Quotes about sole
A collection of quotes on the topic of sole, other, use, people.
Quotes about sole
“Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.”
Edgar Allan Poe book The Philosophy of Composition
"The Philosophy of Composition" (published 1846).
“When jumping is the sole option, you jump, and try to make it work.”
Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer
Source: Grip of the Shadow Plague
C.G. Jung book Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Variant: "... the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963), p. 326
Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism
As quoted in Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, Daniel Guérin, New York: NY, Monthly Review Press (1970) p. 31
“From the crown of our head to the sole of our foot.”
John Fletcher The Honest Man's Fortune
Act II, scene 2. Compare Thomas Middleton, A Mad World, My Masters, Act I, scene 3. Pliny, Natural History, Book VII, Chapter XVII. William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act III, scene 2.
The Honest Man's Fortune, (1613; published 1647)
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russian composer, pianist and conductor
Quoted in DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465, Ch. 3. from Igor Stravinsky' Autobiography (1962). New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., p. 54.
1970s and later
“From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am Bolshevik, and proud of it.”
Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader
"The Day of the People," The Class Struggle Vol. III No. 1 (February 1919) http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1919/daypeople.htm
“Got more soul (sole) than a sock with a hole.”
MF Doom (1971) hip hop artist from America
As Madvillain, "Rhinestone Cowboy", Madvillainy (2004)
Sourced Lines
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer
Variant translation: On our crowded planet there are no longer any internal affairs! ...
Nobel lecture (1970)
Context: I have understood and felt that world literature is no longer an abstract anthology, nor a generalization invented by literary historians; it is rather a certain common body and a common spirit, a living heartfelt unity reflecting the growing unity of mankind. State frontiers still turn crimson, heated by electric wire and bursts of machine fire; and various ministries of internal affairs still think that literature too is an "internal affair" falling under their jurisdiction; newspaper headlines still display: "No right to interfere in our internal affairs!" Whereas there are no INTERNAL AFFAIRS left on our crowded Earth! And mankind's sole salvation lies in everyone making everything his business; in the people of the East being vitally concerned with what is thought in the West, the people of the West vitally concerned with what goes on in the East. And literature, as one of the most sensitive, responsive instruments possessed by the human creature, has been one of the first to adopt, to assimilate, to catch hold of this feeling of a growing unity of mankind. And so I turn with confidence to the world literature of today — to hundreds of friends whom I have never met in the flesh and whom I may never see.
Friends! Let us try to help if we are worth anything at all! Who from time immemorial has constituted the uniting, not the dividing, strength in your countries, lacerated by discordant parties, movements, castes and groups? There in its essence is the position of writers: expressers of their native language — the chief binding force of the nation, of the very earth its people occupy, and at best of its national spirit.
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party
1920s, Zweites Buch (1928)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Knox College Commencement Address (4 June 2005)
2005
“A civilization begins to decline the moment Life becomes its sole obsession.”
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
“I have always struggled, with the sole intention of ceasing to struggle. Result: zero.”
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
Source: Drawn and Quartered
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
Source: Victor Frankenstein in Ch. 5
“The sole difference between myself and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!”
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Response to the question "Suppose Lord Russell, this film were to be looked at by our descendants, like a dead sea scroll in a thousand years time. What would you think it's worth telling that generation about the life you've lived and the lessons you've learned from it?" in a BBC interview on "Face to Face" (1959) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3aPkzHpT8M <br class="br">1950s <br class="br">Context: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: What are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts. <br class="br">Context: I should like to say two things. One intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say to them is this: "When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: What are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts." That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say. The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple; I should say: "Love is wise – Hatred is foolish." In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact, that some people say things we don't like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital, to the continuation of human life on this planet.
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author
Source: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
Jacques Derrida book Specters of Marx
Wear and Tears (tableu of a ageless world)
Specters of Marx (1993)
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Letter to Natalie H. Wooley (2 May 1936), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 240-241
Non-Fiction, Letters
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Act of Abdication (4 April 1814)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Maxims
Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin
The Limits of State Action (1792)
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Attributed in Monarchy or Money Power (1933), by R. McNair Wilson. No primary source for this is known.
