Ambassadors

"Debajo de tu piel vive la luna."

"Mi amor se nutre de tu amor, amada"

"¿Sabes que en las calles no hay nadie y adentro de las casas tampoco?'Sólo hay ojos en las ventanas. Si no tienes dònde dormir toca una puerta y te abrirán, te abrirán hasta cierto punto y verás que hace frío adentro, que aquella casa está vacía, y no quiere nada contigo, no valen nada tus historias, y si insistes con tu ternura te muerden el perro y el gato."

"Y algo golpeaba en mi alma, fiebre o alas perdidas, y me fui haciendo solo, descifrando aquella quemadura y escribí la primera línea vaga, vaga, sin cuerpo, pura, tontería pura sabiduría del que no sabe nada, y vi de pronto el cielo desgranado y abierto."

"Allí en Rangoon comprendí que los dioses eran tan enemigos como Dios del pobre ser humano. Dioses de alabastro tendidos como ballenas blancas, dioses dorados como las espigas, dioses serpientes enroscados al crimen de nacer, budhas desnudos y elegantes sonriendo en el coktail de la vacía eternidad como Cristo en su cruz horrible, todos dispuestos a todo, a imponernos su cielo, todos con llagas o pistola para comprar piedad o quemarnos la sangre, dioses feroces del hombre para esconder la cobardía, y allí todo era así, toda la tierra olía a cielo, a mercadería celeste."

"Es la hora, amor mío, de apartar esta rosa sombría, cerrar las estrellas, enterrar la ceniza en la tierra: y, en la insurrección de la luz, despertar con los que despertaron o seguir en el sueño alcanzando la otra orilla del mar que no tiene otra orilla."

"Sólo con una ardiente paciencia conquistaremos la espléndida ciudad que dará luz, justicia y dignidad a todos los hombres. Así la poesía no habrá cantado en vano."

"Un pilar soportando consuelos Y no me digan nada ¿Y bien? ¿Te sana el metaloide pálido? Tengo un miedo terrible de ser un animal íY, si después de tantos palabras La cólera que quiebra al hombre en niños"

"¿Quién escribe tu nombre con letras de humo entre las estrellas del sur? Ah déjame recordarte cómo eras entonces, cuando aún no existías."

"Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos."

"Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente, y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca."

"Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche."

"Es tan corto el amor y tan largo el olvido."

"Estoy solo entre materias desvencijadas, la lluvia cae sobre mí, y se me parece, se me parece con su desvarío,solitaria en el mundo muerto, rechazada al caer, y sin forma obstinada."

"Enterrado junto al cocotero hallarás más tarde el cuchillo que escodí allí por temor de que me mataras, y ahora repentinamente quisiera oler su acero de cocina acostumbrado al peso de tu mano y al brillo de tu pie: bajo la humedad de la tierra, entre las sordas raíces, de los lenguajes humanos el pobre sólo sabría tu nombre, y la espesa tierra no comprende tu nombre hecho de impenetrables y substancias divinas."

"No quiero para mí tantas desgracias. No quiero continuar de raíz y de tumba, de subterráneo solo, de bodega con muertos ateridos, muriéndome de pena."

"Si me preguntáis en dónde he estado debo decir "Sucede." Debo de hablar del suelo que oscurecen las piedras, del río que durando se destruye: no sé sino las cosas que los pájaros pierden, el mar dejado atrás, o mi hermana llorando. ¿Por qué tantas regiones, por qué un día se junta con un día? ¿Por qué una negra noche se acumula en la boca? ¿Por qué muertos?"

"Preguntaréis: ¿Y dónde están las lilas? ¿Y la metafísica cubierta de amapolas? ¿Y la lluvia que a menudo golpeaba sus palabras llenándolas de agujeros y pájaros?"

"Preguntaréis ¿por qué su poesía no nos habla del sueño, de las hojas, de los grandes volcanes de su país natal?'Venid a ver la sangre por las calles, venid a ver la sangre por las calles, venid a ver la sangre por las calles!"

"Muere lentamente quien no viaja, quien no lee, quien no oye música, quien no encuentra gracia en sí mismo. Muere lentamente quien destruye su amor propio, quien no se deja ayudar..."

"Podrán cortar todas las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera."

"The influence of Pablo Neruda began to be felt after I left Chile. I took along a suitcase, photographs of my family, a small bag filled with soil and one volume of the complete works of Pablo Neruda. Every time I felt the need to recover my country, I read Neruda because he is Chile, he is the voice of Chile. It is a beautiful metaphor that he died following the military coup. With his death, the voice of the people and the voice of freedom grew silent...Pablo Neruda is a poet of emotion and sensuality. Although he is lacking Gabriela Mistral's mystical bent, I feel very close to his way of approaching, smelling, touching, tasting, and walking the world. I like this very much."

"I don't know if he influenced my writing but he's a big influence in my life. Pablo Neruda is a poet of the senses. For example, I think of his "Ode to Oil." You may have used oil all your life, but you've never seen the transparency or the color, felt the texture, smelled it; you don't know where it comes from or how it's made. The beautiful nature of oil becomes real when you read Neruda."

"I'm fairly certain that if you study any poet of any given time, any sex, any class background, the question of searching for identity is there. It's inherent. It is a process of self-understanding, of going through life. Take Pablo Neruda, ambassador for his country, writing poetry reflecting the issues of his life. What I'm saying is that the difference between me and Neruda is that I'm not a man from a middle-class elitist background. My government is not sending me as ambassador so I can go and write poetry in some other place. What is different with women of color is that they are the very last permitted a voice. What we are hearing now is this very unique, silenced, previously censored voice."

"I always wonder why some poets become "international"? I guess they were tremendously good. I think of people like Pablo Neruda. He crossed all sorts of geographical lines. But he was also from that place, located in that place."

"I love Chilean writer Pablo Neruda, for that powerful lyric voice he has, and also the commitment he had for his people."

"I love poets who bring together poetry and life in all its motion: Neruda, Forché, Cardenal, Dugan, Bishop"

"Pablo Neruda is a New World poet whose fate differs from the other Whitman descendants because he was born into a country where the majority of the citizens did not mistake themselves for Englishmen or long to find themselves struggling, at most, with cucumber sandwiches and tea. He was never European. His anguish was not aroused by three piece suits and rolled umbrellas... Specifically, Neruda's self-conscious decision to write in a manner readily comprehensible to the masses of his countrymen, and his self-conscious decision to specify, outright, the United Fruit Company when that was the instigating subject of his become unfortunate moments in an otherwise supposedly sublime, not to mention surrealist, deeply Old World and European but nonetheless Chilean case history. To assure the validity of this perspective, the usual American critic and translator presents you with a smattering of the unfortunate, ostensibly political poetry and, on the other hand, buries you under volumes of Neruda's early work that antedates the Spanish Civil War or, in other words, that antedates Neruda's serious conversion to a political world view."

"When I was in high school, I had never read Black poetry. The one poet of color whom I had read, and loved, was Pablo Neruda. I have to say that Neruda and Millay were the two poets I loved. All the others didn't make much sense."

"Neruda died on the day that the military junta took power. Even more than in his life, he became a symbol of Chilean resistance. Both in his writings of and for and to his country, and in his countrypeople's response to him, there was a dialogue reaching beyond death. He was internationally famous, of course; of the middle class; a male. It was not the poetry of a dark-skinned mestizo-still less, a mestiza-that so commanded love and respect. Yet he could have betrayed, and did not; could have escaped into the international literary elite, and did not. The fence below his locked and off-limits house became a place for people to continue voicing their hopes and angers, a collective page greater even than the poet's books, a page made possible because of his books, because of the hand that had once crawled over line after line, writing the poems."

"Pablo Neruda of Chile, one of the world’s greatest poets"

"I also read poetry — from Pablo Neruda to Warsan Shire — fairly regularly, and it keeps my sense of what words can do wide open and my sense of beauty awake."

"Neruda adored life. He was wild about everything - painting, art in general, books, rare editions, food, drink. Eating and drinking were almost a mystical experience for him. A wonderfully likeable man, full of vitality-if you forget his poems in praise of Stalin, of course. He lived in a near-feudal world, where everything led to his rejoicing, his sweet-toothed exuberance for life. I had the good fortune to spend a weekend on Isla Negra. It was wonderful! A kind of social machinery worked around him: hordes of people who cooked and worked-and always quantities of guests. It was a very funny society, extraordinarily alive, without the slightest trace of intellectualism. Neruda was exactly the opposite of Borges, the man who appeared never to drink, smoke, or eat, who one would have said had never made love, for whom all these things seemed completely secondary, and if he had done them it was out of politeness and nothing more. That's because ideas, reading, reflection, and creation were his life, the purely cerebral life. Neruda comes out of the Jorge Amado and Rafael Alberti tradition that says literature is generated by a sensual experience of life."

"ὥσπερ γὰρ οἰκίας, οἶμαι, καὶ πλοίου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν τοιούτων τὰ κάτωθεν ἰσχυρότατ᾽ εἶναι δεῖ, οὕτω καὶ τῶν πράξεων τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς ὑποθέσεις ἀληθεῖς καὶ δικαίας εἶναι προσήκει"

"The easiest thing in the world is self-deceit; for every man believes what he wishes, though the reality is often different."

"Delivery, delivery, delivery."

"The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves."

"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery."

"No man can tell what the future may bring forth, and small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises."

"The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once."

"Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue."

"Whatever shall be to the advantage of all, may that prevail!"

"You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit."

"Of orators, if I must choose you any, it shall be Demosthenes, both for the argument he handles, and for that his eloquence is more proper to a statesman than Cicero's."

"Demosthenes would have saved his country had it consented to be saved."

"Demosthenes met war with war only because submitting to brute force can give but a debasing peace. The strong who hold all the rewards in their hands had no degrading attraction for him. At one stroke and for always he gave himself to that subtly inconsequential people — inconsequential because its yoked strength and weakness pulled against each other as they were alternately attracted by the fleeting flatteries it was eager to give and to receive. In the worst trials, respectful of the Athenian ideal to which he had consecrated his life, he remained immutably faithful to his City and to Hellas, through which the civilization that we glory in was enabled to live and flourish."

"Do you remember that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, "How well he spoke" but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, "Let us march.""

"We did not think that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to Sinai on May 14 would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it."

"I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that won’t happen, and a solution must be found."

"We are destined to live together, on the same soil in the same land. We, the soldiers who have returned from battle stained with blood, we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our eyes, we who have attended their funerals and cannot look into the eyes of their parents, we who have come from a land where parents bury their children, we who have fought against you, the Palestinians. We say to you today in a loud and clear voice: Enough of blood and tears. Enough. We have no desire for revenge. We harbor no hatred towards you. We, like you, are people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love, live side by side with you in dignity, in empathy, as human beings, as free men. We are today giving peace a chance and again saying to you in a clear voice: Enough."

"One does not make peace with one's friends. One makes peace with one's enemy."

"Violence gnaws on the foundation of democracy. It must be condemned, denounced and Isolated."

"You are not part of the community of Israel... You are not part of the national democratic camp which we all belong to in this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law... We say to this horrible man (Baruch Goldstein) and those like him: you are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism."

"I, serial number 30743, Lieutenant General in reserves Yitzhak Rabin, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces and in the army of peace, I, who have sent armies into fire and soldiers to their death, say today: We sail onto a war which has no casualties, no wounded, no blood nor suffering. It is the only war which is a pleasure to participate in — the war for peace."

"Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life."

"Almost all the regimes which did not place Man and the sanctity of Life at the heart of their world view, all those regimes have collapsed and are no more. You can see it for yourselves in our own day."

"Here we stand before you, men who fate and history have sent on a mission of peace to end once and for all 100 years of bloodshed. Our dream is also your dream -- King Hussein, President Mubarak, Chairman Arafat, all the others, and, above [all], assisting us, President Bill Clinton -- a President who is working in the service of peace. We all love the same children, weep the same tears, hate the same enmity, and pray for reconciliation. Peace has no borders.... My brother Jews speak through the media to you [of] thousands of years of exile. And the dream of generations have returned us to our historic home in the land of Israel -- the land of the Prophets. Etched on every vineyard, every field, every olive tree, every flower is the deep imprint of the Jewish history; of the Book of the books that we have bequeathed to the entire world; of the values of morality and of justice. Every place in the land of the Prophets, every name is an integral part of our heritage of thousands of years of the divine promise to us and to our descendants. Here, is where we were born. Here, is where we created a nation. Here, we forged a haven for the persecuted and built a model of a democratic country. But we are not alone here on this soil, in this land. And so we are sharing this good earth today with the Palestinian people in order to choose life. Starting today, an agreement on paper will be translated into reality on the ground. We are not retreating. We are not leaving. We are building -- and we are doing so for the sake of peace. Our neighbors, the Palestinian people, we who have seen you in your difficulties, we saw you for generations; we who have killed and have been killed are walking beside you now toward a common future, and we want you as a good neighbors. Address at Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement Signing Ceremony, Washington DC (28 September 1995)"

"We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines."

"I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth."

"Mr. Rabin, in a precarious political situation at home, seemed unable to put a full stop to all construction in the territories, at least until final borders could be demarcated."

"We later learned that Rabin had not been killed by a Palestinian after all. Instead he had been shot in the back by an Israeli law student."

"They US soldiers] started to commit suicide on the Baghdad walls. We will encourage them to double their suicide attempts."

"I now inform you that you are too far from reality."

"Lying is forbidden in Iraq. President Saddam Hussein will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as he is a man of great honour and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts."

"The American press is all about lies! All they tell is lies, lies and more lies!"

"The information was correct but the interpretations were not. I did my duty up to the last minute."

"He's my man. He was great. Somebody accused us of hiring him and putting him there. He was a classic."

"In an age of spin, al-Sahaf offers feeling and authenticity. His message is consistent — unshakeable, in fact, no matter the evidence — but he commands daily attention by his on-the-spot, invective-rich variations on the theme. His lunatic counterfactual art is more appealing than the banal awfulness of the Reliable Sources. He is a Method actor in a production that will close in a couple of days. He stands superior to truth."

"It is a dreadful thing to see the dead city. Next to the port I found children, women, the old, waiting for a way to leave. I entered the houses, there were houses where the coffee and pita bread were left on the table, and I could not avoid [thinking] that this, indeed, had been the picture in many Jewish towns [i.e., in Europe, during World War II]'."

"My delegation cannot refrain from speaking on this question — we who have such an intimate knowledge of boxcars and of deportations to unknown destinations that we cannot be silent."

"Is it really asking too much for a people to want to decide its own fate; to demand that it alone shall choose flow and by whom it shall be governed; that its young people if they rise against what they believe is wrong shall not be deported from their home and country?"

"It is the tragedy of our generation, that small nations have not yet gained the security of exercising their natural right—namely that of being masters of their own destiny."

"Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen."

"There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."

"We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient."

"We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative. The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight."

"It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them. We don't want victories anymore."

"When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. Eastern West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 to 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs."

"I have given instructions that I be informed every time one of our soldiers is killed, even if it is in the middle of the night. When President Nasser leaves instructions that he is to be awakened in the middle of the night if an Egyptian soldier is killed, there will be peace."

"[The Soviet government] is the most realistic regime in the world — no ideals."

"If we have to have a choice between dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we'd rather be alive and have the bad image."

"We owe a responsibility not only to those who are in Israel but also to those generations that are no more, to those millions who have died within our lifetime, to Jews all over the world, and to generations of Jews to come. We hate war. We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown, and when strawberries bloom in Israel."

"When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons."

"This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy."

"Women’s Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s the men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one’s likely to do anything about that."

"Arab sovereignty in Jerusalem just cannot be. This city will not be divided — not half and half, not 60-40, not 75-25, nothing."

"Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!"

"In Israel, we read from right to left."

"To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don’t be."

"Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself."

"It is not only a matter, I believe, of religious observance and practice. To me, being Jewish means and has always meant being proud to be part of a people that has maintained its distinct identity for more than 2,000 years, with all the pain and torment that has been inflicted upon it."

"I am also grateful that I live in a country whose people have learned how to go on living in a sea of hatred without hating those who want to destroy them and without abandoning their own vision of peace. To have learned this is a great art, the prescription for which is not written down anywhere. It is part of our way of life in Israel. Finally, I wish to say that from the time I came to Palestine as a young woman, we have been forced to choose between what is more dangerous and what is less dangerous for us. At times we have all been tempted to give in to various pressures and to accept proposals that might guarantee us a little quiet for a few months, or maybe even for a few years, but that could only lead us eventually into even greater peril."

"One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present."

"I don’t know why you use a fancy French word like détente when there’s a good English phrase for it — cold war."

"What do you gain, Soviet Union, from this miserable policy? Where is your decency? Would it be a disgrace for you to give up this battle?"

"Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here."

"A story once went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as 'the only man' in his cabinet. What amused me about is that he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a woman. I very much doubt that any man would have been flattered if I had said about him that he was the only woman in the government!"

"It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? . . . Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either."

"I thought that a Jewish state would be free of the evils afflicting other societies: theft, murder, prostitution... But now we have them all. And that’s a thing that cuts to the heart ..."

"How can I explain the difference to me between America and Russia?... the America I’ve known is a place where men on horseback escort union marchers, the Russia I’ve known is a place where men on horseback slaughter young Socialists and Jews."

"From Russia I didn’t bring out a single happy memory, only sad, tragic ones. The nightmare of pogroms, the brutality of Cossacks charging young Socialists, fear, shrieks of terror ..."

"America is a great country. It has many shortcomings, many social inequalities, and it’s tragic that the problem of the blacks wasn’t solved fifty or even a hundred years ago, but it’s still a great country, a country full of opportunities, of freedom! Does it seem nothing to you to be able to say what you like, even against the government, the Establishment?"

"Those nuts that burn their bras and walk around all disheveled and hate men? They’re crazy. Crazy."

"I'm a slave to this leaf in a diary that lists what I must do, what I must say, every half hour."

"I want to see a film, they send the Israeli army reserves to escort me! What kind of life is this?"

"Fashion is an imposition, a rein on freedom."

"What person with any sense likes himself? I know myself too well to like myself."

"I prefer to stay alive and be criticized than be sympathized."

"When Golda Meir's speech at Brandeis in June 1973 was disrupted by picketers holding signs that said, "Gramma, how many babies did you kill today?" Diane Balser protested. Her family adored Golda Meir-and, further, "this was Brandeis," where Balser was then enrolled as a Ph.D. student in sociology. Regardless of her disagreement with the Israeli prime minister's policies, Balser saw the placards as "anti-Semitic and as misogynistic attacks on a Jewish woman.""

"In 1973, she (Betty Friedan) returned from a visit to Israel disappointed that Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to meet with her, viewing her as an "American witch of women's liberation who might possibly infect Israeli women.""

"By that time it was already clear that the next prime minster was going to be Golda Meir, a woman whom I frankly detested – a mutual sentiment, I might add. I knew her as an opinionated, obstinate person, primitive in her outlook, rigid in her attitudes, with a genius for reaching and exploiting the deepest fears and prejudices of the Jewish masses. I was certain that with her as prime minister, all peace efforts would come to a total standstill."

"Golda is the best man in my Cabinet."

"he (Shimon Peres) maintains an ongoing dialogue with the intellectual community. Now that is real change from, say, Menachem Begin-not to mention Golda Meir!"

"We must understand that there was no "Jewish justice," as Golda Meir said in one of her less sterling moments, nor was there "Arab justice," a claim that also has proponents; rather, there were two deep traumas, on which a completely new life, a different world, new hope must be built."

"Golda Meir relates in her memoirs that when she arrived at the newly established Kibbutz Merhavia, she found the members eating what she called "terrible food": vegetables that "weren't even cooked" in "some awful green oil," spicy olives "that are bad for you, as everyone knows." She took over with a firm hand, and from the day she entered the kitchen she "forced" (as she put it) her companions to desist from their wayward "native" habits, and to start their day with good, hot, cooked mush. Their feeble protests were soon stilled, and they adapted. No wonder it was Golda who later declared that there was no such thing as a Palestinian (by her lights, there wasn't) and that the palm of her hand would sprout hair if Anwar Sadat really came to Jerusalem."

"Rita Giacoman mentions in passing that she returned from the U.S. to teach public health at Birzeit University in 1969, when Golda Meir announced that there was no such thing as a Palestinian. "So I had to come home," she says, matter of factly, "in defiance of Golda Meir-and today no one dares say it.""

"Golda Meir was asked that question: "We hear you don't mind getting older?" And she said, "That's true, but I never said it was a pleasure.""

"Coups, murders, rapes, violence, brutality, burglaries, incest, rebellion, homosexuality and other forms of social ills and criminality are a product of a generational curse happening mostly in the indigenous Fijian community."

"Today, as I stand here in this august House at 67 years of age, this last November 30th … culminates for me a journey and quest that has taken me most of my adult life, two decades in fact, to fulfil a vision and a dream that I, my mother and my maternal grandfather had regarding our entry into the Vola ni Kawa Bula (VKB) [1] and to be recognised finally by the Great Council of Chiefs."

"The journey here was fraught with all kinds of opposition and venom. Through three courts, right upto the Court of Appeal to defend before three eminent judges my constitutional rights to be registered in the VKB; I struggled and I won."

"Now to be endorsed unanimously to the Senate by the Great Council of Chiefs has been a crowning finale for me … This last act of endorsement and certification by the august body of Chiefs ratifies and stamps once and for all for me my Fijianness and dispels any questions of my right to be considered an indigene."

"How can we win the other half of our nation to Christ, when we do not show them the practical love of Jesus Christ in our daily interaction with Him? How can we help, as leaders, to convert them to Christianity when we practise division and separateness?"

"The growth of Christian denominational churches in Fiji is phenomenal for such a small country as Fiji. But that growth … is confined mainly to converts from one Christian denomination to another and not from non-Christian believers. This is not a paradox, it is a reality. We convert from left to right, but across the border, no."

"The Indian community in Fiji have been here over 120 to 130 years and would be the largest potential field of harvest to proselytize in, but we have not a show because of our examples and behaviours towards them. We need to show them the love of Christ first … before they can respond to Him."

"I believe … that this Government practises a Pacific form of revised apartheid against the Indian community and should be ashamed of calling itself Christian."

"I believe that this nation will be continuously cursed, until the leadership of this Government changes its accursed policy of Pacific Revised Apartheid and of not supporting Israel."

"If we would indicate an idea which, throughout the whole course of history, has ever more and more widely extended its empire, or which, more than any other, testifies to the much-contested and still more decidedly misunderstood perfectibility of the whole human race, it is that of establishing our common humanity — of striving to remove the barriers which prejudice and limited views of every kind have erected among men, and to treat all mankind, without reference to religion, nation, or color, as one fraternity, one great community, fitted for the attainment of one object, the unrestrained development of the physical powers. This is the ultimate and highest aim of society, identical with the direction implanted by nature in the mind of man toward the indefinite extension of his existence. He regards the earth in all its limits, and the heavens as far as his eye can scan their bright and starry depths, as inwardly his own, given to him as the objects of his contemplation, and as a field for the development of his energies. Even the child longs to pass the hills or the seas which inclose his narrow home; yet, when his eager steps have borne him beyond those limits, he pines, like the plant, for his native soil; and it is by this touching and beautiful attribute of man — this longing for that which is unknown, and this fond remembrance of that which is lost — that he is spared from an exclusive attachment to the present. Thus deeply rooted in the innermost nature of man, and even enjoined upon him by his highest tendencies, the recognition of the bond of humanity becomes one of the noblest leading principles in the history of mankind."

"The impetuous conquests of Alexander, the more politic and premeditated extension of territory made by the Romans, the wild and cruel incursions of the Mexicans, and the despotic acquisitions of the incas, have in both hemispheres contributed to put an end to the separate existence of many tribes as independent nations, and tended at the same time to establish more extended international amalgamation. Men of great and strong minds, as well as whole nations, acted under the influence of one idea, the purity of which was, however, utterly unknown to them. It was Christianity which first promulgated the truth of its exalted charity, although the seed sown yielded but a slow and scanty harvest. Before the religion of Christ manifested its form, its existence was only revealed by a faint foreshadowing presentiment. In recent times, the idea of civilization has acquired additional intensity, and has given rise to a desire of extending more widely the relations of national intercourse and of intellectual cultivation; even selfishness begins to learn that by such a course its interests will be better served than by violent and forced isolation. Language more than any other attribute of mankind, binds together the whole human race. By its idiomatic properties it certainly seems to separate nations, but the reciprocal understanding of foreign languages connects men together on the other hand without injuring individual national characteristics."

"Es gibt schlechterdings gewisse Kenntnisse, die allgemein sein müssen, und noch mehr eine gewisse Bildung der Gesinnungen und des Charakters, die keinem fehlen darf. Jeder ist offenbar nur dann ein guter Handwerker, Kaufmann, Soldat und Geschäftsmann, wenn er an sich und ohne Hinsicht auf seinen besonderen Beruf ein guter, anständiger, seinem Stande nach aufgeklärter Mensch und Bürger ist. Gibt ihm der Schulunterricht, was hierfür erforderlich ist, so erwirbt er die besondere Fähigkeit seines Berufs nachher so leicht und behält immer die Freiheit, wie im Leben so oft geschieht, von einem zum andern überzugehen."

"Durch die gegenseitige Abhängigkeit des Gedankens, und des Wortes von einander leuchtet es klar ein, daß die Sprachen nicht eigentlich Mittel sind, die schonerkannte Welt darzustellen, sondern weit mehr, die vorher unerkannte zu entdecken. Ihre Verschiedenheit ist nicht eine von Schällen und Zeichen, sondern eine Verschiedenheit der Weltansichten selbst. Hierin ist der Grund, und der letzte Zweck aller Sprachuntersuchung enthalten. Die Summe des Erkennbaren liegt, als das von dem menschlichen Geiste zu bearbeitende Feld, zwischen allen Sprachen, und unabhängig von ihnen, in der Mitte; der Mensch kann sich diesem rein objectiven Gebiet nicht anders, als nach seiner Erkennungs- und Empfindungsweise, also auf einem subjectiven Wege, nähern."

"True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united."

"Governmental regulations all carry coercion to some degree, and even where they don't, they habituate man to expect teaching, guidance and help outside himself, instead of formulating his own."

"How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is."

"I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves."

"The most beautiful, perhaps the only true, philosophical song existing in any known tongue."

"I read the Indian poem for the first time when I was in my country estate in Silesia and, while doing so, I felt a sense of overwhelming gratitude to God for having let me live to be acquainted with this work. It must be the most profound and sublime thing to be found in the world."

"I have, besides, a great love for the past. Only what refers to it is eternal and unchangeable like death, and at the same time warm and gladsome like life."

"If the mind loves solitude, it has thereby acquired a loftier character, and it becomes still more noble when the taste is indulged in."

"It is certainly true that I am unable to forget or give up any one with whom I have been intimate; far from this, I follow up every trace that remains of the past. Every such tie, nay, every accidental meeting, unites so many things together, and life is such a medley and patchwork, that we can never sufficiently labour to join the connecting links more and more closely to each other."

"A letter is a conversation between the present and the absent. Its fate is that it cannot last, but must pass away like the sound of the voice."

"The fate of no man, not even the happiest, is free from struggles and privation; for true happiness is only then attained, when by the government of the feelings we become independent of all the chances of life."

"Women are in this respect more fortunate, and yet more unfortunate, than men — that most of their employments are of such a nature that they may at the same time be thinking of quite different things. I would pronounce this to be a lucky circumstance, for one may almost the whole day continue a train of deep thought without the slightest interruption to work, or being in any way distracted in our labours. This is no doubt one of the chief reasons why many women surpass men in everything which requires deep thought and a more subtle knowledge of ourselves and others. But when, on the other hand, these inner thoughts are not of a pleasant nature, or at least not in a pure and unmixed degree, but partly depressing and disquieting, then the danger is certainly greater, and more likely to destroy the inward peace; whereas men, in their business itself, and even against their will, find distraction and relief from inward troubles and vexations."

"Happiness passes away, leaving hardly the slightest trace behind, indeed can scarcely be called happiness, since nothing lasting is gained. Unhappiness also passes away (and that is a great comfort), but leaves deep traces behind; and if we know how to improve them, of a most wholesome nature, and is often the cause of the highest happiness, as it purifies and strengthens the character. Then, again, in life it is worthy of special remark, that when we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself — nay, even springs from the midst of a life of troubles, and anxieties, and privations. This I have often observed in the case of women who have been married unhappily, but who would rather sink into the grave than abandon the position in which fate has placed them."

"Friendship and love require the deepest and most entire confidence, but souls of a high character demand not communications of a familiar nature."

"Sorrows and reverses spring up independently of external circumstances, and Heaven has dealt them out so wisely to man, that those who are to outward appearance most highly favoured by fortune, are yet not on that account more exempt from the causes that originate inward pain."

"Man stands in need of a certain degree of firmness in all the circumstances of life, even those that appear most fortunate ; and when painful events occur, such as you now experience, they are perhaps sent only to try and prove us; and if we have the resolution to hold fast in our hour of trial, from this very firmness itself serenity soon returns to the mind, which always feels satisfaction in acting conformably to duty."

"The appearance of the heavens has under all circumstances a never-ending charm for me, in the clear starlight as well as in dark nights, in the soft blue as well as in the cloudy or dark-grey sky, in which the eye loses itself, without being able to distinguish anything."

"The complaint about the weather is to me specially strange, and I cannot endure it well in others. I like to look upon Nature as a mighty power, imparting the purest joy, when we live tranquilly with her in all her developments, and consider the sum of all these as one great whole, in which we are not to think whether any individual portion is pleasing if only the great general ends are accomplished. For me the peculiar charm of a country life in the society of Nature consists in this, that we see the different seasons of the year roll past our eyes. It is just the same with life; and it has therefore always appeared to me an idle question, to say nothing more, what period of life has the greatest attractions — youth or manhood, or any other portion of time. It is ever only self-deception when we imagine that we would really wish to continue in any one particular period. The charm of youth just consists in the joyous and unrestrained anticipations of life, and all these would vanish whenever it was evident to any one that he was ever striving and never advancing a step, very much like people condemned to the treadmill. With age it is just the same; when clearly and powerfully understood, it is nothing else than a looking beyond this life, a stage in our course, a feeling that we must leave all things without being able to dispense with them, loving meanwhile, and looking with cheerfulness on all we are leaving, as a scene in which we are interested, and on which our thoughts still love to linger."

"We often find that religion is not understood in its true greatness, but that man looks at it from a lower point of view. He who worships God only on selfish principles, that he may receive protection, aid, and blessing in return, and who demands, as it were, that he should concern himself about the petty fate of every individual, such a one makes himself the central point of the whole universe; whereas he who thoroughly comprehends the greatness and fatherly goodness of God, receiving the idea with admiring devotion and deep thankfulness, so that he removes from his mind everything that does not accord with the purest and noblest conceptions; as, for instance, the thought that what duty and virtue require of him is at the same time the will of the Most High, and necessary for the proper regulation of the affairs of the world; such a man possesses a truly religious and virtuous mind."

"When a man allows pain to get the mastery over him, when he is anxious to avoid it on all occasions, and is ever moaning over what is unavoidable, then he becomes an object of contempt rather than pity. It is not so in the case of a woman. In a woman it is becoming enough, and seems natural, that she lean upon another being. The man ought certainly to possess the power of endurance; but if he fail, it must be regarded as a want or weakness. A man ought ever to strive to stand on his own independent bottom."

"The man who allows himself to be deceived and carried away by his own weakness may be a very amiable person in other respects, but he cannot be called a man — only a sort of intermediate being between the two sexes."

"It is true, however, that I lay very little stress either upon asking or giving advice. Generally speaking, they who ask advice know what they wish to do, and remain firm to their intentions. A man may allow himself to be enlightened on various points, even upon matters of expediency and duty, but, after all, he must determine his course of action for himself."

"We must now simply regard education as a direct guide to propriety of conduct, a good character, and a pretty fair amount of knowledge. It effects often much more by the bringing together a number of influences, the intended result of which may indeed be frustrated, but which produces by the conflict with the individuality of the person being educated, that which the direct influences could never have brought about; for the result of any system of education depends entirely upon the power that a man possesses of applying the influences brought to bear upon him to the ends of self-culture, or whether he allows himself to be moulded by them."

"It has ever been my opinion that the essential features of a man's nature cannot be changed; he may give up errors — he may change from virtuous and good habits to vicious courses; but the natural bent of his disposition, whether devoted to active employment or inward contemplation — whether impetuous or gentle — whether penetrating to the hidden depths of things, or resting satisfied with superficial views — whether acting in the affairs of life with a firm and powerful grasp or with weakness — ever remains from childhood to death the same."

"The permission of the wicked in the world, the impunity of the vicious, as well as the misfortunes of the good, are some of those problems which man has tried to solve, sometimes this way, sometimes that, in considering the government of the world."

"I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness is much more dependent on the way that we meet the events of life than upon the nature of these events themselves. The joyous cheerful temper a man cannot exactly give himself, for that is the gift of Heaven; but we can do much in preparing ourselves to encounter with tranquillity, to bear courageously, and by prudent forethought to turn aside or lessen, the many sorrows which the chances of life, more or less, bring upon all. One may at least avoid bringing on oneself unnecessary and groundless cares and troubles."

"Resignation to whatever may happen, hope and trust that only that will happen which is good and beneficial, and firmness when adversity overtakes us: these are the only efficient bulwarks that we can raise against destiny."

"To me it has always appeared to he best to bow with heartfelt humility to the inscrutable but unerring counsels of Heaven, and to remember that we can only in this life see a small portion of man’s existence, and therefore can form no judgment of the whole."

"Your expression that "it appears as if God would only pour his blessings into pure vessels," pleases me exceedingly. If a man be without this blessing, he cannot charm it towards him. I agree with you in thinking that this blessing is given to man in a mysterious way which we cannot see. But the ideas attached to the words happiness and unhappiness are of so vague and undetermined a nature, even in the minds of those who usually entertain correct views and opinions, that I have from early youth endeavoured to get clear conceptions upon this subject ; and the conclusion at which I have arrived is, that man is ever sure to enjoy a certain amount of happiness at least, if he render himself independent of external circumstances — if he learn to draw happiness from every event of a pleasing nature, whether relating to man or things, at the same time maintaining his independence of both sources."

"All merit ceases the moment we perform an act for the sake of its consequences. Truly in this respect "we have our reward.""

"Since it is Providence that determines the fates of men, their inner nature is thus brought into unison. There is such harmony, as in all things of nature, that one might explain the whole without referring to a higher Providence. But this only proves the more clearly and certainly this higher Providence, which has given existence to this harmony."

"We cannot get rid of the idea that life must be regarded as an ocean, through which we are to conduct our bark more or less successfully, and then it is a natural feeling that we should contemplate with more satisfaction the short distance than the long voyage. This idea of viewing life as a whole, as a work to be got through, has ever appeared to me to be a powerful reason why we should regard death with indifference. On the other hand, if we look at life in detached portions, we have only to strive to associate one happy day with another, as if this would continue for an eternity; and then nothing can be more void of a comfortable feeling than to find ourselves standing on the brink of that bourn at which the thread of life must be at once snapped."

"Investigations into early times charmed me at an early period of my life, and it is this which now constitutes my real study. When man was nearer to the dawn of his existence, he showed more heroism and simplicity of character, more depth and artlessness in his thoughts and emotions, as also in the language in which he clothed them."

"However great the power of time may be, yet it never entirely obliterates the remembrance and influences of the past; even though the mind may have long remained unoccupied by the emotions immediately produced by those events. With all its changes, it is time itself which has given that which may be regarded as true existence, and which may be justly said to be independent even of time."

"That respect which the child owes to his parents, and every man to those of higher intellectual power with whom he may come in contact, and which every well-regulated and well-disposed mind so readily pays, is much oftener founded upon an imaginary worth than upon a distinct and actual experience of its existence — upon a something, which may not perhaps have attained perfect development, but which shines forth in the carriage, gestures, and whole character."

"It is resignation and contentment that are best calculated to lead us safely through life. Whoever has not sufficient power to endure privations, and even suffering, can never feel that he is armour-proof against painful emotions — nay, he must attribute to himself, or at least to the morbid sensitiveness of his nature, every disagreeable feeling he may suffer."

"To set ourselves against men and fate is not a disposition of mind which is the noblest, and which does honour to us, nor is it that which is likely to procure us the greatest amount of tranquillity and cheerfulness. We ought rather to try to accommodate ourselves, so far as it is possible, to circumstances, to look on all that fate bestows upon us as a gift, being careful not to desire more, and least of all to be dissatisfied because all our desires are not gratified."

"It is often found that those feelings which are best, noblest, and most self-denying, are exactly those which lead to a disastrous issue. It is as if, by the command of a higher and wiser Power, man’s fate were intentionally brought into variance with his inner feelings, in order that the latter might acquire a higher value, shine with greater purity, and thus become more precious by the very privations and sufferings to him who cherishes such feelings. However benevolent may be the intentions of Providence, they do not always advance the happiness of the individual. Providence has always higher ends in view, and works in a pre-eminent degree on the inner feelings and disposition."

"Time is the most important thing in human life — for what is pleasure after the departure of time? and the most consolatory, since pain, when pain has passed, is nothing. Time is the wheeltrack, in which we roll on towards eternity, conducting us to the Incomprehensible. In its progress there is a ripening power, and it ripens us the more and the more powerfully, when we duly estimate it, listen to its voice, do not waste it, but regard it as the highest finite good, in which all finite things are resolved."

"That all life is only an advancing towards apparent annihilation, can be nowhere so clearly seen as in the regular succession of the seasons. To behold the whole vegetable world starting forth into life with innocent unsuspecting joy, as if it did not once anticipate its wintry death, contains something as deeply affecting as the life of a child, who as yet has not dreamt of danger."

"The mere reality of life would be inconceivably poor without the charm of fancy, which brings in its bosom, no doubt, as many vain fears as idle hopes, but lends much oftener to the allusions it calls up a gay flattering hue than one which inspires terror."

"The thought of a persecuting power has always appeared quite strange to me. I have never been able to endure the idea, which admits the existence of a being inimical to all good and taking pleasure in everything evil. In the New Testament I consider such passages merely figurative, expressions connected with the representations of Judaism for the evil, which man, even if he is good and believes himself quite innocent, has yet ever to fight against."

"We are both the creatures of time; our fate rests upon it as upon an ever-agitated sea, as we never know whether we can safely trust the present, or whether a deceitful future may not yet be awaiting us."

"It is a beautiful attribute of our nature, a privilege granted to man exclusively, and before all the other creatures of this world, that he ever feels that he can by forethought and determination control and govern every physical influence, however mighty it may be. An inward voice proclaims to him that he is free and independent; it imputes to him good and evil, and in the judgments which he passes on himself, which must always be more severe and strict than those of others, he must entirely throw out of sight all physical influences. Man is subject to two distinct laws, that of dependence and that of freedom, and the conflict is not to be settled by the mere understanding. In the visible world all things seem to be so connected together, that, if we were acquainted with all possible circumstances — the most minute and most remote — it looks as if we could show that man at any moment could not avoid acting exactly as he did. And yet there is always the feeling within us, that if we did but will it, we could grasp the revolving wheel, and free ourselves from the chain that binds us to it. In this consciousness of his freedom lies the true dignity of man."

"It is a proverbial expression that every man is the maker of his own fortune, and we usually regard it as implying that every man, by his folly or wisdom, prepares good or evil for himself. But we may view it in another light — namely, that we may so accommodate ourselves to the dispensations of Providence as to be happy in our lot, whatever may be its privations."

"But the simple thought that the stars are far beyond and above everything earthly — the feeling that everything earthly in comparison fades from the view, and that man himself is utterly insignificant when contrasted with those worlds scattered over the firmament, while his fate, his enjoyments, and wants are as nothing — then again that the stars bind together all men and all periods of the world’s history, as they have seen all from the beginning of time, and will see all that shall come hereafter; — when I meditate on all these things, I lose myself in serene delight while contemplating the starry heavens. Certainly it is a truly sublime spectacle, when in the stillness of the night, in an unclouded sky, the stars, like the world’s choir, rise and set, and as it were divide existence into two portions: — the one, belonging to the earthly, is silent in the perfect stillness of night, whilst the other alone comes forth in sublimity, pomp, and majesty. Viewed in this light the starry heavens truly exercise a moral influence over us; and who can readily stray into the paths of immorality, if he has been accustomed to live amidst such thoughts and feelings, and frequently to dwell upon them? How are we entranced by the simple splendours of this wonderful drama of nature?"

"A taste for sculpture belongs to the best, purest, and noblest of our enjoyments; and we feel most reluctant to be separated from those forms, from which, however often we contemplate them, we derive renewed and indeed heightened pleasure."

