Quotes about spirit (3905 quotes, page 37)

“The worst reproach that Engels could make against the first English Marxists was that they were applying Marxism in a sectarian spirit. What would he have said, had he lived to see it, about a school of Marxists who after succeeding in capturing the state power proceeded to make a state religion of Marxism, a religion whose articles of faith and their interpretation are watched over by the government, a religion, the criticism of which, nay, the slightest deviation from which, is sternly punished by the State; a Marxism ruling by the methods of the Spanish Inquisition, propagated with fire and sword, practicing a theatrical ritual, as illustrated by the embalmed body of Lenin: a Marxism reduced to the status not only of a state religion but of a medieval or oriental faith? Such a Marxism may indeed be called a doctrinaire fanaticism.”

Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician

Chap. I, The Beginnings of Marxism
“Marxism and Bolshevism: Democracy and Dictatorship,” (1934) http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1934/bolshevism/index.htm

School , Faith , Religion , Making love

“Ethical culture should do for human character what physical culture should do for the body. It should produce a race of kind, honest, courageous, public-spirited, and justice-loving men and women. It is all so perfectly plain. Men are moral invalids. They come into the world bearing the curse of their animal origin. They are unfit for a life of love and co-operation. The defects of human character are as well known and as well understood as the defects of the human body. They are the cause of more unhappiness to mankind than any other one thing. They can be corrected by the application of the same remedies that have proved so efficacious in the case of mental and physical defects. The school should be the mental, physical, and moral infirmary of society.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Ethics and Education (1912), Ethical Anxiety, p. 38–39

School , Courage , Justice , Animals

“Let us be true to our ideals, true to the spirit of Universal Compassion—whether we walk with the lone worm wandering in the twilight of consciousness, the feathered forms of the fields and forests, the kine of the meadows, the simple savage on the banks of the gladed river, the political blanks whom men call wives, or the outcasts of human industry.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Conclusion", p. 328
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Ethical Kinship

Universe , Men

“Look upon and treat others as you do your own hands, your own eyes, your very heart and soul—with infinite care and compassion—as suffering and enjoying members of the same Great Being with yourself. This is the spirit of the ideal universe—the spirit of your own being. It is this alone that can redeem this world, and give to it the peace and harmony for which it longs.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Conclusion", p. 327
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Ethical Kinship

Peace , Soul , Suffering , Heart

“Teach a child to love others as it loves itself; let this be the first and most impressive injunction that invades its ears; allow it never to infringe this rule in its conduct toward others, and never to associate with those who do; teach it that the highest virtue is forbearance and helpfulness; inculcate the equal rights of all to the joys of the universe; forbid all competitive indulgence as degrading and ungallant; teach it the propriety of exercising its combativeness against the tendencies of the inanimate, never against a fellow-creature; allow only those amusements which encourage kindness and the rivalry of good-doing;—and when that child grows to manhood or womanhood, and encounters the conditions of more serious life, it will encounter them, not ideally, perhaps, but in a spirit very remote from that in which it would have approached them had it come up thru conditions of incessant egoism.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Individual Culture, p. 275

Help , Universe , Joy , Love

“It is not possible, and it never will be possible, to organize all the beings occupying space into one immense confederacy. This would be ideal, but from the inexorable nature of things it can never be. The denizens of the sea depths can not correlate with the inhabitants of the clouds. The lion can not fraternize with the lamb, nor the hawk with the sparrow. The natures of beings have been evolved thru war, and they are in large part irredeemably antagonistic. But the approximation, if honest, may be more successful than is supposed, and may include many species not human. The bird may contribute his song and plumage, the sheep his fleece, the horse, the ox, the elephant, and the camel their strength or speed, the cow and the fowl their secretions, the dog his fidelity, and man his art. The ultimate and ideal aggregation of the living universe will not be a pan-American union nor a Euro-American league, nor even an aggregation whose spirit is embodied in a parliament of man, but the widest and most consummate possible Confederation of the Consciousnesses.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Ideal, pp. 161–163

Success , War , Dogs , Speed

“Scientific research is based on the assumption that all events, including the actions of mankind, are determined by the laws of nature. Therefore, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, that is, by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being. However, we have to admit that our actual knowledge of these laws is only an incomplete piece of work (unvollkommenes Stückwerk), so that ultimately the belief in the existence of fundamental all-embracing laws also rests on a sort of faith. All the same, this faith has been largely justified by the success of science. On the other hand, however, every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. The pursuit of science leads therefore to a religious feeling of a special kind, which differs essentially from the religiosity of more naive people.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter in response to sixth-grader Phyllis Wright, asking whether scientists pray, and if so, what they pray for (24 January 1936) p. 92-93
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)

