2000s, White House speech (2006)
Source: The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism, Ch. 1.
Source: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 316
As quoted in A Beautiful Mind, (2001); also cited in Quantum Phaith (2011), by Jeffrey Strickland, p. 197
2000s
25 May 1877, quoting Richard's impressions of London
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (1978)
Occupation, vol. 3, Society in America (1837).
in a letter from to his art-dealer Durand-Ruel, 30 March 1893; as quoted in: Christoph Heinrich (2000), Monet, p. 57
1890 - 1900
2015, Address to the People of India (January 2015)
2000s, White House speech (2006)
written after 1908
in The Mad Poet's Diary, T 2734
1896 - 1930
2015, Remarks after the Umpqua Community College shooting (October 2015)
The Satanic Bible (1969)
Charles Eames in a 1952 speech to a national assembly of the AIA; As cited in: Ray Eames http://eamesdesigns.com/library-entry/ray-eames/ at eamesdesigns.com, Accessed April 8, 2014; Charles Eames talks about Ray Eames
Arlington, Virginia September 8, 2009
2009, School speech (September 2009)
“Keep working hard and you can get anything that you want.”
From Treye Green's article "Happy 35th Birthday, Aaliyah: 15 Of The Singer's Best Quotes" (15 January 2014) http://www.ibtimes.com/happy-35th-birthday-aaliyah-15-singers-best-quotes-1542245
Attributed
Remarks by President Obama to the United Nations General Assembly https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/28/remarks-president-obama-united-nations-general-assembly (September 28, 2015)
2015
Cited in: Peter S. Pande, Robert P. Neuman, and Roland R. Cavanagh. The six sigma way. McGraw-Hill,, 2000. p. 4
Variant translations: I may not be better than other people, but at least I am different.
If I am not better, at least I am different.
Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), Book I
"Our Political Tasks" (1904), as quoted in The Prophet Armed (1963) by Isaac Deutscher
In Birth and Girlhood http://www.searchforlight.org/TheMother_lifeSketch1.htm, during her childhood days in when she was aware of her special purpose of life, her mission on earth, and also in On the Mother Divine by Pasupati Bhattacharya (1968) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=1loqAAAAYAAJ, p. 10
"Reminiscences of the Standard Model" - Special Colloquium by Steven Weinberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX2R8-nJhLQ, 17 October 2017, YouTube video at 1:02:17 of 1:39:24
Source: Man Against Mass Society (1952), p. 39
Second Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques (published 1782)
2014, Sixth State of the Union Address (January 2014)
...eu já estava na vigésima parte do livro, triste, quando senti que o livro podia ser escrito. Percebi que só seria capaz de escrevê-lo se o fizesse como se contasse. Não passando para a escrita o chamado discurso oral, porque isso é impossível, mas introduzindo na escrita um me-canismo de aparente prolixidade, aparente desor-ganização do discurso. Digo aparente porque sei o trabalho que me deu fazer de conta que era tudo assim.
Interview in Idéias, no. 107 (15 October 1988), trans. Margaret Jull Costa.
1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Obama speaking about his grandmother Madelyn Dunham at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina (3 November 2008)
2008
Source: Henri Fayol addressed his colleagues in the mineral industry, 1900, p. 909
Source: Civilisation (1969), Ch. 5: The Hero as Artist
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXQxyYllXnM&t=40
2014, Remarks at Clinton Global Initiative (September 2014)
2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)
Francis of Assisi, Rule of 1221, Rule 11 http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/wosf/wosf06.htm/ - That the Brothers ought not to speak or detract, but ought to love one another.
Disputed, Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.
from "My Day" (January 8, 1936)
Source: https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1936&_f=md054227 Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day, January 8, 1936," The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digital Edition (2017), accessed 7/24/2018, https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1936&_f=md054227.
