Quotes about other
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“All inanimate objects are different from Him and from each other and from all living objects.”

Madhvacharya (1199–1278) Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school

Ya, Hindu Online

“Though I have always made it my practice to be pleasant to everybody, I have not once actually experienced friendship. I have only the most painful recollections of my various acquaintances with the exception of such companions in pleasure as Horiki. I have frantically played the clown in order to disentangle myself from these painful relationships, only to wear myself out as a result. Even now it comes as a shock if by chance I notice in the street a face resembling someone I know however slightly, and I am at once seized by a shivering violent enough to make me dizzy. I know that I am liked by other people, but I seem to be deficient in the faculty to love others. (I should add that I have very strong doubts as to whether even human beings really possess this faculty.) It was hardly to be expected that someone like myself could ever develop any close friends—besides, I lacked even the ability to pay visits. The front door of another person’s house terrified me more than the gate of Inferno in the Divine Comedy, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I really felt I could detect within the door the presence of a horrible dragon-like monster writhing there with a dank, raw smell.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The Third Notebook: Part One
No Longer Human

Love, Pain, Friendship, People

“For always the man in whom thought springs up over thought sets his mark farther off, for the one thought saps the force of the other.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto V, lines 16–18 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Spring

“This homeless guy asked me for money the other day. I was about to give it to him and then I thought he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol. And then I thought, that's what I'm going to use it on. Why am I judging this poor bastard?”

Greg Giraldo (1965–2010) American comedian

Just For Laughs

Money, Alcohol, Guy

“There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 4, sc. 5
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

People

“I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion. If I can feel those things in works by others, then I like them.”

Yohji Yamamoto (1943) Japanese fashion designer

Kiyokazu Washida. The Past, the Feminine, the Vain in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 2: The Feminine, or the Gap Which Cannot be Filled.

Feeling, Failure, Thinking, Perfection

“Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice. You lived first, and you are older than all need, older than all prayer. All things belong to you — the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds, the wings of the air and all green things that live. You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other. The good road and the road of difficulties you have made to cross; and where they cross, the place is holy. Day in and day out, forever, you are the life of things.
Therefore, I am sending a voice, Great Spirit, my Grandfather, forgetting nothing you have made, the stars of the universe and the grasses of the earth.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Life, Star, Grass, Universe

“Gordon put his hand against the swing door. He even pushed it open a few inches. The warm fog of smoke and beer slipped through the crack. A familiar, reviving smell; nevertheless as he smelled it his nerve failed him. No! Impossible to go in. He turned away. He couldn't go shoving into that saloon bar with only fourpence halfpenny in his pocket. Never let other people buy your drinks for you! The first commandment of the moneyless. He made off down the dark pavement.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 4

People, Drink, Beer

“We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell. Only if we give up our authoritarian attitude in the realm of opinion, only if we establish the attitude of give and take, of readiness to learn from other people, can we hope to control acts of violence inspired by piety and duty.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

Utopia and Violence (1947)

Love, War, People, Religion

“Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

People, Idea

“Language is not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker's intentions; it is populated—overpopulated—with the intentions of others.”

Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) Philosopher, scholar

Source: "Discourse in the Novel" (1935), p. 294

“By means of beauty all beautiful things become beautiful. For this appears to me the safest answer to give both to myself and others; and adhering to this, I think that I shall never fall, but that it is a safe answer both for me and any one else to give — that by means of beauty beautiful things become beautiful.”

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

Phaedo
Plato, Phaedo

Beauty, Thinking, Appearance

“All around us there are other women, seemingly not hurt, making small talk, acting normal, which means happy, not discontent, certainly not devastated. Girls are still being socialised not to identify with - feel empathy for - other females: she got hurt because she did x, y, z - I didn’t, so I didn’t get hurt; she’s at fault, I’m not; the punishment fits her crime; blame her, exonerate him. This continuing, culturally applauded socialisation of women not to empathize with other women is a malignant part of the culture of men, dead white ones or not. Women are perceived to be appalling failures when we are sad. Women are pathetic when we are angry. Women are ridiculous when we are militant. Women are unpleasant when we are bitter, no matter what the cause. Women are deranged when women want justice. Women are man-haters when women want accountability and respect from men. Women are trash when women let men do what men want Women are shrews or puritans when we do not.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

‘Suffering and Speech’ in Catherine A MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (eds) In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings.

Women, Men, Sadness, Justice

“We shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and a migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the site of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now, if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O friends and judges, can be greater than this? …Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. …What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they would not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.”

