Quotes about term
page 31

Dylan Moran photo

“Or Berlusconi, in Italy, right; the envy of the world, Italy, in terms of history, art and culture, 98 different political parties, and they still managed to elect him!”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

He’s so fucking crooked he sleeps on a spiral staircase! So thoroughly corrupt, every time he smiles an angel gets gonorrhoea! He's had so many face-lifts, his face has moved to the top of his head, you have to get on a step-ladder to watch him lie!
On Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
What It Is (2009)

Ernest Mandel photo
Robert Aumann photo
Jane Roberts photo
Alan Moore photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Bill Maher photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Teal Swan photo
Ethan Allen photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
James P. Gray photo
James P. Gray photo
Werner Kunz photo
Steven Crowder photo
Trevor Loudon photo

“Government welfare is communism. Free money from the state, whether in terms of benefits, handouts, or non-universal tax-breaks, is a trap that will draw people into socialism and beyond. It’s a lot like cancer.”

Trevor Loudon New Zealand politician

"Government Welfare: A Cancer Known as Communism" https://www.theepochtimes.com/government-welfare-a-cancer-known-as-communism_2787169.html

“Like Goethe and Spengler I’m convinced that history has an inner, organic logic which can’t be grasped purely in terms of causality.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

Interview with Methodik http://sthelepress.com/index.php/2019/03/04/on-that-march-first-speech-b-r-myers/ (2019)
2010s

Bernie Sanders photo
Alfred von Waldersee photo

“"Democrat" is among officers simply a term denoting a bad lot.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, quoted in Walter Görlitz, History of the German General Staff, 1657-1945 https://ia801907.us.archive.org/34/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.285159/2015.285159.The-_text.pdf

Yves Klein photo

“At present, I am particularly excited by 'bad taste'. I have the deep feeling that there exists in the very essence of bad taste a power capable of creating those things situated far beyond what is traditionally termed 'The Work of Art.'”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

I wish to play with human feeling, with its 'morbidity' in a cold and ferocious manner. Only very recently I have become a sort of gravedigger of art (oddly enough, I am using the very terms of my enemies). Some of my latest works have been coffins and tombs. During the same time I succeeded in painting with fire, using particularly powerful and searing gas flames, some of them measuring three to four meters high. I use these to bathe the surface of the painting in such a way that it registered the spontaneous trace of fire.
Quote from Klein's 'Chelsea Hotel Manifesto', 1961; from the Yves Klein Archives - archived from the original on 15 January 2013; as cited on Wikipedia: Yves Klein
After the opening of his unsuccessful exhibition at Leo Castelli's Gallery, New York 1961, Klein stayed with Rotraut Uecker (fr) at the Chelsea Hotel for the duration of the exhibition. While there, he wrote the 'Chelsea Hotel Manifesto', a proclamation of the 'multiplicity of new possibilities'
1960 -1964

Georg Simmel photo

“Money expresses all qualitative differences of things in terms of "how much?"”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

Money, with all its colorlessness and indifference, becomes the common denominator of all values; irreparably it hollows out the core of things, their individuality, their specific value, and their incomparability. All things float with equal specific gravity in the constantly moving stream of money. All things lie on the same level and differ from one another only in the size of the area which they cover.
The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903)

Lynn Compton photo

“The theory of the nature of mathematics is extremely reactionary. We do not subscribe to the fairly recent notion that mathematics is an abstract language based, say, on set theory. In many ways, it is unfortunate that philosophers and mathematicians like Russell and Hilbert were able to tell such a convincing story about the meaning-free formalism of mathematics. In Greek, mathematics simply meant learning, and we have adapted this... to define the term as "learing to decide."”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Mathematics is a way of preparing for decisions through thinking. Sets and classes provide one way to subdivide a problem for decision preparation; a set derives its meaning from decision making, and not vice versa.

C. West Churchman, Leonard Auerbach, Simcha Sadan, Thinking for Decisions: Deductive Quantitative Methods (1975) Preface.
1960s - 1970s

Bernie Sanders photo
Dana Arnold photo
Dana Arnold photo
Dana Arnold photo
John Allen Paulos photo

“Even the most superficial of a newspaper reveals an important aspect of human psychology: our preoccupation with the short term.”

