Quotes about siding
page 5

Alfred North Whitehead photo

“One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Context: In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed creativity; and God] is its primordial, non-temporal accident. In [[monistic philosophies, Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed The Absolute. In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, eminent reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.

Rajneesh photo

“Only the future … as man becomes more and more available to the mysterious, to the meaningless yet significant … After a hundred years they will understand. Because the more man becomes aware of the mysterious side of life, the less he is political; the less he is a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian; the less is the possibility for his being a fanatic. A man in tune with the mysterious is humble, loving, caring, accepting the uniqueness of everybody. He is rejoicing in the freedom of each individual, because only with freedom can this garden of humanity be a rich place.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

The Osho Upanishad
Context: I do not ordinarily make prophecies, but about this I am absolutely prophetic: the coming hundred years are going to be more and more irrational, and more and more mystical. The second thing: After a hundred years people will be perfectly able to understand why I was misunderstood — because I am the beginning of the mystical, the irrational. I am a discontinuity with the past. The past cannot understand me; only the future will understand. The past can only condemn me. It cannot understand me, it cannot answer me, it cannot argue with me; it can only condemn me. Only the future … as man becomes more and more available to the mysterious, to the meaningless yet significant … After a hundred years they will understand. Because the more man becomes aware of the mysterious side of life, the less he is political; the less he is a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian; the less is the possibility for his being a fanatic. A man in tune with the mysterious is humble, loving, caring, accepting the uniqueness of everybody. He is rejoicing in the freedom of each individual, because only with freedom can this garden of humanity be a rich place.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“If I could ask but one thing of my fellow countrymen, my request would be that, whenever they go in for reform, they remember the two sides, and that they always exact justice from one side as much as from the other. I have small use for the public servant who can always see and denounce the corruption of the capitalist, but who cannot persuade himself, especially before election, to say a word about lawless mob-violence. And I have equally small use for the man”

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

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Context: If I could ask but one thing of my fellow countrymen, my request would be that, whenever they go in for reform, they remember the two sides, and that they always exact justice from one side as much as from the other. I have small use for the public servant who can always see and denounce the corruption of the capitalist, but who cannot persuade himself, especially before election, to say a word about lawless mob-violence. And I have equally small use for the man, be he a judge on the bench or editor of a great paper, or wealthy and influential private citizen, who can see clearly enough and denounce the lawlessness of mob-violence, but whose eyes are closed so that he is blind when the question is one of corruption of business on a gigantic scale. Also, remember what I said about excess in reformer and reactionary alike. If the reactionary man, who thinks of nothing but the rights of property, could have his way, he would bring about a revolution; and one of my chief fears in connection with progress comes because I do not want to see our people, for lack of proper leadership, compelled to follow men whose intentions are excellent, but whose eyes are a little too wild to make it really safe to trust them.

G. I. Gurdjieff photo

“Thus they have a good side as well as a bad side.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

All and Everything: Views from the Real World (1973)
Context: LIBERATION LEADS TO LIBERATION. These are the first words of truth — not truth in quotation marks but truth in the real meaning of the word; truth which is not merely theoretical, not simply a word, but truth that can be realized in practice. The meaning behind these words may be explained as follows:
By liberation is meant the liberation which is the aim of all schools, all religions, at all times.
This liberation can indeed be very great. All men desire it and strive after it. But it cannot be attained without the first liberation, a lesser liberation. The great liberation is liberation from influences outside us. The lesser liberation is liberation from influences within us.
At first, for beginners, this lesser liberation appears to be very great, for a beginner depends very little on external influences. Only a man who has already become free of inner influences falls under external influences.
Inner influences prevent a man from falling under external influences. Maybe it is for the best. Inner influences and inner slavery come from many varied sources and many independent factors — independent in that sometimes it is one thing and sometimes another, for we have many enemies.
There are so many of these enemies that life would not be long enough to struggle with each of them and free ourselves from each one separately. So we must find a method, a line of work, which will enable us simultaneously to destroy the greatest possible number of enemies within us from which these influences come.
I said that we have many independent enemies, but the chief and most active are vanity and self-love. One teaching even calls them representatives and messengers of the devil himself.
For some reason they are also called Mrs. Vanity and Mr. Self-Love.
As I have said, there are many enemies. I have mentioned only these two as the most fundamental. At the moment it is hard to enumerate them all. It would be difficult to work on each of them directly and specifically, and it would take too much time since there are so many. So we have to deal with them indirectly in order to free ourselves from several at once.
These representatives of the devil stand unceasingly at the threshold which separates us from the outside, and prevent not only good but also bad external influences from entering. Thus they have a good side as well as a bad side.
For a man who wishes to discriminate among the influences he receives, it is an advantage to have these watchmen. But if a man wishes all influences to enter, no matter what they may be — for it is impossible to select only the good ones — he must liberate himself as much as possible, and finally altogether, from these watchmen, whom some considerable undesirable.
For this there are many methods, and a great number of means. Personally I would advise you to try freeing yourselves and to do so without unnecessary theorizing, by simple reasoning, active reasoning, within yourselves.

Maria Montessori photo

“The domineering habit develops side by side with helplessness.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Montessori Method (1912), Ch. 5 : Discipline, p. 100.
Context: The peril of servilism and dependence lies not only in that "useless consuming of life," which leads to helplessness, but in the development of individual traits which indicate all too plainly a regrettable perversion and degeneration of the normal man. I refer to the domineering and tyrannical behaviour with examples of which we are all only too familiar. The domineering habit develops side by side with helplessness. It is the outward sign of the state of feeling of him who conquers through the work of others. Thus it often happens that the master is a tyrant toward his servant. It is the spirit of the task-master toward the slave.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“It is a very poor thing, whether for nations or individuals, to advance the history of great deeds done in the past as an excuse for doing poorly in the present; but it is an excellent thing to study the history of the great deeds of the past, and of the great men who did them, with an earnest desire to profit thereby so as to render better service in the present. In their essentials, the men of the present day are much like the men of the past, and the live issues of the present can be faced to better advantage by men who have in good faith studied how the leaders of the nation faced the dead issues of the past. Such a study of Lincoln's life will enable us to avoid the twin gulfs of immorality and inefficiency—the gulfs which always lie one on each side of the careers alike of man and of nation. It helps nothing to have avoided one if shipwreck is encountered in the other.”

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

Theodore Roosevelt's introduction to "The Writings and Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Volume One, Constitutional Edition" http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/2/5/3253/3253-h/files/2653/2653-h/2653-h.htm#2H_4_0002, edited by Arthur Brooks Lapsley and released as "The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Volume One, by Abraham Lincoln" by Project Gutenberg on July 4, 2009. Roosevelt wrote his introduction at Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, New York, September 22, 1905 according to the introduction.
1900s
Context: It is a very poor thing, whether for nations or individuals, to advance the history of great deeds done in the past as an excuse for doing poorly in the present; but it is an excellent thing to study the history of the great deeds of the past, and of the great men who did them, with an earnest desire to profit thereby so as to render better service in the present. In their essentials, the men of the present day are much like the men of the past, and the live issues of the present can be faced to better advantage by men who have in good faith studied how the leaders of the nation faced the dead issues of the past. Such a study of Lincoln's life will enable us to avoid the twin gulfs of immorality and inefficiency—the gulfs which always lie one on each side of the careers alike of man and of nation. It helps nothing to have avoided one if shipwreck is encountered in the other. The fanatic, the well-meaning moralist of unbalanced mind, the parlor critic who condemns others but has no power himself to do good and but little power to do ill—all these were as alien to Lincoln as the vicious and unpatriotic themselves. His life teaches our people that they must act with wisdom, because otherwise adherence to right will be mere sound and fury without substance; and that they must also act high-mindedly, or else what seems to be wisdom will in the end turn out to be the most destructive kind of folly.

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Animals will be seen on the earth who will always be fighting against each other with the greatest loss and frequent deaths on each side.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

"Of the Cruelty of Man"
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings
Context: Animals will be seen on the earth who will always be fighting against each other with the greatest loss and frequent deaths on each side. And there will be no end to their malignity; by their strong limbs we shall see a great portion of the trees of the vast forests laid low throughout the universe; and, when they are filled with food the satisfaction of their desires will be to deal death and grief and labour and wars and fury to every living thing; and from their immoderate pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but the too great weight of their limbs will keep them down. Nothing will remain on earth, or under the earth or in the waters which will not be persecuted, disturbed and spoiled, and those of one country removed into another. And their bodies will become the sepulture and means of transit of all they have killed.
O Earth! why dost thou not open and engulf them in the fissures of thy vast abyss and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven such a cruel and horrible monster.

