Quotes about other
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“And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known, that whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a number of persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such State at the Presidential election of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, each having taken the oath aforesaid and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the State existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall re-establish a State government which shall be republican, and in no wise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the State, and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provision which declares that "The United States shall guaranty to every State in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on application of the legislature, or the executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence."”

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

1860s, Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)

Law, Personality

“The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have a mechanical means of representing objects in nature such as the camera and photograph. The modern artist, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion and the other inner forces.... the modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, pp. 139-140

Age, World, Feeling, Nature

“Having meditated on gentleness and on compassion,
I have forgotten the difference between myself and others.”

Milarepa (1052–1135) Tibetan yogi

From the song offered to Geshe Tsaphoua, as quoted in Meditation Techniques of the Buddhist and Taoist Masters (2003) by Daniel Odier, p. 104 https://books.google.it/books?id=9BXTAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA104

“There's one other thing too. No car can truly be great unless it's a Ferrari.”

Jeremy Clarkson book Born to be Riled

Source: Born to be Riled (1999), p. 23

Cars

“The example of the Jews, in many things, may not be imitated by us; they had not only orders to cut off several nations altogether, but if they were obliged to war with others, and conquered them, to cut off every male; they were suffered to use polygamy and divorces, and other things utterly unlawful to us under clearer light.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

War, Light, Suffering

“There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression is common, almost universal. Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief — resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.”

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

Fragment, Notes for a Law Lecture (1 July 1850), cited in Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, Comprising his Speeches, Letters, State Papers, and Miscellaneous Writings, Vol. 2 (1894)
1850s

People, Law, Confidence, Universe

“The concept-systems of antithesis are concepts that are indeed thoroughly determined by negative predicates but are not positively representable.
Just because a precise and complete representation of these concept-systems is impossible, they are inaccessible to direct investigation and elaboration by our reflection. They may, however, be regarded as lying at the limit of the representable, i. e., we can form a concept-system lying within the representable, which passes over into the given system by simple change of magnitude ratio. By abstracting from the ratios of the quantities, the concept-system remains unchanged in case of transition to the limit. At the limit itself, however, some of the correlative concepts of the system lose their susceptibility of being represented, and those, indeed, that mediate the relation between other concepts.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

General Relation of the Concept System of Thesis and Antithesis
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Lying, Change

“I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this—never neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may be—usually is, in fact—a false alarm that leads to nothing, but may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate to lead you to some important advance.”

Alexander Fleming (1881–1955) Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and sexiest man

Lecture at Harvard University. Quoted in Joseph Sambrook, David W. Russell, Molecular Cloning (2001), Vol. 1, 153. biographyonline.net http://www.biographyonline.net/scientists/alex-fleming.html

Fate, Appearance, Chance, Falseness

“As for the soul: why did I say I would leave it out? I forget. And the truth is, one can't write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes; but look at the ceiling, at Grizzle, at the cheaper beasts in the Zoo which are exposed to walkers in Regent's Pak, and the soul slips in. Mrs Webb's book has made me think a little what I could say of my own life. But then there were causes in her life: prayer; principle. None in mine. Great excitability and search after something. Great content – almost always enjoying what I'm at, but with constant change of mood. I don't think I'm ever bored. Yet I have some restless searcher in me. Why is there not a discovery in life? Something one can lay hands on and say 'This is it'? What is it? And shall I die before I can find it? Then (as I was walking through Russell Square last night) I see mountains in the sky: the great clouds, and the moon which is risen over Persia; I have a great and astonishing sense of something there, which is 'it' – A sense of my own strangeness, walking on the earth is there too. Who am I, what am I, and so on; these questions are always floating about in me. Is that what I meant to say? Not in the least. I was thinking about my own character; not about the universe. Oh and about society again; dining with Lord Berners at Clive's made me think that. How, at a certain moment, I see through what I'm saying; detest myself; and wish for the other side of the moon; reading alone, that is.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Saturday 27 February 1926
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

Life, Truth, Books, Soul

“For example, throughout the long contest, extending over several decades, on the free [silver] coinage question, the existence of this motto on the coins was a constant source of jest and ridicule; and this was unavoidable. Everyone must remember the innumerable cartoons and articles based on phrases like 'In God we trust for the other eight cents'; 'In God we trust for the short weight'; 'In god we trust for the thirty-seven cents we do not pay'; and so forth and so forth. Surely I am well within bounds when I say that a use of the phrase which invites constant levity of this type is most undesirable.”

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

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)

God, Question

“Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interest, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, Common Sense (1776)

Men, World

“The state should look into this, as other nations do: see to it that nobles do not take the lives of their subjects at will, or burden them with unjust toil - as if they were dumb cattle!”

Szymon Starowolski (1588–1656) Polish historian

Source: William John Rose (1944). The Rise of Polish Democracy, p. 5

“I’d send out an intergalactic invitation to other species. I guarantee they would not be like the aliens in the movies I did. I think if they can get here, they could be charming. Stephen Hawking said aliens would be coming for our resources. Well, I don’t know what planet he’s talking about, we don’t have any resources to give them! We’re plundering our own planet. Unless garbage and plastic is something they need, in which case, we could work out a good deal.”

Sigourney Weaver (1949) American actress

Stylist, "Queen of everything: Sigourney Weaver" https://www.stylist.co.uk/people/interviews-and-profiles/queen-of-everything-sigourney-weaver/173306, (2012).

