Quotes about relationship (1961 quotes, page 16)

Islamist Sheik Omar Bakri, Who Fled from London to Lebanon, Declares His Support of Al-Qaeda, Criticizes Hizbullah and States: The Prophet Muhammad Also Killed Civilians, MEMRI, January 8, 2008 http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1651.htm,

World , Thinking , Time , Fight

“There is always an attempt to move away from the Cross, that is, to perpetuate man’s misrecognition of his violence and protect his pride from the revelation. Without the Cross, there is no revelation of the fundamental injustice of the scapegoat mechanism, which is the founder of human culture, with all its repercussions in our relationships with each other.”

René Girard (1923–2015) French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science

"The Scandal of Christianity" in Evolution and Conversion: Dialogues on the Origins of Culture (2007), p. 219

“Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped from one's context, and thus from all the social relationships that make one a human being.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Seven, "Honor and Degradation", p. 168

“The problem of method … includes four main issuesː the possibility of an alternative to logic and causation, capable of overcoming the inadequacies of both rationalism and historicism; the link between this third method and causality; the connection between the meaning of an act for its agent and its meaning for an observer; and the relationship of systematic theory to historical understanding.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Law in Modern Societyː Toward a Criticism of Social Theory (1976), p. 245

Understanding , Problem

“I believe that the main lesson of relativity and quantum theory is that the world is nothing but an evolving network of relationships.”

Lee Smolin book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity

Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2000)

World

“Several fallacies have been accepted too freely recently about the position of our manufacturing industry in the balance of our economy. The biggest fallacy is the view that salvation lies in services, and only in services. The corollary to that is that it is inevitable and desirable that over the past two decades there has been a reduction of nearly 3 million in employment in manufacturing industry. That is a massive reduction and represents nearly 40 per cent. of the total in manufacturing industry over that time. I do not believe that that should have been the case. That has been precipitate and dangerous and it has not been associated with an increase in productivity which has led to our maintaining our relative manufacturing position…I have come increasingly to the view that the Government stand back too much from industry. In my experience, they do so more than any other Government in the European Community. They do so more than the United States Government. We have to remember the vast US defence involvement in industry. They certainly stand back more than do the Japanese Government. To some extent, the motive is the feeling that we have had an uncompetitive and rather complacent industry which must be exposed to the full blasts of competition, and if that means contracts, even Government contracts, going overseas, we should shrug our shoulders and say that the wind should be stimulating. That process has been carried much further in Britain than in any other comparable rival country. I am resolutely opposed to protectionism. I am sure that it diminishes the employment and wealth-creating capacity of the world as a whole. That would be the result of plunging back into that policy. I also believe, however, that this totally arm's-length approach in the relationship between Government and industry is something that no other comparable Government contemplate to the extent that we do. It is not producing good results for British industry and it is a recipe for a further decline in Britain's position in the Western world. The Government should examine it carefully and reverse it in several important respects.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1986/jul/07/future-of-manufacturing-industry in the House of Commons (7 July 1986).
1980s

World , Feeling , Communication , Motivation

“Russians have different far lofty ambitions; more of a spiritual kind. It's more about your relationship with God.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33oIF-ggK5U
2011 - 2015

God

“This superficial blurring has something to do with the incapacity I have just mentioned. I can make no statement about reality clearer than my own relationship to reality; and this has a great deal to do with imprecision, uncertainty, transience, incompleteness, or whatever. But this doesn't explain the pictures. At best it explains what led to their being painted.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

in an interview with Rolf Schön, 1972; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: 'on Techniques' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/techniques-5
1970's

Reality , Painting

“Therefore, the inhabitants of other stars — of whatever sort these inhabitants might be – bear no comparative relationship to the inhabitants of the earth (istius mundi ). [That is true] even if, with respect to the goal of the universe, that entire region bears to this entire region a certain comparative relationship which is hidden to us — so that in this way the inhabitants of this earth or region bear, through the medium of the whole region, a certain mutual relationship to those other inhabitants. (By comparison, the particular parts of the fingers of a hand bear, through the medium of the hand, a comparative relationship to a food; and the particular parts of the foot [bear], through the medium of the foot, [a comparative relationship] to a hand — so that all [members] are comparatively related to the whole animal.) Hence, since the entire region is unknown to us, those inhabitants remain altogether unknown.”

Nicholas of Cusa book De Docta Ignorantia

trans. Jasper Hopkins (Minneapolis: Arthur J Banning Press, 1990), 119 – 20.
De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (1440)

Food , Way , Star , Universe

“If you ask me:"An openly homosexual teacher can work as a teacher? I say no. (…) I'll not do anything to discriminate you, but I'll also not do anything to put your type of relationship on the same level of the natural family.”

Gianfranco Fini (1952) Italian politician

Fini: un gay non puo' fare il maestro http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/1998/aprile/09/Fini_gay_non_puo_fare_co_0_9804094008.shtml, Il Corriere della Sera, 9 April 1998.

Family , Nature , Teachers

“A kiss is a contact, a union, an exchange. It is unknown to certain races and tribes, while others know it and consider it with disgust. They all suffer a loss. A kiss can be a cold formula, or a token of familial relationship or a prelude to the act of love. It can also be a revelation in an unspoken, secret language of feelings that have never been expressed in words.”

Harry Harrison (1925–2012) American science fiction author

Source: Plague from Space (1965), Chapter 9 (pp. 81-82)

Love , Secret , Family , Feeling

“Although our grammar schools are teaching a whole generation computer language to adjust to the technological needs of a Stage II society, we have neglected to teach this generation relationship language and conflict resolution skills to address the social and psychological needs of a Stage II society. And when it is taught, in countries like Germany, although called “social competence” it focuses on workplace teamwork -- still on survival, breadwinner oriented work goals.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 116.