Abraham Lincoln photo

“Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them, Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.”

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

1860s, First Inaugural Address (1861)
Context: One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them, Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.

Karl Marx photo

“Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it, when it exists for us as capital”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Early Writings, translated and ed. by , p. 159. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/epm/3rd.htm
Context: Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it, when it exists for us as capital or when we directly possess, eat, drink, wear, inhabit it, etc., in short, when we use it. Although private property conceives all these immediate realizations of possession only as means of life; and the life they serve is the life of private property, labor, and capitalization. Therefore all the physical and intellectual senses have been replaced by the simple estrangement of all these senses – the sense of having. So that it might give birth to its inner wealth, human nature had to be reduced to this absolute poverty.

Rollo May photo

“Symbol and myth do bring into awareness infantile, archaic dreads and similar primitive psychic content. This is their regressive aspect. But they also bring out new meaning, new forms, and disclose a reality that was literally not present before, a reality that is not merely subjective but has a second pole which is outside ourselves. This is the progressive side of symbol and myth.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 4 : Creativity and the Encounter, p. 91
Context: Symbol and myth do bring into awareness infantile, archaic dreads and similar primitive psychic content. This is their regressive aspect. But they also bring out new meaning, new forms, and disclose a reality that was literally not present before, a reality that is not merely subjective but has a second pole which is outside ourselves. This is the progressive side of symbol and myth. This aspect points ahead. It is integrative. It is a progressive revealing of structure in our relation to nature and our own existence, as the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur so well states. It is a road to universals beyond discrete personal experience.

Ludwig von Mises photo

“The great danger threatening domestic policy from the side of Fascism lies in its complete faith in the decisive power of violence. In order to assure success, one must be imbued with the will to victory and always proceed violently.”

: The Foundations of Liberal Policy § 10. The Argument of Fascism https://mises.org/liberal/ch1sec10.asp,Ch.1
Liberalism (1927)
Context: Now it cannot be denied that the only way one can offer effective resistance to violent assaults is by violence. Against the weapons of the Bolsheviks, weapons must be used in reprisal, and it would be a mistake to display weakness before murderers. No liberal has ever called this into question. What distinguishes liberal from Fascist political tactics is not a difference of opinion in regard to the necessity of using armed force to resist armed attackers, but a difference in the fundamental estimation of the role of violence in a struggle for power. The great danger threatening domestic policy from the side of Fascism lies in its complete faith in the decisive power of violence. In order to assure success, one must be imbued with the will to victory and always proceed violently. This is its highest principle. What happens, however, when one's opponent, similarly animated by the will to be victorious, acts just as violently? The result must be a battle, a civil war. The ultimate victor to emerge from such conflicts will be the faction strongest in number. In the long run, a minority — even if it is composed of the most capable and energetic — cannot succeed in resisting the majority. The decisive question, therefore, always remains: How does one obtain a majority for one's own party? This, however, is a purely intellectual matter. It is a victory that can be won only with the weapons of the intellect, never by force. The suppression of all opposition by sheer violence is a most unsuitable way to win adherents to one's cause. Resort to naked force — that is, without justification in terms of intellectual arguments accepted by public opinion — merely gains new friends for those whom one is thereby trying to combat. In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“In my Cabinet at the time there were men of English and French, German, Irish, and Dutch blood, men born on this side and men born in Germany and Scotland; but they were all Americans and nothing else; and every one of them was incapable of thinking of himself or of his fellow-countrymen, excepting in terms of American citizenship.”

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

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: In my Cabinet at the time there were men of English and French, German, Irish, and Dutch blood, men born on this side and men born in Germany and Scotland; but they were all Americans and nothing else; and every one of them was incapable of thinking of himself or of his fellow-countrymen, excepting in terms of American citizenship. If any one of them had anything in the nature of a dual or divided allegiance in his soul, he never would have been appointed to serve under me, and he would have been instantly removed when the discovery was made. There wasn't one of them who was capable of desiring that the policy of the United States should be shaped with reference to the interests of any foreign country or with consideration for anything, outside of the general welfare of humanity, save the honor and interest of the United States, and each was incapable of making any discrimination whatsoever among the citizens of the country he served, of our common country, save discrimination based on conduct and on conduct alone.

