Quotes about other
page 5

Harriet Tubman photo

“I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was on of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.”

Harriet Tubman (1820–1913) African-American abolitionist and humanitarian

Modernized rendition: I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.
The phrase "" is a slogan made famous during the independence struggle of several countries.
1880s, Harriet, The Moses of Her People (1886)
Variant: There was one of two things I had a right to: liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would take the other, for no man should take me alive. I should fight for liberty as long as my strength lasted.
Context: I had reasoned dis out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have de oder; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when de time came for me to go, de Lord would let dem take me.

Robert Frost photo

“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Variant: Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

Pythagoras photo

“As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Attribution to Pythagoras by Ovid, as quoted in The Extended Circle: A Dictionary of Humane Thought (1985) by Jon Wynne-Tyson, p. 260; also in Vegetarian Times, No. 168 (August 1991), p. 4
Context: As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.

Pablo Picasso photo

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else. After all, what is a painter? He is a collector who gets what he likes in others by painting them himself. This is how I begin and then it becomes something else.”

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

Quoted in: Ann Livermore (1988), Artists and Aesthetics in Spain. p. 154
Attributed from posthumous publications

Salman Rushdie photo
Tamora Pierce photo
Pablo Picasso photo
Šantidéva photo
Gary L. Francione photo
Michel Foucault photo

“But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.”

Source: Discipline and Punish (1977), Chapter Three, The Gentle Way in Punishment
Context: This, then, is how one must imagine the punitive city. At the crossroads, in the gardens, at the side of roads being repaired or bridges built, in workshops open to all, in the depths of mines that may be visited, will be hundreds of tiny theatres of punishment. Each crime will have its law; each criminal his punishment. It will be a visible punishment, a punishment that tells all, that explains, justifies itself, convicts: placards, different-coloured caps bearing inscriptions, posters, symbols, texts read or printed, tirelessly repeat the code. Scenery, perspectives, optical effects, trompe-l’œil sometimes magnify the scene, making it more fearful than it is, but also clearer. From where the public is sitting, it is possible to believe in the existence of certain cruelties which, in fact, do not take place. But the essential point, in all these real or magnified severities, is that they should all, according to a strict economy, teach a lesson: that each punishment should be a fable. And that, in counterpoint with all the direct examples of virtue, one may at each moment encounter, as a living spectacle, the misfortunes of vice. Around each of these moral ‘representations’, schoolchildren will gather with their masters and adults will learn what lessons to teach their offspring. The great terrifying ritual of the public execution gives way, day after day, street after street, to this serious theatre, with its multifarious and persuasive scenes. And popular memory will reproduce in rumour the austere discourse of the law. But perhaps it will be necessary, above these innumerable spectacles and narratives, to place the major sign of punishment for the most terrible of crimes: the keystone of the penal edifice.

Jean Vanier photo

“I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Community And Growth, 1979

Andrew Carnegie photo
Osamu Dazai photo
Daniel Defoe photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Carl von Clausewitz photo

“War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.”

Variant: War Is Merely the Continuation of Policy by Other Means
Source: On War (1832), Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 24, in the Princeton University Press translation (1976)
Variant translation: War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.
Context: War Is Merely the Continuation of Policy by Other Means
We see, therefore, that war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse carried on with other means. What remains peculiar to war is simply the peculiar nature of its means.

Vladimir Lenin photo

“None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.”

Source: One Door Away from Heaven (2001), chapter 73, pp. 604, 605
Context: What will you find behind the door that is one door away from Heaven? […] If your heart is closed, then you will find behind that door nothing to light your way. But if your heart is open, you will find behind that door people who, like you, are searching, and you will find the right door together with them. None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another's salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.

Pablo Picasso photo

“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence transform a yellow spot into a sun.”

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

1950s
Source: Sergei Eisenstein (1957), Film form [and]: The film sense, p. 127.

Thor Heyerdahl photo
Jean Jacques Rousseau photo

“Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Source: The Social Contract and Discourses

Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Leo Buscaglia photo
Bartolomé de las Casas photo
Thomas Hobbes photo
Marshall B. Rosenberg photo

“What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.”