Faith , Law , Success , People

“I said before, the most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. And this mysticality is the power of all true science. If there is any such concept as a God, it is a subtle spirit, not an image of a man that so many have fixed in their minds. In essence, my religion consists of a humble admiration for this illimitable superior spirit that reveals itself in the slight details that we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

As quoted in The Private Albert Einstein (1992) by Peter A. Bucky and Allen G. Weakland, p. 86
Attributed in posthumous publications

Science , God , Religion , Beauty

“Other people have marveled at the growth and strength of America. They have wondered how a few weak and discordant colonies were able to win their independence from one of the greatest powers of the world. They have been amazed at our genius for self-government. They have been unable to comprehend how the shock of a great Civil War did not destroy our Union. They do not understand the economic progress of our people. It is true that we have had the advantage of great natural resources, but those have not been exclusively ours. Others have been equally fortunate in that direction. The progress of America has been due to the spirit of the people. It is in no small degree due to that spirit that we have been able to produce such great leaders.”

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

If coming generations are to maintain a like spirit, it will be because they continue to support the principles which these men represented. It is for that purpose that we erect memorials. We can not hold our admiration for the historic figures which we shall see here without growing stronger in our determination to perpetuate the institutions which their lives revealed and established.
1920s, Address at the Black Hills (1927)

Understanding , War , People , Nature

“The spirit of America is to help everybody and injure nobody. We can be in a position to help only by unifying the American nation, building it up, making it strong, keeping it independent, using its inclination to help and its disclination to injure. Those who cast in their lot with this country can be true to the land of their origin only by first being true to America. When the public sees and realizes that racial groups here are first of all devoted to the interests of this country, there will be little difficulty in securing here the present needed help and assistance for the countries of the old world.”

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

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)

Country , Strong , Help , World

“Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind.”

Ella Baker (1903–1986) African-American civil rights and human rights activist

"The Women Behind the Men" https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22/opinion/22collins.html? by Gail Collins in the The New York Times, September 22, 2007

Fight , Freedom

“Establishment necessarily involves a subtle corruption of the spirit of the church because it is safely embedded in the wider establishment of society, which includes the privileged and the powerful. … How can those Christians who see monetarism being so cruelly applied to the old, the sick, the homeless, women, the black community, and the young unemployed, lead a struggle against this injustice from within an established church subject to a Cabinet and a parliamentary majority composed of those very people who are responsible for implementing those very policies?”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Speech to St James's Church, Piccadilly (2 March 1983), quoted in The Times (3 March 1983), p. 14
1980s

People , Women , Communication

“Our native love of reality joins with this experience to teach us a little reserve, and to dissuade a too sudden surrender to the brilliant qualities of persons. Young people admire talents or particular excellences; as we grow older, we value total powers and effects, as, the impression, the quality, the spirit of men and things. The genius is all. The man, — it is his system: we do not try a solitary word or act, but his habit. The acts which you praise, I praise not, since they are departures from his faith, and are mere compliances. The magnetism which arranges tribes and races in one polarity, is alone to be respected; the men are steel-filings.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Faith , Personality , People , Reality

“If Reg Prentice is cut down it is not just the local party that is undermining its own foundations by ignoring the beliefs and feelings of ordinary people, the whole legitimate Labour Party, left as well as right, is crippled if extremists have their way. … If tolerance is shattered formidable consequences will follow. Labour MPs will either have to become creatures of cowardice, concealing their views, trimming their sails, accepting orders, stilling their consciences, or they will all have to be men far far to the left of those whose votes they seek. Either would make a mockery of parliamentary democracy. The first would reduce still further, and rightly reduce, respect for the House of Commons. It would become an assembly of men with craven spirits and crooked tongues. The second would, quite simply, divorce the Labour Party from the people.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech in Newham, London (11 September 1975), quoted in The Times (12 September 1975), p. 1
1970s

