Quotes about harm
page 5

Democritus photo

“The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other; for envy creates the beginning of strife.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Freeman (1948), p. 166
Variant: Envy is the cause of political division.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

D 5
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook D (1773-1775)

Włodzimierz Ptak photo

“People spend unnecessarily high amounts of money on drugs or supplements that support immunity (for example, fashionable Japanese ginkgo – there is no evidence that it works), meanwhile they do more harm to themselves by their way of life, for example by inadequate diet.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Mazurek, Maria (7 July 2017): Cudowna armia, która broni naszego ciała http://plus.gazetakrakowska.pl/magazyn/a/cudowna-armia-ktora-broni-naszego-ciala,12271571. Gazeta Krakowska (in Polish), pp. 18–19.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Milton Friedman photo
Niklaus Wirth photo

“Go To statement considered harmful.”

Niklaus Wirth (1934) Swiss computer scientist

Often attributed to Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, but it was the title to a letter in CACM 11, 3 (March, 1968). However The original title of " A Case against the GO TO Statement http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD02xx/EWD215.html" (EWD215, PDF here http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD215.PDF, ACM has its own copy http://www.acm.org/classics/oct95 online) was changed by the editor Niklaus Wirth, to speed up publication. Dijkstra explains it himself in EWD1308 http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/EWD1308.html (see near the end of the article).

James I of England photo
Matt Rosendale photo
George Long photo

“It is an undoubted truth that, if a thing is not learned well, there is more harm done than good acquired.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I

John Harvey Kellogg photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”

"Runaround" in Astounding Science Fiction (March 1942); later published in I, Robot (1950)
The Three Laws of Robotics (1942)
Variant: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Thomas Robert Malthus photo
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi photo

“Anyone harms you will be wiped from the face of Earth.”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

El-Sisi addressing the Egyptians. http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-hikes-assault-muslim-brotherhood-182705477.html
2013

Luís de Camões photo

“To this old song:
Partridge lost his quill,
there's no harm won't befall him.

Partridge, whose winged fancy
aspired to a high estate,
lost a feather in his flight
and won the pen of despondency.
He finds in the breeze no buoyancy
for his pennants to haul him:
there's no harm won't befall him.

He wished to soar to a high tower
but found his plumage clipped,
and, observing himself plucked,
pines away in despair.
If he cries out for succor,
stoke the fire to forestall him:
there's no harm won't befall him.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

<p>Perdigão perdeu a pena
Não há mal que lhe não venha.</p><p>Perdigão que o pensamento
Subiu a um alto lugar,
Perde a pena do voar,
Ganha a pena do tormento.
Não tem no ar nem no vento
Asas com que se sustenha:
Não há mal que lhe não venha.</p><p>Quis voar a üa alta torre,
Mas achou-se desasado;
E, vendo-se depenado,
De puro penado morre.
Se a queixumes se socorre,
Lança no fogo mais lenha:
Não há mal que lhe não venha.</p>
"Perdigão que o pensamento", tr. Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 251
Listen to the poem in Portuguese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P4_2W-ZwV8&feature=youtu.be&t=10m31s
Lyric poetry, Songs (redondilhas)

“The World is a very complex system. It is easy to have too simple a view of it, and it is easy to do harm and to make things worse under the impulse to do good and make things better.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Kenneth Boulding (1986) "Proceedings of the 7th Friends Association for Higher Education Conference, Malone College, 1986" p. 4, quoted in Debora Hammond, The Science of Synthesis, Colorado: University of Colorado Press, 2003.
1980s

Bernard Lewis photo
J. B. S. Haldane photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Ingrid Newkirk photo
Herman Kahn photo

“No tool is more beneficial than intelligence. No enemy is more harmful than ignorance.”

Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid (948–1022) scholar

http://encarta.msn.com/quote_561557126/Intelligence_No_tool_is_more_beneficial_than.html
The Book of Guidance into the Lives of the Twelve Imams, 1981, "The Life of the Commander of the Faithful" (I. K. A. Howard (tr.)).

Diane Abbott photo

“On balance Mao did more good than harm.”

