Quotes about prevention (1367 quotes, page 2)

“It is not in our hands to prevent the murder of workers… and families… but it is in our hands to fix a high price for our blood, so high that the Arab community and the Arab military forces will not be willing to pay it.”

Moshe Dayan (1915–1981) Israeli military leader and politician

As quoted in Warrior : The Autobiography of Ariel Sharon (1989)

Family , Communication

“When a jumbo jet crashes, we will rush in with assistance, but we forget that each day 30,000 children die unnecessarily from poverty-related preventable causes - equivalent to 100 jumbo jets crashing every day.”

Benjamin Mkapa (1938) Tanzanian politician and former president

At the United Nations' 60th summit, 2005-09-16 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4247296.stm
2005

Children , Forgetting

“Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenceless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. Yet this defence of unborn life is closely linked to the defence of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defence of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, “every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual.””

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Section 213
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

Love , Life , God , Children

“Then what explains war among states? Rousseau's answer is really that war occurs because there is nothing to prevent it.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 188

War

“The Declaration of Independence was formed by the representatives of American liberty from thirteen States of the confederacy; twelve of which were slaveholding communities. We need not discuss the way or the reason of their becoming slaveholding communities. It is sufficient for our purpose that all of them greatly deplored the evil and that they placed a provision in the Constitution which they supposed would gradually remove the disease by cutting off its source. This was the abolition of the slave trade. So general was conviction, the public determination, to abolish the African slave trade, that the provision which I have referred to as being placed in the Constitution, declared that it should not be abolished prior to the year 1808. A constitutional provision was necessary to prevent the people, through Congress, from putting a stop to the traffic immediately at the close of the war. Now, if slavery had been a good thing, would the Fathers of the Republic have taken a step calculated to diminish its beneficent influences among themselves, and snatch the boon wholly from their posterity? These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures… Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built…”

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

1850s, Speech at Lewistown, Illinois (1858)

Life , Men , War , Children

“Adults have not understood children or adolescents and they are, as a consequence, in continual conflict with them. The remedy is not that adults should gain some new intellectual knowledge or achieve a higher standard of culture. No, they must find a different point of departure. The adult must find within himself the still unknown error that prevents him from seeing the child as he is.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Secret of Childhood (1936), Ch. 2

Children , Error , Departure , Knowledge

“Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored — contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man — such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care — such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance — such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.”

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

1860s, Cooper Union speech (1860)

Men , Search , Question , Thinking

“The provision of the Constitution that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it" is equivalent to a provision — is a provision — that such privilege may be suspended when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have a case of rebellion and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power; but the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it can not be believed the framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.”

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

1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

Exercises

“I said very early on, as a senator, and continued to believe as a presidential candidate and now as president that we can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the, the biggest attack that ever took place on our soil, we absorbed it and we are stronger. This is a strong, powerful country that we live in and our people are incredibly resilient.”

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

July 2010 interview with Bob Woodward, recounted on World News with Diane Sawyer http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100007216&docId=l:1271804831&isRss=true (27 September 2010)
2010

People , Strong , Country

“On May 27, the New York Times published one of the most incredible sentences I’ve ever seen. They ran an article about the Nixon-Kissinger interchanges. Kissinger fought very hard through the courts to try to prevent it, but the courts permitted it. You read through it, and you see the following statement embedded in it. Nixon at one point informs Kissinger, his right-hand Eichmann, that he wanted bombing of Cambodia. And Kissinger loyally transmits the order to the Pentagon to carry out "a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves." That is the most explicit call for what we call genocide when other people do it that I’ve ever seen in the historical record. Right at this moment there is a prosecution of Milošević going on in the international tribunal, and the prosecutors are kind of hampered because they can’t find direct orders, or a direct connection even, linking Milošević to any atrocities on the ground. Suppose they found a statement like this. Suppose a document came out from Milošević saying, "Reduce Kosovo to rubble. Anything that flies on anything that moves."”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

They would be overjoyed. The trial would be over. He would be sent away for multiple life sentences - if it was a U.S. trial, immediately the electric chair.
Interview by David Barsamian on Alternative Radio, June 11, 2004 http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/chomsky.shtml
Quotes 2000s, 2004

Life , People , Time , Reading

“Fundamentalism is terrifying because it is based purely on emotion, rather than intelligence. It prevents followers from thinking as individuals and about the good of the world.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Daily Telegraph interview (2006)

World , Intelligence , Thinking

“But it is not possible ever to insure prosperity merely by law. Something for good can be done by law, and a bad law can do an infinity of mischief; but, after all, the best law can only prevent wrong and injustice, and give to the thrifty, the farseeing, and the hard-working a chance to exercise to best advantage their special and peculiar abilities.”

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

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties

Law , Exercises , Chance

“Thus, while I thought myself employed only in forming a Nomenclature, and while I proposed to myself nothing more than to improve the chemical language, my work transformed itself by degrees, without my being able to prevent it, into a treatise upon the Elements of Chemistry.”

Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794) French chemist

Source: Elements of Chemistry (1790), p.xiv

“I proclaim the inevitable advent of the universal republic. Not the transient backslidings, nor the darkness and the dread, nor the tragic difficulty of uplifting the world everywhere at once will prevent the fulfillment of international truth.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light

Truth , World , Universe

“As we began with a general outline of the effects produced by the human beast of prey upon world-History, it now may be of service to return to the attempts to counteract them and find again the "long-lost Paradise"; attempts we meet in seemingly progressive impotence as History goes on, till finally their operation passes almost wholly out of ken.
Among these last attempts we find in our own day the societies of so-called Vegetarians: nevertheless from out these very unions, which seem to have aimed directly at the centre of the question of mankind's Regeneration, we hear certain prominent members complaining that their comrades for the most part practise abstinence from meat on purely personal dietetic grounds, but in nowise link their practice with the great regenerative thought which alone could make the unions powerful. Next to them we find a union with an already more practical and somewhat more extended scope, that of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: here again its members try to win the public's sympathy by mere utilitarian pleas, though a truly beneficial end could only be awaited from their pursuing their pity for animals to the point of an intelligent adoption of the deeper trend of Vegetarianism; founded on such a mutual understanding, an amalgamation of these two societies might gain a power by no means to be despised.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Part III
Religion and Art (1880)

World , History , Intelligence , Understanding

“Is to accept the leadership of a crumbling country a crime? Is to prevent the Russians, the natural enemy of Germany, from obtaining our arms and manpower a crime? In Russian eyes it probably is. But I'm referring to the eyes of a westerner. I knew that we had to capitulate and I wanted it to be to the Americans and British, and not to the East. I'm not even accused of war crimes in the sense of the atrocities. It's clear they have no case against me. I came into a powerful position in 1943. How can I be accused of a conspiracy?”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

War , Nature , Sense , Country

“I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.”

Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French writer and philosopher

Introduction, sect. 6
La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960)

Dreams , Thinking , Reading

“Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it: he that fears otherwise, gives advantage to the danger.”

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

From the Enchiridion (1640) of Francis Quarles.
Misattributed

Fear

“Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

People , Suffering

“I always believed that at some time fate would take from me the terrible effort and duty of educating myself. I believed that, when the time came, I would discover a philosopher to educate me, a true philosopher whom one could follow without any misgiving because one would have more faith in him than one had in oneself. Then I asked myself: what would be the principles by which he would educate you?—and I reflected on what he might say about the two educational maxims which are being hatched in our time. One of them demands that the educator should quickly recognize the real strength of his pupil and then direct all his efforts and energy and heat at them so as to help that one virtue to attain true maturity and fruitfulness. The other maxim, on the contrary, requires that the educator should draw forth and nourish all the forces which exist in his pupil and bring them to a harmonious relationship with one another. … But where do we discover a harmonious whole at all, a simultaneous sounding of many voice in one nature, if not in such men as Cellini, men in whom everything, knowledge, desire, love, hate, strives towards a central point, a root force, and where a harmonious system is constructed through the compelling domination of this living centre? And so perhaps these two maxims are not opposites at all? Perhaps the one simply says that man should have a center and the other than he should also have a periphery? That educating philosopher of whom I dreamed would, I came to think, not only discover the central force, he would also know how to prevent its acting destructively on the other forces: his educational task would, it seemed to me, be to mould the whole man into a living solar and planetary system and to understand its higher laws of motion.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

“Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.2, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), pp. 130-131
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Love , Men , Hate , Fate

“One cannot prevent people from thinking what they please.”

Friedrich Schiller Mary Stuart

Man kann den Menschen nicht verwehren, Zu denken, was sie wollen.
Maria Stuart, Act I, sc. viii (1800)

People , Thinking

“Little effort was made to explain Saddam's culpability, his misuse of Iraqi resources, or the fact that we were not embargoing medicine or food. I was exasperated that our TV was showing what amounted to Iraqi propaganda… I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. Saddam Hussein could have prevented any child from suffering simply by meeting his obligations. Instead, I said the following: 'I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.' As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong. Nothing matters more than the lives of innocent people. I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one's fault but my own.”

Madeleine K. Albright (1937–2022) Former U.S. Secretary of State

Comment on Stahl interview in Madam Secretary (2003), pp. 274-275
2000s

People , Food , Question , Thinking

“Your daily subsistence which has been assured by God, should not prevent you from rising in obedience and performing your duties.”

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

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 374
Religious Wisdom

God

“Why in the world shouldn't they have regarded with awe and reverence that act by which the human race is perpetuated. Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

In reaction to statements by Maurice O'Connor Drury who expressed disapproval of depictions of an ancient Egyptian god with an erect phallus, in "Conversations with Wittgenstein" as quoted in Leading a Human Life: Wittgenstein, Intentionality, and Romanticism (1997) by Richard Thomas Eldridge, p. 130
Attributed from posthumous publications

Marriage , World , Religion , Sex

“At puberty, the elements of an unsuperstitious sexual morality ought to be taught. Boys and girls should be taught that nothing can justify sexual intercourse unless there is mutual inclination… Boys and girls should be taught respect for each other's liberty; they should be made to feel that nothing gives one human being rights over another, and that jealousy and possessiveness kill love. They should be taught that to bring another human being into the world is a very serious matter, only to be undertaken when the child will have a reasonable prospect of health, good surroundings, and parental care. But they should also be taught methods of birth control, so as to insure that children shall only come when they are wanted. Finally, they should be taught the dangers of venereal disease, and the methods of prevention and cure. The increase of human happiness to be expected from sex education on these lines is immeasurable.”

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

1920s, What I Believe (1925)

Love , Children , Health , World

“What is to prevent one from telling truth as he laughs, even as teachers sometimes give cookies to children to coax them into learning their A B C?”
Quamquam ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima.

Horace book Satires

Book I, satire i, line 24
Satires (c. 35 BC and 30 BC)

Children , Truth , Learning , Teachers

“None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says we have to have a conversation about race. We talk a lot about race. There’s no shortcut. And we don’t need more talk. None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy. It will not. People of goodwill will continue to debate the merits of various policies, as our democracy requires -- this is a big, raucous place, America is. And there are good people on both sides of these debates. Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete. But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again. Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual -- that’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society. To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change -- that’s how we lose our way again. It would be a refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits, whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced cynicism.”

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

2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)

People , Truth , Family , Way

“In accordance with the prarabdha of each, the One whose function it is to ordain makes each to act. What will not happen will never happen, whatever effort one may put forth. And what will happen will not fail to happen, however much one may seek to prevent it. This is certain. The part of wisdom therefore is to stay quiet.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

Wisdom , Effort , Parting

“If the Republicans, who think slavery is wrong, get possession of the general government, we may not root out the evil at once, but may at least prevent its extension. If I find a venomous snake lying on the open praire, I seize the first stick and kill him at once. But if that snake is in bed with my children, I must be more cautious. I shall, in striking the snake, also strike the children, or arouse the reptile to bite the children. Slavery is the venomous snake in bed with the children. But if the question is whether to kill it on the prairie or put it in bed with other children, I think we'd kill it!”

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

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide!
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide! That is just the case! The new Territories are the newly made bed to which our children are to go, and it lies with the nation to say whether they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not. It does not seem as if there could be much hesitation what our policy should be!

Children , Lying , Question , Thinking

“More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.
I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That's why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.”

