Quotes about speaking
page 23

“The fact that the most arbitrary powers of the English executive must always be exercised under Act of Parliament places the government, even when armed with the widest authority, under the supervision, so to speak, of the Courts. Powers, however extraordinary, which are conferred or sanctioned by statute, are never really unlimited, for they are confined by the words of the Act itself, and, what is more, by the interpretation put upon the statute by the judges. Parliament is supreme legislator, but from the moment Parliament has uttered its will as lawgiver, that will becomes subject to the interpretation put upon it by the judges of the land.”

A. V. Dicey (1835–1922) British jurist and constitutional theorist

Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution [Eighth Edition, 1915] (LibertyClassics, 1982), p. 273.

Exercises

“Menippus is a bird decked in various feathers which are not his. He neither says nor feels anything, but repeats the feelings and sayings of others; it is so natural for him to make use of other people’s minds that he is the first deceived by it, and often believes he speaks his own mind or expresses his own thoughts when he is but the echo of some man he just parted with.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Ménippe est l'oiseau paré de divers plumages qui ne sont pas à lui. Il ne parle pas, il ne sent pas; il répète des sentiments et des discours, se sert même si naturellement de l'esprit des autres qu'il y est le premier trompé, et qu'il croit souvent dire son goût ou expliquer sa pensée, lorsqu'il n'est que l'écho de quelqu'un qu'il vient de quitter.
Aphorism 40
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel

People, Feeling, Nature, Bird

“Punk: Well, I've had six days to watch that scene over and over and over, and as painful as it was to watch, as painful it was to experience, I saw something more painful. Something caught my eye that was ten times more painful than my arm being mangled inside of a ladder while Alberto wrenched on it with his cross-armbreaker; it was more painful than Alberto butchering the English language; it was more painful than watching Miz [demonstrates] make his own bad-guy face, and his pathetic attempts to sound like a tough guy—"really? really?"—it was more painful than sitting through two hours of Michael Cole commentary as he struggles to sound relevant. No, I continued to watch Monday Night Raw, and what I saw was old clown shoes himself, the Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim Raw General Manager, John Laurinaitis accept an award on my behalf. This wasn't just any award, it was the Slammy Award for Superstar of the Year, being accepted by a guy who's never been a superstar of thirty seconds. I mean, who's he ever beat? And I'm not a hard guy to find, I've yet to receive said Slammy. So what…[turns around and notices] oh. Speak of the devil. No, no, no, don't apologize. Where's my Slammy at?
Laurinaitis: Punk, I mailed your Slammy to you, but with the holiday season, it may take a while to get to you. But if I were you, I'd be more worried about your championship match tonight than your Slammy.
Punk: Well, if I were you, I'd wish myself best of luck in my future endeavors. But I don't expect you to do that; in fact, you wouldn't do that, just like I'm not gonna lose the Title tonight. So when TLC is over with, you're still gonna have to put up with CM Punk as your WWE Champion.
Laurinaitis: You know what, Punk? I'm gonna be the bigger man right now, okay? I mean, after all, I am taller than you. Good luck tonight, and merry Christmas.
Punk: Johnny, luck's for losers.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

TLC 2011
WWE Raw

Pain, Shoe, Guy, Time

“Men learned to speak in order to understand one another. Cultural languages have lost the ability to help men to advance beyond the most rudimentary level and attain understanding. It seems that the time has come to learn to be silent once again.”

Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923) Austrian writer

Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache (1923), I, p. 56; as quoted in "Wittgenstein versus Mauthner: Two critiques of language, two mysticisms" (2007) by Elena Nájera http://wittgensteinrepository.org/agora-alws/article/view/2659/3042

Men, Understanding, Learning, Time

“Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think is creation's.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

"The Raison d'Etre of Criticism in the Arts"
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Thinking

“I kept trying to tell people that just because I was young didn't mean I could speak for all young people.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 84
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

People

“We find statements by religious, polital leaders and the media that incite Islamophobia. I'm going to give you some, otherwise we wind up talking in very true but general statements. And I think we need to hear the actual words, because these are the words that people, who are in churches, people who are watching the media, hear. And if they don't have a context within which to place them, they will draw us out of conclusions. While George Bush and Tony Blair may distinguish between Islam and extremism, Franklin Graham tells us that "Islam is a very evil religion. All the values that we as a nation hold dear, they don't share those same values at all … these countries that have the majority of Muslims." You might think of Franklin Graham as an individual, but if you are in the Muslim world, you know that Franklin Graham gave the invocation at the first inauguration of president Bush, that Franklin Graham a year and a half later was asked to speak on Good Friday at the Pentagon. That sends a signal. Pat Robertson: "This man [Muhammad] was an absolute wild-eyed fanatic, he was a robber and a brigand. And to say that these terrorists distort Islam … they are carrying out Islam. I mean: This man [Muhammed] was a killer and to think that this is a peaceful religion is fraudulent." Benny Hinn at a pro-Israel rally: "This not a war between Arabs and the Jews, this is between God and the devil."”

John Esposito (1940) writer and professor of Islamic studies

And there are many others.
Speech at the UN seminar on Islamophobia in 2004

God, War, People, World

“The life force that pulsates in the trees, plants, and animals is the same life force that pulsates within us. The same life energy that gives us the power to speak and to sing, is the power behind the song of the bird and the roar of the lion. The same consciousness that flows in and through every human being, lends its power to the movement of the wind, to the flow of the river, and to the light of the sun. How can there be any sense of difference once this subtle principle is understood? When we evaluate our growth and development in the light of this great Truth, we may wonder whether we human beings have really developed or grown at all. The progress that we see today is divided growth. Only some parts are growing—the world as a whole remains unhealthy. We cannot call this real progress.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

Unity is Peace (1995)

Life, Truth, World, Bird

“Jesus is without question the most eloquent man who ever lived. Those who heard Him said, 'Never a man spoke like this Man.' The most eloquent of philosophers sits at His feet and marvels at both His words and His life. To those who disagree, I would simply challenge you to read the Gospel of John, and see for yourself. Never did any man speak like this Man.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

Life, Question, Reading

“Why to bring revolution? They are also human beings. Why don’t we treat ourselves as human beings? I speak Hindi and you speak your native language, but we are all human beings. Why do you treat them as foreigners? They also want to adapt to our tradition- some are visiting temples, they become vegetarians, some have given up spoons and eat using their hands, they try to become Sadhus. Why do you want to treat them as foreigners, they are human beings! If we get influenced by their tradition, it’s okay. If they get influenced by our tradition, it’s okay. Younger generation who try to emulate them will eventually come back to their native tradition!”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

On Western Culture and the so-called Revolution.
Melodies of Brindavan: Pandit Hariprasad Chourasia

“p>I'm making a song
where my mother and all mothers
will see themselves mirrored,
a song that speaks like two eyes.I'm walking on a road
that runs through many countries.
They may not see me, but I see
and salute old friends.I'm spreading a secret
like a man who loves or smiles.
Affection seeks affection
in the most natural way.My life, our lives,
form a single diamond.
I've learned new words
and made others more beautiful.I'm making a song
for waking up men
and putting children to sleep.”

Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902–1987) Brazilian poet

Eu preparo uma canção
em que minha mãe se reconheça,
todas as mães se reconheçam,
e que fale como dois olhos.Caminho por uma rua
que passa em muitos países.
Se não me vêem, eu vejo
e saúdo velhos amigos.Eu distribuo um segredo
como quem ama ou sorri.
No jeito mais natural
dois carinhos se procuram.Minha vida, nossas vidas
formam um só diamante.
Aprendi novas palavras
e tornei outras mais belas.Eu preparo uma canção
que faça acordar os homens
e adormecer as crianças.
"Canção amiga" ["I'm Making a Song"]
Novos Poemas [New Poems] (1948)

Love, Life, Men, Children

“When we speak of quality and desirability it is not the question of one unit, but of the whole system.”

Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect

Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 4, Definition of Entopia, p. 49

Question

“Ah, if men were those superior beings that the utopians of authority like to speak to us of, if we could close our eyes to reality, and live, like them, in a world of dreams and illusions as to the superiority of those who think themselves called to power, perhaps we also should do like them; perhaps we also should believe in the virtues of those who govern.
With virtuous masters, what dangers could slavery offer? Do you remember the Slave-owner of whom we heard so often, hardly thirty years ago? Was he not supposed to take paternal care of his slaves? "He alone," we were told, "could hinder these lazy, indolent, improvident children dying of hunger. How could he crush his slaves through hard labor, or mutilate them by blows, when his own interest lay in feeding them well, in taking care of them as much as of his own children! And then, did not 'the law' see to it that the least swerving of a slave-owner from the path of duty was punished?" How many times have we not been told so! But the reality was such that, having returned from a voyage to Brazil, Darwin was haunted all his life by the cries of agony of mutilated slaves, by the sobs of moaning women whose fingers were crushed in thumbscrews!”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)

Life, Women, Men, Hunger

“I assume that Luther has risen from the grave. For several years now he has been living among us but incognito; he has been observing the lives we lead, has been scrutinizing everyone in this regard and me also. I assume that he speaks to me one day and says, “Are you a believer? Do you have faith?” Anyone who knows me as an author will see that I would perhaps be the one who might come off best of all in such and examination, for I have continually said, “I do not have faith” – I have expressed, as does a bird’s alarmed flight before a storm, that there is mischief brewing here, “I do not have faith.” So I should say to Luther, “No, dear Luther, I have at least shown the respect of saying: I do not have faith.” However, I shall not press this, but, just as others call themselves Christians and believers, I, too, shall say, “I am a believer,” for otherwise what I wish to be cleared up will not be cleared up.”

Sören Kierkegaard book For Self-Examination

Soren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, Hong p. 17-18
1850s, For Self-Examination (1851), What is Required in Order to Look at Oneself with True Blessing in the Mirror of the Word?

Faith, Bird

“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Private meeting with Old Order Amish in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (9 July 2004), reported in Jack Brubacker (2004-07-16), " Bush quietly meets with Amish here; they offer their prayers http://web.archive.org/web/20040722021601/http://lancasteronline.com/pages/news/local/4/7565," Lancaster New Era Attributed, Private/attributed

God

“Today’s gathering is particularly important because I must speak bluntly and urgently, about the single most important part of our jobs: preventing terrorist attacks on American soil. Our success or failure in this endeavor will define in the eyes of some President Bush and his legacy. Right or wrong, this is a task that will also define my government career and, indeed, to some degree my professional life. It will be the legacy of every one of us who is serving in this Administration. Terrorists chose to attack us. But it is we who must now choose — today, tomorrow, the day after that and the day after that, until the end of our government service — to do everything in our powers to stop them from striking again.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech to U.S. Attorneys’ National Security Conference (January 11, 2007)

Life, Failure, Success, Parting

“[the foreign Muslims (or Turks)] “alone are capable of virtue, kindness, generosity, valour, good deed, good works, truthfulness, keeping of promises… loyalty, clarity of vision, justice, equity, recognition of rights, gratitude for favours and fear of God. They are, consequently, said to be noble, free born, virtuous, religious, of high pedigree and pure birth. These groups, alone are worthy of offices and posts in the government… Owing to their actions the government of the king is strengthened and adorned.” [On the other hand the] “low-born” (Indian) Muslims are capable only of vices - immodesty, falsehood, miserliness, misappropriation, wrongfulness, lies, evil-speaking ingratitude,…shamelessness, impundence… [So they are called] low-born, bazaar people, base, mean, worthless, plebian, shameless and of dirty birth”.”

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they. Chapter 2.
Fatawa-i-Jahandari

God, People, Truth, Fear

“Gaius also proceeded, and said, I will now speak on the behalf of women, to take away their reproach. For as death and the curse came into the world by a woman, Gen. 3, so also did life and health: God sent forth his Son, made of a woman. Gal. 4:4. Yea, to show how much they that came after did abhor the act of the mother, this sex in the Old Testament coveted children, if happily this or that woman might be the mother of the Saviour of the world. I will say again, that when the Saviour was come, women rejoiced in him, before either man or angel. Luke 1:42-46. I read not that ever any man did give unto Christ so much as one groat; but the women followed him, and ministered to him of their substance. Luke 8:2,3. ‘Twas a woman that washed his feet with tears, Luke 7:37-50, and a woman that anointed his body at the burial. John 11:2; 12:3. They were women who wept when he was going to the cross, Luke 23:27, and women that followed him from the cross, Matt. 27:55,56; Luke 23:55, and sat over against his sepulchre when he was buried. Matt. 27:61. They were women that were first with him at his resurrection-morn, Luke 24:1, and women that brought tidings first to his disciples that he was risen from the dead. Luke 24:22,23. Women therefore are highly favored, and show by these things that they are sharers with us in the grace of life.”

John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress

Part II, Ch. VIII : The Guests of Gaius
The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Part II

Life, Death, Women, God

“The consolidation of State capitalism in Russia itself was the determining basis for the character of the Communist Party. Whilst in its foreign propaganda it continued to speak of communism and world revolution, decried capitalism, called upon the workers to join in the fight for freedom, the workers in Russia were a subjected and exploited class, living mostly in miserable working conditions, under a strong and oppressive dictatorial rule, without freedom of speech, of press, of association, more strongly enslaved than their brethren under Western capitalism. Thus an inherent falsehood must pervade politics and teachings of that party. … The doctrine it taught under the name of Marxism was not the theory of the overthrow of highly developed capitalism by a highly developed working class, but its caricature. … The Communist Party did not intend to make the workers independent fighters capable by their force of insight themselves to build their new world, but to make them obedient followers ready to put the party into power.”

