Quotes about state (9181 quotes, page 23)

“In a rude state of society all great calamities are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.2, p. 11
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

God , People

“I understand how strongly so many of my fellow veterans and citizens feel about the flag and I understand the powerful sentiment in state legislatures for such an amendment. I feel the same sense of outrage. But I step back from amending the Constitution to relieve that outrage. The First Amendment exists to insure that freedom of speech and expression applies not just to that with which we agree or disagree, but also that which we find outrageous. I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

1990s, Letter to Patrick Leahy (1999)

Feeling , Democracy , Understanding , Sense

“Were a real and effective disarmament achieved and the funds now spent in the arms race devoted to the amelioration of man's state; were we to concentrate only on the peaceful uses of nuclear knowledge, how vastly and in how short a time might we change the conditions of mankind. This should be our goal.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Address to the United Nations (1963)

Peace , Knowledge , Change , Time

“If there was anyone who actually fit the category of conservative, if there was such a category of people, they would have a very easy way to deal with the fact that 60% of the children under 2 [in Nicaragua] are suffering probable brain damage. Namely, by paying their debts. Simple conservative principle. But that's beyond unthinkable. Compassionate conservatives might want to go beyond that, if they existed. But they're much more interested in making political capital over the fact that a woman in a vegetative state shouldn't be allowed to die in dignity.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, March 22, 2005 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEvIDiVheys.
Quotes 2000s, 2005

Children , People , Way , Suffering

“The States should be urged to concede to the General Government, with a saving of chartered rights, the exclusive power of establishing banks of discount for paper.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

ME http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/jefferson/eppes2.html 13:431
1810s, Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)

“Nation state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.”

Zbigniew Brzeziński book Between Two Ages

Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era, 1971.

Life

“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

In an article in Contingencies magazine, September/October, 2008 http://www.contingencies.org/septoct08/mccain.pdf
2000s, 2008

Health

“Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Ch. 1

“If the West is genuinely interested in democracy then they will have to suffer hundreds of Al Jazeeras. There is Abu Dhabi television, Al-Arabiya (but that is under Saudi patronage), and there is a channel out of Lebanon (but they are politically close to Hezbollah). They are all very good as journalists but they are all part of the state.”

Samir Khader Iraqi journalist

Democracy , Suffering , Parting

“Jacob Bekenstein found… in 1971 that every black hole must have an entropy proportional to the area of its horizon… Stephen Hawking then refined this by showing that the constant of proportionality must be… exactly one quarter. …entropy is supposed to correspond to a measure of information …Loop quantum gravity… [gives] a detailed description of the microscopic structure of a black hole. …a horizon can have, for each quantized unit of area, a finite number of states. Counting them, we get exactly Bekenstein's result…”

Lee Smolin (1955) American cosmologist

"Loop Quantum Gravity," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)

“Of greater importance than this regulation of African clientship were the political consequences of the Jugurthine war or rather of the Jugurthine insurrection, although these have been frequently estimated too highly. Certainly all the evils of the government were therein brought to light in all their nakedness; it was now not merely notorious but, so to speak, judicially established, that among the governing lords of Rome everything was treated as venal--the treaty of peace and the right of intercession, the rampart of the camp and the life of the soldier; the African had said no more than the simple truth, when on his departure from Rome he declared that, if he had only gold enough, he would undertake to buy the city itself. But the whole external and internal government of this period bore the same stamp of miserable baseness. In our case the accidental fact, that the war in Africa is brought nearer to us by means of better accounts than the other contemporary military and political events, shifts the true perspective; contemporaries learned by these revelations nothing but what everybody knew long before and every intrepid patriot had long been in a position to support by facts. The circumstance, however, that they were now furnished with some fresh, still stronger and still more irrefutable, proofs of the baseness of the restored senatorial government--a baseness only surpassed by its incapacity--might have been of importance, had there been an opposition and a public opinion with which the government would have found it necessary to come to terms. But this war had in fact exposed the corruption of the government no less than it had revealed the utter nullity of the opposition. It was not possible to govern worse than the restoration governed in the years 637-645; it was not possible to stand forth more defenceless and forlorn than was the Roman senate in 645: had there been in Rome a real opposition, that is to say, a party which wished and urged a fundamental alteration of the constitution, it must necessarily have now made at least an attempt to overturn the restored senate. No such attempt took place; the political question was converted into a personal one, the generals were changed, and one or two useless and unimportant people were banished. It was thus settled, that the so-called popular party as such neither could nor would govern; that only two forms of government were at all possible in Rome, a -tyrannis- or an oligarchy; that, so long as there happened to be nobody sufficiently well known, if not sufficiently important, to usurp the regency of the state, the worst mismanagement endangered at the most individual oligarchs, but never the oligarchy; that on the other hand, so soon as such a pretender appeared, nothing was easier than to shake the rotten curule chairs. In this respect the coming forward of Marius was significant, just because it was in itself so utterly unwarranted. If the burgesses had stormed the senate-house after the defeat of Albinus, it would have been a natural, not to say a proper course; but after the turn which Metellus had given to the Numidian war, nothing more could be said of mismanagement, and still less of danger to the commonwealth, at least in this respect; and yet the first ambitious officer who turned up succeeded in doing that with which the older Africanus had once threatened the government,(16) and procured for himself one of the principal military commands against the distinctly- expressed will of the governing body. Public opinion, unavailing in the hands of the so-called popular party, became an irresistible weapon in the hands of the future king of Rome. We do not mean to say”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 3, pg 163, Translated by W.P. Dickson.
The History of Rome - Volume 3

Life , War , People , Truth

“We went against Czecho-Slovak regime with fire and iron. We had always looked on Czechoslovak republic as on not-viable mess of human malice and ignorance and we knew very well, that this artificially glued and "so called state" nasty do not have any right for existence.”

János Esterházy (1901–1957) Czechoslovak member of Czechoslovak national parliament, russian nation politician and hungary nation polit…

About relationship to Czechoslovakia. Parliamentary speech on November 26, 1940. Meeting of The Slovak Assembly, November 26, 1940. The Joint Czech and Slovak Digital Parliament Library. http://www.nrsr.sk/dl/Browser/Document?documentId=178753
Relationship to Czechoslovakia

“Because to me it is inconceivable that a subordinate leader should not carry out orders given by the leaders of the State.”

