Quotes about man
page 27

“We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master. We then become witnesses to the development of the human soul; the emergence of the New Man who will no longer be the victim of events but, thanks to his clarity of vision, will become able to direct and to mold the future of mankind.”

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

Part I : The Child's Part in World Reconstruction, p. 9
The Absorbent Mind (1949)

Soul, Teachers, Waiting, Future

“Amid all the triumphs of our civilization — yes, and amid the crushing problems of overpopulation too — it is sad to reflect how many millions of people suffer from increasing loneliness and isolation. Our serving-man will be a boon to them; he will always answer, and the most vapid conversation cannot bore him.
For the future, we plan more models, male and female — some of them without the limitations of this first one, I promise you! — of more advanced design, true bio-electronic beings.
Not only will they possess their own computer, capable of individual programming; they will be linked to the World Data Network. Thus everyone will be able to enjoy the equivalent of an Einstein in their own homes. Personal isolation will then be banished forever!”

Brian W. Aldiss book Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (1969)

People, World, Sadness, Home

“The tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life, is very disappointing to me.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Mr. Tesla Explains Why He Will Never Marry (1924)

Life, Women, Disappointment

“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

“I went to sleep in Chaos, and then I awoke like the first man.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), XVII - Morning

Sleep

“In grandchildren I am the richest man that lives to-day: for I select my grandchildren, whereas all other grandfathers have to take them as they come, good, bad, and indifferent.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (2015), p. 219, of his "angel-fishes"—girls between the ages of ten and sixteen whom he befriended after the death of his wife

Indifference

“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”

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

Alledgedly from a speech to the Illinois House of Representatives (18 December 1840) its called "a remarkable piece of spurious Lincolniana" by Merrill D. Peterson: Lincoln in American Memory. Oxford UP 1995, books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=EADk9ZIMJXEC&q=prohibitory#v=page. Cf.Spurious archive.org https://archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnqulinc_41 and Harry Miller Lydenberg: Lincoln and Prohibition, Blazes on a Zigzag Trail. Proceedings Of The American Antiquarian Society, No. 1/1952 pdf http://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44807229.pdf. Misattributed

Law

“"Mulla, I want to borrow your donkey."
"I am sorry," said the Mulla, "but I have already lent it out."
As soon as he had spoken, the donkey brayed. The sound came from Nasrudin's stable.
"But Mulla, I can hear the donkey, in there!"
As he shut the door in the man's face, Nasrudin said, with dignity, "A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything."”

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

Idries Shah, The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin (1968), , p. 62

“So, I come home, I was so tired, and I look at my phone to check my messages, and I had a voicemail message from a guy by the name of Channing Tatum. [Female audience members cheer and woop] Now, for those of you not "woo"-ing, let me explain who that is. Channing Tatum is the new Hollywood hot guy, he's doing all these movies, coming out really good-looking, ripped, you know. He's making a lot of films, and there's a voicemail on there from him. "Gabriel Iglesias, this is Channing Tatum, call me at your earliest convenience…" blah-blah-blah. So, I was like, "Well, okay." So, I call him. [Mimics dialing on phone and ringing] "Hello?" "Hi, this is Gabriel Iglesias calling for Mr. Channing Tatum?" He yells, "FLUFFY!" [Mimes pulling his phone away in surprise] "…Hello?" "Oh, dude, man, I'm a huge fan. Hey, listen, real quick, I only have, like, a minute. Look, bro, I'm doing a new movie, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in reading and auditioning for one of the parts." I said, "Sure, bro, I'd be happy to audition for…for your movie. What's it called?" He goes, "The movie's called Magic Mike." [Female audience members woop loudly] I was like, "Oh, cool, Magic Mike. So, you need a magician, you need an assistant, you gonna saw me in half, what's gonna happen?" "Actually, bro. The movie has nothing to do with magic. It's actually a movie about male strippers." I said, "Male strippers?" He goes, "Yeah, male strippers."”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

I said, "You do know that this is Gabriel Iglesias, right?"
Aloha, Fluffy (2013)

Happiness, Guy, Home, Reading

“It is a crime that those people who wish to see a generous France take her place as leader of all the free and just nations are being accused of fomenting turmoil in the country, denounced by the very plotters who are conniving so shamelessly to foist this miscarriage of justice on the entire world. It is a crime to lie to the public, to twist public opinion to insane lengths in the service of the vilest death-dealing machinations. It is a crime to poison the minds of the meek and the humble, to stoke the passions of reactionism and intolerance, by appealing to that odious anti-Semitism that, unchecked, will destroy the freedom-loving France of the Rights of Man. It is a crime to exploit patriotism in the service of hatred, and it is, finally, a crime to ensconce the sword as the modern god, whereas all science is toiling to achieve the coming era of truth and justice.
Truth and justice, so ardently longed for! How terrible it is to see them trampled, unrecognized and ignored!”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

Love, Death, God, People

“The righteousness which is by faith in Christ is a loving heart and a loving life, which every man will long to lead who believes really in Jesus Christ.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 230.