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

2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)

War , Peace , Question , Tear

“The fact is, people who base their self-worth on being right about everything prevent themselves from learning from their mistakes. They lack the ability to take on new perspectives and empathize with others. They close themselves off to new and important information.
It’s far more helpful to assume that you’re ignorant and don’t know a whole lot. This keeps you unattached to superstitious or poorly informed beliefs and promotes a constant state of learning and growth.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 4, “The Value of Suffering” (p. 83)

People , Learning , Help

“As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth. As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change… There’s a realization that we are changing our climate for the worse. That would have catastrophic effects. Although the threat is not as dire as that of nuclear weapons right now, in the long term we are looking at a serious threat.”

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

At a press conference for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, as the Doomsday Clock is moved forward by two minutes to five minutes to midnight, as quoted in "Nukes, climate push 'Doomsday Clock' forward" MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16670686/ (1 January 2007)

Life , World , Way , Understanding

“First, [the bourgeoisie] must recognize his own impotence, his incapacity to believe in a sense of history, even if his reason leans towards the truth, the passions and prejudices produced by his class position, prevent him from accepting it. So he should not exert himself with proving the truth of the historical mission of the working class; rather, he should learn to subdue his petty bourgeois passions and prejudices. He should take lessions from those who were once as important as he is now, but are ready to risk all for the revolutionary Cause.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

38
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Truth , History , Sense , Learning

“I say that there are two systems of policy to apply to the management of what is commonly called the Eastern question, but which resolves itself into the geographical question, namely, the possession of that site which commands the empire of the world—the city of Constantinople. There is that school of opinions which I call British opinions, advocated by the noble Lord the Leader of this House (Lord J. Russell) and the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Viscount Palmerston), who believe in the vitality of Turkey, that it may remain an independent and even a progressive country, and form a powerful and sufficient barrier against the encroachment of Russia. There is the other school, which I call the school of Russian polities, that believes that Turkey is exhausted; that all we can do is, by gradually enfranchising the Christian population, to prevent, when its fall takes place, perfect anarchy, and contemplates the possibility of Russia occupying the Bosphorus.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1854/mar/31/war-with-russia-the-queens-message in the House of Commons (21 March 1854).
1850s

World , School , Home , Question

“Jed Exodus, sounds like he's gonna go get changed in a phone box [heroic American accent] "WATCH OUT FOR JED EXODUS… I AM THE PISSER… I CAN FILL A HOLE IN NO TIME." That's where he's probably just gone now, out to prevent a crime. "HEY YOU, GET AWAY FROM THAT WOMAN AND STOP MUGGING HER." "All right mate, all right." "THERE YOU GO, MADAM, YOU CAN GO ON YOUR WAY, PISS, PISS, PISS, PISS, PISS, PISS, PISS."”

Lee Evans (1964) English stand-up comedian and actor

The Different Planet Tour (1996)

Way , Change , Time , Box

“I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013), p. 475

People , Books , Time , Reading

“It's not just women in film, 18-year-old girls feel pressure to do preventative injecting. I see someone's face, someone's body who'd had children and I think they're the song lines of your experience, and why would you want to eradicate that? I look at people sort of entombing themselves and all you see is little pin holes of terror… and you think, just live your life, death is not going to be any easier just because your face can't move.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

Motherhood, Hollywood and Cate, The Age, 9 May 2005 http://www.theage.com.au/news/TV--Radio/Cate-on-Denton/2005/05/09/1115584884935.html,

Life , Death , Women , Children

“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.”

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

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

War , Peace , Time

“The satisfaction arising from the indulgent opinion entertained by the American People of my conduct, will, I trust, be some security for preventing me from doing any thing, which might justly incur the forfeiture of that opinion. And the consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected, will always continue to prompt me to promote the progress of the former, by inculcating the practice of the latter.”

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

Letter to the Protestant Episcopal Church (19 August 1789) Scan at American Memory (Library of Congress). http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw2/038/0580042.jpg
1780s

People , Happiness

“Take a piece of glass of the size of a half sheet of royal folio paper, and fix it… between your eye and the object you wish to portray. Then move it away until your eye is two-thirds of a braccio away from the piece of glass, and fasten your head by means of an instrument in such a way as to prevent any movement of it whatsoever. Then close or cover up one eye, and with a brush or a piece of red chalk finely ground mark out on the glass what is visible beyond it; afterwards, copy it by tracing on paper from the glass, then prick it out upon paper of a better quality and paint it if you so desire, paying special attention to the aerial perspective.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

Way , Painting

“No small hole can so modify the convergence of rays of light as to prevent, at a long distance, the transmission of the true form of the luminous body causing them.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), III Six books on Light and Shade

Light

“It was the greatest contribution towards the whole of human race, made by China, is to prevent its 1.3 billion people from hunger.”

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

Statement during his visit to Mexico (11 February 2009) as quoted in "China's Xi named to oversee military, a step closer to presidency" http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/73173/20101019/china-xi-presidency.htm in International Business TImes (18 October 2010)
2000s

Hunger , People

“Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public welfare.”

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

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)

Law , Way , Effort

“Immobile, certain, and permanent things, ideas, works and beliefs change, transform, and disintegrate…Movement is the only static, final, permanent, and certain thing. Static means transformation…Do not hold on to anything…Do not pinpoint anything!... We are fooling ourselves if we close our eyes and refuse to recognize the change... Decomposition begins only when we try to prevent it... We would so much like to own, think, or be something static, eternal, and permanent. However, our only eternal possession will be change... To attempt to hold fast an instant is doubtful... How beautiful it is to be transitory. How lovely it is not to have to live forever.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

as quoted in: Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings. ed. Stiles, Kristine and Selz, Peter (LA: University of California Press, 1996), p. 405; Cited in: John D. Powell. Preserving the unpreservable: A study of destruction art in the contemporary museum. University of Leicester, 2007. p. 30
Quotes, 1960's, untitled statements in 'Zero 3', (1961)

