Quotes about root
page 10

Michael Moorcock photo
Anita Sarkeesian photo
Victor Hugo photo

“The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Ce besoin de l’immatériel est le plus vivace de tous. Il faut du pain; mais avant le pain, il faut l’idéal.
" Les fleurs http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Proses_philosophiques_-_Les_Fleurs#IV," (ca. 1860 - 1865), from Oeuvres complètes (1909); published in English as The Memoirs of Victor Hugo, trans. John W. Harding (1899), Chapter VI: Love in Prison, part II

Frank Chodorov photo

“No sooner do men settle down to a given set of ideas, a pat-tern of living and of thinking, than fault-finding begins, and fault-finding is the tap-root of revolutions.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: One is A Crowd: Reflections of An Individualist (1952), p. 34

Frank Deford photo
Benjamín Netanyahu photo

“Shykh Nuruddin Mubarak Ghaznavi was the most important disciple of Shykh Shihabuddin Suhrawardi, founder of the second most important sufi silsila after the Chishtiyya, who died in Baghdad in 1235 AD. Ghaznavi had come and settled down in India where he passed away in 1234-35 AD. He served as Shykh-ul-Islam in the reign of Shamsuddin Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236), and propounded the doctrine of Din Panahi. Barani quotes the first principle of this doctrine as follows in his Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi. “The kings should protect the religion of Islam with sincere faith… And kings will not be able to perform the duty of protecting the Faith unless, for the sake of God and the Prophet’s creed, they overthrow and uproot kufr and kafiri (infidelity), shirk (setting partners to God) and the worship of idols. But if the total uprooting of idolatry is not possible owing to the firm roots of kufr and the large number of kafirs and mushriks (infidels and idolaters), the kings should at least strive to insult, disgrace, dishonour and defame the mushrik and idol-worshipping Hindus, who are the worst enemies of God and the Prophet. The symptom of the kings being the protectors of religion is this:- When they see a Hindu, their eyes grow red and they wish to bury him alive; they also desire to completely uproot the Brahmans, who are the leaders of kufr and shirk and owning to whom kufr and shirk are spread and the commandments of kufr are enforced… Owing to the fear and terror of the kings of Islam, not a single enemy of God and the Prophet can drink water that is sweet or stretch his legs on his bed and go to sleep in peace.””

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231
Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi

Jon Cruddas photo
Paul A. Samuelson photo
Roger Scruton photo
James M. McPherson photo

“Slavery was at the root of what the Civil War was all about. If there had been no slavery, there would have been no war, and that ultimately what the Confederacy was fighting for was to preserve a nation based on a social system that incorporated slavery. Had that not been the case, there would have been no war. That's an issue that a lot of Southern whites today find hard to accept.”

James M. McPherson (1936) American historian

James M. McPherson "James McPherson: What They Fought For, 1861–1865" https://web.archive.org/web/20160309201904/http://www.booknotes.org/FullPage.aspx?SID=55946-1 (22 May 1994), Booknotes, United States of America: National Cable Satellite Corporation
1990s

Aron Ra photo

“It seems that religion only knows how to react violently, out of vengeance. Again this is because it’s a belief system rooted in dichotomy and bigotry, with little or no desire to consider extenuating circumstances and NO ability to question itself objectively.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, How is secular humanist governance better than theocracy? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2013/09/07/how-is-secular-humanist-governance-better-than-theocracy/ (September 7, 2013)

Harpo Marx photo
Charles Péguy photo

“Work for them was joy itself and the deep root of their being. And the reason of their being. There was an incredible honor in work, the most beautiful of all the honors. … We have known this devotion to l’ouvrage bien faite, to the good job, carried and maintained to its most exacting claims. … Today, what remains of all this? How has … the only people that loved to work … been transformed into one which in the workyard takes the greatest pains not to lift a hand?”