School , Country

“Libertarian states are by theory not only less violence prone, but when foreign relations includes the perception of other libertarian states, this inhibition becomes a mutual barrier to violence. Their mutual domestic diversity and pluralism, their free and competitive press, their people-to-people and elite-to-elite bonds and relationships, and their mutual identification and sympathy will foreclose on any expectation or occurrence of war between them; violence may occur only in the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances, or at the margins of what it means to be libertarian.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

“Libertarianism and International Violence”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 27, Sage Publications, March 1, 1983, p. 27-71

War , People

“someone with whom I have an intimate relationship”

Tom Peters (1942) American writer on business management practices

Tom Peters Daily, Weekly Quote

“Willow: Questions. Great.
Tara: W-we can answer questions.
Nigel: Good. I need to know a little bit more about the Slayer, and about the both of you. Your relationship, whatever you can tell me.
Tara: O-o-our relationship?
Willow: We're friends.
Tara: Good friends.
Willow: Girlfriends, actually.
Tara: Yes, we're girlfriends.
Willow: We're in love. W-we're lovers. We're lesbian, gay-type lovers.
Nigel: I meant your relationship with the Slayer.”

Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States

All the Way [6.6]
Willow & Tara (2000-2002)

Love , Lovers , Question

“Probable that I am now better than most people and as good as I ever shall be at this game, and can therefore get to know anyone I wish, provided I am not physically repellent. And perhaps this is why personal relationships no longer seem to me a serious branch of study.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 45

People , Game , Study , Personality

“Prosperity, in any meaningful sense of the term, is about the quality of our lives and relationships, about the resilience of our communities and about our sense of individual and collective meaning.”

Tim Jackson book Prosperity Without Growth

Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow, 2017 edition, Routledge, pages xxxviii-xxxix (ISBN 9781138935419).
Prosperity Without Growth

Communication , Sense

“Happiness is possible only in a relationship with a partner. Imagine that some fellow who has lived his life as a singer goes to an uninhabited island and sings as loudly as possible. If there is no one there to hear him, he will not be happy. To realize that we exist for the sake of others is the great achievement that changes our lives. When we realize that our life is not ours alone but is meant to be for the sake of the other, we begin to follow a path different from the one we were on. Just as singing to yourself will not make you happy, there is no joy without a partner. Even the smallest and most trivial thing can bring you happiness when you do it for another.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

2009, As a Peace-loving Global Citizen http://www.euro-tongil.org/TFbiography.pdf, Page 139.

Life , Imagination , Change , Singing

“The essential of a real picture is that the things which occur in it occur to him in his peculiarly personal fashion.... the idea of modernity is but a new attachment of things universal – a fresh relationship to the courses of the sun and to the living swing of the earth – a new fire of affection for the living essence present everywhere.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

statement for catalogue of 1914 exhibition at 291, reprinted in On art, p. 62; as quoted in Marsden Hartley, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988, New York p. 49
1908 - 1920

Idea , Fashion , Universe , Sun

“Unfortunately, the word "system" has many colloquial meanings, some of which have no place in scientific discussion. In order to exclude such meanings, and at the same time provide a starting point for exposition we state the following definition:
A system is a set of objects together with relationships between the objects and between their attributes.
Our definition does imply of course that a system has properties, functions or purposes distinct from its constituent objects, relationships and attributes.”

Arthur D. Hall (1925–2006) American electrical engineer

Source: Definition of System, 1956, p. 18: Italics quote cited in: Thorbjoern Mann (1992) Building Economics for Architects. p. 140

Time

“It has been necessary to show the Hospital de Tavera as a model, for the building hides the Visagra Gate, and the dome obscures part of the town, and once treated as a model and moved from its place, it seemed better to me to show the main façade.... the rest, and its proper relationship to the town can be seen on the plan. Also, in the representation of Our Lady presenting the Chasuble to Saint Ildefonso, in making the figures large, I have applied, in some way, the observation made of celestial bodies that an illuminated body seen at a distance may appear large although it be small.”

El Greco (1541–1614) Greek painter, sculptor and architect

Quote of an inscription, composed by El Greco, c. 1608, on the plan of Toledo, in his painting 'View and Plan of Toledo'; as quoted on Outline Biography of El Greco - (documented facts of his life) https://www.wga.hu/tours/spain/greco1.html

Way , Appearance , Parting

“I have firmly believed since Desert Shield that it is necessary for the strength of our democracy that the military and the press corps maintain a strong, mutually-respectful and enabling relationship. This continues to be problematic for our country, especially during times of war.”

Ricardo Sanchez (1953) United States Army Lieutenant General

Reporters and editors luncheon address (2007)

War , Democracy , Strong , Time

“Management is defined here as the accomplishment of desired objectives by establishing an environment favorable to performance by people operating in organized groups. Each of the managerial functions (planning, organizing, staffing,, directing, and controlling) is analyzed and described in a systematic way. As this is done, both the distilled experience of practicing managers and the findings of scholars are presented. This is approached in such a way that the reader may grasp the relationships between each of the functions, obtain a clear view of the major principles underlying them.”

Harold Koontz (1909–1984)

Source: Principles of management, 1968, p. 1 (1968 edition)

People , Way

“[Mead saw at least two major problems in dating. First, it encourages men and women to define heterosexual relationships as situational, rather than ongoing] You "have a date," you "go out with a date," you "groan because there isn't a decent date in town." A situation defined as containing a girl — or boy — of the right social background, the right degree of popularity, a little higher than your own.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1940s, Male and Female (1949), p. 286, with bracket text from: Mary Ann Lamanna, Agnes Czerwinski Riedmann, Agnes Riedmann [2006] Marriages & Families: Making Choices and Facing Change. p. 191

