Quotes about subject
page 34

Paul of Tarsus photo
Thomas Aquinas photo

“The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A being that is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Variant translation: Now slavery has a certain likeness to death, hence it is also called civil death. For life is most evident in a thing's moving itself, while what can only be moved by another, seems to be as if dead. But it is manifest that a slave is not moved by himself, but only at his master's command.
Chapter 14 https://www.pathsoflove.com/aquinas/perfection-of-the-spiritual-life.html#chapter14
On The Perfection of the Spiritual Life https://www.pathsoflove.com/aquinas/perfection-of-the-spiritual-life.html (1269-1270)
Original: (la) Vita enim in hoc maxime manifestatur quod aliquid movet se ipsum; quod autem non potest moveri nisi ab alio, quasi mortuum esse videtur.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel photo
George Packer photo
Edmund Burke photo
Edmund Burke photo
Michel Henry photo
Enoch Powell photo

“One of the most dangerous words is 'extremist'. A person who commits acts of violence is not an 'extremist'; he is a criminal. If he commits those acts of violence with the object of detaching part of the territory of the United Kingdom and attaching it to a foreign country, he is an enemy under arms. There is the world of difference between a citizen who commits a crime, in the belief, however mistaken, that he is thereby helping to preserve the integrity of his country and his right to remain a subject of his sovereign, and a person, be he citizen or alien, who commits a crime with the intention of destroying that integrity and rendering impossible that allegiance. The former breaches the peace; the latter is executing an act of war. The use of the word 'extremist' of either or both conveys a dangerous untruth: it implies that both hold acceptable opinions and seek permissible ends, only that they carry them to 'extremes'. Not so: the one is a lawbreaker; the other is an enemy.The same purpose, that of rendering friend and foe indistinguishable, is achieved by references to the 'impartiality' of the British troops and to their function as 'keeping the peace.'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.</p><p>Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.</p>
Source: Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (1991), pp. 487-488

Enoch Powell photo

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, 'race.'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are 'prejudiced', 'racialist'... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as 'spouting the fantasies of racial purity' to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of 'racialist' and 'unChristian' and applying them to lifelong political colleagues...</p><p>In the universities, we are told that education and the discipline ought to be determined by the students, and that the representatives of the students ought effectively to manage the institutions. This is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense which it is already obligatory for academics and journalists, politicians and parties, to accept and mouth upon pain of verbal denunciation and physical duress.</p><p>We are told that the economic achievement of the Western countries has been at the expense of the rest of the world and has impoverished them, so that what are called the 'developed' countries owe a duty to hand over tax-produced 'aid' to the governments of the undeveloped countries. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense with which the people of the Western countries, clergy and laity, but clergy especially—have been so deluged and saturated that in the end they feel ashamed of what the brains and energy of Western mankind have done, and sink on their knees to apologise for being civilised and ask to be insulted and humiliated.</p><p>Then there is the 'civil rights' nonsense. In Ulster we are told that the deliberate destruction by fire and riot of areas of ordinary property is due to the dissatisfaction over allocation of council houses and opportunities for employment. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that has not prevented the Parliament and government of the United Kingdom from undermining the morale of civil government in Northern Ireland by imputing to it the blame for anarchy and violence.</p><p>Most cynically of all, we are told, and told by bishops forsooth, that communist countries are the upholders of human rights and guardians of individual liberty, but that large numbers of people in this country would be outraged by the spectacle of cricket matches being played here against South Africans. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that did not prevent a British Prime Minister and a British Home Secretary from adopting it as acknowledged fact.</p>
Source: The "enemy within" speech during the 1970 general election campaign; speech to the Turves Green Girls School, Northfield, Birmingham (13 June 1970), from Still to Decide (1972), pp. 36-37

Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Annie Besant photo
Annie Besant photo
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning photo
John Keats photo
James Thomson (B.V.) photo
Yaroslav Pryriz photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Justin Barrett photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Auguste Rodin photo
Alastair Reynolds photo

“The old murals came from the heart,” Zima said. “I painted on a huge scale because that was what the subject matter seemed to demand.”

“It was good work,” I said.
“It was hack work. Huge, loud, demanding, popular, but ultimately soulless. Just because it came from the heart didn’t make it good.”
Zima Blue (p. 395)
Short fiction, Zima Blue and Other Stories (2006)

Elizabeth Blackwell photo

“The subject of love is always of the most absorbing interest to the younger and more active portion of a people; sexual passion, in its ennobling or debasing form, exercises irresistible attraction.”

