Quotes about wish
page 36

“I have for years attempted to maintain the exclusion of Roman Catholics from Parliament, and the high offices of the State. I do not think it was an unnatural or unreasonable struggle. I resign it in consequence of the conviction that it can no longer be advantageously maintained. I yield therefore to a moral necessity which I cannot control; unwilling to push resistance to a point which might endanger the establishments that I wish to defend.”

Robert Peel (1788–1850) British Conservative statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (5 March 1829) introducing the Bill for Catholic Emancipation, quoted in The Parliamentary Debates, New Series: Vol. XX (1829), column 730
Home Secretary

Thinking

“I specially wish you not to go away with the idea that the exercise of scientific thought is properly confined... When the Roman jurists applied their experience of Roman citizens to dealings between citizens and aliens, showing by the difference of their actions that they regarded the circumstances as essentially different, they laid the foundations of that great structure which has guided the social progress of Europe. That procedure was an instance of strictly scientific thought. When a poet finds that he has to move a strange new world which his predecessors have not moved; when, nevertheless, he catches fire from their flashes, arms from their armoury, sustentation from their foot-prints, the procedure by which he applies old experience to new circumstances is nothing greater or less than scientific thought. When the moralist studying the conditions of society and the ideas of right and wrong which have come down to us from a time when war was the normal condition of man and success in war the only chance of survival, evolves from them the conditions and ideas which must accompany a time of peace, when the comradeship of equals is the condition of national success; the process by which he does this is scientific thought and nothing else.”

William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: "On the Aims and Instruments of Scientific Thought" (Aug 19, 1872), pp. 156-157.

Peace, Chance, Study, Time

“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

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Ch. 10 : Research, p. 143

World, Secret

“Ah! The happy ones of this world who are assured their daily bread—that is, all the things necessary to bodily life—and who, not wishing to know Jesus, have never for one single instant had the idea of suffering for their brothers, of sacrificing themselves for the wretched: ah! indeed! such people are assuredly well qualified to judge me and to reproach me for not having what the world calls dignity!”

Léon Bloy (1846–1917) French writer, poet and essayist

Source: Pilgrim of the Absolute (1947), p. 2

People, Suffering, World, Idea

“The seeming helplessness of our cousins strikes me as amusing when it is not annoying. I am sure what they wish in their hearts is that we would haul down the Stars and Stripes and hoist the White Ensign in all our ships. What particularly irks me is their strong liking for mixed forces, which as you know approached anathema to me. I am willing to take over additional tasks- and we have done so- but I cannot be expected to agree to help them cling to tasks that they themselves say they are unable to do unless we lend them our ships and other forces. I think we have done enough for them in their Home Fleet.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

In a letter from King to Admiral Harold B. Stark in November 1943, as quoted in Churchill's Anchor: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (2000) by Robin Brodhurst.
1940s

Home, Strong, Star, Help

“It is unquestionably the peacefulness and calm of the Spinozist system which particularly produces the idea of its depth, and which, with hidden but irresistible charm, has attracted so many minds. The Spinozist system will also always remain in a certain sense a model. A system of freedom — but with just as great contours, with the same simplicity, as a perfect counter-image (Gegenbild) of the Spinozist system — this would really be the highest system. This is why Spinozism, despite the many attacks on it, and the many supposed refutations, has never really become something truly past, never been really overcome up to now, and no one can hope to progress to the true and the complete in philosophy who has not at least once in his life lost himself in the abyss of Spinozism. Nobody who wishes to arrive at his own firm conviction should leave unread the main work of Spinoza, his Ethics (for he presented his system under this title), and I should like to urge everyone who is seriously concerned with his education not only to study assiduously on his own, which no teacher can replace, but to be most conscientious and careful in the choice of what he reads.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, On the History of Modern Philosophy (1833) [Translated from the German by Andrew Bowie]
S - Z

Peace, Study, Reading, Freedom

“I often wish I was asked more about the craft of the verse. I spent so many agonizing hours ensuring every line break was precise, every word and repetition chosen with care—because it was important to me to maintain the integrity of the lyric while also advancing the narrative. It’s that tightrope walk I’m studying in other people’s work and am continuously looking to understand further.”

Elizabeth Acevedo American poet and author

On desiring to be asked about her writing style in interviews in “Meet National Book Award Finalist Elizabeth Acevedo” https://lithub.com/meet-national-book-award-finalist-elizabeth-acevedo/ in LitHub (2018 Oct 29)

Study, People, Understanding

“You all wanted that someone be made a scapegoat. I did not do that. I allowed you to break all pots on my head alone. You have all decided-all these riots happened under this man (Narendra Modi). Until this man is removed from the chief minister’s post, we will not rest in peace. My best wishes to you in your mission.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Interview to NDTV broadcast on March 20, 2004, Narendra Modi said to Shekhar Gupta. quoted in Madhu Purnima Kishwar: Modi, Muslims and Media. Voices from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, Manushi Publications, Delhi 2014.
2004

Peace

“If there be any party which is more pledged than another to resist a policy of restrictive legislation, having for its object social coercion, that party is the Liberal party. (Cheers.) But liberty does not consist in making others do what you think right, (Hear, hear.) The difference between a free Government and a Government which is not free is principally this—that a Government which is not free interferes with everything it can, and a free Government interferes with nothing except what it must. A despotic Government tries to make everybody do what it wishes; a Liberal Government tries, as far as the safety of society will permit, to allow everybody to do as he wishes. It has been the tradition of the Liberal party consistently to maintain the doctrine of individual liberty. It is because they have done so that England is the place where people can do more what they please than in any other country in the world.”

William Harcourt (1827–1904) British politician

Speech in Oxford town hall (30 December 1872), quoted in The Times (31 December 1872), p. 5

Country, People, Thinking, World

“I do not wish to suggest that because we were one nation we had no differences, but it is submitted that our leading men travelled throughout India . . . They learned one another’s languages . . . they saw that India was one undivided land so made by nature. They, therefore, argued that it must be one nation. Arguing thus, they established holy places in various parts of India, and fired the people with an idea of nationality in a manner unknown in other parts of the world. Any two Indians are one as no two Englishmen are.”

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

1900s, Hind Swaraj (1908)

People, Learning, Nature, Travel

“The folly of disallowing reconversions to Hinduism is a self-destructive one. How easily Hindus converting to Islam or Christianity merge in their new milieu. Yet the same facility is not available to a non-Hindu who might earnestly wish to return to his or her fold or adopt Hinduism as a matter of faith. This shackle seriously depletes our numbers and makes the Hindu community a ready preying ground for the conversion factories that are always looking at swelling their numbers, many times by stealth or inducements. I have nothing against those who convert to another faith by sheer conviction. But such examples are rare. Why should we not allow the enhancement of our numbers due to some antiquated idea that does not even have any scriptural sanction that we cannot convert to Hinduism?”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

V. D. Savarkar, quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)

Faith, Time, Communication, Self-confidence

“Fine weather encourages individualism. When the whole glittering landscape is cut out as clear as a map—indented by the blue sky as by a blue sea, then each one of us wishes to take his own way, to walk by himself along the roads of the world and conquer for himself the cities of the morning. In the sunlight a man asks for liberty, which is only the divine name for loneliness. But it is in black and bleak conditions that we learn that it is not well for man to be alone; and festivity was discovered in the darkness. Winter encourages that thing called comradeship which modern humanitarians so often seem unable to understand, but which Walt Whitman so wisely perceived to be the permanent foundation of democracy.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton : The Illustrated London News, 1905-1907 (1986), p. 190

Democracy, Understanding, Loneliness, Learning

“It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books; I wish I had enough sense to see ahead thirty years ago, and like some of the Elizabethans, not signed them. It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: He made the books and he died.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Letter to Malcolm Cowley (11 February 1949), quoted in William Faulkner : A Critical Essay (1970) by Martin Jarrett-Kerr, p. 46; also published in Selected Letters of William Faulkner (1978) by Joseph Blotner, p. 286

History, Books, Sense, Life

“I amuse myself, not by making people believe what I wish, but by letting them believe what they wish. These fools of Parisians declare that I am five hundred, and I confirm them in the idea since it pleases them.”

Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795) Italian occultist

Cagliostro: the Splendour And Misery of a Master of Magic by W.R.H. Trowbridge, (William Rutherford Hayes), (August 1910) https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Trowbridge%2c%20W%2e%20R%2e%20H%2e%20%28William%20Rutherford%20Hayes%29%2c%201866%2d1938

Idea, Making love, People, Fools

“He absolutely loved life and loved people and his family and gave it everything that he could. He was always so focused on doing what he thought was important or the right thing, and there was a joy that came out of that. I wish I could find my own and I seek to do that.”

Beto O'Rourke (1972) American politician

[Beto O'Rourke, 2017, One-on-One with Evan Smith of Texas Tribune #TribFest17, https://www.facebook.com/betoorourke/videos/1424903200892719/, video, Austin, Texas, Facebook] A tearful answer to the question "What’s the thing you take away from [Pat O'Rourke's, Beto's father,] life as a public servant?” during an interview with the Texas Tribune
2017

Family, People, Joy, Love

“We wish, in a word, to fulfill the intentions of nature and the destiny of man, realize the promises of philosophy, and acquit providence of a long reign of crime and tyranny. That France, once illustrious among enslaved nations, may, by eclipsing the glory of all free countries that ever existed, become a model to nations, a terror to oppressors, a consolation to the oppressed, an ornament of the universe and that, by sealing the work with our blood, we may at least witness the dawn of the bright day of universal happiness. This is our ambition, - this is the end of our efforts....”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Principles to Form the Basis of the Administration of the Republic (February 1794)

Universe, Nature, Effort, Country

“AMBITION is to the mind, what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower, by reason of our blindness. But alas, when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us; in short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining all we want, we have only reached a pinnacle, where we have nothing to hope, but every thing to fear.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol I; XXXVII
Lacon (1820)

Chance, Time, Hope, Fear

“It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Disputed, Give me liberty, or give me death! (1775)

Peace, God, War, Cry

“There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free—if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending—if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained—we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Disputed, Give me liberty, or give me death! (1775)

Fight, God, Hope

“If a Brexiteer majority still wishes to persist in leaving, once we have made some progress and it’s obvious we’re getting there, you can invoke Article 50 again and leave fairly rapidly. To me, that seems the only rational way in which we can precede. But common sense has gone out of the window.”

Ken Clarke (1940) British Conservative politician

Said in an interview with Politico, 31 December 2018 on the revoking of Article 50 to allow time for preparation of the UK's exit of the European Union. McTague, Tom (31 December 2018) Ken Clarke: My ‘complacent’ generation sowed seeds of populism https://www.politico.eu/article/ken-clarke-interview-brexit-populism-tories/ in Politico. Retrieved 1 July 2019. 2018

Sense, Way

“I offer this gift to my God, I dedicate this gift to Him. Only this remains to me as my treasure. I gave up everything else at the command of the Spirit. I gave all that I had to obtain the pearl of great price. Only in words do I master it, as a servant of the Word. I would never intentionally wish to disdain this wealth. I esteem it, I set value by it, I am comforted by it more than others are comforted by all the treasures of the world. It is the companion of all my life, a good counselor and converser; a guide on the way to Heaven and a fervent co-ascetic.”

Gregory of Nazianzus (329–389) Christian saint, bishop, and theologian

Concerning his literary gift Source: "St. Gregory the Theologian the Archbishop of Constantinople" https://oca.org/saints/lives/2014/01/25/100298-st-gregory-the-theologian-the-archbishop-of-constantinople

God, Wealth, Way, World

“Impressed as we are with a deep sense of the excellence of our Constitution, as it exists in theory, we rejoice that we are not, like our brothers in France, reduced to the hard necessity of tearing up inveterate abuse by the roots, even where utility was so intermixed as to admit of separation. Ours is an easier and a less unpleasing task; to remove with a steady and a temperate resolution the abuses which the lapse of many years, inattention and supineness in the great body of the people, and unremitting vigilance in their rulers to invade and plunder them of their rights, have suffered to overgrow and to deform that beautiful system of government so admirably suited to our situation, our habits and our wishes. We have not to innovate but to restore. The just prerogatives of our monarch we respect and will maintain. The constitutional powers of the peers of the realms we wish not to invade. We know that in the exercise of both, abuses have grown up; but we also know that those abuses will be at once corrected, so as never again to recur, by restoring to us the people what we for ourselves demand as our right, our due weight and influence in that estate which is our property, the representation of the people in parliament.”

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798) Irish politician

Address of the Volunteers assembled at Belfast to the people of Ireland (14 July 1792), quoted in T. W. Moody, R. B. McDowell and C. J. Woods (eds.), The Writings of Theobold Wolfe Tone, 1763–98, Volume I: Tone's career in Ireland to June 1795 (1998), p. 218

Beauty, Suffering, People, Sense

“Now, as a strong State, we can be ready to pursue a policy of understanding with surrounding States. We want nothing from them. We have no wishes or demands; we desire peace. … No other people can need peace more than we.”

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

Speech in Saarbrücken (9 October 1938), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 10
1930s

Strong, Peace, People, Understanding

“Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to conclude an Anschluss.”

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

Speech in the Reichstag (21 May 1935), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 9
1930s

“No fresh European war is capable of putting something better in the place of unsatisfactory conditions which exist to-day. … The outbreak of such madness without end would lead to the collapse of existing social order in Europe. … The German Government are convinced that to-day there can be only one great task, and that it to assure the peace of the world. … The German Government wish to settle all difficult questions with other Governments by peaceful methods. … The German people have no thought of invading any country.”

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

Speech in Berlin (17 May 1933), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 9
1930s

Peace, Country, Question, War

“I welcome all those… who wish to help respecting the country’s sovereignty, without interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs so that they can support us, join us in a process of sovereign dialogue for Venezuela’s peace, democracy, justice, future and prosperity; a noble nation which deserves peace, a future and the best.”

Nicolás Maduro (1962) 53rd President of Venezuela

President Maduro's speech at the United Nations General Assembly (excerpts), 26 September 2018

Democracy, Peace, Justice, Country

“I generally try to avoid funerals: they make me angry. I know the purpose of a funeral is to provide comfort and a sense of closure for the bereaved; and I agree, in principle, that this is generally a good thing. But the default package usually comes with a priest, and when they start driveling on about how Uncle Fred (who died aged sixty-two of a hideous brain tumor) is safe in the ever-loving arms of Jesus, the effect it has on me is not to make me love my creator: it’s to wish I could punch him in the face repeatedly.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Fuller Memorandum (2010), Chapter 8, “Club Zero” (pp. 133-134)

Sense, Love, Making love, Age

“The Government of the proletarian dictatorship, together with the Communist Party and trade unions, is of course leaving no stone unturned in the effort to overcome the backward ideas of men and women, to destroy the old un-communist psychology. In law there is naturally complete equality of rights for men and women. And everywhere there is evidence of a sincere wish to put this equality into practice. We are bringing the women into the social economy, into legislation and government. All educational institutions are open to them, so that they can increase their professional and social capacities. We are establishing communal kitchens and public eating-houses, laundries and repairing shops, nurseries, kindergartens, children’s homes, educational institutes of all kinds. In short, we are seriously carrying out the demand in our programme for the transference of the economic and educational functions of the separate household to society. That will mean freedom for the woman from the old household drudgery and dependence on man. That enables her to exercise to the full her talents and her inclinations. The children are brought up under more favourable conditions than at home.”

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

As quoted by Clara Zetkin in "Lenin on the Women’s Question", My Memorandum Book https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm, 1920. Attributions

Home, Housing, Law, Freedom

“Polly saw the point. Would she wish not to have been born? Unhappy as she was, she could not say that. Even when she had wished to die, she had not wished never to have been born. Nobody alive could do that.”

Mary McCarthy book The Group

Source: The Group (1963), Ch. 12

“The question is not. Shall man be master of the earth? but. What sort of a master shall he be? Shall he be cruel and selfish, bigoted and imperialistic, thinking only of himself and sacrificing the interests of others to his own heartless purposes? or shall he be the responsible administrator of the universe, presiding over the affairs of the earth honourably and equitably, with a mind single to the good of all? Shall he be a savage despot or a schoolmaster? a feared and hated monster, or a wise, patient, and affectionate father? Since he has become the manager of the planet, shall he manage it as he would wish it to be managed if he were a subordinate and some other race had succeeded to the superintendency, or shall he cut loose from all moral obligations, ignore the promptings of his better self, and run things absolutely in the interest of himself? Which shall it be—the great law of love or the savage law of might?”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, pp. 149–150

Selfishness, Hate, Law, Question

“Scientific research is based on the assumption that all events, including the actions of mankind, are determined by the laws of nature. Therefore, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, that is, by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being. However, we have to admit that our actual knowledge of these laws is only an incomplete piece of work (unvollkommenes Stückwerk), so that ultimately the belief in the existence of fundamental all-embracing laws also rests on a sort of faith. All the same, this faith has been largely justified by the success of science. On the other hand, however, every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. The pursuit of science leads therefore to a religious feeling of a special kind, which differs essentially from the religiosity of more naive people.”

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

Letter in response to sixth-grader Phyllis Wright, asking whether scientists pray, and if so, what they pray for (24 January 1936) p. 92-93
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)

Faith, Law, Success, People

“It is a strange thing that certain parts of the world should now be wishing to revive the old religious war. There are those non-God religions Nazism and Communism... I repudiate both and will have nothing to do with either... They are as alike as two peas. Tweedledum and Tweedledee were violently contrasted compared with them. You leave out God and you substitute the devil.”

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

Manchester Guardian (26 January 1937) speech at Leeds Chamber of Commerce
The 1930s

God, Religion, War, Communication

“A clear prediction in an area undergoing vigorous study permits doctrines to be subject to disproof. The last posture a bureaucratic religion wishes to find itself in is vulnerability to disproof, where an experiment can be performed on which the religion stands or falls.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p. 332)

Study, Religion

“Both borderline science and many religions are motivated in part by a serious concern about the nature of the universe and our role in it, and for this reason merit our consideration and regard. In addition, I think it possible that many religions involve at their cores an attempt to come to grips with profound mysteries of our individual life histories, as described in the last chapter. But both in borderline science and in organized religion there is much that is specious or dangerous. While the practitioners of such doctrines often wish there were no criticisms to which they are expected to reply, skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Introduction (p. xii)
Broca's Brain (1979)

Religion, History, Nature, Universe

“Mr. Madison wished to relieve the sufferers, but was afraid of establishing a dangerous precedent, which might hereafter be perverted to the countenance of purposes very different from those of charity. He acknowledged, for his own part, that he could not undertake to lay his finger on that article in the Federal Constitution which granted a right of Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Summation of Madison's remarks (10 January 1794) Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 3rd Congress, 1st Session, p. 170 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=004/llac004.db&recNum=82; the expense in question was for French refugees from the Haitian Revolution; this summation has been paraphrased as if a direct quote: "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." 1790s

Money, Suffering, Parting

“If we refuse…what are the prospects? Repression, and nothing but repression, and it is a very uncomfortable repression; a kind of repression from which we shall get neither credit nor success. It is the repression of the masses of the people, the great proportion of these masses being women and children. It is the repression not of organisations and not of bodies; it will develop into the repression of the whole of the population. … If, on the other hand, you wish to bind India to you by bonds of confidence, to make her happy within your Empire and Commonwealth, if you wish to hear her praise you in gratitude and remain with you in pride, then accept the work that has been done by the Conference, and instruct the Government to proceed with it to a complete conclusion.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1931-01-26/debates/8a5b21f7-05dc-4c09-b195-075ec6261125/CommonsChamber in the House of Commons (26 January 1931) on Indian constitutional reform 1930s

Confidence, Success, Gratitude, Children

“How sincere and confidential we can be, saying all that lies in the mind, and yet go away feeling that all is yet unsaid, from the incapacity of the parties to know each other, although they use the same words! My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation until all is said which words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption. Is it that every man believes every other to be an incurable partialist, and himself a universalist? I talked yesterday with a pair of philosophers; I endeavored to show my good men that I love everything by turns and nothing long; that I loved the centre, but doated on the superficies; that I loved man, if men seemed to me mice and rats; that I revered saints, but woke up glad that the old pagan world stood its ground and died hard; that I was glad of men of every gift and nobility, but would not live in their arms. Could they but once understand that I loved to know that they existed, and heartily wished them God-speed, yet, out of my poverty of life and thought, had no word or welcome for them when they came to see me, and could well consent to their living in Oregon, for any claim I felt on them, — it would be a great satisfaction.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

God, Understanding, Speed, Sincerity

“You have no alternative, and if you wish to live in honor, then this can be accomplished only by returning to your religion to religion and to jihad against your enemies.”

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (1971–2019) leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, 22 August 2018 (date of quote) 2014, 2018, Statement released in Arabic, 22 August 2018 Source: In a public statement by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the first in a year, he calls on his supporters to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide, mainly in Western countries. He mentions shooting, stabbing and ramming attacks as well as detonation of IEDs. https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/microsoft-wordin-public-statement-isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-first-year-calls-supporters-carry-terrorist-attacks-worldwide-mainly-western-countries-ment/, The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, 27 August 2018

Religion

“Let us be on the side of those who want people to be free to live their own lives, to make their own mistakes, and to decide, in an adult way and provided they do not infringe the rights of others, the code by which they wish to live; and on the side of experiment and brightness, of better buildings and better food, of better music (jazz as well as Bach) and better books, of fuller lives and greater freedom. In the long run these things will be more important than the most perfect of economic policies.”

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

The Labour Case (Penguin, 1959), p. 146
1950s

Freedom, Food, People, Music

“I feel proud to have turned that down. I wish I could remember what it was. Let’s say Hamlet. Yeah, I turned down Hamlet.”

Rik Mayall (1958–2014) British comedian and actor

Well who fucking wouldn’t? I mean how many gags are there in that? The Stage, January 17, 2007 https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/2007/bad-politics-rik-mayall-in-the-new-statesman/

Feeling

“It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished.”

John Jay (1745–1829) American politician and a founding father of the United States

The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.
1780s, Letter to R. Lushington (1786)

“The prejudices of the second species, since they impose upon the intellect by the sensual conditions restricting the mind if it wishes in certain cases to attain to what is intellectual, lurk more deeply. One of them is that which affects knowledge of quantity, the other that affecting knowledge of qualities generally. The former is: every actual multiplicity can be given numerically, and hence, every infinite quantity; the latter, whatever is impossible contradicts itself. In either of them the concept of time, it is true, does not enter into the very notion of the predicate, nor is it attributed as a qualification to the subject. But yet it serves as a means for forming an idea of the predicate, and thus, being a condition, affects the intellectual concept of the subject to the extent that the latter is only attained by its aid.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770), Section V On The Method Respecting The Sensuous And The Intellectual In Metaphysics

Knowledge, Idea, Time

“For the first time in a while, a pro-America Brazilian president arrives in DC. It’s the beginning of a partnership focused on liberty and prosperity, something that all of us Brazilians have long wished for. You have a president who is a friend of the United States who admires this beautiful country.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

On Twitter, on 17 March 2019. Bolsonaro chega a Washington e comemora proximidade com os EUA https://br.reuters.com/article/topNews/idBRKCN1QY0YX-OBRTP. Reuters, 17 March 2019.

Beauty, Partnership, Time, Country

“Conditions have greatly changed in Great Britain since the end of the war owing to the existence of full employment. Negotiations about wages between the two sides of industry now take place in entirely different circumstances. There is no reserve of labour to compete for jobs. … If wages rise faster than productivity the increases in cost can usually be passed on in increased selling prices. There is thus in the economic system very much less check on the upward movement of money wages. …if wages at home rise unchecked, it is more likely in general that exports will gradually cease to be competitive and there will be balance of payments difficulties. These can be met, in the end, by devaluation. A succession of devaluations completely undermines confidence in any currency. … It is clear that a very difficult problem faces a country such as ours, which wishes to maintain full employment and yet to avoid the undoubted evils of rising prices and balance of payments difficulties abroad.”

Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) British politician

Memorandum, 'Wages and Prices and Full Employment' (1 December 1950), quoted in Correlli Barnett, The Lost Victory: British Dreams, British Realities: 1945–1950 (London: Pan, 1996), pp. 350–352
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Money, Home, Confidence, Country

“Apparently she believes she is safe. Evil is essentially stupid, Joe; despite her brilliance, she believes what she wishes to believe. Or it may be that she is willing to risk her own death against the tempting prize of absolute power.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Gulf

Gulf (p. 559)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

Death, Evil, Stupidity

“It is true that most religions which have been offered me teach immortality, but note the fashion in which they teach it. The surest way to lie convincingly is to tell the truth unconvincingly. They did not wish me to believe.”

Robert A. Heinlein book They

They (p. 60)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

Religion, Truth, Lie, Way

“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

Childhood, Soul, Friendship, Success

“Both sides of the Taiwan Strait (Taiwan and Mainland China) have their differences of opinion. I hope people on both sides could help, protect and give their blessings to a simple businessman (bread master Wu Pao-chun) who wishes to develop his business without becoming too involved in politics.”

Han Kuo-yu (1957) Taiwanese political figure

Han Kuo-yu (2018) cited in " President Tsai decries row over Wu Pao-chun http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2018/12/12/2003705958" on Taipei Times, 12 December 2018. 2018

Business, Hope, Help, People

“The first step, perhaps, is to take stock. Who are you? When you buy a house and prepare to live in it, you hire an inspector to list all its faults—as it is, in reality, now, not as you wish it could be. You’ll even pay him for the bad news. You need to know. You need to discover the home’s hidden flaws. You need to know whether they are cosmetic imperfections or structural inadequacies. You need to know because you can’t fix something if you don’t know it’s broken— and you’re broken. You need an inspector. The internal critic—it could play that role, if you could get it on track; if you and it could cooperate.”

Jordan Peterson book 12 Rules for Life

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Rule 4: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today

Home, Bad luck, Reality, Housing

“Looking at these men, and realizing how high they stand among humanity, how far they have gone in human evolution, is it not logical to say that we cannot see the bounds of human attainment, and that there may well have been, and even now may be, men far further developed even than they, men great in spirituality as well as knowledge or artistic power, men complete as regards human perfections—men precisely such as the Adepts or Supermen whom some of us have had the inestimable privilege to encounter? This galaxy of human genius that enriches and beautifies the pages of history is at the same time the glory and the hope of all mankind, for we know that these Greater Ones are the forerunners of the rest, and that they flash out as beacons, as veritable light-bearers to show us the path which we must tread if we wish to reach the glory which shall presently be revealed.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch. 1

Time, History, Light, Hope

“Although instances of apparitions shortly after death are by no means uncommon, it is rare to find one in which the departed person has really done anything useful, or succeeded in impressing what he wished upon the friend or relation whom he visited… but little help is usually given by the dead - indeed, as will presently be explained, it is far more common for them to be themselves in need of assistance than to be able to accord it to others… the main bulk of the work which has to be done along these lines falls to the share of those living persons who are able to function consciously on the astral plane.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 4

Dead, Personality, Help, Relation ships

“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

Making love, Light, Personality, People

“For, strange as the statement will appear at first sight, modern metaphysics, and to a large extent modern physical science, have been groping for centuries blindly after knowledge which occult philosophy has enjoyed in full measure all the while. Owing to a train of fortunate circumstances, I have come to know that this is the case; I have come into some contact with persons who are heirs of a greater knowledge concerning the mysteries of Nature and humanity than modern culture has yet evolved; and my present wish is to sketch the outlines of this knowledge, to record with exactitude the experimental proofs I have obtained that occult science invest its adepts with a control of natural forces superior to that enjoyed by physicists of the ordinary type, and the grounds there are for bestowing the most respectful consideration on the theories entertained by occult science concerning the constitution and destinies of the human soul.”

Alfred Percy Sinnett book The Occult World

Introduction
The Occult World

Soul, Personality, Nature, Knowledge

“The subject of a coming Avatar or World Teacher or Christ is one that has enthralled men of all backgrounds and teachings for centuries. Even the most sceptical will often express the wish that such a desirable event were possible, however unlikely. To these, this paper is presented as an interesting hypothesis.”

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

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

World, Teachers, Christ, Men

“I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in their best order.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

12 July 1827
Table Talk (1821–1834)

Home

“It is for you, Citizen Directors, to remove from over our heads the storm that the eternal enemies of our liberty are preparing in the shades of silence. It is for you to enlighten the Legislature, it is for you to prevent the enemies of the present system from spreading themselves on our unfortunate shores to sully them with new crimes. Do not allow our brothers, our friends, to be sacrificed to men who wish to reign over the ruins of the human species. But no, your wisdom will enable you to avoid the dangerous snares which our common enemies hold our for you.”

Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803) Leader of the Haitian Revolution

Letter to the French Directory, November 1792

Silence, Wisdom, Men

“When the chancellor imagines I have the inclination to become his successor, he is mistaken tremendously. Right now, I wish that he continue holding his office and that he sees for himself how poorly he has operated recently. I consider anyone who wants to accept the succession to be very bold. When one or another successor has broken his neck, perhaps there is room for discussion.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 9 February 1889

Imagination, Success

“To say I desire war is absurd. I only wish one thing: that our enemies renounce completely the idea of attacking us. I know too well what war is and am convinced that it is my duty as an honest man to wish that it be used only as a last resort, as much in the interests of my Fatherland as in the interests of the entire world.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee, quoted in the Le Petit Parisien newspaper, c. 1888

World, War, Idea

“The knowledge that He is ready and anxious publicly to appear to His loved Humanity only adds to the sense of general frustration, and another very vital question arises: For what period of time must we endure, struggle and fight? The reply comes with clarity: He will come unfailingly when a measure of peace has been restored, when the principle of sharing is at least in process of controlling economic affairs, and when churches and political groups have begun to clean house. Then He can and will come; then the Kingdom of God will be publicly recognised and will no longer be a thing of dreams and of wishful thinking and orthodox hope.”

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

Source: The Reappearance of the Christ (1948), Chapter VII

God, Peace, Time, Housing

“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

Peace, Freedom, Country, Bad luck

“I am aware that the age is not what we all wish. But I am sure, that the only means of checking its precipitate degeneracy, is heartily to concur with whatever is the best in our time; and to have some more correct standard of judging what that best is, than the transient and uncertain favour of a court. If once we are able to find, and can prevail on ourselves to strengthen an union of such men, whatever accidentally becomes indisposed to ill-exercised power, even by the ordinary operation of human passions, must join with that society, and cannot long be joined, without in some degree assimilating to it. Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public stock of honest manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough, (and for a worthy man perhaps too much,) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and declared apostacy.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Time, Men, Age, Passion

“Whether they are allowed to be Whigg principles, or not, is a very small part of my concern. I think them exactly as such as the sober, honourable, and intelligent part in that party, have always professed. I think, I have shewn, beyond a possibility of debate, that they are exactly the same. But if any person…choose to think otherwise, and conceive that they are contrary to the Doctrines of their Whigg party,—be it so. I am certain, that they are principles of which no reasonable man or good citizen need be ashamed of. If they are Tory principles, I shall always wish to be thought a Tory, If the contrary of these principles be Whigg principles, I beg, that you, my Dear Friend will never consider me as belonging to that description.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to Dr Richard Brocklesby (c. 1790s), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume IX: May 1796–July 1797 (Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 446
Undated

Personality, Thinking, Intelligence, Parting

“I wish that I could believe not in mortality but in reincarnation or individual immortality; I wish that I could be living again in another body or, God help me, even watching from the edge of a fleecy cloud in Heaven or out through the dirty windowpane of a haunted house or through the dull eyes of a dung beetle or on any terms. On any terms I want to be watching, I want to be there, I want to be around, when we reach the stars, when we take over the universe and the universes, when we become the God in whom I do not believe as yet because I do not believe he exists as yet nor will exist until we become Him.”

Fredric Brown book The Lights in the Sky Are Stars

Source: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953), Chapter 4 “2000” (p. 242)

God, Housing, Star, Help

“The manifesto had a paragraph on a wish and an aspiration, acknowledging that the Reserve Bank is independent and that there is no intention whatsoever to tamper or tinker with the independence of the central bank. The wish that is expressed is, that as it goes ahead with monetary policy machinations, it will keep an eye on employment.”

Cyril Ramaphosa (1952) 5th President of South Africa

Answering a question by JSE chairperson Nyembezi-Heita in Rosebank, on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos, as quoted by Carien du Plessis in Ramaphosa and Magashule contradict each other on Reserve Bank nationalisation https://www.msn.com/en-za/money/politics/ramaphosa-and-magashule-contradict-each-other-on-reserve-bank-nationalisation/ar-BBSjJd5?ocid=spartanntp, Daily Maverick (17 January 2019)

“At any rate, if you wish to sift doubtful meanings of this kind, teach us that the happy man is not he whom the crowd deems happy, namely, he into whose coffers mighty sums have flowed, but he whose possessions are all in his soul, who is upright and exalted, who spurns inconstancy, who sees no man with whom he wishes to change places, who rates men only at their value as men, who takes Nature for his teacher, conforming to her laws and living as she commands, whom no violence can deprive of his possessions, who turns evil into good, is unerring in judgment, unshaken, unafraid, who may be moved by force but never moved to distraction, whom Fortune when she hurls at him with all her might the deadliest missile in her armoury, may graze, though rarely, but never wound.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLV: On sophistical argumentation

Soul, Law, Nature, Teachers

“Without criticising the liberal model, we cannot repair its faults or go beyond it. But please note that this book could have been written only when people are still relatively free to think what they like and to express themselves as they wish. If you value this book, you should also value the freedom of expression.”

Yuval Noah Harari book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Thinking, Books, People, Freedom

“Iskilip is senile, more than half converted to his own artificial creed. He was mumbling about prophecies Val Nira made long ago, true prophecies. Bah! Tricks of memory and wishfulness.”

Poul Anderson book The Longest Voyage

The Longest Voyage (p. 171)
Short fiction, The Book of Poul Anderson (1975)

Memory

“By making us aware of the futility of this wishful thinking, the psychotechnologies help free us from unhealthy dependencies. We increase our capacity to love without bargaining or expectations, to enjoy without emotional mortgages. At the same time, enhanced awareness adds luster to simple things and everyday events, so that what may seem a turn toward a more austere life is often the discovery of subtler, less perishable riches.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Four, People Changing

Time, Dependency, Help, Thinking

“We might more accurately think of nonattachment as nondependency. Much of our inner turbulence reflects the fear of loss: our dependence on people, circumstances, and things not really under our control. On some level we know that death, indifference, rejection, repossession, or high tide may leave us bereft in the morning. Still, we clutch desperately at things we cannot finally hold. Nonattachment is the most realistic of attitudes. It is freedom from wishful thinking, from always wanting things to be otherwise.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Four, People Changing

Loss, Dependency, Freedom, Indifference

“But she lay long awake that night, nor did she wish for sleep. Her waking fancies were more alluring than any vision of dreamland. Had the real Prince come at last? Recalling those glorious dark eyes which had gazed so deeply into her own, Anne was very strongly inclined to think he had.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery book Anne of the Island

Source: Anne of the Island (1915), Ch. 25

Sleep, Thinking, Night

“It seems like being gay or whatever sin you wish to be a part of is okay … but I have the duty to lift that gay person up to the standard to ask if they want to live the life that God wants them to or live the lifestyle that they want to live.”

Louis Farrakhan (1933) leader of the Nation of Islam

Boston speech https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/31/race.world1, The Guardian (August 1997)

Personality, God, Life, Parting

“I admit the charge, but deny that nature, race, or color has anything to do with the fact. Any other race, with the same antecedents and the same conditions, would show a similar thieving propensity. The American people have this lesson to learn, that where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property would be safe… While I hold now, as I held years ago, that the South is the natural home of the colored race, and that there must the destiny of that race be mainly worked out, I still believe that means can be and ought to be adopted, to assist in the emigration of such of their number as may wish to change their residence to parts of the country, where their civil and political rights are better protected than at present they can be at the South… The Republican party is not perfect; it is cautious even to the point of timidity; but it is the best friend we have.”

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

1880s, Speech on the Anniversary of Emancipation (1886)

Home, Justice, Country, Personality

“The sooner these anti-invasionist scholars realize that linguistics is a science which cannot, and indeed need not, be wished away, and the sooner they decided to expend their energies in the study, rather than the dismissal, of this science, the better they will be able to serve their own cause.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 8 : Misinterpretations of Rigvedic History

Science, Study

“It is with this in mind that the Republic of Haiti wishes greater consideration to be given to the repeated demands of the Republic of China for participation in the activities of the United Nations system.”

Bocchit Edmond Haitian politician

Bocchit Edmond (2019) cited in: " 11 of Taiwan's allies speak up at UN debate: MOFA http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201909290006.aspx" in Focus Taiwan, 29 September 2019. Statement made during the General Debate of the 74th general assembly of the United Nations, 28 September 2019.

“I am proud to be a brother of such a person. Now all I can is hope that Ukrainians will make right conclusions and will move on, as my brother wished they should have done.”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

Orest Slipak,brother of killed Vasyl Slipak Ukrainians bid their last farewells to opera singer Vasyl Slipak, laid to rest in Lviv // UT.Ukraine Today. - 2016. - July 1. http://uatoday.tv/society/ukrainians-bid-their-last-farewells-to-opera-singer-vasyl-slipak-laid-to-rest-in-lviv-684674.html

Personality, Making love, Hope

“I wish the result had gone the other way. I campaigned passionately for that. But as democrats our party has to accept that result and it follows that the prime minister should not be blocked from starting the Article 50 negotiations.”

Keir Starmer (1962) British politician and barrister

Brexit decision 'difficult' for Labour, Keir Starmer says https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38799686 BBC News (31 January 2017) 2017

Way, Passion

“Shutting down parliament in order to force through a no-deal Brexit - which will do untold and lasting damage to the country against the wishes of MPs - is not democracy, it is dictatorship.”

Nicola Sturgeon (1970) First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party

Brexit: MPs ask Scottish court to block Westminster shutdown https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-49496517 BBC News (28 August 2019) 2019

Democracy, Country

“I am very sorry that Andy Coulson has decided to resign as my Director of Communications, although I understand that the continuing pressures on him and his family mean that he feels compelled to do so. Andy has told me that the focus on him was impeding his ability to do his job and was starting to prove a distraction for the Government. During his time working for me, Andy has carried out his role with complete professionalism. He has been a brilliant member of my team and has thrown himself at the job with skill and dedication. He can be extremely proud of the role he has played, including for the last eight months in Government. I wish Andy all the very best for his future, which I am certain will be a successful one.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Resignation of Andy Coulson statement (21 January 2011) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8273786/Andy-Coulson-resignation-David-Camerons-statement.html 2010s, 2011

Family, Time, Understanding, Success

“But the message is clear to all - this House has spoken and now is not the time to obstruct the democratically expressed wishes of the British people. It is time to get on with leaving the European Union and building an independent, self-governing, global Britain.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Theresa May: Don't obstruct voters over Brexit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38879249 BBC News (6 February 2017) 2010s, On Brexit

Self-confidence, Housing, Time, People

“Some one will say, Does he not know without a monitor both what our difficulties are, and what is meet for our interest, so that it seems in some measure superfluous to solicit him by our prayers, as if he were winking, or even sleeping, until aroused by the sound of our voice? Those who argue thus attend not to the end for which the Lord taught us to pray. It was not so much for his sake as for ours. … It is very much for our interest to be constantly supplicating him; first, that our heart may always be inflamed with a serious and ardent desire of seeking, loving and serving him, while we accustom ourselves to have recourse to him as a sacred anchor in every necessity; secondly, that no desires, no longing whatever, of which we are ashamed to make him the witness, may enter our minds, while we learn to place all our wishes in his sight, and thus pour out our heart before him; and, lastly, that we may be prepared to receive all his benefits with true gratitude and thanksgiving, while our prayers remind us that they proceed from his hand.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 3, Chapter 20, Section 3
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Sleep, Gratitude, Heart, Learning

“I must really say that he is a veteran Communist, this Herr Josip Broz, a consistent man. Unfortunately he is our enemy. He really has earned his title of Marshal. When we catch him we shall do him in at once; you can be sure of that; he is our enemy. But I wish we had a dozen Titos in Germany… The man had nothing at all. He was between the Russians, the British and Americans for a ride and to shit on them in the most comical way. He is a Moscow man … He has never capitulated.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994).
Undated

Way

“If I address the following lines to you, I do so because I am credibly informed that you, like myself, as a true German, love your fatherland before everything, putting aside personal opinions and wishes, as I have had to do in order to help my country in its hour of need. In this spirit I have joined forces with you to rescue our people from a threatening collapse. … The fate of the German people has been laid in your hands. Upon your determination it will depend whether the German Reich acquires a new impetus. I am ready, and behind me stand the whole Army, to support you unreservedly. We all know that after this lamentable upshot of the war, the reconstruction of the realm can only be effected upon new foundations and in new forms.”

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and president of Germany

Letter to Friedrich Ebert (8 December 1918), quoted in John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918-1945 (London: Macmillan, 1964), p. 29
Chief of the German General Staff

Dependency, Fate, Country, War

“The child’s desire to have distinctions made in his ideas grew stronger every day. Having learned that things had names, he wished to hear the name of every thing supposing that there could be nothing which his father did not know. He often teased him with his questions, and caused him to inquire concerning objects which, but for this, he would have passed without notice. Our innate tendency to pry into the origin and end of things was likewise soon developed in the boy. When he asked whence came the wind, and whither went the flame, his father for the first time truly felt the limitation of his own powers, and wished to understand how far man may venture with his thoughts, and what things he may hope ever to give account of to himself or others. The anger of the child, when he saw injustice done to any living thing, was extremely grateful to the father, as the symptom of a generous heart. Felix once struck fiercely at the cook for cutting up some pigeons. The fine impression this produced on Wilhelm was, indeed, erelong disturbed, when he found the boy unmercifully tearing sparrows in pieces and beating frogs to death. This trait reminded him of many men, who appear so scrupulously just when without passion, and witnessing the proceedings of other men. The pleasant feeling, that the boy was producing so fine and wholesome an influence on his being, was, in a short time, troubled for a moment, when our friend observed, that in truth the boy was educating him more than he the boy.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Book VIII – Chapter 1
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

Time, Cooking, Anger, Understanding

“If you want to rely on non-empirical assessment, you have to make really sure that scientists’ judgment is as objective as humanly possible. And the environment in academia presently is absolutely unsuitable for this. You just can’t be sure how much sociology affects judgment. And no physicist I know makes any effort to consciously address cognitive biases, such as wishful thinking, loss aversion, or the use of aesthetic criteria. It’s just not something that they pay attention to because it’s never been necessary before. As long as you have data for guidance, you’ll be swiftly corrected.”

Sabine Hossenfelder (1976) German theoretical physicist

[Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder Fears Theorists, Lacking Data, May Succumb to "Wishful Thinking" (interview of Hossenfelder by John Horgan), Cross-Check, Scientific American blogs, 1 February 2016, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/physicist-sabine-hossenfelder-fears-theorists-lacking-data-may-succumb-to-wishful-thinking/]

Loss, Thinking, Making love, Effort

“I also believe that Spinoza, like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, on whose lives and philosophy I have based two earlier novels, wrote much that is highly relevant to my field of psychiatry and psychotherapy—for example, that ideas, thoughts, and feelings are caused by previous experiences, that passions may be studied dispassionately, that understanding leads to transcendence—and I wished to celebrate his contributions through a novel of ideas.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Irvin D. Yalom, in his novel The Spinoza Problem, prologue. (New York: Basic Books, 2012)
S - Z

Study, Understanding, Passion, Idea

“The wish to preserve oneself is the symptom of a condition of distress, of a limitation of the really fundamental instinct of life which aims at the expansion of power and, wishing for that, frequently risks and even sacrifices self-preservation. It should be considered symptomatic when some philosophers–for example, Spinoza who was consumptive–considered the instinct of self-preservation decisive and had to see it that way; for they were individuals in conditions of distress.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs. Edited by Bernard Williams, translated by Josefine Nauckhoff. (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
M - R

Way, Self-confidence, Life, Decision

“Philopon: The misfortune of this man has always touched me in an extraordinary way. He lived in moderation, alone and irreproachable; he renounced all human idols and devoted his entire life to reflection, and look what happened! In the labyrinth of his meditations, he goes astray and, out of error, maintains much that agrees very little with his innocent way of life and that the most depraved scoundrel might wish for in order to be able to indulge his evil desires with impunity. How unjust is the irreconcilable hatred of scholars towards someone so unfortunate!”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Moses Mendelssohn, in his Philosophical Writings (1755–77) [original in German]
M - R

Way, Life, Error, Evil

“It wasn’t a death wish. It was a see-how-close-you-can-get-and-live wish.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Ramal Extraction (2012), Chapter 12

Death

“Of course, laws weren’t always just. Some rules outlawed a thing because it was intrinsically bad: child molestation, say. Other rules made harmless activities crimes only because someone wished them to be so. Take cohabitation on a religious holiday. On some worlds, it was legal on one day, illegal the next, and on the third, okay once again. Khadaji could see no moral dilemma there.”

Steve Perry book The Man Who Never Missed

Source: The Man Who Never Missed (1985), Chapter 16 (p. 143)

World, Bad luck, Holiday, Law

“A living language can stand on a higher level of culture in comparison with another, but it can never in itself attain that perfection of development which a dead language quite easily attains. In the latter the connotation of words is fixed, and the possibilities of suitable combinations will also gradually become exhausted. Hence, he who wishes to speak this language must speak it just as it is; but, after he has once learnt to do this, the language speaks itself in his mouth and thinks and imagines for him.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book Address to the German Nation

Consequences of the Difference p. 85
Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation) 1808, Fifth Address

Perfection, Thinking, Imagination, Dead

“And so Butler made a decision, the consequences of which would haunt his dreams and waking hours for years to come. As a professional bodyguard, he knew the futility of second-guessing his own actions, but in the nights ahead he would often sit by the fire, with his head in his hands, and replay the moment in his mind, wishing that he had acted differently. Whatever way he played it out, the results were tragic, but at least they would not have been tragic for Artemis.”

Eoin Colfer book Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony

Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (2006)

Way, Dreams, Night, Decision

“Be something, be yourself; if not, ]then] throw your palette in the fire. Form a school if you wish, but it must come from the inside of you, but you yourself may not belong to any school.”

Paul Gabriël (1828–1903) painter (1828-1903)

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek version in original Dutch / citaat van Paul Gabriël, in Nederlands: Wees wat, weest U zelve, zoo niet gooi uw palet in ’t vuur. Vormt een school zoo ge wilt, maar het moet uit U komen, maar gij zelve mag tot geen school behooren. In a letter of Gabriël, Brussel (14 Oct. 1879), to his student then Willem Bastiaan Tholen; in Gabriël, P.J.C, ed. Jeltes, H.F.W.; Gebroeders Binger, Amsterdam 1926; as cited in an excerpt of RKD Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/136 1860's + 1870's

School

“I did a lot of preaching this week. I had my sermons ready. The good part is the congregation was listening. I wish I had passed the collection plate. I would’ve made a lot of money. But I did it for free.”

Herm Edwards (1954) American football player, coach and analyst

Edwards, following a win against the Chargers in 2006. With Kansas City Source: Schraeger, Peter. Get ready to meet Herm http://web.archive.org/web/20070930032843/http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/6915026 FOXSports.com, 13 June 2007.

Money, Parting

“I wish I could be near you to hold your hand and explain in some detail the reasons for my death. I know at this point that it has fallen upon you in a way that I wish would not have happened. I wanted to explain to you the night before I left New York that I was really going to Spain, and the reasons why. But I knew that no matter what I might have told you, it would never have made sense to you. I found that trying to explain was an impossibility. I am sorry for that.”

Bill Bailey (Spanish Civil War veteran) (1910–1995) American labor activist

The Kid from Hoboken: An Autobiography by Bill Bailey (1993)

Way, Death, Night, Sense

“Can I still wish you good luck?”

Alastair Reynolds book Redemption Ark

“You can wish me what the hell you like. It won’t make any difference. If it did, it would mean I hadn’t prepared well enough.

Chapter 38 (p. 654)
Redemption Ark (2002)

Bad luck

“I have encouraged him. I said to him after he told me that Hun Sen told him he wished him to be the next King…When I die, please replace me. Never continue to be Prime Minister, even the only Prime Minister. It will be good for you to be King because as King it will be easier to have a clean reputation.”

Norodom Ranariddh (1944) Cambodian politician

by Norodom Sihanouk in 1996
[Jason Barber, http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/royal-trumps-table-aces-sleeve, Royal trumps on the table, aces up the sleeve, 22 March 1996, 29 August 2015, Phnom Penh Post]

“I wish there was an on & off switch for my brain. I think too fucking much.”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

22 April 2014 https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666/status/458559591698014208 Twitter https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666 posts

Thinking

“These kinds of habits, in good company, are so very nauseous and disgusting, that if we indulge ourselves in them, no one can be very fond of our acquaintance. So far from it, that even those, who are inclined to wish us well, must, by these and the like disagreeable customs, be entirely alienated from us.”

Giovanni della Casa (1503–1556) Roman Catholic archbishop

Those ill-bred people, who expect their acquaintance to love and caress them, with all their foibles, are as absurd as a poor ragged cinder-wench; who should roll about upon an heap of ashes, scrabbling and throwing dust in the face of every one that passed by; and yet flatter herself that she should allure some youth to her embraces, by these dirty endearments; which would infallibly keep him at a distance.
Source: Galateo: Or, A Treatise on Politeness and Delicacy of Manners, p. 15

“Khamenei is not the first ruler of Iran with whom poets have run into trouble. For some 12 centuries poetry has been the Iranian people’s principal medium of expression. Iran may be the only country where not a single home is found without at least one book of poems. Initially, Persian poets had a hard time to define their place in society. The newly converted Islamic rulers suspected the poets of trying to revive the Zoroastrian faith to undermine the new religion. Clerics saw poets as people who wished to keep the Persian language alive and thus sabotage the ascent of Arabic as the new lingua franca.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Without the early Persian poets, Iranians might have ended up like so many other nations in the Middle East who lost their native languages and became Arabic speakers. Early on, Persian poets developed a strategy to check the ardor of the rulers and the mullahs. They started every qasida with praise to God and Prophet followed by panegyric for the ruler of the day. Once those “obligations” were out of the way they would move on to the real themes of the poems they wished to compose. Everyone knew that there was some trick involved but everyone accepted the result because it was good. Despite that modus vivendi some poets did end up in prison or in exile while many others spent their lives in hardship if not poverty. However, poets were never put to the sword. The Khomeinist regime is the first in Iran’s history to have executed so many poets. Implicitly or explicitly, some rulers made it clear what the poet couldn’t write. But none ever dreamt of telling the poet what he should write. Khamenei is the first to try to dictate to poets, accusing them of “crime” and” betrayal” if they ignored his injunctions. When the Ayatollah Dictates Poetry http://www.aawsat.net/2015/07/article55344336/when-the-ayatollah-dictates-poetry, Ashraq Al-Awsat (Jul 11, 2015).

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Quotes about wish page 36

Quotes about wish
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