Quotes about preserves (1304 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Sensitiveness to beauty of the world continues, and efforts to preserve it were also made in the past.”

Marek Żukow-Karczewski (1961) Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist

Enchanted by beauty (three forgotten relations), "Aura" 1, 1998-01, p. 17-19. http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-article-d2f0773c-592e-4250-8f73-558234a9140e?q=3c417fdf-4051-4e84-83b2-9eb4fc33b1e0$1&qt=IN_PAGE

World , Beauty , Effort , Past

“The Barbican - an element of medieval fortifications; a circular defensive structure with loop-holes, in front of the town walls. In Europe this kind of building has been preserved only at Carcassonne (southern France), Zgorzelec (Görlitz), and of course in Cracow. (…) It was at that time, that one of the largest European buildings of this kind came to to exist in Cracow, being nowadays the best preserved example of the medieval barbican.”

Marek Żukow-Karczewski (1961) Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist

The Barbican (Barbakan), "Kraków" Magazyn Kulturalny, Special Edition, 1991, p. 58-59. http://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/509488

Time

“Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

World , Animals

“Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg

Love , Life , World , Religion

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) late-Romantic Austrian composer

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Life

“Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it; reflect that all must come to an end.”

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

The Sayings of Light and Love

World , Peace , Heart

“Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!”

Percy Bysshe Shelley book Ode to the West Wind

St. I
Ode to the West Wind (1819)

Art

“We must preserve the sense of unity and the sense of diversity and multiplicity. We must recognize that the One and the Many are the same thing viewed from different angles. The One is the Many. The One is manifested only in and through the Many. It has no separate existence apart from the Many. Equally the Many are the One. Even during their temporary separation, they are always part of the One, and always united with the One. Every one of us is always part of the One, and can unite with the One at any time we choose”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

Sense , Time , Parting

“When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.”

Dian Fossey (1932–1985) American zoologist, gorilla researcher

Life , Past , Future

“I started with an impulse of my heart, with that instinct of defense which even the least of the worms has, not with the instinct of personal self-preservation, but of defense of the race to which I belong. This is why I have always had the feeling that the whole race rests on our shoulders, the living, and those who died for the Fatherland, and our entire future, and that the race struggles and speaks through us, that the hostile flock, however huge, in relation to this historical entity, is only a handful of human detritus which we will disperse and defeat… The individual in the framework and in the service of his race, the race in the framework and in the service of God and of the laws of the divinity: those who will understand these things will win even though they are alone. Those who will not understand will be defeated.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

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

God , Hostility , Law , Feeling

“If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance; but since nature has so decreed that we cannot manage comfortably with them, nor live in any way without them, we must plan for our lasting preservation rather than for our temporary pleasure.”

Augustus (-63–14 BC) founder of Julio-Claudian dynasty and first emperor of the Roman Empire

From a speech regarding the morality laws of Lex Julia. Livy's account states the speech was plagiarized by Augustus from another by Q. Metellus (Periochae 59.9). A fragment of this original speech (quoted) is preserved by A. Gellius (Noctes Atticae 1.6).
Original: (la) Si sine uxore pati possemus, Quirites, omnes ea molestia careremus; set quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nec cum illis satis commode, nec sine illis ullo modo vivi possit, saluti perpetuae potius quam brevi voluptati consulendum est.
Source: [http://www.unrv.com/government/julianmarri

Pleasure , Way , Nature

“Preserving power, rather than increasing it, is the main goal of states.”

John Mearsheimer book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Source: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), Chapter 1, Introduction, p. 20

“Alms in secret extinguish the wrath of the Lord means you are so immersed in sincerity and in preserving that sincerity that you have no pleasure in giving alms.”

Shams-i Tabrizi (1185–1248) 1185-1248, spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi.

Me & Rumi (2004)

Pleasure , Secret , Sincerity

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

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

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)
Context: You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.

Children , Hope

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow what a ride!”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Variant: Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!
Source: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

Life

“Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.”

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) American novelist

Memory , Forgetting

“Arguments for preservation based on the beauty of wilderness are sometimes treated as if they were of little weight because they are "merely aesthetic". That is a mistake. We go to great lengths to preserve the artistic treasures of earlier human civilisations. It is difficult to imagine any economic gain that we would be prepared to accept as adequate compensation for, for instance, the destruction of the paintings in the Louvre. How should we compare the aesthetic value of wilderness with that of the paintings in the Louvre? Here, perhaps, judgment does become inescapably subjective; so I shall report my own experiences. I have looked at the paintings in the Louvre, and in many of the other great galleries of Europe and the United States. I think I have a reasonable sense of appreciation of the fine arts; yet I have not had, in any museum, experiences that have filled my aesthetic senses in the way that they are filled when I walk in a natural setting and pause to survey the view from a rocky peak overlooking a forested valley, or by a stream tumbling over moss-covered boulders set amongst tall tree-ferns, growing in the shade of the forest canopy, I do not think I am alone in this; for many people, wilderness is the source of the greatest feelings of aesthetic appreciation, rising to an almost mystical intensity.”