Otto Ohlendorf (1907–1951) German general

Confessing to the execution of 90,000 Jews at the Nuremberg Trials. Quoted in "Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny" - Page 141 - by Edward Crankshaw - History - 1956.

“I can’t imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm, in a lame duck session, a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association”

Mitch McConnell (1942) US Senator from Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader

McConnell On SCOTUS Vacancy http://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=503FB2A5-205C-4F6F-9BCE-A4473809A4DB on "Fox News Sunday" as Majority Leader of the Senate dismissing the possibility of considering the Supreme Court nominee Merrick B. Garland even after the elections in November (March 20, 2016)
2016

Imagination

“Here is an empire in which is the only relic of the oldest civilization of the world—one which, 2,700 years ago, according to some authorities, had a system of primary education—which had its system of logic before the time of Aristotle, and its code of morals before that of Socrates. Here is a country which has had its uninterrupted traditions and histories for so long a period—that supplied silks and other articles of luxury to the Romans 2,000 years ago! They are the very soul of commerce in the East, and one of the wealthiest nations in the world. They are the most industrious people in Asia, having acquired the name of the ants of the East…You find them not as barbarians at home, where they cultivate all the arts and sciences, and where they have carried all, except one, to a point of perfection but little below our own—but that one is war. You have there a people who have carried agriculture to a state of horticulture, and whose great cities rival in population those of the Western world. Now, there must be something in such a people deserving of respect. If in speaking of them we stigmatize them as barbarians, and threaten them with force because we say they are inaccessible to reason, it must be because we do not understand them; because their ways are not our ways, nor our ways theirs. Now, is not so venerable an empire as that deserving of some sympathy—at least of some justice—at the hands of conservative England?”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1857/feb/26/resolutions-moved-debate-adjourned in the House of Commons (26 February 1857) on China.
1850s

War , People , World , Education

“Reclamation. Our country has a well defined policy of reclamation established under statutory authority. This policy should be continued and made a self-sustaining activity administered in a manner that will meet local requirements and bring our and lands into a profitable state of cultivation as fast as there is a market for their products. Legislation is pending based on the report of the Fact Finding Commission for the proper relief of those needing extension of time in which to meet their payments on irrigated land, and for additional amendments and reforms of our reclamation laws, which are all exceedingly important and should be enacted at once.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Law , Time , Country

“To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom — and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Inaugural Address

Hope , Support , Freedom , Past

“Seen the lights go out Broadway
I saw the Empire State laid low
And life went on beyond the Palisades
They all bought Cadillacs
And left there long ago.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Miami 2017.
Song lyrics, Turnstiles (1976)

Life , Light

“I wrote the Light of What We Know here..(at Yaddo), over several long stays. I'm not sure where I would have written it otherwise. I've been homeless since 2007, all my few possessions put into storage before I set off to travel across Europe and Asia. My journey was interrupted because of the deaths of loved ones and it was within the interruption that I began and finished writing the novel. Yaddo, I was told, might be a good place to write. … Yaddo turned out to suit me perfectly. A stately home—not English privilege but a Scooby Doo mansion—with woodlands, three lakes and magical charm, this charitable foundation has for a hundred years been host to giants such as James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Sylvia Plath and Truman Capote. I'm still homeless and have yet to resume my broken travels, but wherever I go, I know that Yaddo and its 400-acre stretch of God's own country was always a kind of home to me and helped to nurture In the Light of What We Know.”

Zia Haider Rahman British novelist

"Sweet Inspiration - Writing and Travel", April 4, 2015 Sweet Inspiration - Writing and Travel http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/themes/67591492/Sweet-inspiration-Writing-and-travel April 4, 2015. Retrieved on 2015-04-05.

Love , Death , God , Travel

“We Hungarians accept principle that in time when Germany and Italy fight their giant struggle to guarantee better future of Europe and for fair and permanent peace, small and middle-sized states in the central Europe can only have the obligation to guard and secure in every way peace and understanding in their countries.”

János Esterházy (1901–1957) Czechoslovak member of Czechoslovak national parliament, russian nation politician and hungary nation polit…

About international relationships. Parliamentary speech on November 26, 1940.
International relationships

Peace , Way , Understanding , Time

“In my opinion, so much of it is really about what you had in mind when you got into it: was it only that you wanted to be a rockstar and see your name in lights? I never really had those kinds of dreams. I knew I loved music and I knew that when I sang in a certain way it made my chest and my whole stomach tickle and I liked it. It still does that same thing to me; I know I’m doing it right when it makes my core tingle a little bit. I get the same feeling when I’m painting a picture or when I get into that almost hypnotic state of writing – those things are incredible and those are the kinds of things that attract me to creativity.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

When asked about intention for a magazine in Berlin (http://www.pulse-berlin.com/)

Love , Dreams , Music , Way

“Let me highlight the fact, then, that a mistrust of outsiders – as manifested by and in states for thousands of years – is very different from an ideology asserting that one uniquely pure race is morally superior to all others. Such thinking was by no means the norm even in European fascism. It runs directly counter to Marx.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, North Korea's State Loyalty Advantage (December 2011)

Thinking

“Happy the state which in times of peace is yet prepared for war.”
Felix est illa civitas quae in pace bellum cogitat.

