Quotes about prevention
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“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, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Children, Lying, Question, Thinking

“Only when one is equipped with the formidable striking capabilities, overwhelming military power that cannot be stopped by anyone, one can prevent a war, guarantee the security of the country and contain and put under control all threats and blackmails by the imperialists.”

Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea

As quoted in "Kim Jong Un Defends Nuclear Tests, Says 'powerful Weapons' Help Mitigate Threats" in Republic World https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-news/kim-jong-un-defends-nuclear-tests-says-powerful-weapons-help-mitigate-threats-articleshow.html (28 March 2022)

War, Country

“The constitution shall never be construed… to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

People

“Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

Source: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

Way

“… facts never prevent the ignorant from jerking their knees into the groin of science.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnDivided

Jerk, Science

“We have the idea that our hearts, once broken, scar over with an indestructible tissue that prevents their ever breaking again in quite the same place…”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Idea, Heart

“‎What is to prevent, say, an uprising?”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Men, Decision, Change

“We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing.”

Hélène Cixous (1937) French philosopher and writer

Falseness

“Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Justice

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his (sic)patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease”

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

Disease, Future

“Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them.”

Julian Fellowes book Snobs

Source: Snobs

“As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake.”

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

World, Suffering

“If you go to your death rather than do everything you might to prevent what is happening, you are merely committing suicide and trying to make yourself feel better about it. That is the act of a coward. It is beneath contempt.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Death, Feeling, Suicide

“EPICURUS's old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?”

David Hume book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Philo to Cleanthes, Part X
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)
Context: And is it possible, CLEANTHES, said PHILO, that after all these reflections, and infinitely more, which might be suggested, you can still persevere in your Anthropomorphism, and assert the moral attributes of the Deity, his justice, benevolence, mercy, and rectitude, to be of the same nature with these virtues in human creatures? His power we allow is infinite: whatever he wills is executed: but neither man nor any other animal is happy: therefore he does not will their happiness. His wisdom is infinite: He is never mistaken in choosing the means to any end: But the course of Nature tends not to human or animal felicity: therefore it is not established for that purpose. Through the whole compass of human knowledge, there are no inferences more certain and infallible than these. In what respect, then, do his benevolence and mercy resemble the benevolence and mercy of men? EPICURUS's old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?

Question, Evil

“Life always kills you in the end, but first it prevents you from getting what you want.”

Douglas Coupland The Gum Thief

Source: The Gum Thief

Life

“It doesnt always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Love, Hate, World, Help

“The proverb warns that, 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

People

“Will!" Charlotte threw up her hands. "Why didn't you say so?"
"You know, the books on demon pox are in the library," Will said with an injured tone. "I wasn't preventing anyone from reading them”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Books, Reading

“But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Source: Northanger Abbey: a play in two acts, based upon the novel

Family, Way

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

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

Letter to Thomas Cooper (29 November 1802)
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)
Variant: If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.

Happiness, People, Future

“True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Le Mystère Laïc (1928); later published in Collected Works Vol. 10 (1950)

“To be angry once in a while is really good fun, because it makes others so miserable. But to be angry morning, noon and night, as I am, grows monotonous and prevents my gaining any other pleasure in life.”

L. Frank Baum book The Emerald City of Oz

Source: The Emerald City of Oz

Life, Pleasure, Night

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

World, Time

“She asked me what type of contraceptive I use.
Underwear. Keeping it on prevents pregnancy.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

“Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Valley of Fear

Source: The Valley of Fear

Hope, Feeling, Lying

“Thwart," I said. "To prevent someone from accomplishing something by means of visiting gratuitous violence upon his smarmy person."

"I'm pretty sure that isn't the definition." Sarissa said.

"It is today.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Personality

“Discretion prevented me from saying that I thought she was a fiend from the underworld and that mountain lions couldn't force me to enter her service.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Thief

Source: The Thief

Mountain

“Your fear of letting go prevents you from letting go of your fear of letting go.”

John Burdett (1951) British crime novelist

Source: Bangkok Tattoo

Fear

“The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

Shown at the end of the episode "Scorched Earth", no. 14 in the 3rd season of Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict, first aired on February 7, 2000.

War, Fight

“You can clear out whatever obstacles are preventing you from living your most creative life, with the simple understanding that whatever is bad for you is probably also bad for your work.”

Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Life, Understanding

“when things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. it's because a little piece gets lost -- the two remaining ends couldn't fit together even if they wanted to. the whole shape has changed.”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Change

“Nothing can prevent your picture from coming into concrete form except the same power which gave it birth – yourself.”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

Birth

“For the best part of 40 years she had genuinely believed that not doing things would somehow prevent regret, when, of course, the exact opposite was true.”

Nick Hornby book Juliet, Naked

Source: Juliet, Naked

Parting

“when the fierce, burning winds blow over our lives-and we cannot prevent them-let us, too, accept the inevitable. And then get busy and pick up the pieces.”

Dale Carnegie book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Business

“He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Time

“But fear of making mistakes can itself become a huge mistake, one that prevents you from living, for life is risky and anything less is already a loss.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

Source: A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Life, Fear, Loss

“Nothing a man suffers will prevent him from inflicting suffering on others. Indeed, it will teach him the way”

Barry Unsworth book Sacred Hunger

Source: Sacred Hunger

Way, Suffering

“I basked in you;
I loved you, helplessly, with a boundless tongue-tied love.
And death doesn't prevent me from loving you.
Besides,
in my opinion you aren't dead.
(I know dead people, and you are not dead.)”

Franz Wright (1953–2015) American poet

Source: Walking to Martha's Vineyard

Love, Death, People, Dead

“I'm just saying -- you can't prevent other people from disappointing you. It's bound to happen at some point. We're all only human. What you can do is decide how you're going to deal with it.”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

People, Disappointment

“Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice… No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Freedom

“Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.”

Maimónides (1138–1204) rabbi, physician, philosopher

“It wasn't torpor that kept her - she was often restless to the point of irritability. She simply liked to feel that she was prevented from leaving, that she was needed.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Feeling

“That is the most common excuse, and the most foolish of all. Love has never prevented a man from following his dreams. If she truly loves you, she will want the best for you.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Love, Dreams

“Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended…. Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored….”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

Life, Evil

“Don't let making a living prevent you from making a life.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Life

“Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.”

Alan Brennert (1954) American writer

Source: Moloka'i

Fear, Fools

“Logical thinking keeps you from wasting time worrying, or hoping. It prevents disappointment. Imagination, on the other hand, only gets you hyped up over things that will never realistically happen.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

Hope, Disappointment, Imagination, Thinking

“No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.”

Hannah Arendt book Eichmann in Jerusalem

Epilogue.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963)

Appearance, Time

“A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed cormulas about good and evil.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)

Life, Sense, Evil

“A moment of consideration often prevents a thousand apologies”

Kevin J. Anderson (1962) American science fiction author

“If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

“… one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.”

Aldous Huxley book Crome Yellow

Source: Crome Yellow

Thinking, Reading

“Preventing war is much better than protesting against the war. Protesting the war is too late.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Being Peace

War

“Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

World, Peace, Way, Learning

“I had a dream that all the babies prevented by the pill showed up. They were mad.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Dreams, Baby, Madness

“We must nurture and love, if life is to have any real meaning. But First we must find a way to survive against the things that prevent us from doing so.”

Terry Brooks (1944) American writer

Love, Life, Way

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”

Maya Angelou book Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Source: Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993) p. 12.

People, Travel, Idea, Understanding

“If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Letter to James Warren (24 October 1780) http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2094

Men, Time, Country

“What people regard as vanity—leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one's name from being forgotten—I regard as the highest expression of human dignity.”

Paulo Coelho book The Pilgrimage

Source: The Pilgrimage

Children, People, Way

“When you steal from the library, you are preventing anyone else from reading that book, and the very notion makes me want to drop you in the Void.”

Piers Anthony Golem in the Gears

Source: Golem in the Gears

Books, Reading

“Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history."
"Relax," I said. "I'm very relaxed.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

War, History

“We're so arrogant, aren't we? So afraid of age, we do everything we can to prevent it. We don't realize what a privilege it is to grow old with someone. Someone who doesn't drive you to commit murder or doesn't humiliate you beyond repair.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Age

“Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, let alone revising their categories.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), p.15

People

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Part IV, The Traders, section 1; originally published as “The Wedge” in Astounding (October 1944)
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)

Sense, Wise

“Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“In cities men cannot be prevented from concerting together, and from awakening a mutual excitement which prompts sudden and passionate resolutions. Cities may be looked upon as large assemblies, of which all the inhabitants are members; their populace exercises a prodigious influence upon the magistrates, and frequently executes its own wishes without their intervention.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Variant translation: In towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great meeting houses with all the inhabitants as members. In them the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries.
Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XV-IXX, Chapter XVII.