Thucydides photo
Richard Wagner photo

“There we see nothing but a clash of interests, whose object is common to all the disputants, common and ignoble: plainly the side most strongly organised, i.e. the most unscrupulous, will bear away the prize.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Know Thyself (1881)
Context: What "Conservatives," "Liberals" and "Conservative-liberals," and finally "Democrats," "Socialists," or even "Social-democrats" etc., have lately uttered on the Jewish Question, must seem to us a trifle foolish; for none of these parties would think of testing that "Know thyself" upon themselves, not even the most indefinite and therefore the only one that styles itself in German, the "Progress"-party. There we see nothing but a clash of interests, whose object is common to all the disputants, common and ignoble: plainly the side most strongly organised, i. e. the most unscrupulous, will bear away the prize. With all our comprehensive State- and National-Economy, it would seem that we are victims to a dream now flattering, now terrifying, and finally asphyxiating: all are panting to awake therefrom; but it is the dream's peculiarity that, so long as it enmeshes us, we take it for real life, and fight against our wakening as though we fought with death. At last one crowning horror gives the tortured wretch the needful strength: he wakes, and what he held most real was but a figment of the dæmon of distraught mankind.
We who belong to none of all those parties, but seek our welfare solely in man's wakening to his simple hallowed dignity; we who are excluded from these parties as useless persons, and yet are sympathetically troubled for them, — we can only stand and watch the spasms of the dreamer, since no cry of ours can pierce to him. So let us save and tend and brace our best of forces, to bear a noble cordial to the sleeper when he wakes, as of himself he must at last.

Barack Obama photo

“Justice is living up to the common creed that says, I am my brother’s keeper and my sister’s keeper. Justice is making sure every young person knows they are special and they are important and that their lives matter -- not because they heard it in a hashtag, but because of the love they feel every single day not just love from their parents, not just love from their neighborhood, but love from police, love from politicians. Love from somebody who lives on the other side of the country, but says, that young person is still important to me. That’s what justice is.”

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

Remarks by the President at the NAACP Conference at Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (July 14, 2015)
2015
Context: What the marchers on Washington knew, what the marchers in Selma knew, what folks like Julian Bond knew, what the marchers in this room still know, is that justice is not only the absence of oppression, it is the presence of opportunity. Justice is giving every child a shot at a great education no matter what zip code they’re born into. Justice is giving everyone willing to work hard the chance at a good job with good wages, no matter what their name is, what their skin color is, where they live. Justice is living up to the common creed that says, I am my brother’s keeper and my sister’s keeper. Justice is making sure every young person knows they are special and they are important and that their lives matter -- not because they heard it in a hashtag, but because of the love they feel every single day not just love from their parents, not just love from their neighborhood, but love from police, love from politicians. Love from somebody who lives on the other side of the country, but says, that young person is still important to me. That’s what justice is.

William Kingdon Clifford photo

“It might be said to the agitator, "However convinced you were of the justice of your cause and the truth of your convictions, you ought not to have made a public attack upon any man's character until you had examined the evidence on both sides with the utmost patience and care."”

William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) English mathematician and philosopher

The Ethics of Belief (1877), The Duty of Inquiry
Context: It might be said to the agitator, "However convinced you were of the justice of your cause and the truth of your convictions, you ought not to have made a public attack upon any man's character until you had examined the evidence on both sides with the utmost patience and care."
In the first place, let us admit that, so far as it goes, this view of the case is right and necessary; right, because even when a man's belief is so fixed that he cannot think otherwise, he still has a choice in the action suggested by it, and so cannot escape the duty of investigating on the ground of the strength of his convictions; and necessary, because those who are not yet capable of controlling their feelings and thoughts must have a plain rule dealing with overt acts.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other.”

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

1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
Context: You often hear people speaking as if life was like striving upward toward a mountain peak. That is not so. Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other. It shall profit us nothing if our people are decent and ineffective. It shall profit us nothing if they are efficient and wicked. In every walk of life, in business, politics; if the need comes, in war; in literature, science, art, in everything, what we need is a sufficient number of men who can work well and who will work with a high ideal. The work can be done in a thousand different ways. Our public life depends primarily not upon the men who occupy public positions for the moment, because they are but an infinitesimal fraction of the whole. Our public life depends upon men who take an active interest in that public life; who are bound to see public affairs honestly and competently managed; but who have the good sense to know what honesty and competency actually mean. And any such man, if he is both sane and high-minded, can be a greater help and strength to any one in public life than you can easily imagine without having had yourselves the experience. It is an immense strength to a public man to know a certain number of people to whom he can appeal for advice and for backing; whose character is so high that baseness would shrink ashamed before them; and who have such good sense that any decent public servant is entirely willing to lay before them every detail of his actions, asking only that they know the facts before they pass final judgment.

