Quotes about left
page 4

“Eleanor: It is a pretty fiction that mothers love each child in equal measure… a fiction, no more than that. There is always a favorite. With me, it was Richard. With Henry, it was you.
John: No. I was not his favorite. It was rather that I was the only son he had left. Have you forgotten? My brothers sided with you.”

Sharon Kay Penman book Here Be Dragons

Here Be Dragons (1985), Book 1

Love

“[Serafin was] an extraordinary coach, sharp as a vecchio lupo [old wolfe]. He opened a world to me, showed me there was a reason for everything, that even fiorature and trills… have a reason in the composer's mind, that they are the expression of the stato d'animo [state of mind] of the character — that is, the way he feels at the moment, the passing emotions that take hold of him. He would coach us for every little detail, every movement, every word, every breath. One of the things he told me — and this is the basis of bel canto — is never to attack a note from underneath or from above, but always to prepare it in the face. He taught me that pauses are often more important than the music. He explained that there was a rhythm — these are the things you get only from that man! — a measure for the human ear, and that if a note was too long, it was no good after a while. A fermata always must be measured, and if there are two fermate close to one another in the score, you ignore one of them. He taught me the proportions of recitative — how it is elastic, the proportions altering so slightly that only you can understand it…. But in performance he left you on your own. "When I am in the pit, I am there to serve you, because I have to save my performance." he would say. We would look down and feel we had a friend there. He was helping you all the way. He would mouth all the words. If you were not well, he would speed up the tempo, and if you were in top form, he would slow it down to let you breathe, to give you room. He was breathing with you, living the music with you, loving it with you. It was elastic, growing, living.”

Maria Callas (1923–1977) American-born Greek operatic soprano

Callas : The Art and the Life (1974)

Love, World, Music, Way

“As I could not and did not aspire to venture beyond my little plot of cultivated land, all I had left was the possibility of digging down, underneath, towards the roots. My own but also the world's, if I can be allowed such an immoderate ambition.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Nobel Lecture (1998)

World

“Artists should not look to the left or the right. Art should be strong and nonconformist—and most importantly, art should always be personal.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

after 2010, Isa Genzken, the artist who doesn't do interviews' (2014)

Art, Strong, Personality

“The left hand has nothing to do with conducting. Its proper place is the waistcoat pocket from which it should only emerge to restrain or make some minor gesture for which in any case a scarcely perceptible glance should suffice.”

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) German composer and orchestra director

Recollections and Reflections

“Adultery breathes new life into marriages which have been left for dead.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

L'adultère introduit l'esprit dans la lettre que bien souvent le mariage eût laissée morte.
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. V: The Captive (1923)

Life, Marriage, Dead

“The only link between Literature and the Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

Literature

“They speak of naturalism in opposition to modern painting. I would like to know if anyone has ever seen a natural work of art. Nature and art, being two different things, cannot be the same thing. Through art we express our conception of what nature is not. Velasquez left us his idea of the people of his epoch. Undoubtedly they were different from what he painted them, but we cannot conceive a Philip IV in any other way than the one Velasquez painted…”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Paris 1923
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 312
Quotes, 1920's

People, Art, Way, Idea

“I always pet a dog with my left hand, because if he bit me, I'd still have my right hand to paint with.”

Juan Gris (1887–1927) Spanish painter and sculptor

Attributed by Max Jacob (1876–1944) to Juan Gris, quoted in: Jeanine Warnod (1972). Washboat days. p. 204

Dogs, Painting

“If what we are discussing were a point of law or of the humanities, in which neither true nor false exists, one might trust in subtlety of mind and readiness of tongue and in the greater experience of the writers, and expect him who excelled in those things to make his reasoning most plausible, and one might judge it to be the best. But in the natural sciences, whose conclusions are true and necessary and have nothing to do with human will, one must take care not to place oneself in the defense of error; for here a thousand Demostheneses and a thousand Aristotles would be left in the lurch by every mediocre wit who happened to hit upon the truth for himself. Therefore, Simplicio, give up this idea and this hope of yours that there may be men so much more learned, erudite, and well-read than the rest of us as to be able to make that which is false become true in defiance of nature.”

Galileo Galilei book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Salviati, p. 61
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)

Men, Truth, Law, Hope

““This husband of yours, he’d rather have his wife a— Rather, have her—” Halyard cleared his throat— “than go into public relations?”
“I’m proud to say,” said the girl, “that he’s one of the few men on earth with a little self-respect left.””

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 24 (p. 234)

Men, Girl

“What is left when honor is lost?”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 265
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

“In the preceding section attention was called to the fact that every point p of the straight line produces a separation of the same into two portions such that every point of one portion lies to the left of every point of the other. I find the essence of continuity in the converse, i. e., in the following principle:
"If all points of the straight line fall into two classes such that every point of the first class lies to the left of every point of the second class, then there exists one and only one point which produces this division of all points into two classes, this severing of the straight line into two portions."
…every one will at once grant the truth of this statement; the majority of my readers will be very much disappointed in learning that by this commonplace remark the secret of continuity is to be revealed.”

Richard Dedekind (1831–1916) German mathematician

Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen (1872)

Truth, Secret, Disappointment, Learning

“Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.”

Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940) United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor recipient and activist

War is a racket (1935)

Animals

“The modern economist has become even more insistent in his belief that the ultimate forces underlying economic development lie, strictly speaking, outside the economic sphere. As Meir and Baldwin put it, half humorously, “economic development is much too serious to be left to economists.””

David C. McClelland (1917–1998) American psychological theorist

1957, p. 119
Source: The Archiving Society, 1961, p. 11

Lie

“I don’t believe that God chose you, and blessed you so that you could heap those blessings up upon yourself. I believe God chose you, and you, and you, and every one of you others because He wants to make a difference in this world. And you know what? what I think is scary about God is He didn’t come up with any ‘Plan B.’ That He left the Church here, and the Church is the only group of people, and the Church is the only institution in the world that can bring about a change. This government cannot do it, so stop depending on the government. Educational systems cannot do it, so stop trusting educational systems. The Church was chosen by God to make a difference.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

In Concert

God, People, World, Education

“If every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hardworking white middle class and an undeserving minority, then workers of all shades are going to be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves.”

