2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: I understand why war is not popular, but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That's why NATO continues to be indispensable. That's why we must strengthen U. N. and regional peacekeeping, and not leave the task to a few countries.
Quotes about requirement
page 4
Light (1919), Ch. XX The Cult
Context: My spirit is no longer what it was. Vaguely I seek, everywhere. I must see things with all their consequences, and right to their source. Against all the chains of facts I must have long arguments to bring; and the world's chaos requires an interpretation equally terrible.
§ 243
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)
Context: The greatest part of mankind want leisure or capacity for demonstration, nor can carry a train of proofs, which in that way they must always depend upon for conviction, and cannot be required to assent to till they see the demonstration. Wherever they stick, the teachers are always put upon proof, and must clear the doubt by a thread of coherent deductions from the first principle, how long or how intricate soever that be. And you may as soon hope to leave all the day labourers and tradesmen, the spinsters and dairy-maids, perfect mathematicians, as to have them perfect in ethics this way: having plain commands is the sure and only course to bring them to obedience and practice: the greatest part cannot know, and therefore they must believe. And I ask, whether one coming from heaven in the power of God, in full and clear evidence and demonstration of miracles, giving plain and direct rules of morality and obedience, be not likelier to enlighten the bulk of mankind, and set them right in their duties, and bring them to do them, than by reasoning with them from general notions and principles of human reason?
Signing statement on the ratification of the United Nations Convention on Torture http://deadconfederates.com/2014/12/10/prosecute-them/ (1984)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)
Context: The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today. The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.
2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)
Context: My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc. (Perhaps we could say that this is what is involved in harmony between the 'left brain' and the 'right brain'). This kind of overall way of thinking is not only a fertile source of new theoretical ideas: it is needed for the human mind to function in a generally harmonious way, which could in turn help to make possible an orderly and stable society. <!-- p. xi
The Dalai Lama at Harvard: Lectures on the Buddhist Path to Peace (1988) by Jeffrey Hopkins.
Context: What is the Great Vehicle? What is the mode of procedure of the Bodhisattva path? We begin with the topic of the altruistic intention to achieve enlightenment in which one values others more than oneself. The Great Vehicle path requires the vast motivation of a Bodhisattva, who, not seeking just his or her welfare, takes on the burden of bringing about the welfare of all sentient beings. When a person generate this attitude, they enter within the Great Vehicle, and as long as it has not been generated, one cannot be counted among those of the Great Vehicle. This attitude really has great power; it, of course, is helpful for people practicing religion, but it also is helpful for those who are just concerned with the affairs of this lifetime. The root of happiness is altruism — the wish to be of service to others.
“To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness”
"Fifth Talk in The Oak Grove, 11 June 1944" http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=173&chid=4529&w=%22To+understand+oneself+requires+patience%22&s=Text, J. Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 440611, Vol. III, p. 219
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works
Context: To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found.
“When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to affect it, the idea is grand.”
Part II Section XII
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
Context: When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to affect it, the idea is grand. Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable; but those huge rude masses of stone, set on end, and piled each on other, turn the mind on the immense force necessary for such a work. Nay, the rudeness of the work increases this cause of grandeur, as it excludes the idea of art and contrivance; for dexterity produces another sort of effect, which is different enough from this.
As quoted in Management and the Computer of the Future (1962) by Sloan School of Management, p. 273
Context: We must include in any language with which we hope to describe complex data-processing situations the capability for describing data. We must also include a mechanism for determining the priorities to be applied to the data. These priorities are not fixed and are indicated in many cases by the data.
Thus we must have a language and a structure that will take care of the data descriptions and priorities, as well as the operations we wish to perform. If we think seriously about these problems, we find that we cannot work with procedures alone, since they are sequential. We need to define the problem instead of the procedures. The Language Structures Group of the Codasyl Committee has been studying the structure of languages that can be used to describe data-processing problems. The Group started out by trying to design a language for stating procedures, but soon discovered that what was really required was a description of the data and a statement of the relationships between the data sets. The Group has since begun writing an algebra of processes, the background for a theory of data processing.
Clearly, we must break away from the sequential and not limit the computers. We must state definitions and provide for priorities and descriptions of data. We must state relationships, not procedures.