Felix Adler photo

“Here are two kinds of light, the light on the hither side of the darkness and the light beyond the darkness.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 1 : The Meaning of Life
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: Here are two kinds of light, the light on the hither side of the darkness and the light beyond the darkness. We must press on through the darkness and the terror of it if we would reach the holier light beyond.
We are here — no matter who put us here, or how we came here — to fulfil a task. We cannot afford to go of our own volition until the last item of our duty is discharged.

Desiderius Erasmus photo

“No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

The Alchymyst, in Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14031/14031.txt

Niels Bohr photo

“The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927)
Context: I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life.”

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

Foreword http://www.bartleby.com/55/100.html
1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)
Context: Facing the immense complexity of modern social and industrial conditions, there is need to use freely and unhesitatingly the collective power of all of us; and yet no exercise of collective power will ever avail if the average individual does not keep his or her sense of personal duty, initiative, and responsibility. There is need to develop all the virtues that have the state for their sphere of action; but these virtues are as dust in a windy street unless back of them lie the strong and tender virtues of a family life based on the love of the one man for the one woman and on their joyous and fearless acceptance of their common obligation to the children that are theirs. There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life.

Aga Khan IV photo

“The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and Western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

Closing Address by His Highness the Aga Khan at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, (17 October 2007) http://www.akdn.org/Content/244
Context: The Muslim world, with its history and cultures, and indeed its different interpretations of Islam, is still little known in the West… The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and Western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides.

Vladimir Nabokov photo

“The term "bend sinister" means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy).”

Source: Bend Sinister (1963), p. vi.
Context: The term "bend sinister" means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy). This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world. The title's drawback is that a solemn reader looking for "general ideas" or "human interest" (which is much the same thing) in a novel may be led to look for them in this one.

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“There are ages in which the rational man and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in fear of intuition, the other with scorn for abstraction.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: There are ages in which the rational man and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in fear of intuition, the other with scorn for abstraction. The latter is just as irrational as the former is inartistic. They both desire to rule over life: the former, by knowing how to meet his principle needs by means of foresight, prudence, and regularity; the latter, by disregarding these needs and, as an "overjoyed hero," counting as real only that life which has been disguised as illusion and beauty.

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

1880s, 1884, Letter to Theo (Nuenen, Oct. 1884)
Context: I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm - but that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.
Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, You can't do a thing. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all.
Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily. He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, "defiles" - they say. Let them talk, those cold theologians.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah photo

“I have always maintained that no nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men. No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Speech at Islamia College for women (25 March 1940)
Context: I have always maintained that no nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men. No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.

Virginia Woolf photo

“The trumpeters, ranging themselves side by side in order, blow one terrific blast: —
'THE TRUTH!
at which Orlando woke.”

Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 3
Context: The trumpeters, ranging themselves side by side in order, blow one terrific blast: —
'THE TRUTH!
at which Orlando woke.
He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess — he was a woman.

Alan Watts photo

“The problem comes up because we ask the question in the wrong way. We supposed that solids were one thing and space quite another, or just nothing whatever. Then it appeared that space was no mere nothing, because solids couldn't do without it. But the mistake in the beginning was to think of solids and space as two different things, instead of as two aspects of the same thing. The point is that they are different but inseparable, like the front end and the rear end of a cat. Cut them apart, and the cat dies. Take away the crest of the wave, and there is no trough.
Here is someone who has never seen a cat. He is looking through a narrow slit in a fence, and, on the other side, a cat walks by. He sees first the head, then the less distinctly shaped furry trunk, and then the tail. Extraordinary! The cat turns round and walks back, and again he sees the head, and a little later the tail. This sequence begins to look like something regular and reliable. Yet again, the cat turns round, and he witnesses the same regular sequence: first the head, and later the tail. Thereupon he reasons that the event head is the invariable and necessary cause of the event tail, which is the head's effect. This absurd and confusing gobbledygook comes from his failure to see that head and tail go together: they are all one cat.
The cat wasn't born as a head which, sometime later, caused a tail; it was born all of a piece, a head-tailed cat. Our observer's trouble was that he was watching it through a narrow slit, and couldn't see the whole cat at once.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 26-27

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors.' To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one.