Thinking

“[W]hy do men continue to practise themselves the absurdities they despise in others?”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Men

“And that’s what we celebrate today. The long arc of progress. Progress that is never assured, never guaranteed, but always possible, always there to be earned -– no matter how stuck we might seem sometimes. No matter how divided or despairing we may appear. No matter what ugliness may bubble up. Progress, so long as we’re willing to push for it; so long as we’re willing to reach for each other.”

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

2015, Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment (December 2015)

Appearance, Despair

“As the Deity has given us Greeks all other blessings in moderation, so our moderation gives us a kind of wisdom which is timid, in all likelihood, and fit for common people, not one which is kingly and splendid. This wisdom, such as it is, observing that human life is ever subject to all sorts of vicissitudes, forbids us to be puffed up by the good things we have, or to admire a man's felicity while there is still time for it to change.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Plutarch Solon, ch. 27; translation by Bernadotte Perrin. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plut.+Sol.+27.1

Life, Wisdom, People, Change

“Enhanced interactions and cooperation between China and the United States serve the interests of our two peoples and are conducive to world peace and development. We should stay firmly rooted in the present while looking ahead to the future, and view and approach China-U. S. relations from a strategic and long-term perspective. We should, on the basis of the principles set forth in the three Sino-U. S. joint communiqués, respect each other as equals and promote closer exchanges and cooperation. This will enable us to make steady progress in advancing constructive and cooperative China-U. S. relations, and bring more benefits to our two peoples and people of the world.”

Hu Jintao (1942) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

2000s, White House speech (2006)

People, World, Peace, Future

“We hear talk of sanctified selfishness, of the adorable expansion of one race across the others, of noble hatreds and glorious conquests, and we see these ideals trying to take shape on all hands.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XX The Cult

Selfishness

“If other thoughts rise, one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire, 'To whom did they arise?', it will be known 'To me'. If one then enquires 'Who am I?', the mind (power of attention) will turn back to its source. By repeatedly practising thus, the power of the mind to abide in its source increases.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Nan Yar = Who am I?

“To be treated with mercy, some must reveal their handicaps, while others must conceal them.”

Yahia Lababidi (1973)

Signposts to Elsewhere (2008)

“This matter of lynching would be a terrible thing even if it stopped with the lynching of men guilty of the inhuman and hideous crime of rape; but, as a matter of fact, lawlessness of this type never does stop and never can stop in such fashion. Every violent man in the community is encouraged by every case of lynching, in which the lynchers go unpunished, to himself take the law into his own hands whenever it suits his own convenience. In the same way the use of torture by the mob in certain cases is sure to spread until it is applied more or less indiscriminately in other cases.”

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

1900s, Letter to Winfield T. Durbin (1903)

Men, Law, Way, Communication

“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

Opening lines.
1770s, Common Sense (1776)

Happiness

“Those who are free from common prejudices acquire others.”

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

Memoirs of Napoleon (1829-1831)

“At times, we’ve disagreed on matters of policy. But one thing we’ve always shared is a notion of what public service should be. That it ought to be more than just doing what’s popular in the moment. That it ought to be about what’s right for our nation, over the long term. It ought to be about problem-solving and governance, not just how we can score political points on each other or engage in obstructionism. And where compromise is not a vice and where bipartisanship is a actually considered a virtue -- to be rewarded, not punished.”

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

Remarks by the President at the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Symposium hold at The National War College in Washington, D.C. on December 03, 2012. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/12/03/remarks-president-nunn-lugar-cooperative-threat-reduction-symposium 2012

Problem, Time

“Now let's repeat the non-conformists' oath: I promise to be different! (audience repeats) I promise to be unique! (audience repeats) I promise not to repeat things other people say! (audience repeats, laughs) Good!”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy

People

“If any suffering was fruitless it was the agony of a hangover; what he suffered now could not expiate suffering of any other kind.”

Kenzaburō Ōe book A Personal Matter

A Personal Matter (1964)

Suffering

“What does “A. D.” signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that. Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Cold Turkey (2004)

People, Way, Imagination, Personality

“Profound love demands a deep conception and out of this develops reverence for the mystery of life. It brings us close to all beings, to the poorest and smallest as well as all others.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Reverence for Life (1969)

Love, Life

“God’s greatness lies in forgiving, in showing mercy, and in this greatness He is greater than the heart which condemns itself. Behold, this is that greatness of God which we have to speak of especially within the sanctuary; for here we know God differently, more closely – from the other side, if one may say so – that out there, where doubtless He is revealed, is to be known in His works, whereas here He is to be known as He has revealed Himself, as He would be known by Christians. The tokens of God’s greatness can be known in nature everyone can behold with wonder, or rather there is no special token, for the works themselves are the tokens; thus every one can see the rainbow and must wonder when he sees it. But the token of God’s greatness in showing mercy exists only for faith; this token is in fact the Sacrament. God’s greatness in nature is manifest, but God’s greatness in showing mercy is a secret which has to be believed.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Soren Kierkegaard, Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays.1 John 3: From Cristian Discourses & The Lilies of the Field & The Birds of the Air, & Discourses at the Communion on Fridays 1848 Translated by Walter Lowrie 1940, 1961 Galaxy Books P. 298-299
1840s, Christian Discourses (1848)

God, Secret, Faith, Forgiveness

“Through others, we become ourselves.”

Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) Soviet psychologist

Vygotskij, L. S. (1987). The genesis of higher mental functions. In R. Reiber (Ed.), The history of the development of higher mental functions (Vol. 4, pp. 97-120). New York: Plennum.

