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#13996204
This could be an interesting subject for discussion, if those responding make a legitimate attempt to select those relevant political/historical quotes which are either praisworthy or represent their general sentiments. It of course helps if those one is attributing their selected quotes to is reasonably recognizable.

"One individual may die for an idea; but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives. That is how the wheel of evolution moves on and the ideas and dreams of one nation are bequeathed to the next" - Subhas Chandra Bose

"Nationalism is inspired by the highest ideals of the human race, satyam (the truth), shivam (the God), sundaram (the beautiful) - Subhas Chandra Bose

"I have lived long enough to satisfy both nature and glory" - Julius Caesar

"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another" - Plato

"That inner Self, as the primeval spirit, eternal, ever effulgent, full and infinite bliss; single, indivisible, whole, and living; shines in everyone as the witnessing awareness. That self in its splendor, shining in the cavity of the heart; This self is neither born nor dies, neither grows nor decays, nor does it suffer any change. When a pot is broken, the space within it is not, and similarly, when the body dies the Self in it remains eternal" - Ramana Maharshi

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.” - Ted Kaczynski

"One day we must go, one night we will descend into the region of mystery. Here, we only come to know ourselves; only in passing are we here on Earth." - Nezahualcoyotl

To work without attachment is to work without the expectation of reward or fear of any punishment in this world or the next. Work so done is a means to the end, and God is the end. - Ramakrishna

“In traditional societies, nature was seen as one’s wife, but the modern West turned it into a prostitute.” - Seyyed Hossein Nasr

“The environmental crisis has deep spiritual, philosophical, and religious roots and causes. It is not merely the result of bad engineering.” - Seyyed Hossein Nasr

America ... has created a 'civilization' that represents an exact contradiction of the ancient European tradition. It has introduced the religion of praxis and productivity; it has put the quest for profit, great industrial production, and mechanical, visible, and quantitative achievements over any other interest. It has generated a soulless greatness of a purely technological and collective nature, lacking any background of transcendence, inner light, and true spirituality. America has [built a society where] man becomes a mere instrument of production and material productivity within a conformist social conglomerate. - Julius Evola

This we must say, that everything is economics and economic interest as mere satisfaction of physical needs had, have and always will have a subordinate role in a normal human, that beyond this sphere must be differentiated from an order of higher values, political , spiritual and heroic. - Julius Evola

“With the Jews there begins the slave revolt morality, that revolt which has a history of 2,000 years behind it, and which we no longer see, because it has been victorious” - Friedrich Nietzsche

“Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood.” - Yukio Mishima

"Miyabi was the cultural essence of the imperial court and the people’s longing for it, but during troubled times, miyabi could even take the form of terrorism. That is to say, the emperor as a cultural concept held out his hand not only to the forces of state power and order but also to the forces of chaos". - Yukio Mishima
#13996229
My favorite quote of all time:

“Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too.”- Ulrike Meinhof.
#13996236
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system
that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the
wound to the confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One
thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete
certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential
election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the
Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of
law. I respectfully dissent.
-Justice John Paul Stevens (After the 2000 Gore v Bush decision)

Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.
-Chief Justice John Roberts

“The Constitution is not a panacea for every blot upon the public welfare, nor should this Court, ordained as a judicial body, be thought of as a general haven for reform movements.”- Justice John Marshall Harlan II

"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects
from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the
reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal
principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty,
and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and
assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote;
they depend on the outcome of no elections."-Justice Robert H. Jackson

This whole idea that the whole Muslim world is responsible for this, and they're attacking us because we're free and prosperous, that is just not true. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda have been explicit--they wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for 10 years. -Ron Paul

A big difference for example that the govenor and I have regards this tax cut. I don't want to put words in his mouth, he feels you can cut taxes by 70 billion the first year, cut inheritance and gift taxes and still balence the budget, and still increase defense spending. President Kennedy suggested this cut, it was implemented by Johnsnon the cut was 11.4 billion and it resulted in a 4.4 billion dollar revenue loss, inflation then was 1.8% now it's 18, investor confidence was out there and now there's none. I believe before we can have massive across the board tax cuts we must get the budget in balance.-George H.W Bush (on the difference between him and Reagan)
#13996246
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill

"What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea" - Mahatma Gandhi

“[E]ach person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.” - John Rawls

"No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study, and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think." - John Stuart Mill

“There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind” - Napoleon Bonaparte

“I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.”- Paul Krugman

edit: Just had to add the obvious one...

