Quotes about state
page 91

“It should also be remembered that the Bible is written in the language of symbols, a special category of literature designed both to conceal and to reveal spiritual truths. Blindness is a symbol for temporary unawareness of spiritual light. The Christ partly represents spiritual intuitiveness. When one who is spiritually blind becomes intuitively awakened and active or, symbolically, enters the presence of the Christ and is healed by him, the scales are said to have fallen from his eyes. This I believe to be the true symbolical interpretation; for I look upon the story as one of the many beautiful miniature mystery dramas to be found in the Bible, portraying in allegory and symbol the soul’s awakening from darkness to light. Nevertheless, symbolism apart, the answer given by the Lord was, as stated above, doctrinally and technically correct.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Reincarnation & Christianity (1967)

Truth, Beauty, Soul, Literature

“Democratic and aristocratic states are not in their own nature free. Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man who has power is inclined to abuse it; he goes until he finds limits. Is it not strange, though true, to say that virtue itself has need of limits?.
To prevent this abuse, it is necessary that, by the arrangement of things, power shall stop power.”

Montesquieu book The Spirit of the Laws

A government may be so constituted, as no man shall be compelled to do things to which the law does not oblige him, nor forced to abstain from things which the law permits.
Book XI, Chapter 4.
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

Nature

“Endless wars persist (and in some cases have even intensified); the nation’s various alliances and its empire of overseas bases remain intact; US troops are still present in something like 140 countries; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to increase astronomically.”

Andrew Bacevich (1947) United States Army officer

Quoted in Patriotic Dissent: How a Working-Class Soldier Turned Against “Forever Wars”, by Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/24/patriotic-dissent-how-a-working-class-soldier-turned-against-forever-wars/ CounterPunch, (24 July 2020)

War, Country

“I fully declare my Opinion concerning the Principles of the Church of England, whose Members have shewed themselves so eminently Loyal in the worst of times, in Defence of my Father, and Support of my Brother, of Blessed Memory; that I will always take care to defend and support it. I will make it my Endeavour to preserve this Government both in Church and State, as it is now by Law Established; and as I will never depart from the just Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown, so I will never invade any Man's Property; and you may be sure, that having heretofore ventur'd my Life in the Defence of this Nation, I will still go as far as any Man in preserving it, in all its just Rights and Liberties.”

James II of England (1633–1701) King of England, Scotland and Ireland

Speech to Parliament https://www.british-history.ac.uk/commons-hist-proceedings/vol2/pp164-199 (22 May 1685)

Life, Making love, Law, Support

“Race and racism is probably the most studied social, economic and political phenomenon in this country, but it's also the least understood. The reality is that race in the United States operates on a spectrum from black to white. Doesn't mean that people who are in between don't experience racism, but it means that the closer you are to white on that spectrum, the better off you are. And the closer to black that you are on that spectrum the worse off your are.”

Alicia Garza (1981) Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter International movement

An Interview with the Founders of Black Lives Matter, Ted Talks, https://www.ted.com/talks/alicia_garza_patrisse_cullors_and_opal_tometi_an_interview_with_the_founders_of_black_lives_matter?language=en (October 2016)

People, Reality, Study, Country

“We can’t have two things at the same time. We can’t have businesses in China, and we can’t have a free marketplace of ideas in the United States. You can have one, but you can’t have both at the same time, and because we need to protect our democracy, I think we need to get our companies out of China.”

Gordon G. Chang (1951) American lawyer

Gordon Chang: NBA Controversy Shows China Is ‘Weaponizing Our Companies Against Us’ https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/10/08/gordon-chang-nba-controversy-shows-beijing-is-weaponizing-our-companies/ (8 October 2019)

Democracy, Idea, Business, Thinking

“It seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe, and has least support in the church-going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? The Christian attitude is reflected in the words Robert Bolt’s play has Thomas More saying to the headsman: 'Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God.'”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

For the nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence. God’s Justice and Ours https://web.archive.org/web/20120311230630/http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/gods-justice-and-ours-32, 123 First Things 17. (May 2002). Adapted from remarks given at Pew Forum Conference on Religion, politics and death penalty. 2000s

Life, Death, God, Penalty

“Our country is suffering from the lack of food. We don't have rice for the military. Our country is in a state of anarchy because of the dysfunctional food rationing system. The administration department is responsible for this mess, as well as the Party officials. The Party's Central Committee members have failed their duty in generating a revolutionary spirit, diminishing the Party's effectiveness. We must solve the food problem according to socialist principles, and we must not rely on individuals. If we let the people solve the problem on their own, only merchants and markets will prosper. Then, selfishness will rule our society and destroy our system of true equality.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