Love , Beauty , Fools , Idea

“O great and wonderful Lord our God, thou only light of the eyes, open, I implore thee, the eyes of my heart, and of others my fellow-creatures, that we may truly understand and contemplate thy wondrous works. And the more thoroughly we comprehend them, the more may our minds be affected in the contemplation with pious reverence and profound devotion. Who is not struck with awe in beholding thy all-powerful will completely efficacious throughout every part of the creation? It is by this same sovereign and irresistible will, that whom and when thou pleasest thou bringest low and liftest up, killest and makest alive. How intense and how unbounded is thy love to me, O Lord! whereas my love, how feeble and remiss! my gratitude, how cold and inconstant! Far be it from thee that thy love should even resemble mine; for in every kind of excellence thou art consummate. O thou who fillest heaven and earth, why fillest thou not this narrow heart? O human soul, low, abject, and miserable, whoever thou art, if thou be not fully replenished with the love of so great a good, why dost thou not open all thy doors, expand all thy folds, extend all thy capacity, that, by the sweetness of love so great, thou mayest be wholly occupied, satiated, and ravished; especially since, little as thou art, thou canst not be satisfied with the love of any good inferior to the One supreme? Speak the word, that thou mayest become my God and most enviable in mine eyes, and it shall instantly be so, without the possibility of failure. What can be more efficacious to engage the affection than preventing love? Most gracious Lord, by thy love thou hast prevented me, wretch that I am, who had no love for thee, but was at enmity with my Maker and Redeemer. I see, Lord, that it is easy to say and to write these things, but very difficult to execute them. Do thou, therefore, to whom nothing is difficult, grant that I may more easily practise these things with my heart than utter them with my lips. Open thy liberal hand, that nothing may be easier, sweeter, or more delightful to me, than to be employed in these things. Thou, who preventest thy servants with thy gracious love, whom dost thou not elevate with the hope of finding thee?”

Thomas Bradwardine (1300–1349) Theologian; Archbishop of Canterbury

Sample of Bradwardine devotional writing quoted by James Burnes, The Church of England Magazine under the superintendence of clergymen of the United Church of England and Ireland Vol. IV (January to June 1838)

Love , God , Hope , Art

“In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. … The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct. … The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Machine to End War (1937)

Marriage , Age , Law , Nature

“What's really sad is that we cannot trust information from these leading health organizations like the because they are taking money from the very industries who are causing the problems that they are supposed to be helping to prevent.”

Michele Simon (1965) public health lawyer

What the Health (2017)

Money , Health , Sadness , Problem

“By refusing to forgive, I give up all illusions. Why should I forgive, when no one is asking me to? I mean, my parents refuse to understand and to know what they did to me. So why should I go on trying to understand and forgive my parents and whatever happened in their childhood, with things like psychoanalysis and transactional analysis? What's the use? Whom does it help? It doesn't help my parents to see the truth. But it does prevent me from experiencing my feelings, the feelings that would give me access to the truth. But under the bell-jar of forgiveness, feelings cannot and may not blossom freely.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

Truth , Feeling , Forgiveness , Understanding

“Since those who rule in the city do so because they own a lot, I suppose they're unwilling to enact laws to prevent young people who've had no discipline from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by making loans to them, secured by the young people's property, and then calling those loans in, they themselves become even richer and more honored.”

Plato The Republic

555c, G. Grube and C. Reeve, trans., Plato: Complete Works (1997), p. 1166
The Republic

People , Law , Wealth

“It is entirely clear that there is only one way in which great wars can be permanently prevented, and that is the establishment of an international government with a monopoly of serious armed force.”

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

"The Atomic Bomb and the Prevention of War" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1 October 1945)
1940s

War , Way

“I would like to manage to prevent people from ever seeing how a picture of mine has been done. What can it possibly matter? What I want is that the only thing emanating from my pictures should be emotion.”

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

Boisgeloup, winter 1934
Richard Friendenthal (1963, p. 256).
Quotes, 1930's, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35

People , Winter

“Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new, and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in their way, to prevent them from coming to the United States.”

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

1860s, Speech to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio (1861), Commercial version

Way , Heart , Country

“This grasping of the whole is obviously the aim of science as well, but it is a goal that necessarily lies very far off because science, whenever possible, proceeds experimentally and in all cases statistically. Experiment, however, consists in asking a definite question which excludes as far as possible anything disturbing and irrelevant. It makes conditions, imposes them on Nature, and in this way forces her to give an answer to a question devised by man. She is prevented from answering out of the fullness of her possibilities since these possibilities are restricted as far as practible. For this purpose there is created in the laboratory a situation which is artificially restricted to the question which compels Nature to give an unequivocal answer. The workings of Nature in her unrestricted wholeness are completely excluded. If we want to know what these workings are, we need a method of inquiry which imposes the fewest possible conditions, or if possible no conditions at all, and then leave Nature to answer out of her fullness.”

C.G. Jung book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle

Source: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (1960), p. 35

Way , Question , Nature , Science

“Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.”

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

Tel Quel (1943)

People , Art , Parting

“All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment, convince me that in what I have done, I have not prevented a single murder.”

Albert Pierrepoint (1905–1992) English executioner

Executioner: Pierrepoint. Harrap 1974. p. 211.

Women , Men

“One must learn to forgive and not to hold a hostile, bitter attitude of mind, which offends those about us and prevents us from enjoying ourselves; one must recognize human shortcomings and adjust himself to them rather than to be constantly finding fault with them.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Hostility , Forgiveness , Learning

“It has been the error of schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the Author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.
When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well-executed statue, or a highly-finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talent of the artist. When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How, then, is it that when we study the works of God in creation, we stop short and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only and thereby separated the study of them from the Being who is the Author of them.”

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

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)

Life , God , School , Error

“Proudly, the United States has supported democracy and human rights in Cuba through these five decades. We have done so primarily through policies that aimed to isolate the island, preventing the most basic travel and commerce that Americans can enjoy anyplace else. And though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, no other nation joins us in imposing these sanctions, and it has had little effect beyond providing the Cuban government with a rationale for restrictions on its people. Today, Cuba is still governed by the Castros and the Communist Party that came to power half a century ago. Neither the American, nor Cuban people are well served by a rigid policy that is rooted in events that took place before most of us were born. Consider that for more than 35 years, we’ve had relations with China –- a far larger country also governed by a Communist Party. Nearly two decades ago, we reestablished relations with Vietnam, where we fought a war that claimed more Americans than any Cold War confrontation.”