Variations of this piece have been misattributed to Andy Rooney, George Carlin, and Woody Allen. The original source is a variation on a piece by Sean Morey. ( "snopes.com: Andy Rooney on Everything", Snopes.com, 2012-09-09 http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/rooney3.asp, )
Misattributed
Mit allen ihren Mängeln erscheint diese Konstitution mitten in der russisch−preußisch−österreichischen Barbarei als das einzige Freiheitswerk, das Osteuropa je selbständig hervorgebracht hat. Und sie ging ausschließlich von der bevorrechteten Klasse, dem Adel, aus. Die Weltgeschichte bietet kein andres Beispiel von ähnlichem Adel des Adels.
On the Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791.
"Poland, Prussia and Russia" (1863 manuscript). In Werner Conze and Dieter Hertz-Eichenrode (ed.) Manuskripte über die polnische Frage (1863-1864). Hague: Mouton, 1961.
1990s and later, "The Institutional Structure of Production" (1992)
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
From the Afterword to April 1978 MW , vol. 3, translation by Francesco Nicodemus, Hazard Editions, Milan, 2005, p. 193. ISBN 887502037X
2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
2014, Sixth State of the Union Address (January 2014)
Ainsi est-il du cœur de l’homme. Le besoin de faire œuvre qui dure, qui lui survive, est le signe de sa supériorité sur tout ce qui vit ici-bas. C’est ce qui a fondé sa domination, et c’est ce qui la justifie dans le monde entier.
Part III, ch. XV
The Mysterious Island (1874)
A Short History of Decay (1949)
1989
Letter to Judge Lance Ito, requesting clemency for Charles Keating (January 18 1992), as quoted by Christopher Hitchens in The Missionary Position http://books.google.com/books?id=PTgJIjK67rEC&pg=PA11&dq=%22I+think+it+is+very+beautiful+for+the+poor+to+accept+their+lot%22, (Verso, 1995), page 67
1990s
Speech to the Association of Los Alamos Scientists (2 November 1945) http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/ManhattanProject/OppyFarewell.shtml
Verwoerd in 1963, as quoted and translated by J. J. Venter in H.F. Verwoerd: Foundational aspects of his thought, Koers 64(4) 1999: 415–442
III, st. 2
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), Vacillation http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1751/
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 541.
Quoted in The Star Trek Encyclopedia (1999) by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda, p. 185
Section 3 : Work Democracy versus Politics. The Natural Social Forces for the Mastery of the Emotional Plague
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy
Context: It is an essential part of our social tragedy that people, like farmers, the industrial workers, the medical profession, etc., influence the social process not only by their work, but also — and even predominantly — by political ideologies. For political activity hampers objective, rational activity; it splits professional organizations into warring ideological groups; it disorganizes the industrial workers: it restricts the work of the physician and harms the patients, etc. In brief, political activity prevents precisely what it pretends to achieve: peace, work, security, international cooperation, objective expression of opinion, freedom of belief, etc.
Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. V Section II - Containing Observations on the Providence and Agency of God, as it Respects the Natural and Moral World, with Strictures on Revelation in General
Context: The idea of a God we infer from our experimental dependence on something superior to ourselves in wisdom, power and goodness, which we call God; our senses discover to us the works of God which we call nature, and which is a manifest demonstration of his invisible essence. Thus it is from the works of nature that we deduce the knowledge of a God, and not because we have, or can have any immediate knowledge of, or revelation from him.
As quoted in "Arthur Miller, Moral Voice of American Stage, Dies at 89" by Marilyn Berger in The New York Times (11 February 2005) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/11/theater/newsandfeatures/11cnd-miller.html?ei=5070&en=3842d0df3195ba4c&ex=1148356800&adxnnlx=1148209567-ZnjnGzbndB3P1XvCU5BNDg&pagewanted=all&position=
Context: What students know is no longer the most important measure of an education. The true test is the ability of students and graduates to engage with what they do not know, and to work out a solution. They must also be able to reach conclusions that constitute the basis for informed judgements. The ability to make judgements that are grounded in solid information, and employ careful analysis, should be one of the most important goals for any educational endeavor. As students develop this capability, they can begin to grapple with the most important and difficult step: to learn to place such judgements in an ethical framework. For all these reasons, there is no better investment that individuals, parents and the nation can make than an investment in education of the highest possible quality. Such investments are reflected, and endure, in the formation of the kind of social conscience that our world so desperately needs.
Foreword to Excellence in Education (2003) http://www.agakhanacademies.org/general/vision<!-- Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa brochure p. 3 http://www.akdn.org/publications/case_study_academies_mombasa.pdf, also quoted at The Aga Khan Academies http://www.agakhanacademies.org/mombasa/student-projects -->
The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature (1963)
Context: It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly taken into account and that will get cleared up with further development of the theory.
Letter to his daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth (2 September 1905)
1900s
Context: It is enough to give any one a sense of sardonic amusement to see the way in which the people generally, not only in my own country but elsewhere, gauge the work purely by the fact that it succeeded. If I had not brought about peace I should have been laughed at and condemned. Now I am over-praised. I am credited with being extremely longheaded, etc. As a matter of fact I took the position I finally did not of my own volition but because events so shaped themselves that I would have felt as if I was flinch- ing from a plain duty if I had acted otherwise. … Neither Government would consent to meet where the other wished and the Japanese would not consent to meet at The Hague, which was the place I desired. The result was that they had to meet in this country, and this necessarily threw me into a position of prominence which I had not sought, and indeed which I had sought to avoid — though I feel now that unless they had met here they never would have made peace.
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 1
Context: Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state. Yes, it can even, in the twinkling of an eye, make something like a vagabond of the pedant and Philistine. Time, we say, is Lethe; but change of air is a similar draught, and, if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly.
Source: Nobel Address (1991)
Context: Preparing for my address I found in an old Russian encyclopedia a definition of "peace" as a "commune" — the traditional cell of Russian peasant life. I saw in that definition the people's profound understanding of peace as harmony, concord, mutual help, and cooperation.
This understanding is embodied in the canons of world religions and in the works of philosophers from antiquity to our time.
2011, Address on interventions in Libya (March 2011)
Context: In just one month, the United States has worked with our international partners to mobilize a broad coalition, secure an international mandate to protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevent a massacre, and establish a no-fly zone with our allies and partners. To lend some perspective on how rapidly this military and diplomatic response came together, when people were being brutalized in Bosnia in the 1990s, it took the international community more than a year to intervene with air power to protect civilians. It took us 31 days.
Letter Seven (14 May 1904)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Context: The demands which the difficult work of love makes upon our development are more than life-size, and as beginners we are not up to them. But if we nevertheless hold out and take this love upon us as burden and apprenticeship, instead of losing ourselves in all the light and frivolous play, behind which people have hidden from the most earnest earnestness of their existence — then a little progress and alleviation will perhaps be perceptible to those who come long after us; that would be much.
2011, Address on interventions in Libya (March 2011)
Context: As the bulk of our military effort ratchets down, what we can do — and will do — is support the aspirations of the Libyan people. We have intervened to stop a massacre, and we will work with our allies and partners to maintain the safety of civilians. We will deny the regime arms, cut off its supplies of cash, assist the opposition, and work with other nations to hasten the day when Qaddafi leaves power. It may not happen overnight, as a badly weakened Qaddafi tries desperately to hang on to power. But it should be clear to those around Qaddafi, and to every Libyan, that history is not on Qaddafi’s side. With the time and space that we have provided for the Libyan people, they will be able to determine their own destiny, and that is how it should be.