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

2017, Farewell Address (January 2017)

Fight

“In an ordinary crime, how does one defend the accused? One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims — and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. As for the witches, none will deny that we are most eager for all their confessions. Therefore, what is left for a lawyer to bring out? I think I have made my point. Have I not?”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

Deputy Governor Danforth
The Crucible (1953)

Children, Hope, Nature, Thinking

“So much of modern mathematical work is obviously on the border-line of logic, so much of modern logic is symbolic and formal, that the very close relationship of logic and mathematics has become obvious to every instructed student. The proof of their identity is, of course, a matter of detail: starting with premisses which would be universally admitted to belong to logic, and arriving by deduction at results which as obviously belong to mathematics, we find that there is no point at which a sharp line can be drawn, with logic to the left and mathematics to the right. If there are still those who do not admit the identity of logic and mathematics, we may challenge them to indicate at what point, in the successive definitions and deductions of Principia Mathematica, they consider that logic ends and mathematics begins. It will then be obvious that any answer must be quite arbitrary.”

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

Source: 1910s, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), Ch. 18: Mathematics and Logic

Mathematics, Universe, Success

“The roads that we are using today were all built by Smith. All the infrastructure is Smith’s. We never suffered the way we are suffering now because Smith took care of the economy that supported all people and they had enough to eat. When he left power the [British] pound was on a par with the Zimbabwean dollar, but President Mugabe has killed all that.”

Ian Smith (1919–2007) Prime Minister of Rhodesia

Patrick Kombayi, Opposition Politician and former Gweru Mayor, Article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1570403/Zimbabweans-praise-generous-Ian-Smith.html in The Telegraph, 2007. About

People, Way, Support, Suffering

“When a simple man who has no skill in dialectics believes an argument to be true which he afterwards imagines to be false, whether really false or not, and then another and another, he no longer has any faith left, and great disputers, as you know, come to think, at last that they have grown to be the wisest of mankind; for they alone perceive the utter unsoundness and instability of all arguments, or, indeed, of all things, which like the currents in the Euripus, are going up and down in never-ceasing ebb and flow.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Faith, Imagination, Thinking, Falseness

“When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

This anecdote apparently dates from 1864 Massachusetts Sunday School Teachers' Convention. This has been portrayed to have been Lincoln's "reply" to an unnamed Illinois clergyman when asked if he loved Jesus, as quoted in The Lincoln Memorial Album — Immortelles (1882) edited by Osborn H. Oldroyd [New York: G.W. Carleton & Co. p. 366 http://books.google.com/books?id=pX5DEhCM9M0C&pg=RA10-PA366&lpg=RA10-PA366&dq=%22and+saw+the+graves+of+thousands+of+our+soldiers%22&source=web&ots=Alddnu8KL8&sig=IhhhPHp6tuB7FoiRI8c71w5NUH4#PRA10-PA365,M1 This incident must have appeared in print immediately after Lincoln's death, for I find it quoted in memorial addresses of May, 1865. Mr Oldroyd has endeavored to learn for me in what paper he found it and on whose authority it rests, but without result. He does not remember where he found it. It is inherently improbable, and rests on no adequate testimony. It ought to be wholly disregarded. The earliest reference I have found to the story in which Lincoln is alleged to have said to an unnamed Illinois minister, "I do love Jesus" is in a sermon preached in the Baptist Church of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, April 19, 1865, by Rev. W. W. Whitcomb, which was published in the Oshkosh Northwestern, April 21, 1865, and in 1907 issued in pamphlet form by John E. Burton. William Eleazar Barton (1920) The Soul of Abraham Lincoln http://books.google.com/books?id=UDEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA208&lpg=RA1-PA208&dq=%22and+saw+the+graves+of+thousands+of+our+soldiers%22&source=web&ots=kDphIXKsy-&sig=GclPy5wecnvSuGHYO2R1bhb6lUQ. Further discussion appears in They Never Said It (1989) by Paul F. Boller & John George, p. 91. Disputed

Love, Life, People, Christ

“In my actual imaginative contact with life, I am vastly more responsive to beauty than to horror—indeed, I never experience real cosmic horror except in infrequent nightmares. However, when I come to record my various imaginative experiences, I generally find that only the horror items have any uniqueness or originality. Others have seen the same beautiful things that I have seen, & have sung them more nobly. Dunsany, indeed, has said exquisitely almost everything I could possibly wish to say; so that when I indulge in sheer phantasy I can do no more than imitate him. Thus horror alone is left as my peculiar kingdom, & in it I must hold my lowly reproduction of a Plutonian court.”

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

Letter to Elizabeth Toldridge (8 March 1929), in Selected Letters II, 1925-1929 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 316-317
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life, Beauty, Imagination

“I had translated the first twelve books of the Odyssey. For a while I learnt English also, merely so as to gain an accurate knowledge of Shakespeare; and I made a metrical translation of Romeo's monologue. Though I soon left English on one side, yet Shakespeare remained my exemplar, and I projected a great tragedy which was almost nothing but a medley of Hamlet and King Lear. The plan was gigantic in the extreme; two- and-forty human beings died in the course of this piece, and I saw myself compelled, in its working-out, to call the greater number back as ghosts, since otherwise I should have been short of characters for my last Acts. This play occupied my leisure for two whole years.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Autobiographical Sketch (1843)

Books, Knowledge

“The power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make it sick is a force which none of us is born without. The first man had it, the last one will possess it. If left to himself, a man is most likely to use only the mischievous half of the force—the half which invents imaginary ailments for him and cultivates them; and if he is one of these—very wise people, he is quite likely to scoff at the beneficent half of the force and deny its existence. And so, to heal or help that man, two imaginations are required: his own and some outsider's. The outsider, B, must imagine that his incantations are the healing-power that is curing A, and A must imagine that this is so. I think it is not so, at all; but no matter, the cure is effected, and that is the main thing. The outsider's work is unquestionably valuable; so valuable that it may fairly be likened to the essential work performed by the engineer when he handles the throttle and turns on the steam; the actual power is lodged exclusively in the engine, but if the engine were left alone it would never start of itself. Whether the engineer be named Jim, or Bob, or Tom, it is all one—his services are necessary, and he is entitled to such wage as he can get you to pay. Whether he be named Christian Scientist, or Mental Scientist, or Mind Curist, or King's-Evil Expert, or Hypnotist, it is all one; he is merely the Engineer; he simply turns on the same old steam and the engine does the whole work.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 8 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3187/3187-h/3187-h.htm#link2HCH0008 Christian Science (1907)