Men, Exercises, Passion

“The occupation of Iraq is completely self-perpetuating: The worse things get the more we are obliged to stay. And the longer we stay the worse things get. Wonderful, no? Being trapped in Iraq, moreover, has clearly prevented us from tackling Iran with any traction. One argument commonly made for staying in Iraq makes no sense to me at all. It's McCain's "if we leave, they will follow us home." But if we stay, they can follow us home as well. And by staying, we have clearly created more of them to follow us. The second argument that fails to convince is that by leaving, we give al Qaeda a propaganda coup. Yes, we would, and it would be intellectually dishonest to deny that. Any argument for withdrawal needs to take that into account. But by staying and losing, we also give al Qaeda a propaganda coup. And by constantly giving al Qaeda an anti-imperial narrative, we also prevent Muslims and Arabs from recognizing them for what they are: not anti-imperial liberators but theo-fascists.
It's becoming clearer and clearer to me that if we want to win this long war, we have to leave Iraq. Sooner rather than later.”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

"Iraq and Gaza, Ctd" http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/06/iraq_and_gaza_c.html, The Daily Dish (14 June 2007)

War, Home, Sense

“I believe in preventing cruelty to all living beings in any form.”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967

“By the principles of the Declaration of Independence, majority rule in a free society is not an end in itself, nor is it a source of the purposes served by free government. Majority rule exists to secure the rights with which all human persons are "endowed by their Creator." The recognition of the origin of these rights, in God and nature, comes before any action of any majority. Only as we all recognize that "the just powers of government" exist to secure the equal rights possessed by every human being, whether in the majority or minority, can tyranny be prevented.”

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

2000s, Bush's Lincolnian Challenge (2002)

God, Nature, Personality

“On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.”
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Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (The Ends of Good and Evil), Book I, section 33; Translation by H. Rackham (1914)

Men, Pain, Pleasure, Business

“The labor unions of Indiana proceeded to meet and resolve. They resolved in such violent and vicious language that no partisan press could be found willing to print the resolutions. Long afterward I learned that I was shadowed for six months by Secret Service men in the fear that I might be assaulted by some over-zealous union man. Of this I was not aware at the time, or I should have taken steps to have prevented it. Whether I am a Presbyterian or a fatalist I do not know, but I do know that if I am to be shot, I will never be hanged.”

Thomas R. Marshall (1854–1925) American politician who served as the 28th Vice President of the United States

Recollections of Thomas R. Marshall: A Hoosier Salad (1925), Chapter XIV

Men, Secret, Fear, Learning

“To feel that there is so quick a bound to intercourse, makes us prize the moment, but then also makes it so difficult to use. Yet this one thing I wish to say, where so many must be left unsaid. You tell me, that I may, probably never know you wholly. Indeed the obstacles of time and space may prevent my understanding the workings of character; many pages of my new book may be shut against me, better than to yourself. Perhaps? I believe in Ahnungen beyond anything.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Ahnungen means "Premonitions"; letter XIII to James Nathan (31 March 1845).
The Love Letters Of Margaret Fuller (1903)

Books, Feeling, Understanding, Time

“Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amok by hamstringing it.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“The Court today finds that the Powers That Be, up in Albany, have conspired to effect an establishment of the Satmar Hasidim. I do not know who would be more surprised at this discovery: the Founders of our Nation or Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, founder of the Satmar. The Grand Rebbe would be astounded to learn that after escaping brutal persecution and coming to America with the modest hope of religious toleration for their ascetic form of Judaism, the Satmar had become so powerful, so closely allied with Mammon, as to have become an establishment of the Empire State. And the Founding Fathers would be astonished to find that the Establishment Clause — which they designed to insure that no one powerful sect or combination of sects could use political or governmental power to punish dissenters — has been employed to prohibit characteristically and admirably American accommodation of the religious practices (or more precisely, cultural peculiarities) of a tiny minority sect. I, however, am not surprised. Once this Court has abandoned text and history as guides, nothing prevents it from calling religious toleration the establishment of religion.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet (1994) (dissenting) (citations and some internal quotation marks omitted).
1990s

Religion, Hope, History, Learning

“Preventives of evil are far better than remedies; cheaper and easier of application, and surer in result.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 442.

