while I had no magical powers at all I soon found out that the Witches were really able to do wonderful things. There were four of them in this country, and they ruled the people who live in the North and South and East and West. Fortunately, the Witches of the North and South were good, and I knew they would do me no harm; but the Witches of the East and West were terribly wicked, and had they not thought I was more powerful than they themselves, they would surely have destroyed me.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)

Fear , People , Country

“During my travels, I find a general belief that to turn a Christian is to turn European; to become self-willed, and give up self-restraint, use only foreign cloth, dress oneself in European style and start taking meat and brandy. But I think the fact is, if a person discards his country, his customs and his old connections and manners when he changes his religion, he becomes all the more unfit to gain a knowledge of God. For, a change of religion means really a conversion of the heart. When there is a real conversion, a man’s heart grows. But in this country one finds that conversion brings about deep disdain for one’s old religion and its followers, i. e., one’s old friends and relatives. The next change that takes place is that of dress and manners and behaviour. All that does great harm to the country.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Mahatma Gandhi in Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi,Volume 7, Varanasi, 1969, as quoted in Goel, S.R. History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)

God , Clothes , Religion , Country

“That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed. … We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents… But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in human friendliness. Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity…Hence we cannot possibly wish success to your arms…. But ours is a unique position. We resist British imperialism no less than Nazism… If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny… Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field… No spoliator can compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or unwilling, of the victim…. The rulers may have our land and bodies but not our souls…. We know what the British heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid… We have found in non-violence a force which, if organized, can without doubt match itself against a combination of all the most violent forces in the world… If not the British, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Letter to Hitler. 24 December 1940. Quoted from Koenraad Elst: Return of the Swastika (2007). (Also in https://web.archive.org/web/20100310135408/http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhihitler.html)
1940s

Childhood , Soul , Friendship , Success

“I served in a war in Iraq, a war that was launched based on lies and a war that was launched without evidence. And so the American people were duped… As a soldier, as an American, as a member of Congress, it is my duty and my responsibility to exercise skepticism any time anyone tries to send our service members into harm’s way or use our military to go in and start a new war.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Quoted by Kevin Gosztola in CNN Foreign Policy Gatekeepers Vilify Tulsi Gabbard for Her Anti-Intervention Dissent, Mintpress News https://www.mintpressnews.com/cnn-foreign-policy-gatekeepers-vilify-tulsi-gabbard-for-her-anti-intervention-dissent/256221/ (13 March 2019)
2019

Time , War , People , Way

“No child should ever be separated from their parent. No child should ever taken from their family. No woman should ever be locked up in a pen when they have done no harm to another human being.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

AOC quoted by The Hill, Twitter, https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1146082350725337089 (2 July 2019)
Twitter Quotes (2019), July 2019

Family , Parent

“I certainly hold an Iraqi national thought and I am an Arab belonging to Iraq. I do not believe in an Islamic state in Iraq. I believe that an Islamic state will harm Iraq a lot and may harm the region. Therefore, I look forward to having a national project in Iraq that controls the future of the country in a civilized and modern form and respects the heritage of Iraq.”

Ayad Allawi (1945) Iraqi politician

18 October 2005 https://www.aljazeera.net/programs/today-interview/2005/10/18/إياد-علاوي-الدستور-العراقي%20إياد%20علاوي..%20الدستور%20العراقي

Future , Country

“Thousands of jobs in the West Midlands depend on having a wise prime minister making sensible calls as to how we leave the EU promptly, but also in a way that does not harm business. I am that person.”

Jeremy Hunt (1966) British politician

Tory leadership: Jeremy Hunt says contest is about trust https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48721209 BBC News (21 June 2019)
2019

Dependency , Business , Personality , Way

“Humans are currently the dominant species on earth and exercise a great deal of power and control over nature. But very few believe might makes right, so the fact that we have greater power cannot enter into a justification of our use and treatment of animals. Rather, where other beings are under our power, we should feel obligated to show self-restraint and to act out of mercy and compassion. We cannot avoid causing harm to other beings in the process of living our own lives. Nor does morality consist in trying to be perfect and pure. But we can adopt an orientation toward minimizing the amount of harm we cause and taking full responsibility for it, seeing it for what it is. To justify animal experimentation is to start at one end of a continuum. Much of what we do will be morally acceptable (in our eyes), and we will chip away at the extremity where what we do shades into cruelty. I no longer believe that a general moral justification of animal experimentation can be given.”

Michael Allen Fox (1940)

" Animal Experimentation: A Philosopher's Changing Views https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1609&context=bts" (1987), in Between the Species, vol. 3, iss. 2, p. 59.

Nature , Animals , Self-confidence , Perfection

“As a Member of Parliament, he made a mark opposing policies he thought were harmful and was strongly against growth of monopolies with state patronage.”

Chandra Shekhar (1927–2007) Indian politician

PM Chandrashekhar - A firebrand idealist

“The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here—it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide out from under with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous, marks the difference—the only difference in their eyes—between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life, and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.”