Gerald of Wales (1146) Medieval clergyman and historian

Book 2, chapter 9, p. 271.
Compare Vegetius De Re Militari: "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum" (Let him who desires peace prepare for war).
Descriptio Cambriae (The Description of Wales) (1194)

War , Peace , Time , Happiness

“Futurism, as it has developed over six years, has solidified and surpassed Impressionism, has proposed plastic dynamism, atmospheric modeling, and the interpenetration of planes and states of mind.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe (1915)

Future

“Most American officials viewed Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic as the Bosnia leader with the broadest vision - an eloquent advocate of a multiethnic state. But his power struggles with Izetbegović and Sacirbey and other members of the Bosnian government often isolated him. His collegues complained that he was difficult to work with. He carried a serious additional burden: Tuđman and Milošević distrusted him. Nevertheless, Silajzic was one of the two msot popular Muslim politicians in Bosnia, along with Izetbegović. My own feelings about Silajdzic shifted frequently. There was something touching about his intensity and energy, and his constant desire to improve himself intellectually. Although always busy, he seemed alone - his wife and son lived in Turkey. Silajdzic was the only Bosnian official who seemed genuinely to care about economic reconstruction of his ravaged land. His unpredictable moods worried us, but his support would be essential for any peace agreement.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 188

Peace , Feeling , Mood , Business

“As you know Gallas had an unbelievable holiday. I hope he enjoyed it very much in Guadeloupe, which I think is a fantastic place to be on holiday, so he wanted to stay there for a long time."[On William Gallas missing the first team's trip to the United States because he was on holiday. ]”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/7004282.stm
Chelsea FC

Hope , Thinking , Time , Holiday

“A new State of Israel with broad frontiers, strong and solid, with the authority of the Israel Government extending from the Jordan to the Suez Canal.”

Moshe Dayan (1915–1981) Israeli military leader and politician

Statement made in April 1973 from the peaks of Massada.
The Iron Wall (1999)

Strong

“The choices allowed the people are artificial and superficial at best, and are always determined by the state itself.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr. (1949–1992) American libertarian essayist and critic

“Autarchy and the Statist Abyss,” 1968

People

“(If) the (mainland) Chinese see the vulnerability of Taiwan, not getting United States support, then they would be thinking about starting scenarios where they would be able to take Taiwan over.”

Joseph Wu (1954) Taiwanese politician

Joseph Wu (2018) cited in " Taiwan vulnerable to Chinese invasion without US, foreign minister says https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/23/asia/taiwan-foreign-minister-interview-intl/index.html" on CNN, 23 July 2018.

Support , Thinking

“Never let me hear anyone say again that a Socialist State cannot provide outlets for those with initiative. The rewards given to ability in the U. S. S. R. at all levels are far greater than those given to the employed in capitalist Britain. I have seen it and it works.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Reynolds News (17 March 1946)
Backbench MP

“We don't need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to re-read the Constitution and enforce the Constitution. We don't need to re-write, let's reread! And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that. So for the benefit of those who are not going to read it because they don't want us to go by the Constitution, there's a little section in there that talks about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". You know, those ideals that we live by, we believe in, your parents believed in, they instilled in you. When you get to the part about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," don't stop right there, keep reading. 'Cause that's when it says "when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

We've got some altering and some abolishing to do!
Lecturing Americans To ‘Reread’ Constitution, Herman Cain Confuses It With Declaration of Independence
Think Progress
Ian
Millhiser
2011-05-23
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/23/168628/cain-reread-constitution/
2011-10-08
Quoting parts of the United States Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. … That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government....”

Life , People , Parent , Reading

“The subjective self emerges most purely in states of sensory deprivation, when the blank screen of consciousness has projected upon it only the individual hallucinatory subjective self, without sensory correction or editing, without reality testing or any such objective “noise.””

Weston La Barre (1911–1996) anthropologist

Source: Hallucinogens and the Shamanic Origins of Religion (1972), p. 263

Reality

“In a democracy it is the duty of the state governments to ban cow slaughter. There are a lot of things to eat in this country apart from cow.”

Niranjan Jyoti (1967) Indian politician

As quoted in " Duty of state govts to ban cow slaughter, says Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in Kolkata http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/duty-of-state-govts-to-ban-cow-slaughter-says-sadhvi-niranjan-jyoti-in-kolkata/" The Indian Express (23 November 2015)

Democracy , Country

“By and by an obscure individual, a young man, rose up, and, in the midst of all Christendom, proclaimed the startling news that God had sent an angel to him; that through his faith, prayers, and sincere repentance he had beheld a supernatural vision, that he had seen a pillar of fire descend from Heaven, and saw two glorious personages clothed upon with this pillar of fire, whose countenance shone like the sun at noonday; that he heard one of these personages say, pointing to the other, 'This is my beloved Son, hear ye him.' This occurred before this young man was fifteen years of age; and it was a startling announcement to make in the midst of a generation so completely given up to the traditions of their fathers; and when this was proclaimed by this young, unlettered boy to the priests and the religious societies in the State of New York, they laughed him to scorn. 'What!' said they, "visions and revelations in our day! God speaking to men in our day!" They looked upon him as deluded; they pointed the finger of scorn at him and warned their congregations against him. 'The canon of Scripture is closed up; no more communications are to be expected from Heaven. The ancients saw heavenly visions and personages; they heard the voice of the Lord; they were inspired by the Holy Ghost to receive revelations, but behold no such thing is to be given to man in our day, neither has there been for many generations past.'”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

This was the style of the remarks made by religionists forty years ago. This young man, some four years afterwards, was visited again by a holy angel.
Journal of Discourses 13:65-66 (December 19, 1869).
Joseph Smith Jr.'s First Vision

Men , God , Age , Faith

“Conservatives have always been ready to use the power of the State.”

Rab Butler (1902–1982) British politician

Source: Our Way Ahead (Conservative Political Centre, 1956), p. 10.

“Poetry and the arts can’t exist in America. Mere exposure to the arts does nothing for a mentality which is incorrigibly dialectical. The vital tensions and nutritive action of ideogram remain inaccessible to this state of mind.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Letter to Ezra Pound (21 December 1948)
1940s

Art

“Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State's failure, all crime in the end is the crime of the community.”

H. G. Wells book A Modern Utopia

Source: A Modern Utopia (1905), Ch. 5, sect. 2

Communication , Failure

“Up to 1931 there was no reason to suppose that social changes would not, or could not, follow the same evolutionary pattern which had resulted from the increased creation and distribution of wealth during the nineteenth century. Now, after 1931, many of us felt that the disease was more deep-rooted. It had become evident that the structure of capitalist society in its old form had broken down, not only in Britain but all over Europe and even in the United States. The whole system had to be reassessed. Perhaps it could not survive at all; it certainly could not survive without radical change. Something like a revolutionary situation had developed, not only at home but overseas.”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

Harold Macmillan (1966) Winds of change, 1914-1939. p. 266 as cited in Brian Vickery (2005) "Coming of age in the 1930s" ( online http://web.archive.org/web/20080531130709/http://www.lucis.me.uk/thirties.htm at archive.org)
1960s

Disease , Home , Change , Wealth

“If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is also owned by the State.”

George Reisman (1937) American economist

“Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian,” lecture delivered at the Mises Institute’s “The Economics of Fascism: Supporters Summit 2005” in Auburn, Alabama (October 8, 2005) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsaG-pJ_4RA&list=PLOCWSOHhjJPUQ9kkhBKV9js9tFJTPp3yC&index=3&t=0s

“Terrorism' is a word that has become a plague on our vocabulary, the excuse and reason and moral permit for state-sponsored violence - our violence - which is now used on the innocent of the Middle East ever more outrageously and promiscuously. Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. It has become a full stop, a punctuation mark, a phrase, a speech, a sermon, the be-all and end-all of everything that we must hate in order to ignore injustice and occupation and murder on a mass scale. Terror, terror, terror, terror. It is a sonata, a symphony, an orchestra tuned to every television and radio station and news agency report, the soap-opera of the Devil, served up on prime-time or distilled in wearyingly dull and mendacious form by the right-wing 'commentators' of the America east coast or the Jerusalem Post or the intellectuals of Europe. Strike against Terror. Victory over Terror. War on Terror. Everlasting War on Terror. Rarely in history have soldiers and journalists and presidents and kings aligned themselves in such thoughtless, unquestioning ranks. In August 1914, the soldiers thought they would be home by Christmas. Today, we are fighting for ever. The war is eternal. The enemy is eternal, his face changing on our screens. Once he lived in Cairo and sported a moustache and nationalised the Suez Canal. Then he lived in Tripoli and wore a ridiculous military uniform and helped the IRA and bombed American bars in Berlin. Then he wore a Muslim Imam's gown and ate yoghurt in Tehran and planned Islamic revolution. Then he wore a white gown and lived in a cave in Afghanistan and then he wore another silly moustache and resided in a series of palaces around Baghdad. Terror, terror, terror. Finally, he wore a kuffiah headdress and outdated Soviet-style military fatigues, his name was Yassir Arafat, and he was the master of world terror and then a super-statesman and then again, a master of terror, linked by Israeli enemies to the terror-Meister of them all, the one who lived in the Afghan cave.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

The Great War for Civilization (2005)

Hate , War , World , Home

“Surrender of individuality by the many to someone who is taken to be a superindividual explains the retrograde movement of society. Dictatorships and totalitarian states, and belief in the inevitability of this or that result coming to pass are, strange as it may sound, ways of denying the reality of time and the creativeness of the individual.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Time and Individuality (1940)

Way , Reality , Time

“III. We think you are unduly influenced by the counsels, the representations, the menaces, of certain fossil politicians hailing from the Border Slave States. Knowing well that the heartily, unconditionally loyal portion of the White citizens of those States do not expect nor desire chat Slavery shall be upheld to the prejudice of the Union--(for the truth of which we appeal not only to every Republican residing in those States, but to such eminent loyalists as H. Winter Davis, Parson Brownlow, the Union Central Committee of Baltimore, and to The Nashville Union)--we ask you to consider that Slavery is everywhere the inciting cause and sustaining base of treason: the most slaveholding sections of Maryland and Delaware being this day, though under the Union flag, in full sympathy with the Rebellion, while the Free-Labor portions of Tennessee and of Texas, though writhing under the bloody heel of Treason, are unconquerably loyal to the Union. So emphatically is this the case, that a most intelligent Union banker of Baltimore recently avowed his confident belief that a majority of the present Legislature of Maryland, though elected as and still professing to be Unionists, are at heart desirous of the triumph of the Jeff. Davis conspiracy; and when asked how they could be won back to loyalty, replied "only by the complete Abolition of Slavery." It seems to us the most obvious truth, that whatever strengthens or fortifies Slavery in the Border States strengthens also Treason, and drives home the wedge intended to divide the Union. Had you from the first refused to recognize in those States, as here, any other than unconditional loyalty--that which stands for the Union, whatever may become of Slavery, those States would have been, and would be, far more helpful and less troublesome to the defenders of the Union than they have been, or now are.”

Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher

1860s, The Prayer of the Twenty Millions (1862)

Truth , Home , Confidence , Intelligence

“Diplomacy… mops up war’s spillages; legitimizes its outcomes; gives the strong state the means to impose its will on a weaker one, while saving its fleets and battalions for weightier opponents.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 462
Cloud Atlas (2004)

War , Strong

“If we engraft the current meaning of the word "economy" (the avoiding of waste) upon its etymological meaning (the administration of a household), we shall arrive at "the administration of the affairs and resources of a household in such a manner as to avoid waste and secure efficiency" as our conception of "Economy." "Political" Economy would, by analogy, indicate the administration, in the like manner, of the affairs and resources of a State, regarded as an extended household or community, and regulated by a central authority; and the study of Political Economy would be the study of the principles on which the resources of a community should be so regulated and administered as to secure the communal ends without waste.”