Marshall B. Rosenberg (1934–2015) American psychologist

Source: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

Eckhart Tolle photo
Peter Singer photo
C.G. Jung photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Edmund Spenser photo
Doris Day photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others, it is the only means.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

The original: "Example is not the main thing. It is the only thing. That is, if the one giving the example is not saying to himself, 'Behold I am giving an example." That spoils it. Anyone thinking of the example he will give to others has lost his simplicity. Only as a man has simplicity can his example influence others" is a quote by Albert Schweitzer, from a 1952 interview in United Nations World magazine https://books.google.com/books?id=qTAoAAAAMAAJ&q=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22&dq=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz7f_2v6vMAhUJxmMKHeEAB-QQ6AEIHDAA. Not attributed to Einstein until the 1990s https://books.google.com/books?id=JdRZAAAAYAAJ&q=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22+einstein&dq=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22+einstein&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwif56qcwqvMAhXGMGMKHST5DRIQ6AEIHTAA.
Misattributed

Ram Dass photo

“We're all just walking each other home.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now
Jacques-Yves Cousteau photo
Gabriel García Márquez photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo
Thomas Paine photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Thomas Paine photo
Andrew Carnegie photo
Roland Barthes photo

“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

"Talking," in A Lover's Discourse (1977)

Anne Frank photo
Georges Bataille photo
Elizabeth Kolbert photo
Maya Angelou photo
Dr. Seuss photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.”

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

Source: Pablo Picasso: Metamorphoses of the Human Form : Graphic Works, 1895-1972

Ken Robinson photo

“What you do for yourself dies with you when you leave this world, what you do for others lives on forever.”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

Source: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

Jean Jacques Rousseau photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
Jim Morrison photo
Joan Didion photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Isaac Bashevis Singer photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.”

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

This is a paraphrase of statement in a thank you note from Carroll to a childhood friend, the actress Ellen Terry, published in Ellen Terry, Player in Her Time (1997), p. 126 https://books.google.com/books?id=2PkzZ9KaRlwC&lpg=PA126&vq=%22do%20for%20others%22&pg=PA126#v=snippet&q=%22do%20for%20others%22&f=fals by Nina Auerbach: "... and so you have found out that secret — one of the deep secrets of Life — that all, that is really worth the doing, is what we do for others?"
Disputed

Anthony Robbins photo

“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.”

Variant: To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.
Source: Unlimited Power (1986), p. 237

Bob Dylan photo
Ervin László photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Edward Bernays photo
Gustav Stresemann photo
Ludwig von Mises photo
Friedrich Engels photo
Baron d'Holbach photo

“When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon, than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths, or to reject absurdities, and palpable contradictions.”

Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789) French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist

Good Sense without God, or, Freethoughts Opposed to Supernatural Ideas (London: W. Stewart & Co., ca. 1900) ( Project Gutenberg e-text http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/gsens10.txt), preface
Translator unknown. Original publication in French at Amsterdam, 1772, as Le bon sens ("Common Sense"), and often attributed to John Meslier.

Thales photo

“Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.”

Thales (-624–-547 BC) ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician

As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, I, 36
Cf. Golden Rule

Ludwig von Mises photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo
Carl R. Rogers photo
Morris Raphael Cohen photo
Joseph Stalin photo

“As we know, the goal of every struggle is victory. But if the proletariat is to achieve victory, all the workers, irrespective of nationality, must be united. Clearly, the demolition of national barriers and close unity between the Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Polish, Jewish and other proletarians is a necessary condition for the victory of the proletariat of all Russia.”

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

from "The Social-Democratic View of the National Question", 1904 (aged 26) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1904/09/01.htm
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Colette photo
Ignatius of Loyola photo
Desmond Tutu photo

“A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Address at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (7 September 1986)

Thomas Paine photo
Socrates photo

“[In the world below…] those who appear to have lived neither well not ill, go to the river Acheron, and mount such conveyances as they can get, and are carried in them to the lake, and there they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and suffer the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to others, and are absolved, and receive the rewards of their good deeds according to their deserts. But those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their crimes—who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like—such are hurled into Tartarus, which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have committed crimes, which, although great, are not unpardonable—who in moment of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or who have taken the life of another under like extenuating circumstances—these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth—mere homicides by way of Cocytus, patricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon—and they are borne to the Acherusian Lake, and here they lift up their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to receive them, and to let them come out of the river into the lake. And if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged: for this is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges.”

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

Plato, Phaedo

Socrates photo
Joanna MacGregor photo
Russell Brand photo
Paul Valéry photo
Karel Čapek photo
Ibn Khaldun photo
Ali Al-Wardi photo
Ludwig von Mises photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Youssef Bey Karam photo

“Respect the beliefs of other people, so your faith remains strong.”

Youssef Bey Karam (1823–1889) Lebanese rebel

Youssef Bey Karam Foundation

Mikhail Bakunin photo

“Freedom is the absolute right of every human being to seek no other sanction for his actions but his own conscience, to determine these actions solely by his own will, and consequently to owe his first responsibility to himself alone.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

As quoted in Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, Daniel Guérin, New York: NY, Monthly Review Press (1970) p. 31