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

40c–41c
Plato, Apology

Life, Death, Men, World

“All the colors of the world should be
Loving each other wholeheartedly,
Yes, it's alright,
Take my message to your brother and tell him twice,
Spread the word and try to teach the man
Who's hating his brother when hate won't do,
When we're all the same,
'Cause the blood inside me is inside of you.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Can You Feel It?
Triumph (1980)

Love, Hate, World, Color

“Today I will speak about love. What is love? How can one get love? Why should one get it? There are two kinds of love. One is the worldly connection. The other is attained through Knowledge. In this human body exists the love we have to discover. You should love one another and behave lovingly because when love comes, everything comes. You should speak to one another with love and humility. Love is the essence.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Ram Lila Grounds, Delhi, India, October 29, 1966 (translated from Hindi) - Published in Divine Light (UK) April 1, 1973, Volume 2, Issue 7
1960s

Love, Knowledge

“When people talk about reincarnation, I always feel that if there is such a thing, this is definitely my first time, because I'm always amazed. I'm both amazed at how horrifically we can treat each other and all other living things, and also amazed at the wonder and the beauty. I'm like: 'Oh my God, look at that bird!' or 'Look at that flower!' literally every single day. I can't get over how people are putting so much energy and so many resources into going to Mars when everything we could ever dream of is on this planet, if we just take care of it. What do they have on Mars? They don't even have oxygen up there!”

Daryl Hannah (1960) actress

"'I'm a little bit of a nerd'", interview with The Guardian (7 June 2009) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/07/interview-daryl-hannah.

God, People, Beauty, Dreams

“It's like there's this predator energy on this planet, and this predator energy feeds upon the essence of the spirit, feeds upon the essence of the human being, the spirit. This predator energy can take fossil fuel and other resources out of the Earth, turn it into fuel, to run a machine system. But in order for there to be a need for that system, and in order for that system to work, they have to mine our minds to get at the essence of our spirit. In the same way the external mining takes place, it pollutes—we see now, people understand how it poisons the environment, the water, the air pollution—the mining of the essence, the mining of the spirit, mining our minds … the pollution from that is all the neurotic, distorted, insecure behavior patterns that we develop. That's the pollution. Because in order for this predatory system, this disease, to work, we must not be able to use our minds in a clear coherent manner. Because if we use our minds in a clear coherent manner, we will not accept the unacceptable.”

John Trudell (1946–2015) Native American rights activist, musician, poet

Columbus Day Speech, San Francisco (1992)

People, Disease, Way, Behavior

“As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before.”

François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French writer, politician, diplomat and historian

Aussitôt qu'une pensée vraie est entrée dans notre esprit, elle jette une lumière qui nous fait voir une foule d'autres objets que nous n'apercevions pas auparavant.
As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tyron Edwards.

Light

“I have other duties equally sacred … Duties to myself.”

Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet

Nora Helmer, Act III
Variant translation: I have another duty equally sacred … My duty to myself.
A Doll's House (1879)

“It is not lack of self-restraint but care for others which makes me dine in Lent before the hour of evening.”

Charlemagne (748–814) King of the Franks, King of Italy, and Holy Roman Emperor

Quoted in Notker's The Deeds of Charlemagne (translated 2008 by David Ganz)

“A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell — mouths mercy, and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!”

Mark Twain book The Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger (1916)

Life, God, Children, People

“If we judge from Islamic history, there is much to encourage us. For century after century, the Arabs, the Persians, the Turks and many other Islamic societies achieved powerful leadership roles in the world — not only politically and economically but also intellectually… The fundamental reason for the pre-eminence of Islamic civilizations lay neither in accidents of history nor in acts of war, but rather in their ability to discover new knowledge, to make it their own, and to build constructively upon it. They became the Knowledge Societies of their time.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

Address by His Highness the Aga Khan to the 2006 Convocation of the Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan (2 December 2006)]

War, World, History, Knowledge

“If you desire to discover peace and consolation for your soul and to serve God truly, do not find your satisfaction in what you have left behind, because in that which now concerns you you may be as impeded as you were before, or even more. But leave as well all these other things and attend to one thing alone that brings all these with it (namely, holy solitude, together with prayer and spiritual and divine reading), and persevere there in forgetfulness of all things.”

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

The Sayings of Light and Love

God, Peace, Soul, Solitude

“Now one could say, at the risk of some superficiality, that there exist principally two types of scientists. The ones, and they are rare, wish to understand the world, to know nature; the others, far more frequent, wish to explain it. The first are searching for truth, often with knowledge that they will not attain it; the second strive for plausibility, for the achievement of an intellectually consistent, and hence successful, view of the world.”

Erwin Chargaff (1905–2002) Ukrinian-born biochemist who emigrated to the United States

Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature, Paul & Co Pub Consortium, June, 1978.

Truth, World, Search, Understanding

“In principle, when we distinguish being from beings, we transcend the realm of things that are. It is not that we go to some other world beyond the world we know, or enter into some different realm of beings. Such notions constitute, for Heidegger, a vulgar form of metaphysics with which true philosophy (metaphysics as science) has nothing in common. Philosophy does not go beyond beings ontically to other beings that dwell beyond or behind. It transcends beings ontologically in the direction of being.”

Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990) Japanese philosopher

Source: The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990), p. 163

World, Science

“Baby, if I made you mad
For something I might have said,
Please, let's forget the past,
The future looks bright ahead.
Don't be cruel to a heart that's true.
I don't want no other love,
Baby it's just you I'm thinking of.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Don't Be Cruel, written by Otis Blackwell and Elvis Presley (1956)
Song lyrics

Love, Thinking, Past, Future

“If a man is endowed with a noble and courageous soul, if he is painstaking, proud, ambitious, without meanness, of a profound a deep-seated intelligence, I dare assert that he lacks nothing to be neglected by the great and men in high office, who fear, more than other men, those whom they cannot dominate.”

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

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 188.

Men, Fear, Soul, Intelligence

“How can you know if you are in the truth? The criterion is simple enough: if others make a vacuum around you, there is not a doubt in the world that you are closer to the essential than they are.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

Truth, World

“[A] world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

As I Please (1943–1947)

World

“Love and the gracious heart are a single thing…
one can no more be without the other
than the reasoning mind without its reason.”

Dante Alighieri book Vita Nuova

Amore e 'l cor gentil sono una cosa...
e così esser l'un sanza l'altro osa
com'alma razional sanza ragione.
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter XVI (tr. Mark Musa)

Love, Heart

“We used to think that Hitler was wicked when he wanted to kill all the Jews, but what Kennedy and Macmillan and others both in the East and in the West pursue policies which will probably lead to killing not only all the Jews but all the rest of us too. They are much more wicked than Hitler and this idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly and absolutely horrible and it is a thing which no man with one spark of humanity can tolerate and I will not pretend to obey a government which is organising the massacre of the whole of mankind. I will do anything I can to oppose such Governments in any non-violent way that seems likely to be fruitful, and I should exhort all of you to feel the same way. We cannot obey these murderers. They are wicked and abominable. They are the wickedest people that ever lived in the history of man and it is our duty to do what we can.”

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

"On Civil Disobedience", April 15th, 1961
1960s

People, Way, Feeling, History

“Unless, before then, the prayer assist me which rises from a heart that lives in grace: what avails the other, which is not heard in heaven?”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto IV, lines 133–135 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Heart

“We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that’s the way things are. That’s the way things always have been.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 20 (p. 392)

Hunger, War, People, Stupidity

“How could you leave, girl?
'Cause love for us was meant to be,
Then you must be seein'
Some other guy instead of me.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Workin Day and Night
Off the Wall (1979)

Love, Guy, Girl

“A phrase much used in political circles in this country is "playing into the hands of". It is a sort of charm or incantation to silence uncomfortable truths. When you are told that by saying this, that or the other you are "playing into the hands of" some sinister enemy, you know that it is your duty to shut up immediately.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (9 June 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/tpithoa/ "As I Please" (1943–1947)

Truth, Silence, Country

“Being a beggar, he said, was not his fault, and he refused either to have any compunction about it or to let it trouble him. He was the enemy of society, and quite ready to take to crime if he saw a good opportunity. He refused on principle to be thrifty. In the summer he saved nothing, spending his surplus earnings on drink, as he did not care about women. If he was penniless when winter came on, then society must look after him. He was ready to extract every penny he could from charity, provided that he was not expected to say thank you for it. He avoided religious charities, however, for he said it stuck in his throat to sing hymns for buns. He had various other points of honour; for instance, it was his boast that never in his life, even when starving, had he picked up a cigarette end. He considered himself in a class above the ordinary run of beggars, who, he said, were an abject lot, without even the decency to be ungrateful.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

On "Bozo", in Ch. 30
Down and out in Paris and London (1933)

Life, Women, Drink, Winter

“"Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" is the greatest phrase ever written. If everyone followed that creed, this world would be a paradise.”

Stan Lee (1922–2018) American comic book writer

huffingtonpost.com http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-peter-m-wallace/unlikely-saints-stan-lee_b_669290.html

World

“Balthasar of Waldshit has fallen into prison here - a man not merely irreverent and unlearned, but even empty. Learn the sum of the matter. When he came to Zurich our Council fearing lest he should cause a commotion ordered him to be taken into custody. Since, however, he had once in freakishness of disposition and fatuity, lurked out in Waldshut against our Council, of which place he, by the gods, was a guardian [i. e., he has pastor there], until the stupid fellow disunited and destroyed everything, it was determined that I should discuss with him in a friendly manner the baptising of infants and Catabaptists, as he earnestly begged first from prison and afterwards from custody. I met the fellow and rendered him mute as a fish. The next day he recited a recantation in the presence of certain Councillors appointed for the purpose [which recantation when repeated to the Two Hundred it was ordered should be publicly made Therefore having started to write it in the city, he gave it to the Council with his own hand, with all its silliness, as he promised. At length he denied that he had changed his opinion, although he had done so before a Swiss tribunal, which with us is a capital offence, affirming that his signature had been extorted from him by terror, which was most untrue].
The council was so unwilling that force should be used on him that when the Emperor or Ferdinand twice asked that the fellow be given to him it refused the request. Indeed he was not taken prisoner that he might suffer the penalty of his boldness in the baptismal matter, but to prevent his causing in secret some confusion, a thing he delighted to do. Then he angered the Council; for there were present most upright Councillors who had witnessed his most explicit and unconstrained withdrawal, and had refused to hand to him over to the cruelty of the Emperor, helping themselves with my aid. The next day he was thrust back into prison and tortured. It is clear that the man had become a sport for demons, so he recanted not frankly as he had promised, nay he said that he entertained no other opinions than those taught by me, execrated the error and obstinacy of the Catabaptists, repeated this three times when stretched on the racks, and bewailed his misery and the wrath of God which in this affair was so unkind. Behold what wantonness! Than these men there is nothing more foolhardy, deceptive infamous - for I cannot tell you what they devise in Abtzell - and shameless. Tomorrow or next day the case will come up.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