Reported speech at Kim Il Sung University in December 1996, as quoted in Exit Emperor Kim Jong-il (2012) by John H. Cha and K. J. Sohn. Domestic collections of Kim's works do not confirm the speech or the wording, but an April 1996 speech to the Central Committee began with similar observations, and a "state of anarchy" arising from privatization in former socialist countries was a theme in earlier works.
1990s

People, Food, Problem, Suffering

“When one listens to your speeches it sounds as if you had always fought against capitalism. The truth is that it was you who gave all the power to capitalism. In this republic capitalism has grown as it had never before. You can think about the old state as you will, one thing is certain: it was not as rotten as the one you brought about! …
What shall one say when Reich president Ebert in his letters addresses the Jewish scoundrel Barmat as "My dear Barmat" and closes with the greeting "Yours Ebert?"”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

Despite all the veneration that I feel for this man, whom by the way I respect more as a master saddle-maker than as a Reich president, I simply have to be astonished. Gentlemen, where is the "beauty and dignity"?
01/23/1925, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
Original: Wenn man Euch reden hört, dann habt Ihr immer den Kapitalismus bekämpft. In Wirklichkeit habt Ihr den Kapitalismus erst in den Sattel gehoben. In dieser Republik hat sich der Kapitalismus ausgewachsen wie niemals zuvor. Mag man über den alten Staat denken wir man will, eines steht fest: so verlumpt war er nicht wie der, den Ihr uns gebracht habt! …
Was soll man dazu sagen, wenn ein Reichspräsident Ebert den jüdischen Schurken Barmat in Briefen mit "Mein lieber Barmat" anredet und ihn am Schlusse mit "Dein Ebert" grüßt? Bei aller Ehrfurcht, die ich vor dem Mann habe, den ich übrigens als Sattlermeister weit mehr schätze denn als Reichspräsident, muss ich mich doch sehr wundern. Meine Herren, wo ist da "Schönheit und Würde"?

Truth, Thinking

“And this is the only explanation of the dreadful intensity with which men of modern times strive to stupefy themselves, with spirits, tobacco, opium, cards, reading newspapers, traveling, and all kinds of spectacles and amusements. These pursuits are followed up as an important, serious business. And indeed they are a serious business. If there were no external means of dulling their sensibilities, half of mankind would shoot themselves without delay, for to live in opposition to one's reason is the most intolerable condition. And that is the condition of all men of the present day. All men of the modern world exist in a state of continual and flagrant antagonism between their conscience and their way of life. This antagonism is apparent in economic as well as political life. But most striking of all is the contradiction between the Christian law of the brotherhood of men existing in the conscience and the necessity under which all men are placed by compulsory military service of being prepared for hatred and murder—of being at the same time a Christian and a gladiator.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience

Life, Men, World, Law

“One man must not kill. If he does it is murder. Two, ten, one hundred men, acting on their own responsibility, must not kill. If they do, it is still murder. But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is no murder. It is just, necessary, commendable and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent.”

Adin Ballou (1803–1890) American minister

How Many Does It Take

Men, People

“The Church of Rome has allied herself with the state, and now they both drink together the blood of Christ, one from a chalice, and the other from the ground where it was spilled by the sword…”

Petr Chelčický book The Net of Faith

Source: The Net of Faith (c. 1443), Chapter 91, Interpretation of Romans 13:5-7 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2013%3A5-7&version=NIV (Conclusion)

Drink, Christ

“It is now becoming recognised in all parts of the world that there can be no healthy Christian State, in any country, where poverty exists amongst the masses of the people.”

Timothy Quill (1901–1960) Early Dáil member, cooperative organiser, agriculturalist

The Kerryman (1937)
By Quill:, 1930s

People, World, Parting, Country

“I was born in Europe and I've traveled all over the world. I can tell you that there is no place, no country, more compassionate more generous more accepting and more welcoming than the United States of America.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

“Never bet against the United States of America”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

“Humans have different emotional states that are here to serve us, if anything be redirected. Not to be tamed.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

“We simply don’t do optimism or pessimism, we do logistics. That is our calling and duty, neither to stir up false hope nor dash incipient possibility. To work with what we have to achieve what we can, neither over nor understating it. So stating it straight, I don’t know what the outcome of the election will be with the single exception I guess that we will not be talking of a National Government after it. There is still the enormous extent to which the Irish people “trust” the devil they know, and there are as yet insurmountable difficulties for a new party to make revolutionary progress through a corrupted structure.”

Justin Barrett (1971) Irish activist

New Year Message 2020 https://nationalparty.ie/new-year-message-2020/ (January 1, 2020)

People, Making love, Hope, Optimism

“We have avoided the post-colonial nightmares of many a former British subject. Though that may arguably be because we were a nation, and not a randomly drawn jurisdiction without regard to ethnic loyalties or geographical sense, as were so many of the “countries” that emerged from Empire. We pride ourselves, not without cause, with only one Civil War since the foundation of the State and none within the 26 county area since the enactment of said Constitution. All’s well that ends well? Except that history is a process not a destination, and “well” or not it certainly hasn’t ended. And the foundational legal document of the State grows more convoluted with each amendment and increasingly difficult to define, even in the ordinary sense of a degree of certainty.”

Justin Barrett (1971) Irish activist

A New Constitution for a Real Republic https://nationalparty.ie/new-year-message-2020/ (July 27, 2018)

War, History, Sense, Loyalty

“People who resist authority, who defend the rights of the individual, who try in a period of increasing totalitarianism and centralization to reclaim these rights—this is the true left in the United States. Whether they are anarcho-communists, anarcho-syndicalists, or libertarians who believe in free enterprise, I regard theirs as the real legacy of the left, and I feel much closer, ideologically, to such individuals than I do to the totalitarian liberals and Marxist-Leninists of today.”

Murray Bookchin (1921–2006) American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher

“Reason Interview: Murray Bookchin: A controversial anarchist talks about government, the Libertarian Party, Ayn Rand, and the evolution of his own ideas” http://reason.com/archives/1979/10/01/interview-with-murray-bookchin/1, Leslee J. Newman, Reason magazine, (October 1979) pp. 34-39.

People, Feeling

“Let's be straight, anarchist demanding state-sponsored welfare would be akin to a Catholic demanding right to rape the Mary, mother of Jesus.”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

Polish: Powiedzmy sobie jasno, anarchista, który by się domagał zasiłków socjalnych od państwa to jest to samo, co katolik, który by się domagał prawa do zgwałcenia Matki Boskiej. Source: 2020 interview https://joemonster.org/filmy/104796

“I knew it long ago: I’m a compulsive teacher, but I can’t teach. The godawful state of today’s education system isn’t what’s stopping me. I lack at least two of the essential qualifications.
I cannot “suffer fools gladly.””

Larry Niven book N-Space

The smartest of my pupils would get all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can’t handle being interrupted.
Writing is the answer. Whatever I have to teach, my students will select themselves by buying the book. And nobody interrupts a printed page.
Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind (pp. 26-27)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

Education, Fools, Suffering, Teachers

“Do the essences of proposition and of the truth determine themselves from out of the essence of the thing, or does the essence of the thing determine itself from out of the essence of the proposition? The question is posed as an either/or. However does this either/or itself suffice? Are the essence of the thing and the essence of the proposition only built as mirror images because both of them together determine themselves from out of the same but deeper lying root? However, what and where can be this common ground for the essence of the thing and of the proposition and of their origin? The unconditioned (Unbedingt)? We stated at the beginning that what conditions the essense of the thing in its thingness can no longer itself be thing and conditioned, it must be an unconditioned (Un-bedingtes). p. 47”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

What Is A Thing? (1935, 1968)

Truth, Lying, Question

“Relativity is a simple concept. It asserts that the fundamental laws of physics are the same whatever your state of motion.”

Walter Isaacson book Einstein: His Life and Universe

Source: Book Einstein: His Life and Universe

Law

“The United States is, not are.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

The Civil War was fought over a verb. Orval Faubus don't know that. But he gonna know, he gonna know.
Comments at the centennial celebration of the Lincoln-Douglas debates; Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, Oct. 7, 1958. Quoted in Herbert Mitgang, "Again—Lincoln v. Douglas", The New York Times Magazine, Oct. 19, 1958, pp. 26-27.

“I sent the club a wire stating, "PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER."”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Telegram to the Friar's Club of Beverly Hills to which he belonged, as recounted in Groucho and Me (1959), p. 321

People

“The goal towards which the advance will probably be made at an accelerated pace, is that in the direction of which the legislation of the last quarter of a century has been tending—the intervention, in other words, of the State on behalf of the weak against the strong, in the interests of labour against capital, of want and suffering against luxury and wealth.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

‘The Revolution of 1884’, The Fortnightly Review, No. CCXVII, New Series (1 January 1885), quoted in T. H. S. Escott (ed.), The Fortnightly Review, Vol. XXXVII, New Series (1 January – 1 June 1885), p. 9
1880s

Strong, Suffering, Wealth

“It is the universal hope of rising in the social scale which is the key to much of the superiority that is visible in this country. It accounts for the orderly self-respect which is the great characteristic of the masses in the United States. ... All this tends to the argument that the political condition of a people is very much dependent on its economical fate.”