Source: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Chapter 21, “Researchers Look to Local News for Trends” (p. 96)

Umar II photo

“O people, you were not created in vain, nor will you be left to yourselves. Rather, you will return to a place in which Allah will descend in order to judge among you and distinguish between you. Destitute and lost are those who forsake the all-encompassing Mercy of Allah, and they will be excluded from Paradise, the borders of which are as wide as the heavens and the Earth. Don't you know that protection, tomorrow, will be limited to those who feared Allah [today], and to those who sold something ephemeral for something permanent, something small for something great, and fear for protection? Don't you realize that you are the descendants of those who have perished, that those who remain will take place after you, and that this will continue until you are all returned to Allah? Every day you dispatch to Allah, at all times of the day, someone who has ded, his term having come to an end. You bury him in a crack in the earth and then leave him without a pillow or a bed. He has parted from his loved ones, severed his connections with the living, and taken up residence in the earth, whereupon he comes face to face with the accounting. He is mortgaged to his deeds: He needs his accomplishments, but not the material things he left on earth. Therefore, fear Allah before death descends and its appointed times expire. I swear by Allah that I say those words to you knowing that I myself have committed more sins than any of you; I therefore ask Allah for forgiveness and I repent. Whenever we learn that one of you needs something, I try to satisfy his need to the extent that I am able. Whenever I can provide satisfaction to one of you out of you of my possessions, I seek to treat him as my equal and m relative, so that my life and his life are of equal value. I swear by Allah that had I wanted something else, namely, affluence, then it would have been easy for me to utter the word, aware as I am of the means for obtaining this. But Allah has issued in an eloquent Book (Quran) and a just example Sunnah by means of which He guides us to obedience and proscribes disobedience.”

Umar II (681–720) Umayyad caliph

History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 24, p. 98/99, also quoted in Umar Bin Abd Al-Aziz, p. 708-710
Last Sermon delivered to People

“I myself can wear joggers, a good pair of sneakers, then maybe a sweatshirt, and on top of it all, a blazer. That's what makes a difference in luxury terms.”

Brunello Cucinelli (1953) Italian entrepreneur and philanthropist

Source: THE VALUE OF HUMAN DIGNITY: Brunello Cucinelli’s Vision for a Better World https://gearpatrol.com/2018/12/20/brunello-cucinelli-interview/ John Zientek, Gear Patrol, December 20, 2018

“Of the four terms ... Praise, Blame, Punishment, and Responsibility, the cardinal and governing one is the last.”

Chapman Cohen (1868–1954) British atheist and secularist writer and lecturer

p. 68 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89009314162&view=1up&seq=72
Determinism or Free-will? (1912)

“I tell ya, man, your cat is officially out of control. He really gives new meaning to the term tempest in a teapot.”

Darby Conley (1970) American cartoonist

Daily strip for July 19, 2002
Joe Doman

David Pearce (philosopher) photo

“[H]ere we come to the nub of the issue: the alleged moral force of the term "natural."”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

If any creature, by its very nature, causes terrible suffering, albeit unwittingly, is it morally wrong to change that nature? If a civilised human were to come to believe s/he had been committing acts that caused grievous pain for no good reason, then s/he would stop - and want other moral agents to prevent the recurrence of such behaviour. May we assume that the same would be true of a lion, if the lion were morally and cognitively "uplifted" so as to understand the ramifications of what (s)he was doing? Or a house cat tormenting a mouse? Or indeed a human sociopath?

" Reprogramming Predators https://www.hedweb.com/abolitionist-project/reprogramming-predators.html", BLTC Research, 2009

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Donald J. Trump photo
John F. MacArthur photo
Mike Pompeo photo

“Over the five, ten, twenty-five year time horizon, just by simple demographics and wealth, as well as by the internal system in that country, China presents the greatest challenge that the United States will face in the medium to long-term.”

Mike Pompeo (1963) 70th United States Secretary of State, former Director of Central Intelligence Agency and former Congressman fro…

Pompeo: China Is Biggest Threat to the United States, Breitbart, (10 December 2018)
2018

“The human desire to be understood is never quite sincere. It is on our own terms that we desire to be understood, not on the terms of truth.”

