Quotes about separation
page 18

Benjamin Creme photo
Enoch Powell photo
Charles Darwin photo

“As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets. How little the old Romans knew of it is shewn by their abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually through public opinion.”

volume I, chapter III: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued", pages 100-101 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=113&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image
The Descent of Man (1871)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez photo

“No child should ever be separated from their parent. No child should ever taken from their family. No woman should ever be locked up in a pen when they have done no harm to another human being.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

AOC quoted by The Hill, Twitter, https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1146082350725337089 (2 July 2019)
Twitter Quotes (2019), July 2019

Edmund Burke photo
Edmund Burke photo
Edmund Burke photo
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali photo
William Logan (author) photo
Jan Smuts photo
Seneca the Younger photo

“Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CI: On the Futility of Planning Ahead

Seneca the Younger photo
Gordon Brown photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Teng Chia-chi photo

“We hope to accomplish sustainable progress through positive competition (between Taiwan and Mainland China) based on mutual understanding, respect and cooperation, despite the differences caused by long-term separation.”

Teng Chia-chi (1956) Taiwanese politician

Teng Chia-chi (2018) cited in " Taipei-Shanghai Twin-City Forum opens in Taipei http://focustaiwan.tw/news/acs/201812200006.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 20 December 2018

Otto von Bismarck photo
Friedrich Engels photo
Martin Buber photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Baruch Spinoza photo

“Indeed, I scarcely comprehend how one can be a poet without revering and loving Spinoza and becoming completely his. Your own fantasy is rich enough for the invention of the particular: nothing is better suited to entice your fantasy, to stimulate and nourish it, than the poetic creations of other artists. But in Spinoza you find the beginning and the end of all fantasy, the universal ground on which your particularity rests — and you should welcome precisely this separation of that which is originary and eternal in fantasy from everything particular and specific.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Original in German: In der Tat, ich begreife kaum, wie man ein Dichter sein kann, ohne den Spinosa zu verehren, zu lieben und ganz der seinige zu werden. In Erfindung des Einzelnen ist Eure eigne Fantasie reich genug; sie anzuregen, zur Tätigkeit zu reizen und ihr Nahrung zu geben, nichts geschickter als die Dichtungen andrer Künstler. Im Spinosa aber findet Ihr den Anfang und das Ende aller Fantasie, den allgemeinen Grund und Boden, auf dem Euer Einzelnes ruht und eben diese Absonderung des Ursprünglichen, Ewigen der Fantasie von allem Einzelnen und Besondern muß Euch sehr willkommen sein.
Friedrich Schlegel, Rede über die Mythologie, in Friedrich Schlegels Gespräch über die Poesie (1800)
S - Z

W.E.B. Du Bois photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo

“That which the God devoted man may not do for any consideration, is indeed also outwardly forbidden in the Perfect State; but he has already cast it from him in obedience to the Will of God, without regard to any outward prohibition. That which alone this God-devoted man loves and desires to do, is indeed outwardly commanded in this Perfect State; but he has already done it in obedience to the Will of God. If, then, this religious frame of mind is to exist in the State, and yet never to come into collision with it, it is absolutely necessary that the State should at all times keep pace with the development of the religious sense among its Citizens, so that it shall never command anything which True Religion forbids, or forbid anything which she enjoins. In such a state of things, the well-known principle, that we must obey God rather than man, could never come into application; for in that case man would only command what God also commanded, and there would remain to the willing servant only the choice whether he would pay his obedience to the command of human power, or to the Will of God, which he loves before all things else. From this perfect Freedom and superiority which Religion possesses over the State, arises the duty of both to keep themselves absolutely separate, and to cast off all immediate dependence on each other.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 197

Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Gordon Bell photo

“A Broadband Cable for TV is like a sewer pipe that in principle can carry gas, water, and waste: it is easy to get all that shit in there, but hard to separate it out again.”

Gordon Bell (1934) American computer engineer

At the February 10, 1982, Ethernet Announcement at The World Trade Center with Bob Noyce of Intel and David Liddle of Xerox.