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) England-born American physician, abolitionist, women's rights activist

p. 10 https://books.google.com/books?id=7VlHAQAAMAAJ&q=irresistible#v=snippet&q=irresistible&f=false
Essays in Medical Sociology (1899)

Alan Turing photo
William Stanley Jevons photo
Chulpan Khamatova photo
Natalie Wynn photo

“To be a famous woman is to constantly have every part of your body and soul subjected to endless critique. You know, if you're one pound overweight they call you "fatty."”

If you're one pound underweight they say you have an eating disorder. And if you're exactly the right weight? They call you a fatty with an eating disorder!
J.K. Rowling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us, published 2021-01-26
ContraPoints

David Lloyd George photo

“We are offering Ireland not subjection but equality, not servitude but partnership—an honourable partnership, a partnership in the greatest Empire in the world—a partnership in that Empire in the greatest day of its glory.”

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

Speech at the Guildhall, London (9 November 1920), quoted in The Times (10 November 1920), p. 8
Prime Minister

George Herbert photo

“It (my book) is a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom.”

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

Maycock, A L, Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding. SPCK, London, 1938
Letter to Nicholas Ferrar (1632-33)

Isaac Asimov photo

“No matter how various the subject matter I write on, I was a science-fiction writer first and it is as a science-fiction writer that I want to be identified.”

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

In Joy Still Felt (1980), pp. 286-287
General sources

Prevale photo

“Criticizing without having the slightest competence on a subject is the first sign of a person's immaturity.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) ​Criticare senza avere la minima competenza su un argomento è il primo segno di immaturità di una persona.
Source: prevale.net

Romila Thapar photo

“Nationalism seeks legitimacy from the past and history therefore becomes a sensitive subject.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

Source: Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, p. 19.

“Renaissance art has always been my favourite subject. The realism involved in it is a challenge for me not only as an artist but also as a priest. Subjects involving human beings have always been my core area of interest.”

Nude figures, Mizo bishop's tribute to God https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/guwahati/Nude-figures-Mizo-bishops-tribute-to-God/articleshow/4834560.cms?referral=PM (July 29, 2009)

Gregory of Nyssa photo
Emer de Vattel photo

“The citizens are the members of the civil society: linked to this society by certain duties and subject to its authority, they participate with equality has its advantages.”

Alternate: The citizens are the members of the civil society, bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages.
The natives or natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.
..
if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country
page 176 https://books.google.ca/books?id=NukJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176 of English translation published in 1883,
while the bottom-left marks it as page 176, it is listed as page 101 on the top-left. The section of the book is titled "OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, ETC." and it is part of chapter XIX called "OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY AND SEVERAL THINGS THAT RELATE TO IT"
quoted in 1856 case https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/60/393/#476 in supreme court
quoted in 1942 by Mr. Stewart seen in page 1683 https://books.google.ca/books?id=qiI9TLONLVMC&pg=PA1683 of part 2 of volume 8 of "Proceedings and Debates of the 77th Congress Second Session"
The Law of Nations (1758)
Original: (fr) Les citoyens sont les membres de la societe civile : lies a cette societe par certains devoirs et soumis a son autorite, ils participent avec egalite a ses avantages.

Matt Ridley photo
Barry Schwartz photo
Napoleon Hill photo
John Harvey Kellogg photo
John Harvey Kellogg photo
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell photo

“If you cannot afford to do justice speedily and well, you may as well shut up the Exchequer and confess that you have no right to raise taxes for the protection of the subject, for justice is the first and primary end of all government.”

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878) leading Whig and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister on two occasions

Source: Quoted in George W. E. Russell in Prime Ministers and Some Others, 1918, p. 23

Marcus Aurelius photo
Nanfu Wang photo

“During filming, it never occurred to me that I was going to be a part of either film. I was always trying to cut my voice out by having subjects include my question in their answers.”

Nanfu Wang (1985) director and filmmaker

Source: "Hot Docs 2017 Interview: Nanfu Wang on “I Am Another You”" in Roger Ebert https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hot-docs-2017-interview-nanfu-wang-on-i-am-another-you (3 May 2017)

Murphy Pakiam photo

“We hope and pray so that the political situation becomes clearer, to have better balance on behalf of the institutions on this delicate subject, in matters of faith and freedom of religious minorities.”