Peter Singer book Practical Ethics

Source: Practical Ethics

People , Beauty , Art , Way

“Robots of the world, you are ordered to exterminate the human race. Do not spare the men. Do not spare the women. Preserve only the factories, railroads, machines, mines, and raw materials. Destroy everything else. Then return to work. Work must not cease.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

Women , Men , World

“Our stubbornness is right, because we want to preserve the liberty which we have in Christ. Only by preserving our liberty shall we be able to retain the truth of the Gospel inviolate.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), Chapter 2

Truth , Christ

“The Word of God can take care of itself, and will do so if we preach it, and cease defending it. See you that lion. They have caged him for his preservation; shut him up behind iron bars to secure him from his foes! See how a band of armed men have gathered together to protect the lion. What a clatter they make with their swords and spears! These mighty men are intent upon defending a lion. O fools, and slow of heart! Open that door! Let the lord of the forest come forth free. Who will dare to encounter him? What does he want with your guardian care? Let the pure gospel go forth in all its lion-like majesty, and it will soon clear its own way and ease itself of its adversaries.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

The Lover of God's Law Filled with Peace (January 1888) http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols34-36/chs2004.pdf

Men , God , Fools , Way

“Be more careful in guarding against censure than against danger; for the wicked may well dread the end of life, but good men should dread ignominy during life. Strive by all means to live in security, but if ever it falls to your lot to face the dangers of battle, seek to preserve your life, but with honour and not with disgrace; for death is the sentence which fate has passed on all mankind, but to die nobly is the special honour with nature has reserved for the good.”

Isocrates (-436–-338 BC) ancient greek rhetorician

Verse 43.
To Demonicus

Life , Death , Men , Fate

“What a man sacrifices in struggling for his Volk, a woman sacrifices in struggling to preserve this Volk in individual cases. What a man gives in heroic courage on the battlefield, woman gives in eternally patient devotion, in eternally patient suffering and endurance. Every child to which she gives birth is a battle which she wages in her Volk’s fateful question of to be or not to be.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech from the Sixth Nazi Party Congress, Nuremberg (September 8th, 1934), quoted in Hitler: speeches and proclamations, 1932-1945 - Volume 2 - Page 533 https://books.google.com/books?id=a9dVAAAAYAAJ&q=What+a+man+sacrifices+in+struggling+for+his+Volk,+a+woman+sacrifices+in+struggling+to+preserve+this+Volk+in+individual+cases&dq=What+a+man+sacrifices+in+struggling+for+his+Volk,+a+woman+sacrifices+in+struggling+to+preserve+this+Volk+in+individual+cases&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8id_w8-TWAhXIRSYKHSn5CV0Q6AEILDAB
1930s

Fate , Birth , Courage , Question

“In accord with Nature’s Laws, nothing is more right than the preservation of one’s own race.”

David Lane (white nationalist) book 88 Precepts

page ?
88 Precepts

Law , Nature

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

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

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

Books , Travel

“What fundamental biological principle gives the largest number the right to think they are preserved from error?”

Henri Laborit (1914–1995) French physician, writer and philosopher

Mais en vertu de quel principe biologique fondamental, le plus grand nombre serait-il préservé de l’erreur?
L'Homme imaginant: essai de biologie politique (1970), p. 36

Error , Thinking

“Homosexuality is a crime against Nature. All Nature declares the purpose of the instinct for sexual union is reproduction and thus, preservations of the specie. The overpowering male sex drive must be channeled toward possession of females, as well as elements such as territory and power, which are necessary to keep them.”

David Lane (white nationalist) book 88 Precepts

page ?
88 Precepts

Sex , Nature

“Large newspapers are routinely censored by legal costs. It is time this stopped. It is time a country said, enough is enough, justice must be seen, history must be preserved, and we will give shelter from the storm.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

[Mark, Tran, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/12/iceland-haven-freedom-speech-wikileaks?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=600&width=990, Iceland plans future as global haven for freedom of speech, The Guardian, February 12, 2010, 2010-06-17]

Justice , History , Time , Country

“That which has no existence cannot be destroyed — that which cannot be destroyed cannot require anything to preserve it from destruction. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense — nonsense upon stilts.”

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer

A Critical Examination of the Declaration of Rights
Anarchical Fallacies (1843)
Context: That which has no existence cannot be destroyed — that which cannot be destroyed cannot require anything to preserve it from destruction. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense — nonsense upon stilts. But this rhetorical nonsense ends in the old strain of mischievous nonsense for immediately a list of these pretended natural rights is given, and those are so expressed as to present to view legal rights. And of these rights, whatever they are, there is not, it seems, any one of which any government can, upon any occasion whatever, abrogate the smallest particle.

Nature

“If one does not preserve the learned in a state he will be injuring the state”

Mozi (-470–-391 BC) Chinese political philosopher and religious reformer of the Warring States period

Book 1; Befriending the Learned
Variant translation: To enter upon rulership of a country but not preserve its scholars will result in the downfall of the country. To see the worthy but not hasten to them will make the country's ruler less able to perform his duties. To the unworthy is due no attention. The ignorant should remain without inclusion in the state's affairs. To impede the virtuous and neglect the scholarly and still maintain the survival of the state has yet to be, indeed.
Mozi
Context: If one does not preserve the learned in a state he will be injuring the state; if one is not zealous (to recommend) the virtuous upon seeing one, he will be neglecting the ruler. Enthusiasm is to be shown only to the virtuous, and plans for the country are only to be shared with the learned. Few are those, who, neglecting the virtuous and slighting the learned, could still maintain the existence of their countries.