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

2014, Statement on Cuban policy (December 2014)

War , People , Travel , Democracy

“The spirit has no voice, because where there is a voice there is a body, and where there is a body space is occupied, and this prevents the eye from seeing what is placed behind that space; hence the surrounding air is filled by the body, that is by its image.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

“Overcapitalization in all its shapes is one of the prime evils; for it is one of the most fruitful methods by which unscrupulous men get improper profits, and when the holdings come into innocent hands we are forced into the uncomfortable position of being obliged to reduce the dividends of innocent investors, or of permitting the public and the wage-workers, either or both, to suffer. Such really effective control over great inter-State business can come only from the National Government. The American people demands the new Nationalism needful to deal with the new problems; it puts the National need above sectional, or personal advantage; it is impatient of the utter confusion which results from local legislatures attempting to treat National issues as local issues; it is still more impatient of the National impotence which springs from the over-division of governmental powers; the impotence which makes it possible for local selﬁshness, or for the vulpine legal cunning which is hired by wealthy special interests, to bring National activities to a deadlock; The control must be exercised in several different ways. It may be that National incorporation is not at the moment possible; but there must be some affirmative. National control, on terms which will secure publicity in the affairs of and complete supervision and control over the big, Nation-wide business corporations; a control that will prevent and not legalize abuses. […] Such control should protect and favor the corporation which acts honestly, exactly as it should check and punish, when it cannot prevent, every species of dishonesty.”

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

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Men , People , Way , Exercises

“In the coming days, we’ll learn about the victims — young men and women who were studying and learning and working hard, their eyes set on the future, their dreams on what they could make of their lives. And America will wrap everyone who’s grieving with our prayers and our love.
But as I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America — next week, or a couple of months from now.
We don’t yet know why this individual did what he did. And it’s fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds, regardless of what they think their motivations may be. But we are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people. We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.
Earlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws — even in the face of repeated mass killings.” And later that day, there was a mass shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. That day! Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We’ve become numb to this.
We talked about this after Columbine and Blacksburg, after Tucson, after Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, after Aurora, after Charleston. It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.
And what’s become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation.”

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

2015, Remarks after the Umpqua Community College shooting (October 2015)

Love , Women , Men , People

“I believe that disabled people should concentrate on things that their handicap doesn’t prevent them from doing and not regret those they can’t do … I visited the Soviet Union seven times. The first time I went with a student party in which one member, a Baptist, wished to distribute Russian-language Bibles and asked us to smuggle them in. We managed this undetected, but by the time we were on our way out the authorities had discovered what we had done and detained us for a while. However, to charge us with smuggling Bibles would have caused an international incident and unfavorable publicity, so they let us go after a few hours.”

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

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/09/stephen-hawking-detained-in-russia-for-bible-smuggling/

People , Way , Time

“For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

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

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Life , Women , Men , People

“Thank you for your letter and for the enclosure which I return herewith. I have been wondering whether there is any means of preventing the confusion between you and me, and I half-thought that we might write a joint letter to The Times in the following terms: Sir, To prevent the continuation of confusions which frequently occur, we beg to state that neither of us is the other. Do you think this would be a good plan?”

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

Letter to Lord Russell of Liverpool, February 18, 1959
1950s

Thinking , Time

“Though you give no countenance to the complaints of the querulous, yet take care to curb the insolence and ill nature of the injurious. When you observe it yourself, reprove it before the injur'd party: but if the complaint be of something really worth your notice, and prevention another time, then reprove the offender by himself alone, out of sight of him who complain'd and make him go and ask pardon, and make reparation; which ooming thus, as it were from himself, will be the more cheerfully performed, and more kindly receiv'd, the love strenghten'd between them, and a custom of civility grow familiar amongst your children.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 109
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Love , Children , Nature , Time

“In just one month, the United States has worked with our international partners to mobilize a broad coalition, secure an international mandate to protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevent a massacre, and establish a no-fly zone with our allies and partners.”

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

2011, Address on interventions in Libya (March 2011)
Context: In just one month, the United States has worked with our international partners to mobilize a broad coalition, secure an international mandate to protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevent a massacre, and establish a no-fly zone with our allies and partners. To lend some perspective on how rapidly this military and diplomatic response came together, when people were being brutalized in Bosnia in the 1990s, it took the international community more than a year to intervene with air power to protect civilians. It took us 31 days.

Flying

“Threatening Israel with destruction or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories, while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve. On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.”

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

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)
Context: Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories, while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve. On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations large and small that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.

Pain , People , Peace , Suffering

“If wars in the future are to be prevented the nations must be united in their determination to keep the peace under law.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Address to Congress (1945)
Context: If wars in the future are to be prevented the nations must be united in their determination to keep the peace under law.
Nothing is more essential to the future peace of the world than continued cooperation of the nations which had to muster the force necessary to defeat the conspiracy of the Axis powers to dominate the world.
While these great states have a special responsibility to enforce the peace, their responsibility is based upon the obligations resting upon all states, large and small, not to use force in international relations except in the defense of law. The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not to dominate the world.

War , Peace , Law , Future

“Political movements directed against men because of their religious belief, and intended to prevent men of that creed from holding office, have never accomplished anything but harm.”

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

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: One of the most important things to secure for him is the right to hold and to express the religious views that best meet his own soul needs. Any political movement directed against anybody of our fellow- citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or to oppose a man because of the creed he professes. This applies to Jew and Gentile, to Catholic and Protestant, and to the man who would be regarded as unorthodox by all of them alike. Political movements directed against men because of their religious belief, and intended to prevent men of that creed from holding office, have never accomplished anything but harm. This was true in the days of the ‘Know-Nothing’ and Native-American parties in the middle of the last century; and it is just as true to-day. Such a movement directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself. Washington and his associates believed that it was essential to the existence of this Republic that there should never be any union of Church and State; and such union is partially accomplished wherever a given creed is aided by the State or when any public servant is elected or defeated because of his creed. The Constitution explicitly forbids the requiring of any religious test as a qualification for holding office. To impose such a test by popular vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote either for or against a man because of his creed is to impose upon him a religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution.

Men

“America has an important strategic interest in preventing Qaddafi from overrunning those who oppose him.”

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

2011, Address on interventions in Libya (March 2011)
Context: America has an important strategic interest in preventing Qaddafi from overrunning those who oppose him. A massacre would have driven thousands of additional refugees across Libya’s borders, putting enormous strains on the peaceful — yet fragile — transitions in Egypt and Tunisia. The democratic impulses that are dawning across the region would be eclipsed by the darkest form of dictatorship, as repressive leaders concluded that violence is the best strategy to cling to power. The writ of the United Nations Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty words, crippling that institution’s future credibility to uphold global peace and security. So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.