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

Letter to John Bright during his visit to the United States (1858), quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden [1879] (1905), p. 688
1850s

Fate, People, Hope, Universe

“Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling. The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity committed in history. The fact that this needs to be stated today is deeply troubling.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene (1974) American politician and businesswoman from the state of Georgia

Statement from House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy https://republicanleader.house.gov/leader-mccarthy-condemns-comparisons-to-the-holocaust/, 25 May 2021 About

History, Decision

“The time has come when we must proceed with the business of carrying the war to the enemy, not permitting the greater portion of our armed forces and our valuable material to be immobilized within the continental United States.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

As quoted by the Times-Herald [Washington, D.C.] (3 March 1942) p. 1

War, Business, Time

“[T]he United States of America, is not only the most powerful and the most prosperous country on earth, but the most free and the most just. Then I do my best to tell them how and why this is so. And I teach them about the principles from which those blessings of liberty flow. I invite them to consider whether they can have any greater honor than to pass undiminished to their children and grandchildren this great inheritance of freedom.”

Peter W. Schramm (1946–2015) American academic

"Born American, But in the Wrong Place" (2006)

Children, Freedom, Country

“If anything were calculated to render permanent and secure our friendly relations with great neighbouring Powers, it was the placing ourselves in a position of security against any sudden or unforeseen attack. There was no complete security for friendly relations between different countries, except in a state of mutual defence.”

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

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1845/jun/13/maritime-defences#column_520 in the House of Commons in favour of rearmament (13 June 1845) 1840s

Relation ships, Country

“There is a never-ending struggle against the need for the state to be strong enough to be functional and to have a civilized society, and at the same time, its desire to crush those who stand in the way.”

David Cay Johnston (1948) Investigative journalist and author

David Cay Johnston; How The One Percent Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (Jun 23, 2009)

Way, Strong, Time

“Spiritual evolution is the progressive advance of mankind toward a state of things in which the light of ethical perfection shall be reflected from the face of human society; that is, in which all men shall live and move and have their being in mutually promoting the highest life of each and all. It means that the object of social reformation shall not be a mere change in the conditions under which men live, but a change in human nature itself. It means that we shall look forward consciously to the breaking forth of new powers in ourselves, to the release, through our own efforts, of capacities dimly latent in us.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Some Characteristics of the American Ethical Movement (1925)

Life, Men, Nature, Effort

“The issuance of this guaranteed currency promoted the profession and operations of finance. The older Romans used temples as their banks, as we use banks as our temples; and the state continued to the end to use its strongly built shrines as repositories for public funds, perhaps on the theory that religious scruples would help discourage robbery.”

Will Durant book The Story of Civilization

Source: The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), III - Caesar and Christ (1944), Chapter 4, Part 6

Help

“The main task of socialism to-day is to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of either industrial management or the state bureaucracy—in brief, to distribute responsibility and so to enlarge freedom of choice.”

Richard Crossman (1907–1974) British Member of Parliament

‘Introduction’, New Fabian Essays (1952), p. 27

Freedom

“That’s how a police state works - everyone thinks everyone else is the police.”

Trevor Noah book Born a Crime

page 25
Born a Crime

Thinking

“The foreign policy of England should be to maintain peace, not only for herself but between the powers of the world. This should be her policy, not only because she can have no interest in a change of the state of possession of the several powers...but because she has the most extensive commercial relations depending upon peace with each and all the powers of the world, the interruption of which must be injurious to her prosperity.”

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman

Letter to John Wilson Croker (30 September 1833), quoted in L. J. Jennings (ed.), The Croker Papers: The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830, Vol. II (1884), p. 218

World, Peace, Relation ships, Change

“One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example. And I assume that on an average, the ratio of utility is some continuous mathematical function of the quantity of commodity. This law of utility has, in fact, always been assumed by political economists under the more complex form and name of the Law of Supply and Demand. But once fairly stated in its simple form, it opens up the whole of the subject.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

Letter to his brother (1 June 1860), published in Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons (1886), edited by Harriet A. Jevons, his wife, p. 151. https://archive.org/details/cu31924074297254/page/n168/mode/1up

Law, Food, Mathematics

“[E]lections to the supreme power having upon some occasions produced the most destructive contentions, many states would take refuge from a return of the same calamities, in a rule of succession; and no rule presents itself so obvious, certain, and intelligible, as consanguinity of birth.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Vol. II, Book VI, Ch. I.
The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785)

Intelligence, Birth, Success

“Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Wisdom, Way, Lying

“Marriage is the highest state of friendship. If happy, it lessens our cares by dividing them, at the same time that it doubles our pleasures by mutual participation.”

Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) English writer and printer

Friendship, Marriage, Happiness, Pleasure

“Fears are nothing more than a state of mind.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Fear

“The Freedom Monument impersonates the message about the will of state of the founders of the country and Latvian people, our dreams about freedom, ur readiness to fight for it, and our readiness to safeguard it.”

Egils Levits (1955) Latvian judge, jurist and politician

Source: Address given Assuming the Office / at the Freedom Monument, https://www.president.lv/en/article/address-he-president-latvia-mr-egils-levits-ar-freedom-monument

People, Dreams, Freedom, Fight

“We will never agree to give up Jerusalem, a united city under Israeli sovereignty, and only Israeli. We will not accept a terrorist Palestinian state, we will not accept an agreement based on the 67 lines.”

Naftali Bennett (1972) Prime Minister of Israel

2014 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176036

“Nothing struck me so much in the war as the disappearance of the individual, of the human being... I saw what the State machine was, that it destroyed the individual, absorbed him to itself, and I said, "Give me Liberty."”

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

That is what a complete Socialistic State would mean, once you carried it out. That is why I am a Liberal and not a Socialist. Socialism would enslave labour. For its own benefit, its own advantage, Socialism would in the end enslave labour. Liberalism has made labour free, and it is its business to preserve the freedom of labour.
Speech to the Lancashire and Cheshire Federation of the League of Young Liberals in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester (28 April 1923), quoted in The Times (30 April 1923), p. 17
Leader of the National Liberal Party

War

“If it is right that the State should resume its authority over the land for the purposes of burying the dead, it is surely also right that it should exercise its ownership where it is necessary it should do so to feed the living.”

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

Speech in Killerton Park, near Exeter, opening the Liberal land campaign (17 September 1925), quoted in The Times (18 September 1925), p. 14
Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons

Exercises, Dead

“Determinism looks backwards to the causes of the present state, not forward to the consequences.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 22 “Free Will” (p. 307)

“Communism, socialism, the welfare state, et cetera, are essentially one and the same thing.”

Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) American academic

Leonard Read Journals, November 5, 1951 https://history.fee.org/leonard-read-journal/1951/leonard-e-read-journal-november-1951/

Communication

“I simply told people what I thought about the state of the war in Vietnam,and it was that we better get out of this.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

War, People

“It was in the Second World War, then, that the full force of the modern European state was mobilized for the first time, for the primary purpose of conquering and exploiting other Europeans.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Chap. 1 : The Legacy of War
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

War, World, Time

“When the Lord leads one to the Path, he dwells in the Plane of Unity with Him (Tawḥīd) and none expect God knows about his state.”

Abu al-Hassan al-Kharaqani (963–1033) Iranian Sufi (963–1033)

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002), p. 94

God

“How can such opposing states exist in harmony together? There is only one way: by surrendering yourself. Because the act of surrender means: ‘I trust you.’”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), About sex

Way

“I am for the state only doing what people are unable to do in the absence of government action.”

Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader

Text of television interview with Mike Wallace, New York, New York, October 17 and 18, 1960, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 322
1950s, Television interview with Mike Wallace (1960)

People

“Another great entity standing behind the Christ is the Spirit of Peace or Equilibrium. He is overshadowing the Christ, in a very similar way to the way the Christ overshadowed and worked through the disciple Jesus in Palestine. He works very closely with the law of Action and Reaction, and His function is to transform the prevalent discord, confusion, chaos, turmoil in the world into its opposite, so that we shall enter an era of tranquility and peace - in exact proportion to the present discord. The violence and hatred of today will be transmuted into goodwill, and again, in exact proportion to the intensity of the hatred and violence. This is the great Law of Action and Reaction functioning. The law stated is that action and reaction are equal and opposite, and this great Cosmic Entity, the Spirit of Equilibrium, is working now through the Christ, producing the transformation of the world.”

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

The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

World, Peace, Law, Way

“Citizens whose incomes do not exceed what is required for their subsistence are exempted from contributing to state expenditure; all others must support it progressively according to their wealth.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

On Property (24 April 1793)

Support, Wealth

“Identification with the body is a state that consciousness needs to experience for a while. But eventually, grace will compel consciousness to transcend this severe limitation and guide it home to its original nature.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

Home, Nature

“A law is a social monument, a page of history, a lesson in ethnography, a reason for state.”