Antonie Pannekoek (1873–1960) Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist

Workers Councils (1947), Section 2.5

World, Communication, Freedom, Strong

“Esperanto was a very useful language, because wherever you went, you found someone to speak with.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

"How Do You Say ‘Billionaire’ in Esperanto?" in The New York Times (December 16, 2010) http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/how-do-you-say-billionaire-in-esperanto/

“I once saw a film where the main character didn't speak for the first half hour.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

“Eh! sire, that is the fate of truth; she is a stern companion; she bristles all over with steel; she wounds those whom she attacks, and sometimes him who speaks her.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus (The Vicomte de Bragelonne) (1847)

Fate, Truth

“I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be the son of the Living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. And because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come today to speak for them. And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak not now of the soldiers of each side, not of the military government of Saigon, but simply of the people who have been under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know these people and hear their broken cries.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

Men, God, War, Children

“There were two parts of the Greek-speaking world at this time which did not suffer from revolution and did not seek to impose rule over the city states. In Epirus there were three clusters of tribal states, called Molossia, Thesprotia and Chaonia[…]the other part of the Greek-speaking world extended from Pelagonia in the north to Macedonia in the south. It was occupied by several tribal states, which were constantly at war against Illyrians, Paeonians and Thracians.”

N. G. L. Hammond (1907–2001) British classical scholar

"The Genius of Alexander the Great", p.11, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd (November 26, 2004)

War, World, Suffering, Time

“Religion, you know, enters very deep; in reality it is the deepest impression I have in speaking to people, that they are or that they are not of my religion.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

Letter to A.W.M. Baillie (22 May 1880)
Letters, etc

People, Religion, Reality

“All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Religion, Soul

“The United States State Department will tell you that American aid is given to preserve the things for which we stand, to promote the basic freedoms of mankind, not necessarily to promote individual governments. That is our justification for sending help to a Greek government that, for a time at least, could by no means be called democratic. In the case of Britain, the nation is marching on the road towards Socialism. But the ingrained liberty and freedom of the individual has been proved by men like Churchill who still speak out against the government and by the men like the transport workers and miners who tell the government which they voted for to go to blazes. And between these fires, the British government--no matter what its political shadings--has the job of getting the country back on its feet.”

Bill Downs (1914–1978) American journalist

The British Crisis (1948)

Men, Freedom, Time, Help

“I was home alone watching George Bush speak on television. So it was just really the two of us. And as I listened to him, I realized, that one of us… was nuts! And for the first time ever, I went "Wow, it's not me!"”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

Red, White, and Screwed (2006)

Home, Time

“While many of us feel a strong emotional attachment to our homeland, we should not allow emotions to deter us from speaking of things the way they really are. It should be remembered that this very surrender to emotion has led to insane and counterproductive atrocities on the scale of the Ankara and Istanbul suicide assaults, as well as the Orly bombing and the Lisbon disaster. By surrendering to emotions we enable the A. R. F. and slogans like "w:Hagop Hagopian" to lead thousands of well-intentioned patriots down a path which does not lead to Armenia, and to sacrifice the lives of young fighters in campaigns which directly contradict the interests of the Armenian people. If we are to achieve even the minimum requirements for Armenian national self-determination, we must approach problems in a serious and sober manner.”

Monte Melkonian (1957–1993) National Hero of Armenia

Source: The Right to Struggle (1993), P. 60.

People, Way, Feeling, Problem

“When [Nigel Farage] was treated in the way he was in Edinburgh Alex Salmond had the opportunity to be statesman like. To deplore what had happened. To say everyone was welcome in Scotland, everyone with an elected position, everyone who had following in Scotland had a right to speak and be heard. But he didn't. It's not just people with a percentage of the vote who have the right to speak. All of us have the right to speak. What happened to Farage looked ugly in the rest of the country and the rest of the world. And the SNP I fear will take you down a road where grudge is everything.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

The Express http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/407371/Question-Time-Nigel-Farage-blasts-Alex-Salmond-for-not-condeming-hostile-Edinburgh-scenes During an interview on Question time with Nigel Farage condemning the hostility shown by the Scottish people June 14, 2013

People, World, Fear, Way

“It is a peculiar role in many respects, when you see the play Dracula seems to be constantly on the stage. A casual glance would indicate that he speaks as many lines as Hamlet. Yet, as a matter of fact, the number of ‘sides’ is small. The professor really has a great many more. But, if Count Dracula is not particularly chatty, he presents other difficulties. I find that it requires time and meditation to catch the mood of the character; each performance must be approached with some care. The result is that one doesn’t weary of the part.”

Béla Lugosi (1882–1956) Hungarian actor

IN THE WORLD OF SCREEN & STAGE The Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California https://beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com/1930-2/ (July 6, 1930)

Mood, Time, Parting

“13.04.95. Kharkiv [Ukraine] speaking to pyrotechnist - about fog on the stage…
- Make sure no one can be seen. Myself as well…”

Sofia Rotaru (1947) Ukrainain soviet and Ukrainian musician, singer, songwriter, actress, author of Moldavian origin

“I would like to make clear that I speak only of sensations. I am neither a sociologist nor a politician. All I can do is imagine for myself what the future will be like.”

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007) Italian film director and screenwriter

Encountering Directors interview (1969)

Imagination, Future

“Our magical tools and insights, our awareness of energies and allies on many planes, can deepen and inform our activism. And our activism can deepen our magic, by encouraging us to create ritual that speaks to the real challenges we face in the world, offers the healing and renewal we need to continue working, and a community that understands that spirit and action are one.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

Toward an Activist Spirituality (2003)

World, Communication, Understanding

“At fifteen years of age, when first my parents settled down in London (temporarily as they thought) I had never been in England, never had an English friend or English governess, or English tuition of any sort or kind. I did not speak one word of English. Then how did it all come about? Neo-Victorians and Neo-Georgians will put it down to destiny; others to predestination. I, in my humble way, put it down to the Will of God. And looking back on my long life and its many changes I can trace the links of my chain of life that began on the great plains of Hungary, continued through the heart of London, and find me now at this hour of writing this book in Monte Carlo jotting down all that I can remember of those links which led me one by one to the conception of my first literary work. If any one of those links had not been, if any turn of event in my life had been different, I would probably have ended my days in the country of my birth and known nothing of the happiness which comes from love, from the affection of friends (such as one meets in England) and from success in the work to which I devoted so many years of my life.”