Philip Wicksteed book The Common Sense of Political Economy

Page 14.
The Common Sense of Political Economy (1910), Systematic and Constructive (Book I), "Introductory: Administration of Resources and Choice Between Alternatives. Price and the Relative Scale" (ch. 1)

Communication , Study

“Now, the issue of the Civil War as Lincoln presented it, in both his inaugural address on March 4th, and in the message to Congress in Special Session on July 4th, four months later, was in essence this. In ratifying the Constitution, each state had committed itself to accepting the results of elections conducted under the rules of the Constitution. The election of 1860 had been conducted under the rules of the Constitution. If there were any violations of those rules, it was by the Southern states in refusing to allow Republican electors on the ballot. But there was nothing that the Republican Party had done. There was nothing in the electoral procedures of the free states, or, for that matter, of the slave states with this exception which justified anyone in saying that the results of this election were not Constitutional results.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution

War

“There was never a more loyal woman in the South after we were forced by our political leaders to go to battle to defend our rights in ownership of African slaves, but they called it "States' Rights," and all I owned was invested in slaves and my people were loyal and I stood by them to the end. Like General Lee I could not fight against my kindred in a struggle that meant life or death to them. Nevertheless I am now too near the borderland of eternity to withhold my matured conscientious and honest opinion. If there had been no slaves there would have been no war. To fight for the perpetuation of domestic slavery was a mistake. The time had come in the United States to wipe out this evil. The South had to suffer, and even when our preachers were leading in prayer for victory, during the war, and black-robed mothers and wives were weeping for their dead ones, who perished on the field of battle, I had questions in my own mind as to what would be the end of it.”

Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930) American politician

From Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth Felton, p. 86 http://www.google.com/books?id=gHsLIvQ_BN0C&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton&printsec=frontcover&source=in#PPA86,M1.

Life , Death , War , People

“The description of the evolutionary trajectory of dynamical systems as irreversible, periodically chaotic, and strongly nonlinear fits certain features of the historical development of human societies. But the description of evolutionary processes, whether in nature or in history, has additional elements. These elements include such factors as the convergence of existing systems on progressively higher organizational levels, the increasingly efficient exploitation by systems of the sources of free energy in their environment, and the complexification of systems structure in states progressively further removed from thermodynamic equilibrium.
General evolution theory, based on the integration of the relevant tenets of general system theory, cybernetics, information and communication theory, chaos theory, dynamical systems theory, and nonequilibrium thermodynamics, can convey a sound understanding of the laws and dynamics that govern the evolution of complex systems in the various realms of investigation…. The basic notions of this new discipline can be developed to give an adequate account of the dynamical evolution of human societies as well. Such an account could furnish the basis of a system of knowledge better able to orient human beings and societies in their rapidly changing milieu.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

E. Laszlo et al. (1993) pp. xvii- xix; as cited in: Alexander Laszlo and Stanley Krippner (1992) " Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development http://archive.syntonyquest.org/elcTree/resourcesPDFs/SystemsTheory.pdf" In: J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Ch. 3, pp. 47-74.

Law , History , Communication , Understanding

“As Adam Smith once said, "There is much ruin in a nation". Our basic structure of values and the interwoven network of free institutions will withstand much. I believe that we shall be able to preserve and extend freedom despite the size of the military programs and despite the economic powers already concentrated in Washington. But we shall be able to do so only if we awake to the threat that we face, only if we persuade our fellowmen that free institutions offer a surer, if perhaps at times a slower, route to the ends they seek than the coercive power of the state. The glimmerings of change that are already apparent in the intellectual climate are a hopeful augury.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 13 Conclusion

Hope , Freedom , Change , Time

“There is a difference between the ordinary person who may discuss these things occasionally over a pint of beer at the local pub, or worry about them for a while before dropping off to sleep, and the person who makes a serious lifelong commitment to struggling with them and turns that commitment into a part of his or her very self-definition. For one cannot say, I’ve finished theology; now I’ll move on to another subject. There is a sense in which one might say something similar of Akkadian grammar or the family tree of the Hapsburg dynasty, but one cannot reasonably assert it of exploration into God’s revelation, which is, by definition infinite in its implications for human understanding. To be a theological student in the full sense of those words cannot be a temporary state or a preamble to something else, such as the ministerial priesthood or an all-round education. Rather, it is a solemn engagement to developing over a lifetime the gift of Christian wonder or curiosity, which is the specifically theological mode of faith. As theologians, then, we commit ourselves to the lifelong study and reflection which the satisfaction of such curiosity will need. Our faith is from now on, in St. Anselm’s words, fides quaerens intellectum, “a faith that quests for understanding.””

Aidan Nichols (1948) British theologian

The Shape of Catholic Theology (1991), pp. 18-19.

God , Education , Family , Faith

“I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I'm not a scientist. I don't think I'm qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

2012
December
All Eyez on Him
Michael
Hainey
GQ
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/201212/marco-rubio-interview-gq-december-2012?currentPage=2
Posed question: How old do you think the Earth is?
2010s, 2012

People , Age , Faith , History

“[T]he mass-man sees in the State an anonymous power, and feeling himself, like it, anonymous, he believes that the State is something of his own. Suppose that in the public life of a country some difficulty, conflict, or problem presents itself, the mass-man will tend to demand that the State intervene immediately and undertake a solution directly with its immense and unassailable resources. This is the gravest danger that to-day threatens civilisation: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XIII: The Greatest Danger, The State

Life , Feeling , Problem , Effort

“Americans combine to give fêtes, found seminaries, build churches, distribute books, and send missionaries to the antipodes. Hospitals, prisons, and schools take shape in that way. Finally, if they want to proclaim a truth or propagate some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form an association. In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association. I have come across several types of association in America of which, I confess, I had not previously the slightest conception, and I have often admired the extreme skill they show in proposing a common object for the exertions of very many and in inducing them voluntarily to pursue it.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book Two, Chapter V.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Two

Truth , Books , School , Way

“I think the movement contributed to this nation a sense of universal freedom. Precisely because women saw our movement in the sixties, stimulated them to want their rights. The fact that students saw the movement of the sixties created a student movement in this country. The fact that the people were against the war in Vietnam, saw us go into the street and win, made it possible for them to have the courage to go into the street and win, and the lesson that I would like to see from this is, that we must now find a way to deal with the problem of full employment, and as surely as we were able to bring about the Civil Rights Act, the voter rights act--the Voting Rights Act, I mean the education act, and the housing act, so is it possible for all of us now to combine our forces in a coalition, including Catholic, Protestant, Jew and labor and blacks and Puerto Ricans and Mexican-Americans and all other minorities, to bring about the one thing that will bring peace internally to the United States. And that is that any man who wants a job, or any woman who wants a job, shall not be left unemployed.”