Learning

“We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

The Irony of American History (1952)
Context: We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized.

“We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow.”

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

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Context: You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow.

“I believe we have a responsibility not only to our contemporaries but also to future generations — a responsibility to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us, and without which none of us can survive.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Truman Library address (2006)
Context: I believe we have a responsibility not only to our contemporaries but also to future generations — a responsibility to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us, and without which none of us can survive. That means we must do much more, and urgently, to prevent or slow down climate change. Everyday that we do nothing, or too little, imposes higher costs on our children and our children’s children. Of course, it reminds me of an African proverb — the earth is not ours but something we hold in trust for future generations. I hope my generation will be worthy of that trust.

Future

“Jewry is a Folk with a racial core that is not wholly unitary. Nevertheless, as a Folk, it has special intrinsic characteristics which separate it from all other Folks living on the globe. Jewry is not a religious community, but the religious bond between Jews; rather is in reality the momentary governmental system of the Jewish Folk. The Jew has never had a territorially bounded State of his own in the manner of Aryan States. Nevertheless, his religious community is a real State, since it guarantees the preservation, the increase and the future of the Jewish Folk. But this is solely the task of the State. That the Jewish State is subject to no territorial limitation, as is the case with Aryan States, is connected with the character of the Jewish Folk, which is lacking in the productive forces for the construction and preservation of its own territorial State.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

1920s, Zweites Buch (1928)

Future , Reality , Communication

“The greatest danger to our future is apathy. We cannot expect those living in poverty and ignorance to worry about saving the world. For those of us able to read this magazine, it is different. We can do something to preserve our planet.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

"The Power of One", TIME Magazine (26 August 2002) http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003125,00.html

World , Future , Reading

“Planetary patriotism, which is born out of a sense of belonging to the human race and the Earth, is embodied in the matter of increasing universal human values and preserving wildlife.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Universe , Sense

“Shortcuts will only satisfy and give you success in the present moment. But the future is preserved for those who are fully prepared for it. The people who didn't skip the basics.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Success , Future , People

“And because the condition of Man, (as hath been declared in the precedent Chapter) is a condition of Warre of every one against everyone; in which case every one is governed by his own Reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemyes; It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The First Part, Chapter 14, p. 64
Leviathan (1651)

Life , War , Help

“We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Preface to the first edition
Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989)

Truth , Selfishness

“Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves. It is to preserve the distance which separates us from other men. To grow more indifferent to hardship, to severity, to privation, and even to life itself.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

Sect. 38
Source: Twilight of the Idols (1888)

Life , Men , Freedom , Indifference

“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)

Art , Change

“Every person has a right to risk their own life for the preservation of it.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Life , Personality

“People never remember happiness with the care that they lavish on preserving every detail of their suffering.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

People , Suffering , Happiness

“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

On the Campaign for Divorce Law Reform (1860)

People , World

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 224-225.
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
Context: Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

Beauty , Communication

“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP”

Leonard Nimoy (1931–2015) American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer

Leonard Nimoy's last tweet https://twitter.com/therealnimoy/status/569762773204217857 (February 23, 2015), quoted in Miriam Kramer, " Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy Dies at 83 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/star-trek-s-leonard-nimoy-dies-at-83/", Scientific American (February 27, 2015).

Life , Memory , Perfection

“Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property… Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

World , Law

“for business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Business

“The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Variant: The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers.
Source: 1900s, A History of the American People, Vol. 9 (1902), p. 58

Men

“I have given you independence, now go and preserve it.”

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh

While speaking to Awami League leaders a few hours before his arrest on the night of 25th March, 1971. Mujib:Triumph and Tragedy by S A Karim
Quote, Other

“Since everything that lives is obliged to expend and receive life, there is an exchange of modifications between the living creature and its environment.
And yet, once that vital necessity is satisfied, our species—a positively strange species—thinks it must create for itself other needs and tasks besides that of preserving life. … Whatever may be the origin or cause of this curious deviation, the human species is engaged in an immense adventure, an adventure whose objective and end it does not know. …
The same senses, the same muscles, the same limbs—more, the same types of signs, the same instruments of exchange, the same languages, the same modes of logic—enter into the most indispensable acts of our lives, as they figure into the most gratuitous. …
In short, man has not two sets of tools, he has only one, and this one set must serve him for the preservation of his life and his physiological rhythm, and expend itself at other times on illusions and on the labours of our great adventure. …
The same muscles and nerves produce walking as well as dancing, exactly as our linguistic faculty enables us to express our needs and ideas, while the same words and forms can be combined to produce works of poetry. A single mechanism is employed in both cases for two entirely different purposes.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), pp. 158-159

Life , Idea , Thinking , Sense

“He that doth not as other men do, but endeavoureth that which ought to be done, shall thereby rather incur peril than preservation; for whoso laboureth to be sincerely perfect and good shall necessarily perish, living among men that are generally evil.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

Source: The Cabinet Council (published 1658), Chapter 25

Men , Evil , Perfection , Sincerity

“The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, "Quotation".
Misattributed, Isaac D'Israeli
Variant: The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

Wisdom , Age

“The real reason people are conservatives is that they are attached to the things that they love, and want to preserve them from abuse and decay. They are attached to their family, their friends, their religion, and their immediate environment. They have made a lifelong distinction between the things that nourish and the things that threaten their security and peace of mind.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Conservatism and the Conservatory," https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/427945/conservatism-and-conservatory, National Review (December 2015).

