Quotes about view
page 37

“I think that the book has survived as a set text because teachers like using it. It has a lot of possibilities from a teaching point of view. Most kinds of children seem to identify with the story. Northanger Abbey it is not! It should really be out of date now after all these years. But sadly, it’s not. There are still a lot of kids like Billy around. Ken Loach’s film Kes is a sympathetic retelling of the book. It adds value to it. Ken is a wonderful director for any writer to work with. I was very lucky that Tony Garnett the producer and Ken discovered my little book.”

Barry Hines (1939–2016) British author

On A Kestrel for a Knave
Barry Hines Interview: Homecoming Hero

Children, Books, Thinking, Teachers

“What persists into postmodern conditions is an abiding infrastructural dependence on communication and information technologies. They are undoubtedly viewed in the popular and political imaginations as far more beneficial than baleful to humanity. That they will continue to expand their influence is beyond doubt, short of some global catastrophe.”

David Lyon (1948) British sociologist

§8, p. 139
Surveillance society

Imagination, Communication, Dependency

“It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Last paragraph of the first edition (1859). Only use of the term "evolve" or "evolution" in the first edition. In the second http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F376&viewtype=image (1860) through sixth (1872) editions, Darwin added the phrase "by the Creator" to read: There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 489-90 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F373&viewtype=image

Life, Death, War, Law

“If my view be correct, Erasmus Darwin planted the seed of suggestion in questioning whether adaptation meant no more to man than illustration of creative ingenuity; the one grandson, Charles Darwin, collected the facts which had to be dealt with and linked them together by wide-reaching hypotheses; the other grandson, Francis Galton, provided the methods by which they could be tested...”

Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician

The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton (1914)

Question

“That this change of view as to the basis of science cannot take place without misunderstanding, or without giving an opportunity to those who dislike science to decry its weaknesses, is only natural. To change the basis of operations during a campaign always gives a chance to the enemy, but the chance must be risked if thereby we place ourselves permanently in a position of greater strength...”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the Second Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Nature, Science, Change, Chance

“Like other social media platforms, Wikipedia has evolved into an echo chamber where the user is presented with only one type of content instead of being shown a balanced narrative. This disinformation is powerful since the articles are written in an academic style and users do not see other sources that disagree with the article.... Some editors of Wikipedia are failed academics with demonic energy who wish to conquer anonymously what they were unable to do in their normal careers. And spending much of their working life editing Wikipedia articles and by the use of multiple anonymous handles they have obtained administrative status which entitles them to block opposing views. The anonymous persona of the editors and the low stakes have made Wikipedia politics much more vicious than real politics.”

Subhash Kak (1947) Indian computer scientist

Subhash Kak, April 9, 2019 Wikipedia or Trashpedia? https://medium.com/@subhashkak1/wikipedia-or-trashpedia-4198e2c78e59

Life

“Nagel once claimed that it is psychologically impossible to believe the Reductionist View. Buddha claimed that, though it is very hard, it is possible. I find Buddha’s claim to be true. After reviewing my arguments, I find that, at the reflective or intellectual level, though it is very hard to believe the Reductionist View, this is possible. My remaining doubts or fears seem to me irrational. Since I can believe this view, I assume that others can do so too. We can believe the truth about ourselves.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 280

Truth, Fear

“Female rage is not really permitted in real life. Angry women are called bitches, too emotional, hysterical, whereas male rage is often portrayed as heroic, righteous, intelligent. In Monstress, Arcanics wear collars around their necks to keep them from exercising their full selves. And I think one of the collars around the necks of women is society’s views about female rage. Which isn’t to say anger is necessarily a force for good. Rage can be energizing and sustaining, but it’s ultimately problematic if it doesn’t lead you to a deeper exploration of the source…”

Marjorie M. Liu (1979) American writer

On how female rage is portrayed in Monstress in “Marjorie Liu on the Road to Making Monstress” https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/09/marjorie-liu-monstress-interview/539394/ in The Atlantic (2017 Sep 14)

Life, Women, Exercises, Intelligence

“Anything which is created must, sooner or later, die. If enlightenment were created in such a way, there would always be a possibility of ego reasserting itself, causing a return to the confused state. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it. In the Buddhist tradition the analogy of the sun appearing from behind the clouds is often used to explain the discovery of enlightenment. In meditation practice we clear away the confusion of ego in order to glimpse the awakened state. The absence of ignorance, of being crowded in, of paranoia, opens up a tremendous view of life. One discovers a different way of being.”

Chögyam Trungpa book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Life, Way, Appearance, Sun

“Indeed, the most urgent, the most essential task is the education of children and youth... It is usually customary to confuse education with upbringing, but it is time to understand that school education, as it is established in most cases, not only does not contribute to the moral upbringing of youth, but acts inversely. In the Anglo-Saxon countries the schools are occupied mainly with the physical development of youth to the detriment of their mental development. But the excessive enthusiasm for sports leads to the coarsening of character, to mental degeneration, and to new diseases. True, not much better is the situation in home education under the conditions of the modern family. Therefore, it is time to pay most serious attention to the grave and derelict situation of children and youth from the moral point of view. Many lofty concepts are completely out of habitual use, having been replaced by everyday formulas for the easy achievement of the most vulgar comforts and status...The program of education is as broad as life itself. The possibilities for improvement are inexhaustible...We are on the eve of a new approach to and reconstruction of the entire school education... The quantity and speed of new discoveries in all domains of science grow so rapidly that soon contemporary school education will not be able to walk in step with and respond to the new attainments and demands of the time; new methods in the entire system of education will have to be devised...”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

19 April 1938

Life, Children, Youth, Education

“I was also interested in what it’s like to experience in a really vivid and authentic-seeming way agency and choice in a circumstance that you might later in your life view completely differently, because as much as you were experiencing agency and choice, you were actually in a radically disempowered situation you weren’t even experienced enough to recognize. That’s why I think consent is such a complicated issue.”

Susan Choi (1969) American novelist

On consent being a theme in her book Trust Exercise in “Trust, Serendipity, and Consent: An Interview with Trust Exercise Author Susan Choi” https://www.bookish.com/articles/interview-susan-choi-trust-exercise/ in Bookish (2019 Apr 16)

Life, Way, Thinking

“Politics is policy. What policy should you follow in view of the idea that there isn’t enough to go around — the power of the few, or the needs of the many? Political economy is based on misassumptions...”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Buckminster Fuller Talks Politics (1982)

Idea

“To study Marxism-Leninism is to learn the spirit in which one should deal with things, with other people and with oneself. It means to study the universal Marxist-Leninist truths in order to apply them creatively to the practical conditions of our country. We must study with a view to action . Theory must go hand in hand with practice.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

"On Revolutionary Morality" (1958)
1950's, On Revolutionary Morality (1958)

People, Truth, Study, Learning

“As to the future of humanity, I’m essentially an optimist. I believe that with the advancement of technology, mankind has a hopeful future. But this optimistic view is based on reason: on one hand, whether the future will be bright or be dark depends largely on the choices we make today.”