Letter to Capito, January 1, 1526 (Staehelin, Briefe ausder Reformationseit, p. 20), ibid, p. 249-250

Men, God, Secret, Stupidity

“For every struggle that Joe survived,
For every dispute he endured, to rise,
Joe will go down in history
as a model for champions to come. While Frazier was a man of few words, Ali was a world of mouth, but he found his place in history. Now his heart can express him well. Joe Frazier was a silent warrior, whom Ali silently admired. One could not rise without the other.”

Muhammad Ali book The Soul of a Butterfly

"The Silent Warrior", p. 114
The Soul of a Butterfly (2004)

World, History, Heart

“While the others had got married and moved out to suburbia, I had stayed in London and got into the arts scene through friends like Robert Fraser and Barry Miles and papers like The International Times. We opened the Indica gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people like that. I heard about people like John Cage, and that he’d just performed a piece of music called 4’33” (which is completely silent) during which if someone in the audience coughed he would say, ‘See?’ Or someone would boo and he’d say, ‘See? It’s not silence—it’s music.’ I was intrigued by all of that. So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn’t mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses—most of the time, anyway. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was one example of developing an idea.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 212

Life, People, Art, Music

“Looking round that filthy room, with raw meat lying among the refuse on the floor, and cold, clotted saucepans sprawling everywhere, and the sink blocked and coated with grease, I used to wonder whether there could be a restaurant in the world as bad as ours. But the other three all said they had been in dirtier places.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 21; on the state of the kitchen at the newly opened Auberge.

World, Lying

“When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks Him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways, or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with Him by faith and love, then it may be said to have found God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self.”

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

Note to Stanza 29 part 8
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Notes to the Stanzas

Love, God, Truth, Faith

“Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

This is almost always attributed to US Ambassador Francis Meehan http://www.nndb.com/people/060/000121694/, though without citations, and only very rarely to Patton. Misattributed

Men, War

“It is remarkable that since Nekhludoff understood that he was disgusted with himself, others ceased to be repulsive to him.”

Leo Tolstoy book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 33

“Intuitive cognition is such that when some things are cognized, of which one inheres in the other, or one is spatially distant from the other, or exists in some relation to the other, immediately in virtue of that non-propositional cognition of those things, it is known if the thing inheres or does not inhere, if it is spatially distant or not, and the same for other true contingent propositions, unless that cognition is flawed or there is some impediment.”

William of Ockham (1285–1349) medieval philosopher and theologian

Opera Theologica (1986), edited by Gedeon Gal, Vol. I, p. 31.

Distant

“If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put Gulliver's Travels among them.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" (1946)

Books, Travel

“We know a history so that we can learn from it. We learn our history because we understand the sacrifices that were made before, so that when we make sacrifices we understand we're doing it on behalf of future generations. There’s a proverb that says, “We have not inherited this land from our forebears, we have borrowed it from our children.” In other words, we study the past so it can guide us into the future, and inspire us to do better.”

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

2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)

Children, History, Understanding, Study

“Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.”

John Locke book Two Treatises of Government

Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. XIX, sec. 222
Two Treatises of Government (1689)

People, Fear, Thinking

“Who knew it? President Wilson knew it. Colonel House knew it. Other's knew it. Did I know it? I had a pretty good idea of what was going on: I was liaison to Henry Morgenthau, Sr., in the 1912 campaign when President Wilson was elected, and there was talk around the office there.”

Benjamin H. Freedman (1890–1984) American businessman

His opinion that there was a secret deal that resulted in the US entering the First World War on the side of the English.
Willard Hotel speech (1961)

Idea, Housing

“Any group or “collective,” large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members.”

Ayn Rand book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

“The evolvers are people who cause things to change. The maintainers of the status quo do everything to keep things from changing. And, there I see differences of perception. Differences in vision. Differences in interpretation, and differences in temperament, in personality. The number of evolvers are much fewer than the maintainers of the status quo. And amongst the evolvers, there are some who are initiators, some who go along with what other people recognize to be new or different.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

People, Change, Personality

“It is sufficient for your morality, not to involve yourself with the things you do not approve of in others.”

