Quotes about use (10000 quotes, page 8)

“The phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the co-ordination between man [sic] and time.”

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russian composer, pianist and conductor

Quoted in DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465, Ch. 3. from Igor Stravinsky' Autobiography (1962). New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., p. 54.
1970s and later

Music , Time

“Upon the earth are animals and men, some in a middle region, others dwelling about the air as we dwell about the sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the continent; and in a word, the air is used by them as the water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them as the air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their seasons is such that they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and have sight and hearing and smell, and all the other senses, in far greater perfection, in the same degree that air is purer than water or the ether than air. Also they have temples and sacred places in which the gods really dwell, and they hear their voices and receive their answers and are conscious of them and hold converse with them, and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they really are, and their other blessedness is of a piece with this.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Men , God , Disease , Star

“As we have already learned how to sacrifice our own lives, now no one can stop us!”

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh

Quote, This time the struggle is for our freedom (1971)

Learning

“One of the most significant facts about us may finally be that we all begin with the natural equipment to live a thousand kinds of life but end in the end having lived only one.”

Clifford Geertz book The Interpretation of Cultures

Source: The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), p. 45

Life , Nature

“I would like to leave behind me the conviction that if we maintain a certain amount of caution and organization we deserve victory. … You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. … We must dare to invent the future.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

From 1985 interview with Swiss Journalist Jean-Philippe Rapp, translated from Sankara: Un nouveau pouvoir africain by Jean Ziegler. Lausanne, Switzerland: Editions Pierre-Marcel Favre, 1986. In Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution 1983-87. trans. Samantha Anderson. New York: Pathfinder, 1988. pp. 141-144.

Courage , Change , Future , Victory

“Of all the fathers, as many as you can name, not one has ever spoken about the sacrament as these fanatics do. None of them uses such an expression as, 'It is simply bread and wine,' or, 'Christ’s body and blood are not present.' Yet since this subject is so frequently discussed by them, it is impossible that they should not at some time have let slip such an expression as, 'It is simply bread,' or, 'Not that the body of Christ is physically present,' or the like, since they are greatly concerned not to mislead the people; actually, they simply proceed to speak as if no one doubted that Christ’s body and blood are present. Certainly among so many fathers and so many writings a negative argument should have turned up at least once, as happens in other articles; but actually they all stand uniformly and consistently on the affirmative side.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

That These Words of Christ, 'This is My Body' Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, 1527, in Luther's Works, Word and Sacrament III, 1961, Fortress Press, , volume 37, p. 54. http://books.google.com/books?ei=PxdBTeK6F4PogQe9lKizAw&ct=result&id=J-0RAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Nicodemus%2C+joseph%2C+Paul%22&q=%22Still+Stand+Firm+Against+the+Fanatics%22#search_anchor This work appeared in vol. 2 of the Wittenberg ed. of Luther's Works (in German) and was later translated into Latin by Matthew Judex (Matthaeum Iudicem) under the title: Defensio τοῦ ρητοῦ Verborum Cenae: Accipite, Comedite: Hoc est Corpus Meum: Contra Phanaticos Sacramentariorum Spiritus. http://solomon.tcpt.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/cpt/getobject.pl?c.121:1.cpt
Luther's Latin: “Nullus ex patribus, quorum infinitus est numerus, de Sacramento sic loquutus est, ut Sacramentarii. Nam nemo ex iis talibus verbis utitur Tantum panis & vinum est: Vel Corpus & Sanguis Christi non adestProfecto non est credibile, nec possibile cum toties ab iis res ista agatur & repetatur, quod non aliquando, vel semel tantum excidissent haec verba. Est merus Panis, aut, non quod Christi corpus corporaliter adsit, aut his similia, cum tamen multum referat ne homines seducantur, Sed omnes praecise ita loquuntur, quasi nullus dubitet, quin ibi praesto sit corpus & sanguis Christi. Sane ex tot patribus, & tot scriptis, ab aliquibus, vel saltem ab uno potuisset negativa sententia proferri, ut in aliis articulis usitatum & frequens est, si non sensissent, corpus & sanguinem Christi vere inesse. Verum omnes concordes & constantes uno ore affirmatium proferunt.” See Luther's Opera Omnia, Wittenberg ed., (1558), vol., 7, p. 391. http://books.google.com/books?id=jrpjO-K_kQYC&pg=PR10&dq=Accipitae+Hoc+%22corpus+meum%22+luther&hl=en&ei=9iFBTeOqIonbgQeJ4IXmAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=coenae&f=false

People , Wine , Time , Christ

“It would have been better if we had fought in Italy and Austria which are really at war against us, instead of allowing them to use our unfortunate Slovenians, Croats and Moslems as bait and cannon fodder.”