Luís Gama (1830–1882) Brazilian lawyer, poet, abolitionist and journalist

Gazeta da Tarde, [Carta a Ferreira de Menezes], January 07, 1881. Source: Defendeu escravizados: O inestimável legado do jornalista Luiz Gama https://aventurasnahistoria.uol.com.br/noticias/reportagem/defendeu-escravizados-o-inestimavel-legado-do-jornalista-luiz-gama-.phtml.

Law, History

“The Catholic Church in Greece must play the game of the European Union, pushing for a secular, free, independent and modern state.”

Yannis Spiteris (1947) Roman Catholic archbishop

Why the Greek Orthodox Oppose Papal Visit https://zenit.org/2001/04/30/why-the-greek-orthodox-oppose-papal-visit/ (April 30, 2001)

Game

“What a state of society is this in which free-thinker is a term of abuse, and in which doubt is regarded as sin?”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect", p. 541

“We shouldn’t be closing schools because the heat doesn’t work … If we are getting money from the state we should be using it. We need every penny we can get.”

Catherine Pugh (1950) American politician

As quoted in "Baltimore schools have returned millions in state funds for heating repairs" by Luke Broadwater in The Baltimore Sun (4 January 2018) https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-ci-schools-money-returned-20180104-story.html

Money, School

“Our world today is in the grip of anti-capitalism. State bureaucracies ruling over anti-market policies have grown into ideological and political elites who arrogantly presume to know and dictate how we should all live and work.”

Richard Ebeling (1950) American economist

“Is the ‘Spectre of Communism’ Still Haunting the World?” https://fee.org/resources/is-the-spectre-of-communism-still-haunting-the-world/, speech entitled “Evenings at FEE” in March 2006. Posted in Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), (December 19, 2008)

World

“The reason for the collapse of the USSR was only the betrayal of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, who were led by the United States. The American administration has always, all the years, strived to destroy the USSR, and now Russia, and take advantage of our wealth.”

Valentin Varennikov (1923–2009) Soviet general and russian politician

"Горбачев сказал нам: "Действуйте, как хотите" " https://ytro.news/articles/2007/08/20/672987.shtml

Betrayal, Wealth

“The moment I boarded the flight I was thinking, 'This is an enemy state.'”

Kim Hyon-hui (1962) former North Korean agent

But then, placing the bomb, I was nervous, anxious, scared of being caught. I had a brief moment thinking that all the people in this plane will die, but I was frightened to even have such feelings. I wasn’t supposed to have such feelings. I was trained only to take orders like a robot. I tried to get rid of the feelings by thinking that for the sake of reunification these people had to be sacrificed. In North Korea, you can’t have these doubts, because if you do, it means your ideology has been corrupted and you’ll be executed or sent to a prison camp.
Interview with NBC (23 January 2018)

Thinking

“I promise to make every effort to well fulfill the tasks assigned by the Party, State and people.”

Trần Đại Quang (1956–2018) 8th President of Vietnam

"Newly-elected President Tran Dai Quang gives oath speech" in Vietnam Net http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/government/154411/newly-elected-president-tran-dai-quang-gives-oath-speech.html (2 April 2016)

People, Effort

“It is so easy to be an enemy of the United States, but so difficult to be a friend.”

Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (1923–2001) president of South Vietnam from 1965–75

As quoted in a response to Anna Chennault in 1975
Langguth, A.J. Our Vietnam, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000 page 656.

“We all desire to live with dignity in a sovereign, democratic, and law-abiding state, one that everybody - regardless of their worldviews and ideological and political diversity - can consider their own.”

Tadeusz Mazowiecki (1927–2013) Polish politician and prime minister

"Inaugural address of Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki" https://polishfreedom.pl/en/document/statement-inaugural-address-of-the-prime-minister-tadeusz-mazowiecki-delivered-at-the-seym-session-on-12th-september-1989 (12 September 1989)

Law

“And so my belief and my view of these protests is that they are different because they are marked by a period that has been deeply personal to millions of Americans and residents of the United States, and that has them more tender or sensitive to what is going on.”

Opal Tometi (1984) Nigerian–American writer, strategist and community organizer

A Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Explains Why This Time Is Different, By Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, (3 June 2020)

Personality

“I came to school in the United States, and I will always consider America my second home.”