Liu Cixin (1963) Chinese science fiction writer

On his hopes for mankind in “In the Author’s Universe: Interview with Sci-Fi Author Cixin Liu” https://vocal.media/futurism/in-the-authors-universe-interview-with-sci-fi-author-cixin-liu in Vocal (2016)

Making love, Hope, Future, Dependency

“A lot of what you see on the internet with people who claim to have autism is a very distorted and unrealistic view of what autism really is. You can spot these people by the absolute pride they have in their condition. They say autism is the best thing ever and some of them even say it places above the general population and makes them better or superior in some way.”

Thomas McKean (1734–1817) American politician

My Interview with Thomas McKean

People, Making love, Way

“Putin was personally angered by events in Libya and the death of President Mammar Qaddafi at the hands of rebels as Qaddafi tried to flee Tripoli after NATO’s intervention in the civil war there. In Putin’s view (again expressed openly in his public addresses and in interviews), the United States was now responsible for a long sequence of revolutions close to Russia’s borders and in countries with close ties to Moscow.”

Fiona Hill (presidential advisor) (1965) American policy adviser

Understanding and deterring Russia: U.S. policies and strategies, https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/understanding-and-deterring-russia-u-s-policies-and-strategies/ Brookings (10 February 10, 2016)

Death, War, Personality, Anger

“Our problem is that we do not fully understand Putin’s calculus, just as he does not understand ours. In Putin’s view, the United States, the European Union and NATO have launched an economic and proxy war in Ukraine to weaken Russia and push it into a corner. As Valery Gerasimov, chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, has underscored, this is a hybrid, 21st-century conflict, in which financial sanctions, support for oppositional political movements and propaganda have all been transformed from diplomatic tools to instruments of war. Putin likely believes that any concession or compromise he makes will encourage the West to push further.”

Fiona Hill (presidential advisor) (1965) American policy adviser

How aiding the Ukrainian military could push Putin into a regional war, By Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/giving-weapons-to-ukraine-could-goad-putin-into-a-regional-war/2015/02/05/ec2e9680-abf5-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html (5 February 2015)

War, Making love, Understanding, Support

“The selfish gene theory is Darwin’s theory, expressed in a way that Darwin did not choose but whose aptness, I should like to think, he would instantly have recognized and delighted in. It is in fact a logical outgrowth of orthodox neo-Darwinism, but expressed as a novel image. Rather than focus on the individual organism, it takes a gene’s eye view of nature. It is a different way of seeing, not a different theory.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Preface to Second Edition (1989)
The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989)

Way, Nature, Thinking, Selfishness

“The happy days of Bretton Woods, often viewed today with nostalgia, were a special case, workable because of a particular economic and political setting… the inherent contradictions in the system were too great. With the benefit of hindsight, it would seem that an erosion of the United States competitive position was implicit in the postwar arrangements.”

Paul Volcker (1927–2019) American economist

The political economy of the dollar

Happiness, Nostalgia

“Religion ~The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion. Fundamentally he may be faithful to his own religion. But he will not be satisfied with the official doctrines of his Church, and will try to penetrate deeper into god’s workshop. And such is the purpose of our initiation. According to the universal laws, the magician will form his own point of view about the universe which henceforth will be his true religion...”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 26

God, Bad luck, Faith, Religion

“It is not reassuring to watch the ease with which foreign scholars have absorbed or adopted the non-temple thesis from their Indian colleagues (whom they assume to be neutral observers) even without being shown any positive evidence. In academic circles in the West, my own restating the status quaestionis in terms of actual evidence has only earned me hateful labels and laughter, and this from big professors at big universities whose prestige is based on the widespread belief that scholarship goes by hard evidence, not politically fashionable opinions. Never has any of them offered hard evidence for the newly dominant view, or even just shown a little familiarity with the contents of the debate.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

Hate, Fashion, Laughter, Universe

“The real problem for the Christian apologist is to find some way apart from the mere facts themselves to establish the justifiability of interpreting facts in a theistic way. No appeal to the mere events or facts themselves will aid in determining which of the alternative interpretations should be placed on the facts. Viewpoints and world views come from without and not from within the facts. Hence, facts or events as such cannot establish theism.”

Norman L. Geisler (1932–2019) American evangelical theologian

Christian Apologetics

World, Way, Problem

“These discussions have always presented different and sometimes even opposite points of view. I think that this is the advantage of this discussion club; we call it a discussion club because where there is only one, right point of view, there is no place for discussion. Truth is born from comparing different approaches to the same phenomena and various assessments. Thanks to your participation, we can reach this result.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Cooperation, Terrorism, UK & USA, President Trump, Resolving Conflict, Defense, Crimea, The Media, Nuclear Weapons Policy: 15th Plenary Session (18 October 2018)

Truth, Thinking

“This is not the problem. The problem is that this part of society is aggressively imposing their view on the majority. We have to be more loyal to each other, more open and transparent… We have to respect everyone, that is true, but we must not impose our points of view on others. Meanwhile, representatives of the so-called liberal idea are simply forcing their ideas on others. They dictate the need for the so-called sex education. Parents are against it…”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Source: Vladimir Putin’s news conference, Transcript, Kremlin.ru, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/60857 (29 June 2019)

Education, Sex, Idea, Problem

“Positions have been coordinated, except for the United States, which always has a special opinion. In fact, the US delegation was open about it from the outset. Everyone knows the current Administration’s stance on the Paris Accords. Nevertheless, all the other participants in the forum confirmed their readiness to implement the agreements under the Paris Accords. Actually, I think there is also a positive moment in the US position too, since the Americans said they were ready to work on the environmental agenda under their own programme. We have to read the final wording but the fact that the Americans say they also want to contribute to solving environmental issues is a positive thing, in my view.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Vladimir Putin’s news conference, Transcript, Kremlin.ru, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/60857 (29 June 2019) 2019

Thinking, Reading

“Dismal and fearsome to view was this strong place of Carcë, most like to the embodied soul of dreadful night brooding on the waters of that sluggish river: by day a shadow in broad sunshine, the likeness of pitiless violence sitting in the place of power, darkening the desolation of the mournful fen; by night, a blackness more black than night herself.”

Eric Rücker Eddison book The Worm Ouroboros

Source: The Worm Ouroboros (1922), Chapter 4, "Conjuring in the Iron Tower"

Soul, Strong, Water, Night

“The Jews were the carriers of that Bolshevist infection which once threatened to destroy Europe. It was also they who incited the ranks of the plutocracies to war, and it is the Jews who have driven America to war against all her own interests, simply and solely from the Jewish capitalistic point of view.”

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

“Speech to the Reichstag Assuming New Powers” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/adolf-hitler-speech-to-the-reichstag-assuming-new-power-april-1942, (April 26, 1942) 1940s

War

“It is difficult to pronounce on the opinion of the ministers of our Church as a body: one portion of them, by far the least informed, protests against anything which can advance the honour and the interests of science, because, in their limited and mistaken view, science is adverse to religion.”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

This is not the place to argue that great question. It is sufficient to remark, that the best-informed and most enlightened men of all creeds and pursuits, agree that truth can never damage truth, and that every truth is allied indissolubly by chains more or less circuitous with all other truths; whilst error, at every step we make in its diffusion, becomes not only wider apart and more discordant from all truths, but has also the additional chance of destruction from all rival errors.
Source: The Exposition of 1851: Views Of The Industry, The Science, and the Government Of England, 1851, p. 225

Religion, Science

“After the elections, Dr Singh did try to be more assertive, taking a view on who would be in his Cabinet and who would not, and resisting the induction of the DMK’s A. Raja and T. R. Baalu, for their unsavoury reputations. Watching from the sidelines, I had hoped he would not buckle under pressure. Dr Singh stood his ground for a day, managed to keep Baalu out, but had to yield ground on Raja under pressure from his own party. To me, it was a reiteration of the message that the victory was not his but the Family’s.”

Manmohan Singh (1932) 13th Prime Minister of India

The Accidental Prime Minister (2014)

Family, Hope, Victory

“Most impediments to scientific understanding are conceptual locks, not factual lacks. Most difficult to dislodge are those biases that escape our scrutiny because they seem so obviously, even ineluctably, just. We know ourselves best and tend to view other creatures as mirrors of our own constitution and social arrangements.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Aristotle, and nearly two millennia of successors, designated the large bee that leads the swarm as a king.
"Glow, Big Glowworm", p. 256
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

Understanding

“We also believe that we should have the power to assist voluntary repatriation, that the dependents must be counted against the limits on numbers, and that the total should be further reduced. … Without the measures outlined, those of us who have studied this question at close quarters are increasingly fearful that an intractable racial problem will be introduced into Britain and may become endemic if we are not careful. This, in our view, must not be allowed. Therefore it is time to bring this problem into the open and not be afraid to talk about it. Those who speak about it in a responsible way should not be charged with racial prejudice.”

Alec Douglas-Home (1903–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Hampstead (3 February 1965), quoted in The Times (4 February 1965), p. 12
Leader of the Opposition

Fear, Way, Question, Problem

“Fascism begins with the rhetoric of dehumanization, humiliation, and reification, right? It starts with the language of brutality, which it normalizes. It legitimates hatred and racism and violence. It views certain groups through rhetoric as enemies of the American people. It operates off of the rhetoric of war, anti-intellectualism, and white supremacy. It operates off of the language of disposability. That language doesn’t just simply normalize increasingly the notions of white nationalism, white supremacy, racism, and xenophobia; it also enacts policies and it creates a culture of utter stupidity, a culture of ignorance. And, unfortunately, it functions so as to enable violence against groups labeled as dangerous, other, excess, and a threat to the whitewashed notion of citizenship.”

Henry Giroux (1943) American academic

Interview with Media For Us, 2019

War, People, Stupidity

“When you’re confronted with your community being rendered invisible to the culture-at-large, a mission as straightforward as nurturing and promoting your community’s storytellers can, in my view, be viewed as a form of activism. Another, if one works in a context like mine, is exposing one’s students to the work of your community’s poets and writers…”

Francisco Aragón (1968) poet

On how poetry can become a form of activism in “Split This Rock Interviews Freedom Plow Finalist Francisco Aragón” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2017/04/split-this-rock-interviews-freedom-plow-finalist-francisco-aragon in Poetry Foundation (Apr 2017)

Communication

“The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. Of that larger script part is already visible, part is still unsolved. In other words, some of the miracles do locally what God has already done universally: others do locally what He has not yet done, but will do. In that sense, and from our human point of view, some are reminders and others prophecies.”

Clive Staples Lewis book God in the Dock

"Miracles" (1942), p. 29
God in the Dock (1970)

God, World, Sense, Universe

“In particular, a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control, are now being permitted and are developing; on the other hand, the socialised state enterprises are being put on what is called a profit basis, i. e., they are being reorganised on commercial lines, which, in view of the general cultural backwardness and exhaustion of the country, will, to a greater or lesser degree, inevitably give rise to the impression among the masses that there is an antagonism of interest between the management of the different enterprises and the workers employed in them.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

“The Role and Functions of the Trade Unions under the New Economic Policy”, LCW, 33, p. 184. Decision Of The C.C., R.C.P.(B.), January 12, 1922. Published in Pravda No. 12, January 17, 1922; Lenin’s Collected Works https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/pdf/lenin-cw-vol-33.pdf, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 33, pages 188–196. 1920s

Country

“We need a real test. The capitalists are operating alongside us. They are operating like robbers; they make profit; but they know how to do things. But you - you are trying to do it in a new way: you make no profit, your principles are communist, your ideals are splendid; they are written out so beautifully that you seem to be saints, that you should go to heaven while you are still alive. But can you get things done? We need a test, a real test, not the kind the Central Control Commission makes when it censures somebody and the All-Russia Central Executive Committee imposes some penalty. Yes, we want a real test from the view point of the national economy.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

"Communism and New Economic Policy",(April 1921)
1920s

Making love, Penalty, Way

“In such circumstances, in view of the incredibly widespread nature of the distortions of Marxism, our first task is to restore the true doctrine of Marx on the state.”

Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution

1.1, Essential Workers of Lenin (1966)
The State and Revolution (1917)

Nature

“One step forward, two steps back. … It happens in the lives of individuals, and it happens in the history of nations and in the development of parties. It would be the most criminal cowardice to doubt even for a moment the inevitable and complete triumph of the principle of revolutionary Social-Democracy, of proletarian organization and Party discipline. We have already won a great deal, and we must go on fighting, undismayed by reverses, fighting steadfastly, scorning the philistine methods of circle wrangling, doing our very utmost to preserve the hard-won single Party tie linking all Russian Social-Democrats, and striving by dint of persistent and systematic work to give all Party members, and the workers in particular, a full and conscious understanding of the duties of Party members, of the struggle and Second Party Congress, of all the causes and all the stages of our divergence, and of the utter and disastrousness of opportunism., which, in the sphere of our programme and our tactics, helplessly surrenders to the bourgeois psychology, uncritically adopts the point of view of bourgeois democracy, and blunts the weapon of the class struggle of the proletariat.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Lenin Anthology, p. 119
1900s, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904)

Democracy, History, Understanding, Fight

“The Doctrine of Evolution is the greatest discovery ever made by the human mind. We are in the act of understanding it now, and hence are not able to appraise it at its true value. But v)^hen time has passed and we are able to look upon it historically and to realize its full significance, it will be recognized as being incomparably more epoch-making even than the prodigious contributions of Newton and Copernicus. It is more than a theory. It is a new point of view. It has necessitated an entirely new revaluation of everything in the universe.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Ethics and Education (1912), The World to Be, p. 144

Making love, Understanding, Universe, Time

“We think of our acts toward non-human peoples, when we think of them at all, entirely from the human point of view.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

We never take the time to put ourselves in the places of our victims. We never take the trouble to get over into their world, and realise what is happening over there as a result of our doings toward them. It is so much more comfortable not to do so—so much more comfortable to be blind and deaf and insane.
"The Psychology of Altruism", p. 304
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Ethical Kinship

People, Thinking

“To take the life of an ox for his muscles, or to kill a sheep for his skin is murder, and those who do these things or cause them to be done are murderers just as actually as highwaymen are who blow off the heads of hapless wayfarers for their guineas. If these things seem untrue it is not because they are untrue, but because those to whom they seem so are unable to judge conduct from the quadrupedal point of view.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"The Ethics of Human Beings Toward Non-human Beings", pp. 281–282
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Ethical Kinship

Life

“We know what a lion looks like when painted by a man, but human eyes have never yet been allumined by the sardonic lineaments of a man painted by a lion. Being boiled alive in order to look well as corpses in store-windows, and having wooden pegs thrust into our muscles and left there to rot for a week or two to keep us in our agony from doing something desperate—we know what these experiences are like when they are delegated to lobsters, and we take no more serious part in them than to insure their infliction, but we are too fervent barbarians to bother our heads about what they are like from the crustacean point of view.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Conclusion", p. 233
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Psychical Kinship

Parting, Painting

“I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society. Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, Why Socialism? (1949)

Men, Education, Way, Communication

“A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward … Let us have no fear of the future.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Source: Speech in the House of Commons, November 29, 1944 "Debate on the Address" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/nov/29/debate-on-the-address#column_31.

Love, World, Fear, Making love

“A note: Churchill viewed Bolshevism as a heavily Jewish phenomenon. He contrasted the Jewish role in the creation of Bolshevism with a more positive view of the role that Jews had played in England.”

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

http://richardlangworth.com/enemies-of-civilization-misquoting-churchill
:
Early career years (1898–1929)

“There is, he’d said, an inverse correlation between the amount of power a person has and the level at which his or her mind functions. A person of ordinary intelligence who acquires power, of whatever kind, tends to develop an exaggerated view of his own capabilities. Sycophants gather. There is little or no criticism of decisions. As his ability to disrupt the lives of others advances, these tendencies become stronger. Eventually you end with Louis the Fourteenth, who thinks he’s done a good job for France, although the country he left behind was ruined.”

Jack McDevitt book Infinity Beach

Source: Infinity Beach (2000), Chapter 15 (p. 219)

Intelligence, Thinking, Decision, Personality

“Without these experimental tests, very few physicists would have accepted general relativity. There are many hypotheses in physics of almost comparable brilliance and elegance that have been rejected because they did not survive such a confrontation with experiment. In my view, the human condition would be greatly improved if such confrontations and willingness to reject hypotheses were a regular part of our social, political, economic, religious and cultural lives.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p. 193)

Parting

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 2, “Genes and Brains” (p. 31)

“The great harm done by bourgeois society, as we have already mentioned, is not only that capitalists seize a large share of the profits of each industrial and commercial enterprise, thus enabling them to live without working, but that all reduction has taken a wrong direction, as it is not carried on with a view to securing well-being to all. For this reason we condemn it.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 8 : Ways and Means

“In its most general form and from the point of view of physics, love is the internal, affectively apprehended, aspect of the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world, centre to centre.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

This is how it has been understood by the great philosophers from Plato, the poet, to Nicolas of Cusa and other representatives of frigid scholasticism. Once this definition has been accepted, it gives rise to a series of important consequences. Love is power of producing inter-centric relationship. It is present, therefore (at least in a rudimentary state), in all the natural centres, living and pre-living, which make up the world; and it represents, too, the most profound, most direct, and most creative form of inter-action that it is possible to conceive between those centres. Love, in fact, is the expression and the agent of universal synthesis. pp. 70–71 https://archive.org/stream/ActivationOfEnergy/Activation_of_Energy#page/n65/mode/2up Activation of Energy (1976)

Love, World, Making love, Drawing

“In dialogue, I’m dealing with the sounds I’ve heard. One of the reasons I often write from first person or multiple points of view is to hear the voices of different characters. Omniscient narration becomes a problem because, for me, the omniscient is my own voice narrating the story and then bringing in characters for dialogue.”

Ernest J. Gaines (1933–2019) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

On how he handled dialogue in his works in “An Interview with Ernest J. Gaines” https://www.missourireview.com/article/an-interview-with-ernest-j-gaines/ in The Missouri Review (1999 Dec 1)

Problem, Personality

“In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them, that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Minute on Education http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html (1835) Minute on Indian Education (1835)

People, Education, Feeling, Knowledge

“It is scarcely possible to calculate the benefits which we might derive from the diffusion of European civilisation among the vast population of the East. It would be, on the most selfish view of the case, far better for us that the people of India were well governed and independent of us, than ill governed and subject to us; that they were ruled by their own kings, but wearing our broadcloth, and working with our cutlery, than that they were performing their salams to English collectors and English magistrates, but were too ignorant to value, or too poor to buy, English manufactures. To trade with civilised men is infinitely more profitable than to govern savages. That would, indeed, be a doting wisdom, which, in order that India might remain a dependency, would make it an useless and costly dependency, which would keep a hundred millions of men from being our customers in order that they might continue to be our slaves.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

