Quotes about permission
page 3

“Authority is permission to spew platitudes to people below you.”

Rob Payne (1973) Canadian writer

Source: Working Class Zero (2003), Chapter 1, p. 10

“The education which breeds Amalekites must be replaced with Christian education…. The state must become Christian and apply Biblical law to every area of life, and apply the full measure of God's law. The permissive family must give way to the Christian family.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 323

Life, God, Education, Family

“We need a renewed emphasis on civic learning in schools. And our young people need positive role models. Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children. The only way to pass along civic values is to first live up to them.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2017, Speech at "Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In the World" event (2017)

Life, Children, People, Education

“Excessive acreages of unused buildings, commercial and residential were created. The need for such construction, given the space demands of modern business bureaucracy, was believed to be without limit. In later consequence, the solvency of numerous banks, including that of some of the nation's largest and most prestigious institutions, was either fatally impaired or placed in doubt. The lending of both those that failed or were endangered and others was subject, by fear and example to curtailment. The construction industry was severely constrained and its workers left unemployed. A general recession ensued. Any early warning as to what was happening would have been exceptionally ill received, seen as yet another invasion of the benign rule of laissez faire and a specific interference with the market. However in keeping with the exceptions to this rule, there would be eventual salvation in a government bailout of the banks. Insurance of bank deposits — a far from slight contribution to contentment — was permissible, as well as assurance that were a bank large enough, it would not be allowed to fail. A preventive role by government was not allowed; eventual government rescue was highly acceptable.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Culture of Contentment

Source: The Culture of Contentment (1992), Ch. 5

Fear, Business

“…[Be] certain that our hearts are broken on account of your leaving of your homes and your lands, and your seeking of shelter in the territory of the Rāfidah [those who reject Islamic authority] and the Kurdish atheists, and your being forced to wander the lands… So return to your lands, and remain in your homes, and seek shelter – after first seeking shelter with Allah – with your people in the Islamic State, for you will find therein, by Allah’s permission, a warm embrace and a safe refuge. For you are our people. We defend you, your honor, and your wealth. We want you to be mighty and noble, we want you to be safe and secure…”

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (1971–2019) leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

As quoted in "Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi resurfaces in audio urging supporters to join terror group", Independent (15 May 2015)
2014, 2015
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-resurfaces-in-audio-urging-supporters-to-join-terror-group-10251955.html

People, Home, Heart, Wealth

“There was strong warrant for pretensions… As far back as 1493, Pope Alexander VI had settled disputes between Spain and Portugal arising out of their rivalry in the Orient and the Occident by drawing a line from pole to pole one hundred leagues west of the Azores, giving all west of it to the Spanish, all east of it to the Portuguese. Both these nations attempted more or less persistently to exercise the sway thus given over the oceans as well as over the continent. The Portuguese forbade under heavy penalties any person, whether native or alien, to pass through the waters off the African and Brazilian coasts without special permission; the Spanish were hardly less severe toward those who without leave approached their dependencies. But, though the realization of the earth's rotundity renewed the old difficulty, and Spain and Portugal discovered that the Papal decision was futile, since all their new dominions could be approached both from the east and the west, both nations continued to maintain, as best they could, their sovereignty over the vast oceans. Other nations followed these examples.”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 60-61

Penalty, Exercises, Decision, Strong

“I don't give you permission to fail.”

Martin de Maat (1949–2001) American theatre director

The Mysterious Martin de Maat (2001)

“I seem to vaguely remember a time when America had confidence. And guts. And soldiers fighting a war didn’t need to be given “permission” to defend themselves from enemies trying to kill them.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

January 26, 2007 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24149_US_Troops_Have_Permission_Not_to_Be_Killed_By_Iranians&only

War, Confidence, Time, Fight

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

These statements have been misattributed to Mandela, as being in his inaugural speech of 10 May 1994 http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/mandela.html but this is not the case. Rather, they originate with author Marianne Williamson. Misattributed

God, People, World, Fear

“I do think a founder has special permission to make sweeping changes across an organization.”

Michael Dell (1965) Businessman, CEO

Forbes: "A Private Conversation with Michael Dell, 'The Man In The Arena'" https://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/a-private-conversation-with-michael-dell-the-man-in-the-arena/#580b1a633275 (30 October 2013)

Thinking, Change

“Opening new fields of permissibility means to go fragile until we destroy the fears that hold us back.”

Mattin (1977) Spanish musician

Page 23.
"Going Fragile" (July 2005)

Fear

“Aaron Russo: Do you think America is going deeper and deeper into becoming a police state?
Ron Paul: Yeah, I think we're moving in that direction, because there's not much we can do without permission. The absence of a police state is that people are free, and if you don't commit crimes you can do what you want. But today, you can't open up a business, you can't develop land, you can't go to the bank, you can't go to the doctor without the government knowing what you're doing. They talk about medical privacy, that's gone. Financial privacy, that's gone. The right to own property, that's essentially gone. So you have to get permission from the government for almost everything. And if that is the definition of a police state, that you can't do anything unless the government gives you permission, we're well on our way. This is something that people eventually, I hope, will get sick and tired of, and say enough is enough.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

America: Freedom to Fascism, 2006 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5355374476580235299&hl=en 2000s, 2006-2009

People, Hope, Way, Business

“Obey your bishop! “Obey those set over you [Heb 13:17],” the teachers of the Church…. I remind you, my dear friends, of what I said when I was with you: do not receive any outside or unknown preacher, unless he be sent by your bishop or preaches with the permission of the pope. For “how shall they preach unless they are sent [Rom 10:15]?””

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian

Bernard of Clairvaux on the Life of the Mind, John R. Sommerfeldt, Newman Press (2004) ISBN 0809142031 ISBN 9780809142033, p. 67

Teachers

“Gérard [Houllier's] thoughts on the matter echo mine. He thinks that what the national coaches are doing is like taking the car from his garage without even asking permission. They will then use the car for ten days and abandon it in a field without any petrol left in the tank. We then have to recover it, but it is broken down. Then a month later they will come to take your car again, and for good measure you're expected to be nice about it.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

International matches, (2006) http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/BobbyMcMahon/2006/10/17/The_First_Decade_of_Arsene_Wenger Arsenal (1996–present)

Cars, Thinking

“That is why classical Utopias, and the modern dystopias which ironically incorporate their ideals, are static. … The technically expert citizen is expert only in his allotted task; for him to think about the value of that task is for him to pass completely beyond the limits of what is permissible.”