Diane Abbott (1953) British Labour Party politician

On BBC One's This Week during a debate over who was the history's worst dictator. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/11/27/diane-abbott-said-on-balance-mao-did-more-good-than-harm_n_8660910.html (27/11/2015)
2010s, 2015

Robert Sheckley photo
Cokie Roberts photo
Francis Bacon photo
Hafizullah Amin photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo
Georges Braque photo
Raymond Poincaré photo

“Only now do I understand the harm done our nation's best interests by the rebuff administered to Poincaré's policy in 1924.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Léon Blum, quoted in Pertinax [André Géraud], The Gravediggers of France (1944), p. 374.
About

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi photo
Peter Kropotkin photo

“The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

"Words of a Rebel"; as quoted in The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations: Cutting Comments on Burning Issues (1992) by Charles Bufe, p. 26

Barry Goldwater photo
George Long photo
Bernard Lewis photo

“What we have now come to regard as typical of Middle Eastern regimes is not typical of the past. The regime of Saddam Hussein, the regime of Hafiz al Assad, this kind of government, this kind of society, has no roots either in the Arab or in the Islamic past. It is due and let me be quite specific and explicit it is due to an importation from Europe, which comes in two phases.
Phase one, the 19th century, when they are becoming aware of their falling behind the modern world and need desperately to catch up, so they adopt all kinds of European devices with the best of intentions, which nevertheless have two harmful effects. One, they enormously strengthen the power of the state by placing in the hands of the ruler, weaponry and communication undreamt of in earlier times, so that even the smallest petty tyrant has greater powers over his people than Harun al-Rashid or Suleyman the Magnificent, or any of the legendary rulers of the past.
Second, even more deadly, in the traditional society there were many, many limits on the autocracy, the ruler. The whole Islamic political tradition is strongly against despotism. Traditional Islamic government is authoritarian, yes, but it is not despotic. On the contrary, there is a quite explicit rejection of despotism. And this wasn't just in theory; it was in practice too because in Islamic society, there were all sorts of established orders in society that acted as a restraining factor. The bazaar merchants, the craft guilds, the country gentry and the scribes, all of these were well organized groups who produced their own leaders from within the group. They were not appointed or dismissed by the governments. And they did operate effectively as a constraint.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, Islam and the West: A Conversation with Bernard Lewis (2006)

Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Laura Bush photo

“Ann Curry: You know the American people are suffering watching --
Mrs. Bush: Believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this, and certainly the commander in chief, who has asked our military to go into harm's way.”

Laura Bush (1946) First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009

On seeing television reports of US troops in action in Iraq, in an interview on the Today show (NBC), as reported by left-wing website The Raw Story http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Laura_Bush_No_one_suffers_more_0425.html (25 April 2007)

Gloria Estefan photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Justin D. Fox photo
Vitruvius photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“5779. Wise Men learn by other Men's Harms; Fools, by their own.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

N. K. Jemisin photo

“There’s not such thing as magic that does no harm.”

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 4 “Frustration” (watercolor) (p. 93)

Michael Shea photo
Milton Friedman photo

“There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.”

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

From Who protects the consumer?, an episode of the PBS Free to Choose television series (1980, vol. 7 transcript) http://www.freetochoosemedia.org/freetochoose/detail_ftc1980_transcript.php?page=7

Eric Holder photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African-Americans. If Hillary Clinton's goal was to inflict pain on the African-American community, she could not have done a better job. It's a disgrace. Tonight, I'm asking for the vote of every single African-American citizen in this country who wants to see a better future. The inner cities of our country have been run by the Democratic party for more than fifty years. Their policies have reduced only poverty, joblessness, failing schools and broken homes. It's time to hold Democratic politicians accountable for what they have done to these communities. At what point do we say, "enough?" It's time to hold failed leaders accountable for their results not just their empty words over and over again. Look at what the Democratic party has done to the city as an example and there are many others of Detroit: forty percent of Detroit's residents live in poverty. Half of all Detroit residents do not work and cannot work and can't get a job. Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime. This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by Hillary Clinton: thirty-three thousand emails gone. The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership. Look how much African-American communities suffered under Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump. What do you have to lose? I say it again, what do you have to lose. Look, what do you have to lose? You're living your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed? What the hell do you have to lose? And at the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over ninety-five percent of the African-American vote. I promise you.”

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

Speech to the African-American community in Dimondale, Michigan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5B5m1S5VTA (August 19, 2016)
2010s, 2016, August

Mohammed Alkobaisi photo

“Any intentional inequitable harm is a danger zone!”

Mohammed Alkobaisi (1970) Iraqi Islamic scholar

Understanding Islam, "Morals and Ethics" http://vod.dmi.ae/media/96716/Ep_03_Morals_and_Ethics Dubai Media

Rudyard Kipling photo
Leo Igwe photo
Carmine Crocco photo

“Undoubtedly I have done harm to the society, but I have done it for defending my life, I would set fire to the whole world for it.”