“He detested objective truths, the burden of argument, sustained reasoning. He disliked demonstrating, he wanted to convince no one. Others are a dialectician's invention.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Truth

“I must confess that I am unable to appreciate the merits of Confucius. His writings are largely occupied with trivial points of etiquette, and his main concern is to teach people how to behave correctly on various occasions. When one compares him, however, with the traditional religious teachers of some other ages and races, one must admit that he has great merits, even if they are mainly negative. His system, as developed by his followers, is one of pure ethics, without religious dogma; it has not given rise to a powerful priesthood, and it has not led to persecution. It certainly has succeeded in producing a whole nation possessed of exquisite manners and perfect courtesy. Nor is Chinese courtesy merely conventional; it is quite as reliable in situations for which no precedent has been provided. And it is not confined to one class; it exists even in the humblest coolie. It is humiliating to watch the brutal insolence of white men received by the Chinese with a quiet dignity which cannot demean itself to answer rudeness with rudeness. Europeans often regard this as weakness, but it is really strength, the strength by which the Chinese have hitherto conquered all their conquerors.”

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

The Problem of China (1922), Ch. XI: Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted
1920s

Men, People, Age, Teachers

“And finally, Africa’s progress will depend on upholding the human rights of all people -- for if each of us is to be treated with dignity, each of us must be sure to also extend that same dignity to others.”

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

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)

People, Dependency

“It is having in some measure a sort of wit to know how to use the wit of others.”

Stanisław Leszczyński (1677–1766) king of Poland

Maxims and Moral Sentences

“All relationships of people to each other rest, as a matter of course, upon the precondition that they know something about each other. The merchant knows that his correspondent wants to buy at the lowest price and to sell at the highest price. The teacher knows that he may credit to the pupil a certain quality and quantity of information. Within each social stratum the individual knows approximately what measure of culture he has to presuppose in each other individual.”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

Source: The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies (1906), p. 441: First lines of the article.

People, Teachers

“As we begin to plan for a new human society, we need to foster common values about clean air, water, and other elements of self-sustenance. These, along with a complete inventory of Earth's resources, will form the basis for a holistic approach to cybernated decision-making.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 54.

Decision, Water

“And so, supposing that light impinging on a refracting or reflecting ethereal superficies puts it into a vibrating motion, that physical superficies being by the perpetual applause of rays always kept in a vibrating motion, and the ether therein continually expanded and compressed by turns, if a ray of light impinge on it when it is much compressed, I suppose it is then too dense and stiff to let the ray through, and so reflects it; but the rays that impinge on it at other times, when it is either expanded by the interval between two vibrations or not too much compressed and condensed, go through and are refracted.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

"Hypothesis explaining the Properties of Light" (1675)

Light, Time

“Some there are who are nothing else than a passage for food and augmentors of excrement and fillers of privies, because through them no other things in the world, nor any good effects are produced, since nothing but full privies results from them.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

World, Food

“Our nation is unique. We grew out of a desire to worship God in a certain way; we grew from a number of other nations who were being prosecuted because of their faith. We have a wonderful culture, a wonderful, vibrant language. I want my people to be proud of who they are again.”

Eugène Terre'Blanche (1941–2010) South African police officer, farmer, political activist, white supremacist

Interview by Antoinette Keyser http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=249083&area=/insight/insight__national/, (25 August 2005).

God, People, Faith, Way

“Inconceivable events and conditions form a class apart from all other story elements, and cannot be made convincing by any mere process of casual narration. They have the handicap of incredibility to overcome; and this can be accomplished only through a careful realism in every other phase of the story, plus a gradual atmospheric or emotional build-up of the utmost subtlety. The emphasis, too, must be kept right—hovering always over the wonder of the central abnormality itself. It must be remembered that any violation of what we know as natural law is in itself a far more tremendous thing than any other event or feeling which could possibly affect a human being. Therefore in a story dealing with such a thing we cannot expect to create any sense of life or illusion of reality if we treat the wonder casually and have the characters moving about under ordinary motivations. The characters, though they must be natural, should be subordinated to the central marvel around which they are grouped. The true "hero" of a marvel tale is not any human being, but simply a set of phenomena. Over and above everything else should tower the stark, outrageous monstrousness of the one chosen departure from Nature. The characters should react to it as real people would react to such a thing if it were suddenly to confront them in daily life; displaying the almost soul-shattering amazement which anyone would naturally display instead of the mild, tame, quickly-passed-over emotions prescribed by cheap popular convention. Even when the wonder is one to which the characters are assumed to be used, the sense of awe, marvel, and strangeness which the reader would feel in the presence of such a thing must somehow be suggested by the author.... Atmosphere, not action, is the thing to cultivate in the wonder story. We cannot put stress on the bare events, since the unnatural extravagance of these events makes them sound hollow and absurd when thrown into too high relief. Such events, even when theoretically possible or conceivable in the future, have no counterpart or basis in existing life and human experience, hence can never form the groundwork of an adult tale. All that a marvel story can ever be, in a serious way, is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood. The moment it tries to be anything else it becomes cheap, puerile, and unconvincing. Therefore a fantastic author should see that his prime emphasis goes into subtle suggestion—the imperceptible hints and touches of selective and associative detail which express shadings of moods and build up a vague illusion of the strange reality of the unreal—instead of into bald catalogues of incredible happenings which can have no substance or meaning apart from a sustaining cloud of colour and mood-symbolism. A serious adult story must be true to something in life. Since marvel tales cannot be true to the events of life, they must shift their emphasis toward something to which they can be true; namely, certain wistful or restless moods of the human spirit, wherein it seeks to weave gossamer ladders of escape from the galling tyranny of time, space, and natural laws.”