Emma Orczy (1865–1947) Hungarian-British author of "The Scarlet Pimpernel"

Source: Links in the Chain of Life (1947), Ch. 1

Love, Life, God, Happiness

“It may be observed of mathematicians that they only meddle with such things as are certain, passing by those that are doubtful and unknown. They profess not to know all things, neither do they affect to speak of all things. What they know to be true, and can make good by invincible arguments, that they publish and insert among their theorems. Of other things they are silent and pass no judgment at all, choosing rather to acknowledge their ignorance, than affirm anything rashly. They affirm nothing among their arguments or assertions which is not most manifestly known and examined with utmost rigour, rejecting all probable conjectures and little witticisms. They submit nothing to authority, indulge no affection, detest subterfuges of words, and declare their sentiments, as in a court of justice, without passion, without apology; knowing that their reasons, as Seneca testifies of them, are not brought to persuade, but to compel.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 64

Justice, Passion

“They abandon themselves credulously to every fanatic scoundrel who speaks to their baser qualities, confirms them in their vices, teaches them nationality means barbarism and isolation.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Attributed to Goethe by German novelist Thomas Mann in his novel The Beloved Returns. The line was Mann's invention, though it was later quoted during the Nuremburg trials by prosecutor Sir Hartley Shawcross, who quoted the passage as if it truly had been written by Goethe. Misattributed Source: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.act2080.0051.419 Thomas Mann in America

“It is a sore thing to have laboured along and scaled the arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement. Hence physicists condemn the unphysical; financiers have only a superficial toleration for those who know little of stocks; literary persons despise the unlettered; and people of all pursuits combine to disparage those who have none.
But though this is one difficulty of the subject, it is not the greatest. You could not be put in prison for speaking against industry, but you can be sent to Coventry for speaking like a fool. The greatest difficulty with most subjects is to do them well; therefore, please to remember this is an apology. It is certain that much may be judiciously argued in favour of diligence; only there is something to be said against it, and that is what, on the present occasion, I have to say.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

An Apology for Idlers.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

People, Fools, Personality, Indifference

“When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? my Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 117 (14 July 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

World, Question, Time, Personality

“The sad fact is that not only is the youth exposed to rock, but rock is coming into the church. So called Christian rock; and it’s being sung by the choir. You actually hear now and then about a rock mass or a rock service. I spoke a few years ago at a church which was…I’ll never be asked about. A very large church with a plant that was equal to a small college campus, and I don’t mean too small of a college, a fair sized one. They had a number of choirs; they had one man in charge of all the music in the church, overall music director, a very brilliant, very intelligent man, but as wrongheaded as I’ve ever seen. Because he told me that his belief was that the only kind of music that should be played or sung or used in a church or any place was throw away music; that was his term. Music that was hip, so up to the moment, that it would capture the mood of the youth who were listening to the latest on television or radio. Music which six months down the line would be out of date because it would be throw away music, music of the moment, in order to speak to the youth. And I tried to get through this point to him, that speaking to them in terms of what’s of the moment is not what it’s all about it, it’s speaking from the Lord with eternal truths.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Dangers Inherent in Public Education (March 24, 1986)

Truth, Youth, Sadness, Music

“Only one language comes into question from the start, and that is the physicalist. One can learn the physicalist language from earliest childhood. If someone makes predictions and wants to check them himself, he must count on changes in the system of his senses, he must use clocks and rulers, in short, the person supposedly in isolation already makes use of the ‘intersensual’ and ‘intersubjective’ language. The forecaster of yesterday and the controller of today are, so to speak, two persons.”

Otto Neurath (1882–1945) austrian economist, philosopher and sociologist

Source: 1930s, "Physicalism" (1931), p. 54–55 ; As cited in Jordi Cat, "Otto Neurath", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),

Question, Sense, Learning, Change

“You speak of errors... Men who are so correct and flawless are mostly boring; small weaknesses can be loved... One chief characteristic of the etchings gives me much pleasure: because out of them streams forth a tremendous life.”

Emil Nolde (1867–1956) German artist

in two letters, to Hans Fehr, 23 October and 22 November, 1905; as quoted by Hans Fehr, in: 'Aus Leben und Werkstatt', 'Das Kunstblatt' no. 7 (1919), pp. 205-6; as quoted in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 5
Nolde described in 1905 the role his experiments played in etching - in generating a subjective imagery and unorthodox surfaces that unlocked his own inner world
1900 - 1920

Love, Life, Men, Pleasure

“It seems, you expect from me an expression of my views on the specific question: What type of missionary workers are wanted in India, rather than on the question whether any missionary workers should come at all to India? I shall respectfully speak my opinion on the latter point. I feel it is not really possible on the ground of logic or on the evidence of miracles to hold that amongst the religions known as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, anyone is nearer the truth than any other. You will permit me to object to the exclusive claims for Truth made on behalf of any one of these faiths. If this my first point is granted, the only justification for missionary work is proselytism. But is it good on the whole for men and women to change from one religion to another? I think it is not desirable to make any effort at proselytism. I feel that such efforts undermine the present faith of the people, which is good enough for promoting right conduct in them and to deter them from sin. They tend to destroy family and social harmony, which is not a good thing to do.”

C. Rajagopalachari (1878–1972) Political leader

The National Christian Council Review, December 1956, p. 490. quoted from Madhya Pradesh (India), Goel, S. R., Niyogi, M. B. (1998). Vindicated by time: The Niyogi Committee report on Christian missionary activities. ISBN 9789385485121

Women, Men, People, Truth

“I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me.”

Henry David Thoreau book A Plea for Captain John Brown

A Plea for Captain John Brown (1859)

“That's here on CBS, where the 'C' stands for 'Classy' and the 'BS' speaks for itself.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

“One who has not found peace within himself will forever be giving speeches about peace. This world is a pulpit upon which man preaches, and there is no end to this talk! For millions of years man has been speaking this way, but he has not come forward to first find peace within himself. There is no use in making speeches. Man must acquire the qualities of God and live in that state. Only then can he speak of peace, only then can he speak the speech of God and dispense the justice of God's kingdom.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

God, World, Peace, Justice

“The only platform from which public exposures can be made is an all-Russian newspaper. "Without a political organ, a political movement deserving that name is inconceivable in modern Europe."In this connection Russia must undoubtedly by included in modern Europe. The press has long ago become a power in our country, otherwise the government would not spend tens of thousands of rubles to bribe it, and to subsidize the Katkovs and Meshcherskys. And it is no novelty in autocratic Russia for the underground press to break through the wall of sponsorship and compel the legal and conservative press to speak openly of it.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: What is to be Done? (1902), Chapter Three, Section E, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)

Country

“Mystics like Saint Bernard, Saint Francis, Saint Bonaventure or Pascal had a right to make this objection, since they got into the Church, so to speak, by breaking through the windows; but society at large accepted and retains Saint Thomas's Man much as Saint Thomas delivered him to the government; a two-sided being, free or unfree, responsible or irresponsible, an energy or a victim of energy, moved by choice or moved by compulsion, as the interests of society seemed for the moment to need.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)
Context: p>To religious mystics, whose scepticism concerned chiefly themselves and their own existence, Saint Thomas's Man seemed hardly worth herding, at so much expense and trouble, into a Church where he was not eager to go. True religion felt the nearness of God without caring to see the mechanism. Mystics like Saint Bernard, Saint Francis, Saint Bonaventure or Pascal had a right to make this objection, since they got into the Church, so to speak, by breaking through the windows; but society at large accepted and retains Saint Thomas's Man much as Saint Thomas delivered him to the government; a two-sided being, free or unfree, responsible or irresponsible, an energy or a victim of energy, moved by choice or moved by compulsion, as the interests of society seemed for the moment to need. Certainly Saint Thomas lavished no excess of liberty on the Man he created, but still he was more generous than the State has ever been. Saint Thomas asked little from Man, and gave much; even as much freedom of will as the State gave or now gives; he added immortality hereafter and eternal happiness under reasonable restraints; his God watched over man's temporal welfare far more anxiously than th State has ever done, and assigned him space in the Church which he can never have in the galleries of Parliament or Congress. [... ] No statute law ever did as much for Man, and no social reform ever will try to do it; yet Man bitterly complained that he had not his rights, and even in the Church is still complaining, because Saint Thomas set a limit, more or less vague, to what man was obstinate in calling his freedom of will.Thus Saint Thomas completed his work, keeping his converging lines clear and pure throughout, and bringing them together, unbroken, in the curves that gave unity to his plan. His sense of scale and proportion was that of the great architects of his age. One might go on studying it for a life-time.</p