“I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life.”

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

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: One of the reasons why I am opposed to Slavery is just here. What is the true condition of the laborer? I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat — just what might happen to any poor man's son! I want every man to have the chance — and I believe a black man is entitled to it — in which he can better his condition — when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system.

Life , War , Law , Chance

“We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law — no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this.”

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

2012, Sandy Hook Prayer Vigil (December 2012)
Context: Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm?
Can we claim, as a nation, that we’re all together there, letting them know they are loved and teaching them to love in return?
Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?
I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer’s no. We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change. Since I’ve been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shootings, fourth time we’ve hugged survivors, the fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims.
And in between, there have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children, in small towns and in big cities all across America, victims whose — much of the time their only fault was being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law — no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this.
If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that — then surely we have an obligation to try.

World , Law , Evil , Change

“As the situation continues to unfold, our first concern is preventing injury or loss of life. So I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors.
The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.”

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

2011, Remarks on Egyptian protests (January 2011)
Context: My administration has been closely monitoring the situation in Egypt, and I know that we will be learning more tomorrow when day breaks. As the situation continues to unfold, our first concern is preventing injury or loss of life. So I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors.
The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.

Life , People , Peace , Universe

“It’s true that government cannot prevent all the downsides of the technological change and global competition”

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

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)
Context: It’s true that government cannot prevent all the downsides of the technological change and global competition that are out there right now, and some of those forces are also some of the things that are helping us grow. And it’s also true that some programs in the past, like welfare before it was reformed, were sometimes poorly designed, created disincentives to work. But we’ve also seen how government action time and again can make an enormous difference in increasing opportunity and bolstering ladders into the middle class. Investments in education, laws establishing collective bargaining, and a minimum wage -- these all contributed to rising standards of living for massive numbers of Americans.

Change

“Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book VI, 6.18-[2]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VI

Men

“He ought to assure himself of two things; 1st, that in every case, the incidents which he tries to prevent are really evils; and 2ndly, that if evils, they are greater than those which he employs to prevent them.”

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

Principles of Legislation (1830), Ch. X : Analysis of Political Good and Evil; How they are spread in society
Context: It is with government, as with medicine. They have both but a choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty: And I repeat that government has but a choice of evils: In making this choice, what ought to be the object of the legislator? He ought to assure himself of two things; 1st, that in every case, the incidents which he tries to prevent are really evils; and 2ndly, that if evils, they are greater than those which he employs to prevent them.
There are then two things to be regarded; the evil of the offence and the evil of the law; the evil of the malady and the evil of the remedy.
An evil comes rarely alone. A lot of evil cannot well fall upon an individual without spreading itself about him, as about a common centre. In the course of its progress we see it take different shapes: we see evil of one kind issue from evil of another kind; evil proceed from good and good from evil. All these changes, it is important to know and to distinguish; in this, in fact, consists the essence of legislation.

Evil

“Violent prevention and suppression of anti-social activities benefit the whole of society and each of its members. But violence and oppression are none the less evils and corrupt those in charge of their application.”

Ludwig von Mises book Socialism

Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)
Context: State and government are the social apparatus of violent coercion and repression. Such an apparatus, the police power, is indispensable in order to prevent anti-social individuals and bands from destroying social co-operation. Violent prevention and suppression of anti-social activities benefit the whole of society and each of its members. But violence and oppression are none the less evils and corrupt those in charge of their application. It is necessary to restrict the power of those in office lest they become absolute despots. Society cannot exist without an apparatus of violent coercion. But neither can it exist if the office holders are irresponsible tyrants free to inflict harm upon those they dislike.

Evil

“There is a widespread understanding among the people of this nation, and probably among the people of the world, that there is no safety except through the prevention of war.”

Eleanor Roosevelt My Day

My Day (1935–1962)
Context: In times past, the question usually asked by women was "How can we best help to defend our nation?" I cannot remember a time when the question on so many people's lips was "How can we prevent war?"
There is a widespread understanding among the people of this nation, and probably among the people of the world, that there is no safety except through the prevention of war. For many years war has been looked upon as almost inevitable in the solution of any question that has arisen between nations, and the nation that was strong enough to do so went about building up its defenses and its power to attack. It felt that it could count on these two things for safety. (20 December 1961)

War , People , World , Understanding

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

Epicurus (-341–-269 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

This attribution occurs in chapter 13 (Ioan. Graphei, 1532, p. 494) http://books.google.com/books?id=rs47AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA494 of the Christian church father's Lactantius's De Ira Dei (c. 318):
"God," he [Epicurus] says, "either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot,
or can but does not want to,
or neither wishes to nor can,
or both wants to and can.
If he wants to and cannot, then he is weak and this does not apply to god.
If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful which is equally foreign to god's nature.
If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful, and so not a god.
If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?"
Lactantius, On the Anger of God, 13.19
Charles Bray, in his 1863 The Philosophy of Necessity: Or, Natural Law as Applicable to Moral, Mental, and Social Science quotes Epicurus without citation as saying a variant of the above statement (p. 41) http://books.google.com/books?id=BebVAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA41 (with "is not omnipotent" for "is impotent"). This quote appeared in "On the proofs of the existence of God: a lecture and answer questions" http://www.atheism.ru/old/KryAth2.html (1960) by professor Kryvelev I.A. (Крывелёв И.А. О доказательствах бытия божия: лекция и ответы на вопросы. М., 1960). And N. A. Nicholson, in his 1864 Philosophical Papers (p. 40), attributes "the famous questions" to Epicurus, using the wording used earlier by Hume (with "is he" for "he is") http://books.google.com/books?id=ZMsGAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA40. Hume's statement occurs in Book X (p. 186) http://books.google.com/books?id=E7dbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA186 of his renowned Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published posthumously in 1779. The character Philo precedes the statement with "Epicurus's old questions are yet unanswered.…". Hume is following the enormously influential Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (1697–1702) of Pierre Bayle, which quotes Lactantius attributing the questions to Epicurus (Desoer, 1820, p. 479) http://books.google.com/books?id=QwwZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA479.
There has also arisen a further disputed extension, for which there has been found no published source prior to The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations: Cutting Comments on Burning Issues (1992) by Charles Bufe, p. 186: "Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Disputed

God , Evil

“For, whether we will or not, the question of Slavery is the question, the all absorbing topic of the day. It is true that all of us, and by that I mean, not the Republican party alone, but the whole American people, here and elsewhere, all of us wish this question settled, wish it out of the way. It stands in the way, and prevents the adjustment, and the giving of necessary attention to other questions of national house-keeping.”