Jeet Thayil photo
Premchand photo

“For children, father is a luxurious item, - just like beans for the horse…. but mother is everything for the child. The child cannot bear separation from his mother even for a minute.”

Premchand (1880–1936) Hindi writer

In his novel Ghar Jamai quoted in page= 92.
Portrayal of Women in Premchands Stories A Critique

Leona Helmsley photo
Colin Wilson photo

“Sadism is plainly connected with the need for self-assertion. At the same time it cannot be separated from the idea of defeat.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

A sadist is a man, who, in some sense, has his back to the wall. Nothing is further from sadism, for example, than the cheerful, optimistic mentality of a Shaw or Wells.
Source: The Origins of the Sexual Impulse (1963), p. 158

John Mayer photo

“I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

In answer to the question, "Do black women throw themselves at you?"
The Playboy interview (2010)

John Cheever photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Teal Swan photo
Will Durant photo
Saffron Burrows photo

“There are two separate answers…For people in general, I think they should name themselves in whatever way they wish. The flourishing of the gay movement in America is clearly very necessary and the identity that people could proudly lay claim to is crucial. Lives are lost every day because of bigotry in this country. So I think that should not prevail.”

Saffron Burrows (1972) English actress, model and writer

On labelling and sexual orientation in “Saffron Burrows: ‘I’m really proud of my family and who they are’” https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/dec/01/saffron-burrows-married-to-alison-balian-mozart-in-the-jungle in The Guardian (2014 Dec 01)

Joseph Goebbels photo
Nalo Hopkinson photo
William Quan Judge photo
Victor Hugo photo
Edward III of England photo
Herbert Read photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“Human beings have a kind of optical illusion, Einstein once said. We think ourselves separate rather than part of the whole. This imprisons our affection to those few nearest us.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Twelve, Human Connections: Relationships Changing

Benjamin Creme photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Deng Feng-Zhou photo

“Destiny connects us all like a thread and that’s how people meet.
Sadness, bliss, separation and reunion are nothing but a natural phenomenon.
As for those uncontrollable, we can only let nature take its course.”

Deng Feng-Zhou (1949) Chinese poet, Local history writer, Taoist Neidan academics and Environmentalist.

(zh-TW) 勢運天成一線牽,人生際遇係因緣;
悲歡散合平常待,事起非能任自旋。

"Destiny" (隨緣)

Source: Deng Feng-Zhou, "Deng Feng-Zhou Classical Chinese Poetry Anthology". Volume 6, Tainan, 2018: 86.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad photo
Ruhollah Khomeini photo
Ruhollah Khomeini photo

“Most of the wailings of the awliya [pious believers] is caused by the pain of separation and detachment from the Beloved and His Generosity.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Pithy Aphorisms: Wise Saying and Counsels, Edited by Mansoor Limba, Tehran: The Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works -- International Affairs Department, p. 3.
Theology and Mysticism

William Godwin photo

“Nothing can be of more importance than to separate prejudice and mistake on the one hand from reason and demonstration on the other.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

Book III, Ch.1
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Samir D. Mathur photo
V. T. Rajshekar photo

“The Dalits were the original inhabitants of India and resemble the African in physical features. It is said that India and Africa were one land-mass until separated by the ocean. So both the Africans and the Indian Untouchables had common ancestors.”

V. T. Rajshekar (1932) Indian conspiracy theorist

V.T. Rajshekar: Dalit - the Black Untouchables of India, Clarity Press, Atlanta 1987, p.43. , quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate https://web.archive.org/web/20100412074243/http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/ New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

Alex Grey photo
Alex Grey photo
Jami photo

“The pain night will be ended
And separation pain will be remedied
Unaware of this fact that this night is so long
And from that night to morning there are hundred years.”