John Passmore (1914–2004) Australian philosopher

Source: The Perfectibility of Man (1971), p. 282.

Thinking

“Jahangir ordered that “a government collector or Jagirdar should not without permission intermarry with the people of the pargana in which he might be” for abduction and forced marriages were common enough.”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, I, p. 9. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

Marriage, People

“Wilhelm Halbfass, the late Indologist at the University of Pennsylvania, took such ridiculous statements into strange, speculative areas and wrote: Would it not be equally permissible to identify this underlying structure as 'deep Nazism' or 'deep Mimamsa'? And what will prevent us from calling Kumarila and William Jones 'deep Nazis' and Adolf Hitler a 'deep Mimamsaka?”

Rajiv Malhotra book The Battle for Sanskrit

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

Universe

“Profound thanks to Columbia Pictures and the lovely forms of Lisa Henson, Gary Wiggan, and Mark Canter for hiring a first-time writer; to James Shamus for his rare intelligence; to Sidney Pollack for asking all the right questions, like 'Why couldn't these women go out and get a job?' Why, indeed. To the cast and crew, for being impeccable. To my friend and my teacher, Lindsay Doran, for being the single most frustrating reason why I can't claim all the credit for myself. And finally, I would like with your permission to dedicate this Oscar to our director, Ang Lee. Ang, wherever you are, this is for you. [Beaming smile]”

Emma Thompson (1959) British actress and writer

68th Academy Awards speech (1996)

Love, Women, Smile, Intelligence

“Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, March 13, 2009, "Obama's 'Science' Fiction" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer031309.php3 at jewishworldreview.com. 2000s, 2009

Science

“The year 1680 AD brought an equally “rich harvest” for Islam. Maasir-i-Alamgiri goes ahead: “On 6th January 1680 A. D. Prince Mohammad Azam and Khan Jahan Bahadur obtained permission to visit Udaipur. Ruhullah Khan and Yakkattaz Khan also proceeded thither to effect the destruction of the temples of the idolators. These edifices situated in the vicinity of the Rana’s palace were among the wonders of the age, and had been erected by the infidels to the ruin of their souls and the loss of their wealth… Pioneers destroyed the images. On 24th January the king visited the tank of Udayasagar. His Majesty ordered all three of the Hindu temples to be levelled with the ground….”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231 Ch. 7.
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1680s

Age, Soul, Loss, Wealth

“On one of these occasions to some of those greedy people (Native Californians) who requested permission to go to the woods (To hunt for food) I answered with certain annoyance: "Well, you make me realize that now that, although you were given a steer, a mutton, and a fanega of grain every day, you would, despite all this, long for your woods and your shores." Then the keenest-witted Indian of those who had heard me replied, somewhat shamefacedly, "It is so Father, as you say, it is so."”

Fermín Lasuén (1736–1803) Spanish missionary to Alta California.

"Representación," San Carlos, 12 November 1800, Santa Bárbara Arch., 2:174.

People, Food

“All sultans were keen on making slaves, but Muhammad Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving people. He appears to have outstripped even Alauddin Khalji and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide. Shihabuddin Ahmad Abbas writes about him thus:
“The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon infidels… Everyday thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners”. Muhammad Tughlaq did not only enslave people during campaigns, he was also very fond of purchasing and collecting foreign and Indian slaves. According to Ibn Battuta one of the reasons of estrangement between Muhammad Tughlaq and his father Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, when Muhammad was still a prince, was his extravagance in purchasing slaves. Even as Sultan, he made extensive conquests. He subjugated the country as far as Dwarsamudra, Malabar, Kampil, Warangal, Lakhnauti, Satgaon, Sonargaon, Nagarkot and Sambhal to give only few prominent place-names. There were sixteen major rebellions in his reign which were ruthlessly suppressed. In all these conquests and rebellions, slaves were taken with great gusto. For example, in the year 1342 Halajun rose in rebellion in Lahore. He was aided by the Khokhar chief Kulchand. They were defeated. “About three hundred women of the rebels were taken captive, and sent to the fort of Gwalior where they were seen by Ibn Battutah.” Such was their influx that Ibn Battutah writes: “At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Vazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.” Iltutmish, Muhammad Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq sent gifts of slaves to Khalifas outside India….. Ibn Battutah’s eye-witness account of the Sultan’s gifting captured slave girls to nobles or arranging their marriages with Muslims on a large scale on the occasion of the two Ids, corroborates the statement of Abbas. Ibn Battutah writes that during the celebrations in connection with the two Ids in the court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, daughters of Hindu Rajas and those of commoners, captured during the course of the year were distributed among nobles, officers and important foreign slaves. “On the fourth day men slaves are married and on the fifth slave-girls. On the sixth day men and women slaves are married off.” This was all in accordance with the Islamic law. According to it, slaves cannot many on their own without the consent of their proprietors. The marriage of an infidel couple is not dissolved by their jointly embracing the faith. In the present case the slaves were probably already converted and their marriages performed with the initiative and permission the Sultan himself were valid. Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured by the Muslims in the yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq, and under him the id celebrations were held on lines similar to those of his predecessor. In short, under the Tughlaqs the inflow of women captives never ceased.”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5 (quoting Masalik-ul-Absar, E.D., III, 580., Battutah)

Women, Men, Marriage, War

“(There will be) No manifestation but after Allah’s permission, and that will be after the passing of a long term, the hardening of the hearts, and the filling of the Earth with tyranny.”

Muhammad al-Mahdi (869–941) 12th and last Imam in Twelver Shia Islam

al-Tabarsi, al-Ihtijāj, Ch.2, p. 478
Religious-based Quotes

Heart

“We have a saying where I come from: Power requires neither permission nor forgiveness.”

Ann Leckie book Ancillary Justice

Source: Ancillary Justice (2013), Chapter 19 (p. 299)

Forgiveness

“Bowing to the reality of harried lives, Rudwick recognizes that not everyone will read every word of the meaty second section; he even explicitly gives us permission to skip if we get “bogged down in the narrative.” Readers absolutely must not do such a thing; it should be illegal. The publisher should lock up the last 60 pages, and deny access to anyone who doesn't pass a multiple-choice exam inserted into the book between parts two and three.”