Women , Men , Girl , Boy

“[A] paradox arises at the level of the subject's relationship to the community to which he belongs: the situation of the forced choice consists in the fact that the subject must freely choose the community to which he already belongs, independent of his choice - he must choose what is already given to him… The subject who thinks he can avoid this paradox and really have a free choice is a psychotic subject, one who retains a kind of distance from the symbolic order - who is not really caught in the signifying network. The totalitarian subject is closer to this psychotic position: the proof would be the status of the enemy in totalitarian distance (the Jew in Fascism, the traitor in Stalinism) - precisely the subject supposed to have made a free choice and to have freely chosen the wrong side. This is also the basic paradox of love: not only of one's country, but also of a woman or a man. If I am directly ordered to love a woman, it is clear that this does not work: in a way, love must be free. But on the other hand, if I proceed as if I really have a free choice, if I start to look around and say to myself 'Let's choose which of these women I will fall in love with,' it is clear that this also does not work, that it is not real love. The paradox of love is that it is a free choice, but a choice which never arrives in the present - it is always already made …I can only state retroactively that I've already chosen … [Stated by Kant], 'Wickedness does not simply depend upon circumstances but is an integral part of his eternal nature.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

In other words, wickedness appears to be something which is irreducibly given: the person in question can never change it, outgrow it via his ultimate moral development.
186-187
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Love , Women , Way , Communication

“The religious Weltanschauung, … describes a certain kind of relationship – such as love, adoration and obedience – between men and other men, or between men and some superior being. or between men and "Nature."”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1960s - 1970s, The Design of Inquiring Systems (1971), p. 238 as cited in: Charles François (2006) "Ethics and enlightened personal responsibility" in: Wisdom, Knowledge, and Management. C.West Churchman and Related Works Series Volume 2, 2006, pp 161-168

Love , Men , Nature

“According to Charles W. Morris, syntactics is the relation between a given sign-vehicle and other sign-vehicles. There is a critical distinction here (that many cartographers have missed) between Morris's "syntactics" and the linguistic subcategory of "syntax". While syntax puts emphasis on word order and parsing (i. e., on a linear sequence), syntactics is much broader in scope. Syntactics allows for any kind of among-sign relationships. Morris (1938, p. 16) makes this point explicitly in his statement that there are "syntactical problems in the fields of perceptual signs, aesthetic signs, the practical use of signs, and general linguistics."… At least three kinds of sign relationships seem to fall under Morris's umbrella of syntactics (Posner, 1985, in French; cited in Nöth, 1990, p. 51). These include: (1) ”the consideration of signs and sign combinations so far as they are subject of syntactical rules” (Morris, 1938, p. 14), (2) ”the way in which signs of various classes are combined to form compound signs” (Morris, 1946/1971, p. 367), and (3) ”the formal relations of signs to one another””

Alan MacEachren (1952) American geographer

Morris, 1938, p. 6
Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 235; as cited in: Yuri Engelhardt, "Syntactic structures in graphics." Computational Visualistics and Picture Morphology 5 (2007): 23-35.

Way , Problem

“Israel, since its inception, has relied on external support, particularly from the Western world, for justification of its policies in Gaza and the West Bank. These relationships are contingent on many things, including values the West claims to hold dear like freedom, democracy, civil rights and equality. The prospect of a negotiated agreement based on two-states has allowed Israel to stave off the confrontation between the myth of these values and the reality on the ground. But as the notion of a two-state agreement fades firmly into history, the apartheid reality becomes impossible to ignore, and further episodes where Israel will confront masses of mobilized Palestinians demanding their rights will continue to highlight this contradiction.”

Yousef Munayyer American writer

In Gaza, Israel Aims To Massacre Hope (2018)

World , Democracy , History , Support

“The vertical is in my spirit. It helps me to define precisely the direction of lines, and in quick sketches I never indicate a curve, that of a branch in landscape for example, without being aware of its relationship to the vertical.
My curves are not mad.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

La verticale est dans mon esprit. Elle m'aide à préciser la direction des lignes, et dans mes dessins rapides je n'indique pas une courbe, par exemple, celle d'une branche dans un paysage, sans avoir conscience de son rapport avec la verticale.
Mes courbes ne sont pas folles.
1940s, Jazz (1947)

Help , Madness

“If you don't settle down to something very soon you’ll be forty and wondering where your life went. She pointed to the people all around us, happily married, productive, settled, content, having children, developing mature relationships, looking to the future, going on nice vacations, joining clubs, taking up golf, growing old together, visiting relatives, dreaming of grandchildren, supporting their churches, thinking of retirement. I agreed with her but I couldn't admit it. I gave her a sermon on life and America. I told her life was an adventure, and maybe I was living in the wrong century.”

Frank McCourt book Teacher Man

Teacher Man (2005)

Life , Children , People , Dreams

“Running an organisation… generates problems, which have no necessary (and often an opposed) relationship to the professed or "original" goals of the organization. The day-to-day behaviour of the group becomes centered around specific problems and proximate goals, which have primarily an internal relevance. Then, since these activities come to consume an increasing proportion of the time and thoughts of participants, they are-from the point of view of actual behaviour – substituted for the professed goal.”

Philip Selznick (1919–2010) American sociologist

Source: "An Approach to a Theory of Bureaucracy," 1943, p. 48; as cited in: Owen A. Jones. The Sources of Goal Incongruence in a Public Service Network. 2013. p. 23

Problem , Time

“There’s no better place to hide from intimacy than in a relationship.”

Neil Strauss book The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships

The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships (2015)

“Capitalist development requires, as a precondition, that the state foster a general sociopolitical and legal framework conducive to market relationships. An environment of security of property and predictability is basic to encourage investment; in turn, this requires political stability and a minimum degree of social harmony.”

Richard Sandbrook (1946–2005) environmentalist

Source: The State and Economic Stagnation in Tropical Africa, p. 320

“To my analytical mind this relationship of marriage was a very forced one between two people. I understood that for the security and upbringing of the child the parents need to be monogamous. Because then the child will have a secure home. But both people should understand and accept the fact that there would always be temptation. That's not bad in itself because what is temptation?”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

In "I have been a hippie all my life"

Marriage , People , Home , Understanding

“Little of the old establishment survives in modern industry: the emphasis is upon change and adaptability; the rate of change mounts to an increasing tempo. We have in fact passed beyond that stage of human organisation in which effective communication and collaboration were secured by established routines of relationship. For this change, physico-chemical and technical development are responsible. It is no longer possible for an industrial society to assume that the technical processes of manufacture will exist unchanged for long in any type of work. On the contrary, every industry is constantly seeking to change, not only its methods, but the very materials it uses; this development has been stimulated by the war.”