Love, Life, Faith, Heart

“When she [Philosophy] saw that the Muses of poetry were present by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely, and said she, "Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man? Never do they support those in sorrow by any healing remedies, but rather do ever foster the sorrow by poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions: they free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them thereto."”
Quae ubi poeticas Musas uidit nostro assistentes toro fletibusque meis uerba dictantes, commota paulisper ac toruis inflammata luminibus: Quis, inquit, has scenicas meretriculas ad hunc aegrum permisit accedere, quae dolores eius non modo nullis remediis fouerent, uerum dulcibus insuper alerent uenenis? Hae sunt enim quae infructuosis affectuum spinis uberem fructibus rationis segetem necant hominumque mentes assuefaciunt morbo, non liberant.

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

Prose I, lines 7-9; translation by W.V. Cooper
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book I

Men, Disease, Support, Suffering

“I went out into Downing Street a happy man. Of course it was partly because an old buffer like me enjoys feeling that he is still not quite out of things. But it was also pure patriotic joy that my country at such a time should have found such a leader. The furnace of war has smelted out all base metals from him.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On his meeting with Winston Churchill, quoted in Harold Nicolson's diary (21 July 1943), Nigel Nicolson (ed.), Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters. 1939-1945 (London: Collins, 1967), p. 286.
1940s

War, Happiness, Feeling, Time

“[O]f articles of food, those which are unsuitable and hurtful to man when administered, every one is either bitter… or saltish or acid, or something else intense and strong, and therefore we are disordered by them… But all those things of which a man eats and drinks are devoid of any such intense and well-marked quality… which man is accustomed to use for food, with the exception of condiments and confectionaries, which are made to gratify the palate and for luxury. And from those things, when received into the body abundantly, there is no disorder nor dissolution of the powers belonging to the body; but strength, growth, and nourishment… for no other reason than because they are well mixed, have no thing in them of an immoderate character, nor anything strong, but the whole forms… [of] simple and not strong substance.”

Hippocrates (-460–-370 BC) ancient Greek physician

p, 125
Ancient Medicine

Food, Drink, Strong, Hurt

“Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the last you shall hear from me Wayne. Arrived here 2 days ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory, but I finally got here. Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again I want you to know your [sic] a great man. I now walk into the wild. Alex.”

Christopher McCandless (1968–1992) American hiker and explorer

In a postcard sent to Wayne Westerberg, April 27, 1992.
Source: Mary Ellen Barnes (ed.). Back to the Wild (2nd ed.). Twin Star Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-9833955-0-8. (pp. 172-173)

Time

“Yet still to choose a brat like you,
To haunt a man of forty-two,
Was no great compliment!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Canto 1
Phantasmagoria (1869)

“Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded. These prison walls that this age of trade has built up round us, we can break down. We can still run free, call to our comrades, and marvel to hear once more, in response to our call, the impassioned chant of the human voice.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

1939 translation:
We can still run free, call to our comrades, and marvel to hear once more, in response to our call, the pathetic chant of the human voice.
Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. II : The Men, as quoted in The Lyric Self in Zen and E.E. Cummings (2015) by Michael Buland Burns and ‎Rima Snyder, p. 72

Life, Age

“It is unfortunate that a good talent and a good man seldom come together.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Es ist ein Unglück, daß ein braves Talent und ein braver Mann so selten zusammen kommen!
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 25.

“I wanted to damage every man in the place, and every woman--and not in their bodies or in their estate, but in their vanity--the place where feeble and foolish people are most vulnerable. So I disguised myself and came back and studied you. You were easy game. You had an old and lofty reputation for honesty, and naturally you were proud of it — it was your treasure of treasures, the very apple of your eye. As soon as I found out that you carefully and vigilantly kept yourselves and your children out of temptation, I knew how to proceed. Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.”

Mark Twain book The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", ch. III, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900)

Children, People, Game, Nature

“This day is a day that is proud to me, having occupied the position that I did for the past twelve years, and been misunderstood by your race. This is the first opportunity I have had during that time to say that I am your friend. I am here a representative of the southern people, one more slandered and maligned than any man in the nation.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)

People, Time, Past

“Attack and defence, want and war, victory and defeat, lordship and thraldom, all sealed with the seal of blood: this from henceforth is the History of Man.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Part II
Religion and Art (1880)

War, History, Victory

“In the heart of Europe runs the purest stream of human love, of justice, of spirit of self-sacrifice for higher ideals. The Christian culture of centuries has sunk deep in her life's core. In Europe we have seen noble minds who have ever stood up for the rights of man irrespective of colour and creed.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

"Nationalism in the West", 1917. Reprinted in Rabindranath Tagore and Mohit K. Ray, Essays (2007, p. 475). Also cited in John Jesudason Cornelius, Rabindranath Tagore: India's Schoolmaster, (1928, p. 83).

Love, Life, Justice, Heart

“Some men like me talkin' happy
Some calls it snappy
Some call me honey
Others think I got money
Some tell me baby you're built for speed
Now if you put that all together
Makes me everything a good man needs.”

Billie Holiday (1915–1959) American jazz singer and songwriter

Billie's Blues

Men, Money, Happiness, Thinking

“We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt.”

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

1950s, The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)

“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

“People are broad-minded. They'll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife beater and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn't drive, there's something wrong with him.”

Art Buchwald (1925–2007) journalist, humorist, United States Marine

Have I Ever Lied to You? (1968).