Stephen Jay Gould book An Urchin in the Storm

"The Power of Narrative", p. 88
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)

Books, Reality, Reading, Parting

“Now the Disney Corporation could do this because that culture lived in a commons, an intellectual commons, a cultural commons, where people could freely take and build. It was a lawyer-free zone.
It was culture, which you didn't need the permission of someone else to take and build upon. That was the character of creativity at the birth of the last century. It was built upon a constitutional requirement that protection be for limited times, and it was originally limited. Fourteen years, if the author lived, then 28, then in 1831 it went to 42, then in 1909 it went to 56, and then magically, starting in 1962, look — no hands, the term expands.
Eleven times in the last 40 years it has been extended for existing works — not just for new works that are going to be created, but existing works. The most recent is the Sonny Bono copyright term extension act.”

Lawrence Lessig (1961) American academic, political activist.

OSCON 2002

People, Birth, Time

“To read is not a fair use; it's an unregulated use. To give it to someone is not a fair use; it's unregulated. To sell it, to sleep on top of it, to do any of these things with this text is unregulated. Now, in the center of this unregulated use, there is a small bit of stuff regulated by the copyright law; for example, publishing the book — that's regulated. And then within this small range of things regulated by copyright law, there's this tiny band before the Internet of stuff we call fair use: Uses that otherwise would be regulated but that the law says you can engage in without the permission of anybody else.”

Lawrence Lessig (1961) American academic, political activist.

OSCON 2002
Context: Here's a simple copyright lesson: Law regulates copies. What's that mean? Well, before the Internet, think of this as a world of all possible uses of a copyrighted work. Most of them are unregulated. Talking about fair use, this is not fair use; this is unregulated use. To read is not a fair use; it's an unregulated use. To give it to someone is not a fair use; it's unregulated. To sell it, to sleep on top of it, to do any of these things with this text is unregulated. Now, in the center of this unregulated use, there is a small bit of stuff regulated by the copyright law; for example, publishing the book — that's regulated. And then within this small range of things regulated by copyright law, there's this tiny band before the Internet of stuff we call fair use: Uses that otherwise would be regulated but that the law says you can engage in without the permission of anybody else. For example, quoting a text in another text — that's a copy, but it's a still fair use. That means the world was divided into three camps, not two: Unregulated uses, regulated uses that were fair use, and the quintessential copyright world. Three categories.
Enter the Internet. Every act is a copy, which means all of these unregulated uses disappear. Presumptively, everything you do on your machine on the network is a regulated use. And now it forces us into this tiny little category of arguing about, "What about the fair uses? What about the fair uses?" I will say the word: To hell with the fair uses. What about the unregulated uses we had of culture before this massive expansion of control?

Books, Law, Sleep, Reading

“Troops without ammunition or food. Effective command no longer possible. 18,000 wounded without any supplies or dressings or drugs. Further defence senseless. Collapse inevitable. Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops.”

Friedrich Paulus (1890–1957) German general

Radio message to Adolf Hitler, January 24, 1943. Quoted in "The World Changers" - Page 171 - by Bruce Bliven - 1965

Food

“A defect, as such, does not imply determinations in any direction. The individual's happiness is in the continuous unfolding of his experience, and also in the fruitfulness of his suffering. The criterion of his happiness is his power and permission to grow into his own self, with all that this involves. This, in turn, depends on other circumstances; the reality or mere ostensibility of his reception; the degree to which he is allowed, together with his defects and inherited birth constellations, to be integrated into his community; and the degree to which the community is permitted to become integrated into what he, the individual, represents.”

Martti Siirala (1889–1948) Finnish philosopher

Medicine in Metamorphosis (2003).

Communication, Birth, Reality, Suffering

“I was now in my sixteenth year, and for the first time it occurred to me that, although conversant with most of the modern languages, I did not understand a word of Latin, and thought the knowledge of this language indispensable to my future prospects in life. I spoke to Rector Steffens, and got permission of my father to leave school entirely, and devote my whole time to the study of Latin. In less than twelve months I was completely master of a language which is often the torment of boys from their sixth to their twentieth years, and still remain ignorant of it. Since then I have written several pamphlets in Latin, which were admired; and in Gottingen my Discourses were generally delivered in that language. Doctor Taube, physician to the king, gave me lessons in natural history, botany, and anatomy; I bade farewell to philosophy and belles lettres, and began in earnest, and with great perseverance, to study physics; but still I was in bad odour amongst many of the learned, and it was said, when they heard of my progress, that henceforth they should not despair of making something of the most stupid of pupils.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Life, Stupidity, School, History