"From his Speech in Parliament on the Government of India Bill, 10 July 1833. Quoted from Koenraad Elst, The Argumentative Hindu (2012) Chapter 3

Wisdom, Men, People, Making love

“Undoubtedly, looking back, we nearly all allowed ourselves, for decades, to be frozen into rates of personal taxation which were ludicrously high…That frozen framework has been decisively cracked, not only by the prescripts of Chancellors but in the expectations of the people. It is one of the things for which the Government deserve credit…However, even beneficial revolutions have a strong tendency to breed their own excesses. There is now a real danger of the conventional wisdom about taxation, public expenditure and the duty of the state in relation to the distribution of rewards, swinging much too far in the opposite direction…I put in a strong reservation against the view, gaining ground a little dangerously I think, that the supreme duty of statesmanship is to reduce taxation.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1988/feb/24/opportunity-and-income-social-disparities in the House of Lords (24 February 1988) 1980s

Wisdom, People, Thinking, Decision

“If Reg Prentice is cut down it is not just the local party that is undermining its own foundations by ignoring the beliefs and feelings of ordinary people, the whole legitimate Labour Party, left as well as right, is crippled if extremists have their way. … If tolerance is shattered formidable consequences will follow. Labour MPs will either have to become creatures of cowardice, concealing their views, trimming their sails, accepting orders, stilling their consciences, or they will all have to be men far far to the left of those whose votes they seek. Either would make a mockery of parliamentary democracy. The first would reduce still further, and rightly reduce, respect for the House of Commons. It would become an assembly of men with craven spirits and crooked tongues. The second would, quite simply, divorce the Labour Party from the people.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech in Newham, London (11 September 1975), quoted in The Times (12 September 1975), p. 1
1970s

Men, People, Making love, Way

“Not to have gone into Europe would, in my view, have been a misfortune. But to come out would be on an altogether greater scale of self-inflicted injury. It would be a catastrophe. … I care very much about the influence of Britain in the world, and also about our capacity to control our own destiny. To me, that is much more important than the legalistic definition of sovereignty.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech at the St Ermin's Hotel, Westminster (26 March 1975), quoted in The Times (27 March 1975), p. 8
1970s

World, Self-confidence

“Let there be no doubt that our present rate of inflation is the main cause of our economic difficulties. There never has been a more mistaken piece of economic analysis than the view that we should accept inflation to avoid unemployment. Inflation today, so far from being an alternative to unemployment, is its main cause. If our rate of cost increase is allowed to continue close to twice that of the average for the developed world it will increasingly price us out of world markets. Employers…will have to restrict their activities and still more their labour force in response to mounting and uncontainable wage and salary bills.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Hugh Anderson Memorial lecture at the Cambridge Union (28 February 1975), quoted in The Times (1 March 1975), p. 2
1970s

World

“I don’t know if my writing has the energy you say it does. Of course, if that energy exists, it’s because either it finds no other outlets or, consciously or not, I’ve refused to give it other outlets. Of course, when I write, I draw on parts of myself, of my memory, that are agitated, fragmented, that make me uncomfortable. A story, in my view, is worth writing only if its core comes from there.”

Elena Ferrante (1943) Italian writer

On being told that her writing is energeticin “In a rare interview, Elena Ferrante describes the writing process behind the Neapolitan novels” https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-elena-ferrante-interview-20180517-htmlstory.html in Los Angeles Times (2018 May 17)

Making love, Memory, Parting, Drawing

“Campaign groups which used to oppose neo-Nazis realized that there weren’t sufficient Nazis to justify their business models. They decided that, henceforth, attacking parties such as Ukip should also come under their anti-fascist remit. Soon anybody who opposed supranational institutions or sought to restrict immigration found themselves labelled as beyond the pale. It meant that the views of the majority of the public — in Britain and elsewhere — effectively became defined as far right. In recent years this terminological mission-creep has morphed from being annoying to being disturbing. For if everybody is a fascist, then nobody is. And anyone who knows the scene across Europe will understand that we may well have need of these terms.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

Source: "Right from wrong: a guide to the new European politics" https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/right-from-wrong-a-guide-to-the-new-european-politics/, The Spectator, August 17, 2019

Understanding, Business

“The views of an indigenous leader does not represent that of all the Brazilian indigenous population. Often some of these leaders, such as Cacique Raoni, are used as a ploy by foreign governments in their information warfare to advance their interests in the Amazon.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Speech at the at the 74th UN General Assembly. Statement by Mr. Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil http://statements.unmeetings.org/GA74/BR_EN.pdf. United Nations PaperSmart (24 September 2019).

“We will be informed by our most important ally that it is in our interests to stay in the EU, no matter how flawed we may feel that organisation to be. Never mind the loss of sovereignty; never mind the expense and the bureaucracy and the uncontrolled immigration. The American view is very clear.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Boris Johnson urges Obama not to intervene in EU debate https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35800232 BBC News (14 March 2016) 2010s, 2016

Feeling, Loss

“That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed. … We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents… But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in human friendliness. Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity…Hence we cannot possibly wish success to your arms…. But ours is a unique position. We resist British imperialism no less than Nazism… If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny… Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field… No spoliator can compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or unwilling, of the victim…. The rulers may have our land and bodies but not our souls…. We know what the British heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid… We have found in non-violence a force which, if organized, can without doubt match itself against a combination of all the most violent forces in the world… If not the British, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Letter to Hitler. 24 December 1940. Quoted from Koenraad Elst: Return of the Swastika (2007). (Also in https://web.archive.org/web/20100310135408/http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhihitler.html) 1940s

Life, Men, Friendship, People

“There are various political views in Taiwan. People can hold different political views, (because) the most valuable elements of Taiwanese values are democracy, freedom, diversity and openness.”

Ko Wen-je (1959) Taiwanese politician and physician

Ko Wen-je (2019) cited in " Fruit, vegetable prices will not fall: Ko http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2019/02/01/2003709059" on Taipei Times, 1 February 2019.

People, Democracy, Freedom

“The construction of short stories calls for a markedly different set of mind than work on a novel, and for me short stories are at once more interesting and more difficult to write than longer work. The comparative brevity of the story dictates more economical and accurate use of words and images, a limited palette of events, fewer characters, tighter dialogue, strong title and punctuation that works to move the story forward. If the writer is trying to illustrate a particular period or place, a collection of short stories is a good way to take the reader inside a house of windows, each opening onto different but related views—a kind of flip book of place, time and manners.”

Annie Proulx (1935) American novelist, short story and non-fiction author

On her short story collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories in “An Interview with Annie Proulx” https://www.missourireview.com/article/an-interview-with-annie-proulx/ in The Missouri Review (1999 Mar 1) Personal life and writing career

Books, Way, Strong, Relation ships

“Place and history are central to the fiction I write, both in the broad, general sense and in detailed particulars. Rural North America, regional cultures in critical economic flux, the images of an ideal and seemingly attainable world the characters cherish in their long views despite the rigid and difficult circumstances of their place and time. Those things interest me and are what I write about. I watch for the historical skew between what people have hoped for and who they thought they were and what befell them.”

Annie Proulx (1935) American novelist, short story and non-fiction author

On the subjects that she most likes to write about in “An Interview with Annie Proulx” https://www.missourireview.com/article/an-interview-with-annie-proulx/ in The Missouri Review (1999 Mar 1) Personal life and writing career

People, World, Hope, History

“Origen taught that all souls were created at the beginning of creation as angelic spirits. In this condition they sinned and for their apostasy were transferred into material bodies. It was this view of preexistence which was proclaimed heretical. In any case, heresy thus condemned so long ago need not be regarded today as of major importance. Truth matters a great deal more and a condemned heresy may turn out to be a truth, as happened, for example, when a local church of Rome condemned Galileo’s heliocentric doctrine and forced him to recant. Galileo was right and the church in question was wrong. It is therefore quite legitimate for both clergy and laity of the Christian faith to preach and believe in both preexistence and reincarnation.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Source: Reincarnation & Christianity https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/ReincarnationChristianity.pdf (1967)

Truth, Faith, Angels, Soul

“The ideal of this brotherhood is to draw angels and men, two branches of the infinite family of God, into close cooperation. The chief purpose of such cooperation is to uplift the human race. To this end the angels, on their side, are ready to participate as closely as possible in every department of human life and in every human activity that holds cooperation in view. Those members of the human race who will throw open heart and mind to their brethren of the other sphere, will find an immediate response, and a gradually increasing conviction of its reality.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Source: The Brotherhood of Angels and Men https://www.theosophy.world/sites/default/files/ebooks/The%20brotherhood%20of%20Angels%20and%20of%20Men%20-%20Geoffrey%20Hodson.pdf (1927)

Life, Men, God, Family

“This is evolution carried to its highest power; it is a magnificent prospect; it makes of man a god, and gives to every part of nature the possibility of being one day the same; there is strength and nobility in it, for by this no man is dwarfed and belittled, for no one is so originally sinful that he cannot rise above all sin. Treated from the materialistic position of Science, evolution takes in but half of life; while the religious conception of it is a mixture of nonsense and fear. Present religions keep the element of fear, and at the same time imagine that an Almighty being can think of no other earth but this and has to govern this one very imperfectly. But the old theosophical view makes the universe a vast, complete, and perfect whole.”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

The Ocean of Theosophy by William Q. Judge (1893), Chapter 8, Of Reincarnation

Life, God, Fear, Making love

“The teachings of Theosophy deal for the present chiefly with our earth, although its purview extends to all the worlds, since no part of the manifested universe is outside the single body of laws which operate upon us. Our globe being one of the solar system is certainly connected with Venus, Jupiter, and other planets, but as the great human family has to remain with its material vehicle — the earth — until all the units of the race which are ready are perfected, the evolution of that family is of greater importance to the members of it. Some particulars respecting the other planets may be given later on. First let us take a general view of the laws governing all.”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

The Ocean of Theosophy by William Q. Judge (1893), Chapter 2, General Principles

World, Family, Law, Universe

“There is no one physical characteristic by which an Adept can be infallibly distinguished from other men, but he always appears impressive, noble, dignified, holy and serene, and anyone meeting him could hardly fail to recognize that he was in the presence of a remarkable man. He is the strong but silent man, speaking only when he has a definite object in view, to encourage, to help or to warn, yet he is wonderfully benevolent and full of a keen sense of humour— humour always of a kindly order, used never to wound, but always to lighten the troubles of life. The Master Morya once said that it is impossible to make progress on the occult Path without a sense of humour, and certainly all the Adepts whom I have seen have possessed that qualification.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch. 2

Life, Men, Making love, Sense

“We often speak of Theosophy as not in itself a religion, but the truth which lies behind all religions alike. That is so; yet, from another point of view, we may surely say that it is at once a philosophy, a religion and a science.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

A Textbook of Theosophy (1912), Chapter One

Truth, Religion, Science

“It is not infrequently our custom to seek to cover our own blank ignorance of certain subjects with the confident assertion that nothing ever has been or can be really known… and our treatment of this question of the life after death is one of the worst examples of this habit. If popular theology had not most unhappily altogether lost sight of the cardinal doctrine of reincarnation, its· views on this subject of death would naturally be entirely different. A man who realizes that he has died many times before regards the operation more philosophically than one who believes it to be an absolutely new experience fraught with all kinds of vague· and awful possibilities.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Other Side of Death (1903), p. 42, (1903)

Life, Death, Confidence, Question

“People in the present day will be slow to believe that any knowledge worth considering can be found outside the bright focus of Western culture. Modern science has accomplished grand results by the open method of investigation, and is very impatient of the theory that persons who ever attained to real knowledge, either in sciences or metaphysics, could have been content to hide their light under a bushel. So the tendency has been to conceive that occult philosophers of old- Egyptian priests, Chaldean Magi, Essenes, Gnostics, theurgic Neo-Platonists, and the rest-who kept their knowledge secret, must have adopted that policy to conceal the fact that they knew very little. Mystery can only have been loved by charlatans who wished to mystify. The conclusion is pardonable from the modern point of view, but it has given rise to an impression in the popular mind that the ancient mystics have actually been turned inside out, and found to know very little. This impression is absolutely erroneous.”

Alfred Percy Sinnett book The Occult World

Introduction
The Occult World

Love, People, Secret, Making love

“Many people await the return of the Christ with trepidation and fear. They sense that His appearance will promote great changes in all departments of life. His values, they rightly assume, will necessarily alter their ways of thinking and living and they blanch at such a prospect. Besides, so mystical has been the view of the Christ presented down the centuries by the churches that many fear His judgement and omnipotent power; they await Him as God come to punish the wicked and reward the faithful.”

