Quotes about speaking
page 5

“The ethic of Reverence for Life prompts us to keep each other alert to what troubles us and to speak and act dauntlessly together in discharging the responsibility that we feel. It keeps us watching together for opportunities to bring some sort of help to animals in recompense for the great misery that men inflict upon them, and thus for a moment we escape from the incomprehensible horror of existence.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics

Life, Men, Feeling, Help

“Forgive me, that was the soldier speaking. Now this is the man speaking again. And the man is more than the soldier. I can bear anything. Death is a more solemn thing than all the earthly trash.”

Emilio De Bono (1866–1944) Italian General

Quoted in "Mussolini: Twilight and Fall" - Page 129 - by Roman Dąbrowski - Italy - 1956

Death, Forgiveness

“One of the things that struck me as near miraculous about music, especially in a rather nihilistic and atheistic society, is that it really does fill the void which was left by the death of God. And it's because you cannot rationally critique music. It speaks to you, it speaks of meaning, and no matter what you say about it, no matter how cynical you are, you cannot put a crowbar underneath that and toss it aside.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Drinking from the firehose with Howard Bloom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhlL7IjaZNI?t=29m55s Other

Death, God, Music

“20.02.94, Kyiv, 18:15 a boy from the crowd:
- Sofia Mihailovna, how many languages do you speak?
- I speak Moldavian, Ukrainian and Russian, but what is important is that we understand each other.”

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

Boy, Understanding

“Hi and Merry Christmas. I’m honored to have a chance to speak with you and your family this year. Recently we learned that our governments, working in concert, have created a system of worldwide system of mass surveillance watching everything we do. Great Britain’s George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward-snowden-after-months-of-nsa-revelations-says-his-missions-accomplished/2013/12/23/49fc36de-6c1c-11e3-a523-fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html 2013 Christmas Message

Family, Learning, Chance, Christmas

“There are today an increasing number of people whose awareness is, in the strict sense of the phrase, without a focus; and the techniques which have transformed the framework of daily life for such people at such a prodigious pace – I am thinking particularly of the cinema and the radio – are making a most powerful contribution towards this defocalizing process. … The human creature under normal conditions finds his bearings in relation to other people, and also to physical objects, that are not only close to him in space but also linked to him by a feeling of intimacy. Of this feeling of intimacy, I would say that in itself it tends to create a focus for human awareness. One might go farther and speak of a kind of constellation, at once material and spiritual, which under normal conditions assembles itself around each human being. … This kind of constellation around the individual life is, in a great many countries, in process of dissolution.”

Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973) French philosopher, playwright, music critic and leading Christian existentialist

Source: Man Against Mass Society (1952), pp. 146-147

Life, People, Feeling, Thinking

“ I asked my guide how it was possible the judicious part of them could suffer such incoherent prating? "We are obliged," said he, "to suffer it, because no one knows, when a brother rises up to hold forth, whether he will be moved by the spirit or by folly. In this uncertainty, we listen patiently to every one. We even allow our women to speak in public; two or three of them are often inspired at the same time, and then a most charming noise is heard in the Lord's house." "You have no priests, then?" said I. "No, no, friend," replied the Quaker; "heaven make us thankful!" Then opening one of the books of their sect, he read the following words in an emphatic tone: "'God forbid we should presume to ordain any one to receive the Holy Spirit on the Lord's day, in exclusion to the rest of the faithful!' ”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Further account of his conversations with Andrew Pit
The History of the Quakers (1762)

Women, God, Books, Faith

“Hate your enemies
Save your friends
Find your place
Speak the truth.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.
Song lyrics, In Utero (1993)

Hate, Truth

“Never could I tell, try as I might, what it actually was that I saw; nor could the still face tell, for although it must have seen more than I did, it will never speak again. But always I shall guard against the mocking and insatiate Hypnos, lord of sleep, against the night sky, and against the mad ambitions of knowledge and philosophy.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, Hypnos (1922)

Knowledge, Sleep, Madness, Night

“Schultz: You must speak.
Jewish barber: I can't.
Schultz: It's our only hope.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

The Great Dictator (1940)

Hope

“Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day. There must be a way for man to attain all possible pleasures, all the powers and knowledge that nature can grant him, and still serve God — a God who speaks in deeds, not in words, and whose vocabulary is the Cosmos.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

Nobel lecture (1978)

God, Pleasure, Truth, Way

“No country is perfect, but we have to be honest, and strive to expand freedoms, to broaden democracy. The bottom line is that when citizens cannot exercise their rights, the world has a responsibility to speak out.”

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

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)

World, Exercises, Democracy, Freedom

“So those of us who believe in democracy, we need to speak out forcefully, because both the facts and history, I believe, are on our side. That doesn’t mean democracies are without flaws. It does mean that the cure for what ails our democracies is greater engagement by our citizens -- not less.”

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

2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)

Democracy, History

“Silence is the only answer you should give to the fools. Where ignorance speaks, intelligence should not give advices.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

The Lazio Speeches (1936), as quoted in The Book of Italian Wisdom by Antonio Santi, Citadel Press, (2003) p. 87.
1930s

Fools, Intelligence, Silence

“The Great Spirit is everywhere; He hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

The Sacred Pipe (1953)

Heart

“[T]hrough my story I want to tell other children all around the world that they should stand up for their rights. They should not wait for someone else and their voices are more powerful. Their voices – it would seem that they are weak, but at the time when no one speak, your voice gets so loud that everyone has to listen to it. Everyone has to hear it. So it’s my message to children all around the world that they should stand up for their rights.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Speech (October 10, 2014)

Children, World, Time, Waiting

“If you can't tell your sister,
If you can't tell a priest,
'Cause it's so deep you don't think that you can speak about it
To anyone,
Can you tell it to your heart?
Can you find it in your heart
To let go of these feelings…”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Source: Song lyrics, The Sensual World (1989)

Feeling, Thinking, Sister, Heart

“Those who do not speak the words of God with humility must be advised that when they apply medicine to the sick, they must first inspect the poison of their own infection, or else by attempting to heal others, they kill themselves.”