People, Imagination, Thinking, Evil

“A kind of music far superior, in my opinion, to that of operas, and which in all Italy has not its equal, nor perhaps in the whole world, is that of the 'scuole'. The 'scuole' are houses of charity, established for the education of young girls without fortune, to whom the republic afterwards gives a portion either in marriage or for the cloister. Amongst talents cultivated in these young girls, music is in the first rank. Every Sunday at the church of each of the four 'scuole', during vespers, motettos or anthems with full choruses, accompanied by a great orchestra, and composed and directed by the best masters in Italy, are sung in the galleries by girls only; not one of whom is more than twenty years of age. I have not an idea of anything so voluptuous and affecting as this music; the richness of the art, the exquisite taste of the vocal part, the excellence of the voices, the justness of the execution, everything in these delightful concerts concurs to produce an impression which certainly is not the mode, but from which I am of opinion no heart is secure. Carrio and I never failed being present at these vespers of the 'Mendicanti', and we were not alone. The church was always full of the lovers of the art, and even the actors of the opera came there to form their tastes after these excellent models. What vexed me was the iron grate, which suffered nothing to escape but sounds, and concealed from me the angels of which they were worthy. I talked of nothing else. One day I spoke of it at Le Blond's; "If you are so desirous," said he, "to see those little girls, it will be an easy matter to satisfy your wishes. I am one of the administrators of the house, I will give you a collation [light meal] with them." I did not let him rest until he had fulfilled his promise. In entering the saloon, which contained these beauties I so much sighed to see, I felt a trembling of love which I had never before experienced. M. le Blond presented to me one after the other, these celebrated female singers, of whom the names and voices were all with which I was acquainted. Come, Sophia, — she was horrid. Come, Cattina, — she had but one eye. Come, Bettina, — the small-pox had entirely disfigured her. Scarcely one of them was without some striking defect.
Le Blond laughed at my surprise; however, two or three of them appeared tolerable; these never sung but in the choruses; I was almost in despair. During the collation we endeavored to excite them, and they soon became enlivened; ugliness does not exclude the graces, and I found they possessed them. I said to myself, they cannot sing in this manner without intelligence and sensibility, they must have both; in fine, my manner of seeing them changed to such a degree that I left the house almost in love with each of these ugly faces. I had scarcely courage enough to return to vespers. But after having seen the girls, the danger was lessened. I still found their singing delightful; and their voices so much embellished their persons that, in spite of my eyes, I obstinately continued to think them beautiful.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), On the musicians of the Ospedale della Pieta (book VII)

Love, Marriage, Age, World

“The goal of the Left is a government-run country and that of the Right the freedom of the individual from government. Page 236.”

David Mamet (1947) American playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and film director

The Secret Knowledge

Freedom, Country

“I believe there is some ultimate ordering force for good in the universe - not a personal thing, not Buddha or Jesus, maybe something like order out of disorder. I like to hope that even if there's no personal afterlife, some energy impression is left in the universe… most people can pass on genes - I can pass on thoughts or what I write.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

Page 282 of An Anthropologist On Mars By Oliver Sacks

People, Hope, Universe, Personality

“We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all. And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989), Farewell Address (1989)

Women, Men, God, Time

“Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Ch. 2

Life, Appearance

“In the brief monthly reports of the Security Police, I only want figures on how many Jews have been shipped off and how many are currently left.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

To Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Quoted in "Hitler and the Final Solution" - Page 137 - by Gerald Fleming - History - 1987
Undated

“Now, what I do reject is when folks just sit on the sidelines and they're rooting for failure — whether it's on health care or energy or the economy — or the Olympics. [.. ] What I reject is when scoring political points is so important that you'd rather see failure. What I reject is when some folks want to go to the policies that helped get us into this mess in the first place — as if we don't remember. [.. ] We don't mind cleaning up the mess that was left for us. We're busy, we got our mops, we're, you know, mopping the floor here. But I don't want the folks who made the mess to just sit there and say, you're not mopping fast enough. I don't — I don't want them saying, you're not holding the mop the right way, or, that's a socialist mop. I want them to grab a mop. Grab a mop. Grab a mop — or a broom or something. Make yourself useful.”

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

Remarks at Chris Dodd fundraiser in Stamford, CT. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704224004574489530713762884.html 2009

Health, Way, Failure, Business

“One way of poisoning love is to mingle it with hate. It is the best way but in some ways the most dangerous. Love and hate are the cat and mouse of our emotions, sometimes the cat chases the mouse, often the mouse chases the cat; but when both cat and mouse are tired of chasing each other there is little left to do. All one can do then is to admit the most bitter truth of all, the most bitter but also the best: that two people in love with each other can not be alone on an island without ceasing to love; that they can not be an island, they need contact with the mainland, they need other people. It is cold comfort for those who believe that love is an island in the sea, and when we have grown tired of islands very little consolation remains. When we have grown tired of loving we are glad that the one we love is not the only person in the world.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 206

Love, Hate, People, Truth

“If first you rid yourself of hope and fear
You have dismayed the tyrant's wrath:
But whosoever quakes in fear or hope,
Drifting and losing his mastery,
Has cast away his shield, has left his place,
And binds the chain with which he will be bound.”
Nec speres aliquid nec extimescas, exarmaueris impotentis iram; at quisquis trepidus pauet uel optat, quod non sit stabilis suique iuris, abiecit clipeum locoque motus nectit qua ualeat trahi catenam.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Poem IV, lines 13-18
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book I