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

Maitreya's Mission Vol. III (1997)

Life, God, People, Fear

“Let me say that there is no one in our government, at any level, who has the right to tell any American who they should be allowed to love or who they should be allowed to marry. My record in Congress for over six years shows my commitment to fighting for LGBTQ equality. I serve on the equality caucus and recently voted for passage of the Equality Act… Maybe many people in this county can relate to the fact that I grew up in a socially conservative home, held views when I was very young that I no longer hold today. I served with LGBT service members both in training and deployed downrange. I know that they would give their life me, and I would give my life for them.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

In a lineup rich with liars and scandals, Tulsi Gabbard was the only 2020 candidate made to answer for her past, Washington Examiner, Becket Adams https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/in-a-lineup-rich-with-liars-and-scandals-tulsi-gabbard-was-the-only-2020-candidate-made-to-answer-for-her-past, (27 June 2019) 2019

Love, Life, People, Making love

“Malaya had a special contribution to make to world peace. One of the difficult problems of the world was to secure peace, freedom, and democratic government in countries inhabited by more than one community. It could not be done by one community seeking to dominate the others, but only by fair dealing and mutual tolerance. He sometimes thought that those who adopted extreme nationalist ideas did so because they had no constructive ideas and because an appeal to race prejudice saved them from an intolerable burden of thought. In his view the variations in the make-up of a community increased its value, and he wished good luck to all the peoples of Malaya in building up a great multi-racial community.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast in Singapore (6 September 1954), quoted in The Times (7 September 1954), p. 7
Leader of the Opposition

Bad luck, People, World, Making love

“There are some of our own people who still think that the Communists are the left wing of the Socialist movement. They are not. The Socialist movement was a movement for freedom in its widest sense. From the point of view of freedom, Communists are on the extreme right—more reactionary than some of the old tyrannies which we knew in the past. What is the thing for which we fight, for which the men with whom we feel the stir of sympathy throughout the ages have fought? Freedom. But that fight changes from age to age and the freedom that some men fought for may turn out to be tyranny. Communists, concentrating solely on the economic aspects of freedom…have produced the ghastly travesty of Socialism in the lands behind the iron curtain.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Glasgow (10 April 1949), quoted in The Times (11 April 1949), p. 4
Prime Minister

Men, People, Age, Feeling

“At the one end of the scale are the Communist countries: at the other end the United States of America stands for individual liberty in the political sphere and for the maintenance of human rights. But its economy is based on capitalism, with all the problems which it presents, and with the characteristic extreme inequality of wealth in its citizens. … Great Britain, like the other countries of western Europe, is placed geographically and from the point of view of economic and political theory between these two great continental States. … Our task is to work out a system of a new and challenging kind, which combines individual freedom with a planned economy, democracy with social justice.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast (3 January 1948), quoted in The Times (5 January 1948), p. 4
Prime Minister

Justice, Democracy, Problem, Freedom

“Are chiefly cherished in Provinces far from Capitals. They are the standing Wisdom of a Country, though frequently Preposterous on a first view of them.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Customs, p. 62
Table talk

Wisdom, Country

“I hope there are none of you, corrupted with the doctrine taught by wicked men for the worst purposes, and received by the malignant credulity of envy and ignorance, which is, that the men who act upon the public stage are all alike; all equally corrupt; all influenced by no other views than the sordid lure of salary and pension. The thing, I know by experience to be false. Never expecting to find perfection in men, and not looking for divine attributes in created beings, in my commerce with my contemporaries, I have found much human virtue. I have seen not a little public spirit; a real subordination of interest to duty; and a decent and regulated sensibility to honest fame and reputation. The age unquestionably produces (whether in a greater or less number than former times, I know not) daring profligates and insidious hypocrites. What then? Am I not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the world, because of the mixture of evil that will always be in it? The smallness of the quantity in currency only heightens the value. They, who raise suspicions on the good on account of the behaviour of ill men, are of the party of the latter.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Men, Age, World, Hope

“The Social Democrats … perhaps their view of the Kaiser is the truest.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 24 September 1890

“It is very evident that both the prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New are at great pains to give us a view of the glory and dignity of the person of Christ. With what magnificent titles is he adorned! What glorious attributes are ascribed to him! All these conspire to teach us that he is truly and properly God - God over all, blessed forever!”

John Witherspoon (1723–1794) Scottish-American Presbyterian minister and a Founding Father of the United States

From his sermon "The Absolute Necessity of Salvation through Christ", 2 January 1758

God, Pain, Christ, Personality

“I was well into adulthood before I was prepared to acknowledge the simple fact that I am gay. It took years of struggle and growth for me to recognize that it’s just a fact of life, like having brown hair, and part of who I am. Putting something this personal on the pages of a newspaper does not come easy. We Midwesterners are instinctively private to begin with, and I’m not used to viewing this as anyone else’s business. But it’s clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good.”

Pete Buttigieg (1982) American politician

16 June 2015
South Bend mayor: Why coming out matters
South Bend Tribune
https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/south-bend-mayor-why-coming-out-matters/article_4dce0d12-1415-11e5-83c0-739eebd623ee.html
2015

Life, Business, Parting, Personality

“Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and a cure for AIDS, you are right - but your patch is not big enough. Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right wing, left wing, hawk, dove, you are right from your point of view, but your point of view is not enough.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Address to the Democratic National Convention (July 19, 1988)

Fight

“Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of KNOWING Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.”

Brennan Manning book The Ragamuffin Gospel

p. 30 https://books.google.com/books?id=sUTZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA30 1990s, The Ragamuffin Gospel (1990)

Books, Travel, Christ, Personality

“Tommy Robinson is not far-right… and does not have far-right views. He is someone who can give some information and research which is useful to me. We have always been a democratic, non-racist party. That has always been in our constitution and that is exactly the way we are going to keep it. It is very odd in this day and age when you get called far-right, when what you have spent the last 25 years trying to do is to return government to our own democratically elected Parliament.”