People, Alcohol, Personality

“I know at last what distinguishes man from animals; financial worries.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

As quoted in The Anchor Book of French quotations, with English Translations (1963) by Norbert Guterman

Animals

“Don't lecture me on race relations. I don't have a molecule of prejudice. I've been in battle with every kind of man there is. I've been in bed with every kind of woman there is — from a Laplander to a Tierra del Fuegian. If I'd ever been to the South Pole, there'd be a hell of a lot of penguins who looked like me.”

Kurt Vonnegut Happy Birthday, Wanda June

"Harold Ryan"
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)

Hell

“Let us be aware that while they [the Soviet leadership] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.”

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

Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals (8 March 1983)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

People, World, Evil

“Perhaps it is not true that “a man becomes what he dreams”; but if he does not dream, what kind of a man is he?”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

This quote is itself quoting Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman in the film Grey Owl (1999)
Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

Dreams

“The female defects – greed, hate, and delusion and other defilements – are greater than the male’s…You [women] should have such an intention…Because I wish to be freed from the impurities of the woman’s body, I will acquire the beautiful and fresh body of a man.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Saint Augustine as quoted by Dr Bettany Hughes Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11785181/Feminism-started-with-the-Buddha-and-Confucius-25-centuries-ago.html Disputed

Women, Hate, Beauty

“[The value and dignity of the individual] is threatened whenever it is assumed that individual desires, hopes and ideals can be fitted with frictionless harmony into the collective purposes of man. The individual is not discrete. He cannot find his fulfillment outside of the community; but he also cannot find fulfillment completely within society. In so far as he finds fulfillment within society he must abate his individual ambitions. He must 'die to self' if he would truly live. In so far as he finds fulfillment beyond every historical community he lives his life in painful tension with even the best community, sometimes achieving standards of conduct which defy the standards of the community with a resolute "we must obey God rather than man."”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

The Irony of American History (1952)

Life, God, Pain, Hope

“There could be joy in destruction, too, couldn’t there? Isn’t Jesus Christ’s Second Coming supposed to occur only after a lot of unmitigated destruction? But again, human history is fraught with tragedies in which man spared no effort to destroy with millenarian joy, only to learn that no messiah appeared afterwards.”

Kenzaburō Ōe (1935) Japanese author

p 90
Shizuka-na seikatsu (A Quiet Life) (1990)

History, Effort, Learning, Appearance

“It is a woman's outstanding characteristic that she can do anything for the love of a man. But those women who can achieve something important for the love of a thing are most exceptional, because this does not really agree with their nature. Love for a thing is a man's prerogative. But since masculine and feminine elements are united in our human nature, a man can live in the feminine part of himself, I and a woman in her masculine part. None the less the feminine element in man is only something in the background, as is the masculine element in woman. If one lives out the opposite sex in oneself one is living in one's own background, and one's real individuality suffers. A man should live as a man and a woman as a woman.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Source: "Woman in Europe" (1927), P. 243

Love, Women, Sex, Nature

“Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.”

William Wordsworth Laodamia

Stanza 28.
Laodamia (1814)

Hope, Tear, Suffering

“The whole world is bound together as never before; the bonds are sometimes those of hatred rather than love, but they are bonds nevertheless. Frowning or hopeful, every man of leadership in any line of thought or effort must now look beyond the limits of his own country. … For weal or for woe, the peoples of mankind are knit together far closer than ever before.”

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

1910s, The World Movement (1910)

Love, People, World, Hope

“Man is the higher Sense of our Planet; the star which connects it with the upper world; the eye which it turns towards Heaven.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Novalis (1829)

World, Star, Sense

“Any man who does not make himself proficient in at least two languages other than his own is a fool”

Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) American university teacher (1879-1962)

Fischerisms (1944)

Fools

“What has the future in store for this strange being, born of a breath, of perishable tissue, yet Immortal, with his powers fearful and Divine? What magic will be wrought by him in the end? What is to be his greatest deed, his crowning achievement?
Long ago he recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or Creative Force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.
Can man control this grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes in nature? Can he harness her inexhaustible energies to perform all their functions at his bidding? more still cause them to operate simply by the force of his will?
If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural. At his command, with but a slight effort on his part, old worlds would disappear and new ones of his planning would spring into being. He could fix, solidify and preserve the ethereal shapes of his imagining, the fleeting visions of his dreams. He could express all the creations of his mind on any scale, in forms concrete and imperishable. He could alter the size of this planet, control its seasons, guide it along any path he might choose through the depths of the Universe. He could cause planets to collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light. He could originate and develop life in all its infinite forms.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Man's Greatest Achievement (1908; 1930)

Life, World, Fear, Dreams

“The fool wonders, the wise man asks.”

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

Count Alarcos: A Tragedy Act IV, sc. i.
Books

Fools

“The highest perfection of human life consists in the mind of man being detached from care, for the sake of God.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Summa Contra Gentiles, III,130,3

Life, God, Perfection

“Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.”

Mark Twain book Following the Equator

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XXI
Following the Equator (1897)
Variant: Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.

Love, Envy

“What a queer work the Bible is.
… Some texts are very funny. Deut. XXIV, 5: "When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken." I should never have guessed "cheer up" was a Biblical expression. Here is another really inspiring text: "Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law. And all the people shall say, Amen." St Paul on marriage: "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." This has remained the doctrine of the Church to this day. It is clear that the Divine purpose in the text "it is better to marry than to burn" is to make us all feel how very dreadful the torments of Hell must be.”

