Quotes about other
page 35

“I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Ravana, Chanakiya, Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.”

Nathuram Godse (1910–1949) Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi

Nathuram Godse: Why I Assassinated Gandhi (1993)

Study, Reading, History, Country

“This idea of purity and that you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke — you should get over that quickly. … The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you. … I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media — there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough. If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Did you see how woke I was, I called you out. Then I’m going to get on my TV and watch my show … That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

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

Comments at an Obama Foundation event, Chicago (29 October 2019), as quoted in "Obama Calls Out Online Call-Out Culture: 'That’s Not Activism"", Rolling Stone (30 October 2019) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/obama-calls-out-call-out-culture-not-activism-905600/ 2019

People, Fight, Way, Sense

“Our system of self-government depends on ordinary citizens doing the hard, frustrating but always essential work of citizenship -- of being informed. Of understanding that the government isn’t some distant thing, but is you. Of speaking out when something is not right. Of helping fellow citizens when they need a hand. Of coming together to shape our country’s course. And that work gives purpose to every generation. It belongs to me. It belongs to the judge. It belongs to you. It belongs to you, all of us, as citizens. To follow our laws, yes, but also to engage with your communities and to speak up for what you believe in. And to vote -- to not only exercise the rights that are now yours, but to stand up for the rights of others.”

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

2015, Naturalization Ceremony speech (December 2015)

Law, Country, Understanding, Dependency

“I know that Americans of goodwill continue to hold a wide range of views on this issue. Opposition in some cases has been based on sincere and deeply held beliefs. All of us who welcome today’s news should be mindful of that fact; recognize different viewpoints; revere our deep commitment to religious freedom. But today should also give us hope that on the many issues with which we grapple, often painfully, real change is possible. Shifts in hearts and minds is possible. And those who have come so far on their journey to equality have a responsibility to reach back and help others join them. Because for all our differences, we are one people, stronger together than we could ever be alone. That’s always been our story. We are big and vast and diverse; a nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, different experiences and stories, but bound by our shared ideal that no matter who you are or what you look like, how you started off, or how and who you love, America is a place where you can write your own destiny.”

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

2015, Supreme Court Decision on Marriage Equality (June 2015)

Freedom, People, Heart, Hope

“What the marchers on Washington knew, what the marchers in Selma knew, what folks like Julian Bond knew, what the marchers in this room still know, is that justice is not only the absence of oppression, it is the presence of opportunity. Justice is giving every child a shot at a great education no matter what zip code they’re born into. Justice is giving everyone willing to work hard the chance at a good job with good wages, no matter what their name is, what their skin color is, where they live. Justice is living up to the common creed that says, I am my brother’s keeper and my sister’s keeper. Justice is making sure every young person knows they are special and they are important and that their lives matter -- not because they heard it in a hashtag, but because of the love they feel every single day not just love from their parents, not just love from their neighborhood, but love from police, love from politicians. Love from somebody who lives on the other side of the country, but says, that young person is still important to me. That’s what justice is.”

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

Remarks by the President at the NAACP Conference at Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (July 14, 2015)
2015

Chance, Justice, Country, Making love

“The March on Washington teaches us that we are not trapped by the mistakes of history; that we are masters of our fate. But it also teaches us that the promise of this nation will only be kept when we work together. We’ll have to reignite the embers of empathy and fellow feeling, the coalition of conscience that found expression in this place 50 years ago. And I believe that spirit is there, that truth force inside each of us. I see it when a white mother recognizes her own daughter in the face of a poor black child. I see it when the black youth thinks of his own grandfather in the dignified steps of an elderly white man. It’s there when the native-born recognizing that striving spirit of the new immigrant; when the interracial couple connects the pain of a gay couple who are discriminated against and understands it as their own. That’s where courage comes from -- when we turn not from each other, or on each other, but towards one another, and we find that we do not walk alone. That’s where courage comes from.”

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

2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)

Courage, Pain, History, Fate

“So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

Country, War, Appearance, Evil

“While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from Union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

Peace, Hostility, Country, War

“For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road and encumbering them.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Perfection, Falseness, Parting, Communication

“My own conclusion is that today there is no interpretation of quantum mechanics that does not have serious flaws. This view is not universally shared. Indeed, many physicists are satisfied with their own interpretation of quantum mechanics. But different physicists are satisfied with different interpretations. In my view, we ought to take seriously the possibility of finding some more satisfactory other theory, to which quantum mechanics is only a good approximation.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Source: Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (2012, 2nd ed. 2015), Ch. 3: General Principles of Quantum Mechanics

Universe

“To start, we will consider a single particle moving in three space dimensions under the influence of a general central potential. Later we will specialize to the case of a Coulomb potential, and work out the spectrum of hydrogen. One other classic problem, the harmonic oscillator, will be treated at the end of this chapter.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Source: Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (2012, 2nd ed. 2015), Ch. 2: Particle States in a Central Potential

Problem

“The best military historians in fact do recognize the difficulty in stating rules of generalship. They do not speak of a science of war, but rather of a pattern of military behavior that cannot be taught or stated precisely but that somehow or other sometimes helps in winning battles. This is called the art of war. In the same spirit I think that one should not hope for a science of science, the formulation of any definite rules about how scientists do or ought to behave, but only aim at a description of the sort of behavior that historically has led to scientific progress—an art of science.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Chap. 5 : Tales of Theory and Experiment
Dreams of a Final Theory (1992; 2nd edition 1994)

War, Hope, Help, Art

“I appeal to history. Among the generals of Washington in the Revolutionary War were Greene, Putnam, and Lee, who were of English descent; Wayne and Sullivan, who were of Irish descent; Marion, who was of French descent; Schuyler, who was of Dutch descent, and Muhlenberg and Herkimer, who were of German descent. But they were all of them Americans and nothing else, just as much as Washington. Carroll of Carrollton was a Catholic; Hancock a Protestant; Jefferson was heterodox from the standpoint of any orthodox creed; but these and all the other signers of the Declaration of Independence stood on an equality of duty and right and liberty, as Americans and nothing else.”