"When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty" - unknown (an American civil war commander I'm told, but I've heard it attributed to many people)
#13996490
Nietzsche wasn't anti-semitic, just in case you didn't read that quote for what it truly means.


I never interpreted this as an explicit reference to race in a material sense, but a reference to the wrongful detour in morality the West has been shackled with since the First Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt in ancient Judea. There is far more which has corrupted the West as a civilization than any material race could.
#13996571
"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take away from them the power to create money and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money." - Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp (former director of the Bank of England) :knife:
#13996586
'A true king never seeks war, but is always prepared to win it.'
#13996618
"Надо идти вперед. Земля – это воск в руках человека. Надо мять, давить – творить новые формы… Но надо идти вперед. Если встретится стена - ее надо разрушить. Если встретится гора - ее надо срыть. Если встретится пропасть - ее надо перелететь. Если нет крыльев – их надо сделать! Но надо идти вперед. Если земля будет расступаться под ногами, нужно скрепить ее - железом. Если она начнет распадаться на части, нужно слить ее - огнем. Но надо идти вперед, пока светит солнце... Оно погаснет? Мы зажжем новое. И пока оно будет гореть, всегда и вечно, - надо идти вперед" - Андреев, Леонид Николаевич «К звездам»

"We must go forward. The earth is wax in our hands. We must sculpt, mold - create new forms... And we must go forward. If we come upon a wall - we must destroy it. If we come upon a mountain- we must annihilate it. If we come upon a chasm - we must fly over it. If we have no wings - we must create them! But we must go forward. If the earth parts under our feet, we must fasten it with steel. If it crumbles into pieces, we must forge it with fire. But we must go forward, as long as the sun still shines. If it dies? We will burn a new one. And as long as it shimmers, forever and until the end of time - we must go forward." Leonid Andreev, "To the Stars"

I can go on citing hundreds of Russian and Ukrainian quotations, but translating them into English takes away a lot of the essence that makes them good in the first place. The "To the Stars" piece is one of the few that does not meet this criteria.

For example, the quote in my signature:

Двадцатый век… Бродивших по дорогам,
Среди пожаров, к мысли привело:
Легко быть зверем, легко быть богом.
Быть человеком – это тяжело.
Е.Винокуров

The 20th Century. While wandering the roads
Around burning flames, it came into my mind
It's easy to be a beast, and easy to be a God.
But being a person- this is difficult.
E. Vinokurov
#13996670
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" - Popular adage.

"When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease ... But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight." - John Maynard Keynes.

"Speak softly and carry a big stick" - Teddy Roosevelt.

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a tragedy, a clash between one very powerful, very convincing, very painful claim over this land and another no less powerful, no less convincing claim. Now such a clash between right claims can be resolved in one of two manners. There's the Shakespeare tradition of resolving a tragedy with the stage hewed with dead bodies and justice of sorts prevails. But there is also the Chekhov tradition. In the conclusion of the tragedy by Chekhov, everyone is disappointed, disillusioned, embittered, heartbroken, but alive. And my colleagues and I have been working, trying...not to find the sentimental happy ending, a brotherly love, a sudden honeymoon to the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy, but a Chekhovian ending, which means clenched teeth compromise."- Amos Oz

"Again, I've lived for 50 years in these worlds, have done a fair amount of work of my own in fields called "philosophy" and "science," as well as intellectual history, and have a fair amount of personal acquaintance with the intellectual culture in the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and the arts. That has left me with my own conclusions about intellectual life, which I won't spell out. But for others, I would simply suggest that you ask those who tell you about the wonders of "theory" and "philosophy" to justify their claims --- to do what people in physics, math, biology, linguistics, and other fields are happy to do when someone asks them, seriously, what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc. These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to Hume's advice in similar circumstances: to the flames." - Noam Chomsky talking about post-modernism (honestly, this is one of the few things he has said - if not the only one - I actually agree with).