“27 January 1670: During this month of Ramzan abounding in miracles, the Emperor as the promoter of justice and overthrower of mischief, as a knower of truth and destroyer of oppression, as the zephyr of the garden of victory and the reviver of the faith of the Prophet, issued orders for the demolition of the temple situated in Mathura, famous as the Dehra of Kesho Rai. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers, the destruction of this strong foundation of infidelity was accomplished, and on its site a lofty mosque was built at the expenditure of a large sum. This temple of folly was built by that gross idiot Birsingh Deo Bundela. Before his accession to the throne, the Emperor Jahangir was displeased with Shaikh Abul Fazl. This infidel [Birsingh] became a royal favourite by slaying him [Abul Fazl], and after Jahangir’s accession was rewarded for this service with the permission to build the temple, which he did at an expense of thirty-three lakhs of rupees.
Praised be the august God of the faith of Islam, that in the auspicious reign of this destroyer of infidelity and turbulence [Aurangzeb], such a wonderful and seemingly impossible work was successfully accomplished. On seeing this instance of the strength of the Emperor’s faith and the grandeur of his devotion to God, the proud Rajas were stifled, and in amazement they stood like facing the wall. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels, which had been set up in the temple, were brought to Agra, and buried under the steps of the mosque of the Begam Sahib, in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad.
17 December 1679: Hafiz Muhammad Amin Khan reported that some of his servants had ascended the hill and found the other side of the pass also deserted; (evidently) the Rana had evacuated Udaipur and fled. On the 4th January/12th Zil. H., the Emperor encamped in the pass. Hasan ‘Ali Khan was sent in pursuit of the infidel. Prince Muhammad ‘Azam and Khan Jahan Bahadur were permitted to view Udaipur. Ruhullah Khan and Ekkataz Khan went to demolish the great temple in front of the Rana’s palace, which was one of the rarest buildings of the age and the chief cause of the destruction of life and property of the despised worshippers. Twenty machator Rajputs [who] were sitting in the temple, vowed to give up their lives; first one of them came out to fight, killed some and was then himself slain, then came out another and so on, until every one of the twenty perished, after killing a large number of the imperialists including the trusted slave, Ikhlas. The temple was found empty. The hewers broke the images.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Saqi Mustad Khan, Maasir-i-Alamgiri, translated and annotated by Jadunath Sarkar, Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, 1947, reprinted by Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, Delhi, 1986. quoted in Shourie, Arun (2014). Eminent historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India : HarperCollins Publishers. Different translation: January, 1670. “In this month of Ramzan, the religious-minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura known as the Dehra of Keshav Rai. His officers accomplished it in a short time. A grand mosque was built on its site at a vast expenditure. The temple had been built by Bir Singh Dev Bundela, at a cost of 33 lakhs of Rupees. Praised be the God of the great faith of Islam that in the auspicious reign- of this destroyer of infidelity and turbulence, such a marvellous and [seemingly] impossible feat was accomplished. On seeing this [instance of the] strength of the Emperor’s faith and the grandeur of his devotion to God, the Rajahs felt suffocated and they stood in amazement like statues facing the walls. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels, which had been set up in the temple, were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the mosque of Jahanara, to be trodden upon continually.”
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1670s

Faith, Life, Victory, Change

“[we gave] permission to do what we wanted... It would be hard to imagine my work at that time [c. 1956 – 1960] without his [ Jasper John's] encouragement.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Source: 21st Century, Robert Rauschenberg, Works, Writings and Interviews, 2006, p. 71

Imagination, Time

“The king, in his zeal to propagate the faith, now marched against the Hindoos of Nagrakote [Nagarkot Kangra], breaking down their idols and razing their temples. The fort, at that time denominated the Fort of Bheem, was closely invested by the Mahomedans, who had first laid waste the country around it with fire and sword.'…'In the year AH 402 (AD 1011), Mahmood resolved on the conquest of Tahnesur [Thanesar (Haryana)], in the kingdom of Hindoostan. It had reached the ears of the king that Tahnesur was held in the same veneration by idolaters, as Mecca by the faithful; that they had there set up a number of idols, the principal of which they called Jugsom, pretending that it had existed ever since the creation. Mahmood having reached Punjab, required, according to the subsisting treaty with Anundpal, that his army should not be molested on its march through his country…'The Raja's brother, with two thousand horse was also sent to meet the army, and to deliver the following message:- "My brother is the subject and tributary of the King, but he begs permission to acquaint his Majesty, that Tahnesur is the principal place of worship of the inhabitants of the country: that if it is required by the religion of Mahmood to subvert the religion of others, he has already acquitted himself of that duty, in the destruction of the temple of Nagrakote. But if he should be pleased to alter his resolution regarding Tahnesur, Anundpal promises that the amount of the revenues of that country shall be annually paid to Mahmood; that a sum shall also be paid to reimburse him for the expense of his expedition, besides which, on his own part he will present him with fifty elephants, and jewels to a considerable amount." Mahmood replied, "The religion of the faithful inculcates the following tenet: That in proportion as the tenets of the prophet are diffused, and his followers exert themselves in the subversion of idolatry, so shall be their reward in heaven; that, therefore, it behoved him, with the assistance of God, to root out the worship of idols from the face of all India. How then should he spare Tahnesur?"… This answer was communicated to the Raja of Dehly, who, resolving to oppose the invaders, sent messengers throughout Hindoostan to acquaint the other rajas that Mahmood, without provocation, was marching with a vast army to destroy Tahnesur, now under his immediate protection. He observed, that if a barrier was not expeditiously raised against this roaring torrent, the country of Hindoostan would be soon overwhelmed, and that it behoved them to unite their forces at Tahnesur, to avert the impending calamity….”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. I, pp. 27-37.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

God, Faith, Religion, Communication

“It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"The Nature of Freedom", item 94
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

Freedom

“The CBS crew had arrived: Ed Bradley; his producer, David Gelber; and a cameraman. The 60 Minutes people had government permission to work on other stories in Beijing, but they went first to Shanghai as tourists, which gave them cover to work on the real story. Ordinary Chinese did not recognize Ed Bradley as a television star as he walked down the streets of Shanghai.”

Ed Bradley (1941–2006) News correspondent

[Troublemaker: One Man's Crusade Against China's Cruelty, 120, 0970402996, Harry Wu, ‎Hongda Harry Wu, ‎George Vecsey, 1996, Newsmax Media Inc]
About

People, Star

“John C. Calhoun was the philosopher-king of the old south, the spiritual mentor of Stephens, Davis, and most of the political leaders of the Confederacy. Bradford and McClellan, following Willmoore Kendall, are obsessed with the utterly false notion that Lincoln was somehow responsible for the permissive egalitarianism of the contemporary welfare state. But equality as such was no less important to Calhoun than to Lincoln. It was just a different kind of equality.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, Defending the Cause of Human Freedom (1994)

Falseness

“The explanation for capturing the vessel is perhaps to be found in Barroes’ remark: ‘It is true that there does exist a common right to all to navigate the seas and in Europe we recognize the rights which others hold against us; but the right does not extend beyond Europe and therefore the Portuguese as Lords of the Sea are justified in confiscating the goods of all those who navigate the seas without their permission.’ Strange and comprehensive claim, yet basically one which every European nation, in its turn, held firmly almost to the end of Western supremacy in Asia. It is true that no other nation put it forward so crudely or tried to enforce it so barbarously as the Portuguese in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, but the principle that the doctrines of international law did not apply outside Europe, that what would be barbarism in London or Paris is civilized conduct in Peking (e. g. the burning of the Summer Palace) and that European nations had no moral obligations in dealing with Asian peoples (as for example when Britain insisted on the opium trade against the laws of China, though opium smoking was prohibited by law in England itself) was pact of the accepted creed of Europe’s relations with Asia. So late as 1870 the President of the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce declared: ‘China can in no sense be considered a country entitled to all the same rights and privileges as civilized nations which are bound by international law.’ Till the end of European domination the fact that rights existed for Asians against Europeans was conceded only with considerable mental reservation. In countries under direct British occupation, like India, Burma and Ceylon, there were equal rights established by law, but that as against Europeans the law was not enforced very rigorously was known and recognized. In China, under extra‑territorial jurisdiction, Europeans were protected against the operation of Chinese laws. In fact, except in Japan this doctrine of different rights persisted to the very end and was a prime cause of Europe’s ultimate failure in Asia.”