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

"Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction", Californian 3, No. 3 (Winter 1935): 39-42. Published in Collected Essays, Volume 2: Literary Criticism edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 178
Non-Fiction

Life, People, Law, Way

“Man, when reduced to nothing, or in other words a survivor, is not tragic but comic, because he has no fate.”

Imre Kertész (1929–2016) Hungarian writer

Liquidation (2003)

Fate

“Outstanding American men seem to see power as something you use in order to correct someone who's wrong, to change them, to show them you see more in this situation than the boss does. Outstanding American women, on the other hand, see power as a resource, something you can use to get people together, to gain commitment.”

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

David C. McClelland (1998) in: Katherine Adams, "Interview by David C. McClelland , in Competency, vol. 4 no.3, Spring 1997, pp.18–23; Republished in orientamento.it http://www.orientamento.it/indice/interview-with-mcclelland/, 19/11/2015

Women, Men, People, Change

“… the ego's need to be periodically in conflict with something or someone in order to strengthen its sense of separation between me and the other, without which it cannot survive.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003)

Sense

“I entirely agree with you, that an union between the Conservative party and the Radical masses offers the only means by which we can preserve the Empire. Their interests are identical; united they form the nation; and their division has only permitted a miserable minority, under the specious name of the People, to assail all rights of property and person. Since I first entered public life, now eight years ago, I have worked for no other object and no other end than to aid the formation of a national party.”

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

Source: Letter to Charles Attwood (7 June 1840), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 486

Life, People, Personality

“When Miss Nochlin says: 'If women have in fact achieved the same status as men in the arts, then the status quo is fine as it is.' Well, I think the status quo in the arts is fine as it is - in this country [America] at least, women have exactly the same chance that men do. There are the same schools, museums, galleries, books, art stores. There are no obstacles in the way of a woman becoming a painter or sculptor other than the usual obstacles that any artist has to face.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

n. p.
1950 - 1971, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists' - Rosalyn Drexler with Elaine de Kooning (1971)

Women, Men, Books, School

“Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

Laozi book Tao Te Ching

Variant translation by Lin Yutang: "He who knows others is learned; he who knows himself is wise".
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 33, as interpreted by Stephen Mitchell (1992)

Success, Wisdom, Intelligence

“p>To the new International that is now in the irreversible process of preparation we can contribute the ideas of worldwide organization and the world state; the English can suggest the idea of worldwide exploitation and trusts; the French can offer nothing….
Thus we find two great economic principles opposed to each other in the modern world. The Viking has become a free-tradesman; the Teutonic knight is now an administrative official. There can be no reconciliation. Each of these principles is proclaimed by a German people, Faustian men par excellence. Neither can accept a restriction of its will, and neither can be satisfied until the whole world has succumbed to its particular idea. This being the case, war will be waged until one side gains final victory. Is world economy to be worldwide exploitation, or worldwide organization? Are the Caesars of the coming empire to be billionaires or universal administrators? Shall the population of the earth, so long as this empire of Faustian civilization holds together, be subjected to cartels and trusts, or to men such as those envisioned in the closing pages of Goethe’s Faust, Part II? Truly, the destiny of the world is at stake….
This brings us to the political aspects of the English-Prussian antithesis. Politics is the highest and most powerful dimension of all historical existence. World history is the history of states; the history of states is the history of wars. Ideas, when they press for decisions, assume the form of political units: countries, peoples, or parties. They must be fought over not with words but with weapons. Economic warfare becomes military warfare between countries or within countries. Religious associations such as Jewry and Islam, Huguenots and Mormons, constitute themselves as countries when it becomes a matter of their continued existence or their success. Everything that proceeds from the innermost soul to become flesh or fleshly creation demands a sacrifice of flesh in return. Ideas that have become blood demand blood. War is the eternal pattern of higher human existence, and countries exist for war’s sake; they are signs of readiness for war. And even if a tired and blood-drained humanity desired to do away with war, like the citizens of the Classical world during its final centuries, like the Indians and Chinese of today, it would merely exchange its role of war-wager for that of the object about and with which others would wage war. Even if a Faustian universal harmony could be attained, masterful types on the order of late Roman, late Chinese, or late Egyptian Caesars would battle each other for this Empire—for the possession of it, if its final form were capitalistic; or for the highest rank in it, if it should become socialistic.”

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) German historian and philosopher

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)

Men, War, People, World

“… if the majority of men cannot know what is good for them, each for himself, how can they know what is good for others by proxy? If they are to be controlled by specialists, how and by what standard can they choose the specialist?”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)

Men

“People ask: Why should I care about the ocean? Because the ocean is the cornerstone of earth's life support system, it shapes climate and weather. It holds most of life on earth. 97% of earth's water is there. It's the blue heart of the planet — we should take care of our heart. It's what makes life possible for us. We still have a really good chance to make things better than they are. They won't get better unless we take the action and inspire others to do the same thing. No one is without power. Everybody has the capacity to do something.”