Pope Gregory I (540–604) Pope from 590 to 604

Source: The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.159

God

“I shall argue that to seem to speak well of the gods to men is far easier than to speak well of men to men: for the inexperience and utter ignorance of his hearers about any subject is a great assistance to him who has to speak of it, and we know how ignorant we are concerning the gods.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

107b
Critias

Men, God

“Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at the prompting of nature only, but weep.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 4.
Naturalis Historia

Nature, Learning

“When I speak of 'negative dialectics' not the least important reason for doing so is my desire to dissociate myself from this fetishization of the positive.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: Lectures on Negative Dialectics (1965-66), p. 18

“I think I have spoken enough to you about serious things; which is why I speak [now] of something to which I attribute great value, still too little appreciated — gaiety. It is gaiety, basically, that allows us to have no fear before the problems of life and to find a natural solution to them.”

Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) Swiss artist

In a letter of Taeuber-Arp, 1937, to a goddaughter on the occasion of her confirmation; as quoted in Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Carolyn Lanchner; https://www.moma.org/d/c/exhibition_catalogues/W1siZiIsIjMwMDA2MjY2MCJdLFsicCIsImVuY292ZXIiLCJ3d3cubW9tYS5vcmcvY2FsZW5kYXIvZXhoaWJpdGlvbnMvMjI2MSIsImh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm1vbWEub3JnL2NhbGVuZGFyL2V4aGliaXRpb25zLzIyNjE%2FbG9jYWxlPWVuIiwiaSJdXQ.pdf?sha=73a64e585a97e2b9 Museum of Modern Art, 1981, p. 18 ISBN 0870705989

Life, Fear, Nature, Problem

“Totalitarianism no longer comes in the form of communism or fascism. It comes now from corporations. And these corporations fear those who think and write, those who speak out and form relationships freely. Individual freedom impedes their power and their profits. Our democracy, as Snowden I think has revealed, has become a fiction. The state, through elaborate forms of political theater, seeks to maintain this fiction to keep us passive. And if we wake up, the state will not shy away from draconian measures. The goal is complete subjugation, the iron rule of our corporations and our power elite.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Source: “ 25:13 Our Only Hope Will Come Through Rebellion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOlg_2qAbUA” (2014)

Fear, Democracy, Communication, Thinking

“Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Known as "The Eleventh Commandment" this statement was made famous by Reagan, but was actually created by California Republican Party Chairman Gaylord Parkinson.
Misattributed

“I cannot work, or walk, I am mute and lost in God or stand, or speak, but all this seems to me a useless thing”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

God

“Jongkind.... his painting was too new and far too artistic to be appreciated in 1862 at his prices. Moreover, no one was as bad at making himself valued, as he was. He was a straight-forward and simple kind of man, who could hardly speak bad French and was very shy. But he was very outgoing that day. He asked to see my sketches, invited me to come and work with him, explained the whys and wherefores underlining his work and thereby, completed the training that I had already received from Boudin. He became from this moment my true master and it [is] to him, that I owe the definitive training of my eyes.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote from Claude Monet par lui-meme – interview by Thiébault-Sisson / translated by Louise McGlone Jacot-Descombes; published in Le Temps newspaper, 26 November 1900
about Johan Jongkind, famous pre-impressionist landscape-painter of Dutch origin, painting then in Honfleur for some years and advising Monet then.
1900 - 1920

Painting, Training

“We see the infinite plain of facts, and we impose a moral interpretation upon it. And the moral interpretation is about 'what to do about what is'. That's associated both with security, because we just don't need that much complexity, and aim. So we're mobile creatures, right? We need to know where we're going, because all we're ever concerned about, roughly speaking, is where we're going. That's what we need to know. Where are we going, what are we doing, and why? And that's not the same questions as, 'What is the world made up of?' And so that's the domain of the moral, as far as I'm concerned, which is 'What are you aiming at?' That's the question of the ultimate ideal, in some sense. Even if you have trivial, little, fragmentary ideals, there's something trying to emerge out of that. It's more coherent, and more integrated, and more applicable, and more practical.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

World, Question, Sense

“I am sometimes asked 'How are your people getting along at the South?' I am at a loss sometimes to know to whom they refer. Who are my people at the South? I am in a position to speak more impartially, perhaps, than any man in this room as regards the merits of the two races, for I occupy a middle position… It would be as appropriate to ask, ’How are the white people of the South getting along?’ as to ask how the colored people are getting along. The two should go together: one cannot get along without the other… Men ask me if I don’t think that the condition of the freedmen is hopeless. I tell them ’Never!’ I have seen too much progress.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech in Boston http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/ (22 May)

Men, People, Color, Thinking

“The doctrine of equality! … But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice … "Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" — that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal".”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

Expeditions of an Untimely Man, §48 Progress in my sense (Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemässen §48 Fortschritt in meinem Sinne). Chapter title also translated as: Skirmishes of an Untimely Man, Kaufmann/Hollingdale translation, and Raids of an Untimely Man, Richard Polt translation
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Original: (de) Die Lehre von der Gleichheit! ... Aber es giebt gar kein giftigeres Gift: denn sie scheint von der Gerechtigkeit selbst gepredigt, während sie das Ende der Gerechtigkeit ist... "Den Gleichen Gleiches, den Ungleichen Ungleiches - das wäre die wahre Rede der Gerechtigkeit: und, was daraus folgt, Ungleiches niemals gleich machen."