Democracy , Housing , People , Way

“The measures we have taken, the further measures we shall be taking in the coming weeks, will create the conditions in which these problems are going to be solved. I believe that our people will respond to this challenge because our history shows that they misjudge us who underrate our ability as a nation to move, and to move decisively when the need arises. They misjudged our temper after Dunkirk, but we so mobilized our latent and untapped strength that apparent defeat was turned into a great victory. I believe that the spirit of Dunkirk will once again carry us through to success.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton (12 December 1964), quoted in The Times (14 December 1964), p. 14
Prime Minister

History , Success , Victory , People

“A second devaluation would be regarded all over the world as an acknowledgement of defeat, a recognition that we were not on a springboard, but a slide. I myself have always deprecated—perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly—in crisis after crisis, appeals to the Dunkirk spirit as an answer to our problem, because what is required in our economic situation is not a brief period of inspired improvisation, work and sacrifice, such as we had under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), but a very long, hard, prolonged period of reorganisation and rededication. It is the long haul, not the inspired spurt, that we need.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1961/jul/26/economic-situation#column_451 in the House of Commons (26 July 1961)
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

World , Problem

“There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.”

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

1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)

Learning , Art , Bird , Flying

“Our Amazon rainforest is larger than Western Europe and it remains virtually untouched. This shows that we are one of the countries that protects the most its environment. This time of the year, dry weather and winds favor both spontaneous and criminal fires. It is also important to mention that indigenous and local populations also use fire as part of their culture and means of survival. All countries have their issues. However, the sensationalist attacks we have suffered from much of the international media due to the Amazon fires have aroused our patriotic sentiment. It is a misconception to state that the Amazon is a world heritage; and it is a misconception, as scientists attest, to say that our forest is the lung of the world. Resorting to these fallacies, some countries, instead of helping, have followed the lies of the media and behaved disrespectfully, with a colonialist spirit. They have questioned what is most sacred to us: our sovereignty! One of them, at the last G7 meeting, dared to suggest imposing sanctions against Brazil without even listening to us.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Speech at the at the 74th UN General Assembly. Statement by Mr. Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil http://statements.unmeetings.org/GA74/BR_EN.pdf. United Nations PaperSmart (24 September 2019).

Time , Question , Country , Suffering

“Passionate servant leaders, determined to create a legacy of earthshaking transformation in their domain create/must necessarily create organizations which are … no less than Cathedrals in which the full and awesome power of the Imagination and Spirit and native Entrepreneurial flair of diverse individuals is unleashed … In passionate pursuit of jointly perceived soaring purpose and personal and community and client service Excellence.”

Tom Peters (1942) American writer on business management practices

24 December 2018
Tom Peters Daily, Weekly Quote

Passion , Personality , Imagination , Communication

“Making my own the concerns of my venerable Predecessors, I consider it opportune to offer appropriate responses so that the entire Church, allowing herself to be regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, may present herself to the contemporary world with a missionary impulse in order to promote the new evangelization.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2010, Ubicumque Et Semper (21 September 2010)

World , Making love

“We are going to energise the country. We are going to get Brexit done on 31 October and take advantage of all the opportunities it will bring with a new spirit of can do. We are once again going to believe in ourselves, and like some slumbering giant we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self doubt and negativity.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Boris Johnson wins race to be Tory leader and PM https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49084605 BBC News (23 July 2019)
2010s, 2019

Self-confidence , Guy , Country

“We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies — all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

The Doors of Perception (1954)

Family , Suffering , Nature , Universe

“Origen taught that all souls were created at the beginning of creation as angelic spirits. In this condition they sinned and for their apostasy were transferred into material bodies. It was this view of preexistence which was proclaimed heretical. In any case, heresy thus condemned so long ago need not be regarded today as of major importance. Truth matters a great deal more and a condemned heresy may turn out to be a truth, as happened, for example, when a local church of Rome condemned Galileo’s heliocentric doctrine and forced him to recant. Galileo was right and the church in question was wrong. It is therefore quite legitimate for both clergy and laity of the Christian faith to preach and believe in both preexistence and reincarnation.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Source: Reincarnation & Christianity https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/ReincarnationChristianity.pdf (1967)

Soul , Faith , Question , Truth

“The fate of the suicide is horrible in general. He has cut himself off from his body by using mechanical means that affect the body, but cannot touch the real man. He then is projected into the astral world, for he has to live somewhere. There the remorseless law, which acts really for his good, compels him to wait until he can properly die. Naturally he must wait, half dead, the months or years which, in the order of nature, would have rolled over him before body and soul and spirit could rightly separate. He becomes a shade….”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