Sylvia Earle (1935) American oceanographer

Quoted in the 2010 documentary film Bag It

Life, People, Support, Water

“I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite.
And while I rise from my own globe to others
And penetrate ever further through the eternal field,
That which others saw from afar, I leave far behind me.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

Variant translation: While I venture out beyond this tiny globe
Into reaches past the bounds of starry night
I leave behind what others strain to see afar.
On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1584)

“There thou wilt show me
That which my soul desired;
And there Thou wilt give at once,
O Thou, my life!
That which Thou gavest me the other day. ~ 38”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom

Life, Soul

“How grievously I was disappointed! …I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind and any other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person that began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when endeavored to explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is made up of bones and muscles; and the bones he would say, are hard and have ligaments which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which also have a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I an sitting here in a curved posture… and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is that Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or Boeotia… if they had been guided only by their idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen as the better and nobler part… to undergo any punishment that the State inflicts.”

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

Plato, Phaedo

Disappointment, Idea, Thinking, Water

“And at some point, I know that one of my daughters will ask, perhaps my youngest, will ask, "Daddy, why is this monument here? What did this man do?" How might I answer them? Unlike the others commemorated in this place, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a president of the United States — at no time in his life did he hold public office. He was not a hero of foreign wars. He never had much money, and while he lived he was reviled at least as much as he was celebrated. By his own accounts, he was a man frequently racked with doubt, a man not without flaws, a man who, like Moses before him, more than once questioned why he had been chosen for so arduous a task — the task of leading a people to freedom, the task of healing the festering wounds of a nation's original sin. And yet lead a nation he did. Through words he gave voice to the voiceless. Through deeds he gave courage to the faint of heart. By dint of vision, and determination, and most of all faith in the redeeming power of love, he endured the humiliation of arrest, the loneliness of a prison cell, the constant threats to his life, until he finally inspired a nation to transform itself, and begin to live up to the meaning of its creed.
Like Moses before him, he would never live to see the Promised Land. But from the mountain top, he pointed the way for us — a land no longer torn asunder with racial hatred and ethnic strife, a land that measured itself by how it treats the least of these, a land in which strength is defined not simply by the capacity to wage war but by the determination to forge peace — a land in which all of God's children might come together in a spirit of brotherhood.
We have not yet arrived at this longed for place. For all the progress we have made, there are times when the land of our dreams recedes from us — when we are lost, wandering spirits, content with our suspicions and our angers, our long-held grudges and petty disputes, our frantic diversions and tribal allegiances. And yet, by erecting this monument, we are reminded that this different, better place beckons us, and that we will find it not across distant hills or within some hidden valley, but rather we will find it somewhere in our hearts.”

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

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Groundbreaking Ceremony (13 November 2006)
2006

Love, Life, Money, God

“The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal, he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him: it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.”

Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), Ch. 13.

Peace, Thinking, Clothes

“They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where — because of our past excesses — it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true. I don't believe that. And, I don't believe you do either. That is why I am seeking the presidency. I cannot and will not stand by and see this great country destroy itself. Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. I don't agree that our nation must resign itself to inevitable decline, yielding its proud position to other hands. I am totally unwilling to see this country fail in its obligation to itself and to the other free peoples of the world.”

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

Official Announcement http://www.reaganlibrary.com/reagan/speeches/intent.asp of being a candidate for U.S. President (13 November 1979) 1970s

Children, People, World, Dreams

“Reason and emotion counsel and supplement each other. Whoever heeds only the one, and puts aside the other, recklessly deprives himself of a portion of the aid granted us for the regulation of our conduct.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 173.

“In my opinion there are two seats of war danger. The first is in the Far East, in the zone of Japan. I have in mind the numerous statements made by Japanese military men containing threats against other powers. The second seat is in the zone of Germany. It is hard to say which is the most menacing, but both exist and are active. Compared with these two principal seats of war danger, the Italian-Abyssinian war is an episode. At present, the Far Eastern seat of danger reveals the greatest activity. However, the centre of this danger may shift to Europe. This is indicated, for example, by the interview which Herr Hitler recently gave to a French newspaper. In this interview Hitler seems to have tried to say peaceful things, but he sprinkled his "peacefulness" so plentifully with threats against both France and the Soviet Union that nothing remained of his "peacefulness."”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

You see, even when Herr Hitler wants to speak of peace he cannot avoid uttering threats. This is symptomatic. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htmInterview Between J. Stalin and Roy Howard; March 1, 1936 Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Men, War, Peace

“For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasurable to him, he will be saner, healthier, more civilised, more himself. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Life, Pain, Pleasure, Exercises

“Modern scientists attempt excursions to other planets, but they have no information of how many different types of oceans and seas there are within the universe. According to their experience, the Moon is full of dust, but this does not explain how it gives us soothing rays from a distance of millions of miles. As far as we are concerned, we follow the authority of Vyasadeva and Sukadeva Gosvami, who have described the universal situation according to the Vedic literature. These authorities differ from modern scientists who conclude from their imperfect sensual experience that only this planet is inhabited by living beings whereas the other planets are all vacant or full of dust.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 7, Chapter 4, verse 15, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/7/4/15 Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science

Literature, Universe, Sea

“I can’t do it, Joachim. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. A long leash is still a leash. And Coransee will still be at the other end of it, holding on.”

Octavia E. Butler book Patternmaster

Source: Patternmaster (1976), Chapter 4 (p. 689)

“The supreme empire is that of the Emperor who renounces all normal life, that of other men, and in who the care of supremacy doesn't weigh like a load of jewels.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 121
The Book of Disquiet
Original: O império supremo é o do Imperador que abdica de toda a vida normal, dos outros homens, em quem o cuidado da supremacia não pesa como um fardo de jóias.