Bayard Rustin (1912–1987) American civil rights activist and gay rights activist

Eyes on the Prize interview http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eop;cc=eop;rgn=main;view=text;idno=rus0015.0145.091, Interview with Bayard Rustin, conducted by Blackside, Inc. in 1979, for Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. (1979)

Women , War , People , Education

“If the Multiplicity of Religions prejudices the State, it proceeds from their not bearing with one another but on the contrary endeavouring each to crush and destroy the other by methods of Persecution. In a word, all the Mischief arises not from Toleration, but from the want of it.”

Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) French philosopher and writer

Quoted in: Joseph LoConte, "The Golden Rule of Toleration" http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/thepastinthepresent/historymatters/goldenrule.html, Christianity Today, Accessed 6 March 2011

Religion

“Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.”

Upton Sinclair book The Brass Check

The Brass Check (1919)

People , Democracy

“Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

"Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!" http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1838466.1403324800!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/trump21n-1-web.jpg An advert taken out by Trump in the New York Daily News and other newspapers in the wake of the arrests of the Central Park Five (whose convictions were eventually vacated once the real perpetrator was identified in 2002) (1 May 1989)
1980s

Hate , Thinking , Heart

“In Vermont, at a state beach, a mother is reprimanded by Authority for allowing her 6 month old daughter to go about without her diapers on. Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing! If we [raise] children up like this it will probably ruin the whole pornography business, not to mention the large segment of the general economy which makes its money by playing on peoples sexual frustrations.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

1969 essay in the Freeman — as quoted in "You Might Very Well Be the Cause of Cancer": Read Bernie Sanders' 1970s-Era Essays http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-freeman-sexual-freedom-fluoride, by Tim Murphy, Mother Jones (6 July 2015)
1970s

Money , Children , People , Business

“This idea is confirmed in Scripture; it is distinctly stated that one sole thing, fear of God, is the object of the whole Law with its affirmative and negative precepts, its promises and its historical examples, for it is said, "If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this Law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord thy God" (Deut. xxviii. 58) This is one of the two purposes of the Akedah (sacrifice or binding of Isaac).”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.24

God , Books , Fear , Law

“The forts of Siwistan and Sisam have been already taken. The nephew of Dahir, his warriors, and principal officers have been despatched, and the infidels converted to Islam or destroyed. Instead of idol temples, mosques and other places of worship have been built, pulpits have been erected, the Khutba is read, the call to prayers is raised, so that devotions are performed at the stated hours. The takbir and praise to the Almighty Allah are offered every morning and evening.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Muhammad bin Qasim, letter to Hajjaj, his uncle and governor of Iraq. Siwistan and Sisam (Sindh). Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume I, p. 164. (The Chach Nama). Also quoted in B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)
Quotes from The Chach Nama

Reading

“May I recommend, if you're doing your own homework, don't do a Google search. Seems to me that Google is pretty deeply in bed with the government. Maybe this is explaining why Google is being kicked out of all the other countries? Are they just a shill now for the United States government? Who is Jared Cohen? Is he private citizen or government operative? And isn't this the second Google guy we've found? This is the second Google executive now being exposed as an instigator of a revolution.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2011-02-14
Glenn Beck
Television
Fox News
2011-02-14
Beck: "Don't Do A Google Search" Because "Google Is Pretty Deeply In Bed With The Government"
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201102140037
2010-02-14
2010s, 2011

Guy , Search , Country

“Our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that wrote “The Art of the Deal.” We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, can bring back our military, can take care of our vets. Our vets have been abandoned. And we also need a cheerleader…. We need somebody that can take the brand of the United States and make it great again. It’s not great again.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)

Art , Country

“If Atheism writes upon the blackboard of the Universe a question mark, it writes it for the purpose of stating that there is a question yet to be answered. Is it not better to place a question mark upon a problem while seeking an answer than to put the label "God" there and consider the matter solved? Does not the word "God" only confuse and make more difficult the solution by assuming a conclusion that is utterly groundless and palpably absurd?”

Joseph Lewis (1889–1968) American activist

The Philosophy of Atheism

God , Question , Problem , Universe

“One opinion that is trotted out for propaganda, for the propaganda parade, is my dissent in Hudson vs. McMillian. The conclusion reached by the long arms of the critics is that I supported the beating of prisoners in that case. Well, one must either be illiterate or fraught with malice to reach that conclusion. Though one can disagree with my dissent, and certainly the majority of the court disagreed, no honest reading can reach such a conclusion. Indeed, we took the case to decide the quite narrow issue, whether a prisoner's rights were violated under the 'cruel and unusual punishment' clause of the Eighth Amendment as a result of a single incident of force by the prison guards which did not cause a significant injury. In the first section of my dissent, I stated the following: 'In my view, a use of force that causes only insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral; it may be tortuous; it may be criminal, and it may even be remediable under other provisions of the Federal Constitution. But it is not cruel and unusual punishment.' Obviously, beating prisoners is bad. But we did not take the case to answer this larger moral question or a larger legal question of remedies under other statutes or provisions of the Constitution. How one can extrapolate these larger conclusions from the narrow question before the court is beyond me, unless, of course, there's a special segregated mode of analysis.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Question , Support , Reading

“In history and in life one sometimes seems to glimpse a ferocious law which states: "to he that has, will be given; from he that has not, will be taken away."”

Primo Levi book If This Is a Man

If This Is a Man (1947)

Life , Law , History

“What the French wanted above all else from the peace settlement was a guarantee of their security, and for reasons difficult now to comprehend their chief allies, Great Britain and the United States, never quite understood this -- perhaps because Woodrow Wilson, the American President, and Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, lacked a sure grasp of European history. The French could not ignore that history. They could not forget that since the days of the Huns invaders had broken into their fair country some thirty times from across the Rhine.”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

Peace , History , Time , Country

“It is admitted that the power of taxing the people and their property is essential to the very existence of Government, and may be legitimately exercised on the objects to which it is applicable, to the utmost extent to which the Government may choose to carry it. The only security against the abuse of this power is found in the structure of the Government itself. In imposing a tax, the legislature acts upon its constituents. This is, in general, a sufficient security against erroneous and oppressive taxation. The people of a State, therefore, give to their Government a right of taxing themselves and their property, and as the exigencies of Government cannot be limited, they prescribe no limits to the exercise of this right, resting confidently on the interest of the legislator and on the influence of the constituent over their representative to guard them against its abuse.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

17 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 428
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

People , Exercises , Confidence

“To the old Union they had said that the Federal power had no authority to interfere with slavery issues in a state. To their new nation they would declare that the state had no power to interfere with a federal protection of slavery. Of all the many testimonials to the fact that slavery, and not states rights, really lay at the heart of their movement, this was the most eloquent of all.”