K. M. Panikkar (1895–1963) Indian diplomat, academic and historian

Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945

People, Law, Failure, Sense

“One of the most dangerous words is 'extremist'. A person who commits acts of violence is not an 'extremist'; he is a criminal. If he commits those acts of violence with the object of detaching part of the territory of the United Kingdom and attaching it to a foreign country, he is an enemy under arms. There is the world of difference between a citizen who commits a crime, in the belief, however mistaken, that he is thereby helping to preserve the integrity of his country and his right to remain a subject of his sovereign, and a person, be he citizen or alien, who commits a crime with the intention of destroying that integrity and rendering impossible that allegiance. The former breaches the peace; the latter is executing an act of war. The use of the word 'extremist' of either or both conveys a dangerous untruth: it implies that both hold acceptable opinions and seek permissible ends, only that they carry them to 'extremes'. Not so: the one is a lawbreaker; the other is an enemy.

The same purpose, that of rendering friend and foe indistinguishable, is achieved by references to the 'impartiality' of the British troops and to their function as 'keeping the peace'. The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.

Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), pp. 487-488.
1970s

War, World, Peace, Law

“It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

As quoted in the U.S. Navy's Chips Ahoy magazine (July 1986) As quoted in Built to Learn: The Inside Story of How Rockwell Collins Became a True Learning Organization (2003) by Cliff Purington, Chris Butler, and Sarah Fister Gale, p. 171 The future: Hardware, Software, and People in Carver https://books.google.com/books?id=5Q7uAAAAMAAJ, 1983 Actually attested since mid-19th century. Variant: If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission. Variant: That brings me to the most important piece of advice that I can give to all of you: if you've got a good idea, and it's a contribution, I want you to go ahead and DO IT. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission. Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/19/forgive/

Forgiveness

“Nourished people, people who love and care for themselves, are also more efficient and nicer to be around. When you give yourself permission to relax, people will feel more relaxed around you; your environment will become more harmonious. Balance—between work and pleasure, giving and receiving, seriousness and levity—creates a happy healthy life.”

Kathy Freston American self-help writer

Quantum Wellness (2008)

Love, Life, People, Pleasure

“I'm here – but I haven't been given permission to drive.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

George Pascoe-Watson, "I wannabe No10 pilot", The Sun, 19 May 2006, p. 2.
Response to question by Sky News journalist "Do you like the feeling of being in the driving seat?" when in the Cockpit of an Airbus A380 on 18 May 2006.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

“The statute in question cannot be justified by reason of the fact that the publisher is permitted to show, before injunction issues, that the matter published is true and is published with good motives and for justifiable ends. If such a statute, authorizing suppression and injunction on such a basis, is constitutionally valid, it would be equally permissible for the legislature to provide that at any time the publisher of any newspaper could be brought before a court, or even an administrative officer (as the constitutional protection may not be regarded as resting on mere procedural details) and required to produce proof of the truth of his publication, or of what he intended to publish, and of his motives, or stand enjoined. If this can be done, the legislature may provide machinery for determining in the complete exercise of its discretion what are justifiable ends, and restrain publication accordingly. And it would be but a step to a complete system of censorship.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

Truth, Exercises, Motivation, Question

“Next morning the sun revealed a horrid spectacle on the vast plain south of PAnipat. On the actual field of the combat thirty-one distinct heaps of the slain were counted, the number of bodies in each ranging from 500 upwards to 1000 and in four up to 1500 a rough total of 28,000. In addition to these, the ditch round the Maratha camp was full of dead bodies, partly the victims of disease and famine during the long siege and partly wounded men who had crawled out of the fighting to die there. West and south of PAnipat city, the jungle and the road in the line of MarAtha retreat were littered with the remains of those who had fallen unresisting in the relentless DurrAni pursuit or from hunger and exhaustion. Their number - probably three-fourths non-combatants and one-fourth soldiers - could not have been far short of the vast total of those slain in the battlefield. 'The hundreds who lay down wounded, perished from the severity of the cold.'….
'After the havoc of combat followed massacre in cold blood. Several hundreds of MarAthas had hidden themselves in the hostile city of PAnipat through folly or helplessness; and these were hunted out next day and put to the sword. According to one plausible account, the sons of Abdus Samad Khan and Mian Qutb received the DurrAni king's permission to avenge their father's death by an indiscriminate massacre of the MarAthas for one day, and in this way nearly nine thousand men perished; these were evidently non-combatants. The eyewitness Kashiraj Pandit thus describes the scene: 'Every Durrani soldier brought away a hundred or two of prisoners and slew them in the outskirts of their camp, crying out, When I started from our country, my mother, father, sister and wife told me to slay so may kafirs for their sake after we had gained the victory in this holy war, so that the religious merit of this act [of infidel slaying] might accrue to them. In this way, thousands of soldiers and other persons were massacred. In the Shah's camp, except the quarters of himself and his nobles, every tent had a heap of severed heads before it. One may say that it was verily doomsday for the MarAtha people.'….
The booty captured within the entrenchment was beyond calculation and the regiments of Khans [i. e. 8000 troopers of AbdAli clansmen] did not, as far as possible, allow other troops like the IrAnis and the TurAnis to share in the plunder; they took possession of everything themselves, but sold to the Indian soldiers handsome Brahman women for one tuman and good horses for two tumans each.' The Deccani prisoners, male and female reduced to slavery by the victorious army numbered 22,000, many of them being the sons and other relatives of the sardArs or middle class men. Among them 'rose-limbed slave girls' are mentioned.' Besides these 22,000 unhappy captives, some four hundred officers and 6000 men fled for refuge to ShujA-ud-daulah's camp, and were sent back to the Deccan with monetary help by that nawab, at the request of his Hindu officers. The total loss of the MarAthas after the battle is put at 50,000 horses, captured either by the AfghAn army or the villagers along the route of flight, two hundred thousand draught cattle, some thousands of camels, five hundred elephants, besides cash and jewellery. 'Every trooper of the Shah brought away ten, and sometimes twenty camels laden with money. The captured horses were beyond count but none of them was of value; they came like droves of sheep in their thousands.”