Charles Péguy (1873–1914) French poet, essayist, and editor

Dans ce bel honneur de métier convergeaient tous le plus beaux, tous le plus nobles sentiments. Une dignité. Une fierté. Ne jamais rien demander à personne, disaient-ils. … Un ouvrier de ce temps-là ne savait pas ce que c’est que quémander. C’est la bourgeoisie qui quémande. C’est la bourgeoisie qui, les faisant bourgeois, leur a appris a quémander.
Source: Basic Verities, Prose and Poetry (1943), p. 81

Michael Friendly photo
Ryszard Kapuściński photo
Samuel Rutherford photo

“Grow as a palm-tree on God's Mount Zion; howbeit shaken with winds, yet the root is fast.”

Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) Scottish Reformed theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 294.

Bell Hooks photo
Carl Sagan photo
Douglas Hofstadter photo

“Irrationality is the square root of all evil.”

Douglas Hofstadter (1945) American professor of cognitive science

"Irrationality is the Square Root of All Evil" (Sep, 1983) Scientific American 249 (3) article reprinted in Metamagical Themas (1985)

John Fante photo
Edward Bouverie Pusey photo
Todd Snider photo
Stanley Kubrick photo
Carl Sagan photo
Fisher Ames photo

“I lived with deep roots once:
Have I forgotten their ways —
The gradual embrace
Of lichen around stones?”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"Plaint," ll. 13-16
Words for the Wind (1958)

Gary North (economist) photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“We shall banish want; we shall banish fear. The essence of National Socialism is human welfare…. National Socialism is the revolution of the common man. Rooted in a fuller life for every German from childhood to old age, National Socialism means a new day of abundance at home and a better world order abroad.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

As quoted in Men in Motion, Henry J. Taylor, Doubleday, Doran & Co., New York: NY, (1944) p. 59. Also quoted in As We Go Marching, John T. Flynn, New York: NY, Free Life Edition (1973) p. 154, first published 1944 https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/As%20We%20Go%20Marching_2.pdf
Other remarks

Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Elia M. Ramollah photo

“Try to solve the issues from their root. Leaves and branches are not as necessary and important.”

Elia M. Ramollah (1973) founder and leader of the El Yasin Community

The Great Master of Thought (Amen- Vol.3), Observing management

Bruno Schulz photo

“What language did these Macedones speak? The name itself is Greek in root and in ethnic termination. It probably means highlanders, and it is comparable to Greek tribal names such as `Orestai' and `Oreitai', meaning 'mountain-men'. A reputedly earlier variant, `Maketai', has the same root, which means `high', as in the Greek adjective makednos or the noun mekos. The genealogy of eponymous ancestors which Hesiod recorded […] has a bearing on the question of Greek speech. First, Hesiod made Macedon a brother of Magnes; as we know from inscriptions that the Magnetes spoke the Aeolic dialect of the Greek language, we have a predisposition to suppose that the Macedones spoke the Aeolic dialect. Secondly, Hesiod made Macedon and Magnes first cousins of Hellen's three sons - Dorus, Xouthus, and Aeolus-who were the founders of three dialects of Greek speech, namely Doric, Ionic, and Aeolic. Hesiod would not have recorded this relationship, unless he had believed, probably in the seventh century, that the Macedones were a Greek speaking people. The next evidence comes from Persia. At the turn of the sixth century the Persians described the tribute-paying peoples of their province in Europe, and one of them was the `yauna takabara', which meant `Greeks wearing the hat'. There were Greeks in Greek city-states here and there in the province, but they were of various origins and not distinguished by a common hat. However, the Macedonians wore a distinctive hat, the kausia. We conclude that the Persians believed the Macedonians to be speakers of Greek. Finally, in the latter part of the fifth century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, visited Macedonia and modified Hesiod's genealogy by making Macedon not a cousin, but a son of Aeolus, thus bringing Macedon and his descendants firmly into the Aeolic branch of the Greek-speaking family. Hesiod, Persia, and Hellanicus had no motive for making a false statement about the language of the Macedonians, who were then an obscure and not a powerful people. Their independent testimonies should be accepted as conclusive.”

N. G. L. Hammond (1907–2001) British classical scholar

"The Macedonian State" p.12-13)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Baba Hari Dass photo

“Just like pure water poured in a dirty cup becomes dirty, similarly the pure ego rooted in the impure mind becomes impure ego.”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

Ego: (p.49)
The Path to Enlightenment is not a Highway, 1996

John Erskine photo
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto photo
Max Horkheimer photo
Josefa Iloilo photo
Émile Durkheim photo
Empedocles photo

“With deep roots Ether plunged into earth.”

fr. 54
On Nature

Eleanor Farjeon photo
William H. McNeill photo

“For experience teacheth me that straight trees have crooked roots.”

P. 311 http://books.google.com/books?id=3xRbAAAAMAAJ&q="for+experience+teacheth+me+that+straight+trees+have+crooked+roots"&pg=PA311#v=onepage
Euphues and his England

Kane Williamson photo

“I would love to do that. They (Kohli and Root) have been playing brilliantly. I love both. Outstanding cricketers and they have been fantastic for a long period of time. Watching these two bat and perform in the way they have been performing, you can learn a lot.”

Kane Williamson (1990) New Zealand cricketer

New Zealand captain and top batsman Kane Williamson, quoted on Indian Express, "England vs New Zealand: There’s plenty to learn from Virat Kohli and Joe Root, says Kane Williamson" http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/england-vs-new-zealand-theres-plenty-to-learn-from-virat-kohli-joe-root-says-kane-williamson/, March 31, 2016.

Neil Kinnock photo

“The roots of defeat which were put down by some of the elements of our party in the two or three years after 1980 made victory difficult to achieve.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

The Times, 10 June, 1983, p. 1.
On the Labour Party's defeat in the 1983 general election.

Lloyd Bentsen photo

“[A] fellow from Texas can tell the difference between grass-roots and AstroTurf.”

Lloyd Bentsen (1921–2006) American politician

Apparent 1985 coining of the term astroturfing, meaning "creating or operating fake 'grass-roots' campaigns"
Cited in [Young, Henry, 2 November 2009, Astroturf Lobbying Organizations: Do Fake Grassroots Need Real Regulation, Illinois Business Law Journal, http://www.law.uiuc.edu/bljournal/post/2009/11/02/Astroturf-Lobbying-Organizations-Do-Fake-Grassroots-Need-Real-Regulation.aspx, 2010-03-27]

Ian McDonald photo

“I've always found that the root of a computer problem is human frailty”

Source: River of Gods (2006), Ch. 2 (p. 27).

Thomas Little Heath photo

“It may be in some measure due to the defects of notation in his time that Diophantos will have in his solutions no numbers whatever except rational numbers, in [the non-numbers of] which, in addition to surds and imaginary quantities, he includes negative quantities. …Such equations then as lead to surd, imaginary, or negative roots he regards as useless for his purpose: the solution is in these cases ὰδοπος, impossible. So we find him describing the equation 4=4x+20 as ᾰτοπος because it would give x=-4. Diophantos makes it throughout his object to obtain solutions in rational numbers, and we find him frequently giving, as a preliminary, conditions which must be satisfied, which are the conditions of a result rational in Diophantos' sense. In the great majority of cases when Diophantos arrives in the course of a solution at an equation which would give an irrational result he retraces his steps and finds out how his equation has arisen, and how he may by altering the previous work substitute for it another which shall give a rational result. This gives rise, in general, to a subsidiary problem the solution of which ensures a rational result for the problem itself. Though, however, Diophantos has no notation for a surd, and does not admit surd results, it is scarcely true to say that he makes no use of quadratic equations which lead to such results. Thus, for example, in v. 33 he solves such an equation so far as to be able to see to what integers the solution would approximate most nearly.”

Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) British civil servant and academic

Diophantos of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra (1885)

Wolfram von Eschenbach photo

“Upon a green achmardi she bore the consummation of heart’s desire, its root and its blossoming – a thing called "The Gral", paradisal, transcending all earthly perfection! She whom the Gral suffered to carry itself had the name of Repanse de Schoye. Such was the nature of the Gral that she who had the care of it was required to be of perfect chastity and to have renounced all things false.”

Ûf einem grüenen achmardî
truoc si den wunsch von pardîs,
bêde wurzeln unde rîs.
daz was ein dinc, daz hiez der Grâl,
erden wunsches überwal.
Repanse de schoy si hiez,
die sich der grâl tragen liez.
der grâl was von sölher art:
wol muoser kiusche sîn bewart,
die sîn ze rehte solde pflegn:
die muose valsches sich bewegn.
Bk. 5, st. 235, line 20; p. 125.
Parzival

José Ortega Y Gasset photo
Yoshida Shoin photo
John Steinbeck photo

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

As quoted in A Short History of Progress (2004) by Ronald Wright. This has since been cited as a direct quote by some, but the remark may simply be a paraphrase, as no quotation marks appear around the statement and no earlier publication of this phrasing has been located.
This is perhaps an incorrect quote from Steinbeck's article "A Primer on the '30s." Esquire, June 1960: 85-93.
"Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property.

"I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew—at least they claimed to be Communists—couldn't have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves."
Disputed
Source: "John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires", [Ronald, Wright, A Short History of Progress, 2004, 124, Anansi Press, Toronto, https://books.google.com/books?id=nzWPFQIEvfEC&q=%22temporarily+embarrassed+millionaires%22#v=snippet&q=%22temporarily%20embarrassed%20millionaires%22&f=false]

Babe Ruth photo
Stephen L. Carter photo

“The mark of a healthy democracy is the preference for argument rather than invective. Those are the roots the left must reclaim.”

Stephen L. Carter (1954) American legal academic and writer

Trump and the Fall of Liberalism (November 11, 2016)

Samuel R. Delany photo

“Cricket is the most senior, widespread and deeply rooted of English games.”

John Arlott (1914–1991) English sports commentator and writer

Quoted in The Guardian Book of Cricket (1986).

Bruno Schulz photo
Stephen Corry photo
Nathaniel Hawthorne photo

“Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

1853
Notebooks, The American Notebooks (1835 - 1853)

Manav Gupta photo
Richard Leakey photo
Samir Amin photo

“I disagree with Les. We always found good cunt at the Lyceum. Friendly cunt, clean cunt, spare cunt, jeans and knicker stuffed full of nice juicy hairy cunt, handfuls of cunt, palmful grabbing the cunt by the stem, or the root – infantile memories of cunt – backrow slides – slithery oily cunt, the cunt that breathes – the cunt that’s neatly wrapped in cotton, in silk, in nylon, that announces, that speaks or thrusts, that winks that’s squeezed in a triangle of furtive cloth backed by an arse that’s creamy, springy billowy cushiony tight, knicker lined, knicker skinned, circumscribed by flowers and cotton, by views, clinging knicker, juice ridden knicker, hot knicker, wet knicker, swelling vulva knicker, witty cunt, teeth smiling the eyes biting cunt, cultured cunt, culture vulture cunt, finger biting cunt, cunt that pours, cunt that spreads itself over your soft lips, that attacks, cunt that imagines – cunt you dream about, cunt you create as a Melba, a meringue with smooth sides – remembered from school boys’ smelly first cunt, first foreign cunt, amazing cunt – cunt that’s cruel. Cunt that protects itself and makes you want it even more cunt – cunt that smells of the air, of the earth, of bakeries, of old apples, of figs, of sweat of hands of sour yeast of fresh fish cunt. So – are we going Les? We might pick up a bit of crumpet.”