Ratko Mladić (1943) Commander of the Bosnian Serb military

From interview with Vreme, May 24, 1993
Interviews (1993 – 1995)

War

“Yeah, I think James Brown is a genius you know, when he's with the Famous Flames, unbelievable. I used to watch him on television and I used to get angry at the cameraman because whenever he would really start to dance they would be on a close-up so I couldn't see his feet. I'd shout "show him show him," so I could watch and learn.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On watching James Brown as a young child.
Televised Interview with Oprah Winfrey (1993)

Thinking , Learning , Dance

“Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend. Not that it is necessary in order to make known to God what we are, but in order to enable us to receive Him. Prayer does not bring God down to us, but brings us up to Him.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Steps to Christ (1892) http://www.whiteestate.org/books/sc/sc.asp, p. 93

God , Heart

“Yesterday, we were a weak and small country trampled upon by big powers. Today, our geopolitical location remains the same, but we are transformed into a proud political and military power and an independent people that no one can dare provoke. The days are gone forever when our enemies could blackmail us with nuclear bombs.”

Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea

April 15th 2012 speech in Kim Il-Sung Square, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/world/asia/kim-jong-un-north-korean-leader-talks-of-military-superiority-in-first-public-speech.html

People , Country

“The Daily Worker disapproves of dictatorship in Athens, the Catholic Herald disapproves of dictatorship in Belgrade. There is no one who is able to say—at least, no one who has the chance to say in a newspaper of big circulation—that this whole dirty game of spheres of inﬂuence, quislings, purges, deportation, one-party elections and hundred per cent plebiscites is morally the same whether it is done by ourselves, the Russians or the Nazis. Even in the case of such frank returns to barbarism as the use of hostages, disapproval is only felt when it happens to be the enemy and not ourselves who is doing it.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (26 January 1945) http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

Game , Chance

“Let every man abide in the art or employment wherein he was called. And for their labor they may receive all necessary things, except money. … Let none of the brothers, wherever he may be or whithersoever he may go, carry or receive money or coin in any manner, or cause it to be received, either for clothing, or for books, or as the price of any labor, or indeed for any reason, except on account of the manifest necessity of the sick brothers. For we ought not to have more use and esteem of money and coin than of stones. And the devil seeks to blind those who desire or value it more than stones. Let us therefore take care lest after having left all things we lose the kingdom of heaven for such a trifle. And if we should chance to find money in any place, let us no more regard it than the dust we tread under our feet.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

First Rule of the Friars Minor

Money , Books , Art , Chance

“Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

As quoted in Queers in History : The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays (2009), by Keith Stern, p. 465.

“Fate suggests submission to the circumstances of life; destiny suggests active engagement. The former implies some all-powerful force or figure to whose will we must submit. The latter implies that each of us is a manifestation of one of the infinite aspects of creation, whose fullest expression depends in some small but necessary way on our day-to-day, moment-to-moment decisions.”

Fenton Johnson (1953) American novelist

"Going it alone" (2015)

Life , Fate , Way , Decision

“There are two kinds of bathing suits, those that are adapted for use in the water, and those that are unfit for use except on dry land. If you are going to swim, wear a water bathing suit. But if you are merely going to play on the beach and pose for your camera friends, you may safely wear the dry land variety.”

Annette Kellerman (1886–1975) Australian swimmer, vaudeville star, film actress and writer

How to Swim (1918), pp. 47–48

Water

“... it would be better for us to go down with Bolshevism than live in eternal slavery under capitalism.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

The Devil’s Disciples: Hitler’s Inner Circle by Anthony Read (2004) p. 142, diary entry Oct. 23, 1925
Diary excerpts

“There are people who are convinced of the wickedness both of armies and of police forces, but who are nevertheless much more intolerant and inquisitorial in outlook than the normal person who believes that it is necessary to use violence in certain circumstances. They will not say to somebody else, ‘Do this, that and the other or you will go to prison’, but they will, if they can, get inside his brain and dictate his thoughts for him in the minutest particulars. Creeds like pacifism and anarchism, which seem on the surface to imply a complete renunciation of power, rather encourage this habit of mind. For if you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics — a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage — surely that proves that you are in the right? And the more you are in the right, the more natural that everyone else should be bullied into thinking likewise.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool," Polemic (March 1947)

People , Nature , Thinking , Appearance

“l'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used all the time at the time, and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes but I couldn't play it. … I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.”

Charlie Parker (1920–1955) American jazz saxophonist and composer

On his personal stylistic breakthrough, quoted in Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955) edited by Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro, . p 354

Thinking , Change , Time

“My honorable task is to strengthen the authority of our country in the world. I would be glad if other states respected us for showing understanding, tolerance and love for peace. I would be happy if Pope John Paul II and the Dalai Lama of Tibet could visit our country before the elections, if only for a day. I would be happy if our friendly relations with all nations were strengthened. I would be happy if we succeeded before the elections in establishing diplomatic relations with the Vatican and Israel.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)

Love , World , Peace , Understanding

“From everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living nothing is in my eyes better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad.”