Evil

“Women need to become literary "criminals", break the literary laws and reinvent their own, because the established laws prevent women from presenting the reality of their lives.”

Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet

Bodies of Work (1996)

Women, Law, Reality

“I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God, Evil, Time, Heart

“When you shut down neurons to prevent them from transmitting signals, we call that "brain damage." Copyright is brain damage. It's brain damage in the great mind, and it's brain damage in the individual mind.”

Nina Paley (1968) US animator, cartoonist and free culture activist

“"Then he was wrong to have been born at all. Cheek- eek-eek-eek, oo, hoo!" chuckled Rinkitink, his fat body shaking with merriment. "But it's hard to prevent oneself from being born; there's no chance for protest, eh, Bilbil?"”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Rinkitink of Oz (1916), Ch. 5 : The Three Pearls
Later Oz novels

Chance

“The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The 'Rivers of Blood' speech

Evil

“St. Augustine confesses that he himself had been formerly in a similar mistake. 'I was once,' says he, 'a Pelagian in my principles; I thought that faith towards God was not the gift of God, but that we procured it by our own powers, and that then, through the use of it, we obtain the gifts of God; I never supposed that the preventing grace of God was the proper cause of our faith, till my mind was struck in a particular manner by the apostle's argument and testimony: What hast thou that thou hast not received, and if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?”

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

In this whole business I follow the steps of Augustine.
De causa Dei contra Pelagium

God, Faith, Business

“well boss
mehitabel the cat
has reappeared in her old
haunts with a
flock of kittens

archy she said to me
yesterday
the life of a female
artist is continually
hampered what in hell
have i done to deserve
all these kittens
i look back on my life
and it seems to me to be
just one damned kitten
after another
i am a dancer archy
and my only prayer
is to be allowed
to give my best to my art
but just as i feel
that i am succeeding
in my life work
along comes another batch
of these damned kittens
it is not archy
that i am shy on mother love
god knows i care for
the sweet little things
curse them
but am i never to be allowed
to live my own life
i have purposely avoided
matrimony in the interests
of the higher life
but i might just
as well have been a domestic
slave for all the freedom
i have gained
i hope none of them
gets run over by
an automobile
my heart would bleed
if anything happened
to them and i found it out
but it isn t fair archy
it isn t fair
these damned tom cats have all
the fun and freedom
if i was like some of these
green eyed feline vamps i know
i would simply walk out on the
bunch of them and
let them shift for themselves
but i am not that kind
archy i am full of mother love
my kindness has always
been my curse
a tender heart is the cross i bear
self sacrifice always and forever
is my motto damn them
i will make a home
for the sweet innocent
little things
unless of course providence
in his wisdom should remove
them they are living
just now in an abandoned
garbage can just behind
a made over stable in greenwich
village and if it rained
into the can before i could
get back and rescue them
i am afraid the little
dears might drown
it makes me shudder just
to think of it
of course if i were a family cat
they would probably
be drowned anyhow
sometimes i think
the kinder thing would be
for me to carry the
sweet little things
over to the river
and drop them in myself
but a mother s love archy
is so unreasonable
something always prevents me
these terrible
conflicts are always
presenting themselves
to the artist
the eternal struggle
between art and life archy
is something fierce
yes something fierce
my what a dramatic
life i have lived
one moment up the next
moment down again
but always gay archy always gay
and always the lady too
in spite of hell
well boss it will
be interesting to note
just how mehitabel
works out her present problem
a dark mystery still broods
over the manner
in which the former
family of three kittens
disappeared
one day she was talking to me
of the kittens
and the next day when i asked
her about them
she said innocently
what kittens
interrogation point
and that was all
i could ever get out
of her on the subject
we had a heavy rain
right after she spoke to me
but probably that garbage can
leaks so the kittens
have not yet
been drowned”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

mehitabel and her kittens http://donmarquis.com/reading-room/kittens/ <br class="br">archy and mehitabel (1927)

Love, Life, Wisdom, God

“The intellectual … may live for ideas, as I have said, but something must prevent him from living for one idea, from becoming obsessive or grotesque. Although there have been zealots whom we may still regard as intellectuals, zealotry is a defect of the breed and not of the essence.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), p. 29

Idea

“My lover took away my robe of sin and I let it fall, rejoicing; then he plucked at my robe of virtue, but I was ashamed and alarmed and prevented him. It was not till he wrested it from me by force that I saw how my soul had been hidden from me.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti

Soul, Lovers

“The bourgeois … considered the philosophes to be his true guides, which did not prevent him from taking good care not to adopt their teachings once he realized they might be damaging to the interests of his class. … He seemed quite disposed to make his peace with the Church, now that he was sure of being sufficiently emancipated to be able to live his life as he chose. To go farther, he feared, would to to act contrary to the interests of his class, for disbelief, by spreading among the people, might eventually endanger the principles of the social order which the bourgeoisie needed to establish its domination.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 46

Life, People, Fear, Peace

“Social power [is the] potential influence, the ability of a person or group to induce or prevent change in another. Social control [is] the process by which members of a social entity are influenced to adhere to values and principles of proper behavior deemed appropriate for that social entity.”

Bertram Raven (1926) American psychologist

Source: "Influence, Power, Religion, and the Mechanisms of Social Control," 1999, p. 161

Behavior, Change, Personality

“Let's face it, minorities are people who probably look and act and think differently from us and have faults we don't have. We may dislike the way they look and act, and we may hate their faults. And it’s better if we admit to disliking and hating them, than if we try to smear over our feelings with pseudo-liberal sentimentality. If we’re frank about our feelings, we have a safety valve; and if we have a safety-valve, we’re actually less likely to start persecuting.... I know that theory is unfashionable nowadays. We all keep trying to believe that, if we ignore something long enough, it’ll just vanish––
‘Where was I? Oh yes... Well, now, suppose this minority does get persecuted – never mind why – political, economic, psychological reasons – there always is a reason, no matter how wrong it is – that’s my point. And, of course, persecution itself is always wrong; I’m sure we all agree there. But, the worst of it is, we now run into another liberal heresy. Because the persecuting majority is vile, says the liberal, therefore the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure. Can’t you see what nonsense that is? What’s to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims in the arena have to be saints?’
‘And I’ll tell you something else. A minority has its own kind of aggression. It absolutely dares the majority to attack it. It hates the majority — not without a cause, I grant you. It even hates the other minorities – because all minorities are in competition: each one proclaims that its sufferings are the worst and its wrongs are the blackest. And the more they all hate, and the more they're all persecuted, the nastier they become! Do you think it makes people nasty to be loved? You know it doesn’t! Then why should it make them nice to be loathed?”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

pps. 53-54
A Single Man (1964)

Love, Hate, People, Way

“In the ranks of Labour there would be no faltering until victory was won and German and Japanese aggression had been utterly defeated. But they had reached a stage when they could look beyond war to peace. In all our parties there was a firm resolve to build up a world system of security that would prevent our fellow men and women again being subjected to the horror of war. The lesson of the war of 1914–18 was…only half learnt. The idea of the League of Nations was right, but it was not put into practice. This time we must see to it that an international order is established in the world with the power and the will, and not merely the desire, to prevent war breaking out again.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the conference of representatives of the British and Dominion Labour parties, Westminster, London (12 September 1944), quoted in The Times (13 September 1944), p. 8.
War Cabinet

Women, Men, War, World

“Source Reduction is to garbage what preventive medicine is to health.”

William Rathje (1945–2012) American archaeologist

Atlantic Monthly, December 1989.

Health

“It is only mental habit that prevents us from realizing how miraculous it is that motion can be passed from one body to another. Once our eyes have opened, nothing is so striking. For those who have never thought about it, it doesn't seem mysterious; by contrast, those who have meditated on it may despair of ever understanding it.”

Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters

Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique (1746)

Understanding, Despair

“The attempt to place the white population under the domination of persons of color in the South has impaired, if not destroyed, the kindly relations that had previously existed between them: and mutual distrust has engendered a feeling of animosity which leading in some instances to collision and bloodshed, has prevented that cooperation between the two races so essential to the success of industrial enterprise in the Southern States.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

Quote, Fourth State of the Union Address (1868)

Color, Feeling, Success, Personality

“How can anyone be interested in war? — that glorious pursuit of annihilation with its ceremonious bellowings and trumpetings over the mangling of human bones and muscles and organs and eyes, its inconceivable agonies which could have been prevented by a few well-chosen, reasonable words. How, why, did this unnecessary business begin? Why does anyone want to read about it — this redundant human madness which men accept as inevitable?”