Ahmed Shah Durrani (1722–1772) founder of the Durrani Empire, considered founder of the state of Afghanistan

Jadunath Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, Volume II, Fourth Edition, New Delhi, 1991, p.210-11

Death, Women, Men, Money

“During that time, he asked me for my phone number, which I gave to him. Later that evening, he invited me to his room. I said I didn’t feel right going alone, so two other women came with me. In the penthouse suite, I met Donald again. When we entered the room he grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each of us on the lips without asking for permission. He was wearing pyjamas. […] Donald then asked me "What do you want?"”

Jessica Drake (1974) American pornographic actress

"How much?" Jessica Drake: porn star is 11th woman to allege Trump sexual misconduct https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/22/trump-news-porn-star-jessica-drake-gloria-allred, The Guardian.com, 22 October 2016.

Women, Feeling, Kiss, Time

“Since the conception of human rights transcends local legislation and the citizenship of the person affected, it is not surprising that support for human rights can also come from anyone—whether or not she is a citizen of the same country as the person whose rights are threatened. A foreigner does not need the permission of a repressive government to try to help a person whose liberties are being violated. Indeed, in so far as human rights are seen as rights that any person has as a human being and not as a citizen of any particular country, the reach of the corresponding duties can also include any human being, irrespective of citizenship.”

Amartya Sen (1933) Indian economist

Amartya Sen, "Human Rights and Asian Values" Sixteenth Annual Morgenthau Memorial Lecture on Ethics and Foreign Policy, May 25, 1997; Republished in: Tibor R. Machan (2013), Business Ethics in the Global Market. p. 69
1990s

Support, Help, Personality, Country

““See if you can hold off this pack of blood-sucking scavengers. Here’s my duelling sword.” The King handed me his own sword! “You have full permission to use it on anyone who looks remotely like a physician.””

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Inversions (1998), Chapter 3 (p. 47)

“When any hungry wretch takes it into his head to ruin the kingdom, he goes to the king and says to him: 'Sire; if your majesty will give me the permission to raise money and a certain number of armed men, I will pay so many millions. The king then asks how it is intended to raise the money. It is by nothing else than the seizure of everybody in the kingdom, men and women, and by dint of torture compelling them to pay what is demanded. Such financiers are hateful and avaricious men. The king generally consents to their unjust proposals, as he thereby satisfies his own greed; he accords the asked-for permission, and demands security bonds.”

Niccolao Manucci (1638–1717) Italian writer and historian

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4
Storia do Mogor

Women, Men, Money, Hate

“Poets are being pursued by the philosophers today, out of the poverty of philosophy. God damn it, you might think a man had no business to be writing, to be a poet unless some philosophic stinker gave him permission.”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

Letter to James Laughlin (14 January 1944), published in The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams (1957) edited by John C. Thirlwall, p. 219
General sources

God, Business, Thinking

“I give permission
For this slow spring rain to soak
The violet beds.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

Haiku: This Other World (1998)

Spring

“I am a little to the right of … Why is the Attila comparison used? Fifth-century Hunnish depredations on the Roman Empire were the work of an overpowerful executive pursuing a policy of economic redistribution in an atmosphere of permissive social mores. I am a little to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I'm so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New Hampshire's recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

"I Agree With Me" (July/August 2004)

Marriage, Children, School, Sex

“We won this fight because everyone made themselves the hero of their own story. Everyone took it as their job to save this crucial freedom. They threw themselves into it. They did whatever they could think of to do. They didn’t stop to ask anyone for permission.”

Aaron Swartz (1986–2013) computer programmer and internet-political activist

Freedom to Connect speech (2012)
Context: We won this fight because everyone made themselves the hero of their own story. Everyone took it as their job to save this crucial freedom. They threw themselves into it. They did whatever they could think of to do. They didn’t stop to ask anyone for permission. … The senators were right: The Internet really is out of control. But if we forget that, if we let Hollywood rewrite the story so it was just big company Google who stopped the bill, if we let them persuade us we didn’t actually make a difference, if we start seeing it as someone else’s responsibility to do this work and it’s our job just to go home and pop some popcorn and curl up on the couch to watch Transformers, well, then next time they might just win. Let’s not let that happen.

Thinking, Freedom, Fight

“In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, is a war now thought permissible.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Context: In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, is a war now thought permissible.
It was not thus in ancient times. The earlier men were hunting men, and to hunt a neighboring tribe, kill the males, loot the village and possess the females, was the most profitable, as well as the most exciting, way of living. Thus were the more martial tribes selected, and in chiefs and peoples a pure pugnacity and love of glory came to mingle with the more fundamental appetite for plunder.
Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder; but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors. Showing war's irrationality and horror is of no effect on him. The horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life; it is life in extremis; war taxes are the only ones men never hesitate to pay, as the budgets of all nations show us.

War

“People do these things to other people. Not just in Nazi concentration camps and in Abu Ghraib when it was run by Saddam Hussein. Americans, too, do them when they have permission. When they are told or made to feel that those over whom they have absolute power deserve to be mistreated, humiliated, tormented.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Regarding the Torture of Others (2004)
Context: People do these things to other people. Not just in Nazi concentration camps and in Abu Ghraib when it was run by Saddam Hussein. Americans, too, do them when they have permission. When they are told or made to feel that those over whom they have absolute power deserve to be mistreated, humiliated, tormented. They do them when they are led to believe that the people they are torturing belong to an inferior, despicable race or religion. For the meaning of these pictures is not just that these acts were performed, but that their perpetrators had no sense that there was anything wrong in what the pictures show.

People, Feeling

“I think many of us go through our life not fully having permission to be who we are and what we're going to become.”