Fear, Hope

“During his illness, Lenin repeatedly addressed letters and proposals to the leading bodies and congresses of the party. It must be definitely stated that all these letters and suggestions were invariably delivered to their destination and they were all brought to the knowledge of the delegates to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Congresses, and have invariably exercised their influence on the decisions of the party. If all of these letters have not been published, it is because their author did not intend them to be published. Comrade Lenin has not left any “Testament”; the character of his relations to the party, and the character of the party itself, preclude the possibility of such a “Testament.” The bourgeois and Menshevik press generally understand under the designation of “Testament” one of Comrade Lenin’s letters (which is so much altered as to be almost unrecognizable) in which he gives the party some organizational advice. The Thirteenth Party Congress devoted the greatest attention to this and to the other letters, and drew the appropriate conclusions. All talk with regard to a concealed or mutilated “Testament” is nothing but a despicable lie, directed against the real will of Comrade Lenin and against the interests of the party created by him.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1925/07/lenin.htm,Letter on Max Eastman's Book, July 1, 1925

Lie, Exercises, Understanding, Knowledge

“And that kind of economic growth, where everybody has opportunity -- if you work hard, you can succeed -- that's what gets a nation moving rapidly when it comes to develop. But that kind of growth can only be created if corruption is left behind. For investment to lead to opportunity, reform must promote budgets that are transparent and industry that is privately owned.”

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

2012, Yangon University Speech (November 2012)

“Oh troika, winged troika, tell me who invented you? Surely, nowhere but among a nimble nation could you have been born in a country which has taken itself in earnest and has evenly spread far and wide over half of the globe, so that once you start counting the milestones you may count on till a speckled haze dances before your eyes… Rus, are you not similar in your headlong motion to one of those nimble troikas that none can overtake? The flying road turns into smoke under you, bridges thunder and pass, all fall back and is left behind!… And what does this awesome motion mean? What is the passing strange steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes?… Rus, whither are you speeding to? Answer me. No answer. The middle bell trills out in a dream its liquid soliloquy; the roaring air is torn to pieces and becomes wind; all things on earth fly by and other nations and states gaze askance as they step aside and give her the right of way.”

Nikolai Gogol book Dead Souls

Vol. I, ch. 11
Dead Souls (1842)

Dreams, Way, Home, Dance

“So, to all of you that have put your heart and soul, not just into the campaign but into making schools better, making sure our veterans got the care they needed, making sure that we left behind a planet that is safe and secure for our kids, making sure that hardworking people have a ladder of opportunity and can support families. For all of you, who have just done amazing remarkable work, most of it unheralded, most if without fanfare, most of it without you getting any word of thanks, we could not be prouder of you.”

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

2017, Farewell to Staff Members (January 2017)

People, School, Family, Soul

“I am a liberal of extreme left-wing.”

Caetano Veloso (1942) Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist

O Globo Journal, 12.06.2007

“Again: If one State may secede, so may another; and when all shall have seceded none is left to pay the debts. Is this quite just to creditors? Did we notify them of this sage view of ours when we borrowed their money? If we now recognize this doctrine by allowing the seceders to go in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do if others choose to go or to extort terms upon which they will promise to remain.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

Money, Peace

“Corporations are necessary to the effective use of the forces of production and commerce under modern conditions. We cannot effectively prohibit all combinations without doing far-reaching economic harm; and it is mere folly to do as we have done in the past—to try to combine incompatible systems—that is, to try both to prohibit and regulate combinations. Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed. The only course left is active corporate regulation – that is, the control of corporations for the common good—the suppression of the evils that they work, and the retention, as far as maybe, of that business efficiency in their use which has placed us in the forefront of industrial peoples.”

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

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

People, Law, Business, Effort

“The pictures, with their ruddy light,
Are changed to dust and ashes white,
And I am left alone with night.”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

Faces in the Fire (1860), st. 13
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Light, Change, Night

“After the same Manner in Geometry, if a Line drawn any certain Way be reckon'd for Affirmative, then a Line drawn the contrary Way may be taken for Negative: As if AB be drawn to the right, and BC to the left; and AB be reckon'd Affirmative, then BC will be Negative; because in the drawing it diminishes AB…”

Isaac Newton book Arithmetica Universalis

p, 125
Arithmetica Universalis (1707)

Way, Drawing

“The cannibal has left his lair.”

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

Le Moniteur Universel, March 9, 1815.
About

“We would have only lost if there were six Inter players left on the pitch.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/3277/la-liga/2011/04/17/2445365/mourinhos-top-10-how-joses-sides-excel-with-a-man-down 2011

“One of the many suppressed longings of creation which cry after fulfilment is for neglected joys within reach; while we are busy pursuing chimerical impossibilities we famish our lives…The emptiness left by easy joys, untasted, is ever growing in my life. And the day may come when I shall feel that, could I but have the past back, I would strive no more after the unattainable, but drain to the full these little, unsought, everyday joys which life offers.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Glimpses of Bengal http://www.spiritualbee.com/tagore-book-of-letters/ (1921)

Life, Feeling, Business, Past

“Freedom without organization of work would be useless. The child left free without means of work would go to waste, just as a new-born baby, if left free without nourishment, would die of starvation. The organization of the work, therefore, is the cornerstone of this new structure of goodness [in education], but even that organization would be in vain without the liberty to make use of it.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook: A short guide to her ideas and materials (1914), Schocken Books, Inc." New York, p. 94

Education, Freedom, Baby

“Libertarianism is rejected by the modern left — which preaches individualism but practices collectivism. Capitalism is rejected by the modern right-which preaches enterprise but practices protectionism.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

“The Death of Politics”, Playboy (March, 1969).

“My sweet, I do not mean to upset you in writing this, but I want to tell you that within us, as within the nature of every person's soul there is an emptiness and we constantly seek to find that and those in order to escape from being alone. This always has been so, and always the weight of loneliness is with us, and for this reason we think of this thing or that so as not to be left alone.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

Source: 1930 - 1941, from 'Arshile Gorky, – Goats on the roof' (2009), p. 132: in a letter to his sister Vartush Mooradian, after Mai 1938

Soul, Nature, Thinking, Personality

“Either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally, so that on either view of the case you lie. If my offense is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of unintentional offenses; you ought to have taken me privately, and warned and admonished me; for if I had been better advised, I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally — no doubt I should; whereas you hated to converse with me or teach me, but you indicted me in this court, which is the place not of instruction, but of punishment.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

26a
Plato, Apology

Hate, Lie, Law

“[D]emocracy is not something that is static; it’s something that we constantly have to work on. […]democracy is a little messier than alternative systems of government, but that’s because democracy allows everybody to have a voice. And that system of government lasts, and it’s legitimate, and when agreements are finally struck, you know that nobody is being left out of the conversation. And that’s the reason for our stability and our prosperity.”