William C. Davis (1946) American historian

Source: Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (2002), pp. 97–98

Heart

“Some states, e. g. "pregnant", are all-or-none, no intermediates. But sexual abuse has shades of grey, from violent buggery to mild touching.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/282850316377014272
Twitter

“They say state-of-the-art special effects can create the illusion of anything on the screen, and now we have proof: It's possible for the Jim Henson folks and Industrial Light and Magic to put their heads together and come up with the most repulsive single creature in the history of special effects, and I am not forgetting the Chucky doll or the desert intestine from Star wars.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

To see the snowman is to dislike the snowman. It doesn't look like a snowman, anyway.
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jack-frost-1998 of Jack Frost (11 December 1998)
Reviews, One-star reviews

War , Art , History , Star

“The part that interests me is that society is organized in such a way that the natural instincts of men are shameful and criminal while the natural instincts of women are mostly legal and acceptable. In other words, men are born as round pegs in a society full of square holes. Whose fault is that? Do you blame the baby who didn't ask to be born male? Or do you blame the society that brought him into the world, all round-pegged and turgid, and said, "Here's your square hole"?The way society is organized at the moment, we have no choice but to blame men for bad behavior. If we allowed men to act like unrestrained horny animals, all hell would break loose. All I'm saying is that society has evolved to keep males in a state of continuous unfulfilled urges, more commonly known as unhappiness.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

"Pegs and Holes", 2011-06-15, Scott Adams Blog, 2012-12-03 https://www.scottadamssays.com/2011/06/15/pegs-and-holes/,, quoted in * 2011-06-20
Dilbert Creator Scott Adams Says Rape Is A ‘Natural Instinct’ For Men
Huffington Post
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dilbert-creator-scott-adams-on-rape_n_880590

Women , Men , World , Way

“Realpolitik does not disappear in the Information Age. But it remains state-centric, in an era organized around networks, including networks of states.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Source: The Internet Galaxy - Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (2001), Chapter 5, Computer Networks and Civil Society, p. 160

Age

“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.”

Ariel Sharon (1928–2014) prime minister of Israel and Israeli general

2000s
Source: "Clashes mar Mid-East inquiry," at news.bbc.co.uk, March 25, 2001 ( online) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1241371.stm

People

“Those in the Ivy League, Hollywood, the media, the leftist rich, and most schools and universities who, like Obama, consider themselves superior intellectuals earmarked by some demented destiny to implement their pagan, socialist, and anti-human ideology in the United States. They first mean to destroy the Second Amendment, and then, safe to be tyrants, though cowards all, they intend remake in their own worthless image those Americans who still work hard, who believe in and are willing to fight to defend liberty, and who have learned the Founders' key lesson, namely, that the federal government must always be seen as an enemy of freedom and therefore must be kept in check and opposed to the hilt whenever necessary. Perhaps it would be best if Obama and his Ivy-League elite studied the words of a man they hail an icon of their party and with whom they share a liking for slavery, but who actually is a man they do not in the least understand.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in "Obama and his party offer America's young … death, misery, and slavery" http://non-intervention.com/1143/obama-and-his-party-offer-america%E2%80%99s-young-%E2%80%A6-death-misery-and-slavery/ (2013), by M. Scheuer, Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention.
2010s

School , Understanding , Study , Freedom

“Facing up to the Nazis and the powers of the Nazi state coloured my life as an artist.”

Gustav Metzger (1926–2017) Artist and political activist

Gustav Metzger: 'Destroy, and you create', 2012

Life

“Every Conservative desires peace. The threat to peace comes from Communism, which has powerful forces ready to attack anywhere. Communism waits for weakness, it leaves strength alone. Britain therefore must be strong, strong in arms, and strong in faith in her own way of life. The greatest hope for peace lies in friendship and co-operation with the United States of America.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

1951 General Election Address (8 October 1951) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/100912
1950s

Life , Friendship , Peace , Faith

“Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of Man and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid Happiness… [W]hen Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good… [Y]ou should prefer old Women to young ones.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress https://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/51-fra.html (25 June 1745)
Epistles

Women , Marriage , Nature , Study

“This is a serious storm that has caused serious damage in our state … We're pleased we haven't seen breaches in the levees. We're pleased we haven't seen major flooding in New Orleans or the places that flooded before. But there are serious challenges.”

Bobby Jindal (1971) American politician; two-term Governor of Louisiana

In response to the effects of Hurricane Gustav
"Jindal Presents a Face of Calm During the Storm" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090203049.html, The Washington Post, September 2, 2008

“North Korea cannot survive forever on the public perception of state legitimacy alone. The more it loses its economic distinctiveness vis-à-vis the rival state, the more the Kim regime must compensate with triumphs on the military and nuclear fronts. Another act of aggression against the Republic of Korea may well take place in the months ahead, not only to divert North Korean public attention from the failures of the consumer-oriented 'Strong and Prosperous Country' campaign, but also to strengthen the appeasement-minded South Korean opposition in the run-up to the presidential election in 2012.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, North Korea's State Loyalty Advantage (December 2011)

Failure , Strong , Country

“There are two defining political choices that every society must make… and neither of them is covered by the old political categories "left" and "right". The first choice has to do with this. Do we want our society to encourage us to seek rich individual experience and to be if service to others – or do we want our society to encourage us to seek material riches in the form of possessions and status?… The second choice has to do with this. Do we want our society to extend state and institutional control over our lives (for whatever reason) – or do we want our society to encourage us to be self-reliant and self-determining?”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Page 11.
New Age Politics: Healing Self and Society (1978)

“Men live by production, but the State lives by appropriation. While the haves and the have-nots struggle over the division of existing wealth, it is the business of the State to improve itself at the expense of both; it picks up the marbles while the boys are fighting. That has been the story of men in organized society since the beginning.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: The Income Tax: Root of All Evil (1954), p. 36

Men , Boy , Business , Fight

“What most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book Two, Chapter XIX.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Two

“When I say I am free, I merely state a fact. If you are an adult, you are free from infancy. I am free from all description and identification. (…).”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Freedom
Source: I am That, P.152.