Hasan al-Askari (846–874) Eleventh of the Twelve Imams

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 377
General

“Satisfaction linked with dishonor or with harm to others is a prison for the seeker.”

Zoroaster Persian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism

Vahishto-Ishti Gatha; Yasna 53, 6.
The Gathas

“If a professor thinks what matters most
Is to have gained an academic post
Where he can earn a livelihood, and then
Neglect research, let controversy rest,
He's but a petty tradesman at the best,
Selling retail the work of other men.”

Kālidāsa Mālavikāgnimitram

Mālavikāgnimitram, i.17. In Poems from the Sanskrit, trans. John Brough (London: Penguin, 1968), no. 165; as reported in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations by Alan L. Mackay (Bristol: IOP Publishing, 1991), p. 136.

Men, Thinking

“I am not myself free or human until or unless I recognize the freedom and humanity of all my fellowmen.
Only in respecting their human character do I respect my own. …
I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.”

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

Variant translations:
A natural society, in the midst of which every man is born and outside of which he could never become a rational and free being, becomes humanized only in the measure that all men comprising it become, individually and collectively, free to an ever greater extent.
Note 1. To be personally free means for every man living in a social milieu not to surrender his thought or will to any authority but his own reason and his own understanding of justice; in a word, not to recognize any other truth but the one which he himself has arrived at, and not to submit to any other law but the one accepted by his own conscience. Such is the indispensable condition for the observance of human dignity, the incontestable right of man, the sign of his humanity.
To be free collectively means to live among free people and to be free by virtue of their freedom. As we have already pointed out, man cannot become a rational being, possessing a rational will, (and consequently he could not achieve individual freedom) apart from society and without its aid. Thus the freedom of everyone is the result of universal solidarity. But if we recognize this solidarity as the basis and condition of every individual freedom, it becomes evident that a man living among slaves, even in the capacity of their master, will necessarily become the slave of that state of slavery, and that only by emancipating himself from such slavery will he become free himself.
Thus, too, the freedom of all is essential to my freedom. And it follows that it would be fallacious to maintain that the freedom of all constitutes a limit for and a limitation upon my freedom, for that would be tantamount to the denial of such freedom. On the contrary, universal freedom represents the necessary affirmation and boundless expansion of individual freedom.
This passage was translated as Part III : The System of Anarchism , Ch. 13: Summation, Section VI, in The Political Philosophy of Bakunin : Scientific Anarchism (1953), compiled and edited by G. P. Maximoff
Man does not become man, nor does he achieve awareness or realization of his humanity, other than in society and in the collective movement of the whole society; he only shakes off the yoke of internal nature through collective or social labor... and without his material emancipation there can be no intellectual or moral emancipation for anyone... man in isolation can have no awareness of his liberty. Being free for man means being acknowledged, considered and treated as such by another man, and by all the men around him. Liberty is therefore a feature not of isolation but of interaction, not of exclusion but rather of connection... I myself am human and free only to the extent that I acknowledge the humanity and liberty of all my fellows... I am properly free when all the men and women about me are equally free. Far from being a limitation or a denial of my liberty, the liberty of another is its necessary condition and confirmation.
Man, Society, and Freedom (1871)
Context: The materialistic, realistic, and collectivist conception of freedom, as opposed to the idealistic, is this: Man becomes conscious of himself and his humanity only in society and only by the collective action of the whole society. He frees himself from the yoke of external nature only by collective and social labor, which alone can transform the earth into an abode favorable to the development of humanity. Without such material emancipation the intellectual and moral emancipation of the individual is impossible. He can emancipate himself from the yoke of his own nature, i. e. subordinate his instincts and the movements of his body to the conscious direction of his mind, the development of which is fostered only by education and training. But education and training are preeminently and exclusively social … hence the isolated individual cannot possibly become conscious of his freedom.
To be free … means to be acknowledged and treated as such by all his fellowmen. The liberty of every individual is only the reflection of his own humanity, or his human right through the conscience of all free men, his brothers and his equals.
I can feel free only in the presence of and in relationship with other men. In the presence of an inferior species of animal I am neither free nor a man, because this animal is incapable of conceiving and consequently recognizing my humanity. I am not myself free or human until or unless I recognize the freedom and humanity of all my fellowmen.
Only in respecting their human character do I respect my own....
I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.

Women, Men, Freedom

“We must reach out to our people. We must alert them. We must educate them. We must encourage them. We must inspire them. And here's a beautiful, wonderful thing: when you reach out to other people to encourage them and inspire them, you yourself will be encouraged and inspired. When you find out how many other people there are who share our concerns, our feelings, our values, our sense of responsibility, you cannot help but be encouraged. Even the hatred that you encounter from some people -- especially from people in the controlled media -- will be encouraging. For you will understand that they would not hate us so much if they did not fear us. And the reason that they fear us is that deep inside them they know that what we say is true. So let's get out there -- all of us -- and start looking for encouragement!”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

The Big Picture, 1996
1990s, 1990
Source: [Pierce, 1976-2002, 125]

Hate, People, Education, Fear

“I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think.
There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison.Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

The Value of Science (1955)

Life, Age, Mountain, Business

“I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.”