“The idea of sovereignty current in the English speaking world of the 1760s was scarcely more than a century old. It had first emerged during the English Civil War, in the early 1640s, and had been established as a canon of Whig political thought in the Revolution of 1688.”

Bernard Bailyn book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Source: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), Chapter V, TRANSFORMATION, p. 198.

War, World, Idea

“The honourable gentleman has alluded to the distresses and financial embarrassments of the country. I should be the last man to speak of those distresses in a slighting manner; but in considering the amount of our burdens, we ought not to forget under what circumstances those difficulties have been incurred. Engaged in an arduous struggle, single-handed and unaided, not only against all the powers of Europe, but with the confederated forces of the civilized world, our object was not merely military glory—not the temptation of territorial acquisition—not even what might be considered a more justifiable object, the assertion of violated rights and the vindication of national honour; but we were contending for our very existence as an independent nation. When the political horizon was thus clouded, when no human foresight could point out from what quarter relief was to be expected, when the utmost effort of national energy was not to despair, I would put to the honourable gentleman whether, if at that period it could have been shown that Europe might be delivered from its thraldom, but that this contingent must be purchased at the price of a long and patient endurance of our domestic burdens, we should not have accepted the conditions with gratitude? I lament as deeply as the honourable gentleman the burdens of the country; but it should be recollected that they were the price which we bad agreed to pay for our freedom and independence.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (16 May 1820), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), pp. 15-16.
1820s

World, Effort, Freedom, Despair

“The legislator of the Jews in a bolder spirit went to a further extreme and in the practice of his “naked” philosophy, as they call it, ventured to speak of him who was possessed by love of the divine.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

43.
Every Good Man is Free

Love

“…some one has to speak in favor of the right when so speaking is unpopular. The more unpopular, the greater the necessity; … The Republican party has done much for this country. It has often created and preserved prosperity by fighting crazes. For the first time in its history, it is yielding to one. If it would only say "we have made this prosperity, it is our child, and shall have our protection," and stand to its guns, it will beat Bryanism to death as it always has. But with its leader caring more for popularity than principle, courageous, as he is uninformed, I, myself, am convinced that it will have to go out of power in order that it may return chastened and more trusted than ever.”

George Howard Earle, Jr. (1856–1928) American lawyer

Letter to Samuel W. Pennypacker by George H. Earle, Jr. (16 May 1906)

Death, History, Courage, Time

“People write or speak sentences in order to produce an effect, and the success of a sentence is measured by the degree to which the desired effect has been achieved.”

Stanley Fish (1938) American academic

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 4, What Is A Good Sentence?, p. 37

People, Success

“Madame, it is an old word and each one takes it new and wears it out himself. It is a word that fills with meaning as a bladder with air and the meaning goes out of it as quickly. It may be punctured as a bladder is punctured and patched and blown up again and if you have not had it it does not exist for you. All people talk of it, but those who have had it are marked by it, and I would not wish to speak of it further since of all things it is the most ridiculous to talk of and only fools go through it many times.”

Ernest Hemingway book Death in the Afternoon

Source: Death in the Afternoon (1932), Ch. 11

People, Fools, Time

“We must speak with fairness, responsibility and goodwill toward all ethnic groups.”

Koila Nailatikau (1953) Fijian politician

Senate speech, 24 August, 2005 (excerpts)

“Carnap calls such concepts as point, straight line, etc., which are given by implicit definitions, improper concepts. Their peculiarity rests on the fact that they do not characterize a thing by its properties, but by its relation to other things. Consider for example the concept of the last car of a train. Whether or not a particular car falls under this description does not depend on its properties but on its position relative to other cars. We could therefore speak of relative concepts, but would have to extend the meaning of this term to apply not only to relations but also to the elements of the relations.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Cars, Dependency, Training

“There is no language that love does not speak”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

"Love's Language", Poems of Progress 1913 edition

Love

“Max opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “No.”
“Speak louder. You used a word I don’t understand.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones

Source: Starman Jones (1953), Chapter 9, “Chartman Jones” (p. 95)

Understanding

“On the second Michael Jackson trial, speaking on "Larry King Live," CNN, Feb. 21, 2003: "But I'm telling you, this boy, two-thirds of this can be corroborated by other people. So why would he lie about the molestation part? It is in graphic detail. It just seems true… I think Michael Jackson walks. And I think it's a disgrace. He's guilty."”

Nancy Grace (1959) American legal commentator, television host, television journalist, and former prosecutor

"Larry King Live", CNN (Feb. 21, 2003), reported in " Jacko Not Guilty: Past Predictions https://web.archive.org/web/20061115152018/http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/court_cases/jacko_not_guilty_past_predictions_22555.asp", TVNewser.com (June 14, 2006).

People, Lie, Boy, Thinking

“No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day.”

Henry David Thoreau book Civil Disobedience

Civil Disobedience (1849)

Men, World, History, Question

“As I confronted her, the changes grew less apparent to me, her identity stronger. She was there, in the full vigour of her personality, battered but not diminished, looking at me, speaking to me in the husky, breathy voice I remembered so well.”

Willa Cather book My Ántonia

Book V, Ch. 1
My Antonia (1918)

Change, Personality

“At a time when sentiments are so much divided, every man I trust, will give his vote with the recollection and the consciousness that it may depend upon his single vote whether the miseries, the crimes, the atrocities that I fear are now proceeding in China are to be discountenanced or not. We have now come to the crisis of the case. England is not yet committed. But if an adverse vote be given…England will have been committed. With you then, with us, with every one of us, it rests to show that this House, which is the first, the most ancient, and the noblest temple of freedom in the world, is also the temple of that everlasting justice without which freedom itself would be only a name or only a curse to mankind. And I cherish the trust and belief that when you, Sir, rise in your place to-night to declare the numbers of the division from the chair which you adorn, the words which you speak will go forth from the walls of the House of Commons, not only as a message of mercy and peace, but also as a message of British justice and British wisdom, to the farthest corners of the world.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1857/mar/03/resolution-moved-resumed-debate-fourth in the House of Commons (3 March 1857) against the Second Opium War. 1850s

Wisdom, World, Fear, Peace

“To attract people, to win over people to that which I have realised as being true, that is called propaganda. In the beginning there is the understanding, this understanding uses propaganda as a tool to find those men, that shall turn understanding into politics. Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things from what I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths. Those are found in other circumstances, I find them when thinking at my desk, but not in the meeting hall.”