Carmine Crocco (1830–1905) Italian revolutionary

Senza dubbio, ho fatto del male alla società, ma io facevo per difendere la mia vita; per essa avrei dato fuoco a tutto il mondo.
As quoted in Voci dall'ergastolo

Shelly Kagan photo
Starhawk photo
Will Eisner photo

“”Jewish Peril” exposed.
Historic “Fake.”
Details of the forgery.
More parallels.
We published yesterday an article from our Constantinople Correspondent, which showed that the notorious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” – one of the mysteries of politics since 1905 – were a clumsy forgery, the text being based on a book published in French in 1865. The book, without title page, was obtained by our correspondent from a Russian source, and we were able to identify it with a complete copy in the British Museum.
The disclosure, which naturally aroused the greatest interest among those familiar with Jewish questions, finally disposes of the “Protocols” as credible evidence of a Jewish plot against civilization.
We publish below a second article, which gives further close parallels between the language of the Protocols and that attributed to Machiavelli and Montesquieu in the volume dated from Geneva.
Plagiarism at Work.
(From our Constantinople Correspondent.)
While the Geneva Dialogue open with an exchange of compliments between Monsequieu and Machiavelli, which covers seven pages, the author of the Protocols plunges at once in medias res.
One can imagine him hastily turning over those first seven pages of the book which he has been ordered to paraphrase against time, and angrily ejaculating, “Nothing here.” But on page 8 of the Dialogues he finds what he wants.
Publisher: Good work Graves…we finally paid your émigré £ 300 for it…now if we can find Golovinski and get his confession…
Graves: He joined the Bolsheviks.
Golovinski became a party ‘’’activist’’’ and rose to be an adviser to Trotsky. But he ‘’’died’’’ last year!
Publisher: Well, that’s that!
Publisher: Oh but Graves, “The Times” is influential… after our expose we’ll probably hear no more of this fraud!
Graves: I’m not sure!
Anti-Bolsheviks, White Russians, published thousands of copies! Here’s a page from Nilus’ “The Great in the Small.”
Publisher: Astonishing…mystical symbols…eh?
The “Protocols” quickly began to circulate around the world.
A French edition this year…and in America Henry Ford, the auto magnate, has been serializing it in his paper, the “Dearborn independent”!
Publisher: When did it first appear in Europe?
Graves: The German edition…dated 1919, was the first!
This is an evil book…a fake designed to malign a whole group of people.
Publisher: I know, I know! …Ugly stuff, Graves.
Graves: Well, what are we to do about it?
Publisher: Your report exposed it as a foul fraud!
Publisher: Y’forget the power of the press, graves! “The Times” has tremendous worldwide influence.
This fraud will soon be well known everywhere…so, my boy, ‘’’what harm can the “protocols” possibly do now?”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 91-94

William Glasser photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo

“Use harms and even destroys beauty. The noblest function of an object is to be contemplated.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

El use estropea y hasta destruye toda belleza. La función más noble de los objetos es la de ser contemplados.
Niebla [Mist] (1914)

Kent Hovind photo
Lew Rockwell photo
Alice Walker photo

“The harm that you do to others is the harm that you do to yourself and you cannot think then that you can cause wars in other parts of the world and destroy people and drone them without this having a terrible impact on your own soul and your own consciousness.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Poet, Author Alice Walker Meets the Inner Journey with Global Activism in "The Cushion in the Road" http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/28/poet_author_alice_walker_meets_the (May 28, 2013).

Winston S. Churchill photo
Osama bin Laden photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Cristoforo Colombo photo
Ian Hacking photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, Science and Religion (1941)

Nick Griffin photo
Frances Willard photo
John Dear photo
Stendhal photo

“Were I to buy this life of pleasure and this only chance at happiness with a few little dangers, where would be the harm? And wouldn’t it still be fortunate to find a weak excuse to give her proof of my love?”