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

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: For, whether we will or not, the question of Slavery is the question, the all absorbing topic of the day. It is true that all of us, and by that I mean, not the Republican party alone, but the whole American people, here and elsewhere, all of us wish this question settled, wish it out of the way. It stands in the way, and prevents the adjustment, and the giving of necessary attention to other questions of national house-keeping. The people of the whole nation agree that this question ought to be settled, and yet it is not settled. And the reason is that they are not yet agreed how it shall be settled. All wish it done, but some wish one way and some another, and some a third, or fourth, or fifth; different bodies are pulling in different directions, and none of them having a decided majority, are able to accomplish the common object.

People , Way , Question , Housing

“We are apt to run from one extreme into another. To anticipate & prevent disasterous contingencies would be the part of wisdom & patriotism.”

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

Letter to John Jay (15 August 1786) http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/constitution/1784/jay2.html
1780s
Context: If you tell the Legislatures they have violated the treaty of peace and invaded the prerogatives of the confederacy they will laugh in your face. What then is to be done? Things cannot go on in the same train forever. It is much to be feared, as you observe, that the better kind of people being disgusted with the circumstances will have their minds prepared for any revolution whatever. We are apt to run from one extreme into another. To anticipate & prevent disasterous contingencies would be the part of wisdom & patriotism.
What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable & tremendous! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal & falacious! Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend.
Retired as I am from the world, I frankly acknowledge I cannot feel myself an unconcerned spectator. Yet having happily assisted in bringing the ship into port & having been fairly discharged; it is not my business to embark again on a sea of troubles. Nor could it be expected that my sentiments and opinions would have much weight on the minds of my Countrymen — they have been neglected, tho' given as a last legacy in the most solemn manner. I had then perhaps some claims to public attention. I consider myself as having none at present.

Wisdom , Parting

“Fire signals of an attack were also raised toward Thebes, but the Plataeans in the city at once displayed a number of others, prepared beforehand for this very purpose, in order to render the enemy's signals unintelligible, and to prevent his friends from getting a true idea of what was happening and coming to his aid before their comrades who had gone out should have made good their escape and be in safety.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book III, 3.22-[7]-[8] (See also: Spoofing attack..).
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book III

Idea

“The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.”

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist

Source: The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science (1962), Chapter 5: On Some Popular Errors Concerning the Scope and Method of Economics, § 10 : The Concept of a Perfect System of Government
Context: It is a double-edged makeshift to entrust an individual or a group of individuals with the authority to resort to violence. The enticement implied is too tempting for a human being. The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate. They misuse their power for the oppression of those whom they were expected to defend against oppression. The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.

Problem

“Each nation must keep well prepared to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international police power, competent and willing to prevent violence as between nations.”

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

1910s, Nobel lecture (1910)
Context: In new and wild communities where there is violence, an honest man must protect himself; and until other means of securing his safety are devised, it is both foolish and wicked to persuade him to surrender his arms while the men who are dangerous to the community retain theirs. He should not renounce the right to protect himself by his own efforts until the community is so organized that it can effectively relieve the individual of the duty of putting down violence. So it is with nations. Each nation must keep well prepared to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international police power, competent and willing to prevent violence as between nations. As things are now, such power to command peace throughout the world could best be assured by some combination between those great nations which sincerely desire peace and have no thought themselves of committing aggressions. The combination might at first be only to secure peace within certain definite limits and on certain definite conditions; but the ruler or statesman who should bring about such a combination would have earned his place in history for all time and his title to the gratitude of all mankind.

“For the true author of the subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which permits it having the means to prevent it.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book I, 69.
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I

People

“Natural justice is a symbol or expression of usefulness, to prevent one person from harming or being harmed by another.”

Epicurus (-341–-269 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

31
Sovereign Maxims
Variant: Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.

Justice , Nature , Personality

“If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any part of our affairs. We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are. More direct action by the people in their own affairs under proper safeguards is vitally necessary.”

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

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Context: If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any part of our affairs. We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are. More direct action by the people in their own affairs under proper safeguards is vitally necessary. The direct primary is a step in this direction, if it is associated with a corrupt-services act effective to prevent the advantage of the man willing recklessly and unscrupulously to spend money over his more honest competitor. It is particularly important that all moneys received or expended for campaign purposes should be publicly accounted for, not only after election, but before election as well. Political action must be made simpler, easier, and freer from confusion for every citizen. I believe that the prompt removal of unfaithful or incompetent public servants should be made easy and sure in whatever way experience shall show to be most expedient in any given class of cases.

Money , People , Parting , Perfection

“Suppose two sisters who are twins and who are equally beautiful, walk down a street. One of them is wearing the Islamic Hijab i.e. the complete body is covered except for the face and the hands up to the wrists, and the other twin is wearing a mini skirt or shorts. Around the corner there is a hooligan who is waiting for an opportunity to tease a girl. Who will he tease? The girl wearing the Islamic Hijab or the girl wearing the mini skirt or shorts? Dresses that expose more than they conceal, are an indirect temptation to the opposite sex for teasing, molestation and rape. The Qur’an rightly says that the hijab prevents women from being molested.”