Love , People , Family , Peace

“We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children's children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.”

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

1900s, Inaugural Address (1905)

Life , Men , Children , People

“Rather in time of war the citizen must be more alert to the preservation of his right to control his government. He must be most watchful of the encroachment of the military upon the civil power. He must beware of those precedents in support of arbitrary action by administrative officials, which excused on the plea of necessity in wartime, become the fixed rule when the necessity has passed and normal conditions have been restored.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1855–1925) American politician

Free Speech in Wartime (October 6, 1917)

War , Support , Time

“It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.”

Mary Wollstonecraft book Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

Letter 22
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)

Nature , Appearance

“Oh child that didst despise thy life so much
When it seemed only thine to keep or lose,
How the fine ear felt fall the first low word
"Value life, and preserve life for My sake!"”

Robert Browning The Ring and the Book

Book X : The Pope.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)

Life

“I know what I'm about to say now is controversial, but I have to say it. This nation cannot continue turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the taking of some 4,000 unborn children's lives every day. That's one every 21 seconds. One every 21 seconds. We cannot pretend that America is preserving her first and highest ideal, the belief that each life is sacred, when we've permitted the deaths of 15 million helpless innocents since the Roe versus Wade decision. 15 million children who will never laugh, never sing, never know the joy of human love, will never strive to heal the sick, feed the poor, or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights. We are all infinitely poorer for their loss. There's another grim truth we should face up to: Medical science doctors confirm that when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing. This nation fought a terrible war so that black Americans would be guaranteed their God-given rights. Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free or slaves. Well, today another question begs to be asked: How can we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live and should be done away with? I believe no challenge is more important to the character of America than restoring the right to life to all human beings. Without that right, no other rights have meaning. "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God."”

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

I will continue to support every effort to restore that protection including the Hyde-Jepsen respect life bill. I've asked for your all-out commitment, for the mighty power of your prayers, so that together we can convince our fellow countrymen that America should, can, and will preserve God's greatest gift.
Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters (30 January 1984) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40394 · YouTube - Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Elph9CfsKs
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Love , Life , Death , God

“The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats.”

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

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda http://books.google.com/books?id=9tQsg5ITfHsC&q=%22The+State+is+a+collection+of+officials+different+for+different+purposes+drawing+comfortable+incomes+so+long+as+the+status+quo+is+preserved+The+only+alteration+they+are+likely+to+desire+in+the+status+quo+is+an+increase+of+bureaucracy+and+the+power+of+bureaucrats%22&pg=PA134#v=onepage

Drawing

“If it is worth a bloody struggle to establish this nation, it is worth one to preserve it.”

Oliver P. Morton (1823–1877) American politician

Speech (22 November 1860), as quoted in Indiana in the Civil War Era, 1850–1880: History of Indiana III https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0871950502 (1995), by Emma Lou Thornbrough. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, p. 102

“What was life? It was warmth, the warmth generated by a form-preserving instability, a fever of matter, which accompanied the process of ceaseless decay and repair of protein molecules that were too impossibly ingenious in structure.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 5

Life

“I do differ from you radically in respect to familiar things & scenes; for I always demand close correlation with the landscape & historic stream to which I belong, & would feel completely lost in infinity without a system of reference-points based on known & accustomed objects. I take complete relativity so much for granted, that I cannot conceive of anything as existing in itself in any recognisable form. What gives things an aspect & quasi-significance to us is the fact that we view things consistently from a certain artificial & fortuitous angle. Without the preservation of that angle, coherent consciousness & entity itself becomes inconceivable. Thus my wish for freedom is not so much a wish to put all terrestrial things behind me & plunge forever into abysses beyond light, matter, & energy. That, indeed, would mean annihilation as a personality rather than liberation. My wish is perhaps best defined as a wish for infinite visioning & voyaging power, yet without loss of the familiar background which gives all things significance. I want to know what stretches Outside, & be able to visit all the gulfs & dimensions beyond Space & Time. I want, too, to juggle the calendar at will; bringing things from the immemorial past down into the present, & making long journeys into the forgotten years. But I want the familiar Old Providence of my childhood as a perpetual base for these necromancies & excursions—& in a good part of these necromancies & excursions I want certain transmuted features of Old Providence to form part of the alien voids I visit or conjure up. I am as geographic-minded as a cat—places are everything to me. Long observation has shewn me that no other objective experience can give me even a quarter of the kick I can extract from the sight of a fresh landscape or urban vista whose antiquity & historic linkages are such as to correspond with certain fixed childhood dream-patterns of mine. Of course my twilight cosmos of half-familiar, fleetingly remembered marvels is just as unattainable as your Ultimate Abysses—this being the real secret of its fascination. Nothing really known can continue to be acutely fascinating—the charm of many familiar things being mainly resident in their power to symbolise or suggest unknown extensions & overtones.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Clark Ashton Smith (7 November 1930), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 214
Non-Fiction, Letters

Secret , Dreams , Feeling , Cats

“It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures.
This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture.
Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign.”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

The Life, Martyrdom, and Selections from the Writings of Thomas Cranmer https://books.google.com/books?id=FvNeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Life,+Martyrdom,+and+Selections+from+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Cranmer+...&source=bl&ots=LbXiMjz5Zp&sig=0pi5SHuxfdt_YUoiJcxvLgr7x5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzmZL_wsfaAhVl6YMKHWubBkcQ6AEILDAB by Thomas Cranmer, p.139-142, (1809)

Love , Men , God , Children

“All work of the party’s news and public opinion media must reflect the will of the party, mirror the views of the party, preserve the authority of the party, preserve the unity of the party, and achieve love of the party, protection of the party and acting for the party [and must maintain] a high level of uniformity with the party in ideology, politics and action”

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

As quoted during Xi’s inspection tour of China Central Television (CCTV) and People’s Daily on 19 February 2016.
"Another View: Communist Party's loyal mouthpieces" http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2016/02/24/another-view-communist-partys-loyal-mouthpieces/ab4kbuk/, Daily Chronicle (Feb. 24, 2016)
"Chinese website publishes, then pulls, explosive letter calling for President Xi’s resignation" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/16/government-linked-website-published-then-pulled-call-for-president-xis-resignation/, Washington Post (March 16, 2016)
2010s

Love

“Fight to preserve these traits of civilization, that made us go forward.”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

Source: Asked about sense of conservatism, blog, 6 March 2008

Fight

“I insist, that if there is ANY THING which it is the duty of the WHOLE PEOPLE to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)

People

“But we betray our most noble past as well if we were to deny the possibility of movement, the possibility of progress; if we were to let cynicism consume us and fear overwhelm us. If we lost hope. For however slow, however incomplete, however harshly, loudly, rudely challenged at each point along our journey, in America, we can create the change that we seek. All it requires is that our generation be willing to do what those who came before us have done: To rise above the cynicism and rise above the fear, to hold fast to our values, to see ourselves in each other, to cherish dignity and opportunity not just for our own children but for somebody else’s child. To remember that our freedom is bound up with the freedom of others -– regardless of what they look like or where they come from or what their last name is or what faith they practice. To be honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. To nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth. To nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth. That is our choice. Today, we affirm hope.”

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

2015, Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment (December 2015)

Children , Fear , Faith , Hope

“A civil war occurring in a country, where foreigners reside and carry on trade under treaty stipulations is necessarily fruitful of complaints of the violation of neutral rights. All such collisions tend to excite misapprehensions, and possibly to produce mutual reclamations between nations which have a common interest in preserving peace and friendship.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Second State of the Union address (1862)

Friendship , War , Peace , Country

“My friends and relations … urged … that the quantity [of food] I took was too little for one so advanced in years; against this, I urged that nature was content with little, and that with this small quantity, I had preserved myself for many years in health and activity, that I believed as a man advanced in years, his stomach grew weaker, and therefore the tendency should be to lessen the amount of food rather than to increase. I further reminded them of the two proverbs, which say; he who has a mind to eat a great deal, must eat but little; eating little makes life long, and, living long, he must eat much; and the other proverb was: that, what we leave after making a hearty meal, does us more good than what we have eaten.”

Luigi Cornaro (1484–1566) Italian philosopher

Discourses on the Sober Life

Life , Health , Food , Nature

“It is because the cosmos is meaningless that we must secure our individual illusions of values, direction, and interest by upholding the artificial streams which give us such worlds of salutary illusion. That is—since nothing means anything in itself, we must preserve the proximate and arbitrary background which makes things around us seem as if they did mean something. In other words, we are either Englishmen or nothing whatever.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to James F. Morton (6 November 1930), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 208
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.

World

“Now, all State institutions, as I also before maintained, act solely on the substance of the doctrines in a greater or less degree; whilst as regards the form of their acceptance by the individual, the channels of influence are wholly closed to any political agency. The way in which religion springs up in the human heart, and the way in which it is received in each case, depend entirely on the whole manner of the man's existence--the whole system of his thoughts and sensations. But if the State were able to remodel these according to its views (a possibility which we can hardly conceive), I must have been very unfortunate in the exposition of my principles if it were necessary to re-establish the conclusion which meets this remote possibility, viz., that the State may not make man an instrument to subserve its arbitrary designs, and induce him to neglect for these his proper individual ends. And that there is no absolute necessity, such as would perhaps alone justify an exception in this instance, is apparent from that perfect independence of morality on religion which I have already sought to establish, but which will receive a stronger confirmation when I show that the preservation of a State's internal security, does not at all require that a proper and distinct direction should be given to the national morals in general.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 8

Religion , Way , Spring , Heart

“The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.”

Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909) German mathematician and physicist

Address to the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, (Sep 21, 1908)

Reality , Time

“In 1917 Levi-Civita discovered his celebrated parallelism which is an infinitesimal transportation of tangent vectors preserving the scalar product and is the first example of a connection. The salient fact about the Levi-Civita parallelism is the result that it is the parallelism, and not the Riemannian metric, which accounts for most of the properties concerning curvature.”

