Quotes about severity (1843 quotes, page 12)

“Each one of us [artists] has several facets. The surface often appears more important than what is inside, hence the errors of those who judge carelessly. How many times has that not happened to me! The surface is often complete in some people from the very beginning, but not the possession of their own sensations. From this come errors. Some natures achieve the surface very slowly j this is the least danger an artist runs. So one should not think of the surface or the appearance, but concentrate on what is inner!”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote of Camille Pissarro, Eragny, 17 November 1890, in a letter to his son Lucien; from Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, pp. 139-140
1890's

People , Error , Nature , Thinking

“If we allow several figures to appear at once, the number of possible input configurations is so very large that a wholly parallel mechanism, giving a different output for each of them, is inconceivable.”

Ulric Neisser (1928–2012) American psychologist

Source: Cognitive Psychology, 1967, p. 94

Appearance

“Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require "several hundred thousand troops." But because Rumsfeld and Bush did not want to hear disagreement with their view that Iraq could be invaded at a much lower cost, Shinseki was hushed and then forced out.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)

“That people even in well paid jobs choose ever earlier retirement is a severe indictment of our organizations -- not just business, but government service, the universities. These people don't find their jobs interesting.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

The Shape of Things to Come: An Interview with Peter F. Drucker Leader to Leader, No. 1 (Summer 1996)
1990s and later

People , Business , Universe

“There is a mistake into which several have fallen, and have deceived others, and perhaps themselves, by clothing some false reasoning in what they called a mathematical dress, imagining that by the application of mathematical symbols to their subject, they secured mathematical argument. This could not have happened if they had possessed a knowledge of the bounds within which the empire of mathematics is contained. That empire is sufficiently wide, and might have been better known, had the time which has been wasted in aggressions upon the domains of others, been spent in exploring the immense tracts which are yet untrodden.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Source: On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics (1831), Ch. I.

Imagination , Mathematics , Knowledge , Time

“The news of our health is not good. My wife has been in agony several times, but she is having a little rest now. As for myself, I am better in a certain sense, and worse in another. I have still that feverish blood which runs through me, and which troubles my brain when my pains are most acute. I have again left off work, and again recommenced. Now I can do nothing, and it is killing me... In this we are all warned we must have health for a motto. Therefore, take care of yourself to the end, and do not tire yourself too much. Usually you inscribe my name on the official list for the [Paris] Salon towards the new year, and you will doubtless do it this year. As it is useless to make ourselves enemies in this way, this is what we must do: request Etcheverry to erase mine from the lists or I will send you cards to use as you think best.”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

Quote from a letter to fr:Alfred Sensier, Dec. 1866; as cited in Alfred Sensier, Souvenirs sur Th. Rousseau; quoted in The Barbizon School of Painters: Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, etc., by D. C. Thomson; Scribner and Welford, New York 1890 – (copy nr. 78), pp. 142-143
1851 - 1867

Pain , Health , Way , Thinking

“I have bought at Auverse thirty perches of land, all covered with beans, on which I shall plant some legs of mutton when you come to see me. They are building me a studio there, some eight by six meters, with several rooms around it, which will serve me, I hope, next Spring [of 1861]. Father Corot has found Auvers very fine, and has engaged me to fix myself there for a part of the year, wishing to make rustic landscapes with figures. I shall be truly well of there, in the midst of a good farming country, where the ploughs do not yet go by steam.”

Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878) French painter

Quote in his letter to his friend Frédéric Henriet, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric+Henriet&title=Special:Search&go=Go&searchToken=dt4h140y68u3oxynlcr55rftr#/media/File:Eaux-fortes._(Frontispiece)_(NYPL_b12616975-1690388).jpg, 1860; as cited in 'Charles-francois Daubigny', by Robert J. Wichenden, in The Century Illustrated Montly Magazine, Vol. XLIV, July 1892, p. 335
Daubigny bought property in Auvers-sur-Oise in 1860; four years later Corot would decorate there his Villa des Vallées, with beautiful murals.
1840s - 1850s

Hope , Spring , Parting , Country

“A gnarled old branch dulls the blade that severs a sapling.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Lini
(15 October 1993)

“Religion is all profit. They have no merchandise to buy, no commissions to pay, and no refunds to make for unsatisfactory service and results….
Their commodity is fear. They blackmail their parishioners with threats of hell and damnation. These poor deluded people give them their hard earned money to save them from a hell that does not exist, and from eternal torment that was invented by the perverted minds of priests to rob the living and in addition, they are exempt from taxation! Insult to injury!
Let me tell you that religion is the cruelest fraud ever perpetrated upon the human race. It is the last of the great scheme of thievery that man must legally prohibit so as to protect himself from the charlatans who prey upon the ignorance and fears of the people.
The penalty for this type of extortion should be as severe as it is of other forms of dishonesty.”

Joseph Lewis (1889–1968) American activist

Ingersoll the Magnificent (Memorial Dedication Address, August 11, 1954)

Money , People , Fear , Religion

“A population ecology perspective on organization-environment relations is proposed as an alternative to the dominant adaptation perspective. The strength of inertial pressures on organizational structure suggests the application of models that depend on competition and selection in populations of organizations. Several such models, as well as issues arising in attempts to apply them to the organization-environment problem, are discussed.”

Michael T. Hannan (1943) US-American sociologist of Stanford University

Source: "The Population Ecology of Organizations," 1977, p. 929; Article abstract

Problem , Dependency

“Good afternoon. I would like to take the next few moments to address the two investigations that the Justice Department has been conducting in Ferguson, Missouri, these last several months. The matter that we are here to discuss is significant not only because of the conclusions the Department of Justice is announcing today, but also because of the broader conversations and the initiatives that those conversations have inspired across the country on the local and national level. Those initiatives have included extensive and vital efforts to examine the causes of misunderstanding and mistrust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve; to support and strengthen our public safety institutions as a whole; and to rebuild confidence wherever it has eroded.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Justice , Law , Confidence , Communication

“Man’s search for metals goes back to prehistoric times. Metals have been used for several thousands of years in India. Certain periods in history are associated with specific periods used extensively during that period”

C. N. R. Rao (1934) Indian chemist

Source: Understanding Chemistry (1999), p. 28

History , Search , Time

“The Arab was by nature continent; and the use of universal marriage had nearly abolished irregular courses in his tribes. The public women of the rare settlements we encountered in our months of wandering would have been nothing to our numbers, even had their raddled meat been palatable to a man of healthy parts. In horror of such sordid commerce our youths began indifferently to slake one another's few needs in their own clean bodies — a cold convenience that, by comparison, seemed sexless and even pure. Later, some began to justify this sterile process, and swore that friends quivering together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme embrace, found there hidden in the darkness a sensual co-efficient of the mental passion which was welding our souls and spirits in one flaming effort. Several, thirsting to punish appetites they could not wholly prevent, took a savage pride in degrading the body, and offered themself fiercely in any habit which promised physical pain or filth.”

T. E. Lawrence book Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Source: Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922), Ch. 1

Women , Pain , Marriage , Youth

“If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that Government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end.”

John Dickinson (1732–1808) American politician

Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (6 July 1775)

Wisdom , Men , Exercises , Sense

“It was not so long ago that the Bible enjoyed a stranglehold similar to that of the Quran over vast populations in the West. The theocracies propped up by the Bible in Europe and America had enacted similar sagas of slaughter and pillage for several centuries. But a sustained Western scholarship showed up the Bible for what it was. “It would be more consistent,” proclaimed Thomas Pain, “that we call it [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God.” The spell of Jehovah was broken…. The rest is history. Christianity is now seeking a refuge in countries like India where its rout in the West remains unknown.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Calcutta Quran Petition

The Calcutta Quran Petition (1986)

God , Pain , History , Country

“The Vedic tradition advises people to be busy with themselves, that is, their own moral and spiritual improvement. Several disciplines have been evolved for this purpose tapas (austerity), yoga (meditation), jñAna (reflection), bhakti (devotion), etc. A seeker can take to (adhikAra) whichever discipline suits his adhAra (stage of moral-spiritual preparation). There is no uniform prescription for everybody, no coercion or allurement into a belief system, and no regimentation for aggression against others. The Biblical tradition, on the other hand, teaches people to be busy with others. One is supposed to have become a superior human being as soon as one confesses the ‘only true faith’. Thenceforward one stands qualified to ‘save’ others.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Vindicated by Time: The Niyogi Committee Report (1998)

People , Faith , Business

“Absence from whom we love is worse than death,
And frustrate hope severer than despair.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

"Hope, like the short-lived ray that gleams awhile", line 35.

Sad , Missing You , Goodbye , Love

“The Exxon Corporation was, and is, working hard to take the lead in setting the standard for the environmental clean-up along the 1,200 miles of damaged Alaskan coastline. Yet, despite all their efforts they still hear cries of foul. News articles claim the corporation is falling short of its responsibilities. Video footage of out-of-work fishermen sitting in idle boats carries the depressing message that the fishing industry cannot provide a livelihood for several more years. Exxon has spent billions of dollars related to that tragic oil spill. In spite of their efforts they continue to pay the price in money, damaged reputation, and ill-will.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Source: Crisis Management: A Model For Managers (1993), p. 2

Money , Fish , Effort

“For years I have told my students that I been trying to train executives rather than clerks. The distinction between the two is parallel to the distinction previously made between understanding and knowledge. It is a mighty low executive who cannot hire several people with command of more knowledge than he has himself.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Conclusion, p. 420
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979)

People , Understanding , Knowledge , Training

“The diffusion of alchemy westward, like the movement of astrology eastward, became significant only in the centuries after 200 A. D. The conservatism of learning was such that, even when commercial intercourse had made intellectual contacts possible, little serious interchange took place until severe social stress had disturbed the even tenor of the times in China, India, and Europe. Technology was a little, but only a little, less conservative.”

William H. McNeill book The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community

The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963)

Learning , Time

Rob Pike (1956) software engineer

Rob Pike (2004) in interview http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1153211&tid=189 at slashdot.com, Oct 18 2004

Beauty , Way , Nature , Problem

“War is a culture, bellicosity is addictive, defeat for a community that imagines itself to be history's eternal victim can be as intoxicating as victory. How long will it take for the Serbs to realize that the Milosevic years have been an unmitigated disaster for Serbia, the net result of Milosevic's policies being the economic and cultural ruin of the entire region, including Serbia, for several generations? Alas, one thing we can be sure of, that will not happen soon.”

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

"Why Are We in Kosovo?", The New York Times (2 May 1999)

War , Imagination , History , Communication

“A neutral observer would have no difficulty in identifying instances of disconnect between government and people, most obviously in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes where civil society’s voices are muzzled and where peaceful protests are prohibited or severely suppressed,24 but also to a lesser degree in democracies, particularly “representative democracies” that do not genuinely represent, business-driven democracies and so-called “lobby-democracies”, where elected officials tend to be more responsive to the lobbies than to the population.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf.
2013

People , Peace , Democracy , Business

“The Master of Jordan College is a foolish old man. Why he gave it to her I can't imagine; you need several years of intensive study to make any sense of it at all.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Mrs. Coulter, on Lyra having the alethiometer, in Ch. 9 : Theft
His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)

Imagination , Sense , Study

“Religion finally severed the unity which all willed but none could trust. An heroic nation of monotheists sought to impose its faith on a vaguely pantheist world. For the first and last time the Second Men stumbled into a world-wide civil war; and just because the war was religious it developed a brutality hitherto unknown.”

Olaf Stapledon book Last and First Men

Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter VII: The Rise of the Second Men; Section 3, “The Zenith of the Second Men” (p. 110)

Men , War , World , Faith

“The great and present danger to American literature is the growing homogeneity of our writers, especially the younger generation. Often raised in several places in no specific cultural or religious community, educated with no deep connection to a region, history, or tradition, and now employed mostly in academia, the American writer is becoming as standardized as the American car--functional, streamlined, and increasingly interchangeable”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

27
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), The Catholic Writer Today (2013)

Education , Cars , History , Communication

“Myelin is a fatty substance that coats the axons, speeding up synaptic transmission. Myelanation… is generally completed by age twenty. Multiple sclerosis is one of several degenerative diseases that can affect the myelin sheath…”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

Age , Disease , Speed

“Eighteen years ago the advent of nuclear weapons changed the course of the world as well as the war. Since that time, all mankind has been struggling to escape from the darkening prospect of mass destruction on earth. In an age when both sides have come to possess enough nuclear power to destroy the human race several times over, the world of communism and the world of free choice have been caught up in a vicious circle of conflicting ideology and interest. Each increase of tension has produced an increase of arms; each increase of arms has produced an increase of tension.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty speech

War , Age , World , Communication

“We now face five years of an unbridled Conservative government that is intent on swingeing cuts, further attacks on society’s most vulnerable and on our NHS. This will severely limit what can be achieved but I am determined to work tirelessly to do what I can to make sure local people are heard in Parliament and protected from the worst of what is to come.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Column: Jo Cox – After a hard day’s night, the real work starts http://www.batleynews.co.uk/news/local/column-jo-cox-after-a-hard-day-s-night-the-real-work-starts-1-7264438 (16 May 2015)

People

“Union of civilizations and conjugation of cultures and religions is a must which has occurred and will continue to happen in several dimensions. The quality of this union will bring about the fate of our world.”

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

360 Doctrines and Comprehensive Theories, Union of Civilizations

Fate , World , Religion

“The Talisman has been missing for several years or so. And no one knows about it — except Galactic Central and the — what would you call it? — the hierarchy, I suppose, the organization of mystics who takes care of the spiritual setup. And yet, even with no one knowing, the galaxy is beginning to show wear. It's coming apart at the seams. In time to come, it may fall apart. As if the Talisman represented a force that all unknowingly held the races of the galaxy together, exerting its influence even when it remained unseen.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 21

Time

“A new global financial environment has unfolded in several stages since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in 1971.”

Michel Chossudovsky (1946) Canadian economist

Source: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order - Second Edition - (2003), Chapter 20, Global Financial Meltdown, p. 309

“For many of the stories told the final form resulted from a sort of informal psychological experiment. I discussed the subject with several different classes… Several passages… have been suggested by answers of my students, or… modified… by the reaction of my audience.”

George Pólya (1887–1985) Hungarian mathematician

Induction and Analogy in Mathematics (1954)

“Mountcastle discovered that tactile sensation is made up of several distinct modalities; for example, touch includes… hard pressure on the skin as well as a light brush… He found that each distinct submodality has its own private pathway within the brain and that this segregation is maintained at each relay…”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

In Search of Memory (2006)

Light

“M. Perrier found that their exposure to the dry air of a room for only a single night was fatal to them. On the other hand he kept several large worms alive for nearly four months, completely submerged in water.”

Charles Darwin book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms

Source: The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881), Chapter 1: Habits of Worms, pp. 12-13 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=27&itemID=F1357&viewtype=image.

Water , Night

“Mo: I… y'know, um… I'm really attracted to you! [thought bubble:] Omigod! Who said that?!
Caption: A horrifying silence ensues. Is it an hour, or merely several seconds?
Harriet: I've had a crush on you for months.
Mo: Thank goddess! I was about to commit hara-kiri with my teaspoon!”

Alison Bechdel book Dykes to Watch Out For

#22, "Suspense" (1987), collected in More DTWOF (1988).
Dykes to Watch Out For

Silence

“A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe…. What a terrible future!”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 18, 1888)
Letters

Life , People , Beauty , Star

“So then how have irony, irreverence, and rebellion come to be not liberating but enfeebling in the culture today’s avant-garde tried to write about? One clue’s to be found in the fact that irony is still around, bigger than ever after 30 long years as the dominant mode of hip expression. It’s not a rhetorical mode that wears well. As [Lewis] Hyde… puts it, "Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy the cage." This is because irony, entertaining as it is, serves an almost exclusively negative function. It’s critical and destructive, a ground-clearing. Surely this is the way our postmodern fathers saw it. But irony’s singularly unuseful when it comes to constructing anything to replace the hypocrisies it debunks. This is why Hyde seems right about persistent irony being tiresome. It is unmeaty. Even gifted ironists work best in sound bites. I find gifted ironists sort of wickedly funny to listen to at parties, but I always walk away feeling like I’ve had several radical surgical procedures. And as for actually driving cross-country with a gifted ironist, or sitting through a 300-page novel full of nothing by trendy sardonic exhaustion, one ends up feeling not only empty but somehow… oppressed.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
Essays

Way , Feeling , Time , Country

“[Several] companies holds market share in excess of 50 percent in its prime market. All of them have been able to establish strongholds in the early majority segment, if not beyond, and to look forward from that position to continued growth, wondrously strong profit margins, and increasingly preferred relationships as suppliers to their customers. To be sure, some like Oracle and, more dramatically, Netscape have fallen on hard times, but even then customers often bend over backward to give market share leaders second and third chances, bringing cries of anguish from their competitors who would never be granted such grace.”

Geoffrey Moore book Crossing the Chasm

Source: Crossing the Chasm, 1991, p. 14

Strong , Chance , Time

“I like to summarize what I regard as the pedestal-smashing messages of Darwin's revolution in the following statement, which might be chanted several times a day, like a Hare Krishna mantra, to encourage penetration into the soul: Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which, if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again, or perhaps any twig with any property that we would care to call consciousness.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Dinosaur in a Haystack

"Can We Complete Darwin's Revolution?", p. 327
Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995)

Life , Soul , Time

“Several months later I had this dream. I was kneeling in the field where I'd seen the eye. A figure appeared in front of me: a man with green-flecked eyes, his smile mocking and oddly compassionate. As I stared up at him, he extended his hand until his finger touched the center of my forehead.
There was a blinding flash. I fell on my face, terrified, woke in bed with my ears ringing. It was the morning of my seventeenth birthday”

Elizabeth Hand book Generation Loss

Source: Generation Loss (2007), Ch. 1

Smile , Dreams , Birthday , Appearance

“What were several fewer species of animals compared with a hundred-mile advance and another medal on another general?”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 “Washington” (p. 110)

Animals

“It is a curious paradox that several of the greatest and most creative spirits in science, after achieving important discoveries by following their unfettered imaginations, were in their later years obsessed with reductionist philosophy and as a result became sterile. Hilbert was a prime example of this paradox. Einstein was another.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

Imagination , Science

“Fifteen years ago, there was this country called the Soviet Union that had over 10,000 nuclear warheads pointed at us… they're not there anymore. That's a good thing. And when people talk about how the world is more dangerous now than it was because we had these terrorists running around, my reply is, you know, a terrorist is like a buzzing mosquito. About 15 years ago, there was a great, big vampire bat; that's several orders of magnitude different from a mosquito. So the world is much safer — a lot safer than it was. It's not perfectly safe, but it's a heck of a lot safer than it was.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, Larry King Live (2000)

People , World , Country

“So the failure of scripture to describe anything accurately is obfuscated by assuming the conclusion with confirmation bias. Once again it is God who leads the unbelievers astray, and not their desire to understand the world as it is. And even though several of the world’s richest and most successful, and even the most charitable people are unbelievers, they are still considered losers. Of course the Qur’an is wrong about all these things, and I’m glad to be back in a country where I am allowed to say that. But those are the sort of lies that religion needs to sell itself.”

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

Patheos, The Cow http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/01/22/the-cow/ (January 22, 2016)

God , People , World , Religion

“Tension between two or several social entities (individual, group or organizations) which arises from incompatibility of actual or desired responses.”

Bertram Raven (1926) American psychologist

Source: "Conflict and power." 1970, p. 70

“Nobody disputes, I believe, that our nuclear weaponry is negligible in comparison with that of Russia: if we could destroy 16 Russian cities, she could destroy practically every vestige of life on these islands several times over. For us to use the weapon would therefore be equivalent to more than suicide: it would be genocide – the extinction of our race – in the most literal and precise meaning of that much abused expression. An officer may, in the hour of his country's defeat and disgrace, commit suicide honourably and rationally with his service revolver; but in any collective context the choice of non-existence, of the obliteration of all future hopes, is insanity.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in Downpatrick, County Down (31 May 1983), quoted in The Times (1 June 1983), p. 4
1980s

Life , Hope , Suicide , Time

“In all these years of recuperaion, I over-used one half of my body. So, when I did a short sprint on the beach, I just fell and couldn't get back on my feet again. In the bad time following I was helped by my two wonderful brothers, who got me into a hospital and assisted me in many ways, God bless them. As it turned out, the hip bones of the side of my body which had been overly stressed were severely damaged, and so I had a very hard time after that.”

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

God , Way , Time , Help

“I have always had severe problems with Austrians. … Musical, churchy, uptight… nice legs… hypocritical… authoritarian… always insist their dustbins are very clean.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Philip
8 1/2 Women

Music , Problem

“Mr. Holker made many inquiries yesterday, respecting the temper and disposition of our army. He seemed desirous to know, whether peace, upon a plan of independence agreeable to the state of the alliance, would be satisfactory; the fishery to be con fined to the limits of the States. This would well nigh ruin the Eastern States. Upon the whole, I think there have been some overtures made upon the subject of peace. It is said Russia on the part of England, and Spain on the part of France, are to stand mediators. This is merely conjectural. Mr. Jay says the Congress have no official propositions of peace; but I believe it is beyond a doubt there have been debates upon the subject for several days past, particularly with regard to the fishery.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (26 April 1779)

Peace , Thinking , Past , Parting

“If the multitude does not understand or understands only with difficulty several laws that are immediately necessary to its life, how can it be imagined by someone that it -which in a democracy must be led through itself-could understand the most difficult natural laws; or that it would know intuitively the most subtle and imperceptible norms of human leadership, norms that project beyond itself, its life, its life's necessities, or which do not apply directly to it but to a more superior entity, the nation?”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Life , Law , Democracy , Imagination

“I first read the poems in my early youth, with an ardent credulity that remained unshaken for many years of my life; and with a pleasure to which even the triumphant satisfaction of detecting the imposture is comparatively nothing. The enthusiasm with which I read and studied the poems, enabled me afterwards, when my suspicions were once awakened, to trace and expose the deception with greater success. Yet, notwithstanding the severity of minute criticism, I can still peruse them as a wild and wonderful assemblage of imitations, with which the fancy is often pleased and gratified, even when the judgment condemns them most.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Malcolm Laing, The Poems of Ossian, Vol. I (1805), p. 441.
Criticism

Life , Pleasure , Youth , Study

“The Hindu pantheon has changed to some extent but the old Gods are still active and are still understood though under modified names. Hindu India has a sense of continuity with its past which other nations, that changed their religions at some later stage, lack. It is also known that the Hindu religion preserves many old layers and forms. Therefore, its study may link us not only with its own past forms but also with the religious consciousness, intuitions and forms that prevailed in the past in Europe, in Greece, in Rome, in many Scandinavian and Baltic countries, amongst Germanic and Slavic peoples and also in several countries of the Middle East. In short, the study may reveal a fundamental form of spiritual consciousness which is wider than its Hindu expression.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

The World As Revelation: Names of Gods (1980)

God , People , Religion , Sense

“We have an incredibly successful theory called the Standard Model. … It still leaves open several questions.”

Peter Woit (1957) American physicist

[Big Think Interview with Peter Woit, 23 April 2012, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnWjZCS9YVY] (See Big Think.)

Question , Success

“I got back from Toronto, where they had a severe outbreak of SARS- you know, Severe Asian Racism Syndrome.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, Revolution Tour

“It is much easier to organize control over one industry serving many markets than over one market served by the products of several industries.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 15, 'Imperfect Competition' Revisited, p. 167

“In a field of ripening corn I came to a place which had been trampled down by some ruthless foot; and as I glanced amongst the countless stalks, every one of them alike, standing there so erect and bearing the full weight of the ear, I saw a multitude of different flowers, red and blue and violet. How pretty they looked as they grew there so naturally with their little foliage! But, thought I, they are quite useless; they bear no fruit; they are mere weeds, suffered to remain only because there is no getting rid of them. And yet, but for these flowers, there would be nothing to charm the eye in that wilderness of stalks. They are emblematic of poetry and art, which, in civic life—so severe, but still useful and not without its fruit—play the same part as flowers in the corn.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

“Similes, Parables and Fables” Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, § 380A
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

Life , Art , Flowers , Nature

“According to my experience, the only effective way to spread religion in India is for the King to proclaim by means of an edict to all his officials in India that he shall put trust only in those who will exert themselves to extend the reign of religion by every means in their power. The King must definitely order them to exert themselves with zeal to multiply the number of Christians in Cape Comorin [Kanyakumari] in order to attract to the faith of Jesus Christ the island of Ceylon, and to muster all the pious people, be they members of our Society [the Jesuits] or other that may seem fit for propagating religion…. If the King publishes such an edict and treats severely those who disobey it, a great number of natives will embrace the faith of Jesus Christ; otherwise no success can be expected.”

Francis Xavier (1506–1552) Navarrese Basque Roman Catholic saint and missionary

Letter dated 20th January 1548, to Fr. Simao Rodrigues. quoted from Goel, S. R. (1985). St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission.

People , Faith , Religion , Way

“All the several pleas and excuses, which protect the committer of a forbidden act from the punishment which is otherwise annexed thereto, may be reduced to this single consideration, the want or defect of will. An involuntary act, as it has no claim to merit, so neither can it induce any guilt: the concurrence of the will, when it has its choice either to do or to avoid the fact in question, being the only thing that renders human actions either praiseworthy or culpable. Indeed, to make a complete crime, cognizable by human laws, there must be both a will and an act.”

William Blackstone book Commentaries on the Laws of England

Book IV, ch. 2 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk4ch2.asp: Of the Persons Capable of Committing Crimes.
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)

Law , Question

“By several proofs experience art has made,
Example being guide.”
Per varios usus artem experientia fecit, Exemplo monstrante viam.

Marcus Manilius Astronomica

Book I, line 61. Quoted by Michel de Montaigne in Essays, Vol. III, Ch. 13 (tr. Charles Cotton).
Variant translation: Experience, after many trials, perfected the art, example showing the way.
Astronomica

Art

“It has been suggested that an individual's social identity divides up the world of people and places for him, and that his personal identity does this too, although differently. It is these frames of reference one must apply in studying the daily round of a particular stigmatized person, as he wends his way to and from his place of work, his place of residence, his place of shopping, and the places where he participates in recreation. A key concept here is the daily round, for it is the daily round that links the individual to his several social situations. And one studies the daily round with a special perspective in mind. To the extent that the individual is a discredited person, one looks for the routine cycle of restrictions he faces regarding social acceptance; to the extent that he is discreditable, for the contingencies he faces in managing information about himself.”

Erving Goffman book Stigma

Source: 1950s-1960s, Stigma, 1963, p. 112-3

People , World , Way , Study

“I was totally star-struck as a youngster and incredibly shy, but I loved the theatre – especially pantomimes. After a failed audition for RADA, I worked as a trainee fashion buyer at Harrods, where they had an entertainments society and I performed in several of its productions. I took singing lessons and my teacher encouraged me to read The Stage, where I saw that chorus singers were needed for the musical The Belle Of New York. I got the job – much to my parents’ horror, who wanted me to keep my respectable job, but I was determined to become an actress.”

Valerie Leon (1943) English actress

Whatever happened to Bond Girl Valerie Leon? http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/614933/Bond-Girl-Valerie-Leon-career-life (November 2, 2015)

Love , Music , Star , Fashion

“The Boss: The State’s your mother, your father, the totality of your interests. No discipline can be too severe for the man that denies that by word or deed.”

H. G. Wells book The Shape of Things to Come

Things to Come (1936)

“Processions of priests and religiosi have been for several days past praying for rain; but the gods are either angry, or nature is too powerful.”

Tim Powers book The Stress of Her Regard

Source: The Stress of Her Regard (1989), Chapter 17 (p. 285; quoting from the journal of Edward Williams)

God , Nature , Past

“‘ Don Camillo, the system of teaching Christian charity by knocking people over the head is one that doesn’ t appeal to me,’ the Lord answered severely.”

Giovannino Guareschi (1908–1968) Italian journalist, cartoonist and humorist

Horses of a Different Colour
Don Camillo and the Prodigal Sun (1952)

People

“We are a society awash in skillfully manufactured lies. Solitude that makes thought possible—a removal from the electronic cacophony that besieges us—is harder and harder to find. We have severed ourselves from a print-based culture. We are unable to grapple with the nuances and complexity of ideas. We have traded ideas for fabricated clichés. We speak in the hollow language we are given by our corporate masters. Reality, presented to us as image, is unexamined and therefore false. We are culturally illiterate. And because of our cultural illiteracy we are easily manipulated and controlled.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Speech at the American Political Science Association, September 3, 2016 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_intellectuals_we_abandon_20160904

Idea , Reality , Solitude , Falseness

“As is often the case with major disputes in economics, the argument over fiscal policy went on for years, with some critics of fiscal policy still defending their position when this book went to press. It seems fair, however, to say that among economists a more or less Keynesian view of the effects of fiscal policy came to prevail. Careful statistical studies at the International Monetary Fund and else where showed that austerity policies have historically been followed by contraction, not expansion. Recent experience, in which countries like Spain and Greece that were forced into severe austerity also experienced severe slumps, seemed to confirm that observation. Furthermore, it was clear that those who had predicted a sharp rise in U. S. interest rates due to budget deficits, leading to conventional crowding out, had been wrong: U. S. long-term interest rates remained near record lows even during the years from 2009 to 2012, when the government ran very large deficits.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Source: Economics (4th ed., 2015), Chapter 33. Macroeconomics: Events and Ideas

Books , Study , Country

“Jane nodded, and she mentally thanked the several-greats-grandmother who had decided she’d rather risk royal displeasure than give up a book.”

Tina Connolly American writer

Source: Ironskin (2012), Chapter 9, “The Misses Ingel” (p. 149)

Books

“Humans lived for several million years as fully wild beings: only in the last 10, 000 did we invent agriculture; only in the last couple of centuries did we invent industry. We are a species that has spent 99 per cent of its history as hunter-gatherers. We haven't had time for our unconscious minds and our unconscious needs to have changed. If you like, our souls have not changed, and this is true whether or not we believe that we have them.”

Simon Barnes (1951) British journalist

How To Be Wild (2007)

Soul , History , Change , Time

“The first class contains four, which, we are informed, may be properly called beasts for hunting; namely, the hare, the hart, the wolf, and the wild boar. The second class contains the names of the beasts of the chase, and they are five; that is to say, the buck, the doe, the fox, the martin, and the roe. In the third class we find three, that are said to afford "greate dysporte" in the pursuit, and they are denominated, the grey or badger, the wild-cat and the otter…The reader may possibly be surprised, when he casts his eye over the foregoing list of animals for hunting, at seeing the names of several that do not exist at this time in England, and especially of the wolf, because he will readily recollect the story so commonly told of their destruction during the reign of Edgar.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 17
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Animals

Cats , Wolf , Time , Animals

“We have heard from the opposite Bench several very animated appeals to this House, and several constitutional lectures as to our duties. The noble Earl the late Foreign Secretary (the Earl of Clarendon) went so far, as I understood him, as to tell us that we must watch public opinion more closely, and pay greater attention to the majorities in the other House of Parliament. My Lords, it occurs to me to ask the noble Earl whether he has considered for what purpose this House exists, and whether he would be willing to go through the humiliation of being a mere echo and supple tool of the other House in order to secure for himself the luxury of mock legislation? I agree with my noble Friend the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) below me that it were better not to be than submit to such a slavery.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1868/jun/26/debate-resumed-second-night in the House of Lords (26 June 1868)
1860s

Animals , Housing

“Parallelism' can be pointed out in the different parts of a single object, looked at alone; it is even more obvious when one puts several objects of the same kind next to each other. Now if we compare our own lives and customs with these appearances in nature, we shall be astonished to find the same principle repeated... When an important event is being celebrated, the people face and move in the same direction. These are parallels following each other..”

Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918) Swiss artist

from: Die Kunst Ferdinand Hodlers, 1923

People , Nature , Appearance , Parting

“During late Autumn 1956, in connection with a marketing study, I forecast the imminence of a major U. S. economic recession, triggered by the over-stretching of a post-1954 credit-bubble centered in financing of automobiles, housing, and analogous consumer goods. This recession broke out in February 1957 statistics, and was generally, if reluctantly acknowledged to have occurred several months later. The recession-spiral lasted into mid-1958, and was followed by a prolonged stagnation until an upturn appeared under the Kennedy administration.”

Lyndon LaRouche (1922–2019) American political activist and founder of the LaRouche movement

"The Coming Disintegration of Financial Markets" (June 1994) http://spanish.larouchepac.com/static/about-larouche.html.

Autumn , Study , Appearance , Housing

“She was tall beyond the ordinary height of woman, but stately in her grace as the ideal of a queen and the reality of a swan. Her arms and feet were bare, but for the gems which encircled them. A white robe swept around her in folds gathered at the waist by a golden girdle inscribed with signs and characters. Her hair was singularly thick, and of that purple blackness seen on the grape and the neck of the raven — black, with a sort of azure bloom upon it. It was fastened in large folds, which went several times round the head, and these were adorned with jewels and precious stones, like a midnight lighted with stars. Her complexion was a pale pure olive, perfectly colourless, but delicate as that of a child. Her mouth was the only spot where the rose held dominion, and lips of richer crimson never opened to the morning.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Star , Reality , Light , Time

“The Bible is a warm letter of affection from a parent to a child; and yet there are many who see chiefly the severer passages. As there may be fifty or sixty nights of gentle dews in one summer, that will not cause as much remark as one hailstorm of half an hour, so there are those who are more struck by those passages of the Bible that announce the indignation of God than by those that announce His affection.”

Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832–1902) American Presbyterian preacher, clergyman and reformer during the mid-to late 19th century.

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 30.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

God , Parent , Summer , Night

“Notwithstanding, the disciples of Jesus, excepting John the Revelator, suffered ignominious deaths, they sowed the seed of the Gospel among, and conferred the Priesthood upon men, which remained for several generations upon the earth, but the time came when Paganism was engrafted into Christianity, and at last Christianity was converted into Paganism rather than converting the Pagans. And subsequently the Priesthood was taken from among men, this authority was re-called into the heavens, and the world was left without the Priesthood-without the power of God-without the Church and Kingdom of God.”

Joseph F. Smith (1838–1918) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Journal of Discourses 22:44 (February 6, 1881)

Death , Men , God , World

“It lay heavily in her hands, the crystal face gleaming, the golden body exquisitely machined. It was very like a clock, or a compass, for there were hands pointing to places around the dial, but instead of the hours or the points of the compass there were several little pictures, each of them painted with extraordinary precision, as if on ivory with the finest and slenderest sable brush. She turned the dial around to look at them all. There was an anchor; an hourglass surmounted by a skull; a chameleon, a bull, a beehive… Thirty-six altogether, and she couldn't even guess what they meant.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Lyra, investigating the alethiometer, in Ch. 4 : The Alethiometer
His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995)

Painting

“There is little pride in writers. They know they are human and shall some day die and be forgotten. Knowing all this a writer is gentle and kindly where another man is severe and unkind.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

"The Declaration of War" (1944)

“The control objects model functionality that is not naturally tied to any other object… We do not believe that the best (most stable) systems are built by only using objects that correspond to real-life entities, something that many other object-oriented analysis and design techniques claim… Behavior that we place in control objects will, in other methods, be distributed over several other objects, making it hard to change this behavior.”

Ivar Jacobson (1939) Swedish computer scientist

Source: Object-Oriented Software Engineering: A Use Case Driven Approach (1992), p. 133 as cited in: " Object Oriented Software Engineering: A Use Case Driven Approach Ivar Jacobson, et al. (1992) http://tedfelix.com/software/jacobson1992.html", Book review by Ted Felix on tedfelix.com, 2006.

Life , Behavior , Nature , Change

“The tongue of the sword of the Khalifa of the time, which is the tongue of the flame of Islam, has imparted light to the entire darkness of Hindustan by the illumination of its guidance… On the other side, so much dust arose from the battered temple of Somnat that even the sea was not able to lay it, and on the right hand and on the left hand the army has conquered from sea to sea, and several capitals of the gods of the Hindus, in which Satanism has prevailed since the time of the Jinns, have been demolished. All these impurities of infidelity have been cleansed by the Sultan's destruction of idol-temples, beginning with his first holy expedition against Deogir,44so that the flames of the light of the law illumine all these unholy countries, and places for the criers to prayer are exalted on high, and prayers are read in mosques. Allah be praised!'…'On Sunday, the 23rd, after holding a council of chief officers, he [Malik Kafur, converted Hindu and commander of the Muslim army] took a select body of cavalry with him and pressed on against Billal Deo, and on the 5th of Shawwal reached the fort of Dhur Sammund after a difficult march of twelve days over the hills and valleys, and through thorny forests. 'The fire-worshipping' Rai, when he learnt that 'his idol-temple was likely to be converted into a mosque,' despatched Kisu Mal' The commander replied that he was sent with the object of converting him to Muhammadanism, or of making him a zimmi, and subject to pay tax, or of slaying him if neither of these terms were assented to. When the Rai received this reply, he said he was ready to give up all he possessed, except his sacred thread.”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 85-89
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

God , Law , Light , Time

“With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity… As he himself never abandoned any of his partisans… but adhered to his friends--and that not merely from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him.]]The superintendence of the administration of justice and the administrative control of the communities remained in their hands; but their command was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants associated with the governor, and the raising of the taxes was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially to imperial officials, so that the governor was thenceforward surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, pt. 2, translated by W.P.Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2
Context: The system of administration was thoroughly remodelled. The Sullan proconsuls and propraetors had been in their provinces essentially sovereign and practically subject to no control; those of Caesar were the well-disciplined servants of a stern master, who from the very unity and life-tenure of his power sustained a more natural and more tolerable relation to the subjects than those numerous, annually changing, petty tyrants. The governorships were no doubt still distributed among the annually-retiring two consuls and sixteen praetors, but, as the Imperator directly nominated eight of the latter and the distribution of the provinces among the competitors depended solely on him, they were in reality bestowed by the Imperator. The functions also of the governors were practically restricted. His memory was matchless, and it was easy for him to carry on several occupations simultaneously with equal self-possession. Although a gentleman, a man of genius, and a monarch, he had still a heart. So long as he lived, he cherished the purest veneration for his worthy mother Aurelia... to his daughter Julia he devoted an honourable affection, which was not without reflex influence even on political affairs. With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity... As he himself never abandoned any of his partisans... but adhered to his friends--and that not merely from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him. The superintendence of the administration of justice and the administrative control of the communities remained in their hands; but their command was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants associated with the governor, and the raising of the taxes was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially to imperial officials, so that the governor was thenceforward surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline. While hitherto the proconsul and his quaestor had appeared as if they were members of a gang of robbers despatched to levy contributions, the magistrates of Caesar were present to protect the weak against the strong; and, instead of the previous worse than useless control of the equestrian or senatorian tribunals, they had to answer for themselves at the bar of a just and unyielding monarch. The law as to exactions, the enactments of which Caesar had already in his first consulate made more stringent, was applied by him against the chief commandants in the provinces with an inexorable severity going even beyond its letter; and the tax-officers, if indeed they ventured to indulge in an injustice, atoned for it to their master, as slaves and freedmen according to the cruel domestic law of that time were wont to atone.

Death , Men , Justice , Law

“The Raja of Malwa had 5,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry and would have been defeated only after great slaughter. The inhabitants of Kaithal were given such severe punishment (1254) that "they might not forget the lesson for the rest of their lives". In 1256 Ulugh Khan Balban carried on devastating warfare in Saimur, and "so many of the rebellious Hindus were killed that numbers cannot be computed or described". Ranthambhor was attacked in 1259 and many of its valiant fighting men were killed. In the punitive expedition to Mewat (1260) "numberless Hindus perished. In the same year 12,000 men, women and children were put to the sword in Hariyana." When Balban became the sultan "large sections of the male population were massacred in Katehar and, according to Barani, in villages and jungles heaps of human corpses were left rotting". During the expedition to Bengal, "on either side of the principal bazar (of Lakhnauti), in a street two miles in length, a row of stakes was set up and the adherents of Tughril were impaled upon them"….. During campaigns and wars, the disorganized flight of the panic-stricken people must have killed large numbers through exposure, starvation and epidemic. Nor should the ravages of famines on populations be ignored. Drought, pestilence, and famines in the medieval times find repeated mention in contemporary chronicles.”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999), Chapter 7

Women , Men , War , Children

“"You are dictatorial." My dear sirs, you are right, that is just what we are. All the experience the Chinese people have accumulated through several decades teaches us to enforce the people's democratic dictatorship, that is, to deprive the reactionaries of the right to speak and let the people alone have that right.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

The People's Democratic Dictatorship, speech (30 June 1949) commemorating the 28th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party
Original: (zh-CN) “你们独裁。”可爱的先生们，你们讲对了，我们正是这样。中国人民在几十年中积累起来的一切经验，都叫我们实行人民民主专政，或曰人民民主独裁，总之是一样，就是剥夺反动派的发言权，只让人民有发言权。

People

“Since my early childhood, I have always stood on anti-Jewish position and I will remain antisemitic. However, it does not mean that I will contribute by my voting to the law which is against all God and human laws. Hungarians are national minority in Slovakia and it is impossible to adopt and accept such law which gave majority right to deport minority. I know that also several Slovak deputies do not agree with this law, but they do not have courage to be against it because of party discipline. As a representative of the Hungarians here, I state it, and please acknowledge this, that I don't vote in favour of the proposal because as a Hungarian, a Christian and a Catholic I believe that this is against God and humanity.”

János Esterházy (1901–1957) Czechoslovak member of Czechoslovak national parliament, russian nation politician and hungary nation polit…

Report to Hungarian government about Law about deportations, May 1942.
Persecution of Jews
Source: [Kamenec, Ivan, Ivan Kamenec, Hľadanie a blúdenie v dejinách, Osobnosť Jánosa Esterházyho a jej kontroverzné publikácie, Bratislava, Kalligram, 2000, Slovak, 360, 80-7149-353-8, harv]

God , Law , Courage , Childhood

“In spring I stopped eating the bodies of living things. Nonetheless, the other day I ate several slices of tuna sashimi as a form of magic to “undertake” my “communication” with “society.” I also stirred a cup of chawanmushi with a spoon. If the fish, while being eaten, had stood behind me and watched, what would he have thought? “I gave up my only life and this person is eating my body as if it were something distasteful.” “He’s eating me in anger.” “He’s eating me out of desperation.” “He’s thinking of me and, while quietly savoring my fat with his tongue, praying, ‘Fish, you will come with me as my companion some day, won’t you?’” “Damn! He’s eating my body!” Well, different fish would have had different thoughts. … Suppose I were the fish, and suppose that not only I were being eaten but my father were being eaten, my mother were being eaten, and my sister were also being eaten. And suppose I were behind the people eating us, watching. “Oh, look, that man has torn apart my sibling with chopsticks. Talking to the person next to him, he swallowed her, thinking nothing of it. Just a few minutes ago her body was lying there, cold. Now she must be disintegrating in a pitch-dark place under the influence of mysterious enzymes. Our entire family have given up our precious lives that we value, we’ve sacrificed them, but we haven’t won a thimbleful of pity from these people.””

Kenji Miyazawa (1896–1933) Japanese poet and author of children's literature

I must have been once a fish that was eaten.
Letter to Hosaka (May 1918); as quoted in Miyazawa Kenji: Selections, edited by Hiroaki Sato (University of California Press, 2007), pp. 12 https://books.google.it/books?id=D7IwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA12-13.

Life , People , Family , Spring

“There is a reason for me always shoe-gazing. I simply can't look into the eyes of several thousand people. (Toronto Sun newspaper)”

Robert Smith (musician) (1959) English singer, songwriter and musician

People , Shoe , Sun

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.

The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, 'race'. The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are 'prejudiced', 'racialist'... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as 'spouting the fantasies of racial purity' to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of 'racialist' and 'unChristian' and applying them to lifelong political colleagues...

In the universities, we are told that education and the discipline ought to be determined by the students, and that the representatives of the students ought effectively to manage the institutions. This is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense which it is already obligatory for academics and journalists, politicians and parties, to accept and mouth upon pain of verbal denunciation and physical duress.

We are told that the economic achievement of the Western countries has been at the expense of the rest of the world and has impoverished them, so that what are called the 'developed' countries owe a duty to hand over tax-produced 'aid' to the governments of the undeveloped countries. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense with which the people of the Western countries, clergy and laity, but clergy especially—have been so deluged and saturated that in the end they feel ashamed of what the brains and energy of Western mankind have done, and sink on their knees to apologise for being civilised and ask to be insulted and humiliated.

Then there is the 'civil rights' nonsense. In Ulster we are told that the deliberate destruction by fire and riot of areas of ordinary property is due to the dissatisfaction over allocation of council houses and opportunities for employment. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that has not prevented the Parliament and government of the United Kingdom from undermining the morale of civil government in Northern Ireland by imputing to it the blame for anarchy and violence.

Most cynically of all, we are told, and told by bishops forsooth, that communist countries are the upholders of human rights and guardians of individual liberty, but that large numbers of people in this country would be outraged by the spectacle of cricket matches being played here against South Africans. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that did not prevent a British Prime Minister and a British Home Secretary from adopting it as acknowledged fact.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The "enemy within" speech during the 1970 general election campaign; speech to the Turves Green Girls School, Northfield, Birmingham (13 June 1970), from Still to Decide (Eliot Right Way Books, 1972), pp. 36-37.
1970s

Pain , People , World , Education

“I was quite active politically just previous to this, and I'm leading into this time when I was on WPA and there was a group called the Artist's Union which was organized, so that I was extremely active in that. Again that meant more meetings and fighting for artists' rights on the WPA... I would say it gave me an opportunity to continue through a period of where one had a livelihood to deal with and/or painting. This allowed for painting and I'd say in that sense it was extremely influencing.... WPA itself ended after the War Service Project and by way of terminating, it allowed you to take one of several war courses that were being offered. After which you were supposed to be able to go into that field and earn a living. I took drafting.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

n.p.
Oral history interview with Lee Krasner, 1964 Nov. 2 - 1968 Apr. 11

War , Way , Sense , Time

“Several leading-edge thinkers in physics suggest that nature is… a flux of processes. The whole notion of flux and process is fundamental to the Indigenous sciences of… Algonkian-speaking peoples… all share a strongly verb-based family of languages that reflects this direct experience.”

F. David Peat (1938–2017) British physicist

The Blackfoot Physics (2006)

People , Family , Nature , Science