On Grace & Free Choice, chap 14.(de Gratia Et Libero Arbitrio), Daniel O'Donovan, trans., Introduction, Bernard McGinn, Cistercian Publications, 1988, p. 37. https://books.google.com/books?id=ODcqAAAAYAAJ&q=%22not+as+if+grace+did+one+half+of+the+work+and+free+choice+the+other%22&dq=%22not+as+if+grace+did+one+half+of+the+work+and+free+choice+the+other%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT7I76jK_TAhUFNiYKHZrCB3gQ6AEIODAE (Note: Fr. Harry J. McSorley, C.S.P. Commenting on this teaching of Bernard, states: "We are indebted to Bernard of Clairvaux … for the clarification that grace and free will are not related as partial causes - which would be a false synergism - but as total causes of the act of justification, each on its own proper plane. Bernard maintains the Catholic-Augustinian tradition by insisting that man's natural freedom (liberum arbitrium) remains even after the fall. It is a wretched, but nonetheless integral free will. This natural freedom of the will, possessed by the just and sinners alike, enables us to will, but not to will what is good. It is grace alone that gives us good will." Luther, Right or Wrong, (1969), Newman Press / Augsburg Publishing House, p. 133 https://books.google.com/books?id=KaRAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA133&dq=%22for+the+clarification+that+grace+and+free+will+are+not+related+as+partial+causes%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX5fjGjK_TAhUKRSYKHdmfBCsQ6AEIIjAA#v=onepage&q=%22for%20the%20clarification%20that%20grace%20and%20free%20will%20are%20not%20related%20as%20partial%20causes%22&f=false
Context: It’s not as if grace did one half of the work and free choice the other; each does the whole work, in its own peculiar contribution. Grace does the whole work, and so does free choice – with this one qualification: That whereas the whole is done in free choice, so is the whole done of grace.
1860s, Thanksgiving Proclamation (1863)
Context: In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 1 : Introduction : Our Schizoid World, p. 32
Context: The constructive schizoid person stands against the spiritual emptiness of encroaching technology and does not let himself be emptied by it. He lives and works with the machine without becoming a machine. He finds it necessary to remain detached enough to get meaning from the experience, but in doing so, to protect his own inner life from impoverishment.
2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)
Context: To dismiss the magnitude of this progress -- to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed -- that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years. Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Martin Luther King Jr. -- they did not die in vain. Their victory was great. But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete. The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own. To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency. Whether by challenging those who erect new barriers to the vote, or ensuring that the scales of justice work equally for all, and the criminal justice system is not simply a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails, it requires vigilance. And we'll suffer the occasional setback. But we will win these fights. This country has changed too much. People of goodwill, regardless of party, are too plentiful for those with ill will to change history’s currents.
The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 67
Context: What may make us more to enjoy in God than to see in Him that He enjoyeth in the highest of all His works? For I saw in the same Shewing that if the blessed Trinity might have made Man’s Soul any better, any fairer, any nobler than it was made, He should not have been full pleased with the making of Man’s Soul. And He willeth that our hearts be mightily raised above the deepness of the earth and all vain sorrows, and rejoice in Him.
“Woman's work should be paid as much as man's work”
The Rosicrucian Philosophy in Questions and Answers - Volume I: QUESTION NO. 185, 1910s
Context: ... looking at woman suffrage from the larger standpoint, it would be to the advantage of the men of the present day to grant women that which is really their right--a full and complete equality in every particular. The double social standard which obtains at the present time, whereby a man may commit the social sin without being ostracized, should be done away with. Woman's work should be paid as much as man's work,... It would be of an enormous benefit to the race if she were given an equal right with man in every particular. For not until then can we hope to see reforms brought about that will really unite humanity.... While laws are only makeshifts to bring humanity to a higher plane where each one will be a law unto himself, doing right without coercion, it is nevertheless necessary that such reforms should be brought about at the present time by legislation.
2016, Statement on the Shootings in Baton Rouge (July 2016)
Context: Someone once wrote, “A bullet need happen only once, but for peace to work we need to be reminded of its existence again and again and again.” My fellow Americans, only we can prove, through words and through deeds, that we will not be divided. And we’re going to have to keep on doing it “again and again and again.” That’s how this country gets united. That’s how we bring people of good will together. Only we can prove that we have the grace and the character and the common humanity to end this kind of senseless violence, to reduce fear and mistrust within the American family, to set an example for our children. That’s who we are, and that’s who we always have the capacity to be. And that’s the best way for us to honor the sacrifice of the brave police officers who were taken from us this morning.