"Even sleep is characteristic. How charming are children in their lovely innocence! how angel-like their blooming hue! how painful and anxious is the sleep and expression in the countenance of the guilty!"

"I do not dread old age, and death I have, from a peculiarity of my constitution and from my youth, been accustomed to regard not simply as an event in human life but as something joyous. Such an occurrence cannot possibly excite feelings of regret in one who has meditated deeply on the destiny of man. My reckoning with the world has long been closed — I have nothing more to look for from length of life — I have no deep-laid plans extending to a distant futurity. I take any enjoyments gratefully from the hand of Providence, but would think it foolish to be so dependent upon them as to expect them to be of long continuance. My feelings are the precise central point in which I stand, and where my enjoyments are placed ; from anything external to myself I can derive no pleasure, and those thoughts and feelings are so peculiarly my own that I cannot imagine that they should not go with me. No one, however, can raise the veil which Providence has with profound wisdom drawn over the world beyond the grave."

"The idea we form of a misfortune is ever somewhat different from the misfortune itself, when it appears in all its frightful certainty. We must trust in nothing so little, and must labour for nothing so unceasingly, as for the strengthening of our soul and for self-government, both of which are the only sure foundations of earthly happiness."

"What lies in the nature of things and is dependent on fate, it would be silly and unmanly to lose one’s rest and inward equilibrium in thinking of it."

"It is incredible how important it is that the corporeal frame should be kept under the influence of constant, continuous, and unbroken order, and free from the impressions of vicissitude, which always more or less derange the corporeal functions. After all, it is continued temperance which sustains the body for the longest period of time, and which most surely preserves it free from sickness."

"Man is, above all, the central point of human action, and each man remains at last alone, so that what was in him and went forth from him is alone important. Man, during his life on earth, sympathising and active, is ever associated in his feelings with others; yet he treads alone the more important path, which leads over the confines of the earthly state: no one can accompany him there, though in every man there is the presentiment, that beyond the grave he will find again those who have gone before him, and will there gather around him again those whom he leaves behind. No man of affectionate feeling can be without this anticipation, yea, this firm belief, without giving up a large portion of his happiness, and that the purest and noblest."

"The men most to be pitied are those who have no command over themselves, who cannot do what they would, and who, even whilst they are performing virtuous deeds, do so from mean motives, from regard to happiness and mental satisfaction, fear of the reproaches of conscience, or else of future punishment. This is all very well and useful, supposing that man cannot be kept in the straight path by any other motives, but he who looks inwardly to the heart and soul can derive no satisfaction from such conduct. True nobility only exists when the good is sought for its own sake, either as a recognised law of pure duty, or from the feeling of the lofty dignity and constraining beauty of virtue. It is only these motives that show the disposition to be great and noble, and these alone react upon the character."

"Providence certainly does not attend merely to the interests of individuals, but the profound wisdom of its counsels extends to the right ordering and betterment of all."

"It is a beautiful thought, that however far one shore may be from another, the wave that ripples over my foot will in a short time be on the opposite strand."

"There is nothing so selfish and heartless as the displeasure, or at least the kind of contemptuous aversion, with which men of distinction and wealth sometimes regard Sundays and holidays. Even the choice of the seventh day is certainly the wisest which could have been made. However it may seem to lie, and in one respect really may lie, within the power of the will to shorten or lengthen the usual period of labour, I am thoroughly convinced that the six days are the really true, fit, and adequate measure of time for work, whether as regards the physical strength of man or his perseverance in a uniform occupation. There is also something humane in the arrangement, by which those animals which assist man in his work rest along with him."

"Trees have about them something beautiful and attractive even to the fancy, since they cannot change their places, are witnesses of all the changes that take place around them; and as some reach a great age, they become, as it were, historical monuments, and like ourselves they have a life, growing and passing away — not being inanimate and unvarying like the fields and rivers. One sees them passing through various stages, and at last step by step approaching death, which makes them look still more like ourselves."

"Work, according to my feeling, is as much of a necessity to man as eating and sleeping. Even those who do nothing which to a sensible man can be called work, still imagine that they are doing something. The world possesses not a man who is an idler in his own eyes."

"Everything that regards statesmanship and the interest of the world is in all outward respects of the greatest importance; it creates and destroys in a moment the happiness, even the very existence, of thousands, but when the wave of the moment has rushed past, and the storm has abated, its influence is lost, and even frequently disappears without leaving a trace behind. Many other things that are noiselessly influencing the thoughts and feelings often make far deeper and more lasting impressions on us. Man can for the most part keep himself very independent of all that does not trench on his private life — a very wise arrangement of Providence, since it gives a much greater security to human happiness."

"Earnestness in life, even when carried to an extreme, is something very noble and great, but it must not be allowed to disturb the common business of life, else it will produce bitterness, producing injurious effects."

"My house and the things in it have always something pleasant to me. There is always a something about home which addresses us with a friendly air, and touches the heart, even after having just come from direct intercourse with objects that are great and beautiful."

"Nature goes forward in her never-ending course, and cares nothing for the race of man that is ever passing before her. Whatever may be the painful and distressing events that happen, either in the direct course of her accustomed revolutions, or by some apparent deviation, she still goes on her way with stern indifference and apparent insensibility. Whether we suffer from some present sorrow, or from the fear of one impending, this thought has something deeply painful, which increases the bitterness of the inward grief — something that makes us pause and shudder. But when we extend our view — when the soul loses itself in universal contemplation — when man turns to reflection and resigns himself to the inevitable, a course alone worthy of him, then the eternal, unchangeable order of Nature has a comforting and peaceful influence. It even gives us here a resting-place, "a stationary pole-star amidst the flight of meteors," as has been beautifully expressed in a song of Schiller's. Man belongs to a great order of things not easily disturbed or thrown into confusion; and as this certainly leads to something higher, and at length to a point in which all doubts shall be resolved, all difficulties smoothed, and all the jarring tones of contradiction and discordance joined in one mighty harmony — he must also in this order attain to this point."

"The past and the remembrance of it have a never-ending power, and if painful longings arise to give ourselves up to it, it has yet an inexpressible charm. We can shut ourselves up in thought with those whom we have loved and lost — we can turn away in peace and freedom from all that is external, and though still active and beneficent, for ourselves we ask nothing, for everything that the heart has the power to enjoy is within our breast."

"Those who go along the path of life together must separate at some point; it is well when the interval at which they follow each other is very short. But every period of years is short in comparison of eternity. As for myself, I care now for nothing else except that my inward being, simple and undisguised, without being led by prejudices or maxims, yielding only to its feelings, should place itself in unison with that period of life on which I have unluckily entered sooner than the usual course of life might have led me to expect. Such a state, in my opinion, no man need fear to attain, but there must be much striving after it. It is, indeed, often attained only after much physical and moral suffering, but in this there is a lesson of humility under the hand of God, which I have ever regarded as the best and highest duty of man."

"What is the individual in the stream of this world’s events? He disappears in it, not merely like an atom in an immeasurable, all-absorbing power, but in a higher, nobler spirit. For this stream does not rush on thoughtlessly, led by blind chance, but pursues its distinct end, guided in its course by an almighty and all-wise hand. But the individual does not live to see the attainment of this end; he enjoys a greater or less share of success as chance wills it, by which I merely mean an uninvestigated providence; he will often be sacrificed in the attainment, and must frequently leave his work suddenly, and in the midst of his labours. He is therefore only an instrument, and does not appear to be even a powerful one; as, when the course of nature sweeps him away, his place is ever filled up, for it would be absurd to suppose that the great objects of the Creator could be for a moment delayed by any circumstance in the life of a weak individual. In the events of the moral world there is an aim — there is an idea pursued — one can at least, nay, one must think so in reference to himself. In the order of the material nature it is otherwise. One can only say that powers arise and run their course as long as they are permitted. As long as one looks at a single individual, he appears different from other men — different in ability, health, length of life, &c.; but if we look at a mass of living beings, they appear all alike."

"It is a very wise rule in life not to be too anxious about health, or to be entirely free from the inconveniences and bodily ailments of old age. It is far better to submit with patience to what is merely annoying, but does not altogether confine us, and still better to treat with indifference the uncomfortable feelings which such a state of body calls up."

"Peace is the natural tone of a well-regulated mind at one with itself. External circumstances may assume a threatening aspect, and unhinge for a time the most stoical disposition, but a truly noble soul yields not; and there are even women who unite such firmness with the greatest and liveliest activity of mind and vigour of imagination. This we may admire, though we must not expect often to find it in them. But in man it is an imperative duty, and he loses in the eyes of the right-thinking all title to respect when he shows a deficiency in this quality."

"We must wait for the future, and enjoy or bear the present."

"Our evangelical churches are too much regarded as places for preaching, and too little thought as intended for the religious elevation of the mind by prayer and meditation."

"Death is only a word. Experience alone can first tell us what is the true meaning of the word. The appearance of the dying tells us nothing. What we see is merely the prelude to death. A dull unconsciousness is what strikes us. Whether this be so — how and when the spirit wakes to life again — this is what we wish to know, and which never can be known till it is experienced."

"That is a very beautiful expression in your last letter, in which you say that you regard life as a casket, in which we can lay up all the spiritual treasures that we possess. It is indeed a remarkably happy idea. In fact, man can make of life what he will, and give as much value to it for himself and others as he has power given him. This, however, is to be understood merely in a spiritual sense, as man has not external circumstances in his own power, but over his spiritual and moral nature he has entire control."

"To be happy and to feel inward happiness is not the gift of fate, and comes not from the circumstances in which we are placed. We must reach it by our own exertions if it is to remain. But then it is comforting to think that it is always within our own power. God himself cannot make a man happy in his external circumstances, or at least only to a certain extent, nor yet can he make him always prosperous and successful in his aims; for God has with supreme wisdom placed men in the midst of ever-changing events, and these do not admit of men being always happy. But inwardly happy he can always make him, for he has given us this power in our heart — the yearning for him, the admiration, love, and trust in him; in fact, all those feelings by which his peace comes to us."

"Experience will convince you, what I have often said, that man can do much for himself. God would not have given him a dis¬ position so easily excited and so easily moved to sorrow and grief, if he had not bestowed at the same time a strength of mind to control these feelings, and to get the better of this grief. He gives nothing directly; he ever wills that man should merit his blessing by his own exertions; we cannot say earn and deserve, for the human can never in this way attain the heavenly. All, too, that God gives must pass through man and his own exertions, as if it were his own peculiar work. It is with the seed which produces the fruit of the Spirit precisely as with that which springs from the earth, or at least in quite a similar way. The seed is not immediately from God or from nature; it must go through all the processes necessary to bring it by degrees to maturity; and if man, under the most favourable sky and the most fruitful soil, wishes to be secure of his harvest, he must bestow his labour and the "sweat of his brow." This is still more the case with the fruit of the Spirit and of the heart, but the certainty of the harvest is still greater."

"The things of the world are ever rising and falling, and in unceasing change. This change must be in accordance with the will of God, as he has given to man neither the power nor the wisdom to control it and bring it to a close. The great lesson to be learned in such cases is, that man must strengthen himself doubly to perform his duty, and do what is right, seeking his happiness and inward peace in objects which cannot be taken away from him."

"The sorrow which calls for help and comfort is not the greatest, nor does it come from the depths of the heart."

"Enjoyment arises from activity of mind; both are ever united. There is indeed also an enjoyment which streams in upon us as a pure gift of Heaven. Such, however, we should not seek after; it is to be regretted when an anxious longing for this arises. But the great enjoyment, the great happiness, that which cannot be torn from us by any power, lies in the past and in the thought that happiness is indeed a great and precious good, but yet the improvement of the soul by joys and griefs, the development of noble feelings, is the true and only end of existence; whereas everything else in the world is ever changing, and in its nature transient. According to this view, life in the past sinks not into a stupid brooding over past pleasures or sorrows that have been felt, but is united closely with the mental activity which employs itself on the present."

"Religion is implanted in the very nature of man. The Christian religion has come down from above by the special will of God. It has, however, not deprived man of freedom on this point, but rather has conferred it on him in a still higher degree ; just because religious feelings have their true value according as they spring freely and spontaneously from man’s inner nature. Thus it has been received and pushed on till everything has yielded to it. But when it has been received into the hearts of men, it produces different effects according to the peculiar spirit and character of each. Already we see this take place among the Apostles, and therefore from the very earliest days of the Christian religion. See the difference between John and Peter. In the end there arose real dissensions. Passions and worldly views got mixed up. Thus profanity and abuses were the result. But still we always see in these religious disputes the godlike alongside of the earthly — ever the One, Eternal, and Immortal giving light and warmth as the sun, but overcast, sometimes more, sometimes less, by the clouds of the earthly."

"Cheerfulness is, as it were, the sunny ray of life. This is the constant portion of none, and the word itself comprehends also a multitude of degrees and modifications. The sum of all is this — that man, ever from inward and outward circumstances, forms for himself a nature which is peculiar to him, and is the track on which his life glides. This is a beneficent arrangement of Providence, for no struggle after harmony and elevation is ever without effect."

"There is a pride which belongs to every rightly-constituted mind, though it is scarcely to be called pride, but rather a proper estimate of self. It is, properly speaking, the elevation of mind which arises when we feel that we have mastered some noble idea and made it our own. Man is proud of the idea only so far as he feels that it has become part of himself."

"There is an important law of nature which should never be lost sight of, I mean that of our maturity for death. Death is not a cutting off of being, but a transition, a passing from one form of being to another. Both conditions, here and hereafter, so depend on each other, and are so inseparably connected, that the first moment there can only commence with the last moment here, when the perfect development of the being is completed. No human wisdom can calculate, no inward feeling can show, the moment of this maturity for death, or the impossibility of advancing farther; to attempt this would be the vain presumption of human pride. He only who is in a position to penetrate and understand our whole being can do this ; and it is the dictate alike of duty and of wisdom to commit the hour to Him, and never to oppose our impatient wishes to his will."

"Many terrors are in a great measure only in the imagination. Even in many real illnesses it adds much when people are timid and of anxious minds. The restlessness which certain diseases bring with them is lessened if we are able to counteract them by peace of mind. With positive pain it is otherwise, but even with it much may be done. Above all, much is gained if we regard sickness not as a state of suffering, but as a labour which must be got over. For no one can doubt but that the patient can contribute much to the restoration of his strength and to his own recovery."

"As the sea in its sublime uniformity ever brings manifold images before the soul, and calls up a variety of thoughts, it became quite evident to me, from violent continuous storms, what flattering gentleness the sea has in its greatest terrors. The sea, which swallows up what it seizes, advances with playfulness and covers the deep abyss with white foam. The sea has been called deceitful and treacherous, but there lies in this trait only the character of a great natural power which, to speak according to our own feelings, renews its strength, and, without reference to joy or sorrow, follows eternal laws which are imposed by a higher Power."

"Man is apt to judge of things not so much by their intrinsic worth, as by their agreement with his own preconceived ideas."

"Man reconciles himself to almost any event, however trying, if it happens in the ordinary course of nature. It is the extraordinary alone that he rebels against. There is a moral idea associated with this feeling, for the extraordinary is, or at least appears to be, something like an injustice of Heaven."

"Time is only an empty space, first acquiring meaning from the events, thoughts, and feelings with which we fill it. But as we know that this meaning has come fraught with joy and sorrow to many sensitive natures, our own hearts cannot but be affected by it. Its quiet, secret power, too, has a magical charm. The day on which a great misfortune has befallen us is, after a long course of years, passed unnoticed, and then, too, unknown to us is the approach of one on which a calamity inevitably awaits us. If we reflect deeply on the consequences of time, we lose ourselves as in an abyss. There is neither beginning nor end. A great comfort lies, however, in contemplating the course of life, as it ever reminds us of a sublime law — an eternal controlling power — an immutable order. There is something very tranquillising in the knowledge of this order in all the affairs of the world, in the frailty of human nature, and in the apparently uncontrolled destructive power of the elements."

"But for good recitation many things are necessary: first, of course, what only a good education can give to any one, a clear conception of the meaning, and a good, distinct pronunciation, free from provincialisms; and then what is innate: a happily-constituted, sensitive organisation, a fine musical ear for the intonation, a genuine poetic feeling, and a mind in which all the human affections exist in strength and purity."

"In whatever way the so-called great political affairs of the world may go, individuals and families proceed on their course with little interruption, endeavour to better their condition, and to improve the means which time puts more and more into their hands, and to increase those means so as to improve their position in society. This is a very consoling reflection, and the grand course of human destiny thus shows itself to be much less dependent on foreign will and chance than appears at first sight."

"As time advances more things appear, which enable the world to judge of the characters of remarkable men. In our judgments of them at first we are influenced by the opinions which their contemporaries held respecting them, but gradually another opinion arises, on which at last what is called posthumous fame is built up. Men in this way become in a certain degree like phantoms. Much which belongs to them vanishes, and what remains assumes quite a different aspect. Therefore what we know of them will be received according to the spirit of the existing time. So uncertain is the image which even the greatest men leave behind them in history."

"Cheerfulness cannot be forced, and man has not much more power over the clouds that overshadow his mind than over those that darken the sky. Meanwhile man ought not to be altogether inactive, but must labour at his daily duties, and be watchful over himself."

"Prayer is intended to increase the devotion of the individual, but if the individual himself prays he requires no formula — he pours himself forth much more naturally in self-chosen and connected thoughts before God, and scarcely requires words at all. Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings."

"It is a characteristic of old age to find that time passes on with accelerated pace. The less one accomplishes in a given time, the shorter does the retrospect appear."

"One cannot enough wonder or be thankful to Providence that from time to time he awakens in the spirits of a whole people, or of individuals, those truly godlike thoughts on which our inner being reposes."

"A man must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him."

"Death is but a word to us. Our own experience alone can teach us the real meaning of the word."

"Diejenige Regierung ist die beste, die sich überflüssing macht."

"Erst erfreuen, dann belehren."

"What do we mean when we speak of a normative system? As von Humboldt put it, "Man lives in a world presented to him by his language," meaning that the characteristics of a language lay down the categories of thought."

"Merece lo que sueñas."

"There can be no society without poetry, but society can never be realized as poetry, it is never poetic. Sometimes the two terms seek to break apart. They cannot."

"Only now have I understood that there was a secret relationship between what I have called my expulsion from the present and the writing of poetry. Poetry is in love with the instant and seeks to relive it in the poem, thus separating it from sequential time and turning it into a fixed present. But at that time I wrote without wondering why I was doing it. I was searching for the gateway to the present: I wanted to belong to my time and to my century. A little later this obsession became a fixed idea: I wanted to be a modern poet. My search for modernity had begun."

"To fight evil is to fight ourselves."

"If you are the amber mare"

"Between going and staying the day wavers,"

"I am a man: little do I last"

"::::We are condemned"

"The Hindu genius is a love for abstraction and, at the same time, a passion for the concrete image. At times It is rich, at others prolix. It has created the most lucid and the most instinctive art. It is abstract and realistic, sexual and intellectual, pedantic and sublime. It lives between extremes, it embraces the extremes, rooted in the earth and drawn to an invisible beyond."

"And to fill all these white pages that are left for me with the same monotonous question: at what hour do the hours end?"

"I too await the coming of my hour, I too exist. No. I quit. Yes, I know, I could settle down in an idea, in a custom, in an obsession. Or stretch out on the coals of a pain or some hope and wait there, not making much noise. Of course it's not so bad: I eat, drink, sleep, make love, observe the marked holidays and go to the beach in summer. People like me and I like them. I take my condition lightly: sickness, insomnia, nightmares, social gatherings, the idea of death, the little worm that burrows into the heart or the liver (the little worm that leaves its eggs in the brain and at night pierces the deepest sleep), the future at the expense of today – the today that never comes on time, that always loses its bets. No. I renounce my ration card, my I.D., my birth certificate, voter's registration, passport, code number, countersign, credentials, safe conduct pass, insignia, tattoo, brand."

"The world stretches out before me, the vast world of the big, the little, and the medium. Universe of kings and presidents and jailors, of mandarins and pariahs and liberators and liberated, of judges and witnesses and the condemned: stars of the first, second, third and nth magnitudes, planets, comets, bodies errant and eccentric or routine and domesticated by the laws of gravity, the subtle laws of falling, all keeping step, all turning slowly or rapidly around a void. Where they claim the central sun lies, the solar being, the hot beam made out of every human gaze, there is nothing but a hole and less than a hole: the eye of a dead fish, the giddy cavity of the eye that falls into itself and looks at itself without seeing. There is nothing with which to fill the hollow center of the whirlwind. The springs are smashed, the foundations collapsed, the visible or invisible bonds that joined one star to another, one body to another, one man to another, are nothing but a tangle of wires and thorns, a jungle of claws and teeth that twist us and chew us and spit us out and chew us again. No one hangs himself by the rope of a physical law. The equations fall tirelessly into themselves. And in regard to the present matter, if the present matters: I do not belong to the masters. I don't wash my hands of it, but I am not a judge, nor a witness for the prosecution, nor an executioner. I do not torture, interrogate, or suffer interrogation. I do not loudly plead for leniency, nor wish to save myself or anyone else. And for all that I don't do and for all that they do to us, I neither ask forgiveness nor forgive. Their piety is as abject as their justice. Am I innocent? I'm guilty. Am I guilty? I'm innocent. (I'm innocent when I'm guilty, guilty when I'm innocent. I'm guilty when … but that is another song. Another song? It's all the same song.) Guilty innocent, innocent guilty, the fact is I quit."

"I remember my loves, my conversation, my friendships. I remember it all, see it all, see them all. With melancholy, but without nostalgia. And above all, without hope. I know that it is immortal, and that, if we are anything, we are the hope of something. For me, expectation has spent itself. I quit the nevertheless, the even, the in spite of everything, the moratoriums, the excuses and forgiving. I know the mechanism of the trap of morality and the drowsiness of certain words. I have lost faith in all those constructions of stone, ideas, ciphers. I quit. I no longer defend this broken tower. And, in silence, I await the event."

"The first deaths will barely swell the daily count, and no one in the statistics bureau will notice that extra zero. But after a while everyone will begin to look at each other and ask: what's happening? Because for months doors and windows are going to rattle, furniture and trees will creak."

"No use going out or staying at home. No use erecting walls against the impalpable. A mouth will extinguish all the fires, a doubt will root up all the decisions. It will be everywhere without being anywhere. It will blur all the. mirrors. Penetrating walls and convictions, vestments and well-tempered souls, it will install itself in the marrow of everyone. Whistling between body and body, crouching between soul and soul. And all the wounds will open because, with expert and delicate, although somewhat cold, hands, it will irritate sores and pimples, will burst pustules and swellings and dig into the old, badly healed wounds. Oh fountain of blood, forever inexhaustible! Life will be a knife, a gray and agile and cutting and exact and arbitrary blade that falls and slashes and divides. To crack, to claw, to quarter, the verbs that move with giant steps against us! It is not the sword that shines in the confusion of what will be. It is not the saber, but fear and the whip. I speak of what is already among us. Everywhere there are trembling and whispers, insinuations and murmurs. Everywhere the light wind blows, the breeze that provokes the immense Whiplash each time it unwinds in the air. Already many carry the purple insignia in their flesh. The light wind rises from the meadows of the past, and hurries closer to our time."

"Death is a mirror which reflects the vain gesticulations of the living. The whole motley confusion of acts, occasions, regrets and hopes which is the life of each one of us finds in death, not meaning or explanation, but an end."

"The word "death" is not pronounced in New York, in Paris, in London, because it burns the lips. The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love. True, there is perhaps as much fear in his attitude as in that of others, but at least death is not hidden away; he looks at it it face to face, with impatience, disdain or irony."

"Solitude—the feeling and knowledge that one is alone, alienated from the world and oneself—is not an exclusively Mexican characteristic. All men, at some moment in their lives, feel themselves to be alone. And they are. To live is to be separated from what we were in order to approach what we are going to be in the mysterious future. Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature—if that word can be used in reference to man, who has "invented" himself by saying "No" to nature—consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude."

"Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason."

"willow of crystal, a poplar of water, a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over, tree that is firmly rooted and that dances, turning course of a river that goes curving, advances and retreats, goes roundabout, arriving forever:"

"I travel through your waist as through a river, I voyage your body as through a grove going, as by a footpath going up a mountain and suddenly coming upon a steep ravine I go the straitened way of your keen thoughts break through to daylight upon your white forehead and there my spirit flings itself down, is shattered now I collect my fragments one by one and go on, bodiless, searching, in the dark…. you take on the likeness of a tree, a cloud, you are all birds and now you are a star, now you resemble the sharp edge of a sword and now the executioner's bowl of blood, the encroaching ivy that over grows and then roots out the soul and divides it from itself,"

"I want to go on, to go beyond; I cannot; the moment scatters itself in many things, I have slept the dreams of the stone that never dreams and deep among the dreams of years like stones have heard the singing of my imprisoned blood, with a premonition of light the sea sang, and one by one the barriers give way, all of the gates have fallen to decay, the sun has forced an entrance through my forehead, has opened my eyelids at last that were kept closed, unfastened my being of its swaddling clothes, has rooted me out of my self, and separated me from my animal sleep centuries of stone and the magic of reflections resurrects willow of crystal, a poplar of water, a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over, tree that is firmly rooted and that dances, turning course of a river that goes curving, advances and retreats, goes roundabout, arriving forever:"

"Man does not speak because he thinks; he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think."

"If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time."

""Art" is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers…what we call art is a game."

"To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears."

"Many psychiatrists think, like Huxley, that these substances hallucinogens] are neither more nor less dangerous than alcohol. It is not necessary to entirely accept this opinion — although to me it seems to be not far from the truth — in order to recognize that the authorities prohibit these drugs not so much in the name of public health as in the name of public morality. They are a challenge to the ideals of activity, utility, progress, work, and similar notions that justify our daily routine. Alcoholism is an infraction of social rules. Everyone tolerates it because the violation confirms the rules. This case is analogous to prostitution: neither the drunk nor the prostitute and her clientele call into doubt the rules they break. Their acts are a disturbance of order, not a criticism of it. The use of hallucinogens, on the other hand, implies a negation of prevailing social values. … We can now understand the true reason for their condemnation and its severity. The authorities aren’t suppressing a reprehensible practice or a crime. They are suppressing dissidence. … Prohibition is a battle against a contagion of the spirit — against an opinion. The authorities reveal, in their ideological zeal, that they are pursuing a heresy, not a crime."

"The best thing to do will be to choose the path to Galta, traverse it again (invent it as I traverse it), and without realizing it, almost imperceptibly, go to the end — without being concerned about what “going to the end” means or what I meant when I wrote that phrase. At the very beginning of the journey, already far off the main highway, as I walked along the path that leads to Galta, past the little grove of banyan trees and the pools of foul stagnant water, through the Gateway fallen into ruins and into the main courtyard bordered by dilapidated houses, I also had no idea where I was going, and was not concerned about it. I wasn’t asking myself questions: I was walking, merely walking, with no fixed itinerary in mind. I was simply setting forth to meet … what? I didn’t know at the time, and I still don’t know. Perhaps that is why I wrote “going to the end”: in order to find out, in order to discover what there is after the end. A verbal trap; after the end there is nothing, since if there were something, the end would not be the end. Nonetheless, we are always setting forth to meet … even though we know that there is nothing, or no one, awaiting us. We go along, without a fixed itinerary, yet at the same time with an end (what end?) in mind, and with the aim of reaching the end. A search for the end, a dread of the end: the obverse and the reverse of the same act. Without this end that constantly eludes us we would not journey forth, nor would there be any paths. But the end is the refutation and the condemnation of the path: at the end the path dissolves, the meeting fades away to nothingness. And the end — it too fades away to nothingness."

"Images, memories, fragmentary shapes and forms — all those sensations, visions, half-thoughts that appear and disappear in the wink of an eye, as one sets forth to meet…. The path also disappears as I think of it, as I say it."

"It is not proper to project our feelings onto things or to attribute our own sensations and passions to them. Can it also be improper to see in them a guide, a way of life? To learn the art of remaining motionless amid the agitation of the whirlwind, to learn to remain still and to be as transparent as this fixed light amid the frantic branches — this may be a program for life."

"Fixity is always momentary. It is an equilibrium, at once precarious and perfect, that lasts the space of an instant: a flickering of the light, the appearance of a cloud, or a slight change in temperature is enough to break the repose-pact and unleash the series of metamorphoses. Each metamorphosis, in turn, is another moment of fixity succeeded by another change and another unexpected equilibrium. No one is alone, and each change here brings about another change there. No one is alone and nothing is solid: change is comprised of fixities that are momentary accords."

"Ought I to say that the form of change is fixity, or more precisely, that change is an endless search for fixity? A nostalgia for inertia: indolence and its frozen paradises. Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. A constant coming and going: wisdom lies in the momentary. It is transition. But the moment I say transition, the spell is broken. Transition is not wisdom, but a simple going toward… Transition vanishes: only thus is it transition."

"Fixity is always momentary. But how can it always be so? If it were, it would not be momentary — or would not be fixity. What did I mean by that phrase? I probably had in mind the opposition between motion and motionlessness, an opposition that the adverb always designates as continual and universal: it embraces all of time and applies to every circumstance. My phrase tends to dissolve this opposition and hence represents a sly violation of the principle of identity. I say “sly” because I chose the word momentary as an adjectival qualifier of fixity in order to tone down the violence of the contrast between movement and motionlessness. A little rhetorical trick intended to give an air of plausibility to my violation of the rules of logic. The relations between rhetoric and ethics are disturbing: the ease with which language can be twisted is worrisome, and the fact that our minds accept these perverse games so docilely is no less cause for concern. We ought to subject language to a diet of bread and water if we wish to keep it from being corrupted and from corrupting us. (The trouble is that a-diet-of-bread-and-water is a figurative expression, as is the-corruption-of-language-and-its-contagions.) It is necessary to unweave (another metaphor) even the simplest phrases in order to determine what it is that they contain (more figurative expressions) and what they are made of and how (what is language made of? and most important of all, is it already made, or is it something that is perpetually in the making?). Unweave the verbal fabric: reality will appear. (Two metaphors.) Can reality be the reverse of the fabric, the reverse of metaphor — that which is on the other side of language? (Language has no reverse, no opposite faces, no right or wrong side.) Perhaps reality too is a metaphor (of what and/or of whom?). Perhaps things are not things but words: metaphors, words for other things. With whom and of what do word-things speak? (This page is a sack of word-things.) It may be that, like things which speak to themselves in their language of things, language does not speak of things or of the world: it may speak only of itself and to itself."

"Since movement is a metaphor for change, the best thing will be to say: nonchange is (always) change. It would appear that I have finally arrived at the desired disequilibrium. Nonetheless, change is not the primordial, original word that I am searching for: it is a form of becoming. When becoming is substituted for change, the relation between the two terms is altered, so that I am obliged to replace nonchange by permanence, which is a metaphor for fixity, as becoming is for coming-to-be, which in turn is a metaphor for time in all its ceaseless transformations…. There is no beginning, no original word: each one is a metaphor for another word which is a metaphor for yet another, and so on. All of them are translations of translations. A transparency in which the obverse is the reverse: fixity is always momentary. I begin all over again: if it does not make sense to say that fixity is always momentary, the same may not be true if I say that it never is."

"My phrase is a moment, the moment of fixity in the monologue of Zeno the Eleatic and Huí Shih (“I leave today for Yüeh and I arrive yesterday”). In this monologue one of the terms finally devours the other: either motionlessness is merely a state of movement (as in my phrase), or else movement is only an illusion of motionlessness (as among the Hindus). Therefore we ought not to say either always or never, but almost always or almost never, merely from time to time or more than is generally supposed and less than this expression might indicate, frequently or seldom, consistently or occasionally, we don’t have at our disposal sufficient data to state with certainty whether it is periodic or irregular: fixity (always, never, almost always, almost never, etc.) is momentary (always, never, almost always, almost never, etc.) fixity (always, never, almost always, almost never, etc.) is momentary (always, never, almost always, almost never, etc.) fixity…. All this means that fixity never is entirely fixity and that it is always a moment of change. Fixity is always momentary."

"Repetitions, you wander about lost amid repetitions, you are merely a repetition among other repetitions. An artist of repetitions, a past master of disfigurations, a maestro of demolitions. The trees repeat other trees, the sands other sands, the jungle of letters is repetition, the stretch of dunes is repetition, the plethora is emptiness, emptiness is a plethora, I repeat repetitions, lost in the thicket of signs, wandering about in the trackless sand, stains on the wall beneath this sun of Galta, stains on this afternoon in Cambridge, a thicket and a stretch of dunes, stains on my forehead that assembles and disassembles vague landscapes. You are (I am) is a repetition among other repetitions. You are is I am; I am is you are: you are is I. Demolitions: I stretch out full length atop my triturations, I inhabit my demolitions."

"The Great Monkey closes his eyes, scratches himself again and muses: before the sun has become completely hidden — it is now fleeing amid the tall bamboo trees like an animal pursued by shadows — I shall succeed in reducing this grove of trees to a catalogue. A page of tangled plant calligraphy. A thicket of signs: how to read it, how to clear a path through this denseness? Hanumān smiles with pleasure at the analogy that has just occurred to him: calligraphy and vegetation, a grove of trees and writing, reading and a path. Following a path: reading a stretch of ground, deciphering a fragment of world. Reading considered as a path toward…. The path as a reading: an interpretation of the natural world? He closes his eyes once more and sees himself, in another age, writing (on a piece of paper or on a rock, with a pen or with a chisel?) the act in the Mahanātaka describing his visit to the grove of the palace of Rāvana. He compares its rhetoric to a page of indecipherable calligraphy and thinks: the difference between human writing and divine consists in the fact that the number of signs of the former is limited, whereas that of the latter is infinite; hence the universe is a meaningless text, one which even the gods find illegible. The critique of the universe (and that of the gods) is called grammar…. Disturbed by this strange thought, Hanumān leaps down from the wall, remains for a moment in a squatting position, then stands erect, scrutinizes the four points of the compass, and resolutely makes his way into the thicket."

"time in an allegory of itself imparts to us lessons of wisdom which the moment they are formulated are immediately destroyed by the merest flickers of light or shadow which are nothing more than time in its incarnations and disincarnations which are the phrases that I am writing on this paper and that disappears as I read them: they are not the sensations, the perceptions, the mental images, and the thoughts which flare up and die away here, now, as I write or as I read what I write: they are not what I see or what I have seen, they are the reverse of what is seen and of the power of sight—but they are not the invisible: they are the unsaid residuum; they are not the other side of reality but, rather, the other side of language, what we have on the tip of our tongue that vanishes before it is said, the other side that cannot be named because it is the opposite of a name: what is not said is not this or that which we leave unsaid, nor is it neither-this-nor-that: it is not the tree that I say I see but the sensation that I feel on sensing that I see it at the moment when I am just about to say that I see it, an insubstantial but real conjunction of vibrations and sounds and meanings that on being combined suggest the configuration of a green-bronze-black-woody-leafy-sonorous-silent presence; no, it is not that either, if it is not a name it surely cannot be the description of a name or the description of the sensation of the name or the name of the sensation: a tree is not the name tree, nor is it the sensation of tree: it is the sensation of a perception of tree that dies away at the very moment of the perception of the sensation of tree; names, as we already know, are empty, but what we did not know, or if we did know, had forgotten, is that sensations are perceptions of sensations that die away, sensations that vanish on becoming perceptions, since if they were not perceptions, how would we know that they are sensations?; sensations that are not perceptions are not sensations, perceptions that are not names—what are they? if you didn’t know it before, you know now: everything is empty; and the moment I say everything-is-empty, I am aware that I am falling into a trap: if everything is empty, this everything-is-empty is empty too; no, it is full, full to overflowing, everything-is-empty is replete with itself, what we touch and see and taste and smell and think, the realities that we invent and the realities that touch us, look at us, hear us, and invent us, everything that we weave and unweave and everything that weaves and unweaves us, momentary appearances and disappearances, each one different and unique, is always the same full reality, always the same fabric that is woven as it is unwoven: even total emptiness and utter privation are plenitude (perhaps they are the apogee, the acme, the consummation and the calm of plenitude), everything is full to the brim, everything is real, all these invented realities and all these very real inventions are full of themselves, each and every one of them, replete with their own reality; and the moment I say this, they empty themselves: things empty themselves and names fill themselves, they are no longer empty, names are plethoras, they are donors, they are full to bursting with blood, milk, semen, sap, they are swollen with minutes, hours, centuries, pregnant with meanings and significations and signals, they are the secret signs that time makes to itself, names suck the marrow from things, things die on this page but names increase and multiply, things die in order that names may live:"

"the reality beyond language is not completely reality, a reality that does not speak or say is not reality; and the moment I say that, the moment I write, letter by letter, that a reality stripped of names is not reality, the names evaporate, they are air, they are a sound encased in another sound and in another and another, a murmur, a faint cascade of meanings that fade away to nothingness: the tree that I say is not the tree that I see, tree does not say tree, the tree is beyond its name, a leafy, woody reality: impenetrable, untouchable, a reality beyond signs, immersed in itself, firmly planted in its own reality: I can touch it but I cannot name it, I can set fire to it but if I name it I dissolve it: the tree that is there among the trees is not the tree that I name but a reality that is beyond names, beyond the word reality, it is simply reality just as it is, the abolition of differences and also the abolition of similarities; the tree that I name is not the tree, and the other one, the one that I do not name and that is there, on the other side of my window, its trunk now black and its foliage still inflamed by the setting sun, is not the tree either, but, rather, the inaccessible reality in which it is planted: between the one and the other there appears the single tree of sensation which is the perception of the sensation of tree that is vanishing, but who perceives, who senses, who vanishes as sensations and perceptions vanish?"

"no reality is mine, no reality belongs to me (to us), we all live somewhere else, beyond where we are, we are all a reality different from the word I or the word we; our most intimate reality lies outside ourselves and is not ours, and it is not one but many, plural and transitory, we are this plurality that is continually dissolving, the self is perhaps real, but the self is not I or you or he, the self is neither mine nor yours, it is a state, a blink of the eye, it is the perception of a sensation that is vanishing, but who or what perceives, who senses? are the eyes that look at what I write the same eyes that I say are looking at what I write? we come and go between the word that dies away as it is uttered and the sensation that vanishes in perception—although we do not know who it is that utters the word nor who it is that perceives, although we do know that the self that perceives something that is vanishing also vanishes in this perception: it is only the perception of that self s own extinction, we come and go: the reality beyond names is not habitable and the reality of names is a perpetual falling to pieces, there is nothing solid in the universe, in the entire dictionary there is not a single word on which to rest our heads, everything is a continual coming and going from things to names to things, no, I say that I perpetually come and go but I haven’t moved, as the tree has not moved since I began to write, inexact expressions once again: I began, I write, who is writing what I am reading?, the question is reversible: what am I reading when I write: who is writing what I am reading?"

"the phrases that I write on this paper are sensations, perceptions, images, etcetera, which flare up and die down here, in front of my eyes, the verbal residuum: the only thing that remains of the felt, imagined, thought, perceived, and vanished realities, the only reality that these evaporated realities leave behind, a reality that, even though it is merely a combination of signs, is no less real than they are: the signs are not presences but they configure another presence, the phrases fall into line one after the other on the page and as they advance they open up a path toward a temporarily final end, the phrases configure a presence that disappears, they are the configuration of the abolition of presence, yes, it is as though all these presences woven by the configurations of the signs were seeking its abolition in order that there might appear those inaccessible trees, immersed in themselves, not said, that are beyond the end of this phrase, on the other side, there where eyes read what I am writing, and on reading it, dissipate it"

"In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature, Octavio Paz said, "Soon I discovered the defense of poetry, disregarded in our century, became inseparable from the defense of liberty." Paz also said that "throughout history and under the most diverse circumstances, poets have participated in politics. I do not refer to poetry as a form of art to be used by the State. No. I refer to the free participation of the poets in the matters of his/her city." Paz's words ring true for the vibrant mosaic of voices this anthology exemplifies."

"I belong to the first generation of Latin American writers brought up reading other Latin American writers. Before my time the work of Latin American writers was not well distributed, even on our continent. In Chile it was very hard to read other writers from Latin America. My greatest influences have been all the great writers of the Latin American Boom in literature: García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, Cortázar, Borges, Paz, Rulfo, Amado, etc."

"I admire Octavio Paz very much... but I don't but I don't agree with one of his theses about Mexican history. He maintains that the Plaza of the Three Cultures is a place of sacrifices, and that because we have Aztec ancestors we are condemned cyclically to slaughter a great number of people. This thesis is highly debatable... It's not possible to say that because we carry within us the potential for human sacrifice, we retain across the years the need to kill."