Soong Mei-ling (1897–2003) Chiang Kai-shek's wife, First Lady of the Republic of China

As quoted in "Congress honors Madame Chiang" in UPI https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/07/26/Congress-honors-Madame-Chiang/9153806731200/ (July 26, 1995)

School, Home

“The poor man has sold his freedom of expression to the state.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Freedom

“The fact that you can only find the monuments of Jesus next to the church shows how the state has separated itself from religion.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Religion

“Growing up as a woman in Korea was tough, but was also a gift at the same time. If I were a Korean man, or a white male in the States, I would not have been able to make this film. You got to experience complex human emotions because you were going through a lot of things.”

Kim Bora (1981) South Korean director

As quoted in "Coming of Age in Korea: Kim Bora Discusses "House of Hummingbird"" in Mubi (27 April 2019) https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/coming-of-age-in-korea-kim-bora-discusses-house-of-hummingbird

Time

“I think it's good that older leaders have made room for the younger generation. When we started, we worked very hard for very little money. Now we give employees very attractive wages. Other state-owned enterprises should follow our example.”

Liu Chuanzhi (1944) Chinese businessman

Source: The Scientist Who Could http://edition.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/97/0613/biz2.html in Asiaweek (2000)

Money, Thinking

“The greatest beneficiaries of the modern welfare state, after all, were the middle classes.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Chap. 14 : Diminished Expectations
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

“The era of a Palestinian state is over.”

Naftali Bennett (1972) Prime Minister of Israel

2016 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/trump-victory-israel-far-right-comment-end-of-palestine-state-a7407231.html

“A state like Switzerland, which is nothing but a pimple on the face of Europe, cannot be allowed to continue.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

26 August 1942, quoted in Hitler's Table Talk, 1941–1944

“Every state must be aware that its peace, its security rests on its own sword.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), 5. A prospectus by the military Chazal and Brialmont, The military centipede Henri-Alexis Brialmont (1821-1893) http://www.ethesis.net/leopold_II/leopold_II.htm#2.%20 CROKAERT, P. Brialmont, 183. Undated

Peace

“With the eye in a natural state sight follows necessarily ... In the same way the life of blessedness is as a familiar second nature to those who have kept clear the senses of the soul.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Infants' Early Deaths

Life, Way, Soul, Nature

“We are in a state of bloodless civil war. No common principles, no respect for common institutions or traditions unite the various groups of politicians, who are struggling for power. To loot somebody or something is the common object under a thick varnish of pious phrases.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Letter to W. H. Smith (5 February 1889), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 65
1880s

War

“The brightest representatives of the Islamic diaspora have long figured out how to use this liberalism to blow up the remnants of the nation-state, free themselves from the weak authority of the republic, and establish the law of Allah in their own enclaves.”

Éric Zemmour (1958) French essayist

Will Eric Zemmour become France's Trump? https://www.wyniasweek.nl/wordt-eric-zemmour-de-franse-trump/

Law

“Paid leave should be a national right, rather than a patchwork option limited to those whose employers have policies in place, or those who live in one of the few states where a leave program exists”

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (1981) American former actress and member by marriage of the British royal family

Source: In a letter to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi " Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, urges Schumer and Pelosi to pass federal paid family leave https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/21/politics/meghan-duchess-of-sussex-paid-family-leave/index.html" (October 21, 2021)

“We [the United States] will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Elon Musk's tweet (24 July 2020) https://web.archive.org/web/20200725105419/https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1286866843307737088 Quotes https://www.wewishes.com/elon-musk-quotes/

“No matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

The Near East (1968), p. 31
General sources

Lie

“We should never take democracy for granted. Neither should we worship it. It must be nurtured and strengthened on a daily basis. It is our way of living, our state of mind. A democratic society is sustainable because it aims at the highest development of every one of its members.”

Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj (1963) Mongolian politician

Source: "Statement at the General Debate Of The 71th Session Of The United Nations General Assembly On “the Sustainable Development Goals: A Universal Push To Transform Our World”" https://www.un.int/mongolia/statements_speeches/statement-his-excellency-mr-tsakhia-elbegdorj-president-mongolia-general-debate (20 September 2016)

Way, Democracy

“The united states has done a lot of good things for humanity.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: Kronos US v Sulaiman Abu Ghayth Statement https://kronosadvisory.com/Kronos_US_v_Sulaiman_Abu_Ghayth_Statement.1.pdf (1st March 2013)

“Let the United States know that with God's permission, the battle will continue to be waged on its territory until it leaves our lands, stops its support for the Jews, and lifts the unjust embargo on the Iraqi people who have lost more than one million children.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: In full: Al-Qaeda statement http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1590350.stm (10th October, 2001)

God, Children, People, Support

“Anyone who states that God should not have made those people who will be punished, is also saying that He should not have made those who will be saved, or any rational and free beings at all.”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

Source: Predestination? On Why God Made Those Who Would Perish

God, People

“[…] Abrupt climate change may be normal in the planet's history, or, to state it differently, that the earth's climate is inherently very unstable. The period in which human civilization developed has been if anything, an anomalous ten-thousand-year epoch of remarkable stability.”