Margaret Caroline Anderson (1886–1973) American magazine editor

The Strange Necessity (1969), part 1.

Men, War, Business, Reading

“Even as the nation monitors the Muslim world within its borders more closely for signs of Islamism, it must continue, of course, to protect the civil rights of law-abiding American Muslims. Political leaders should regularly and publicly distinguish between Islam, the religion of Muslims, and Islamism, the totalitarian ideology. In addition, they should do everything in their power to make sure that individual Muslims, mosques, and other legal institutions continue to enjoy the full protection of the law. A time of crisis doesn’t change the presumption of innocence at the core of our legal system. Police should provide extra protection for Muslims to prevent acts of vandalism against their property or their persons.”

Daniel Pipes (1949) U.S. neoconservative columnist, author, counter-terrorism analyst, and scholar of Middle Eastern history

Fighting Militant Islam, Without Bias, City Journal http://www.danielpipes.org/articles/79, Autumn 2002.

World, Religion, Law, Change

“It was Plato who determined once and for all the cultural meaning of imitation, but this meaning is truncated, torn from the essential dimension of acquisitive behavior, which is also the dimension of conflict. If the behavior of certain higher animals, particularly the apes, seems to foreshadow human behavior, it does so almost exclusively, perhaps, because the role of acquisitive mimesis is so important in their behavior, although it is not as central as it is for the human being. If one ape observes another reach for an object, it is immediately tempted to imitate the gesture. It also happens that the animal visibly resists the temptation, and if the imitative gesture amuses us by reminding us of human beings, the failure to complete it, that is to say the repression of what already can be nearly defined as a desire, amuses us even more. It makes the animal a sort of brother to us by showing it subject to the same fundamental rule as humanity—that of preventing conflict, which the convergence of two or several avid hands toward one and the same object cannot help but provoke.”

René Girard book Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

Source: Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1978), p. 4.

Behavior, Failure, Help, Animals

“You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don't know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it's about diet, not diabetes. It's going to be very, very exciting. But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Nancy Pelosi (1940) American politician, first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, born 1940

9 March, 2010. Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2279128/ Having to pass a bill to know what is does is a Grin and Bear It cartoon punchline http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/john-roberts-obamacare-cartoon from 1947, paraphased in a 1948 Indiana Law Journal article by then Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3871&context=ilj Frankfurter was in turn cited in 2015's decision in King v. Burwell, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, which turned on a complication in the very law resulting from the bill Pelosi was above describing. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-114_qol1.pdf <br class="br">2010s

Health, Future

“The lack of formal definition does not prevent us from noting the characteristics which are frequently present in large scale systems. Each such system has a certain integrity. It may or may not be rigidly controlled from some central point, but in every case, all the parts of the system have some common purpose; in some sense, they all contribute to the production of a single set of optimum outputs from the given set of inputs, with respect to some appropriate measure of effectiveness.”

Robert E. Machol (1917–1998) American systems engineer

Source: System Engineering (1957), p. 5; As cited in: Allen B. Rosenstein (1965) " Systems engineering and Modern Engineering Design http://books.google.com/books?id=HDp9ReqM314C&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false"

Sense, Parting

“When we observe a thing, we see too much in it, we fall under the spell of the wealth of empirical detail which prevents us from clearly perceiving the notional determination which forms the core of the thing. The problem is thus not that of how to grasp the multiplicity of determinations, but rather to abstract from them, how to constrain our gaze and teach it to grasp only the notional determinism.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

xi
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Problem, Wealth

“At what point do you say, ‘Enough is enough’? Well, the world has to say it — remember that the Sudetenland was given in an attempt to appease Hitler to prevent World War II.”

Benigno Aquino III (1960) 15th President of the Philippines (2010-2016)

Comparing China to Nazi Germany to criticize China's assertive policy on dealing the South China Sea dispute. Keith Bradsher. Philippine Leader Sounds Alarm on China in New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/world/asia/philippine-leader-urges-international-help-in-resisting-chinas-sea-claims.html?_r=0 (4 February 2015)

War, World

Quotes about prevention page 3

Quotes about prevention
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