1870s, Second Inaugural Address (1873)
Context: The subject of acquisition of territory must have the support of the people before I will recommend any proposition looking to such acquisition. I say here, however, that I do not share in the apprehension held by many as to the danger of governments becoming weakened and destroyed by reason of their extension of territory. Commerce, education, and rapid transit of thought and matter by telegraph and steam have changed all this. Rather do I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world, in His own good time, to become one nation, speaking one language, and when armies and navies will be no longer required.
Responsible Scientific Investigation and Application (1976)
Context: Without wanting to seem overly partisan, I would like simply to point out that the space program has by all standards become America's greatest generator of new ideas in science and technology. It is essentially an organization for opening new frontiers, physically and intellectually. Today we live in a different world because in 1958 Americans accepted the challenge of space and made the required national investment to meet it.
Young people today are learning a new science, but even more importantly, they are viewing the earth and man's relationship to it quite differently — and I think perhaps more humanly — than we did fifteen years ago. The space program is the first large scientific and technological activity in history that offers to bring the people of all nations together instead of setting them further apart.
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Context: Directly in front of me, the monument to a monumental man, George Washington, father of our country. A man of humility who came to greatness reluctantly. He led Americans out of revolutionary victory into infant nationhood. Off to one side, the stately memorial to Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence flames with his eloquence. And then, beyond the Reflecting Pool, the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln.
Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery, with its row upon row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom. Each one of those markers is a monument to the kind of hero I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, the Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno, and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam.
Under one such marker lies a young man, Martin Treptow, who left his job in a small town barber shop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire.
We are told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading, "My Pledge," he had written these words: "America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone."
The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God's help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans.
Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. I: "Method Pursued in this Work. The Idea of a Revolution"
Context: If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question: What is property! may I not likewise answer, It is robbery, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?
I undertake to discuss the vital principle of our government and our institutions, property: I am in my right. I may be mistaken in the conclusion which shall result from my investigations: I am in my right. I think best to place the last thought of my book first: still am I in my right.
2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)
Often the portion of this passage on "Towering genius..." is quoted without any mention or acknowledgment that Lincoln was speaking of the need to sometimes hold the ambitions of such genius in check, when individuals aim at their own personal aggrandizement rather than the common good.
1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)
Context: It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? — Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. — It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.
2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)
Context: Only you can make sure the democracy you inherit is as good as we know it can be. But it requires your dedicated, informed, and engaged citizenship. This citizenship is a harder, higher road to take. But it leads to a better place. It is how we built this country – together. It is the question President Kennedy posed to the nation at his inauguration; the dream that Dr. King invoked. It does not promise easy success or immediate progress. But it has led to success, and it has led to progress.
That brings me to the second thing I ask of you – I ask you to persevere.
1850s, Autobiographical Sketch Written for Jesse W. Fell (1859)
Context: There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin' " to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 (1932)
“But I did not work all that much, since in the pursuit of Wisdom this was not required.”
OQHI, 65 http://www.mlat.uzh.ch/MLS/text.php?tabelle=Rogerus_Baco_cps4&rumpfid=Rogerus_Baco_cps4,%20Opus%20tertium,%20%2020&corpus=4&lang=0¤t_title=Opus%20tertium&links=&inframe=1 as cited in: Jeremiah Hackett (2009) """" Roger Bacon http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/roger-bacon"""" in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
Opus Tertium, c. 1267
Context: I have labored much in sciences and languages, and I have up to now devoted forty years [to them] after I first learned the Alphabetum; and I was always studious. Apart from two of these forty years I was always [engaged] in study [or at a place of study], and I had many expenses just as others commonly have. Nevertheless, provided I had first composed a compendium, I am certain that within quarter or half a year I could directly teach a solicitous and confident person whatever I know of these sciences and languages. And it is known that no one worked in so many sciences and languages as I did, nor so much as I did. Indeed, when I was living in the other state of life [as a Magister], people marveled that I survived the abundance of my work. And still, I was just as involved in studies afterwards, as I had been before. But I did not work all that much, since in the pursuit of Wisdom this was not required.
2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)
Context: Because corruption holds back every aspect of economic and civil life. It’s an anchor that weighs you down and prevents you from achieving what you could. If you need to pay a bribe and hire somebody’s brother -- who’s not very good and doesn’t come to work -- in order to start a business, well, that’s going to create less jobs for everybody. If electricity is going to one neighborhood because they’re well-connected, and not another neighborhood, that’s going to limit development of the country as a whole. If someone in public office is taking a cut that they don't deserve, that’s taking away from those who are paying their fair share. So this is not just about changing one law -- although it's important to have laws on the books that are actually being enforced. It’s important that not only low-level corruption is punished, but folks at the top, if they are taking from the people, that has to be addressed as well. But it's not something that is just fixed by laws, or that any one person can fix. It requires a commitment by the entire nation -- leaders and citizens -- to change habits and to change culture. [... ] People who break the law and violate the public trust need to be prosecuted. NGOs have to be allowed to operate who shine a spotlight on what needs to change. And ordinary people have to stand up and say, enough is enough.
Episode 696: "Viewer Calls" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OCYhDFc42I, Channel Austin (February 13, 2011)
The Atheist Experience
Context: Your position is... one where there is a god who has an important message for mankind, and somehow he only reveals it to certain individuals who then write this down and thousands of years after this initial revelation, we have to rely on copies of copies of translations of copies by anonymous authors with no originals, and the textual testimony to a miracle, for example the loaves and fishes; there’s no amount of reports - anecdotal testimonial reports - that could be sufficient to justify that this event actually happened as reported. No amount. And anything that would qualify as a god would clearly understand this, and if it wanted to convey this information to people in a way that was believable, would not be relying on text to do so, and this for me is the nail in the coffin for Christianity. The god that Christians believe in is amazingly stupid if it wants to actually achieve its goal of spreading this information to humanity by relying on text; by relying on languages that die out; by relying on anecdotal testimony. That's not a pathway to truth! And anything that would qualify for a god should know this, which means either that God doesn’t exist or it doesn't care enough about those people who understand the nature of evidence to actually present it. Now which of those possibilities do you think is accurate?"... "Why would you believe anything on faith? Faith isn't a pathway to truth. Every religion has some sort of faith, people take things on, you know, - if faith is your pathway, you can't distinguish between Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, any of these others. How is it that you use reason as a path to truth in every endeavor of your life, and then when it comes to the ‘ultimate truth’ - the most important truth - you're saying that faith is required. And how does that reflect on a god (who supposedly exists and wants you to have this information); what kind of god requires faith instead of evidence?... I have reasonable expectations based on evidence. I have trust that has been earned. I will grant trust tentatively. I don't have faith. Faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have evidence.
page 4, 2nd edition https://books.google.com/books?id=Qd0MEtsBr7oC&pg=PA4
Dreams of a Final Theory (1992; 2nd edition 1994)
1978
2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)
2019-06-22
Ben Shapiro: Why Celebrity Politics Matters
The New Revere
https://thenewrevere.com/2019/06/ben-shapiro-why-celebrity-politics-matters/
2019
2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)
For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people.
2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
It is you who should see the sun. Can spectacles and the sun see for you? You yourself have to see your true nature. Not much aid is required for doing it!
Abide as the Self
On how he credits discipline as the secret of his success in "Julio Iglesias reflects on a life that 'has been a miracle'" https://apnews.com/7ef030336a5b4a1a949723346d64ec51 in AP News (2019 Jun 14)
1790s, To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, 18 August 1790
2002
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017
1988
Source: Address And Declaration At a Select Meeting Of The Friends Of Universal Peace And Liberty https://thomaspaine.org/essays/french-revolution/address-and-declaration.html (August 20, 1791)
Source: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)
Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 77
Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 71
Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 60
Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 59
“To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.”
Bk I, Ch II
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)
“Romance requires trust—and the deeper the trust, the deeper the possibility for romance.”
Source: Books, Beyond Order (2021), p. 271
1984
Source: Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life
“Learning does not require faith, just intellect. Obedience requires faith.”
Contagious Disciple Making: Leading Others on a Journey of Discovery
Source: A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
“There are times when one friend requires the blind faith of another…”
Source: The Diviners
Source: Keep a Quiet Heart
“All good work requires self-revelation.”
Source: Making Movies
Source: The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Source: Travels With My Aunt
“But to appear happy when I am so miserable — Oh! who can require it?”
Source: Sense and Sensibility
“In most cases learning something essential in life requires physical pain.”
Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”
As cited in The Forbes Book of Business Quotations (2007), Ed. Goodwin, Black Dog Publishing, p. 168, ISBN 1579127215
Post-war years (1945–1955)
“But some women only require an emergency to make them fit for one.”
Source: Far from the Madding Crowd
“I can’t imagine anything worse than being required to have fun.”
Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential
Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
“Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.”
Source: Suddenly You