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: Now there must be some application of this spirit in times of peace or we cannot suddenly develop it in time of war. The strike situation in the United States at this time is a scandal to the country as a whole and discreditable alike to employer and employee. Any employer who fails to recognize that human rights come first and that the friendly relationship between himself and those working for him should be one of partnership and comradeship in mutual help no less than self-help is recreant to his duty as an American citizen, and it is to his interest, having in view the enormous destruction of life in [[w:World War I|the present war], to conserve, and to train to higher efficiency, alike for his benefit and for its, the labor supply. In return any employee who acts along the lines publicly advocated by the men who profess to speak for the I. W. W. is not merely an open enemy of business, but of this entire country and is out of place in our government.
Only the final bold section is connected to Laozi (see Ch. 17 of Tao Te Ching above). The origin of the added first section is unclear.
Misattributed
Variant: A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
Context: "Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. With the best leaders when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, "We have done this ourselves."
Book I (1668), Dedication "To Monseigneur the Dauphin".
Fables (1668–1679)
“The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself”
Estranged Labour, p. 30.
Paris Manuscripts (1844)
Context: The fact that labour is external to the worker, i. e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself.
“People have a tendency to blame politicians when things don't work, but”
Speaking at a summit on food innovation in Milan, Italy on May 9, 2017. Source: Conway, Madeline (9 May 2017). " Obama: 'You get the politicians you deserve' http://archive.is/sk6YA". Politico. Archived from the original http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/09/obama-you-get-the-politicians-you-deserve-238150 on 13 May 2017. Retrieved 13 May 2017.
2017
Context: People have a tendency to blame politicians when things don't work, but as I always tell people, you get the politicians you deserve. And if you don't vote and you don't pay attention, you'll get policies that don't reflect your interest.
2011, Remarks on death of Osama bin Laden (May 2011)
Context: Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.
We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country.
1984
Context: On inspiration: "Of course, inspiration can come in different ways, depending on what field you’re working in? When I’m writing music for a film, inspiration will come from the subject matter and visual images, because I don’t agree to any offers of film work unless I believe I can add another dimension to the film. But if l’m writing music purely for myself, inspiration comes naturally, from everything around. I absorb every experience in life, every situation, because anything can become a source of inspiration — positive or negative. In general l’m influenced more by everyday concepts — nature, the city and so forth — than by hearing other pieces of music. Neither do I find any special inspiration from working in a studio. Obviously it makes life a lot easier to have 24 tracks to record on, and I use the studio as a tool to help in the writing process. I see the mixing desk really as another instrument, the conductor for all the others. But although the tape recorder and the console are just as important as the keyboards, I haven’t equipped my studio with a lot of hi-tech effects: l’d rather spend time searching through my sound library to get the exact colour I want".
“Shakespeare led a life of allegory: his works are the comments on it.”
Letter to George and Georgiana Keats (February 14 - May 3, 1819)
Letters (1817–1820)
Context: A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory — and very few eyes can see the mystery of life — a life like the Scriptures, figurative... Lord Byron cuts a figure, but he is not figurative. Shakespeare led a life of allegory: his works are the comments on it.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), IX The Practice of Painting
Context: The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature; and the ear is the second, which acquires dignity by hearing of the things the eye has seen. If you, historians, or poets, or mathematicians had not seen things with your eyes you could not report of them in writing. And if you, O poet, tell a story with your pen, the painter with his brush can tell it more easily, with simpler completeness and less tedious to be understood. And if you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting. Now which is the worse defect? to be blind or dumb? Though the poet is as free as the painter in the invention of his fictions they are not so satisfactory to men as paintings; for, though poetry is able to describe forms, actions and places in words, the painter deals with the actual similitude of the forms, in order to represent them. Now tell me which is the nearer to the actual man: the name of man or the image of the man. The name of man differs in different countries, but his form is never changed but by death.