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

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)

War, History

“Exactly as each man, while doing first his duty to his wife and the children within his home, must yet, if he hopes to amount to much, strive mightily in the world outside his home, so our nation, while first of all seeing to its own domestic well-being, must not shrink from playing its part among the great nations without. Our duty may take many forms in the future as it has taken many forms in the past. Nor is it possible to lay down a hard-and-fast rule for all cases. We must ever face the fact of our shifting national needs, of the always-changing opportunities that present themselves. But we may be certain of one thing: whether we wish it or not, we cannot avoid hereafter having duties to do in the face of other nations. All that we can do is to settle whether we shall perform these duties well or ill.”

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

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties

Home, Past, Future, Children

“No hard and fast rule can be laid down as to where our legislation shall stop in interfering between man and man, between interest and interest. All that can be said is that it is highly undesirable on the one hand, to weaken individual initiative, and on the other hand, that in a constantly increasing number of cases we shall find it necessary in the future to shackle cunning as in the past we have shackled force.”

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

1900s, Speak softly and carry a big stick (1901)

Past, Future

“I have had closer interactions with President Putin than with any other foreign colleagues. He is my best and bosom friend. I cherish dearly our deep friendship.”

Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China

As quoted in " 18 photos that show the blossoming bromance between China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin https://www.businessinsider.com/china-xi-jinping-russia-vladimir-putin-best-friends-photos-2019-6" Business Insider 2010s

Friendship

“Memory works like a Wikipedia page: You can go in there and change it, but so can other people.”

Elizabeth Loftus (1944) American cognitive psychologist

How reliable is your memory? https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory?language=en#t-320055 June 2013

Memory, People, Change

“Marx may be wrong in some of his statements, or his theory of value; this I am not competent to judge. But he seems to me to have possessed quite an extraordinary degree of insight into social phenomena, and this insight was apparently due to the scientific method he adopted. This method, applied to past history as well as current events, helps us in understanding them far more than any other method of apporach, and it is because of this that the most revealing and keen analysis of the changes that are taking place in the world today come from Marxist writers. It is easy to point out that Marx ignored or underrated certain subsequent tendencies, like the rise of a revolutionary element in the middle class, which is so notable today. But the whole value of Marxism seems to me to lie in its absence of dogmatism, in its stress on a certain outlook and mode of approach, and in its attitude to action. That outlook helps us in understanding the social phenomena of our own times, and points out the way of action and escape.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)

Time, History, Understanding, Past

“It is difficult to be patient with many communists; they have developed a peculiar method of irritating others. But they are a sorely tried people, and, outside the Soviet Union, they have to contend against enormous difficulties. I have always admitted their great courage and capacity for sacrifice. They suffer greatly, as unhappily untold millions suffer in various ways, but not blindly before a malign and all-powerful fate. They suffer as human beings, and there is a tragic nobility about such suffering.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)

Courage, Fate, Suffering, People

“Violence was common in both places, but the violence of the capitalist order seemed inherent in it; whilst the violence of Russia, bad though it was, aimed at a new order based on peace and cooperation and real freedom for the masses. With all her blunders, Soviet Russia had triumphed over enormous difficulties and taken great strides towards this new order. While the rest of the world was in the grip of the depression and going backward in some ways, in the Soviet country a great new world was being built up before our eyes. Russia, following the great Lenin, looked into the future and thought only of what was to be, while other countries lay numbed under the dead hand of the past and spent their energy in preserving the useless relics of a bygone age. In particular, I was impressed by the reports of the great progress made by the backward regions of Central Asia under the Soviet regime. In the balance, therefore, I was all in favour of Russia, and the presence and example of the Soviets was a bright and heartening phenomenon in a dark and dismal world.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)

Peace, Dead, Freedom, Country

“My thoughts travelled more to other countries, and I watched and studied, as far as I could in goal, the world situation in the grip of the great depression. I lead as many books as I could find on the subject, and the more I read the more fascinated I grew. India with her problems and struggles became just a part of this mighty world drama, of the great struggle of political and economic forces that was going on everywhere, nationally and internationally. In that struggle my own sympathies went increasingly towards the communist side.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)

Study, Reading, Country, Problem

“As we were very much pressed for time we were unable to see as much of the jail as we wanted to. We had an impression that we had been shown the brighter side of jail life. Nonetheless, two facts stood out. One was that we had actually seen desirable and radical improvements over the old system prevailing even now in most countries and the second and even more important fact was the mentality of the prison officials, and presumably the higher officials of the government also, in regard to jails. Actual conditions may or may not be good but the general principles laid down for jails are certainly far in advance of anything we had known elsewhere in practice. Anyone with a knowledge of prisons in India and of the barbarous way in which handcuffs, fetters and other punishments are used will appreciate the difference. The governor of the prison in Moscow who took us round was all the time laying stress on the human side of jail life, and how it was their endeavour to keep this in the front and not to make the prisoner feel in any way dehumanised or outcasted. I wish we in India would remember this wholesome principle and practise it in our daily lives even outside jail…. It can be said without a shadow of doubt that to be in a Russian prison is far more preferable than to be a worker in an Indian factory, whose lot is 10 to 11 hours work a day and then to live in a crowded and dark and airless tenement, hardly fit for an animal. The mere fact that there are some prisons like the ones we saw is in itself something for the Soviet Government to be proud of.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1949)

Time, Country, Animals, Knowledge

“The conflict between capitalism and democracy is inherent and continuous; it is often hidden by misleading propaganda and by the outward forms of democracy, such as parliaments, and the sops that the owning classes throw to the other classes to keep them more or less contented. A time comes when there are no more sops left to be thrown, and then the conflict between the two groups comes to a head, for now the struggle is for the real thing, economic power in the State. When that stage comes, all the supporters of capitalism, who had so far played with different parties, band themselves together to face the danger to their vested interests. Liberals and such-like groups disappear, and the forms of democracy are put aside. This stage bas now arrived in Europe and America, and fascism, which is dominant in some form or other in mast countries, represents that stage. Labour is everywhere on the defensive, not strong enough to face this new and powerful consolidation of the forces of capitalism. And yet, strangely enough, the capitalist system itself totters and cannot adjust itself to the new world. It seems certain that even if it succeeds in surviving, it will be but another stage in the long conflict. For modern industry and modern life itself, under any form of capitalism, are battlefields where armies are continually clashing against each other.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Democracy, Time, Country, Support

“Soviet Russia has been behaving internationally very much as a satisfied Power, avoiding all trouble, and trying to keep peace at all costs. This is the opposite of a revolutionary policy which would aim at fomenting revolution in other countries. It is a national policy of building up socialism in a single country and avoiding all complications outside. Necessarily, this results in compromises with imperialist and capitalist Powers. But the essential socialist basis of Soviet economy continues, and the success of this is itself the most powerful argument in favour of socialism.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Peace, Success, Country

“But the privation, especially of the upper and middle-class peasantry, was very great, and often it seemed that the whole ambitious scheme would collapse, and perhaps carry the Soviet Government with it. It required immense courage to hold on. Many prominent Bolsheviks thought that the strain and suffering caused by the agricultural programme were too great and there should be a relaxation. But not so Stalin. Grin-fly and silently he held on. He was no talker, he hardly spoke in public. He seemed to be the iron image of an inevitable fate going ahead to the predestined goal. And something of his courage and determination spread among the members of the Communist Party and other workers in Russia.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Courage, Flying, Suffering, Fate

“For Russia, therefore, this building of heavy industries at a tremendous pace meant a very great sacrifice. All this construction, all this machinery that came from outside, had to be paid for, and paid for in gold and cash. How was this to be done? The people of the Soviet Union tightened their belts and starved and deprived themselves of even necessary articles so that payment could be made abroad. They sent their food-stuffs abroad, and with the price obtained for them paid for the machinery. They sent everything they could find a market for: wheat, rye, barley, corn, vegetables, fruits, eggs, butter, meat, fowls, honey, fish, caviare, sugar, oils, confectionery, etc. Sending these food articles outside meant that they themselves did without them. The Russian people had no butter, or very little of it, because it went abroad to pay for machinery. And so with many other goods…”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Fish, People, Food

“In spite of this tendency to introduce lack of uniformity in the Union, the different parts are coming far nearer to each other than they ever did under the centralized government of the Tsars. The reason is that they have common ideals and they are all working together in a common enterprise. Each Union Republic has in theory the right to separate from the Union whenever it wants to, but there is little chance of its doing so, because of the great advantages of federation of socialist republics in the face of the hostility of the capitalist world…”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

World, Parting, Chance, Hostility

“But the conflict has not ended and the fight between the two rival forces-capitalism and socialism-goes on. There can be no permanent compromise between the two although there have been, and there may be in the future, temporary arrangements and treaties between the two. Russia and communism stand at one pole, and the great capitalist countries of Western Europe and America stand at the other. Between the two, the liberals, the moderates, and the centre parties are disappearing everywhere.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Fight, Future, Country, Communication

“Apart from its effect on the war, the Revolution was in itself a tremendous event, unique in world history. Although it was the first revolution of its kind, it may not long remain the only one of its type, for it has become a challenge to other countries and an example for many revolutionaries all over the world… The March Revolution had been a spontaneous unorganized one, the November one had been carefully planned out. For the first time in history the representatives of the poorest classes, and especially of the industrial workers, were at the head of a country.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Time, History, Country, War

“We realized in our hearts that we could not do much till conditions were radically changed-hence our overwhelming desire for independence-and yet the passion for progress filled us and the wish to emulate other countries which had gone so far ahead in many ways. We thought of the United States of America and even of some eastern countries which were forging ahead. But most of all we had the example of the Soviet Union which in two brief decades, full of war and civil strife and in the face of what appeared to be insurmountable difficulties, had made tremendous progress. Some were attracted to communism, others were not, but all were fascinated by the advance of the Soviet Union in education and culture and medical care and physical fitness and in the solution of the problem of nationalities-by the amazing and prodigious effort to create a new world out of the dregs of the old.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book The Discovery of India

The Discovery of India (1946)

Country, War, Heart, Communication

“The old palaces of the Tsars and the nobility have now become museums and rest-houses and sanatoria for the people… I suppose the old palaces now serve the purpose of children and young people. Children and the young are the favoured persons in Soviet land today, and they get the best of everything, even though others might suffer lack. It is for them that the present generation labours, for it is they who will inherit the socialised and scientific State, if that finally comes into existence in their time.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Time, Housing, Personality, Children

“In India, women have never been in hostile competition with men-even in the most distant past, every time a woman emerged as a leader, perhaps as a queen, the people accepted her. As something normal and not exceptional. Let’s not forget that in India the symbol of strength is a woman; the goddess Shakti. Not only that—the struggle for inde pendence here has been conducted in equal measure by men and by women. And when we got our independence, no one forgot that. In the Western world, on the other hand, nothing of the kind has ever happened—women have participated, yes, but revolutions have always been made by men alone.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972

Time, Hostility, Past, Forgetting

“Look, I don’t see the world as something divided between right and left. And I don’t at all care who’s on the right or left or in the center. Even though we use them, even though I use them myself, these expressions have lost all meaning. I’m not interested in one label or the other—I’m only interested in solving certain problems, in getting where I want to go. I have certain objectives.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972

World, Problem

“I made the trip knowing I was like the child putting his finger into the hole in the dike. And there are things that … I don’t know … one can’t … oh, why not! The truth is that I spoke clearly to Mr. Nixon. And I told him what I had already told Mr. Heath, Mr. Pompidou, Mr. Brandt. I told him without mincing words that we couldn’t go on with ten million refugees on our backs, we couldn’t tolerate the fuse of such and explosive situation any longer. Well, Mr. Heath, Mr. Pompidou, and Mr. Brandt had understood very well. But not Mr. Nixon. The fact is that when the others understand one thing, Mr. Nixon understands another. I suspected he was very pro-Pakistan. Or rather I knew that the Americans had always been in favor of Pakistan—not so much because they were in favor of Pakistan, but because they were against India.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972

Truth, Understanding

“But we couldn’t do otherwise. We couldn’t keep ten million refugees on our soil; we couldn’t tolerate such an unstable situation for who knows how long. That influx of refugees would have stopped—on the contrary. It would have gone on and on and on, until there would have been an explosion. We were no longer able to control the arrival of those people, in our own interest we had to stop it! That’s what I said to Mr. Nixon, to all the other leaders I visited in an attempt to avert the war. However, when you look at the beginning of the actual war, it’s hard not to recognize that the Pakistanis were the ones to attack. They were the ones who descended on us with their planes, at five o’clock that afternoon when the first bombs fell on Agra. I can prove it to you by the fact that we were taken completely by surprise.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972

War, People

“It is normal to hate what we fear, and it happens frequently, though not always, that we fear what we hate. I think it may be taken as the rule among primitive men, that they both fear and hate whatever is unfamiliar. They have their own herd, originally a very small one. And within one herd, all are friends, unless there is some special ground of enmity. Other herds are potential or actual enemies; a single member of one of them who strays by accident will be killed. An alien herd as a whole will be avoided or fought according to circumstances. It is this primitive mechanism which still controls our instinctive reaction to foreign nations. The completely untravelled person will view all foreigners as the savage regards a member of another herd. But the man who has travelled, or who has studied international politics, will have discovered that, if his herd is to prosper, it must, to some degree, become amalgamated with other herds.”

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

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

Study, Hate, Personality, Thinking

“Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others.”

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

Source: 1930s, Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 110

Courage, Religion, Intelligence, Stupidity

“In fact the opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.”

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

Source: 1910s, Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), p. 21

“Votes, constitutions, divine salvation, and other solutions are the pipe dreams of cowards or the honey coated deceptions of enemy agents. A people without the courage or integrity to identify their executioners, or their executioners’ institutions, are doomed to extinction.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Word Warrior Woes

Courage, Dreams, People

“Aluminium, however, will not stop at downing copper. Before many years have passed it will be engaged in a fierce struggle with iron, and in the latter it will find an adversary not easy to conquer. The issue of the contest will largely depend on whether iron shall be indispensable in electric machinery. This the future alone can decide. The magnetism as exhibited in iron is an isolated phenomenon in nature. What it is that makes this metal behave so radically different from all other materials in this respect has not yet been ascertained, though many theories have been suggested. As regards magnetism, the molecules of the various bodies behave like hollow beams partly filled with a heavy fluid and balanced in the middle in the manner of a see-saw. Evidently some disturbing influence exists in nature which causes each molecule, like such a beam, to tilt either one or the other way. If the molecules are tilted one way, the body is magnetic; if they are tilted the other way, the body is non-magnetic; but both positions are stable, as they would be in the case of the hollow beam, owing to the rush of the fluid to the lower end. Now, the wonderful thing is that the molecules of all known bodies went one way, while those of iron went the other way. This metal, it would seem, has an origin entirely different from that of the rest of the globe. It is highly improbable that we shall discover some other and cheaper material which will equal or surpass iron in magnetic qualities.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Dependency, Future, Nature, Way

“I would not be surprised if Martin Luther King and these agitators next desecrate the graves of Confederate soldiers and drag their remains through the streets in an effort to garner headlines. And what kind of person is participating in this march? Beatniks, frauds, and persons wanted to answer for crimes in other States.”

James Eastland (1904–1986) American politician

To the Senate about the Grenada, Mississippi civil rights movement, after activists put American flags on the place where a Confederate memorial stood. June 16, 1966 Congressional Records https://books.google.fr/books?id=TqUs5UlIPaUC&q=%22And+what+kind+of+person+is+participating+in+this%22&dq=%22And+what+kind+of+person+is+participating+in+this%22&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjw8NC1sb3kAhUgDmMBHbF7BogQ6AEIKzAA%7C 1960s

Personality, Fraud, Effort

“The wild elephant is the most important animal of the district. Without his assistance, when domesticated, it would be difficult indeed to work the forests. Wherever you go in the forests you find numberless pitfalls excavated for his capture; but, as a rule, they are mostly old ones, half filled in. Numbers of. elephants are captured by Nayars and Mappillas, and broken in for timber dragging, winch is done entirely by the teeth; the elephant seizing a thick cable made of grewia fibre in his trunk, and biting the end between his molars, drags the log, to which the other end of the cable has been made fast.”

William Logan (author) book Malabar Manual

Malabar Manual, Page 58 https://archive.org/details/MalabarLogan/page/n70 Malabar Manual (1887)

Animals

“Malays abhor the state of celibacy. To remain unmarried was and is considered shameful. Everyone must be married at some time or other. The result is that whether a person is fit or unfit for marriage, he or she still marries and reproduces. An idiot or a simpleton is often married off to an old widower, ostensibly to take care of him in his old age. If this is not possible, backward relatives are paired off in marriage. These people survive, reproduce and propagate their species. The cumulative effect of this can be left to the imagination.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

[Barr, Michael D., Lee Kuan Yew: Race, Culture and Genes, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1999, 29 2, 147, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5058/d1bc358fe18944e8aaa399e422f74d0fed75.pdf]
1980s

Time, Imagination, Marriage, Personality

“The question of human procreation, like every other question which touches human life, involves more than the limited aspects specific to such disciplines as biology, psychology, demography or sociology.”

Pope Paul VI Humanae Vitae

De propaganda prole quaestio, non secus atque quaelibet quaestio humanam vitam attingens, ultra particulares alias eiusdem generis rationes - cuiusmodi eae sunt, quae biologicae aut psychologicae, demographicae aut sociologicae appellantur
HUMANAE VITAE
Official Vatican translation.

Life, Question

“When Adam ate the apple in the Garden and learned how to multiply and replenish, the other animals learned the Art, too, by watching Adam. It was cunning of them, it was neat; for they got all that was worth having out of the apple without tasting it and afflicting themselves with the disastrous Moral Sense, the parent of all the immoralities.”