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

Reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).
Disputed

Freedom

“Granted that I have the great wisdom to rid myself of the haunting dread of my own death, there remains the death of others and the death of so many feelings and so much sweetness. It is not the conception of truth that will change sorrow. Sorrow, like joy, is absolute.
And yet! The infinite grandeur of our misery becomes confused with glory and almost with happiness, with cold haughty happiness. Was it out of pride or joy that I began to smile when the first white streaks of dawn turned my lamp pale and I saw I was alone in the universe?”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XIV

Death, Wisdom, Truth, Smile

“No matter what our transgressions have been, no matter how much our actions may have hurt others, that guilt can all be wiped out. To me, perhaps the most beautiful phrase in all scripture is when the Lord said, “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.””

Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) American Mormon leader

The Atonement https://www.lds.org/youth/video/the-atonement?lang=eng Boyd K. Packer, General Conference, Oct 2012

Beauty, Hurt

“The gross materialists do not believe in the existence of God or the demigods. Nor do they believe that different planets are dominated by different demigods. They are creating a great commotion about reaching the closest celestial body, Candraloka, or the Moon, but even after much mechanical research they have only very scanty information of this Moon, and in spite of much false advertisement for selling land on the Moon, the puffed-up scientists or gross materialists cannot live there, and what to speak of reaching the other planets, which they are unable even to count.”

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

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 2, Chapter 3, verse 11, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/2/3/11 Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science

God, Falseness

“Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
I come to lead you to the other shore,
To the eternal shades in heat and frost.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto III, lines 85–87 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Hope

“All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.”

Zhou Enlai (1898–1976) 1st Premier of the People's Republic of China

As quoted in Saturday Evening Post (27 March 1954); this is a play upon the famous maxim of Clausewitz: "War is the continuation of politics by other means".

War

“And one his limb transpierced, and one lopped off, should show, it would be nothing to compare with the disgusting mode of the ninth Bolgia. A cask by losing centre-piece or cant was never shattered so, as I saw one rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind. Between his legs were hanging down his entrails; his heart was visible, and the dismal sack that maketh excrement of what is eaten. While I was all absorbed in seeing him, he looked at me, and opened with his hands his bosom, saying: "See now how I rend me; How mutilated, see, is Mahomet; in front of me doth Ali weeping go, cleft in the face from forelock unto chin; and all the others whom thou here beholdest, disseminators of scandal and of schism while living were, and therefore are cleft thus.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXVIII
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Heart

“My God is none other than the people. Only the popular masses are omniscient and omnipotent and almighty on earth. Therefore my lifetime motto is: "The people are my God."”

Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Comment to Cheondoist independence activist Kim In Jin (1936), described in autobiography With the Century (1993)

God, People

“The cycle of violence will continue far into the new millennium. Hopes for peace will probably not be realized, because the great that shape the international system fear each other and compete for power as a result. Indeed, their ultimate aim is to gain a position of dominant power over others, because having dominant power is the best means to ensure one's own survival.”

John Mearsheimer book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Preface, p. xi
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001)

Fear, Peace, Hope

“May the people and the government respect the rights of all. Between individuals, as between nations, peace means respect for the rights of others.”

Benito Juárez (1806–1872) President of Mexico during XIX century

As quoted in Global History, Volume Two : The Industrial Revolution to the Age of Globalization (2008) by Jerry Weiner, Mark Willner, George A. Hero and Bonnie-Anne Briggs, p. 175
Context: Mexicans: let us now pledge all our efforts to obtain and consolidate the benefits of peace. Under its auspices, the protection of the laws and of the authorities will be sufficient for all the inhabitants of the Republic. May the people and the government respect the rights of all. Between individuals, as between nations, peace means respect for the rights of others.

People, Peace

“"Teddy, you know what I was thinking? How do you tell what are real things from what aren't real things?"
The bear shuffled its alternatives. "Real things are good."
"I wonder if time is good. I don't think Mummy likes time very much. The other day, lots of days ago, she said that time went by her. Is time real, Teddy?"”

Brian W. Aldiss book Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (1969)

Thinking, Time

“I was a mere tourist with no part whatever in this great conflict; but it was my rare privilege, through an unusual train of circumstances, to witness the moving scenes that I have resolved to describe. In these pages I give only my personal impressions; so my readers should not look here for specific details, nor for information on strategic matters; these things have their place in other writings.”

Henry Dunant book A Memory of Solferino

Source: A Memory of Solferino (1862), p. 16; As quoted in The Independent, Friday, 22 February 2002 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/change-obsolete-rules-of-warfare-says-bush-envoy-661637.html

Parting, Personality, Training

“We must demonstrate that it is possible to overcome poverty, misery and decay by democratic means, and we must ourselves believe, and must show others, that our American tradition of the dignity and liberty of the individual is not a luxury for easy times but is the basic source of the strength and security of a successful society.”