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

Joint news conference with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at Government House, Bangkok, Thailand on November 18, 2012 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/18/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-shinawatra-joint-press-confer 2012

Democracy

“If I negate powdered wigs, I am still left with unpowdered wigs.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1844).

“In the great struggle between popular principles and liberal opinions, which is the characteristic of our age, I hope ever to be found on the side of the people, and of the Institutions, of England. It is our Institutions that have made us free, and can alone keep us so; by the bulwark which they offer to the insidious encroachments of a convenient, yet enervating, system of centralisation, which, if left unchecked, will prove fatal to the national character.”

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

Address to the electors of Buckinghamshire (25 May 1847), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 837.
1840s

People, Age, Hope

“Let no one think that I am dying of grief over my own dismal and ruined state. The sorrow that I feel, I can not at all express; but I can give a hint of it. From among those of the English community who were murdered at the hands of those disgraced ["black-faced"] black ones, one was my patron, and one was my well-wisher, and one my friend, and one my supporter, and one my pupil. Among the Hindustanis, some dear ones, some friends, some pupils, some beloveds. Thus every one of them was mingled with the dust. How harsh is the mourning for one dear one! He who would be a mourner for so many dear ones— how could his life not be difficult? Alas! So my friends died that now when I die, there would not even be anyone left to mourn for me.”

Ghalib (1797–1869) Urdu-Persian poet

Letter to Munshi Hargopal Tafta, 17/18 July, 1858
Quotes from Letters

Life, Feeling, Communication, Support

“The idea of a God was not a lie but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshiped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity had come of age, however, it should be left behind.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Summary of Freud's view found in Karen Armstrong's 'A History of God' (1993), p. 409
Misattributed

Life, God, Lie, Age

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley of ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment."”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Die Bourgeoisie, wo sie zur Herrschaft gekommen, hat alle feudalen, patriarchalischen, idyllischen Verhältnisse zerstört. Sie hat die buntscheckigen Feudalbande, die den Menschen an seinen natürlichen Vorgesetzten knüpften, unbarmherzig zerrissen und kein anderes Band zwischen Mensch und Mensch übriggelassen als das nackte Interesse, als die gefühllose "bare Zahlung".
Section 1, paragraph 14, lines 1-5.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

Nature

“In countries held together by borders drawn by colonial powers, with ethnic enclaves and tribal divisions, politics and elections can sometimes appear to be a zero-sum game. And so, given the difficulty in forging true democracy in the face of these pressures, it’s no surprise that some argue the future favors the strongman, a top-down model, rather than strong, democratic institutions. […] I believe the road of true democracy remains the better path. I believe that in the 21st century, economies can only grow to a certain point until they need to open up -- because entrepreneurs need to access information in order to invent; young people need a global education in order to thrive; independent media needs to check the abuses of power. Without this evolution, ultimately expectations of people will not be met; suppression and stagnation will set in. And history shows that strongmen are then left with two paths -- permanent crackdown, which sparks strife at home, or scapegoating enemies abroad, which can lead to war.”

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

2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)

War, People, Education, Democracy

“In this winter night, long and ample for bitter memories, many a widow who lost her husband in the war and is now left alone will press her palms to her ageing face; and in the nocturnal darkness the burning tears, as bitter as wormwood, will scorch her fingers.”

Mikhail Sholokhov (1905–1984) Soviet writer

From A Word on Our Country.
One Man's Destiny (1967)

War, Age, Tear, Memory

“…Does your Excellency know the spirit of (my) country? If you did, you would not say that I am "a spirit twisted by a German education," for the spirit that animates me I already had since childhood, before I learned a word of German. My spirit is "twisted" because I have been reared among injustices and abuses which I saw everywhere, because since a child I have seen many suffer stupidly and because I also have suffered. My "twisted spirit" is the product of that constant vision of the moral ideal that succumbs before the powerful reality of abuses, arbitrariness, hypocrisies, farces, violence, perfidies and other base passions. And "twisted" like my spirit is that of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who have not yet left their miserable homes, who speak no other language except their own, and who, if they could write or express their thoughts, would make my Noli me tangere very tiny indeed, and with their volumes there would be enough to build pyramids for the corpses of all the tyrants…”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

Open letter to Barrantes on the Noli, published in La Solidaridad (15 February 1890)

Education, Home, Reality, Suffering

“You were just a Small Bump unborn, in Four months you're brought to life.
You might be left with my hair, but you'll have your Mother's eyes.
I'll hold your body in my hands be as gentle as I can, but for now you're a scan of my unmade plans.
Small bump, four months you are brought to life.”

Ed Sheeran (1991) English singer-songwriter and producer

Small Bump.
Song lyrics, + (2011)

Life

“When we hear about rent control or gun control, we may think about rent or guns but the word that really matters is 'control.' That is what the political left is all about, as you can see by the incessant creation of new restrictions in places where they are strongly entrenched in power, such as San Francisco or New York.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Random Thoughts http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/08/26/random_thoughts?page=full&comments=true, 26 August 2008. 2000s

Thinking

“Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Cold Turkey (2004)

Truth, Thinking

“There is one story left, one road: that it is. And on this road there are very many signs that, being, is uncreated and imperishable, whole, unique, unwavering, and complete.”

Parmenides (-501–-470 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

Frag. B 8.1-4, quoted by Simplicius, Commentary on the Physics, 144

“The persons excepted from the benefits of the foregoing provisions are all who are, or shall have been, civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the so-called confederate government; all who have left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebellion; all who are, or shall have been, military or naval officers of said so-called confederate government above the rank of colonel in the army, or of lieutenant in the navy; all who left seats in the United States Congress to aid the rebellion; all who resigned commissions in the army or navy of the United States, and afterwards aided the rebellion; and all who have engaged in any way in treating colored persons or white persons, in charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war, and which persons may have been found in the United States service, as soldiers, seamen, or in any other capacity.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)

War, Color, Way, Personality

“I left home, and I wasn’t going back until I could make a living on manga. I’m happy that my wish was granted and that I’ve gotten a series, but now I’m busy and have no time to go home. I’m kind of happy and kind of sad.”