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

Speech on 9 January 1928 to an audience of party members at the "Hochschule für Politik", a series of training talks for Nazi party members in Berlin
1920s

Love, Women, Men, People

“At first I got lots of discouragement from friends and stranger who are loser! You know what these people kept telling me? They kept saying, 'Well Tom Vu, you a crazy nut, here you are, a poor immigrant, poor minority, speak no English, no contact, on and on, and you trying to be rich in America! You crazy, man! Look at people out there! They smarter than you are, they not even rich! Who are you to try?' And you know what? I have to keep telling these people every time, I kept saying, 'You are loser! Get out of my way! I make it somehow!”

Tom Vu (1957) Americnan poker player

People, Way, Time

“Midnight is a wonderful thing in a vast city—and midnight was upon Vienna. The shops were closed, the windows darkened, and the streets deserted—strange that where so much of life was gathered together there could be such deep repose; yet nothing equals the stillness of a great town at night. Perhaps it is the contrast afforded by memory that makes this appear yet more profound. In the lone valley, and in the green forest, there is quiet even at noon—quiet, at least, broken by sounds belonging alike to day and night. The singing of the bee and the bird, or the voice of the herdsman carolling some old song of the hills—these may be hushed; but there is still the rustle of the leaves, the wind murmuring in the long grass, and the low perpetual whisper of the pine. But in the town—the brick and mortar have no voices of their own. Nature is silent—her soft, sweet harmonies are hushed in the great human tumult—man, and man only, is heard. Through many hours of the twenty-four, the ocean of existence rolls on with a sound like thunder—a thousand voices speak at once. The wheels pass and re-pass over the stones—music, laughter, anger, the words of courtesy and of business, mingle together—the history of a day is the history of all time. The annals of life but repeat themselves.”

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

The Monthly Magazine

Life, Music, History, Business

“For the music, it’s not about the individual — so the more you let the music speak for yourself, the more powerful the music will be.”

Maynard James Keenan (1964) musician

Carl Kozlowski (September 11, 2008) "Taste in the making: Tool’s Maynard James Keenan shifts his focus from writing dark lyrics to creating zesty wines" http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/taste_in_the_making/6378/, Pasadena Weekly. Southland Publishing.

Music

“Whoever imposes severe punishment becomes repulsive to the people; while he who awards mild punishment becomes contemptible. But whoever imposes punishment as deserved becomes respectable. For punishment when awarded with due consideration, makes the people devoted to righteousness and to works productive of wealth and enjoyment; while punishment, when ill-awarded under the influence of greed and anger or owing to ignorance, excites fury even among hermits and ascetics dwelling in forests, not to speak of householders.”

Chanakya book Arthashastra

Book I : "Concerning Discipline" Chapter 4 "Determination of the Place of Varta and of Dandaniti"
Arthashastra

People, Anger, Wealth

“Yes! We believe in a higher principle than your virtue and the kind of morality you speak of so paltrily and without much conviction. We believe that there is no imperative or reward for virtue for the soul because it simply acts according to the necessity of its inherent nature. The moral imperative expresses itself in an ought and presupposes the concept of an evil next to that of good. P. 43”

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) German philosopher (idealism)

Philosophy and Religion 1804)

Soul, Nature, Evil

“The mouth is not satisfied by speaking, and the ears are not satisfied by hearing. The eyes are not satisfied by seeing-each organ seeks out one sensory quality. The hunger of the hungry is not appeased; by mere words, hunger is not relieved. O Nanak, hunger is relieved only when one utters the Glorious Praises of the Praiseworthy Lord.”

Guru Angad Dev (1504–1552) The second Guru of Sikhism

Guru Granth Sahib p. 147

Hunger

“I'll tell you what harms the vast majority of Muslims that love freedom and hate terror: Muslim theocracy does. Muslim intolerance does. Wahabism does. Salafism does. Islamism does. Jihadism does. Sharia law does. The mere conservatism of traditional Islam does. We're not talking about only jihadists hating homosexuals and thinking they should die, we're talking about conservative Muslims. The percentage of British Muslims polled who said that homosexuality was morally acceptable was zero. Do you realize what it takes to say something so controversial in a poll that not even 1% of those polled would agree with it? There's almost no question that extreme that you will ever see in a poll that gets a zero, but ask British Muslims whether homosexuality is morally acceptable, and that's what you get. And the result is more or less the same in dozens of other countries. It's zero in Cameroon, zero in Ethiopia. 1% in Nigeria, 1% in Tanzania, 1% in Mali, 2% in Kenya, 2% in Chad. 1% in Lebanon, 1% in Egypt, 1% in the Palestinian territories, 1% in Iraq, 2% in Jordan, 2% in Tunisia, 1% in Pakistan. But 10% in Bangladesh. Bangladesh: that bright spot in the Muslim world where they are regularly hunting down and butchering secular writers with machetes. The people who suffer under this belief system are Muslims themselves. The next generation of human beings born into a Muslim community who could otherwise have been liberal, tolerant, well-educated, cosmopolitan productive people are to one or another degree being taught to aspire to live in the Middle Ages, or to ruin this world on route to some fictional paradise after death. That's the thing we have to get our heads around. And yes, some of what I just said applies with varying modifications to other religions and other cults. But there is nothing like Islam at this moment for generating this kind of intolerance and chaos. And if only a right wing demagogue will speak honestly about it, then we will elect right wing demagogues in the West more and more in response to it. And that will be the price of political correctness: that's when this check will finally get cashed. That will be the consequence of this persistent failure we see among liberals to speak and think and act with real moral clarity and courage on this issue. The root of this problem is that liberals consistently fail to defend liberal values as universal human values. Their political correctness, their multiculturalism, their moral relativism has led them to rush to the defense of theocrats and to abandon the victims of theocracy and to vilify anyone who calls out this hypocrisy for what it is as a bigot. And to be clear, and this is what liberals can't seem to get, is that speaking honestly about the ideas that inspire Islamism and jihadism, beliefs about martyrdom, and apostasy and blasphemy and paradise and honour and women, is not an expression of hatred for Muslims. It is in fact the only way to support the embattled people in the Muslim community: The reformers and the liberals and the seculars and the free thinkers and the gays and the Shiia in Sunni-majority context and Sufis and Ahmadiyyas, and as Maajid Nawaz said, the minorities within the minority, who are living under the shadow, and sword rather often, under theocracy. […] If you think that speaking honestly about the need for reform within Islam will alienate your allies in the Muslim community, then you don't know who your allies are.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "Waking Up with Sam Harris Podcast #38 — The End of Faith Sessions 2" (15 June 2016) https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-end-of-faith-sessions-2 2010s