Jane Jacobs (1916–2006) American–Canadian journalist, author on urbanism and activist (1916-2006)

Political questionnaire response (1952)

Time, Success

“The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

Eduardo Galeano (1973), as cited in: Riley E. Dunlap (2002), Sociological Theory and the Environment, 183

“How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history — greater than the fall of empires — I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

World, Feeling, History, Thinking

“Be kind to each other in your homes. Be kind to those who surround you. I prefer that you make mistakes in kindness rather than that you work miracles in unkindness. Often just for one word, one look, one quick action, and darkness fills the heart of the one we love.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Quoted in: Charlotte Gray. Mother Teresa: Her Mission to Serve God by Caring for the Poor. G. Stevens, (1988), p. 53
1980s

Love, Home, Heart

“I think both sides [China and United States] should work hard to build a new type of relationship between big powers. The two sides should cooperate with each other for a win-win result in order to benefit people from the two countries and the world.”

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

As quoted in "Xi, Obama vow to step up cooperation" http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130608/104235.shtml in cctv.com English (8 June 2013). 2010s

People, World, Thinking, Country

“Rational mechanics must be the science of the motions which result from any forces, and of the forces which are required for any motions, accurately propounded and demonstrated. For many things induce me to suspect, that all natural phenomena may depend upon some forces by which the particles of bodies are either drawn towards each other, and cohere, or repel and recede from each other: and these forces being hitherto unknown, philosophers have pursued their researches in vain. And I hope that the principles expounded in this work will afford some light, either to this mode of philosophizing, or to some mode which is more true.”

Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Preface, translation in William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences http://books.google.com/books?id=vlQEAAAAQAAJ (1837) Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

Hope, Nature, Light, Science

“Is it not frightening, that we, the Romanian people, no longer can produce fruit? That we do not have a Romanian culture of our own, of our people, of our blood, to shine in the world side by side with that of other peoples? That we be condemned today to present ourselves before the world with products of Jewish essence? That today, at this moment, when the world expects that the Romanian people appear to show the fruit of our national blood and genius, we present ourselves with an infection of Judaic cultural caricature?”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

People, World, Appearance

“Let us be clear about three facts. First, all battles and all wars are won in the end by the infantryman. Secondly, the infantryman always bears the brunt. His casualties are heavier, he suffers greater extremes of discomfort and fatigue than the other arms. Thirdly, the art of the infantryman is less stereotyped and far harder to acquire in modern war than that of any other arm…. The infantryman has to use initiative and intelligence in almost every step he moves, every action he takes on the battle-field. We ought therefore to put our men of best intelligence and endurance into the Infantry.”

Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (1883–1950) senior officer of the British Army

In Praise of Infantry, The London Times, Thursday, 19 April 1945.

Men, War, Art, Intelligence

“These two experiences taught me several lessons. Lesson that I have never forgotten. I did not want to learn these lessons but I found out that it isn’t what one wants in this world that one gets. Force and might makes right. Perhaps things shouldn’t be that way but thats the way they are. I learned to look with suspicion and hatred on everybody. As the years went on that idea persisted in my mind above all others. I figured that if I was strong enough and clever enough to impose my will on others, I was right. I still believe that to this day. Another lesson I learned at that time was that there were a lot of very nice things in this world. Among them were Whisky and Sodomy. But it depended on who and how they were used. I have used plenty of both since then but I have recieved more pleasure of them since; than I did those first times. Those were the days when I was learning the lessons that life teaches us all and they made me what I am today.”

Carl Panzram (1891–1930) American serial killer

sic
Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers, p. 174, (1997), Brian King, ed. ISBN 096503240X

Life, Pleasure, World, Way

“[Do you have a motto or creed that as an artist you live by? ] Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great "art idea". And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you'll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.”

Chuck Close (1940–2021) American artist

Inside the Painter's Studio, Joe Fig, Princeton Architectural Press, 2009, p. 42

Art, Idea, Sense, Time

“Blue has no dimensions, it is beyond dimensions, whereas the other colours are not. They are pre-psychological expanses, red, for example, presupposing a site radiating heat... All colours arouse specific associative ideas, psychologically material or tangible, while blue suggests at most the sea and sky, and they, after all, are in actual, visible nature what is most abstract.”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

Quote from Yves Klein's lecture at the Sorbonne in 1959; published in Studio International, Vol. 186 (1973), p. 43; also quoted in: David Batchelor (2008) Colour. p. 122
before 1960

Idea, Nature, Sea

“All the great evils which men cause to each other because of certain intentions, desires, opinions, or religious principles, are likewise due to non-existence, because they originate in ignorance, which is absence of wisdom.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.11

Wisdom, Men, Evil

“If I can do just one-tenth of the good Michael Jackson did for others, I can really make a difference in this world.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

First Step 2 Forever: My Story (2010), p. 177

World

“The male is a biological accident: the y(male) gene is an incomplete x(female) gene, that is, has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion…. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. [1] ("y(male)" & "x(female)" spaceless in original).

