Quotes about view
page 39

Koenraad Elst photo
Joseph Addison photo

“When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love and praise.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 453 (9 August 1712)
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Neville Chamberlain photo

“I stick to the view I have always held that Hitler missed the bus in September 1938. He could have dealt France and ourselves a terrible, perhaps a mortal, blow then. The opportunity will not recur.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Hilda Chamberlain (30 December 1939), quoted in Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Hitler. British Politics and British Policy. 1933-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 355
Prime Minister

Maajid Nawaz photo

“What we've come to realise is those two extremes - far-right fascism and Islamist extremism - have a symbiotic relationship, where they mutually reinforce the other's very generalised view of the other, and they feed off each other's propaganda.”

Maajid Nawaz (1977) British activist

Extremists and gangsters - good meeting for bad company https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13939227 BBC News (28 June 2011)
2011

Karl Pearson photo
Yrjö Kallinen photo
Plutarch photo

“On my view there is no net benefit to coming into existence and thus coming into existence is never worth its costs.”

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

Source: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006), Introduction, p. 13

David Pearce (philosopher) photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“From the point of view of the moralist the animal world is on about the same level as a gladiator's show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight—whereby the strongest, the swiftest and the cunningest live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn his thumbs down, as no quarter is given.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

[The Struggle for Existence: A Programme, The Nineteenth Century, 23, February 1888, 161–180, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.a0012287587&view=1up&seq=173] (quote from p. 163)
1880s

Bhanu Choudhrie photo

“Do not view failure as the be all and end all. It does not define you. Instead, take what you have learned and apply it somewhere new.”

"Bhanu Choudhrie - Founder of C&C Alpha Group" https://ideamensch.com/bhanu-choudhrie/, IdeaMensch (May 2019)

“There are some who will characterize my view as “nihilistic."”

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

Left unqualified, that characterization is false. My view of cosmic meaning is indeed nihilistic. I think that there is no cosmic meaning. If I am right about that, then calling me a nihilist about cosmic meaning is entirely appropriate. However, my view is not nihilistic about all meaning because I believe that there is meaning from some perspectives. Our lives can be meaningful, but only from the limited, terrestrial perspectives. There is a crucial perspective—the cosmic one—from which our lives are irredeemably meaningless. In thinking about meaning in life, two broad kinds of mistakes are made. There are those who think that the only relevant meaning is what is attainable. They ignore our cosmic meaninglessness or they find ways either to discount questions about cosmic meaning or to minimize the importance of cosmic meaninglessness. The other kind of mistake is to think that because we are cosmically insignificant, “nothing matters,” where the implication is that nothing matters from any perspective. If we lack cosmic meaning but have other kinds of meaning, then some things do matter, even though they only matter from some perspectives. It does make a difference, for example, whether or not one is adding to the vast amounts of harm on earth, even though that makes no difference to the rest of the cosmos.

p. 32
The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions (2017), Meaninglessness

Donald J. Trump photo

“When we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing — I look at that in a certain respect as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better. ... So I view it as a badge of honour, really,”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump talked about the 1.59 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, as quoted in * 2020-05-19
Coronavirus: Trump says it’s ‘badge of honour’ for US to lead world in Covid-19 cases
2020s, 2020, May
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-coronavirus-cases-us-covid-death-toll-a9523166.html

Ibn Hazm photo
Rand Paul photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Mark Manson photo
Milton Friedman photo

“I have been impressed time and again by the schizophrenic character of many businessmen. They are capable of being extremely far‐sighted and clear‐headed in matters that are internal to their businesses. They are incredibly short sighted and muddle‐headed in mat ters [sic!] that are outside their businesses but affect the possible survival of business in general. This short sightedness is strikingly exemplified in the calls from many businessmen for wage and price guidelines or controls or incomes policies. There is nothing that could do more in a brief period to destroy a market system and replace it by a centrally controlled system than effective governmental control of prices and wages. The short‐sightedness is also exemplified in speeches by business men on social responsibility. This may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the ptirsuit [sic!] of profits is wicked and im moral [sic!] and must be curbed and controlled by external forces. Once this view is adopted, the external forces that curb the market will not be the social consciences, however highly developed, of the pontificating executives; it will be the iron fist of Government bureaucrats. Here, as with price and wage controls, business men seem to me to reveal a suicidal impulse.”

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

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

Milton Friedman photo
Milton Friedman photo
Ben Croshaw photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“I know that it is the Socialist idea that making profits is a vice, and that making large profits is something of which a man ought to be ashamed. I hold the other view. I consider that the real vice is making losses.”

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

House of Commons, 1 June 1937. Hansard, Vol 324, Col 883 https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1937/jun/01/finance-bill.
The 1930s

Arthur Stanley Eddington photo
Sara Ahmed photo

“To point out harassment is to be viewed as the harasser; to point out oppression is to be viewed as oppressive.”

Sara Ahmed (1969) Australian and British academic

Source: "An Affinity of Hammers" (2016), p. 28

Adyashanti photo

“There’s already an attitude among perpetrators that you can’t rape or harass the willing. Society views trans women as sexual deviants, and many believe that we "ask for it" or "bring it on ourselves."”

Ashlee Marie Preston American media personality, producer, and activist

As trans women we’re expected to function as sexual objects and an aide in satisfying the cis-hetero male libido. We’re demonized and criminalized as perverts out to trick and deceive cis hetero men; therefore anything that happens to us, we ‘had coming.
As quoted in [Bendix, Trish, Why it matters that transgender women are speaking out about Jeffrey Tambor — and that people are listening, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/matters-transgender-women-speaking-jeffrey-tambor-people-listening-163706277.html, 29 January 2019, Yahoo! Lifestyle, November 21, 2017]

Coventry Patmore photo

“What seems to us for us is true.
The planet has no proper light,
And yet when Venus is in view,
No primal star is half so bright.”

Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) English poet

Book II, Canto I, V Perspective.
The Angel In The House (1854)

J.B. Priestley photo
Mary Church Terrell photo

“What a fine thing it would be if the North were as loyal to what it claims to be its principles as the South to its views?”

Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954) African Americans' rights activist

Source: p. 290

Michel Henry photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Annie Besant photo
Joe Biden photo
Mashrafe Mortaza photo
Frederick Henry (bishop) photo
Celeste Ng photo
Leopold I of Belgium photo

“I think the scariest things are hidden in plain view, meaning you can see something and your intuition will tell you there's something not right about this person or there's something about this situation that my gut is telling me isn't right and your rational mind will say "just get over it, everything is fine, you're fine."”

Chantal Quesnel (1971) Canadian actress

Something could be so scary because it's right there, it's hidden in plain sight, and that to me is the psychology of fear.
Con Men Interviews: Fiona Dourif, Chantal Quesnel, Danielle Bisutti on Curse of Chucky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBb8r-vhFoU (August 19, 2013)

Woodrow Wilson photo

“I have always detested Germany. I have never gone there. But I have read many German books on law. They are so far from our views that they have inspired in me a feeling of aversion.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Source: Manfred F. Boemeke: Woodrow Wilson’s Image of Germany. In: Manfred Boemeke u. a. (Hrsg.): The Treaty of Versailles. A Reassessment after 75 Years. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998, S. 603–614, hier S. 603., https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson#Haltung_zu_Deutschland

Auguste Rodin photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“Sir, a wise Government in its home policy considers the reasonable wants of the people; in its foreign policy, it is prepared to resist the unjust demands and the unreasonable views of foreign powers.”

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

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1843/jul/28/state-of-the-nation#column_1462 in the House of Commons (28 July 1843)
1840s

Jamie Chung photo
Richard Price photo
Abu al-Hassan al-Kharaqani photo

“It is veils that wrap past, present and future time from your view. When the veils are withdrawn one can see all.”

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

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002), p. 93

Henry Sidgwick photo
Christopher Reeve photo
Frithjof Schuon photo
Peter F. Drucker photo

“The large industrial enterprise is... the representative institution of an industrial society. It determines the individual's view of his society.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Under section header: The Enterprise as Society's Mirror
1930s- 1950s, The New Society (1950)

Isaac Asimov photo

“Scientific theories can always be improved and are improved. That is one of the glories of science. It is the authoritarian view of the Universe that is frozen in stone and cannot be changed, so that once it is wrong, it is wrong forever.”

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

"The Nearest Star" (1989) (reprinted in The Secret of the Universe (1992), p. 82)
General sources

Samuel Fielden photo
Samuel Fielden photo
Mooji photo
Mary Elizabeth Winstead photo

“My hope and my optimistic point of view is that ultimately people will always need that human element.”

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (1984) American actress and singer

"‘Gemini Man’ Star Mary Elizabeth Winstead on Why Technology Won’t Make Actors Obsolete" in Wrap Pro (9 October 2019) https://www.thewrap.com/gemini-man-star-mary-elizabeth-winstead-on-why-technology-wont-make-actors-obsolete-video/

Eric Hobsbawm photo
Opal Tometi photo

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

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

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

Henry Morton Stanley photo

“I crossed Africa from East to West and from West to East, and I never saw any excesses committed. I do not think that from this point of view there is a single sovereign living who has done so much for humanity as Leopold II.”

Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) Welsh journalist and explorer

Brief of Henry I. Kowalsky, of the New York bar, attorney and counsellor to Leopold II. https://archive.org/details/briefofhenryikow00kowa/page/28/mode/2up

Angela Davis photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Frithjof Schuon photo

“Theological perspective is characterized extrinsically by its concern with defending conceptual and moral interests, whereas pure metaphysics sets forth the nature of things, while being aware of aspects and points of view.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2019, Esoterism as Principle and as Way, World Wisdom, 12, 978-1-93659765-9]
Miscellaneous, Theology

Matt Ridley photo

“A bird's-eye view does not see the truth.”

Bernard MacLaverty (1942) Irish writer

Source: Novels, Lamb (1980), Ch.17 - p.145

Sebastian Stan photo
Zoran Milanović photo

“We don't view Greece as a delinquent. The crisis there is a warning symbol for a path that we should not take.”

Zoran Milanović (1966) Croatian politician

"'Germany Is a Role Model for Us'" in Speigel International https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-croatian-prime-minister-milanovic-germany-is-a-role-model-a-856179.html (17 September 2012)

Isaac Asimov photo

“There is a kind of selective memory that afflicts men when they view the past. They see the good and overlook the evil.”

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

Source: The Roman Empire (1967), p. 191

Carl von Clausewitz photo
Henry Sidgwick photo

“A universal refusal to propagate the human species would be the greatest of conceivable crimes from a Utilitarian point of view.”

Source: The Methods of Ethics (1874), Book 4, chapter 5, section 3 (7th ed., 1907)

Cyrus the Great photo

“You cannot be buried in obscurity: you are exposed upon a grand theater to the view of the world. If your actions are upright and benevolent, be assured they will augment your power and happiness.”

Cyrus the Great (-600–-530 BC) King and founder of the Achaemenid Empire

Source: 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, p. 290

Buchi Emecheta photo

“I believe it is important to speak to your readers in person... to enable people to have a whole picture of me; I have to both write and speak. I view my role as a writer and also as an oral communicator.”

Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) author

Source: On speaking to readers in “Interview with Buchi Emecheta” http://www.emeagwali.com/nigeria/biography/buchi-emecheta-voice-09jul96.html (Philip Emeagwali)

Päivi Räsänen photo
Catherine Rowett photo

“Plato’s metaphysics grew out of that of Parmenides, together with a strong feel for Heraclitus’s account of the physical world as a world of incessant change. His ethics were deeply inspired by Socrates, but his views on the soul also pick up on motifs that emerge in Pythagoras.”

Catherine Rowett (1956) Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia (born 1956)

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 4 : Reality and appearance: more adventures in metaphysics

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor photo
Laurence Tribe photo
Jay Samit photo
John McDonnell photo

“My view is that you'd put the deal to the people, but you'd have to also have the option of the status quo. Deep in my heart, I'm still a Remainer, but I've got to try and bring together effectively what is a British compromise.”

John McDonnell (1951) British politician (born 1951)

Source: Brexit: PM and Corbyn holding meeting over cross-party talks https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48271650 BBC News (14 May 2019)

Edgar Guest photo
Edgar Guest photo
Sidney Poitier photo
Ken Paxton photo
Roger Scruton photo
Zafar Mirzo photo
Rollo May photo

“[D]epression… can be usefully seen, from one point of view, as the inability to see or construct a future.”

Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 9 : Intentionality, p. 243

Ahmed Ben Bella photo

“The one-party state is a marvelous instrument for a war of liberation but as a government system, in every country at every latitude, it has revealed the same defects; it represents only one point of view.”

Ahmed Ben Bella (1916–2012) First President of Algeria

"Ahmed Ben Bella: Revolutionary Internationalist " in CounterCurrents https://countercurrents.org/2020/11/ahmed-ben-bella-revolutionary-internationalist/ (11 March 2020)