Elizabeth Goudge (1900–1984) English fiction writer

The Child from the Sea (1970), Book 2, Chapter 1.5

Abdullah Öcalan photo
Rodrigo Duterte photo

“I hate corruption. (I'm not claiming to be clean. I also stole a lot, but it's all used up. So, it's gone.) ...corruption is really out during my term.”

Rodrigo Duterte (1945) Filipino politician and the 16th President of the Philippines

Hindi ako nagmamakalinis. Marami rin akong nanakaw pero naubos na. So, wala na.

Livestream: 140th founding anniversary of the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association, Inc. (PCCAI) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHdEnLY1GtQ&t=3993 (Jun 28, 2017)

William Kingdon Clifford photo
Newton Lee photo
Kamo no Chōmei photo
David Pearce (philosopher) photo
Bhanu Choudhrie photo

“Always look at the long-term opportunity. Take a business where you can see the long-term potential, then put in a management team you can trust to execute your strategy.”

"Bhanu Choudhrie – C & C Alpha Group" https://www.thewealthscene.com/business-leaders-entrepreneurs/bhanu-choudhrie-c-c-alpha-group/, The Wealth Scene (2018)

Seneca the Younger photo
Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet photo

“But for a long time to come the prime movers in these operations must continue to be European. And we hope that a great Christian, and if we may use the term, ecclesiastical army will be raised, the rank and file consisting of natives, while the captains and generals are highly qualified Europeans.”

Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet (1826–1902) British politician

"Oriental experience; a selection of essays and addresses delivered in various occasions" in Shourie, Arun (1994). Missionaries in India: Continuities, changes, dilemmas. New Delhi : Rupa & Co, 1994 https://archive.org/stream/orientalexperien00tempuoft/orientalexperien00tempuoft_djvu.txt

“Poverty can be defined objectively and applied consistently only in terms of the concept of relative deprivation.”

Peter Townsend (sociologist) (1928–2009) British sociologist

[Poverty in the United Kingdom: A Survey of Household Resources and Standards of Living, 1979, University of California Press, 978-0-520-03976-6, 31, https://books.google.com/books?id=weGYy_-czvsC&pg=PA31]

Winston S. Churchill photo

“Peace with Germany and Japan on our terms will not bring much rest to you and me (if I am still responsible). As I observed last time, when the war of the giants is over, the war of the pygmies will begin.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Telegram to FDR, March 18, 1945 http://www.churchillarchiveforschools.com/themes/the-themes/anglo-american-relations/just-how-special-was-the-special-relationship-in-the-Second-World-War-Part-2-1942-44/the-sources/source-7
Post-war years (1945–1955)

“In terms of carbon footprint, the worst thing you can do is have a child. And it’s the one taboo that nobody wants to speak.”

Patricia MacCormack Australian Scholar

Why this professor's climate-crisis solution is rankling Twitter: 'The worst thing you can do is have a child' https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-professor-climate-crisis-solution-rankling-twitter-155305526.html (13 February 2020) Yahoo!Life

Harry Gordon Selfridge photo
Alice A. Bailey photo

“There is a great distinction between the terms "aspirant to the Path" and "applicant for initiation."”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

He who aspires and strives towards discipleship is in no way pledged to the same specific attitude and discipline as is the applicant for initiation, and he can, if he so choose, take as long as he desires in the treading of the Probationary Path. p. 192
Initiation, Human and Solar (1922)

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel photo
J.B. Priestley photo
Milton Friedman photo

“Now, when anybody starts talking about this [an all-volunteer force] he immediately shifts language. My army is 'volunteer,' your army is 'professional,' and the enemy's army is 'mercenary.' All these three words mean exactly the same thing. I am a volunteer professor, I am a mercenary professor, and I am a professional professor. And all you people around here are mercenary professional people. And I trust you realize that. It's always a puzzle to me why people should think that the term 'mercenary' somehow has a negative connotation.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