James Howard Kunstler book The Long Emergency

Source: The Long Emergency (2005), Chapter 5, p. 149.

History, Change

“Although men constitute the vast majority of prisoners in the world, important aspects of the operation of state punishment are missed if it is assumed that women are marginal and thus undeserving of attention.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Four

Women, Men, World

“Prior to studies of unusually intelligent people that showed them to be generally much better adapted and happier than others, the popular belief in the United States was that exceptional intelligence was often associated with exceptional ability to “drive yourself nuts.””

Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) American psychologist

Hence, people believed that genius and lunacy were intimately connected. Perhaps, nearly all of us “drive ourselves a little nuts” by virtue of creating stories that lead us to the illusion that we understand history, other people, causality, and life—when we don’t.
Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 7, “Good Stories” (p. 125)

People, Intelligence, Study

“The state is invisible...(it) needs to be symbolised before it can be loved.”

Michael Walzer (1935) American philosopher

A 1967 paper
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20210223115908/https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/whats-missing-in-rahul-gandhis-politics/article33906516.ece

Love

“This fear of the power of the totalitarian state is something normal people cannot understand.”

Rebel Pepper (1973) Chinese political cartoonist

"Rebel with a cause: An interview with China’s most famous political cartoonist" in SAGE Journals https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422016657031a (29 June 2016)

People, Fear, Understanding

“Can we grasp that the only requirement in order that this may be so is organization, a combined world organization founded upon the spiritual principle of sharing and cooperation; and that this would change the world from the state it is now in to a comparative Heaven?”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter II Planning a Model World

World, Change

“The Jews form a state, and, obeying their own laws, they evade those of their host country. The Jews always consider an oath regarding a Christian not binding. During the Campaign of 1812 the Jews were spies, they were paid by both sides, they betrayed both sides.”

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800–1891) German Field Marshal

Source: See The Jews https://books.google.com.br/books?id=t_RtAAAAMAAJ by Zuhdī Fātiḥ

Law, Country

“There isn’t any difference between the totalitarian Russian Government and the Hitler government and the Franco government in Spain. They are all alike. They are police state governments.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Source: News Conference at Key West, March 30, 1950

“Some even attempt to achieve political ambitions by seizing party and state power, engaging in activities to split the party, and seriously threatening the nation’s political stability.”

Wang Qishan (1948) Chinese politician

Source: "China’s second most powerful man warns of dissent and corruption in the Communist Party" in Quartz https://qz.com/851218/wang-qishan-chinas-second-most-powerful-man-warns-of-dissent-and-systematic-corruption-inside-the-communist-party/ (1 December 2016)

“I travel in every state now, back on the road, and the Red states are a joy and the Blue states are a pain in the ass. For no reason.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Source: Sen. Chris Coons and Caitlin Flanagan, Natural Immunity, (2021)

Pain, Travel, Joy

“Since the earliest times it is as the exploiter that the Jew has been known amongst his fellow men of all races and creeds. Moreover, he has persistently shown himself ungrateful. (...) The Jews have always formed a rebellious element in every state.”

Nesta Helen Webster (1876–1960) British far-right conspiracy theorist and author

Source: World Revolution the Plot Against Civilization https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/World_Revolution_the_Plot_Against_Civili/dmlTCAAAQBAJ?gbpv=1&pg=PT162&printsec=frontcover

Men, Time

“On the occasion of my 65th birthday, I wish to hand over to the State my properties that contribute to the attractiveness and beauty of the places where they are located.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Source: Immo Royal, In Belgium you can find more than 7,500 hectares of royal real estate. Journalists conducted an in-depth investigation into the patrimony of the Royal Donation for the first time in 90 years. https://www.koningshuizen.be/ King Leopold II in a letter to the Minister of Finance on April 9, 1900, in honor of his 65th birthday.

Beauty, Birthday

“The actions by these young men who destroyed the United States and launched the storm of planes against it have done a good deed.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: In full: Al-Qaeda statement http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1590350.stm (10th October, 2001)

Men

“In the ideal state, man treats the races of beings affiliated with him, not as objects of pillage, but as beings with rights and feelings and capabilities of happiness and misery, like himself.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Silent Martyrs of Civilization, p. 64

Happiness, Feeling

Quotes about state page 91

Quotes about state
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