Edmund Hillary photo

“It was too late to take risks now. I asked Tenzing to belay me strongly, and I started cutting a cautious line of steps up the ridge. Peering from side to side and thrusting with my ice axe, I tried to discover a possible cornice, but everything seemed solid and firm. I waved Tenzing up to me. A few more whacks of the ice–ax, a few very weary steps, and we were on the summit of Everest.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

"Adventure's End" in The Norton Book of Sports (1992) edited by George Plimpton, p. 85
Context: It was too late to take risks now. I asked Tenzing to belay me strongly, and I started cutting a cautious line of steps up the ridge. Peering from side to side and thrusting with my ice axe, I tried to discover a possible cornice, but everything seemed solid and firm. I waved Tenzing up to me. A few more whacks of the ice–ax, a few very weary steps, and we were on the summit of Everest.
It was 11:30 AM. My first sensation was one of relief — relief that the long grind was over, that the summit had been reached before our oxygen supplies had dropped to a critical level; and relief that in the end the mountain had been kind to us in having a pleasantly rounded cone for its summit instead of a fearsome and unapproachable cornice. But mixed with the relief was a vague sense of astonishment that I should have been the lucky one to attain the ambition of so many brave and determined climbers. I seemed difficult to grasp that we'd got there. I was too tired and too conscious of the long way down to safety really to feel any great elation. But as the fact of our success thrust itself more clearly into my mind, I felt a quiet glow of satisfaction spread through my body — a satisfaction less vociferous but more powerful than I had ever felt on a mountain top before. I turned and looked at Tenzing. Even beneath his oxygen mask and the icicles hanging form his hair, I could see his infectious grin of sheer delight. I held out my hand, and in silence we shook in good Anglo-Saxon fashion. But this was not enough for Tenzing, and impulsively he threw his arm around my shoulders and we thumped each other on the back in mutual congratulations.

Barack Obama photo

“There's no room for violence. There's no place for shouting. There's no room for a politics that fails to at least listen to the other side — even if you vehemently disagree.”

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

At a DNC fundraiser in Florida, as quoted in "Obama condemns violence at Trump rally" http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/282199-obama-on-anti-trump-violence-thats-not-what-our-democracy-is by Evelyn Rupert, The Hill (3 June 2016)
2016
Context: We saw in San Jose these protesters starting to pelt stuff [at] Trump supporters. That's not what our democracy is about. That's not what you do. There's no room for violence. There's no place for shouting. There's no room for a politics that fails to at least listen to the other side — even if you vehemently disagree.

Northrop Frye photo

“At the level of ordinary consciousness the individual man is the centre of everything, surrounded on all sides by what he isn't.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 1: The Motive For Metaphor http://northropfrye-theeducatedimagination.blogspot.ca/2009/08/1-motive-for-metaphor.html
Context: At the level of ordinary consciousness the individual man is the centre of everything, surrounded on all sides by what he isn't. At the level of practical sense, or civilization, there's a human circumference, a little cultivated world with a human shape, fenced off from the jungle and inside the sea and the sky. But in the imagination anything goes that can be imagined, and the limit of the imagination is a totally human world.

Miguel de Cervantes photo

“I was ever charitable and good to the poor, and scorn to take the bread out of another man's mouth. On the other side, by our Lady, they shall play me no foul play. I am an old cur at a crust, and can sleep dog-sleep when I list.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 33, as translated by Pierre Antoine Motteux in The History of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (1701)
Variant translations:
I'm kind-hearted by nature, and full of compassion for the poor; there's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes; and by my faith it won't do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog, and I know all about 'tus, tus;' I can be wide-awake if need be, and I don't let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches me; I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection, and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe, after having been governor a fortnight, I'll take kindly to the work and know more about it than the field labour I have been brought up to.
Honesty's the best policy.
Context: I was ever charitable and good to the poor, and scorn to take the bread out of another man's mouth. On the other side, by our Lady, they shall play me no foul play. I am an old cur at a crust, and can sleep dog-sleep when I list. I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone to keep the cobwebs out of my eyes. I know where the shoe wrings me. I will know who and who is together. Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.