Mark Twain book Letters from the Earth

Letters from the Earth (1909)

Affliction, Learning, Art, Animals

“In civil law the existing property relationships are declared to be the result of the general will. The jus utendi et abutendi itself asserts on the one hand the fact that private property has become entirely independent of the community, and on the other the illusion that private property itself is based solely on the private will, the arbitrary disposal.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

Source: The German Ideology (1845/46), pp. 188

Law, Communication

“He who can buy bravery is brace, though a coward. As money is not exchanged for anyone specific quality, for any one specific thing, or for any particular human essential power, but for the entire objective world of man and nature, from the standpoint of its possessor it therefore serves to exchange every property for every other, even contradictory, property and object: it is the fraternization of impossibilities. It makes contradictions embrace.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Source: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, p. 105, The Marx-Engels Reader

Money, World, Making love, Nature

“He would confidently affirm that the grace of prayerfulness should be more desired than all others by the religious man, and, believing that without it no good could be wrought in the service of God, he would stir up his Brethren unto zeal therefore by all means that he could. For, whether walking or sitting, within doors or without, in toil or at leisure, he was so absorbed in prayer as that he seemed to have devoted thereunto not only his whole heart and body, but also his whole labor and time.”

Bonaventure (1221–1274) franciscan, bishop, cardinal, Doctor of the Church, catholic saint

The Life of Saint Francis of Assisi

God, Confidence, Time, Heart

“A collectivist-totalitarian economic system, which in the final analysis serves only to glorify and increase the power of the state, can achieve great success in the easily controllable field of the basic industries but it will always remain incapable of serving man, in other words of providing the rich abundance of goods which gives the individual consumer a free choice and which enriches and beautifies his life.”

Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) German politician

The Economics of Success (D. van Nostrand & Co., 1963), p. 281

Life, Success

“He was not only the most brilliant strategist of all our generals, but he had a good political sense. A man of that quality was too difficult for Hitler to swallow for long. At conferences Manstein often differed from Hitler, in front of others, and would go so far as to declare that some of the ideas which Hitler put forward were nonsense.”

Erich von Manstein (1887–1973) German general

Günther Blumentritt

Sense, Idea

“Survivors should be like seismographs… They should sense danger before others do, identify its outlines and reveal them. They are not entitled to be wrong a second time or regard as harmless something that might lead to catastrophe.”

Simon Wiesenthal (1908–2005) Austrian Holocaust survivor noted for his work as a Nazi hunter

York Times Obituary, 9/20/2005 https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/international/europe/simon-wiesenthal-nazi-hunter-dies-at-96.htmlNew

Sense, Time

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.”

Galileo Galilei Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615)

Knowledge, God, Feeling, Sense

“The rediscovery of Spinoza by the Germans contributed to the shaping of the cultural destinies of the German people for almost two hundred years. Just as at the time of the Reformation no other spiritual force was as potent in German life as the Bible, so during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries no other intellectual force so dominated German life as Spinozism. Spinoza became the magnet to German steel. Except for Immanuel Kant and Herbart, Spinoza attracted every great intellectual figure in Germany during the last two centuries, from the greatest, Goethe, to the purest, Lessing.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

S. M. Melamed, Spinoza and Buddha: Visions of a Dead God (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933)
M - R

Life, Time, People

“Socialism and rationalism are to this day the touchstones of humanity, the rocks which lie in the course of revolution and science. Groups of swimmers, driven by reflection or the waves of circumstance against these rocks, break up at once into two camps, which, under different disguises, remain the same throughout all history, and may be distinguished either in a great political party or in a group of a dozen young men. One represents logic; the other, history: one stands for dialectics; the other for evolution. Truth is the main object of the former, and feasibility of the latter.”

Alexander Herzen book My Past and Thoughts

ibid, Ch. 8, s. 12
My Past and Thoughts(1852-1870)

History, Truth, Lie, Science

“It seems as though death were the essential aim of all things. That which has no existence cannot die; yet all that exists has proceeded from nothing. The final cause of existence is not happiness, for nothing is happy. It is true, living creatures seek this end in all their works, but none obtain it; and during all their life, ever deceiving, tormenting, and exerting themselves, they suffer indeed for no other purpose than to die.”

Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) Italian poet, philosopher and writer

Essays and Dialogues (1882), The Song of the Wild Cock

Life, Death, Suffering, Happiness

“Show me what thou truly lovest, what thou seekest and strivest for with thy whole heart when thou hopest to attain to true en joyment of thyself—and thou hast thereby shown me thy Life. What thou lovest, in that thou livest. This very Love is thy Life, the root, the seat, the central point of thy being. All other emotions within thee have life only in so far as they are governed by this one central emotion.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Way Towards The Blessed Life or the Doctrine of Religion 1806, P. 3

Love, Life, Making love, Heart

“Ben if only it were possible to look into each other’s hearts and minds, you would find no trace of prejudice or bigotry in mine. I know that’s hard for you to believe and that’s too bad because together we could do more for the people you represent than either of us can do alone.”

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

As quoted in "Ronald Reagan and Race" https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ronald-reagan-and-race-richard-nixon-tape/ (August 2019), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Bad luck, People, Heart

“His humble origins as well his family’s background of being artisans of previous generations meant that he grew up with a healthy respect for work done with one’s hands. He learned to stitch clothes, crush stones, plough fields, lay roads and dig wells, understanding the needs and aspirations of the common man like few others have done in childhood.”

Zail Singh (1916–1994) Indian politician and former President of India

Source: First among equals President of India, p. 69.

Childhood, Family, Clothes, Understanding

“He found him a tall figure, with a slightly flabby body, shining hair and well-trimmed beard. He appeared impressive, well-dressed and his eyes were exceptionally eloquent that drew everyone’s attention. There was deep note of mystery about his eyes…His style of conversation was always accompanied by his smile and too attractive which cast a spell on his addresses…He had a remarkable ability to assess others and immediately found out their mental level and their taste. Likewise, he had an enviable understanding of the context and situation in which he found himself placed.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Dr. Mujeeb, his friend during their stay in Germany in 1922, p. 75.
About Zakir Hussain, Quest for Truth (1999)

Smile, Appearance, Understanding

“His work, called Aryabhatiya, is composed of three parts, in only the first of which use is made of a special notation of numbers. It is an alphabetical system in which the twenty-five consonants represent 1-25, respectively; other letters stand for 30, 40, …., 100 etc. The other mathematical parts of Aryabhatiya consists of rules without examples. Another alphabetic system prevailed in Southern India, the numbers 1-19 being designated by consonants, etc.”

Aryabhata (476–550) Indian mathematician-astronomer

Florian Cajori in: A History of Mathematical Notations http://books.google.co.in/books?id=_byqAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT961&dq=Notations&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Wz65U5WYDIKulAW1qIGYDA&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Notation&f=false, Courier Dover Publications, 26 September 2013, p. 47.

Mathematics, Parting

“George Stephenson told me as a young man that railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country — when mail-coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the great highway for the king and all his subjects. I know there are great and almost insurmountable difficulties to be encountered; but what I have said will come to pass as sure as you live.”

George Stephenson (1781–1848) English civil engineer and mechanical engineer

John Dixon, quoted by Samuel Smiles, Life of George Stephenson (1875)

Country

“Two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There are perfect couples, no doubt — perfection always exists somewhere — but I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know!”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

the human being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of pleasure.
Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face

Perfection, People, Lovers

“When you have a precedent set like that, and you have somebody, George Tenet, acknowledging in his book that he knew that the administration was deceiving the American people into a situation that is murdering young men and women from this country and others, that George Tenet and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and George Bush, et al., should be in fucking jail.”

Sean Penn (1960) American actor, screenwriter, and film director

On Real Time with Bill Maher (2007-05-18)

Country, People, Books, Women

“KISS is the number-one American band in gold-record sales. In the world, only the Beatles and the Stones are ahead of us. Every other band should be wiping my ass. The line forms over there to the left.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

What I've Learned (July 2002)

World, Kiss

“I have a very simple question to people … who seem to suffer from excessive narcissism: please name three other persons who are smarter and more capable than you, in the field you work in.”

Ingo Molnar Linux kernel programmer

In most cases they are utterly unable to answer that question honestly. A comment http://lwn.net/Articles/447204/ at LWN.net in 2011.

Suffering, Personality, People, Question

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.”

Jeremy Bentham book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Source: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789; 1823), Ch. 1 : Of the Principle of Utility

Pain, Law, Question, Light

“Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to stand.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

World, Reading, Rage

“The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.”

Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) American philosopher

Russell Kirk, " Ten Conservative Principles http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/ten-conservative-principles/" (1993)

People, Nature, Universe, Women

“What she loved was this, here, now, in front of her; the fat lady in the cab. Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? but that somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here there, she survived. Peter survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Home, Tree, Housing, Making love

“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

The Sacred Pipe (1953)

Peace, Soul, Understanding, People

“God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and any other men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers and where every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality. This is what we work for and this is the good society which we must seek in America. But it will not come until enough people are willing to stand up and mobilize forces of good will, to seek to implement that which is just and right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

God, Freedom, Personality, People

“There are monasteries where there is no discipline, and which are worse than brothels — ut prae his lupanaria sint et magis sobria et magis pudica. There are others where religion is nothing but ritual; and these are worse than the first, for the Spirit of God is not in them, and they are inflated with self-righteousness. There are those, again, where the brethren are so sick of the imposture that they keep it up only to deceive the vulgar. The houses are rare indeed where the rule is seriously observed, and even in these few, if you look to the bottom, you will find small sincerity. But there is craft, and plenty of it — craft enough to impose on mature men, not to say innocent boys; and this is called profession. Suppose a house where all is as it ought to be, you have no security that it will continue so. A good superior may be followed by a fool or a tyrant, or an infected brother may introduce a moral plague. True, in extreme cases a monk may change his house, or even may change his order, but leave is rarely given. There is always a suspicion of something wrong, and on the least complaint such a person is sent back.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

Letter to Lambertus Grunnius (August 1516), published in Life and Letters of Erasmus : Lectures delivered at Oxford 1893-4 (1894) http://books.google.com/books?id=ussXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=%22is+no+discipline+and+which+are+worse+than+brothels%22&source=bl&ots=PnJjrkSLNB&sig=JPY0PhTf2YgYwJlf3uH2eTvCJeA&hl=en&ei=BGwXTNqTA5XANu6_pJ8L&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22is%20no%20discipline%20and%20which%20are%20worse%20than%20brothels%22&f=false edited by James Anthony Froude, p. 180

God, Religion, Housing, Personality

“What I know is that suffering creates suffering and the ONLY way to change that in the world is to become JOY and begin infecting other people with it. If you become joy, you will not make other people unhappy and the cycle of suffering… ends. Why do I care? Because I am you. Your suffering is the world's suffering. You can not suffer and not have it affect EVERYTHING in existence.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

People, Suffering, Joy, Way

“Everyone must learn to live and survive alone, because at some point you will be; we grow stronger without relying on others to subsist.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2005

Learning

“We must choose to be dependent. There is nothing powerless about the choice to be dependent and it is safe assuming that both people realize that their wellbeing is inseparable from the other person. This is the foundation of interdependence.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Personality, People, Dependency

“People, who are afraid of intimacy and connection (and thus vulnerability) tend to cope with those feelings by becoming an island unto themselves. They become emotionally unavailable and disconnect from the other person as a defence. To withdraw in a relationship is to commit emotional divorce. And the #1 symptom of withdrawal is lack of communication.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Personality, People, Feeling, Communication

“Physical and health adversity is the most difficult type as pain and torment is continuous without an anticipated endpoint; all other types can have an eventual resolution but the ill, endure the mental stress every day.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2000

Pain, Health

“In relationships we tend to get lazy and think we know each other after months or years. This is a complete illusion, especially given that EMOTIONS and EXPERIENCES and THOUGHTS belonging to a person fluctuate every single day.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Personality, Thinking