Attributed
John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint
Happy life! happy state! and happy the soul which has attained to it!
Explanation of Stanza 28 part 8
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Notes to the Stanzas
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2013, Brandenburg Gate Speech (June 2013)
Friedrich Nietzsche book The Will to Power
Sec. 898 (Notebook W II 1. Fall 1887, KGW VIII, 2.88-90, KSA 12.424-6)
The Will to Power (1888)
Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism
Source: Henri Fayol addressed his colleagues in the mineral industry, 1900, p. 908
Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations
(A. Ludovici trans.), “David Strauss,” § 1.2
Untimely Meditations (1876)
Gustave Moreau (1826–1898) French painter
As quoted at the J. Paul Getty Museum http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=333&page=1
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist
Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (1988)
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIV Anatomy, Zoology and Physiology
Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin
Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 8
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 291
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long
“Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
On the autobiographical nature of his films, in The Atlantic (December 1965)
“Love's great (and sole) originality is to make happiness indistinct from misery.”
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic
The Poetic Principle (1850)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)
"The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844)
“The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher
Though this has been quoted extensively as if it were a statement of Wittgenstein, it was apparently first published in A Brief History of Time (1988) by Stephen Hawking, p. 175, where it is presented in quotation marks and thus easily interpreted to be a quotation, but could conceivably be Hawking paraphrasing or giving his own particular summation of Wittgenstein's ideas, as there seem to be no published sources of such a statement prior to this one. The full remark by Hawking reads:
: Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, “The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.” What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant!
Disputed
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
A Death in the Desert (1864)
John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint
Explanation of Stanza 28 part 8
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Notes to the Stanzas
Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II
May 1, 1945, quoted in "Memoirs: Ten Years And Twenty Days" - Page 445 - by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz - History - 1997.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)
François Mitterrand (1916–1996) 21st President of the French Republic
Lecture held at European Parliament (17 January 1995)
“I devalued the peso solely looking after the poor.”
Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Former dictator of the republic of Chile
Speech (29 June 1982), quoted in "Las frases para el bronce de Pinochet."
1980s
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic
The Poetic Principle (1850)
Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) Irish revolutionary, shot by the British Army in 1916
Patrick Pearse at his court-martial.Publish by the 75th Anniversary Committee, Dublin, 1991.
Ludwig von Mises book Liberalism
Source: Liberalism (1927), Ch. 1 : The Foundations of Liberal Policy § 11. The Limits of Governmental Activity
Fernando Pessoa book Mensagem
Poem "O Mostrengo" http://www.inverso.pt/Mensagem/MarPortugues/mostrengo.htm, lines 1–9, trans. Charles Eglington ( Listen to the poem on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Ihd-ECpYM) <br class="br">Message
“Unlimited exploitation of cheap labour-power is the sole foundation of their power to compete.”
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Vol. I, Ch. 15, Section 8, pg. 520.
(Buch I) (1867)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher
Source: Work Without Hope (1825), l. 1
Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader
Statement (18 March 1946) Cross Examination of Hermann Goering "Eighty-Fourth Day, Monday, 3/18/1946, Part 16" http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/Goering1.html in Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal Vol. IX. Proceedings: 3/8/1946-3/23/1946 (1947)
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer
Letter to Voltaire (c. November 1776), quoted in Timothy L. S. Sprigge (ed.), The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham (London: University College London Press, 2017), p. 367
U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher
Source: Thought is Your Enemy (1990), Chapter II: Throw Away Your Crutches
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–1788) French natural historian
Buffon's Natural History (1797) Vol. 10, pp. 340-341 https://books.google.com/books?id=respAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA340, an English translation of Histoire Naturelle (1749-1804).
Lucian (120) ancient Greek writer
Sect. 39; vol. 2, pp. 128-9; H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (trans.) The Works of Lucian of Samosata.