And this is much more broadly based. In fact, I think mercenary motives are among the least unattractive that we have.
The Draft: A Handbook of Facts and Alternatives, Sol Tax, edit., chapter: “Why Not a Voluntary Army?” University of Chicago Press (1967) p. 366, based on the Conference Held at the University of Chicago, December 4-7, 1966

Mikhail Gorbachev photo
Milton Friedman photo

“Now, when anybody starts talking about this [an all-volunteer force] he immediately shifts language. My army is 'volunteer,' your army is 'professional,' and the enemy's army is 'mercenary.' All these three words mean exactly the same thing. I am a volunteer professor, I am a mercenary professor, and I am a professional professor. And all you people around here are mercenary professional people. And I trust you realize that. It's always a puzzle to me why people should think that the term 'mercenary' somehow has a negative connotation. I remind you of that wonderful quotation of Adam Smith when he said, 'You do not owe your daily bread to the benevolence of the baker, but to his proper regard for his own interest.'”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

And this is much more broadly based. In fact, I think mercenary motives are among the least unattractive that we have.
Source: The Draft: A Handbook of Facts and Alternatives, Sol Tax, edit., chapter: “Recruitment of Military Manpower Solely by Voluntary Means,” chairman: Aristide Zolberg, University of Chicago Press (1967) p. 366, based on the Conference Held at the University of Chicago, December 4-7, 1966, also in Two Lucky People, Milton and Rose Friedman, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 380.

Dorothy Thompson photo
Daniel Abraham photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Robert Boyle photo
Annie Besant photo

“There is a Path which leads to that which is known as Initiation, and through Initiation to the Perfecting of Man; a Path which is recognized in all the great religions, and the chief features of which are described in similar terms in every one of the great faiths of the world. You may read of it in the Roman Catholic teachings as divided into three parts: (1) The Path of Purification or Purgation; (2) the Path of Illumination; and (3) the Path of Union with Divinity. You find it among the Mussulmans in the Sufi — the mystic — teachings of Islam, where it is known under the names of the Way, the Truth and the Life. You find it further eastward still in the great faith of Buddhism, divided into subdivisions, though these can be classified under the broader outline. It is similarly divided in Hinduism; for in both those great religions, in which the study of psychology, of the human mind and the human constitution, has played so great a part, you find a more definite subdivision. But really it matters not to which faith you turn; it matters not which particular set of names you choose as best attracting or expressing your own ideas; the Path is but one; its divisions are always the same; from time immemorial that Path has stretched from the life of the world to the life of the Divine.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Robert Walpole photo

“I dare be bold to affirm that, had the King of France beaten us, as we have done him, he would have been so modest as to have given us better terms than we have gained after all our glorious victories.”

Robert Walpole (1676–1745) British statesman

Source: Address https://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/walpole-robert-ii-1676-1745 to the electors of Kings Lynn for the general election of 1713 against the Treaty of Utrecht

Elizabeth Martinez photo

“Thinking about racism in terms of just black and white is a further "invisibilization."”

Elizabeth Martinez (1925) American community organizer, activist, author, and educator

We have to recognize the commonality of experience of racism among people of color. Sometimes racism is based on skin color or other physical features; it can have added components of culture, language and legal status -- as in the case of people of Mexican descent.…
On racism in "Unite and Overcome!" https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-1997/unite-and-overcome in Teaching Tolerance (Spring 1997)

John Cooper Clarke photo

“I'm a short-term nostalgic; things were great ten minutes ago. If only I could go back there. At my time of life I suffer from déjà vu and amnesia at the same time; I can't remember what happens next.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Series 1 - In the O-Zone Zone (16 Nov 2016)
BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016)

Tucker Carlson photo
Greg McKeown (author) photo
Newt Gingrich photo

“By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

https://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/01/newt-pledges-moon-base-by-second-term-112319
Newt pledges moon base by second term
Alexander
Burns
Politico
January 25, 2012.; * https://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/2012/jan/25/newt-gingrich-moon-base
Newt Gingrich promises moon base by the end of his second term
Stuart
Miller
The Guardian
January 25, 2012.
2010s

“An important term for us in the church is solidarity. We are brothers and sisters first because of that shared baptism, and there’s even deep solidarity simply because we’re all created by the same God.”

Steven Biegler (1959) American prelate

Father Steve Biegler selected as ninth bishop of Diocese of Cheyenne https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/father-steven-biegler-selected-as-ninth-bishop-of-diocese-of-cheyenne/article_7b23ad10-0ad8-11e7-a803-eb2d09401e05.html (Mar 17, 2017)

Felix Adler photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo

“In the short term, natural selection favors self-propagating systems that pursue their own short-term advantage with little or no regard for long-term consequences.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

Source: Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How (2015), p. 44

Elizabeth Blackwell photo
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington photo

“My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expens of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public.”

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

Letter from the field of Waterloo (June 1815), as quoted in Decisive Battles of the World (1899) by Edward Shepherd Creasy. Quoted too in Memorable Battles in English History: Where Fought, why Fought, and Their Results; with the Military Lives of the Commanders by William Henry Davenport Adams; Editor Griffith and Farran, 1863. p. 400.

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg photo
W. Clement Stone photo
Frithjof Schuon photo
Frithjof Schuon photo
Seneca the Younger photo
Walter Reuther photo

“We live in a world in which the common denominator that binds the human family together has been reduced to its simplest fundamental term—human survival.”

Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader

Address before the special constitutional convention of the United Auto Workers, Detroit, Michigan, January 22, 1958, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 214 This is our goal—a world of peace, freedom, and social justice for all people everywhere.

James Howard Kunstler photo

“Everything can tend toward diminishing returns and unsustainability, […] even in the short term.”

Source: The Long Emergency (2005), Chapter 7, p. 240.

Joe Biden photo

“Do I trust the Taliban? No. But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, July 2021, Remarks by President Biden on the Drawdown of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan

William Winwood Reade photo

“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

John Mulaney photo

“In terms of like, instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin.”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

New in Town (2012)

Katie Leung photo

“I used to be really, really shy, which is never a good thing because you never speak up for yourself. Now I don't stop talking! But in terms of being recognised, it doesn't really happen that often. I get the odd person coming up and saying they love the films.”

Katie Leung (1987) Scottish actress

"Movies - interview - Katie Leung" in BBC (9 July 2007) http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2007/07/09/katie_leung_harry_potter_5_2007_interview.shtml

Chigozie Obioma photo

“There are some rhetorical moves that I wouldn’t be able to make if I didn’t know these languages. In terms of writing figurative language, I probably pull a lot from Yoruba imagery…”

Chigozie Obioma (1986) Nigerian writer

On his first novel The Fishermen in “'Why Jay?': Chigozie Obioma on the haunting death that inspired his novel” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/18/chigozie-obioma-why-do-my-stories-end-this-way-honestly-i-want-to-write-a-feelgood-story- in The Guardian (2019 Jan 18)

Ma Huateng photo

“Education and health care are not only commercial services, but also public and universal ones. So on top of commerce, what can we do to play our role? What can we do in terms of pension and health in an ageing society?”

Ma Huateng (1971) Chinese internet entrepreneur

"Tencent founder Pony Ma emphasises company’s investment in social value amid increasing antitrust and gaming scrutiny" in South China Morning Post (23 April 2021) https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3130836/pony-ma-emphasises-tencents-investment-social-value-amid-increasing

Trần Đại Quang photo

“Preventing and fighting corruption and waste is an important, urgent and long-term task of extreme difficulty and complexity. To enhance the efficiency of the work, timely detection, investigation and handling of offences plays a decisive role.”

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

"Re-elected President Tran Dai Quang gives media interview" in Nhân Dân https://en.nhandan.vn/politics/domestic/item/4492502-re-elected-president-tran-dai-quang-gives-media-interview.html (26 July 2016)

William Thurston photo
Alex Morgan photo

“The fight that we are doing right now for equal pay does not mean that we will achieve it in the short term. We are not going to get the equal pay right away, but it may be done by the time my daughter plays soccer and she will not suffer what we suffered.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"Alex Morgan says she is fighting for equal pay for her daughter" https://en.as.com/en/2021/05/10/soccer/1620674328_417702.html (May 10, 2021)