Love, Death, Women, Hate

“When the people of the colonies were defending their liberties against the might of kings, they chose their banner from the design set in the firmament through all eternity. The flags of great empires of that day have gone, but the stars and stripes remain. It pictures a vision of a people whose eyes are turned to the rising dawn. It represents of the hope of a father for his posterity. It was never flaunted for the glory of royalty, but to be born under it is to be the child of a king, and to establish a home under it is to be the founder of a royal house. Alone of all flags, it expresses the sovereignty of the people which endures when all else passes away. Speaking with their voice, it has the sanctity of revelations. He who lives under it and disloyal to it is a traitor to the human race everywhere. What could be saved if the flag of the American nation were to perish?”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, America and the War (1920)

People, Hope, Home, Star

“The two great conceptual revolutions of twentieth-century science, the overturning of classical physics by Werner Heisenberg and the overturning of the foundations of mathematics by Kurt Gödel, occurred within six years of each other within the narrow boundaries of German-speaking Europe. … A study of the historical background of German intellectual life in the 1920s reveals strong links between them. Physicists and mathematicians were exposed simultaneously to external influences that pushed them along parallel paths. … Two people who came early and strongly under the influence of Spengler's philosophy were the mathematician Hermann Weyl and the physicist Erwin Schrödinger. … Weyl and Schrödinger agreed with Spengler that the coming revolution would sweep away the principle of physical causality. The erstwhile revolutionaries David Hilbert and Albert Einstein found themselves in the unaccustomed role of defenders of the status quo, Hilbert defending the primacy of formal logic in the foundations of mathematics, Einstein defending the primacy of causality in physics. In the short run, Hilbert and Einstein were defeated and the Spenglerian ideology of revolution triumphed, both in physics and in mathematics. Heisenberg discovered the true limits of causality in atomic processes, and Gödel discovered the limits of formal deduction and proof in mathematics. And, as often happens in the history of intellectual revolutions, the achievement of revolutionary goals destroyed the revolutionary ideology that gave them birth. The visions of Spengler, having served their purpose, rapidly became irrelevant.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

Life, People, History, Mathematics

“In this vast country of ours, people profess different religions, speak different languages, dress differently and observe different customs; but we are one nation; the history of our struggle for independence and our faith in our future development are our common bonds.”

Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–1966) The second Prime Minister of the Republic of India and a leader of the Indian National Congress party

People, Faith, Religion, History

“And make up your mind about what bloody race you belong to. One minute it’s all about being a farmer’s boy in Northamptonshire and the next you’re on about the old days in Calcutta and what the British have done to Mother India and the snake-charmers and the bloody temple-bells. Ah, wake up, for God’s sake. You’re English right enough but you’re forgetting how to speak the bloody language, what with traipsing about with Punjabis and Sikhs and God knows what. You talk Hindustani in your sleep, man. Sort it out, for God’s sake. If you want to put a loincloth on, get cracking, but don’t expect the privileges --’ (the word came out in a wet blurr; the needle stuck for a couple of grooves) ‘the privileges, the privileges…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Time for a Tiger (1956)

God, Boy, Sleep, Forgetting

“Thus, at eighteen, we find him, an English lordling, who could speak no English, and yet who could read and write his native language. Never had he seen a human being other than himself, for the little area traversed by his tribe was watered by no greater river to bring down the savage natives of the interior.
High hills shut it off on three sides, the ocean on the fourth. It was alive with lions and leopards and poisonous snakes. Its untouched mazes of matted jungle had as yet invited no hardy pioneer from the human beasts beyond its frontier.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 9 : Man and Man

Water, Reading

“How could one speak properly about love if you were forgotten, you God of love, source of all love in heaven and on earth; you who spared nothing but in love gave everything; you who are love, so that one who loves is what he is only by being in you.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

opening prayer, p. 3
1840s, Works of Love (1847)

Love, God

“All bores me in the world of facts, I see an end, a limit to all things and my heart thirsts for the infinite and for eternity. How to speak of the feeling, so serious, that has seized me?... Human activity has its greatest efforts always fall back on broken wings. Oh, thus I close my eyes. I do not wish to see, to hear, to love, or to act. Only artistic creation, infinite, unlimited, work of god in man, appears desirable to me. It only is the truth and only it is the illusion…”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

Vol. 1: 'My beautiful One, My Unique!', pp. 130-140
1895 - 1905, Lettres à un Inconnu, 1901 – 1905; Museo Communale, Ascona

Love, God, Truth, World

“To think profoundly, to seek and speak truth, to love justice and denounce wrong is to draw upon one’s self the ill will of many.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 230

Love, Truth, Justice, Thinking

“The worst speak something good; if all want sense,
God takes a text, and preacheth Pa-ti-ence.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

The Temple (1633), The Church Porch

God, Sense

“It is futile to speak of liberty as long as economic slavery exists.
"Speak not of liberty — poverty is slavery!" is not a vain formula; it has penetrated into the ideas of the great working-class masses; it filters through all the present literature; it even carries those along who live on the poverty of others, and takes from them the arrogance with which they formerly asserted their rights to exploitation.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)

Literature, Idea

“Speaking of that last contract signing reminds me of a good laugh I had at the expense of the newspaper boys. There were a couple of dozen of them sticking around when I signed, some of them fellows who had been traveling with the Yankees for several seasons; fellows whom I know intimately and well. Yet in their stories, every one of them wrote about me signing that contract with my left hand and some of the newspapers even ran pictures showing me signing left-handed! How they managed it I don't know—for as a matter of fact I write with my right hand now, and I always have. I'm left-handed in everything else I do, but when it comes to writing I'm as right-handed as any right-hander you ever saw. It just goes to show that people take a lot of things for granted. They don't observe things closely, particularly things about which they feel confident.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

"Chapter I," https://books.google.com/books?id=g0wbKn2OSNQC&pg=PA12 Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball (1928) by Ruth, as told to Ford Frick (uncredited), p. 12

People, Travel, Feeling, Confidence

“The "divine" in man: creative bliss, the experience of perfection, the surprising joys of love all human, not divine. …It is time that God was put in his place, that is, in man, and no nonsense about it. But, to prevent misunderstanding, instead of speaking of the "divine" in man I will call it the human sense of perfection or unity. …Need I add that we may retain the Sermon on the Mount, Saint Paul's poem to charity, and much else, though we discard the Christian God?”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

The Universe of Experience: A Worldview Beyond Science and Religion (1974)

Love, God, Sense, Time

“Philosophy, like speaking prose, is something have to do all our lives, well or badly, whether we notice it or not.”

Mary Midgley (1919–2018) British philosopher and ethicist

Introduction, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979).

“Too much of Finnish reality depends on uniquely Finnish circumstances. Finland is as big as two Missouris, but with just 5.2 million residents, it’s ethnically and religiously homogeneous. A strong Lutheran work ethic, combined with a powerful sense of probity, dominates the society. Homogeneity has led to consensus: Every significant Finnish political party supports the welfare state and, broadly speaking, the high taxation that makes it possible. And Finns have extraordinary confidence in their political class and public officials. Corruption is extremely rare.”