Hiromu Arakawa (1973) award winning Japanese manga artist

Interview with mobuta.com (2004)

Happiness, Sadness, Home, Business

“At first, being a female role model really terrified me. But it hasn't turned out to be an awful burden. I get a lot of letters from women who tell me that, after watching Xena, they have bought the Harley-Davidson they always wanted or left an abusive relationship.”

Lucy Lawless (1968) New Zealand actress

Robin Eggar (July 27, 1997) "Is it a bird? - Interview", The Sunday Times, p. Style 8.

Women

“The Reverend C. L. Dodgson had no life. He passed through the world so lightly that he left no print. He melted so passively into Oxford that he is invisible.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Essay "Lewis Carroll" (1939); reprinted in The Moment, and Other Essays (1948)

Life, World

“Over the last fifteen months we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in fifty…seven states… I think one left to go. One left to go — Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go to, even though I really wanted to visit — but my staff would not justify it.”

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

A gaffe during a campaign address, where he had obviously meant to say forty-seven in reference to the 47 of the 48 contiguous US states he had visited. (9 May 2008) Official transcript of address http://www.barackobama.com/2008/05/09/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_63.php - video of actual delivery of the introduction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws 2008

Travel, Thinking

“Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of [our] population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing-presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend upon it, this government cannot last. By such things the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it, and thus it will be left without friends, or with too few, and those few too weak to make their friendship effectual. At such a time, and under such circumstances, men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric which for the last half century has been the fondest hope of the lovers of freedom throughout the world.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)

Men, Friendship, Pleasure, World

“I had heated conflicts with Soumaya during every week that I was at father’s house. All I wanted to do was play WoW, and Soumaya strictly limited my playtime. Because my new room was just across from hers, she knew what I was doing at every single second. She was breathing down my neck the whole time. She kept making me do chores around the house. I despised doing work around the house, especially since we had a nanny who was supposed to do it. If I made a scene about doing the work, she took away my laptop for a day or two. This was the most horrible thing she could do to me, to take away my only source of joy left in the world. She sometimes did it even when father was at home, and father didn’t lift a finger to stop her.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Pastimes

World, Home, Time, Joy

“Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

" Ode http://www.bartleby.com/126/44.html", The Fair Maid of the Inn Poems (1820)

Soul, Passion

“One might ask why Senhor José needs a hundred-yard-long piece of string if the length of the Central Registry, despite successive extensions, is no more than eighty. That is the question of a person who imagines that one can do everything in life simply by following a straight line, that it is always possible to proceed from one place to another by the shortest route, perhaps some people in the outside world believe that they have done so, but here, where the living and the dead share the same space, sometimes, in order to find one of them, you have to make a lot of twists and turns, you have to skirt round mountains of bundles, columns of files, piles of cards, thickets of ancient remains, you have to walk down dark gulleys, between walls of grubby paper which, up above, actually touch, yards and yards of string will have to be unravelled, left behind, like a sinuous, subtle trail traced in the dust, there is no other way of knowing where you have to go next, there is no other way of finding your way back.”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), pp. 140–141

Life, People, World, Way

“Marketing is far too important to be left only to the marketing department!.”

David Packard (1912–1996) American electrical engineer, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, businessman, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense,…

David Packard cited in Philip Kotler (2000), Marketing Management, Millenium Edition. p. 13

“Trump won the nomination because he was anti-left, not because of any political viewpoints, he was slapping people on the left and people on the right went, ‘Yeah, those people need to be slapped!”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

As quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/ben-shapiro-conservative.html (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, '.

People

“The Jat community votes for non-sectarian in lines far greater proportion than any other in Meerut. They are un-educated, live in villages, have no pull in the public, economic or administrative life of the country and yet would not reconcile themselves to an inferior position in society. They would not put with the taunt of being a Jat. Fifty percent of the Hindu Jats within a short period of 40 years (1891-1931) left their old faith to turn Sikhs or Muslims so that nobody could any longer treat them with contempt.”

Charan Singh (1902–1987) prime minister of India

His negative reaction in a letter addressed to Nehru who had made a remark “jatpan’ [jat characteristics] in jest, in: p. 197
Profiles of Indian Prime Ministers

Life, Education, Faith, Communication

“I came across this Asian guy who was talking to a white girl. The sight of that filled me with rage. I always felt as if white girls thought less of me because I was half-Asian, but then I see this white girl at the party talking to a full-blooded Asian. I never had that kind of attention from a white girl! And white girls are the only girls I’m attracted to, especially the blondes. How could an ugly Asian attract the attention of a white girl, while a beautiful Eurasian like myself never had any attention from them? I thought with rage. I glared at them for a bit, and then decided I had been insulted enough. I angrily walked toward them and bumped the Asian guy aside, trying to act cocky and arrogant to both the boy and the girl. My drunken state got the better of me, and I almost fell over to the floor after a few minutes of this. They said something along the lines that I was very drunk and that I needed to get some water, so I angrily left them and went out to the front yard, where the main partying happened. Rage fumed inside me as I realized that I just walked away from that confrontation, so I rushed back into the house and spitefully insulted the Asian before walking outside again.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence

Beauty, Guy, Girl, Boy

“What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"A Toccata of Galuppi's", line 42.
Men and Women (1855)

Soul, Kiss

“We meet neath the sounding rafter,
And the walls around are bare;
As they shout back our peals of laughter
It seems that the dead are there.
Ho! stand to your glasses steady!
'T is all we have left to prize.
A cup to the dead already,—
Hurrah for the next that dies!”

Bartholomew Dowling (1823–1863) Irish poet

The Revel: Time of the Famine and Plague in India, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919); alternately attributed to Alfred Domett.