“…the other day, I went to a chiropractor. He's just a regular chiropractor. Whenever I meet someone who doesn't know me, they say, 'Oh you're the guy who bites the heads off everything.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

I get kind of cheesed off with it, but at least they remember. The thing that pisses me off is that that's not what I'm about. If that's what you think Ozzy Osbourne's about, then you're way off.
Launch.com, October 10, 1998

Guy

“The sentiment 'everything that is happening is supposed to be happening' can be a cop out that prevents us from becoming conscious and deliberately creating. On the other hand, the obsessive control over our reality that comes with trying to use the law of attraction to our advantage to deliberately create can be nothing more than resistance. It too can prevent us from being conscious.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Reality, Law

“Let me make it very clear to you, it is no doubt that the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead you is really the enemy of Pakistan. Without state language, no nation can remain tied up solidly together and function. Look at the history of every government judgement substitute language. Therefore, so far as the State language is concerned, Pakistan's state language shall be Urdu.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Address to a huge public rally in w:Dhaka, w:East Bengal (then the eastern wing of the w:Dominion of Pakistan and now the independent state of w:Bangladesh) (21 March 1948)

Making love, History

“Laws, at best, are attempts to control a population, and work only sporadically with great expense and hardship. Other common behaviorcontrol methods are patriotism, religion, propaganda, and nationalism. All manmade laws are developed to preserve the established order.”

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. 72

Religion, Law

“As we enhance the lives of others, protect our environment, and work toward abundance, all our lives can become richer and more secure. If these values were put into practice, it would enable all of us to achieve a much higher standard of living within a relatively short period of time; a standard of living that would be continuously improved.”

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

Designing the Future (2007)

Time

“So I certainly don’t regard myself as brave. I just see myself—if I want to indulge a little immodesty—as rather more honest and outspoken than some other people I know.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Source: Thinking the Twentieth Century (2012), Ch. 4 : King’s and Kibbutzim: Cambridge Zionist

People

“William inherited very large possessions, part of which consisted of crown debts, due to the vice-admiral for sums he had advanced for the sea-service. No moneys were at that time less secure than those owing from the king. Penn was obliged to go, more than once, and "thee" and "thou" Charles and his ministers, to recover the debt; and at last, instead of specie, the government invested him with the right and sovereignty of a province of America, to the south of Maryland. Thus was a Quaker raised to sovereign power.
He set sail for his new dominions with two ships filled with Quakers, who followed his fortune. The country was then named by them Pennsylvania, from William Penn; and he founded Philadelphia, which is now a very flourishing city. His first care was to make an alliance with his American neighbors; and this is the only treaty between those people and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never infringed. The new sovereign also enacted several wise and wholesome laws for his colony, which have remained invariably the same to this day. The chief is, to ill-treat no person on account of religion, and to consider as brethren all those who believe in one God. He had no sooner settled his government than several American merchants came and peopled this colony. The natives of the country, instead of flying into the woods, cultivated by degrees a friendship with the peaceable Quakers. They loved these new strangers as much as they disliked the other Christians, who had conquered and ravaged America. In a little time these savages, as they are called, delighted with their new neighbors, flocked in crowds to Penn, to offer themselves as his vassals. It was an uncommon thing to behold a sovereign "thee'd" and "thou'd" by his subjects, and addressed by them with their hats on; and no less singular for a government to be without one priest in it; a people without arms, either for offence or preservation; a body of citizens without any distinctions but those of public employments; and for neighbors to live together free from envy or jealousy. In a word, William Penn might, with reason, boast of having brought down upon earth the Golden Age, which in all probability, never had any real existence but in his dominions.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Variants:
No oaths, no seals, no official mummeries were used; the treaty was ratified on both sides with a yea, yea — the only one, says Voltaire, that the world has known, never sworn to and never broken.
As quoted in William Penn : An Historical Biography (1851) by William Hepworth Dixon
William Penn began by making a league with the Americans, his neighbors. It is the only one between those natives and the Christians which was never sworn to, and the only one that was never broken.
As quoted in American Pioneers (1905), by William Augustus Mowry and Blanche Swett Mowry, p. 80
It was the only treaty made by the settlers with the Indians that was never sworn to, and the only one that was never broken.
As quoted in A History of the American Peace Movement (2008) by Charles F. Howlett, and ‎Robbie Lieberman, p. 33
The History of the Quakers (1762)

Money, God, Sea, Religion

“Thus, almost everything is imitation. The idea of The Persian Letters was taken from The Turkish Spy. Boiardo imitated Pulci, Ariosto imitated Boiardo. The most original minds borrowed from one another. Miguel de Cervantes makes his Don Quixote a fool; but pray is Orlando any other? It would puzzle one to decide whether knight errantry has been made more ridiculous by the grotesque painting of Cervantes, than by the luxuriant imagination of Ariosto. Metastasio has taken the greatest part of his operas from our French tragedies. Several English writers have copied us without saying one word of the matter. It is with books as with the fire in our hearths; we go to a neighbor to get the embers and light it when we return home, pass it on to others, and it belongs to everyone”

Voltaire book Letters on the English

"Lettre XII: sur M. Pope et quelques autres poètes fameux," Lettres philosophiques (1756 edition)
Variants:
He looked on everything as imitation. The most original writers, he said, borrowed one from another. Boyardo has imitated Pulci, and Ariofio Boyardo. The instruction we find in books is like fire; we fetch it from our neighbour, kindle it as home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
Historical and Critical Memoirs of the Life and Writings of M. de Voltaire (1786) by Louis Mayeul Chaudon, p. 348
What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
As translated in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2008), by James Geary, p. 373
Original: (fr) Ainsi, presque tout est imitation. L’idée des Lettres persanes est prise de celle de l’Espion turc. Le Boiardo a imité le Pulci, l’Arioste a imité le Boiardo. Les esprits les plus originaux empruntent les uns des autres. Michel Cervantes fait un fou de son don Quichotte; mais Roland est-il autre chose qu'un fou? Il serait difficile de décider si la chevalerie errante est plus tournée en ridicule par les peintures grotesques de Cervantes que par la féconde imagination de l'Arioste. Métastase a pris la plupart de ses opéras dans nos tragédies françaises. Plusieurs auteurs anglais nous ont copiés, et n'en ont rien dit. Il en est des livres comme du feu de nos foyers; on va prendre ce feu chez son voisin, on l’allume chez soi, on le communique à d’autres, et il appartient à tous.