Suicide Is Not Death The Lamp, September 1894

Soul , Waiting , Law , Fate

“A tree or a mineral or a man is a combination of elements or parts, and each must have its projected life term. If we violently and prematurely cut them off one from the other, certain consequences must ensue. Each constituent requires its own time for dissolution. And suicide being a violent destruction of the first element - body - the other two, of soul and spirit, are left without their natural instrument. The man then is but half dead, and is compelled by the law of his own being to wait until the natural term is reached.”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

Suicide Is Not Death The Lamp, September 1894

Life , Soul , Tree , Time

“We have long accepted the doctrine of the evolution of the forms in which dwells the Divine Life; here is the complementary and far greater idea of the evolution of that Life itself, showing that the very reason for that wondrous development of higher and higher forms is that the ever-swelling Life needs them in order to express itself. Forms are born and die, forms grow, decay and break; but the Spirit grows on eternally, ensouling those forms, and developing by means of experience gained in and through them, and as each form has served its turn and is outgrown, it is cast aside that another and better form may take its place.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch. 1

Idea , Life

“The cases in which assistance is given to mankind by nature-spirits are few. The majority of such creatures shun the haunts of man, and retire before him, disliking his emanations and the perpetual bustle and unrest which he creates all around him.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 4

Nature

“He will talk about honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit, and detachment. These are the three. He gives them as three very potent forces of evolution. They are potent because they are the essentials. They are the essentials because only in growing detachment can you advance to the point… of being Self-realized. Only through honesty of mind and sincerity of spirit can you become detached. Unless you become detached, you cannot do the others. Unless you do the others, you cannot become detached.…Without detachment, you cannot make one step forward in evolution. A growing detachment, by its very nature, frees you from identification with your body, your emotions, your mental concepts. That is how the steps are taken. I would say, read Maitreya’s teachings and put them into practice. Read Krishnamurti and put it into practice. It is not simply a question of reading and knowing; it is a question of putting it into practice. They are talking about exactly the same thing, the same process — detachment.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Maitreya's Mission Vol. III (1997)

Reading , Question , Nature , Self-confidence

“Gradually, through the process of incarnation and reincarnation, we do, indeed, create a body through which the spirit aspect can, to a very full degree, manifest. When that happens we become perfected Masters.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Ageless Wisdom, An Introduction to Humanity's Spiritual Legacy (1996)

Perfection

“Part One… discusses at length the opposing ways of approaching and dealing with life: co-operating or competing. It traces the competitive spirit back to the animal kingdom and shows its gradual replacement by co-operation as humanity advances. Many of the problems of the modern world are seen in this context and co-operation is shown as the way, in line with our soul’s intent, to solve them.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Art of Co-operation (2002)

Soul , Animals , Problem , Way

“It is in the spirit of compassion and respect for the freedom and dignity of all people that I’m offering to serve you as your President. Join me this Saturday for the official kickoff of our campaign.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

(28 January 2019) https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1089913322252709889
Twitter account, January 2019

People , Freedom

“There are subjects forbidden by good manners, it seems. As in many societies, I suppose, where the very fundamentals of their existence are the subject of the deepest taboos. What is this terror of reality, I wonder, which plagues the human spirit?”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 1, Chapter 4 “On Joining the Gypsies” (pp. 188-189)
The Elric Cycle, The Revenge of the Rose (1991)

Reality

“The man is a relic, gentlemen, from an age most of us have only read about. He would have us judged by our wealth and our martial glory rather than our goodwill and tranquility of spirit.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 1, Chapter 3 “Peculiar Geography of an Unknown Realm” (p. 167)
The Elric Cycle, The Revenge of the Rose (1991)

Age , Wealth , Reading

“There is one living spirit prevalent over this world, (subject to certain contingencies of organic matter & chiefly heat), which assumes a multitude of forms each having acting principle according to subordinate laws.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

There is one thinking sensible principle, intimately allied to one kind of organic matter—have & which thinking principle seems to be given a assumed according to a more extended relations of the individuals, whereby choice with memory or reason? is necessary—which is modified into endless forms bearing a close relation in degree & kind to the endless forms of the living beings.
" Notebook C http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/vanWyhe_notebooks.html" (1838) page 210e http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=186&itemID=CUL-DAR122.-&viewtype=side
quoted in [Creativity, Psychology and the History of Science, 2005, Howard E., Gruber, Katja, Bödeker, Springer, 9781402034916, 142, http://books.google.com/books?id=MDbruQKIu-wC&pg=PA142]
also quoted in [The Cambridge Companion to Darwin, 2003, Robert J., Richards, Darwin on mind, morals, and emotions, Johnathan, Hodge, Gregory, Radick, Cambridge University Press, 9780521777308, 95-96, http://books.google.com/books?id=uj_by_Sg3LkC&pg=PA95]
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements

World , Law

“If he bears me a grudge because of his poor command of troops he shows that he lacks greatness of spirit and deserves to be treated as a little man. But if he has allowed himself to reflect calmly and to examine himself a little, he cannot but be grateful to me and tell himself that I acted without fear and did my duty. Then one could say: there is nobility in him after all.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 8 October 1890, commenting on the imperial field maneuvers of that year, when Waldersee defeated the formations commanded by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Fear

“We must not approach the observance and enforcement of this law in a vengeful spirit. Its purpose is not to punish. Its purpose is not to divide, but to end divisions — divisions which have all lasted too long. Its purpose is national, not regional. Its purpose is to promote a more abiding commitment to freedom, a more constant pursuit of justice, and a deeper respect for human dignity.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Civil Rights Bill signing speech (1964)

Justice , Law , Freedom

“That since England had the principle, of making Peace with Anarchists she has left herself without a cause—that it is high time for all honest men to think no more of Party—that this Kingdom is in a most perillous State, & nothing but vigour can save it—that peace can not be secure in the present State of Things in France—that nothing was ever more regular nor systematical than the attempts there to conquer all Europe—that the Spirit of their Ambition is Atheistical, & our people should know this.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

France, (Still in a state of Anarchy), p. 27
Table talk

Peace , Time , People , Thinking

“We want no foreign examples to rekindle in us the flame of liberty. The example of our own ancestors is abundantly sufficient to maintain the spirit of freedom in its full vigour, and to qualify it in all its exertions. The example of a wise, moral, well-natured, and well-tempered spirit of freedom, is that alone which can be useful to us, or in the least degree reputable or safe. Our fabric is so constituted; one part of it bears so much on the other, the parts, are so made for one another, and for nothing else, that to introduce any foreign matter into it, is to destroy it.”

Edmund Burke book An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs

Source: An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), p. 471

Freedom , Parting , Nature

“The Revolution and Hanover succession had been objects of the highest veneration to the old Whigs. They thought them not only proofs of the sober and steady spirit of liberty which guided their ancestors; but of their wisdom and provident care of posterity.—The modern Whigs have quite other notions of these events and actions. They do not deny that Mr. Burke has given truly the words of the acts of parliament which secured the succession, and the just sense of them. They attack not him but the law.”

Edmund Burke book An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs

Source: An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), p. 436

Sense , Wisdom , Law , Success

“There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the steadfastness of some men has been nut to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their interest; but the separation of fame and virtue is an harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honest equality.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Men

“I hope there are none of you, corrupted with the doctrine taught by wicked men for the worst purposes, and received by the malignant credulity of envy and ignorance, which is, that the men who act upon the public stage are all alike; all equally corrupt; all influenced by no other views than the sordid lure of salary and pension. The thing, I know by experience to be false. Never expecting to find perfection in men, and not looking for divine attributes in created beings, in my commerce with my contemporaries, I have found much human virtue. I have seen not a little public spirit; a real subordination of interest to duty; and a decent and regulated sensibility to honest fame and reputation. The age unquestionably produces (whether in a greater or less number than former times, I know not) daring profligates and insidious hypocrites. What then? Am I not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the world, because of the mixture of evil that will always be in it? The smallness of the quantity in currency only heightens the value. They, who raise suspicions on the good on account of the behaviour of ill men, are of the party of the latter.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Time , Hope , Perfection , Falseness

“If I understand at all the true Spirit of the present contest, We are engaged in a Civil War … I consider the Royalists of France, or, as they are (perhaps more properly) called, the Aristocrates, as of the party which we have taken in this civil war.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to Sir Gilbert Elliot (22 September 1793), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VII: January 1792–August 1794 (Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 432
1790s