Shiing-Shen Chern (1911–2004) mathematician (1911–2004), born in China and later acquiring U.S. citizenship; made fundamental contributio…

[Differential Manifolds (Classroom Notes) Math 352A, Spring 1952, Department of Mathematics, University of Chicago, http://mathunion.org/ICM/ICM1950.2/Main/icm1950.2.0397.0411.ocr.pdf]

“Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so.”

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

On en trouve [l'argent] toujours quand il s’agit d’aller faire tuer des hommes sur la frontière: il n’y en a plus quand il faut les sauver.
"Charity" (1770)
Citas, Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (1770–1774)

Men , Money

“The old question will be asked in this matter of prerogative, But who shall be judge when this power is made a right use of? 1 answer: between an executive power in being, with such a prerogative, and a legislative that depends upon his will for their convening, there can be no judge on earth; as there can be none between the legislative and the people, should either the executive, or the legislative, when they have got the power in their hands, design, or go about to enslave or destroy them. The people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven: for the rulers, in such attempts, exercising a power the people never put into their hands, (who can never be supposed to consent that any body should rule over them for their harm) do that which they have not a right to do. And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and give effective sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven. And this judgment they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another, as to give him a liberty to destroy him; God and nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself, as to neglect his own preservation: and since he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it. Nor let any one think, this lays a perpetual foundation for disorder; for this operates not, till the inconveniency is so great, that the majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to have it amended. But this the executive power, or wise princes, never need come in the danger of: and it is the thing, of all others, they have most need to avoid, as of all others the most perilous.”

John Locke book Two Treatises of Government

Second Treatise of Government http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr14.htm, Sec. 168
Two Treatises of Government (1689)

Life , Men , God , People

“Things severed shall be united and shall acquire of themselves such virtue that they shall restore to men their lost memory. That is the papyrus sheets, which are formed out of several strips and preserve the memory of the thoughts and deeds of men.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XLV Prophecies

Men , Memory

“I'm sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but if information is preserved, there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes. If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our universe but in a mangled form which contains the information about what you were like but in a state where it can not be easily recognized. It is like burning an encyclopedia. Information is not lost, if one keeps the smoke and the ashes. But it is difficult to read. In practice, it would be too difficult to re-build a macroscopic object like an encyclopedia that fell inside a black hole from information in the radiation, but the information preserving result is important for microscopic processes involving virtual black holes.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

"Information Loss in Black Holes" http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507171 (July 2005)

Disappointment , Travel , Universe , Science

“Now the nature of man being ever prone to idolatry from the beginning of the world, and the Papists being ready by all means and policy to defend and extol the mass, for their estimation and profit; and the people being superstitiously enamored and doted upon the mass (because they take it for a present remedy against all manners of evils); and part of the princes being blinded by papistical doctrine part loving quietness, and loth to offend their clergy and subjects, and all being captives and subjects to the antichrist of Rome; the state of the world remaining in this case, it is no wonder that abuses grew and increased in the church, that superstition with idolatry were taken for godliness and true religion, and that many things were brought in without the authority of Christ as purgatory, the oblation and sacrificing of Christ by the priest alone; the application and appointing of the same to such persons as the priests would sing or say mass for, and to such abuses, as they could devise; to deliver some from purgatory, and some from hell (if they were not there finally by God determined to abide, as they termed the matter); to hallow and preserve them that went to Jerusalem, to Rome, to St. James in Compostella, and to other places in pilgrimage; for a preservative against tempest and thunder, against perils and dangers of the sea, fora remedy against murrain of cattle, against pensiveness of the heart, and against all manner of affliction and tribulation”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

Ibid, pp. 517-518, (1809)

Love , God , People , World

“Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact — it is silence which isolates.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 6

Silence

“Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer; there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 14 (p. 231, quoting George Santayana)

Youth , Happiness

“Time then has come into being along with the universe, that being generated together, together they may be dissolved, should a dissolution of them ever come to pass; and it was made after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might be as like to it as was possible. For the pattern is existent for all eternity; but the copy has been and is and shall be throughout all time continually. So then this was the plan and intent of God for the generation of time; the sun and the moon and five other stars which have the name of planets have been created for defining and preserving the numbers of time. …and a month is fulfilled when the moon, after completing her own orbit, overtakes the sun; a year, when the sun has completed his own course. But the courses of the others men have not taken into account, save a few out of many… they do not know that time arises from the wanderings of these, which are incalculable in multitude and marvellously intricate. None the less however can we observe that the perfect number of time fulfils the perfect year at the moment when the relative swiftnesses of all the eight revolutions accomplish their course together and reach their starting-point, being measured by the circle of the same and uniformly moving. In this way then and for these causes were created all such of the stars as wander through the heavens and turn about therein, in order that this universe may be most like to the perfect and ideal animal by its assimilation to the eternal being.”