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Source: Altered Carbon (2002), Chapter 15 (pp. 184-185, quoting the fictional work Things I Should Have Learned by Now, Volume II, written by story character Quellcrist Falconer)

Chance , Time , Justice , Business

“Manson arrived at the déjeuner given by the minister of Beaux Arts fantastically drunk—punctuated the ceremony with cat-calls and cock-a-doodle-doos, and finally staggered to his feet, hurled obscene insults at the company in general and the minister in particular, and precipitated himself on the ambassadress, Lady Phipps, some say with amorous intent others with lethal intent… the guests fled ices uneaten, coffee undrunk… I hope an example will be made, and that they will seize the opportunity for turning the sot out of the Tate, not because he is a sot, but because he has done nothing but harm to modern painting.”

James Bolivar Manson (1879–1945) British artist

Clive Bell, quoted in Frances Spalding, The Tate: A History (1998), pp. 62–70. Tate Gallery Publishing, London. ISBN 1854372319.

Painting , Hope , Art , Cats

“But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is a pathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy man means a lonely man—a man cut off from all companionship, all sociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Between him and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier—a strong, invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himself against. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on the other side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand. He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claim kindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another, and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them, but his prison walls move with him and hem him in on every side. In the busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid the many or amid the few—wherever men congregate together, wherever the music of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. His soul is full of love and longing, but the world knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and the man beneath is never seen. Genial words and hearty greetings are ever rising to his lips, but they die away in unheard whispers behind the steel clamps. His heart aches for the weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. Contempt and indignation against wrong choke up his throat, and finding no safety-valve whence in passionate utterance they may burst forth, they only turn in again and harm him. All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Soul , Hate , Business , Strong

“It just always reveals to me how many misconceptions and what a misunderstanding there is about what feminism is. Feminism is about demonizing. Feminism is a stick with which to beat other women with. It’s about oppression, it’s about hatred, it’s about harming men. I really don’t know what my tits have to do with it. It’s very confusing.”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

"Actress Emma Watson says revealing photo does not undermine feminism" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-emmawatson-idUSKBN16C0QV, Reuters, in response to critics of her photos in Vogue magazine (March 5, 2017)

Women , Men

“Segregation is not humiliating but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen. If your organization goes out and tells the colored people of the country that it is a humiliation, they will so regard it, but if you do not tell them so, and regard it rather as a benefit, they will regard it the same. The only harm that will come will be if you cause them to think it is a humiliation… If this organization is ever to have another hearing before me it must have another spokesman. Your manner offends me…”

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

Defending the re-segregation of federal offices, in Conference with members of the National Association for Equal Rights https://web.archive.org/web/20150315002852/http://friesian.com/presiden.htm#43 (November 1914)
1910s

Color , Thinking , People , Country

“People are rarely who they seem to be. Lurking beneath their polite, affable exterior is inevitably a dark, shadow side consisting of the insecurities and the aggressive, selfish impulses they repress and carefully conceal from public view. This dark side leaks out in behavior that will baffle and harm you. Learn to recognize the signs of the Shadow before they become toxic. See people’s overt traits—toughness, saintliness, et cetera—as covering up the opposite quality. You must become aware of your own dark side. In being conscious of it you can control and channel the creative energies that lurk in your unconscious. By integrating the dark side into your personality, you will be a more complete human and will radiate an authenticity that will draw people to you.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 9 : Confront Your Dark Side
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Selfishness , Drawing , Personality , People

“Your task as a student of human nature is to recognize and examine the dark side of your character. Once subjected to conscious scrutiny, it loses its destructive power. If you can learn to detect the signs of it in yourself (see the following sections for help on this), you can channel this darker energy into productive activity. You can turn your neediness and vulnerability into empathy. You can channel your aggressive impulses into worthwhile causes and into your work. You can admit your ambitions, your desires for power, and not act so guiltily and stealthily. You can monitor your suspicious tendencies and the projection of your own negative emotions onto others. You can see that selfish and harmful impulses dwell within you as well, that you are not as angelic or strong as you imagine. With this awareness will come balance and greater tolerance for others.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 9 : Confront Your Dark Side
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Selfishness , Imagination , Strong , Help

“As part of this experiment we must not only accept human nature but work with what we have to make it productive. We inevitably feel the need for status and recognition, so let’s not deny it. Instead, let’s cultivate such status and recognition through our excellent work. We must accept our need to belong to the group and prove our loyalty, but let’s do it in more positive ways—by questioning group decisions that will harm it in the long run, by supplying divergent opinions, by steering the group in a more rational direction, gently and strategically.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 14 : Resist the Downward Pull of the Group
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Question , Nature , Decision , Way

“Happy people do not cause harm to others. If everyone who was born upon this earth focused on their own alignment and their own joy so much that they never became separated from it, there would be no war.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

War , Joy , People , Happiness

“Always fatuity, vulgarity, as soon as human passion is touched. […] Just as some poetry is of the eye (form, colour) and some of the ear, so Keats is of the palate. Not only has he constant reference to its pleasures, but the general sensation after reading him is one of tasting. 'What's the harm?”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Well, taste for some reason or the other can't carry one far into the world of beauty—that reason being perhaps that though you don't want comradership there you do want the possibility of comradership, and A cannot swallow B's mouthful by any possibility:....and this exclusiveness (to maunder on) also attaches to the physical side of sex though not the least to the spiritual.
Letter 162, to Malcolm Darling, 1 December 1916
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

Pleasure , Reading , Passion