Disease

“Ellis was one of those people who constantly nag others to echo their own opinions.”

George Orwell book Burmese Days

Source: Burmese Days (1934), Ch. II

People

“Of late years it has been the fashion to talk about Gandhi as though he were not only sympathetic to the Western Left-wing movement, but were integrally part of it. Anarchists and pacifists, in particular, have claimed him for their own, noticing only that he was opposed to centralism and State violence and ignoring the other-worldly, anti-humanist tendency of his doctrines.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Reflections on Gandhi (1949)

Fashion, Parting

“If you rob someone who would help you if you needed help you only rob yourself. […] Do you imagine you can be cruel without teaching others to be cruel to you?”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Volume 3, Ch. 17
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

Imagination, Help

“During the Spanish civil war I found myself feeling very strongly that a true history of this war never would or could be written. Accurate figures, objective accounts of what was happening, simply did not exist. And if I felt that even in 1937, when the Spanish Government was still in being, and the lies which the various Republican factions were telling about each other and about the enemy were relatively small ones, how does the case stand now? Even if Franco is overthrown, what kind of records will the future historian have to go upon? And if Franco or anyone at all resembling him remains in power, the history of the war will consist quite largely of "facts" which millions of people now living know to be lies.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please" (1943–1947)

War, People, Feeling, History

“The men can go away, the executives can go away, but what is really though in this society are the players who has been handed down the feel of winning, of being the absolute best, which isn't equal to any other team.”

Gianluigi Buffon (1978) Italian association football player

Gianluigi Buffon, as quoted after Cagliari Calcio 2-3 Juventus FC. Stadio Sant'Elia di Cagliari, September 2, 2007]

Men, Feeling

“We all know that a good example is more effective than advice. So set a good example, and it won't take long for others to follow.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

"Give!" (26 March 1944)
Variant translation: People will always follow a good example; be the one to set a good example, then it won't be long before the others follow.
Tales from the Secret Annex

“Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, God, just one very small thing: I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn't seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.”

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) Jewish diarist

12 July 1942, p. 488-89
Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

God, Suffering, Time, Help

“But, ultimately, I don't have very cast iron opinions on black music other than black modern music which I detest. I detest Stevie Wonder. I think Diana Ross is awful. I hate all those records in the Top 40 - Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston. I think they're vile in the extreme. In essence this music doesn't say anything whatsoever.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From "Home thoughts from abroad", article by Frank Owen, Melody Maker (27 Sep 1986)
In interviews etc., About other artists

Hate, Music, Thinking

“There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Letter (September 1944)

Evil, Victory

“Our design, not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject, not manual, but natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this — from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena…”

Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Preface
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

Art, Mathematics, Nature

“Satanism advocates practicing a modified form of the Golden Rule. Our interpretation of this rule is: "Do unto others as they do unto you"; because if you "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and they, in turn, treat you badly, it goes against human nature to continue to treat them with consideration. You should do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but if your courtesy is not returned, they should be treated with the wrath they deserve.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Nature

“However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U. S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Harvard University address (1978)

War, People, Failure, Understanding

“Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say that the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living — that you are still less likely to believe.”

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

37e–38a
Plato, Apology

Life, Understanding

“If you are not capable of cruelty, then you are absolutely a victim of anyone who is. For those who are exceedingly agreeable, there is a part of them crying out for the incorporation of the monster within them, which is what gives them strength of character and self-respect, because it is impossible to respect yourself until you grow teeth. And if you grow teeth, you realize that you're somewhat dangerous, or seriously dangerous. Then you might be more willing to demand that you treat yourself with respect and that other people do the same thing. That doesn't mean that being cruel is better than not being cruel. What it means is that being able to be cruel, and then not being cruel, is better than not being able to be cruel, because in the first case you're nothing but weak and naive, and in the second case you're dangerous but you have it under control. If you're competent at fighting, it actually decreases the probability that you're going to have to fight, because when someone pushes you you'll be able to respond with confidence, and with any luck a reasonable show of confidence, which is a show of dominance, will be enough to make the bully back off.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLc_MC7NQek&t=0s "2017 Personality 04/05: Heroic and Shamanic Initiations"

People, Confidence, Fight, Parting

“The authority of the State is not subject to negotiation, or compromise, or to divide its terrain with other moral or religious principles that might interfere in consciousness. The authority of the State has force and is true authority if, within consciousness, it is entirely unconditioned.”

Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944) Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher and politician

Orgini e dottrina del fascismo, Rome: Libreria del Littorio, (1929). Origins and Doctrine of Fascism, A. James Gregor, translator and editor, Transaction Publishers (2003) p. 31

“Now always be the best, my boy, the bravest,
and hold your head up high above the others.”

Homér Iliad

VI. 208 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Boy

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Quotes about other
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