War , Understanding

“As to us here our thoughts of every thing at home are suspended, by our astonishment at the wonderful Spectacle which is exhibited in a Neighbouring and rival Country—what Spectators, and what actors! England gazing with astonishment at a French struggle for Liberty and not knowing whether to blame or to applaud! The thing indeed, though I thought I saw something like it in progress for several years, has still something in it paradoxical and Mysterious. The spirit it is impossible not to admire; but the old Parisian ferocity has broken out in a shocking manner. It is true, that this may be no more than a sudden explosion… But if it should be character rather than accident, then that people are not fit for Liberty, and must have a Strong hand like that of their former masters to coerce them. Men must have a certain fund of natural moderation to qualifye them for Freedom, else it becomes noxious to themselves and a perfect Nuisance to every body else.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to Lord Charlemont (9 August 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 10
1780s

Home , Freedom , Country , Strong

“If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

Speech at the Dedication of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, September 2, 1940
1940s

God

“We are co-partners in a long and rich religious history -- the Judeo-Christian traditions. Many blacks and Jews have a shared passion for social justice at home and peace abroad. We must seek a revival of the spirit, inspired by a new vision and new possibilities. We must return to higher ground. We are bound by Moses and Jesus, but also connected with Islam and Mohammed. These three great religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, were all born in the revered and holy city of Jerusalem.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

Home , Peace , Religion , Justice

“The deeper we grow in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become – the more we realize that everything in life is a gift. The tenor of our lives becomes one of humble and joyful thanksgiving. Awareness of our poverty and ineptitude causes us to rejoice in the gift of being called out of darkness into wondrous light and translated into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.”

Brennan Manning book The Ragamuffin Gospel

p. 67 https://books.google.com/books?id=sUTZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA67
1990s, The Ragamuffin Gospel (1990)

Light , God , Life , Christ

“This spirit thrusts itself forward, confident of commendation and esteem.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

Self-confidence , Confidence

“Accept in an unruffled spirit that which is inevitable.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCVIX: On Consolation to the Bereaved

Courageous

“He had the haughtiness of Henry the Eighth, without his spirit; the avarice of Henry the Seventh, without his exactions; the indignities of Charles the First, without his bigotry for his prerogative; the vexations of King William, with as little skill in the management of parties; and the gross gallantry of his father, without his goodnature or his honesty:– he might, perhaps, have been honest, if he had never hated his father, or had ever loved his son.”

George II of Great Britain (1683–1760) British monarch

Horace Walpole Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second (1847) vol. 1, p. 180
About George II

Love , Hate , Making love

“Before the spirit could seek into it, the mind must. She studied the tensor equations as once she studied the sutras, she meditated upon the koans of science, and at last she began to feel her oneness with all that was, and in the vision find peace.”

Poul Anderson book The Boat of a Million Years

Source: The Boat of a Million Years (1989), Chapter 19 “Thule”, Section 18 (p. 449)

Science , Peace , Study , Feeling

“The spirit of our age is fraught with paradox. It is at the same time pragmatic and transcendental. It values both enlightenment and mystery… power and humility … interdependence and individuality. It is simultaneously political and apolitical. Its movers and shakers include individuals who are impeccably Establishment allied with one-time sign-carrying radicals.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Introduction

Time , Age

“It can hardly be said that Greenaway is unaware of his demoniac cleverness, but he unearths the nuggets buried in his work in a spirit of generosity. They are not so much possessions to be admired as gifts to be shared.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

, in an interview with Greenaway in the Washington DC City Paper, 6 Apr 1990
About Greenaway

“In the war we had got out of the danger of the military spirit in Europe trampling upon human liberty, and were now confronted with a menace from inside our own country—such a menace as had destroyed Russia. That menace was an attack upon the very life-blood of Britain, and unless it was arrested at the start, the whole fabric of the commerce, trade, and prosperity of this country would come down and Britain the mighty, whose name ringed round the earth, would become a poor thing.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Haverfordwest (10 November 1922) during the general election campaign, quoted in The Times (11 November 1922), p. 12
Later life

War , Life , Country

“I am beginning to understand why renunciation has become sovereign in Germany, why an agony paralyses the spirits; why the few heads still living fall prey, partly to a fruitless aestheticism, partly to a fatal belief in evolution. Whether we will or not, we succumb to an overpowering system of profanation that is difficult to escape because there is barely any possibility of spiritual and material existence outside of it.”

Hugo Ball (1886–1927) German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists

Quote of Ball, 28 April 1918, in Flucht aus der Zeit', p. 219, note 42; as quoted by Debbie Lewer in 'Papers of Surrealism Issue 6 Autumn 2007', p. 12
after 1916

Understanding

“If I address the following lines to you, I do so because I am credibly informed that you, like myself, as a true German, love your fatherland before everything, putting aside personal opinions and wishes, as I have had to do in order to help my country in its hour of need. In this spirit I have joined forces with you to rescue our people from a threatening collapse. … The fate of the German people has been laid in your hands. Upon your determination it will depend whether the German Reich acquires a new impetus. I am ready, and behind me stand the whole Army, to support you unreservedly. We all know that after this lamentable upshot of the war, the reconstruction of the realm can only be effected upon new foundations and in new forms.”

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and president of Germany

Letter to Friedrich Ebert (8 December 1918), quoted in John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918-1945 (London: Macmillan, 1964), p. 29
Chief of the German General Staff

Dependency , Fate , Country , War

“We must all understand that only manly discipline—unconditional subordination to selfless leaders guided only by their public spirit, relegation of our own thoughts, and confidence in the Führer—can guarantee that the moral force of the individual shall be aggregated into a power that will effect the re-building of the nation and the Fatherland.”

Erich Ludendorff (1865–1937) German Army officer and later Nazi leader in Adolf Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch

Kriegsführung und Politik (Berlin, 1922), p. 337, quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 27

Self-confidence , Confidence , Understanding

“This Alsace and vast tracts of Lorraine are German regions, and their inhabitants are of German blood. The tricolour may float above Strasbourg cathedral, but that imposing edifice was born of the German spirit, it has nothing in common with the French spirit; it was there that one of the greatest geniuses Germany has given the world first felt the great breath of German architecture. It all bears the impress of the German character and is animated by the German spirit. That is why we shall never forget that Alsace-Lorraine is German, that it will always belong to us in spirit and that our task will be to preserve for Germany this spiritual patrimony.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Speech to the Congress of the People's Party in Jena (17 April 1919), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 331
1910s

World , Forgetting , Animals

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation. The boy stands astonished, his impressions guide him: he learns sportfully, seriousness comes on him by surprise. Imitation is born with us: what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not: with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught: the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always wrong: who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force : the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar: their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction which the true artist gives us opens the mind; for, where words fail him, deeds speak. The true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and more to being a master.”

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

Book VII Chapter IX
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

Learning , Boy , Art , Thinking

“The clergy have never been able to discover, nor will they ever, the beneficial tribulations and useful abyss that the providential spirit meets as it empties itself.”

Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525) early Reformation-era German pastor who was a rebel leader during the German Peasants' War

"A Protest about the Condition of the Bohemians"
Wu Ming Presents Thomas Müntzer, Sermon to the Princes

“Universal History exhibits the gradation in the development of that principle whose substantial purport is the consciousness of Freedom. The analysis of the successive grades, in their abstract form, belongs to Logic; in their concrete aspect to the Philosophy of Spirit.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Here it is sufficient to state that the first step in the process presents that immersion of Spirit in Nature which has been already referred to ; the second shows it as advancing to the consciousness of its freedom. But this initial separation from Nature is imperfect and partial, since it is derived immediately from the merely natural state, is consequently related to it, and is still encumbered with it as an essentially connected element. The third step is the elevation of the soul from this still limited and special form of freedom to its pure universal form ; that state in which the spiritual essence attains the consciousness and feeling of itself. These grades are the ground-principles of the general process; but how each of them on the other hand involves within itself a process of formation, constituting the links in a dialectic of transition, to particularise this must be preserved for the sequel. Here we have only to indicate that Spirit begins with a germ of infinite possibility, but only possibility, containing its substantial existence in an undeveloped form, as the object and goal which it reaches only in its resultant full reality. In actual existence Progress appears as an advancing from the imperfect to the more perfect; but the former must not be understood abstractly as only the imperfect, but as something which involves the very opposite of itself the so-called perfect as a germ or impulse. So reflectively, at least possibility points to something destined to become actual; the Aristotelian δύναμιςis https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CF%8D%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%BC%CE%B9%CF%82 also potentia, power and might. Thus the Imperfect, as involving its opposite, is a contradiction, which certainly exists, but which is continually annulled and solved; the instinctive movement the inherent impulse in the life of the soul to break through the rind of mere nature, sensuousness, and that which is alien to it, and to attain to the light of consciousness, i. e. to itself.
Lectures on the History of History Vol 1 p. 58-59 John Sibree translation (1857), 1914
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

Universe , Success , History , Freedom