"Whatever her or his social identity, the writer is, by the nature of the act of writing, someone who strives for communication and connection, someone who searches, through language, to keep alive the conversation with what Octavio Paz has called "the lost community." Even if what's written feels like a note thrust into a bottle to be thrown into the sea."

"There we were right in the heart one of the largest Metropolitan Centres of the world, partaking in a gesture that was as old as the beginning of diplomatic relations between sovereign nations in so splendid a manner as must, without doubt, be such a sobering induction to any envoy to Japan. It had a tremendous impact on my outlook, and I look eagerly forward to doing, saying, advising and thinking whatever may best serve the preservation and enhancement of Fiji in Japan."

"The Imperial Palace of Japan is like a breathtaking oasis snoozing in the midst of a concrete panorama. That the Tokyo Metropolitan Government painstakingly built their Capital City around the Imperial Palace is clearly reflective of the centrality of the monarchy’s unifying role in the life of Japanese society. It is a heart-warming thought and a valuable lesson to glean, in terms of its overall resilience to the challenges of modernization. As I see it, this feature of indigenous heritage is itself the most obvious common denominator between the Japanese and the Fijian peoples. The Japanese are being able to safeguard against an erosion of their respect, passion and regard for the Imperial Family in the face of external pressures. In the long run, this will, as a uniting stand, ensure their survival as a community of people. Now, that should certainly be a lesson for Fiji to learn from."

"Instead of deluding public opinion with a notion that a sufficient application of force will provide a remedy, a wiser course would be to set about taking such steps as may be the means of recovering that consent without which society in Ireland cannot exist...[an offer should be made to the Irish] conceived on the most generous lines."

"In the name of Indian national life, in the name of religion, I appeal to all in each of the two countries who hold position...let them begin each in their own community to work untiringly towards this end: boldly to repudiate feelings of hatred and intolerance, actively to condemn and suppress acts of violence and aggression, earnestly to strive to exorcise suspicions...I appeal in the name of national life because communal tension is eating into it as a canker...I appeal in the name of religion because I can appeal to nothing nobler, and because religion is the language of the soul, and it is a change of soul that India needs today."

"Though I am, as you know, a pacifist by nature, I am not disposed to go to all lengths to meet people who seem to be behaving with utter unreason."

"I am authorized on behalf of His Majesty's Government to state clearly that in their judgment it is implicit in the declaration of 1917 that the natural issue of India's constitutional progress, as there contemplated, is the attainment of Dominion status."

"[It is] a question of personal appeal and conviction, rather than any argument. The cards I fancy are sympathy, understanding of his hopes, suspicions and disappointments, but above all, striving to convey to him, through what one says, a real echo of the sincerity that pervaded your doings in London."

"[The Hoare-Laval proposals] were not so frightfully different from those put forward by the Committee of Five [of the League of Nations]. But the latter were of respectable parentage: and the Paris ones were too much like the off-the-stage arrangements of nineteenth-century diplomacy."

"Nationalism and Racialism is a powerful force but I can't feel that it's either unnatural or immoral! I cannot myself doubt that these fellows are genuine haters of Communism, etc.! And I daresay if we were in their position we might feel the same!"

"After a day in Berlin I was taken off to Berchtesgaden which we reached after a night in the special train, and were driven by what I assumed to be storm-troopers straight up to Hitler's chalet. Snow was on the ground and a path had been swept up to the steep steps to the house. As I looked out of the car window, on eye level, I saw in the middle of this swept path a pair of black trousered legs, finishing up in silk socks and pumps. I assumed this was a footman who had come down to help me out of the car and up the steps, and was proceeding in leisurely fashion to get myself out of the car when I heard Von Neurath or somebody throwing a hoarse whisper at my ear of ‘Der Führer, der Führer’; and it then dawned upon me that the legs were not the legs of a footman, but of Hitler."

"Hitler invited me to begin our discussion, which I did by thanking him for giving me this opportunity. I hoped it might be the means of creating better understanding between our two countries. The feeling of His Majesty's Government was that it ought to be within our power, if we could once come to a fairly complete appreciation of each other's position, and if we were both prepared to work together for the cause of peace, to make a large contribution to it. Although there was much in the Nazi system that profoundly offended British opinion, I was not blind to what he (Hitler) had done for Germany, and to the achievement from his point of view of keeping Communism out of his country."

"He [Hitler] did not challenge this and said that formal agreement between the four Powers [Britain, France, Germany and Italy] might not be very difficult to achieve. It would not, however, be worth much unless it took account of realities, even if unpleasant. Germany had had to recognise such a reality in the shape of Poland; and we all had to recognise such a reality in acknowledging Germany to be a great Power; we had to get away from the Versailles mentality and recognise that the world could never remain in statu quo. To this I replied that nobody wished to treat Germany as anything but a great Power, and that nobody in their senses supposed the world could stay as it was for ever. The whole point was how changes were to be brought about. This led him to say that there were two, and only two, alternatives: the free play of forces that meant war; and settlement by reason. The world had had experience of the first: was it able to prefer the second?"

"He [Hitler] then asked me what other problems there were between us... I replied that British opinion would be glad to know what might be his present attitude to the League of Nations and to Disarmament. There were no doubt other questions arising out of the Versailles settlement which were capable of causing trouble if they were unwisely handled:—Danzig, Austria, Czechoslovakia. On all these matters we were not necessarily concerned to stand for the status quo as of to-day, but we were very much concerned to secure the avoidance of such treatment of them as would be likely to cause trouble. If reasonable settlement could be reached with the free assent of those primarily concerned, we certainly had no desire to block them."

"Hitler was on the whole quiet and restrained, except now and again when he got excited; over Russia or the Press. I can quite see why he is a popular speaker; very much alive, eyes, which I was surprised were blue, moving about all the time, points in the argument reinforced by sharp gestures of the hands. And the play of emotion—sardonic humour, scorn, something almost wistful—is rapid."

"One had a feeling all the time that we had a totally different set of values and were speaking in a different language. It was not only the difference between a totalitarian and democratic state. He gave me the impression of feeling that, whilst he had attained power only after a hard struggle with present-day realities, the British Government was still living comfortably in a world of its own making, a fairy-land of strange, if respectable, illusions. It clung to shibboleths—‘collective security,’ ‘general settlement,’ ‘disarmament,’ ‘non-aggression pacts’—which offered no practical prospect of a solution of Europe's difficulties. He regards the whole conception embodied in a League of States equal in their rights of sovereignty as unreal, based on no foundation of fact; and consequently does not believe that discussions between large numbers of nations, with varying interests and of quite unequal value, can lead anywhere. Hence his preference for dealing with particular problems in isolation. With this goes the distrust of the democratic method, to him inefficient, blundering, paralysed by its love of talk, and totally unsuited to the rough world, constantly changing, in which we had to live."

"Nothing was more likely to aggravate the difficulties of the present situation than any suggestions that our ultimate objective was to unite France, Italy and ourselves against Germany."

"[W]e are all alike determined to throw all our weight on the side of securing world peace through respect for law based on just settlements. We have no use for a world society in which law would be expected to be the obedient handmaid of lawless force; and we are all resolved to preserve British rights and liberties against attack, from whatever quarter within or without the State these may come."

"[A] great mistake would be made abroad if it was ever thought that our domestic controversies upon the day-to-day conduct of foreign policy would in the least degree affect the primary instinct of our people to stand solidly together in any real emergency. Both our history and our character had given us a sense of community which, while enabling us to face facts and make peaceful changes, protected us from being revolutionary."

"Herr Hitler was possibly or even probably mad."

"[O]ne of the principal lessons of these events is that the diplomacy of any nation can only be commensurate with its strength, and that if we desire this country to exercise its full influence in world affairs, the first thing that we have to do is to ensure that it is in all ways fully and rapidly equipped to do so."

"In a time of crisis, with grave questions demanding urgent answer at every moment, no body of men would dare claim to be judged infallible. There was indeed no clear way, but almost always a hideous choice of evils. I can only know, for myself, that my mind will be at rest for having taken no decision inconsistent with what on all the facts I felt right."

"A year ago we had undertaken no specific commitments on the Continent of Europe, beyond those which had then existed. ... To-day we are bound by new agreements for mutual defence with Poland and Turkey; we have guaranteed assistance to Greece and Rumania against aggression. ... We know that, if the security and independence of other countries are to disappear, our own security and our own independence will be gravely threatened. We know that if international law and order is to be preserved, we must be prepared to fight in its defence."

"What is also now fully and universally accepted in this country, but what may not even yet be as well understood elsewhere, is that, in the event of further aggression, we are resolved to use at once the whole of our strength in fulfilment of our pledges to resist it."

"At this moment the doctrine of force bars the way to settlement and fills the world with envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. But if the doctrine of force were once abandoned, so that the fear of war that stalks the world was lifted, all outstanding questions would become easier to solve."

"The threat of military force is holding the world to ransom, and our immediate task is...to resist aggression."

"The racial doctrine, as interpreted in the Nazi creed, may be, and in my view is, sheer primitive nonsense; and we are no more prepared to admit German superiority of race than we are concerned to assert our own. ... when this doctrine is invoked in justification of the oppression of other races it becomes a crime against humanity."

"Not only does it deny the corporate claim to liberty of men and women organized in national societies, but it refuses the much more fundamental claim of men and women to the free expression of human personality, which rests upon the eternal value of every human soul. True pride of race may be tested by the behaviour of its possessors towards their own fellow citizens and towards others. It will forbid conduct to individuals of which they should be ashamed in their private lives. It is thus evidently something far removed from the ideal of a race which by the German philosophy of to-day is called to stamp out the civilization of another. Between these two conceptions there is a great gulf fixed. ... Until these false creeds are abjured, and replaced by a wider toleration, they must continue to excite resistance. The future of humanity must not be left in the hands of those who would imprison and enslave it."

"[T]he broad record of the British race stands to be judged on facts that are incontestable. It is the fact that during the nineteenth century, when the power of this country was unchallenged, there was no nation in Europe that felt for that reason insecure, or that did not recognize our power to be an instrument of peace. The Pax Britannica has been no empty or self-righteous boast of purpose. It is the fact too that in every corner of the world where men of British race have established influence, there by immutable law of nature you find established the seed and plant of liberty. It is the trail by which is marked their progress, interpreted to all by the standards of good faith, respect for law, and equal justice. Most truly, therefore, of our people was it said: “Their country's cause is the high cause of freedom and honour. That fairest earthly fame, the fame of freedom, is inseparable from the names of Albion, Britain, England.”"

"My message to you to-day...is to be so proud of the race to which you belong that you will be as jealous of its honour as you are of its safety, and that you will fight for both with equal determination. The struggle will be arduous, it may be long, and it will certainly demand of our nation that it should withhold nothing that may contribute to our strength."

"[W]e had to face the fact that it was not so much now a question of imposing a complete defeat on Germany but of safeguarding the independence of our own Empire and if possible that of France."

"[I]f he Mussolini] would use his influence [on Hitler] to get reasonable terms which did not menace our independence and offered a prospect of a just and durable settlement of Europe we would try and meet his own claims. ... If the terms were impossible we could always reject them."

"[I]f we got to the point of discussing the terms of a general settlement and found that we could obtain terms which did not postulate the destruction of our independence, we should be foolish if we did not accept them."

"Churchill's plan] meant that the future of the country turned on whether the enemy's bombs happened to hit our aircraft factories. ... he was prepared to take that risk if our independence was at stake; but if it was not at stake he would think it right to accept an offer which would save the country from avoidable disaster."

"[W]e should be prepared to say that we were prepared to fight to the death for our independence, but that, provided this could be secured, there were certain concessions that we were prepared to make to Italy."

"If only we could find out for certain where Hitler and Mussolini are meeting tomorrow, and get one well-placed bomb, then the world might really take on a different appearance."

"Bad faith, cruelty, crime become right by the fact that it is he, Hitler, who ordains them. That is the fundamental challenge of anti-Christ; which it is our duty as Christians to fight with all our power. The peoples of the British Commonwealth, along with all those who love truth and justice and freedom, will never accept this new world of Hitler's. Free men, not slaves; free nations, not German vassals; a community of nations, freely cooperating for the good of all—these are the pillars of the new and better order that the British people wish to see."

"Hitler may plant the swastika where he will, but unless he can sap the strength of Britain the foundations of his Empire are built on sand. In their hearts the peoples that he has beaten down curse him and pray that his attacks may be broken on the defences of our island fortress. They long for the day when we shall sally forth and return blow for blow. We shall assuredly not disappoint them. Then will come the day of final reckoning when Hitler's mad plans for Europe will be shattered by the unconquerable passion of man for freedom."

"As we begin to look beyond the war to the re-ordering of the world which must follow, we see three great Powers, the United States, Russia, and China. ... In the company of these Titans Britain, apart from the rest of the Commonwealth and Empire, could hardly claim equal partnership. ... If, in the future, Britain is to play her part without assuming burdens greater than she can support she must have with her in peace the same strength that has sustained her in this war. Not Great Britain only, but the British Commonwealth and Empire must be the fourth Power in that group upon which, under Providence, the peace of the world will henceforth depend."

"The advent of Hitler to power in 1933 had coincided with a high tide of wholly irrational pacifist sentiment in Britain, which caused profound damage both at home and abroad. At home it immensely aggravated the difficulty, great in any case it was bound to be, of bringing the British people to appreciate and face up to the new situation which Hitler was creating: abroad it doubtless served to tempt him and others to suppose that in shaping their policies this country need not be too seriously regarded."

"One such interlude early in June 1940 is for ever graven into my memory. It was just after the fall of France, an event which at the time it happened seemed something unbelievable as to be almost surely unreal, and if not unreal then quite immeasurably catastrophic. Dorothy and I had spent a lovely summer evening walking over the Wolds, and on our way home sat in the sun for half an hour at a point looking across the plain of York. All the landscape of the nearer foreground was familiar—its sights, its sounds, its smells; hardly a field that did not call up some half-forgotten bit of association; the red-roofed village and nearby hamlets, gathered as it were for company round the old greystone church, where men and women like ourselves, now long dead and gone, had once knelt in worship and prayer. Here in Yorkshire was a true fragment of the undying England, like the White Cliffs of Dover, or any other part of our land that Englishmen have loved. Then the question came, is it possible that the Prussian jackboot will force its way into this countryside to tread and trample over it at will? The very thought seemed an insult and an outrage; much as if anyone were to be condemned to watch his mother, wife or daughter being raped."

"Common sense and not bravado would dictate the British Government's policy."

"[I]f ever the day comes when the party which I lead ceases to attract to itself men of the calibre of Edward Wood, then I have finished with my party."

"The Viceroy [Halifax] is an earnest and an honest fellow—not quite stupid, but inexperienced in worldly affairs. He is a typical example of a "safeguarded" member of the Conservative party. He was brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he has led a sheltered life. Bad speeches by him are praised as masterpieces of oratory; good speeches are looked upon as unprecedented in history. The Viceroy was continually spoken of during his House of Commons career as of Prime Ministerial timber. But he has never had to face the realities of the world. Honourable and trustworthy, his word can be relied upon, and his promises are always performed."

"I do not doubt that his viceroyalty was the greatest episode in a varied and distinguished career, and that the comprehending and enlightened policy he pursued, culminating in his Pact with Gandhi, was both realistic and right."

"In June [1931] I attended a meeting in the House of Commons of the India Committee, normally composed of those Conservative back-benchers with a special interest in Indian affairs. It was a sign of the times that most of the party had turned up. Irwin, gaunt and sombre, was flanked by Winterton, Lloyd and Churchill. His replies to their questions were agile and tinged with irony. But his speech, apparently unprepared and certainly unpolished, seemed disappointing, even disillusioning. He asked us to keep the account private, for fear of embarrassing Lord Willingdon, who was to be his successor as Viceroy. Despite this, the Daily Telegraph came out next morning with striking headlines. The speech in its entirety had, however, been even more striking. It began with references to the growth of nationalism and to the fact, as he put it, that owing to the Russo-Japanese war and the looseness of Western women as depicted in films, our prestige in the East was gone. An incredulous gasp greeted this sacrilege."

"On 16th March, 1939, the day after Czechoslovakia fell to pieces and Hitler occupied Prague, I lunched at No. 10 with Neville Chamberlain and Edward Halifax. The Prime Minister said with resignation, but with our solemn approval, "I have decided that I cannot trust the Nazi leaders again." Next day he made a speech to the Birmingham Unionist Association which I described to his P.P.S., Alec Douglas-Home, as being more like an oration by the younger Pitt. Halifax said later that it was he who had insisted on the need for this fighting speech as the prelude to a revolution in foreign policy. I am sure that this was true."

"I reflected on Halifax's extraordinary character; his high principles, his engaging charm and grand manner – his power to frighten people into fits – me sometimes – his snobbishness – his eel-like qualities and, above all, his sublime treachery which is never deliberate, and, always to him, a necessity dictated by a situation. Means are nothing to him, only ends. He is insinuating, but unlovable."

"Edward [Halifax] seemed to suggest that Winston was a handicap to the Conservative Party. At last I turned on him. "I don't know what you are getting at," I said rather hotly. "If the country had depended on you we might have lost the war." Edward was furious and demanded an apology. Later he talked to Winston, saying I ought to apologize. Winston replied he hoped I'd do nothing of the sort. You see, Charles, Edward Halifax has been spoilt. Baldwin was largely responsible."

"Halifax's virtues have done more harm in the world than the vices of hundreds of other people. And yet when I meet him, I can't help having friendly talk."

"To history, until yesterday, Halifax was the arch-appeaser. This, it is now recognised, was a mistake. His rôle, however, was complicated. In these pages he is not the man who stopped the rot, but the embodiment of Conservative wisdom who decided that Hitler must be obstructed because Labour could not otherwise be resisted."

"In the course of the great Viceroy's interview, he was told by Hitler that the proper way to deal with unrest in India was to shoot first Gandhi and then the leaders of the Congress. Halifax's sweet and Christian nature must have recoiled from this sort of barbarism; but he was too courteous to show his disgust. Unhappily, in the course of this long discussion, he did not reject with sufficient force Hitler's new thesis. This was that changes of territory and shifts of power in a changing world could come about only by one of two methods—either by war or by what he called the "higher reason"... Halifax should have rejected this argument with vigour. On the contrary, he referred to possible modifications which might come in due course over Danzig, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. All that England was interested in was to see that these changes should come about by peaceful evolution. This doctrine of peaceful evolution seemed dangerously near that of the higher reason. The Halifax visit did no good, and a great deal of potential harm."

"Edward Halifax was a man of extraordinary charm, strong religious convictions, and long experience of public affairs... [N]either Halifax nor Chamberlain had any real experience or knowledge of foreign affairs. If Chamberlain approached them from a somewhat provincial point of view and believed almost to the end in the possibility of a "business deal" with Hitler and Ribbentrop, Halifax, as a great gentleman and aristocrat, found it quite impossible to understand the minds of such men. He could hardly bring himself to accept that statesmen who were in charge of a great country could be so absolutely devoid of any sense of truth or honour."

"These men are not made of the same stuff as the Francis Drakes and the other magnificent adventurers who created the empire. These, after all, are the tired sons of a long line of rich men, and they will lose their empire."

"Chamberlain entered 10 Downing Street determined to reshape British foreign policy in order to confront the mounting threats to European peace. In January 1938 he managed to move Sir Robert Vansittart, the fiercely anti-Hitler permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, into a high-sounding but innocuous post as the government’s chief diplomatic advisor. Chamberlain replaced him with the more pliant Sir Alexander Cadogan. The following month, Chamberlain’s highly strung foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, resigned in irritation at the prime minister’s personal diplomacy. His successor was Lord Halifax, a tall, lugubrious Tory peer, whose basic instinct—whether as Viceroy of India dealing with Gandhi or as foreign secretary facing the dictators— was to seek a peaceful compromise. Chamberlain would later discover that Halifax had a will of his own, but initially they formed an effective team. “I give thanks for a steady unruffled Foreign Secretary who never causes me any worry,” the prime minister wrote privately that spring. After securing a rapprochement with Italy in April 1938, Chamberlain hoped to move on to an agreement with Germany, trading territorial concessions in Europe and colonial Africa for firm restrictions on the growth of German military power. This was all part of what he and his colleagues called the “appeasement” or pacification of Europe. And after the war scare of May 1938, it was clear that the Sudeten problem had to be resolved before further progress could be made. Accordingly the British government emerged from France’s shadow as would-be mediator."

"It is also clear that, left to themselves, Chamberlain’s political colleagues would eventually have undermined his summitry. To bypass Cabinet critics he moved key discussions into an inner circle, and his dramatic flight to Berchtesgaden silenced the skeptics. But his weakness there as a negotiator—conceding Sudeten secession on the spot—disconcerted many in the Cabinet. Even his inner circle warned that the next meeting must involve concessions by Hitler as well and they kept him under pressure throughout the Godesberg meeting. The revolt led by Halifax after Chamberlain returned is not surprising when one remembers that, as early as September 4, the foreign secretary had been inclined to issue a warning to Hitler. What does remain puzzling is Halifax’s failure to keep reasserting himself during the rest of the crisis. Having seen what happened when he was twice excluded from summitry, he might have been expected to claim a seat on the plane to Munich. But perhaps the euphoria in the Commons on September 28 carried all before it, catapulting Chamberlain back to the dominant position he enjoyed on the eve of Berchtesgaden."

"Lord Halifax in his personal qualities more closely resembles Sir Edward Grey than any of his predecessors as Foreign Secretary. Like him he is impressive in presence and manner; universally respected, even reverenced; and he has a deep and sincere ethical and religious foundation for his character. Like him, too, he is quite obviously in politics under the impulse of a sense of duty and not of personal ambition; he would sooner live the life of a country gentleman. In India he showed an insight into the aspirations of another race and constructive qualities of a rare order; and in his relations with Mr. Gandhi he was able to find in a similarity of religious temper a bridge for the wide gulf between different civilisations and creeds... Those who hesitate about his suitability for the office of Prime Minister at a time like the present do so because they doubt whether his personal force is sufficient, whether he has a tough enough fibre in his will. The general force of his personality is less than that of Grey, and while he shares all the same personal qualities they are most of them on a somewhat lesser scale; and for a particular objective he has a less concentrated strength than Mr. Chamberlain. Partly, however, for this very reason he is less compromised by his association with Mr. Chamberlain's earlier policy and less handicapped in any attempt to secure the co-operation of the Left."

"The photographs in this book suggest that if Halifax had not been a great nobleman, he would have made an excellent butler. As indeed he did. Halifax was the Jeeves of the British Empire. Though he often opened the door on ill-tidings, he remained himself unruffled. He never doubted his own superior wisdom."

"Irwin was a friend of many years' standing whose serene career I had always admired. His striking personality, easy and distinguished manners, human and humane outlook on life, had, since his Oxford days, marked him out for great positions. Essentially a peacemaker, it was his mission as Viceroy to humanise the Government of India after Reading's chapter of rigid ceremony and cautious legalism. It was typical of him that almost his first word to his military secretary had been "we are in India to keep our tempers.""

"Irwin possessed the qualities that were needed for a reconciliator. Alone of the Viceroys who had dealings with Gandhi, he saw the springs that gave the Mahatma his astounding power."

"Halifax was Eden's obvious successor [as Foreign Secretary]. Universally respected, and possessing many of the qualities that had established the reputation of his ancestor, Lord Grey, and his kinsman, Sir Edward Grey, he was pre-eminent among the Conservative Ministers for character and judgment. In India he had shown his wisdom in reconciling bitter differences. Communal troubles had become less acute under his mediating influence, Gandhi had become his personal friend. Might he not have the same success in Europe that he had won in Asia? In any case, his qualities were exactly those that Chamberlain needed for his considered and concentrated programme of appeasement."

"I seek a form that my style cannot discover, a bud of thought that wants to be a rose."

"Dichoso el árbol, que es apenas sensitivo, y más la piedra dura porque esa ya no siente, pues no hay dolor más grande que el dolor de ser vivo, ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente."

"The America of Moctezuma and Atahualpa, the aromatic America of Columbus, Catholic America, Spanish America, the America where noble Cuauhtémoc said: "I am not on a bed of roses" —our America, trembling with hurricanes, trembling with Love: O men with Saxon eyes and barbarous souls, our America lives. And dreams. And loves. And it is the daughter of the Sun. Be careful."

"The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient; the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing: there is no pain as great as being alive, no burden heavier than that of conscious life."

"Pity for him who one day looks upon his inward sphinx and questions it. He is lost."

"From before I knew how to read, my parents had me memorize poems by Ruben Dario, the great Nicaraguan poet who founded the modernist movement that transformed the Spanish language and whose work I recited with pleasure to whoever was naïve enough to ask me to do so. The rhythm of Dario’s poems fascinated me. Often—and even alone—I would recite his work out loud. Understanding the meaning of his verse didn’t matter, for the music of his poems was the most important thing. It was like the voice of the wind, the pounding of rain on windows, or the eternal roar of the ocean waves."

"In Spanish, we have a tradition of open-ended, poetic stories. It's a very popular genre. Bequer, Lorca, Dario all wrote in this way. There are lots of writers who never wrote stories that had the knot-and-ending style. And they are considered great writers; they give a lot of pleasure."

"In Nicaraguan history, the great modernist poet Rubén Darío is a strong figure, not just for literary people but for workers and farmers who possess a relatively low educational level. Attempting to trace the importance of poetry in the lives of Nicaraguans, one logically goes back to Darío...Most of those interviewed here speak of their links to Darío. His work is at the very roots of poetic experience in the country in much the same way that Whitman's Leaves of Grass shaped poetry in the United States."

"Rubén Darío, our national poet and cultural hero"

"Liberty is the power that we have over ourselves."

"Even God cannot make two times two not make four."

"Not to know certain things is a great part of wisdom."

"So is there no kind of life more wicked than that of mercenary Souldiers, who without any respect had to the equity of the Cause, fight only for plunder and pay."

"The ideal of reason that had emerged in the modern world with Grotius and Descartes found one of its first typical expressions in Spinoza."

"Europe was some time ago divided into two, I will not say hostile, but certainly not friendly, camps—the Triple Alliance and the Dual Alliance. There has been a tendency to obliteration of the hard-and-fast lines between those two camps... There has been a tendency to more direct inter-communication, more direct settlement; and this has been more favourable to a frank adjustment of the relations between these Powers; and we in our turn have now taken part in making a sort of arrangement with a view to creating greater frankness and friendliness between ourselves and France. It would not have been possible to establish this Agreement between ourselves and France some years ago, because the atmosphere... between ourselves and France may be said to have been of the glacial epoch. It has happily now changed to a genial epoch."

"I welcome the Agreement, and I hope...the Government will lose no opportunity of making it a working model for other cases where it is possible to do so. I welcome this Agreement because I believe not only will it be a working model for other cases, but because it has in it great possibilities for keeping us in contact with France, with a growth of friendly relations to the advantage of both countries, and the many points of contact in various parts of the world will not, as in the past, be occasion for dispute and debate, but will be so many opportunities for the interchange of international courtesies."

"They all knew what Anti-Semitic feeling was, and what it gave rise to. But there was another view of the Jewish race, that of millions of persecuted people who had been, through generation after generation, scattered without homes and without hope; and he said frankly that if it was the intention to attempt to provide a refuge and a home for people of that description in the British dominions it would have his entire sympathy."

"If, when the time comes, the United States proposes the reduction or limitation of Armaments as a subject for consideration, I am sure that our delegates will be instructed cordially to support the proposal. And the initiative of the United States in this matter would be very welcome to us."

"Now, a word as to our policy. It is not anti-German. But it must be independent of Germany. We wish to keep and strengthen the Entente with France... [T]he Entente with France means good and easy relations for both of us with Italy and Spain. This means that peace and quietness are assured among the four Western Powers of Europe. To complete this foundation, we wish to make an arrangement with Russia, that will remove the old traditions of enmity, and ensure that, if we are not close friends, at any rate we do not quarrel. If all this can be done, we shall take care that it is not used to provoke Germany, or to score off her, if she will only accept it, and not try to make mischief."

"If, on the other hand, by some misfortune or blunder our Entente with France were to be broken up, France will have to make her own terms with Germany. And Germany will again be in a position to keep us on bad terms with Germany and Russia, and to make herself predominant upon the Continent. Then, sooner or later, there will be war between us and Germany, in which much else may be involved."

"My own personal feeling is that we are justified in any measures which will result in taking the Congo out of the hands of the King. He has forfeited every claim to it he ever had; and to take the Congo away from him without compensation would be less than justice, for it would leave him still with all the gains he has made by his monstrous system."

"[T]here is no comparison between the importance of the German Navy to Germany, and the importance of our Navy to us. Our Navy to us is what their Army is to them. To have a strong Navy would increase their prestige, their diplomatic influence, their power of protecting their commerce; but as regards us—it is not a matter of life and death to them that it is to us."

"The great countries of Europe are raising enormous revenues, and something like half of them is being spent on naval and military preparations. You may call it national insurance, that is perfectly true, but it is equally true that half the national revenue of the great countries in Europe is being spent on what is, after all, preparations to kill each other. Surely the extent to which this expenditure has grown really becomes a satire, and a reflection on civilisation. Not in our generation, perhaps, but if it goes on at the rate at which it has recently increased, sooner or later I believe it will submerge that civilisation. The burden already has shown itself in national credit—less in our national credit than in the national credit of other nations—but sooner or later, if it goes on at this rate, it must lead to national bankruptcy."

"If we alone, among the great Powers, gave up the competition and sank into a position of inferiority, what good should we do? None whatever—no good to ourselves because we cannot realise great ideals of social reform at home when we are holding our existence at the mercy, the caprice if you like, of another nation. That is not feasible. If we fall into a position of inferiority our self-respect is gone, and it removes that enterprise which is essential both to the material success of industry and to the carrying out of great ideals, and you fall into a state of apathy. We should cease to count for anything amongst the nations of Europe, and we should be fortunate if our liberty was left, and we did not become the conscript appendage of some stronger Power. That is a brutal way of stating the case, but it is the truth."

"[T]he real root of Liberalism is fairness."

"Mr. Lloyd George is a colleague with whom I have always been on the best of terms personally, and the Budget raises the money required in a way which presses much less, I believe, upon the poorer classes than any alternative that could be devised."

"I should advocate a much larger scheme and propose to abolish altogether the political privilege of Peers, and substitute for the House of Lords a new Second Chamber, much smaller in size than the House of Commons, based upon the elective principle, with if desired a minority of distinguished life-members."

"The strength of the House of Commons is dissipated, its time consumed, and its dignity and reputation are threatened by the attempt to manage in one Assembly the purely local interests of different parts of the United Kingdom. Without some large measure of Devolution in the United Kingdom the House of Commons cannot attend to Imperial affairs and matters which concern the country as a whole."

"Reform of the House of Lords is necessary to give us a Second Chamber in sympathy with the movements of public opinion, and emancipated from class feeling. Some machinery is necessary to make the deliberate and considered opinion of a substantial majority of the elected House of Commons prevail over the House of Lords in the event of a deadlock between them."

"[T]he real decision of the electors must be taken now, as always, on large principles and broad lines. Their real choice lies between those who are for the House of Lords and those who are for the House of Commons. I am frankly on the side of the House of Commons. A majority for the House of Lords means also a majority for Tariff Reform. I am for Free Trade as well as for a free Constitution, and for these I ask your support."

"[O]ne or two others, and certainly the Australians, require a good deal of education. They must realise that, if we denounce the Japanese Alliance, we can no longer rely on the assistance of the Japanese Fleet, and we must prepare for the possibility that Japan may enter into arrangements which may bring her into hostility with us. This would mean maintaining on the China Station a Fleet superior not only to the Japanese Fleet, but also to any probable combination of the Japanese Fleet with any other Fleet in those waters. This would, of course, be in addition to maintaining the two-Power standard in European waters, both in home waters and in the Mediterranean. The logical conclusion of denouncing the Japanese Alliance would be that Australia and New Zealand should undertake the burden of naval supremacy in China seas. This they are neither willing nor able to do."

"The example would spread, and I am not without hope that one or more great European Powers would eventually make a similar agreement with us and the United States. The effect of such agreements on disarmament and the morale of international politics would be considerable."

"[W]hat really determines the Foreign Policy of this country is the question of sea power. It is the Naval question which underlies the whole of our European Foreign Policy."

"There is no danger, no appreciable danger, of our being involved in any considerable trouble in Europe, unless there is some Power, or group of Powers, in Europe which has the ambition of achieving what I would call the Napoleonic policy. That would be a policy on the part of the strongest Power in Europe, or of the strongest group of Powers in Europe, of first of all separating the other Powers outside their own group from each other, taking them in detail, crushing them singly if need be, and forcing each into the orbit of the policy of the strongest Power, or of the strongest group of Powers... I do feel this very strongly, that...if while that process was going on we were appealed to for help and sat by and looked on and did nothing, then people ought to realise that the result would be one great combination in Europe, outside which we should be left without a friend. If that was the result, then the naval situation would be this, that if we meant to keep the command of the sea we should have to estimate as a probable combination against us of fleets in Europe not two Powers but five Powers."

"[O]ur friendship with France and Russia is in itself a guarantee that neither of them will pursue a provocative or aggressive policy towards Germany, who is their neighbour and ours. Any support we would give France and Russia in times of trouble would depend entirely on the feeling of Parliament and public feeling here when the trouble came, and both France and Russia know perfectly well that British public opinion would not give support to provocative or aggressive action against Germany."

"There is no question of England aiming at the hegemony of the world. Her Army is far too small for any such ambition. All we desire is to be able to live on equal terms. But when we see Germany, having created already the largest Army in the world, proceeding apparently towards the creation of the largest Fleet also, we are naturally anxious as to whether it is equal terms or hegemony that Germany wants."

"Had it not been for the Anglo-Russian agreement the Russians would either have interfered to keep the Shah on the throne or their troops would have been in Tehran long before this."

"England will make no unprovoked attack upon Germany and pursue no aggressive policy towards her. Aggression upon Germany is not the subject, and forms no part, of any Treaty understanding or combination to which England is now a party, nor will she become a party to anything that has such an object."

"This coal strike is the beginning of a revolution. We shall, I suppose, make it an orderly and gradual revolution, but labour intends to have a larger share and has laid hold of power. Power has passed from the King to the nobles, from the nobles to the middle classes and through them to the House of Commons, and now it is passing from the House of Commons to the Trades Unions. It will have to be recognised that the millions of men employed in great industries have a stake in those industries and must share in the control of them. The days when the owners said "this industry is mine; I alone must control it and be master in my own house" are passing away... I do think the good temper and spirit of compromise that is inherent in English character will save us from catastrophe."

"If there is one thing more than another that I have striven to secure during the last seven years it is that we should not incur any increase of Imperial liabilities."

"As to the Navy, we must keep ahead of the German Navy... If our Fleet was not superior to the German Fleet, our very independence would depend on Germany’s goodwill; and even granting that people like Jagow would not take advantage of such a situation, there must be others who would take advantage of it, or be compelled by public opinion in Germany to do so. The Prussian mentality is such that to be on really good terms with it one must be able to deal with it as an equal."

"I am inwardly boiling with indignation at this stupid prejudiced attempt to dictate policy to us and break us, for that is what it is really; and if it goes on I shall be for taking the hottest election, upon who is to govern the country, that has ever been in our time."

"I hate war, I hate war."

"The British, French, and Russian Governments mutually engage not to conclude peace separately during the present war. The three Governments agree that when terms of peace come to be discussed no one of the Allies will demand terms of peace without the previous agreement of each of the other Allies."

"In all the talk of who was responsible for the war, don't forget that Germany, who ostensibly went to war with Russia only because she was Austria's ally, was as a matter of fact at war with Russia on August 1, when Austria was still discussing with Russia in a friendly way. It was not till 5 days later that Russia and Austria were at war, and had they been left alone there would have been no war."

"Have you read Bernhardi's and Treitschke's books? I really knew nothing of them before the war, but they reveal a deliberate purpose and an animosity that are appalling. Every ideal except that of force is abolished: and truth, honour, kindliness, uprightness are all to go by the board in the interest of Germany and force. War is deliberately to be made horrible and terrible, that people may fear to resist German domination... It would be better that we should all perish than fall under the domination of the Junker spirit and people."

"I feel that the continuance of the independence and integrity of the Netherlands depends upon our success in this war... If Germany were to win in this war, she would doubtless retain Belgium, or at least Antwerp, and Dutch independence would be a thing of the past: it never could emerge from the German shadow, and would soon be absorbed. Our victory, on the other hand, would assure not only Dutch integrity, but Dutch independence and freedom."

"What Herr Ballin said was, apparently, that I was indirectly responsible for the war, because I had not pledged this country definitely either to support France and Russia, or not to support them. In the former event, Austria would have given way; in the latter, France and Russia would have given way. This was not true; but what it suggested to me was how far Herr Ballin was from understanding what democratic government meant. The idea that one individual, sitting in a room in the Foreign Office, could pledge a great democracy definitely by his word, in advance, either to take part in a great war or to abstain from taking part in it, is absurd."

"The war would have been avoided if a Conference had been agreed to. Germany on the flimsiest pretext shut the door against it. I would wreck nothing on a point of form, and expressed myself ready to acquiesce in any method of mediation that Germany could suggest if mine was not acceptable. Mediation, I said, was ready to come into operation by any method that Germany thought possible, if only Germany would press the button in the interests of peace."

"It has become only too apparent that in the proposal of a conference which we made, which Russia, France, and Italy agreed to, and which Germany vetoed, lay the only hope of peace. And it was such a good hope! Serbia had accepted nearly all of the Austrian ultimatum, severe and violent as it was. The points outstanding could have been settled honourably and fairly in a conference in a week. Germany ought to have known, and must have known, that we should take the same straight and honourable part in it that she herself recognised we had taken in the Balkan Conference, working not for diplomatic victory of a group but for fair settlement, and ready to side against any attempt to exploit the Conference unfairly to the disadvantage of Germany or Austria. The refusal of a Conference by Germany, though it did not decide British participation in the war, did in fact decide the question of peace or war for Europe, and sign the death warrant of the many hundreds of thousands who have been killed in this war."

"And what is the German programme as we gather it from the speech of the Chancellor and public utterances in Germany now? Germany to control the destiny of all other nations; to be "the shield of peace and freedom of big and small nations," those are the Chancellor's words; an iron peace and a freedom under a Prussian shield and under German supremacy. Germany supreme, Germany alone would be free: free to break international treaties; free to crush when it pleased her; free to refuse all mediation; free to go to war when it suited her; free, when she did go to war, to break again all rules of civilisation and humanity on land and at sea... Germany is to be supreme. The freedom of other nations is to be that which Germany metes out to them. Such is apparently the conclusion to be drawn from the German Chancellor's speech."

"[A]nd to this the German Minister of Finance adds that the heavy burden of thousands of millions must be borne through decades, not by Germany, but by those whom she is pleased to call the instigators of the war. In other words, for decades to come Germany claims that whole nations who have resisted her should labour to pay her tribute in the form of war indemnities. Not on such terms can peace be concluded or the life of other nations than Germany be free, or even tolerable. The speeches of the German Chancellor and Finance Minister make it appear that Germany is fighting for supremacy and tribute. If that is so, and as long as it is so, our allies and we are fighting, and must fight, for the right to live, not under German supremacy, but in real freedom and safety."

"With regard to that portion of the petition which asks that special precautions may be taken to prevent danger to the lives of the "Golocanda" passengers by submarine attack, I feel bound to express my astonishment that the Austro-Hungarian Government, themselves one of the authors of the danger, should have thought it seemly to endorse this request. Not content, however, with doing this, the Austro-Hungarian Government further state that they will hold His Majesty's Government responsible for the lives and well-being of those passengers, "the majority of whom are better-class people." I am at a loss to know why "better-class people" should be thought more entitled to protection from submarine attack than any other non-combatants, but, however that may be, the only danger of the character indicated which threatens any of the passengers on the Golonda is one for which the Austro-Hungarian and German Governments are alone responsible. It is they and they only who have instituted and carry on a novel and inhuman form of warfare, which disregards all the hitherto accepted principles of international law, and necessarily endangers the lives of non-combatants."

"I see Jagow says I could have prevented the war, but the German veto on a Conference struck out of my hand the only effective instrument I could use for peace... Bethmann-Hollweg's objection to a Conference was absolute; and after he had refused and Russia had accepted a Conference I could not protest against Russian preparation for the event of war, especially as the German preparations were far ahead of the Russian, and I could not promise the armed support of this country to Russia. Von Jagow says Germany could not have accepted a Conference as she would have lost prestige, but he admits she lost no prestige in the London Conference of 1912-3, and the precedent of that was a guarantee that there would have been neither diplomatic defeat nor victory for anyone, but a fair conduct of another Conference composed of the same persons and conducted in the same way. And as Serbia had submitted to about nine-tenths of the Austrian Ultimatum there could have been no loss of prestige in submitting the one or two points outstanding to a fair Conference."

