Quotes about situation
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“But we couldn’t do otherwise. We couldn’t keep ten million refugees on our soil; we couldn’t tolerate such an unstable situation for who knows how long. That influx of refugees would have stopped—on the contrary. It would have gone on and on and on, until there would have been an explosion. We were no longer able to control the arrival of those people, in our own interest we had to stop it! That’s what I said to Mr. Nixon, to all the other leaders I visited in an attempt to avert the war. However, when you look at the beginning of the actual war, it’s hard not to recognize that the Pakistanis were the ones to attack. They were the ones who descended on us with their planes, at five o’clock that afternoon when the first bombs fell on Agra. I can prove it to you by the fact that we were taken completely by surprise.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972

War, People

“As Speaker of the Lok Sabha he brought glory to the house of the people. He had been one of the most successful speakers of the Lok Sabha. Humour and wit had always been his close friends. And he could tackle all the difficult situations in a very tactful manner. He always tried to act as an independent speaker, even though politically he belonged to the ruling party. i. e. the Congress party.”

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913–1996) sixth President of India

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, p. 130

Housing, People, Success

“He found him a tall figure, with a slightly flabby body, shining hair and well-trimmed beard. He appeared impressive, well-dressed and his eyes were exceptionally eloquent that drew everyone’s attention. There was deep note of mystery about his eyes…His style of conversation was always accompanied by his smile and too attractive which cast a spell on his addresses…He had a remarkable ability to assess others and immediately found out their mental level and their taste. Likewise, he had an enviable understanding of the context and situation in which he found himself placed.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Dr. Mujeeb, his friend during their stay in Germany in 1922, p. 75.
About Zakir Hussain, Quest for Truth (1999)

Smile, Appearance, Understanding

“From the moment he arrived in Chile, the poverty, misery, and the anguish of the poor deeply affected him. Such was the situation he observed throughout the Valparaíso area. He lived very modestly, eating what the poor ate, living from his earnings as a French teacher. During the harvest season, he joined the humble farm workers working with them, and worked as an unskilled laborer.”

Antonio Llidó (1936–1974) Spanish priest

Statements made by Fr. Jesus Rodriguez in an interview with Memory and Justice Chile Organisation on June 19, 2003. http://www.memoriayjusticia.cl/english/en_focus-llido.html#A%20Priest.

Season, Teachers

“When you have a precedent set like that, and you have somebody, George Tenet, acknowledging in his book that he knew that the administration was deceiving the American people into a situation that is murdering young men and women from this country and others, that George Tenet and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and George Bush, et al., should be in fucking jail.”

Sean Penn (1960) American actor, screenwriter, and film director

On Real Time with Bill Maher (2007-05-18)

Country, People, Books, Women

“It is a matter of forming a new state consciousness that includes every productive citizen. Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“It is not praised if you are the only one to understand what you speak
interesting is the situation when you speak and the others understand.”

Ghalib (1797–1869) Urdu-Persian poet

Poetry, Couplets

Understanding

“You think that your attention is in the present moment when it's actually taken up completely by time. You cannot be both unhappy and fully present in the Now. What you refer to as your "life" should more accurately be called your "life situation."”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

It is psychological time: past and future. Certain things in the past didn't go the way you wanted them to go. You are still resisting what happened in the past, and now you are resisting what is. Hope is what keeps you going, but hope keeps you focused on the future, and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the Now and therefore your unhappiness. p. 43
The Power of Now (1997)

Life, Thinking, Time

“Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person's own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

The Power of Now (1997)

History, Past, Personality, People

“When someone goes to the doctor and says, "I hear a voice in my head," he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don't realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues. You have probably come across "mad" people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and all other "normal" people do, except that you don't do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

The Power of Now (1997) p. 16

Imagination, Time, Past, Future

“Political Economy regards the proletarian … like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle. … (1) What is the meaning, in the development of mankind, of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labor? (2) What mistakes are made by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and thereby improve the situation of the working class, or — like Proudhon — see equality of wages as the goal of social revolution?.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Source: First Manuscript – Wages of Labour, p. 6.
Source: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Religion, Time, Law, Horse

“What the exploiter needs is that the will and intelligence of the victim be disengaged from the projects of resistance and escape but that they not be simply broken or destroyed. Ideally, the dis-integration and mis-integration of the victim should accomplish the detachment of the victim's will and intelligence from the victim’s own interests and their attachment to the interests of the exploiter. This will effect a displacement or dissolution of self-respect and will undermine the victim’s intolerance of coercion. With that, the situation transcends the initial paradigmatic form or structure of coercion; for if people don’t mind doing what you want them to do, then, in a sense, you can’t really be making them do it. In the limiting case, the victim’s will and intelligence are wholly transferred to a full engagement in the pursuit of the dominating person’s interests. The “problem” had been that there were two parties with divergent interests; this sort of solution (which is very elegant, as that word is used in logic) is to erase the conflict by reducing the number of interested parties to one. This radical solution can properly be called “enslavement.””

Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality

Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 60

Personality, Intelligence, People, Problem

“Efficient exploitation requires that those exploited be relatively mobile, self-animating and self-maintaining—the more so as the work in question requires greater intelligence, attention or ingenuity. But it also requires that they not be free enough, strong enough or willful enough to resist, escape or significantly misfit the situation of exploitation.”

Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality

Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 59

Question, Strong, Intelligence, Animals

“Although the world is quiet, it does not mean that everything is going well. It can also mean that everyone is praying to God to make their tomorrow better, waiting for the situation to change, so that life becomes happy as before.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

God, Happiness, World, Change

“Nobody has ever managed to explain what it is they are longing after in religion, but it is quite clear what they are trying to escape from – this earthly vale of tears, one’s untenable existential situation.”

Peter Wessel Zapffe book The Last Messiah

The Last Messiah (1933) <br class="br">Source: trans. Peter Reed & David Rothenberg https://ia803202.us.archive.org/15/items/20200821_20200821_1659/OAP_Zapffe_Last_Messiah.pdf, page 8

Religion, Tear

“A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause. If we seek the liberation of the people by means of a lie, we will surely grow confused, go astray, and lose sight of our objective, and if we have any influence at all on the people we will lead them astray as well — in other words, we will be acting in the spirit of reaction and to its benefit.”

Mikhail Bakunin book Statism and Anarchy

Source: Statism and Anarchy (1873), "Appendix A"

Personality, Strong, People, Truth

“Do you really need to mentally label every sense perception and experience? Do you really need to have a reactive like/dislike relationship with life where you are in almost continuous conflict with situations and people? Or is that just a deep seated mental habit that can be broken? Not by doing anything, but by allowing this moment to be as it is.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 7

People, Sense, Life

“I feel so empowered. I refuse to allow Negative people, situations, energy, environments and the whole
Misery loves Company"scenarios to allow themselves to permeate my air tight Positivity Bubble…it is far superior to avoid Negativity at all cost!
It is Highly Toxic!”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

People, Love, Feeling

“Nothing is constant.
Balanced and changeable by situation, and time.”

Md Mim Akhtar

Time

“The whole horror of the situation is that he now has a human heart, not a dog's heart. And about the rottenest heart in all creation!”

Mikhail Bulgakov book Heart of a Dog

Source: Heart of a Dog

Dogs, Heart

“One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Bk. I, Pt. 2, Ch. 8: Since the French Revolution: the Job and the Vote, p. 133
Source: The Second Sex (1949)

“Everyone thinks their own situation most tragic. I am no exception.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Thinking

“No matter where we live on the planet or how difficult our situation seems to be, we have the ability to overcome and transcend our circumstances.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

“I hope I make people feel better. I hope I take people out of their situations a little bit and make them happier. That's really why I do what I do.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

People, Hope, Feeling

“All is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. Out of this situation only good will come. I am safe." It will work miracles in your life.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

Life

“Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Men, Decision, Change

“Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we're frantic, life will be frantic. If we're peaceful, life will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes inner peace.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Life, Peace

“When the situation is hopeless, there's nothing to worry about.”

Edward Abbey book The Monkey Wrench Gang

page 294
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)
Variant: He recalled Dr. Sarvis' favorite apothegm: When the situation is hopeless, there's nothing to worry about.
Source: The Monkey Wrench Gang