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no matter in what way we may severally worship our Creator, must stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America for the elimination of race and religious prejudice. We must stand for a reign of equal justice to both big and small. We must insist on the maintenance of the American standard of living. We must stand for an adequate national control which shall secure a better training of our young men in time of peace, both for the work of peace and for the work of war. We must direct every national resource, material and spiritual, to the task not of shirking difficulties, but of training our people to overcome difficulties. Our aim must be, not to make life easy and soft, not to soften soul and body, but to fit us in virile fashion to do a great work for all mankind. This great work can only be done by a mighty democracy, with these qualities of soul, guided by those qualities of mind, which will both make it refuse to do injustice to any other nation, and also enable it to hold its own against aggression by any other nation. In our relations with the outside world, we must abhor wrongdoing, and disdain to commit it, and we must no less disdain the baseness of spirit which lamely submits to wrongdoing. Finally and most important of all, we must strive for the establishment within our own borders of that stern and lofty standard of personal and public neutrality which shall guarantee to each man his rights, and which shall insist in return upon the full performance by each man of his duties both to his neighbor and to the great nation whose flag must symbolize in the future as it has symbolized in the past the highest hopes of all mankind.
“I believe in a lofty form of poetry, in the work in which beauty will be mingled with beliefs.”
The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVII
Context: Who shall compose the Bible of human desire, the terrible and simple Bible of that which drives us from life to life, the Bible of our doings, our goings, our original fall? Who will dare to tell everything, who will have the genius to see everything?
I believe in a lofty form of poetry, in the work in which beauty will be mingled with beliefs. The more incapable of it I feel myself, the more I believe it to be possible. The sad splendour with which certain memories of mine overwhelm me, shows me that it is possible. Sometimes I myself have been sublime, I myself have been a masterpiece. Sometimes my visions have been mingled with a thrill of evidence so strong and so creative that the whole room has quivered with it like a forest, and there have been moments, in truth, when the silence cried out.
But I have stolen all this, and I have profited by it, thanks to the shamelessness of the truth revealed. At the point in space in which, by accident, I found myself, I had only to open my eyes and to stretch out my mendicant hands to accomplish more than a dream, to accomplish almost a work.
First Manuscript – Wages of Labour, p. 6.
Paris Manuscripts (1844)
Context: Political Economy regards the proletarian … like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle. … (1) What is the meaning, in the development of mankind, of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labor? (2) What mistakes are made by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and thereby improve the situation of the working class, or — like Proudhon — see equality of wages as the goal of social revolution?.
“We work against a social evil. If this evil isn't reacting it means we aren't a threat.”
Times of India interview (2014)
Context: We work with broken families and broken people who've lost hope and are helpless. If people oppose my work, launch personal attacks, we know that we are on the right path. One colleague was shot, another was beaten to death. I've injuries all over my body. We work against a social evil. If this evil isn't reacting it means we aren't a threat.
From the story "The Progress of Science" in The Scientific Monthly edited by J. McKeen Cattell ( June 1921 http://books.google.com/books?id=453muO-6N4kC&pg=PA488-IA1#v=onepage&q&f=false), Vol. XII, No. 6. The story says that the comments were made at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences at the National Museum in Washington on April 25, 26, and 27. Einstein's comments appear on p. 579 http://books.google.com/books?id=453muO-6N4kC&pg=PA579#v=onepage&q&f=false, though the story may be paraphrasing rather than directly quoting since it says "In reply Professor Einstein in substance said" the quote above.
1920s
Context: When a man after long years of searching chances on a thought which discloses something of the beauty of this mysterious universe, he should not therefore be personally celebrated. He is already sufficiently paid by his experience of seeking and finding. In science, moreover, the work of the individual is so bound up with that of his scientific predecessors and contemporaries that it appears almost as an impersonal product of his generation.