How to Write History
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
"The Doctrine of Free Will"
1930s, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Letter to James F. Morton (6 November 1930), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 207
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)
W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems
Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop, st. 3
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism
Section 3 : Work Democracy versus Politics. The Natural Social Forces for the Mastery of the Emotional Plague;
Variant translation: Under the influence of politicos, the masses blame the powers that be for wars. In the first world war it was the munition magnates, in the second the Psychopath General. This is shifting the responsibility. The blame for the war belongs only and alone to the same masses of people who have all the means of preventing wars. The same masses of people who — partly through indolent passivity, partly through their active behavior — make possible the catastrophes from which they themselves suffer most horribly. To emphasize this fault of the masses, to give them the full responsibility, means taking them seriously. On the other hand, to pity the masses as a poor victim means treating them like a helpless child. The first is the attitude of the genuine fighter for freedom, the latter is the attitude of the politico.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy
Context: Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for war falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anybody else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians.
Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist
The Inferno (1917), Ch. XIV
Context: I wanted to know the secret of life. I had seen men, groups, deeds, faces. In the twilight I had seen the tremulous eyes of beings as deep as wells. I had seen the mouth that said in a burst of glory, "I am more sensitive than others." I had seen the struggle to love and make one's self understood, the refusal of two persons in conversation to give themselves to each other, the coming together of two lovers, the lovers with an infectious smile, who are lovers in name only, who bury themselves in kisses, who press wound to wound to cure themselves, between whom there is really no attachment, and who, in spite of their ecstasy deriving light from shadow, are strangers as much as the sun and the moon are strangers. I had heard those who could find no crumb of peace except in the confession of their shameful misery, and I had seen faces pale and red-eyed from crying. I wanted to grasp it all at the same time. All the truths taken together make only one truth. I had had to wait until that day to learn this simple thing. It was this truth of truths which I needed.
Not because of my love of mankind. It is not true that we love mankind. No one ever has loved, does love, or will love mankind. It was for myself, solely for myself, that I sought to attain the full truth, which is above emotion, above peace, even above life, like a sort of death. I wanted to derive guidance from it, a faith. I wanted to use it for my own good.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist
Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. I: "Method Pursued in this Work. The Idea of a Revolution"
Context: I have made every effort to obtain exact information, comparing doctrines, replying to objections, continually constructing equations and reductions from arguments, and weighing thousands of syllogisms in the scales of the most rigorous logic. In this laborious work, I have collected many interesting facts which I shall share with my friends and the public as soon as I have leisure. But I must say that I recognized at once that we had never understood the meaning of these words, so common and yet so sacred: Justice, equity, liberty; that concerning each of these principles our ideas have been utterly obscure; and, in fact, that this ignorance was the sole cause, both of the poverty that devours us, and of all the calamities that have ever afflicted the human race.
Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
Carl von Clausewitz book On War
Source: On War (1832), Book 1, Chapter 3.
Context: Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)
Mark Twain book Following the Equator
Ch. XXXVIII http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5811/5811-h/5811-h.htm <br class="br">Following the Equator (1897)
Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology
that's a MacGuffin, a pure nothing which is non the less efficient... what Lacan calls object petit a: a pure void which functions as the object cause of desire.
183
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Section 2, paragraph 25.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
Julio Iglesias (1943) Spanish recording artist; singer-songwriter
On how he credits discipline as the secret of his success in "Julio Iglesias reflects on a life that 'has been a miracle'" https://apnews.com/7ef030336a5b4a1a949723346d64ec51 in AP News (2019 Jun 14)
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Source: 1860s, Interview with Alexander W. Randall and Joseph T. Mills (1864)
Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter
Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer
Source: How to Kill a Rock Star
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer
As quoted in Plenty of Time to Sleep When You're Dead : A Compilation of Life-changing Quotes (2006) by Richard Caridi
As quoted in Sprituality in a Materialistic World (2008) by Leslie Klein
Variant: Remember happiness doesn't depend on who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think.