Life, Men

“General disarmament being for the present entirely out of question, a proportionate reduction might be recommended. The safety of any country and of the world's commerce depending not on the absolute, but relative amount of war material, this would be evidently the first reasonable step to take towards universal economy and peace. But it would be a hopeless task to establish an equitable basis of adjustment. Population, naval strength, force of army, commercial importance, water-power, or any other natural resource, actual or prospective, are equally unsatisfactory standards to consider.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)

War, World, Peace, Question

“If you’ve ever sat in a room with twins, immediately you’re forced to deal with this confusion. You’re afraid to call them by name because you’re afraid you’re going to get it wrong. At first being a twin is a source of power, you can switch, you can fool people—but then it becomes a vulnerability because people confuse you when you don’t want them to. The famous story of the twins who were both spanked when either one of them did something wrong because the parents wanted to make sure they got the right twin. So that would immediately make each twin totally responsible for the other one’s actions and therefore would make you want to control the other twin’s actions. It gets quite twisted and the confusion of identities becomes quite intense.”

David Cronenberg (1943) Canadian film director, screenwriter and actor

People, Fools, Parent

“By being a racing driver you are under risk all the time. By being a racing driver means you are racing with other people. And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver because we are competing, we are competing to win. And the main motivation to all of us is to compete for victory, it's not to come 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th. I race to win as long as I feel it's possible. Sometimes you get it wrong? Sure, it's impossible to get it right all the time. But I race designed to win, as long as I feel I'm doing it right.”

Ayrton Senna (1960–1994) Brazilian racing driver

Interview at the 1990 Australian Grand Prix, November 1990 http://youtube.com/watch?v=9j6dGOGftY4

People, Feeling, Motivation, Time

“There will be many men who will move one against another, holding in their hands a cutting tool. But these will not do each other any injury beyond tiring each other; for, when one pushes forward the other will draw back. But woe to him who comes between them! For he will end by being cut in pieces.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings

Men, Drawing

“I always believed that at some time fate would take from me the terrible effort and duty of educating myself. I believed that, when the time came, I would discover a philosopher to educate me, a true philosopher whom one could follow without any misgiving because one would have more faith in him than one had in oneself. Then I asked myself: what would be the principles by which he would educate you?—and I reflected on what he might say about the two educational maxims which are being hatched in our time. One of them demands that the educator should quickly recognize the real strength of his pupil and then direct all his efforts and energy and heat at them so as to help that one virtue to attain true maturity and fruitfulness. The other maxim, on the contrary, requires that the educator should draw forth and nourish all the forces which exist in his pupil and bring them to a harmonious relationship with one another. … But where do we discover a harmonious whole at all, a simultaneous sounding of many voice in one nature, if not in such men as Cellini, men in whom everything, knowledge, desire, love, hate, strives towards a central point, a root force, and where a harmonious system is constructed through the compelling domination of this living centre? And so perhaps these two maxims are not opposites at all? Perhaps the one simply says that man should have a center and the other than he should also have a periphery? That educating philosopher of whom I dreamed would, I came to think, not only discover the central force, he would also know how to prevent its acting destructively on the other forces: his educational task would, it seemed to me, be to mould the whole man into a living solar and planetary system and to understand its higher laws of motion.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

“Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.2, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), pp. 130-131
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Love, Men, Hate, Fate

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

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

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

People, Art, Way, Idea

“That I, a funny little gesticulating animal on two legs, should stand beneath the stars and declaim in a passion about my rights – it seems so laughable, so out of all proportion. Much better, like Archimedes, to be killed because of absorption in eternal things…
There is a possibility in human minds of something mysterious as the night-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong as Death, a mystic contemplation, the "intellectual love of God." Those who have known it cannot believe in wars any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give to others what has come to me in this way, I could make them too feel the futility of fighting. But I do not know how to communicate it: when I speak, they stare, applaud, or smile, but do not understand.”

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

Letter to Miss Rinder, July 30, 1918
1910s

Love, Death, God, War

“The history of Islam is the best testament to how different communities can live together in peace and harmony. Muslims must exemplify the true image of Islam in their interaction with other communities.”

Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais (1962) Imam in Mecca

[Sacranie, Iqbal, Iqbal Sacranie, Abdul Bari, Muhammad, Muhammad Abdul Bari, Kantharia, Mehboob, Siddiqui, Ghayasuddin, John Ware, A Question of Leadership, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/4171950.stm, Panorama, BBC, London, England, August 21, 2005, 2007-03-30].

Peace, History, Communication

“… spread on a plane the surface of a sphere in such a way that the positions of all places shall correspond on all sides with each other both in so far as true direction and distance are concerned and as concerns true longitudes and latitudes.”

Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594) cartographer, philosopher and mathematician

Legend on 1569 map

Way

“As the attraction power is increasing in Me… you are going to witness many astounding events in future… Even while I am speaking to you now, My feet are being pulled by the earth. If I lift one foot, the earth attracts the other foot. Whatever I touch with My hand, it also gets attracted. This magnetic power is present in every man… I try to lift My foot but it is very difficult.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Sanathana Sarathi (April 2003), p. 123

Future

“Whether you’re a vegan or not, there are endless reasons why we should all be delighted that the movement has grown so fast in the last few years. … Through adapting their diets to make sure they get all the vitamins they need, to pressuring big corporations and governments for more ethical products, vegans are giving food the focus it deserves. They are also doing their bit to reduce food miles and emissions … They’re teaching us a thing or two as well. My vegan and vegetarian friends have cooked me some fantastic meals, many of which I now make regularly. It’s saving me money, encouraging me to eat more vegetables, and reducing my meat intake. While I have no plans to give up meat, I recognise that it shouldn’t be the focus of my diet. I am now vegetarian every other day – not consciously, but because lots of my favourite meals are meat-free. I have also learnt lots of new techniques as I work around the limits of reducing dairy and meat products. I make cakes without eggs, burgers without beef, and pastry without butter. I … refuse to buy any animal product that doesn’t have a guarantee of quality such as Freedom Food, free range or organic status.”

Jamie Oliver (1975) British chef and media personality

"World Vegan Month is good for everyone" https://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/world-vegan-month-is-good-for-everyone/, JamieOliver.com (November 3, 2014).

Money, Food, Freedom, Animals

“There are two kinds of success to be won. In the first place, there is success in doing the thing that can only be done by the exceptional man. Therefore most of us can not achieve this kind of success. It comes only to the man who has very exceptional qualities. The other kind, a very, very high kind, is the ordinary kind of success, the success that comes to the man who does the things which most men could do, but which they do not do; which comes to the man who develops or possesses to a higher degree the qualities that all of us have to a greater or less extent. In the history of the world some of the men who stand high who stand in all but the very highest places are those who have not possessed any wonderful genius in statecraft, war, art, literature in whatever calling; but who have developed within themselves, by long, patient effort, resolutely maintained in spite of repeated failure, the ordinary, everyday, humdrum qualities of courage, of resolution, of proper appreciation of the relative importance of things; of honesty, of truth, of good sense, of unyielding perseverance. We can each one of us develop to a very high degree these qualities; and if we do so develop them, each one of us is sure of a measure of success […].”

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

1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)

Men, War, Truth, World

“When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Gift from the Sea (1955)

“I know Shadowhunters. I have for a long time. You are odd creatures. All fragile nobility and humanity on one side, and all the thoughtless fire of angels on the other. You especially, Herondale, for you have the fire of angels in your blood.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Magnus Bane, to Jace Herondale, pg. 47-48
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

Angels, Time

“The bonds that unite another person to ourself exist only in our mind. Memory as it grows fainter relaxes them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we would fain be cheated and with which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we cheat other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature that cannot emerge from himself, that knows his fellows only in himself; when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Les liens entre un être et nous n'existent que dans notre pensée. La mémoire en s'affaiblissant les relâche, et, malgré l'illusion dont nous voudrions être dupes et dont, par amour, par amitié, par politesse, par respect humain, par devoir, nous dupons les autres, nous existons seuls. L'homme est l'être qui ne peut sortir de soi, qui ne connaît les autres qu'en soi, et, en disant le contraire, ment.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. VI: The Sweet Cheat Gone (1925), Ch. I: "Grief and Oblivion"

Love, Friendship, People, Lying

“Ultrarunners — even the fiercest competitors — grow to love each other because we all love the same exercise in self-sacrifice and pursuit of transcendence. Because that’s what we’re all chasing — that “zone” where we are performing at the peak of our abilities. That instant when we think we can’t go on but do go on. We all know the way that moment feels, how rarely it occurs, and the pain we have to endure to grab it back again. The longer an ultrarunner competes, I believe, the more he grows to love not only the sport, not only his fellow ultrarunners, but people in general. We all struggle to find meaning in a sometimes painful world. Ultrarunners do it in a very distilled version.”

Scott Jurek (1973) American ultramarthon runner

Source: Eat and Run (2012), Ch. 12, pp. 119-120

Love, Pain, People, World

“A writer is in the end not his books, but his myth. And that myth is in the keeping of others.”

V.S. Naipaul (1932–2018) Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry

"Steinbeck in Monterey" (1970), in Daily Telegraph Magazine (3 April 1970), later published in The Overcrowded Barracoon, and other articles (1972)

Books

“I solemnly vow that I will safeguard and hold dear and deep in my heart our union and you…I promise to love you faithfully, forsaking all others, through the good times and the bad, in sickness and health, regardless of where life takes us. I will protect you, trust you, and respect you. I will share your joys and sorrows and comfort you in times of need. I promise to cherish you and uphold your hopes and dreams and keep you safe at my side. All that is mine is now yours. I give you my hand, my heart, and my love from this moment on for as long as we both shall live.”

E. L. James book Fifty Shades Freed

Anastasia Steele, Chapter 4, p. 74.
Fifty Shades Freed (2011)

Love, Life, Health, Dreams

“b>England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating – the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia… When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch… and subjected them to the common control of the most advanced peoples, then only will human progress cease to resemble that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain.”

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

“The Future Results of British Rule in India,” New York Daily Tribune, 08 August 1853

People, Drink

“How blinde is pride! what eagles we are still
In matters that belong to other men,
What beetles in our own!”