Laughter, Dead

“Once Nasreddin was invited to deliver a sermon. When he got on the pulpit, he asked, Do you know what I am going to say? The audience replied "no", so he announced, I have no desire to speak to people who don't even know what I will be talking about! and left.
The people felt embarrassed and called him back again the next day. This time, when he asked the same question, the people replied yes. So Nasreddin said, Well, since you already know what I am going to say, I won't waste any more of your time! and left.
Now the people were really perplexed. They decided to try one more time and once again invited the Mulla to speak the following week. Once again he asked the same question – Do you know what I am going to say? Now the people were prepared and so half of them answered "yes" while the other half replied "no."”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

So Nasreddin said Let the half who know what I am going to say, tell it to the half who don't, and left.
Alice Kelsey, Once the Hodja (1943), ISBN 0679251014

People, Question, Time

“He cannot kick with his left foot, he cannot head a ball, he cannot tackle and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that he's all right.”

George Best (1946–2005) British footballer

On David Beckham; reported in " The things they say: George Best http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/news/newsid=1085364.html", FIFA.com (July 31, 2009).

“The bread was dry and hard, only a scraping of butter was left, he was out of milk, all he had was some rather mediocre coffee, as we know, a man who had never found a woman who would love him enough to agree to join him in this hovel, such a man, apart from rare exceptions which have no place in this story, will never be more than a poor devil, it's odd that we always say poor devil and never poor god, […]”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), p. 100

Love, God, Coffee

“Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky? The west has opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves come to behold thy beauty. They lift their trembling heads. They see thee lovely in thy sleep; they shrink away with fear. Rest, in thy shadowy cave, O sun! let thy return be in joy.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"Carric-thura"
The Poems of Ossian

Love, Fear, Beauty, Sleep

“The best thing about the sciences is their philosophical ingredient, like life for an organic body. If one dephilosophizes the sciences, what remains left? Earth, air, and water.”

Novalis book Blüthenstaub

Fragment No. 62
Blüthenstaub (1798)

Life, Water, Science

“I've been 15 years in the nut ward, for trying to stop the trees from being cut down, from trying to rearrange the lifestyle of a bunch of people who don't want to change. But they're gonna change because a cold wind is blowing. You're gonna change or else there's going to be no life left on the planet Earth.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJHq2aN9tYE by Penny Daniels (1989)

Life, People, Tree, Change

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”

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

2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)

Women, Men, People, Truth

“Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to them in and by the National Constitution; but among these surely are not included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive, but at most such only as were known in the world at the time as governmental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the Government itself had never been known as a governmental — as a merely administrative power. This relative matter of national power and State rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of generality and locality. Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole — to the General Government — while whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State. This is all there is of original principle about it. Whether the National Constitution in defining boundaries between the two has applied the principle with exact accuracy is not to be questioned. We are all bound by that defining without question.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

World, Confidence, Question, Time

“What place can be left for random action, when God constraineth all things to order?”
Quis enim cohercente in ordinem cuncta deo locus esse ullus temeritati reliquus potest?

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Prose I; translation by H. R. James
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book V

God

“I was sitting alone in an empty locker room, left leg injured. I need to prove my worth when the opportunity is given. I look at my leg, powerless, and wonder why I had to get hurt in this moment. Then, Coach Hiddink appears out of nowhere with an interpretor and speaks to me in English. Not understanding, I stare at the interpretor. He says you have great mentality. With that kind of mental strength, you will become a great player. I was shocked. Before I could murmur the easy 'thank you' in English, he was gone. My heart was pounding. The coach always seemed to be so far away, but he came to me and told me I have great mentality. Somewhere inside, energy was rousing up…. mentality. I have nothing else to boast, but one thing I could do is to never give up. I will endure all hardships, even if I would die from it. And I will keep this mentality…. in the entire World Cup, I played with those words ringing in my ears. With my mentality, I can become a great player. I kicked the ball and ran around the field clinging on to those words. For better or for worse, I am calm and quiet, so not many people take notice of me. But I was sure that Coach Hiddink would be looking at me and urging me to move on. This gave me courage. If it was not for Coach Hiddink, I would not be where I am now. With the words 'where I am now,' I am not referring to me becoming famous or being able to purchase a spacious condo for my parents. I am referring to the fact that I learned to love myself more. Within a minute, what Coach Hiddink said to me changed my life forever. I feel a bit shy thinking about what he would think after reading this, but he is my 'master' and I owe him everything and I won't be able to repay it in my lifetime.”

Park Ji-sung (1981) South Korean footballer

From Park's autobiography, praising the efforts of Guus Hiddink.

Love, Life, People, World

“Alone am I, and alone I wish to be;
Alone my sweet love has left me.
Alone am I, without friend or mate,
Alone am I, mournful and angry.”

Christine de Pizan (1365–1430) Italian French late medieval author

Seulete suy et seulete vueil estre,
Seulete m'a mon doulz ami laissiée,
Seulete suy, sanz compaignon ne maistre,
Seulette suy, dolente et courrouciée.
Cent Balades, no. 11, line 1; Maurice Roy (ed.) Œuvres Poétiques de Christine de Pisan (1886) vol. 1, p. 12. Translation from Aliki Barnstone & Willis Barnstone (eds.) A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now (1980) p. 203.

Love

“They would have preferred for me, instead of Bloch, companions who would have given me no more than it is proper to give according to the laws of middle-class morality, who would not unexpectedly send me a basket of fruit because they happened, that morning, to have thought of me with affection, but who, being incapable of inclining in my favour, by a simple impulse of imagination and sensibility, the exact balance of the duties and claims of friendship, would be equally incapable of loading the scales to my detriment. Even our faults will not easily divert from the path of their duty towards us those conventional natures of which the model was my great-aunt who, estranged for years from a niece to whom she never spoke, yet made no change in the will in which she left that niece the whole of her fortune, because she was her next-of-kin and it was the 'proper thing to do.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

"Combray"
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol I: Swann's Way (1913)

Friendship, Law, Imagination, Nature

“When you reached the age of reason, I secured you from the influence of human prejudice; when your heart awoke I preserved you from the sway of passion. Had I been able to prolong this inner tranquillity till your life's end, my work would have been secure, and you would have been as happy as man can be; but, my dear Emile, in vain did I dip you in the waters of Styx, I could not make you everywhere invulnerable; a fresh enemy has appeared, whom you have not yet learnt to conquer, and from whom I cannot save you. That enemy is yourself. Nature and fortune had left you free. You could face poverty, you could bear bodily pain; the sufferings of the heart were unknown to you; you were then dependent on nothing but your position as a human being; now you depend on all the ties you have formed for yourself; you have learnt to desire, and you are now the slave of your desires. Without any change in yourself, without any insult, any injury to yourself, what sorrows may attack your soul, what pains may you suffer without sickness, how many deaths may you die and yet live! A lie, an error, a suspicion, may plunge you in despair.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Emile, or On Education

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book V

Life, Death, Pain, Happiness

“"I just… I don't know how I got here."
"I could probably retrace our steps. Straight through the faerie corridor, left at the decimated village, right at the blasted plain of the damned, sharp U-turn at the heap of dead demon--"”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Clary Fray and Jace Herondale, pg. 405
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

Dead

“When a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.”