Reply to New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association (21 March 1864), Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 259-260 1:566 http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln7/1:566?rgn=div1;singlegenre=All;sort=occur;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=houseless
1860s
Context: None are so deeply interested to resist the present rebellion as the working people. Let them beware of prejudice, working division and hostility among themselves. The most notable feature of a disturbance in your city last summer, was the hanging of some working people by other working people. It should never be so. The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds. Nor should this lead to a war upon property, or the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor — property is desirable — is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
“Women who want to work deserve to work.”
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Orlando, Florida (September 21, 2016)
Context: Women who want to work deserve to work. And whenever they are denied that opportunity, it’s not fair to them – and we all lose out. In a competitive 21st century global economy, we cannot afford to leave talent on the sidelines. When we leave people out or write them off, we not only shortchange them and their dreams, we shortchange our country and our own futures.
Times of India interview (2014)
Context: I hope that youngsters and civil society organizations and every Indian will feel proud. It is a noble cause to work for the rights of children. It is a movement against child labour and everyone must join it.
Letter to William Thomson (2 January 1851), indicating his early work on what has since become known as Boolean logic.
1850s
Context: I am now about to set seriously to work upon preparing for the press an account of my theory of Logic and Probabilities which in its present state I look upon as the most valuable if not the only valuable contribution that I have made or am likely to make to Science and the thing by which I would desire if at all to be remembered hereafter.
1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: One of the reasons why I am opposed to Slavery is just here. What is the true condition of the laborer? I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat — just what might happen to any poor man's son! I want every man to have the chance — and I believe a black man is entitled to it — in which he can better his condition — when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system.
"The Nobel Evening Address" p. 115.
The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness (1990)
Context: As a result of more contact with people from other traditions, as time passes I have firmed my conviction that all religions can work together despite fundamental differences in philosophy. Every religion aims at serving humanity. Therefore, it is possible for the various religions to work together to serve humanity and contribute to world peace. So, during these last few years, at every opportunity I try to develop closer relations with other religions.
“People with golden hearts would make capitalism or communism or socialism work beautifully.”
"The Death of Me", p. 151
Awareness (1992)
Context: A Jesuit once wrote a note to Father Arrupe, his superior general, asking him about the relative value of communism, socialism and capitalism. Father Arrupe gave him a lovely reply. He said, "A system is about as good or as bad as the people who use it." People with golden hearts would make capitalism or communism or socialism work beautifully.
KSCA interview (1996)
Context: There is no set sort of rules, or no set sort of formula to the way we work in the studio... so it's difficult to know... what we'll move on to next. We don't like to say, "Never, no we'd never do this"... But, we... like the setup as far as there's only three people in the studio... because the work is very personal, very intimate, very emotional... and that is very important to the album.
Letter to Moritz von Egidy (c. January 1894) - Original German text online http://www.lilienthal-museum.de/olma/l1852.htm
Context: I, too, have made it a lifelong task of mine to add a cultural element to my work, which should result in uniting countries and reconciling their people. Our experience of today's civilisation suffers from the fact that it only happens on the surface of the earth. We have invented barricades between our countries, custom regulations and constraints and complicated traffic laws and these are only possible because we are not in control of the 'kingdom of the air', and not as 'free as a bird'.
Numerous technicians in every state are doing their utmost to achieve the dream of free, unlimited flight and it is precisely here where changes can be made which would have a radical effect on our whole way of life. The borders between countries would lose their significance, because they could not be closed off from each other. Linguistic differences would disappear, as human mobility increased. National defence would cease to devour the best resources of nations as it would become impossible in itself. And the necessity of resolving disagreements among nations in some other way than by bloody battles would, in its turn, lead us to eternal peace.
We are getting closer to this goal. When we will reach it, I do not know.