Justice, Appearance

“To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God's grace; and Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

God, Truth, Lie

“England is a capitalist democracy. Germany is a socialist people's state. And it is not the case that we think England is the richest land on earth. There are lords and City men in England who are in fact the richest men on earth. The broad masses, however, see little of this wealth. We see in England an army of millions of impoverished, socially enslaved, and oppressed people. Child labor is still a matter of course there. They have only heard about social welfare programs. Parliament occasionally discusses social legislation. Nowhere else is there such terrible and horrifying inequality as in the English slums. Those with good breeding take no notice of it. Should anyone speak of it in public, the press, which serves plutocratic democracy, quickly brands him the worst kind of rascal. They do not hesitate to make major changes in the Constitution if they are necessary to preserve capitalist democracy.”

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

“Englands Schuld,” Illustrierter Beobachter, Sondernummer, p. 14. The article is not dated, but is from the early months of the war, likely late fall of 1939. Joseph Goebbels’ speech in English is titled “England's Guilt.” http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb47.htm 1930s

Men, People, Democracy, Thinking

“He neither seeks nor avoids talking about his enemies. When he does speak of them, it is with pride without disdain, humor without rancor, reproach without bitterness, frankness without spite. And in the same way, he speaks of his rivals for glory only with deserved praises that conceal no hidden venom, which can certainly not be said of the praise they sometimes give him. But what I find in him that is most rare in an Author and and even in a sensitive man is the most perfect tolerance in matters of feelings and opinions, and the putting aside of all partisan spirit, even in his own favor; wanting freely to state his opinion and his reasons when the issue demands it, and even doing so with passion when his heart is agitated; but not blaming people for not adopting what he feels any more than he puts up with anyone's wish to deprive him of his feeling; and giving everyone the same freedom of thought as he insists on having for himself. I hear everyone talk about tolerance, but he is the only truly tolerant person I have known.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Second Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques (published 1782)

People, Way, Feeling, Freedom

“Save yourself from the wrath of Allah (swt), and do not abandon speaking the truth, even though it (apparently) causes your destruction. Know that truth does not lead into your annihilation; rather it is a saviour. Always let go of the untruth; even though it (apparently) saves you. Untruth is never a saviour, and it eventually leads into annihilation.”

Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) Seventh of the Twelve Imams and regarded by Sunnis as a renowned scholar

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 408.
Religious Wisdom

Truth

“What do we call a nation? – People who are of the same origin and who speak the same words and who live and make friends of each other, who have the same customs and songs and entertainment are what we call a nation, and the place where that people lives is called the people's country. Thus the Macedonians also are a nation and the place which is theirs is called Macedonia”

Georgi Pulevski (1817–1893) Macedonian writer

Rečnik od tri jezika: s. makedonski, arbanski i turski [Dictionary of Three languages: Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish], U držacnoj štampariji, 1875, p. 48f.

People, Country

“But take a brief glance at real life. In present-day economic life you will find, not only competition and monopoly, but also their synthesis, which is not a formula but a movement. Monopoly produces competition, competition produces monopoly. That equation, however, far from alleviating the difficulties of the present situation, as bourgeois economists suppose, gives rise to a situation even more difficult and involved. Thus, by changing the basis upon which the present economic relations rest, by abolishing the present mode of production, you abolish not only competition, monopoly and their antagonism, but also their unity, their synthesis, the movement whereby a true balance is maintained between competition and monopoly.

Let me now give you an example of Mr Proudhon's dialectics. Freedom and slavery constitute an antagonism. There is no need for me to speak either of the good or of the bad aspects of freedom. As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. Without slavery there would be no cotton, without cotton there would be no modern industry. It is slavery which has given value to the colonies, it is the colonies which have created world trade, and world trade is the necessary condition for large-scale machine industry. Consequently, prior to the slave trade, the colonies sent very few products to the Old World, and did not noticeably change the face of the world. Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance. Without slavery, North America, the most progressive nation, would he transformed into a patriarchal country. Only wipe North America off the map and you will get anarchy, the complete decay of trade and modern civilisation. But to do away with slavery would be to wipe America off the map. Being an economic category, slavery has existed in all nations since the beginning of the world. All that modern nations have achieved is to disguise slavery at home and import it openly into the New World. After these reflections on slavery, what will the good Mr Proudhon do? He will seek the synthesis of liberty and slavery, the true golden mean, in other words the balance between slavery and liberty. Mr Proudhon understands perfectly well that men manufacture worsted, linens and silks; and whatever credit is due for understanding such a trifle! What Mr Proudhon does not understand is that, according to their faculties, men also produce the social relations in which they produce worsted and linens. Still less does Mr Proudhon understand that those who produce social relations in conformity with their material productivity also produce the ideas, categories, i. e. the ideal abstract expressions of those same social relations. Indeed, the categories are no more eternal than the relations they express. They are historical and transitory products. To Mr Proudhon, on the contrary, the prime cause consists in abstractions and categories. According to him it is these and not men which make history. The abstraction, the category regarded as such, i. e. as distinct from man and his material activity, is, of course, immortal, immutable, impassive. It is nothing but an entity of pure reason, which is only another way of saying that an abstraction, regarded as such, is abstract. An admirable tautology! Hence, to Mr Proudhon, economic relations, seen in the form of categories, are eternal formulas without origin or progress. To put it another way: Mr Proudhon does not directly assert that to him bourgeois life is an eternal truth; he says so indirectly, by deifying the categories which express bourgeois relations in the form of thought. He regards the products of bourgeois society as spontaneous entities, endowed with a life of their own, eternal, the moment these present themselves to him in the shape of categories, of thought. Thus he fails to rise above the bourgeois horizon. Because he operates with bourgeois thoughts and assumes them to be eternally true, he looks for the synthesis of those thoughts, their balance, and fails to see that their present manner of maintaining a balance is the only possible one.”