Oscar Wilde Vera; or, The Nihilists

Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)

“On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negroes — those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there were Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn't get anything but what was left of the insides of the hog.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

Hell, Housing

“Rebellion against technology and civilization is real rebellion, a real attack on the values of the existing system. But the green anarchists, anarcho-primitivists, and so forth (The "GA Movement") have fallen under such heavy influence from the left that their rebellion against civilization has to great extent been neutralized. Instead of rebelling against the values of civilization, they have adopted many civilized values themselves and have constructed an imaginary picture of primitive societies that embodies these civilized values.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

Letter to M. K.
The Road to Revolution (2008)

“A commander in chief ought to say to himself several times a day: If the enemy should appear on my front, on my right, on my left, what would I do? And if the question finds him uncertain, he is not well placed, he is not as he should be, and he should remedy it.”

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

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Question, Appearance, Time

“I was truly under Hitler's spell, that cannot be denied. I was impressed with him from the moment I first met him, in 1932. He had terrific power, especially in his eyes. Now the tribunal accuses us of conspiracy. I say, how can one have a conspiracy in a dictatorship government? One man and one man only made all the crucial decisions. That was the Fuhrer. In all my dealings with him I never discussed the exterminations or anything of that sort. What I shall never comprehend is that six weeks before the end of the war he assured me we'd win by a nose. I left his presence then and said that from that time forth I was completely at a loss — that I didn't understand a thing. Hitler always, until the end, and even now, had a strange fascination over me. Would you call it abnormal of me? Sometimes, in his presence, when he spoke of all his plans, the good things he would do for the Volk, vacations, highways, new buildings, cultural advantages and so forth, tears would come to my eyes. Would that be because I'm a hysterical weak man?”

Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946) German general

To Leon Goldensohn, July 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

War, Understanding, Decision, Tear

“Do you know that there’s hardly anyone left of last year’s Caucasian governments? I’ve tried to stop it, but in vain. Yet they can’t all be Trotskyites and traitors.”

Lavrentiy Beria (1899–1953) Georgian Soviet NKVD police chief under fellow Georgian and Soviet leader Stalin

Quoted in “The Kremlin and the People” - Page 126 - by Walter Duranty - History – 2007

“"What!" cried Bretwit in candid surprise, "They know at home that His Majesty has left Zembla?"”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Pale Fire (1962)

Home

“Although indulgences are the very merits of Christ and of His saints and so should be treated with all reverence, they have in fact nonetheless become a shocking exercise of greed. For who actually seeks the salvation of souls through indulgences, and not instead money for his coffers? This is evident from the way indulgences are preached. For the commissioners and preachers do nothing but extol indulgences and incite the people to contribute. You hear no one instructing the people about what indulgences are, or about how much they grant, or about the purpose they serve. Instead, all you hear is how much one must contribute. The people are always left in ignorance, so that they come to think that by gaining indulgences they are at once saved.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Tractatus de indulgentiis per Doctorem Martinum ordinis s. Augustini Wittenbergae editus., or, A Treatise on Indulgences Published by Doctor Martin of the Order of St. Augustine in Wittenberg. To Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz (31 October 1517) Luther's "forgotten" treatise was found in the Mainz archives “among the papers making up the correspondence between Archbishop Albrecht and the Mainz University faculty in December 1517” and published by F. Herrmann in the Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte (ZKG) in 1907, vol. 28, pp. 370-373. Catholic Luther scholar Jared Wicks S. J. believes this early treatise to be of considerable historical significance: "This document is the short treatise sketching a tentative theology of indulgences which Luther sent to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz and Magdeburg on that fateful October 31, 1517. The other two documents of Luther's intervention are well known. First, there was the respectful, though urgent letter to the Archbishop in which Luther related the misunderstandings being spread by Tetzel's preaching and in which he begged the Archbishop to issue new instructions which would bring Tetzel under control. Secondly, there was the list of Latin theses on the doctrine and practice of indulgences which Luther intended to use as the basis of a theological discussion of the many vexed questions in this area. The third document sent to Albrecht, Luther's treatise, has not received the attention it deserves from historians and theologians studying the beginning of the Reformation. This is most regrettable, since the treatise depicts in orderly and succinct fashion Luther's understanding of indulgences in 1517 and reveals his conception of their limited role in Christian living. The treatise gives us the theological standpoint on which Luther based his intervention, and it shows in miniature the rich Augustinian spirituality of penance and progress that he had forged in his early works. ...[T]he great tragedy of 1517 was that the barbed [95] theses spread over Germany in a matter of weeks, and this penetrating little treatise fell into dusty oblivion." Martin Luther's Treatise on Indulgences, Theological Studies 28 (1967), pp. 481-482, 518. http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22forgotten+document+in+luther%27s%22&btnG=#hl=en&q=%22forgotten%20document%20in%20luther%27s%22&um=1&bpcl=35466521&psj=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=pw&psj=1&ei=Y-6JUJ-mL4eo8gShuYDIBQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=e5b835ba41618e18&biw=1232&bih=702 http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22forgotten+document+in+luther%27s%22&btnG=#hl=en&q=%22forgotten+document+in+luther%27s%22&um=1&bpcl=35466521&psj=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbm=bks&source=og&sa=N&tab=wp&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=4fa257fccf8e3a83&biw=1232&bih=702

Money, People, Way, Exercises

Quotes about left page 4

Quotes about left
page 4