Martin de Maat (1949–2001) American theatre director

A Conversation with Martin de Maat (1998)
Context: I think many of us go through our life not fully having permission to be who we are and what we're going to become. Most of us are often looking for approval. We hate it when we're not approved of. It's that approval that has us in our minds worrying about what we're doing as we're doing it, trying to figure out whether or not it's appropriate or will be accepted. We walk through our lives like we're on our first date. Trying to see if we're appropriate and trying not to step on other peoples' toes... you know, cautiously, prophylactically, for fear of not being approved of. In this work, there's only approval.

Life, Thinking

“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don't give a darn.”

Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) American singer-songwriter and folk musician

Message on mimeographed copies of lyrics distributed to fans in the 1930s, as quoted by Pete Seeger in an NPR interview "Pete Seeger remembers Woody" (1996)
Context: This song is Copyrighted in U. S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don't give a darn. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.

“None of these are permissible modes of transition from one situation to another.”

Robert Nozick book Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Source: Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, The Entitlement Theory, p. 152
Context: Some people steal from others, or defraud them, or enslave them, seizing their product and preventing them from living as they choose, or forcibly exclude others from competing in exchanges. None of these are permissible modes of transition from one situation to another.

“In reality, few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage.”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

Frontpage Mag - Hamas-linked CAIR Rep. Arrested for Pedophilia http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/258279/hamas-linked-cair-rep-arrested-pedophilia-robert-spencer (10 June 2015) Context: Islamic apologists in the West argue furiously that child marriage has nothing to do with Islam, and that the idea that Muhammad married a child is the invention of greasy Islamophobes. In reality, few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage.

Marriage, Law, Reality

“When death comes, it does not ask your permission; it comes and takes you; it destroys you on the spot.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Vol. XI, p. 242
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works
Context: When death comes, it does not ask your permission; it comes and takes you; it destroys you on the spot. In the same way, can you totally drop hate, envy, pride of possession, attachment to beliefs, to opinions, to ideas, to a particular way of thinking? Can you drop all that in an instant? There is no “how to drop it”, because that is only another form of continuity. To drop opinion, belief, attachment, greed, or envy is to die — to die every day, every moment. If there is the coming to an end of all ambition from moment to moment, then you will know the extraordinary state of being nothing, of coming to the abyss of an eternal movement, as it were, and dropping over the edge — which is death. I want to know all about death, because death may be reality; it may be what we call God — that most extraordinary something that lives and moves and yet has no beginning and no end.

Death

“When I invented the web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission.”

Tim Berners-Lee (1955) British computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web

Berners-Lee T., Net Neutrality: This is Serious (June 2006) http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144 Context: When I invented the web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA. … Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it. Let's see whether the United States is capable as acting according to its important values, or whether it is, as so many people are saying, run by the misguided short-term interested of large corporations. I hope that Congress can protect net neutrality, so I can continue to innovate in the internet space. I want to see the explosion of innovations happening out there on the Web, so diverse and so exciting, continue unabated.

“I don't need your permission to be great.”

Ralph Smart

“No one can ruin your day without your permission. Remember that.”

Ralph Smart

“The fatwas reflect this belief in double standards. The differential attitude to conversion and apostasy illustrates this vividly. Islam regards it as a right and duty to convert persons from other religions. The ulema vehemently insist on it....Exactly the same position holds in regard to doing something or refraining from doing something out of regard for the other person’s religious sentiments.....An even more vivid instance is the stance in regard to the continuation of religious practices. It is the right and duty of a Muslim to carry on his religious rituals. ...Under no circumstances can the Islamic ruler give permission to kafirs to continue their religious rites, declares the Fatawa-i-Rizvia, and asks: shall he permit them to practise their kufr and thereby himself become a kafir?...It adds that there are several Hadis to the effect that no non-Muslim should remain in the Arab island...So, no non-Muslim shall be allowed to stay in the Arab island, but if a Bangladeshi who has entered India illegally is asked to leave, that is an assault on Islam!...Similarly, even today in no Islamic state can teachers in a school impart religious education of their faith to non-Muslim children...No restriction can be tolerated on teaching of the Quran and on religious instruction, declares Kifayatullah. ...And yet if we were to go by secularist discourse there is no religion which has abolished distinctions as Islam has, there is no religion which treats all equally as Islam does!”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

The World of Fatwas (Or The Shariah In Action)

School, Faith, Religion, Personality

“They are not multi-national, but supra-national — above nations. They don’t need any passports. They can go in and out of countries without permission from anyone.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Buckminster Fuller Talks Politics (1982)

Country

“In the future that globalists and feminists have imagined, for most of us there will only be more clerkdom and masturbation. There will only be more apologizing, more submission, more asking for permission to be men.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

The Way of Men (2012), The Bonobo Masturbation Society

Future, Imagination, Men

“At the risk of over-generalizing, my sense is that American poetry, where popular culture is concerned, is a poetry of freedom and permission—that there are certainly poets who embrace it and have enjoyed success, from a publishing perspective, in embracing it…”

Francisco Aragón (1968) poet

On how certain poetry intermingles popular culture in “Q & A: AMERICAN POETRY—Francisco Aragón” https://poetrysociety.org/features/q-a-american-poetry-1/francisco-arag%C3%B3n (Poetry Society of America)

Sense, Success, Freedom

“At this stage of my life with the permission of my family I came up with a sort of square rules of what I want to do from here onwards, the rules are very simple I said that I have to look after myself, I have to look after my family, I have to look after my friends and I have to do my charities in this order.”