Elton Mayo (1880–1949) Australian academic

Source: The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, 1945, p. 13; Partly cited in: Lyndall Urwick & Edward Brech (1949). The Making Of Scientific Management Volume III https://archive.org/stream/makingofscientif032926mbp#page/n241/mode/1up, p. 216

War , Communication , Change

“If I hadn't an absolute faith in the harmony of creation, I wouldn't have tried for thirty years to express it in a mathematical formula. It is only man's consciousness of what he does with his mind that elevates him above the animals, and enables him to become aware of himself and his relationship to the universe.”

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

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 61

Faith , Mathematics , Universe , Animals

“Do you have what it takes to succeed in life, in work and in your relationships?”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Intro to the book
Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Life

“People who instinctively establish a strong network of relationships have always created great businesses.”

Keith Ferrazzi (1966) American businessman and writer

Never Eat Alone

People , Business , Strong

“In the struggle of mankind with the elements, its aim is dominion over nature. Dominion is a relationship of the organizer to the organized. Step by step, mankind acquires control over and conquers nature; this means that step by step it organizes the universe; it organizes the universe for Itself and in its own interests. Such is the meaning and content of the age-long labour of mankind.
Nature resists elementally and blindly with the terrible strength of its dark, chaotic, but innumerable and Infinite army of elements. In order to conquer it, mankind must organize itself into a mighty army. Unconsciously, it has been doing this for centuries by forming working collective, ranging from the small primitive communes of the primordial epoch to the contemporary cooperation of hundreds of millions of people.
If mankind had to organize the universe only with the forces and means given to it by nature, it would not have any advantage over the other living creatures which also fight for survival against the rest of nature. In its labour mankind uses tools, which it takes from the same external nature. This forms the basis of its victories; it is this which long ago provided and continues to provide mankind with a growing superiority over the strongest and most terrible giants of elemental life and which distinguishes it from the rest of nature's kingdom.”

Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928) Physician, philosopher, writer

Source: Essays in tektology, 1980, p. 1-2.

Life , People , Age , Communication

“In the first place, economic theory provides a comparatively detailed specification of the demand relationships for individual consumers' goods, but is by no means so specific about the system into which these relationships fit. It would be possible to close the system in very many ways, and the precise way selected would influence the regression estimates in a model involving simultaneous equations.”

Richard Stone (1913–1991) British economist, Nobel Memorial Prize winner

Source: Studies in the National Income and Expenditure of the United Kingdom, 1954, p. 295; as cited in: John Chipman (2013) Advanced Econometric Theory, p. 275

Way

“However, [Novick] does not account for the reality that views of Israel as being "beleaguered" are part of the same Zionist and Israeli strategy positing rising anti-Semitism to garner more support and immigration to Israel after the pool of immigrants had dried up in the mid-1950s. His point is that the perception of anti-Semitism is what led to more talk of the holocaust. However, it is this causal relationship that is suspect. One could posit that perceptions of a "beleaguered Israel," "oppressed" Soviet Jews, and the new "anti-Semitism," as well as talk of the holocaust, are all part of the same phenomenon rather than being caused by each other. One could further posit a different causal relationship with much of the same evidence Novick provides: namely, that it is Zionism, Israel, and America's use of past Jewish victimization to advance the Zionist agenda that informs the exaggeration of the relatively mild Soviet discriminatory policies against Jews (among other national and religious groups facing similiar discrimination) as holocaustal, the presentation of Israel as a victim of the new Arab "anti-Semites," or the condemnation of any criticism of American Jewry's support for Zionism or any criticism of Israel as "anti-Semitic."”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness"

Support , Reality , Past , Parting

“It's like going out and saying, "That tree is a car." Well, the tree's not a car. A tree's a tree. Marriage is marriage. You can say that tree is something other than it is. It can redefine it. But it doesn't change the essential nature of what marriage is. Marriage is a union between a man and a woman for the purposes of the benefit of both the man and the woman, a natural unitive according to nature, unitive, that is for the purposes of having and rearing children and for the benefit of both the man and the woman involved in that relationship. And for the benefit of society because we need to have stable families of men and woman bonded together to raise children. That's what marriage is.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Men , Marriage , Children , Family

“The relation of tonic to dominant is the foundation of Western triadic tonality. The attempt of the early nineteenth century to substitute third or mediant relationships for the classical dominant amounted to a frontal attack on the principles of tonality, and it eventually contributed to the ruin of triadic tonality. This ruin was accomplished from within the system, however, as mediant relationships were essential to tonality as conceived in the eighteenth century.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 4 : Formal Interlude

“I know his relationship with the coach hasn't been the warmest. I can see where Jürgen's coming from. He feels Donovan took a timeout, a sabbatical, and most pros wouldn't do that.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

2010s, 2014, Voice of the Americans (2014)

Feeling

“There was a sharp break in my life after 1953. I came to realize that I couldn't have the same relationships with my friends. Friendship involves the exchange of confidence between two people, but a king can take no one into his confidence. I have even had to put some distance between myself and my old friend Hossein Fardoust whom I trust implicitly. I even observe certain distances with members of my family. I had to tell my mother- who is a very dictatorial woman- that it would be better if she didn't ask me for favours for I might have to refuse her.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Gérard de Villiers (1975), The Imperial Shah: An Informal Biography, page 273-274
Attributed

Life , Friendship , People , Family

“Early findings from the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease are challenging much of American dietary dogma. The [Cornell–Oxford] study, being conducted in China, paints a bold portrait of a plant-based eating plan that is more likely to promote health than disease. The study can be considered the Grand Prix of epidemiology.”

Jane E. Brody (1941) American writer

"Huge Study Of Diet Indicts Fat And Meat", in The New York Times (8 May 1990) http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/08/science/huge-study-of-diet-indicts-fat-and-meat.html

Health , Disease , Study , Painting

“Forsake the use of violence on defence of reason. Remember, horses are unique with minds of their own and need to be related to as such if we are ever to have enjoyable and productive relationship with them.”