"I never had any qualm of conscience as to my motives and intentions before the war. I used to torture myself by questioning whether by more foresight or wisdom I could have prevented the war, but I have come to think that no human individual could have prevented it. Nothing could have prevented it except a change of the Prussian nature."

"Last week I stated that we were working for peace not only for this country, but to preserve the peace of Europe. Today events move so rapidly that it is exceedingly difficult to state with technical accuracy the actual state of affairs, but it is clear that the peace of Europe cannot be preserved. Russia and Germany, at any rate, have declared war upon each other."

"First of all, let me say, very shortly, that we have consistently worked with a single mind, with all the earnestness in our power, to preserve peace. The House may be satisfied on that point. We have always done it."

"In the present crisis it has not been possible to secure the peace of Europe: because there has been little time, and there has been a disposition—at any rate in some quarters on which I will not dwell—to force things rapidly to an issue, at any rate to the great risk of peace, and, as we now know, the result of that is that the policy of peace as far as the great powers generally are concerned is in danger. I do not want to dwell on that, and to comment on it, and to say where the blame seems to us lie, which powers were most in favor of peace, which were most disposed to risk war or endanger peace, because I would like the House to approach this crisis in which we are now from the point of view of British interests, British honor, and British obligations, free from all passion as to why peace has not yet been preserved."

"For many years we have had a long-standing friendship with France. I remember well the feeling in the House and my own feeling—for I spoke on the subject, I think, when the late Government made their agreement with France—the warm and cordial feeling resulting from the fact that these two nations, who had had perpetual differences in the past, had cleared these differences away; I remember saying, I think, that it seemed to me that some benign influence had been at work to produce the cordial atmosphere that had made that possible. But how far that friendship entails obligation—it has been a friendship between the nations and ratified by the nations—how far that entails an obligation, let every man look into his own heart, and his own feelings, and construe the extent of the obligation for himself."

"The French fleet is now in the Mediterranean, and the northern and western coasts of France are absolutely undefended. The French fleet is being concentrated in the Mediterranean, the situation is very different from what it used to be, because the friendship which has grown up between the two countries has given them a sense of security that there was nothing to be feared from us. My own feeling is that if a foreign fleet, engaged in a war which France had not sought, and in which she had not been the aggressor, came down the English Channel and bombarded and battered the undefended coasts of France, we could not stand aside and see this going on practically within sight of our eyes, with our arms folded, looking on dispassionately, doing nothing. I believe that would be the feeling of this country."

"We are in the presence of a European conflagration; can anybody set limits to the consequences that may arise out of it? Let us assume today we stand aside in an attitude of neutrality, saying ‘No, we cannot undertake and engage to help either party in this conflict.’ Let us suppose the French fleet is withdrawn from the Mediterranean; and let us assume that the consequences—which are already tremendous in what has happened in Europe even to countries which are at peace—in fact, equally whether countries are at peace or at war—let us assume that out of that come consequences unforeseen, which make it necessary at a sudden moment that, in defense of vital British interests, we shall go to war; and let us assume which is quite possible—that Italy, who is no neutral—because, as I understand, she considers that this war is an aggressive war, and that the Triple Alliance being a defensive alliance her obligation did not arise—let us assume that consequences which are not yet foreseen and which, perfectly legitimately consulting her own interests, make Italy depart from her attitude of neutrality at a time when we are forced in defense of vital British interest ourselves to fight—what then will be the position of the Mediterranean? It might be that at some crucial moment those consequences would be forced upon us because our trade routes in the Mediterranean might be vital to this country."

"Diplomatic intervention took place last week on our part. What can diplomatic intervention do now? We have great and vital interests in the independence—and integrity is the least part—of Belgium. If Belgium is compelled to submit to allow her neutrality to be violated, of course the situation is clear."

"The smaller States in that region of Europe ask but one thing. Their one desire is that they should be left alone and independent. The one thing they fear is, I think, not so much that their integrity but that their independence should be interfered with. If in this war, which is before Europe, the neutrality of those countries is violated, if the troops of one of the combatants violate its neutrality and no action be taken to resent it, at the end of the war, whatever the integrity may be, the independence will be gone."

"If her independence goes, the independence of Holland will follow."

"If France is beaten in a struggle of life and death, beaten to her knees, loses her position as a great power, becomes subordinate to the will and power of one greater than herself—consequences which I do not anticipate, because I am sure that France has the power to defend herself with all the energy and ability and patriotism which she has shown so often—still, if that were to happen and if Belgium fell under the same dominating influence, and then Holland, and then Denmark, then would not Mr. William Gladstone’s words come true, that just opposite to us there would be a common interest against the unmeasured aggrandizement of any power?"

"We are going to suffer, I am afraid, terribly in this war, whether we are in it or whether we stand aside. Foreign trade is going to stop, not because trade routes are closed, but because there is no trade at the other end. Continental nations engaged in war all their populations, all their energies, all their wealth, engaged in a desperate struggle they cannot carry on the trade with us that they are carrying on in times of peace, whether we are parties to the war or whether we are not."

"As far as the forces of the Crown are concerned, we are ready. I believe the Prime Minister and my right honorable friend, the First Lord of the Admiralty, have no doubt what ever that the readiness and the efficiency of those forces were never at a higher mark than they are today, and never was there a time when our confidence was more justified in the power of the Navy to protect our commerce and to protect our shores. The thought is with us always of the suffer and misery entailed, from which no country in Europe will escape by abstention, and from which no neutrality will save us. The amount of harm that must be done by an enemy ship to our trade is infinitesimal, compared with the amount of harm that must be done by the economic condition that is caused on the Continent."

"The most awful responsibility is resting upon the Government in deciding what to advise the House of Commons to do."

"We worked for peace up to the last moment, and beyond the last moment. How hard, how persistently, and how earnestly we strove for peace last week the House will see from the papers that will be before it. But that is over, as far as the peace of Europe is concerned. We are now face to face with a situation and all the consequences which it may yet have to unfold."

"The situation has developed so rapidly that technically, as regards the condition of the war, it is most difficult to describe what has actually happened. I wanted to bring out the underlying issues which would affect our own conduct and our own policy, and to put them clearly. I have now put the vital facts before the House, and if, as seems not improbable, we are forced, and rapidly forced, to take our stand upon these issues, then I believe, when the country realizes what is at stake, what the real issues are, the magnitude of the impending dangers in the west of Europe, which I have endeavored to describe to the House, we shall be supported throughout, not only by the House of Commons, but by the determination, the resolution, the courage, and endurance of the whole country."

"It is sometimes said that this is a pleasure-seeking age. Whether it be a pleasure-seeking age or not, I doubt whether it is a pleasure-finding age. We are supposed to have great advantages in many ways over our predecessors. There is, on the whole, less poverty and more wealth. There are supposed to be more opportunities for enjoyment: there are moving pictures, motor-cars, and many other things which are now considered means of enjoyment and which our ancestors did not possess, but I do not judge from what I read in the newspapers that there is more content. Indeed, we seem to be living in an age of discontent. It seems to be rather on the increase than otherwise and is a subject of general complaint. If so it is worth while considering what it is that makes people happy, what they can do to make themselves happy, and it is from that point of view that I wish to speak on recreation."

"Books are the greatest and the most satisfactory of recreations. I mean the use of books for pleasure. Without books, without having acquired the power of reading for pleasure, none of us can be independent, but if we can read we have a sure defence against boredom in solitude."

"Poetry is the greatest literature, and pleasure in poetry is the greatest of literary pleasures. It is also the least easy to attain and there are some people who never do attain it."

"There is much poetry for which most of us do not care, but with a little trouble when we are young we may find one or two poets whose poetry, if we get to know it well, will mean very much to us and become part of ourselves... The love for such poetry which comes to us when we are young will not disappear as we get older; it will remain in us, becoming an intimate part of our own being, and will be an assured source of strength, consolation, and delight."

"Some one, I think it was Isaac Disraeli, said that he who did not make himself acquainted with the best thoughts of the greatest writers would one day be mortified to observe that his best thoughts are their indifferent ones, and it is from the great books that have stood the test of time that we shall get, not only the most lasting pleasure, but a standard by which to measure our own thoughts, the thoughts of others, and the excellence of the literature of our own day."

"Though I know something about British birds I should have been lost and confused among American birds, of which unhappily I know little or nothing. Colonel Roosevelt not only knew more about American birds than I did about British birds, but he knew about British birds also. What he had lacked was an opportunity of hearing their songs, and you cannot get a knowledge of the songs of birds in any other way than by listening to them. We began our walk, and when a song was heard I told him the name of the bird. I noticed that as soon as I mentioned the name it was unnecessary to tell him more. He knew what the bird was like. It was not necessary for him to see it. He knew the kind of bird it was, its habits and appearance. He just wanted to complete his knowledge by hearing the song. He had, too, a very trained ear for bird songs, which cannot be acquired without having spent much time in listening to them. How he had found time in that busy life to acquire this knowledge so thoroughly it is almost impossible to imagine, but there the knowledge and training undoubtedly were. He had one of the most perfectly trained ears for bird songs that I have ever known, so that if three or four birds were singing together he would pick out their songs, distinguish each, and ask to be told each separate name; and when farther on we heard any bird for a second time, he would remember the song from the first telling and be able to name the bird himself."

"Colonel Roosevelt liked the song of the blackbird so much that he was almost indignant that he had not heard more of its reputation before. He said everybody talked about the song of the thrush; it had a great reputation, but the song of the blackbird, though less often mentioned, was much better than that of the thrush. He wanted to know the reason of this injustice and kept asking the question of himself and me. At last he suggested that the name of the bird must have injured its reputation. I suppose the real reason is that the thrush sings for a longer period of the year than the blackbird and is a more obtrusive singer, and that so few people have sufficient feeling about bird songs to care to discriminate."

"One more instance I will give of his interest and his knowledge. We were passing under a fir tree when we heard a small song in the tree above us. We stopped and I said that was the song of a golden-crested wren. He listened very attentively while the bird repeated its little song, as its habit is. Then he said, "I think that is exactly the same song as that of a bird that we have in America"; and that was the only English song that he recognized as being the same as any bird song in America. Some time afterwards I met a bird expert in the Natural History Museum in London and told him this incident, and he confirmed what Colonel Roosevelt had said, that the song of this bird would be about the only song that the two countries had in common. I think that a very remarkable instance of minute and accurate knowledge on the part of Colonel Roosevelt. It was the business of the bird expert in London to know about birds. Colonel Roosevelt's knowledge was a mere incident acquired, not as part of the work of his life, but entirely outside it."

"I am not attempting here a full appreciation of Colonel Roosevelt. He will be known for all time as one of the great men of America. I am only giving you this personal recollection as a little contribution to his memory, as one that I can make from personal knowledge and which is now known only to myself. His conversation about birds was made interesting by quotations from poets. He talked also about politics, and in the whole of his conversation about them there was nothing but the motive of public spirit and patriotism. I saw enough of him to know that to be with him was to be stimulated in the best sense of the word for the work of life. Perhaps it is not yet realised how great he was in the matter of knowledge as well as in action. Everybody knows that he was a great man of action in the fullest sense of the word. The Press has always proclaimed that. It is less often that a tribute is paid to him as a man of knowledge as well as a man of action. Two of your greatest experts in natural history told me the other day that Colonel Roosevelt could, in that department of knowledge, hold his own with experts. His knowledge of literature was also very great, and it was knowledge of the best. It is seldom that you find so great a man of action who was also a man of such wide and accurate knowledge. I happened to be impressed by his knowledge of natural history and literature and to have had first-hand evidence of both, but I gather from others that there were other fields of knowledge in which he was also remarkable."

"Of all the joys of life which may fairly come under the head of recreation there is nothing more great, more refreshing, more beneficial in the widest sense of the word, than a real love of the beauty of the world... to those who have some feeling that the natural world has beauty in it I would say, Cultivate this feeling and encourage it in every way you can. Consider the seasons, the joy of the spring, the splendour of the summer, the sunset colours of the autumn, the delicate and graceful bareness of winter trees, the beauty of snow, the beauty of light upon water, what the old Greek called the unnumbered smiling of the sea."

"When we are bored, when we are out of tune, when we have little worries, it clears our feelings and changes our mood if we can get in touch with the beauty of the natural world."

"Without the United States, the present League of Nations may become little better than a League of Allies for armed self-defence against a revival of Prussian militarism or against a military sequel to Bolshevism in Russia... The great object of the League of Nations is to prevent future war and to discourage, from the beginning, the growth of aggressive armaments which could lead to war. For this purpose it should operate at once, and begin here and now in the first years of peace to establish a reputation for justice, moderation, and strength. Without the United States it will have neither the overwhelming physical nor moral force behind it that it should have."

"With the United States in the League of Nations, war may be prevented and armaments discouraged... Without a League of Nations, the old order of things will revive, the old consequences will recur, there will again be some great catastrophe of war in which the United States will again find itself compelled to intervene."

"The maintenance of civilised relations between States depends on the keeping of treaties, as the maintenance of civilised relations between individuals depends on the keeping of contracts. Moreover, many of us believe that unless the League of Nations be used and supported there is no prospect of future peace in Europe. It seemed clear that a Treaty (the Covenant of the League) had been broken; and a serious, perhaps a fatal, blow dealt to the League. In Italy apparently no one believes that this view of the importance of treaties and of the League can be held from any motive but unreasoning hostility to Italy, or equally from unreasoning friendship to Greece, or from some mean calculation of material interest."

"It is a grave matter that a treaty should be broken or arbitrarily set aside; it is still graver when the idea of the sanctity of treaties being the foundation of peace is considered so chimerical that no one who upholds it can be honest, and that resentment at the breach of a treaty must necessarily be pretence and hypocrisy. That all this is of bad augury for the future of Europe is certain."

"The future liberties of Europe depend upon regulating disputes between nations by justice and law; and upon maintaining the sanctity of treaties, and thus making peace secure. That is the policy for which the League of Nations was created to be the instrument. If it does not prevail, then there will be renewed competition in armaments; nations ruining themselves by expensive preparations for new war, which will make their ruin complete. The result will be wars or more revolutions, probably both; and that in no very long time. No nation, not even France herself, will escape the catastrophe."

"The wrong policy is the policy which Germany pursued after 1870. Germany made the Triple Alliance an exclusive Alliance, forced the pace in armaments, and that policy produced conditions in Europe which led to war in 1914. I am convinced that is the true reading of history. Precisely because of that, I think it would be a grave blunder for the Allies who won the last War to repeat the German policy of 1870, and so far they have not done so. On the contrary, they have pursued what seems to me the right policy—the League of Nations policy and Locarno... They have got Germany coming into the League of Nations—on to the Council—on equal terms; they have got Germany to come into the joint security, both for France and Germany, of the Treaty of Locarno. That was the right policy. If the Government was about to go and make a separate political Entente with France it would be a departure from the right policy."

"I did not...regard anything except my own letters and official papers as deciding policy."

"The moral is obvious: it is that great armaments lead inevitably to war. If there are armaments on one side there must be armaments on other sides. While one nation arms, other nations cannot tempt it to aggression by remaining defenceless...The increase of armaments, that is intended in each nation to produce consciousness of strength, and a sense of security, does not produce these effects. On the contrary, it produces a consciousness of the strength of other nations and a sense of fear. Fear begets suspicion and distrust and evil imaginings of all sorts, till each government feels it would be criminal and a betrayal of its own country not to take every precaution, while every government regards every precaution of every other government as evidence of hostile intent...The enormous growth of armaments in Europe, the sense of insecurity and fear caused by them - it was these that made war inevitable. This, it seems to me, is the truest reading of history, and the lesson that the present should be learning from the past in the interest of future peace, the warning to be handed on to those who come after us."

"A great European war under modern conditions would be a catastrophe for which previous wars afforded no precedent. In old days nations could collect only portions of their men and resources at a time and dribble them out by degrees. Under modern conditions whole nations could be mobilized at once and their whole life-blood and resources poured out in a torrent. Instead of a few hundreds of thousands of men meeting each other in war, millions would now meet, and modern weapons would multiply manifold the power of destruction. The financial strain and the expenditure of wealth would be incredible. I thought this must be obvious to everyone else, as it seemed obvious to me; and that, if once it became apparent that we were on the edge, all the Great Powers would call a halt and recoil from the abyss."

"A friend came to see me on one of the evenings of the last week — he thinks it was on Monday, August 3rd. We were standing at a window of my room in the Foreign Office. It was getting dusk, and the lamps were being lit in the space below... My friend recalls that I remarked on this with the words, "The lamps are going out all over Europe: we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.""

"My own belief is that the policy of the present Opposition would lead to national ruin and consequent distress and suffering such as this country has never yet seen and the severity of which is immeasurable. The prospect of this disaster is a national danger, and our object should be to secure a Government with strength and authority to avert it. For this purpose it is essential to support the policy of economy and sound finance... [T]he position of finance and currency is the national danger: that economy and sound finance and the national crisis should be the paramount issue put before the country. If this is done, I have no doubt that the steady, strong sense of the national character can be relied on to save the country."

"I believe it is absolutely true that for the peace of Europe good relations between France and Germany are the key to the situation. It should be the business of the British Government not to take a side with France or with Germany, but to collaborate in the cementing of good feelings between them."

"I should like to say a word to those who regard the Far Eastern question as a test case, and say that by it the League of Nations will stand or fall. In my opinion, it is a matter peculiarly unfitted to be a test case... There are people who ask, could not the League of Nations have done more? I will ask what more could it have done. The League of Nations is not a separate entity, but it is composed of the Governments of those countries who are members of the League and it cannot act unless those Governments are all in agreement that action should be taken. Does anyone suppose that those Governments would be in favour of going to war in this case, or, if they had been in favour of going to war, that they would have been successful? I do not like the idea of resorting to war to prevent war. What we wish is to prevent war. War is a disagreeable thing, even if it is to be resorted to in order to prevent a war. It is too much like lighting a large fire in order to prevent a smaller one. Anyhow this instance seems to me peculiarly unsuitable for any action of that sort on the part of the League of Nations."

"So far from regarding this as a test case on which the future of the League of Nations depends, I say that whatever happens in the Far East, I shall feel that the League of Nations is as important as ever to the peace of the world. The real test of the success of the League is not to be found in what happens in the Far East. It is going to be found in the way nations, especially of Europe, succeeded in reducing their expenditure on armaments."

"I cannot provoke controversy by saying it is the Liberal Party, but it is Liberalism which has made England what it is to-day, and it will endure. As long as people are what they are in this country, they will be liberal, even if they do not belong to the Liberal Party. We have been attached to individual liberty and tolerance, but the British people have shown that, while they prized liberty above everything and would not tolerate the loss of liberty, they also have the conviction that order must be preserved in order that liberty may be enjoyed."

"[The United States is like] a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate."

"The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy."

"He is a most effective speaker. He wins by force of character. His speech at the beginning of the war was a most remarkable effort—probably the most historic speech which has been made for a hundred years. It was a speech which will alter the map of Europe. His studied moderation is one of his great assets. In the speech referred to, he put the case so moderately that he carried the whole country with him. Our unanimity is very largely due to Grey's speech. It was a wonderful achievement. He is a curious combination of the old-fashioned Whig and the Socialist, and it is interesting to observe how the two strains are always appearing. He is a great figure and a great man."

"He was indeed, more than almost any man I have known, free from petty jealousies and personal vanities. Indeed, partly owing to his dislike for urban life and his consequent perpetual wish to get out of office, he was politically completely disinterested. For all the years in which he was connected with the Foreign Office, I don't think there was a single day in which he would not have welcomed resignation. He held office because he thought it his duty to do so, and for no other reason. This conception that he was there to do a certain job which it would be cowardly for him to abandon was always present with him. Until he had been released by the action of others he could not go."

"[H]is great asset was his character. It was that, too, which at the beginning of the war gained favourable consideration of the World for our account of the causes which led to the outbreak of hostilities. Europe and the other civilised countries were prima facie disposed to accept as true anything that Grey said. Where he was in controversy with other countries as to facts, they preferred to believe him. They trusted his veracity and his fairness, and even when, later in the war, our blockade operations seemed inconsistent with neutral rights, foreign countries were ready to believe that our proceedings were really essential for our defence and were not the outcome of arrogant navalism. It was this impression which helped to keep such countries as Sweden and Holland neutral and, most important of all, prepared the way for that entry of America into the war without which we might never have attained victory."

"I never knew in a man such aptitude for political life and such disinclination for it."

"When I returned to London in December 1913...the Liman von Sanders question had led to a fresh crisis in our relations with Russia. Sir Edward Grey, not without concern, pointed out to me the excitement there was in Petrograd over it. "I have never seen them so excited," he said. I received instructions from Berlin to request the Minister to exert a restraining influence in Petrograd, and to assist us in settling the dispute. Sir Edward gladly did this, and his intervention contributed in no small degree to smooth the matter over. My good relations with Sir Edward and his great influence in Petrograd were repeatedly made use of in similar fashion when we wished to attain anything there... During the fateful days of July 1914 Sir Edward said to me, "When you want to obtain anything in Petrograd you always apply to me, but if I appeal to you for your influence in Vienna you fail me.""

"Sir Edward honestly tried to confirm this rapprochement, and his intentions were most apparent on two questions—the Colonial Treaty and the Baghdad Railway Treaty. In 1898 Count Hatzfeld and Mr. Balfour had signed a secret agreement dividing the Portuguese colonies into economic spheres of influence between us and England... The object of the negotiations between us and England...was to amend and improve our agreement of 1898, as it had proved unsatisfactory on several points as regards geographical delimitation. Thanks to the accommodating attitude of the British Government I succeeded in making the new agreement fully accord with our wishes and interests... The British Government showed the greatest consideration for our interests and wishes. Sir Edward Grey intended to demonstrate his goodwill towards us, but he also wished to assist our colonial development as a whole, as England hoped to divert the German development of strength from the North Sea and Western Europe to the Ocean and to Africa."

"To those who doubt his claim to real ability it may be pointed out that no-one has so long filled a prominent place in English public life as Viscount Grey, and received so small a portion of public attack and obloquy. To have thus successfully avoided attracting the lightning which generally plays round the heads of the prominent is no mean feat of genius, and though his record may show little else of outstanding achievement, this fact at least testifies to his skill... Whatever his failure to observe the Decalogue, he at least showed consummate piety in his manner of keeping the last and greatest commandment: "Though shalt not be found out." Maybe he never sacrificed himself in any way for anybody; but at least he was able to inspire in others the loyalty to sacrifice themselves for him."

"Grey followed Percy, in that curiously high, simple, semi-detached style, which, combined, as it always is in him, with a clean-cut mastery of all the facts of his case, makes him one of the most impressive personalities in Parliament. Or must I qualify this immense panegyric of mine? He has got no great ample pinions like Mr. Gladstone; he hardly deserves what was said of Daniel Webster, that every word he used seemed to weigh a pound. Still, he is a remarkable figure, wholly free from every trace of the Theatre."

"[I had] signed the letter of protest against Britain joining the war [but] then doubted, and was finally convinced the other way by Grey's speech on August 3rd [1914]."

"Your husband...is in the singular position that there is not a human being in the country who would be perturbed or annoyed – I had almost said even jealous – if the reins of power were put into his hands. There has never been anything in our history like the unanimity of estimation in which he is held."

"It has been a fantastic weekend and now I probably need some time to believe I'm champion again. I'm 25 years old and I've won two drivers' championships and two constructors' titles with Renault. With this being my last race for Renault after five years with them, what a fantastic way to finish my relationship. I will have these memories all my life, winning both titles, the emotion, the atmosphere in the garage. We grew up together and now we have won both championships in two consecutive years. The years I have had with Renault, I will never forget. To finish the last race the way we have is something you never dream of. You never even try to dream of it because it's always more than what you expected."

"It was fantastic to fight with Michael, a privilege for me. I said in 2005 that it was important to become Champion when Michael was still there, for the value and the recognition that people outside the sport would give to the championship. But people said we did not fight directly in 2005; this year, it was me versus Michael all year. The history books will say that the last two Championships he raced in were won by Alonso, and that makes me very proud. It was a pleasure to compete against him."

"What I have felt at McLaren is good professionalism, a team that is very determined and focused on the championship. There is a new atmosphere within the team, and I saw that when I went to the factory and met all the people. They are so excited. They really think that after a few years without success, this is the year to come back. No-one has doubts. That was a complete surprise to me, yet from my point of view, it was great to see all that optimism, and I feel more ambitious now - a completely new man. Sometimes after a tough season and when the winter arrives, you want to test as late as possible, to be on your holidays as much as you can. But now it's the opposite. I want to be in the car. I feel like when I arrived in Formula One six years ago. I just want to drive."

"I cannot find a single weakness in Alonso from any viewpoint. He's obviously a huge asset to the Renault team but more importantly a huge asset to the sport as a whole. I think he is perfect."

"He is a driver with talent, ability and maturity, he manages to finish all his races. My record is going to be in good hands."

"He's a very, very talented driver. It's nice to have drivers like this boy Alonso. He's got a Formula 1 drive for next year so I'm really pleased for him."

"Fernando Alonso is currently driving for Aston Martin F1 team. 2024 is only his second season with the team and yet he is constantly out performing his teammate in the same car. I swear down on me Nan’s grave if someone does not get Lance Stroll out of the car, put him in a room, spread some jam on a window and lock the door I’m going to burn down Paul di Resta’s house. He is an inbred, spastic, bastard who should not be allowed within 10 feet of and F1 car. Or a school."

"The United States must accept the responsibilities arising from the occupation of Iraq, and should not finger point or put the blame on others."

"Canada has committed horrible, yet modern, violations against its natives, and for the first time, we have now drafted a U.N. resolution regarding this issue."

"We believe that those people who make efforts to free their countries should not be regarded as terrorists."

"You are mistaken. We've hired him."

"We must no longer have a pacific conception of peace. In the Middle Ages it was otherwise. The existence of the individual had no exaggerated importance. Pacifist literature depicts death on the field of battle as an unnatural death because it does not understand the ancient Germanic horror of death on a bed, and arteriosclerosis appears to it more virile than a bullet. Pacifists dwell on the horrors of the war dead as if a peace corpse were more aesthetic. The representatives of the national revolution are men and soldiers who are physically and morally warriors."

"The events of the past one and one-half years have gripped the whole German people and affected them deeply. It seems almost like a dream that out of the valley of misery, hopelessness, hate, and fragmentation we have found our way back to a German national community. The horrendous tensions in which we have lived since the August days of 1914 have dissolved, and out of this discord, the German soul has emerged once again, before which the glorious and yet so painful history of our people pass in review, from the sagas of the German heroes to the trenches of Verdun, and even to the street fights of our time."

"Allow me to say how manly and humanly great of you I think this is. Your courageous and firm intervention have met with nothing but recognition throughout the entire world. I congratulate you for all you have given anew to the German nation by crushing the intended second revolution."

"But Hitler didn't strive for the annihilation of the Jews - he stressed that fact in public life and in the newspapers. Hitler merely said at the beginning that Jewish influence was too great, that of all the lawyers in Berlin, eighty percent were Jewish. Hitler thought that a small percentage of the people, the Jews, should not be allowed to control the theater, cinema, radio, et cetera."

"Himmler hated the church. He and Bormann were the two people who influenced Hitler most. When I spoke to Hitler in the beginning he agreed with me and said that no state could be governed without religion. In Mein Kampf he said that a man was a fool if he destroyed the religion of the people. Hitler also made the statement that the political reform should not be a religious reform."

"In the interest of the entire nation we decline the claim to power by parties which want to own their followers body and soul, and which want to put themselves, as a party or a movement, over and above the whole nation."

"The hope in the hearts of millions of national socialists can be fulfilled only by an authoritarian government."

"Names and individuals are unimportant when Germany's final fate is at stake."

"It is to be hoped that the leaders of this movement will place the nation above the party."

"Heinrich Bruning of the Catholic Centre Party offered government by presidential decree and dreamt vaguely of restoring the monarchy. But his deflationary policies only served to deepen the slump. Franz von Papen, another Catholic, betrayed his party for the sake of becoming Chancellor, in the vain belief that he could do better than Bruning. But neither he nor his successor General Kurt von Schleicher - whom Papen had picked as his own Defence Minister - had anything resembling popular support and, while the Reichstag had been temporarily sidelined by Bruning, it proved impossible to rule indefinitely without some kind of parliamentary majority. Elections in July 1932 saw the Nazi vote soar above 37 per cent. True, it fell back to 33 per cent when new elections were held in November, not least because signs of economic recovery were at last manifesting themselves, but the party's entitlement to form a government was by now hard to dispute since it was still easily the biggest grouping in the Reichstag. Ever the schemer, Papen now persuaded Hindenburg to dump Schleicher and, against the President's better judgement, to appoint Hitler to lead a coalition with the conservative German Nationalist Party - the only party except for the Communists to gain significant numbers of new votes in the November election. Hitler duly became Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Thus did German democracy wreak its own destruction. Given the paralysing enmity between the Social Democrats and the Communists, the only way to avoid the Third Reich would have been if Hindenburg himself had shut down the Reichstag and banned the Nazis, an option he does not seem to have contemplated."

"He has the distinction of not being taken at all seriously either by his friends or his enemies. His face bears the mark of an ineradicable frivolity of which he has never been able to rid himself. As for the rest, he is not a personality of the first rank. ... He is regarded as superficial, mischief-making, deceitful, ambitious, vain, crafty, given to intrigue. One quality he clearly possesses: cheek, audacity, an amiable audacity of which he seems unaware. He is one of those persons who shouldn't be dared to undertake a dangerous enterprise because they accept all dares, take all bets. If he succeeds, he bursts with pleasure; if he fails, he exits with a pirouette."

"Von Papen, pious agent of an infidel regime, held the stirrup while Hitler vaulted into the saddle, lubricated the Austrian annexation and devoted his diplomatic cunning to the service of Nazi objectives abroad."

"Franz von Papen – from a Westphalian aristocratic family, married to the daughter of a Saarland industrialist, well connected to industrial leaders, landowners, and Reichswehr officers – a somewhat lightweight, dilettante politician, but one who epitomized the ingrained conservatism, reactionary tendencies, and desire for a return to ‘traditional’ authoritarianism of the German upper class."

"Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kowtow before any United States proconsul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony."

"[The world may end up] under a Sword of Damocles … on a tightrope over the abyss."

"Andrey Gromyko, a key senior member of the Politburo, who had been Foreign Minister since 1957, maintained continuity in foreign policy. An expert on relations with the USA, where he served at Washington from 1939, before becoming Delegate to the United Nations from 1946 to 1949, Gromyko saw the world almost exclusively through the prism of Soviet-American relations. He did not seek a breakthrough with the USA. Instead, under Gromyko, Soviet foreign policy was nearly as rigid as he was unsmiling. Certainly, there was no bold initiative comparable to Nixon’s approach to China, nor, subsequently, any Soviet ability to retrieve the situation in China. At the same time, there were changes and openings before the rise of Gorbachev. In September 1984, Gromyko travelled to Washington to meet Reagan, and in January 1985 the Politburo decided to engage again in arms negotiations with the USA."

"If I announce the armistice and the Americans don't send sufficient reinforcements and don't land near Rome, the Germans will seize the city and put in a puppet fascist government."

"There is no doubt that Jacomoni and Visconti Prasca have a large share of the responsibility in the Albanian affair, but the real blame must be sought elsewhere. It lies entirely with the Duce's command. This is a command that he, the Duce, cannot hold. Let him leave everything to us, and when things go wrong let him punish those responsible."

"Militarily it was impossible to invade with the dispositions we had made. We had only seven divisions in Albania. Two of them were necessary to hold the Albanian population from going into revolt. Two others were in reserve. That left us three divisions with which to undertake an offensive. Against us, the Greeks disposed of fifteen divisions. We might have been able to undertake an offensive had those figures been reversed."

"I think if we call in the experts we can draw up the full scheme, with the rallying points arranged."

"By this act, all ties with the dreadful past are broken, and my government will be proud to be able to march with you on to the inevitable victory."

"Sir, give me a single battalion of the Royal Carabineers and I will drive these upstarts into the sea."

"The Germans will make a few scattered attacks, then go away. The Romans will enjoy a fine September."

"When Mussolini decided on war he did not take my advice or that of any other Army chief. In August 1939 the Duce had not been so sure about the invincibility of the Germans, and he told us that he had sought to persuade Hitler not to act."

"Il soldato è come il monaco, per cui l'ordine si chiama obbedienza."

"Io ho conquistato all'Italia un impero e Mussolini l'ha buttato via."

"Non sono mai stato un generale ribelle e l'ho dimostrato sino all'ultimo."

"(A Mussolini) Vostra Eccellenza può contare ora e sempre sulla mia completa e assoluta devozione."

"Io i miei nemici li strangolo lentamente col guanto di velluto."

"Non posso abbandonarmi a voli di fantasia perché ciò è contrario alla mia natura."

"Io sono un militare e non so nulla di correnti politiche."

"Se orgoglio ho io, è quello di aver sempre servito fedelmente e con devozione illimitata voi, Duce."

"C'è un veleno che corrode le dittature: l'incenso. La rovina delle dittature sono i ras osannanti."

"The west has always shown a sympathetic, although patronizing, appreciation of the old Japan. Many a foreign observer would remark with a sigh: 'What a pity that things of the past, of beauty and joy forever, should be so mercilessly sacrificed on the altar of modernism!'"

"We are not imitating Hitler and Mussolini. They are imitating us. They have just discovered what we knew for centuries: that a corporate, collectivist system pays."

"The most serious menace to Japan comes from the Soviet Union. Numerous European countries will eventually embrace Communism. So will China and India if we just watch them with folded arms."

"The greatest reason for Japan's participation in the Triple Alliance lies in the fact that the three signatory powers, at this time of great change in the world situation, have the same position, the same interest, and entertain the same political views. China is not Japan's real enemy in the present incident. In reality Japan is fighting Britain and America. The first thing we are now required to do is to carry out our southward advance."

"The war has now moved from China to South Eastern Asia, and is about to enter the stage of the war for all Asia."

"...the three Powers, discarding the ideologies of individualism and democracy, have adopted the principle of dealing with human society from the totalitarian point of view."

"Japan's true aim was to drive the white man out of Asia."

"I think it's a disgrace for the international community that we have allowed so many conflicts to become frozen, and we are not making a serious effort to solve them."

"It's very important to be able to act properly. You need financing, and you never have enough."

"Since I know that about a million people have been killed by the government of Iraq, I do not need much those weapons of mass destruction."

"During the next 10 years about 1.2 billion young 15-to-30-year-olds will be entering the job market and with the means now at our disposal about 300 million will get a job. What will we offer these young, about a billion of them? — or will we leave them to be recruited by criminal leagues and terrorists? … I think this is one of the greatest challenges if we want to achieve peaceful development and hope for these young."

"You have to be rather straightforward with your clients. You can't tell the parties only nice things. This is not an entertainment show; it's not reality television either."

"Doctors! You know yourself, without the help of any doctors that your case has no foundation! I care not a straw for your Doctors! For every Doctor and Lawyer that upholds your case I could find a thousand that would find our marriage good and valid!"

"My tribulations are so great, my life so disturbed by the plans daily invented to further the King's wicked intention, the surprises which the King gives me, with certain persons of his council, are so mortal, and my treatment is what God knows, that it is enough to shorten ten lives, much more mine."

"Sir, I beseech you for all the love that hath been between us, and for the love of God, let me have justice and right. Take of me some pity and compassion, for I am a poor woman, and a stranger, born out of your dominion. I have here no assured friend and much less indifferent counsel. I flee to you, as to the head of justice within this realm. Alas, Sir, where have I offended you? Or what occasion have you of displeasure, that you intend to put me from you? I take God and all the world to witness that I have been to you a true, humble and obedient wife, ever comfortable to your will and pleasure. I have been always well pleased and contented with all things wherein you had any delight or dalliance. I never grudged a word or countenance, or showed a spark or discontent. I loved all those whom ye loved, only for your sake, whether I had cause or no, and whether they were my friends or enemies. This 20 years or more I have been your true wife and by me ye have had divers children, although it hath pleased God to call them from this world, which hath been no default in me. And when ye had me at first, I take God to my judge; I was a true maid, without touch of man."

"My most dear lord, King and husband, / The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I owe you forceth me, my case being such, to commend myself to you, and to put you in remembrance with a few words of the health and safeguard of your soul which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and pampering of your body, for the which you have cast me into many calamities and yourself into many troubles. For my part, I pardon you everything, and I wish to devoutly pray God that He will pardon you also. For the rest, I commend unto you our daughter Mary, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants I solicit the wages due them, and a year more, lest they be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. / Katharine the Quene."

"Did I not tell you that whenever you argue with the Queen she is sure to have the upper hand?! I see that one fine morning you will succumb to her reasoning and cast me off!"

"Nature wronged her in making her a woman. But for her sex she could have surpassed all the heroes of history."

"The facade of the Conquest, severe yet jocund, with one foot in the dead Old World and the other in the New."

"What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others."

"The North American world blinds us with its energy; we cannot see ourselves, we must see you."

"Don't classify me, read me. I'm a writer, not a genre."

"If the Soviet Union can give up the Brezhnev Doctrine for the Sinatra Doctrine, the United States can give up the James Monroe Doctrine for the Marilyn Monroe Doctrine: Let's all go to bed wearing the perfume we like best."

"I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them."

"No government functions without the grease of corruption."

"[The Mexican revolution] was a break with the past to recover the past. We were trying to deny we had an Indian and a black and a Spanish past. The Mexican Revolution accepted all heritages. It allowed Mexico to be mestizo."

"Can you imagine me coming to this country to blow up a post office? I told them, "My bombs are my books.""

"A tropical Mussolini"

"I was influenced by all of them-by García Márquez, by Carlos Fuentes, [[Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, José Donoso, so many of them-some of my own generation, like Eduardo Galeano. It's easy for me to write because I don't have to invent anything. They already found a voice, a way of telling us to ourselves, so it's easy."

"I admire him a lot. He has done a lot to bring the Latin American situation to the American consciousness."

"Cortázar is the one who is closest to my way of understanding the act of writing. And nearer to my heart. I admire Carlos Fuentes on the opposite extreme of the equation. That is why I wrote a book on both of them, Entrecruzamientos: Cortázar/Fuentes."

"True progress consists in submitting the human element which corrupts liberty, to the divine element which purifies it. Society has followed a different path in looking upon the empire of faith as dead; and in proclaiming the empire of reason and the will of man, it has made evil, which was only relative, contingent and exceptional, absolute, universal, and necessary. This period of rapid retrogression commenced in Europe with the restoration of pagan literature, which has brought about successively the restoration of pagan philosophy, religious paganism, and political paganism. At the present time the world is on the eve of the last of these restorations, – that of pagan socialism."

"There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers. And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting; nor that you don’t know which side to join, for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side; nor that you wish to remain neutral; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer; nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pronouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat. But do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified."

"We have shown that socialism is an incoherent combination of thesis and antithesis, which contradict and destroy one another. Catholicism, on the contrary forms a great synthesis which includes all things in its unity, and infuses them in its sovereign harmony. It may be affirmed of Catholic dogmas, that, although they are diverse, they are one. Only an absolute negation can be opposed to this wonderful synthesis. The Catholic word is then invincible and eternal. Nothing can diminish its sovereign virtue."

"Catholicity seized on man... and the mystics, transcending all, taught him to ascend on high with the wings of contemplation the Ladder of Jacob composed of brilliant stones, by which God descends to Earth and man ascends to Heaven, till Earth and Heaven, and God and man, burning together in a conflagration of infinite charity, are transmuted into one."

"The Socialistic schools, prescinding from the barbarous multitudes which follow them, and considered in their doctors and masters, are far superior to the Liberal school, just because they go straight to all the great problems and questions, and because they always propose a peremptory and decisive solution. Socialism is strong, only because it is a theology; and it is destructive, only because it is a satanic theology. The Socialistic schools, in as much as they are theological, will prevail over the Liberal school, in as much as it is anti-theological and sceptical; and inasmuch as they are satanic, they will succumb before the Catholic school, which is at once theological and divine. Their instincts must be in accord with our assertions, if we consider that they treasure up their hatred for Catholicism, while they have only contempt for Liberalism."

"It follows from this that the Church alone has the right to affirm and deny, and that there is no right outside her to affirm what she denies, or to deny what she affirms. The day when society, forgetting her doctrinal decisions, has asked the press and the tribune, news writers and assemblies, what is truth and what is error, on that day error and truth are confounded in all intellects, society enters on the regions of shadows, and falls under the empire of fictions…"

"The doctrinal intolerance of the Church has saved the world from chaos. Her doctrinal intolerance has placed beyond question political, domestic, social, and religious, truths—primitive and holy truths, which are not subject to discussion, because they are the foundation of all discussions; truths which cannot be called into doubt for a moment without the understanding on that moment oscillating, lost between truth and error, and the clear mirror of human reason becoming soiled and obscured…"

"To know the nature of man, the most direct and wisest way undoubtedly is to know what he has always been. Since when can theories be opposed to facts? History is experimental politics; this is the best or rather the only good politics."