Robert G. Kaiser (1943) American journalist

As quoted in "Ten Reasons We Can’t, and Shouldn’t, Be Nordic" https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/ten-reasons-we-cant-and-shouldnt-be-nordic/ (12 March 2018), by Jim Geraghty, National Review 2000s, "Why can't we be more like Finland?" (2005)

Confidence, Support, Reality, Sense

“In blaming others, fools their folly show,
And most attempt to speak when least they know.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Il volgare ignorante ognun riprenda,
E parli più di quel che meno intenda.
Canto XXVIII, stanza 1 (tr. J. Hoole)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Fools

“Speaking our language, you will understand us—and if you can think as another man thinks, you cannot dislike him.”

Jack Vance book The Languages of Pao

Source: The Languages of Pao (1958), Chapter 8 (p. 64)

Understanding, Thinking

“Belief is not a merely intellectual process, belief is not a mere persuasion of the mind, belief is something that is in our heart, and what you believe, you must do, because belief is from God. It is to the heart that God speaks, it is in the heart that God resides…. Here is a work that you have undertaken, a work so gigantic, so stupendous, the means for which are so poor, the resistance to which will be so strong, so organised … and what means have you with which to carry out this tremendous work of yours? If you look at it intellectually, it is hopeless…. This intellectual process, if it is used honestly, if it is followed to the very end, leads you to despair. It leads you to death.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

January 19, 1908
India's Rebirth

Death, God, Strong, Heart

“It's sad and frustrating that we are surrounded by products that seem to testify to a complete lack of care. That's an interesting thing about an object. One object speaks volumes about the company that produced it and its values and priorities.”

Jonathan Ive (1967) English designer and VP of Design at Apple

In an interview in The Daily Telegraph newspaper (November 2005)

Sadness

“Let us imagine that from any given point the system of shortest lines going out from it is constructed; the position of an arbitrary point may then be determined by the initial direction of the geodesic in which it lies, and by its distance measured along that line from the origin. It can therefore be expressed in terms of the ratios dx0 of the quantities dx in this geodesic, and of the length s of this line. …the square of the line-element is \sum (dx)^2 for infinitesimal values of the x, but the term of next order in it is equal to a homogeneous function of the second order… an infinitesimal, therefore, of the fourth order; so that we obtain a finite quantity on dividing this by the square of the infinitesimal triangle, whose vertices are (0,0,0,…), (x1, x2, x3,…), (dx1, dx2, dx3,…). This quantity retains the same value so long as… the two geodesics from 0 to x and from 0 to dx remain in the same surface-element; it depends therefore only on place and direction. It is obviously zero when the manifold represented is flat, i. e., when the squared line-element is reducible to \sum (dx)^2, and may therefore be regarded as the measure of the deviation of the manifoldness from flatness at the given point in the given surface-direction. Multiplied by -¾ it becomes equal to the quantity which Privy Councillor Gauss has called the total curvature of a surface. …The measure-relations of a manifoldness in which the line-element is the square root of a quadric differential may be expressed in a manner wholly independent of the choice of independent variables. A method entirely similar may for this purpose be applied also to the manifoldness in which the line-element has a less simple expression, e. g., the fourth root of a quartic differential. In this case the line-element, generally speaking, is no longer reducible to the form of the square root of a sum of squares, and therefore the deviation from flatness in the squared line-element is an infinitesimal of the second order, while in those manifoldnesses it was of the fourth order. This property of the last-named continua may thus be called flatness of the smallest parts. The most important property of these continua for our present purpose, for whose sake alone they are here investigated, is that the relations of the twofold ones may be geometrically represented by surfaces, and of the morefold ones may be reduced to those of the surfaces included in them…”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

On the Hypotheses which lie at the Bases of Geometry (1873)

Imagination, Parting, Dependency

“I had the company of monsieur Gibert. Such people see clearly, but they have the teacher's eye. As the train was taking us past Alexis' place a staggering subject for a picture came into view towards the east: St-Victoire [later Cezanne made series of paintings of Mont St. Victoire and the crags above Beaurecueil]. I said, 'What a splendid subject'; he replied, 'The lines are too symmetrical'. Referring to 'L'Assommoir' [a novel of Emile Zola ] about which, incidentally, he was the first person to speak to me, he said some very sound things, and praised it, but always from the point of view of technique.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote in Cézanne's letter to his friend Emile Zola, Aix-en-Provence, 14 April 1878; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock"', Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, pp. 178-179
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1860s - 1870s

People, Teachers, Past, Painting

“There is a favourite in every family; and, generally speaking, that favourite is the most troublesome member in it.”

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

The Monthly Magazine

Family

“There are no trifles in the moral universe of God. Speak me a word to-day; — it shall go ringing on through the ages.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 388.

God, Age, Universe

“It should be a good story— speak about a time and place that is permanent. It should capture something wonderful with some great characters whether it's set in the past or in the future.”

Ismail Merchant (1936–2005) Indian-born film producer and director

On the making of good films. Interview with the Associated Press (2004).

Time, Past, Future

“We are constantly reading and listening to, writing and speaking, this text in the context of and against the background of other texts and other discourses.”

Jay Lemke (1946) American academic

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 10

Reading

“All is not Gospell that thou doest speake.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part II, chapter 2.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

““But now you've come too far, and I warn you, woman! I will not have you set foot on this domain. And if you cross my will or dare so much as speak to me again, I will have you driven from Re Albi, and off the Overfell, with the dogs at your heels. Have you understood me?”
“No,” Tenar said, “I have never understood men like you.””

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, Tehanu (1990), Chapter 9, "Finding Words"

Men, Dogs

“Mr Touchett used to think that she reminded him of his wife when his wife was in her teens. It was because she was fresh and natural and quick to understand, to speak – so many characteristics of her niece – that he had fallen in love with Mrs Touchett.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Ch. VI.

Love, Understanding, Nature, Thinking

“When other sects speak well of Zen, the first thing that they praise is its poverty.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

III, 7
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

“The reason why so few persons are agreeable in conversation is that each thinks more of what he desires to say, than of what the others say, and that we make bad listeners when we want to speak. Yet it is necessary to listen to those who talk, we should give them the time they want, and let them say even senseless things; never contradict or interrupt them; on the contrary, we should enter into their mind and taste, illustrate their meaning, praise anything they say that deserves praise, and let them see we praise more from our choice than from agreement with them. To please others we should talk on subjects they like and that interest them, avoid disputes upon indifferent matters, seldom ask questions, and never let them see that we pretend to be better informed than they are.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), V. On Conversation

Question, Thinking, Time, Personality

“We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

"Dr Bill Cosby Speaks at the 50th Anniversary commemoration of the Brown vs Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court Decision," known as the "Pound Cake" speech (May 2004).

People, Peace, Way, Idea

Quotes about speaking page 23

Quotes about speaking
page 23