Jonathan Haidt photo
Christian Morgenstern photo
Syed Ahmed Khan photo
Jericho Brown photo

“A poem should go beyond what you already know, and if it’s going to go beyond what you already know, a poem might say something that begins to have you question what side you’re on, which, in turn, might begin to have an audience question what side you’re on…”

Jericho Brown (1976) American writer

On how social and political crises are seeping into American poetry in “JERICHO BROWN in conversation with MICHAEL DUMANIS” http://www.benningtonreview.org/jericho-brown-interview in Bennington Review (2018 Oct 27)

Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo

“It should not be Democratic or Republican, it should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents. Or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up. I’m not making that up. That’s not hypothetical. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them enemies of the people. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say we don’t target certain groups of people based on what they look like or how they pray. We are Americans. We’re supposed to stand up to bullies. Not follow them. We’re supposed to stand up to discrimination. And we’re sure as heck supposed to stand up, clearly and unequivocally, to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad. I’ll be honest, sometimes I get into arguments with progressive friends about what the current political movement requires. There are well-meaning folks passionate about social justice, who think things have gotten so bad, the lines have been so starkly drawn, that we have to fight fire with fire, we have to do the same things to the Republicans that they do to us, adopt their tactics, say whatever works, make up stuff about the other side. I don’t agree with that.”

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

2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)

Leon Trotsky photo
Barack Obama photo

“Always remember: happiness is not a side matter in your spiritual journey - it is essential.”

Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810) Ukrainian rabbi

זכור תמיד: השמחה איננה עניין שולי במסעך הרוחני – היא חיונית
Z'khor tamid: ha'simha einena 'inyan shuli b'masa'akh ha'ruhani - hi hyunit.
Attributed

Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“As we were very much pressed for time we were unable to see as much of the jail as we wanted to. We had an impression that we had been shown the brighter side of jail life. Nonetheless, two facts stood out. One was that we had actually seen desirable and radical improvements over the old system prevailing even now in most countries and the second and even more important fact was the mentality of the prison officials, and presumably the higher officials of the government also, in regard to jails. Actual conditions may or may not be good but the general principles laid down for jails are certainly far in advance of anything we had known elsewhere in practice. Anyone with a knowledge of prisons in India and of the barbarous way in which handcuffs, fetters and other punishments are used will appreciate the difference. The governor of the prison in Moscow who took us round was all the time laying stress on the human side of jail life, and how it was their endeavour to keep this in the front and not to make the prisoner feel in any way dehumanised or outcasted. I wish we in India would remember this wholesome principle and practise it in our daily lives even outside jail…. It can be said without a shadow of doubt that to be in a Russian prison is far more preferable than to be a worker in an Indian factory, whose lot is 10 to 11 hours work a day and then to live in a crowded and dark and airless tenement, hardly fit for an animal. The mere fact that there are some prisons like the ones we saw is in itself something for the Soviet Government to be proud of.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1949)

Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Indíra Gándhí photo
Ivo Andrič photo
Ivo Andrič photo
Ivo Andrič photo
Henri Barbusse photo

“It would be a crime to exhibit the fine side of war, even if there were one!”

murmured one of the somber soldiers.
The first man continued. "They'll say those things to us by way of paying us with glory, and to pay themselves, too, for what they haven't done. But military glory — it isn't even true for us common soldiers. It's for some, but outside those elect the soldier's glory is a lie, like every other fine-looking thing in war. In reality, the soldier's sacrifice is obscurely concealed. The multitudes that make up the waves of attack have no reward. They run to hurl themselves into a frightful inglorious nothing. You cannot even heap up their names, their poor little names of nobodies."
Under Fire (1916), Ch. 24 - The Dawn

Teal Swan photo
C.G. Jung photo

“The conscious side of woman corresponds to the emotional side of man, not to his "mind."”

Mind makes up the soul, or better, the "animus" of woman, and just as the anima of a man consists of inferior relatedness, full of affect, so the animus of woman consists of inferior judgments, or better, opinions.
The Secret of the Golden Flower (1931) Commentary by C.G.Jung in CW 13: Alchemical Studies. P. 60

Mae Jemison photo
Ram Prasad Bismil photo
John Lydon photo

“The class system is there to remind you that you’re just a dirty oik because you came from that side of the tracks.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

Interview with Los Angeles Times, 2015

Alphonse Karr photo

“Let us try to see things from their better side: You complain about seeing thorny rose bushes; Me, I rejoice and give thanks to the gods That thorns have roses.”

