Quotes about west (1103 quotes, page 2)

“Reading Decline of the West I learned that in Spengler’s view ours was a Faustian civilization and that we, the Jews, were Magians, the survivors and representatives of an earlier type, totally incapable of comprehending the Faustian spirit that had created the great civilization of the West. … What Magians were to Faustians, Faustians might very well be to Americans.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Part I, p. 26
A Jewish Writer in America (2011)

Learning , Reading

“Robbery and murder are the worst of human crimes; but in the West there are robbers and murderers. There are those who form cliques to vie for the reins of power and who, when deprived of that power, decry the injustice of it all. Even worse, international diplomacy is really based on the art of deception. Surveying the situation as a whole, all we can say is that there is a general prevalence of good over bad, but we can hardly call the situation perfect.”

Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and journalist who founded Keio University

Bunmeiron no Gairyaku [An Outline of a Theory of Civilization] (1875).
Context: Robbery and murder are the worst of human crimes; but in the West there are robbers and murderers. There are those who form cliques to vie for the reins of power and who, when deprived of that power, decry the injustice of it all. Even worse, international diplomacy is really based on the art of deception. Surveying the situation as a whole, all we can say is that there is a general prevalence of good over bad, but we can hardly call the situation perfect. When, several thousand years hence, the levels of knowledge and virtue of the peoples of the world will have made great progress (to the point of becoming utopian), the present condition of the nations of the West will surely seem a pitifully primitive stage. Seen in this light, civilization is an open-ended process. We cannot be satisfied with the present level of attainment of the West.

Art , Perfection

“West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Colour Out of Space (1927)
Context: West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentle slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs. The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there. French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poles have come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.

“Seen in this light, civilization is an open-ended process. We cannot be satisfied with the present level of attainment of the West.”

Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and journalist who founded Keio University

Bunmeiron no Gairyaku [An Outline of a Theory of Civilization] (1875).
Context: Robbery and murder are the worst of human crimes; but in the West there are robbers and murderers. There are those who form cliques to vie for the reins of power and who, when deprived of that power, decry the injustice of it all. Even worse, international diplomacy is really based on the art of deception. Surveying the situation as a whole, all we can say is that there is a general prevalence of good over bad, but we can hardly call the situation perfect. When, several thousand years hence, the levels of knowledge and virtue of the peoples of the world will have made great progress (to the point of becoming utopian), the present condition of the nations of the West will surely seem a pitifully primitive stage. Seen in this light, civilization is an open-ended process. We cannot be satisfied with the present level of attainment of the West.

Light

“To the East and to the West I beckon. To the North and to the South I show a sign proclaiming: Death to the weakling, wealth to the strong!”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

Book I, Section I
The Satanic Bible (1969)
Context: In this arid wilderness of steel and stone I raise up my voice that you may hear. To the East and to the West I beckon. To the North and to the South I show a sign proclaiming: Death to the weakling, wealth to the strong!
Open your eyes that you may see, Oh men of mildewed minds, and listen to me ye bewildered millions!
For I stand forth to challenge the wisdom of the world; to interrogate the "laws" of man and of "God"!
I request reason for your golden rule and ask the why and wherefore of your ten commandments.
Before none of your printed idols do I bend in acquiescence, and he who saith "thou shalt" to me is my mortal foe!
I dip my forefinger in the watery blood of your impotent mad redeemer, and write over his thorn-torn brow: The TRUE prince of evil — the king of slaves!
No hoary falsehood shall be a truth to me; no stifling dogma shall encramp my pen!
I break away from all conventions that do not lead to my earthly success and happiness.
I raise up in stern invasion the standard of the strong!
I gaze into the glassy eye of your fearsome Jehovah, and pluck him by the beard; I uplift a broad-axe, and split open his worm-eaten skull!
I blast out the ghastly contents of philosophically whited sepulchers and laugh with sardonic wrath!

Death , Strong , Wealth

“Let Thy wide hand
Gather us all — with none left out (O God!
Leave Thou out none!) from the east and from the west.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

"April", in Poems (1859)
Context: Awakener, come!
Fiing wide the gate of an eternal year,
The April of that glad new heavens and earth
Which shall grow out of these, as spring-tide grows
Slow out of winter's breast.
Let Thy wide hand
Gather us all — with none left out (O God!
Leave Thou out none!) from the east and from the west.
Loose Thou our burdens: heal our sicknesses;
Give us one heart, one tongue, one faith, one love.
In Thy great Oneness made complete and strong —
To do Thy work throughout the happy world —
Thy world, All-merciful, Thy perfect world.