"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)" - Alan Sokal.

"It's that you, Mr. Mariano, believe in God and I believe in priests" - Diego Portales when he returned the Catholic Church's goods and privileges they had lost during the First Anarchy. I don't agree with his political ideology, but I respect his pragmatism and in the end of the day I think it's fair to say his ideology got shit done back then. It wouldn't work now, though.
#13996689
Voltaire seems to me to be the definitive quote-generator... :D

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."


"Common sense is not so common"


"Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?"


"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong."

And my absolute favourite as a professional educator...

"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." :up:
#13996762
^ Proudhon is a goody.

A selection of my favorites:

    Free association... the only true form of society.

    Where shall we find a power capable of counterbalancing this formidable might of the State? There is no other except property... The absolute right of the State is in conflict with the absolute right of the property owner. Property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists.

    Property is liberty.


    Pierre-Joseph Proudhon


    The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

    John Dalberg-Acton


    Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

    George Bernard Shaw


    Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

    Hanlon's Razor


    Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

    Bertrand Russell.


    Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.

    Karl Popper


    One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.

    Thomas Reed


    Nothing is easier than to prove that something human has imperfections.

    When you start off by telling those who disagree with you that they are not merely in error but in sin, how much of a dialogue do you expect?

    Thomas Sowell


    Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

    Voltaire


    That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

    Aldous Huxley


    What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

    Julius Caesar
#13996867
"We must go forward. The earth is wax in our hands. We must sculpt, mold - create new forms... And we must go forward. If we come upon a wall - we must destroy it. If we come upon a mountain- we must annihilate it. If we come upon a chasm - we must fly over it. If we have no wings - we must create them! But we must go forward. If the earth parts under our feet, we must fasten it with steel. If it crumbles into pieces, we must forge it with fire. But we must go forward, as long as the sun still shines. If it dies? We will burn a new one. And as long as it shimmers, forever and until the end of time - we must go forward." Leonid Andreev, "To the Stars"

Spoken like a true Bolshevik! :up:

"There is no fortress which Bolsheviks cannot take by storm!" - I.V. Stalin
#13996898
"A fool and his money are soon elected."
Will Rogers

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."
John Quincy Adams

"Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is no fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class."
B. R. Ambedkar

"I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all."
William Gilbert

"A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"
Albert Einstein :D

"A witty saying proves nothing."
Voltaire
#13997144
“The love talked and written about so much in novels, poetry and magazines, the love of one's neighbour, the universal love of the churches, love of humanity, has nothing whatsoever to do with 'loveless love', which is a harsh discipline, cold as ice, as cutting as a sword, and which aspires to overcome the human condition in order to reach the Kingdom of the Immortals.” - Miguel Serrano

"Its culture: the fruit of its life, the product of its own efforts in thought and art. This culture is not international. It is the expression of the national genius, of the blood. The culture is international in its brilliance but national in origin. Someone made a fine comparison: bread and wheat may be internationally consumed, but they always bear the imprint of the soil from which they came." - Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

“I could never find two people who are perfectly equal: one will always be more valuable than the other. And many people, as a matter of fact, simply have no value.” - Pentti Linkola

“I believe that human brilliance manifests itself only in flashes, among rare individuals. For this reason, humanity as a whole is enormously destructive: the creation of something as devastating as Western culture, which is now allowed to spread throughout the world, offers sufficient proof of this fact.” - Pentti Linkola

"In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them." - Nathuram Godse
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