Jaime Jackson (1947) Horse hoof care professional

The Natural Horse (1997)

Horse

“We have a very good relationship. People say we have the best relationship of any President-President, because he's called President also. Now some people might call him the King of China, but he's called President.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Interviewed by Lou Dobbs on Fox Business on the subject of Xi Jinping https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/10/25/full_lou_dobbs_interview_trump_asks_what_could_be_more_fake_than_cbs_nbc_abc_and_cnn.html (25 October 2017)
2010s, 2017, October

People

“It has been a fantastic weekend and now I probably need some time to believe I'm champion again. I'm 25 years old and I've won two drivers' championships and two constructors' titles with Renault. With this being my last race for Renault after five years with them, what a fantastic way to finish my relationship. I will have these memories all my life, winning both titles, the emotion, the atmosphere in the garage. We grew up together and now we have won both championships in two consecutive years. The years I have had with Renault, I will never forget. To finish the last race the way we have is something you never dream of. You never even try to dream of it because it's always more than what you expected.”

Fernando Alonso (1981) Spanish racing driver

About leaving the Renault team http://www.planet-f1.com/News/Story_Page/0,15909,3210_3463_1626080,00.html (October 23, 2006)

Life , Dreams , Way , Memory

“… the fact is, they are sculptures, since they show the relationship of object to object and that is the idea and purpose of a sculpture. I’ve got nothing against ‘poetry,’ but it’s only resonance and tempo. Each of my works is perhaps also indeed a poetic sculpture. It’s not that I think it’s a bad word, poetry, but I’m not a poet, since a poet is concerned with the relationship of human beings to human beings.”

Lawrence Weiner (1942) American artist

Gerti Fietzek, Gregor Stemmrich. Having been said: writings & interviews of Lawrence Weiner, 1968-2003, Hatje Cantz, 2004. p. 158

Idea , Thinking

“It is in a sculptor's interest that there should exist a close relationship between his art and that of the poet. Otherwise, his sculpture may lack human or emotional content and become too strictly architectural. We sculptors pay a heavy price for the limited freedom that we enjoy as a result of our being able to create in three dimensions; we must sacrifice color and whole realms of subject matter, such as landscape, that scarcely lend themselves to a representation in three dimensions.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

c. 1960, in France
Source: 1960 - 1968, Dialogues – conversations with.., quotes, c. 1960, p. 153

Art , Color , Freedom

“The mark of an unhealthy relationship is two people who try to solve each other’s problems in order to feel good about themselves. Rather, a healthy relationship is when two people solve their own problems in order to feel good about each other.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 8, “The Importance of Saying No” (pp. 177-178)

People , Feeling , Problem

“Water does not care whether you bathe in it or drown in it. The mountains do not care whether you climb them or go around them. The stars do not care whether man reaches them or not. The universe does not care whether man masters all the relationships of its forces and processes, or dies because he refuses to master them. Life continues as it uses those relationships to further its growth. It ceases when it becomes overcome by still other forces which it cannot master.”

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 188.

Life , Mountain , Star , Universe

“We are all like fish that have separated from the sea of divine consciousness. For a person to be happy outside his or her natural relationship with God is like a fish trying to enjoy life outside of the water, on the dry sand. Holy people go to great extremes to help even one person to return his or her natural spiritual consciousness, to the sea of true joy. But the net of maya, or illusion, snatches away the minds of the masses, diverting us from the true self-interest.”

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

?
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Life , God , People , Nature

“Now, we are entering a new phase in our relationship with Iraq, and we are very committed to making a major civilian commitment to Iraq’s future. We’ll be opening, as you know, and running consulates in Irbil and Basra, we’ll have civilian experts available to work with not only Iraqi counterparts, but also Americans and to support American businesses in the years to come, as we do in our diplomatic – especially our commercial diplomatic work all over the world. And so it’s time for the United States to start thinking of Iraq as a business opportunity.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

And the sacrifice that the Iraqi people have made for your freedom is one that we highly respect.
Remarks at the Business Forum Promoting Commercial Opportunities in Iraq, June 3, 2011 http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2011/06/164954.htm
Secretary of State (2009–2013)

People , World , Business , Support

“All this points to the importance of social memory; as the example of the relationship between modern and ancient Greeks shows, ethnies are constituted, not by lines of physical descent, but by the sense of continuity, shared memory and collective destiny, i. e. by lines of cultural affinity embodied in myths, memories, symbols and values retained by a given cultural unit of population.”

Anthony D. Smith (1939–2016) British academic

Source: Nationalism and Modernism (1998), p. 192.

Sense , Memory

“Many of today's trading relationships actually make America more globally competitive.... Raising tariffs among the United States, Canada and Mexico will only weaken a well-oiled manufacturing machine that is driven by the high level of integration the three economies have in their supply chains. This integration makes the region as a whole more competitive vis-à-vis the world.”

George Shultz (1920) American economist, statesman, and businessman

A better way than tariffs to improve America's trade picture. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/01/opinions/a-better-way-than-tariffs-to-improve-americas-trade-picture/index.html CNN opinion article written jointly with Pedro Aspe, Mexico's former secretary of finance, published June 1, 2018.

World

“I'm especially interested in the music of John Cage... I would like to do some experimenting with the relationship between his freeform sound and free-form art.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Quote of Johns, from: John Adds Plaster Casts To Focus Target Paintings, Donald Key, Milwaukee Journal, 19 June 1960, pt. 5, p. 6
1960s

Art , Music

“Previous research addressing market orientation from a cultural perspective typically has used behavioral measures of this construct. Drawing on literature in the fields of organizational theory and marketing, the authors develop a multilayer model of market-oriented organizational culture. They draw an explicit distinction among values that support market orientation, norms for market orientation, artifacts indicating high and low market orientation, and market-oriented behaviors. On the basis Of qualitative research and a subsequent survey, the authors develop scales for measuring the different layers of market-oriented culture and analyze relationships among the different components of market-oriented culture. Findings indicate that artifacts play a crucial role in determining behavior within organizations. Results also indicate that a market-oriented culture influences financial performance indirectly through market performance and that this relationship is stronger in highly dynamic markets.”

Christian Homburg (1962) German academic

Source: "A multiple-layer model of market-oriented organizational culture", 2000, p. 449 ; Abstract

Behavior , Literature , Support , Drawing

“If one assumes, as I do, that battery is caused by the belief permeating this culture that hierarchical rule and coercive authority are natural, then all our relationships tend to be based on power and domination, and thus all forms of battery are linked.”

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

(1984)

Nature

“Among the many early revelations from molecular phylogenetic studies of bacteria (Woese, 1987) was the recognition that the mycoplasmas represented an evolutionarily derived condition rather than a primitive one, as once believed. Now that phylogenetic relationships and genome sizes are determined for a broader array of organisms, it is clear that the mycoplasmas are just one example of genome shrinkage that has occurred in a variety of obligately host-associated bacteria. Other prominent examples are Rickettsia and related pathogens within the α-proteobacteria; insect symbionts within the γ-proteobacteria, as exemplified by Buchnera aphidicola in aphids; the chlamydiae; and the parasitic spirochetes, such as Borrelia burgdorferi”

Nancy A. Moran (1954) American biologist

the agent of Lyme disease
[Cell, 108, 5, 8 March 2002, 583–586, Minireview Microbial Minimalism: Genome Reduction in Bacterial Pathogens, 10.1016/S0092-8674(02)00665-7]

Disease , Study

“A one-night-stander is someone who does not dare to explore the full potential of a relationship, just like a child who is afraid to go to the deep part of the pool. The latter does not want to learn how to swim, the former does not want to learn how to live.”

Carlos Gershenson (1978) Mexican researcher

Zire Notes (May 2004 - December 2006)

Learning , Parting , Night

“So, ultimately, in order to understand nature it may be necessary to have a deeper understanding of mathematical relationships. But the real reason is that the subject is enjoyable, and although we humans cut nature up in different ways, and we have different courses in different departments, such compartmentalization is really artificial, and we should take our intellectual pleasures where we find them.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

volume I; lecture 22, "Algebra"; section 22-1, "Addition and multiplication"; p. 22-1
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

Pleasure , Way , Mathematics , Understanding

“The most important mission for a Japanese manager is to develop a healthy relationship with his employees, to create a familylike feeling within the corporation, a feeling that employees and managers share the same fate.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 130.

Fate , Feeling

“You find most journalists now are on all these social networks. They’re all about creating… they want a direct relationship with their audience, in a way that politicians have been very loathe to do. They don’t want to come down to the masses. They still want to be in that fortress, in that ivory tower where they can lecture down to people. They haven’t really adapted to this two-way communication.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Attributed, Chatham House Talk (September 28, 2011)

People , Way , Communication

“Companies and leaders who treat knowledge management as just another branch of IT don’t understand how human beings learn and create… Unlike land, capital, energy, labor, and technology — the conventional “inputs” into business practice — knowledge is innately self-renewing. “It is produced and consumed simultaneously. Its value increases with use, rather than being depleted as with industrial goods or commodities. Above all, it is a resource created by humans acting in relationship with one another.”

Ikujiro Nonaka (1935) Japanese business theorist

"The Practical Wisdom of Ikujiro Nonaka," 2008

Understanding , Business , Knowledge , Learning

“In most Western economies, the general relationship is not in fact between the rate of inflation and the level of unemployment, but between the rate of change of inflation and the rate of change of unemployment.”

Paul Ormerod book The Death of Economics

Part II, Chapter 6, Unemployment and Inflation, p. 130
The Death of Economics (1994)

Change

“Of all the African Amazons, only the Gorgons seem to have maintained a pure Amazon state; the others, though keeping the army purely feminine, maintained some men in their camps. [Among] [t]he Libyan Amazons …. [, ] [t]he women monopolized government and other influential positions. In contrast to the later Thermodontines, however, they lived in a permanent relationship with their sex partners, even though the men led a retiring life, could not hold public office, and had no right to interfere in the government of the state or society. Children, who were brought up on mare's milk, were given to the men to rear”

Helen Diner (1874–1948) Austrian writer and historian

.
Mothers and Amazons (trans. 1965 (original 1930s)), p. 136.

Life , Women , Men , Children

“Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to dictatorial and oppressive government?”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation - 15th Anniversary Edition, Chapter Five, Crisis Of the Distinction Of Planes Model, p. 40

Silence

“In my career I met so many movie stars, but starting a life together and building a home goes beyond all other relationships," he explains. "I found in her a human being and a woman who would take care of my family. I found in my wife both compassion and understanding.”

Sunil Dutt (1929–2005) Hindi film actor

Quoted in Nargis-Sunil Dutt: A real life romance.
We all are one, whichever religion we belong to

Life , Family , Home , Star

“During what years should a child be introduced to better ways of giving and receiving criticisms – to what I call “relationship language”? Before school age. The best teacher? Parents.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 36.

Age , School , Way , Parent

“To a certain extent, the website is unfortunate because it oversimplifies things. Everybody’s concept of having a friend is different. It can definitely blur the relationships that exist between people. But in the end, I think that thefacebook can only reinforce preexisting communities.”

Mark Zuckerberg (1984) American internet entrepreneur

"Exclusive Interview With Mark Zuckerberg" (Nov. 30, 2004) http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~fbar/comm570/Readings/markzuckerberginterview.pdf

People , Communication , Thinking

“In the theory of electric fields it is assumed that points have meaning. …Physicists using general relativity… cannot speak of a point, except by naming some features of the field lines that will uniquely distinguish that point. …the network of relationships evolve with time… constantly changing.”

Lee Smolin book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity

Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2000)

Change , Time

“Sin is plenty strong enough to create an ever-widening gap in one's relationship with God. The wider the gap, the less likely we are to pray. And the less we pray, the wider the gap becomes.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

God , Strong

“I would say, that situation I am describing on Joe Rogan show I was very definitely a predator on both occasions. As offensive as some people would find that I don’t much care. That was certainly my experience. The law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about okay, but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them. You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means. Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13-years-old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Pedophilia is attraction to people who don’t have functioning sex organs yet. Who have not gone through puberty. Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their parents. You don’t understand what pedophilia is if you are saying I’m defending it because I’m certainly not.”

Milo Yiannopoulos (1984) British journalist

Episode 193 http://drunken-peasants-podcast.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_193 of Drunken Peasants Podcast debuted 4 January 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azC1nm85btY&t=3552s, transcript circulated 20 February 2017 by Heavy http://heavy.com/news/2017/02/milo-yiannopolous-pedophilia-transcript-pederasty-video-full-sex-boys-men-catholic-priest-cpac-quotes/ with supplements from discover-the-truth https://discover-the-truth.com/2017/02/20/full-unedited-video-of-milo-yiannopoulos-defending-pedophilia/
2017

Love , Men , Children , People

“It's a way of life for me. To me, Scientology is the very thing that artists need, in the sense that it's not a religion that you have to change the way that you pray or think about the Creator. What's incredible about Scientology is that this is the first time there's been a real technology on human relationships. To me, that's what's missing in the world. Like most of us, I grew up in a mechanical world. And when I got into music, it was mechanical in the sense of choosing notes and chords. Missing were the humanities. What ever happened to how you really live? How you feel? How you relate to people? How you reach out and help someone? I think that's one of the most basic, natural tendencies all people have—to help. Scientology gives you the necessary tools to be successful at helping someone.”

Chick Corea (1941) American jazz and fusion pianist, keyboardist, and composer

Response when asked "How has Scientology influenced your artistry?". BET Jazz (December 2004)

Life , People , World , Religion

“There is an impelling proportion of tones that may lead me to change the shape of a figure or to transform my composition. Until I have achieved this proportion in all the parts of a composition I strive towards it and keep on working. Then a moment comes when all the parts have found their definite relationships, and from then on it would be impossible for me to add a stroke to my picture without having to repaint it entirely.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

1905 - 1910, Notes of a Painter' (1908)

Change , Parting

“See… Relationships are hard, man. For order, for any relationship to work, both people have to be on the same page, both people have to have the same focus, and we all know what that page is. We all know what that focus is. In order for the relationship to work both people have to have the same focus, and what's that focus? That focus is all about HER! It's all about her!”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Never Scared (HBO, 2004)

People

“The concept of 'tonality' signifies the unified relationship of chords to a central tonic and hence comprises two different assumptions: first, the existence of unifying factors, and second, the existence of, or at least the hypothetical ability to reconstruct, a tonal center.”

Ernst Kurth

Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners Tristan (1920), p. 273.

“Boys and girls don't pair off at birth and scurry off to a dank cave together. Humans have always been social animals. We live in cooperative groups. Our bodies sort us out into groups of males or females. We interact socially as members of one group or the other. These groups aren't arbitrary or cultural- they're basic and biological. Males have to negotiate male and female groups as males. Males aren't simply reacting to female groups as males. We react to other males, as males. Who we are has a lot to do with how we see ourselves in relationship to other males, as members of the male group.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

Pg 1
The Way of Men (2012)

Girl , Boy , Birth , Animals

“An enterprise must be viewed from several perspectives if it is to be fully described and understood (Barnett 1994; ESPIRIT Consortium AMICE 1991). Previous work in the development of architectures by the Automation & Robotics Research Institute (Presley et al. 1993) describes a five view approach. The Business Rule (or Information) View defines the entities managed by the enterprise and the rules governing their relationships and interactions. The Activity View defines the functions performed by the enterprise (what is done) while the Business Process View defines a time sequenced set of processes (how it is done). The resources and capabilities managed by the enterprise are defined in a Resource View. Finally, the Organization View is used to define how the enterprise organizes itself and the set of constraints and rules governing how it manages itself and its processes.”

Donald H. Liles (1947) American engineer

Source: Enterprise modeling within an enterprise engineering framework (1996), p. 994

Business , Time

“I have come to believe that you can get along without anyone — that is, without the close contact of any one person. That is a terrible shock to me, but I think it is true. You do need companionship, but wherever you go, in whatever new environment, you will find people who, to a large degree, take the place of those you left…The intimate companionship goes, I think, when you leave a friend, but friendship stays. It is an inherent possibility of relationship that, once admitted — well, there it is.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

Bring Me a Unicorn (1971)

Friendship , People , Thinking , Personality

“Fame doesn't affect my relationships with people much because I've got my head on straight, but there is some sort of undertone that has a weird effect when you're trying to walk through life – I'm not interested in seeing "the media" manifest itself in my life. I don't even like to call acting a career. I prefer to think of it as a project, or else I'd start worrying about things like money. I like contributing to causes, people and the world around me. Just kind of sharing it all, that's what's important.”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

Hard Rock Times (1991)

Life , Money , People , World

“In those days, a man at least as boring as I, Pierre Reverdy, was writing: 'The image is a pure creation of the mind. It cannot be born from a comparison but from a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be – the greater its emotional power and poetic reality..' (in the 'Nord-Sud', March 1918). These words, however sibylline for the uninitiated, were extremely revealing, and I pondered them for a long time.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

Reality , Distant , Time

“I believe that at times such as these my modest efforts may be useful to mankind. I have shown how the new art has succeeded in bringing about pure relationships, and furthermore how these can be created in day-to-day life. [Mondrian tried to convince the Dutch publisher Stols to publish his new manuscript 'L'art et la vie']”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

In a letter to A. M. Stols, 26 March 1932; as quoted in Mondrian, - The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 222
1930's

Life , Art , Effort , Time

“I begin with the clarification that I consider Society as a total system of relationships between people which are either visible or invisible and which form networks.”

Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect

Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 19, The system of Society, p. 264

People

“The ideas set forth by organismic biologists during the first half of the twentieth century helped to give birth to a new way of thinking — "systems thinking" — in terms of connectedness, relationships, context. According to the systems view, the essential properties of an organism, or living system, are properties of the whole, which none of the parts have. They arise from the interactions and relationships among the parts. These properties are destroyed when the system is dissected, either physically or theoretically, into isolated elements. Although we can discern individual parts in any system, these parts are not isolated, and the nature of the whole is always different from the mere sum of its parts. The systems view of life is illustrated beautifully and abundantly in the writings of Paul Weiss, who brought systems concepts to the life sciences from his earlier studies of engineering and spent his whole life exploring and advocating a full organismic conception of biology.”

Fritjof Capra (1939) American physicist

Source: The Web of Life (1996), p. 29.

Life , Way , Idea , Birth

“Have you ever considered the relationship of clinical paranoia to the phenomenon of religious conversion?”

William Gibson book Mona Lisa Overdrive

Source: Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), Ch. 13

“People are also more keenly and painfully aware that a large part of the Church is in one way or another linked to those who wield economic and political power in today's world…. Under these circumstances, can it honestly be said that the Church does not interfere in "the temporal sphere"? Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to a dictatorial and oppressive government?”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation (1971), p. 65

People , World , Way , Silence

“Large-eyed and well endowed, as her name Pritha connotes, she is strikingly lovely, and Kuntibhoja exhorts her not to neglect any service out of pride in her beauty. Kunti’s relationship with Durvasa does not appear to have been easy. In the account she gives much later to Vyasa, she tells him that despite Durvasa’s conduct having been such as to provide abundant cause for anger, she had not given way to it. She further states that she was constrained at the sage’s insistence to accept his boon, whereby any god would be compelled to answer her summons, and that she obeyed out of fear of his curse. The interaction that she describes after this between her and the sun god, Surya, is exactly similar – the same insistence and the same fear.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Five Holy Virgins, Five Sacred MythsOf Kunti and Satyawati Sexually Assertive Women of the Mahabharata

Love , God , Fear , Beauty

“I would think a faith in God is one thing. I think that if we could change the whole world and keep the land is another thing. Change things yet keep keep the relationship is another thing.”

Ernest J. Gaines (1933–2019) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

Gaines response after being asked: "Do you also see things in that world that you wish could be retained?", as quoted by Marcia Gaudet and Carl WootonPorch in Talk with Ernest Gaines: Conversations on the Writer's Craft http://books.google.es/books?id=JtRNfST4g_QC&hl=es&source=gbs_navlinks_s (1990)

God , World , Faith , Thinking

“Beware! By Allah the son of Abu Quhafah (Abu Bakr) dressed himself with it (the caliphate) and he certainly knew that my position in relation to it was the same as the position of the axis in relation to the hand-mill. The flood water flows down from me and the bird cannot fly upto me. I put a curtain against the caliphate and kept myself detached from it.
Then I began to think whether I should assault or endure calmly the blinding darkness of tribulations wherein the grown up are made feeble and the young grow old and the true believer acts under strain till he meets Allah (on his death). I found that endurance thereon was wiser. So I adopted patience although there was pricking in the eye and suffocation (of mortification) in the throat. I watched the plundering of my inheritance till the first one went his way but handed over the Caliphate to Ibn al-Khattab after himself.
(Then he quoted al-A`sha's verse):
My days are now passed on the camel's back (in difficulty) while there were days (of ease) when I enjoyed the company of Jabir's brother Hayyan.
It is strange that during his lifetime he wished to be released from the caliphate but he confirmed it for the other one after his death. No doubt these two shared its udders strictly among themselves. This one put the Caliphate in a tough enclosure where the utterance was haughty and the touch was rough. Mistakes were in plenty and so also the excuses therefore. One in contact with it was like the rider of an unruly camel. If he pulled up its rein the very nostril would be slit, but if he let it loose he would be thrown. Consequently, by Allah people got involved in recklessness, wickedness, unsteadiness and deviation.
Nevertheless, I remained patient despite length of period and stiffness of trial, till when he went his way (of death) he put the matter (of Caliphate) in a group and regarded me to be one of them. But good Heavens! what had I to do with this "consultation"? Where was any doubt about me with regard to the first of them that I was now considered akin to these ones? But I remained low when they were low and flew high when they flew high. One of them turned against me because of his hatred and the other got inclined the other way due to his in-law relationship and this thing and that thing, till the third man of these people stood up with heaving breasts between his dung and fodder. With him his children of his grand-father, (Umayyah) also stood up swallowing up Allah's wealth like a camel devouring the foliage of spring, till his rope broke down, his actions finished him and his gluttony brought him down prostrate.
At that moment, nothing took me by surprise, but the crowd of people rushing to me. It advanced towards me from every side like the mane of the hyena so much so that Hasan and Husayn were getting crushed and both the ends of my shoulder garment were torn. They collected around me like the herd of sheep and goats. When I took up the reins of government one party broke away and another turned disobedient while the rest began acting wrongfully as if they had not heard the word of Allah saying:
That abode in the hereafter, We assign it for those who intend not to exult themselves in the earth, nor (to make) mischief (therein); and the end is (best) for the pious ones. (Qur'an, 28:83)
Yes, by Allah, they had heard it and understood it but the world appeared glittering in their eyes and its embellishments seduced them. Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument and if there had been no pledge of Allah with the learned to the effect that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders, and would have given the last one the same treatment as to the first one. Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is no better than the sneezing of a goat.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Known as the Sermon of ash-Shiqshiqiyyah (roar of the camel), It is said that when Amir al-mu'minin reached here in his sermon a man of Iraq stood up and handed him over a writing. Amir al-mu'minin began looking at it, when Ibn `Abbas said, "O' Amir al-mu'minin, I wish you resumed your Sermon from where you broke it." Thereupon he replied, "O' Ibn `Abbas it was like the foam of a Camel which gushed out but subsided." Ibn `Abbas says that he never grieved over any utterance as he did over this one because Amir al-mu'minin could not finish it as he wished to.
Nahj al-Balagha

Death , Hunger , Children , People