God

“Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to this idea of our unity with the infinite being.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to this idea of our unity with the infinite being. It condemns, as a piece of blasphemy, any implication of man's becoming God. This is certainly not the idea that Christ preached, nor perhaps the idea of the Christian mystics, but this seems to be the idea that has become popular in the Christian west.
But the highest wisdom in the East holds that it is not the function of our soul to gain God, to utilise him for any special material purpose. All that we can ever aspire to is to become more and more one with God. In the region of nature, which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition; in the spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing ourselves, by uniting. Gaining a thing, as we have said, is by its nature partial, it is limited only to a particular want; but being is complete, it belongs to our wholeness, it springs not from any necessity but from our affinity with the infinite, which is the principle of perfection that we have in our soul.

God , Idea , Teachers , Perfection

“When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the West, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greener and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)
Context: When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the West, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greener and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm. … you have noticed that truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. … as lightning illuminates the dark, for it is the power of lightning that heyokas have.

Truth , World

“It is a motto which it is indeed well to have inscribed on our great national monuments, in our temples of justice, in our legislative halls, and in buildings such as those at West Point and Annapolis - in short, wherever it will tend to arouse and inspire a lofty emotion in those who look thereon. But it seems to be eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)
Context: My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does not good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence which comes dangerously close to sacrilege. A beautiful and solemn sentence such as the one in question should be treated and uttered only with that fine reverence which necessarily implies a certain exaltation of spirit. Any use which tends to cheapen it, and, above all, any use which tends to secure its being treated in a spirit of levity, is free from every standpoint profoundly to be regretted. It is a motto which it is indeed well to have inscribed on our great national monuments, in our temples of justice, in our legislative halls, and in buildings such as those at West Point and Annapolis - in short, wherever it will tend to arouse and inspire a lofty emotion in those who look thereon. But it seems to be eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements.

Justice

“There will be great winds by reason of which things of the East will become things of the West”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings
Context: There will be great winds by reason of which things of the East will become things of the West; and those of the South, being involved in the course of the winds, will follow them to distant lands.

“I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West … Out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

As quoted in Ambassador's Report (1954) by Chester Bowles, p. 59
Context: I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West … Out of place everywhere, at home nowhere. Perhaps my thoughts and approach to life are more akin to what is called Western than Eastern, but India clings to me, as she does to all her children, in innumerable ways … I am a stranger and alien in the West. I cannot be of it. But in my own country also, sometimes I have an exile's feeling.

Home

“The schooling system we have in the Western world is crazy – you’re taken away from your parents at your most impressionable age and fed a load of bullshit and lies manipulated to make you think that the way we live in the West is stable and moral, when really it’s neither. You come out of school with a one-track mind based on financial success; you’re encouraged to become enslaved to the banking system. In school, I always felt, ‘Something’s not right here’ and I’m starting to find out what it is. Being outside of the norm gives you freedom of thought and that’s something being suppressed in school and the media. If you have freedom of thought you get labeled as a crazy person or someone strange.”

Matthew Bellamy (1978) English singer-songwriter

Age , World , School , Way

“The overthrow of communism gave a green light to the unbridled exploitative impulses of Western corporate interests. No longer needing to convince workers that they live better than their counterparts in Russia, and no longer constrained by a competing system, the corporate class is rolling back the many gains that working people in the West have won over the years. Now that the free market, in its meanest form, is emerging triumphant in the East, so will it prevail in the West.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Blackshirts and Reds (1997), p. 58

Light , People , Communication

“Capitalism without socialism is like a great shark in the waters that will eat up everything in sight, and has no group sense or social responsibility. We need to take the best of both systems and bring them together…. a fusion of the best aspects of both. Both are necessary. The sense of justice, brotherhood and social caring… is necessary for the West, but the sense of freedom of the individual in movement, expression and thought is necessary in the East. That is something which will… gradually become the norm in Europe and eventually throughout the world…. not capitalism or communism, but social democracy or democratic socialism with full participation of all peoples in their own government.”

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

Maitreya's Mission Vol. II (1993)

Democracy , Justice , Freedom , People

“Panini’s grammar is the earliest scientific grammar in the world, the earliest extant grammar of any language, and one of the greatest ever written. It was the discovery of Sanskrit by the West, at the end of the 18th century, and the study of Indian methods of analyzing language that revolutionized our study of language and grammar, and gave rise to our science of comparative philology … The study of language in India was much more objective and scientific than in Greece or Rome. The interest was in empirical investigation of language, rather than philosophical and syntactical. Indian study of language was as objective as the dissection of a body by an anatomist.”

Pāṇini ancient Sanskrit grammarian

—Walter Eugene Clark ,.Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

World , Science , Study

“Besides being a political stalwart…he was an all-rounder in a way. His contribution towards rebuilding modern India, his contribution in the making of West Bengal, can never be forgotten by anyone.”

Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882–1962) Former Chief Minister of West Bengal, India

Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister described him in "Bharat Ratna Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy".

Way , Making love

“One who has a gentle and profound insight into what lasts in India, and what elements inherent in human nature threaten it…the best in traditions of the East and the West have gone into the making of his liberal humanist philosophy.”

Masti Venkatesha Iyengar (1891–1986) Indian writer

Anatha Murthy, in his book review, describes Masti, the Sahitya Akademi Awardee as here [Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, Masti, http://books.google.co.in/books/about/Masti.html?id=e6VqgWouUmUC&redir_esc=y, 2004, Katha, 978-81-87649-50-2, Review]
About Masti

Making love , Nature

“About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.
I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves "Freethinkers," which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, "If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?"
I myself have written, "If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake."”

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

In A Man Without a Country (2005) p. 80–81 Vonnegut makes a very similar statement:
How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus, as all humanists do. "If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?"
But if Christ hadn't delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn't want to be a human being.
I'd just as soon be a rattlesnake.
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

God , Time , Dead , War

“The Masters of the Hierarchy are now ready to return, for the first time in countless thousands of years, to the everyday world... Under Their great leader, the Master of all the Masters, the World Teacher, the One known in the West as the Christ, the esoteric Hierarchy will walk openly among us and lead us into the Aquarian experience. They stand now, waiting for us to take, of our own free will, the needed first steps in the direction of unity, cooperation and fusion. Then They will emerge with the Christ at Their Head, and Their Presence in the world will be an established fact.”

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

The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

Time , Waiting , Teachers , Christ

“The only Jews who interest us are our fellow citizens. ... Basically and profoundly, we are with the West.”

Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000) Tunisian politician

[TUNISIA: Neighbor's Duty, TIME, Monday, Dec. 02, 1957, 2, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,825330-2,00.html, September 6, 2011]

“Russia ... our natural ally against the fiendish temptation and corruption from the West.”

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

Rußland ... der uns von Natur gegebene Bundesgenosse gegen die teuflische Versuchung und Korruption des Westens ist. Source: National Socialist Letters (Nationalsozialistische Briefe), “National Socialism or Bolshevism”, (November 15, 1925), quoted in: Ralph Georg Reuth, Goebbels, Piper, 2nd ed., Munich, 1991, p. 96. ISBN 3-492-03183-8.
1920s

Nature

“I was amazed when I learned that in the West so many young people are on drugs. I tried to understand the reason for this. Why? The answer is, “because in the family there is nobody who cares about them.””

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

When receiving the Nobel peace price in 1979. As quoted from Hitchens, C. (2012). The missionary position: Mother Theresa in theory and practice.
Source: Fathers and mothers are so busy they have no time. Young parents work, and the child lives in the street and goes his own way. We speak of peace. These are the things that threaten peace. I think that today peace is threatened by abortion, too, which is a true war, the direct killing of a child by its own mother. In the Bible we read that God clearly said: “Even though a mother did forget her infant, I will not forget him.”Today, abortion is the worst evil, and the greatest enemy of peace. We who are here today were wanted by our parents. We would not be here if our parents had not wanted us.We want children, and we love them. But what about the other millions? Many are concerned about the children, like those in Africa, who die in great numbers either from hunger or for other reasons. But millions of children die intentionally, by the will of their mothers. Because if a mother can kill her own child, what will prevent us from killing ourselves, or one another? Nothing.

Family , Understanding , People , Learning

“There is a vivid contrast between the order of China and the chaos of the West.”

Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China

Source: As quoted in The East Is Rising': Xi Maps Out China’s Post-Covid Ascent https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/world/asia/xi-china-congress.html The New York Times

“[T]he supremacy of the Brahmins maintains doctrinal orthodoxy; the revolt of the Kshatriyas leads to heterodoxy; but with the domination of the lower castes comes intellectual night, and this is what in our day has become of a West that threatens to spread its own darkness over the entire world.”

René Guénon (1886–1951) French metaphysician

Source: Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929), p. 30

Night , World

“Going so soon? I wouldn't hear of it. Why my little party's just beginning.
~ Wicked Witch of the West Wizard of Oz”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

“It should not be denied… that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led West.”

Wallace Stegner (1909–1993) American historian, writer, and environmentalist

Law , History , Freedom

“East of the sun and west of the moon.”

Edith Pattou book East

Source: East

Sun

“Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.
Then, when his soul is naked, is he one
With the man in the wind, and the west moon,
With the harmonious thunder of the sun”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Death , Soul , Sun

“Books have to be read (worse luck it takes so long a time). It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Books , Way , Time , Reading

“Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.”

Rudyard Kipling The Man Who Was

The Man Who Was (1891).
Other works

“Okay, so. You, Belikov, the Alchemist, Sonya Karp, Victor Dashkov, and Robert Doru are all hanging out in West Virginia together.”
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“We’re, uh, not in West Virginia.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Travel , Sleep , Night

“The West's post-Holocaust pledge that genocide would never again be tolerated proved to be hollow, and for all the fine sentiments inspired by the memory of Auschwitz, the problem remains that denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.”

Philip Gourevitch We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families

Source: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families

Problem , Memory , Evil , Cry

“The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without God.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Men , God , Communication , Question

“Some Westerners […] have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise.”

Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) American political scientist

Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

History , Problem

“Jessamine flushed. "Ugh! Charlotte, Will's being vexing."
"And the sun has come up in the east," said Jem to no one in particular.
…
"And the sun comes up in the WEST," said Will, who had apparently heard Jem's earlier comment.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Sun

“Bright colours in the west, giant butterflies dancing as night crept like a cripple toward the east.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

Dance , Night

“High high in the hills, high in a pine tree bed.
She's tracing the wind with that old hand, counting the clouds with that old chant,
Three geese in a flock
one flew east
one flew west
one flew over the cuckoo's nest”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Tree

“I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Youth , Future

“No matter where I was, my compass pointed west. I would always know what time it was in California.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Time

“The world we suggest is a new wild west. A sensuous evil world. Strange and haunting, the path of the sun…”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

World , Evil , Sun

“So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the West today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.”

Niall Ferguson (1964) British historian

"Niall Ferguson: 'Westerners don't understand how vulnerable freedom is'" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civilization, The Guardian, February 20, 2011.

Understanding , Sense , Freedom

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) American political scientist

Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), Ch. 2 : Civilizations in History and Today, § 10 : Relations Among Civilizations, p. 51

World , Religion , Idea , Forgetting

“I emphasize in it [my Orientalism] accortdingly that neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation, partly identification of the Other.”

Edward Said (1935–2003) Professor of English and literature

Effort

“What are you doing in Nicky's room, Rachel? Oooh! He summoned you to the west coast, didn't he? Did you kill him? Good for you taking care of that little problem? I should give you a bunny!" - Algaliarept”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Black Magic Sanction

Problem

“The car was full of unhappy people heading west. It was the Great American Family Road Trip, all right. Whaaa-hoo!”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Pale Demon

People , Family , Cars

“There's the South Pole, said Christopher Robin, and I expect there's an East Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

People

“There are all kinds of psychological disorders in the West that don't exist in Asia.”

Amy Chua book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Source: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

“Are we going to New Orleans?"

"No", she said, backing out of the spot. "We're going to West Virginia."

"I assume by 'West Virginia,' you actually mean 'Hawaii,'" I said. "Or some place equally exciting.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“This may sound a little West Texan to you, but I like it. When I'm talking about.. when I'm talking about myself, and when he's talking about myself, all of us are talking about me.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

“I don't think the real America is in New York or on the Pacific Coast; personally, I like the Middle West much better, places like North and South Dakota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul. There, I think, are the true Americans”

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

Thinking , Personality

“Mawidge is a dweam wiffin a dweam. The dweam of wuv wapped wiffin the gweater dweam of everwasting west. Eternity is our fwiend, wemember that, and wuv wiw fowwow you fowever.”

William Goldman (1931–2018) American novelist, screenwriter and playwright

“I would never see her again, except in memory. She was here, and now she's gone. There is no middle ground. Probably is a word that you may find south of the border. But never, ever west of the sun.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Memory , Sun

“I was a westerner in Iran, an Iranian in the West. I had no identity. I didn't even know anymore why I was living.”

Marjane Satrapi (1969) Artist

Source: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

“The more clearly we express it that the whole weight of our future victories will lie on our enemies, the more, in my opinion, will it tend to shorten the war. We have covered a considerable distance towards peace. The Entente no longer has any possibility of beating us economically. Do they think they can beat us militarily, now that our position in the West has become better that it ever was? If the statesmen of the Entente wanted understanding, they ought to have taken advantage of the situation now, when the Reich Chancellor has offered them the hand of understanding. They are playing a wanton game with their misguided peoples. Let the example of Russia be a warning to them. Russia, which offered us the hand of understanding, could have obtained a good peace of understanding if she had not risked this peace through the arrogance of Trotsky. May this struggle bring us victory, but may it also bring the benefits of this victory for Germany's future.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 18 March 1918

War , People , Lie , Peace

“When the ceremony ended Anne and I stayed on the field to greet friends, many of whom had traveled to share the ceremony with us. In one respect it was a difficult day at the end of a difficult month. But in the broader view of life, it was a magical evening at the end of an incredible journey we shared. We walked back over to the quarters we would move out of a few days later, and found friends in the yard and almost every room. At one point I saw Mike Hall, Charlie Flynn, Shawn Lowery, and Casey Welch standing in the fading summer light. I thought of my father, of my first day at West Point, and of our cold Christmas Eve flight over Afghanistan seven months before. The final words of my last speech in uniform, spoken just an hour before were repeated in my mind: "If I had it to do over again, I'd do some things in my career differently, but not many. I believed in people, and I still believe in them. I trusted and I still trust. I cared and I still care. I wouldn't have it any other way… To the young leaders of today and tomorrow, it's a great life. Thank you."”

Stanley A. McChrystal (1954) American general

Closing words, p. 394
My Share Of The Task (2013)

Life , People , Way , Travel

“These are smart people;
They receive a mess from the east, and a good life from the west;
They never rush because only life rushes;
They are not interested in what awaits after tomorrow;
What is meant to be will come, and little of it depends on them;
When they are together they are in trouble, for this they do not like to be together often;
They rarely trust anyone, but it’s easiest to fool them with nice words;
They do not resemble heroes, but they are not easily scared with threats;
They pay attention to nothing, they care not of what happens around them;
And then out of nowhere suddenly everything interests them, they flip everything and look around;
Then they become sleepers again and do not like to remember what came to pass;
They are scared of change because it often brings evil;
They are easily fed up with a man, even if he does them good;Strange people;
They talk bad about you but love you, kiss you on the cheek but hate you;
Laugh at noble deeds but remember them;
They spend most of their life on spite and goodness;
And don’t know which is stronger when;
Evil, good, gentle, raw, unable to move on, stormy, open, hidden;
They are all this and everything in between;
And most importantly they are mine, and I am theirs;
And everything I’m saying; I’m saying about myself.”

Meša Selimović (1910–1982) Yugoslav-Bosnian writer

Poem

Love , Life , Hate , People

“And with every passing day, we see the further demise of the West, the onslaught of Eurabia (which could not be won at the gates of Vienna in 1683) and the nihilism — of the Last man.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Europa, Eurabia and the Last man

“In accordance to the way that Benn speaks, he is not educated. Sure, he's educated to a certain extent, but under different circumstances he would be a bouncer on some door in the West End and he'd have three kids from three different women … I am a superior person to that. I have finer points. So, superior in mentality, yes. As a fighter in accordance to the trade, yes”

Chris Eubank (1966) British former professional boxer

On Nigel Benn, his bitter rival. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,1010013,00.html#article_continue

Women , Education , Way , Personality

“Europeans are awakening more and more to a sense that beasts have rights, in proportion as the strange notion is being gradually overcome and outgrown, that the animal kingdom came into existence solely for the benefit and pleasure of man. This view, with the corollary that non-human living creatures are to be regarded merely as things, is at the root of the rough and altogether reckless treatment of them, which obtains in the West.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book On the Basis of Morality

Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 225 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/225/mode/2up
On the Basis of Morality (1840)

Pleasure , Sense , Animals

“We want to stop all immigration from Islamic countries. We want to stimulate voluntary re-emigration to Islamic countries. We want to expel all criminals with dual citizenship and deprive them of their Dutch nationality. We want to de-islamize our nation. Dear Friends, there is a lot of work to do. We, the defenders of freedom and security, have an historic duty. Our generation has been entrusted with a huge task: To oppose Islam and keep the flame of liberty burning. I say it without exaggeration: the future of human civilization depends on us. Now is a time when everyone in the West must do his duty. We are writing history here. So, let us do our duty. Let us stand with a happy heart and a strong spirit. Let us go forth with courage and save freedom!”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech http://www.pvv.nl/index.php/36-fj-related/geert-wilders/7981-geert-wilders-speech-danish-free-press-society-copenhagen-2-11-2014.html at the 10 years memorial conference for Theo Van Gogh arranged by the Danish Free Press Society (Copenhagen, 2 November 2014); Video: Geert Wilders speaks in the Danish Parliament Building https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgpzi0PW0w
2010s

History , Courage , Freedom , Strong

“The Westerly Wind asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death.”

Joseph Conrad book The Mirror of the Sea

Source: The Mirror of the Sea (1906), Ch. 26

Death , Faith , Madness

“The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. … I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense. … This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

2000s, Speech at the Four Seasons, New York (25 September 2008)

War , Way , Democracy , Support

“When people look for the road in the clouds
The cloud road disappears
The mountains are tall and steep
The streams are wide and still
Green mountains ahead and behind
White clouds to east and west
If you want to find the cloud road
Seek it within”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

People , Mountain

“I think that to those of us who have watched the development of the Middle West and the Far West nothing is more remarkable, nothing pays a higher tribute to the finest qualities of our race, than the way in which law and order are maintained from coast to coast.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Regina, Canada (13 August 1927), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), p. 105.
1927

Law , Way , Thinking

“From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady in the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary (1988)

World , Boy , Literature , Learning

“That memorable day died in purple and gold, and just as the last traces of the sunset faded in the west and the star-lilies filled the sky, the full moon looked down over the rim of the valley, and the great rocks, catching the silvery glow, came forth out of the dusky shadows like very spirits.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

" A Rival of the Yosemite: The Cañon of the South Fork of King's River, California http://books.google.com/books?id=fWoiAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA77" The Century Magazine, volume XLIII, number 1 (November 1891) pages 77-97 (at page 86)
1890s

Star

“If any common program is impossible, if there is no such thing as an education that everybody ought to have, then we must admit that any community is impossible. All men are different; but they are also the same. As we must all become specialists, so we must all become men. … The West needs an education that draws out our common humanity rather than our individuality. Individual differences can be taken into account in the methods that are employed and in the opportunities for specialization that may come later.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Men , Education , Communication , Drawing

“Austerity may still be felt here in the North West but Brussels doesn’t even know the meaning of the word.”

Louise Bours (1968) British politician

No Signs of Austerity at Euroean Cocktail Party http://www.louiseboursmep.co.uk/no-signs-of-austerity-at-european-cocktail-party/ (June 30, 2014)

“There are still people who discuss industrialization as… an alternative to agricultural improvement… this approach is without meaning in the West Indian Islands. There is no choice… between industry and agriculture. The islands need as large agriculture as possible… It is not … that agriculture cannot continue to develop if industry is developed … the opposite is true: agriculture cannot… yield a reasonable standard of living unless new jobs are created off the land”

W. Arthur Lewis (1915–1991) Saint Lucain economist

Lewis (1950; 831-2) as cited in: Mark Figueroa. "Rethinking Caribbean agriculture, re-evaluating Arthur Lewis misunderstood perspective." (2008).

People

“She knows I'm a deserter from the Scottish Fusiliers,
She knows I stole a blind-man's can…that got me seven years!
She knows I've been connected with a gang of West-End Pests,
And the police have had me twice inside the cage;
And she knows I mix with ladies that have got a shady past,
But my mother doesn't know I'm on the stage.”

Billy Bennett (1887–1942) British comedian

"My Mother Doesn't Know I'm on the Stage", line 11

Past

“The children of the prophets of the Lord,
Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.
Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state,
The West refused them, and the East abhorred.
No anchorage the known world could afford.”

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) American poet

1492 http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/1492/

Hate , Children , People , World

“Secularism arose in the modern West as a revolt against the closed theology of Christianity which had acquired a stranglehold on the State; in India, unfortunately, Secularism has become the biggest single protector of closed theologies promoted by Christianity and Islam.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

“We're importing radical Islamic terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system and through an intelligence community held back by our president.”

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

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

Intelligence , Communication

“It is the historic glory of the intellectual class of the West in modern times that, of all the classes which could be called in any sense privileged, it has shown the largest and most consistent concern for the well-being of the classes which lie below it in the social scale.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), p. 29

Lie , Sense , Time

“It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills,
And April's in the west wind, and daffodils.”

John Masefield (1878–1967) English poet and writer

Salt-Water Ballads (1902), "The West Wind"

Bird , Tear

“It is quite evident that the Soviet system today represents the exact opposite of almost everything that the left in the West is striving for - obsessive state secrecy rather than freedom of information, centralised bureaucratic control instead of devolved decision making and public accountability, total state power over the individual as opposed to inalienable civil liberties, authoritarian economic management rather than trade union freedom and industrial democracy, and a government-manipulated media instead of greater diversity and choice in news and information sources.”

Peter Tatchell (1952) British gay rights activist

Democratic Defence. London: GMP Publishers. p. 36. ISBN 0-946097-16-X.

Democracy , Decision , Freedom

“In another life — this isn’t what I know, but how I feel — these mountains were my home; there is a rising of forgotten knowledge, like a spring from hidden aquifers under the earth. To glimpse one’s own true nature is a kind of homegoing, to a place East of the Sun, West of the Moon — the homegoing that needs no home, like that waterfall on the upper Suli Gad that turns to mist before touching the earth and rises once again into the sky.”

Peter Matthiessen book The Snow Leopard

The Snow Leopard (1978)

Life , Feeling , Home , Mountain

“If we can do it in L. A., I want to say, we can do it across this country. In many ways, the West Coast is leading, and hopefully inspiring the nation to do the same.”

Eric Garcetti (1971) American politician

2016, 2016 Democratic National Convention speech

Way , Country

“We will not be picking up axes and breaking into people's homes. But we will not remain silent either. Moderation in the face of evil is not what our age needs. As Ronald Reagan declared, "The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted." We must uncap our pens; we must speak words of truth. We are facing a determined enemy who is striving through all means to destroy the West and snuff out our traditions of free thought, free speech, and freedom of religion. Make no mistake: if we fail, we will be enslaved. We must not let the violent fanatics dictate what we draw, what we say, and what we read. We must rebel against their suffocating rules and thuggish demands at every turn. You can help the fight just by reading this book, which explains the many ways in which Islam has marked for death not just me, but all of Western civilization. We must, in the words of Revolutionary War veteran General John Stark, "Live free or die."”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Source: 2010s, Marked for Death (2012), Ch. 1, p. 6

Death , War , People , Truth

“There is a dance of death in the West and actual death in the Middle East, courtesy of the Islamofascists. … The radical Muslims are on the warpath and they are against everyone else. They are against Muslims who are not as fanatical. They are against the members of all other religions. They think they are going to take us back to some pristine religious period in human history that never actually occurred. It's all complete rubbish. These "faith warriors" live lower than the pigs they despise. They kidnap and rape 8-year-old girls and say the Quran authorizes it. They're not purists. They're killers. They're Nazis in head scarfs. They aren't leading a religious revival. They're trying to take us back to a state of barbarism that has been extinct for 1,200 years. This is a barbaric revolution… Why would any government bring in unvetted Muslim immigrants at a time like this? It would seem that only an insane prince would do this to his country. But Obama is not insane. He's stoned. He's stoned on the orthodoxy of the progressive left. Obama and his supporters are drunk on their ideology. They think they're going to create a progressive utopia by continuing their attack on all Western values. This is precisely how great civilizations of the past declined and eventually fell. They rejected the values that made them great and degenerated into narcissism and selfishness. They kept on partying until they were too weak to defend themselves. Then, the unthinkable happened. They fell.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

A dance of death in the West http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/a-dance-of-death-in-the-west/, excerpt from Government Zero.
Government Zero: No Borders, No Language, No Culture (2015)

Death , Faith , Religion , History

“Because Israel believes, when it comes right down to it America is the only big country that cares whether they live or die. That's why I can say, give up the West Bank, because the Israelis knew that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan river, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die, and I would.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

At a benefit dinner hosted by the Canadian Jewish Congress in Toronto, Ontario, 2002 CNN Transcript http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/02/cf.00.html
2000s

Fight , Personality , Country

““…Mas‘ud hunted through the country around Bahraich, and whenever he passed by the idol temple of Suraj-kund, he was wont to say that he wanted that piece of ground for a dwelling-place. This Suraj-kund was a sacred shrine of all the unbelievers of India. They had carved an image of the sun in stone on the banks of the tank there. This image they called Balarukh, and through its fame Bahraich had attained its flourishing condition. When there was an eclipse of the sun, the unbelievers would come from east and west to worship it, and every Sunday the heathen of Bahraich and its environs, male and female, used to assemble in thousands to rub their heads under that stone, and do it reverence as an object of peculiar sanctity. Mas‘ud was distressed at this idolatry, and often said that, with God’s will and assistance, he would destroy that mine of unbelief, and set up a chamber for the worship of the Nourisher of the Universe in its place, rooting out unbelief from those parts…
“Meanwhile, the Rai Sahar Deo and Har Deo, with several other chiefs, who had kept their troops in reserve, seeing that the army of Islam was reduced to nothing, unitedly attacked the body-guard of the Prince. The few forces that remained to that loved one of the Lord of the Universe were ranged round him in the garden. The unbelievers, surrounding them in dense numbers, showered arrows upon them. It was then, on Sunday, the 14th of the month Rajab, in the aforesaid year 424 (14th June, 1033) as the time of evening prayer came on, that a chance arrow pierced the main artery in the arm of the Prince of the Faithful…”

Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud (1014) semi-legendary Muslim figure from India

Awadh (Uttar Pradesh), Mir‘at-i-Mas‘udi in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. II. p. 524-547

Love , God , Faith , Universe

“Demographics need not be destiny. The West became the best not by out-breeding the undeveloped world… but because of human capital; people of superior ideas and abilities, capable of innovation, exploration, science, philosophy.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“The ‘We Need To Have A Conversation’ Malarkey,” http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/03/30/the-we-need-to-have-a-conversation-malarkey/ The Libertarian Alliance, March 30, 2015.
2010s, 2015
Variant: Demographics need not be destiny. The waning West became what it is not by out-breeding the undeveloped world. We were once great not because of huge numbers, but due to human capital — people of superior ideas and abilities, capable of innovation, exploration, science, philosophy.

People , World , Idea , Science

“The contrast with the Communists is striking. The Communists stood exposed as traitors in 1942-47, when they informed the British government (a Soviet ally) about Quit India activists and served as a mercenary intellectual vanguard for the Muslim League by propagating economic and other secular-sounding arguments for Partition; once more in 1948-50, when they supported the separatist Razâkâr militia in Hyderabad and subsequently started an armed uprising of their own; and yet again in the run-up to the Chinese invasion of 1962, when they clamoured that “China’s chairman is also India’s chairman” and accused India of having started the war with China. But they were always back on top within a short time, fully respected members of the democratic political spectrum. Better still, they managed even to make other parties implement much of the Communist agenda, from the nationalization of the banks to an unnecessary degree of hostility to the West, upheld by Congress and Janata governments alike. Such are the results when you make it your priority to control the ideological air space, rather than the ground level of work among the masses.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001)

Hostility , War , Support , Time

“This "scorched earth" directive was followed the next day, on March 23 by an equally monstrous order by Martin Bormann, the Fuehrer's secretary. Speer described it on the stand at Nuremberg: "The Bormann decree aimed at bringing the population to the center of the Reich from both East and West, and the foreign workers and prisoners of war were to be included. These millions of people were to be sent upon their trek on foot. No provisions for their existence had been made, nor could it be carried out in view of the situation. It would have resulted in an unimaginable hunger catastrophe.”

William L. Shirer book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960)

Hunger , War , People

“The West Wind blows the curtains
And I am frailer than the yellow chrysanthemums.”

Li Qingzhao (1084–1155) Chinese writer

《醉花陰》 ("Ninth Day, Ninth Month"), as translated by Kenneth Rexroth and ‎Ling Chung in Li Ch'ing-chao: Complete Poems (New Directions, 1979), p. 14

“US and European pre-eminence in science-based innovation cannot be taken for granted. The centre of gravity for innovation is starting to shift from west to east.”

Charles Leadbeater (1959) British writer and political adviser

Science

“Since the mid-1970s, there's been an international consensus for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. […] It's called a two-state settlement, and a two-state settlement is pretty straightforward, uncomplicated. Israel has to fully withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza and Jerusalem, in accordance with the fundamental principle of international law, […] that it's inadmissible to acquire territory by war. The West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, having been acquired by war, it's inadmissible for Israel to keep them. They have to be returned. On the Palestinian side and also the side of the neighboring Arab states, they have to recognize Israel's right to live in peace and security with its neighbors. That was the quid pro quo: recognition of Israel, Palestinian right to self-determination in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in Jerusalem. That's the international consensus. It's not complicated. It's also not controversial.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

Norman Finkelstein & Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami Debate: Complete Transcript http://www.democracynow.org/finkelstein-benami.shtml
Sourced statements on the Middle East

War , Peace , Law

“The ancestral canids that would eventually produce coyotes sprang from North American stock, a line of animals that evolved in the American Southwest. That ancient coyote line spawned animals that migrated to Eurasia and eventually to Africa to become Old World jackals. In North America, archeological sites from the late Pleistocene have yielded coyote remains from as far east as Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and genetic evidence indicates that coyotes thronged eastward out of their core range in the American West in at least two swarms, roughly between three hundred and nine hundred years ago. The truth is, roaming coyotes have probably been swimming the Mississippi River to eastern America during most decades since there have been coyotes.”

Dan Flores (1948) American historian

Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History (2016)

Truth , World , Animals

“We all know that sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and earth spins on its axis from west to east. But on that day my jet plan was at 60 degree latitude near Greenland and the plane exceeded the speed of rotation of the earth on its axis so the sun was found moving from west towards east.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

His scientific explanation with regard to the position of sun closer to the west horizon, and the sun was going up, which he had noticed.
When Prof Jayant Narlikar saw the sun rise in the west

Sun , Speed

“Here from this mountain shore, headland beyond stormy headland
plunging like dolphins through the blue sea-smoke
Into pale sea — look west at the hill of water: it is half the planet:
this dome, this half-globe, this bulging
Eyeball of water, arched over to Asia,
Australia and white Antarctica: those are the eyelids that never close;
this is the staring unsleeping
Eye of the earth; and what it watches is not our wars.”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

"The Eye"

War , Mountain , Water , Sea

“If the Jews are denied the right to live in freedom and peace, soon we will all be denied this right. If the light of Israel is extinguished, we will all face darkness. If Israel falls, the West falls.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech delivered in Tel Aviv in December of 2010, quoted in The Blaze: "‘Marked for Death’: Beck Interviews Anti-Islamist Dutch MP Geert Wilders" (2 May 2012) http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/05/02/beck-hosts-anti-islamist-dutch-mp-geert-wilders/
2010s

Peace , Freedom , Light

“Not only was [Fascist] Italy the first Western country to recognize the Soviet Union in 1924, but the new Soviet art first appeared in the West that year at the Venice Biennale, Italy's premiere art show.”

Stanley G. Payne (1934) American historian

Source: Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980), A History of Fascism, 1914—1945 (1995), p. 223

Art , Appearance , Country

“The mixture of the oral and the written traditions in the writings of Plato enabled him to dominate the history of the West.”

Harold Innis (1894–1952) Canadian professor of political economy

Minerva's Owl (1947), an address to the Royal Society of Canada, published in The Bias of Communication (1951) p. 10.
The Bias of Communication (1951)

History