Ivo Andrič (1892–1975) novelist, short story writer

The Bridges, as quoted in The Old Bridge of Mostar and Increasing Respect for Cultural Property in Armed Conflict (2012) by Jadranka Petrovic, p. 65

Secret , Sense , Housing

“The night that hides things from us.”

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto XXIII, line 3 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Night

“The fear of the other makes us resemble the other who fears us.”

Jorge Majfud (1969) Uruguayan-American writer

Cybors (2012)

Fear

“Lying in a featherbed
will not bring you fame, nor staying beneath the quilt,
and he who uses up his life without achieving fame
leaves no more vestige of himself on Earth
than smoke in the air or foam upon the water.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXIV, lines 47–51.
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Life , Lying , Water

“Punk Rock (while still sacred to some) is, to me, dead and gone. We just wanted to pay tribute to something that helped us to feel as though we had crawled out of the dung heap of conformity.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Incesticide liner notes (1992)

Feeling , Help , Dead

“It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the amount of money that goes out of the country as a consequence. Everybody is using coffee; this must be prevented. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were both his ancestors and officers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer, and the King does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be relied upon to endure hardships in case of another war.”

Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786) king of Prussia

1777; quoted by Bert L. Vallée, Alcohol in the Western World, Scientific American, Vol. 278, No. 6 (June), 1998, pp. 80-85

Money , War , Coffee , Drink

“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart never resteth till it findeth rest in Thee.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 515

Heart

“The Apostle Paul wants us to work with our hands in order to share with the needy (Ephesians 5:28). Notice that he could have said that we should work to support ourselves. But Paul says that we work to give to those in need. This is why caring for our body is also a Christian work. If the body is healthy and fit, we are able to work and save money that can be used to help those in need.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 80

Money , Support , Help

“There shall be no transaction between East and West Pakistan. All communications, telegraph and telephone, will be confined within Bangladesh. The people of this land are facing elimination. If need be, we will bring everything to a total standstill. Collect your salaries on time. If the salaries are held up, if a single bullet is fired upon us henceforth, if the murder of my people does not cease, I call upon you to turn every home into a fortress against their onslaught. Use whatever you can put your hands on to confront this enemy. Every last road must be blocked.”

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh

Quote, This time the struggle is for our freedom (1971)

People , Home , Communication , Time

“It would be our policy to use nuclear weapons wherever we felt it, necessary to protect our forces and achieve our objectives.”

Robert S. McNamara (1916–2009) American businessman and Secretary of Defense

Source: Herbert Y. Schandler (1975), US Policy on the Use of Nuclear Weapons, 1945-1975. p. 55

“A baby is born into this world in a state of fear. Total paranoia and awareness. He sees the world with eyes not used yet. As he grows up, his parents lay all this stuff on him. They tell him, when they should be letting him tell them. Let the children lead you.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Rolling Stone interview (June 1970)

Children , World , Fear , Parent

“I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark almost blue color, and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.””

John Green book The Fault in Our Stars

A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."
Augustus "Gus" Waters, p. 310-313
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Love , Death , War , People

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.”

Ransom Riggs book Miss Peregrine's Home of Peculiar Children

Source: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2011), Chapter 11, Page 351

Life , Dreams

“Cause baby now we got bad blood.
You know it used to be mad love.
So take a look at what you've done.
'Cause baby now we got bad blood.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Bad Blood, written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback
Song lyrics, 1989 (2014)

Love , Baby , Madness

“I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

Internet meme commonly attributed to Stallman made by an unknown source.
Misattributed

People , Parting

“In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Phaedrus
Plato, Phaedrus

Pleasure

“I am here today, I may not be here tomorrow. But the responsibility to look after national interest is on the shoulder of every citizen of India. I have often mentioned this earlier. Nobody knows how many attempts have been made to shoot me, lathis have been used to beat me. In Bhubaneswar itself, a brickbat hit me. They have attacked me in every possible manner. I do not care whether I live or die. I have lived a long life and I am proud that I spend the whole of my life in the service of my people. I am only proud of this and nothing else. I shall continue to serve until my last breath and when I die, I can say, that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

In: Selected Speeches of Indira Gandhi: January 1, 1982-October 30, 1984 http://books.google.com/books?id=ndA3AQAAIAAJ, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1986, p. 495.
Her last speech delivered in Orissa on 30 October 1984 before she was assassinated.

Life , People

“The vast-ness of Russia devours us.”