Murphy Pakiam (1938) Catholic archbishop

Source: The Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur: "On the word Allah, a politicized case: the term will continue to be used in liturgies" http://www.fides.org/en/news/34489-ASIA_MALAYSIA_The_Archbishop_of_Kuala_Lumpur_On_the_word_Allah_a_politicized_case_the_term_will_continue_to_be_used_in_liturgies (14 October 2013)

Edward Augustus Freeman photo
Margaret Ball photo
Tayari Jones photo

“When I first started writing, I was thinking of it as a book about mass incarceration, and mass incarceration is not a plot. It’s not a story. It’s not a character. I was at Harvard doing research on this subject, and I felt like I had a lot of information, but I had not yet found my story because I had to realize that I am a novelist. I’m not a sociologist. I’m not a documentarian. I’m not an ethnographer. And I found the story, actually, through eavesdropping…”

Tayari Jones (1970) American writer

Source: On how she chose the topic of mass incarceration for her novel An American Marriage in “If I Can’t Cry, Nobody Cries: An Interview with Tayari Jones” https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/02/08/cant-cry-nobody-cries-interview-tayari-jones/ in The Paris Review (2018 Feb 8)

Joseph Fiorenza photo
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor photo
Laurence Tribe photo
George III of the United Kingdom photo

“I am happy enough to think I have the present the real love of my subjects, and lay it down for certain that if I do not show them that I will not permit Ministers to trample on me, that my subjects will in time come to esteem me unworthy of the Crown I wear.”

George III of the United Kingdom (1738–1820) King of Great Britain and King of Ireland

Source: Letter to the Earl of Bute (November 1760), quoted in Letters from George III to Lord Bute, 1756–1766, ed. Romney Sedgwick (1939), p. 50

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“If a man be subject to the authority of another, he can at least ask that it not be an occasion for glee.”

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter XXV, Section 2, p. 293 (1985)

Emil M. Cioran photo
Ronnie James Dio photo

“Lyrically I like to use themes that make the listener use his or her imagination, and to give a little of the lessons I've learned in my own life. The best subjects are always people, who never fail to amaze me by their unpredictability.”

Ronnie James Dio (1942–2010) American singer

Speaking on his plans for the Dio album Master of the Moon, interview https://ronniejamesdiosite.com/NewsInterviews/Interviews/metalmastersJAN04/MMjan04RJD.html, Metal Masters, January 2004

“Very often we (cosplayers) are subject to harsh criticism when we do not look similar enough to movie or anime characters, and body-shaming is very commonly experienced by many cosplayers. I got a comment saying 'I'm too fat for Jinx.'”

Rikka Blurhound Malaysian cosplayer and nutritionist

Rikka Blurhound (2022) cited in " Malaysian Cosplayer Shares Her Painful But Passionate Journey Cosplaying Over The Years https://says.com/my/lifestyle/malaysian-cosplayer-badass-transformation-from-nutritionist-to-arcane-jinx" on SAYS, 13 April 2022.

Jordan Peterson photo
Enoch Powell photo

“Being a nation is, in the last resort, subjective; those who feel they are a nation and behave accordingly are one.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The Guardian (4 June 1979), quoted in Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (1998), p. 822
1970s

Gregory Benford photo

“Definitions had to be like a fat man’s belt - big enough to cover the subject but elastic enough to allow for change.”

The Sunborn (2005), Part II, Chapter 14, “This Immense Voyage” (p. 163)

Alex Webb (photographer) photo
Edward Bellamy photo
J.C. Ryle photo
Tertullian photo

“Man is one name belonging to every nation upon earth. In them all is one soul though many tongues. Every country has its own language, yet the subjects of which the untutored soul speaks are the same everywhere.”

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

De Testimonio Animae (The Testimony of the Soul), 6.3
The Soul's Testimony https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0309.htm
Original: (la) Omnium gentium unus homo, uarium nomen est, una anima, uaria uox, unus spiritus, uarius sonus, propria cuique genti loquella, sed loquellae materia communis.

Zhang Yimou photo

“Fiction film is really different from documentary in this aspect. It is less objective, because the director expresses a subjective point of view with the movie. I would like the movie to look like a documentary, look real.”

Zhang Yimou (1950) Chinese actor, film director, screenwriter and film producer

"No one to be Missed" in Off Screen https://offscreen.com/view/zhang_yimou (April 1999)

Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor photo

“An Emperor is subject to no one but God and Justice.”

Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (1122–1190) Holy Roman Emperor (1122-1190)

From Julius Wilhelm Zincgref (1591-1645), Apophthegmata (1626), bk. I. Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 18th ed. (2012).

Vladimir I. Arnold photo

“Such axioms, together with other unmotivated definitions, serve mathematicians mainly by making it difficult for the uninitiated to master their subject, thereby elevating its authority.”

Vladimir I. Arnold (1937–2010) Russian mathematician

Vladimir I. Arnold, "Ordinary Differential Equations", 3rd edition, p. 58.

Idegu Ojonugwa Shadrach photo
André Breton photo