Alphonse Karr (1808–1890) French critic, journalist, and novelist

"Letters written from my garden", 1853

Thomas Paine photo
Karl Marx photo

“The development of fixed capital indicates in still another respect the degree of development of wealth generally, or of capital…
The creation of a large quantity of disposable time apart from necessary labour time for society generally and each of its members (i.e. room for the development of the individuals’ full productive forces, hence those of society also), this creation of not-labour time appears in the stage of capital, as of all earlier ones, as not-labour time, free time, for a few. What capital adds is that it increases the surplus labour time of the mass by all the means of art and science, because its wealth consists directly in the appropriation of surplus labour time; since value directly its purpose, not use value. It is thus, despite itself, instrumental in creating the means of social disposable time, in order to reduce labour time for the whole society to a diminishing minimum, and thus to free everyone’s time for their own development. But its tendency always, on the one side, to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labour...
The mass of workers must themselves appropriate their own surplus labour. Once they have done so – and disposable time thereby ceases to have an antithetical existence – then, on one side, necessary labour time will be measured by the needs of the social individual, and, on the other, the development of the power of social production will grow so rapidly that, even though production is now calculated for the wealth of all, disposable time will grow for all. For real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time. Labour time as the measure of value posits wealth itself as founded on poverty, and disposable time as existing in and because of the antithesis to surplus labour time; or, the positing of an individual’s entire time as labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker, subsumption under labour. The most developed machinery thus forces the worker to work longer than the savage does, or than he himself did with the simplest, crudest tools.”

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook VII, The Chapter on Capital, pp. 628–629.

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“What is the question now placed before society with the glib assurance the most astounding? That question is this—Is man an ape or an angel? My lord, I am on the side of the angels.”

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

Variant: The question is this— Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence these new fanged theories.
Variant: Is man an ape or an angel? Now, I am on the side of the angels!
Source: Speech at Oxford Diocesan Conference (25 November 1864), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (1929), p. 108

Felix Adler photo
Pär Sundström photo
Friedrich Schiller photo

“The world is narrow, broad the mind—
Thoughts dwell easily side by side
Things collide violently in space”

Act II, sc. ii
Wallenstein (1798), Part II - Wallensteins Tod (The Death of Wallenstein)

Emmeline Pankhurst photo

“I have learned that…
you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
No matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.
It takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.
It's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.
You can do something in an instant that will give you a heartache for life.
No matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.
You should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
We are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
There are people who love you dearly, but just don't know how to show it.
True friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. The same goes for true love.
Just because someone doesnt love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.
No matter how good a friend someone is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
No matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.
Just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other. And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.
We don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
You shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.
There are so many ways of falling and staying in love.
No matter how many friends you have, if you are their pillar, you will feel lonely and lost at the times you need them most.
The people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon.
Although the word "love" can have many different meanings, it loses value when overly used.
Love is not for me to keep, but to pass on to the next person I see.
There are people who love you dearly but just don't know how to show it.
Every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch-holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
I still have a lot to learn……”

Brandon Sanderson photo
Rick Riordan photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“There are always three sides to every memory…yours, theirs, and the truth, which lies somewhere in between the two”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Variant: There are three sides to every story: yours, theirs, and the truth somewhere in the middle.
Source: Styxx

Craig Ferguson photo

“It may be that the fear contains information. Something can be interesting if you get to the other side of that fear.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…
Sarah Dessen photo
Alyson Nöel photo
Michael J. Fox photo
Libba Bray photo
Marguerite Duras photo
Ogden Nash photo

“A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"A Dog's Best Friend Is His Illiteracy" in The Private Dining Room (1953)
Paraphrased variant: A door is that which a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
Source: Private Dining-room and Other New Verses

Barbara Kingsolver photo

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides.”

Animal Dreams.
Animal Dreams (1990)
Variant: The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.
Source: The Bean Trees

Jack Kerouac photo

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all.”

Source: The Dharma Bums (1958)
Context: I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Ecstacy, even, I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass.

Philip K. Dick photo
Dave Pelzer photo
Kate DiCamillo photo
Keri Arthur photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“The Universe is on the side of Justice”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Johnny Cash photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Graham Greene photo

“Sooner or later…one has to take sides – if one is to remain human.”

Pt. IV, ch. 2, pg 230
Source: The Quiet American (1955)

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Jean Rhys photo

“There is always another side, always.”

Source: Wide Sargasso Sea