"Nations are barbarian in their infancy but not savage. The barbarian is a proportional mean between the savage and the citizen. He already possesses no end of knowledge: he has habitations, some agriculture, domestic animals, laws, a cult, regular tribunals; he lacks only the sciences."

"Man is an enigma whose knot has not ceased to occupy observers. The contradictions that he contains astonish reason and impose silence on it. So what is this inconceivable being who carries within him powers that clash and who is obliged to hate himself in order to esteem himself?"

"Creating difficulties for himself for the pleasure of resolving them is a strange human mania."

"Burke said with a depth that it is impossible to admire enough that art is man’s nature: yes, undoubtedly, man with all his affections, all his knowledge, all his arts, is truly the man of nature, and the weaver’s web is as natural as the spider’s."

"If sovereignty is not anterior to a people, at least these two ideas are collateral, since it takes a sovereign to make a people. It is as impossible to imagine a human society without a sovereign as a hive and a swarm without a queen, for a swarm, in virtue of the eternal laws of nature, exists in this way or it does not exist."

"Men never respect what they have made themselves. This is why an elective king never possesses the moral power of a hereditary sovereign, because he is not noble enough, that is to say he does not possess that kind of greatness independent of men and that is the work of time."

"In a word, the mass of the people counts for nothing in every political creation. A people even respects a government only because it is not its own creation. This feeling is engraved on its heart in profound characters. It submits to sovereignty because it senses that it is something sacred it can neither create nor destroy. If, as a consequence of corruption and perfidious suggestions, this preventive sentiment is somehow effaced, if it has the misfortune of believing itself called as a body to reform the State, all is lost. This is why, even in free States, it is extremely important that the men who govern be separated from the mass of the people by that personal respect stemming from birth and wealth."

"In the Koran as in the Bible, politics is divinized, and human reason, crushed by the religious ascendancy, cannot insinuate its isolating and corrosive poison into the mechanisms of government, so that citizens are believers whose loyalty is exalted to faith, and obedience to enthusiasm and fanaticism."

"The wiser nations are, the more public spirit they possess, the more perfect their political constitution, the fewer constitutional laws they have, for these laws are only props, and a building only needs props when it has become out of plumb or when it has been violently shaken by an external force. The most perfect constitution of antiquity was without contradiction that of Sparta, and Sparta has not left us a single line of its public law. It justly boasted of having written its laws only in the hearts of its children."

"Human reason reduced to its own resources is perfectly worthless, not only for creating but also for preserving any political or religious association, because it only produces disputes, and, to conduct himself well, man needs not problems but beliefs. His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct. Nothing is so important to him as prejudices. Let us not take this word in a bad sense. It does not necessarily mean false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, opinions adopted before any examination. Now these sorts of opinions are man’s greatest need, the true elements of his happiness, and the Palladium of empires. Without them, there can be neither worship, nor morality, nor government. There must be a state religion just as there is a state policy; or, rather, religious and political dogmas must be merged and mingled together to form a complete common or national reason strong enough to repress the aberrations of individual reason, which of its nature is the mortal enemy of any association whatever because it produces only divergent opinions."

"Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, and its ministers. To annihilate it or submit it to the discussion of each individual is the same thing; it lives only through national reason, that is to say through political faith, which is a creed."

"Faith and patriotism are the two great thaumaturges of this world. Both are divine; all their actions are prodigies. Do not go to them talking of examination, choice, or discussion; they will say that you blaspheme. They know only two words: submission and belief; with these two levers they raise the world. Even their errors are sublime. These two children of Heaven prove their origin to all eyes by creating and conserving; but if they unite, join their forces, and together take possession of a nation, they exalt it, they divinize it, and they increase its forces a hundred-fold."

"Any institution is only a political structure. In physics and in morals, the laws are the same; you cannot build a large structure on a narrow foundation, nor a durable structure on a moving or transient base. In the political order, therefore, if one wants to build on a large scale and for the centuries, one must rely on an opinion, on a large and profound belief. For if this opinion does not dominate a majority of minds and if it is not deeply rooted, it will furnish only a narrow and transient base."

"It is always necessary to call men back to history, which is the first master in politics, or more exactly the only master."

"As long as the aristocracy is healthy, the name of the sovereign sacred to it, and it loves the monarchy passionately, the State is unshakeable, whatever be the qualities of the king. But once it loses its greatness, its pride, its energy, its faith, the spirit withdraws, the monarchy is dead, and its cadaver is left to the worms."

"How many mistakes power has committed! And how often has it ignored the means to conserve itself! Man is insatiable for power; he is infinite in his desires, and, always discontented with what he has, he loves only what he has not. People complain about the despotism of princes; they should complain about that of man. We are all born despots, from the most absolute monarch of Asia to the child who smothers a bird with his hand for the pleasure of seeing something in the world weaker than himself. There is no man who does not abuse power, and experience proves that the most abominable despots, if they come to seize the sceptre, will be precisely those who rant against despotism."

"The mixture of children and men is precisely one of the most beautiful features of aristocratic government. All roles are distributed wisely in the world: that of the young is to do good, and that of old age is to prevent evil. The impetuosity of young men, who demand only action and creation, is very useful to the State; but they are too likely to innovate and destroy, and they would do much evil without the elderly, who are there to stop them. The latter in their turn oppose even useful reforms; they are too inflexible, they do not know how to accommodate themselves to circumstances, and sometimes a twenty-year old senator can very well be placed beside another of eighty."

"The sentiment that dominates all Rousseau’s works is a certain plebeian anger that excites him against every kind of superiority. The energetic submission of the wise man bends nobly under the indispensable empire of social distinctions, and never does be appear greater than when he bows; but Rousseau has nothing at all of this loftiness. Weak and surly, he spent his life spouting insults to the great, as he would have offered the same to the people if he had been born a great lord."

"The most beautiful monuments of Athens belong to the century of Pericles. In Rome, what writers were produced under the Republic? Only Plautus and Terence. Lucretius, Sallust, and Cicero saw the Republic die. Then came the century of Augustus when the nation was all that it could be by way of talents. The arts, in general, need a king; they only flourish under the influence of sceptres. Even in Greece, the only country where they flourished in the milieu of a republic, Lysippos and Apelles worked for Alexander. Aristotle owed to Alexander’s generosity the means to compose his history of animals; and, after the death of this monarch, the poets, scholars, and artists went to look for protection and rewards in the courts of his successors."

"We are all attached to the throne of the Supreme Being by a supple chain that restrains us without enslaving us. Nothing is more admirable in the universal order of things than the action of free beings under the divine hand. Freely slaves, they act voluntarily and necessarily at the same time; they really do what they will, but without being able to disturb the general plans. Each of these beings occupies the centre of a sphere of activity whose diameter varies according to the will of the Eternal Geometer, who can extend, restrict, check, or direct the will without altering its nature."

"Men do not lead the revolution; it is the Revolution that uses men. They are right when they say it goes all alone. This phrase means that never has the Divinity shown itself so clearly in any human event. If the vilest instruments are employed, punishment is for the sake of regeneration."

"Too many French scholars were the principal authors of the Revolution, too many approved and gave their support so long as the Revolution, like Tarquinius' sceptre, struck down only the tallest heads. Like so many others, they said, It is impossible to make a great revolution without incurring misfortunes. But when a philosopher justifies evil by the end in view, when he says in his heart, Let there be a hundred thousand murders, provided we are free, and Providence replies, I accept your offer, but you must be included in the number, where is the injustice?"

"If Providence erases, it is no doubt in order to write."

"Providence has given the French nation precisely two instruments, two arms, so to speak, with which it stirs up the world – the French language and the spirit of proselytism that forms the essence of the nation's character."

"This makes me think that the French Revolution is a great epoch and that its consequences, in all kinds of ways, will be felt far beyond the time of its explosion and the limits of its birthplace."

"Unhappily, history proves that war is, in a certain sense, the habitual state of mankind, which is to say that human blood must flow without interruption somewhere or other on the globe, and that for every nation, peace is only a respite."

"It is from the shadow of a cloister that there emerges one of mankind's greatest very greatest scourges. Luther appears; Calvin follows him. The Peasants' Revolt; the Thirty Years' War; the civil war in France; the massacre of the Low Countries; the massacre of Ireland; the massacre of the Cévennes; St Bartholomew's Day; the murders of Henry II, Henry IV, Mary Stuart, and Charles I; and finally, in our day, from the same source, the French Revolution."

"Now the real fruits of human nature – the arts, sciences, great enterprises, lofty conceptions, manly virtues – are due especially to the state of war. […] In a word, we can say that blood is the manure of the plant we call genius."

"Men gather the clouds, and then they complain of the tempests that follow."

"There is nothing but violence in the universe; but we are spoiled by a modern philosophy that tells us all is good, whereas evil has tainted everything, and in a very real sense, all is evil, since nothing is in its place."

"There is no chastisement that does not purify; there is no disorder that ETERNAL LOVE does not turn against the principle of evil."

"Either every imaginable institution is founded on a religious concept or it is only a passing phenomenon. Institutions are strong and durable to the degree that they are, so to speak, deified. Not only is human reason, or what is ignorantly called philosophy, incapable of supplying these foundations, which with equal ignorance are called superstitious, but philosophy is, on the contrary, an essentially disruptive force."

"You, masters of the earth – princes, kings, emperors, powerful majesties, invincible conquerors – simply try to make the people go on such-and-such a day each year to a given place to dance. I ask little of you, but I dare give you a solemn challenge to succeed, whereas the humblest missionary will succeed and be obeyed two thousand years after his death. Every year the people gather around some rustic temple in the name of St John, St Martin, St Benedict, etc.; they come, animated by a feverish and yet innocent eagerness; religion sanctifies their joy and the joy embellishes religion; they forget their troubles; on leaving they think of the pleasure that they will have on the same day the following year, and the date is set in their minds."

"There is the same difference between political theory and constitutional laws as there is between poetics and poetry. The illustrious Montesquieu is to Lycurgus, in the intellectual hierarchy, what Batteux is to Homer or Racine. Moreover, these two talents positively exclude each other, as can be seen by the example of Locke, who fumbled badly when he presumed to give laws to the Americans."

"The Constitution of 1795, like its predecessors, was made for man. But there is no such thing as man in the world. In my lifetime I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc.; thanks to Montesquieu, I even know that one can be Persian. But as for man, I declare that I have never in my life met him; if he exists, he is unknown to me."

"Why so many laws? Because there is no legislator. What have these so-called legislators done in six years? Nothing, for to destroy is not to make."

"Do not listen to the reasoners; there has been too much reasoning in France, and reasoning has banished reason. Put aside your fears and reservations, and trust the infallible instinct of your conscience. Do you want to redeem yourselves in your own eyes? Do you want to acquire the right of self-esteem? Do you want to accomplish a sovereign act? . . . Recall your sovereign."

"I am a perfect stranger to France, which I have never seen, and I expect nothing from her king, whom I shall never know."

"What are we, weak and blind human beings! And what is that flickering light we call Reason? When we have calculated all the probabilities, questioned history, satisfied every doubt and special interest, we may still embrace only a deceptive shadow rather than the truth. What decree has He pronounced on the king, on his dynasty, on his family, on France, and on Europe? Where and when will the troubles end, and by how many misfortunes must we purchase our tranquillity? Is it to build that He has overthrown, or are our hardships to last forever? Alas! A dark cloud hides the future and no eye can penetrate its shadows."

"'Long live the king,' cry the loving and the loyal, beside themselves with joy. 'Long live the king,' responds the republican hypocrite in dire terror. What does it matter? There is only one cry. And the king is crowned."

"Frenchmen, it was to the noise of hellish songs, the blasphemy of atheism, the cries of death, and the prolonged moans of slaughtered innocence, it was by the light of flames, on the debris of throne and altar, watered by the blood of the best of kings and an innumerable host of other victims, it was by the contempt of morality and the established faith, it was in the midst of every crime that your seducers and your tyrants founded what they call your liberty."

"The vices are very justly man's executioners."

"Providence has already begun the punishment of the guilty; more than sixty regicides, the most guilty among them, have already died a violent death."

"The return to order will not be painful, because it will be natural and because it will be favoured by a secret force whose action is wholly creative. We will see precisely the opposite of what we have seen. Instead of these violent commotions, painful divisions, and perpetual and desperate oscillations, a certain stability, and indefinable peace, a universal well-being will announce the presence of sovereignty. There will be no shocks, no violence, no punishment even, except those which the true nation will approve. Even crime and usurpation will be treated with a measured severity, with a calm justice that belongs to legitimate power only. The king will bind up the wounds of the state with a gentle and paternal hand. In conclusion, this is the great truth with which the French cannot be too greatly impressed: the restoration of the monarchy, what they call the counter-revolution, will be not a contrary revolution, but the contrary of revolution."

"It is written, By me kings reign. This is not a phrase of the church, a metaphor of the preacher; it is a literal truth, simple and palpable. It is a law of the political world. God makes kings in the literal sense. He prepares royal races; maturing them under a cloud which conceals their origin. They appear at length crowned with glory and honour; they take their places; and this is the most certain sign of their legitimacy."

"The eighteenth century, which distrusted itself in nothing, as a matter of course, hesitated in nothing."

"Nothing great has great beginnings."

"Never have nations been civilized, except by religion."

"The question is frequently asked: why there is a school of theology attached to every University? The answer is easy: It is, that the Universities may subsist, and that the instruction may not become corrupt. Originally, the Universities were only schools of theology, to which other faculties were joined, as subjects around their Queen. The edifice of public instruction, placed on such a foundation, has continued even to our day. Those who have subverted it among themselves, will repent it, in vain, for a long time to come. To burn a city, there is needed only a child or a madman; but to rebuild it, architects, materials, workmen, money, and especially time, will be required."

"If we do not return to the old maxims, if education is not restored into the hands of priests, and if science is not every where placed in the second rank, the evils which await us are incalculable: we shall become brutalized by science, and this is the lowest degree of brutality."

"No human institution can endure unless supported by the Hand which supports all; that is to say, if it is not especially consecrated to Him at its origin. The more it is penetrated with the Divine principle, the more durable it will be. How strange is the blindness of men in our age! They boast of their knowledge, and are ignorant of everything, since they are ignorant of themselves. They know not what they are, nor what they can do. An invincible pride bears them on continually to overthrow every thing which they have not made; and in order to work out new creations, they separate themselves from the source of all existence. Jean-Jacques Rousseau has, however, very well said, Little, vain man, show me thy power, and I will show thee thy weakness. It might be said, with as much truth and more profit, Little, vain man, confess to me thy weakness, and I will show thee thy strength."

"False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing."

"All grandeur, all power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears."

"[M]an cannot be wicked without being evil, nor evil without being degraded, nor degraded without being punished, nor punished without being guilty. In short … there is nothing so intrinsically plausible as the theory of original sin."

"Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists."

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice."

"Reason can make little headway on its own and struggles to be heard; often it has to be – so to speak – armed by the fearsome epigram. French wit pricks like a needle, so that the thread goes through the hole."

"In the immense sphere of living things, the obvious rule is violence, a kind of inevitable frenzy which arms all things in mutua funera. Once you leave the world of insensible substances, you find the decree of violent death written on the very frontiers of life. Even in the vegetable kingdom, this law can be perceived: from the huge catalpa to the smallest of grasses, how many plants die and how many are killed!"

"War is divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. War is divine through its consequences of a supernatural nature which are as much general as particular, consequences little known because little studied, but which are nevertheless incontestable. War is divine in the mysterious glory that surrounds it and in the no less inexplicable attraction that draws us to it. War is divine by the manner in which it breaks out."

"Opinion is so powerful in war that it can alter the nature of the same event and give it two different names, for no reason other than its own whim. A general throws his men between two enemy armies and he writes to his king, I have split him, he has lost. His opponent writes to his king, He has put himself between two fires, he is lost. Which of the two is mistaken? Whoever is seized by the cold goddess. Assuming that all things, especially size, are at least approximately equal, the only difference between the two positions is a purely moral one. It is imagination that loses battles."

"The first among the sciences is that of statesmanship. That cannot be learnt in academies. No great minister, from Suger to Richelieu, ever occupied himself with physics or mathematics. The genius of the natural sciences makes impossible that other kind of genius, which is a talent unto itself."

"All sciences have their mysteries and at certain points the apparently most obvious theory will be found in contradiction with experience. Politics, for example, offers several proofs of this truth. In theory, is anything more absurd than hereditary monarchy? We judge it by experience, but if government had never been heard of and we had to choose one, whoever would deliberate between hereditary and elective monarchy would be taken for a fool. Yet we know by experience that the first is, all things considered, the best that can be imagined, while the second is the worst. What arguments could not be amassed to establish that sovereignty comes from the people? However they all amount to nothing. Sovereignty is always taken, never given, and a second more profound theory subsequently discovers why this must be so. Who would not say the best political constitution is that which has been debated and drafted by statesmen perfectly acquainted with the national character, and who have foreseen every circumstance? Nevertheless nothing is more false. The best constituted people is the one that has the fewest written constitutional laws, and every written constitution is worthless."

"Genius does not seem to derive any great support from syllogisms. Its carriage is free; its manner has a touch of inspiration. We see it come, but we never see it walk."

"When we reflect, that the Inquisition, by its restrictions, and authority, would have prevented the French revolution,—it is hard to say, whether the Sovereign, who, wholly, and without reserve, gave up this instrument, would not, in reality, be doing an injury to humanity."

"During the last three centuries, there has been, by virtue of the Inquisition, a greater enjoyment of peace, and happiness, in Spain, than in the other nations of Europe."

"If you wish to extinguish that enthusiasm, which inspires great thoughts, and impels to noble enterprises;—if you wish to render men's hearts cold, and unfeeling; and to substitute egotism in the room of generous, and ardent, patriotism,—if you wish to do this, only take away from the people their faith, and make them philosophers."

"There is a great analogy between grace and genius, for genius is a grace. The real man of genius is the one who acts by grace or by impulsion, without ever contemplating himself and without ever saying to himself: Yes! It is by grace that I act."

"There is perhaps nothing more interesting than to listen to a superior man talk of what he does not know. He advances slowly, and scarcely puts his foot down without knowing if the ground is solid; he looks for plausible analogies; he tries to attach his ideas to higher and incontestable principles; he always has the tone of looking, never that of teaching; and it often happens that, even if he is mistaken, he leaves a great enough idea of his mental honesty."

"By means of [the microscope and the telescope] man touched, one might say, the two infinities. With the aid of glass, he could contemplate at his leisure the mite and the ring of Saturn. […] Master of glass through fire, and master of light through glass, he had lenses and mirrors of all kinds, prisms, containers, beakers, tubes, and finally barometers and thermometers. However all this originally began with the astronomical lens, which honours glass; and physics is born in some manner from astronomy, as it was written that, even in a material and gross sense, all science must descend from heaven."

"Man, in wearing himself out his whole life long by saying: What is that! and what is that called! and what does that mean! is a big spectacle to himself if he wants to open his eyes. All his natural powers tending towards the truth, he never ceases looking for true names; he senses a language prior to that of Babel, and even of Eden."

"The greatest of errors therefore would be to believe what the modern sect, which has only worked to obscure all truths, never ceases to advance, which is that what cannot be defined is not known, while on the contrary what is of the essence of what is perfectly known cannot be defined; for the more a thing is known, the more it brings us to intuition, which excludes all equation."

"All the science in the world began in temples, and the first astronomers especially were priests. I do not say that it necessary to begin again with the antique initiation, and to change the presidents of our academies into hierophants, but I say that all things begin again as they began, that they all carry an original principle that modifies itself according to the different character of nations and the progressive advance of the human mind, but which however always shows itself in one way or another. Priests have preserved everything, brooded over everything, and taught us everything."

"I remember that in a widely distributed French newspaper they asked the famous author of the Génie du Christianisme, if a nymph was not a bit more beautiful than a nun. In supposing them represented by the same talent or by equal talents (a condition without which the question would make no sense), there is no doubt that the nun would be more beautiful. The error best suited to extinguishing the true sentiment of beauty is that of confusing that which pleases with that which is beautiful, or in other words, that which pleases the senses with that which pleases the intelligence."

"Religious beauty is superior to ideal beauty, since it is the ideal of the ideal."

"The Christian woman is therefore a supernatural model like the angel. […] At the sight of these figures, however beautiful one can imagine them, no profane thought would dare arise in the heart of a man of taste. One owes them a certain intellectual admiration as pure as their models. Even in their clothing there is something that is not terrestrial. One must see there elegance without elaboration, poverty without ugliness, and, if the subject demands it, pomp without magnificence. They are beautiful like temples."

"In all that architecture has of the great and eternally beautiful, it is completely a production of the religious spirit. From the ruins of Tentyra to St Peter's in Rome, all the monuments speak; the genius of architecture is really only at ease in temples. It is there that above caprice, fashion, pettiness, licence, and finally all the gnawing cares of talent, it works without discomfort for glory and immortality."

"Final causes or intentions are the torment of modern philosophy, which neglects nothing to get rid of them. From this, among other things, comes its great axiom: nature creates only individuals. Indeed, since all classification supposes order, this philosophy has denied classes to deny order. In order to establish this marvellous reasoning, it fixes its suspicious eyes on the differences between beings to dispense itself from turning them to their similarities. It does not want to recognize that nuances between classes and individuals constitute another order, and that diversity in resemblance supposes intention more visibly than mere resemblance."

"It is permitted to modern philosophy, all swollen up with Bacon's venom, to repeat to us to satiety, to disgust, to nausea, that we make God similar to man; we will reply as many times that is not quite the same thing to say that a man resembles his portrait or that his portrait resembles him."

"[Bacon's] philosophy resembles this religion, which protests continually: it is entirely negative and thinks only to contradict. In indulging himself without measure in this natural inclination, he ends by contradicting himself without perceiving it, and by insulting in others his own most characteristic traits. Thus he blames abstractions without respite, and he makes only abstractions, in always coming back to his middle, general, and most general axioms, and in maintaining that individual instances do not merit the philosopher's attention. He never ceases to shower abuse on the science of words, and he only makes words. He upsets all the received nomenclature to substitute for them new terms, baroque or poetic, or both. With Bacon, neologism is a real disease, and always he believes he has acquired an idea when he has invented a word. He looks with pity at the alchemy that was fully operative in his time, and all his physics is only another alchemy quite babbling and wholly similar to children who talk a lot and produce nothing, as he said very well and very badly with respect to the ancient Greeks."

"Christianity is the religion of Europe […] it is mingled with all our institutions […] it is the hand of this religion that fashioned these new nations [of Europe]. The cross is on all the crowns, all the codes begin with its symbol. The kings are anointed, the priests are magistrates, the priesthood is an order, the empire is sacred, the religion is civil. The two powers are merged; each lends the other part of its strength, and, despite the quarrels that have divided these two sisters, they cannot live separated."

"To overcome oneself, to submit to circumstances, is a duty for everyone, but especially for women. [...] A man, my dear child, is an animal. Unfortunately for your sex, extremely proud; but happily for this same sex, extremely foolish. It is necessary to use his foolishness against his pride. In ceding skilfully and with grace, it is necessary to make him believe that he will always be king. Then he is content to allow himself to be led. As soon as a woman cedes the sceptre, it is given back to her immediately. That is all there is to the catechism of this world. Never forget it. You know by heart the beatitudes of the Gospel; but it is not forbidden to know others, as, for example, Happy are mild women, for they will possess men. Submit therefore my dear Adèle; submit, caress, insinuate yourself; you will soon find some imbecile full of wit who will say in his heart: ‘Here is the one I need.’ If after you have wed he comes to discover that you are a bit impertinent, the evil is not great."

"A woman can only be superior as a woman; as soon as she wants to emulate man, she is nothing but an ape."

"Let your brother work hard at the French poets. Let him learn them by heart, especially the incomparable Racine; never mind whether he understands him yet or not. I didn't understand him when my mother used to come repeating his verses by my bedside, and lulled me to sleep with her fine voice to the sound of that inimitable music. I knew hundreds of lines long before I knew how to read; and it is thus that my ears, accustomed betimes to this ambrosia, have never since been able to endure any sourer draught."

"The contrast between us two [Maistre and his wife] is the very strangest in the world. For me, as you may have found out, I am the pococurante senator, and above all things very free in saying what I think. She, on the contrary, will take care that it is noon before allowing that the sun has risen, for fear of committing herself. She knows what must be done or what must not be done on the tenth of October 1808, at ten o'clock in the morning, to avoid some inconvenience which otherwise would come to pass at midnight between the fifteenth and sixteenth of March 1810. "But, my dear husband, you pay attention to nothing; you believe that nobody is thinking of any harm. Now I know, I have been told, I have guessed, I foresee, I warn you," etc. "Come now, my dear, leave me alone. You are only wasting your time: I foresee that I shall never foresee things: that's your business." She is the supplement to me, and hence when I am separated from her, as I am now, I suffer absurdly from being obliged to think about my own affairs; I would rather have to chop wood all day."

"Every nation gets the government it deserves."

"I don’t know what the life of a rascal is like since I have never been one, but that of an honest man is abominable. How few men are there whose passage on this stupid planet has been marked by really good and useful acts! I prostrate myself before the one of which one can say: pertransivit bene faciendo; the one who had been able to instruct, console, and relieve his fellows; the one who made great sacrifices for charity; these heroes of silent charity who hide themselves and expect nothing in this world. But what is the ordinary man? And how many are there in a thousand who can ask themselves without terror: what have I done in this world? In what way have I advanced the common good and what will remain of me of good or evil?"

"Maistre attached the highest importance to the ‘philosophy of style,’ and averred that he who knew not how to write was incapable of metaphysics. The violence that pervades his thought and rhetoric is a response to the primal experience of the ‘terrible truth of evil,’ while his style incarnates his sense of the mystery of history. By conveying his thought in what Baudelaire called ‘rockets,’ Maistre provoked his readers into a state of fascination and shock."

"Joseph de Maistre is another of those men whose word, like that of Burke, has vitality. In imaginative power he is altogether inferior to Burke. On the other hand his thought moves in closer order than Burke's, more rapidly, more directly; he has fewer superfluities. Burke is a great writer, but Joseph de Maistre's use of the French language is more powerful, more thoroughly satisfactory, than Burke's use of the English. It is masterly; it shows us to perfection of what that admirable instrument, the French language, is capable."

"De Maistre and Edgar Poe taught me how to think."

"Behind the classical mask, behind the classical façade, behind the air of the Grand Seigneur, behind the orthodox Thomism, behind the official complete subservience to the monarchy of his day, which was nothing very splendid or impressive, there is in Maistre something much wilder, much more romantic, much more terrifying. He reminds one of someone like d'Annunzio or Nietzsche – not to seek for later examples. In that way he resembled Rousseau. Just as Rousseau imposed a kind of Calvinist logical strait-jacket upon what was really a kind of burning private lunacy, so Maistre imposes an official legitimist Catholic framework upon what is really a deeply violent, deeply revolutionary inner passion."

"[Maistre's] style is strong, lively, picturesque; animation and good humour temper his dogmatic tone, and he might even be deemed eloquent. It is true he does not disdain paradox in his thinking or violence in his language: he has neither the moderation nor the serenity of Bossuet. But he possesses a wonderful facility in exposition, precision of doctrine, breadth of learning, and dialectical power. He influenced the age that followed him: he dealt Gallicanism such decisive blows that it never rose again. In a word, he was a great and virtuous man, a profound thinker, and one of the finest writers of that French language of which his works are a distinguished ornament."

"The very tension increased his imaginative power, infused his nervous and brilliant style. Here is no Hobbesian materialism, but something far more sensitive. For de Maistre is at heart a romantic, shuddering at the collapse of the aristocratic order to which he belonged, horrified at the blasphemy of philosophers who believed that man could make himself. […] Of all the figures who have contributed to the colourful tapestry of political ideas he is one of the most singular."

"[Maistre] fulminated as a littérateur, even as a grammarian, and his frenzies not only failed to diminish his passion for the correct and elegant formulation but augmented it even more. An epileptic temperament infatuated with the trifles of the Word: trances and boutades, convulsions and bagatelles, grace and a foaming mouth – everything combined to compose a pamphleteering universe at whose heart he harried ‘error’ with blows of invective, those ultimatums of impotence."

"De Maistre has for me the peculiar property of helping me to estimate the philosophie capacity of people, by the repute in which they hold him."

"[A] fierce absolutist, a furious theocrat, an intransigent legitimist, apostle of a monstrous trinity composed of pope, king and hangman, always and everywhere the champion of the hardest, narrowest and most inflexible dogmatism, a dark figure out of the Middle Ages, part learned doctor, part inquisitor, part executioner."

"That brief, nervous, lucid style, stripped of phrases, robust of limb, did not at all recall the softness of the eighteenth century, nor the declamations of the latest French books: it was born and steeped in the breath of the Alps; it was virgin, it was young, it was harsh and savage; it had no human respect, it felt its solitude; it improvised depth and form all at once… That man was new among the enfants du siècle [children of the century]."

"Few men knew so perfectly as he knew how to be touching without ceasing to be masculine, nor how to go down into the dark pits of human life without forgetting the broad sunlight, nor how to keep habitually close to visible and palpable fact while eagerly addicted to speculation."

"Maistre admired Burke and echoed him frequently."

"One of [Maistre's] favourite expressions, and one which he often used was point-blank. This was the secret of his tactics, this was his gesture; this was the way he acted; he advanced alone against a whole enemy army, mouthing his challenge, and shooting the leader point-blank. He attacks in glory, to triumph, and earns an excess of reprisals. In Rome’s spiritual distress, this was the Christian Scaevola, and the three hundred others did not follow."

"Joseph de Maistre is unquestionably one of the greatest thinkers and writers of the eighteenth century."

"Italy is only a geographical expression."

"I made history and therefore did not find time to write it."

"Strength in Right"

"But what did he mean by that?"

"There is a wide sweep about my mind. I am always above and beyond the preoccupation of most public men; I cover a ground much vaster than they can see. I cannot keep myself from saying about twenty times a day: 'How right I am, and how wrong they are.'"

"The true character of our time is that of an era of transition. Fate imposed on me the duty of coming between the phases of this era... To me the political game did not at all seem to answer to the needs of the time; I made myself a conservative socialist. The conservative principles are applicable to the most diverse situations; their worship is not enclosed within narrow bounds; they are enemies of anarchy, moral and material."

"I shall die as I have lived, not as a politician but as a socialist."

"To ruin those who possess something is not to come to the aid of those who possess nothing; it is only to render misery general."

"Among the causes of the tremendous confusion characterising present-day Europe is the transplantation of British institutions to the Continent where they are in complete contradiction to existing conditions, so that their application becomes either illusory or distorted. The so-called "British school" has been the cause of the French Revolution, and the consequences of this revolution, so anti-British in tendency, devastate Europe today. The concepts of freedom and order are so inseparable in the British mind that the last stable-boy would laugh in the face of the reformers if they appeared by preaching his freedom."

"Most people associate me with Metternich. And that is childish. My only connection with Metternich is a book I wrote: It was to be the first volume in a lengthy study of the construction and disintegration of international order in the 19th century. The series was to cover the whole period up to World War I, that's all."

"Prince Metternich thinks he is a conservative, in clinging obstinately to the status quo in Europe; we think ourselves conservative in preaching and advising everywhere concessions, reforms and improvements, where public opinion demands them; you on the contrary refuse them."

"Just as the fall of the Bastille launched the great French revolution, so the central European revolutions of 1848 were launched by a fall, in this case the fall of a single man, Prince Metternich, Chancellor of Austria since 1821 and the symbol of reaction and repression. On 13 March 1848 discontented aristocrats persuaded the Emperor to dismiss Metternich, and with this the conservative order collapsed."

"The enemy which he fought with a simple courage and a tireless energy was the French Revolution and the opinions which it enforced. Determined to save his own country from terror and subversion, determined to preserve the balance of power in Europe, he set his face sternly against the excesses of thought and action which had filled the gutters of Paris with blood. Like the trained soldier that he was, he had studied his enemies' positions, and had armed himself efficiently for the fray. His passionless intellect permitted him to form a clear judgment of all parties."

"During the troubled years, 1813–14, Metternich showed astounding skill in the management of affairs. He had studied the character of Napoleon with so eager a precision, that his policy was nearer to science than to art. If the ultimate downfall of Napoleon was assured by the energy and statecraft of Pitt, it was the diplomacy of Metternich which hastened the coup de grâce. Had Metternich gone into retirement after Waterloo, he would have bequeathed to posterity an unbroken reputation. He had achieved his purpose with singular success. The Revolution, which he had set himself to destroy, was crumbled in pieces. The man of genius who had turned the forces of disorder to his own use was a lonely, hopeless exile. Metternich's work was done, his wages ta’en. But he lacked the imagination to understand his own achievement. Though anarchy was dead for the moment, he was still eager to fight it. He persisted in his policy of counter-revolution, long after the necessity had passed away. The fall of Napoleon gave him no sense of security, and with the aid of the Holy Alliance, which was established upon a patriarchal basis to secure the interest of all thrones, he determined to govern Europe with an iron hand. For the Napoleonic system he substituted a system of his own. He announced himself the friend of all absolute monarchs, and he declared that no country had any other hope of salvation than in a benevolent despotism. His aim and purpose was to check the growth of representative government wherever it threatened an appearance. Europe was at peace, and he still shaped his policy as though Napoleon were leading to victory an army of Jacobins."

"I am a Filipino born of freedom and I shall not rest until freedom shall have been added unto my inheritance - for myself and my children's children - forever"

"To appreciate Christmas to the full, one must know how it feels to be deprived of its blessings"

"I knew what I had to do and my concentration was perfect. But I was so tired that I tried to hit the ball too hard."

"Penalties are only missed by those who have the courage to take them. (Italian: I rigori li sbaglia solo chi ha il coraggio di tirarli.)"

"I have lost three World Cups, all on penalties. [...] If you'll allow me this, it really gets on my nerves."

"The angels sing in his legs."

"More productive than Maradona; he [Baggio] is without doubt the best number 10 in the league.""

"Baggio. Oh yes, oh yes…oh yes! What a goal by Baggio! That's the goal they’ve all been waiting for!"

"I had the good fortune to have seen [Giuseppe] Meazza, and I thought of him when I saw Baggio play. Baggio has fantasy."

"Roby is a great nine and a half."

"He looks like a wet rabbit."

"Baggio is the greatest little player I've ever seen."

"He has the kind of skill people dream about."

"There's not a team in the world that wouldn't like to have him in their line-up."

"He's without doubt the most skilful number ten in the modern game, the archetypal playmaker, if you like, who can create chances and score goals."

"One games stands out in particular, one against Ancona which we won 5–1. Baggio scored four goals in the first 20 minutes and killed the game off. I don't think I've seen a better performance from any player in any game I've ever played in. For half an hour, he was on fire. As footballers go, he's a genius."

"Roberto Baggio was the best player I ever played against; he made football look very easy."

"Baggio on the bench? It's something that I will never understand in my lifetime."

"Roberto Baggio was the best Italian fantasista; he was better than Meazza and Boniperti, and he was amongst the greatest of all time, right behind Maradona, Pelé, and maybe Cruyff. Without the injury problems and the difficulties with his knees, he would have been the very best player in history."

"I said, ‘No, you have to play striker.’ Baggio went to another club. That year Baggio scored 25 [actually 22] goals – for Bologna! I lost 25 goals! Big mistake."

"One of the greatest ever."

"He's a fantastic guy, he can play football like few others can, without a doubt the best player I've played with."

"I remember when I was six years old and there was only one idol for me: Roberto Baggio."

"My daughter looks at these pictures every day. She happily tells me, 'Mom, you’re becoming an anime heroine in Japan,' which of course is very exciting for her. As for myself, though, I'm too busy to really pay much attention to the drawings."

"It's just chaos! (Это просто хаос!)"

"I'm an attorney. I don't tolerate your nyasha-myasha. (Я — прокурор. И никаких няш-мяш не допущу.)"

"People are dying, houses and entire cities are destroyed leaving millions of refugees. Bodies and souls are mutilated. My heart is bursting with pain. My two native countries are killing each other, that's not what I wanted then and it's not what I want now."

"If I had a chance for another life, I would certainly choose a better complexion... I rather like my reputation, actually, that of a spoiled genius from the Welsh gutter, a drunk, a womanizer; it's rather an attractive image. When he reached the age of 50, after a five-year career slump. I can only say with Edith Piaf, 'Je ne regrette rien'."

"You reach the top of the heap, but it's a circle, and you slip on the down side; maybe for years. You get scared. He said then he thought he was coming out of a slump."

"This diamond has so many carats it's almost a turnip."

"She can do everything…there’s nothing she can’t do...she looks after me so well. Thank God I’ve found her.’"

"My father considered that anyone who went to chapel and didn't drink alcohol was not to be tolerated. I grew up in that belief."

"If you're a bad actor, you don't get hired. But if you're a bad doctor, you can still practice medicine."

"The Welsh are all actors. It's only the bad ones who become professional."

"If you're going to make rubbish, be the best rubbish in it."

"When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn't know how to play them when I was drunk."

"I stayed in bed all day yesterday, for instance, while she [Elizabeth Taylor] spent the entire day until well after midnight sitting in the main room, gossiping, etc. And, of course, inevitably sipping away at the drinks... What is more frightening is that she has become bored with everything in life."

"She [Elizabeth Taylor] never reads a book, at least not more than a couple of pages at a time... I have always been a heavy drinker but now as a result of this half-life we've been leading I am drinking twice as much. The upshot will be that I'll die of drink while she'll go blithely on in her half-world."

"I might run from her for a thousand years and she is still my baby child. Our love is so furious that we burn each other out."

"I'm afraid we are temporarily out in the cold, and fallen stars. What is remarkable is that we have stayed up there for so long."

"'Dear Long-wayaway-one,' very antisocial I am when I don't booze. And no fun when you're not around... Do you love me? Do you want to be a lazy Jane and never work again? Once I stopped boozing I have enjoyed not working. But we can't do it though."

"I wanted that diamond because it is incomparably lovely. And it should be on the loveliest woman [Elizabeth Taylor] in the world."

"I have always felt that the camera hasn't liked me. I'm a stage animal. I have to be big and loud, and the camera needs you to be small and naturalistic and subtle; much more naturalistic. I'm as subtle as a buffalo stampede."

"Monogamy is absolutely imperative. The minute you start fiddling around outside the idea of monogamy, nothing satisfies anymore. Suppose you make love to an exciting woman other than your wife, it can’t remain enough to go bed with her there must be something else, something more than the absolute compulsion of the body. But if there is something more, it will eventually destroy either you or your marriage."

"Although I like to be thought of as a tough rugby-playing Welsh miner's son, able to take on the world, the reality is that this image is just superficial. I am the reverse of what people think."

"It's difficult for me to know where to start with rugby. I come from a fanatically rugby-conscious Welsh miner's family, know so much about it, have read so much about it, have heard with delight so many massive lies and stupendous exaggerations about it and have contributed my own fair share, and five of my six brothers played it, one with some distinction... it's difficu1t for me to know where to start so I’ll begin with the end. The last shall be first, as it is said, so I'll tell you about the last match I ever played in...I had played the game representatively from the age of ten until those who employed me in my profession, which is that of actor, insisted that I was a bad insurance risk against certain dread teams in dead-end valleys who would have little respect, no respect, or outright disrespect for what I was pleased to call my face. What if I were unfortunate enough to be on the deck in the middle of a loose maul...they murmured in dollar accents?"

"Richard Burton is now my epitaph, my cross, my title, my image. I have achieved a kind of diabolical fame. It has nothing to do with my talents as an actor. That counts for little now. I am the diabolically famous Richard Burton."

"At two years' old, Richard was scooped up by his sister Cecilia or ‘Cis’, and taken to live with her and her husband, Elfed, and their two daughters Marian and Rhianon, in Port Talbot. He remained forever grateful to Cis throughout his varied and colourful life."

"The magnificent baritone was not merely a voice. It was an orchestra of enormous range and power, its graceful sound seemed to linger on for millions who had heard it on film and stage. Homer must have known someone very much like Richard Burton."

"[He was] the 12th of 13 children of a hard-drinking but charming coal miner in the village of Pontryhydfen, South Wales...At the age of 10, he was educated under the tutorship of a schoolmaster named Philip Burton who became his guardian and young Richard took his name."

"In the Druid's Rest, Richard won the role in which he made his London debut at age 18. In a wretched part, he showed exceptional ability."

"He was a Welsh coal miner's son whose celebrity was defined as much by his rakish personal life as his remarkable acting skills...One of Britain's greatest Shakespearean stage actors by the age of 27, he offered rugged good looks, a magnetic stage presence and an incomparable voice...[His voice]'with a tympanic resonance so rich and overpowering that it could give an air of verse to a recipe for stewed hare."

"a monstrous perfectionist and a troubled spirit."

"He should have been in the same rank as Laurence Olivier, but he was very wild and had a scandal around him all the time and I think in theater circles that would not be approved of."

"a born actor...He was serious, charming, with tremendous skill...He chose a rather mad way of throwing away his theater career but obviously he became very famous and a world figure through being a film star. He was awfully good to people and generous."

"He was marvellous at rehearsals. There was the true theatrical instinct. You only had to indicate - scarcely even that."

"He has a terrific way with women. I don't think he has missed more than half a dozen."

"Throughout his life he would quote and write in his Notebooks chunks of John Donne, Edward Jones, John Betjeman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Dunbar, Shakespeare and his greatest read Dylan Thomas. Dylan became his hero. Sweetly, their paths would later cross and a good friendship would grow."

"Money was nice but it was not everything to the actor whose greatest joys were words, words, and words."

"Burton ‘was now the natural successor to Olivier."

"A brimming pool running disturbingly deep...His voice is urgent and keen... He turned interested speculation into awe as soon as he started to speak."

"Exceptional ability."

"From scandalous beginning to tormented end, theirs was the most epic love story in Hollywood history: a blaze of headlines, booze, jewels, brawls, and private jets. Marrying and divorcing twice, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton rocked the culture and each other's lives with a passion that reverberated long after Burton’s 1984 death."

"Surrounded by his thousand treasured volumes of the Everyman's Library—a gift from Elizabeth—he wrote a letter to Elizabeth and posted it to her home in Bel Air, in Los Angeles. But by the time she received the letter, Burton was dead. He had gone to bed and sometime during the night suffered a cerebral hemorrhage."

"A gifted actor who rose to fame due to a combination of raw sex appeal, talent, and his grand romance with Elizabeth Taylor. He was ruggedly handsome and blessed with a mellifluous baritone that could make the reading of a dictionary sound like poetry. Many critics lamented the fact that he didn't live up to his potential."

"Alcoholism began taking its toll on Burton and, perhaps even more insidiously, his disregard for his craft began to tell. He cared little for his movie projects except for the cash they might earn him, a fact he readily acknowledged. Yet, despite his many mediocre movies, his appeal as an actor was undeniable, and he did occasionally soar in a few of his later movies,"

"Burton's much ballyhooed affair with Elizabeth Taylor during the making of Cleopatra turned him into an international sex symbol. He was Mark Antony to Taylor's Cleopatra, and the press went wild with the story. Until then, he was considered the heir to Olivier as England's greatest actor."

"Make up your mind, dear heart. Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?" Burton's reply was, "Both.""

"It is ironic that the accumulation of arms is one of the few expanding industries in a period of economic depression and gloom."

"Some 500,000 scientists all over the world are devoting their knowledge to the search for weaponry more sophisticated and more deadly."

"It was important to talk about the students and put their work forward and the light on them."

"My mother wore these in a relaxed, family context. It was a more informal side which of course had no reason to be seen or shown in other exhibitions."

"There are two words I hate and despise and don’t want to hear: red carpet and iconic."

"It wouldn’t bother me at all if I weren’t Princess Caroline of Monaco. I prefer to be at home with my husband and children than attacked by photographers. I’m just the sister of the future Prince, and my children come first. I work my schedule around them."

"Diego is Diego and for me he is the greatest player of all time. Even after a million years I am not even going to be close to Maradona. I have no intention of comparing myself with Maradona - I want to make my own history for something I have achieved."

"It doesn't matter if I am better than Cristiano Ronaldo, all that matters is that Barcelona are better than Madrid."

"Ronaldo (Brazilian footballer) was my hero. He was the best forward I've ever seen. He was so fast that he could score a goal from nothing and he struck the ball better than anyone I've seen."

"Being a dad changes everything for the better and I’m really enjoying it."

"Barcelona gave me everything, they took a chance on me when nobody else would. I never have any desire to play for anybody else, I will be here for as long as they want me."

"[Becoming a father] has changed everything. He [Thiago] comes first then everything else. It has also changed the way I see a match. Before if I lost or did something wrong I didn't talk to anyone for three or four days, until it passed. Now, I come home after a game, I see my son and everything is alright."

"I love to see T-shirts or flags with Che Guevara, Diego [Maradona] and Argentina anywhere in the world. It gives me a beautiful feeling."

"I will never go to trial against Barça because it is the club that I love, which has given me everything since I arrived here. It's the club of my life, I made my life here. Messi interview with Goal, announced he remains at Barca - NAIJANEWS247 September 4, 2020."

"I never set out to be the best player in history. I think I'm just another footballer. On the pitch we are all the same and when the game starts I always try to improve myself. My intention is that when I retire, I will be remembered for being a good person."

"I knew that at some point God was going to give it to me and I don't know why, but I felt it was going to be like this. Once again he made me very happy."

"In football as in watchmaking, talent and elegance mean nothing without rigour and precision""

"You have to keep working hard and playing well because people will start to forget what you have done before if you don’t""

"When you lose, you get up, you make mistakes and you learn. And then you become a better player""

"The day you think there is no improvement to be made, is a sad one""

"I’m never satisfied. I always push my limits and try to get better every day""

"Every year I try to grow as a player and not get stuck in a rut. I try to improve my game in every way possible. But that trait is not something I've worked on, it's part of me""

"You cannot allow your desire to be a winner to be diminished by achieving success before and I believe there is room for improvement in every sportsman""

"I always try to improve and score more goals. I want to be the best.""

"I always want more. Whether it’s a goal, or winning a game, I always want to improve.""

"My ambition is always to get better and better""

"For my part, I try to do my bit to make people's lives more bearable, in particular children across the globe who are having problems""

"There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a happy and smiling child. I always help in any way I can, even if it’s just by signing an autograph. A child’s smile is worth more than all the money in the world""

"Sometimes you have to accept you can't win all the time""

"I never think about the play or visualize anything. I do what comes to me at that moment. Instinct. It has always been that way""

"There are more important things in life than winning or losing a game""

"The best decisions aren’t made with your mind, but with your instinct""

"Allow yourselves to dream and then chase after those dreams. That will always require effort and sacrifice, but be persistent!”"

"Money is not a motivating factor. Money doesn't thrill me or make me play better because there are benefits to being wealthy. I'm just happy with a ball at my feet. My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasn't paid to be a professional footballer I would willingly play for nothing.""

"I always thought I wanted to play professionally, and I always knew that to do that I’d have to make a lot of sacrifices."

"I made sacrifices by leaving Argentina, leaving my family to start a new life. I changed my friends, my people.""

"Everything. But everything I did, I did for football, to achieve my dream""

"You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it""

"I have fun like a child in the street. When the day comes when I'm not enjoying it, I will leave football""

"You can overcome anything, if and only if you love something enough""

"I've always really just liked football, and I've always devoted a lot of time to it. When I was a kid, my friends would call me to go out with them, but I would stay home because I had practice the next day""

"I start early, and I stay late, day after day, year after year, it took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success""

"I always thought that if you want to be the best, you have to work harder than everyone else""

"I prefer to win titles with the team ahead of individual awards or scoring more goals than anyone else. I'm more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world. When all this is over, what are you left with? When I retire, I hope I am remembered for being a decent guy""

"I'm lucky to be part of a team who help to make me look good, and they deserve as much of the credit for my success as I do for the hard work we have all put in on the training ground""

"In the semi-final Messi showed he's the top man. He is only 20 as well, imagine how good he will be in the next 10 years. I'd love to play alongside him."

"He is from another planet. He is the main point of reference and the key man in the whole Barça team."

"I'm not sure he is human."

"To me, Messi is the greatest player in the world right now. He has got a fantastic vision of the game, and what he can do technically - it's just crazy. The things he can do with the ball - and at pace and top speed - is just amazing. What decides it for me is not his many goals, although his goal account is impressive, but the thing is that he can do so much for his team. What counts is the total amount of his many, many qualities. He is just the greatest."

"Messi is the best and cannot be compared to anyone. Messi cannot be compared to anything."

"When you face him you have to make decisions in an instant. When he approaches you, you have to make the sign of the cross and pray that everything will be alright."

"I’ve always said Messi is the best player in the world."

"Although he may not be human, it's good that Messi still thinks he is."

"Messi is God, as a person and even more as a player."

"People often say to me they saw Pele and Maradona play. In the future, I will be able to say I saw Messi play."

"There is no doubt, you're from another galaxy. Thanks Leo."

"Messi is a joke. For me, the best ever."

"Is Messi playing in the Champions League or is he playing a Playstation game?"

"He plays like he’s on PlayStation, it’s unbelievable. People who say otherwise either don’t know anything about football or are just talking nonsense."

"Leo is from another planet. What makes him the best is that other great players have had ups and downs, like Maradona. He wasn’t half of what Leo is at Barça. Messi has had so many good years in his career that he deserves to be considered the best ever."

"Messi does not need his right foot. He only uses the left and he's still the best in the world! Imagine if he also used his right foot ... Then we would have serious problems!"

"For years I thought that there would never be a player like Maradona. But now Messi is at his level."

"It’s something for me that I can tell my kids that I’ve played against Messi when we watch him on television. For me he’s got everything. He is magical to watch. When I finish and look back, and he will still be going strong, I will be able to say to myself I tested myself against the best. And quite clearly, for me, he is the best ever. He’s a great individual player but a great person as well and a credit to football."

"I am not crazy enough to compare myself with Messi because he is the best there ever was and the best there will ever be."

"He's a once in a generation player. I think it's unlikely that any human being again will repeat the numbers that Messi is getting."

"He's been by far and away the best footballer in the world for the last five or six years. He's the best player of all time and if he stays fit he will continue for the next five or six years. The things he does right now are out of this world. Of course, he doesn't play by himself, but he is simply incredible. He always finds a way and is always a yard quicker than everyone else. If you have a player like that on your side, you needn't fear anyone."

"I think Messi is the best in the world, a very good player and that he is a gift from god."

"He is by far the best player in the world – he’s a one-off."

"Messi is class. There is him, and then there is the rest. What he does is extraordinary. He demands admiration."

"Messi is the best, for me, Messi is God, he is the best and always will be – for what he has given the team and for how much he has made me enjoy being in the same team as him."

"It's the efficiency that made the difference. Messi is fantastic, the best player ever."

"Lionel Messi is out of this world, he's an alien. For me, he is the best player in the history of football."

"Messi is God – you see him on the pitch and he is spectacular."

"Messi is unbelievable. It is great to get the chance to play against the best in the world. It doesn't really need repeating: he is a fantastic player."

"Lionel Messi. Oh... I think this guy is fantastic. He’s the best player I have ever seen in my life."

"Needless to repeat, that he’s the best player in the world, the best of all-time. I enjoy training with him, he makes everything easier."

"He's the best of all time."

"Messi has always been my idol."

"He's achieved so many great things and set the bar so high that practically nobody is ever going to reach it."

"Messi is the best player in the world. We'd have to kidnap him to stop him."

"It's impossible to control Leo for 90 minutes."

"Messi is an alien, that dedicates himself to playing with humans."

"Messi is so talented that 70% of the goals I scored at Barça came from his boots. With him in your team, you're calm."

"Having him as a rival is complicated. You see game after game that it is impossible to take the ball off him, impossible to stop him. There are no words to decribe his talent. For me, and as others have said, he is from another planet."

"Messi is out of this world. He is a special player and you can't compare him to me. It would be unfair to him."

"It's a gift. I haven’t seen any other player, at least during my career, who plays like Messi does. For me that makes him the best footballer in the world."

"For me, he's the best player in the world. That's football. Defending Messi one-on-one is not possible."

"Messi is the best player of all time, and today he had a stormer."

"I think Messi's just beyond everyone else."

"The best striker I have ever faced? Lionel Messi. It has always been Messi."

"The best player ever? Lionel Messi."

"I spent four beautiful years with Messi at Barcelona. He is an exceptional player. I'm very happy that he was my teammate."

"This award says I’m the best player in the world, but I’m not even the best player at Barcelona."

"I have seen the player who will inherit my place in Argentine football and his name is Messi. Messi is a genius and he can become an even better player. His potential is limitless and I think he’s got everything it takes to become Argentina’s greatest player."

"He deserves 10 out of 10 for doing what he does."

"I see Messi every time he grabs the ball and accelerates. But he is shy, like a little brother who likes to hang out with PlayStation rather than talk. We must protect him. I'd personally put him in a drawer of my bedside table."

"The other day I saw one of his games. He was running with the ball at a hundred percent full speed, I don’t know how many touches he took, maybe five or six, but the ball was glued to his foot. It’s practically impossible."

"Nobody was so wonderful at 19 years, neither Pele nor Maradona."

"Leo floats over the field - sometimes you have the sensation he's not even there, that he's hiding. But he's there and the rival knows it."

"Messi is out of this planet, I would say he is so far ahead of the rest of the players playing right now and I would say historically as well. There are not words to describe him."

"Once they said they can only stop me with a pistol, but today you need a machine gun to stop him."

"For me, to watch Messi play is a pleasure – it's like having an orgasm – it's an incredible pleasure."

"When I see Messi playing, I think he should win the Ballon d'Or every year. I have no doubt. He is an unbelievable player."

"The ball stays glued to his foot; I’ve seen great players in my career, but I’ve never seen anyone with Messi's ball control."

"He is probably the best player of the last 20 years. He is such a slippery player. Because of his height and quickness he is difficult to pin down and his balance is exceptional."

"He is an exceptional talent. I still think Diego Maradona is the best player I have ever seen – but Messi is closing in fast. He's a wonderful sight in full flight and we are lucky to have him around."

"Leo is a virtuoso. He does things with the ball that just seem impossible. He's got great ability. His control of the ball when he is running at high speed is excellent. He has a superb shot. There is precision in his passing. To summarise... he's got everything. He has every single attribute you would want to find in a player."

"If Gary Lineker is saying that Messi is making him realise just how sh*t he was — then imagine how the rest of us feel."

"My record stood for 40 years - 85 goals in 60 games - and now the best player in the world has broken it, and I'm delighted for him. He is an incredible player, gigantic."

"Technically, we’re practically at the same level."

"His control and technique while going at full speed is unique in the world."

"Messi will be the player to win the most Ballons d'Or in history. He will win five, six, seven. He is incomparable. He's in a different league."

"For me, Messi is the greatest. I played with Romario, Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Michael Laudrup and Stoichkov but Messi is the best I’ve seen. He has evolved in a way that nobody could expect."

"When it comes down to natural talent there’s no one who’s at Messi’s level."

"Messi is better than Maradona; he is more complete, more consistent, more spectacular. He is reinventing the game – a mix of the real and the virtual."

"Messi is better than Maradona and Pelé. Every week he shows that he is capable of things that no one had done until now. Messi defies the laws of anatomy, he must have an extra bone in his ankle."

"I can't believe anyone can have played the game of football as well as Messi."

"I think now he’s probably done more than most players. But he is in the same class as Alfredo de Stefano, Johan Cruyff, Pelé. When he finishes and he retires, he will automatically become one of them. A player that people will talk about forever, while the game of football is as good and as popular as it is. He is a sensational player."

"Messi is simply the best player in the world. Messi is alone in his class as a player, it is impossible that there is another like him."

"Messi is the best player I've ever seen, better than Maradona and Cruyff combined."

"Messi is Maradona every day. He has played at the level of Maradona in 1986 for the past five years."

"I can only repeat what I have already said before and that is that Messi is the best in the world at the moment. It pains me to admit it, but it’s the simple truth."

"Newton and Einstein also had a certain level of autism. I hope that like them, Messi surpasses himself every day and continues giving us his beautiful brand of football."

"What’s really incredible is his consistency. It’s practically inhuman to keep going like him. What Messi has achieved, far outweighs what Cristiano has done."

"When Messi has the ball at his feet he can do things that you can’t imagine."

"There is only one player who is doing things that I could never do and that is Messi."

"He's the great player of this generation, like there were great players in other generations."

"Messi produces more pieces of exceptional skill in a single game than I managed in an entire career."

"Messi is a genius. He has everything. When I watch him I see a player who is very, very skilful, very clever and his left foot is like Diego Maradona's."

"Big congratulations to Messi, the magician, the artist, the genius. What more words can I use to describe this guy? Twenty-seven years old and broken the Champions League record from Raúl. Possibly one of the hardest players I’ve played against in my time in the game. The left foot. It’s beautiful. At the moment this guy’s taking liberties with everyone."

"There's a special part of Messi's brain allowing him to see the split-second chaos of football in his own personal super slow motion."

"Messi is really a different class. To win four consecutive Ballon d'Ors is a great achievement."

"The Messi of the early years was a phenomenon, but he always wanted to finish off the move. Now he goes past one, two or three players and is happy to give an assist to a team-mate - it makes him more dangerous and more difficult to stop than ever before."

"He's the first genius of the 21st century."

"I am not ashamed to admit that in the games against Barcelona I spent a lot of the time just hoping he would take up positions as far away from me as possible."

"I think about the great players with whom I have shared a pitch: Eric Cantona, Zinedine Zidane, Pirlo, Xavi, Cristiano Ronaldo – and the greatest of them all is Messi."

"He's a problem solver, a game changer, the greatest player to have played the game. I am more than 60 years old now, and I don't believe that I've seen, or that I'm likely to see, anyone better in my lifetime. The world's best when I was growing up was Pele and he would have been a great player now, too, but Messi surpasses him. He's also way out ahead of Diego Maradona - it's not even close anymore."

"I was lucky enough to play with Zidane, Ronaldo, Figo, Cristiano... but Messi is different; he makes everything look so easy, so effortless – even the impossible."

"Messi makes the difference. I think he has reached and surpassed the level of Maradona."

"The best by far is Messi. Second is Maradona, third is Pele and Di Stefano. Fifth is Cruyff, Zidane or Pele."

"Not often I sit and watch football and chuckle at how good someone is."

"Messi is the real deal when it comes to No10s. He represents a type of football that transcends borders."

"Messi is the best in the world by far; for me, nobody comes close."

"What Messi does is terrifying. It’s indescribable magic. You can’t analyze it."

"I love Messi. Who doesn't? He's from another planet. An extraordinary player."

"Messi has been the best player of the last 10 years. He played at the same level for 10 years."

"I never ever thought I would say that there was a better player than Maradona since he was in my time and I was in awe of him, but I honestly think for a number of reasons that Messi has surpassed him. He can do anything that Maradona did, and he does it more frequently and consistently."

"He's head and shoulders above anyone I've seen. He's an alien. He's better now than he was four years ago because he reads the game better. He's unstoppable."

"Barcelona have a great team with one special player, Messi. He is able to unlock a game from out of nowhere. Cristiano Ronaldo has been putting in spectacular performances, but there really is no comparison with Messi. Messi is on another level than all the other players. He is the undisputed best. No player has the ability to do what he does."

"He can hurt you 40 metres away from goal, not because he takes the ball and starts dribbling past opponents, but because on top of that he can also create the definitive goal chance. The god of football started playing, he is unstoppable when he starts playing. If you think otherwise, ask Jerome Boateng or all those fantastic players that face him."

"Messi is the best I’ve ever seen. I don’t dish out praise lightly but Messi deserves it. I look for weaknesses in his game and I can’t find them."

"He really is from a different planet. Even if you are supporting another team you have to admit this."

"Messi is the Pelé of my generation. I don't understand the criticism of him. You cannot criticize a player like Messi."

"I heard an interview with Sir Alex Ferguson where he revealed his greatest players of all time. He said Messi was in a category of his own. I am a big fan of Diego Maradona but Messi is a phenomenon. His performances at club level are unbelievable. You can play a season or two like that, but not all these years. He set the bar very high from the start."

"He doesn't have the personality to be a leader."

"Sometimes I ask myself if Messi is human"

"Every player on the planet is in Messi's shadow. If you want to step out of Messi's shadow, you should try another sport."

"I have never seen a player like him, with so much quality and audacity at his age, in a so important a stadium and with that shirt. He has everything. He has an extraordinary future - I'd love to bring him to Juve!"

"When I see Messi - who is the best player in the world in my opinion - lose the ball, he runs off until he gets it back or commits a foul. Our guys lose the ball and fold their arms."

"What Messi brings to a team, no other player can bring."

"If you're speaking of a fantasy player, then it has to be Leo Messi as he is so unpredictable."

"[How to stop Messi?] You need to bring a shotgun, pam-pam and that's it."

"Messi is the best player I’ve seen in my life. Not just better but much better. Much faster. Much, much more skilful."

"I think he is certainly one of the best in the world and people are right to make comparisons with Diego Maradona. It’s amazing when you think he is still only 22-years-old. He’s just a fantastic player."

"Put in the superlatives yourselves, I'm running out. It's already been a while now that he has been outstanding. That he's capable of doing everything that he does at his age is something impressive, that doesn't make any sense."

"Messi has once again shown that he is a wonderful player and that he is, without doubt, the leader of Barcelona. He is the best player in the world and the best in the history of football. Along with Cruyff and Maradona, he is the best player we have seen at Barça."

"Tonight, I saw Diego Maradona, but at more revs per minute. There are no words left to describe him – he is interplanetary. We could have beaten Barcelona but we could never have beaten Leo Messi. If we had scored four, he would have scored 12."

"Messi is like a Playstation."

"You cannot compare anyone to Messi. Cristiano Ronaldo is a great human player, but Messi is a Martian."

"I don't know the parameters for the Ballon d'Or. I only know that Messi deserves to win every trophy."

"Diego Maradona filled us with emotions. But between the cracks, without doubt, Messi is better than Maradona."

"Whoever plays football knows that there are no words for Messi. He is a category all of his own: the best player in the world, another galaxy."

"Messi is like an Oliver Twist character, picking a pocket or two, the Artful Dodger, where he’s just sort of slipping around, looking like a little lad in the playground. He’s not really taking it seriously, and he makes you smile every time he gets the ball. And when he does some of these things, I have to laugh because it’s not possible what he does. It’s wonderful to watch. It’s just wonderful to see. You’ve got to pinch yourself sometimes, it’s really amazing what he does."

"Look at Lionel Messi – he gets kicked every week. Everybody wants to kick Messi because it is the only way to stop him, but all he ever does is sort of smile, get up and get on with it, and then does it again."

"Messi is just a one-off, a freak of nature, who sees and does things nobody else sees or does."

"With respect to Leo, I don’t know what can I say. Nothing surprises me with him. He controls the game well, passes the ball well, he is a good finisher, he can press and recover the ball. He is a footballer that can do everything. He sees passes that most people can only see whilst watching the game on TV or in the stands, not ones that you can normally see on the field."

"When he gets going, he creates panic. You have to have a perfect game to stop him."

"Messi is from another galaxy. Fans get used to it, but what he does is not normal."

"He’s like a kid at school playing against a load of kids who can’t play, it’s incredible. It’s so silly; he’s on another planet, just amazing."

"Of course life is easier with Lionel Messi. He does all sorts of things. We see that every day. He is from another planet."

"I've never seen a better player than Messi. He's so good that he can even get around the three players you send after him and still notice the two teammates he has in space. It'll be hard to ever see another player like him."

"Messi has creativity, imagination, he can go straight for goal... He can pass like nobody else in the world. Messi is in another dimension."

"Messi is best player ever. Some say Pele, Cruyff or Maradona, but none of them was as decisive as Messi."

"Messi is the number one footballer in the world. No other player in the past few years comes close."

"Messi proves himself nearly every game. Despite his immense talent, he remains very modest. I like that in him and I respect Messi a lot."

"I feel sad when the best player in the world is chosen, and I see, for example, that the Portuguese coach—my friend Fernando Santos—does not place Messi among the top three. It's absurd. As a Portuguese man, I will say that Ronaldo is the best in the world. Messi is from another planet."

"Messi's ability to play at the highest level with Barcelona and their consistency is what wins them these titles."

"I applaud what he does and I hope the crowd enjoyed and will remember what he does. We are fortunate to be around while the best is playing. It is a pleasure to have him with us. Today was a real show. He is the best there is and there has been."

"Simply stellar, proud and majestic. He is the re-incarnation of Maradona."

"You can forget the Little Donkey, the Rabbit, the Clown and all the other great pretenders, it's the Flea with the fast feet and fabulous control who gets closest to el Diego. He may not have the same the strutting confidence or the big mouth - in fact, he makes whispering Ted Lowe sound like a town crier - but there's definitely something about Messi."

"I have played against Platini, Maradona, Cruyff and played with George Best — a lot of big names, but none of them has been able to do what Messi does. Two years ago I said that the best player I played against was Maradona and the best player I have played with was Bestie. But I can now say I have never seen a player as good as Messi. He’s in a league of his own."

"They say all men are equal in god's eyes. This player makes you seriously think about those words."

"If he is so good, how can you express that? The superlatives ran out ages ago. On these pages, swearing has been tried. Or perhaps a symbol, something to signify that we have gone beyond words now."

"There are three or four important things in life: books, friends, women, and Messi."

"Are there any adjectives and superlatives left to describe little Leo? Messi is unstoppable and we should feel privileged to be watching a player who may be the best of all time."

"I like Messi because he doesn’t think he’s Messi."

"Here he is again ... here he is again .. that's astonishing, absolutely world-class!"

"Messi saved football. There has never been such an overwhelming, devastating, decisive and unique player."

"At the Camp Nou Messi scored two brilliant goals, made a third and at times yawned his way around champion opponents like a man tactfully avoiding a gaggle of overheated toddlers in a high street coffee shop. Often he took the ball and shimmied past two or three men, operating within a kind of fermata, events slowed and paused around him, and providing a reminder that he remains one of the great dribblers, master of the flip-flap, the surge, the amphetamine-crazed-millipede shift of feet."

"People think I am an admirer of Messi. No, you are all wrong. I am an admirer of genius in football. The greatest footballer that I have ever seen in my life."

"He was beautiful. He was the point of difference. He has always been the point of difference. Unparalleled, and maybe today there will, of course, always be those who argue, always be those who debate. And the debate could rage on if you like. But as he falls in love with the object in the world that his heart most desired, it is hard to escape the supposition that he has rendered himself today, the greatest of all time."

"[A] number of points are worth making at once [that challenge Foucault’s Madness and Civilization]: (1) There is ample evidence of medieval cruelty towards the insane; (2) In the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the mad were already confined, to cells, jails or even cages; (3) ‘dialogue’ or no ‘dialogue’, even madness during those times was frequently connected with sin -- even in the Ship of Fools mythology; and, to that extent, it was regarded in a far less benevolent light than suggested by Foucault (pre-modern minds accepted the reality of madness -- ‘madness as a part of truth’ -- just as they accepted the reality of sin; but this does not mean they valued madness, any more than sin; (4) as Martin Schrenk (himself a severe critic Foucault) has shown, early modern madhouses developed from medieval hospitals and monasteries rather than as reopened leprosaria; (5) the Great Confinement was primarily aimed not at deviance but at poverty -- criminal poverty, crazy poverty or just plain poverty; the notion that it heralded (in the name of the rising bourgeoise) a moral segregation does not bear close scrutiny; (6) at any rate, as stressed by Klaus Doerner, another of critic of Foucault (Madmen and the Bourgeoisie, 1969), that there was no uniform state-controlled confinement: the English and German patterns, for example, strayed greatly from the Louis Quatorzian Grand Renfermement; (7) Foucault’s periodization seems to me amiss. By the late eighteenths century, confinement of the poor was generally deemed a failure; but it is then that confinement of the mad really went ahead, as so conclusively shown in statistics concerning England, France, and the United States; (8) Tuke and Pinel did not ‘invent’ mental illness. Rather, they owe much to prior therapies and often relied also on their methods; (9) moreover, in nineetenth-century England moral treatment was not that central in the medicalization of madness. Far from it: as shown by Andrew Scull, physicians saw Tukean moral therapy as a lay threat to their art, and strove to avoid it or adapt it to their own practice. Once more, Foucault’s epochal monoliths crumble before the contradictory wealth of the historical evidence."

"So at bottom Foucault's enterprise seems stuck on the horns of a huge epistemological dilemma: if it tells the truth, then all knowledge is suspect in its pretense of objectivity; but in that case, how can the theory itself vouch for its truth? It's like the famous paradox about the Cretean Liar--and Foucault seemed quite unable to get out of it (which explains why he didn't even try to face it)."

"We will always side with the wrongdoers."

"There is a 360-degree difference between our understanding of Islam and that of IS."

"As the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organization of the 147 member states who represent almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth, I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step."

"You must not expect the United Nations to accomplish miracles. We are made up of sovereign nations. We can only accomplish what our member nations allow us to accomplish."

"I do not expect miracles or spectacular successes - sound political progress is seldom based in either - but I am convinced that the United Nations provides the best road to the future for those who have confidence in our capacity to shape our own fate on this planet."

"We are men and women from many lands, representing a rich variety of cultures. And we have been brought together to work in a great common cause: the survival and progress of mankind. The concept of unity in diversity ... underlies our various pursuits at the United Nations."

"Selbstverständlich gibt es keine Kollektivschuld, trotzdem möchte ich mich als Staatsoberhaupt der Republik Österreich für jene Verbrechen entschuldigen, die von Österreichern im Zeichen des Nationalsozialismus begangen wurden."

"I love him and Maria does too, and so thank you, Kurt."

"The history of the human race is a continual struggle from darkness towards light. It is, therefore, to no purpose to discuss the use of knowledge; man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer man."

"It is better to go skiing and think of God, than to go to church and think of sport."

"The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer."

"Let me tell you the secret of such so-called successes as there have been in my life, and here I believe I give you really good advice. It was to burn my boats and demolish my bridges behind me. Then one loses no time in looking behind, when one should have quite enough to do in looking ahead..."

"Even in kindergarten, children should learn – and experience – the fundamental human rights values of respect, equality and justice. From the earliest age, human rights education should be infused throughout the program of every school – in curricula and textbooks, policies, the training of teaching personnel, pedagogical methods and the overall learning environment. Children need to learn what bigotry and chauvinism are, and the evil they can produce. They need to learn that blind obedience can be exploited by authority figures for wicked ends. They should also learn that they are not exceptional because of where they were born, how they look, what passport they carry, or the social class, caste or creed of their parents; they should learn that no-one is intrinsically superior to her or his fellow human beings. Children can learn to recognise their own biases, and correct them. They can learn to redirect their own aggressive impulses and use non-violent means to resolve disputes. They can learn to be inspired by the courage of the pacifiers and by those who assist, not those who destroy. They can be guided by human rights education to make informed choices in life, to approach situations with critical and independent thought, and to empathise with other points of view."

"Winston Churchill famously claimed that of all human qualities, courage was the most esteemed, because it guaranteed all others. He was right. Courage—moral courage—is the companion of great leadership. No politician could ever be viewed as exceptional unless he or she had it in spades. And historically there would have been no social progress if not for the presence of specific humans dissenting and breaking from herd-inspired suspicion and fear... At best, courage is self-sacrificing, non-violent, modest and based on universal principles — and immensely powerful. Think Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr."

"Look at today’s politicians... keen to be viewed as the virile leaders of their respective countries; eager to inflate their image by harming migrants and refugees, the most vulnerable in society. If there is courage in that, I fail to see it. Authoritarian leaders, or elected leaders inclined toward it, are bullies, deceivers, selfish cowards. If they are growing in number it is because (with exceptions) many other politicians are mediocre... Too busy with themselves, or too afraid to stand up to the demagogues and for others, they seem to shelter in the safety of silence and shuffled papers. Only when they leave public office do some speak up, discovering their courage rather belatedly. Many come and go; no one really notices... In consequence, too many summits and conferences held between states are tortured affairs that lack profundity but are full of jargon and tiresome clichés that are, in a word, meaningless."

"If we do not change course quickly, we will inevitably encounter an incident where that first domino is tipped—triggering a sequence of unstoppable events that will mark the end of our time on this tiny planet..."

"My hope lies in... the leaders of communities and social movements, big and small, who are willing to forfeit everything—including their lives—in defence of human rights. Their valour is unalloyed; it is selfless. There is no discretion or weakness here. They represent the best of us... There are grassroots leaders of movements against discrimination and inequalities in every region… the real store of moral courage and leadership among us..."

"What if 100m or more people marched around the world in protest at what it is we now see: the ineptitude, selfishness, the cruelties and the threats to our collective well-being? ...This has never been done before; but if we did do it, it might just deliver a sort of shock therapy to those dangerous or useless politicians who now threaten humanity."

"Well, it's deeply regrettable of course because the assumption given is that the refugees themselves are migrants, so those seeking political asylum are the problem. And if there are differences between states, between countries, whether it be on trade or strategic issues or greater importance, then states have to really come to grips with the source of the problems. And often it's not the most vulnerable. It's not the migrants. It's not those who are seeking a better life. To me, it seems almost cowardly that governments should seek to sidestep that. I have so much respect for the U.N. in the field, that humanitarian aid workers, the human rights officials. And what frustrates me a great deal is the intergovernmental discussions where the states themselves are often unable to arrive at a conclusion, where the discussions are often rather thoughtless, banal and sometimes too formulaic. And I think the world's people deserve better, and they deserve a political class around the world that is really solving the problems of the planet."

"[Question: What surprised him most about his U.N. post?] I knew there would be strong pushback from governments, but I didn’t anticipate the degree of human suffering, the feeling of inadequacy. I could give speeches, do reports and press conferences, but it was not equal to the need to alleviate the suffering... You see the severest degradation. Bombs hit schools, hospitals, marketplaces, and law seems not to matter at all. All rules of war were cast aside... Today’s human rights violations will become tomorrow’s conflicts."

"It seems President Trump is drawn by authoritarian leadership that shows little respect for human rights. This feeds the perspective that the U.S. doesn’t care. When he attacks the U.S. media as ‘enemies of the people,’ two days later [an autocrat like] Cambodia’s Hun Sen uses the same language... It’s not like we gave a pass to the Obama administration, but we were able to talk to the U.S. administration under Obama. This doesn’t apply to the Trump administration."

"The University of Pennsylvania has named Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2014-18), the Distinguished Global Leader-in-Residence at Perry World House (PWH) for spring 2019. In addition to his residency at PWH, Penn’s global policy research institute, Al Hussein will also co-teach a class at the Penn Law School... During a tenure that saw human rights abuses in Syria, Myanmar, and elsewhere, he earned a reputation for being courageous and outspoken."

"At a time of change around the globe, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has devoted his life of public service to making the world more just and more humane, At Perry World House, Zeid will help students better understand the relationship between progress in human rights, international institutions and new technologies. At the same time he serves as an example for everyone at Penn of how knowledge and understanding across divides can be used to advance good in our world."

"...a most unusual man who recently stepped down from four years as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (a separate office from the controversial U.N. Human Rights Council). A Jordanian prince whose father is Arab and mother European, a Muslim who has visited Auschwitz and bicycled around Israel, he is a fervent believer in “the human rights of each individual, everywhere.” A soft-spoken man who talks with hard-edged eloquence, he took on an impossible job, challenging violators on all sides, whether American, Russian, Chinese, African, Arab, Israeli, or other. And doing it publicly.... His arrival on the job “coincided with the horrific beheadings that ISIS put online, and the sheer viciousness in Syria and Iraq was in full flower. There was the [civil war violence in] Central African Republic, Southern Sudan, then Myanmar and Yemen.""

"What worried him most was the absence of any constraints on human rights violations. The massive slaughter, suffering, and displacement of civilians breeds bitterness that has future implications, Zeid warns. “Today’s human rights violations will become tomorrow’s conflicts.”, Moreover, the U.S. withdrawal from its longtime bipartisan role as human rights defender gives autocratic regimes more leeway to repress with impunity, even on issues Washington cares about... The former UN official criticized U.S. human rights violations wherever he saw them. “It’s not like we gave a pass to the Obama administration,” he notes, mentioning Guantanamo, torture, and killing of Afghan civilians. “But we were able to talk to the U.S. administration under Obama. This doesn’t apply to the Trump administration.” ...Zeid was as hard on violations by Arab states as those by Israelis. While he criticized Israeli killing of civilians in Gaza, he earned the ire of his own government with human rights critiques (despite being a former Jordanian ambassador to the United Nations and Washington)."

"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."

"It's not about money, it's about doing things together."

"The seat on the United Nations Security Council (starting January 2020) will put Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in a position where our voice will be better heard and allow the country to advocate for Taiwan's right to be legitimately recognized."

"Trump’s decision undoes the signature foreign policy achievement of his predecessor, Barack Obama, and represents an affront to the United States’ European allies, which had strongly lobbied the Trump administration to remain in the deal. But the more enduring impact will be in Tehran, where Trump’s nixing of the JCPOA—and Europe’s response—will push Iran’s leaders to... seek to strengthen its ties with non-Western powers, including China and Russia."

"For the past six decades, the United States has been the region’s hegemonic power. However, Trump’s unilateralist approach and the future of JCPOA may change the calculation by creating a rift among the transatlantic allies, and bringing the eastern bloc powers, Europe and regional powers such as Iran, Turkey and Iraq, closer together [and along with other factors] has the potential to transform international power politics, shifting from an American-led system to a multi-polar world"

"If the United States is serious about its war on terrorism, it needs to stop politicizing security and draw on past experiences. If it does so, it’ll realize that Iran is the indispensable partner in the fight against terrorism—if the eradication of terrorism is, indeed, what the United States wants."

"Sustainable peace and security require good bilateral relations and regional cooperation between Tehran and Riyadh. Iran and Saudi Arabia have significant differences, but they share common interests in many critical issues, such as energy security, nuclear nonproliferation, and Middle East stability."

"The Iran nuclear deal is the most comprehensive agreement in the history of non-proliferation. As part of it, Iran accepted the most intrusive transparency measures and stringent limits on a nuclear programme ever demanded of a non-proliferation treaty member... where Iran has kept its end of the bargain, it has been rewarded with sanctions and additional pressure, and the benefits Iran was supposed to receive have been suddenly snatched away."

"From the Iranian point of view, the deal now is a lose-lose because the Americans are rewarding Iran with more sanctions as Iran is cooperating or has cooperated for two years with the IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency - to fully comply with every commitment that's in the deal... Europeans failed. Americans violated. Even Chinese and Russians - they did not fully comply with their commitments... John Bolton, Secretary Pompeo, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Bibi Netanyahu - they are fully allied to fight with Iran regardless of Iranian goodwill to implement the maximum level of transparency to the nuclear deal."

"Over the past two years,the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), issued 15 reports confirming Iran’s full compliance with the terms and conditions of the JCPOA. What did the United States do in return? Not only it did not fulfill its commitments tolift nuclear related sanctions and facilitate normal business with Iran but it withdrew fromthe deal and rewarded Iran’s goodwill by imposing stringent new economic sanctions and unleashing a torrent of hostile rhetoric."

"In this manner, the United States responded to Iran’s flexibility and cooperation with a “maximum pressure” campaign: U.S. sanctions on Iran are more comprehensive even than those on North Korea, which withdrew from theNuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003. To the grave disappointment of the Iranian people and government, Europe has proved too inept and spineless to mitigate the effect of U.S. withdrawal by honoring its commitments under the JCPOA."

"In Iran, there is a pervasive belief that the West is in decline and that U.S. hegemony in the Middle East is over. This belief has gained credence as an array of Western intellectuals and leaders have acknowledged such a decline. Iranians note that the United States has failed in almost every conflict it initiated since the Second World War."

"Given the impasse between Iran and the United States, the most immediate and realistic step toward reducing tensions in the Middle East would be to set aside the idea of negotiations between the two countries for now and instead focus on facilitating direct negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia to discuss, among other things, putting an end to the devastating war in Yemen."

"Countries like the United States prefer to sell to these oil-rich countries hundreds of billions of dollars of arms, so they want to maintain the status quo. President Trump, you remember, signed $300-400 billion in arms to the Saudis. Trump and his officials don’t care whether these weapons are used against Yemenis. They have a short-sighted vision. If the United States would have invested in a regional cooperation system to bring peace and stability, then all Middle Eastern countries would have good relations with Europe and the United States...We should work for and be convinced of security for everyone. This is the principle we should invest in... The United States has lost every war it has fought since the Second World War."

"He supports the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as well as an Islamic fatwa against nuclear weapons. Yet, given zero achievement of adherence to NPT over the past fifty years, Mousavian believes that only when Muslim-majority powers’ (such as Egypt, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia) pursue weaponization and the nuclear bomb will Israel and the United States come to the table and negotiate in good faith an end to all WMDs in the Middle East."

"[The Indians] live happily enough,... being simple in their manners, and frugal. They never drink wine except at sacrifice. . . . The simplicity of their laws and their contracts is proved by the fact that they seldom go to law. They have no suits about pledges and deposits, nor do they require either seals or witnesses, but make their deposits and confide in each other. . . . Truth and virtue they hold alike in esteem. . . . The greater part of the soil is under irrigation, and consequently bears two crops in the course of the year. . . . It is accordingly affirmed that famine has never visited India, and that there has never been a general scarcity in the supply of nourishing food."

"Of several remarkable customs existing among the Indians, there is one prescribed by their ancient philosophers which one may regard as truly admirable: for the law ordains that no one among them shall, under any circumstances, be a slave, but that, enjoying freedom, they shall respect the equal right to it which all possess: for those, they thought, who have learned neither to domineer over nor to cringe to others will attain the life best adapted for all vicissitudes of lot: for it is but fair and reasonable to institute laws which bind all equally, but allow property to be unevenly distributed."' Among the Indians officers are appointed even for foreigners, whose duty is to see that no foreigner is wronged. Should any of them lose his health, they send physicians to attend him, and take care of him otherwise, and if he dies they bury him, and deliver over such property as he leaves to his relatives. The judge also decides cases in which foreigners are concerned, with the greatest care, and come down sharply on those who take unfair advantage of them."

"[Their] law ordains that no one among them shall, under any circumstances, be a slave, but that, enjoying freedom, they shall respect the equal right to it which all possess: for it is but fair and reasonable to institute laws which bind all equally, but allow property to bo unevenly distributed."

"Megasthenes, for example, who visited the Maurya court at Pataliputra in the fourth century bc, noted: All Indians are free, and none of them is a slave…. Indians neither invade other peoples, nor do other peoples invade India…. They fare happily, because of their simplicity and their frugality…. Since they esteem beauty, they practise everything that can beautify their appearance. Further, they respect alike virtue and truth…."

"All Indians are free, and not one of them is a slave."

"We have three versions of a statement by Megasthenes... Pliny (VI. xxl.4-5) reports about the Indians: "From the days of Father Bacchus to Alexander the Great, their kings are reckoned at 154, whose reigns extend over 6451 years and 3 months." Solinus (52.5) says: "Father Bacchus was the first who invaded India, and was the first of all who triumphed over the vanquished Indians. From him to Alexander the Great 6451 years are reckoned with 3 months additional, the calculation being made by counting the kings, who reigned in the intermediate period, to the number of 153." Arrian (Indica, I. ix.) observes: "From the time of Dionysus to Sandrocottus the Indians counted 153 kings and a period of 6042 years, but among these a republic was thrice established... and another to 300 years, and another to 120 years. The Indians also tell us that Dionysus was earlier than Heracles by fifteen generations, and that except him no one made a hostile invasion of India but that Alexander indeed came and overthrew in war all whom he attacked...""

"‘[…] the Brahmins […] already knew all those doctrines concerning nature which were subsequently taught by the Greeks.’"

"What has made this whole process so special is that above all - especially in terms of the pace of change – it has been determined by the creative and spontaneous activity of the broad mass of the people, with the communists in the vanguard. In this spirit and in accord with the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, people have acted without the slightest manipulation and without being given commands from above. The role of the party is to recognize people’s understanding, to raise it to a higher plane, to support progressive thinking and acts."

"My problem was not having a crystal ball to foresee the Russian invasion. At no point between January and August 20, in fact, did I believe that it would happen."

"With the wall breached, everything was possible. On November 10th, Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria's ruler since 1954, announced that he was stepping down; soon the Bulgarian Communist Party was negotiating with the opposition and promising free elections. On November 17th, demonstrations broke out in Prague and quickly spread throughout Czechoslovakia. Within weeks, a coalition government had ousted the communists, and by the end of the year Alexander Dubcek, who had presided over the 1968 "Prague spring," was installed as chairman of the national assembly, reporting to the new president of Czechoslovakia—Václav Havel."

"Dubcek, the bureaucrat with a pleasant smile, was a confusing blend of contradictions. He spent his entire career as the cog in a totalitarian machine and then, when he emerged on top, declared himself a democrat. He was a pragmatist and a dreamer. He could be a skilled maneuverer in the baroque labyrinth of communist politics. But in the end even he admitted that he could be incredibly naïve."

"Aggression, pressure, conditions, impositions do not work with Cuba. This is not the way to attempt to have even a minimally civilised relationship with Cuba... There are also other functionaries, businessmen, that Trump has named, including in government roles, who are in favour of business with Cuba, people who think that the US will benefit from cooperation with Cuba, on issues linked to the national security of the US... These last two years show that many good things have been done not only for Cubans and for the Americans, but for others... Because when Cuba and the US cooperate in confronting drug trafficking, this is an important contribution to the region; or when Cuba and the US cooperate in confronting [viruses such as] zika, dengue and chikungunya, as we have been doing recently, we are making an important contribution to humanity. When Cuba and the US cooperated in Africa to fight Ebola, they made an important contribution to the health of the world."

"This is a policy which is condemned to be defeated again... They want Cuba to surrender. They want Cuba to abandon what Cuba is, to abandon its principles, and to submit Cuba again to the desires of the U.S. But that won’t happen.... These people are saying we control Venezuela? No... It’s very frustrating that once again they have chosen hostility instead of co-operation"

"Cuba's international cooperation does not stop. Today, a brigade made of 20 health professionals left for the British territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands to help fighting COVID19."

"As soon as the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in Cuba, our country mobilised all its resources to contain the spread of the virus.... Cuba has a long history and tradition of international solidarity with other countries in the health sector that dates back to the 1960s, when we started sending healthcare workers to help other countries... In response to the current pandemic, Cuba has dispatched 28 contingents of the Henry Reeve Brigade to help 26 countries... in addition to the more than 28,000 Cuban doctors, nurses and health professionals who were already overseas before the pandemic. The United States government has been trying to discredit Cuba's international assistance, including using pressure and threats against countries to force them to cancel these medical cooperation agreements. They have even tried to pressure governments to reject Cuba's help during the coronavirus pandemic. They claim the Cuban government is exploiting these doctors because in the case of countries that can afford to provide monetary compensation, a portion of it is kept by the Cuban government.... However, working overseas is completely voluntary, and the portion the Cuban government keeps goes to pay for Cuba's universal health system. It goes to purchasing medical supplies, equipment and medication for Cuba's 11 million people, including for the families of the doctors who are providing their services abroad. This is how we are able to provide free, high-quality healthcare for the Cuban people."

"Instead of exacerbating conflict during a pandemic, our countries need to work together to find solutions... unfortunately, the Trump administration is wasting this opportunity by dismantling the limited progress made by Cuba and the US during the Obama administration... President Trump strengthened the 60-year US blockade against my country, implementing 90 economic measures against Cuba between January 2019 and March 2020 alone. These measures have targeted the main sectors of the Cuban economy, including our financial transactions, tourism industry, energy sector, foreign investments - which are key for the development of the Cuban economy - and the medical cooperation programmes with other countries... These unilateral coercive measures are unprecedented in their level of aggression and scope... In April, the Alibaba Foundation of China tried to donate masks, rapid diagnostic kits and ventilators to Cuba, but the airline contracted by Alibaba to transport those items to Cuba refused to take the goods because they were afraid the US would sanction them... A ship... decided not to unload because... of fear it would be sanctioned by the US government.... It is so important that people of goodwill around the world continue to raise the demand to end the blockade of Cuba and to forcefully assert that these are times for solidarity and cooperation, not sanctions and blockades."

"34 is the number of countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East that have received the assistance of medical brigades from... Cuba in coping with the #COVID19 pandemic."

"Before being appointed ambassador to Canada, Vidal headed the North America Division at the Cuban Foreign Ministry. She played a crucial role in negotiations between Havana and Washington.. when President Raul Castro and his US counterpart Barack Obama announced their decision to reestablish diplomatic relations between their countries and start a process towards full normalization of links."

"It’s extremely cool to be a Habsburg. It is quite helpful to belong to such a great family because most people don’t know who they are or where they come from, so it’s useful that you can identify yourself. You can coordinate yourself somewhere in the universe. If I’m in an accident, they won’t say a Hungarian is in an accident, they’ll probably say ambassador, but there’ll always be a Habsburg element to it. If my name were Müller, that wouldn’t make the headlines."

"I think that for centuries most Habsburgs have been raised to serve their country or their empire. Service is deeply in our genes, so to speak. And a sense of responsibility in society. Add to that a strong feeling for Europe and the peaceful living-together of different nations under one roof—this is also something of a family heirloom. You could say that a Habsburg almost always thinks internationally and sees things from different points-of-view. I think all of this might have helped in learning the ropes as an ambassador—a job I would have never guessed I would have. Fate (or God) has a great sense of humor."

"I have moved 24 times in my life since I was born. Now, I have a feeling of having finally come back to base, back to harbor, where my ancestors were. Trying to help this country recover from the terrible years of communism takes a long time to repair, but we are fortunate that we have this fantastic Christian government. We have a new constitution, a constitution that begins with the word “God” — probably the only one in the world. It replaced the communist one of 1949, and the new one says that the family has to be protected by the constitution and that marriage is between a man and woman — full stop. So we are happy to live in this country that is safe and secure, with little criminality, and we are just happy to do our work here."

"This climate shows the merit of the existing relationship between the two counties that date back from 400 years, and thus at the moment of leaving the nation, where I make many friendship, I feel the need to express my feeling of gratitude."

"I want no more than to speak simply to be granted that grace. Because we've loaded our songs with so much music that they're slowly sinking and we've decorated our art so much that its features have been eaten away by gold and it's time to say our few words because tomorrow our soul sets sail. ...I think so much these days about the great river, that symbol which moves forward among herbs and greenery and beasts that graze and drink, and men who sow and harvest, great tombs even and small habitations of the dead. That current which goes its way and which is not so different from the blood of men..."

"Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life."

"I awoke with this marble head in my hands which exhausts my elbows and I do not know where to set it down."

"A Levantine Nobel Prize laureate, Georgis Seferis, a Greek who lived for many years in Egypt, wrote: "And things that came later had the self-same/calmness which you see here,/they had this calmness because no soul/was left to us to think about,/none except the strength to carve some signs in stones/that touched now more deeply, beneath remembrance." Thus wrote Georgis Seferis, a true Levantine."

"The focal point of Greek-American cultural interest has definitely shifted in recent decades. Where formerly there was a somewhat affected and strained focus on classical Hellas, the contemporary awareness is much more in tune with the literature of modern Greece. This shift has almost been entirely due to the increasing availability of English translations of modern Greek writings, for not many American-born Greeks comfortably read novels or poetry in the original Greek. The beginnings of the new mood can be traced to the translations of the novels of Nikos Kazantzakis in the 1950s. These also stimulated interest in other Greek writers, notably the poets Constantine P. Cavafy, a product of the Greek diaspora in Alexandria, Egypt, and George Seferis, who won the Nobel literature prize in 1963."

"The support for Taiwan and friendship with Taiwan is pretty much the same. My job here has three main focal points – security, economic issues, and political and international participation."

"We also hope that the U.S., through its global influence, can encourage other like-minded countries to support Taiwan, take an interest in regional security, and support Taiwan’s international participation."

"This level of mutual trust is an extremely important foundation for Taiwan-U.S. relations. We are walking a tightrope and need to move very carefully. There will be times when we face setbacks, but in the end, we are still moving forward."

"There is a longer-term threat and that is, China hasn’t renounced the use of force to absorb Taiwan, and that is not a new threat. It’s been there for decades."

"The reality is that China has opposed almost every international initiative we have tried over the last four decades. They have also opposed efforts we have made to strengthen Taiwan's democracy. I mean, they tried to test fire missiles in the Taiwan Strait area when we had our first presidential election."

"Taiwan right now stands at the front lines of countering economic, political, and military coercion from the PRC. And the best way for supporting Taiwan is to engage with Taiwan on these fronts. And of course, on the economic side deepening our trade and investment relations with a stronger legal infrastructure, such as a trade agreement, would certainly help that effort."

"We are in a period of complicated politics and a geostrategic situation. Certainly the imperative is there to initiate negotiations. That is very much Taiwan's agenda. We certainly hope that the U.S. would share that view and also work with us to proceed with negotiations."

"As a governmental delegate, [I] should not take a side in a domestic election in the U.S. because it is after all the choice to be made by the American people."

"Our top priority is to maintain regional stability and peace in the Taiwan Strait and beyond. It is not a matter only for Taiwan but a common issue for the interests of other regional stakeholders."

"Taiwanese people have lived under military threat from China over several decades. It will continue to be a problem for the people of Taiwan as long as the Chinese do not renounce the use of force. However, we are in the dynamic process of enhancing our capabilities of curbing its threats. I see that we are in a position to deter the Chinese by making it their consideration of an invasion too costly to operationalize."

"It is clear that peace in the Taiwan Strait is a very important matter that has global consequences. Again, it would be in everyone's interest to see stability and peace maintained, to do what is possible to deter any kind of destabilizing moves and any unilateral changes to this to the stable situation in the Taiwan Strait on part of the PRC."

"Taiwan and South Korea maintain a deeply strong trade partnership. We are open to any opportunity to complement each other and make both of us more capable and competent. I am aware that South Korea has a great influence on the semiconductor industry. Thus, I think that both of us can cooperate as long as we share a common goal, which is technological advancement that will take humanity to the next level. A shared purpose between us is to invent technologies not to control and monitor citizens but to make quality of life better for all in cooperation with our partnering nations."

"If you can find Newton in 1,000 and Einstein in 10,000, imagine how many talented people can you find in hundreds of millions? This new world is a world of innovation and start-ups."

"It does not matter to me that the behaviour of some political forces and parties has even been disrespectful because, as President, I leave their expressions aside and look at the situation that exists in our country today and those challenges and problems that we have today."

"The losers on the battlefield were not the soldier and his spirit, but the decision-making officials who were supposed to be ready for a possible war, properly organize and wage it."

"I insist that we live in Armenia mixing the imagination and the reality. And this is one of the main reasons. We say ‘we have a good army’, but we do not in reality. We say we have IT, but we do not have it. We have Information system, but I do not know whether we have it or not, which would correspond to the 21st century."

"Moreover, nobody gave us independence. We tried, we fought, and we achieved. We achieved it not only at the cost of our will and devotion but also at the expense of the lives of many of our compatriots."

"Education opens the way to a new life and a new world. Be brave and confident. Open all doors through knowledge, open with your willpower and the impulse of your hearts, diligence, helping each other, trusting each other, learning from each other."

"Whatever political force you give preference to, and whatever your decision is, remember that it is a decision for the sake of the Homeland, for the sake of our state, for the sake of your future, and that of your family."

"The independent statehood is the inviolability and unbargainability of our borders, our ability to make and implement decisions, our capability of ensuring security and dictating peace. We must not only be able to win but also understand in depth how to deal with that victory."

"I remember how much I yearned for democracy, when I was a girl growing up in the communist Yugoslavia. How much I wanted to escape the oppression, lack of freedom and lack of individual choice. This is what motivated me to become an exchange student in the US. Upon return, it was even more difficult to tolerate the failed economic policies, the lack of values, of respect, of democratic institutions and inequality before the state and the law. Thus, I joined the moment for an independent Croatia that wanted to become part of the democratic family of nations."

"Sports brings people together. People in all of our countries are tired of ideological differences, of going back into the past all the time."

"What I want to do is work together with all my female and male colleagues and work with the media in terms of our substance and not our form. Let us not divide ourselves into men and women."

"The goals before us — poverty eradication, quality education, inclusion and climate action — cannot be achieved without individual national efforts coupled with our common dedication and action. For its part, Croatia is doing its best to fulfil the goals we have set for ourselves."

"We live in times of great opportunities and serious challenges. We are more interconnected than ever, yet the world remains divided in many ways. Technological developments have enabled our world to become a truly global village. Our citizens have become global citizens and are well-informed and strongly driven by developments around the world. They expect global leadership in these times of rapid change and great complexity and look to all of us for inspiration."

"I called upon everyone in the spirit of what I've said to refrain from using the term "the Western Balkans." I do know that it won't disappear from the jargon so easily, that it is a technical term that is used by very many institutions and in documents, but I believe that we should clearly start to call this part of Europe, experience it as it -- what it really is, and this is Southeast Europe."

"Croatian coastal areas, one of the world’s cleanest and most wondrous, are at times severely affected by poorly managed waste from our southern, neighbouring countries."

"Small countries like Croatia cannot play a decisive role in combating global threats but can make a significant contribution to world peace and security through stabilizing their own neighborhood and playing a constructive role in multinational structures."

"Let us, as the elderly not be relegated to being dinosaurs but utilize our knowledge and hard earned wisdom to not only increase our relevance and longevity in society, but also increase the contact between generations, bridging the gap between young and old."

"We want to be ‘the aged in counsel and the young in action."

"First thing I say to girls is be yourself, don't try to be something else. Respect yourself and everyone will respect you. I worked in a man's world, everywhere I went I was practically the only woman, but they respected me."

"I am against the idea of quotas for women in Parliament or councils. I don't think that it is right to put a woman in a position just because she's a woman. Nor do I want a woman to be denied a job because she is a woman. But I also do recognize that because so very few women are in such positions, they must be given a head start, hence the reason for a quota. But they must earn it."

"Whatever you do, make sure it's your best. Everything I did was my best, hence I have no regrets. In Setswana, there is a saying: 'Susu ilela suswane go re suswane a go ilele.'"

"“We truly express our gratitude to all the elderly persons of Botswana (alive and those resting) for the shape that they molded us into!”"

"Do not look the other way when you see acts of violence; talk about it and say no you can't do that. If you look the other way, everything bad will happen. We can't live under the illusion that we didn't see it happen."

"My ministry is aware of the multiple challenges faced by women, which seriously impede their progress in life."

"Empowering women would result in improving the lives of many households in the country and ultimately deal with pockets of poverty."

"It's about time that each and every health minister looks at sustainability as part of the modelling of any approach or any initiative."

"The role of women in science continues to be increasingly important particularly in development and also in the advancement of the field. I believe that we as women have a distinct perspective in science. If you look at the role that we've played in the life sciences and also in the medical sciences we have been able to bring women's issues to bear look at the issue of water and sanitizing water women have taken a leadership in this particular room because in African communities in the Kenyan communities water is woman's responsibility and we've been able to push for the fact that we need portable and cleaner water."

"We were very clear about our sincerity… we wanted very high penalties, we wanted a real disincentive for the poachers."

"I do not advocate any one philosophy or another, I’m no threat to any side, so everyone trusts me, as I trust them."

"It was shocking, deeply shocking."

"We’re still reeling from losing these five elephants; it’s the worst incident for a long time. It’s my job to stop this menace, and I want to be there to show the government is committed to this, to boost the morale of the rangers, to help however we can."

"It seems to me from what I have learned that here in these gentle surroundings have been discovered the true functions of a university and its task of sending out into the world not only men of high educational and cultural standards, but men also of vision, of courage, of honesty and decision."

"I am thankful to all UN (United Nations) member states, for electing me with an overwhelming majority, as the President of the 75th UN General Assembly. As we mark the 75th anniversary of the UN, I will guide the efforts to contribute to international peace, in the challenging times we live in."

"Let's give dialogue a chance. That is what Spain is pushing for. If dialogue does not bear fruit, of course, Spain will stand with its European partners and its NATO allies united in deterrence (on Russian military build-up on the Ukrainian border)."

"The (planned) visit (of Taliban to Oslo, Norway in January 2022 on human rights and humanitarian aid) was not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban (government in Afghanistan). But we must talk to those who in practice govern the country today."

"Iran is seeking to consolidate its relations with its neighbor. There are no restrictions or exceptions in establishing good relations between Iran and the countries of the region."

"If the crimes of the Zionist regime against the people and citizens of Palestine continue, no one can guarantee that the situation in the region will remain the same."

"In case of procrastination by the international community and the United Nations and the activists who support the warmongering of the Israeli regime, the response will be done at the right time and the desired resistance... I found out in the conversation with the leaders that the response that will be given is regrettable and will change the current map of the occupied territories. Based on my understanding of the situation, I warn the war criminals and their supporters in the region to stop Israel's crimes against civilians before it is too late, maybe it will be too late in a few hours. There is still a political opportunity to avoid a widespread crisis in the region. Today, I will meet with the representative of the UN secretary-general in the region and I will say that there is still a political opportunity, but tomorrow is too late."

"A video published by Iranian media showed Amirabdollahian and Haniyeh hugging, kissing, smiling, and laughing while greeting each other. During the meeting, the two agreed to "continue cooperation to fully achieve the goals of Hamas and the Palestinian people," according to a press release by Hamas. Amirabdollahian also met with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, telling him that "if the crimes of the Zionist regime against the people and citizens of Palestine continue, no one can guarantee that the situation in the region will remain the same," according to Iranian media. The Iranian foreign minister's visit to Qatar came as part of a round of visits to Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon by Amirabdollahian in recent days."

"There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, Ambassador ."

"If [Putin] wants to kill himself, he doesn’t need to use the nuclear arsenal. He has to do what the guy in Berlin did in a bunker in May 1945."

"Russian troops block numerous attempts of the Ukrainian authorities to evacuate civilians."

"Russia bears full responsibility for the killing and injuring of innocent people, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and obstacles for the safe departure of Ukrainians and foreign citizens."

"I think that it is not only Russian diplomats in New York who need mental assistance but also those who posted today this text: 'Foreign Minister Lavrov: The goal of Russia's special military operation is to stop any war that could take place on Ukrainian territory or that could start from there.' Russian Embassy in London. Retweeted by the Russian Foreign Ministry. Let me remind the Russian diplomats that in London in case of need for mental help, you can dial NHS line 111. Thank you."

"Demilitarization of Russia is well under way"

"We, not just Ukraine but everybody, must make an effort to help the Russian population to direct their country back on the road towards democracy, how to develop democratic institutions and how to develop a living, sustainable society."

"I don't buy this version that they are so brainwashed that they don't understand what is happening. We don't live in the Soviet era when there was no internet or when citizens couldn't travel abroad or didn't have any means of getting information."

"Militarily, Russia will be defeated. It will cost us further losses of civilian and military lives, and we can only try to minimize the damages, but together with Norway and other allies I am not in doubt that Russia will be militarily defeated on Ukrainian territory."

"Ukraine wants to be independent, and we will celebrate our national day with our partners and friends."

"The issue of recognition for the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics by Kazakhstan is not on the agenda. We operate on the basis of international law and the founding principles of the UN (United Nations) charter."

"The country (Moldova) is prepared (for) any kind of scenarios, including the very worst-case scenario. So we will be defending what's to be defended (from Russia)."

"With this blatant breach of international laws and principles (by Russia towards Ukraine), one should be really concerned about what the future holds, including what could be the future plans of the Russian leadership? So, indeed, all the scenarios could be on the table."

"I came to the United States of America conscious of my African-ness, conscious of my blackness, I became conscious of women studies and became a feminist."

"A lot of work is being done by feminist because we have to think about breaking the glass ceilings and think about if the systems we have been living under will work for us what is different what to do."

"Thinking through what makes a leader, how do you communicate and how do you organize yourself."

"What makes a leader different is the different communication styles respecting different forms of leadership."

"Historically leadership and the concept has always been the top down one most of us who do leadership training we do the bottom up leadership you don't impose structure you figure out organically who the people are."

"The idea of family however conceived is at the root of old family structure and we leave in a world were those family structure are in the end the basis of the legal, religious,social and state laws under which we live."

"New family law can end violence against women."

"Violence is both visible and invisible."

"Dreamers remember their dreams when they are disturbed;And you shall not escape what we will make of the broken pieces of our lives."

"You cannot know how long we cried until we laughed over the broken pieces of our dreams."

"We are all mothers,and we have that fire within us,of powerful womenwhose spirits are so angry, we can laugh beauty into life and still make you taste the salty tears of our knowledge."

"For we are not tortured anymore; we have seen beyond your lies and disguises, and we have mastered the language of words, we have mastered speech and know we have also seen ourselves raw and naked piece by piece until our flesh lies flayed with blood on our own hands."

"What terrible thing can you do us which we have not done to ourselves? What can you tell us which we didn’t deceive ourselves with long time ago?"

"Hello everybody and thank you for joining us, wherever in the world you’re joining us from. My name is Abena Busia. I am a Ghanaian, very proud to be so, a Ghanaian writer and poet, and currently Ghana’s ambassador to Brazil. I am very, very honoured today, however, to be part of this festival and to interview a friend of mine, an extraordinary woman herself who today is best known for co-winning the 2019 Booker Prize with her eighth book, Girl,Woman, Other, making her the first Black woman to win it. But for some of us, her reputation preceded that."

"For some of us, she is a person who is a trailblazer and a visionary who has helped put Black women writers – particularly those writing out of Britain – on the map. She is visionary, she is feisty, and she has an acute sense of the politics of being and the politics of representation. Yet in all of that, her wit and her wisdom have brought to consciousness the place of those of us Black people of African descent growing up in England – the way we negotiate our identities, the way we negotiate the politics of space, the way we interact intergenerationally and between ourselves [which] has been, for some of us, the food of life."

"Her first non-fiction book, Manifesto, on never giving up, is to be published next month. And she has taken that wit and wisdom so many places, including, most crucially, the academy, where today she is professor of creative writing at Brunel University in London and vice-president of the Royal Society of Literature."

"Yes, and we will come back to that and the matter of your hidden histories. But I now want to ask a question about something that not many people think and talk about. And that is, what is a catholic grasp, if you like, of the place of Black writers in British society? I had the privilege of hearing you speak, five years ago, at [the] African Literature Association conference in Germany and I remember being struck by your keynote speech, about the way you could so clearly map the progress of Black writing, the recognition of Black writing and the issues that Black writers had taken on in the public space: naming the challenges and difficulties you face in the sense of not just what you wrote but that you wrote at all, that you existed at all. And I was wondering if you could share a little bit of that activist part of the collectivity before we return to the question of your personal creativity."

"Well, you did it very well, I must confess . You do succeed in bringing us along. To the point where I am about to send your novel to somebody facing that dilemma. Because it’s not easy on either side. And to be honest, yours was the first thing I read that made it so clear how difficult it was, but at the same time humanised the process both from the point of view of the person transitioning as well as the point of view of the people receiving them. Her grandmother’s responses, the point where her grandmother says, “Look, love, I was born in the 1920s” or whatever it was, you know, “You do your thing but it’s too late for me, I’m a hundred, take it or leave it!” (APAB and BElaughing) “I love you anyway, you can come to the farm but that... I’ve got other things to fight!” Which was also very [much] to the point. Her grandmother had had different things to negotiate, generations of displacement, fatherlessness or in her case, a father who didn’t get it, and looking for her daughter for seventy years. So, again, the complexity of the stories that get bound up in this vision of “This is who we are and need to understand”."

"There are a couple of people who have identified themselves [in the chat], including the person who invited us both here, Amina Mama, and I just want to read what Amina says because I think it’s important and it emphasises what you said when you introduced yourself and your origins. Amina has put up on the platform that she grew up between Nigeria and London, so the exactness of your portrayals hits her very deeply. And it is true that there was only Buchi Emecheta in those days, and [she’s] celebrating the fact that our daughters and mothers have you to read. So that was her comment."

"It’s interesting though. I had a similar experience very, very recently. I am working on an epic poem, in fact, of Black women all over the place, the spirit of a Black woman from what is now Ghana who is following her lost daughters in all these spaces and through time. And I was so excited to discover that book about Black Tudors, Black people in Tudor England.1 What excited me was looking at the timeline. I grew up in this little English country village outside Oxford which was part of the divorce settlement between Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves ... (laughs)... documented! And I found enough material in this book on Black Tudors to decide that one of my little daughters is going to get lost in Standlake in Anne of Cleves’ manor house!"

"Yes, it is liberating and so wonderful to find the historians supporting our imaginative lives."

"Always, always, always uplifting to see and hear you, Bernardine. It matters to some of us that you are out there in the world, so keep on your journey, and thank you so much."

"Thank you! That’s a wonderful concluding statement. As always, moti-vating us to be inspirational and think about our own lives. On that note, I would like to thank all of you who are out there in different parts of the world, those of you who are in this room, for being here. This has been a privilege."

"It was a good piece because it creates the atmosphere and the vision. Carole is very interesting, of course, because she is the woman of disguises. The woman who has a secret that she needs to [or] feels she needs to keep quiet about in order to negotiate. I love her mother who is like, “I am a Nigerian and so are you, and we’re not going to get past this, so let’s...” The scenes with her mother and the ways in which the mother helps her re-find herself by dealing with, who is the person that you’re going to marry. I will ask you now about the structure of this particular book and the multiple voices, the twelve different voices, all of whom are connected – some intimately, some tangentially."

"I am one of these obsessive people that find myself going back, going “Oh! Oh! Oh yes! That was that person’s classmate” and “Oh yes! It’s the same teacher.” Going through all of that and trying to understand. I wonder, what inspired you to create the book that way and what was the kernel that made you in a sense move out and flourish from?"

"And that’s important. I do want us to turn to your own writing, but I have to acknowledge that it is characteristic of you not only that you have been an activist but that you always acknowledge the people that you’ve been working with, and the importance of a collective voice and solidarity has always been part of your work which some of us really appreciate. I’m going to extrapolate something from that, that may or may not be true, and that is: I see that collec-tivity actually in the structure of your novels."

"The word "love" is used far too frequently and far too imprecisely. It moves heaven and earth, it illuminates the purest of pages, but oh, with what ease it is pressed into service to mask the most infamous of passions, the vilest selfishness, and even crime!"

"A young man needs friends to serve as guides and counselors, confidantes and role-models. The mature man is capable of meaningful undertakings only when his actions are undergirded by the support of others. And the elderly seek strength in their time of weakness and, ultimately, in their struggle for survival, in companionship and affection. Even if there is love at first sight, there is no friendship that does not demand time and space to reach its perfection. The ancient proverb states, and rightly so, that two friends cannot truly know each other without having first shared a bag of salt."

"Friends dislike being apart. Separation, says Emily Dickinson, is all the Hell we need. Each shared moment is precious. And the only ones who can remember the hour of loneliness are those who survive it."

"He who has a friend lavishes benevolent actions on those around him."

"Veneration of our parents is seen in this light, not as an obligation difficult to fulfill, but rather as an easy inclination of our affection. We gratefully remember what we owe them: our existence, thanks to the love they expressed to one another, the care with which they watched our growth; and the gentleness and skill with which they guided us toward independence, responsibility, and the ability to make wise choices."

"Children, because of their helplessness, evoke our tenderness. But we must give them more than that: a vigilant sense of responsibility, an exquisite equilibrium between the extremes of exercising our authority and respecting their freedom. There is no greater satisfaction than a child who, when grown and at the age of accountability, is able to forgive us."

"Outside the family circle, friendship evolves into good will. In the workplace this allows us to manage without despotism, and to follow orders without resentment. In society we will learn to intervene without violence, but also without servility. And we will be able to look beyond the geographical borders of our own country, our customs, our race, our religious beliefs, and our political ideology to see that humanity is an attribute of all mankind."

"You may not be interested in hearing it, but I want to talk about it. To talk about them, rather: the forty-five years (exactly the number I have lived) as of today. I don't want to hide anything or misrepresent the date, like one covers up a gray hair or a wrinkle. No, each day has been worth what it has cost, and much more."

"Possibilities were available to me, doors were opened to me, all because of one government official's concept of justice and the consistency of his desire to see the law equally applied. I refer to Lázaro Cárdenas."

"The march, as you know, was not only to express their dissatisfaction but also to begin a strike against household chores-those jobs so sui generis, so unique that they are only noticed when left undone"

"Of course, there have been commentaries. And, of course, the gamut of these commentaries has been exactly what one might expect. From foolish outbursts and impudent plays on words to the rending of garments in the face of this new apocalyptic sign that heralds the decadence and perhaps even the death of our civilization and culture."

"I warn you that we Mexican women are taking due note of what is happening to our northern cousins and making ready for the day it becomes necessary for us."

"I've been at this long enough to realize that my column is like a mirror-a little mirror to which each Saturday I pose the question of who is the most marvelous woman on the planet."

"I tried what all children try in their desire to be noticed: tantrums and every sort of illness I could dream up. But since these were not successful, I found myself obliged to seek other means. And so it was that I came to write and publish my first verses. At ten years of age I was already perfectly installed as a poetess."

"I can say with Amado Nervo that "I loved and was loved and the sun caressed my face." But all of that happened in the School of Philosophy and Letters, in the halls that led from one classroom to another, from a lesson poorly noted, from a tutorial en route to a professional degree."

"in giving birth to Gabriel, I gave birth to myself as a mother-a role for which I was unprepared but which I try to carry out as best I can. Mother and poetess do not rhyme, but they go together rather well."

"I have confidence not so much in my own abilities as in the generosity of everyone else."

"Hablo no por la boca de mis heridas."

"Hechizada, contemplo el milagro de estar/como en el centro puro de un diamante."

"Nadie está solo. Nadie."

"¡Cómo canta la tierra cuando gira!/Canta la ligereza de su vuelo,/su libertad, su gracia, su alegría."

"no te bebas de un sorbo la alegría."

"No es posible sino soñar, morir,/soñar que no morimos/y, a veces, un instante, despertar."

"palabras que los vientos dispersan como pétalos"

"Heme aquí, ya al final, y todavía/no sé qué cara le daré a la muerte."

"sonríe ante un amanecer sin nadie."

"¿Qué se hace a la hora de morir? ¿Se vuelve/la cara a la pared?/¿Se agarra por los hombros al que está cerca y oye?/¿Se echa uno a correr, como el que tiene/las ropas incendiadas, para alcanzar el fin?"

"El otro. Con el otro/la humanidad, el diálogo, la poesía, comienzan."

"Lo que soñó la tierra/es visible en el árbol."

"ternura, la palabra pequeña, familiar/que cabía en mi boca."

"Adiós para la tierra que en mi torno bailaba."

"mi corazón, lugar de las hogueras,/y mi cuerpo que siempre me acompaña."

"He venido, feliz como los ríos,/cantando bajo un cielo de sauces y de álamos/hasta este mar de amor hermoso y grande./Yo ya no espero, vivo."

"El idioma salía de sus labios, como debe salir de todo labio humano, enrojecido de vergüenza. Y Rominka, al arrancarse la costra de sus pecados, lloraba. Porque duele quedar desnudo."

"El viento de las alturas huía graznando lúgubremente. Un sol desteñido, frío, asaeteaba aquella colina estéril."

"La seguridad de su vida era tan frágil que había bastado la cara de un chamula, vista al través de un cristal, para hacerla añicos."

"la visión turbia como si sus entrañas estuvieran latiendo en medio de las cejas."

"don Agustín, que no tenía afición por la copa ni por el tabaco, que había guardado rigurosamente la continencia, era esclavo de un vicio: la conversación. Furtivo, acechaba los diálogos en los portales, en el mercado, en la misma catedral. Don Agustín era el primero en enterarse de los chismes, en adivinar los escándalos y se desvivía por recibir confidencias, por ser depositario de secretos y servir intrigas."

"Su silencio le producía vergüenza, como si callar fuera burlarse de los otros. Y como un castigo inmediato crecía, junto a la vergüenza, una sensación de soledad. Teodoro era un hombre aparte, amordazado por un secreto."

"(who would you suggest we should be reading more among the women poets, especially in Latin America?) Well, she died already, but in Mexico, there was a poet called Rosario Castellanos. She was very good."

"Your verses were leafy trees, uncertain roads where the healers nested in the century plant."

"we see the surprising similarities between the renowned Mexican poet Rosario Castellanos and the young Peruvian poet Giovanna Pollarolo. The lyrical voices in this section subvert and rebel against routine; they speak about it as if it were a prison. The poets rebel through language which casts a light on and makes of their everyday lives a battlefield where objects become the signifiers of disorder and of liberty."

"Castellanos is one of the most brilliant writers of the last century, but when the Latin American boom in literature resounded in the United States, it was only the male voices that were heard."

"the Life/Death/Life forces are part of our own nature, an inner authority that knows the steps, knows the dance of Life and Death. It is composed of the parts of ourselves who know when something can, should, and must be born and when it must die. It is a deep teacher if we can only learn its tempo. Rosario Castellanos, the Mexican mystic and ecstatic poet, writes about surrender to the forces that govern life and death: “... dadme la muerte que me falta .../give me the death I need . . .” Poets understand that there is nothing of value without death."

"The brilliant Mexican Rosario Castellanos combines a philosophical outlook with a well-grounded historical perspective in both novels and poems, in which she employs complex striking imagery, as in "Daily Round of the Spinster," another treatment of the theme of the childless woman. A profound student of women's lives, she suggests, as in "Meditation at the Threshold," that the solution, not yet found, requires "Another way to be human and free./ Another way to be." Her powerful utterance opened the way to a new generation of women poets born after 1937, in different countries, but all with a clear apprehension of the contemporary woman's situation..."

"here’s a very short list of Latin women novelists I think should have been considered part of the Boom…Mexico: Elena Garro, Rosario Castellanos..."

"Coinciding with this development, Scott Perry, a Republican member of the US Congress, has written a letter to President Joe Biden, demanding that the US administration should “reject any democratic credentials” presented by Khan in view of his background as a “bona fide terrorist sympathizer working to undermine” American interests in the region and the “security of our Indian allies”. In a January 27 letter, Perry wrote that Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s nomination of Khan “can only be described as a breathtaking lack of judgement at best, and a demonstration of Islamabad’s unmitigated contempt for the United States at worst”. Perry contended that Khan has “praised both terrorists and foreign terrorist organizations – including Hizbul Mujahideen – in stark and unsettling terms” and “encouraged young men to emulate jihadists like Burhan Wani, a former commander of Hizbul Mujahideen who dedicated his life to a holy war against India”. He further wrote that Khan “lashed out” at the US in 2017 for designating the leader of Hizbul Mujahideen for sanctions, and willingly appeared alongside Harkat-ul-Mujahideen founder Fazlur Rehman Khalil, a specially designated global terrorist, in 2019. Perry referred to the US treasury department’s assertion that Khalil had a close relationship with al-Qaeda and its slain founder, Osama bin Laden. Perry also accused Khan of supporting the “Helping Hand for Relief and Development”, a group that has a partnership with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was responsible for killing 166 people during the 2008 Mumbai attacks. “A litany of examples accompanies Mr Khan’s perverse attachment to Islamic terrorism, which makes it exceedingly obvious that Pakistan has embraced its identity as a super terrorist state,” Perry wrote. “While I am encouraged that the State Department has reportedly put a pause on approving Masood Khan as the new Ambassador from Pakistan, a pause is not enough. I urge you to reject any diplomatic credentials presented to you by Masood Khan and reject any effort by the Government of Pakistan to install this jihadist as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States,” he added…."

"After Bangladesh's birth, the first few years the new nation was not recognized as a separate sovereign entity by many of the Arab nations, notably Saudi Arabia which insisted that Bangladesh should adopt an Islamic constitution first"

"Bhutto... harangued about Muslim Bengal having been betrayed, and predicted that one day it would return to the fold. This is a philosophy that is subliminally still nurtured by many in Pakistan, not least the military - the ISI still plays its war games accordingly."

"We believe it is perfectly feasible to have good relations with both the (People's) Republic of China and Taiwan."

"I strongly believe that the 21st century will be Africa’s century, that its young population has the potential to build a world where they are not only materially better off but also where things are fairer, more sustainable, and more tolerant than at any other time in history."

"I think it is mass generalisation to say there are anti-Christian sentiments by Muslims in Zanzibar, as you know, Christianity in Eastern and Central Africa started in Zanzibar. The first Christian Churches - Anglican and Catholic were built in Zanzibar in the 1870s. Since then Christians and Muslims have been living in peace, side by side."

"The first person to name that movement "Magical Realism," to give a label to that, was Alejo Carpentier. He was living with the surrealists in France and the surrealists were inventing this wonderful new thing of printing together on a dissecting table, a sewing machine and an umbrella, and that was surrealism. And Alejo Carpentier realized that this was an intellectual process that had its roots, and he could see the umbrella and the sewing machine on this dissecting table in Latin America because it was part of our culture. Kafka would have been a realist if he would have lived in Mexico. So Alejo Carpentier realized that, and he abandoned the surrealists and searched in our roots, in our history, in our legends, in our folklore. He was the first one to label it. And it was wonderful because it was like giving permission to other writers to finally use their own voices. Because before that our writers were always trying to imitate Europeans, or North Americans, and were denying all our Indian background, our African influence, our own languages, and legends, and myths. This was just an open door for all that. I think that was the beginning of the Boom. That really gave a lot of people permission to do anything. But it's not a literary device, it's part of our life. The magic is still there."