Home, Painting, Imagination, Light

“If the knowledge of 'Aishah were to be gathered up and compared to the knowledge of all the other wives of the Prophet and all other women, 'Aishah's knowledge would be greater.”

Aisha (605–678) Muhammad's wife

Source: Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, (Al-Hakim, Al-Mustadrak, vol. 4, p. 11)

Knowledge, Women

“Every animal possesses something which distinguishes it from all other animals; and this is what I understand by personal identity, or rather the identical self. This in every animal is perfectly distinct and indivisible, since the only knowledge we have of it is when it is entire; and divisibility of this is what we cannot conceive: but if indivisible, it must also be indestructible, and must always have existed. Itis not possessed of any kind of consciousness: but no consciousness can, it appears, exist without it; as life itself seems to be composed of personal identity, and other essentials of the mind or body, and that it is the combination which produces consciousness.”

Lewis Gompertz (1783–1861) Early animal rights activist

"Theorem I: Personal Identity, or Identical Self", Chapter 5, pp. 69–70
Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes (1824)

Understanding, Personality, Knowledge, Animals

“I do what many dream of, all their lives,
— Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive — you don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat —
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"Andrea del Sarto", line 70
"Less is more" is often misattributed to architects Buckminster Fuller or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It is something of a motto for minimalist philosophy. It was used in 1774 by Christoph Martin Wieland.
Men and Women (1855)

God, Painting, Light, Dreams

“It suffices for you to have good manners by giving up what you hate of others.”

Ali al-Hadi (829–868) imam

[Ma’athir al-Kubara’, 3, 219]
[Baqir Shareef al-Qarashi, Abdullah al-Shahin, The Life of Imam ‘Ali al-Hadi, Study and Analysis, His narrations from Amir’ul- Mu’minin, 2007, 82]
General subjects

Hate

“Nationalism is about putting the (ethno-)nation above liberal-democratic and leftist values alike. Once one takes that step, one is not separated from other nationalists by anything irreducible.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, South Korea’s Nationalist-Left Front (April 2019)

“Work is not mankind’s curse, but his blessing. A man becomes a man through labor. It elevates him, makes him great and aware, raises him above all other creatures.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Source: 1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Making love

“No one can really help you. No one can open your doors. You locked them up, and only you can open them. When you open any door, beyond it you find others standing there who had passed you long ago, but now, unable to proceed, they are there waiting; others are there waiting for you. Then you come, and, opening a door, those waiting disciples perhaps may pass on; thus on and on. What a privilege this, to reflect that we may perhaps be able to help those who seemed greater than ourselves!”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

Vol. I, Letter 1
Letters That Have Helped Me (1891)

Waiting, Help

“We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilisation superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us — that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence — then we don't like it any more.”

Stanisław Lem book Solaris

Solaris (1961), Ch. 6: "The Little Apocrypha", p. 72
Solaris (1961)

Time, Search, Past, Silence

“You now have learned enough to see
That Cats are much like you and me
And other people whom we find
Possessed of various types of mind.
For some are sane and some are mad
And some are good and some are bad
And some are better, some are worse —
But all may be described in verse.”

T.S. Eliot book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

The Ad-dressing of Cats
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

Bad luck, People, Learning, Cats

“On one side is the call of Christ, on the other is death,
We are caught in a conflict, hard to resolve.
Having received many a wound, for more of wounds he craves,
Mark the courage of helpless Bismil, how he suffers unfazed!”

Ram Prasad Bismil (1897–1927) revolutionary, poet & writer

Masterpieces of Patriotic Urdu Poetry, p. 111
Poetry, Desire for Self-sacrifice

Courage, Death, Suffering, Christ

“Now, more than any time in our history, we will be judged by our capacity for compassion. Our ability to come through this, won’t just be down to what government or businesses do, but by the individual acts of kindness that we show each other. The small business who does everything they can not to lay off their staff. The student who does a shop for their elderly neighbour. The retired nurse who volunteers to cover some shifts in their local hospital. When this is over, and it will be over, we want to look back on this moment and remember the many small acts of kindness done by us and to us. We want to look back on this time and remember how we thought first of others and acted with decency. We want to look back on this time and remember how, in the face of a generation-defining moment, we undertook a collective national effort - and we stood together. It’s on all of us.”

Rishi Sunak (1980) Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom

Statement on the Coronavirus as Chancellor (20 March 2020) Instagram post @rishisunakmp https://www.instagram.com/p/B990ItXHhXW/ (21 March 2020) 2020

Business, Time, History, Effort

“The Hindus have not the slightest affinity towards you, as they have towards Muslims. They consider Muslims closer than you. Hindus and Muslims are helpful to each other in local boards, in legislative councils, and in business. But is there a single instance of such sympathetic consideration shown towards you by the caste Hindus? On the contrary: they always cultivate hatred against you in their minds. What dreadful effects this hatred has produced, can be heard from those who have had occasion to go to the court for justice or to the police for help.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

As quoted in http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/txt_ambedkar_salvation.html

Business, Help, Justice

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people... Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Interviewed with Wired: Gary Wolf. Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html (February 1996) 1990s

Problem, People, Feeling, Understanding

“The inspiration for the title of this book came from a Bible prophecy that seems more applicable now than at any other time in human history. It occurs in both the Old and the New Testament and speaks of the collapse of the existing world order and the arising of “a new heaven and a new earth." We need to understand here that heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness. This is the esoteric meaning of the word, and this is also its meaning in the teachings of Jesus.”

Eckhart Tolle book A New Earth

A New Earth (2005)

Time, History, Understanding, Books

Quotes about other page 35

Quotes about other
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