“Ancient scriptures tell us that man is more than the physical body. In fact, we have two bodies: the physical and the astral, or subtle. But we are the soul! According to the ancient Vedic scriptures of India, the size of the soul is 1/10,000 the tip of a strand of hair. It is located in the heart region and is the actual life force. The physical, as well as the astral or subtle body, acts as a covering or costume that the soul wears in its journey throughout the material sphere. As we pass from costume to costume or from body to body through the process known as reincarnation, the impressions of previous lives imprint themselves on the subtle body and are carried with us during each lifetime. In the dream state, activity in the subtle body becomes more dominant than activity in the physical body. Our dream experiences are often impressions accumulated from many lifetimes.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 1: Dreams: A State of Reality, p. 18-19

Life , Dreams , Soul , Heart

“I think the issues happen to be so important for the future of Canada. (spoken over Brian Mulroney's objections) I happen to believe that you've sold us out…once any country yields its economic levers, once a country yields its investments, once a country yields its energy, once a country yields its agriculture, once a country opens itself to a subsidy war with the United States on terms of definition, then the political ability of this country to sustain the influence of the United States, to remain as an independent nation- that is lost forever!”

John Turner (1929) 17th Prime Minister of Canada

Attacking the Free Trade agreement in the 1988 Federal Election debate, October 25, 1988.
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/mulroney-battles-turner-on-free-trade-in-1988

War , Country , Thinking , Future

“I want to reassure the American people that the full resources of the federal government are working to assist local authorities to save lives and to help the victims of these attacks. Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.
I've been in regular contact with the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the national security team and my Cabinet. We have taken all appropriate security precautions to protect the American people. Our military at home and around the world is on high alert status, and we have taken the necessary security precautions to continue the functions of your government.
We have been in touch with the leaders of Congress and with world leaders to assure them that we will do whatever is necessary to protect America and Americans.
I ask the American people to join me in saying a thanks for all the folks who have been fighting hard to rescue our fellow citizens and to join me in saying a prayer for the victims and their families.”

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

Remarks Upon Arrival at Barksdale Air Force Base https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Remarks_Upon_Arrival_at_Barksdale_Air_Force_Base (11 September, 2001)
2000s, 2001

People , World , Family , Home

“If modern pedagogy means an effort towards the realisation of a new and more just form of society; if it means that we propose to instruct the rising generation in the causes which have brought about and maintain the lack of social equilibrium; if it means that we are anxious to prepare the race for better days, freeing it from religious fiction and from all idea of submission to an inevitable socio-economic inequality; we cannot entrust it to the State or to other official organisms which necessarily maintain existing privileges and support the laws which at present consecrate the exploitation of one man by another, the pernicious source of the worst abuses.”

Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia (1859–1909) Spanish anarchist

The Origin and Ideals of the Modern School (1908)

Law , Idea , Support , Effort

“The Anarchists believe in the State; only they insist that the greater part, if not all, of the necessity for its existence is the result of an artificial limitation of the freedom of civil society, and that the completion of industrial freedom may one day so harmonize individuals that it will no longer be necessary to provide a guarantee of political freedom.”

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1854–1939) American journalist and anarchist

Individual Liberty (1926), Liberty and Politics

Freedom , Parting

“Thus, as [Karl] Kautsky wrote in 1919, there was growing up amid despotic conditions a new class of bureaucratic German exploiters, no better than the Tsarist chinovniks; and the workers’ future struggle against tyranny would be even more desperate than under traditional capitalism, when they could exploit divergences of interest between capital and the state bureaucracy, whereas in Bolshevik Russia these two had coalesced into one. This kind of regimented socialism could only maintain itself by denying its own principles, which it was most likely to do, given the Bolsheviks’ notorious opportunism and the ease with which they changed their tune from one day to the next. The most probable result would be a kind of Thermidor reaction which the Russian workers would welcome as a liberation, like the French in 1794. The original sin of Bolshevism lay in the suppression of democracy, abolition of elections, and denial of the freedom of speech and assembly, and in the belief that socialism could be based on a minority despotism imposed by force, which by its own logic was bound to intensify the rule of terror. If the Leninists were able to keep their "Tartar socialism" going long enough, it would infallibly result in the bureaucratization and militarization of society and finally in the autocratic rule of a single individual.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

pg. 51
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age

Democracy , Freedom , Change , Future

“The Devourers want not only the patronage of all beings in all universes, but — doubtless because they are afraid someone will some day raise the ever-unpleasant question of the true worth of things — they want all their customers reduced to a state of slavish and submissive suggestibility, so that they are fit for nothing whatever but to gawk at and buy the trash the Devourers offer for sale.”

Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction

Source: Bazaar of the Bizarre (pp. 233-234) note: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series (1939-1988), Swords Against Death (1970)

Question , Universe

“Russia has always been several centuries behind western civilization. The Church, intrusted with secular power, is joined with the State. It prohibits any change of faith and even possesses the power to deprive a heretic of his property. Moreover, anyone proved to be a heretic or a nonconformist may be sent to a penal colony.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 68

Faith , Change

“There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

L'État n'a pas d'affaires dans les chambres à coucher de la nation.
Comment in the Canadian House of Commons on the decriminalization of homosexuality (22 December 1967)[citation needed]
Although usually attributed solely to Trudeau, the quote is a paraphrase by him from an editorial that appeared in the Globe and Mail on December 12, 1967 (page 61) which read in part: "Obviously, the state's responsibility should be to legislate rules for a well-ordered society. It has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation."