Quotes about rule (4068 quotes, page 40)

“Once data are ruled out as arbiters among theories, those theories become pointless, just another clever intellectual game.”

Massimo Pigliucci (1964) chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College

On The Problem of Consciousness, Panpsychism & More https://letter.wiki/conversation/277 February 11, 2020

Game

“To be gazed at is one danger; to be manhandled is another. Women as a rule are unfamiliar with violence, they have not been through the tussles of childhood and youth as have men; and now the girl is laid hold of, swept away in a bodily struggle in which the man is the stronger. She is no longer free to dream, to delay, to maneuver: she is in his power, at his disposal.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Bk. 2, Pt.. 3, Ch. 3: Sexual initiation. p. 427 (1974 Vintage edition)
The Second Sex (1949)

Childhood , Girl , Dreams , Youth

“In our society, we don not study history to understand the process of change but just to entertain ourselves with past events. For this reason, history is not regarded as a useful subject. The history that we teach in our educational institutions is political history and, as such, it is used by the ruling classes.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

In the Shadow of History, Chapter: Why should we study History? p. 4
History, What History Tells Us, In the Shadow of History

Study , History , Understanding , Past

“History records that those who ruled with an iron hand and implemented oppressive and draconian laws, in the end failed to keep their power. People can endure suppression up to certain limit and a certain period of time; after that they rebel to get rid of callous rulers.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

What History Tells Us, p. 8
History, What History Tells Us

History , Time , People , Law

“Men were not created in order to obey laws. Laws are created to obey men. They are established by men and should serve men. The laws and rules which officials inflict upon poor people prevent them from functioning harmoniously in society. There is no disagreements about this function of law in any circle-the disagreement arises from the question of which men laws are to serve. Such lawmakers ignore the fact that it is the duty of the poor and unrepresented to construct rules and laws that serve their interest better. Rewriting unjust laws is a basic human right and fundamental obligation.”

Huey P. Newton (1942–1989) Co-founder of the Black Panther Party

"In Defense of Self-defense" I (June 20, 1967)
To Die For The People

Men , People , Law , Question

“Primitive men kill with wooden clubs. We have finely tempered steel and lead shot. No difference. Killing is killing, cruelty is cruelty, aggression is aggression. Man’s weapons have improved, but not his disposition. This is the beast that we must all fight. No man must rule over another for any reason whatsoever.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Ferret: The Reluctant King (2020), p. 216

Fight , Men

“I was not speaking of minor ripples in the mainstream of history—certainly those are ruled by chance. But the broad current moves quite inexorably, I assure you.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Cold Victory, in Scithers & Schweitzer (eds.) Another Round at the Spaceport Bar, p. 181. Originally appeared in Venture Science Fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_Science_Fiction, May 1957
Short fiction

Chance , History

“No, I don't take responsibility at all, because we were given a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations and specifications from a different time.”

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

Asked if he took responsibility for the lag in coronavirus testing
White House press conference, , quoted in * 2020-03-13
'I don't take responsibility at all': Trump pushes back on complaints about coronavirus testing
Zachary Halaschak
Washington Examiner
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/i-dont-take-responsibility-at-all-trump-pushes-back-on-complaints-about-coronavirus-testing
2020s, 2020, March

Time

“We got a real clear picture of what they all value. Every Republican's voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they're proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first hundred days he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, 'unchain Wall Street.'”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

They're going to put y'all back in chains.
Campaign speech in Danville, Virginia, criticizing Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and the Republican speech, quoted in * 2012-08-14
VP Biden Says Republicans Are 'Going to Put Y'all Back in Chains'
Jake Tapper
ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/vp-biden-says-republicans-are-going-to-put-yall-back-in-chains/
2012

“Should the church be trying to erect a spiritual reign of terror over people by threatening earthly and eternal punishment on its own authority and commanding everything a person must believe and do to be saved? Should the church's word bring new tyranny and violent abuse to human souls? It may be that some people yearn for such servitude. But could the church ever serve such a longing?
When holy scripture speaks of following Jesus, it proclaims that people are free from all human rules, from everything which presumes, burdens, or causes worry and torment of conscience. In following Jesus, people are released from the hard yoke of their own laws to be under the gentle yoke of Jesus Christ. … Jesus' commandment never wishes to destroy life, but rather to preserve, strengthen, and heal life.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

"Preface", as translated by Barbara Green and Reihhard Krauss (2001)
Discipleship (1937)

Soul , Law , Personality , People

“Do not think much of me, please. Think kindly of me; but oh, my friend, direct your thoughts to the Eternal Truth. I am, like you, struggling on the road. Perhaps a veil might in an instant fall down from your spirit, and you would be long ahead of us all. The reason you have had help is that in other lives you gave it to others. In every effort you made to lighten another mind and open it to Truth, you were helped yourself. Those pearls you found for another and gave to him, you really retained for yourself in the act of benevolence. For when one lives thus to help others, he is thereby putting in practice the rule to try and "kill out all sense of separateness," and thus gets little by little in possession of the true light.”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

Vol. I, Letter 1
Letters That Have Helped Me (1891)

Light , Help , Truth , Thinking

“One of the most prevalent ideological mantras of Western capitalism is that the market should rule. But as the latest health and economic crises demonstrate, capitalists soon forget their worship of the market when times get tough. They scream for government money, and plenty of it. It turns out that “the market” is fine when it comes to whipping workers to accept lower wages, but when it comes to lower profits, the market can go hang.”

Tom Bramble Australian trade unionist

Everyone's a socialist in a crisis, 21 March 2020

Money , Forgetting , Time , Health

“I had made vows and to spare, but the present cannot be ruled forever by the past.”

Tanith Lee book Quest for the White Witch

Book Two, Part II “White Mountain”, Chapter 3 (p. 283)
Quest for the White Witch (1978)

Past

“From every agglomeration of men, from every city, from every nation, there inevitably arises a collective force. Place this collective force at the service of liberty, let it rule by universal suffrage, the city becomes a commune, the nation becomes a republic. This collective force is not, of its nature, intelligent. Belonging to all, it belongs to no one; it floats about, so to speak, outside of the people.”

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

Napoleon the Little (1852), Conclusion, Part First, II
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Intelligence , People , Communication , Nature

“What, then, is it to treat of philosophy, unless to lay down the rules of the true religion by which we seek rationally and adore humbly God, who is the first and sovereign cause of all things? Hence it follows that the true philosophy is the true religion, and reciprocally that the true religion is the true philosophy.”

John Scotus Eriugena (810–877) Irish theologian

Original: (la) Quid est aliud de philosophia tractare, nisi verae religionis, qua summa et principalis omnium rerum causa, Deus, et humiliter colitur, et rationabiliter investigatur, regulas exponere? Conficitur inde, veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam.

De Divina Praedestinatione, ch. 1; translation from Kenelm Henry Digby Mores Catholici, vol. 8 (London: Booker & Dolman, 1837) p. 198.

God , Religion

“Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other then we shall have no more wars. We shall be all alike – brothers of one father and mother, with one sky above us and one country around us and one government for all. Then the Great Spirit Chief who rules above will smile upon this land and send rain to wash out the bloody spots made by brothers' hands upon the face of the earth. For this time the Indian race is waiting and praying. I hope no more groans of wounded men and women will ever go to the ear of the Great Spirit Chief above, and that all people may be one people.”

Chief Joseph (1840–1904) Nez Percé Chieftain

Lincoln Hall Speech (1879)

Time , Waiting , Country , War

“I wouldn't be everlasting' cockin' me earth hear every little whisper that was floatin' around me! It's my rule never to lose me temper till it would be dethrimental to keep it.”

Sean O`Casey The Plough and the Stars

Fluther Good, Act 2
The Plough and the Stars (1926)

“Of course, working people ultimately cannot rely upon the federal government or the state governments (whose purpose is to maintain the hegemony of the markets and the rule of capital) to fix this crisis in any equitable way. Only the working class has the power to make this happen through mass strikes and work actions. In order to act swiftly in the case of any layoffs, lockouts, or shutdowns, working people ultimately must organize themselves at their workplaces and in the streets, whether they are in a union or not, and be prepared to use their collective power to demand that all necessary resources be employed for the well being of the whole class with full compensation and benefits, that full back pay be provided to all workers upon returning to work, and that everyone has access to well compensated employment.”

James Dennis Hoff

Freeze Layoffs: Make the Capitalists Pay (March 23, 2020)

Way , Making love , People

“The Trump administration has, for good measure, rewritten the eligibility rules for such programs in order to lower the number of people who qualify. The supposed goal: to cut costs by reducing dependence on government.”

Rajan Menon (1953) political scientist

Never mind the subsidies and tax loopholes Trump’s crew has created for corporations and the super wealthy, which add up to many billions of dollars in spending and lost revenue.
Trump’s War on the Poor Includes Our Children (February 4, 2020)

People , Dependency

“[W]hen you get to Rome you have two other rules to learn: never assume that what you see is what is; never believe that what you're told is the whole truth. It's only when you've grasped that — and the Romans know you've grasped it — that you begin to win respect and make progress.”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

Cardinal Francis Spellman in Book 1. London: Mandarin, 1993, p. 67
The Lovers (1993)

Truth , Making love , Learning

“Love and devotion, deep as any ocean
don't play by anybody's rules
With your carousel of horses
and your unforeseen forces,
you're running with the caravan of fools
Caravan of fools, caravan of fools
You're running with the caravan of fools”

John Prine (1946–2020) American country singer/songwriter

Caravan of Fools (co-written with Dan Auerbach and Pat McLaughlin)
Song lyrics, The Tree of Forgiveness (2018)

Horse , Love , Making love , Fools

“My sense of liberation and the freedom to speak the way I want to and to feel solid in my shoes was getting stronger and stronger. That’s what helps me move through other people’s perceptions of how I should or should not be liberated. I would never listen to those rules. Don’t tell me I can’t do that. Watch me. Don’t tell me I can’t direct this movie. Watch me…”

Goldie Hawn (1945) American actress, film director, and producer.

On having a different definition of liberation during the 1970s in “GOLDIE HAWN” https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/goldie-hawn in Interview Magazine (2017 Apr 25)

Freedom , Help , People , Way

““Violence” was a euphemism for a threat to the ruling order and its illusion of social peace, with which the class struggle, the brutality of patriarchy, and the murderousness of colonialism are hidden. The newspapers did not talk about violence when cops killed strikers, when landlords evicted families, or when poor people died of hunger. They talked about violence when workers went on strike, when tenants stopped paying rent, when street vendors refused to surrender their wares to the cops.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 1. Violence Doesn't Exist

Hunger , Peace , People , Family

“The Telecenter and LAN house are good examples of how things work in Brazil. The Telecenter has rules, limits and control; in the LAN house the user is free to do whatever she wants, as long as she pays for the hour. It is the constant clash between the regulatory welfare state and the neoliberal policies.”

David Nemer

Source: Favela Digital- The other side of technology. (2013), p. 96

Housing

“I had read in the story-cube that the speed of light was a universal limit; that in a thousand years of experimentation—despite any number of false dawns—no one had ever managed to circumvent it. This had made me feel hemmed in and claustrophobic—it was like being told I must never run or skip down the long, dreary corridors of the house, but must walk instead, with my neck straight and my hands held behind my back. I felt affronted, as if the speed of light was a personal assault on my liberty. Why should I not go as fast as I pleased? Why should I not skip and run? But I could no more explain why the speed limit existed than I could explain why two and two did not make five. It was simply the way things were, one of those rules—like the edict not to visit certain parts of the house—that were not to be questioned.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Introduction to Part 2 (p. 100)
House of Suns (2008)

Housing , Reading , Question , Light

“At the time (1980s) Beijing was worried that people would all leave. To win their hearts, it (promised to allow) Hong Kong people to rule Hong Kong and to have a high degree of autonomy.”

Martin Lee (1938) Hong Kong politician

Exclusive: Beijing completely broke their promise on Hong Kong, says veteran democrat Martin Lee

Time , People , Heart

“Once they had occupied academic bodies, once they had captured universities and thereby determined what will be taught, which books will be prescribed, what questions would be asked, what answers will be acceptable, these historians came to decide what history had actually been! As it suits their current convenience and politics to make out that Hinduism also has been intolerant, they will glide over what Ambedkar says about the catastrophic effect that Islamic invasions had on Buddhism, they will completely suppress what he said of the nature of these invasions and of Muslim rule in his Thoughts on Pakistan,3 but insist on reproducing his denunciations of ‘Brahmanism’, and his view that the Buddhist India established by the Mauryas was systematically invaded and finished by Brahmin rulers.
Thus, they suppress facts, they concoct others, they suppress what an author has said on one matter even as they insist that what he has said on another be taken as gospel truth. And when anyone attempts to point out what had in fact happened, they rise in chorus: a conspiracy to rewrite history, they shout, a plot to distort history, they scream. But they are the ones who have been distorting it in the first place – by suppressing the truth, by planting falsehoods.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud (1998)

History , Question , Nature , Universe

“The most extensive deletions are ordered in regard to the chapter on ‘Aurangzeb’s policy on religion’. Every allusion to what he actually did to the Hindus, to their temples, to the very leitmotif of his rule – to spread the sway of Islam – are directed to be excised from the book. He is to be presented as one who had an aversion – an ordinary sort of aversion, almost a secular one – to music and dancing, to the presence of prostitutes in the court, and that it is these things he banished... In a word, no forcible conversions, no massacres, no destruction of temples. Just that Hinduism had created an exploitative, casteist society. Islam was egalitarian. Hence the oppressed Hindus embraced Islam!
Muslim historians of those times are in raptures at the heap of kafirs who have been dispatched to hell. Muslim historians are forever lavishing praise on the ruler for the temples he has destroyed, for the hundreds of thousands he has got to see the light of Islam. Law books like The Hedaya prescribe exactly the options to which these little textbooks alluded. All whitewashed away.
Objective whitewash for objective history. And today if anyone seeks to restore truth to these textbooks, the shout, ‘Communal rewriting of history’.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud (1998)

Hell , Religion , Time , Law

“And you know, woe betide politicians that don't listen to what voters tell them. You know, I think a future Europe will have to look at things like the free movement of labour rules.”

Tom Watson (Labour politician) (1967) British politician

Labour's Tom Watson: EU free movement rules must change https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36523759 BBC News (14 June 2016)
2016

Future , Thinking

“Few people seem to perceive fully as yet that the most far-reaching consequence of the establishment of the common origin of all species is ethical; that it logically involved a readjustment of altruistic morals, by enlarging, as a necessity of rightness, the application of what has been called the 'Golden Rule' from the area of mere mankind to that of the whole animal kingdom. Possibly Darwin himself did not quite perceive it. While man was deemed to be a creation apart from all other creations, a secondary or tertiary morality was considered good enough to practise towards the 'inferior' races; but no person who reasons nowadays can escape the trying conclusion that this is not maintainable. And though we may not at present see how the principle of equal justice all round is to be carried out in it entirety, I recognize that the League is grappling with the question.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Letter to the Humanitarian League (1910)

Justice , Question , Personality , People

“Trump did not create the worst dysfunctions of our democracy; our worst dysfunctions created him. He's the symptom, not the cause, of a dangerous slide away from vital democracy toward corporate authoritarian rule. The slide began 40 years ago and he's simply the climactic event.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Twitter https://twitter.com/marwilliamson (15 Dec 2019)
Williamson's quotes in social media

Democracy

“This power, I tell them, shall change the face of the Earth. No more shall small groups, nor even single men, be able to rule multitudes through hunger in their bellies; for there shall no more be hunger nor want nor cold; and in time again there shall be no more disease, for as man learns to live in harmony with nature, instead of continually struggling against it, he will destroy the cause of disease.”

Desmond Leslie (1921–2001) British pilot, film maker, writer, and musician

Source: The Amazing Mr. Lutterworth (1958), p. 206

Hunger , Time , Learning , Nature

“There is nothing more undemocratic and corrosive to the rule of law than a coup d’état.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Quoted in As a former UN special rapporteur, the coup in Venezuela reminds me of the rush to war in Iraq, The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/venezuela-crisis-coup-maduro-guaido-us-troops-un-iraq-a8767506.html (7 February 2019)
2019

Law

“The manufacture of foreign crisis and war hysteria has been used since the beginning of history to suppress threats to class rule.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

"The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Capitalism As a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege" (2011)

War , History

“The law, as to preserve life is that of individuals, is a set of rules and practices … intended to appropriate to the law-makers the produce of those who cultivate the soil, prepare clothing, or distribute what is produced among the different classes, and among different communities.”

Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer

Source: The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832), p. 46

Clothes , Life , Law , Communication

“When you're treating diseases with drugs, you know there's one drug you take for cholesterol, a different class of drugs you take for high blood pressure, different class of drugs you take for diabetes, but, with diet, a plant-based diet affects all these diseases. One diet to kinda rule them all.”

Michael Greger (1972) American physician, author, and vegan health activist

Interview in the documentary-film What the Health by Kip Andersen (2017).

Disease

“The way to deal with China would have been a broad coalition of countries that play by the rules. Instead, we've conveyed the message that big countries don't need no rules. And China is a very big country.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

comment on Trump Is Abusing His Tariff Power, Too https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/opinion/trump-auto-tariff.html#commentsContainer (January 23, 2020)
The New York Times Columns

Way , Country

“Beautiful military equipment don't rule the world, People rule the world. People.”

Mohammad Javad Zarif (1960) Iranian politician

Interview to CNN, January 7, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyH6QmFmeZE
Interview to CNN

World , Beauty , People

“Women not girls rule my world
I said they rule my world
Act your age, mama (not your shoe size)
Not your shoe size
Maybe we could do the twirl
U don't have 2 watch Dynasty
2 have an attitude
U just leave it all up 2 me
My love will be your food
Yeah.U don't have 2 be rich
2 be my girl
U don't have 2 be cool
2 rule my world
Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
I just want your extra time and your
Kiss.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

Kiss
Song lyrics, Parade Under the Cherry Moon (1986)

Time , Food , Girl , Kiss

“In the Hindu sphere of influence, by contrast, this kind of sobriety and intellectual discipline is the exception rather than the rule. Serious integrated teaching of Vedic tradition is as yet available only on the margin, as in the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

115
2010s, The argumentative Hindu (2012)

“Dynasty, a political tool in the hands of the ruling class, has become the catalyst for a new colonization of a country whose soul has already been deeply scarred by centuries of it.”

Tavleen Singh (1950) Indian journalist

Singh, Tavleen (2017). Durbar.
2017

Soul , Country

“Cars are free to circulate but still there are speed limits, therefore I do not see why, at the international level, we should not study ways to limit monetary movements. Bankers cannot act at will. ... Why should we not draw up some rules of the game?”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Speech to the European Parliament (17 September 1993), quoted in The Times (18 September 1993), p. 23
President of the European Commission

Drawing , Study , Game , Speed

“There is an old German proverb: "Death has no calendar," which taken in conjunction with our... "Death is no respecter of persons," strongly marks the folk conception... as of one who obeys no rule of time, or of place, or of age, or of sex, or of household...”

Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician

"The Chances of Death" (1895)

Time , Personality , Sex , Age

“Keep your stupid rules
I don't know how to use it
Keep your bad news
I won't read itǃ”

Mara Balls (1983) Finnish musician

Bad luck , Reading , Stupidity

“We gotta grow with the times, things have got to change. You know, sometimes the old rules don't apply anymore. And now...you know, we need some new rules.”

Antonio Fresco (1983) American DJ, music producer, and radio personality

When asked about the decriminalization of marijuana in Texas "DFW Norml Interview" https://www.dfwnorml.org/2012/12/dj-m-squared-interview by NORML (20 December 2012)

Time , Change

“The prophet Muhammad also divided humanity into two sections - the Arabs and non-Arabs... the non-Arabs are to be ruled through the yoke of the Arab Cultural Imperialism... one ought to remember that Islam is less a religion and more an Arab National movement.”

Anwar Shaikh (1928–2006) British Pakistani writer

Anwar Shaikh inn Lal, K. S. (2002). Return to roots. New Delhi: Radha.(68)

Religion

“According to an old rule of psychic contagion: that absence of clarity or outright confusion in one, just one specific, local matter will end by infecting the whole of one's judgment.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: Death Kit (1967), p.160

“…I think that poets can do anything. With a novel, we all know about plot and character and yes, there’s experimental and people can recognize that, but I think that there are rules. I don’t think of poetry that way…”

Terrance Hayes (1971) American poet

On poets having certain freedoms in “Interview with Terrance Hayes” http://katonahpoetry.com/interviews/interview-terrance-hayes/ in the Katonah Poetry Series (2017 Sep 21)

Way , Thinking , People

“The parts of a judge in hearing, are four: to direct the evidence; to moderate length, repetition, or impertinency of speech; to recapitulate, select, and collate the material points, of that which hath been said; and to give the rule or sentence.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Judicature

Parting

“And that’s what trust is. We don’t just trust people to obey the rules, we also trust that they know when to break them.”

Simon Sinek (1973) British/American author and motivational speaker

Source: Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't

People

“I don’t think most Americans realize that the way we raise animals is such a betrayal of the heritage of our grandparents. I don’t think they realize that … these big companies like Smithfield and Cargill and others have our American farmers now living like sharecroppers in constant debt, forced to follow their rules. I’ve watched the suffering in North Carolina of minority communities who live around Cafos and can no longer breathe their air … and I’ve seen workers in the meatpacking plants and how dangerous those plants are. Everybody is losing in this system – except for the massive corporations that have taken over the American food system.”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

'A savagely broken food system': Cory Booker wants radical reform ... now https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/15/a-savagely-broken-food-system-cory-booker-wants-radical-reform-now. The Guardian, September, 15 2020
2020

Betrayal , Food , Suffering , Communication

“IN a free‐enterprise, private‐property system, a corporate executive is an employe of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom. Of course, in some cases his employers may have a different objective. A group of persons might establish a corporation for an eleemosynary purpose—for example, a hospital or school. The manager of such a corporation will not have money profit as his objective but the rendering of certain services. In either case, the key point is that, in his capacity as a corporate executive, the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation or establish the eleemosynary institution, and his primary responsibility is to them.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

School , Money , Law , Business

“The view has been gaining widespread acceptance that corporate officials and labor leaders have a "social responsibility"... beyond serving the interests of their stockholders or their members. This view shows a fundamental misconception of the character of a free economy. In such an economy there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception fraud. Similarly, the "social responsibility" of labor leaders is to serve the interests of the members of their unions. It is the responsibility of the rest of us to establish a framework of law such that an individual... is, to quote Adam Smith... "led by an invisible hand... I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 8 Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor, p. 133

Law , Business , Fraud , Game

“Observation and theory get on best when they are mixed together, both helping one another in the pursuit of truth. It is a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in a theory until it has been confirmed by observation. I hope I shall not shock the experimental physicists too much if I add that it is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they have been confirmed by theory.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

New Pathways in Science: Messenger Lectures 1934 (1947), p. 211.

Confidence , Help , Hope , Truth

“Claiming all power for the purpose of prosperity and justice in society is conflicting to its own cause, rather authorizing individual authority is the just way toward a better society, because each individual has the right to decide about himself, and for collective decision making in society, all individual has the right to provide their input in it, after that majorities’ rule and minorities’ rights is the key to move forward, otherwise its destruction of society.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

Source: https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=co3AzQEACAAJ&dq=inauthor:%22Zaman+Ali%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjVi-2e57jtAhWToVwKHUj0D3kQ6AEwAnoECAEQAg

Way , Making love , Justice , Decision

“It is, of course, men who are more likely to inhibit themselves for the sake of appearing to be sensible and dependable.[…] If pressed, I will agree that more women than men wish to appear wonderfully sensitive and intuitive, and may stop being realistic […] in order to deceive themselves and other people. On the other hand, women in general tend to be more realistic and yet in certain matters more open-minded than men, more ready to resist that pressure of opinion. They are less likely to be put into blinkers by ideas.
Moreover […] as a rule the average woman notices far more than the average man; she has a better eye for detail than he has; she makes a more alert witness.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 8, p. 182

Dependency , People , Appearance , Idea

“The aims and ideals of the Soviet revolution inspired the patriotic enthusiasm of millions of people in the 1930s, during World War II, and in the postwar reconstruction period. This explains the Soviet Union's great leap forward, the achievement of a high level of industrial capacity in a very short time, the transformation of the Soviet Union into a major power in terms of science and culture. The historic victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazism, which was a surprise not only for Hitler but also for the Western democracies is also explained by what we have said above. All this is true. But the historical truth is also that the regime and the system abused the faith of the people in these high ideals, turning them to its own advantage. Rule by the people, equality, justice, and the promise of a happy future — all these ideas were utilized for the sake of maintaining and strengthening totalitarianism.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, On My Country and the World (1999)

Democracy , Faith , Justice , Time

“The border still doesn't make much sense in my mind. It's a place that has so many things going on, a lot of sad stories, a lot of positive ones, a lot of people who are looking to break the rules and I identify a lot with that. I like to break the rules.”

Lila Downs (1968) Mexican American singer-songwriter

On how the border between the U.S. and Mexico influenced her work in “Mex factor” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/feb/10/artsfeatures.popandrock in The Guardian (2003 Feb 10)
Heritage and indigenous peoples

Sense , Sadness , Making love , People

“A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank. And, on the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms they have lost their states. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art; and what enables you to acquire a state is to be master of the art.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 14; translated by W. K. Marriot

War , Art , Study , Men

“For too long, it was taken for granted that we would survive because we were Dutch; because Holland would take care of us. In our ignorant innocence or innocent ignorance we overlooked the fact that they were, and historically are, the rulers and we the ruled ones, and that power never renders itself; it has to be conquered, if not by sword then by the mind. And we neglected the mind. We have not studied our rulers well enough, otherwise we would have known that we were programmed to think that we are not programmed; that if we looked the other way long enough and denied the existence of colonialism it would automatically disappear. We forgot that we were trained not to see colonialism as colonialism.”

Joceline Clemencia (1952–2011) Curaçaoan writer

Source: Language is More Than Language in the Development of Curaçao https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000136432, 1999

Training , Thinking , Study , Way

“Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number. The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

As quoted in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1884 - 1888) edited by Robert Underwood Clarence C. Buel, Vol. II, p. 297
Q him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow…]]

Time , Victory , Fight , Making love

“Millions of Germans follow Hitler because he has proclaimed war upon the banks, upon the trusts, upon ‘loan-capital.’ He has asserted time and time again that he will abolish the rule of one class by another.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "I Saw Hitler" 1932, p. 17

War , Time

“I say, those who cry ‘patriotism, patriotism’ around cricket, if all of them for one day did not drop banana skin on the streets or did not spit on the streets or obeyed traffic rules, the country would have changed. This huge energy was not wasted after cricket and was used to do one’s work honestly even for a day, that would be showing patriotism. I do not understand the definition of patriotism of these people.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

https://newshour.online/2017/06/20/mashrafe-mortaza-says-dont-understand-patriotism-around-cricket/

Understanding , Country , People , Cry

“What do we mean by “understanding” something? We can imagine that this complicated array of moving things which constitutes “the world” is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Even if we knew every rule, however, we might not be able to understand why a particular move is made in the game, merely because it is too complicated and our minds are limited. If you play chess you must know that it is easy to learn all the rules, and yet it is often very hard to select the best move or to understand why a player moves as he does. So it is in nature, only much more so.
volume I; lecture 2, "Basic Physics"; section 2-1, "Introduction"; p. 2-1
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

God , Imagination , Understanding , Game

“If you think about things that happen, as being computations... a computation in the sense that it has definite rules... You follow them many steps and you get some result. ...If you look at all these different computations that can happen, whether... in the natural world... in our brains... in our mathematics, whatever else, the big question is how do these computations compare. ...Are there dumb ...and smart computations, or are they somehow all equivalent? ...[T]he thing that I ...was ...surprised to realize from ...experiments ...in the early 90s, and now we have tons more evidence for ...[is] this ...principle of computational equivalence, which basically says that when one of these computations ...doesn't seem like it's doing something obviously simple, then it has reached this ...equivalent layer of computational sophistication of everything. So what does that mean? ...You might say that ...I'm studying this tiny little program ...and my brain is surely much smarter ...I'm going to be able to systematically outrun [it] because I have a more sophisticated computation ...but ...the principle ...says ...that doesn't work. Our brains are doing computations that are exactly equivalent to the kinds of computations that are being done in all these other sorts of systems. ...It means that we can't systematically outrun these systems. These systems are computationally irreducible in the sense that there's no ...shortcut ...that jumps to the answer.”

Stephen Wolfram (1959) British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, writer and businessman

Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe (Sep 15, 2020)

Study , Question , Nature , World

“epic ; supreme court rules nabisco is legally allowed to label their products as "Homemade" after forcing the employees to live at the factory”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/1288582330261467136]
Tweets by year, 2020

“[Nature] only keeps us alive by a complicated system of the most shameful illusions, falsifying beyond rectification life, death, and after-death. Having made us take part in this poor puzzling game of life, she has taken care that all the rules shall be unfavourable to us: the cards are marked, the dice are loaded, we are always swindled. Thus years of hard work; and self-denial are frequently lost by a slip or chance, but seldom or never saved by a chance. Our health may be ruined by a pin-prick, but never doubled by an accident. We fall seriously ill in a moment, and take weeks or months to recover; lose a limb by some sudden mishap, but never by a good hap regain it. We cannot reach even a low degree of wisdom or knowledge without long hard study, while to be ignorant and foolish is the easiest and most natural thing in the world for us. Our sorrows are real and enduring; our joys deceptive and transient; our prizes of victory are not to be compared with our forfeits of defeat.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part II, p. 62
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Chance , Study , Game , Victory

“I live in emotions, not in rules.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Vivo di emozioni, non di regole.
Source: prevale.net

“Our country is suffering from the lack of food. We don't have rice for the military. Our country is in a state of anarchy because of the dysfunctional food rationing system. The administration department is responsible for this mess, as well as the Party officials. The Party's Central Committee members have failed their duty in generating a revolutionary spirit, diminishing the Party's effectiveness. We must solve the food problem according to socialist principles, and we must not rely on individuals. If we let the people solve the problem on their own, only merchants and markets will prosper. Then, selfishness will rule our society and destroy our system of true equality.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

Reported speech at Kim Il Sung University in December 1996, as quoted in Exit Emperor Kim Jong-il (2012) by John H. Cha and K. J. Sohn. Domestic collections of Kim's works do not confirm the speech or the wording, but an April 1996 speech to the Central Committee began with similar observations, and a "state of anarchy" arising from privatization in former socialist countries was a theme in earlier works.
1990s

Selfishness , Country , Food , Suffering

“The attitude of the ruling classes to the laborers is that of a man who has felled his adversary to the earth and holds him down, not so much because he wants to hold him down, as because he knows that if he let him go, even for a second, he would himself be stabbed, for his adversary is infuriated and has a knife in his hand. And therefore, whether their conscience is tender or the reverse, our rich men cannot enjoy the wealth they have filched from the poor as the ancients did who believed in their right to it. Their whole life and all their enjoyments are embittered either by the stings of conscience or by terror.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience

Wealth , Life , Men

“But true Christians love God and their neighbors as themselves; they commit no evil by the grace of God. It is not necessary to compel them to goodness since they know better what is good than the law-imposing authority. They have a knowledge of God within, which is a knowledge of His commandments and His love. Having His love within they do good to others and are just to all men in accordance with His law so that the authorities which rule the world have no occasion to find them guilty.”

Petr Chelčický book The Net of Faith

Variant: A world contrary to God must be kept within bounds by the world’s sword. But true Christians love God and their neighbors as themselves; they commit no evil by the grace of God. It is not necessary to compel them to goodness since they know better what is good than the law imposing authority.
Source: The Net of Faith (c. 1443), Chapter 95, Summary

God , Law , Knowledge , World

“A carnivorous animal is not an ideal animal, and never can be. The life of a carnivorous animal is a perpetual onslaught. Every meal is a murder. Eating is not the harmless activity it is to one who sits down to fruit and grains. The carnivore must kill somebody, or have somebody else do it for him, in order to eat. It cannot be otherwise. And an animal whose life is one unbroken succession of such necessities, whose stomach is the grave of hundreds and thousands, and even of tens of thousands, of his fellow-beings, may be meritorious in other respects — may preach the Golden Rule, decry war, give money to the missionary, and rail at the rich — but so long as he continues to fill himself every few hours with the blood and vitals of others, he is not only not an ideal animal, but has in reality no just claims on life. Flesh is a painful form of nutrition for any organism, but it is especially so for man, because it is unnecessary, and because man makes so many pretensions and occupies a position in the world of such exceptional responsibility.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Food of the Future, pp. 131–132

Money , Pain , Success , War

“Gerry had once said to her in the middle of an argument that he didn't believe in souls but if, just perchance, they did exist, hers would be like a razor. She had been made that way by the Catholic Church, he said. Inflexible, narrow, capable of doing terrible damage by her adherence to rules and systems. But she totally objected. She told him that if she was a good person at all, it had come from her religion. If she had any sense of justice and fairness, any concept of equality, then it had come from the Church.”

Bernard MacLaverty book Midwinter Break

Ch 11 - p.217
Novels, Midwinter Break (2017)

Soul , Religion , Justice , Personality

“The rules always seem to be in the service of someone else.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

“There is no lack of bravery in the ranks of our armed forces, but bureaucratic cowardice rules in our intelligence establishment”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

as well as at the higher levels of military command
Source: 2000s, Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World (2002), p. 196

Intelligence

“Governments are not at liberty to act solely from motives of generous sympathy for the sufferings of an oppressed people, they are bound by the severer rules of general principles, to respect rights which are inherent in other nations.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to Viscount Granville on the Portuguese Civil War (10 August 1831), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 166
1830s

Motivation , Suffering , People

“I knew I'd failed a test whose rules I didn't yet understand.”

Tim Winton book Breath

Source: Breath (2008), Ch.18 - p.90

Understanding

“Since the imperfect rules of the marketplace actually reward dangerous risk taking, the only thing that could prevent this lethal gamble is effective government regulation.”

David Cay Johnston (1948) Investigative journalist and author

Free Lunch (2007)

“The impulse to increase profits can blind men to risk, especially when those at risk are strangers. Society imposes rules on corporate behavior to protect public safety in the face of baser impulses. These rules require enforcement...”

David Cay Johnston (1948) Investigative journalist and author

Free Lunch (2007)

Behavior , Men

“Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

"From a German War Primer"

Country , Men

“Its always my conviction that young filmmakers do not actively need old filmmakers help, because the society in which they are living in, their surroundings and their knowledge is completely different. I mean there’s a whole set of different rules which they know better than we do, but if we use our experience to tell them what to do I think it hinders more than it helps. Not unless the old director who’s out to help is also a very good teacher that is saying to the student what he needs to know instead of just telling the student his experience. And being a teacher, I think I’ve been one myself and I know that I’m not good enough, because to be a great teacher is more difficult than to be a great filmmaker.”

Ann Hui (1947) Hong Kong film director

77. Mostra del Cinema - Ann Hui masterclass 28 Oct 2020, at 3 Min 12 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNfVayr694
Masterclass with Ann Hui at the 77th Venice International Film Festival

Knowledge , Thinking , Help , Teachers

“The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”

Elizabeth Cheney (1966) American lawyer

[Alex Rogers and Manu Raju, https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/03/politics/liz-cheney-criticism-trump-big-lie/index.html, Cheney calls out Trump's latest attempt to promote 'BIG LIE' amid criticism from within her own party, cnn.com, May 3, 2021, May 7, 2021]

Lie , Law

“[E]lections to the supreme power having upon some occasions produced the most destructive contentions, many states would take refuge from a return of the same calamities, in a rule of succession; and no rule presents itself so obvious, certain, and intelligible, as consanguinity of birth.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Vol. II, Book VI, Ch. I.
The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785)

Birth , Intelligence , Success

“You must welcome change as the rule but not as your ruler.”

Denis Waitley (1933) American writer

Change

“The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Wisdom , Problem

“The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Friendship , Sincerity

“If history was any guide, those best at violence might end up ruling over everyone else.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

“Five Thousand Years Later” (p. 684)
Seveneves (2015), Part Three

History

“There’s a rule I used to call The Niven Rule but which I just now have decided to call the Rusting Bridges rule. It came to me after reading Niven’s “All The Bridges Rusting.””

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

In this story, humans have by the early 21st century explored the Solar System and sent not just one but two crewed ships to Alpha Centauri … despite which the characters moan endlessly about the dire state of the space program. “Eyes of Amber” would be another example of the Rusting Bridges [Rule]: No matter how much the space program you actually have has achieved, whether it’s first contact with aliens or trips to nearby stars, it can never have achieved as much as the space programs you can imagine would have achieved in its place, given that imaginary programs aren’t limited by issues of politics, funding, or engineering.
Review of “Eyes of Amber”, by Joan D. Vinge (as anthologized in New Women of Wonder, edited by Pamela Sargent http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/yet-more-sf-about-women-by-women, 2015
2010s

Reading

“How would you define Christian Science?
As the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony.”

Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) religious leader

Source: Rudimental Divine Science, p. 1

God , Law , Universe , Science

“In order to hear Love’s words, you must allow Love to approach. However, when it does draw near, we fear what it might say to us, because Love is free and is not ruled by our will or by what we do.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Love has always passed me by

Drawing , Fear , Love

“The general will rules in society as the private will governs each separate individual.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Misc Quotes

“The criminal code is not an effective instrument
an administrative system that is flexible and efficient
The blunt instrument of imprisoning someone, putting them through a rigorous criminal trial, is probably not the right answer for enforcing rules against hate speech online in every instance.”

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (1984) Canadian politician and lawyer (born 1984)

16 May 2019 https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/as-canadian-mps-weigh-how-to-police-online-hate-one-proposes-new-body-to-give-tickets-or-warnings-to-offenders

Hate

“Our world today is in the grip of anti-capitalism. State bureaucracies ruling over anti-market policies have grown into ideological and political elites who arrogantly presume to know and dictate how we should all live and work.”

Richard Ebeling (1950) American economist

“Is the ‘Spectre of Communism’ Still Haunting the World?” https://fee.org/resources/is-the-spectre-of-communism-still-haunting-the-world/, speech entitled “Evenings at FEE” in March 2006. Posted in Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), (December 19, 2008)

World

“The rules of your religion do not apply to people who do not believe in it so let people live the way they want.”

Zhiar Ali (1999) Kurdish human rights activist and artist

Ali on freedom to choose one's religion and lifestyle, via Twitter.

Religion , People , Way

“Rules or laws are only beautiful if they don't apply to you.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Law , Beauty

“The concept of heaven is so beautiful to the point where imagination rules the world.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Imagination , Beauty , World

“As a general rule philosophy is like stirring mud or not letting a sleeping dog lie. It is an attempt to deny, circumvent or otherwise escape from the consequences of the interlacing of the roots of things with one another.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Philosophy
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XX - First Principles

Sleep , Lie , Dogs

“Revealing the truth to the public requires layers of checking and multiple source verification. Good journalism can safeguard interests and foster changes of rules.”

Hu Shuli (1953) Chinese journalist

As quoted in "HU SHULI: The Hard-Earned Right to Report" in Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (14 November 2016) https://www.rmaward.asia/rmtli/hu-shuli-the-hard-earned-right-to-report/

Truth , Change

“Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock (1957)

Decision

“Then you have no more wish to rule? The country needs you now more than ever.”

Karl Schroeder book Ventus

She shook her head. “I’ve been crushed under the weight of power all my life. I think I’m going to enjoy missing it.” She laughed at the lightness with which she dismissed royal power. Every moment was a surprise, these days. She hoped that that feeling would never end.
Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 45 (p. 655)

Country

Quotes about rule page 40

Quotes about rule
page 40