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

Letter to Colette, August 10, 1918
1910s

Marriage, War, People, Law

“Those who receive this privilege therefore, have a duty to repay the sacrifice which others have made. They are like the man who has been given all the food available in a starving village in order that he might have strength to bring supplies back from a distant place. If he takes this food and does not bring help to his brothers, he is a traitor. Similarly, if any of the young men and women who are given an education by the people of this republic adopt attitudes of superiority, or fail to use their knowledge to help the development of this country, then they are betraying our union.”

Julius Nyerere (1922–1999) Tanzanian politician and writer, first Prime Minister and President of Tanzania

On higher education, 1960s. UDSM Alumni Newletter, volume 7. No. 2, November 2007, ISSN 0856 - 8805

Women, Men, People, Education

“The relationship of soul and body is different in man and woman; the relationship of soul to body differs in their psychic life as well as that of the spiritual faculties to each other. The feminine species expresses a unity and wholeness of the toal psychosomatic personality and a harmonious development of faculties. The masculine species strives to enhance individual abilities in order that they may attain their highest achievements.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), Problems of Women's Education (1932)

Life, Soul, Personality

“There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.”

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

"The Expanding Mental Universe", Saturday Evening Post (July 1959)
1950s

“Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.”

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

Attributed to Russell in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007), p. 346
Attributed from posthumous publications

People, Democracy

“God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.”

Jacques Deval (1890–1972) French film director and writer

Quoted in Barbara K. Rodes and Rice Odell, A Dictionary of Environmental Quotations (1992), p. 22

Love, God, Bird, Tree

“When man is raised from his slumber in the senses, he feels that he is a man, he surveys his surroundings, and finds that he is in a state. He was introduced into this state, by the power of circumstances, before he could freely select his own position. But as a moral being he cannot possibly rest satisfied with a political condition forced upon him by necessity, and only calculated for that condition; and it would be unfortunate if this did satisfy him. In many cases man shakes off this blind law of necessity, by his free spontaneous action, of which among many others we have an instance, in his ennobling by beauty and suppressing by moral influence the powerful impulse implanted in him by nature in the passion of love.”

Friedrich Schiller book On the Aesthetic Education of Man

Letter 3
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

Love, Law, Beauty, Feeling

“We cannot always judge man for only one part of his attitude. If we did so, we would be like the Pharisees in whose eyes Jesus was seen as bad, because He did not respect their rules about the Sabbath. They closed their eyes entirely to what would have lovable in Jesus, even in their sight.”

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 82.

Parting

“A lady is a woman who makes a man behave like a gentleman.”

Russell Lynes (1910–1991) American art historian

"The Part-Time Lady," http://books.google.com/books?id=0qhKAAAAMAAJ&q=%22A+lady+is+a+woman+who+makes+a+man+behave+like+a+gentleman%22&pg=PA104#v=onepage A Surfeit of Honey (1957)

“The danger at such a moment is that designing politicians may take advantage of such sublime sentiments and may apply them for the furtherance of their sinister ends. I do not think there is any language which can denounce too strongly conduct of this description. He who at such a moment would avail himself of such a commanding sentiment in order to obtain his own individual ends, suggesting a course which he may know to be injurious to the interests of the country, and not favourable to the welfare of mankind, is a man whose conduct no language can too strongly condemn. He outrages the principle of patriotism, which is the soul of free communities. He does more—he influences in the most injurious manner the common welfare of humanity. Such conduct, if it be pursued by any man at this moment, ought to be indignantly reprobated by the people of England; for, in the general havoc and ruin which it may bring about, it may, I think, be fairly described as worse than any of those Bulgarian atrocities which now occupy attention.”

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

Source: Speech to the annual meeting of the Royal and Central Bucks Agricultural Association in Aylesbury (20 September 1876), quoted in 'Lord Beaconsfield At Aylesbury', The Times (21 September 1876), p. 6.

People, Soul, Communication, Thinking

“The next man in this history of evolution is a man by the name of Augustine. He was born approximately 353 A. D. and died about 430 A. D. He is called St. Augustine by the Catholic church. Augustine still plays a vital part in the Catholic church doctrine. He would be the equivalent of a theistic evolutionist today”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

History, Parting

“Where there have been powerful governments, societies, religions, public opinions, in short wherever there has been tyranny, there the solitary philosopher has been hated; for philosophy offers an asylum to a man into which no tyranny can force it way, the inward cave, the labyrinth of the heart.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

trans. Hollingdale, “Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.3, p. 139
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Hate, Religion, Way, Heart

“Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has hitherto always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed: - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

20
Daybreak — Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality (1881)

Men, Law, History, Change

“Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wilderness", p. 188.

“God became man so that man might become God.”
Factus est Deus homo ut homo fieret Deus.

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

128
Sermons

God

“The love of power is a part of human nature, but power-philosophies are, in a certain precise sense, insane. The existence of the external world, both that of matter and of other human beings, is a datum, which may be humiliating to a certain kind of pride, but can only be denied by a madman. Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships in philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships. Certified lunatics are shut up because of the proneness to violence when their pretensions are questioned; the uncertified variety are given control of powerful armies, and can inflict death and disaster upon all sane men within their reach.”