Gerd von Rundstedt (1875–1953) German Field Marshal during World War II

In the summer of 1942. Quoted in "Inside Hitler's Germany: Life Under the Third Reich" - Page 127 - by Matthew Hughes, Chris Mann - History - 2002

“This homeless guy asked me for money the other day. I was about to give it to him and then I thought he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol. And then I thought, that's what I'm going to use it on. Why am I judging this poor bastard?”

Greg Giraldo (1965–2010) American comedian

Just For Laughs

Money , Alcohol , Guy

“I feel I am privileged to express a hope. The hope is this: that we shall have peace throughout the world: that we shall abolish wars, and settle all international differences at the conference table: that we shall abolish all atom and hydrogen bombs, before they abolish us first.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

In response to journalist for his views on the future of mankind at his 70th birthday (16 April 1959)

War , World , Peace , Hope

“I am of course confident that I will fulfil my tasks as a writer in all circumstances — from my grave even more successfully and more irrefutably than in my lifetime. No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I am prepared to accept even death. But may it be that repeated lessons will finally teach us not to stop the writer’s pen during his lifetime? At no time has this ennobled our history.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Open letter to the Fourth Soviet Writers’ Congress (16 May 1967); as translated in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1970) edited by Leopold Labedz (1970).

Death , Truth , Confidence , History

“Yon rising Moon that looks for us again —
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden — and for one in vain!”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)

“Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

People , Idea

“We need a science to save us from science.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

NY Times Magazine, as reported in High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, Vol. 34 (1952), p. 46
1950s

Science

“There is no servant except that there exists a white spot upon his heart. So when he commits a sin, a black spot arises into that white spot. Then when he repents, this black spot moves away. But if he continues on committing sins, the blackness of this spot increases till such time that it overwhelms and overrides the whiteness. When the whiteness is all covered over (by the blackness), the owner of it (the heart) does never at all return towards beneficence and goodness. And This is what God means when he says: "Nay! rather, what they used to do has become like a rust upon their hearts."”

Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams

Qur'an, 83:14
Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī, vol.73, p. 332
Religious Wisdom

God , Time , Heart

“All around us there are other women, seemingly not hurt, making small talk, acting normal, which means happy, not discontent, certainly not devastated. Girls are still being socialised not to identify with - feel empathy for - other females: she got hurt because she did x, y, z - I didn’t, so I didn’t get hurt; she’s at fault, I’m not; the punishment fits her crime; blame her, exonerate him. This continuing, culturally applauded socialisation of women not to empathize with other women is a malignant part of the culture of men, dead white ones or not. Women are perceived to be appalling failures when we are sad. Women are pathetic when we are angry. Women are ridiculous when we are militant. Women are unpleasant when we are bitter, no matter what the cause. Women are deranged when women want justice. Women are man-haters when women want accountability and respect from men. Women are trash when women let men do what men want Women are shrews or puritans when we do not.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

‘Suffering and Speech’ in Catherine A MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (eds) In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings.

Women , Men , Sadness , Justice

“The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possesses it whole, entire and undivided, and all together not more than one alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God and the source in us of all our life.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Quoted in Friends' Intelligencer, Vol. 107 (1950), ed. 26-52, p. 657

Life , God , Way , Personality

“We shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and a migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the site of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now, if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O friends and judges, can be greater than this? …Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. …What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they would not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

40c–41c
Plato, Apology

Life , Death , Men , World

“The employment of mathematical symbols is perfectly natural when the relations between magnitudes are under discussion; and even if they are not rigorously necessary, it would hardly be reasonable to reject them, because they are not equally familiar to all readers and because they have sometimes been wrongly used, if they are able to facilitate the exposition of problems, to render it more concise, to open the way to more extended developments, and to avoid the digressions of vague argumentation.”

Antoine Augustin Cournot Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth

Source: Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth, 1897, pp. 3-4; Cited in: Moritz (1914, 199)

Way , Mathematics , Nature , Problem

“A fine thing: suddenly to forget about one’s history, one’s past, to stop feeling that one’s present happiness is endangered by what one used to be.”

Peter Handke (1942) Austrian writer, playwright and film director

Source: Das Gewicht der Welt [The Weight of the World], p. 7

Feeling , History , Past , Forgetting

“It's like there's this predator energy on this planet, and this predator energy feeds upon the essence of the spirit, feeds upon the essence of the human being, the spirit. This predator energy can take fossil fuel and other resources out of the Earth, turn it into fuel, to run a machine system. But in order for there to be a need for that system, and in order for that system to work, they have to mine our minds to get at the essence of our spirit. In the same way the external mining takes place, it pollutes—we see now, people understand how it poisons the environment, the water, the air pollution—the mining of the essence, the mining of the spirit, mining our minds … the pollution from that is all the neurotic, distorted, insecure behavior patterns that we develop. That's the pollution. Because in order for this predatory system, this disease, to work, we must not be able to use our minds in a clear coherent manner. Because if we use our minds in a clear coherent manner, we will not accept the unacceptable.”