Nasser Khalili (1945) British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist

Interview on The Art Of Collecting by Sky Arts - Professor Nasser David Khalili episode (February 21, 2018) https://vimeo.com/256957904

Family, Life

“Members of Congress had to surrender their phones before today’s CBP trip.But @JoaquinCastrotx was able to get a device in. This photo is of the women we spoke to. We asked their permission to photograph - they said yes, please share what’s happening.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

Twitter, https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1145840530624077825 (1 July 2019) Twitter Quotes (2019), July 2019

Photo, Women

“The 20th century, with its scores of millions of supernumerary dead, has been called the age of ideology. And the age of ideology, clearly, was a mere hiatus in the age of religion, which shows no sign of expiry. Since it is no longer permissible to disparage any single faith or creed, let us start disparaging all of them. To be clear: an ideology is a belief system with an inadequate basis in reality; a religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. It is straightforward — and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if He cared for humankind, He would never have given us religion.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"The voice of the lonely crowd" (2002)

God, Faith, Religion, Dead

“Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, "grace" metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, "Why don’t you say what you mean?"”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct. " Education by Poetry http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/edbypo.html", speech delivered at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly (February 1931) General sources

Way, Thinking, People

“Hip-hop saved me,. It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance. I have a chip on my shoulder I pet every morning, a constant feeling like I have something to prove. Hearing that the canon can’t be diversified, there’s no room for more brown faces—that fueled my fire. I loved music that people said was not music, that it was too violent, too crass, too sexual. And now everyone in the world is rapping Hamilton.”

Jason Reynolds (1983) author of young adult novels

As quoted in [Corbett, Sue, Jason Reynolds Is the Hardest-Working Man in Washington, https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/74244-jason-reynolds-is-the-hardest-working-man-in-washington.html, Publishers Weekly, 10 March 2020, July 14, 2017]

People, Communication, Music, Way

“[I]f suffering is bad for animals when we cause it, it is also bad for them when other animals cause it. That suffering is bad for those who experience it is not a human prejudice; nor is an effort to prevent wild animals from suffering a moralistic attempt to police the behavior of other animals. Even if we are not morally required to prevent suffering among animals in the wild for which we are not responsible, we do have a moral reason to prevent it, just as we have a general moral reason to prevent suffering among human beings that is independent both of the cause of the suffering and of our relation to the victims. The main constraint on the permissibility of acting on our reason to prevent suffering is that our action should not cause bad effects that would be worse than those we could prevent.”

Jeff McMahan (philosopher) (1954) American philosopher

" The Meat Eaters http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/the-meat-eaters/", The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2010

Bad luck, Suffering, Animals, Relation ships

“Islamic apologists in the West argue furiously that child marriage has nothing to do with Islam, and that the idea that Muhammad married a child is the invention of greasy Islamophobes. In reality, few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage.”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

Frontpage Mag - Hamas-linked CAIR Rep. Arrested for Pedophilia http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/258279/hamas-linked-cair-rep-arrested-pedophilia-robert-spencer (10 June 2015) 2010s

Marriage, Idea, Reality, Law

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.
Source: Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (1991), pp. 487-488

Peace, Country, War, Personality

“Everything changes when we give ourselves permission to be more selective in what we choose to do.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Twitter

Change

“Permission is for pansies, we dont need anyones permission to be who we are, and we dont need permission to be who we wanna be.”

Torrie Wilson (1975) American professional wrestler

WWE Hall of Fame induction (2019)

“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Light, People, Attitude

“To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Sleep, Time, Thinking, Wisdom

“...only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“The outsiders. I’m interested in the people that don’t necessarily fit and the thing that gives you permission to be uncomfortable. I like dark work because you’re forced to learn about certain things…”

Dael Orlandersmith (1959) American actress and writer

On the themes that she favors in “Dael Orlandersmith on ‘Until the Flood’” https://www.theintervalny.com/interviews/2018/02/dael-orlandersmith-on-until-the-flood/ in The Interval (2018 Feb 1)

People, Learning

“Let the United States know that with God's permission, the battle will continue to be waged on its territory until it leaves our lands, stops its support for the Jews, and lifts the unjust embargo on the Iraqi people who have lost more than one million children.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: In full: Al-Qaeda statement http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1590350.stm (10th October, 2001)

God, Children, People, Support

“The Americans should know that the storm of plane attacks will not abate, with God's permission. There are thousands of the Islamic nation's youths who are eager to die just as the Americans are eager to live.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: In full: Al-Qaeda statement http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1590350.stm (10th October, 2001)

God, Youth

“We should weigh out the consequences of everything we do, we should consider whether what we are doing is permissible or not. Habit has a big part in reformation of practice.”

Mirza Masroor Ahmad (1950) spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Eid and Friday Sermons Source: Self-reformation: Breaking Bad Habits https://www.alislam.org/friday-sermon/2013-12-20.html, Friday Sermon December 20th, 2013

Parting

“The Pfizer vaccine, one of the best ones, used in most developed countries, applied for permission in India in Dec-2020. India instead asked them to do more studies here. Pfizer withdrew its application in Feb-21. Imagine lives saved if we allowed the vaccine from December itself”

Chetan Bhagat (1974) Indian author, born 1974

Source: — Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) 2021 at Twitter https://twitter.com/chetan_bhagat/status/1387322830266814467

Imagination, Study, Country

“If you believe in the slippery slope here, it means that our entire society is perched on the slippery slope. It means that regulation has no value whatsoever, and that is not true.
Now, there are always consequences. We allow 16-year-olds to get driver's licenses, and a lot of them have accidents - but do we rescind the permission to drive a car at 16? No.”

Christopher Reeve (1952–2004) actor, director, producer, screenwriter

Source: "Testimony in favor of funding human cloning experiments" http://www.chrisreevehomepage.com/sp-testimony-bill1758.html [S. 1758 Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001] (Senate - March 5, 2002)

Cars

“There’s something about writing books that gives us the permission to discuss things that aren’t as easy to talk about in everyday life. To me, the whole point of writing books is to look at the unexamined, the unspeakable, and the unarticulated.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Mineo, Liz (interviewer), "That feeling you get when listening to sad music? It's humanity", The Harvard Gazette, May 11, 2022.

Books, Life

“I may say without exaggeration that this is a revolutionary approach; it is very painful, because this system of permission was the underpinning of the great bureaucratic system on all levels. And that democratic system, a corrupt one, it has been built for years and decades.”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: [2011-06-21, В Страсбурге Янукович перепутал демократию с бюрократией, https://focus.ua/politics/190373, 2022-06-12, ФОКУС, ru]

Pain

“A woman must not be violated even with the thought. A woman is the paradise to be seen that it is forbidden to touch without permission.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Una donna non deve essere violata neanche con il pensiero. Una donna è il paradiso da vedere vietato toccare senza permesso.
Source: prevale.net

Quotes about permission page 3

Quotes about permission
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