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

Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 16: Power philosophies

Love, Death, Men, God

“This took me completely by surprise. Since July 20, 1944, I had not spoken to Hitler at all except at some large gathering. … I had never received any hint on the subject from anyone else…. I assumed that Hitler had nominated me because he wished to clear the way to enable an officer of the Armed Forces to put an end to the war. That this assumption was incorrect I did not find out until the winter of 1945-46 in Nuremberg, when for the first time I heard the provisions of Hitler's will…. When I read the signal I did not for a moment doubt that it was my duty to accept the task … it had been my constant fear that the absence of any central authority would lead to chaos and the senseless and purposeless sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives … I realized … that the darkest moment in any fighting man's life, the moment when he must surrender unconditionally, was at hand. I realized, too, that my name would remain forever associated with the act and that hatred and distortion of facts would continue to try and besmirch my honor. But duty demanded that I pay no attention to any such considerations. My policy was simple — to try and save as many lives as I could …”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

April 30, 1945, quoted in "Memoirs: Ten Years And Twenty Days" - Page 442 - by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz - History - 1997.

Life, War, Fear, Way

“The human race is trying to work out: 'well, what's the ultimate sacrifice?' It's something like that. The ultimate sacrifice of value. Well, the Passion story - and I told you was foreshadowing - is that there is a supreme sacrifice demanded on the part of the Mother, and there's a supreme sacrifice demanded on the part of the Father, all at the same time. That makes the supreme sacrifice possible. And hypothetically, that's the one that renews. That's the sacrifice that renews and redeems. It's a hell of an idea, man. And the things about it is: I don't know if it's true. But I know that its opposite is false. And generally the opposite of something that's false is true. If the mother doesn't make the sacrifice, then you get the horrible Oedipal situation in the household, which is its own catastrophic hell. If the maternal sacrifice isn't there, then that doesn't work. If the paternal sacrifice isn't there - if the father isn't willing to put his son out into the world, then that's a non-starter because the kid doesn't grow up. And if the son isn't willing to do that, then who the hell is going to shoulder the responsibility. So if those three things don't happen, it's chaos, it's cataclysmic, it's hell. If they do happen, is it the opposite of that? Well, maybe you could say it depends on the degree to which they happen. And it's a continuum. How thoroughly can they happen? Well, we don't know, because you might say, 'How good of a job do you do of encouraging your children to live in truth?”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Well, that's part of the answer to this question. And the answer likely is: well, you don't do as good a job of it as you could. So it works out quite well, but you don't know how well it could work if you did it really well, or spectacularly well, or ultimately well or something like that. You don't know."
Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts

Children, Truth, World, Idea

“And you, amiable debauchees, you who since youth have known no limits but those of your desires and who have been governed by your caprices alone, study the cynical Dolmancé, proceed like him and go as far as he if you too would travel the length of those flowered ways your lechery prepares for you; in Dolmancé's academy be at last convinced it is only by exploring and enlarging the sphere of his tastes and whims, it is only by sacrificing everything to the senses' pleasure that this individual, who never asked to be cast into this universe of woe, that this poor creature who goes under the name of Man, may be able to sow a smattering of roses atop the thorny path of life.”

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom

To Libertines
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Life, Pleasure, Youth, Way

“Mao is a strange man whose personality is like the Tao, sometimes In sometime Young; he has a soft-as-cotton outer layer, but at the same time has sharp needles hiding inside… I do not think he could achieve anything, at the end he will be crushed inside my palm.”

Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) Chinese politician and military leader

Diary entry

Thinking, Time, Personality

“The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates etc..”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

"Two Essays in Analytical Psychology" In CW 7: P. 188 (1967)

World, Nature, Light, Water

“In science men have discovered an activity of the very highest value in which they are no longer, as in art, dependent for progress upon the appearance of continually greater genius, for in science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it.”

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

Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 2: The Place of Science in a Liberal Education

Men, Art, Appearance, Science

“Popery so threatens and so nearly surrounds us…every sober man would think it seasonable at this time that all dissenting Protestants should be brought to a good understanding and compliance one with another…I think all Protestants ought now by all ways to be stirred up against them [Catholics] as People that have declared themselves ready by blood, violence, and destruction to ruine our Religion and Government…[they] are nothing but either Enemys in our bowells or spies among us, whilst their General commanders whom they blindly obey declare warr, and an unalterable designe to destroy us.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

'Critical Notes Upon Edward Stillingfleet's Mischief and Unreasonableness of Separation' (c. May 1681), quoted in John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 110

People, Religion, Way, Understanding

“To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (30 May 1902); also in Mark Twain : A Life, p. 611

Idea

“The stupidity of the average man will permit the oligarch, whether economic or political, to hide his real purposes from the scrutiny of his fellows and to withdraw his activities from effective control. Since it is impossible to count on enough moral goodwill among those who possess irresponsible power to sacrifice it for the good of the whole, it must be destroyed by coercive methods and these will always run the peril of introducing new forms of injustice in place of those abolished.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

Source: (1932), p.21

Stupidity

“A process which led from the amœba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress – though whether the amœba would agree with this opinion is not known.”

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

Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic

Appearance

“Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

General Peyton C. March, as quoted in Crew Resource Management for the Fire Service (2004) by Randy Okray and Thomas Lubnau II, p. 25.
Misattributed

Error

“Nobody has to go hungry today. There is plenty of work for a man who wants to work. A kid can make plenty of dough for himself doing almost anything. I was hungry. I had to fight my way along. Freights and the like, fight, fight all the time. The life was tough, but it hardened you.”

Jack Dempsey (1895–1983) American boxer

Jack speaking to The Ring Magazine (May 1956)

Life, Way, Time, Fight

“Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. I; CCCXXII
Lacon (1820)

Fools

“Usually, it is man who attacks; as for me, I defend myself, and I often capitulate.”

Napoleon III (1808–1873) French emperor, president, and member of the House of Bonaparte

On his numerous mistresses, as quoted in The True Story of the Empress Eugénie (1921) by Guy Jean Raoul Eugène Charles Emmanuel de Savoie-Carignan Soissons, Ccomte de Soissons
Variant translation: It is usually the man who attacks. As for me, I defend myself, and I often capitulate.
As quoted in The Mistresses : Domestic Scandals of the 19th-Century Monarchs (1966) by E. Cobham Brewer

“MALCOLM X: Freedom, justice and equality are our principal ambitions. And to faithfully serve and follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the guiding goal of every Muslim. Mr. Muhammad teaches us the knowledge of our own selves, and of our own people. He cleans us up--morally, mentally and spiritually--and he reforms us of the vices that have blinded us here in the Western society. He stops black men from getting drunk, stops their dope addiction if they had it, stops nicotine, gambling, stealing, lying, cheating, fornication, adultery, prostitution, juvenile delinquency. I think of this whenever somebody talks about someone investigating us. Why investigate the Honorable Elijah Muhammad? They should subsidize him. He's cleaning up the mess that white men have made. He's saving the Government millions of dollars, taking black men off of welfare, showing them how to do something for themselves. And Mr. Muhammad teaches us love for our own kind. The white man has taught the black people in this country to hate themselves as inferior, to hate each other, to be divided against each other. Messenger Muhammad restores our love for our own kind, which enables us to work together in unity and harmony. He shows us how to pool our financial resources and our talents, then to work together toward a common objective. Among other things, we have small businesses in most major cities in this country, and we want to create many more. We are taught by Mr. Muhammad that it is very important to improve the black man's economy, and his thrift. But to do this, we must have land of our own. The brainwashed black man can never learn to stand on his own two feet until he is on his own. We must learn to become our own producers, manufacturers and traders; we must have industry of our own, to employ our own. The white man resists this because he wants to keep the black man under his thumb and jurisdiction in white society. He wants to keep the black man always dependent and begging--for jobs, food, clothes, shelter, education. The white man doesn't want to lose somebody to be supreme over. He wants to keep the black man where he can be watched and retarded.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Mr. Muhammad teaches that as soon as we separate from the white man, we will learn that we can do without the white man just as he can do without us. The white man knows that once black men get off to themselves and learn they can do for themselves, the black man's full potential will explode and he will surpass the white man.
Playboy interview, regarding the ambition of the Black Muslims
Attributed

Love, Men, Hate, People

““I am the King.” Ah, but which king? The monarch who had stood on these granite flagstones — scarcely worn then, eighteen hundred years ago — was probably an able and intelligent man; but he failed to conceive that the time could ever come when he would fade into an anonymity as deep as that of his humblest subjects.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 11 “The Silent Princess” (p. 65)

Intelligence, Time

“I suppose every child has a world of his own — and every man, too, for the matter of that. I wonder if that's the cause for all the misunderstanding there is in Life?”

Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno

Source: Sylvie and Bruno (1889), Chapter 4 : A Cunning Conspiracy

Life, World

“Morality has nothing to do with such a man as I am.”

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

As quoted in The Story of World Progress (1922) by Willis Mason West, p. 433
Attributed

“Whatever flames upon the night
Man’s own resinous heart has fed.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

II, st. 2 The Tower (1928), Two Songs From a Play http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1741/

Heart, Night

“Sibelius has an acutely developed sense of identification with nature and a preoccupation with myth that at one and the same time define his unique strength and his basic limitation. These preoccupations override his involvement in the human predicament, except in so far as it affects man’s relationship with nature.”

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) Finnish composer of the late Romantic period

Robert Layton Sibelius (London: J. M. Dent, [1965] 1971), ch. 16, p. 153.
Criticism

Nature, Sense, Time

“The insight of a man certainly slows down his anger, and it is beauty on his part to pass over transgression.”

Solomon (-990–-931 BC) king of Israel and the son of David

Proverbs 19:11, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures

Beauty, Parting, Anger

“These philosophers of the world place contrarieties in the same subject; for the one attributed greatness to nature and the other weakness to this same nature, which could not subsist; whilst faith teaches us to place them in different subjects: all that is infirm belonging to nature, all that is powerful belonging to grace. Such is the marvelous and novel union which God alone could teach, and which he alone could make, and which is only a type and an effect of the ineffable union of two natures in the single person of a Man-God.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Conversation on Epictetus and Montaigne

God, World, Faith, Nature

“Here is the hatchet of war, of enmity, of bad feeling, which I now bury in Arrowe," said the Chief, at the same time plunging a hatchet in the midst of a barrel of golden arrows."

"From all corners of the earth," said the Chief as soon as the cheering had subsided "you have journeyed to this great gathering of World Fellowship and Brotherhood. Today I send you out from Arrowe to all the World, bearing my symbol of Peace and Fellowship, each one of you my ambassador bearing my message of Love and Fellowship on the wings of Sacrifice and Service, to the end of the Earth. From now on the Scout symbol of Peace is the Golden Arrow. Carry it fast and far so that all men may know the Brotherhood of Man."

"To THE NORTH—From the Northlands you came at the call of my horn to this great gathering of Fellowship and Brotherhood."
"Today I send you back to your homelands across the great North Seas as my Ambassadors of Peace and Fellowship among the Nations of the World."
"I bid you farewell."

"TO THE SOUTH—From the Southland you came at the call of my horn to this great gathering of Fellowship and Brotherhood."
"Today I send you back to your homes under the Southern Cross as my Ambassadors of Peace and Fellowship among the Nations of the World."
"I bid you farewell."

"TO THE WEST—From the Westlands you came at the call of my horn to this great gathering of Fellowship and Brotherhood."
"Today I send you back to your homes in the Great Westlands to the Pacific and beyond as my Ambassadors of Peace and Fellowship among the Nations of the World."
"I bid you farewell."

"TO THE EAST—From the Eastlands you came at the call of my horn to this great gathering of Fellowship and Brotherhood."
"Today I send you back to your homes under the Starry Skies and Burning Suns to your people of the thousand years, bearing my symbol of Peace and Fellowship to the Nations of the Earth, pledging you to keep my trust.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

"I bid you farewell."
Burying the Hatchet - BP Closing Address at the 3rd World Jamboree, Arrowe Park, 12 August 1929

Love, Men, War, People

“If art were to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Quoted as a 1968 statement of Lennon's in Sunday Tasmanian (29 September 1996), and in The Rough Guide to the Beatles (2003) by Chris Ingham, p. 271, this actually derives from a statement which Lennon perhaps had been quoting:
Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness.
José Ortega y Gasset, in "Art a Thing of No Consequence" in The Dehumanization of Art (1925)
Misattributed

Life, Art

“The strong man is strongest when alone.”

Friedrich Schiller William Tell

Tell, Act I, sc. iii, as translated by Sir Thomas Martin
Wilhelm Tell (1803)

Strong

“One cannot love anybody without turning away from oneself. However, the crucial question is whether this movement is prompted by the desire to turn toward a positive value, or whether the intention is a radical escape from oneself. “Love” of the second variety is inspired by self-hatred, by hatred of one’s own weakness and misery. The mind is always on the point of departing for distant places. Afraid of seeing itself and its inferiority, it is driven to give itself to the other—not because of his worth, but merely for the sake of his “otherness.” Modern philosophical jargon has found a revealing term for this phenomenon, one of the many modern substitutes for love: “altruism.” This love is not directed at a previously discovered positive value, nor does any such value flash up in the act of loving: there is nothing but the urge to turn away from oneself and to lose oneself in other people’s business. We all know a certain type of man frequently found among socialists, suffragettes, and all people with an ever-ready “social conscience”— the kind of person whose social activity is quite clearly prompted by inability to keep his attention focused on himself, on his own tasks and problems. Looking away from oneself is here mistaken for love! Isn’t it abundantly clear that “altruism,” the interest in “others” and their lives, has nothing at all to do with love? The malicious or envious person also forgets his own interest, even his “preservation.” He only thinks about the other man’s feelings, about the harm and the suffering he inflicts on him. Conversely, there is a form of genuine “self-love” which has nothing at all to do with “egoism.” It is precisely the essential feature of egoism that it does not apprehend the full value of the isolated self. The egoist sees himself only with regard to the others, as a member of society who wishes to possess and acquire more than the others. Selfdirectedness or other-directedness have no essential bearing on the specific quality of love or hatred. These acts are different in themselves, quite independently of their direction.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Love, People, Feeling, Question

“God wills, man dreams, the work is born.”

Fernando Pessoa book Mensagem

Poem "O Infante", verse 1.
Message
Original: Deus quer, o homem sonha, a obra nasce.

God, Dreams

“There are good men and bad men of all nationalities, creeds and colors; and if this world of ours is ever to become what we hope some day it may become, it must be by the general recognition that the man's heart and soul, the man's worth and actions, determine his standing.”

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

Letter http://www.trsite.org/content/pages/speaking-loudly (1 September 1903), Oyster Bay, New York 1900s

Men, World, Hope, Color

“When the Head and members are despised, then the whole Christ is despised, for the whole Christ, Head and body, is that just man against whom deceitful lips speak iniquity”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Ps. 30:19
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.425

Christ

“Now that we're 18 days before the election, Mr. Severely Conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year. He told folks he was the ideal candidate for the Tea Party, now he's telling folks, "What? Who me?" He's forgetting what his own positions are. And he's betting that you will too. I mean, he's changing up so much and backtrackin' and sidesteppin'. We've gotta name this condition that he's going though. I think it's called Romnesia. That's what it's called. I think that's what he's goin' through. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, but I do wanna go over some of the symptoms with you, because I wanna make sure nobody else catches it.You know, if you say you're for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia.If you say women should have access to contraceptive care, but you support legislation that would let your employer deny you contraceptive care, you might have a case of Romnesia.If you say you'll protect a woman's right to choose, but you stand up in a primary debate and say that you'd be delighted to sign a law outlying — outlawing that right to choose in all cases — man, you definitely got Romnesia.Now, this extends to other issues. If you say earlier in the year, "I'm gonna give a tax cut to the top 1%", and in a debate you say, "I don't know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks", you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you've probably got Romnesia.If you say that you're a champion of the coal industry when, while you were governor, you stood in front of a coal plant and said "This plant will kill you" —[audience: Romnesia! ] that's some Romnesia.And if you come down with a case of Romnesia and you can't seem to remember the policies that are still on your website, or the promises you've made over the six years you've been running for President, here's the good news: Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions. We can fix you up.. We've got a cure. We can make you well, Virginia. This is a curable disease.”

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

Campaign rally http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/10/19/remarks-president-campaign-event-fairfax-va, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, 2012

Women, Disease, Law, Support

“Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion — several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"Man's Place in the Animal World" (1869)

Love, Religion, Animals

“The Esterhazy affair, thus, Mr. President, comes down to this: a guilty man is being passed off as innocent. For almost two months we have been following this nasty business hour by hour. I am being brief, for this is but the abridged version of a story whose sordid pages will some day be written out in full.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

Business

“I was completely ignorant of the poetry of Poe; it is admirable, it is poetry itself, the dream, and how one feels that you have translated its soul! I am no more than a completely illiterate ignoramus, but am not any the less moved by it. I knew only Poe's prose, which I had read and admired very young before I had heard it spoken of, but how your poems complete and express the man he was”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in his letter, 15 February 1889, (L. 911); as cited in Steven Z. Levine, ‎Claude Monet (1994), Monet, Narcissus, and Self-Reflection: The Modernist Myth of the Self. p. 93
1870 - 1890

Dreams, Feeling, Soul, Reading

“Who is this that cries from the ends of the earth? Who is this one man who reaches to the extremities of the universe? He is one, but that one is unity. He is one, not one in a single place, but the cry of this one man comes from the remotest ends of the earth. But how can this one man cry out from the ends of the earth, unless he be one in all?”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.423

Universe, Cry

“If religion be false, it is the basest imposition under heaven; but if the religion of Christ be true, it is the most solemn truth that ever was known! It is not a thing that a man dares to trifle with if it be true, for it is at his soul's peril to make a jest of it. If it be not true it is detestable, but if it be true it deserves all a man's faculties to consider it, and all his powers to obey it. It is not a trifle. Briefly consider why it is not. It deals with your soul. If it dealt with your body it were no trifle, for it is well to have the limbs of the body sound, but it has to do with your soul. As much as a man is better than the garments that he wears, so much is the soul better than the body. It is your immortal soul it deals with. Your soul has to live for ever, and the religion of Christ deals with its destiny. Can you laugh at such words as heaven and hell, at glory and at damnation? If you can, if you think these trifles, then is the faith of Christ to be trifled with. Consider also with whom it connects you—with God; before whom angels bow themselves and veil their faces. Is HE to be trifled with? Trifle with your monarch if you will, but not with the King of kings, the Lord of lords. Recollect that those who have ever known anything of it tell you it is no child's play. The saints will tell you it is no trifle to be converted. They will never forget the pangs of conviction, nor the joys of faith. They tell you it is no trifle to have religion, for it carries them through all their conflicts, bears them up under all distresses, cheers them under every gloom, and sustains them in all labour. They find it no mockery. The Christian life to them is something so solemn, that when they think of it they fall down before God, and say, "Hold thou me up and I shall be safe." And sinners, too, when they are in their senses, find it no trifle. When they come to die they find it no little thing to die without Christ. When conscience gets the grip of them, and shakes them, they find it no small thing to be without a hope of pardon—with guilt upon the conscience, and no means of getting rid of it. And, sirs, true ministers of God feel it to be no trifle. I do myself feel it to be such an awful thing to preach God's gospel, that if it were not "Woe unto me if I do not preach the gospel," I would resign my charge this moment. I would not for the proudest consideration under heaven know the agony of mind I felt but this one morning before I ventured upon this platform! Nothing but the hope of winning souls from death and hell, and a stern conviction that we have to deal with the grandest of all realities, would bring me here.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Religion—a Reality part II. Secondly, "It is not a vain thing"—that is, IT IS NO TRIFLE. (June 22nd, 1862) http://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0457.HTM

Life, Death, God, Truth

“The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country, than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

To troops who had abandoned their lines during the Battle of New Orleans (8 January 1815).
1810s

Country

“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.”

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

Attributed in Lincoln the Lawyer (1906) by Frederick Trevor Hill — Hill noted that he could find no record of whom Lincoln was insulting.
Posthumous attributions

Idea

“If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base, and sordid creature, no matter how successful.”

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

Letter to his son, Kermit, quoted in Theodore Roosevelt by Joseph Bucklin Bishop http://www.trsite.org/content/pages/speaking-loudly (1915) 1910s

Success

“In spite of Death, the mark and seal of the parental control, Man is yet free, during his brief years, to examine, to criticise, to know, and in imagination to create. To him alone, in the world with which he is acquainted, this freedom belongs; and in this lies his superiority to the resistless forces that control his outward life.”

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

1900s, A Free Man's Worship (1903)

Life, Death, World, Imagination