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

Letter to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, (28 December 1846), Rue d'Orleans, 42, Faubourg Namur, Marx Engels Collected Works Vol. 38, p. 95; International Publishers (1975). First Published: in full in the French original in M.M. Stasyulevich i yego sovremenniki v ikh perepiske, Vol. III, 1912

Life, Men, Truth, World

“As a people we claim the right to speak with peculiar emphasis for freedom and for fair treatment of all men without regard to differences of race, fortune, creed or color. We forfeit the right so to speak when we commit or condone such crimes as these of which I speak.”

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

1900s, Letter to Winfield T. Durbin (1903)

Men, People, Color, Freedom

“Christ Himself has said: “They are no longer two, but they are one flesh” (Matt. 19:6). Is it strange then, if they are one flesh, that they should have one tongue and should say the same words, since they are one flesh, Head and body? Let us therefore hear them as one. But let us listen to the Head speaking as Head, and to the body speaking as the body. We do not separate the two realities, but two different dignities; for the Head saves, and the body is saved.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, pp. 419-420

Reality, Christ

“The Word that speaks Truth into Chaos at the beginning of time, to generate habitable order that is Good – that's the story.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Truth, Time

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

First recorded in Terra Nossa: Newsletter of Project Abraço, North Americans in Solidarity with the People of Brazil http://books.google.gr/books?id=iR68AAAAIAAJ&q=, Vols. 1–7, Resource Center for Nonviolence, 1988, p. 42. No citation to a book by Brecht is given. Disputed

Life, Hate, Stupidity, Shoe

“The dialectics of history have already hooked him and will raise him up. He is needed by all of them; by the tired radicals, by the bureaucrats, by the Nepmen, the upstarts, by all the worms that are crawling out of the upturned soil of the manured revolution. He knows how to meet them on their own ground, he speaks their language and he knows how to lead them. He has the deserved reputation of an old revolutionist, which makes him invaluable to them as a blinder on the eyes of the country. He has will and daring. He will not hesitate to utilize them and to move them against the Party. Right now he is organising himself around the sneaks of the party, the artful dodgers.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Statement of 1924 on Joseph Stalin's growing powerbase, in Stalin, An Appraisal Of The Man And His Influence (1966); also in Stalin's Russia 1924-53 by Michael Lynch, p. 18

Art, History, Country

“The world that America seeks is not one we can build on our own. For human rights to reach those who suffer the boot of oppression, we need your voices to speak out. In particular, I appeal to those nations who emerged from tyranny and inspired the world in the second half of the last century, from South Africa to South Asia, from Eastern Europe to South America. Don't stand idly by, don't be silent when dissidents elsewhere are imprisoned and protesters are beaten. Recall your own history, because part of the price of our own freedom is standing up for the freedom of others.”

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

"Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City," September 23, 2010. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88483&st=&st1= 2010

World, History, Freedom, Suffering

“With all great deceivers there is a noteworthy occurrence to which they owe their power. In the actual act of deception… they are overcome by belief in themselves. It is this which then speaks so miraculously and compellingly to those who surround them.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Human, All Too Human (1878)

“When we speak the word “life,” it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Preface: The Theater and Culture
The Theatre and Its Double (1938, translated 1958)

Life

“Mr. Clerselier has written me that you are expecting from him my Meditations… in order to present them to the queen of the land. …If I had only been as wise as they say the savages persuaded themselves that the monkeys were, I never would have become known as a maker of books: Since it is said that they imagined that the monkeys could indeed speak, if they wanted to, but that they chose not to so lest they be forced to work. And since I had not the same prudence to abstain from writing, I now have neither as much liesure nor as much peace as I would have had if I had kept quiet. But since the mistake has already been made, and since I am now known by an infinity of people at the academy, who look askance at my writings and scour them for means of harming me, I do have great hope of being known to persons of great merit, whose power and virtue could protect me.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Letter to Pierre Chanut (Nov. 1, 1646) as quoted by Amir Aczel, Descartes' Secret Notebook (2005) citing René Descartes: Correspondance avec Elizabeth et autres lettres (1989) ed., Jean-Marie and M. Beysaade, pp. 245-246.

People, Books, Peace, Hope

“One must therefore portray the meaning of the sacred writings in a threefold way upon one's own soul, so that the simple person may be edified by what we may call the flesh of the scripture, this name being given to the obvious interpretation; while the one who has made some progress may be edified by its soul, as it were; and the one who is perfect and like those mentioned by the apostle: "We speak wisdom among the perfect; yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, which are coming to nought; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the world unto our glory" (1 Cor. 2:6-7)--this one may be edified by the spiritual law, which has "a shadow of the good things to come" (cf. Rom. 7:14). For just as the human being consists of body, soul and spirit, so in the same way does the scripture, which has been prepared by God to be given for humanity's salvation.”

