Quotes about master (1923 quotes, page 18)

“It is only about six centuries since the blue-eyed and fair-haired Anglo Saxons were considered inferior by the haughty Normans, who once trampled upon them. If you read the history of the Norman Conquest, you will find that this proud Anglo-Saxon was once looked upon as of coarser clay than his Norman master, and might be found in the highways and byways of Old England laboring with a brass collar on his neck, and the name of his master marked upon it were down then! You are up now. I am glad you are up, and I want you to be glad to help us up also”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, What the Black Man Wants (1865)
Context: I utterly deny, that we are originally, or naturally, or practically, or in any way, or in any important sense, inferior to anybody on this globe. This charge of inferiority is an old dodge. It has been made available for oppression on many occasions. It is only about six centuries since the blue-eyed and fair-haired Anglo Saxons were considered inferior by the haughty Normans, who once trampled upon them. If you read the history of the Norman Conquest, you will find that this proud Anglo-Saxon was once looked upon as of coarser clay than his Norman master, and might be found in the highways and byways of Old England laboring with a brass collar on his neck, and the name of his master marked upon it were down then! You are up now. I am glad you are up, and I want you to be glad to help us up also.

History , Reading , Help

“Spirituality is the master key of the Indian mind.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

From an essay in A Defense of Indian Culture, as quoted in The Vision of India (1949) by Sisirkumar Mitra
Context: Spirituality is the master key of the Indian mind. It is this dominant inclination of India which gives character to all the expressions of her culture. In fact, they have grown out of her inborn spiritual tendency of which her religion is a natural out flowering. The Indian mind has always realized that the Supreme is the Infinite and perceived that to the soul in Nature the Infinite must always present itself in an infinite variety of aspects. The aggressive and quite illogical idea of a single religion for all mankind, a religion universal by the very force of its narrowness, one set of dogmas, one cult, one system of ceremonies, one ecclesiastical ordinance, one array of prohibitions and injunctions which all minds must accept on peril of persecution by men and spiritual rejection or eternal punishment by God, that grotesque creation of human unreason which has been the parent of so much intolerance, cruelty and obscurantism and aggressive fanaticism, has never been able to take firm hold of the Indian mentality.

“John Brown knew the masters secretly feared their slaves might revolt, even as they assured abolitionists that slaves really liked slavery. One reason his Harpers Ferry raid prompted such an outcry in the South was that slave owners feared their slaves might join him.”

James W. Loewen book Lies My Teacher Told Me

As quoted in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong https://books.google.com/books?id=5m2_xeJ4VdwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=lies+my+teacher+told+me&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dV39VNWyPMmWgwTN14JQ&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=maltreated&f=false (2008), p. 193
2000s, 2007, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (2007)
Context: Ideas made the opposite impact in the Confederacy. Ideological contradictions afflicted the slave system even before the war began. John Brown knew the masters secretly feared their slaves might revolt, even as they assured abolitionists that slaves really liked slavery. One reason his Harpers Ferry raid prompted such an outcry in the South was that slave owners feared their slaves might join him. Yet their condemnations of Brown and the 'Black Republicans' who financed him did not persuade Northern moderates but only pushed them toward the abolitionist camp. After all, if Brown was truly dangerous, as slave owners claimed, then slavery was truly unjust. Happy slaves would never revolt... White Southerners founded the Confederacy on the ideology of white supremacy. Confederate soldiers on their way to Antietam and Gettysburg, their two main forays into Union states, put this ideology into practice: they seized scores of free black people in Maryland and Pennsylvania and sold them south into slavery. Confederates maltreated black Union troops when they captured them.

Fear

“Who mourns makes grief his master.
Who drinks makes pleasure his master.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Classical Japanese Database, Translation #41 http://carlsensei.com/classical/index.php/translation/view/41 of a Saga Diary excerpt (Translation: Robert Hass)
Statements
Context: It rains during the morning. No visitors today. I feel lonely and amuse myself by writing at random. These are the words:
Who mourns makes grief his master.
Who drinks makes pleasure his master.

Pleasure , Drink

“Combining this observation with the insight that science has no special method, we arrive at the result that the separation of science and non-science is not only artificial but also detrimental to the advancement of knowledge. If we want to understand nature, if we want to master our physical surroundings, then we must use all ideas, all methods, and not just a small selection of them. The assertion, however, that there is no knowledge outside science - extra scientiam nulla salus”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

is nothing but another and most convenient fairy-tale. Primitive tribes has more detailed classifications of animals and plant than contemporary scientific zoology and botany, they know remedies whose effectiveness astounds physicians (while the pharmaceutical industry already smells here a new source of income), they have means of influencing their fellow men which science for a long time regarded as non-existent (voodoo), they solve difficult problems in ways which are still not quite understood (building of the pyramids; Polynesian travels), there existed a highly developed and internationally known astronomy in the old Stone Age, this astronomy was factually adequate as well as emotionally satisfying, it solved both physical and social problems (one cannot say the same about modern astronomy) and it was tested in very simple and ingenious ways (stone observatories in England and in the South Pacific; astronomical schools in Polynesia - for a more details treatment an references concerning all these assertions cf. my Einfuhrung in die Naturphilosophie). There was the domestication of animals, the invention of rotating agriculture, new types of plants were bred and kept pure by careful avoidance of cross fertilization, we have chemical inventions, we have a most amazing art that can compare with the best achievement of the present. True, there were no collective excursions to the moon, but single individuals, disregarding great dangers to their soul and their sanity, rose from sphere to sphere to sphere until they finally faced God himself in all His splendor while others changed into animals and back into humans again. At all times man approached his surroundings with wide open senses and a fertile intelligence, at all times he made incredible discoveries, at all times we can learn from his ideas.
Pg. 306-307
Against Method (1975)

Idea , Understanding , Nature , Knowledge

“I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

Equality (1943)
Context: I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people — all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

Men

“He fell well short of mastering the art of demonstration; he had only a mediocre knowledge of analysis and geometry; what he knew best was to make lenses for microscopes.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, letter to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels (Aug. 14, 1683) in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (1923-) II.ii. p. 535, as translated by Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic (2006) pp. 228-229.
Context: Regarding Spinoza, whom M. Arnauld has called the most impious and most dangerous man of this century, he was truly an Atheist, [i. e., ] he allowed absolutely no Providence dispensing rewards and punishments according to justice.... The God he puts on parade is not like ours; he has no intellect or will.... He fell well short of mastering the art of demonstration; he had only a mediocre knowledge of analysis and geometry; what he knew best was to make lenses for microscopes.

Art , Knowledge

“The masses are our masters; and for every one who looks facts in the face his existence has become dependent on them, so that the thought of them must control his doings, his cares, and his duties.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

Man in the Modern Age (1933)
Context: The masses are our masters; and for every one who looks facts in the face his existence has become dependent on them, so that the thought of them must control his doings, his cares, and his duties.
Even an articulated mass always tends to become unspiritual and inhuman. It is life without existence, superstitions without faith. It may stamp all flat; it is disinclined to tolerate independence and greatness, but prone to constrain people to become as automatic as ants.<!-- p. 43

Dependency

“Men who long for freedom begin the attempt to obtain it by entreating their masters to be kind enough to protect them by modifying the laws which these masters themselves have created!
But times and tempers are changed.”

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

Source: Law and Authority (1886), I
Context: Men who long for freedom begin the attempt to obtain it by entreating their masters to be kind enough to protect them by modifying the laws which these masters themselves have created!
But times and tempers are changed. Rebels are everywhere to be found who no longer wish to obey the law without knowing whence it comes, what are its uses, and whither arises the obligation to submit to it, and the reverence with which it is encompassed. The rebels of our day are criticizing the very foundations of society which have hitherto been held sacred, and first and foremost amongst them that fetish, law.
The critics analyze the sources of law, and find there either a god, product of the terrors of the savage, and stupid, paltry, and malicious as the priests who vouch for its supernatural origin, or else, bloodshed, conquest by fire and sword. They study the characteristics of law, and instead of perpetual growth corresponding to that of the human race, they find its distinctive trait to be immobility, a tendency to crystallize what should be modified and developed day by day.

Men , Law , Freedom , Change

“A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.”

Lysander Spooner book No Treason

Source: No Treason (1867–1870), No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority, p. 24; the first sentence here is widely paraphrased as: A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
Context: A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Neither are a people any the less slaves because permitted periodically to choose new masters. What makes them slaves is the fact that they now are, and are always hereafter to be, in the hands of men whose power over them is, and always is to be, absolute and irresponsible.
The right of absolute and irresponsible dominion is the right of property, and the right of property is the right of absolute, irresponsible dominion. The two are identical; the one necessarily implying the other. Neither can exist without the other. If, therefore, Congress have that absolute and irresponsible lawmaking power, which the Constitution — according to their interpretation of it — gives them, it can only be because they own us as property. If they own us as property, they are our masters, and their will is our law. If they do not own us as property, they are not our masters, and their will, as such, is of no authority over us.
But these men who claim and exercise this absolute and irresponsible dominion over us, dare not be consistent, and claim either to be our masters, or to own us as property. They say they are only our servants, agents, attorneys, and representatives. But this declaration involves an absurdity, a contradiction. No man can be my servant, agent, attorney, or representative, and be, at the same time, uncontrollable by me, and irresponsible to me for his acts. It is of no importance that I appointed him, and put all power in his hands. If I made him uncontrollable by me, and irresponsible to me, he is no longer my servant, agent, attorney, or representative. If I gave him absolute, irresponsible power over my property, I gave him the property. If I gave him absolute, irresponsible power over myself, I made him my master, and gave myself to him as a slave. And it is of no importance whether I called him master or servant, agent or owner. The only question is, what power did I put into his hands? Was it an absolute and irresponsible one? or a limited and responsible one?

“My Zen master, because I’ve studied Zen for a long time, told me that every one (and all the stories weren’t written then) of the Mary Poppins stories is in essence a Zen story.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

The Paris Review interview (1982)
Context: My Zen master, because I’ve studied Zen for a long time, told me that every one (and all the stories weren’t written then) of the Mary Poppins stories is in essence a Zen story. And someone else, who is a bit of a Don Juan, told me that every one of the stories is a moment of tremendous sexual passion, because it begins with such tension and then it is reconciled and resolved in a way that is gloriously sensual. … A great friend of mine at the beginning of our friendship (he was himself a poet) said to me very defiantly, “I have to tell you that I loathe children’s books.” And I said to him, “Well, won’t you just read this just for my sake?” And he said grumpily, “Oh, very well, send it to me.” I did, and I got a letter back saying: “Why didn’t you tell me? Mary Poppins with her cool green core of sex has me enthralled forever.”

Study , Time

“He has served me too well;
By increasing my power he has stolen it away:
He is now my subject only so long as he pleases.
He who allows me to rule is in fact my master.”

Pierre Corneille Nicomède

Prusias, act II, scene i.
Nicomède (1651)

“Our victory in Europe was more than a victory of arms.
It was a victory of one way of life over another. It was a victory of an ideal founded on the rights of the common man, on the dignity of the human being, on the conception of the State as the servant — and not the master — of its people.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Source: Report on the Potsdam Conference (1945)
Context: Our victory in Europe was more than a victory of arms.
It was a victory of one way of life over another. It was a victory of an ideal founded on the rights of the common man, on the dignity of the human being, on the conception of the State as the servant — and not the master — of its people.
A free people showed that it was able to defeat professional soldiers whose only moral arms were obedience and the worship of force.
We tell ourselves that we have emerged from this war the most powerful nation in the world — the most powerful nation, perhaps, in all history. That is true, but not in the sense some of us believe it to be true.
The war has shown us that we have tremendous resources to make all the materials for war. It has shown us that we have skillful workers and managers and able generals, and a brave people capable of bearing arms.
All these things we knew before.
The new thing — the thing which we had not known — the thing we have learned now and should never forget, is this: that a society of self-governing men is more powerful, more enduring, more creative than any other kind of society, however disciplined, however centralized.

Life , People , Way , Victory

“If there be an order in which the human race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge, there will arise in every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the same order.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical (1861)
Context: If there be an order in which the human race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge, there will arise in every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the same order. So that even were the order intrinsically indifferent, it would facilitate education to lead the individual mind through the steps traversed by the general mind. But the order is not intrinsically indifferent; and hence the fundamental reason why education should be a repetition of civilization in little.<!--p.76

Knowledge

“Rossini, divine master.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Heinrich Heine's Pictures of Travel (1855) as translated by Charles Godfrey Leland, p. 270

“In truth, mankind cannot be saved from without, by schoolmasters or any other sort of masters: it can only be lamed and enslaved by them.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Is there any hope in education?
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Context: In truth, mankind cannot be saved from without, by schoolmasters or any other sort of masters: it can only be lamed and enslaved by them. It is said that if you wash a cat it will never again wash itself. This may or may not be true: what is certain is that if you teach a man anything he will never learn it; and if you cure him of a disease he will be unable to cure himself the next time it attacks him.

Truth

“These people were the first to master a new type of late twentieth-century life, they thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never disappointed”

J. G. Ballard book High-Rise

Source: High-Rise (1975), Ch. 3
Context: A new social type was being created by the apartment building, a cool, unemotional personality impervious to the psychological pressures of high-rise life, with minimal needs for privacy, who thrived like an advanced species of machine in the neutral atmosphere... [They] were people who were content with their lives in the high-rise, who felt no personal objection to an impersonal steel and concrete landscape, no qualms about the invasion of their privacy by government agencies and data-processing organizations, and if anything welcomed these invisible intrusions, using them for their own purposes. These people were the first to master a new type of late twentieth-century life, they thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never disappointed.

Life , People , Disappointment

“The regime's response to [U. N. ] Security Council Resolution 1696 was predictable, as it was simply a variation of double talk-a tactic they have now mastered to an art form. What does the regime's offer to "seriously talk" really mean? Will it seriously discuss its violations of human rights at home? Will it seriously discuss its patronage of regional militancy? I think not. [This] is a race against time. Will it get the bomb first, thereby bullying the world into appeasement, or will there be an actual convergence of domestic and international pressures [on the regime]?”

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

As quoted by Rachel Makabi, 'A Race Against Time' http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=34&page=5, Newsweek International, Sept 4, 2006.
Interviews, 2006

World , Art , Home , Thinking

“No man is free who is not master of himself. ”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Peaceful , Powerful

“The Bourgeois who has religious feelings sees very clearly the absolute necessity of serving two masters at the same time in order to achieve success in his business, which naturally comes before everything else.”

Léon Bloy (1846–1917) French writer, poet and essayist

Source: Pilgrim of the Absolute (1947), p. 113

Time , Success , Business , Nature

“Wars always were contests of similar competing powers, and the deepest structure of society remained the same, whether one won or the other. Contests of classes are fights for new principles, and the victory of the rising class transfers the society to a higher stage of development. Hence, compared with real war, the moral forces are of a superior kind: voluntary devoted collaboration instead of blind obedience, faith to ideals instead of fidelity to commanders, love for the class companions, for humanity, instead of patriotism. Their essential practice is not armed violence, not killing, but standing steadfast, enduring, persevering, persuading, organizing; their aim is not to smash the skulls but to open the brains. Sure, armed action will also play a role in the fight of the classes; the armed violence of the masters cannot be overcome in Tolstoian fashion like by patient suffering. It must be beaten down by force; but, by force animated by deep moral conviction.”

Antonie Pannekoek (1873–1960) Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist

Section 2.6
Workers Councils (1947)

Faith , Making love , War , Victory

“All who stand together in the shop, in the very same position, as direct associates, subject to the same exploitation, against the same master, stand together in common action. Their real community is the shop; personnel of the same enterprise, they form a natural union of common work, common lot and common interests. Like specters from the past the old distinctions of different membership fall back, almost forgotten in the new living reality of fellowship in common fight. The vivid consciousness of new unity enhances the enthusiasm and the feeling of power.”

Antonie Pannekoek (1873–1960) Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist

Section 2.2
Workers Councils (1947)

Past , Communication , Nature , Reality

“Collaboration of equal companions replaces the command of masters and the obedience of servants. The sense of duty, the devotion to the community, the praise or blame of the comrades according to efforts and achievements, as incentives take the place of fear for hunger and perpetual risk of losing the job. Instead of the passive utensils and victims of capital, the workers are now the self-reliant masters and organizers of production, exalted by the proud feeling of being active co-operators in the rise of a new humanity.”

Antonie Pannekoek (1873–1960) Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist

Section 1.3, "Shop Organization"
Workers Councils (1947)

Hunger , Communication , Self-confidence , Sense

“The prophetic mission created a scientific-gnostic change in the world that converted the insipid Greek philosophies, which were formulated with all their past and present worth by the Greeks themselves into an objective mysticism and a veritable intuitive perception for masters of divine insight.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Pithy Aphorisms: Wise Saying and Counsels, Edited by Mansoor Limba, Tehran: The Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works -- International Affairs Department. p. 8.
Theology and Mysticism

World , Past , Change

“Ministers become a sort of miniature kings in their turn. Though they have the greatest opportunity o observing the impotence and unmeaningness of the character, they envy it. It is their trade perpetually to extol the dignity and importance of the master they serve; and men cannot long anxiously endeavor to convince others of the truth of any proposition without becoming half convinced themselves.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

Book V, Ch. 5
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Truth , Envy , Men

“The Pathway of Beauty, the Pathway of Peace and Strength, the Pathway of the Great Quiet, is within. This is the Pathway that the great Sages and Seers of all the ages have taught. Follow that Pathway. It will lead you to the heart of the Sun, the Master and Guide of our Solar System. And later, if you follow it, it will conduct you to a destiny still more sublime. Yet that sublime destiny is only the beginning, only the beginning of something grander; for evolution, growth, expansion of consciousness, go on for ever...”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

Peace , Sun , Beauty , Heart

“It is difficult to paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint, as soon as he became sole possessor of the empire. There were, however, a few short moments in the life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier and the cruel tyrant; till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his character.In every art that he attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except the important ones of war and government. He was a master of several curious, but useless sciences, a ready orator, an elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince... There were, however, a few short moments in the life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier and the cruel tyrant; till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his character.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

Vol. 1, Chap. 10.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

Painting , Light , War , Nature

“At the same time that I think discretion the most useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon cunning to be the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous minds. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most proper and laudable methods of attaining them: cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon: cunning is a kind of short-sightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance. Discretion the more it is discovered, gives a greater authority to the person who possesses it: cunning, when it is once detected, loses its force, and makes a man incapable of bringing about even those events which he might have done had he passed only for a plain man. Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life: cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interest and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understandings, cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 225
The Tatler (1711–1714)

Selfishness , Time , Understanding , Strong

“Mr. Lanchester seems to be the first man who has considered and mastered the fact and theory of every phase of the subject before sitting down to write.”

Frederick W. Lanchester (1868–1946) British polymath

"The Morning Post," October 27th, 1908, reviewing one of his books on aeronautics.

“Scarcely any specialist of to-day is really master of all the work which has been done in his own comparatively small field. Facts and their classification have been accumulating at such a rate that nobody seems to have leisure to recognise the relations of sub-groups to the whole. It is as if individual workers... were bringing their stones to one great building and piling them on and cementing them... without regard to any general plan... only where some one has placed a great corner stone... the building... rises... more rapidly... till it... is stopped for want of side support. Yet this great structure... possesses a symmetry and unity... in scientific method. The smallest group of facts, if properly classified and logically dealt with, ...has its proper place... wholly independent of the individual workman who... shaped it. Even when two men work unwittingly at the same stone they will but modify and correct each other... In the face of all this enormous progress... when in all civilised lands men are applying the scientific method... the goal of science is and must be infinitely distant.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Support , Distant , Relation ships , Science

“No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.”

James Burgh book Political Disquisitions

ch III: A Militia, with Navy
Political Disquisitions (1774)

Thinking , People

“Nothing in the traditional life of Aborigines was more impressive than their practical knowledge. They were masters of their environment even though they could do little to change it.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia (2015)

Knowledge , Life , Change

“We are not masters of ourselves and in our days of youthful folly we hasten to give premature vows the omniscient Fate shall ridicule.”

Evgeny Baratynsky (1800–1844) Russian poet

Quoted in We'll Live Till Monday (1968) (Russian film)

Youth , Fate

“I dreaded those public moments that highlighted the fact that I was a foreigner. Sometimes I sat at my desk, plotting my revenge. I would master the English language. I would infiltrate the gringo culture without letting on that I was a traitor. I would battle in their tongue and make them stumble. I would cut out their souls and leave them on the shore to be pecked on by vultures.”

Tatiana de la tierra (1961–2012) Latina writer and activist

On attending school after she immigrated with her family from Colombia to the United States in “tatiana de la tierra” ( Making Queer History https://www.makingqueerhistory.com/articles/2019/5/14/tatiana-de-la-tierra; 2019 May 14)

Soul , Making love , Revenge

“But when all this has befallen, Asclepius, then the Master and Father, God, the first before all, the maker of that God who first came into being, will look on that which has come to pass, and will stay the disorder by the counterworking of His will, which is the good.”

Apuleius (125–170) Berber prose writer in Latin

The Prophecy of Hermes Trismegistus

God

“These great sages or masters have never been discouraged in their work for humanity by the fact that the body of truths which at cyclical intervals they promulgate anew would have to undergo periods of degeneration. Directed by spiritual beings even greater than they, they do this sublime work and without intermission throughout the whirling cycles of time.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 22

Truth , Time

“Type of those born under Virgo. Those born in Virgo are of the following description: fair appearance, eyes not large, fascinating, dark, compact eyebrows, cheerful, swimmers; they are, however, slight in frame, beautiful in aspect, with hair prettily adjusted, large forehead, prominent nose. The same by nature are docile, moderate, intelligent, sportive, rational, slow to speak, form ing many plans; in regard of a favour, importunate; gladly observing everything; and well-disposed pupils, they master whatever they learn; moderate, scorners, victims of unnatural lusts, companionable, of a noble soul, despisers, careless in practical matters, attending to instruction, more honourable in what concerns others than what relates to themselves; as regards friendship, useful.”

Hippolytus of Rome Refutation of all Heresies

Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Volume 6: Hippolytus, Bishop Of Rome, Volume 1 P. 90
Refutation of All Heresies

Soul , Friendship , Beauty , Intelligence

“Within a short time after the alleged crucifixion of the Master Jesus - at any rate from the time when the Christian Scriptures began to have circulation in the Mediterranean world - and all through the Middle Ages and till nearly our own days, men quarreled and fought about the documents composing the Christian New Testament, not only with regard to just what these documents had to say, but about mere words and phrases, and also as regards their age, and as regards who wrote these various Christian Scriptures.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: The Story of Jesus (1938), Chapter 1

World , Time , Age , Men

“It is especially important for Westerners to understand that high lamas, Zen masters, and Hindu gurus in the discipline of yoga are human beings, not supermen. We must not put them, as we have put Jesus Christ, on pedestals of reverence so high that we automatically exclude ourselves from their states of consciousness.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Foreward to The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects (1964)], by Alexandra David Neel

Christ , Understanding

“Baruch Spinoza, the excommunicated Jew, made the Jewish cultural position in the West not only tenable, but impregnable. But the same Baruch Spinoza was actually responsible for the cultural anti-Semitism of modern Europe. He shaped the strong anti-Jewish attitude of his greatest admirers, followers, and adepts Herder, Goethe, Hegel, and Fichte. They were outspoken Jew-haters. They admired Spinoza, but with their master hated his race and its world-picture.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Selected works, Spinoza and Buddha: Visions of a Dead God (1933)

World , Strong , Hate

“Those who have found this middle point are true and wonderworking adepts of science and reason. They are masters of the wealth of worlds, confidants and friends of the princes of heaven itself, and Nature obeys them because they will what is willed by the law which is the motive power of Nature. It is this which the Saviour of the world spoke of as the Kingdom of Heaven; this also is the Sanctum Regnum of the Holy Kabalah. It is the Crown and Ring of Solomon ; it is the Sceptre of Joseph which the stars obeyed in heaven and the harvests on earth.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Source: The History Of Magic (1860), p.501

Confidence , Law , Wealth , Star

“We talk a great deal about patriotism. What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility which will enable America to remain master of her power — to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime — these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in "Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism" in Lend Me Your Ears : Great Speeches In History (2004) by William Safire, p. 79 - 80

Time , Country , Fight , Self-confidence

“I have a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, which is what you get if you are going to be a minister, although I was not ordained. For me, this is not a religious movement. It’s a political movement.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

The Christian Right and the Rising Power of the Evangelical Political Movement, (May 2005)

School

“At first the child is amused by his anus and feces, and gaily inserts his finger into the orifice, smelling it, smearing feces on the walls, playing games of touching objects with his anus, and the like. This is a universal form of play that does the serious work of all play: it reflects the discovery and exercise of natural bodily functions; it masters an area of strangeness; it establishes power and control over the deterministic laws of the natural world; and it does all this with symbols and fancy. With anal play the child is already becoming a philosopher of the human condition. But like all philosophers he is still bound by it, and his main task in life becomes the denial of what the anus represents: that in fact, he is nothing but body so far as nature is concerned. Nature’s values are bodily values, human values are mental values, and though they take the loftiest flights they are built upon excrement, impossible without it, always brought back to it. As Montaigne put it, on the highest throne in the world man sits on his arse. Usually this epigram makes people laugh because it seems to reclaim the world from artificial pride and snobbery and to bring things back to egalitarian values. But if we push the observation even further and say men sit not only on their arse, but over a warm and fuming pile of their own excrement—the joke is no longer funny. The tragedy of man’s dualism, his ludicrous situation, becomes too real. The anus and its incomprehensible, repulsive product represents not only physical determinism and boundness, but the fate as well of all that is physical: decay and death.”

Ernest Becker book The Denial of Death

The Recasting of Some Basic Psychoanalytic Ideas
The Denial of Death (1973)

Law , Fate , Making love , Game

“In obedience to the commandment of the Almighty God, the Lord of both the worlds; and in love of… the exalted Prophet: During the reign of Shãhjahãn, the king of the seven climes, the viceregent of God (lit. Truth), the master of the necks of people… the benevolent and generous Prince Aurangzeb, whose existence is a blessing of the Merciful God on people: He built a house for worship with (all) the qualities of heaven: after the site has been previously occupied by the temple of infidels…”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Inscription on Mosque at Bodhan, Andhra Pradesh, Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica, 1919-1920 quoted from Shourie, A., & Goel, S. R. (1993). Hindu temples: What happened to them. Vol. II.
Quotes from late medieval histories

God , Housing , People , Truth

“I offer this gift to my God, I dedicate this gift to Him. Only this remains to me as my treasure. I gave up everything else at the command of the Spirit. I gave all that I had to obtain the pearl of great price. Only in words do I master it, as a servant of the Word. I would never intentionally wish to disdain this wealth. I esteem it, I set value by it, I am comforted by it more than others are comforted by all the treasures of the world. It is the companion of all my life, a good counselor and converser; a guide on the way to Heaven and a fervent co-ascetic.”

Gregory of Nazianzus (329–389) Christian saint, bishop, and theologian

Concerning his literary gift
Source: "St. Gregory the Theologian the Archbishop of Constantinople" https://oca.org/saints/lives/2014/01/25/100298-st-gregory-the-theologian-the-archbishop-of-constantinople

God , Wealth , Way , World

“The oneness of God’s Creativity is to affirm and recognise that God is the sole creator, master and owner of everything that exists. God is the One who sustains, takes care of, and nourishes everything. According to the Islamic doctrine of tawheed, anyone who denies this has associated partners with God, which is polytheism (known as shirk in Islamic theology). Anyone who believes that these descriptions of God can be shared by any created thing has deified that thing. Therefore, they have associated partners with God.”

Hamza Tzortzis (1980) public speaker

"7 REASONS WHY GOD IS WORTHY OF WORSHIP" https://www.hamzatzortzis.com/7-reasons-why-god-is-worthy-of-worship/, Hamzatzortzis.com

God

“There have been many complaints of people interested in the occult sciences that they had never got any chance at all to be initiated by a personal master or leader (guru). Therefore only people endowed with exceptional faculties, a poor preferred minority seemed to be able to gain this sublime knowledge. Thus a great many of serious seekers of the truth had to go through piles of books just to catch one pearl of it now and again. The one, however, who is earnestly interested in his progress and does not pursue this sacred wisdom from sheer curiosity or else is yearning to satisfy his own lust, will find the right leader to initiate him in this book. No incarnate adept, however high his rank may be, can give the disciple more for his start than the present book does. If both the honest trainee and the attentive reader will find in this book all they have been searching for in vain all the years, then the book has fulfilled its purpose completely.”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Introduction p. 8.
Initiation Into Hermetics (1956)

Chance , Search , Personality , People

“For by the life of God, it doth even take my wits from me to think on it. Here is such controversy between the sailors and gentlemen, and such stomaching between the gentlemen and sailors, it doth make me mad to hear it. But, my masters, I must have it left. For I must have the gentleman to haul and draw with the mariner, and the mariner with the gentleman. What! let us show ourselves to be of a company and let us not give occasion to the enemy to rejoice at our decay and overthrow. I would know him that would refuse to set his hand to a rope, but I know there is not any such here...”

Francis Drake (1540–1596) English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era

Speech to his crew off of Puerto San Julian, Argentina, prior to entering the Strait of Magellan (May 1578)

God , Drawing , Making love , Thinking

“The Key! it is of wonderful construction, with its infinity of combination, and its unlimited capacity to fit every lock. … it is the great master-key which unlocks every door of knowledge and without which no discovery which deserves the name — which is law, and not isolated fact — has been or ever can be made. Fascinated by its symmetry the geometer may at times have been too exclusively engrossed with his science, forgetful of its applications; he may have exalted it into his idol and worshipped it; he may have degraded it into his toy... when he should have been hard at work with it, using it for the benefit of mankind and the glory of his Creator.”

Benjamin Peirce (1809–1880) American mathematician

Ben Yamen's Song of Geometry (1853)

Time , Law , Forgetting , Knowledge

“His master stroke was to appoint Manmohan Singh as finance minister. He wanted a non-political reformer at the centre of decision-making, who could be backed or dumped as required. He presented Singh as the spearhead of reform while he himself advocated a middle path. Yet, ultimately, it was his vision that Singh executed.”

P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) Indian politician

Unsung hero of the India story

Making love , Decision

“The poor Negro always remembered himself as an ex-slave and used this as the basis of any dealings with the mainstream of American society. The middle class black man bases his whole existence on the hopeless hypothesis that no one is supposed to remember that for almost three hundred years there was slavery in America, that the white man was a master, the black man a slave. This knowledge, however, is at the root of the legitimate black culture of this country. It is this knowledge, with its attendant muses of self-division, self-hatred, stoicism, and finally quixotic optimism, that informs the most meaningful of Afro-American music.”

Amiri Baraka book Blues People

Blues People: Negro Music in White America (1963), p. 136

Optimism , Country , Music , Self-confidence

“They’re believers, Mr. Howard. Pentecostalist dispensationalists—they are saved, but they are surrounded by the unsaved, and they think their master is returning imminently, and anyone who isn’t saved by the time of his arrival is doomed. So they intend to save everyone whether or not they want to be saved, one brain parasite at a time.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Apocalypse Codex (2012), Chapter 12, “With a Bible and a Gun” (p. 225)

Thinking , Time

“If you want to be your own master, his father used to say, always be surprised by evil; never anticipate it.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

"Greek Fire"
Birds of America (1971)

Evil

“The question is not. Shall man be master of the earth? but. What sort of a master shall he be? Shall he be cruel and selfish, bigoted and imperialistic, thinking only of himself and sacrificing the interests of others to his own heartless purposes? or shall he be the responsible administrator of the universe, presiding over the affairs of the earth honourably and equitably, with a mind single to the good of all? Shall he be a savage despot or a schoolmaster? a feared and hated monster, or a wise, patient, and affectionate father? Since he has become the manager of the planet, shall he manage it as he would wish it to be managed if he were a subordinate and some other race had succeeded to the superintendency, or shall he cut loose from all moral obligations, ignore the promptings of his better self, and run things absolutely in the interest of himself? Which shall it be—the great law of love or the savage law of might?”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, pp. 149–150

Selfishness , Hate , Law , Question

“The human beings who possess the dominion of land and machinery and compel others, in order to obtain the essentials of existence, to serve them, are as truly masters of slaves as they who exact blood from the dorsals of their fellows with literal slave whips.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Problem of Industry, p. 37

“The ultimate values in the world are those of personality and no theory of the state, whether socialistic or capitalistic, is valid, which makes it master, not servant, of man.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

As quoted in Norman Thomas: Respectable Rebel, Murray B. Seidler, Syracuse University Press (1961) p. 27

World , Personality , Making love

“Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons (11 November 1947), published in 206–07 The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 11 November 1947, vol. 444, cc. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1947/nov/11/parliament-bill#column_206
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Democracy , Time , Country , People

“The more i watched how boys and girls behaved, the more i read and the more i thought about it, the more convinced i became that this behavior could be traced directly back to the plantation, when slaves were encouraged to take the misery of their lives out on each other instead of on the master. The slavemasters taught us we were ugly, less than human, unintelligent, and many of us believed it. Black people became breeding animals: studs and mares. A Black woman was fair game for anyone at any time: the master or a visiting guest or any redneck who desired her. The slavemaster would order her to have six with this stud, seven with that stud, for the purpose of increasing his stock. She was considered less than a woman. She was a cross between a whore and a workhorse. Black men internalized the white man’s opinion of Black women. And, if you ask me, a lot of us still act like we’re back on the plantation with massa pulling the strings.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Source: Assata: In Her Own Words, Ch.6, pp. 176-177

Time , Reading , Whore , Girl

“Those who think Roman slavery was such a benign institution have not explained why fugitive slaves were a constant problem. Owners did not lightly countenance the loss of valuable property. They regularly used chains, metal collars, and other restraining devices. Slaves who ﬂed were hunted down and returned to irate masters who were keen to inﬂict a severe retribution.”

Michael Parenti book The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

Source: The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (2003), Ch. 1

Problem , Loss , Thinking

“Humanity many times has had sad experience of superpowerful police forces…As soon as (the police) slip out from under the firm thumb of a suspicious local tribune, they become arbitrary, merciless, a law unto themselves. They think no more of justice, but only of establishing themselves as a privileged and envied elite. They mistake the attitude of natural caution and uncertainty of the civilian population as admiration and respect, and presently they start to swagger back and forth, jingling their weapons in megalomaniac euphoria. People thereupon become not masters, but servants. Such a police force becomes merely an aggregate of uniformed criminals, the more baneful in that their position is unchallenged and sanctioned by law. The police mentality cannot regard a human being in terms other than as an item or object to be processed as expeditiously as possible. Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly overzealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption. The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than the despotism of one unbridled police force.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 3 (pp. 32-33)

Hell , Time , Justice , Law

“In virtue of this monstrous system, the son of the worker, on entering life, finds no field which he may till, no machine which he may tend, no mine in which he may dog, without accepting to leave a great part of what he will produce to a master.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 1 : Our Riches, p. 59

Life , Dogs , Parting

“A Southern farm is a sort of joint stock concern, or social phalastery, in which the master furnishes the capital and skill, and the slaves the labor, and divide the profits, not according to each one’s in-put, but according to each one’s wants and necessities.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 48

“The linga he raised was the stone of Somnath, for soma means the moon and natha means master, so that the whole word means master of the moon. The image was destroyed by the Prince Mahmud, may God be merciful to him!”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

AH 416. He ordered the upper part to be broken and the remainder to be transported to his residence, Ghaznin, with all its coverings and trappings of gold, jewels, and embroidered garments. Part of it has been thrown into the hippodrome of the town, together with the Cakrasvamin, an idol of bronze, that had been brought from Taneshar. Another part of the idol from Somanath lies before the door of the mosque of Ghaznin, on which people rub their feet to clean them from dirt and wet.
E.C. Sachau (tr.), Alberuni's India, New Delhi Reprint, 1983, p. 102-103
Sack of Somnath (1025 CE)

God

“Both sides of the Taiwan Strait (Taiwan and Mainland China) have their differences of opinion. I hope people on both sides could help, protect and give their blessings to a simple businessman (bread master Wu Pao-chun) who wishes to develop his business without becoming too involved in politics.”

Han Kuo-yu (1957) Taiwanese political figure

Han Kuo-yu (2018) cited in " President Tsai decries row over Wu Pao-chun http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2018/12/12/2003705958" on Taipei Times, 12 December 2018.
2018

Business , Hope , Help , People

“The Effect of Meditation. Remember also that every one who meditates upon the Master makes a definite connection with him, which shows itself to clairvoyant vision as a kind of line of light. The Master always subconsciously feels the impinging of such a line, and sends out in response a steady stream of magnetism which continues to play long after the meditation is over. The methodical practice of such meditation and concentration is thus of the utmost help to the aspirant, and regularity is one of the most important factors in producing the result. It should be undertaken daily at the same hour, and we should steadily persevere with it, even though no obvious effect may be produced. When no result appears we must be especially careful to avoid depression, because that makes it more difficult for a Master’s influence to act upon us, and it also shows that we are thinking of ourselves more than of him.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch.4

Light , Help , Thinking , Appearance

“There is no one physical characteristic by which an Adept can be infallibly distinguished from other men, but he always appears impressive, noble, dignified, holy and serene, and anyone meeting him could hardly fail to recognize that he was in the presence of a remarkable man. He is the strong but silent man, speaking only when he has a definite object in view, to encourage, to help or to warn, yet he is wonderfully benevolent and full of a keen sense of humour— humour always of a kindly order, used never to wound, but always to lighten the troubles of life. The Master Morya once said that it is impossible to make progress on the occult Path without a sense of humour, and certainly all the Adepts whom I have seen have possessed that qualification.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch. 2

Strong , Help , Appearance , Sense

“The Existence of Perfected Men is one of the most important of the many new facts which Theosophy puts before us. It follows logically from the other great Theosophical teachings of karma and evolution by reincarnation. As we look round us we see men obviously at all stages of their evolution—many far below ourselves in development, and others who in one way or another are distinctly in advance of us. Since that is so, there may well be others who are very much further advanced; indeed, if men are steadily growing better and better through a long series of successive lives, tending towards a definite goal, there should certainly be some who have already reached that goal. Some of us in the process of that development have already succeeded in unfolding some of those higher senses which are latent in every man, and will be the heritage of all in the future; and by means of those senses we are enabled to see the ladder of evolution extending far above us as well as far below us, and we can also see that there are men standing upon every rung of that ladder. There is a considerable amount of direct testimony to the existence of these Perfected Men whom we call Masters, but I think that the first step which each one of us should take is to make certain that there must be such men…”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch. 1

Success , Future , Perfection , Thinking

“In hearing of these different possibilities, people sometimes exclaim rashly that there could of course be no thought in a Master’s mind of choosing any but that course which most helps humanity - a remark which greater knowledge would have prevented them from making. We should never forget that there are other evolutions in the solar system besides our own, and no doubt it is necessary for the carrying out of the vast plan of the Logos that there should be adepts working on all the seven lines to which we have referred. Surely the choice of the Master would be to go wherever his work was most needed - to place his services with absolute selflessness at the disposal of the Powers in charge of this part of the great scheme of evolution.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 17

Forgetting , Help , People , Knowledge