Gerard Batten (1954) British politician

UKIP: Gerard Batten says Nigel Farage trying to 'discredit' party https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47926785 BBC News (14 April 2019) 2019

Age, Way

“I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things. First, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mister Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined. Though Mister Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The man who could say, 'Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the sword, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether', gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was willing, while the south was loyal, that it should have its pound of flesh, because he thought that it was so nominated in the bond; but farther than this no earthly power could make him go. About Abraham Lincoln https://web.archive.org/web/20150302203311/http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=4071#_ftnref57. 1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Hate, People, Color, Feeling

“Now, if the Abolitionists are the cause of the war, they are the cause of it only because they sought the abolition of slavery. View it in any way you please, therefore, the rebels are fighting for the existence of slavery; they are fighting for the privilege, the horrid privilege of sundering the dearest ties of human nature; of trafficking in slaves and the souls of men; for the ghastly privilege of scourging women and selling innocent children.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Should the Negro Enlist in the Union Army? (1863)

Women, Men, War, Children

“In some states, hundreds of our workers have been killed because of their political views. Political untouchability is gaining ground by the day. In some places, just the name of BJP is enough to create an atmosphere of untouchability…. Why are our workers killed or attacked in Kashmir, Kerala or Bengal? It is shameful and anti-democratic… But today, in the political canvas of the nation, if there is one party that lives and breathes democracy, it is the BJP.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi quoted in BJP Lives And Breathes Democracy Despite Facing Political Untouchability And Violence’: PM Modi In Varanasi https://swarajyamag.com/insta/bjp-lives-and-breathes-democracy-despite-facing-political-untouchability-and-violence-pm-modi-in-varanasi NDTV https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/after-mega-victory-pm-narendra-modi-says-the-bjp-suffered-political-untouchability-violence-2043561 2019

Democracy

“Of course, Socialism is violently denounced by the capitalist press and by all the brood of subsidized contributors to magazine literature, but this only confirms the view that the advance of Socialism is very properly recognized by the capitalist class as the one cloud upon the horizon which portends an end to the system in which they have waxed fat, insolent and despotic through the exploitation of their countless wage-working slaves.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

Outlook for Socialism in the United States (1900)

Literature

“I have already accepted the policy of Imperial preference…to the effect that a preference will be given on existing duties and on any duties which may subsequently be imposed. On this subject I think there is no difference of opinion between us. … I am prepared to say that the key industries on which the life of the nation depends must be preserved. I am prepared to say also that, in order to keep up the present standard of production and develop it to the utmost extent possible, it is necessary that security should be give against the unfair competition to which our industries have been in the past subjected by the dumping of goods below the actual cost of production. … I shall look at every problem simply from the point of view of what is the best method of securing the objects at which we are aiming without any regard to theoretical opinions about Free Trade or Tariff Reform.”

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

Letter to Andrew Bonar Law (2 November 1918), quoted in The Times (18 November 1918), p. 4
Prime Minister

Life, Problem, Thinking, Past

“I think it was a prescribed road of sorts. The things that had occurred since his childhood were some coincidences, but he kept on walking. It’s the illustration of a 42-year-long life, sort of an encyclopedia. Vasyl was not concerned about his career, he accepted things as befits a man, he was calm about the challenges of fate, well-balanced, and polite. Sometimes he could be tough in defending his position. But, in my view, everything was painted somewhere above. It’s easier to say that it was God’s will.”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

2017 Orest Slipak, the brother of singer. Brother about brother. The Day. Кyiv.ua. - 2017. - 27 April. https://day.kyiv.ua/en/article/topic-day/brother-about-brother

Life, God, Fate, Thinking

“The creation of national parks almost 70 years ago changed the way we view our precious landscapes - helping us all access and enjoy our natural world. We want to make sure they are not only conserved, but enhanced for the next generation. Are we properly supporting all those who live in, work in, or want to visit these magnificent places? Should we indeed be extending our areas of designated land?”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

England could have new national parks in Gove review https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44268724, BBC News, 27 May 2018 2018

World, Making love, Way, Support

“I have repeatedly said that I do not want to be prime minister. That has always been my view. But events since last Thursday have weighed heavily with me. I respect and admire all the candidates running for the leadership. In particular, I wanted to help build a team behind Boris Johnson so that a politician who argued for leaving the European Union could lead us to a better future. But I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

Michael Gove and Theresa May head five-way Conservative race https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36671336, BBC News, 30 June 2016 2016

Future, Help

“My view is that whatever happens in the future we will be in a strong position to deal with any crises that occur as a result of leaving the EU.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

Michael Gove calls for 'balanced' migration system on Question Time special https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36542417 BBC News (15 June 2016) 2016

Strong, Future

“The government itself now had a view… which was to remain, and so now we need to change that position and actually deliver on this very clear mandate from the British people.”

Iain Duncan Smith (1954) British politician

Brexit: New PM 'should come from Leave camp' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36633595 BBC News (26 June 2016) 2016

People, Change

“The racial doctrine, as interpreted in the Nazi creed, may be, and in my view is, sheer primitive nonsense; and we are no more prepared to admit German superiority of race than we are concerned to assert our own. … when this doctrine is invoked in justification of the oppression of other races it becomes a crime against humanity.”

Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (1881–1959) British politician

Speech to the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford (27 February 1940), quoted in The Times (28 February 1940), p. 10
Foreign Secretary

“It is patent to every student of the closing forty years of the last century, that crowds of thoughtful and moral people have slipped away from the churches, because the teachings they received there outraged their intelligence and shocked their moral sense. It is idle to pretend that the widespread agnosticism of this period had its root either in lack of morality or in deliberate crookedness of mind. Everyone who carefully studies the phenomena presented will admit that men of strong intellect have been driven out of Christianity by the crudity of the religious ideas set before them, the contradictions in the authoritative teachings, the views as to God, man, and the universe that no trained intelligence could possibly admit. Nor can it be said that any kind of moral degradation lay at the root of the revolt against the dogmas of the Church. The rebels were not too bad for their religion; on the contrary, it was the religion that was too bad for them. The rebellion against popular Christianity was due to the awakening and the growth of conscience; it was the conscience that revolted, as well as the intelligence, against teachings dishonouring to God and man alike, that represented God as a tyrant, and man as essentially evil, gaining salvation by slavish submission.”

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

Esoteric Christianity (The Lesser Mysteries) (1914)

Men, God, Bad luck, People

“The Prevent strategy will be targeted against those forms of terrorism which pose the greatest risk to our national security, currently al-Qaeda and those they inspire. But Prevent must also recognise and tackle the insidious impact of non-violent extremism, which can create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and can popularise views which terrorists exploit.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Updated anti-extremism strategy published https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13679360 BBC News (8 June 2011) 2010s, 2011

“Marxism had a lot to offer Hitler. Largely saddled with an unmovable, single-mindedness, hardcore Marxism allowed proponents to see themselves as noble crusaders saving humankind. Here too, Hitler could identify with such closed-mindedness, political messianism, and authoritarian tactics that licensed him to see himself as the savior of the world. A lover of the power of politics, Hitler’s hidebound views pushed him into the unshaded world of white and black antipodes, a battleground where you were either with him or undoubtedly against him, leaving no luxury of neutrality. Such exacting standards of political absolutism likely blinded him to other alternatives, or at least to the possibility of subjective objectivity that would allow the people to freely display their own diversity of opinions.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 341-342

People, World, Lovers

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Quotes about view
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