Quotes about many
page 94

William Saroyan photo

“Many friendships are swift and accidental, the result of a chance meeting, followed by a permanent separation.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)

Moe Berg photo

“Maybe I’m not in the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame like so many of my baseball buddies, but I’m happy I had the chance to play pro ball and am especially proud of my contributions to my country. Perhaps I could not hit like Babe Ruth, but I spoke more languages than he did.”

Moe Berg (1902–1972) baseball player, spy

As quoted by Cia.gov https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2013-featured-story-archive/moe-berg.html prior to his death in (1972)

Jack Vettriano photo

“There are so many lines of that song ( Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan ) where you think. That is a painting.”

Jack Vettriano (1951) Scottish painter

Desert Island Discs Sue Lawley, BBC, London April 2 2004
On Art

Anthony Watts photo

“The vanity held by many of us puny humans tends to bolster a belief that we control our own destiny within the universe, or are even masters of our own climate control. Recent events such as the PDO shift remind us that the slow but powerful forces of nature remain in control.”

Anthony Watts (1958) American television meteorologist

A reminder to us flyspecks on an elephant's butt http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/05/07/a-reminder-to-us-flyspecks-on-an-elephants-butt/, wattsupwiththat.com, May 7, 2008.
2008

Frances Kellor photo
Paul Weller (singer) photo

“I first felt a fist - and then a kick, I could now smell their breath,
They smelt of pubs - and Wormwood Scrubs - and too many right-wing meetings.”

Paul Weller (singer) (1958) English singer-songwriter, Guitarist

Down in the Tube Station at Midnight
All Mod Cons (1978)

Mary Parker Follett photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
Bob Dylan photo
Charles Babbage photo

“But a much graver charge attaches itself, if not to our clergy, certainly to those who have the distribution of ecclesiastical patronage. The richest Church in the world maintains that its funds are quite insufficient for the purposes of religion and that our working clergy are ill-paid, and church accommodation insufficient. It calls therefore upon the nation to endow it with larger funds, and yet, while reluctant to sacrifice its own superfluities, it approves of its rich sinecures being given to reward, — not the professional service of its indefatigable parochial clergy, but those of its members who, having devoted the greater part of their time to scientific researches, have political or private interest enough to obtain such advancement. But this mode of rewarding merit is neither creditable to the Church nor advantageous to science. It tempts into the Church talents which some of its distinguished members maintain to be naturally of a disqualifying, if not of an antagonistic nature to the pursuits of religion; whilst, on the other hand, it makes a most unjust and arbitrary distinction amongst men of science themselves. It precludes those who cannot conscientiously subscribe to Articles, at once conflicting and incomprehensible, from the acquisition of that preferment and that position in society, which thus in many cases, must be conferred on less scrupulous, and certainly less distinguished inquirers into the works of nature. As the honorary distinctions of orders of knight hood are not usually bestowed on the clerical profession, its members generally profess to entertain a great contempt for them, and pronounce them unfit for the recognition of scientific merit.”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

Source: The Exposition of 1851: Views Of The Industry, The Science, and the Government Of England, 1851, p. 225-226

Bill Maher photo
Larry David photo

“A lot of sexual harassment stuff in the news, and I couldn't help but notice a very disturbing pattern emerging, which is that many of the predators, not all, but many of them are Jews”

Larry David (1947) American comedian, writer, actor, and television producer

November 2017 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/larry-david-criticized-snl-monologue-jewish-sexual-predators-holocaust-1054900
2010s

