“He who does not wish to die cannot have wished to live.”
Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXX: On conquering the conqueror
“He who does not wish to die cannot have wished to live.”
Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXX: On conquering the conqueror
Philip Naameh (1948) Ghanaian Catholic archbishop
GCBC APPEAL FOR CALM https://www.cbcgha.org/index.php/2020/12/16/gcbc-appeal-for-calm/ (December 16, 2020)
Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946) German general
Last words as quoted in The Execution of Nazi War Criminals (1946) by Kingsbury Smith of the International News Service
David Trimble (1944–2022) Northern Irish politician
David Trimble in: Peace 1996-2000 http://books.google.com/books?id=zCmliED4M_UC&pg=PA114, World Scientific, 2005, p. 114
Muhammad al-Taqi (811–835) ninth of the Twelve Imams of Twelver Shi'ism
[Baqir Sharīf al-Qurashi, The life of Imam Muhammad al-Jawad, Wonderful Maxims and Arts, 2005]
Bronisław Komorowski (1952) Polish politician, president of Poland
"President: National tradition source of our strength" https://www.prezydent.pl/en/president-komorowski/news/art,640,president-national-tradition-source-of-our-strength.html (4 June 2014)
“Idle wishing for circumstances different from what you had was a waste of time.”
Charles Sheffield book Resurgence
Source: The Heritage Universe, Resurgence (2002), Chapter 20, “Tally on Down” (p. 245)
Charles Sheffield book Convergence
Source: The Heritage Universe, Convergence (1997), Chapter 6 (p. 317)
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician
Last Speech to the National Convention (26 July 1794)
Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer
"So Many Roads" (song) <br class="br"> ("So Many Roads" - video on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IbYJoWrOIg <br class="br"> (+ Lyrics version of "So Many Roads" on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBUt6gyNgQI <br class="br">Studio albums, What We Made (2007)
Thomas Hughes (priest) (1838–1911) British missionary
Muhammad's teaching on wives, as given in the Traditions. Quoted from T.P. Hughes: Dictionary of Islam.
Dictionary of Islam
Marcelo H. del Pilar (1850–1896) Filipino writer, lawyer, and journalist (1850-1896)
Marcelo H. del Pilar to José Rizal (20 July 1892)
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher
[2014, In the Face of the Absolute, World Wisdom, 99, 978-1-936597-41-3]
God, Outline
Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist
The State of the World 2010, public lecture in New York City, USA, (July 2010)
“Then you have no more wish to rule? The country needs you now more than ever.”
Karl Schroeder book Ventus
She shook her head. “I’ve been crushed under the weight of power all my life. I think I’m going to enjoy missing it.” She laughed at the lightness with which she dismissed royal power. Every moment was a surprise, these days. She hoped that that feeling would never end.
Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 45 (p. 655)
Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Journal Articles
“One does not attain everything he wishes for.
Winds blow counter to what the ships desire.”
Al-Mutanabbi (915–965) Arabic poet from the Abbasid era
From the poem Bima At-Taʿallulu http://www.almotanabbi.com/poemPage.do?poemId=272
Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop
Predestination? On Why God Made Those Who Would Perish
“I'll let you know as soon as I wish to.”
Nancy Pelosi (1940) American politician, first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, born 1940
Source: Pelosi tells Democratic leaders she wants House votes on infrastructure bills this week https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pelosi-tells-democratic-leaders-house-votes-infrastructure-bills/story?id=80971904" (November4, 2021)
Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians
Source: Immo Royal, In Belgium you can find more than 7,500 hectares of royal real estate. Journalists conducted an in-depth investigation into the patrimony of the Royal Donation for the first time in 90 years. https://www.koningshuizen.be/ King Leopold II in a letter to the Minister of Finance on April 9, 1900, in honor of his 65th birthday.
Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923–2014) Polish military officer and politician
Source: Excerpts of Martial law speech (14 December 1981)
William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist
Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 37
James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)
A paraphrased variant of this seems to have arisen on the internet around 2007: It is ... a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none. <br class="br">1810s <br class="br">Source: Message delivered to Dey Omar Agha, by Isaac Chauncey and William Shaler , summarizing the Treaty with Algiers (1815) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/bar1815t.asp, and U.S attitudes and actions in the Barbary Wars, in refusing to pay ransom or tribute to pirates of the Barbary States, as quoted in History and Present Condition of Tripoli: With Some Accounts of the Other Barbary States http://books.google.com/books?id=YMwRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA46 (1835) by Robert Greenhow, p. 46
William Gibson Blue Ant trilogy
There were a few expensively bound and weirdly neutered bookazines here, but he knew from glancing through them that these were bland advertisements for being wealthy, wealthy and deeply, witheringly unimaginative.
Reading, his therapist had suggested, had likely been his first drug.
Source: Blue Ant trilogy, Zero History (2010), Chapter 18, "140" (Milgrim in London)
Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine
Source: "Speech by Prime Minister of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych at the International conference "Ukraine and European Union: new approaches"" http://old.kmu.gov.ua/kmu/control/en/publish/article?art_id=69148733&cat_id=244315174 (28 February 2007)
“It becomes so easy to believe what one wishes to believe.”
Michael Moorcock book The King of the Swords
Source: Book 2, Chapter 2 “The Castle Built of Blood” (p. 320), Corum, The King of the Swords (1971)
“I do not wish to begin by “taking sides”; nor indeed to end by “taking sides.””
Daniel Berrigan (1921–2016) American Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet
Responses to Settler Regimes
Context: I am sick of “sides”; which is to say, I am sick of war; of wars hot and cold; and all their approximations and metaphors and deceits and ideological ruses. I am sick of the betrayal of the mind and the failure of compassion and the neglect of the poor. I am sick of foreign ministers and all their works and pomps. I am sick of torture and secret police and the apparatus of fascists and the rhetoric of leftists. Like Lazarus, staggering from his grave, or the ghost of Trotsky I can only groan: “We have had enough of that, we have been through all that.”
Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr (967–1049) poet
Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 96
Ben Aaronovitch book Whispers Under Ground
Source: Whispers Under Ground (2012), Chapter 21, “Oxford Circus” (p. 226)
Naruhito (1960) Emperor of Japan since 2019
Source: "Naruhito: Japan’s emperor formally proclaims enthronement in centuries-old ceremony" in CNN https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/21/asia/japan-enthronement-emperor-intl-hnk/index.html (22 October 2019)
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories (1996), Lines from "So now?" - p.402 (circa 1994. He died in March 1994, aged 73.)
Olaf Scholz (1958) German politician, federal minister of finance and vice chancellor
Source: Olaf Scholz cited in: " Epidemiologist Karl Lauterbach to be German health minister https://www.politico.eu/article/epidemiologist-karl-lauterbach-germany-health-minister-olaf-scholz/" in Politico, 6 December 2021.
Ulisses Correia e Silva (1962) Cape Verdean politician
Source: Ulisses Correia e Silva (2021) cited in " Cape Verde Prime Minister presents first resident Nigerian ambassador to ECOWAS Commission https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/11/cape-verde-prime-minister-presents-first-resident-nigerian-ambassador-to-ecowas-commission/" on Vanguard, 21 November 2021.
Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress
Source: " Dolly Parton Delivers Commencement Address at the University of Tennessee 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOm2lLIOoU&t=6m35s" (at 6m35s), University of Tennessee, Knoxville on YouTube.
Frankie Boyle (1972) Scottish comedian
Stand-up, Excited for You to See and Hate This (2020)
Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter
"Ooh, Baby" (song) <br class="br">Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Ooh, Baby" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPsVmA742FE (song on YouTube) <br class="br">Song lyrics
Cristina Lizardo (1959) Dominican Republic academic
Source: Dominicans rally against abortion https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/10559/dominicans-rally-against-abortion (3 October 2007)
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Source: 'Yugoslavia and Europe' (29 October 1937), quoted in Winston Churchill, Step by Step, 1936–1939 (1939; 1947), p. 169
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1874/jul/02/motion-for-a-committee-adjourned-debate#column_963 in the House of Commons against Irish Home Rule (2 July 1874)
Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer
Source: When Day is Done (1921), The Cure for Weariness, stanzas 1 and 2
“Every day, I wish I could give you the best part of me.”
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: (it) Ogni giorno, vorrei poterti donare la parte migliore di me.
Source: prevale.net
A. J. Muste (1885–1967) Christian pacifist and civil rights activist
"Pacifism and Class War" in The Essays of A. J. Muste (1967) edited by Nat Hentoff p. 179-85; also quoted in American Power and the New Mandarins (2002) by Noam Chomsky, p. 160.
Rollo May book Love and Will
Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 10 : Intentionality in Therapy, p. 265
Choekyi Gyaltsen (1938–1989) 10th Panchen Lama of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism
The Panchen Lama’s warning to China (1987) (excerpts)
Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel (1940) Mexican bishop
Celibacy is precious gift that not everyone understands, says Mexican bishop https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/259/celibacy-is-precious-gift-that-not-everyone-understands-says-mexican-bishop (25 November 2003)
Beiwen Zhang (1990) badminton player
"Beiwen Zhang – Adapting To Every Challenge" in Badminton Pan America http://www.badmintonpanam.org/beiwen-zhang-adapting-to-every-challenge/ (15 December 2020)
“A converted man will not wish to go to heaven alone.”
J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop
Vol. I, Luke V: 27–32, p. 150
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. Luke (1858–1859)
Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Statement (15 October 1939), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (1946; 1970), p. 419
Prime Minister
“But whatever you wish to keep, You better grab it fast.”
Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Antonio Dorado Soto (1931–2015) Spanish bishop
Bishop tells Spanish Catholics not to fear “psychological torture” (15 June 2005), Catholic News Agency https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/4164/bishop-tells-spanish-catholics-not-to-fear-psychological-torture
Thomas Carlyle book Latter-Day Pamphlets
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)
“Long question is a veiled statement, same as criticism is a veiled wish.”
Esther Perel (1958) Belgian Psychotherapist and Author
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: Vorrei poter essere accanto a te accarezzandoti i capelli, avvertendo il profumo della tua pelle e guardandoti negli occhi, mordere dolcemente le tue labbra.
Source: prevale.net
“I wish I could be the most beautiful smile that gives light to your face at my thought alone.”
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: Vorrei poter essere il sorriso più bello che dona luce al tuo volto al solo mio pensiero.
Source: prevale.net
“I wish I could be your forbidden sin, your favourite.”
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: Vorrei poter essere il tuo peccato proibito, il tuo preferito.
Source: prevale.net
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: Vorrei poterti donare i miei occhi per mostrarti la tua superlativa bellezza, il tuo intrigante fascino, la tua inimitabile personalità, la tua simpatia ed il tuo notevole e costante coraggio.
Source: prevale.net
“I remember when I wished I could do what I can do now.”
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: Ricordo quando avrei voluto fare quello che ora posso fare.
Source: prevale.net
José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor
Source: Cuando la escuela dejó de pensar. By José Baroja. (2026b, mayo 25). Le Monde Diplomatique. https://www.lemondediplomatique.cl/cuando-la-escuela-dejo-de-pensar-por-jose-baroja.html