Jami (1414–1492) Persian poet

Joseph and Zuleika, p. 113
Poetry, Poetry from Joseph and Zuleika

Kamila Shamsie photo

“…I am absolutely not someone who thinks that politics is separate from the most intimate details of people’s lives…”

Kamila Shamsie (1973) Pakistani writer

Source: On how politics still seeps into peoples’ personal lives in “INTERVIEWS: Kamila Shamsie” https://bookpage.com/interviews/21570-kamila-shamsie-fiction#.Xc2ItmNKjcs in BookPage (2017 Aug 1)

Malcolm Gladwell photo

“…You can’t separate race from police shooting cases, but you also can’t say that’s the whole story. There’s something out of whack with the way we’ve structured relationships—not just between police officers and civilians, but between strangers of all kinds.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: On police shootings in “Oprah Talks to Revisionist History's Malcolm Gladwell” https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a28568751/oprah-talks-to-malcolm-gladwell/ in O Magzzine (2019 Aug 7)

Alice Meynell photo
Mikhail Gorbachev photo
Michel Henry photo
Michel Henry photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Robert Boyle photo
Annie Besant photo

“A man who is a spiritual man--a religious teacher--regards the universe from the standpoint of the Spirit from which everything is seen as coming from the One. When he stands, as it were, in the centre, and he looks from the centre to the circumference, he stands at the point whence the force proceeds, and he judges of the force from that point of radiation and he sees it as one in its multitudinous workings, and knows the force is One; he sees it in its many divergencies, and he recognises it as one and the same thing throughout. Standing in the centre, in the Spirit, and looking outwards to the universe, he judges everything from the standpoint of the Divine Unity and sees every separate phenomenon, not as separate from the One but as the external expression of the one and the only Life. But science looks at the thing from the surface. It goes to the circumference of the universe and it sees a multiplicity of phenomena. It studies these separated things and studies them one by one. It takes up a manifestation and judges it; it judges it apart; it looks at the many, not at the One; it looks at the diversity, not at the Unity, and sees everything from outside and not from within: it sees the external difference and the superficial portion while it sees not the One from which every thing proceeds.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Essays and Addresses, Vol. III- Evolution and Occultism (1913)

“When ecologists find a predictable life-span of a generation separating us from total extinction, it would seem that we have a duty to search for another interpretation of mankind’s life story.”

Vine Deloria Jr. (1933–2005) American writer

As quoted in "Daniel Quinn: Another Interpretation of the ‘Meaning of Life" by Nicolae Tanase, at Excellence Reporter (28 March 2016) https://excellencereporter.com/2016/03/28/daniel-quinn-another-interpretation-of-the-meaning-of-life/

Lee Hyeon-seo photo
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell photo
Gregory Palamas photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Felix Adler photo
Chris Walas photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Seneca the Younger photo
Sam Van Rooy photo

“I know a ‘swimming pool’ where these ‘young people who disturb’ can go and swim separately following their ‘own schedule’: the Mediterranean Sea.”

Sam Van Rooy (1985)

Vlaams Belang MP shocks and angers with “swimming pool tweet” https://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels-2/60104/vlaams-belang-mp-shocks-and-angers-with-swimming-pool-tweet/. referring to a press article according to which a swimming pool in Utrecht, introduced different schedules for youngsters and families, fearing the former would upset the latter.

“To meet people with hypocrisy separates one from God.”

Sari al-Saqati (772–867) Iraqi sufi

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam, p. 43

“The worst punishment from God is the separation from Him.”

Sari al-Saqati (772–867) Iraqi sufi

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam, p. 43

Maximilien Robespierre photo

“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

Bowinn Ma photo

“Campaigns are normally very, very social. Politics is absolutely a team sport. And doing all of these campaign activities from separate homes and not being able to gather … it’s far more challenging to feed off each other's energy, even on the Zoom call.”

Bowinn Ma (1985) Canadian politician

North Shore News https://www.nsnews.com/news/north-van-lonsdale-incumbent-ma-not-making-any-predictions-1.24226696, North Shore News: North Van-Lonsdale incumbent Ma not making any predictions, October 24, 2020

“The true Germany, with its western traditions, must be separated from Prussia, which belongs to the east.”

Friedrich Thyssen (1804–1877) German banker

Source: I Paid Hitler (1941), p. 291

“The brain remains silently separated from the noisy endocrine consequences.”

Richard Bergland neuroscientist

The Fabric of Mind (1985)

William Thurston photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo