Quotes about right
page 15

Ellen G. White photo
Uri Geller photo
Ben Shapiro photo

“Trump won the nomination because he was anti-left, not because of any political viewpoints, he was slapping people on the left and people on the right went, ‘Yeah, those people need to be slapped!”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

As quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/ben-shapiro-conservative.html (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, '.

Claudette Colvin photo

“It's my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right.”

Claudette Colvin (1939) African-American civil rights movement leader

Claudette Colvin http://www.biography.com/people/claudette-colvin-11378 at biography.com, accessed 2 Nov 2013; Colvin said as she was getting arrested by the two police officers on the bus.

Thomas Paine photo
Zhuangzi photo
Susan Cain photo

“The key to maximizing talents is to put yourself into the zone of stimulation that’s right for you.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

"An introverted call to action: Susan Cain at TED2012," TED, February 28, 2012.

Barack Obama photo

“One of the great things about America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is sometimes messy and controversial. But because of that ability to protest and engage in free speech, America, over time, has gotten better. We've all benefited from that.

The abolition movement was contentious. The effort for women to get the right to vote was contentious and messy. There were times when activists might have engaged in rhetoric that was overheated and occasionally counterproductive. But the point was to raise issues so that we, as a society, could grapple with it. The same was true with the Civil Rights Movement, the union movement, the environmental movement, the anti-war movement during Vietnam. And I think what you're seeing now is part of that longstanding tradition.

What I would say is this -- that whenever those of us who are concerned about fairness in the criminal justice system attack police officers, you are doing a disservice to the cause. First of all, any violence directed at police officers is a reprehensible crime and needs to be prosecuted. But even rhetorically, if we paint police in broad brush, without recognizing that the vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job and are trying to protect people and do so fairly and without racial bias, if our rhetoric does not recognize that, then we're going to lose allies in the reform cause.

Now, in a movement like Black Lives Matter, there's always going to be some folks who say things that are stupid, or imprudent, or overgeneralized, or harsh. And I don't think that you can hold well-meaning activists who are doing the right thing and peacefully protesting responsible for everything that is uttered at a protest site.”

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

Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Rajoy of Spain After Bilateral Meeting https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/10/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-rajoy-spain-after-bilateral (10 July 2016)
2016

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.”

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

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human beings; men, not property; that some of the things, at least, stated about men in the Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us. I say, we think, most of us, that this Charter of Freedom applies to the slave as well as to ourselves, that the class of arguments put forward to batter down that idea, are also calculated to break down the very idea of a free government, even for white men, and to undermine the very foundations of free society. We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“If a man be gloomy, let him keep to himself. No one has a right to go croaking about society, or, what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.”

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

Book V, Chapter 1.
Books, Coningsby (1844), The Young Duke (1831)

Harry Greb photo
Barack Obama photo
Ronald Fisher photo
Antonin Scalia photo
Fulton J. Sheen photo
Tennessee Williams photo
Michael McIntyre photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your very agreeable letter of the 22nd. of May I have been intending to write you in answer to it. You suggest that in political action now, you and I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite as much, however, as you may think. You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave — especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you to yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union.”

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

1850s, Letter to Joshua F. Speed (1855)

Lady Gaga photo
Malcolm X photo

“What is a Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise. […] The Dixiecrats in Washington, D. C., control the key committees that run the government. The only reason the Dixiecrats control these committees is because they have seniority. The only reason they have seniority is because they come from states where Negroes can’t vote. This is not even a government that’s based on democracy. It is not a government that is made up of representatives of the people. Half of the people in the South can’t even vote. Eastland is not even supposed to be in Washington. Half of the senators and congressmen who occupy these key positions in Washington, D. C., are there illegally, are there unconstitutionally.
These senators and congressmen actually violate the constitutional amendments that guarantee the people of that particular state or county the right to vote. And the Constitution itself has within it the machinery to expel any representative from a state where the voting rights of the people are violated. You don’t even need new legislation. Any person in Congress right now, who is there from a state or a district where the voting rights of the people are violated, that particular person should be expelled from Congress. And when you expel him, you’ve removed one of the obstacles in the path of any real meaningful legislation in this country. In fact, when you expel them, you don’t need new legislation, because they will be replaced by black representatives from counties and districts where the black man is in the majority, not in the minority.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Jordan Peterson photo

“That's a way that you can tell if you got an argument right: it's communicable, understandable, and memorable.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Hans Zimmer photo

“Nobody beat me up as much as I beat myself up. This is what I love doing, and I have one life to do it in, and I better to it right, I better do it well.”