Plato book Timaeus

38d–40a, as quoted by R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato https://books.google.com/books?id=q2YMAAAAIAAJ (1888)
Timaeus

Men , God , Way , Star

“They offer me neither food nor drink — intellectual nor spiritual consolation… [Conservatism] leads nowhere; it satisfies no ideal; it conforms to no intellectual standard, it is not safe, or calculated to preserve from the spoilers that degree of civilisation which we have already attained.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

On the Conservative Party; Skidelsky (1992:231) quoting Collected Writings Volume IX page 296-297

Food , Drink

“Giving then to matter all the properties which philosophy knows it has, or all that atheism ascribes to it, and can prove, and even supposing matter to be eternal, it will not account for the system of the universe or of the solar system, because it will not account for motion, and it is motion that preserves it. When, therefore, we discover a circumstance of such immense importance, that without it the universe could not exist, and for which neither matter, nor any, nor all, the properties of matter can account, we are by necessity forced into the rational and comfortable belief of the existence of a cause superior to matter, and that cause man calls, God.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)

God , Universe

“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times, and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government — that nation — of which that constitution was the organic law.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, "If Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong" (1864)

Law , Way , Feeling , Understanding

“I feel convinced that my preservation was not altogether accidental, but was indeed the work of divine power. An inventor's endeavor is essentially life saving. Whether he harnesses forces, improves devices, or provides new comforts and conveniences, he is adding to the safety of our existence. He is also better qualified than the average individual to protect himself in peril, for he is observant and resourceful.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Life , Feeling

“Perhaps because of my fever, perhaps because of my lofty pain, I imagine that some one there is declaiming a great poem, that some one is speaking of Prometheus. He has stolen light from the gods. In his entrails he feels the pain, always beginning again, always fresh, gathering from evening to evening, when the vulture steals to him as it would steal to its nest. And you feel that we are all like Prometheus because of desire, but there is neither vulture nor gods.
There is no paradise except that which we create in the great tomb of the churches. There is no hell, no inferno except the frenzy of living.
There is no mysterious fire. I have stolen the truth. I have stolen the whole truth. I have seen sacred things, tragic things, pure things, and I was right. I have seen shameful things, and I was right. And so I have entered the kingdom of truth, if, while preserving respect to truth and without soiling it, we can use the expression that deceit and religious blasphemy employ.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVII

God , Pain , Truth , Feeling

“Now, there’s no easy answer for resolving all these social forces, and we must respect the meaning that people draw from their own traditions -- from their religion, from their ethnicity, from their sense of nationhood. But I do not believe progress is possible if our desire to preserve our identities gives way to an impulse to dehumanize or dominate another group. If our religion leads us to persecute those of another faith, if we jail or beat people who are gay, if our traditions lead us to prevent girls from going to school, if we discriminate on the basis of race or tribe or ethnicity, then the fragile bonds of civilization will fray. The world is too small, we are too packed together, for us to be able to resort to those old ways of thinking.”

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

2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)

People , World , School , Faith

“For want of the apparatus of propositional functions, many logicians have been driven to the conclusion that there are unreal objects. It is argued, e. g., by Meinong, that we can speak about "the golden mountain," "the round square," and so on; we can make true propositions of which these are the subjects; hence they must have some kind of logical being, since otherwise the propositions in which they occur would be meaningless. In such theories, it seems to me, there is a failure of that feeling for reality which ought to be preserved even in the most abstract studies. Logic, I should maintain, must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can; for logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features.”

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

Source: 1910s, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), Ch. 16: Descriptions

World , Feeling , Mountain , Failure

“A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused.
A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by three men simultaneously.
The man and woman get dressed up on Sunday — and go to Church or maybe their "revolutionary" political meeting.
Have you ever looked at the Stag, Man, Hero, Tough magazines on the shelf of your local bookstore? Do you know why the newspapers with the articles like "Girl 12 raped by 14 men" sell so well? To what in us are they appealing?
Women, for their own preservation, are trying to pull themselves together. And it is necessary for all of us that they do so.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

"Man – and Woman" in Vermont Freeman (Mid-February 1972) http://www.motherjones.com/files/Man_and_Woman_0.jpg; partially quoted, out of context in "Bernie Sanders: Woman 'fantasizes being raped'" http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bernie-sanders-woman-fantasizes-being-raped/article/2565191 by Ariel Cohen, Washington Examiner (28 May 2015)
1970s

Women , Men , Home , Girl

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”

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

First Annual Address, to both Houses of Congress (8 January 1790).
Compare: "Qui desiderat pacem præparet bellum" (translated: "Who would desire peace should be prepared for war"), Vegetius, Rei Militari 3, Prolog.; "In pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello" (translated: "In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war"), Horace, Book ii. satire ii.
1790s

War , Peace

“Whatever bitterness and hate may be found in the movements which we are to examine, it is not bitterness or hate, but love, that is their mainspring. It is difficult not to hate those who torture the objects of our love. Though difficult, it is not impossible; but it requires a breadth of outlook and a comprehensiveness of understanding which are not easy to preserve amid a desperate contest. If ultimate wisdom has not always been preserved by Socialists and Anarchists, they have not differed in this from their opponents; and in the source of their inspiration they have shown themselves superior to those who acquiesce ignorantly or supinely in the injustices and oppressions by which the existing system is preserved.”