Zakir Naik (1965) Islamic televangelist

In Most Common Questions Asked by the non-Muslims https://www.amazon.com/Most-Common-Questions-Asked-Muslims/dp/9675699299 p: 46

Waiting , Girl , Beauty , Sex

“To all these insanities will be added the most shameful—the intensified competition between male and female. We insist upon equal and full rights for women, but the servants of darkness will expel them from many fields of activity, even where they bring the most benefit. We have spoken about the many maladies in the world, but the renewed struggle between the male and female principles will be the most tragic. It is hard to imagine how disastrous this will be, for it is a struggle against evolution itself! What a high price humanity pays for every such opposition to evolution! In these convulsions the young generations are corrupted. Plato spoke about beautiful thinking, but what kind of beauty is possible when there is hostility between man and woman? Now is the time to think about equal and full rights, but darkness invades the tensed realms. However, all the dark attacks will serve a certain good purpose, for those who have been humiliated in Kali Yuga will be glorified in Satya Yuga. ...Let us remember that these years of Armageddon are the most intense, and one’s health should be especially guarded because the cosmic currents will increase many diseases. You must understand that this time is unique... It is near-sighted to think that if war is prevented all problems will be solved! There are those who think so and imagine that they can cheat evolution, not realizing that the worst war is in their own homes. However, there do exist places on Earth where evolution develops normally, and We are always there.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

286
Armageddon

Home , Time , Imagination , Hostility

“If God should descend to earth and come to live among us, we could not love him unless he became like us or give him anything unless he produced something or listen to him unless he proved us mistaken or worship him unless he manifested his power. All the laws of our nature, affective, economic, and intellectual, would prevent us from treating him as we treat other men, that is, according to reason, justice, and equity. From this I infer that if God ever put himself into immediate communication with man, he would have to become a man.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. V

God , Justice , Law , Nature

“But, as I have told you, this Five Year Plan brought much suffering, and difficulties and dislocation. And people paid a terrible price willingly and accepted the sacrifices and sufferings for a few years in the hope of a better time afterwards; some paid the price unwillingly and only because of the compulsion of the Soviet Government. Among those who suffered most were the kulaks or richer peasants. With their great wealth and special influence, they did not fit into the new scheme of things. They were capitalistic elements which prevented the collective farms from developing on socialist lines. Often they opposed this collectivization, sometimes they entered the collectives to weaken them from inside or to make undue personal profit out of them. The Soviet Government came down heavily on them. The Government was also very hard on many middle-class people whom it suspected of espionage and sabotage on behalf of its enemies. Because of this, large numbers of engineers were punished and sent to gaol.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Time , Personality , Wealth , Suffering

“While I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have changed since. War can not be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only though annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Faith , Understanding , War , Strong

“Shariputra, it is the failings of living beings that prevent them from seeing the marvelous purity of the land of the Buddha, the Thus Come One. The Thus Come One is not to blame. Shariputra, this land of mine is pure, but you fail to see it.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Source: Mahayana, Vimalakirti Sutra, Chapter I, as translated by Burton Watson, Columbia University Press, 2000, ISBN: 0231106572.

“I am bothered by the misinformation which gets disseminated uncritically through the media and by the obstructions which prevent correct information from being disseminated. These obstructions come about in many ways - personal, institutional, through self-imposed inhibitions, through external inhibitions, through outright dishonesty, through incompetence - the list is a long one.”

Serge Lang (1927–2005) mathematician

Way , Personality , Self-confidence

“The healing of the collective human consciousness is dependent upon us creating a society where we can make room for pain. You currently live in a world that has made only positive things, like positive emotions and success and being healed, acceptable. This is a world that sees anything less than this as a failure. This prevents people from healing. It prevents people from admitting to where they are and taking the sometimes counterintuitive steps they need to take in order to heal. It is ok to not be ok.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Pain , Dependency , Success , People

“The sentiment 'everything that is happening is supposed to be happening' can be a cop out that prevents us from becoming conscious and deliberately creating. On the other hand, the obsessive control over our reality that comes with trying to use the law of attraction to our advantage to deliberately create can be nothing more than resistance. It too can prevent us from being conscious.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Reality , Law

“The stress which exists in the world today is a result of competition and fear, the fear of failure, disease, death, war, calamity, and economic disruption. The pressure that these fears put on humanity inevitably results in psychosomatic diseases. The cure lies in a re-establishing of equilibrium. When we establish equilibrium in our lives through a restructuring of our political, economic and social institutions, we will find that the health of humanity will improve dramatically. We will not have to spend enormous sums of money maintaining health. In fact, illness prevention will become the norm. Disease can generally be prevented more easily than it can be cured.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Maitreya's Mission Vol. III (1997)

Money , War , Health , World

“When Bill Gates pours money into Africa for feeding the poor in Africa and preventing famine, he’s pushing the failed Green Revolution, he’s pushing chemicals, pushing GMOs, pushing patterns.”

Vandana Shiva (1952) Indian philosopher

On Bill Gate's philanthropic activities, from " Bill Gates is continuing the work of Monsanto, Vandana Shiva tells France24 https://www.france24.com/en/20191023-bill-gates-is-continuing-the-work-of-monsanto-vandana-shiva-tells-france-24-1" France24 (23 October 2019)

Money

“I also knew the formula that expresses the energy distribution in the normal spectrum. A theoretical interpretation therefore had to be found at any cost, no matter how high. It was clear to me that classical physics could offer no solution to this problem, and would have meant that all energy would eventually transfer from matter to radiation. ...This approach was opened to me by maintaining the two laws of thermodynamics. The two laws, it seems to me, must be upheld under all circumstances. For the rest, I was ready to sacrifice every one of my previous convictions about physical laws. ...[One] finds that the continuous loss of energy into radiation can be prevented by assuming that energy is forced at the outset to remain together in certain quanta. This was purely a formal assumption and I really did not give it much thought except that no matter what the cost, I must bring about a positive result.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Letter to Robert W. Wood (October 7, 1931) in Archive for the History of Quantum Physics, Microfilm 66, 5, as cited in Thomas S. Kuhn, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894–1912 (1978) pp. 132, 288. Translation of the entire letter, which is follow above is in Armin Hermann, Frühgeschiche der Quantentheorie (1899–1913) Mosbach/Baden: Physik Verlag (1969), transl. Claude W. Nash, p. 23 of the translation; and also in M. S. Longair,Theoretical Concepts in Physics(Cambridge and NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1984), ch. 6–12, p. 222. All as quoted/cited by Clayton A. Gearhart, "Planck, the Quantum, and the Historians" http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.613.4262&rep=rep1&type=pdf, Physics in Perspective, 4 (2002) 170-215.

Problem , Loss , Law

“It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.”

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

Source: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006), Introduction, p. 6

Way , Suffering , Children , People

Quotes about prevention page 2

Quotes about prevention
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