John Trudell (1946–2015) Native American rights activist, musician, poet

Columbus Day Speech, San Francisco (1992)

People , Disease , Way , Behavior

“As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before.”

François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French writer, politician, diplomat and historian

Aussitôt qu'une pensée vraie est entrée dans notre esprit, elle jette une lumière qui nous fait voir une foule d'autres objets que nous n'apercevions pas auparavant.
As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tyron Edwards.

Light

“For each of us as women, there is a dark place within where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, “Beautiful and tough as chestnut/stanchions against our nightmare of weakness” and of impotence. These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

"Poetry is Not a Luxury"
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

Women , Beauty , Feeling , Strong

“A work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force — they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Nobel lecture (1970)

Truth , Age , Art , Appearance

“People all over the world
Are the same everywhere I go,
I give in to this, I give in to that,
Every day it bothers me so,
Am I in a bad situation?
People taking me to the extreme,
Am I being used? I just need a clue,
I don't know which way to go.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Things I Do For You (credited to "The Jacksons")
Destiny (1977)

People , World , Way

“Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don’t help us, who else in the world can help us do this?”

Albert Camus (1913–1960) French author and journalist

Said at the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Maubourg (1948); reported in Resistance, Rebellion and Death (translation by Justin O'Brien, 1961), p. 73

Children , World , Help

“If we judge from Islamic history, there is much to encourage us. For century after century, the Arabs, the Persians, the Turks and many other Islamic societies achieved powerful leadership roles in the world — not only politically and economically but also intellectually… The fundamental reason for the pre-eminence of Islamic civilizations lay neither in accidents of history nor in acts of war, but rather in their ability to discover new knowledge, to make it their own, and to build constructively upon it. They became the Knowledge Societies of their time.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

Address by His Highness the Aga Khan to the 2006 Convocation of the Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan (2 December 2006)]

War , World , History , Knowledge

“I have collected all the writings of the Empire and burnt those which were of no use.”

Qin Shi Huang (-258–-210 BC) founding emperor of the Qin Dynasty

As quoted in The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption (2006) by Clive Foss, p. 10, ISBN 1905204965

“In the most trying hours, through dismal nights and endless interrogations and maltreatment, during days of killing solitude in cells and close confinement, we were always sustained by the hope that all these agonies were not in vain, that there was a strong and mighty country, however far away, in which all the dreams for which we were fighting had been fulfilled. For us it was the homeland of the workers, in which labour was honoured, in which love, comradeship, and sincerity prevailed. With what joy I had felt the strength of that country as, emerging from prison in 1934, I listened in the dead of each night to Radio Moscow and heard the clock of the Kremlin tower striking the hours, and the stirring strains of the 'International.”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 128.
Other

Love , Dreams , Hope , Solitude

“Sometimes I cry cause I'm confused,
Is this a fact of being used?
There is no life for me at all,
'Cause I give myself at beck and call.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Bless His Soul (credited to "The Jacksons")
Destiny (1977)

Life , Cry

“It's nothing to do with us at all, our success is due to the taste of the public.”

Bon Scott (1946–1980) Rock musician

Countdown interview, Mascot Airport, Sydney, April 1976.

Success

“You want to have proven to you that the soul is imperishable and immortal, and you think that the philosopher who is confident in death has but a vain and foolish confidence, if he thinks that he will fare better than one who has led another sort of life, in the world below, unless he can prove this; and you say that the strength and divinity of the soul, and of her existence prior to our becoming men, does not necessarily imply her immortality. …For any man, who is not devoid of natural feeling, has reason to fear, if he has no knowledge or proof of the soul's immortality. That is what I suppose you to say, Cebes, which I designedly repeat, in order that nothing may escape us…”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Life , Death , Men , World

“The NSA has the greatest surveillance capabilities that we've ever seen in history. Now, what they will argue, is that they don't use this for nefarious purposes against American citizens. In some ways, that's true but the real problem is that they're using these capabilities to make us vulnerable to them and then saying, 'well I have a gun pointed at your head. I'm not going to pull the trigger. Trust me.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Government Surveillance (HBO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&feature=youtu.be&t=1048,
2016

Way , History , Problem

“[A] world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

As I Please (1943–1947)

World

“We used to think that Hitler was wicked when he wanted to kill all the Jews, but what Kennedy and Macmillan and others both in the East and in the West pursue policies which will probably lead to killing not only all the Jews but all the rest of us too. They are much more wicked than Hitler and this idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly and absolutely horrible and it is a thing which no man with one spark of humanity can tolerate and I will not pretend to obey a government which is organising the massacre of the whole of mankind. I will do anything I can to oppose such Governments in any non-violent way that seems likely to be fruitful, and I should exhort all of you to feel the same way. We cannot obey these murderers. They are wicked and abominable. They are the wickedest people that ever lived in the history of man and it is our duty to do what we can.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"On Civil Disobedience", April 15th, 1961
1960s