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“Johnson: What do you think about this Vietnam thing? I’d like to hear you talk a little bit.
Russell: Well, frankly, Mr. President, it’s the damn worse mess that I ever saw, and I don’t like to brag and I never have been right many times in my life, but I knew that we were going to get into this sort of mess when we went in there. And I don’t see how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them down there in those rice paddies and jungles. I just don’t see it. I just don’t know what to do.
Johnson: Well, that’s the way I have been feeling for six months.
Russell: Our position is deteriorating and it looks like the more we try to do for them, the less they are willing to do for themselves. It is a mess and it’s going to get worse, and I don’t know how or what to do. I don’t think the American people are quite ready for us to send our troops in there to do the fighting. If I was going to get out, I’d get the same crowd that got rid of old Diem [the Vietnamese prime minister who was overthrown and assassinated in 1963] to get rid of these people and to get some fellow in there that said we wish to hell we would get out. That would give us a good excuse for getting out.
Johnson: How important is it to us?
Russell: It isn’t important a damn bit for all this new missile stuff.
Johnson: I guess it is important.
Russell: From a psychological standpoint. Other than the question of our word and saving face, that’s the reason that I said that I don’t think that anybody would expect us to stay in there. It’s going to be a headache to anybody that tries to fool with it. You’ve got all the brains in the country, Mr. President—you better get ahold of them. I don’t know what to do about this. I saw it all coming on, but that don’t do any good now, that’s water over the dam and under the bridge. And we are there.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Telephone call with Senator Richard Russell (May 27, 1964)

Richard Stallman photo
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Rush Limbaugh photo

“I prefer to call the most obnoxious feminists what they really are: feminazis. Tom Hazlett, a good friend who is an esteemed and highly regarded professor of economics at the University of California at Davis, coined the term to describe any female who is intolerant of any point of view that challenges militant feminism. I often use it to describe women who are obsessed with perpetuating a modern-day holocaust: abortion. There are 1.5 million abortions a year, and some feminists almost seem to celebrate that figure. There are not many of them, but they deserve to be called feminazis.A feminazi is a woman to whom the most important thing in life is seeing to it that as many abortions as possible are performed. Their unspoken reasoning is quite simple. Abortion is the single greatest avenue for militant women to exercise their quest for power and advance their belief that men aren't necessary. They don't need men in order to be happy. They certainly don't want males to be able to exercise any control over them. Abortion is the ultimate symbol of women's emancipation from the power and influence of men. With men being precluded from the ultimate decision-making process regarding the future of life in the womb, they are reduced to their proper, inferior role. Nothing matters but me, says the feminazi. My concerns prevail over all else. The fetus doesn't matter, it's an unviable tissue mass.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

[The Way Things Ought to Be, Pocket Books, October 1992, 193, 978-0671751456, 92028659, 26397008, 1724938M]

David Rockefeller photo

“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.
The anti-Rockefeller focus of these otherwise incompatible political positions owes much to Populism. "Populists" believe in conspiracies and one of the most enduring is that a secret group of international bankers and capitalists, and their minions, control the world's economy. Because of my name and prominence as head of the Chase for many years, I have earned the distinction of "conspirator in chief" from some of these people.
Populists and isolationists ignore the tangible benefits that have resulted in our active international role during the past half-century. Not only was the very real threat posed by Soviet Communism overcome, but there have been fundamental improvements in societies around the world, particularly in the United States, as a result of global trade, improved communications, and the heightened interaction of people from different cultures. Populists rarely mention these positive consequences, nor can they cogently explain how they would have sustained American economic growth and expansion of our political power without them.”

David Rockefeller (1915–2017) American banker and philanthropist

Source: Memoirs (2003), Ch. 27 : Proud Internationalist, p. 406

Kent Hovind photo

“I think what happened: the mammoths were up there chopping on their tropical flowers. It was a beautiful day, and it began to snow super cold snow. They had never seen snow before. One of the mammoths looked at his buddy and said, "Herman, this is peculiar weather we're having here. What is this white stuff falling out of the sky?" "I don't know, but let's get out of here." They started running around trying to find a place to hide and the snow got deeper and deeper and deeper and they got stuck in the snow standing up, and they couldn't even fall down. How many of you have ever been in a snow drift so deep you couldn't even fall over? Ever been in one of those? I think that's what happened to the mammoths. People say, "Well the mammoths have long hair. They're designed for cold weather." No, mammoths are not designed for cold weather. A lot of animals in the jungle have long hair. It is hot there. If the temperature is seventy degrees, long hair is just simply a decoration. There's a lot of things about the mammoth that shows that they were not designed for cold weather. There's a whole section just in this book about mammoths showing that they were not designed for cold weather. You can read all about that. For the mammoths, some of them ended frozen standing up. It was in super cold ice, perhaps 300 degrees below zero!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

Bolesław Prus photo
Robert E. Howard photo
George Holmes Howison photo
Jonah Goldberg photo
Hesiod photo

“We know how to speak many falsehoods which resemble real things, but we know, when we will, how to speak true things.”

Hesiod Greek poet

We know to tell many fictions like to truths, and we know, when we will, to speak what is true.
We know how to tell many lies that pass for truth, and we know, when we wish, to tell the truth itself.
Source: The Theogony (c. 700 BC), lines 27–28. Variant translations:

“I see the pain on your face when you say the word intellectual, because it has so many syllables in it.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

From an interview with Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central's "Colbert Report"
Television and radio

Thomas Carlyle photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“How many unuttered words died in the heads of those for whom a word was too expensive.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Unuttered Words,” p. 59
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Stone and a Word”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Julian Huxley photo
Vida Guerra photo

“[A year after going vegetarian] I feel really healthy, and it works on so many different levels, including the condition of my skin.”

Vida Guerra (1974) American model

"PETA makes a veggie statement at Capitol for National Hot Dog Month", interview with SHFWire (14 July 2010) http://www.shfwire.com/peta-makes-veggie-statement-capitol-national-hot-dog-month/

Thomas Carlyle photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo
Mark Ames photo
Michael Savage photo
Chester W. Nimitz photo

“The war with Japan had been enacted in the game rooms at the War College by so many people and in so many different ways that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise—absolutely nothing except the kamikaze tactics toward the end of the war. We had not visualized these.”

Chester W. Nimitz (1885–1966) United States Navy fleet admiral

Writing the president of the US Naval War College shortly after World War II. Quoted by Donald C. Winter, Secretary of the Navy http://www.navy.mil/navydata/people/secnav/winter/SECNAV_Remarks_NWC_Current_Strategy_Forum.pdf]

Cesar Chavez photo
Michael Moore photo
John Byrne photo
Mukesh Ambani photo
Gore Vidal photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Glenn Beck photo

“But I believe in the American people. I believe that we are not too far gone. I believe that people can watch and see the difference. They can feel the difference. When you watch Barack Obama, you can just see he is angry. When you watch Mitt Romney, you can see he is not. We are not an angry nation. We don't listen to demagogues like that. It doesn’t work. No matter how much power he has amassed, no matter how many friends in the media he has, Americans know. And if they reject it this time, if they're so dead inside - that's a possibility - if they're so dead inside that they can no longer see the difference between good and evil, we have to be destroyed because we will be a remarkable evil on this planet.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2012-11-05
Revenge vs. Love: This election choice is clear
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/blog/glenn/revenge-vs-love-this-election-choice-is-clear
The Glenn Beck Program
Radio, quoted in * 2012-11-06
Beck: If Americans are 'So Dead Inside' That They Re-Elect Obama, Then 'We Have to be Destroyed'
Kyle
Mantyla
RightWingWatch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/beck-if-americans-are-so-dead-inside-they-re-elected-obama-then-we-have-be-destroyed
2012-11-07
2010s, 2012

Roberto Clemente photo

“I hit many what you call the "bad bol" pitches, and get good wood. The bol' travel like bullet. That remind me, I hit 565 foote hum-rum in Chicaga last year; the bol' disappear from centerfield, and Raj Hornsby tell me it longest drive he ever saw hit out of Wrigley Field. The bol' feel good on the bat but I feel bad at heart, when no writer with our team play up the big drive. I feel effort not appreciated.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted by Bill Nunn, Jr. in The New Pittsburgh Courier (June 25, 1960); reproduced in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero https://books.google.com/books?id=jIhcvFs-k1cC&pg=PA98 (2006) by David Maraniss, p. 98
Comment: Clemente is not entirely correct. At least nationally (via TSN's weekly Pirates report), one veteran Pirates beat writer did do his part to publicize the blast. See Les Biederman (5/27/59 and 6/6/66) in Media, as well as Ernie Banks in Opponents.
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1960</big>

Ariel Sharon photo

“Everybody has to move; run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours. Everything we don't grab will go to them.”

Ariel Sharon (1928–2014) prime minister of Israel and Israeli general

Stated in 1998, New York Times ( online https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/01/negotiating-with-the-israeli-settlers/no-chance-of-peace-with-settlements-around).
1990s

Margaret Atwood photo

“As I was writing about Grace Marks, and about her interlude in the Asylum, I came to see her in context — the context of other people's opinions, both the popular images of madness and the scientific explanations for it available at the time. A lot of what was believed and said on the subject appears like sheer lunacy to us now. But we shouldn't be too arrogant — how many of our own theories will look silly when those who follow us have come up with something better? But whatever the scientists may come up with, writers and artists will continue to portray altered mental states, simply because few aspects of our nature fascinate people so much. The so-called mad person will always represent a possible future for every member of the audience — who knows when such a malady may strike? When "mad," at least in literature, you aren't yourself; you take on another self, a self that is either not you at all, or a truer, more elemental one than the person you're used to seeing in the mirror. You're in danger of becoming, in Shakespeare's works, a mere picture or beast, and in Susanna Moodie's words, a mere machine; or else you may become an inspired prophet, a truth-sayer, a shaman, one who oversteps the boundaries of the ordinarily visible and audible, and also, and especially, the ordinarily sayable. Portraying this process is deep power for the artist, partly because it's a little too close to the process of artistic creation itself, and partly because the prospect of losing our self and being taken over by another, unfamiliar self is one of our deepest human fears.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Ophelia Has a Lot to Answer For (1997)

Pauline Kael photo
Ilana Mercer photo
Will Cuppy photo

“I hear so many things about who I am supposed to be I hardly know what to believe. I am willing to tell all, but what Is it? Doubtless all these myths and legends will be straightened out eventually, but It may take years.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

Comic interview with Jo Ranson, "Living from Can to Mouth," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Eagle Magazine, November 24, 1929, p. 5.

Emily Dickinson photo
Nelson Mandela photo

“In many thundering discourses, Hitler expressed his respect, if not admiration for Stalinist Communism and its leader.”

François Furet (1927–1997) French historian

Source: The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1999), p. 191

Henry Miller photo
Merlin Mann photo

“It’s just that it’s mind-boggling to me how many people I encounter every day who are struggling to subsist on a diet of bad advice about fake solutions to nonexistent problems.”

Merlin Mann (1966) American blogger

Kung Fu Grippe http://www.kungfugrippe.com/post/243861520/marco
Websites, The KungFu Grippe Tumblr website

Richard Nixon photo

“I didn’t notice many Jewish names coming back from Vietnam on any of those lists; I don’t know how the hell they avoid it. If you look at the Canadian-Swedish contingent, they were very disproportionately Jewish. The deserters”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Conversation with Mr. Colson, on tapes recorded February-March 1973 http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/national/20101211_NIXON_AUDIO/3_VIETNAM.mp3; as quoted in "In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/politics/11nixon.html, by Adam Nagourney,New York Times (10 December 2010)
1970s

Arjuna Ranatunga photo

“There is a group within the SLFP who abuse that freedom and democracy. They go on instigating people and rousing racism. Many of those who held leading positions of the SLFP sometime back are supporting that campaign. Disciplinary action should be taken immediately against them.”

Arjuna Ranatunga (1963) Sri Lankan cricketer

Ports and Shipping Minister Arjuna Ranatunga has demanded that SLFP members who attended the recent Joint Opposition rally at Hyde Park in Colombo be sacked from the party, quoted on island.lk, "Arjuna wants SLFP rebels sacked over Hyde Park rally" http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=142648, March 26, 2016.

Joan Baez photo
Terry Winograd photo
Aron Ra photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

“I have found that many people use arrogance to try to hide their own ignorance.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Richard Cobden photo

“I have generally made it a rule to parry the inquiries and comparisons which the Americans are so apt to thrust at an Englishman. On one or two occasions, when the party has been numerous and worth powder and shot, I have, however, on being hard pressed, and finding my British blood up, found the only mode of allaying their inordinate vanity to be by resorting to this mode of argument:—"I admit all that you or any other person can, could, may, or might advance in praise of the past career of the people of America. Nay, more, I will myself assert that no nation ever did, and in my opinion none ever will, achieve such a title to respect, wonder, and gratitude in so short a period; and further still, I venture to allege that the imagination of statesmen never dreamed of a country that should in half a century make such prodigious advances in civilization and real greatness as yours has done. And now I must add, and I am sure you, as intelligent, reasonable men, will go with me, that fifty years are too short a period in the existence of nations to entitle them to the palm of history. No, wait the ordeal of wars, distresses, and prosperity (the most dangerous of all), which centuries of duration are sure to bring to your country. These are the test, and if, many ages hence, your descendants shall be able only to say of their country as much as I am entitled to say of mine now, that for seven hundred years we have existed as a nation constantly advancing in liberty, wealth, and refinement; holding out the lights of philosophy and true religion to all the world; presenting mankind with the greatest of human institutions in the trial by jury; and that we are the only modern people that for so long a time withstood the attacks of enemies so heroically that a foreign foe never put foot in our capital except as a prisoner (this last is a poser);—if many centuries hence your descendants will be entitled to say something equivalent to this, then, and not till then, will you be entitled to that crown of fame which the historian of centuries is entitled to award."”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to F. Cobden (5 July 1835) during his visit to the United States, quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905), pp. 33-34.
1830s

Barbara W. Tuchman photo
William O. Douglas photo

“We have here the problem of bigness. Its lesson should by now have been burned into our memory by Brandeis. The Curse of Bigness' shows how size can become a menace – both industrial and social. It can be an industrial menace because it creates gross inequalities against existing or putative competitors. It can be a social menace – because of its control of prices. Control of prices in the steel industry is powerful leverage on our economy. For the price of steel determines the price of hundreds of other articles. Our price level determines in large measure whether we have prosperity or depression – an economy of abundance or scarcity. Size in steel should therefore be jealously watched. In final analysis, size in steel is the measure of the power of a handful of men over our economy. That power can be utilized with lightning speed. It can be benign or it can be dangerous. The philosophy of the Sherman Act is that it should not exist. For all power tends to develop into a government in itself. Power that controls the economy should be in the hands of elected representatives of the people, not in the hands of an industrial oligarchy. Industrial power should be decentralized. It should be scattered into many hands so that the fortunes of the people will not be dependent on the whim or caprice, the political prejudices, the emotional stability of a few self-appointed men. The fact that they are not vicious men but respectable and social minded is irrelevant. That is the philosophy and the command of the Sherman Act. It is founded on a theory of hostility to the concentration in private hands of power so great that only a government of the people should have it.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Dissenting, United States v. Columbia Steel Co., 334 U.S. 495 (1948)
Judicial opinions

“For many women, the experience of prostitution stems from the historical trauma of colonization.”

Melissa Farley (1942) American psychologist

"Prostitution in Vancouver: Violence and the Colonization of First Nations Women" in Transcultural Psychiatry 42 (2005), p. 242 - 271; co-written with J Lynne and A Cotton

Georg Büchner photo
Douglas MacArthur photo

“The Puerto Ricans forming the ranks of the gallant 65th Infantry on the battlefields of Korea … are writing a brilliant record of achievement in battle and I am proud indeed to have them in this command. I wish that we might have many more like them.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

Quoted on 12 February 1951 in Tokyo http://www.valerosos.com/HonorandFidelity3.html#The_Korean_War:_1950

“We have lived and loved together
Through many changing years;
We have shared each other's gladness,
And wept each other's tears.”

Charles Jefferys (1807–1865) British music publisher

We have lived and loved together, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Benoît Mandelbrot photo
Max Frisch photo
Otis Redding photo
Shahrukh Khan photo

“My family likes me as a person and not because I am an actor. I never mix the two. I don't know how much I earn or how many awards I have received.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Amrita Mulchandani

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
Coco Chanel photo

“How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone.”

Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French fashion designer

As quoted in Contemporary Quotations‎ (1954) by James Beasley Simpson

Neville Chamberlain photo
Tucker Max photo

“The biggest thing I learned was, especially the way I operate and how I am as a person, if I'm going to do a creative endeavor, I need to have full, complete control. Top to bottom. And with my book and website, I always had that. With the website, definitely, with the book, basically, with the movie…I didn't in a lot of ways. Nils and I, we had a lot of control, more control probably than almost any first time movie makers do within a normal studio system. We were in the middle between independent and not, because someone else paid for everything, and they kind of let us do what we wanted, but then once the movie was done creatively, it went in a direction that I did not want it to go, and there was nothing I could really do about it. It's hard enough to swim in that movie current by yourself, but when you've got weights tied to you and someone pulling you in a different direction, it's almost impossible. You need to pick a direction and go with it. If you're going to be a big studio movie, go be that, and if you're going to go be a rogue independent film, go be that. We had different people with different levels of authority on the movie that pulled us in different directions, and it just doesn't work. Either be in control or let someone else do it, but don't…too many chefs. I'm going to be better next time. Failure instructs, failure improves. Failure shouldn't deter you, unless you're just bad at it.”

Tucker Max (1975) Internet personality; blogger; author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC6zdVKoNr8 (March 2010).

“Most of the Constitution's Framers knew, and many said, that slavery was wrong.”

Thomas G. West (1945) American academic

Source: 2000s, Vindicating the Founders (2001), p. 14

Ibn Battuta photo

“One day I rode in company with ‘Alã-ul-mulk and arrived at a plain called Tarna at a distance of seven miles from the city. There I saw innumerable stone images and animals, many of which had undergone a change, the original shape being obliterated. Some were reduced to a head, others to a foot and so on. Some of the stones were shaped like grain, wheat, peas, beans and lentils. And there were traces of a house which contained a chamber built of hewn stone, the whole of which looked like one solid mass. Upon it was a statue in the form of a man, the only difference being that its head was long, its mouth was towards a side of its face and its hands at its back like a captive’s. There were pools of water from which an extremely bad smell came. Some of the walls bore Hindî inscriptions. ‘Alã-ul-mulk told me that the historians assume that on this site there was a big city, most of the inhabitants of which were notorious. They were changed into stone. The petrified human form on the platform in the house mentioned above was that of their king. The house still goes by the name of ‘the king’s house’. It is presumed that the Hindî inscriptions, which some of the walls bear, give the history of the destruction of the inhabitants of this city. The destruction took place about a thousand years ago…”

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Lahari Bandar (Sindh) . The Rehalã of Ibn Battûta translated into English by Mahdi Hussain, Baroda, 1967, p. 10.
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

“We do live, all of us, on many different levels, and for most artists the world of imagination is more real than the world of the kitchen sink.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 2.2
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)

“Akbar abolished Jiziyah in 1564. In all probability many of his 'devout' officers in far off regions, did not care to enforce this anti-Islamic measure. Therefore, ten years later he once again issued orders for its abolition. Badaoni tells us that it was customary "to search out and kill heretics" (Shias), let alone non-Muslims as late as 1574. Hemu's father, when captured, was offered his life if he turned Muslim. Abdun Nabi executed a Brahman for blasphemy on the complaint of a Qazi. Husain Khan, the governor of Lahore (died 983H/ 1575-76) ordered Hindus to stick patches on their shoulders so that no Muslim could be put to the indignity of showing them honour by mistake, nor did he allow Hindus to saddle their horses. Jihad was practised as usual, massacre at Chittor was done in true Jihadist spirit. "The Akbar Nama, the Ain-i-Akbari and Badaoni are all agreed that prior to 1593, some Hindus had been converted to Islam forcibly." In 1581 some Portuguese captives at Surat were offered their lives if they turned Muslim. Even iconoclastic zeal did not disappear under Akbar. Kangra was invaded in 1572-73, and even though Birbal was in joint command, the umbrella of the Goddess was riddled with arrows, 200 cows were killed and Muslim soldiers threw their shoes full of blood at the walls and doors of the temple. A Mughal officer, Bayazid, converted a Hindu temple into a Muslim school. Jain idols in Gujarat could not escape vandalism. "Such seem to have been and continued to be the popular prejudices against the Hindus", under Akbar and his successors as per the obligations of the Shariat and practice of Sunnah, writes S. R. Sharma.”

Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999), ch. 2

Roger Ebert photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Michael Collins (Irish leader) photo