Hans Zimmer (1957) German film composer and music producer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPoJvQhhKk at 2:56

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo

“The deep desire to inspire people, to take an active part in the life of the country … attracts our best people to political life … We should all do something to right the wrongs that we see and not just complain about them. We owe that to our country.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

As quoted in The Eloquent Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis : A Portrait in Her Own Words (2004) by Bill Adler, p. 174

George Best photo

“He cannot kick with his left foot, he cannot head a ball, he cannot tackle and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that he's all right.”

George Best (1946–2005) British footballer

On David Beckham; reported in " The things they say: George Best http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/news/newsid=1085364.html", FIFA.com (July 31, 2009).

Barack Obama photo

“Young people in the audience today, young people like Laura, were born in a place and a time where there is less conflict, more prosperity and more freedom than any time in human history. But that’s not because man’s darkest impulses have vanished. Even here, in Europe, we’ve seen ethnic cleansing in the Balkans that shocked the conscience. The difficulties of integration and globalization, recently amplified by the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, strained the European project and stirred the rise of a politics that too often targets immigrants or gays or those who seem somehow different. While technology has opened up vast opportunities for trade and innovation and cultural understanding, it’s also allowed terrorists to kill on a horrifying scale. Around the world, sectarian warfare and ethnic conflicts continue to claim thousands of lives. And once again, we are confronted with the belief among some that bigger nations can bully smaller ones to get their way -- that recycled maxim that might somehow makes right. So I come here today to insist that we must never take for granted the progress that has been won here in Europe and advanced around the world, because the contest of ideas continues for your generation. And that’s what’s at stake in Ukraine today. Russia’s leadership is challenging truths that only a few weeks ago seemed self-evident -- that in the 21st century, the borders of Europe cannot be redrawn with force, that international law matters, that people and nations can make their own decisions about their future.”

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

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)

Osamu Tezuka photo

“Long ago, many of the small hells that took place in the camps right next to my house showed the joy of living, and tirelessly despite everything”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

From Save the Planet of glass ; quoted in AA.VV., Osamu Tezuka: A Manga Biography , vol. 1, translated by Marta Fogato, Coconino Press, Bologna, 2000, p. 106. ISBN 888806303X

Barack Obama photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Malcolm X photo
Tupac Shakur photo

“It's like a battle, trying to find the right words to say at the right time.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Ed Gordon interview (1994)

Lady Gaga photo

“It's hard to feel the rush,
To push the dangerous.
I'm gonna run right to, to the edge with you,
Where we can both fall over in love.I'm on the edge of glory,
And I'm hanging on a moment of truth.
Out on the edge of glory,
And I'm hanging on a moment with you.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

The Edge of Glory, written by Lady Gaga, Fernando Garibay, and Paul Blair
Song lyrics, Born This Way (2011)

Edward Snowden photo

“Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Reddit, May 21, 2015 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left_to_kill_mass_surveillance_under/crglgh2
2015

Douglass C. North photo
Osama bin Laden photo

“The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all. It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language. It is the religion whose book - the Quran - will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2002, Letter to the American people (2002)

Abraham Lincoln photo
Ronald Reagan photo
Barack Obama photo
Claude Monet photo

“For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the air and the light which vary continually. For me, it is only the, surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Claude Monet, 1891; as cited in: National Gallery of Australia, ‎Michael Lloyd, ‎Michael Desmond (1992), European and American paintings and sculptures 1870-1970 in the Australian National Gallery, p. 75
1890 - 1900

Ben Horowitz photo
George Washington photo

“…we are persuaded that good Christians will always be good citizens, and that where righteousness prevails among individuals the Nation will be great and happy. Thus while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support.”

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

This is from a letter written to Washington on 9 October 1789 by the synod of the Reformed Dutch Church of North America (image of the letter on the Library of Congress site here http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw2/038/0650049.jpg). Washington quoted the portion in bold in his reply.
Misattributed

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.”

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

1830s
Variant: Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon
Source: Reply to a taunt by Daniel O'Connell http://www.victorianweb.org/history/pms/dizzy.html
Source: Early appearance in The Russian Mephistopheles, Hunterberg, Max, 105-106, 1909, Glasgow, John J. Rae https://archive.org/details/russianmephistop00huntiala/page/106/mode/2up,

Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo

“Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.”

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

Remarks by President Obama and President Hollande of France in Joint Press Conference https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/24/remarks-president-obama-and-president-hollande-france-joint-press (November 24, 2015)
2015

Alfred Kinsey photo
Barack Obama photo
Václav Havel photo

“The Declaration of Independence states that the Creator gave man the right to liberty. It seems man can realize that liberty only if he does not forget the One who endowed him with it.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“Don’t let anyone impose on you. Don’t be quarrelsome, but stand up for your rights. If you've got to fight, fight hard and well. To my mind, a coward is the only thing meaner than a liar.”

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

Talk to schoolchildren in Oyster Bay, Christmastime (1898) http://www.trsite.org/content/pages/speaking-loudly, as quoted in The Bully Pulpit : A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations (2002) by H. Paul Jeffers, p. 22
1890s

Terry Pratchett photo
James Russell Lowell photo
Jennifer Beals photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave is not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.”

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

1860s, Cooper Union speech (1860)

Jeremy Bentham photo
Jerry Sadowitz photo
Agnetha Fältskog photo
Barack Obama photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Ovid photo

“Your right arm is useful in the battle; but when it comes to thinking you need my guidance. You have force without intelligence; while mine is the care for to-morrow. You are a good fighter; but is I who help Atrides select the time of fighting. Your value is in your body only; mine, in mind. And, as much as he who directs the ship surpasses him who only rows it, as much as the general exceeds the common soldier, so much greater am I than you. For in these bodies of ours the heart is of more value than the hand; all our real living is in that.”
Tibi dextera bello utilis: ingenium est, quod eget moderamine nostro; tu vires sine mente geris, mihi cura futuri; tu pugnare potes, pugnandi tempora mecum eligit Atrides; tu tantum corpore prodes, nos animo; quantoque ratem qui temperat, anteit remigis officium, quanto dux milite maior, tantum ego te supero; nec non in corpore nostro pectora sunt potiora manu: vigor omnis in illis.

Book XIII, 361–369; translation by Frank Justus Miller https://archive.org/details/metamorphoseswit02oviduoft
Metamorphoses (Transformations)

José Saramago photo

“I was reading even before I could spell properly, even though I couldn't necessarily understand what I was reading. Being able to identify a word I knew was like finding a signpost on the road telling me I was on the right path, heading in the right direction. And so it was, in this rather unusual way, Diário by Diário, month by month, pretending not to hear the jokey comments made by the adults in the house, who were amused by the way I would stare at the newspaper as if at a wall, that my moment to astonish them finally came, when, one day, nervous but triumphant, I read out loud, in one go, without hesitation, several consecutive lines of print.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Mal sabendo ainda soletrar, já lia, sem perceber que estava lendo. Identificar na escrita do jornal uma palavra que eu conhecesse era como encontrar um marco na estrada a dizer-me que ia bem, que seguia na boa direcção. E foi assim, desta maneira algo invulgar, Diário após Diário, mês após mês, fazendo de conta que não ouvia as piadas dos adultos da casa, que se divertiam por estar eu a olhar para o jornal como se fosse um muro, que a minha hora de os deixar sem fala chegou, quando, um dia, de um fôlego, li em voz alta, sem titubear, nervoso mas triunfante, umas quantas linhas seguidas.
Source: Small Memories (2006), pp. 87–88

Karl Pilkington photo

“All I'm saying is that old people need to be old people. You need oldness. You need to see old people. You need to go Right, they might have a solution they've been on the earth longer. Quick, we need an answer. How old are yer?”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

I'm 32 - Well you look 78!
Podcast Series 3 Episode 4
On Ageing

John Locke photo
Thomas Paine photo
Gregory of Nyssa photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“And as to being in a fright,
Allow me to remark
That Ghosts have just as good a right
In every way, to fear the light,
As Men to fear the dark.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Canto 1
Phantasmagoria (1869)

Barack Obama photo

“Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins.”

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

President Barack Obama on Twitter at June 26, 2015 https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/614435467120001024
2015

Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo

“But I believe those human rights are universal. I believe they are the rights of the American people, the Cuban people, and people around the world.”

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

2016, Remarks to the People of Cuba (March 2016)
Context: I believe that every person should be equal under the law. Every child deserves the dignity that comes with education, and health care and food on the table and a roof over their heads. I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights. I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faith peacefully and publicly. And, yes, I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections. Not everybody agrees with me on this. Not everybody agrees with the American people on this. But I believe those human rights are universal. I believe they are the rights of the American people, the Cuban people, and people around the world.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
John Lennon photo
Ze'ev Jabotinsky photo
Warren Farrell photo

“Teaching the child to treat boundaries seriously teaches the child to respect the rights and needs of others. Thinking of another’s needs creates empathy.”

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

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 31.

John Lydon photo
Alyson Hannigan photo

“Last night Alexis got his script for Angel. I was like, "Oh, I would have been getting a Buffy script right now."”

Alyson Hannigan (1974) American actress

About.com, "American Wedding's" Bride and Groom Discuss the Third "Pie" Movie http://movies.about.com/cs/americanwedding/a/amwedjbah.htm.

Pope Francis photo
Auguste Comte photo
Ramana Maharshi photo
Stefan Zweig photo

“Youth is always right. Those who follow the counsels of youth are wise.”

Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) Austrian writer

Confusion of Feelings or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D (1927)

Barack Obama photo

“We also know that centuries of racial discrimination -- of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow -- they didn’t simply vanish with the end of lawful segregation. They didn’t just stop when Dr. King made a speech, or the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were signed. Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress. But we know -- but, America, we know that bias remains. We know it. Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. […] Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And so when African Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be unequal treatment; when study after study shows that whites and people of color experience the criminal justice system differently, so that if you’re black you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested, more likely to get longer sentences, more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime; when mothers and fathers raise their kids right and have “the talk” about how to respond if stopped by a police officer -- “yes, sir,” “no, sir” -- but still fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door, still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in tragedy -- when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid. We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members again and again and again -- it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.”

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

2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)

Lauryn Hill photo

“How you gonna win when you ain't right within?”

Lauryn Hill (1975) American singer, rapper, songwriter, record producer, actress

Doo Wop, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)

Gautama Buddha photo
Barack Obama photo

“Throughout human history, societies have grappled with fundamental questions of how to organize themselves, the proper relationship between the individual and the state, the best means to resolve inevitable conflicts between states. And it was here in Europe, through centuries of struggle -- through war and Enlightenment, repression and revolution -- that a particular set of ideals began to emerge: The belief that through conscience and free will, each of us has the right to live as we choose. The belief that power is derived from the consent of the governed, and that laws and institutions should be established to protect that understanding. And those ideas eventually inspired a band of colonialists across an ocean, and they wrote them into the founding documents that still guide America today, including the simple truth that all men -- and women -- are created equal. But those ideals have also been tested -- here in Europe and around the world. Those ideals have often been threatened by an older, more traditional view of power. This alternative vision argues that ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs, that order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign. Often, this alternative vision roots itself in the notion that by virtue of race or faith or ethnicity, some are inherently superior to others, and that individual identity must be defined by “us” versus “them,” or that national greatness must flow not by what a people stand for, but by what they are against. In many ways, the history of Europe in the 20th century represented the ongoing clash of these two sets of ideas, both within nations and among nations. The advance of industry and technology outpaced our ability to resolve our differences peacefully, and even among the most civilized of societies, on the surface we saw a descent into barbarism.”

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

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Ion Antonescu photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Andrew Jackson photo

“The individual who refuses to defend his rights when called by his Government, deserves to be a slave, and must be punished as an enemy of his country and friend to her foe.”

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

"Proclamation to the people of Louisiana" from Mobile (21 September 1814).
1810s

Stevie Wonder photo

“Love's in need of love today,
Don't delay, send yours in right away,
Hate's going 'round breaking many hearts,
Stop it please, before it's gone too far.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Love's In Need of Love Today
Song lyrics, Songs In The Key of Life (1976)

Jordan Peterson photo
Napoleon I of France photo
Isaac Bashevis Singer photo

“I know as a writer how valuable a tool is the wastebasket. Perhaps God throws away many experiments before He finds the right expression. Perhaps we are the discards — or we could be the part He keeps. This mystery is what keeps us all going, to see what happens in the next chapter.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

"Isaac Singer’s Promised City" by Stefan Kanfer in City Journal (Summer 1997) http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_3_urbanities-isaac.html

Frédéric Bastiat photo
Bobby Fischer photo

“Morphy and Capablanca had enormous talent, they are two of my favorites. Steinitz was very great too. Alekhine was great, but I am not a big fan of his. Maybe it’s just my taste. I’ve studied his games a lot, but I much prefer Capablanca and Morphy. Alekhine had a rather heavy style, Capablanca was much more brilliant and talented, he had a real light touch. Everyone I’ve spoken to who saw Capablanca play still speak of him with awe. If you showed him any position he would instantly tell you the right move. When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties – before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since. Capablanca really was fantastic. But even he had his weaknesses, especially when you play over his games with his notes he would make idiotic statements like 'I played the rest of the game perfectly.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

But then you play through the moves and it is not true at all. But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt.
Radio Interview, October 16 2006 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_35_3.MP3

Bruce Willis photo

“If you take one out or change one law, then why wouldn’t they take all your rights away from you?”

Bruce Willis (1955) American actor, producer, and musician

http://beforeitsnews.com/libertarian/2013/02/bruce-willis-opposes-gun-control-proposal-2484872.html

Adam Weishaupt photo
Jennifer Beals photo

“Politics is a lot like sex - if you want something, you have to ask for it, if they’re not doing it right you’ve got to speak up and show them and if you still don’t get what you want, then there is nothing wrong with doing it yourself.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Q&A at the L5 Convention, Blackpool, UK (16 November 2008) http://www.jennifer-beals.com/reports/L5.html

Giacomo Casanova photo