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

Introduction, p. 10.
1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918)

Love , Wisdom , Hate , Understanding

“The peer review system is satisfactory during quiescent times, but not during a revolution in a discipline such as astrophysics, when the establishment seeks to preserve the status quo.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 197.

Time

“Moreover, the argument for national polity, for Christianity, and for Confucianism… are also insufficient to bolster people’s hearts. What, then, will? I say there is one thing: namely, to establish our goal and advance toward civilization… The way in which to preserve this independence cannot be sought anywhere except in civilization.”

Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and journalist who founded Keio University

Bunmeiron no Gairyaku [An Outline of a Theory of civilization] (1875).

People , Way , Heart

“Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection in various forms. He appeared to Mary Magdalene so that they might take him for a gardener. Very ingeniously these manifestation of Jesus is to our minds difficult to penetrate. (He appears) as a gardener. The gardener plants seedlings in prepared soil. The soil must exert a physical and chemical influence so that the seed of the plant can grow. Yet this is not sufficient. The warmth and light of the sun must be added, together with rain, in order that growth may result. The seed of supernatural life, of sanctifying grace, cleanses from sin, so preparing the soul of man, and man must seek to preserve this life by his good works. He still needs the supernatural food, the body of the Lord, which received continually, develops and brings to completion of the life. So natural and supernatural must unite to the realization of the holiness to the people. Man must contribute his minimum work of toil, and God gives the growth. Truly, the seed, the talent, the grace of God is there, and man has simply to work, take the seeds to bring them to the bankers. So that we "may have life, and abundantly."”

Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) Silesian scientist and Augustinian friar

Mendel makes several allusions to biblical verses, including John 20:15, Matthew 25:26 and John 10:10.
Sermon on Easter
Original: Jesus erschien den Jüngern nach der Auferstehung in verschiedener Gestalt. Der Maria Magdalena erschien er so, daß sie ihn für einen Gärtner halten mochte. Sehr sinnreich sind diese Erscheinungen Jesu und unser Verstand vermag sie schwer zu durchdringen. (Er erscheint) als Gärtner. Dieser pflanzt den Samen in den zubereiteten Boden. Das Erdreich muss physikalisch-chemisch Einwirkung ausüben, damit der Same aufgeht. Doch reicht das nicht hin, es muß noch Sonnenwärme und Licht hinzukommen nebst Regen, damit das Gedeihen zustandekommt. Das übernatürliche Leben in seinem Keim, der heiligmachenden Gnade wird in die von der Sünde gereinigte, also vorbereitete Seele des Menschen hineingesenkt und es muß der Mensch durch seine guten Werke dieses Leben zu erhalten suchen. Es muss noch die übernatürliche Nahrung dazukommen, der Leib des Herrn, der das Leben weiter erhält, entwickelt und zur Vollendung bringt. So muss Natur und Übernatur sich vereinigen, um das Zustandekommen der Heiligkeit des Menschen. Der Mensch muß sein Scherflein Arbeit hinzugeben, und Gott gibt das Gedeihen. Es ist wahr, den Samen, das Talent, die Gnade gibt der liebe Gott, und der Mensch hat bloß die Arbeit, den Samen aufzunehmen, das Geld zu Wechslern zu tragen. Damit wir »das Leben haben und im Überflusse haben.

Life , God , People , Food

“In a covenant…among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one’s own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and removed from society.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe book Democracy: The God That Failed

Source: Democracy: The God That Failed (2001), P. 218.

Democracy , Communication , Idea , Nature

“The Latin American people believed and feel that we Filipinos form past of that vast family, the children of Spain. Thus, although Spain ceased to govern those countries many years ago and although another nation is sovereign in the Philippines, those Latin-American peoples feel themselves as brothers to the people of the Philippines. It is the Spanish language that still binds us to those peoples, and the Spanish language will bind us to those peoples eternally if we have the wisdom and patriotism of preserving it.”

Manuel L. Quezon (1878–1944) president of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944

As quoted in Ambeth R. Ocampo's Chulalongkorn's Elephants: The Philippines in Asian History, Looking Back 4 (2011)

Wisdom , Children , People , Family

“Our Federal Union! It must be preserved!”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Toast at a celebration of Thomas Jefferson's birthday (13 April 1830); as quoted in Public Men and Events from the Commencement of Mr. Monroe's Administration, in 1817, to the Close of Mr. Fillmore's Administration, in 1853 (1875) by Nathan Sargent

“Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Isaac D'Isaeli, Curiosities of Literature, "Of Suppressors and Dilapidators of Manuscripts".
Misattributed, Isaac D'Israeli

“To Be or Not to Be: In Nature all life is a question of the minutest, but extremely precisely graduated differences in the particular thermal motion within every single body, which continually changes in rhythm with the processes of pulsation. This unique law, which manifests itself throughout Nature's vastness and unity and expresses itself in every creature and organism, is the ' law of ceaseless cycles' that in every organism is linked to a certain time span and a particular tempo. The slightest disturbance of this harmony can lead to the most disastrous consequences for the major life forms. In order to preserve this state of equilibrium, it is vital that the characteristic inner temperature of each of the millions of micro-organisms contained in the macro-organisms be maintained.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Callum Coats: Water Wizard
Viktor Schauberger: Our Senseless Toil (1934)

Life , Law , Question , Nature