Quotes about politics
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“And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic nor popular - but one must take it because it is right.”

David Levithan book Wide Awake

Source: Wide Awake

Time

“One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.”

Paulo Freire book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogy of the Oppressed

People, World, Education

“Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think.”

Patrick Lencioni (1965) American writer

Source: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

People, Thinking

“There was a door, but it was terribly bashful, so Auri politely pretended not to see it.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Source: The Slow Regard of Silent Things

“Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.”

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

"Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949)
Context: A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities.
And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine — each was discovered by one man.
Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.

Life, Health, Communication, Thinking

“it istrue that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
Source: From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1946), p. 124; Essay "Politics as a vocation"
Context: The problem — the experience of the irrationality of the world — has been the driving force of all religious evolution. The Indian doctrine of karma, Persian dualism, the doctrine of original sin, predestination and the deus absconditus, all these have grown out of this experience. Also the early Christians knew full well the world is governed by demons and that he who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with diabolical powers and for his action it is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant.

Evil

“He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”

George Bernard Shaw Major Barbara

Source: 1900s, Major Barbara (1905)

Thinking, Funny

“For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

Source: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

Support

“In my fool hardy youth, when my friends were dreaming of heroic deeds in the realms of engineering and law, finance and national politics, I dreamt of becoming a librarian.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Youth, Law, Dreams, Fools

“If a man isn't being nice when you're out, all you have to do is remain polite and then go home early.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Home

“All efforts to make politics aesthetic culminate in one thing, war.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

War, Effort

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

In Defense of Women (1918)
1910s
Variant: The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Source: In Defense Of Women
Context: Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.

“Alliance - In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Devil's Dictionary and Other Works

“What kind of justice is this?
Where the poor go to prison and the rich go free.
Where witnesses are rented, bought, or bribed.
Where people are tried not because of any criminal actions but because of their political beliefs.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Source: Assata: An Autobiography

People, Justice

“The only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to ensure the unhindered development of the individual.”

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

“What good is it to be rich if we canna scrape up the scratch to buy a political prisoner on a whim?”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: MacRieve

“He was so excessively polite that Wallendar suspected he had endured many humiliations in his life.”

Henning Mankell book The Dogs of Riga

Source: The Dogs of Riga

Life

“War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to 'feel good' about themselves, or their country, is a measure of that failure.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

War, People, Feeling, Imagination

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Love

“Always speak politely to an enraged dragon.”

Steven Brust book Jhereg

Source: Jhereg

“To abstain from politics is in itself a political attitude.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: Prime of Life

“Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: Talking About a Revolution: Interviews with Michael Albert, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, bell hooks, Peter Kwong, Winona LaDuke, Manning Marable, Urvashi Vaid, and Howard Zinn

Hope, Change, Despair

“The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"A Cult of Ignorance", Newsweek (21 January 1980) http://media.aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf General sources Context: There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Life, Way, Democracy, Knowledge

“He's a two-faced, cutthroat, dirt-dumb, chickenshit, slimy little bastard… with a bright future in politics.”

John Grisham book The Confession

Source: Attorney Robbie Flak speaking of the (fictional) Governor of Texas, The Confession, Ch. 12 (2010)

Future

“The most elementary of good manners… at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics.”

Laura Esquivel book Like Water for Chocolate

Source: Like Water for Chocolate

Sadness, Religion, Personality

“Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

Source: Why Marx Was Right

“I like politics and history and am happiest when having a good argument about ideas.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists

Source: We Should All Be Feminists

History, Idea

“Are you out of your mind?"
It's not polite to lie to your best friend. "It's a possibility.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Lie

“When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Variant: When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

“He laid into me with the same gusto as a right-wing political pundit on the O'Reilly Factor defending President's Bush right to vacation six days out of the week.”

Chelsea Handler book Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (2008)
Source: Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

“He was bookish, she was not; he was theoretical, she political. She called a rose a rose. He called it an accumulation of cultural and biological constructions circulating around the mutually attracting binary poles of nature/artifice.”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Unspecified edition, p. 225.
Source: On Beauty (2005)

Nature

“When you put four Alaskans into a room, you have five marriages, six divorces, and seven political parties.”

Dana Stabenow (1952) American writer

Marriage

“The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

“One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption.”