Origen (185–254) Christian scholar in Alexandria

“How divine scripture should be interpreted,” On First Principles, book 4, chapter 2, Readings in World Christian History (2013), p. 70
On First Principles

Wisdom, God, World, Law

“I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

Alcohol, Disease, Night

“It is better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be stupid and speak lies.”

Solomon (-990–-931 BC) king of Israel and the son of David

Proverbs 19:1 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/proverbs/19/

Stupidity

“"One cave she wolf go too farther, and I wolf leaf her" he said to his fave rave horse. Of course the horse didn't answer, because as you know they cannot speak, least of all to a garlic eating, stinking, little yellow greasy fascist bastard catholic Spaniard. They soon made it up howevans and Jesus and wee Spastic were once morphia unitely in a love that knew no Suzie. The only thing that puzzled Jesus was why his sugarboot got so annoyed when he called her his little Spastic in public.”

John Lennon book A Spaniard in the Works

"A Spaniard In The Works" from A Spaniard In The Works (1965); this has sometimes been misquoted as if Lennon were speaking specifically about Jesus Christ, when in fact, it is part of the odd narration of an odd story with elements of satire, about a Spanish groom named "Jesus El Pifico".

Love, Wolf, Horse

“God’s greatness lies in forgiving, in showing mercy, and in this greatness He is greater than the heart which condemns itself. Behold, this is that greatness of God which we have to speak of especially within the sanctuary; for here we know God differently, more closely – from the other side, if one may say so – that out there, where doubtless He is revealed, is to be known in His works, whereas here He is to be known as He has revealed Himself, as He would be known by Christians. The tokens of God’s greatness can be known in nature everyone can behold with wonder, or rather there is no special token, for the works themselves are the tokens; thus every one can see the rainbow and must wonder when he sees it. But the token of God’s greatness in showing mercy exists only for faith; this token is in fact the Sacrament. God’s greatness in nature is manifest, but God’s greatness in showing mercy is a secret which has to be believed.”

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

Soren Kierkegaard, Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays.1 John 3: From Cristian Discourses & The Lilies of the Field & The Birds of the Air, & Discourses at the Communion on Fridays 1848 Translated by Walter Lowrie 1940, 1961 Galaxy Books P. 298-299
1840s, Christian Discourses (1848)

God, Secret, Faith, Forgiveness

“Frankly speaking, i don't understand Duckworth lewis. I just wait for the umpire's decision.”

MS Dhoni (1981) Indian cricket player

Reads the game better than anyone else and yet, isn't afraid to admit what he doesn't understand. https://www.scoopwhoop.com/sports/ms-dhoni/

Understanding, Decision, Waiting

“Part of the Act of Faith is to affirm: There's no better way to bring a better Being into Being than to speak the Truth.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Truth, Faith, Way, Parting

“A long decade ago economic growth was the reigning fashion of political economy. It was simultaneously the hottest subject of economic theory and research, a slogan eagerly claimed by politicians of all stripes, and a serious objective of the policies of governments. The climate of opinion has changed dramatically. Disillusioned critics indict both economic science and economic policy for blind obeisance to aggregate material "progress," and for neglect of its costly side effects. Growth, it is charged, distorts national priorities, worsens the distribution of income, and irreparably damages the environment. Paul Erlich speaks for a multitude when he says, "We must acquire a life style which has as its goal maximum freedom and happiness for the individual, not a maximum Gross National Product."”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

Nordhaus, William D., and James Tobin. " Is growth obsolete? http://www.nber.org/chapters/c7620.pdf." Economic Research: Retrospect and Prospect Vol 5: Economic Growth. Nber, 1972. 1-80. 1970s and later

Life, Happiness, Fashion, Freedom

“Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.”

Herman Melville book Pierre: or, The Ambiguities

Bk. XIV, ch. 1
A paraphrase of the last portion of this has sometimes been cited as a quotation of Melville: God's one and only voice is silence.
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852)

God, Fate, World, Nature

“(Coining phrase "null hypothesis") In relation to any experiment we may speak of this hypothesis as the “null hypothesis,” and it should be noted that the null hypothesis is never proved or established, but is possibly disproved, in the course of experimentation. Every experiment may be said to exist only in order to give the facts a chance of disproving the null hypothesis.”

Ronald Fisher book The Design of Experiments

The Design of Experiments, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1935, p. 18
1930s

Chance

“Of all the horrid brutalities of our age, I know of none so horrid as those that are sanctioned and defended by marriage. Night after night, there are thousands of rapes committed, under cover of this accursed license; and millions—yes I say it boldly, knowing whereof I speak—millions of poor, heart broken, suffering wives are compelled to minister to the lechery of insatiable husbands, when every instinct of body and sentiment of soul revolts in lathing and disgust…. The world has got to be startled from this pretense into realizing that there is nothing else now existing among pretendedly enlightened nations, except marriage, that invests men with the right to debauch women, sexually, against their wills, yet marriage is held to be synonymous with morality! I say, eternal damnation, sink such morality! …”

Victoria Woodhull (1838–1927) American suffragist

Tried As By Fire, or The True and The False, Socially, speech, 1874, quoted in Gabriel, Mary, Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored (Chapel Hill, N.Car.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1st ed. 1998 ISBN 1-56512-132-5, p. 222 & n. [20] (each ellipsis or set of suspension points so in original) (author Mary Gabriel journalist, Reuters News Service), in turn as reprinted in Stern, Madeleine B., ed., The Victoria Woodhull Reader (Weston, Mass.: M&S Press, 1974).