People , Way , Feeling , History

“It is often said that the Arabs fled, that they left the country voluntarily, and that they therefore bear the responsibility for losing their property and their land. It is true that in history there are some instances — in Rome and in France during the Revolutions when enemies of the state were proscribed and their property confiscated. But in general international law, the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or his rights of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than the [European] Jews. Just because the Arabs fled? Since when is that punishable by confiscation of property and by being barred from returning to the land on which a people's forefathers have lived for generations? Thus, the claim of the Jews to the land of Israel cannot be a realistic political claim. If all nations would suddenly claim territories in which their forefathers had lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse. … I believe that, politically speaking, there is only one solution for Israel, namely, the unilateral acknowledgement of the obligation of the State towards the Arabs — not to use it as a bargaining point, but to acknowledge the complete moral obligation of the Israeli State to its former inhabitants of Palestine.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Jewish Newsletter [New York] (19 May 1959); quoted in Prophets in Babylon (1980) by Marion Woolfson, p. 13

People , World , Law , History

“It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-ﬁghting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (24 March 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/wif/
As I Please (1943–1947)

Women , Youth , Dogs

“How could you leave, girl?
'Cause love for us was meant to be,
Then you must be seein'
Some other guy instead of me.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Workin Day and Night
Off the Wall (1979)

Love , Guy , Girl

“I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That's when I was born.”

Charlie Parker (1920–1955) American jazz saxophonist and composer

c. 1939 quoted in Masters of Jazz

“O Eternal God, now may it please you
to burn in love
so that we become the limbs
fashioned in the love you felt
when you begot your Son
at the first dawn
before all creation.
And consider this need which falls upon us,
take it from us for the sake of your Son,
and lead us to the joy of your salvation.”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

"O eterne deus"

Love , God , Fashion , Joy

“A phrase much used in political circles in this country is "playing into the hands of". It is a sort of charm or incantation to silence uncomfortable truths. When you are told that by saying this, that or the other you are "playing into the hands of" some sinister enemy, you know that it is your duty to shut up immediately.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (9 June 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/tpithoa/
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

Truth , Silence , Country

“But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one—not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (24 March 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/wif/
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

“Balthasar of Waldshit has fallen into prison here - a man not merely irreverent and unlearned, but even empty. Learn the sum of the matter. When he came to Zurich our Council fearing lest he should cause a commotion ordered him to be taken into custody. Since, however, he had once in freakishness of disposition and fatuity, lurked out in Waldshut against our Council, of which place he, by the gods, was a guardian [i. e., he has pastor there], until the stupid fellow disunited and destroyed everything, it was determined that I should discuss with him in a friendly manner the baptising of infants and Catabaptists, as he earnestly begged first from prison and afterwards from custody. I met the fellow and rendered him mute as a fish. The next day he recited a recantation in the presence of certain Councillors appointed for the purpose [which recantation when repeated to the Two Hundred it was ordered should be publicly made Therefore having started to write it in the city, he gave it to the Council with his own hand, with all its silliness, as he promised. At length he denied that he had changed his opinion, although he had done so before a Swiss tribunal, which with us is a capital offence, affirming that his signature had been extorted from him by terror, which was most untrue].
The council was so unwilling that force should be used on him that when the Emperor or Ferdinand twice asked that the fellow be given to him it refused the request. Indeed he was not taken prisoner that he might suffer the penalty of his boldness in the baptismal matter, but to prevent his causing in secret some confusion, a thing he delighted to do. Then he angered the Council; for there were present most upright Councillors who had witnessed his most explicit and unconstrained withdrawal, and had refused to hand to him over to the cruelty of the Emperor, helping themselves with my aid. The next day he was thrust back into prison and tortured. It is clear that the man had become a sport for demons, so he recanted not frankly as he had promised, nay he said that he entertained no other opinions than those taught by me, execrated the error and obstinacy of the Catabaptists, repeated this three times when stretched on the racks, and bewailed his misery and the wrath of God which in this affair was so unkind. Behold what wantonness! Than these men there is nothing more foolhardy, deceptive infamous - for I cannot tell you what they devise in Abtzell - and shameless. Tomorrow or next day the case will come up.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

Letter to Capito, January 1, 1526 (Staehelin, Briefe ausder Reformationseit, p. 20), ibid, p. 249-250

Men , God , Secret , Stupidity

“(if he's ever been in a 'romcom' or 'chick flick' before) "I think there’s a strength in expressing emotion. If you were a guy, you used to have to be really masculine, but now expressing emotion is accepted and respected."
As 'guy who has a twin sister' on 2017-03-20,”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/03/zayn-malik-interview-the-times-quotes

Guy , Thinking

“If the development by the enemy as well as by us of thermonuclear weapons could have been averted, I think we would be in a somewhat safer world today than we are…I do not think we want to argue technical questions here, and I do not think it is very meaningful for me to speculate as to how we would have responded had the technical picture at that time been more as it was later.
However, it is my judgment in these things that when you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. I do not think anybody opposed making it; there were some debates about what to do with it after it was made. I cannot very well imagine if we had known in late 1949 what we got to know by early 1951 that the tone of our report would have been the same.”

Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics

Oppenheimer testifying in his defense in his 1954 security hearings, discussing the American reaction to the first successful Russian test of an atomic bomb and the debate whether to develop the "super" hydrogen bombs with vastly higher explosive power; from volume II of the Oppenheimer hearing transcripts http://www.osti.gov/includes/opennet/includes/Oppenheimer%20hearings/Vol%20II%20Oppenheimer.pdf, pg 95/266 (emphasis added)

World , Way , Imagination , Question

“The Phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us, we two being one, are it.
So to one neutral thing both sexes fit,
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.”

John Donne The Canonization

The Canonization, stanza 3

Love , Sex

“Looking round that filthy room, with raw meat lying among the refuse on the floor, and cold, clotted saucepans sprawling everywhere, and the sink blocked and coated with grease, I used to wonder whether there could be a restaurant in the world as bad as ours. But the other three all said they had been in dirtier places.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 21; on the state of the kitchen at the newly opened Auberge.

World , Lying

“Two artists can suggest two different subject matters and two completely different pictures by using the same spot. Every picture demonstrates certain aspects from the inner life of the painter who made it. For this reason, the orthodox Tachist is wary of letting himself be influenced by Leonardo's famous wall... I grant the painter the right to speak, to laugh, to take a stand and to draw upon all his hallucinatory faculties. But I absolutely refuse to live like a Tachist.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Quote from 'Max Ernst im Gesprach mit Eduard Roditi' (1967), as cited in Max Ernst, Écritures Paris, 1970, p. 416
1951 - 1976

Life , Drawing

“Few men are controlled by reason, and few are pleased by a right purpose. The mob, rather, is led to what was plainly invented for oblivion of its cares. For it supposes that whatever serves its pleasure must also be linked to the happiness of the age. Therefore, let us grant the expenses, and not be forever giving from rational considerations. Sometimes it is useful to play the fool, and so control the joys the people long for.”

Cassiodorus Variae

Bk. 3, no. 51; pp. 70-71.
Variae

Men , People , Pleasure , Age

“Azerbaijan became the Independent Republic […] A new epoch has begun in the life of Azerbaijan. And the history of our oil industry has got a new foundation, that’s to say, the third stage… During the new stage, expressing the will of the Azerbaijani people, we undertake necessary measures to use its natural resources.”

Heydar Aliyev (1923–2003) Soviet and Azerbaijani politician

The speech of President Heydar Aliyev at the signing ceremony of the Contract of the Century (20 September 1994) http://en.president.az/azerbaijan/contract

Life , People , History , Nature

“We define law, using the word in the philosophic sense, as the constant relation discoverable in a series of phenomena.”

Michel Bréal (1832–1915) French philologist

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 11

Law , Sense

“We have no more thought of using our own powers to escape the arm of authorities than had the Apostles of old. No more are we ready to keep silent at man's behest when God commands us to speak. For it is, and must remain, the case that we must obey God rather than man.”

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor

Last sermon before being imprisoned by the Nazi regime of Germany (27 June 1937), as quoted in Religion in the Reich (1939) by Michael Power, p. 142

God

“You take an oath to a man whom you know follows the laws of providence, which he obeys independently of the influence of earthly powers, who leads the German people rightly, and who will guide Germany's fate. Through your oath you bind yourselves to a man who — that is our faith — was sent to us by higher powers. Do not seek Adolf Hitler with your mind. You will find him through the strength of your hearts!”

Rudolf Hess (1894–1987) German Nazi leader

"The Oath to Adolf Hitler" (1934)

Fate , People , Faith , Law

“Wisdom is, I suppose, the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

The Fourfold Treasure (1871) No. 991 http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0991.htm

Wisdom , Men , Fools , Knowledge

“We know a history so that we can learn from it. We learn our history because we understand the sacrifices that were made before, so that when we make sacrifices we understand we're doing it on behalf of future generations. There’s a proverb that says, “We have not inherited this land from our forebears, we have borrowed it from our children.” In other words, we study the past so it can guide us into the future, and inspire us to do better.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)

Children , History , Understanding , Study

“The world begins and ends with us. Only our consciousness exists, it is everything, and this everything vanishes with it. Dying, we leave nothing. Then why so much fuss around an event that is no such thing?”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

World

“I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it.”

Jack Handey (1949) American comedian

Deep Thoughts: Inspiration for the Uninspired (1992), Berkley Books, ISBN 0-425-13365-6

Hate , War , World

“No one says in the morning: A day is soon past, let us wait for the night. On the contrary, in the evening we consider what we shall do the next day. We should be very sorry to spend even one day at the mercy of time and bores. … Who can be certain of spending an hour without being bored, if he takes no care to fill even that short period according to his pleasure. Yet what we cannot be certain of for an hour, we sometimes feel assured of for life, and say: “If death is the end of everything, why give ourselves so much trouble? We are extremely foolish to make such a pother about the future”—that is to say, we are extremely foolish not to entrust our destinies to chance, and to provide for the interval which lies between us and death.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 173.

Life , Death , Pleasure , Feeling

“We have to understand who we are and where we fit in the natural order of the world because our oppressor deals in illusions. They tell us that it is power, but it is not power. They may have all the guns and they may have all the racist laws and judges, and they may control all the money, but that is not power. These are imitations of power and they are only ‘power’ because in our minds we allow it to be power.”

John Trudell (1946–2015) Native American rights activist, musician, poet

"We are Power" speech (1980)

Money , World , Law , Understanding

“Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

As quoted in In Passing: Condolences and Complaints on Death, Dying, and Related Disappointments (2005) by Jon Winokur, p. 144

Hell

“There is synthesis when, in combining therein judgments that are made known to us from simpler relations, one deduces judgments from them relative to more complicated relations. There is analysis when from a complicated truth one deduces more simple truths.”

André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) French physicist and mathematician

André-Marie Ampère in: André-Marie Ampère: Enlightenment and Electrodynamics http://books.google.co.in/books?id=QWZKQWB-sbQC&pg=PA158, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 158.

Truth

“(on his twin sister) "Join us next week… where Zoe will be eating fruit off my naked body.."”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

Sister

“We must reach out to our people. We must alert them. We must educate them. We must encourage them. We must inspire them. And here's a beautiful, wonderful thing: when you reach out to other people to encourage them and inspire them, you yourself will be encouraged and inspired. When you find out how many other people there are who share our concerns, our feelings, our values, our sense of responsibility, you cannot help but be encouraged. Even the hatred that you encounter from some people -- especially from people in the controlled media -- will be encouraging. For you will understand that they would not hate us so much if they did not fear us. And the reason that they fear us is that deep inside them they know that what we say is true. So let's get out there -- all of us -- and start looking for encouragement!”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

The Big Picture, 1996
1990s, 1990
Source: [Pierce, 1976-2002, 125]

Hate , People , Education , Fear

“Long and tedious reflection cannot enable us to shape our decisions and attitudes properly; only that definite and clear instruction which we gain can form a direct inner link to God. This instruction alone is able to give us the inner firmness and lasting peace of mind which must be regarded as the highest boon in life. And if we ascribe to God, in addition to His omnipotence and omniscience, also the attributes of goodness and love, recourse to Him produces an increased feeling of safety and happiness in the human being thirsting for solace. Against this conception not even the slightest objection can be raised from the point of natural science, for as we pointed it out before, questions of ethics are entirely outside of its realm.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Religion and Natural Science (1937)

Love , Life , God , Peace

“When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

21d
Plato, Apology

Appearance

“I have not said anything about politics today. I don't propose to say anything about politics. You have a right to elect whom you please; vote for the man you think best, and I think, when that is done, that you and I are freemen. Do as you consider right and honest in electing men for office. I did not come here to make you a long speech, although invited to do so by you. I am not much of a speaker, and my business prevented me from preparing myself. I came to meet you as friends, and welcome you to the white people. I want you to come nearer to us. When I can serve you I will do so. We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment. Use your best judgement in selecting men for office and vote as you think right.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)

Men , People , Color , Business

“If we let fashion, love of innovation, and an alleged scientific spirit tempt us to surrender the native quality of our own art, the free natural certainty of our work and perception, our bright golden light, then we are simply being stupid and senseless.”

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) Italian composer

Si rinunci per moda, per smania di novità, per affettazione di scienza, si rinneghi l'arte nostra, il nostro istinto, quel nostro fare sicuro spontaneo naturale sensibile abbagliante di luce, è assurdo e stupido.
Letter to Clarina Maffei, April 20, 1878, cited from Franco Abbiati Giuseppe Verdi (Milano: Ricordi, 1959) vol. 4, p. 79; translation from Franz Werfel and Paul Stefan (eds.), Edward Downes (trans.) Verdi: The Man in His Letters (New York: L. B. Fischer, 1942) p. 345.

Love , Stupidity , Art , Fashion