East (1975), Scene 17

Stanisław Lem photo
Carl Linnaeus photo

“The Lord himself hath led him with his own Almighty hand.
He hath caused him to spring from a trunk without root, and planted him again in a distant and more delightful spot, and caused him to rise up to a considerable tree.
Inspired him with an inclination for science so passionate as to become the most gratifying of all others.
Given him all the means he could either wish for, or enjoy, of attaining the objects he had in view.
Favoured him in such a manner that even the not obtaining of what he wished for, ultimately turned out to his great advantage.
Caused him to be received into favour by the "Mœcenates Scientiarum"; by the greatest men in the kingdom; and by the Royal Family.
Given him an advantageous and honourable post, the very one that, above all others in the world, he had wished for.
Given him the wife for whom he most wished, and who managed his household affairs whilst he was engaged in laborious studies.
Given him children who have turned out good and virtuous.
Given him a son for his successor in office.
Given him the largest collection of plants that ever existed in the world, and his greatest delight.
Given him lands and other property, so that though there has been nothing superfluous, nothing has he wanted.
Honoured him with the titles of Archiater, Knight, Nobleman, and with Distinction in the learned world.
Protected him from fire.
Preserved his life above 60 years.
Permitted him to visit his secret council-chambers.
Permitted him to see more of the creation than any mortal before him. Given him greater knowledge of natural history than any one had hitherto acquired.
The Lord hath been with him whithersoever he hath walked, and hath cut off all his enemies from before him, and hath made him a name, like the name of the great men that are in the earth. 1 Chron. xvn. 8.”

Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist

As quoted in The Annual Review and History of Literature http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=hx0ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Lord%20himself%20hath%20led%20him%20with%20his%20own%20Almighty%20hand%22&f=false (1806), by Arthur Aikin, T. N. Longman and O. Rees, p. 472.
Also found in Life of Linnaeus https://archive.org/stream/lifeoflinnaeus00brigiala#page/176/mode/2up/search/endeavoured (1858), by J. Van Voorst & Cecilia Lucy Brightwell, London. pp. 176-177.
Linnaeus Diary

John Bright photo

“I take it that the Protestant Church of Ireland is at the root of the evils of that country. The Irish Catholics would thank us infinitely more if we were to wipe away that foul blot than they would even if Parliament were to establish the Roman Catholic Church alongside of it. They have had everything Protestant—a Protestant clique which has been dominant in the country; a Protestant Viceroy to distribute places and emoluments amongst that Protestant clique; Protestant judges who have polluted the seats of justice; Protestant magistrates before whom the Catholic peasant cannot hope for justice; they have not only Protestant but exterminating landlords, and more than that a Protestant soldiery, who at the beck and command of a Protestant priest, have butchered and killed a Catholic peasant even in the presence of his widowed mother. The consequence of all this is the extreme discontent of the Irish people. And because this House is not prepared yet to take those measures which would be really doing justice to Ireland, your object is to take away the sympathy of the Catholic priests from the people. The object is to make the priests in Ireland as tame as those in Suffolk and Dorsetshire. The object is that when the horizon is brightened every night by incendiary fires, no priest of the paid establishment shall ever tell of the wrongs of the people among whom he is living…Ireland is suffering, not from the want of another Church, but because she has already one Church too many.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (16 April 1845) against the Maynooth grant, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 161-162.
1840s

James Anthony Froude photo
Alauddin Khalji photo
Piet Mondrian photo
Jean-François Revel photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Willard van Orman Quine photo

“A root definition describing a notional system chosen for its relevance to what the investigator and/or people in the problem situation perceive as matters of contention.”

Peter Checkland (1930) British management scientist

Source: Systems thinking, systems practice: includes a 30-year retrospective, 1999, p. 319 cited in: Raymond W. Y. Kao (2010) Sustainable Economy. p. 411

Neil Gaiman photo
Dana Gioia photo
Roger Scruton photo
Gerard Manley Hopkins photo

“Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

"Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend", line 14
Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1918)

Ono no Komachi photo

“In this forlorn state
I find life dreary indeed:
if a stream beckoned,
I would gladly cut my roots
and float away like duckweed.”

Ono no Komachi (825–900) Japanese poet

Source: Helen Craig McCullough's translations, Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1985), p. 206

Ernest Dimnet photo

“Ideas are the root of creation.”

Ernest Dimnet (1866–1954) French writer

Attributed to Dimnet in: Prima (1998) The Power of Thought. p. 119