"Alejo Carpentier was absolutely wonderful. The Kingdom of the Earth is an exquisite little novel-it's brilliant."

"For many years I have said, following the tradition of Nicolás Guillén, Fernando Ortiz and Alejo Carpentier, that whoever wants to understand Cuba cannot ignore its mestizo condition in which the Hispanic and African components cannot be divided because they have created a cosmovisión that is authentically original."

"Lacalle chose me as an ambassador knowing my Catholic convictions perfectly well, but at the same time, I must respect what has been established and what has been indicated by the public authorities of the nation."

"It is imperative for the international community to act swiftly to prevent another tragedy similar to that of the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital last Tuesday (17 October 2023), where nearly 500 Palestinian civilians, including children, were massacred by an Israeli airstrike on the hospital."

"For non-believers and believers, I think that a fair amount of people will see it as a great salute to an extraordinary Australian who pioneered education for indigenous people, education more broadly, who did so much to help so many other people."

"It is so much easier to do the job if you're on the ground in Rome. The Vatican is not entirely a closed shop, but you have to know where to look, which conferences to attend, which contacts to pursue."

"Spain was the champion of the Catholic world, the safeguard of the Catholic world. The Counter-Reformation against Lutheranism. And Europe had left this task in the hands of Spain."

"In Tanzania we have a very strong political party, which is my party, CCM, and where you have a very strong party you really can't have the monarchy, where you have a strong monarchy there are no political parties."

"Among the best things in life is to have a holy friend. I feel I am a friend of John Paul II, and it is significant that the contemporary saints moved about this life amid the same difficulties, temptations, and problems we experience. And in the midst of all this, they reached the goal."

"Ireland and the Holy See are both firm believers in the need for effective multilateral cooperation among nations to face global challenges. We are believers in a peaceful rules-based world and in the power of dialogue. Our long-standing relationship takes in many global issues of mutual interest, including human rights, sustainable development, eradicating hunger, climate change, disarmament, migration and human trafficking, freedom of religion or belief, and peaceful resolution of conflicts."

"Sustainable tourism is not that which destroys, but the one that sets balances. This is what we are training for."

"Liberia is owned by Jesus no matter what they say or who says what, Jesus owns Liberia. Despite what we have gone through, we must forgive if we want to achieve durable peace. Though it is difficult to forgive, but we must do so in the interest of peace and our Nation. This nation belongs to God. Any government who does not know Jesus is bound to fail."

"For Serbian people it is very important to see that the relationship with the Vatican are really very, very, old and I think that the most important message is that most representative people of Serbian intellectual elite, statesmen, professors of the university, politicians, were very fond of establishing the relationship with the Vatican. What is not very well known is that in that time the Vatican didn't have a lot of treaties and conquered that."

"I thought I had married a man, a real man… instead I married an arse-full of shit. My Children, my poor children – sold like the Lord who was sold by Judas…"

"A good hunter is like a whore, you can smell one a mile of."

"Oh, road, daughter of all our labour, lead me to the white man!"

"My future parents-in-law had asked me for a bundle of stock-fish so that I could marry their daughter according to civil rites. I have already given them thirty thousand francs, a case of beer, a pith-helmet, a sack of salt, three matchets, three sheep, a water-bucket, a cast-iron cooking pot, and a sack of rice. All that was left was the stock fish."

"A panther-rat runs along the path. He knows where he is going."

"Fuck off out of here! Go on get out of my hut!"

"If you heart begins to beat when you get to the end of your journey, retrace your steps."

"All these people who pretended they had come to grieve with Meka were just dogs."

"O man with the electric torch. God has sent you to me. Come and help me to find the path leading to the location…."

"Get up, you pig! Where are your papers? Where have you come from? What are you doing fucking around here?"

"My son, you are young enough to be my son, why do you want to shed blood as old as your own father’s? Why do you want to bring a curse on you and your…"

"Cover up your dirty old arse and show me your papers!"

"'Brother,’ he said. ‘Brother, what are we? What are we blackmen who are called French?"

"Today, Father Vandermayer came back from the bush. He has brought five women with him. It seems they are Christians that he has taken away from their polygamous husband. Five more boarders for the Sixas. If they knew the work there is waiting for them here, they would have stayed behind with their husband."

"But for me, it is more than mourning. I have died my first death…."

"I shall be the Chief European's boy. The dog of a king is a king of dogs."

"My master is thickset. His legs have great muscles like the legs of a pedlar. He is the kind of man we call 'mahogany-trunk' because the trunk of the mahogany tree is so strong that it never bends in a storm. I am not a storm. I am the thing that obeys."

"With that he shot out a kick to my shins that sent me sprawling under the table. The Commandant's kick was even more painful than the kick of the late father Gilbert. He seemed pleased with his effort."

"At the first alarm I was jostled, then knocked down and trampled on. I could feel the Greek's dog at my heel. I shall never know how I managed to get to my feet and to climb up to the top of the huge mango tree. There I took refuge. The Europeans were laughing and pointing up to the top of the tree where I was hiding. The Commandant was laughing as well. He had not recognized me. How could he recognize me? All Africans look the same to them."

"He had not remembered me. How might he remember me? All Africans appear to be identical to them. ”"

"I was alleviated by this discovery. It executed something within me … I realized I ought to never be startled of the Commandant again."

"The Commandant trod on my fingers as he went out. I did not cry out. He did not turn round."

"Before them, the statue of Holy person Subside, who had been so darkened by the climate that he could have gone for an African, was roosted dubiously on a sort of steeple at such an edge, that it looked as though in a little while he would come toppling down."

"Son of a dog," he said to me, "where is your master?"

"Life, he says, is like the chameleon, changing colour all the time."

"The elephant does not rot in a secret place."

"He let me go. Through the darkness I saw his white hands move in a gesture of disgust as if he had touched something unclean."

"Ah, these whites, she burst out. The dog can die of hunger beside his master's meat. They don't bury the goat up to the horns. They bury him altogether."

"It is not the wolf that cries, but the goat."

"My happiness has neither day nor night. I didn't know about it, it just burst upon my whole being. I will sing to my flute, I will sing on the banks of rivers, but no words can express my happiness. I have held the hand of my queen. I felt that I was really alive. From now on my hand is sacred and must not know the lower regions of my body. My hand belongs to my queen whose hair is the colour of ebony, with eyes that are like the antelope's, whose skin is pink and white as ivory. A shudder ran through my body at the touch of her tiny moist hand, She trembled like a flower dancing in the breeze. My life was mingling with hers at the touch of her hand. Her smile is refreshing as a spring of water. Her look is as warm as a ray from the setting sun. It bathes you in a light that warms the depths of the heart. I am afraid... afraid of myself..."

"Everybody told his own little African story to refute him and demonstrate that the African is a child or a fool."

"They lamented 'the Martyr' as they called Father Gilbert because he died on African soil."

"The river does not go back to its spring."

"Truth lies beyond the mountains. You must travel to find it."

"If I talk it is because I have a mouth. If I see, it is because I have eyes. The eye goes farther and faster than the mouth, nothing stops it..."

"Since when does the pot rub itself against the hammer?"

"Is the white man's neighbour only other white men? Who can go on believing the stuff we are served up in the churches when things happen like I saw today..."

"M. Moreau is right, we must have hard head. Ndjangoula brought down his rifle butt the first time, I thought their skulls would shatter. I could not hold myself from shaking as I watched. It was terrible. I thought of all the priests, all the pastors, all the white men, who came to save our souls and preach love of our neighbours. Is the white man's neighbour only other white men? Who can go on believing the stuff we are served up in the churches when things like I saw today. It will be the usual thing. M. Moreau's suspects will be sent to the 'Blackman's Grave' where they will spend a few days painfully dying. Then they will be buried naked in the prisoners' cemetery. On Sunday, the priest will say, 'Dearly beloved brethren, pray for all those prisoners who die without making their peace with God. M. Moreau will present his up-turned topee to the faithful. Everyone will put in a little more than he had intended. All the money goes to the whites. They are always thinking up new ways to get back what little money they pay us. How wretched we are."

"There are two worlds," said Baklu, "ours is a world of respect and mystery and magic. Their world brings everything in the daylight, even the things that weren't meant to be."

"When will you grasp that for the whites, you are only alive to do their work and for no other reason. I am the cook. The white man does not see me except with his stomach."

"Our ancestors used to say you must escape when the water is still only up to the knees."

"There are things one prefers not to think about but that doesn't mean one forgets about them."

"Nothing today, except steadily mounting hostility from the Commandant. He is becoming completely wild. Kicks and insults have started again. He thinks this humiliates me and he can't find any other way. He forgets that it is all part of my job as a houseboy, a job which holds no more secrets for me. I wonder why he too refers to me as 'Monsieur Toundi'."

"The Commandant trod on my left hand. He was talking to Madame at the time and he went on talking as if he hadn't noticed. He managed to bring his foot down while I was off my guard, giving his boots a final polish before he went out. He has no memory and no imagination. He forgets he has already tried this on me and it did not make me cry out. As the first time he just walked on without looking round but this time he went jauntily like a man who feels pleased with himself."

"I went back to the refrigerator and took the opportunity when the Commander was not looking to spit just a few tiny specks spittle into the clean glass I was filling. He drank it down and put the glass back on the tray without looking at me. He waved me away with a nervous movement of the back of his hand."

"We represent the face of our country and it is extremely important that we represent the diversity of it, too. Women enable us to reach parts of society around the world that are not always accessible to men,"

"We are not seeing 90 percent of people going to Mass on Sundays as they did in the past. Perhaps what we are seeing today is a more honest representation of peoples' true faith. I think maybe a lot of it in the past was social convention."

"Even if we were to be able to cancel St Patrick's Day in Ireland, which of course is ridiculous, and we never would, it would still continue around the world."

"The EU sees the Holy See as a promoter of justice in the world and a defender of human rights. My sense is that the Holy See views the EU as a zone of stability and as a stabilising force in an increasingly fractured international landscape."

"We have to see our past openly and speak the truth, not pretending. It is difficult relationship but we have managed to maintain stability, we have managed to maintain a trade, and even the goal of Soviet Union was not necessarily the end of the world for Finland."

"Moldova is firmly determined to remain part of the free world. The freedom and the dignity of our people make us a country with a strong European identity, which we deeply value."

"The Holy See encourages the peaceful resolution of disputes. So the Holy See is a voice of conscience that we want to relate to at a diplomatic level. Also, the Holy See is a great source of insight on particular situations if you want to understand what's happening in certain parts of the world. The Holy See, because of the presence of the Church on the ground, often has a particularly fine understanding."

"We adopt the rules of law, this is the main thing that attracted the people coming in, apart from our own culture. The Thai people are very friendly and very accommodating. They also try to do their best, and when you make a mistake they will say that "never mind." Many people were attracted by the charisma of Thais and the attractiveness of Thai people."

"We consider it vital that Sri Lanka associates itself with the changes taking place in Latin America and with the architects of those changes. At a crucial time in the history of my country, where perspectives for peace and justice have been made possible by a political will to restore sovereignty and to defend our country from external intervention."

"The Portuguese are also a people who are very curious about foreigners, as anyone who visits our country can see. They are considered as bridge-builders."

"The quality and sustainability of a vocation rests not solely on the Pope's shoulders, but rather those of the entire community. We must encourage our priests and strongly support the work that they do, pray for more vocations as a community, and speak about vocations in schools and our homes so that it comes to the fore of our minds."

"Concerning international affairs, relations between Mexico and the Holy See are very open. We collaborate on many issues and we have a fluid dialogue on human rights, migration, cooperation between international organizations, peaceful solution of conflicts, and of course the rejection of war. These are some of the principles of the national policies of Mexico which have much convergence with the Holy See."

"That's a necessity for fighting terrorism, not only for us, but for the free world itself."

"Immediately the large reaction was that nobody can accept what happened, so we can say freedom of speech is safe, in a way. Victory's already there because that was the forefront."

"Thay haif said. Quhat say they? Lat thame say."

"I very often quote the difference between this collective approach and the individual approach. The European policy of human rights is about defending the individual against oppression by a majority group."

"To my mind, the key to assisting in the solution of problems that we have all over the world is education. We can talk a lot about how each and everyone needs to share in the problem of getting people out of poverty, but you can't do it if the mind is not developed."

"War in the family, but actually longing for peace, has been a message that was handed over for generations, so maybe it sits in my genes."

"Both poles we burnt, whereon the world doeth turne, The rownd of heaven, from earth unto the skies: And nowe the seas we both intend to burne: I with my bowe, and Licia with her eyes."

"If these by hope doe joye in their distresse, And constant are, in hope to conquer tyme, Then let not hope in us (sweete friend) be lesse, And cause our love to wither in the Pryme.Let us conspyre, and time will have an end, So both of us in time shall have a frend."

"Sometimes spiritual, religious leaders and interreligious dialogue can pave the way for a dialogue between two sides to a conflict. It can abolish misconceptions, it can create trust, it can promote dialogue and build bridges to peace. In this respect interreligious dialogue can be a foundation between two sides to a conflict."

"Love is the key to happiness and continuity."

"Ramadan in Canada certainly does not have the Meknès flavor or the family atmosphere, in the broad sense. Of course, on a small scale, with my husband and my children, we create the right conditions to fully experience our Ramadan with its spirituality as well as its chhiouates, but what we miss are the voices of the Muezzen rising from all the minarets of the city, in a natural harmony at the time of breaking the fast."

"I simply like barbecue, grilling, but the flavor of my mother's kefta mechouiya and mderbel eggplant tagine is unique and I can't find it anywhere else!"

"In general, I listen to the news and watch a few shows that deal with current affairs such as "Mais encore..." or "Grand angle". During the month of Ramadan, it is especially the lightness of the hidden camera that amuses me."

"In my opinion, we do not assert ourselves by gender but by the relevance of ideas and firmness in positions, we also assert ourselves when we move things forward towards new horizons and we assert ourselves especially when we never give up a just fight."

"The first challenge is to ensure that the team works in a complementary and harmonious manner. Beyond the pleasant atmosphere it can create when it is united, its productivity can be surprising."

"We have definitely seen marked improvements in the status of women. These improvements are driven by the diligent efforts exerted by women- led movements."

"Egyptian women already have gained the right to travel without their husband’s prior consent, and the right to pass down their nationality to children born to foreign fathers."

"Women’s rights have been secured constitutionally, with many constitutional terms, translated into legal clauses while others remain in the pipes. There are several measurable examples that echo the ongoing progress of women in Egypt by law."

"We still need to change the cultural practices that constitute violence against women and the best way to achieve this is by putting more women on the decision- making level, be it at the governmental or the parliamentary."

"To empower women, we should ensure that all young girls receive their education. The benefits of this education will trickle down not only to their families but nationwide as well."

"There are still women and girls who are denied their right to education even though the government provides free basic education, but some parents deprive their daughters of that right."

"Offering females quality education and putting in place techniques for active life-long learning, while giving them the space to express themselves and air their grievances, as well as access to support removing any obstacles in their way for development, are badly needed."

"You can do it just have self- confidence and work hard. Women are multitaskers. They are soldiers and if they believe in what they are doing they will succeed…so believe in God, build friends and alliances, do not make enemies"

"Women will be fully empowered and gender equality will prevail when we explain to everyone in the society that they stand to benefit."

"My diligent efforts were rewarded when I was decorated with the ‘Order of Good Hope’."

"some people doubt women’s capabilities simply because they are women, so you have to double your efforts to get what you are entitled for."

"There are several measurable examples that echo the ongoing progress of women in Egypt by law: more than 12 years ago Egyptian women already have gained the right to travel without their husband’s prior consent, and the right to pass down their nationality to children born to foreign fathers."

"To get my rights. I joined Huda Shaarawy’s association and other associations that were fighting for women’s rights. I was then only 21 but to no avail."

"I was the second Arab female ambassador after King Hassan’s sister. I was also not the first Egyptian ambassador to Europe; I was preceded by Hatshepsut, Nefertari and Nefertiti, those Egyptian queens who are well known in the world over."

"No more than secretaries toeing the line and being assigned tasks instead of acting like ministers capable of initiating policies."

"A ban on entering the judiciary based on gender goes against Section forty"

"I express my pleasure over Al Gebali’s appointment. It is like seeing the results of what I started."

""Prosecution, prevention and protection"... Jamaica would, however, wish to add another essential "p" to the three "p" paradigm, that is partnership."

"Women have a new interest in political issues. Of course, women are a little concerned about their new powers. We don’t want to seem aggressive or in competition with men. We want acceptance from men."

"My personal challenge has been to push women in this congress. The president of Tunisia affirmed his commitment to double the number of women in the congress of the Constitutional Democratic Rally. In the recent elections, if there was a list of five to seven candidates, we were obliged to vote for at least one woman."

"We are not a bomb to be defused. We are a dynamic force for progress that no one can stop."

"when a man is elected ,he wants to be in charge ,he doesn't feel the need to move his chair .when a woman enters the political field ,if she is asked to go to the rural villages ,she does it ."

"I have always been drawn to politics, but I pursued a career in the Foreign Service."

"In 1997, if you had asked me if I would run for the presidency, I would have thought you were crazy. However, as I traveled back and forth from Germany to Zambia and witnessed the economic decline and poverty, I started to rethink my position."

"I chose to run for President because I believe that the first country in Africa to address poverty, hunger, and disease while promoting women's participation in decision-making will achieve significant development."

"When I announced my entry into politics, I quickly gained both supporters and detractors, with neither group taking the time to understand my motivations. People don’t hate you personally; they resent your courage and willingness to take bold actions. I believe these reactions were not solely due to my being a woman."

"In Zambia, many male-led parties genuinely advocate for women's equality and their representation in power, which is surprising considering the significant influence that women in civil society have in terms of organizing and voting strength."

"People often dislike those who are assertive about their opinions. In our traditional society, men and women are viewed differently, with distinct expectations and values assigned to each gender."

"There was a situation of a "zero venture fund zone" aimed at supporting local nationals across all Sub-Saharan African countries, where approximately 70 percent of the population lived in poverty."

"Dear Apartheid Apologists, your time is over. You will not rule again. We do not fear you. Finally #TheLandIsOurs”."

"From a very early age I learnt to internalise, to project a very confident persona and be strong."

"I had to believe one day we would be free. The struggle became my motivation – that’s all I could hang on to."

"I like to define myself not according to what I have suffered but according to how much I have overcome, and I am very grateful to my mother for instilling that in both me and my sister… I never see a glass half empty but I see it half full."

"After our liberation she became an icon of the task we began of transforming our society and stepping into spaces and opportunities that had been denied to generations of South Africans."

"What she did, the sacrifices, the hardships she went through, the difficult life she led, we will forever be grateful because it was done so our people can be free."

"She carved her own path in life, and did things on her own terms."

"Women were doubly exploited."

"Traditionally, women were supposed to be confined to the kitchen — that is exploitation. And then they were exploited by the system because it favored men over women."

"There were military vehicles with people tied to the exhaust pipes, dragging them to death."

"They would come at night and harass us before school started. Then they would go into the classrooms with their weapons and kick out the teachers to disrupt the school. We were so scared."

"Imagine that kind of resolve — not telling your mother you are leaving your family and fleeing the country."

"There is a greater truth than mine, there is a truth of Namibian History… I was there also. This is my story."

"This book is dedicated to the women who made me what I am today. My maternal great grand mother, my Herero and Damara grandmothers Metha Ngatjikare and Christofine Gamamus both of whom lived during the German occupation and gave birth to children whose fathers were German, and who were forced by German and South African occupation to bring up these children on their own. And despite these challenges these children made history in their own right."

"My wonderful mother, Charlotte Schimming, my role model, who taught her daughters to always recognize their own work never to feel inferior to anybody be they white or male."

"And to my father Otto Ferdinand Schimming the greatest gender sensitive man I have ever known whose contribution to the struggle for the liberation of my people remains unwritten."

"I was born on the 2nd of December 1940 (or so we all agreed) until I was twenty years old when we realized that that was the birth date of my late brother Norman who died before I was born and in whose memory was named Nora."

"So I celebrated my 21st birthday on the 1st of December, for the first time. I was the 5th of eight children, four boys and four girls."

"As has been and still is the practice in our black communities, we were not the only ones. My cousins, the sons of my maternal aunts, Mamma Goka and Mamma Grete, as well as the son of my uncle Rudolf, my aunt Huldà Kamboi Ngatjikare and a distant cousin Ismael Tjombe formed part of the nuclear family. Apart from us, my parents brought two young boys, Filemon and Josef to help in the house."

"I grew up in this large family with the good and the bad and yet looking back seventy plus years, the good memories are clear in my mind whereas the bad ones seem to have disappeared into oblivion."

"My mother did not believe in ‘I am the person, I can do that’, she was a very strong willed, active woman, and she wouldn’t accept ‘no’ as an answer, and she wouldn’t just give up, she’ll go as far as she can.”"

"She made it always look as if my father was the boss, but even if it came to petty cash, my mother used to hold the purse"

"I see my task as presenting Namibia as a young democratic African country which, under Your Excellency’s able leadership, is bent on promoting the welfare of all Namibians. I am departing for my new post at a time of great drought in our country. Seeking solutions to and assistance for this dilemma will be my first - albeit not my sole - preoccupation."

"My focus will be on development - promoting investment and increasing trade between Namibia and Germany. Tourism, Comrade President, is another area which promises increased revenue for our country, and it is here that Your Excellency’s Embassy in Germany can play a vital role in bringing more tourists to Namibia"

"It is revolving into a dynamic robust institution for the justice sector"

"The college will further cultivate an existing generation of prosecutors by ensuring they are kept up to date with the latest developments"

"Similarly, the Cyberforensic Academy will focus on the intersection of law and technology, equipping learners with the knowledge and expertise needed to navigate complex issues such as cybercrime, digital forensics, financial crime investigations, and beneficial ownership"

"We trust that the integrity commissioners will aid the organisation in ensuring that its integrity and good standing is upheld‚ so that we may all take heed in the examples of life-long activists and disciplined members of our movement such as those who have been bestowed with the honours of Isithwalandwe/ Seaparankoe like Tata Nelson Mandela"

"I understand that the Portfolio Committee has a good working relationship with both the Department and the Ministry for Justice and Constitutional Development. I hope this spirit of cooperation will continue to prevail as we jointly continue to seek better ways to ensure that our service delivery makes a real impact on the lives of our people"

"Shaun is an icon in our time. It is very inspiring to have shared these few precious moments with him today. The words that he shared are poignant with meaning as he not only understands the present but the relevance of the past"

"I am so impressed with having a young white person who shares the same hope for South Africa as I yearn for, and the same hope that my father lived and died for"

"Because he had become a nuisance to the regime. It’s recorded that they tried many ways of putting him out while he was alive so that he should not have a voice in the affairs of the country, but they failed"

"Now there was a powerful person and they could not stop him. As far as I’m concerned he (Luthuli) was buried alive because he was not allowed to go anywhere"

"The ANC needs to fire their president if they want to stay in power"

"Zuma was not elected by individuals but residents of the country. Therefore we cannot just fire him"

"We are very concerned about the generation we are leaving behind, it should be a generation that should know what to do for the country,” she said, commending Phansi museum on its efforts to make the youth aware of what was going on around them"

"Arts and Culture which allows us to know where we come from is not being taught at schools. I would like to encourage the youth to know that the birth of democracy and a new country did not mean that you were born free"

"It’s a total lie to say government has marginalized northern Uganda because we have programs like peace recovery and development plan,Northern Uganda social action funds and agricultural live good recovery program which is not there in other districts"

"There are learned people and they should help our community to come out of the bad situation but not to mislead them on secession story"

"although the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency devastated the north, the government has spared no effort to put socioeconomic transformation back on track."

"the report needed to make more contextualized and nuanced arguments about the north"

"I'm trying to find a way for people to connect and experience how onsens have developed here in Japan, even if they don't have scientific knowledge about it, while also understanding the value they offer."

"We’re using traditional Japanese techniques, particularly in the lowlands, where rice is grown in water. There are two types of rice: upland rice and lowland rice. Lowland rice is grown in water, and the method of wetland rice cultivation actually originated here. While we used to grow rice on the hills, the wetland planting technique was introduced later."

"Flowers are good. There’s a way they take away stress and you can think positively when you have a look at something interesting, something attractive."

"What sets Japanese products apart is their quality. They are known for being reliable, and when you buy something made in Japan, you can be confident in its craftsmanship and durability."

"Our main product here in Japan is coffee, and we’re focused on finding ways to directly enter the market. We're also exploring opportunities to collaborate on technology that can help us add value to our agricultural products. For example, with coffee, we aim to process it to the highest standards for export. We also have pineapples and other fruits, and we’re looking for the right technology to enhance their value, so we can export them, including to Japan."

"I express the desire to dedicate more time to family and personal projects and undertakings that had been put on hold since my appointment as Seychelles Permanent Representative to the United Nations in March 2012."

"Humanity was on the cusp of achieving the immeasurable in terms of making a true difference to all the world’s peoples. The Seychelles was proud to have achieved most of the targets set out in the Millennium Development Goals, and was determined to maintain that momentum to implement the Sustainable Development Goals. Much progress had been made, but there was still much to be done, the world would need to stand together in ensuring that strong action was backed by adequate financial support."

"Incorporating a vulnerability index into development frameworks would allow a fairer measurement of economies than the traditionally emphasized GDP. Highlighting Sustainable Development Goal 14 on conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources, it was pivotal to the survival of small-island economies. I noted that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing undercut development efforts and jeopardized the livelihoods of millions around the world."

"While noting the “tremendous gains” made in the battle against piracy, I emphasized that continued efforts, through such initiatives as the Contact Group for Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, currently chaired by the Seychelles, would be necessary to ensure safer oceans. As an island nation heavily dependent on the environment for its survival, the Seychelles was vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, and had been among the first 20 States to ratify the Paris Agreement."

"The majority of people in this industry are women but they mostly remain in entry level positions."

"“We have identified areas where we can work together on promotion, while we are also discussing issues of infrastructure and hotel grading."

"Within the South African Development Community we have finally finished restructuring our marketing and promotion entity; it now coordinates all 15 countries."

"It is a call to action for all South Africans, reminding them tourism is an important industry for their economy"

"The government has assigned the deputy prime minister to look into our state owned entities."

"My department is working with various other ministerial departments on joint ventures which will be beneficial for the tourism sector."

"We aim to encourage South African citizens to travel within their own country."

"Thanks for turn up and the love @ Arua am humbled and let’s keep that way until voting day and don’t forget we have to welcome the president and the chairman of the ruling party NRM"

"My sincere condolences to all the families of those that lost their loved ones in Lake Victoria . May the almighty strengthen your hearts"

"This is a sign of improved relations and we thank the two presidents (of the two countries) for initiating the peace talks and showing the whole world that everybody’s desire is peace"

"Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity. I would also like to thank you and the House Business Committee for having considered Zanzibar as our destination for this special Session."

"Mr. Speaker, coming from Uganda, the last time the East African Legislative Assembly held their meeting in Uganda, the people of Uganda were very happy."

"They saw the Community coming nearer to them, and I hope that will also happen with the people of Zanzibar. I have always heard about Zanzibar from hon. Sebtuu, from brother Bilal and hon. Mwinyi, but today I am happy that I am speaking from the country itself. That, in a nutshell, will help us to deliberate from a position of information about what this country and the people actually are like, so that when we are talking we do not only look at Zanzibar as a country that suffered from the effects of slave trade, but as a country with much more than we thought before."

"Mr. Speaker, I would like to join my colleagues in congratulating the two doctors for having been sworn in. It seems today was a day for doctors. Actually, I had been wondering when our Secretary-General would be sworn in. May be it was deliberate because he was waiting to be sworn-in from this island of peace loving people. And from the tone of his speech, I could see a man"

"who is a team builder; I could see a man who is results-oriented, and most importantly, I see somebody who is gender sensitive – (Interruption) – When I talk about gender sensitivity, I mean both the men and the women – (Prolonged Laughter)."

"As women in this Assembly we are expecting to see the aspirations of the woman of East Africa being fulfilled during his tenure: The women entrepreneurs, women in the agricultural sector, those in tourism - I am expecting many conferences, particularly targeting East African women under the leadership of Dr. Mwapachu. So, honourable Doctors, we are ready, as Members of the East African Legislative Assembly, to work with you. I am also glad about the cordial relationship that exists between our Speaker and the Secretary-General so far. I think we are all going to follow suit – (Applause)."

"Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a brief comment on hon. Mwinyi’s report. I thank him and the Committee on Legal Rules and Privileges for a job well done. I was a bit worried when he said that we shall need half the House in order to realize quorum. When I tried to divide 45 divide by two, I got 22.5 and I was like...what happens? Do we round off people to say 23? And I wanted to oppose that bit; however, when you say one-third, then that again makes the number too small. So, on that note, I want to support hon. Mwinyi’s Committee’s proposals as is, and look forward to the Committee coming with more proposals on new Committees in the East African Legislative Assembly. I want to see an Assembly with Committees touching on HIV/AIDS specifically and other issues."

"With those remarks, I beg to support the motion, and I hope to come back to Zanzibar and especially to speak Kiswahili properly"

"The solution will come with Africans themselves."

"It was my desire to present myself and to say that among other things, being a liberal democrat, being a lawyer, being a father, being a Montenegrin, I'm also an absolute atheist. There are some atheists in this world who respect people who are true believers, who are who understand religion as the human platform for doing good towards other people."

"We have always been open to others, and are determined to stay that way, doing what we can to prove there's an honored place for Muslims in Europe."

"Respect for the dignity of the human being is really the key, to resolving financial and economic crisis, and to give hope to millions of youth who find themselves a bit in a desperate situation in many countries."

"Good offices are very important, it's the work behind the scenes, it's the mediator, it's the credible guarantor."

"Long before the United Nations embraced the principle now known as "responsibility to protect" in cases of genocide crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, the African Union had already provided in in its constitutive Act that principle. States will no longer therefore hide under the clock of sovereignty to cover up crimes. So Africa is actually a pioneer in this field."

"From my experience throughout the years, I think that protocol and diplomacy go hand in hand. The thing about protocol is that we only notice it when things go wrong but people don't see when things go right it's a hell of a lot of work."

"We want Namibians to participate. Whoever is coming in to invest in the country should also involve local people, that will help us to create jobs it will, help us also to have our people benefit from the resources of the country."

"Men have to share with us the family roles and we women have to share with them the public role in society and of course, in the Church."

"It seems to be that quite a lot of critical capabilities have accumulated in just a couple of countries and some of those countries are not "rule of law" and democratic countries. Some of those countries including China actually say that they believe the future should look like their social system, so this is a very clear challenge to what we are, what we want to be, and the future we want for us."

"I am convinced that the only way of the downturn for small nations and developing economies is being even more open, investing in the new technologies, and stimulating new reforms."

"Today, we unfortunately experience in various facets and dramatic dimensions, multiple threats to human life, especially to the most vulnerable populations. For this reason it is very important to constantly promote a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence as a set of values, attitudes and behaviors that reflect the respect for life and the dignity of persons, which will contribute to building a world that is more just, more caring, more dignified, and more prosperous for all."

"For me, to be rich is to be knowledgeable, wise, to have common sense, to have the inspiration to become a political leader, to have the vocation to become a religious leader, to have the dedication of a scientist, the creativity and imagination of a writer or poet, the business acumen of an entrepreneur."

"It is quite obvious for me that what this private newspaper has done has hurt tremendously. Not only Muslims in Denmark but millions of Muslims around the world. I think it is not an intentional insult, it is negligence, it is lack of knowledge of this great culture, the religion of Islam and also a measure of error in judgement."

"Angola wants to attract Japanese private investment to help diversifying its economy, and I am particularly interested in seeing Japan investing in the entrepreneurship sector, especially in technology for small and medium-sized companies, which are expanding in our country."

"Japan's knowledge and experience are crucial for areas such as rice cultivation development and professional training, as part of our ongoing economic cooperation."

"The Angolan government is always available to cooperate with Japan in political-diplomatic, economic-social, and technical-scientific fields."

"Teodolinda Coelho has reiterated Angola's commitment to fostering a stronger partnership with Japan, particularly in sectors that will benefit both nations' economies."

"We believe in the power of education and mentorship to inspire and elevate young women. Through Tech4Girls, we are not just teaching them coding languages, but we are also preparing them for the workforce by offering career advice, networking opportunities, and internships"

"unique and irreplaceable property we own and must be protected at all cost. They represent our collective identity and values which have been passed on from generations past"

"Investing in nature conservation makes perfect sense because protected areas can play a strategic role in Ghana’s broader development plans. We must understand that safeguarding the country’s diverse ecosystems is an efficient means of maintaining food and water security, creating jobs, sustaining livelihoods and providing a buffer from the worst of climate change impacts"

"If much remains to be done, new avenues to be explored, new attitudes and ideas to be found, we have given the direction to future assemblies."

"The U.N. could and should remain the best means of international cooperation that has ever been at mankind's disposal."

"But we have to nurse and cherish and cultivate it."

"‘At the time when there were heathens along the sea coast of Java, many merchants used to come, Parsees, Arabs, Gujaratees, Bengalees, Malays and other nationalities, there being many Moors among them. They began to trade in the country and to grow rich. They succeeded in way of [sic]making mosques, and mollahs came from outside, so that they came in such growing numbers that the sons of these said Moors were already Javanese and rich, for they had been in these parts for about seventy years. In some places the heathen Javanese lords themselves turned Mohammedan, and these mollahs and merchant Moors took possession of these places. Others had a way of fortifying the places where they lived, and they killed the Javanese lords and made themselves lords; and in this way they made themselves masters of the sea coast and took over trade and power in Java . . .’"

"Within the framework of a renewed, modernized UNESCO, eager to act more than before, within which it is high time that absent countries find their place, we must, together, ensure that the Organization can initiate the process necessary to fully play its role, asserting itself more intensely as an intellectual Organization, a Forum for reflection."

"Together we must reject any attempt to establish a hierarchy between cultures, any amalgamation between terrorism and a given culture, religion or ideology. We must instead contribute to promoting rationality."

"Together we must strengthen the ethical sense among peoples, work so that we can enrich ourselves from our differences."

"Together, we must strengthen the spirit of ethics among nations and work to ensure that our differences become a source of mutual enrichment."

"We were forced to learn each and every language or syllabus in Afrikaans, doing maths in Afrikaans and doing biology in Afrikaans, doing everything."

"Definitely the voice of the women have continued to prevail"

"There's lots of improvement, but I must still say there is much, much more to be done because we still have, certain things that, undermine the effort that is being made by women"

"Working in an environment where President Mandela was president of the country was very exciting"

"It is our time to assist in whatever we can and not necessarily being back, but creating a better world for everybody"

"I think for each and every woman, what happened in the last election, the first Black woman, being elected as a deputy president. It's something that we are very excited about"

"We urge efficient use of this emergency fund to alleviate the plight of our people in the face of unfortunate circumstances such as fires, floods and other natural disasters"

"We continue to call on banks to help increase access to home loans in order to close the gap for this important sector of workers across all industries"

"Since 1994, the dawn of democracy brought along a new determination by the democratic government. Ours was to restore human dignity from a long history of brutal oppression"

"The time is now to cement social cohesion to further strengthen us as a people to weather these recent waves of racist torrents"

"We are yet to truly see our unity in our diversity, first as a country and also as a continent, a continent that humanity in its entirety, calls home"

"The so-called born-frees are standing up, saying not in our name, not a minute longer."

"This generation assert their African identities and are actualizing our clarion call of a united Africa, at peace with itself"

"As leaders of society, we can draw many lessons from the younger generation to pursue radically different futures for Africa than its current state of dependency on the dominant economies"

"Our biggest cultural export to the world of diplomacy is Ubuntu"

"The majority of the conflicts the UN Security Council deals with, are in this continent"

"Through the African Union, we have worked tirelessly to see that dominant economies do not dictate to us on how to solve our problems"

"We all know that where conflicts burst, the attack on women and children remains one of the most potent weapons"

"The war on our bodies as women must take first priority in this continent"

"The progress of women is the best measure of societal progress"

"Ubuntu as a guiding principle of our cultural and economic diplomacy, echoing Agenda 2063’s Principle 6, will best be achieved with women at the centre as champions of Africa’s development"

"Peace, security and stability can never be fostered in this world without the position of women being significantly improved first through economic empowerment and safety in our bodies"

"I would like us to remember to work tirelessly for justice so that when we are honoured - we are also celebrated as national heritage"

"We are in a good position to work out solutions that befit postcolonial societies"

"We are in a good position to work out solutions that befit postcolonial societies. We need to revive the agency of the people to be masters of their destiny"

"South Africa has lessons to offer, by no means perfect, and we have so many lessons to learn from other countries in the continent may we learn from the mistakes of others in reconstructing our countries towards the future we desire"

"We stand on the shoulders of cultural icons who fought for the liberation of the most oppressed people in the world in Africa"

"When we speak about heritage, we speak about legacy"

"We will not always be right, we must be open to criticism, even when it seems harsh, there are lessons to be drawn always"

"My wish is that we do not resign our people only to raise grievances but to also use their agency to collectively work towards a common future and truly give a sense of place, security and dignity to redress the human wrongs of our past to human rights of the future"

"We seek to pursue our objective of a better life for all."

"The pressing need to concentrate on the present does not, and must not, imply disregard for the future"

"…New York City designated a portion of Manhattan’s 34th Street Ernst Jaakson Way, thereby posthumously honoring an Estonian diplomat who embodied the principle that force alone is not sufficient to destroy a state if its people and the leaders of the international community refuse to accept such actions. Jaakson (1905-1998) joined the Estonian foreign service at the age of 14 as a translator for the Estonian ambassador in Riga and then worked as a diplomat in the United States, first as a consular official and near the end of his life as ambassador to the US and permanent representative to the United Nations."

"I'm thrilled to see Kaizer Chiefs here in Türkiye, a country with which South Africa has a long history of friendship and cooperation"

"This visit is a great opportunity to strengthen our ties and promote cultural exchange between our nations"

"This visit is a great example of the strong bonds between our countries"

"We look forward to continuing our cooperation and promoting mutual understanding through sports and culture."

"Let me correct the misplaced idea and belief carried by the honourable member. My Ministry has more money than anybody to generate adequate power and water. Therefore the question to reserve the ESP money particularly for the current power and water shortages does not arise."

"It does not take one or two years to accomplish the projects. The infrastructure required is big. The projects therefore are a long term initiatives."

"We had hoped that the much celebrated ESP money would be channeled into the power and water projects to bring stability into the economy. There cannot be any development without these basic essentials."

"Our industries terribly need power and water supplies. We had hoped the ESP will bring normalcy into the acute situation."

"We have engaged a team of experts to fix the problem; I can assure Batswana that we will go into the winter season with adequate power supply. I am not shaken by what is being said, the plant is going to work and serve Batswana efficiently. We will make sure that by the end of April the two boilers will be working efficiently. We have come a long way, people should relax."

"these power cuts are a result of leadership failure, the government made a number of false promises which they never delivered on, we came with a proposal on how this should be addressed. We are feeling the pinch. We have an interest to run this country and we want to find this country in a good state."

"It would be responsible for ensuring sustainable and secure supplies in the regulated sector. Ensuring tariffs in the regulated sector are fixed on the basis of a tariff methodology that has been set up in a transparent manner taking into account government policy on cross subsidies between classes of consumers and setting and maintaining standards."

"It is true that we are slow to connect water in your area because most of the pipes in your area are worn-out whereas many people have moved here. We are pleading with you, if you are able, dig for themselves and we will connect the water as fast as possible. We have failed what we had anticipated or thought we would do for you but that does not mean that the prices will decrease for you, you will still be charged for the services."

"We agree that there is global warming, we agree that it is caused by us human beings and we agree that we need to do something about it, so let's go and do it."

"Climate change is real, nobody can deny that."

"The principle of common but differentiated responsibility must apply."

"Capacitate us, give us the technology and we will be good corporate citizens of the world."

"Somarela Thothi is a project that calls for the reduction of water loss and would be implemented in Gaborone area between now and the end of 2015."

"There is too much usage and waste of water in schools, hospitals and government buildings hence the debate to change building standards."

"If at all water from those dams could make any differences I could have long taken the dams and used the water for consumption. The truth of the matter is that if the rain is not going to rain as it used to seven years ago whether these dams are there or not the water will never reach Gaborone dam."

"When we receive the right amount of rainfall the water will able be to reach Gaborone dam; it’s a fact. But since now because we are faced with drought, we are accusing those dams of interrupting inflows into Gaborone dam."

"On the other hand these small dams assisted us. These dams act as catchment areas for sand. This means the final product that reaches Gaborone dam is largely water and if you go to Gaborone dam now you will realise that the dam is free of sand."

"As it stands I do not have a reason to close those dams."