Women, Men, Marriage, Age

“I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”

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

Circulated in "A Coil of Rage" http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/coilofrage.asp, a 2011 mass e-mail attributing several fabricated quotations to Obama. Obama actually wrote, in Dreams from My Father, p. 220: Yes, I'd seen weakness in other men — Gramps and his disappointments, Lolo [my adoptive father] and his compromise. But these men had become object lessons for me, men I might love but never emulate, white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. Misattributed

Men, Fate

“They speak of naturalism in opposition to modern painting. I would like to know if anyone has ever seen a natural work of art. Nature and art, being two different things, cannot be the same thing. Through art we express our conception of what nature is not. Velasquez left us his idea of the people of his epoch. Undoubtedly they were different from what he painted them, but we cannot conceive a Philip IV in any other way than the one Velasquez painted…”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Paris 1923
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 312
Quotes, 1920's

People, Art, Way, Idea

“Think before you speak. Read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn't make up yourself - a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when you are in the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions.”

Fran Lebowitz book Social Studies

"Tips for Teens".
Social Studies (1981)

Age, Thinking, Reading

“That I, a funny little gesticulating animal on two legs, should stand beneath the stars and declaim in a passion about my rights – it seems so laughable, so out of all proportion. Much better, like Archimedes, to be killed because of absorption in eternal things…
There is a possibility in human minds of something mysterious as the night-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong as Death, a mystic contemplation, the "intellectual love of God." Those who have known it cannot believe in wars any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give to others what has come to me in this way, I could make them too feel the futility of fighting. But I do not know how to communicate it: when I speak, they stare, applaud, or smile, but do not understand.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Miss Rinder, July 30, 1918
1910s

Love, Death, God, War

“As the attraction power is increasing in Me… you are going to witness many astounding events in future… Even while I am speaking to you now, My feet are being pulled by the earth. If I lift one foot, the earth attracts the other foot. Whatever I touch with My hand, it also gets attracted. This magnetic power is present in every man… I try to lift My foot but it is very difficult.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Sanathana Sarathi (April 2003), p. 123

Future

“The process of philosophizing, to my mind, consists mainly in passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing that we start from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1910s, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918)

Truth, Feeling

“What's the enemy? It's the snake. Fair enough. That's good if you're a tree dwelling primate. But for a sophisticated human being with six million years of additional evolution, and you're really trying to solve the problem of what it is that's the great enemy of mankind, well it's the human propensity for evil… as such. Well, that's the figure of Satan. That's what that figure means. Just like there's a Logos that's the Truth that speaks order out of chaos at the beginning of time, there's an antithetical spirit - the hostile brother… that's Cain to Abel - that's doing exactly the opposite. It's motivated by absolutely nothing but malevolence and the willingness to destroy. And it has every reason for doing so. That's what's revealed in the next story in Cain and Abel. In one paragraph, the first glimmerings of that - outside of the strange insistence by the Christian mystics - on the identity of the snake in the Garden of Eden and the author of all evil himself.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Hostility, Truth, Motivation, Problem

“In assuming that peace will be maintained, I assume also that no Great Power would shrink from its responsibilities. If there be a country, for example, one of the most extensive and wealthiest of empires in the world—if that country, from a perverse interpretation of its insular geographical position, turns an indifferent ear to the feelings and the fortunes of Continental Europe, such a course would, I believe, only end in its becoming an object of general plunder. So long as the power and advice of England are felt in the councils of Europe, peace, I believe, will be maintained, and maintained for a long period. Without their presence, war, as has happened before, and too frequently of late, seems to me to be inevitable. I speak on this subject with confidence to the citizens of London, because I know that they are men who are not ashamed of the Empire which their ancestors created; because I know that they are not ashamed of the noblest of human sentiments, now decried by philosophers—the sentiment of patriotism; because I know they will not be beguiled into believing that in maintaining their Empire they may forfeit their liberties. One of the greatest of Romans, when asked what were his politics, replied, Imperium et Libertas.”

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

That would not make a bad programme for a British Ministry. It is one from which Her Majesty's advisers do not shrink.
Source: Speech at the Guildhall, London (9 November 1879), cited in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, Vol. 2 (1929), pp. 1366-7.

Men, War, World, Peace

“Speaking as a devout atheist, thank God in his Almighty wisdom that he made us mortal.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/movies/11radical.html
Other sourced statements

Wisdom, God

“It lay buried here. It lay deep inside me.
It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it.
It could take me all of my life,
But it would only take a moment to
Tell you what I'm feeling,
But I don't know if I'm ready yet.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Sensual World (1989)

Life, Feeling, Thinking

“In this Valley, the wayfarer leaveth behind him the stages of the “oneness of Being and Manifestation” and reacheth a oneness that is sanctified above these two stations. Ecstasy alone can encompass this theme, not utterance nor argument; and whosoever hath dwelt at this stage of the journey, or caught a breath from this garden land, knoweth whereof We speak.”

Bahá'u'lláh (1817–1892) founder of the Bahá'í Faith

The Seven Valleys Of Bahá’u’lláh

“My dear Tiberius, you must not give way to youthful emotion or take it to heart if anyone speaks ill of me; let us be satisfied if we can make people stop short at unkind words.”
Aetati tuae, mi Tiberi, noli in hac re indulgere et nimium indignari quemquam esse, qui de me male loquatur; satis est enim, si hoc habemus ne quis nobis male facere possit.

Augustus (-63–14 BC) founder of Julio-Claudian dynasty and first emperor of the Roman Empire

Suetonius, Divus Augustus, paragraph 51. Translation: Robert Graves, 1957.