Quand je devrais acheter cette vie de délices et cette chance unique de bonheur par quelques petits dangers, où serait le mal? Et ne serait-ce pas encore un bonheur que de trouver ainsi une faible occasion de lui donner une preuve de mon amour?
Source: La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839), Ch. 20

Lauren Duca photo

“It occurred to me how very tired I sometimes feel as an outspoken feminist. … Trolls are trying to silence women, and I've installed a fiery declaration within myself to never give in, but it's incredibly hard, and gets harder as my platform as a writer grows. What didn’t occur to me initially is that West has spent years in the trenches fighting this endless, thankless fight, and maybe she needs a goddamn break. I had this revelation again, much more profoundly and emotionally, about my own mother while watching Greta Gerwig’s new film, Lady Bird. … Often, my mother and I clashed when she denied me freedom, but only because she had been harmed by the dangers she knew lay ahead for her daughter. I did so many risky, awful things, and then lied to her about them, because I never felt I could be honest with her. I should have known she wasn’t judging me. I should have known that she had done it all before, that even though she wouldn’t have used the word "feminist" to describe herself at the time, mostly she just didn’t want me to have to be so very tired. … Walking home from Lady Bird on the kind of night that New York fall fantasies are made of, I resisted the urge to call my mother, because I thought I might cry until the universe ripped apart at the seams. But then I called her anyway. I sobbed as I told her I had no idea how impossibly hard she had been trying.”

Lauren Duca (1991) American journalist

Sexism, Remembered and Forgotten (November 17, 2017)

Jean Meslier photo
Jimi Hendrix photo

“Waterfall, nothing can harm me at all
My worries seem so very small
With my waterfall.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

May This Be Love
Song lyrics, Are You Experienced? (1967)

Mao Zedong photo

“What should our policy be towards non-Marxist ideas? As far as unmistakable counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs of the socialist cause are concerned, the matter is easy, we simply deprive them of their freedom of speech. But incorrect ideas among the people are quite a different matter. Will it do to ban such ideas and deny them any opportunity for expression? Certainly not. It is not only futile but very harmful to use crude methods in dealing with ideological questions among the people, with questions about man's mental world. You may ban the expression of wrong ideas, but the ideas will still be there. On the other hand, if correct ideas are pampered in hothouses and never exposed to the elements and immunized against disease, they will not win out against erroneous ones. Therefore, it is only by employing the method of discussion, criticism and reasoning that we can really foster correct ideas and overcome wrong ones, and that we can really settle issues.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

" VIII. ON "LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOSSOM LET A HUNDRED SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT CONTEND" AND "LONG-TERM COEXISTENCE AND MUTUAL SUPERVISION" "
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 对于非马克思主义的思想,应该采取什么方针呢?对于明显的反革命分子,破坏社会主义事业的分子,事情好办,剥夺他们的言论自由就行了。对于人民内部的错误思想,情形就不相同。禁止这些思想,不允许这些思想有任何发表的机会,行不行呢?当然不行。对待人民内部的思想问题,对待精神世界的问题,用简单的方法去处理,不但不会收效,而且非常有害。不让发表错误意见,结果错误意见还是存在着。而正确的意见如果是在温室里培养出来的,如果没有见过风雨,没有取得免疫力,遇到错误意见就不能打胜仗。因此,只有采取讨论的方法,批评的方法,说理的方法,才能真正发展正确的意见,克服错误的意见,才能真正解决问题。

Tamara Ecclestone photo

“I enjoy going to fashion shows and I enjoy seeing what's new and fantastic but I just don't understand how fur is necessarily fashionable. I just think it's terrible to harm living animals all in the name of vanity… it's completely unnecessary.”

Tamara Ecclestone (1984) British model, socialite and television personality

"Formula One heiress Tamara Ecclestone poses naked for Peta anti-fur campaign", The Telegraph (7 October 2008) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/3154511/Formula-One-heiress-Tamara-Ecclestone-poses-naked-for-Peta-anti-fur-campaign.html.

Steph Davis photo
Snježana Kordić photo

“Purism increases nationalism because it teaches that everything should be classified as Croatian or non-Croatian, and what comes from their own nation must be good, while what comes from other nations must be harmful and evil.”

El purismo aumenta el nacionalismo porque enseña a clasificar todo como croata o no croata, y a que todo lo que supuestamente proceda del propio país se diga que es bueno, mientras que de lo que proceda de otras naciones se diga que es perjudical y malo.
[Kordić, Snježana, w:Snježana Kordić, Snježana Kordić, Lengua y Nacionalismo, Madrid, Euphonía Ediciones, 2014, http://www.euphoniaediciones.com/plataforma/libros/lengua-y-nacionalismo-17-89-22-1-1, 22, 978-84-936668-8-0] (in Spanish)

Orson Scott Card photo
Daniel T. Gilbert photo

“"Dangerous" does not mean exciting or bold; it means likely to cause great harm. The most dangerous idea is the only dangerous idea: The idea that ideas can be dangerous.”

Daniel T. Gilbert (1957) American psychologist

Daniel T. Gilbert (2007) in: John Brockman. What is your dangerous idea?: today's leading thinkers on the unthinkable. Harper Perennial, 2007, p. 42

Donald J. Trump photo
William Langland photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Last week, i… i extended a hand to the WWE Universe in a much needed intervention. You know, i don't know if you people know this or not, but i'm not the only one who knows that pills and cigarettes and alcohol are harmful. Medical science has proven this, so there's a surgeon general put in place to put warning labels on all of these products. I guess he's just there to warn the smart people that already know, huh? This is my crusade, and i will continue my crusade for as long as there are people who need help, as long as there are people out there who need change in their lives. One person in particular i've been helping for quite some time now, i'd like to introduce him to the world. Ladies and gentlemen, i give you… Luke Gallows. (Gallows raises his fist) That's right, some of you may recognize him as "Festus", but that was a lifetime ago. And it's a lifetime that he'd just as soon regret. It's a lifetime of torturous drug abuse and neglect, you see, it started just like it started for all of you people, one, one little pill. Just one little pill to take the edge off, one painkiller. And then one turns to two, two turns to four, four turns to eight, so on and so forth. And sure, his friends, his family were there, but they enabled him. They didn't help him, they thought they were but they were slowly rotting him from the inside out. But then i helped him, just like i could help all of you. Trust me, this is just the start, this doesn't end here, it begins here and now. I will continue to reach out and help those who can't help themselves. Holds up brown paper bag On December 1st, this is scary, people, pay attention. On December 1st, a very dangerous addictive new drug hits the streets. Now this scares me because it's a socially accepted over-the-counter drug and it's gonna be widely available all over the world. And it's scary because it's more dangerous than any prescribed medication, it's more harmful than chain smoking an entire carton of unfiltered cigarettes, it is more dangerous than corroding your liver with a fifth of gin or vodka and then chasing it with your Daddy's favorite beer. (Punk pulls a Jeff Hardy DVD out of the bag) "Jeff Hardy, My Life, My Rules" And what an appropriate title, for a loser who destroyed his life and his career living by his rules. And what makes me sick to my stomach is Jeff didn't just ruin his life, he didn't just end his career. (Crowd chants Hardy) He ruined the lives of all his fans because he's planted seeds of destruction in all of the people, all of the drug addicts like yourself who actually looked up to the Charismatic Enabler like he was some sort of a prophet. Well, if you people have any brain-cells left, if there's anything left of your memory that's not burnt out, all you need to know is that the last chapter of this DVD is the most important one you need to watch because it tells the whole story. It's a cage match between myself and Jeff Hardy, where i ended Jeff's career in the WWE… FOREVER! I'm the reason he's not here! And I know how hard it is to deprogram your weak little brains from all the lies you've been fed all over the years, but you owe it to yourselves. Look yourself in the mirror, search inside yourself for that shred of self-respect that might be left, and when it comes to this, when it comes to this garbage, (Holds up DVD) just say no.”

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

November 27, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Darius I of Persia photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo

“It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

"A Talk to Western Buddhists" p. 89
The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness (1990)

Muhammad photo

“It has been reported from Sulaiman b. Buraid through his father that when the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) appointed anyone as leader of an army or detachment he would especially exhort him to fear Allah and to be good to the Muslims who were with him. He would say: Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war, do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children. When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. Then invite them to migrate from their lands to the land of Muhajirs and inform them that, if they do so, they shall have all the privileges and obligations of the Muhajirs. If they refuse to migrate, tell them that they will have the status of Bedouin Muslims and will be subjected to the Commands of Allah like other Muslims, but they will not get any share from the spoils of war or Fai' except when they actually fight with the Muslims (against the disbelievers). If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them. When you lay siege to a fort and the besieged appeal to you for protection in the name of Allah and His Prophet, do not accord to them the guarantee of Allah and His Prophet, but accord to them your own guarantee and the guarantee of your companions for it is a lesser sin that the security given by you or your companions be disregarded than that the security granted in the name of Allah and His Prophet be violated When you besiege a fort and the besieged want you to let them out in accordance with Allah's Command, do not let them come out in accordance with His Command, but do so at your (own) command, for you do not know whether or not you will be able to carry out Allah's behest with regard to them.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sahih Muslim, Book 019, Number 4294
Sunni Hadith

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“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

As quoted inThe A-V Magazine Vol. 89, No. 1 (January 1981), p. 18, and The Extended Circle : A Dictionary of Humane Thought (1985) by Jon Wynne-Tyson, p. 75; this has been cited to "Harper's Magazine (1890)" but no occurence prior to the 1981 appearance has been located.
Disputed

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