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist

Democracy

“When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of Hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them. They show us the state of our decay.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

Quoted in the Manchester Guardian (31 December 1977), and Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations (1988) https://web.archive.org/web/20000709051930/http://www.bartleby.com/63/90/4790.html edited by James B. Simpson; Says Who?: A Guide To The Quotations Of The Century (1988) by Jonathon Green, p. 17 http://books.google.com/books?id=xUwOAQAAMAAJ&q=%22When+childhood+dies,+its+corpses+are+called+adults%22&dq=%22When+childhood+dies,+its+corpses+are+called+adults%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KZO4U_WwFJSlqAaquoKoCg&ved=0CK0BEOgBMBk and The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1989), p. 45 http://books.google.com/books?id=bs0J36MpieIC&pg=PA45&dq=%22When+childhood+dies,+its+corpses+are+called+adults%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KZO4U_WwFJSlqAaquoKoCg&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=%22When%20childhood%20dies%2C%20its%20corpses%20are%20called%20adults%22&f=false

Love, Children, Hell, Childhood

“Yanking his inner manwhore back to the land of polite conversating, he forced his hands to stop”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

“In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

“In politics, my dear fellow, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas — no feelings, but interests; in politics we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle, that is all.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Men, Feeling, Idea

“The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness.”

Ariel Gore (1970) American writer

Source: Atlas of the Human Heart

People, World, Silence, Learning

“If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Idea, Business, Appearance

“I wanted to be a psychological engineer, but we lacked the facilities, so I did the next best thing - I went into politics. It's practically the same thing.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Source: Foundation

“I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to James Madison (30 January 1787); referring to Shays' Rebellion Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 6:65
1780s

World

“There's a ghost in this house! An unquiet spirit!"
Unquiet spirit?" Shane said under his breath. "Is that politically correct for pissed off? You know, like Undead American or something?”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

Housing

“Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery.”

Terry Goodkind book The Pillars of Creation

Source: The Pillars of Creation

Personality

“Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise…”

Emma Thompson (1959) British actress and writer

Source: The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

Love, Soul

“I began to see that for some, religion was just a form of politics you couldn’t criticize.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Source: My Life on the Road

Religion

“It's one of the advantages of being a woman. I get to do all sorts of unfair things, and you have to accept them because you're too polite not to.
--Polgara”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

Source: The Seeress of Kell

“I smiled back, the importance of manners, my mother always said, is inversely related to how inclined one is to use them, or, in other words, sometimes politeness is all that stands between oneself and madness.”

Nicole Krauss book Great House

Source: Great House

Smile, Madness

“What an alliance, huh? A Dark-Hunter and a Spathi united to guard an Apollite. Who would have ever imagined? (Wulf)
Love makes strange bedfellows. (Acheron)
I thought that was politics. (Wulf)
It’s both. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Love, Imagination

“Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Pt. 2, ch. 16
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

People

“It was not polite for a Temujai general to allow his emotions to show.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Battle for Skandia

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Notes on the Next War (1935)

War

“In polite society, we call our obsessions hobbies.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“You suffer from the oldest delusion in politics. You think you can change the world by talking to a leader. Leaders are the effects, not the causes of changes.”

Alasdair Gray book Lanark: A Life in Four Books

Source: Lanark

World, Thinking, Suffering, Change

“They were not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, they were absent in the Constitution and they were invisible in the new political democracy. They were the women of early America.”

Howard Zinn book A People's History of the United States

Source: A People's History of the United States

Women, Democracy

“Liz cleared her throat. "Isn't there a more polite term we're supposed to use nowadays? Like…. little person, or vertically challenged, or-"
"I'm not going to call myself the god of vertically challenged people," Bes grumbled. "I'm a dwarf!”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

God, People, Personality

“Politics always change. Stories never do.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

Change

“…but all day long I would be training myself to think, to understand, to criticize, to know myself; I was seeking for the absolute truth: this preoccupation did not exactly encourage polite conversation.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

Truth, Understanding, Thinking, Training

“Excuse me, Bane?" said Roderick Morgenstern. "Are you attending?"
"I'm so sorry," Magnus said politely. "Somebody incredibly attractive just came into the room, and I ceased to pay attention to a word you were saying.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale

“Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.”

James Ellroy (1948) Novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist

“God,” I moaned. “Do they use that stuff as rocket fuel?”
“No one made you keep drinking it.”
“Hey, don’t get preachy. Besides, I had to be polite.”
“Sure,” she said.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

God, Drink

“The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Way

“People who believe in politics are like people who believe in God: they are sucking wind through bent straws.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

God, People

“Indeed, it's futile to try and use Holy Scripture to support any political position. I deeply distrust anyone who does. Just look at what an Islamic Republic is like.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Support

“His cold politeness, his ceremonious grace, were worse than anything.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

“Come on, let's get you a drink. How's your love life, anyway?

Oh God. Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to them and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still have sex?”

Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary

Source: Bridget Jones's Diary

Love, Life, God, Marriage

“Amazing what the British do with language; the nuances of politeness. The world's great diplomats, surely.”