People, Youth, Way, Heart

“My mortal remains would speak from the tomb.”

Sai Baba of Shirdi (1836–1918) Hindu and muslim saint

Eleven important sayings

“I certainly do speak Russian. You see, it was the fashionable language par excellence, much more than French, among the nobles of Zembla at least.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Pale Fire (1962)

Fashion

“Since He is the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus has been made Head of the Church, and the faithful are His members. Wherefore He says: "For them I hallow Myself" (John 17:19). But when He says, "For them I hallow Myself," what else can He mean but this: "I sanctify them in Myself, since truly they are Myself"? For, as I have remarked, they of whom He speaks are His members, and the Head of the body are one Christ. … That He signifies this unity is certain from the remainder of the same verse. For having said, "For them I hallow Myself," He immediately adds, "in order that they too may be hallowed in truth," to show that He refers to the holiness that we are to receive in Him. Now the words "in truth" can only mean "in Me," since Truth is the Word who in the beginning was God.
The Son of man was Himself sanctified in the Word as the moment of His creation, when the Word was made flesh, for Word and man became one Person. It was therefore in that instant that He hallowed Himself in Himself; that is, He hallowed Himself as man, in Himself as the Word. For there is but one Christ, Word and man, sanctifying the man in the Word.
But now it is on behalf of His members that He adds: "and for them I hallow Myself." That is to say, that since they too are Myself, so they too may profit by this sanctification just as I profited by it as man without them. "And for them I hallow Myself"; that is, I sanctify them in Myself as Myself, since in Me they too are Myself. "In order that they too may be hallowed in truth." What do the words "they too" mean, if not that thy may be sanctified as I am sanctified; that is to say, "in truth," which is I Myself?”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Quia et ipsi sunt ego. "Since they too are myself"
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, pp. 431-432

Men, God, Truth, Faith

“There's an insistence that the Being that's spoken into being through Truth is Good. This is the most profound ever. It is also the most believable idea ever. What cures in therapy is Truth. Of course, you must encounter the things that you're afraid of, but this is enacted Truth, because if you know that there's something you need to do by your own set of rules and you're avoiding it, then you're enacting a lie. You're not speaking the lie, but you're enacting it, and that's the same thing: untruth. If you can confront If I can get you to face what it is that you know you shouldn't be avoiding, then what's happening is that we're both partaking in the process of you attempting to act out your deepest truth. That improves people's lives radically. The clinical evidence for that is overwhelming. We know that if you expose people to the things that they're afraid of and are avoiding, they get better. You have to do it carefully, cautiously, and with their approval and participation. Of all the things that clinicians have established that's credible, that's #1. It's redemptive insofar as both people are telling the truth. The difference between deception and repression is very small. People can handle earthquakes and cancer and even death, but they can't handle deception. They can't handle the rug being pulled out from underneath them by people who they love and trust. This does them in. It makes them ill, it hurts them psycho-physiologically, and worse than that it makes them cynical, bitter, vicious, and resentful. And then they also start to act all that out in the world, and that makes it worse.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Love, Death, People, Truth

“The only safe rule is to promise little, and faithfully to keep every promise; to "speak softly and carry a big stick."”

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

Ch. XV : The Peace of Righteousness http://books.google.com/books?id=Io4fAAAAIAAJ&q=%22The+only+safe+rule+is+to+promise+little+and+faithfully+to+keep+every+promise+to+speak+softly+and+carry+a+big+stick%22&pg=PA537#v=onepage 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)

“Overt anxiety… that part of anxiety of which the individual is aware and ready to speak.”

Raymond Cattell (1905–1998) British-American psychologist

Source: The Scientific Analysis of Personality, 1965, p. 372

Parting

“Let the orator whom I propose to form, then, be such a one as is characterized by the definition of Marcus Cato, a good man skilled in speaking. But the requisite which Cato has placed first in this definition—that an orator should be a good man—is naturally of more estimation and importance than the other.”
Sit ergo nobis orator quem constituimus is qui a M. Catone finitur vir bonus dicendi peritus, verum, id quod et ille posuit prius et ipsa natura potius ac maius est, utique vir bonus.

Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor

Book XII, Chapter I, 1; translation by Rev. John Selby Watson
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)

Nature

“The children face problems such as violence, abuse, suicide etc. that medicine can not heal. It will never help these children psychologically and be his support …? Even when they are in difficulty, in principle they do not speak with adults, or confide about their true intentions. However, expect some serious messages from adults. I will continue to send messages through manga. Children avoid them what force or what they want to impose anything. That is why I will continue to look for those things that […] inspire their hearts.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

From the intervention to the fifteenth national conference on school health and safety in schools , 1987; quoted in AA.VV., Osamu Tezuka: A Manga Biography , vol. 2, translated by Marta Fogato, Coconino Press, Bologna, 2001, p. 79. ISBN 8888063072

Children, Confidence, Support, Problem

“In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts. This is true everywhere; but, O my friends, it should be truest of all in political life. A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics. No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life. I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present. I speak of the men of the past partly that they may be honored by our praise of them, but more that they may serve as examples for the future.”

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

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)

Life, Men, Lie, Past

“If one takes pleasure in calling the gold standard a "barbarous relic," one cannot object to the application of the same term to every historically determined institution. Then the fact that the British speak English — and not Danish, German, or French — is a barbarous relic too, and every Briton who opposes the substitution of Esperanto for English is no less dogmatic and orthodox than those who do not wax rapturous about the plans for a managed currency.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

The Gold Standard http://mises.org/daily/4153 - LvMI, excerpt from chapter 17 of Human Action Human Action (1949)

Pleasure

“Only when architect, bricklayer and tenant are a unity, or one and the same person, can we speak of architecture. Everything else is not architecture, but a criminal act which has taken on form.”

Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000) Austrian artist

Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture (1958)

Personality

“I think I speak not too strongly when I say that a church in the land without the Spirit of God is rather a curse than a blessing. If you have not the Spirit of God, Christian worker, remember you stand in somebody else's way; you are a tree bearing no fruit, standing where another fruitful tree might grow.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 145.

God, Way, Thinking, Tree

“The oppressors alleged that Allah’s proof is invalid, and if we were permitted to speak out, the uncertainty would disappear.”

Muhammad al-Mahdi (869–941) 12th and last Imam in Twelver Shia Islam

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.51 p. 4
Religious-based Quotes

“When I was a child of ten, I went on my bare knees by my bedside one night and promised God that I should devote my Life to an effort to free my country. I have kept the promise. I have helped to organise, to train, and to discipline my fellow-countrymen to the sole end that, when the time came, they might fight for Irish freedom. The time, as it seemed to me, did come, and we went into the fight. I am glad that we did. We seem to have lost; but we have not lost. To refuse to fight would have been to lose; to fight is to win. We have kept faith with the past, and handed on its tradition to the future. I repudiate the assertion of the Prosecutor that I sought to aid and abet England’s enemy. Germany is no more to me than England is. I asked and accepted German aid in the shape of arms and an expeditionary force; we neither asked for nor accepted German gold, nor had any traffic with Germany but what I state. My object was to win Irish freedom. We struck the first blow ourselves, but I should have been glad of an ally’s aid. I assume that I am speaking to Englishmen who value their freedom, and who profess to be fighting for the freedom of Belgium and Serbia. Believe that we too love freedom and desire it. To us it is more than anything else in the world. If you strike us down now, we shall rise again, and renew the fight. You cannot conquer Ireland; you cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed.”

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.

Love, Life, God, Children

“The modern economist has become even more insistent in his belief that the ultimate forces underlying economic development lie, strictly speaking, outside the economic sphere. As Meir and Baldwin put it, half humorously, “economic development is much too serious to be left to economists.””

David C. McClelland (1917–1998) American psychological theorist

1957, p. 119
Source: The Archiving Society, 1961, p. 11

Lie

“Generally speaking, espionage offers each spy an opportunity to go crazy in a way he finds irresistible.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Mother Night

Mother Night (1961)

Way

“Americans are already deep in a culture war over morality—marijuana, abortion, same-sex marriage. We are already racially polarized over affirmative action and income inequality. And when we have ceased to be an English-speaking, Christian country and become instead an Asian-Hispanic-African-American-white nation, with large Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic and atheist minorities, and no defined borders, or common faith and culture, what holds us together?”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

"The Brazil of North America" https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/the-brazil-of-north-america/ (July 18, 2014), Chronicles 2010s

Marriage, War, Faith, Sex

“Companions of arms and lords. Do not believe that the one who is going to speak to them is a philosopher, I am a man of people, but you will understand that these men when they speak, speak with the heart.”

Pancho Villa (1878–1923) Mexican revolutionary

Men, People, Understanding, Heart

“Though the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword speaks louder and stronger at any given moment.”

Leonard Wibberley (1915–1983) Irish-American author

Source: The Mouse that Roared, p. 5.

“The people who live my truth, what do they say when they speak of themselves? Does the echo of what I am thinking issue from their mouths, or error, or falsehood?”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI

People, Truth, Error, Thinking

“I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

New York Herald Tribune (11 September 1932)

God

“So, first of all, you’ve got to try to get people involved. And a lot of people are busy in their own lives or they don’t think it’s going to make a difference or they’re scared if they’re speaking out against authority. And many of the problems that we’re facing, like trying to create jobs or better opportunity or dealing with poverty or dealing with the environment, these are problems that have been going on for decades. And so, to think that somehow you’re going to change it in a day or a week, and then if it doesn’t happen you just give up, well, then you definitely won’t succeed. So the most important thing that I learned as a young person trying to bring about change is you have to be persistent, and you have to get more people involved, and you have to form relationships with different groups and different organizations. And you have to listen to people about what they’re feeling and what they’re concerned about, and build trust. And then, you have to try to find a small part of the problem and get success on that first, so that maybe from there you can start something else and make it bigger and make it bigger, until over time you are really making a difference in your community and in that problem. But you can’t be impatient. And the great thing about young people is they’re impatient. The biggest problem with young people is they’re impatient. It’s a strength, because it’s what makes you want to change things. But sometimes, you can be disappointed if change doesn’t happen right away and then you just give up. And you just have to stay with it and learn from your failures, as well as your successes.”

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

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

People, Disappointment, Feeling, Communication

“Only the wound speaks its own word.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Habla con su propia palabra sólo la herida.
Voces (1943)

“And he continued to travesty the truth, and I was impotent — the truth, that profound thing whose voice was in my ears, whose shadow was in my eyes, and whose taste was in my mouth.
Was I so utterly forsaken? Would no one speak the word I was in search of?”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI

Truth, Search

“Is it always permissible to speak of the extension of a concept, of a class? And if not, how do we recognize the exceptional cases? Can we always infer from the extension of one concept's coinciding with that of a second, that every object which falls under the first concept also falls under the second?”

Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) mathematician, logician, philosopher

Vol. 2, p. 127. Replying to Bertrand Russell's letter about Russell's Paradox; quoted in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell-paradox/ Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, 1893 and 1903