George Chapman All Fools

Act IV, scene i.
All Fools (1605)

Men

“He [Jesus] not only forbids actual uncleanness, but all irregular desires, upon pain of hell-fire; causeless divorces; swearing in conversation, as well as forswearing in judgment; revenge; retaliation; ostentation of charity, of devotion, and of fasting; repetitions in prayer, covetousness, worldly care, censoriousness: and on the other side commands loving our enemies, doing good to those that hate us, blessing those that curse us, praying for those that despitefully use us; patience and meekness under injuries, forgiveness, liberality, compassion: and closes all; his particular injunctions, with this general golden rule, Matt. VII. 12, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets." And to show how much He is in earnest, and expects obedience to these laws, He tells them, Luke VI. 35, That if they obey, " great shall be their reward."”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

§ 116
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)

Love, Men, Pain, Hate

“If I had stayed for other people to make my tools and things for me, I had never made anything.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

This first appears in the Isaac Newton : A Biography (1934), citing unpublished papers by John Conduitt reporting an anecdote of an occassion where Conduitt asked Newton where he obtained the tools to make his reflecting telescope. Newton is said to have laughed and replied, "If I had stayed for other people to make my tools and things for me I had never made anything of it."
Disputed

People

“What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each state, and such important and sudden changes occur in the same state; and withal, so new and unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive, and inflexible plan can be safely prescribed as to details and colatterals. Such exclusive, and inflexible plan, would surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.”

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

1860s, Last public address (1865)

Change

“Actors didn't use to be celebrities. A hundred years ago, they put the theaters next to the brothels. Actors were poor. Celebrities used to be kings and queens. Then the United States abolished monarchy, and now there's this coming together of show business and celebrity. I don't think it's healthy. I don't want to sound self-important, but all these celebrity shows and magazines—it comes from us, from Hollywood, from our country. We're the ones creating it. And I think it works in close step with a lot of other bad things that are happening in the world. It promotes greed, it promotes being selfish and it promotes this ladder, where you're a better person if you have more money. It's not at all about the work itself. Don't get me wrong. I love movies. But this myth of celebrity has nothing to do with movies.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (1981) American actor, director, producer, and writer

Newsweek, March 31, 2006

Love, Money, World, Business

“The musician's technique, in fact, should be as protean as the actor's. The best method of attaining this is by combining the qualities of the artist and the technician. To do this it is essential, that in addition to concentrating upon musical technique, one should keep in touch with the other arts. They provide that general culture to the musician without which he will never become a great artist.”

Alfred Cortot (1877–1962) Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor

"Do Infant Prodigies Become Great Musicians?", Music & Letters (Apr., 1935)

Art, Music

“It is more reasonable to conclude that the Great Pyramid of Gizeh as well as the other pyramids thereabout, also the sphinx, were built by the rulers of Egypt and under the direction of Satan the Devil.”

Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869–1942) American judge

[Watchtower, WTBTS, 1928 November 15, 344]

“The only roads of enquiry there are to think of: one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, this is the path of persuasion (for truth is its companion); the other, that it is not and that it must not be — this I say to you is a path wholly unknowable.”

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

Frag. B 2.2-6, quoted by Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus I, 345

Truth, Thinking

“There is not upon the face of the earth today a government so utterly and shamelessly corrupt as that of the United States of America. There are others more cruel, more tyrannical, more devastating; there is none so utterly venal.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

Anarchism & American Traditions (1908)

“The fashion just now is a Roman Catholic frame of mind with an Agnostic conscience: you get the mediaeval picturesqueness of the one with the modern conveniences of the other.”

Saki (1870–1916) British writer

"Reginald at the Theatre"
Reginald (1904)

Fashion

“For every hero, there has to be a fall guy, and the greater the triumph on one hand, the greater the humiliation on the other.”

Quintin Jardine (1945) Scottish writer

From Quintin Jardine’s blog, ‘Yessss!!!!’, October 5, 2010. http://quintinjardine.wordpress.com/page/5/

Guy

“For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 3, p. 51

People, Health, Girl

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Death
Essays (1625)

Death, Men, Children, Fear

“I believe that none of us are fully free when others in the human family remain shackled by poverty or disease or oppression.”

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

2013, Cape Town University Address (June 2013)

Disease, Family

“The word garuda in this verse indicates that there are planets of great birds like Garuda. Similarly, the word uraga indicates that there are planets of enormous serpents. Such a description of the various planets of the universe may challenge modern scientists who think that all planets but this earth are vacant. These scientists claim to have launched excursions to the Moon, where they have found no living entities but only big craters full of dust and stone, although in fact the Moon is so brilliant that it acts like the sun in illuminating the entire universe. Of course, it is not possible to convince modern scientists of the Vedic information about the universe. Nonetheless, we are not very much impressed by the words of scientists who say that all other planets are vacant and that only the earth is full of living entities.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 7, Chapter 4, verse 5-7, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/7/4/5-7 Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science

Bird, Thinking, Universe, Sun

“I've had groups of twentysomethings saying they still talk to each other in SpongeBob memes. It's really touching, you know? You get people who have had very difficult lives, and they say that SpongeBob got them through things, which is very touching. Someone told us that they were considering suicide, and SpongeBob made them laugh, and they cycled through that phase of their life. You get everything from that, to I had a great happy childhood and SpongeBob was part of it. You get all colours of the spectrum in terms of people coming up. Not just with SpongeBob either. It may be some cartoon that was a failure, or a videogame that took an hour to record in 1996. But they say it was the biggest thing in their life at one point. It's mind-blowing. You don't realise the footprint of what you're doing is leaving behind.”

Tom Kenny (1962) American actor

Tom Kenny Interview: The Voice of SpongeBob SquarePants http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/spongebob-squarepants/248119/tom-kenny-interview-the-voice-of-spongebob-squarepants (August 3, 2015)

Life, People, Failure, Suicide