Anne Rice book The Queen of the Damned

Source: The Queen of the Damned

World

“All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.”

Jim Butcher Proven Guilty

Source: Proven Guilty

“Political activism is seductive because it seems to offer the possibility that one can improve society, make things better, without going through the personal ordeal of rearranging one's perceptions and transforming one's self.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Source: Still Life with Woodpecker

Personality

“Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 99, p. 330
Context: Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?

Love, Lovers

“Any serious social, political, and economic change must include veganism.”

Gary L. Francione (1954) American legal scholar

Change

“I know it may come as a shock, but it's sort of considered polite to wait for the consent of the woman. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if you don't wait, you may have to deal with pesky criminal charges like kidnapping and rape.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Waiting

“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

From an interview for Italian television (RAI) (10 March 1986) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106223 Second term as Prime Minister Context: In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.

Thinking, Personality

“The government cannot love you, and any politics that works on a different assumption is destined for no good.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

Love

“politics were as bad as mathematics, and that the mission of politicians seemed to be calling each other names”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Mathematics

“But he does insist on a conversation. Goddamn it! Why can't people just do what I want them to do and be gone? It's a worldwide conspiracy to make me be polite when I don't want to be.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

People

“Christopher discovered that you dealt with obnoxious masters and most older boys the way you dealt with governesses: you quite politely told them the truth in the way they wanted to hear it, so that they thought they had won and left you in peace.”

Diana Wynne Jones book The Lives of Christopher Chant

Source: The Lives of Christopher Chant

Truth, Peace, Way, Boy

“I’m being ironic. Don't interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic, it’s not polite.”

Ray Bradbury book The Martian Chronicles

Usher II (1950)
Source: The Martian Chronicles (1950)

“Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Literature, Question

“Being polite to a person is not a sign of respect for them. It is merely a sign of a good upbringing and a balanced nature.”

Brandon Sanderson The Wheel of Time

Source: A Memory of Light

Nature, Personality

“The sweetness and generosity and politeness and gentleness and humanity of the French had shown me how lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Love, Life, Time

“The Emperor decided to make a proclamation to his troops about the importance of compassion in the face of the rising tide of heinous fuckery and political weaselocity in the nearby kingdom of the United States.”

Christopher Moore book A Dirty Job

Source: A Dirty Job

“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947

Religion, Faith

“American political opportunities are loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Richard Dawkins on militant atheism http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html, (February 2002) Context: We've reached a truly remarkable situation: a grotesque mismatch between the American intelligencia and the American electorate. A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists, and probably the majority of the intelligencia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public. If I'm right, this means that high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it: the intelligencia, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.

Intelligence

“All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.”

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

Peace, Justice

“When you sit face to face with someone who is pleasant, respectful, and polite, you have hard time reminding yourself that nothing he says is true/sincere.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Time, Sincerity

“The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers.”

Arthur Koestler book Darkness at Noon

Source: Darkness at Noon

“Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty political slogan.”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

Response to FDA complaint (1954)
Context: Inquiry in the realm of Basic Natural Law is outside the judicial domain of this or ANY OTHER KIND OF SOCIAL ADMINISTRATION ANYWHERE ON THIS GLOBE, IN ANY LAND, NATION, OR REGION.
Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty political slogan.

Error, Freedom, Learning

“These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

"The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/addams6.htm; this piece by Jane Addams was first published in 1892 and later appeared as chapter six of Twenty Years at Hull House (1910) Context: These young people accomplish little toward the solution of this social problem, and bear the brunt of being cultivated into unnourished, oversensitive lives. They have been shut off from the common labor by which they live which is a great source of moral and physical health. They feel a fatal want of harmony between their theory and their lives, a lack of coördination between thought and action. I think it is hard for us to realize how seriously many of them are taking to the notion of human brotherhood, how eagerly they long to give tangible expression to the democratic ideal. These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

Life, Women, Men, People

“The term "political correctness" has always appalled me, reminding me of Orwell's "Thought Police" and fascist regimes.”

Helmut Newton (1920–2004) German-Australian photographer

American Photo (January/February 2000), p. 90
Context: Since the commercialization and banality of editorial magazine pages have made this work uninteresting, advertising has become an increasingly important part of my work. It is interesting to compare European and American mores in regard to my work. One will notice that most of my European images have a stronger sexual content that those destined for American publication. The term "political correctness" has always appalled me, reminding me of Orwell's "Thought Police" and fascist regimes.

“I hate rude behavior in a man,' he explained in his quiet, unassuming drawl. 'I won't tolerate it.' He politely tipped his hat, and rode away.”

Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove

Source: Lonesome Dove

Hate, Behavior